The Sovereignty Of God
Ephesians 1:1-6 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Paul was Called and Chosen. He did not choose God. He fought against him.
Struck down on the Road to Damascus on his way to kill Christians.
Did You Choose God? No, God chose you, if indeed you are in Christ…
There is Great Peace in knowing God has chosen you, not because of your good deeds, but because of his Love for you and his Mercy towards you. You did not earn his favor any more than Paul did by his murderous rage and rebellion; yet God has mercy on him. In fact Paul says that because he was the “chief of sinners”
1 Timothy 1:12-17 “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
What then, are we free to receive God?
What does it say:
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
What about sin? If God is in control, why is there sin in the world?
God is indeed sovereign, but in his sovereignty, he allows us freedom to resist his will and to sin. It is not what he desires, but what in his sovereign power he allows.
Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!
We are his ambassadors of peace.
2 Corinthians 5:17-20 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; medication behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
But what of those who refuse?
Even Judas had an opportunity to repent. While Jesus got down on his knees and washed Judas’ feet, even then he made an appeal for his repentance:
John 13:11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.”
Yet He gives faith to whom he chooses.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
Is God unjust to give faith to some and not to others? Does God decide on a whim? No!
In our effort to make God friendly towards us, we forget that he is the sovereign judge of human souls and he knows what is in man’s heart.
Jeremiah 17:10 I the LORD search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
God revealed his judgment of the Pharisees in their judgment of Jesus!
Those who rejected saw JESUS and Refused HIM… they saw the face of God and wanted no part of him. For Jesus said, “he who has seen me has seen the Father,” and “I and the Father are One.”
But He has mercy towards all who want Him and are broken!
He knows if there is a longing for righteousness and for love, where there is compassion or hate… what’s more he knows if there are wounds or circumstance that drive one to sin and rebellion. The abused child, the loss of a spouse, the victim of rape or war or disease or disaster.
To one on the cross next to him, he gave grace, but to the other who despised him, he went to hell in his own hatred. To the prostitute he has mercy, but to the religious in their pride he sent empty away.
Luke 23:39-43 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’’ And he said, ‘‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’’ And he said to him, ‘‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’’
One saw an innocent man being killed for a crime he didn’t deserve, but saw his own guilt; the other mocked his suffering and had no compassion on the innocent…
Which one are you? If you have not received Jesus, will you continue to hold off?
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The Sovereignty of God
Father, it’s not about the messengers, but the message for you. So I pray, Father, today that you would fill this house with your presence and your spirit, that you would carry forth your Word this morning, and cause me to be a vessel for your use. I pray, Father, that your heart would be revealed and your longing for the lost would come forth.
In Jesus’ name. The first thing I want to do is thank you all for praying for me this week. I could tell. I had no idea I was going to preach on.
And this morning I woke up and I just, I felt the presence of the Lord. And I thought, oh my, and I don’t know if I can do justice to it. The presence of the Lord I felt, but I was going to try to let him use me as I saw what I saw. And the message came forth about the sovereignty of God. I just also want to tell you, I’m thankful, like Brian said, I’m thankful to be in this church.
I was a preacher in Pennsylvania in a Presbyterian church. And I would preach a word and I could feel the message come out to here and just fall to the ground. It was such a resistance to the Word of God. And it was just, you know, it was like preaching to a wall and you just hit it and you just know that it wasn’t going to impact anything.
But what I found out was that people who are hungry and they’re praying and asking, God will answer that need. So, when you’re praying for him to speak to you, he will. He’ll use a donkey, right? (That’s a polite word for it), to bring that message forward.
And so here I am offering myself as a donkey. So, the message is on the sovereignty of God. And would you put up the first scripture and Brenda will read it for us.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ.
According to the purpose of his will, the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in beloved.
Ephesians is one of my favorite books in the Bible, including Isaiah, like John,… But, yeah, I can tell you the whole message. And today’s message is on the first line of the letter to Ephesus.
It’s that theme here. First of all, we’ve got to remember Paul’s story. Paul was an educated… Paul, like today, would be a preacher or a religious person. He was advancing beyond all his years in the Sanhedrin and in the government and the religious community. He was violently opposed to Christianity because he thought it was a betrayal of the truth of the Torah. That a man who made himself out to be God was blasphemous.
