Sovereignty | Whose Sermon is It Anyway?

video won't get boring in a couple weeks. So we are here. We are in this new sermon

series for the new year. Nineteen of you have written prompts in the month of October of

questions or thoughts or different aspects of either the faith or the Bible that you

guys have submitted. Okay? And initially I was like this is going to be really, really

exciting. By about the eighth one I was like oh no, this was not at all what I thought

it was going to be but true to my word I am going to preach on these things as they really

pertain to you guys and to all of us. A lot of them had a lot to do with stuff that we

talk about pretty much every day. So there's going to be kind of mini sermon series in

this series. There will be two this week, then one that will be different, then two

and then one and then we'll already be at Lent which is crazy. But we're going to cover

a lot. Now those that did submit stuff on apocalyptic and end times, first of all thank

you for that. That is going to be covered in the Revelation sermon series in the fall.

Okay? So we have the sermon series Hail to the Victor starting on Labor Day. And so that

those will be hit then. So if I'm not touching those during this sermon series please understand

I will save those, we will get to those and we will talk about them. But some of these

questions were written very broadly and I'm going to do my best. Some of these questions

were written extremely specifically to the point where, and I'm just going to put a disclaimer

out there, some of you wrote these expecting a certain answer directly the way you would

answer them and I love you but I'm not going to do that. Because any question that's asked

when you already have a formulaic answer in your mind isn't actually a real question.

It is a statement. And so we're going to work with all of these. We're going to dive into

or say most of them. Some of them I just, it was, there are no answers. But most of

them there were and we're going to talk about that. We're going to show a lot of grace and

we're going to dive into God's word which is exactly what we want to do especially in

the New Year. So in the beginning of service I asked the question or I brought up the word

sovereignty and why in my opinion we love it but there are aspects of us and we're going

to break it down this week and next week of why we actually might hate that word. So I

want to start off before reading a couple definitions just to see a couple people's

thoughts. How do we feel about the word sovereign? Just the word sovereign. How do we feel about

that word? Any emotions or thoughts come to mind when you hear the word sovereign? It's

not a word we use a lot but in reformed circles it's a tenet of our belief system believe

it or not. That God's sovereignty if you will is a central belief of Munster Church. It

is a central belief of Pastor Jim Holland owner. It is a central belief of my guess

that many of you if not all of you whether you know it or not. So with that said but

before we do all of this I want to pause because I completely overlooked a great aspect of

the service so let's pause. Hit the pause of this. We have a new family that we're welcoming

today and I got so excited to dive into God's word that I forgot them and this is the second

time I forgot them. I forgot them in the month of December and I'm truly sorry for that but

we want to welcome the Molinar family to the church. So where are the Molinars? Sometimes

they're in the back. They're back there. Can you guys just stand really quick? Let's welcome

the Molinar family. So I'm going to say they're very unique in the sense of they're one of

the only ones that they have. Half of them are wearing sunglasses in their pictures so

that's very very they're very cool family. So we welcome the Molinars. We thank you so

much. We praise God that he has brought you to the fellowship so after service please

go over and meet the Molinars. Don't let them skip out too quick and we just thank you so

much for being a part of that and now can I get back to preaching? Is that okay? Very

good. Alright. Sovereignty. Let's get back to that. Sovereignty. Any thoughts? It's

a big word. Yes. Power. Overall. Okay good. We're kind of building it. Let's look at a

kind of a basic definition of sovereignty. In political theory the ultimate overseer

or authority in the decision making process over a of a state and in the maintenance of

order. The authority of a state to govern itself or another state. Example a national

sovereignty. Then obviously when we get into a different definition more on the faith side

of things. The sovereignty of God is the same as the lordship of God. For God is the sovereign

kind of the sovereign over all creation. The major components of God's lordship are his

control authority and covenantal presence. So this understanding of lordship is kind

of tied and linked to sovereignty. There's another definition that I like kind of more

about the sovereignty of God and it comes to us from the gospel coalition. The sovereignty

of God is the fact. I love that. The fact that he is the lord over creation as sovereign.

