Confidence and the Sovereignty of God

I grew up as a lover of Sci-Fi. The concept of space travel always fascinated me. And I love how movies and TV shows give space ships a warp drive so they can get to distant planets in about thirty seconds. Space dramas are cool, but actual outer space is terrifying. I can’t even imagine what zero gravity would feel like and having the inability to control what direction you are floating in.

The first time we shot a rocket at the moon must have been something. It’s not like you can look up at the sky, point, and shoot. Landing on the moon was like hitting a moving target. Very careful calculations are made to ensure that when astronauts fly to the moon, it will actually be there when they arrive. When a rocket launches and heads toward the moon, the moon is not where it is supposed to be. It should be there when the rocket arrives. If they mess up, they aren’t coming home to start over and try again.

How do they know it is going to work out? I suppose they don’t. How do we know a plan is going to work out? I suppose we don’t. Sometimes we apply that same logic to God, but God is not us. God’s plans work out one hundred percent of the time.

God’s dream for Joseph was fulfilled. There was never any doubt in God’s mind that what he planned was going to work. He designed it to work, yet it involved moving parts. Joseph wasn’t a robot. Pharaoh wasn’t a a machine. Joseph’s brothers were not puppets. Yet God always gets it done.

How do we know everything is going to work out? It sure doesn’t feel that way right now. As we jump back into the story of Joseph, we are looking at the sovereignty of God, and we are going to discover what having confidence in the sovereignty of God looks like.

Last week, the story ended with Joseph and his brothers reunited. He extended the invitation for everyone to move to Egypt to save them from the famine. Chapter 25 closed with the brothers returning home and reporting to their father that Joseph was still alive, and invited him to come.

Genesis 46:1–7 NASB95

So Israel set out with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there. “I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will close your eyes.” Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their little ones and their wives in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. They took their livestock and their property, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him: his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his descendants he brought with him to Egypt.

Jacob spent two decades being fearful. He lost his beloved wife, thought he lost his favorite son, and was afraid he would lose Benjamin too. So it makes sense that he might be feeling anxious about moving to Egypt. They load up everything. This is a one way trip.

But look at what God does. He meets Jacob amidst his fears and anxieties to provide him reassurance. “I will go down with you.” What a promise. What reassurance. It is in our times of rising fear and anxiety that we need to be reminded once again of the promises of God.

The next section is a genealogical record of everyone who traveled to Egypt, 70 people in total. Four hundred years from now, they will have grown to over one million. The journey to Egypt is successful, and Jacob, a 130 year old man, lays eyes on his long lost son once again.

Genesis 46:28–34 NASB95

Now he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to point out the way before him to Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel; as soon as he appeared before him, he fell on his neck and wept on his neck a long time. Then Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.” Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me; and the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock; and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ “When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ that you may live in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is loathsome to the Egyptians.”

This is a beautiful picture of redemption and reunification. The dream Joseph had of ruling over his father and brothers is now complete. This is possible not because God is good at taking risks, but because he is sovereign over all creation. When we understand the sovereignty of God, it helps us with a confident trust in him.

But let’s start by defining sovereignty. What is it? We apply this term to nations, it means that the United States, for example, has no higher governing authority than itself. The same is true for God. He is the supreme ruler and governor of the universe. There is no higher authority than him. But that’s not all. In his governing of the universe, he controls those affairs to such a degree that nothing happens without his direction and guidance. Yet he does this through human agency, where we are still acting according to our own will. We are not robots being controlled by God, but even our actions are subject to God’s sovereignty to the degree that everything he has planned will come to pass.

The sovereignty of God is the backbone of Joseph’s life. It is the backbone of the book of Genesis, the entire Old Testament, and the entire Bible. The Bible tells the story of God’s plan for redemption of his creation, namely, those who were created in his image. While the line between God’s sovereignty and human agency is a bit of a mystery, we can have confidence in the fact that what he says, he will do.

The sovereignty of God helps us understand covenants.

God has always existed in relationship to his people on the basis of covenant. One of the main differences between a covenant and a contract is that contracts can be broken, but covenants cannot. That’s painting it with a broad brush, but lel me explain. God entered into a covenant relationship even with Adam and Eve. They were responsible for caring for all of creation as God’s representatives to all of the created world. They violated the terms of the covenant through disobedience, and every subsequent human has faced the consequences, but God is still tied to his creation through covenant.

He created a covenant with Noah, the new head of the human race, where basic concepts of government are developed and a promise never to flood the earth again is made. The covenant is violated by man, but God is still obligated to the covenant promises as he has not flooded the entire earth since then.

God announces his covenant promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, the covenant is ratified in Genesis 15, the sign of the covenant is given in Genesis 17, and God reconfirms covenant promises to Abraham’s descendants throughout the book of Genesis. We have seen how God has remained faithful to his covenant promises throughout this entire book.

He creates a covenant with Moses as the representative of Israel, which is sort of like a sub-covenant of the covenant with Abraham. It spells out the rules of relationship. Israel has obligations, and so does God. The Old Testament shows us that Israel violates the covenant repeatedly, and God “divorces” Israel, but he also brings them back. God is still bound to his covenant promises.