And so, he was standing there when Stephen was being stoned, preaching about God being for all… God of the Gentiles was going from the Jews and his reign being all over the entire earth. And he was consenting, it says, to Stephen’s death. And he was on his way to Damascus to round up Christians to have them murdered, thrown in prison.
So, in every way, he was violently opposed to Jesus Christ. He was against God. And he was struck down on the way to Damascus by a blinding light and he saw the Lord in heaven.
And he said, Paul, God said to him, Jesus said to him, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you? And he said, I’m Jesus whom you’re persecuting. Now, the point is here that Paul did not choose God. He did not make a choice to choose God.
God chose him. God knocked him down. God got him.
And he is not an apostle by his own will or offering himself forward to be an apostle. God appointed him an apostle, it says right there, by the will of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ. So, we’re talking about the sovereignty of God and of man’s choice in a matter.
And one of the problems we have in today’s culture is that we exalt ourselves so much and and our choices, our power, that we forget who God is. So, we magnify our issues, our problems, and we forget about the majesty, the power, the glory of God who is so far above this universe that we can’t even begin to imagine it.
I’ve heard this story before, it says, to glance at Goliath, but gaze at God.
Now, when we glance at Goliath, or we gaze at Goliath, actually, we magnify our problems. If you remember the story of Goliath, David and Goliath, he was terrorizing all of Israel. He was 9 feet tall, or 12 feet tall, I don’t know.
And he’s running up and down the lines and boasting, I’ll kill anybody who comes forward. And all the Israelites were running from him every time they see him. They’re looking at him, and they’re not looking at God or the covenant.
David comes along, a little shepherd boy, and he looks at God, and he says, that guy’s going down. So, in Corinthians, I’m not sure if it’s Corinthians, Paul says, we all with unveiled faces are being beholden to his glory and are being transformed into his likeness.
When our eyes are fixed upon Jesus, and not upon our problems, which are the lies in our lives, we are being transformed into his likeness, because who we are looking at is who we become like. So, as we look at the small things, our problems, and we magnify them, we run in fear and terror. But when we look at God, these things are no problem.
So, one of the problems we have is that we are exalting our problems and not looking to the solver of our problems.
So, Paul was called and chosen. He did not choose God. He fought against him with all his might. And the same is for you. Did you choose God? No, God chose you, if indeed you are in Christ.
It says there, from the foundation of the world, he had you in mind. He has chosen you from the beginning of time to be his own. Now, Paul could have resisted when he saw Jesus on the throne, but he didn’t.
We all have an opportunity to resist, at least temporarily. But God looks upon your heart and he chooses those whom he loves. And he has chosen you from the foundation of the earth. That should give you great peace. That should give you great comfort. Because it’s not how good you perform and how good you do that matters. It’s how much he loves you and has chosen you.
You did not earn his favor any more than Paul did by his murderous rage and rebellion. Yet God had mercy upon him for one purpose.
1 Timothy 1, 12-17: I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I receive mercy because I have acted ignorantly and unbelieving.
And the grace of our Lord overflows for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I receive mercy for this reason, that in me, as a foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who must believe in him for eternal life. For the king of ages, immortal, invisible, only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Paul said of himself, I am the chief or the foremost of sinners.
And the reason God chose me is to show how great his mercy is. If he can save me, who is the most vile, hate-filled, angry protester there is on the streets, and he can save me and change my heart, I am an example of all who can be saved. Not that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done, God is in Christ reconciling himself to you.
So, are we free to receive God as we desire? It says, the Lord says, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing anyone should perish, but all should come to repentance. He wants everyone to receive him and believe in him. Every single person on the earth.
But why then is there sin in the world, and why is there sin? Because God, in his sovereignty, allows for you to resist him, and his will, and sin. It is not what he desires, but in his sovereign power, he allows our rebellion and our resistance. He’s not thwarted by our rebellion.
Paul rebelled, angry, and got method, and changed his heart. God is able to do that for every single person on the earth. He can turn the heart of stone into the heart of flesh.
If you want to know the heart of God, the perfect scripture is where Jesus is looking over Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to it. How often I would have gathered you as children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not.