He exercises his rule. This rule is exercised through God's authority as king. His control

over all things and his presence with his covenantal people and throughout his creation.

So now I ask you how are we doing with this word sovereign? So very big absolutely. Anyone

else? Huh? It's a tug of war. So you're already feeling the tension and I didn't even tell

Lisa to say that but there is a tension here. I'm already feeling it from you because I

feel it also inside myself that there is a supreme being that is lord over every aspect

of your life. He is lord of how your fingernails grow. He is lord over all of the things of

earth being created. He is lord over every blade of grass, every baby born, everything

of everything. And I think it's clear why there are times that that is an amazing comfort.

I remember three years ago when my sister, when we were saying goodbye to my sister as

she was dying from cancer. People asked how I was doing and that was kind of a dumb question

but it was, one of the things that brought me comfort was the fact that God was sovereign.

And I really had to work through that and saying that out loud talking about a 36 year

old that was dying, it's really weird but the fact that God was sovereign, the fact

that God had a plan and though I long for my sister to be still with her kids and her

husband Paul and be there down in Alabama and still be the aunt to my boys, yes I long

for that though he found a wonderful girl and Lindsay is a great mother to my niece

and nephews and all of those things. There was a sovereign plan there but now you also

get a taste of why we also hate it. That if we're honest we actually hate it because more

of a secular individual or humanist or maybe even believers, how in the world could you

be okay with a sovereign God who has a plan if you will that your sister would be gone

from this earth at the age of 36. Now you see the tension, there has to be. Right, my

wife is a NICU nurse and unfortunately in that department of the hospital death is a

part of it. That there are babies that are born and it's called incompatible with life,

that is kind of a phrase that is used. How in the world could a sovereign God allow for

that? I'll enter about four of you that ask questions along these lines. That I could

feel the tension in your questions, that this idea of being sovereign, this idea of claiming

because when you claim that Jesus is Lord of your life, you are subscribing to the sovereignty

of God and this has nothing to do with free will predestination though we're going to

get to a little bit of that. That there is a being that is over every jot and tittle

of your life, if you don't know that's the dot on the I and the cross of the T, right?

Every aspect of your life is overseen by a sovereign God and for me that brought comfort.

Now there are also days that it doesn't. There are also days that I go, God I thought you

said you were in control after certain situations or conversations or whatever. Like God you're

in control and you're letting this happen? What in the world? What kind of sovereign

are you? I find myself asking that. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Maybe you're better

believers than I but there's an aspect of God's sovereignty that we should just kind

of fall back in and be comforted yet we don't for a lot of the time. Colossians writes it

this way and this is probably biblically one of the best descriptions of God's sovereignty.

It comes to us from Colossians chapter one. He is the image, nope we don't have a slide

for that. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of our all creation. For

by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones

or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body,

the church. He is the beginning, the first born from the dead that in everything he might

be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him

to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by his

blood shed on the cross. That can never be said of any one of us. That is said of Christ,

that is said of the Godhead, that is said of the sovereignty, lordship of God. And

so it makes total sense why some of your prompts that you gave me just had built in angst.

Because how do we as a fallible group of people, meaning fallen, meaning sinners, meaning error

prone, how do we make sense of that? How do we live that out? Especially with a human's

thirst and almost demand for answers. When something is uncertain we strive for it, right?

When we split, and again I am going to be way over my skis on this, like in the world

of chemistry, you know, when they split, they thought the atom was the smallest thing and

then I don't know, at some point they split it open and it was a whole world in there,

right? Any science first, is that somewhat accurate? Jess, you don't know, don't shake

your head. Jeremiah, is that somewhat accurate? You are a math guy. So yeah, you know, like

all of these things that we desire, we demand to know, yet at the end of sovereignty is

we won't know fully, ever. Here on earth we will never fully know because there is this

aspect of faith. It takes faith to believe in a sovereign God. It does. I mean it takes

faith to believe in God anyway, right? If you are in a different world religion or maybe