God also makes a covenant with David, where he promises a descendant will rule on the throne of Israel forever. That promise is fulfilled in Jesus, though Jesus doesn’t currently occupy a throne in Israel today. Instead, he occupies a throne in heaven, and one day he will return and fulfill the remainder of the covenant through a reign on the earth. God is still bound to fulfill all of this covenant.

Then Jesus comes, preaches about the coming kingdom of God, and a new covenant where all Jews and Gentiles alike will be welcomed in. It is ratified through his death, burial, and resurrection, securing our hope in eternal life and a place in this new kingdom where a righteous ruler will sit on the throne and eradicate sin and death.

God now offers to relate to his people through a single covenant, the new covenant, which does not nullify the previous covenants, but fulfills them. God is still the God of all people. He is still the god over all governments. He is still the God of the descendants of Abraham. He is still the God of Israel, of David, and now offers salvation and a relationship with him through one person: Jesus Christ.

You and I exist in relationship with God through his son Jesus made possible by the fulfillment of all previous covenants. Have they all been fulfilled in their entirety? Not yet. But has he demonstrated faithfulness to his covenants? Absolutely.

And because he has,

The sovereignty of God leads to trust.

Joseph had a dream that he would one day rule over his father and his brothers. Shortly after that, his dream seemed to come crashing down as he was sold into slavery by his brothers. Yet even in slavery, he worked hard and God had his hand on him. He was given power in every role. He was in charge of Potiphar’s house. He was in charge of the prison. Then he was in charge of Egypt. There was a quiet trust that God was going to take care of him. He trusted in the dream and went to work until God fulfilled that dream.

Everything God wants to do in your life will be done. He already knows what that is going to look like. You don’t. If you spend enough time in his Word and in prayer, you will tune your heart to his voice. As that happens, you get greater clarity on the direction he wants you to go. In the short term, this means that you get better answers as to why you are here, your purpose on this earth, and and what you should be doing with your life.

In the long term, we trust Jesus with the most valuable thing we possess: ourselves. We only get one chance to get this right. There are plenty of religions out there making promises to solve humanity’s most glaring problem. How do we heal the brokenness? Jesus promises eternal life and proves he can conquer the grave by rising from the dead. Because we can see consistent faithfulness from God to his covenant promises, we can trust that Jesus will fulfill all new covenant promises, including securing for us an eternal place with him.

We have already trusted Jesus with the most important thing: eternity. Why are you so scared to trust Jesus with your job? Your finances? Your relationships? Your home? Why are we willing to trust Jesus with eternity but we are not willing to trust Jesus with our call to share that same eternal hope with our friends and neighbors?

The sovereignty of God means that he will work out all things according to his purposes.

The sovereignty of God rescues us from bitterness and resentment.

Joseph had every right by human standards to be bitter and resentful toward his brothers and God for twenty years. But as we saw last week, Joseph, though he may have been bitter and resentful during that time, saw why God did what he did. He was sent by God to preserve his entire family. God saw all of this coming, but if he let Joseph know about all of it beforehand, Joseph at 17 would have never done it. Bitterness and resentment toward God and others washes away when we understand God’s sovereignty in all things. All of it is done for a purpose.

There are still people in my past that I would rather not see again. There is some unresolved tension, but we are no longer in each other’s lives. But I have arrived at a place in which I do not harbor any bitterness or resentment toward them. If they walk through the front door and sit in a church pew, It will feel like Joseph seeing his brothers again. It will be hard to handle, but I don’t have to harbor bitterness or resentment because I know God will be faithful to me and to them.

You might be here today harboring bitterness and resentment toward someone or God, and to be honest, it might be warranted. Somebody might have caused you great harm. But my prayer for you is that in your relationship with Christ you will arrive at a point where you are able to release that. Know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him. He’s brought you this far. He won’t abandon you now.

The sovereignty of God builds confidence.

Joseph arrived at the outcome. He saw the greater purpose for why he was in his position. He secured a place for his family to live. He had become a strong man. He was confident in his dreams and in the interpretation of others’ dreams. He was so confident in Pharaoh’s dreams that he proposed the bold plan that landed him the job. He was so confident that God sent him to preserve the lives of his family members that he told them where they were going to live before Pharaoh authorized it. He saw what God was up to and it gave him confidence to walk into the unknown.

God never gives you the blueprint before calling you to take the next step. If he did, you wouldn’t do it because you will try to avoid pain. But God is sovereign. He knows what he is doing. His plans are not to bring you to ruin, but to save you. What are you afraid of? How likely is that to actually happen? What if all you had to do was take one more step? The more steps you are willing to take into the light God gives you, the more light he will give you. Trusting him with the things that are beyond our control anyway builds confidence since we don’t have to worry about it.

Where does God need to build your confidence today? What are you hiding from? What if you trusted God to take care of that?

What God reveals, He fulfills.

God has chosen as his primary method of revealing himself to us as the written word. We have total access to 66 books that tell the story of who God is, what he cares about, and what he is accomplishing. Everything we need to know about God is in our fingertips. The Bible reveals to us the truth of the human condition. It reveals to us the plan for redemption and restoration. It reveals to us the covenant promises of God, and what God reveals, he fulfills.

God has been faithful to everything he has revealed to us so far. We can be confident that he will fulfill the rest.