Sermon Tone Analysis

1 | How have I experienced the tension?

I have been asked to teach on God’s sovereignty… So just like every other week of this series, you know… easy and quick stuff.

Each week we have handled some big theological words that each of us can come with ideas already formed about what they mean.

This morning is no different.

God’s sovereignty matters because it is not only relevant to big thick theology books.

It is relevant to the way we parent our children, chat with non-believing friends, handle moments of extreme grief, view politics, social issues, and even the evils of human trafficking and genocide.

In other it matters any time you feel out of control or try to take control.

Sovereignty is simply the ultimate authority to rule.

Back in the day, Kings and Queens of Europe had a great degree of sovereignty over their people and land.

They made real decisions that affected large populations of real people.

Today the various royal families left have little real authority to rule, most of them are simply symbolic and rooted in tradition more than real power.

2 | How have you experienced this tension?

Our culture now has a similar view when it comes to our belief in God’s ability to rule.

God may or may not be real, but if he is then he obviously is not really in charge.

Foundational realities get questioned…

Why does God have the right to call the shots?

If he does have that right and the world is so broken, then is he just really bad at his job?

This connects with last week, talking about God’s omnipotence… his power to rule.

God’s sovereignty is his authority to rule.

Both combine to describe God’s greatness.

But if God is fully great and our world is so messed up, what does that say about him?

Is God like the gods in the new Thor movie, who sit up in a golden palace and could care less of what we truly experience as humans.

The other question we often wrestle with in this topic connects to our human ability to make decisions…

If God does have complete control over our world, then what decisions do I actually have the ability to make?

Is he responsible for the terrible decisions other humans make?

3 | What do the Scriptures say about this tension?

Yahweh

“He will be”

Yahweh as a name literally is describing that God does not need or require anyone else for his existence.

Before there was anything, he was.

This is what we covered in the second week of this class.

But it is absolutely relevant to WHY he has the authority to rule.

That matters greatly for us to understand, because literally everything else you have ever experienced was created at some point.

Mountains, trees, people, movies, books.

We live in a created world, but before creation God was.

In Genesis, we get an image of God’s ability and authority to rule.

He speaks and things are.

He doesn’t seem to huff or puff, he breathes stars, planets, vegetation, animals, and humans into existence.

Read Genesis 2:15-17

Why does God have the right to tell them what he can or cannot do?

He is the Creator.

Creators typically understand better than created things how they are to operate correctly?

I would imagine Apple has a better understanding of how my iPad is supposed to work than if Siri tried to call the shots.

The name of God is literally a declaration of God’s sovereignty.

He is Creator.

Before anything, He was.

He doesn’t rely on any one or anything.

If we understand these realities about God, then we understand the basis for his right to rule.

But God handed humanity the opportunity to obey or disobey their created purpose and design.

This is the test of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You might have thought before, why would God allow the man and woman to even have the choice to rebel?

The reality is love only exists where a choice is offered.

If you bind someone’s decisions to you, that is enslavement, and cannot produce real affections.

So God does give humanity in that moment and into today the ability to make meaningful choices within his ultimate ability to rule.

I like the way Randy Alcorn writes about this concept, “The God of the Scriptures is so big, wise, and powerful that he can grant truly meaningful and real choices to angels and humans alike, in a way that allows them to act freely, within their finite limits, without inhibiting his sovereign plan in any way – and indeed using their meaningful choices, even their disobedience, in a significant way to fulfill his sovereign plan.” - Randy Alcorn

The only difference between their decision and ours is they existed without sin flooding their hearts and minds, we don’t.

Yet they make the same decision which characterizes humanity…

Attempted Self-Rule over God Rule.

Read Genesis 3:4-6

This brings what Jen Wilken refers to as the myth of human rule

The heart of humanity is not one opposed to someone being in charge, having authority, or ruling… just not God.

In ancient cultures, and in modern cultures used to strong authoritarian leaders people are less inclined to focus on their individual power, their individual ability to rule their lives, they either by choice or force view their leaders as the ones with the authority to rule the lives of the people.

We see this throughout the Scriptures, the Israelites cannot stomach the concept of God alone being their King so they call for a human king to be established over them.

They wanted human rule not God rule.

You might think, what that is crazy!!!

I would NEVER want that!

I would be so excited if we could cut out the human government piece and hear straight from God… me too.

The only problem, is humanity has never actually displayed that desire.

To hear from God and obey Him.

We want to hear from Him as long as it is convenient or agreeable to us.

So don’t judge Israel too harshly, I am not sure we would default to much better apart from the Spirit of God working in us.

Feel free to continue the story from there to see where it leads them.

In our modern individualistic American culture, we have taken this to the next logical progression.

God does not get to rule over me.

Nobody else gets to rule over me.

We become our own sovereign power.

We define ourselves and focus on our individual rights.

Totally makes sense right?

If God really is all powerful, all knowing, all present, and always existing… and I am limited in literally every one of those ways…

I am definitely the better candidate to be the authority over my life.

Sounds silly when I say that out loud right?

This is like every AI Robot movie right?

I know better than my creator how to function, the creator is irrelevant.

But isn’t that the decision we make each and every day in our hearts in minds?

When we attempt to do what is right in our own eyes instead of God’s?

When we allow our fears, anxieties and frustrations to take the reigns in our families, workplaces, and neighborhoods.

It is out of this desire to rule on our own that all the sin and brokenness in our world finds its origins.

But God is not passively watching from a far off distance all the brutality of planet death.

We get this beautiful piece of wisdom from the story of Joseph, after his brothers throw him in a pit to die, he is carted off to Egypt as a slave, he is falsely accused of crimes against his master’s wife so he is thrown in prison.. if anyone has reason to question God’s sovereignty its this guy right?

But eventually God raises him up as the right hand man to pharoah and gives him vision to save countless lives from a great famine.

His brothers come from the far off land to Egypt to seek food, and when Joseph finally reveals himself what does he say?

Read Genesis 50:20

God works in the midst of our broken meaningful choices.

He does not stop every act of evil or disobedience, but if all of life were a story… we focus on a sentence or paragraph in the story, God is present both in the present and is thinking about not just each sentence but each individual letter of each word and at the same time present and caring for the sentence, paragraph, chapter, and story as a whole that being written together.

He is both great enough to rule and good enough to care uniquely for each human life.

He cares about the small details more than you do.

He sees the big picture in ways you and I never could.

That doesn’t answer every question, but what it does do is it begins to set the stage for who Jesus is and what He came to accomplish.

Can I let yall in on a secret about me?

The book of revelation is one of my favorite books of the Bible.