you go back to the Egyptians where they had hundreds of gods, it took faith but their

faith was duty, their faith was sacrifice, their faith were all of these things. Well

if I do all of these things that means I believe. That is not the Christian faith. That is not

a sovereign God. There is a belief that God is in control and then that is what it is

all about. Yet in 2024 if we are going to turn the mirror on ourselves, we love to have

control. We love it. For a lot of us we actually make an idol of control. Whether you are a

business owner, a mother, a father, or the oldest child, right? Birth order, they like

to be the one in control. We long for it. When things are going our way we want to make

sense of it. And more times than not we want to make sense of it the way we make sense

of things. But that is not how sovereignty works. Because the aspect of God's sovereignty

ultimately takes faith that He is God and we are not. That God's plan is the plan, always

will be the plan, and there is no other plan greater than God's plan. And as believers

we submit our lives to that. Yet the believer that submits to it and then takes it back,

puts it in God's hands but then takes it out, or says, you know, God you are in control,

but then demands to control the situations, there is that tension and there is that rub.

And unfortunately the church in the history of the church has taken that understanding

of God's sovereignty and they try to humanize it. We do this all the time. It is one of

the reasons why we have thousands of denominations. Is A, we don't play well in the sandbox with

each other and at the same time when there is one degree difference that we don't like,

this goes bigger than pews or chairs, right, that we take it and we go, then we are going

to start our own belief system. This one aspect of God we are going to take it and we are

going to run with it. Free will, predestination, right, sacramental theology, all of these

things, all of these things of God, all of these things of the scriptures that we hold

to, we then take and we run with it. Things like baptism, right. Here we hold a sacrament

of baptism is for the household. You go to Steve DeWitt's church, right, he is a wonderful

man of God, Bethel on Broadway, over there in Crown Point, they hold to more of a Baptist

theology, more of a free will theology of I choose Christ, right, and then I am baptized.

Friends if you are going to get into like a shooting match over that, you are doing

it in vain. One is just emphasizing one aspect of the relationship with God where the other

is referencing more the covenant aspect of God. Kingdom, covenant. It is the same sovereign

God. And so when we understand these things and the angst that comes from them, the things

that we need to first and foremost stand on is that God is in control in God's wisdom.

He saved you. He saved me because there was sin. Well, one of the first prompts, and I

knew that I knew that I knew I was going to get this, if God was so good, why would he

let sin? First of all, that is not a complete sentence, even I know that. But why would

he allow sin in the world? Why in the world would there be a fall? If God created everything

good then why the fall? The easy answer is I wasn't there. I don't know. But we trusted

in God's word is there. But there you have a couple camps. And now we are going to get

a little nerdy. And if you knew the person that wrote this, you would understand that

it is a little nerdy. But you know who you are. There is these two words that have plagued

Reformed theology in its debate. It is superlapsarianism and infralapsarianism. You are all now better

because you know that. When you get to Bible trivia at the bar and you say superlapsarianism,

you will get your mozzarella sticks. I want to go to whatever bar is doing that and having

that level of reformed trivia night. That would be fantastic. But these actually mean

something. There are actually 100 year olds debates over these understandings. So first

and foremost, the question that they are trying to splice, remember how I talked about different

denominations, different kind of thoughts of theology and faith, they take one aspect

of the Bible and they just camp in it for years and years and years. The question is

this, did God elect to save or condemn prior to the fall of man or was it after the fall

of man? Prior supra, after infra. So did this all happen, did God create, knowing that they

were going to fall and the salvation was going to come supra or supalapsarianism or was it

more in the after? Now I think we all can agree, who cares? But at the same time, there

are people, there are denominations and some that are very prevalent in this area that

make this a kind of be all end all to their theology. Because the way that they then bring

this down in their understanding of God's sovereignty in my understanding is more of

a manipulation of what they do and don't want to do in their faith. So this understanding

that God did something, that God saves, was it then, before or was it after? I think,

though it's non-selfitic and I'm going to call it that, this is a non-selfitic question

but a lot of our debates are, that there's actually a missional understanding to the

answer. That you can actually turn a word like supralapsarianism or infralapsarianism,

it's just fun to say, actually into a missional document. Because one of the things you have

to understand is that one of those stances is missional and one of them really isn't.