He’s weeping. You would not come and find peace in me. God’s heart is revealed. He wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. In fact, he’s appointed us as his ambassadors of peace.
Would you read the Corinthians?
2 Corinthians 5, 17-20 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All of this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against him, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God made his appeal through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
I heard a preacher once say that when God has reconciled himself to the world, It means that no matter what you’ve done, or no matter what you do, it doesn’t bother you. He is not counting your trespasses against you. That means it doesn’t matter if you’re a pedophile, a rapist, a murderer, a thief. He’s not counting that sin against you. Not incest, not anything that comes with shame or guilt in your life is separating you from the love of God because he’s reconciled to you and he’s in favor of you, even though you’ve done all those things.
There’s nothing to keep you from God’s presence. And we are making that appeal to you. Come to him because he’s forgiven all your sins.
There’s nothing to hold you back from him. The only thing that might hold you back is your guilt, but he can take that away. He can forgive it. He has forgiven it in Christ. He’s already on your side. That’s what it means to be reconciled to him. He’s already on your side. There’s nothing you can do that will cause him to throw you out. But you can turn your back on him if you want.
So, what of those who refuse? Even Judas had an opportunity to repent. While Jesus got down on his knees and washed his feet, he made an appeal for Judas to repent. He said, You are… (He knew of betrayal.)
You are not all clean. Come on man, turn around. And he refused.
He refused. He refused. While he washed his feet, he refused.
Why? Why? And yet it says, God gives strength to those whom he chooses. In Ephesians it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, but the gift of God. God gave, gives faith.
It’s a gift. You can’t do it by merit. None of us are worthy.
We’ve all sinned. We’ve all swung close toward the glory of God. All you need to do is watch the news during the election, and none of us are going to have peace.
Right? No matter which side you’re on, you’re going to be angry about what’s going on. I mean, even today, if you watch the news, you’re going to be angry. We don’t have that peace all the time of who God is in our lives.
So, there’s nothing we can do to become worthy of that salvation. But he’s had mercy on us. He knows our frame. He knows that we’re dust, and that we’re weak, and that we’re emotional creatures that get all out of sorts. But he loves us anyway.
So, the big question is, is God unjust to give faith to some and not to others? Does God decide on a whim? I’m going to pick this one and not that one.
No way. No way. And in our effort to make God friendly toward us and lower the bar, we forget that he’s a sovereign judge of human souls, and he knows what’s in a man’s heart.
God is above our emotions. He knows what’s inside a man’s heart. It says in Jeremiah, I, the Lord, search the mind and try the heart to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
His judgment of the human soul is based upon what’s in your heart, not upon your deeds. He knows something about you. He knows about all the earth. And if he decides to give faith to someone, it’s because of a very specific reason. God revealed his judgment of the Pharisees in their judgment of Jesus. In Jesus, they saw the very face of God. They saw his mercy. They saw his compassion. They saw his kindness toward the weak and the broken.
And Jesus said, Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, and I am the Father are one. But they looked at the face of God and they refused it. They didn’t want any part of it.
They didn’t want him. They don’t like him. They have no desire for him.
So, when that happens, God sees their heart, and their judgment is revealed because they see Jesus and they hate him. Remember when Sarah Palin was running for office, and she was, she was being attacked mercilessly, just like Donald Trump has been. And the Lord gave me an image of what was going on.
And it said, He said, Sarah Palin is like a lightning rod. And when those lightning strikes it, it lights everything up and it shows with darkness all around. There’s an absolute hatred for Christianity in this country. From the courts on down, to the politics, to the news media, because we stand for the life of the unborn. We stand for the traditional, God’s given morality. God created the male and female. And they absolutely hate that about us. And they’re using every device they can to undermine that faith and that righteousness in the church, to cause us to be conformed or compromised, to approve of unrighteousness, just so we can get along and be friends.
But that hatred is a part of the demonic structure of this world that absolutely hates the message of Jesus. And so, when God reveals these darknesses in the hearts of human beings, He’s not deciding on a whim, to whom to give faith, and whom not to give faith. He’s saying, even if I gave them faith, they don’t want me, so what’s the point? I could offer them money, I could offer them power, I could offer them fame, to accept me, even escape from hell. But they have no desire and no friendship with me. They don’t want me. So, is God going to force someone to accept Him? I mean, He did knock down Paul, right? But when Paul saw the truth, he repented, he changed.
