GOD IS SOVEREIGN
Matthew 6:9, 10
9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus taught us to pray for Father God’s will in Heaven to manifest on the earth. By itself, this one teaching of His reveals that God’s will does not always occur on the earth. Otherwise there would be no need for us to pray in this way. Why pray this way if God is sovereign? The answer to that question is that God’s will is not always done on the earth because God is sovereign.
- God sovereignly gave man free will.
Genesis 2:16, 17
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
What does it mean to us that God commanded Adam, the man, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? It means the man is free to choose to obey the command or to disobey. If the man was not free to choose to obey or not to obey, God would not need to command the man. Why command if sovereignty means everything that happens is God’s will?
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
- God sovereignly refuses to impose His will on mans’ will.
Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;
This verse presents us with the most obvious key word: choose.
- God is sovereign. However, that does not mean He rules the will of men. We are sovereign over our own wills by His design.
Mark 7:13 “making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
This verse is astounding. It means men have chosen traditions which made the word of God of no effect. His word is His will; made null and void by traditions of men. God has sovereignly chosen to give us this power.
- God implores us to yield our wills to His will. Yielding to Him brings His will into our lives.
Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.”
Look at the definition of sovereign. adj. having the right to rule, having supreme rank; independent, self-governing; highest, supreme, paramount; effective, potent
n. monarch, king, queen, ruler;
God as the self-governing, independent monarch of all creation has the right to rule over every choice of every man, woman and child and impose His will in each case. He has the right as our Creator. But does He?
What Scripture reveals is that He has sovereignly chosen not to rule over our choices, even if we ask Him to.
The Law of Moses is the obvious example of this. God offered the nation of Israel the same type of covenant He had with Abraham; a grant covenant which enabled Abraham to know God’s heart and, in the process, grow in faith.
They refused out of fear, not knowing God’s heart. They only understood covenants of law and, therefore, required what they were familiar with.
Still the Law God gave through Moses was superior to the laws of the Egyptian gods (Pharaoh included) which the Israelites had in mind when they refused the covenant God offered them. They demanded Moses be their mediator; indicating a covenant of law (Exodus 19 and 20).
Galatians 5:4 (KJV) Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
God Always Sovereignly Gives Us Real Choices
God always offers us choices and strongly urges us to choose His ways over our ways. Because our choices always fall so short of His choices, they eventually lead to death (Proverbs 14:12).
Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;”
Why does God allow us to choose evil and death? For the sake of love! God is love. He created us for love. But it must be chosen freely. For love to be a real option hate, mayhem, murder and death must be on the table to choose from. And these terrible things must be real with real consequences to those who choose them and upon those their choices can affect.
God always has plans to prosper us with excellent outcomes. So He urges us to learn His heart for us revealed in His Word. In His Word we learn that His thoughts and plans for us are always and only good.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Can you see in Scripture that God is always sovereignly giving us real choices?
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
The central point is to trust God in each situation. Yet the people too often sought knowledge by which they could discover answers for themselves; thinking that surely they could find a better way than having to trust God.
Psalm 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; But the earth He has given to the children of men.
When God gave the earth to the children of men He put its care in our hands. This was God’s choice. Did He choose wisely? Of course, He did. For He is still Sovereign. He will work through the messes of our free will choices to reveal His wisdom and turn us back to Himself, leading us to trust His wisdom and love in the end. Can we shorten the journey? Sure we can; one choice to trust Him at a time, for ourselves and for all of creation which He has put under our rule.
Consider the 1,300 years from the time the Law was given on Mount Sinai till the time set by the Father to reveal redemption through the death of His Son on Calvary. Though the nation of Israel disobeyed God’s Law and suffered the consequences of choosing the rule of Law over knowing God, He ruled over them according to the covenant they chose, but in wisdom and love He ruled in mercy. The kind of covenant they required specified rewards for good performance or punishment for repeated failure. He honored their choice for 1,300 years in long patience and mercy. Though punishment was unavoidable, rather than swift and continual punishment for their repeated and increasingly atrocious sin, He gave repeated warnings and extended mercy at every opportunity.
At the appointed time the Messiah was born in the form of man. Through His act of sacrificial love, Jesus offered redemption to whosoever will believe in Him. He, by our choice of faith, brings those who receive Him into the Kingdom of God in a New Covenant of grace, and faith working through love. Grace, faith and love are gifts from His heart to ours as we choose to worship Him as Lord. These gifts enable us to know Him as He truly is and represent Him in spirit and in truth. The new commandments of the New Covenant are to believe in Him and to love one another as He loves us (1 John 3:23).
God has worked through the centuries of mankind failing to trust Him, as we have chosen our own way time after time. And yet He brought us into a new era of grace through the choice of faith alone in the finished work of Christ to redeem us. Likewise, God will also work through the choices of men and women to increasingly trust Him to bring about the redemption and reconciliation of all things to Himself. He wins in the end. And in the end, His wisdom to give free will to man, will be vindicated. We may not understand it now. But when we meet Him face to face, we will rejoice in His great wisdom, His perfect justice and wonderful love.
Acts 4:24–31 (NAB)
24 And when they heard it, they raised their voices to God with one accord and said, “Sovereign Lord, maker of heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them,25 you said by the holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David, your servant: ‘Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples entertain folly?26 The kings of the earth took their stand and the princes gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.’27 Indeed they gathered in this city against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, together with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,28 to do what your hand and (your) will had long ago planned to take place.29 And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and enable your servants to speak your word with all boldness,30 as you stretch forth (your) hand to heal, and signs and wonders are done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”31 As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
1 Timothy 6:13–16 (NRSV)
13 In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
What commandment are we given power (grace) to keep in the New Covenant?
John 13:34 (NRSV) I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
I hope you can tell that this is a higher commandment than to love your neighbor as you love yourself. The New Commandment of the New Covenant in His blood is empowered in us by choosing to receive His love first (1 John 4:19).
1 John 4:10 (NRSV) In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:19 (NRSV) We love because he first loved us.
He chose to love us first, to empower us to love Him. It’s always a choice. What do you choose?
Promise to Abraham
Galatians 5:4 (KJV) Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
The one key to enjoying the power and benefits of God’s kingdom is to put faith in what Jesus has done. To not do so relegates you to law based religiosity to earn your way to God. You void the value of Christ and His finished work.
Galatians 3:17 And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect.
God’s promise is perfectly available to those who believe. No one will ever cancel God’s promise of a New Covenant because they trust their observance of the law instead of trusting in Christ. But that mistake does make the promise of no effect for them (Galatians 5:4), unless they repent and turn to Christ as their only source of salvation.
The promise God made to Abraham is His word (His will) for every man.
Romans 4:13-16
13For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. 16Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all
These verses clearly tie the promise to Abraham‘s faith. They tie faith to grace (the provision of God in Christ). And they tie faith and grace to the promise made to Abraham, a complete circle.
Galatians 3:16, 21-22
16Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.
21Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. 22But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Christ is the seed (the word of God) promised to Abraham. The law makes us all sinners, yet provides no means of coming to God.
But the promise was not made to Abraham because he was good. God made the promise to Abraham because he believed the word God spoke to him (Gal. 3:6).
It’s the same for us. By faith in Christ alone we are given His righteousness and can thereby come to our Father in Heaven, freely.
Faith awakens in us as we hear the word of God (Romans 10:17). The word of God empowers the will of God, when? When people believe God’s word. Jesus is the Word of God. It’s God’s will that you believe in Him, so the promises of the covenant can work in your life; His good, pleasing and perfect will. Choose wisely.