That there's an understanding if you take supralapsarianism, meaning God before the

creation of the world said he was going to save, that actually takes the idea of evangelizing

off the table. That God's already chosen those that are going to be saved and chosen those

that are called reprobates or those that are going to hell. That's a rough doctrine. Sitting

in that doctrine as a flawed human being that I love a sovereign God who before the beginning

of the world chose to save some and chose to condemn some, that's a really tough doctrine.

I've studied this in seminary for years but that's a tough doctrine, that's a tough pill

to swallow. Especially when you walk that out into denominations today that say there's

no need to outreach. There's no need to evangelize. Though it's littered in the New Testament

that we're supposed to do it, they hold to a fact of God already has his elect and who

am I to speak into it? I call that spiritually irresponsible and spiritually lazy because

I think Jesus is missional. That's where I land more in the infralapsarianism and so

does Munster Church in the fact of there was a mercy understanding of God. That God's attribute

of mercy shows up right in the beginning. Sin enters the world, God comes down to Adam

and Eve, he is looking for his creation, the one created in his image, though flawed and

right there he says and this is going to happen. Though there's consequence, though there's

curse, this is going to happen. There will come a savior. And so one of the things we

have to understand is that the infralapsarianism highlights the mercy of God. That God's attribute

of mercy is just that. In his mercy he is sovereign, in his mercy he has shown you what

is good, in his mercy he has declared his providence over you. That when you are a believer

God's attributes are for you. He is showing you what to do. And so if God is going to

offer mercy and grace in our lives we ought to do the same. And why wouldn't we? We look

at the state of the world today and we are going to get to a lot of the culture questions

in a couple of weeks. You look at the culture today, does it not need the mercy of God?

Some would say it needs the judgment of God and there are days I feel that way too. And

believe me it's going to come. But God is also merciful. That God is also giving those

opportunities. God is giving the opportunities for you to go and bring your faith to someone

that doesn't have it. And maybe that's part of your story. That someone who was of faith

brought you into an understanding of faith and God worked in your heart and showed you

that he is sovereign, he is good and you can trust it. And you can take it to the bank.

But that's the other aspect. That's the other aspect of God's sovereignty and his

providence that we really, really struggle with. I'm chosen by God? If we are really

honest we don't deserve that. And if I'm being really honest you don't. And neither do I.

I am chosen? I am elected to be in God's family? Yes. And don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

A lot of times we struggle with that word election and for a lot of times it really

gives reform people a black eye because we throw that word election around in a pompous

way. Like we're a varsity of faith. You're JV. That's not even a thing. But understanding

that we are elect sometimes we idol worship the fact that we are elected by God. I don't

think that's what he had in mind. I don't think God said I have chosen you from the

beginning of the world. I have chosen you to stand over judgment of everybody, cast

all the stones and be jerks. No. The exact opposite. Die to yourself. Die to all that

junk and serve others. Sometimes serving is showing people the way of Christ. It's showing

them the truths of God's word. We can do it with a bullhorn or we can do it with a cup

of coffee. There is choice in that. But this understanding that God has elected I'm going

to lean into our confessions as we close. And again we're closing kind of more of it

to be continued. Canons of Dort, first head of doctrine, article 7 states this. And so

God decreed to give Christ those chosen for salvation and to call and draw them effectively

into Christ's fellowship through the word and spirit. In other words God decreed to

grant them true faith in Christ to justify them, to sanctify them and finally after powerfully

preserving them in the fellowship of the son to glorify them. God did all of this in order

to demonstrate his mercy to the praise of the riches of God's glorious grace. As scripture

says God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world so that we should be holy and

blameless before him with love. He predestined us whom he adopted as his children through

Jesus Christ in himself according to the good will or the good pleasure of his will to the

praise of his glorious grace by which he freely made us pleasing to himself in his beloved.