But he knows that if he reveals himself in all his glory, some will not repent, will not change, no matter what he does, because they’re in our heart. They hate him. They hate God.
So, it’s not predestination and God’s election and choices, it is not a whim. God sees what’s in the person’s heart. The good news is that He has mercy upon all who want Him and who are broken.
He knows if there’s a longing for righteousness and for love, if there’s compassion or hate. What’s more, He knows if there are wounds or circumstances that drive one to sin and rebellion. The abused child, the loss of a spouse, the victim of rape or war or disease or disaster can cause us to be twisted in our view of God and we might reject what we think is God because we’re rejecting the pain that’s come upon our lives.
But that’s not what God sees in our heart. He knows that we’re still crying out. It is theorized that Paul was a widower.
He said, through letters, I wish you could be content as I am in one of his letters. So, it’s possible that his anger was that he never mentions his wife. It’s possible that his anger is over the loss of his wife.
He took refuge in religion and God’s glory, you can’t talk about that without God. But in his anger, he may have misunderstood or just gotten angry with this Christianity stuff to a degree that’s beyond his emotions, not his mind. And so, God saw what was really in his heart, no matter how he acted, he saw what was in his heart.
And he sees what’s in his heart. He knows if you have a longing for forgiveness and for compassion and for mercy, or if you’re just buying time and filling your heart with anger and vengeance and rebellion and whatever.
To the one on the cross next to Jesus, he gave grace. But to the other who despised him, this man went to hell in his own hatred. To the prostitute, he has mercy, but to the religious, in their pride, he sent empty away. You know, he picked prostitutes and tax collectors. Tax collectors were the modern equivalent of the leg breakers, you know, who collect debts from bookies. That’s who tax collectors were. And he picked some of them. And he picked prostitutes. He picked fishermen. And he did pick very many religious folks or higher-ups.
The only one he got was Paul by knocking him down.
Would you put up Luke? Bridget, would you read that for me?
Luke 23, 39-43. One of the criminals, who were hanged, wailed at him, saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.
But the other rebuked him, saying, do you not fear God? Since you are under the same sentence of condemnation. And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.
And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, Truly I’ll save you. Today you will be with me in paradise.
I love this scripture because it points out how, it doesn’t matter how badly this man has lived. He knows he is wrong. And God’s not looking from you, perfection.
He’s looking from you, honesty. He’s not looking from you to be so perfect that you never make mistakes. He’s just asking you to be honest about your mistakes and asking God for forgiveness.
I have a simple story of, what I share with people as a message of how to share the gospel with someone. I may have said this before about a child with a lamp. I think I may have, yes.
For those who haven’t been here before. It’s real simple. The father comes in, and a brother, brother and sister, young, knocked on her lamp and broke it. And the father said, Who broke the lamp? And Adam said to God, Eve, she did it. You know. And she said, No, I didn’t do it. It was the serpent, you know, casting the blame away. What makes it hard to be reconciled with that father and the broken lamp story or God, Adam and Eve, is that they’re being dishonest. They’re not accepting responsibility for the things they’ve done wrong.
But if he said, Father, I’m sorry I broke the lamp. And then, the father can at least accept that relationship and honesty. Adam said, I’m sorry, I messed up.
I don’t know what would have happened in the difference, but it certainly would have changed some of the outcome. So, God’s asking for you to be honest with him about what you’ve done wrong. Because he’s already on your side, and he’s already forgiven you.
So, you have nothing to fear. But if you don’t admit it, and you are not honest with it, then it creates a wall between you and God. It separates you because of your own lies and your deceptions and your conscience. And there’s no reason for it. There’s no need for it. He’s already forgiven you. He’s already on your side. If you would just accept it, be reconciled to him as he is to you.
This one man saw an innocent man being killed for a crime he didn’t deserve, but saw his own guilt. The other mocked his suffering and had no compassion upon the innocent. So, I ask you today, which one are you? If you have not received Jesus, how long will you continue to hold on?
We have an open communion to those who have received Jesus, that their Lord and Savior, Paul, are welcome to receive. And would the guys who are doing it today come up and set it up?