That's Ephesians. And elsewhere those who he predestined he also called and those whom

he called he also justified and those whom he justified he also glorified. There is a

lot in there but one of the things that I want to give you January 7th 2024 is that

you have been chosen by God. That God has chosen you. Yes even you who don't think

that who does not think that you can be loved. Those that think I'm too screwed up for this.

I'm too broken. I'm too hurt. I know I'm going to cheat on God again tomorrow. All of those

feelings all of those angst does not waver God's providential love for you. Why? He created

you in his image and God is not a masochist. God does not hate himself. God hates sin.

So when God calls us to himself part of that calling process is a reaping. Part of that

calling process is removing the sin from our life. And if we are being honest we love sin

and some of us it's really attached and that's going to hurt. That pruning is going to be

a process. That pruning is going to take time. But God's providence does not waver. God's

sovereignty is there for you. I liken it to some of the videos. You guys already know

I'm weird so it's fine. But all the creative when all of my boys had loose teeth I kind

of YouTube creative ways of getting the tooth out. I did. And there are a lot of different

ones and I think we've done remote control cars. We've tied that and please don't call

me PCFS they're fine. But I've seen some that I mean and these kids are terrified. There's

one where they're in like the woods which is super strange. But he tied it to a golf

ball. The dad did. And he's getting ready to hit the golf ball. And the boy is screaming

bloody murder. Right? He's like call 911 somebody. Like you know if he would have said I don't

know this man I think the video would have taken a very weird turn. But it was his dad

and he's freaking out. He is sobbing. He is so scared. And what I love is the dad's like

it's going to be fine. Like he knows it's going to be fine. Now I'm sure there's a little

part in the dad's mind like it better be fine. But understand he takes that whack of that

ball and the tooth and all of a sudden you just hear this like freak out into a laughter.

That though it was scary, though they was terrified, when it was done he was fine. He

laughed it off. And he gave Jim Holland on our sermon illustration. Is that not representative

of a lot of our lives of faith? This is so scary I don't want to give up the life that

I had before. I don't want to dive in. I know God's got his providence and his sovereignty

in this golf ball. Weird image. But you understand. And God is just going to whack this ball and

go this is what your life is going to be. Your life is going to be providential. Your

life is going to be something I sacrifice for to love you so you ought to love others.

This is the life of the believer. And we are so scared. Wait this is it? Wait my job is

to love others in a very real way. I don't have the burden of being judgmental anymore

because if we are being honest and we are going to get to this in a couple of weeks,

a lot of us love to be judgmental but that takes a lot of work. Because you better be

perfect if you are going to do it. But then all of a sudden the realization that God has

been, God is, God always will be God doesn't become so scary. And though it doesn't make

sense and I at that time 34 year old mind, why my 36 year old sister of three who had

three kids under 10 was going to go into glory and my nephews and nieces aren't going to

have their biological mother anymore. There was something comforting in the fact that

God was in control. So I don't know what it is for you today. I don't know what it is

for you in 2024. You know what 2024 may be your year and it may be just like every other

year you have had. But I think we can go into it going huh God is sovereign? I think 2024

is going to be okay. I think we are going to make it. And guess what? If in 2024 your

number is done or your number is called, your days are over, your table is prepared, the

room prepared, guess what? You get to live in God's glory forever and ever. Amen. That

is what a design is now thinking about. That is what the design, Archie design is now planning

and preparing for. That is why when I talk to an Ellie design, she has no fear. Though

she will be sad, she completely understands. There is something about God's sovereignty

and his providence. So I leave you with this thought and it comes to us from Lord's Day

10, question and answer 27. And again this is the to be continued. What do we do or what

do we understand by the providence of God? Here at this Munster Church, the almighty and

ever present power of God by which God upholds as with his hand heaven and earth and all

creatures and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean

years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things in fact

come to us not by chance. If your years are going to be done by chance, that stinks. It

is not done by chance but by his fatherly hand.