The Father Is Sovereign

If you brought your Bibles, turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4 and Isaiah 45.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

We've been in a series called My Best Friend, the Father.

And two weeks ago, Pastor Robert talked about the goodness of God.

This series is focusing on the attributes of God.

And so the first message was on God's goodness.

Because God is good, we can have confidence that he will help us, that his work toward us is going to be something good.

And we can know that his motive toward us has good intentions.

And then last week he talked about the omnis of God, the fact that God is all-powerful, he's all-present, and he's all-knowing.

And because those things are true, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, we can rest in the knowledge that God is able to confront or lead us or take care of any situation that we're in.

And today we're going to talk about God is sovereign.

The Father is sovereign.

Now, when we talk about God's sovereignty, it gives us peace to know that God is sovereign.

It's not like there was a council of gods in heaven and there was a battle that took place, and somehow God, the supreme power of our God ruled and made him all-powerful.

Now, when we talk about God's sovereignty, what we mean is that God has all authority and there's no one like him.

He is sovereign ruler and king of the universe.

And that's my first point.

The Father is sovereign king of all.

What does it mean to have sovereign authority?

It means that there's no power, no authority, no government or governing body above him.

Now, if you're in Deuteronomy 4, look at verse 34 and just follow what this declares about our God.

Has any God ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation?

By testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds.

Like all these things, the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes.

You were shown these things, so that you might know that the Lord is God, beside him there is no other.

Verse 39, Acknowledge and take heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above, and on the earth below there is no other.

Isaiah forty-five and verse five.

Apart from me, there is no God.

I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, men may know there is none besides me.

I am the Lord and there is none other.

Verse 7, I form the light and create darkness.

I bring prosperity and I create disaster.

I, the Lord, do these things.

Verse 12.

It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it.

My own hands stretched out the heavens.

I marshaled their starry hosts.

Verse 18.

For this is what the Lord says.

He who created the heavens, he is God.

He who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it.

He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited.

He says, I am the Lord, and there is none other.

Verse 22, turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God, there is no other.

We talk about sovereign authority, sovereign power.

We're saying that there is no one, there's no higher authority, there's no other control.

He answers to no one, there's no other entity that he has to check in with.

God has absolute authority and control.

Rulers rule by delegated authority, but God rules by sovereign authority.

He doesn't derive his right to rule from anyone or from anything.

No authority, there's no authority greater than his.

He doesn't have to check in with anybody before he takes action.

In fact, Daniel chapter 4 and verse 34 says this: His dominion is an eternal dominion.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.

He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and with the peoples of the earth.

No one can hold back his hand or say to him, What have you done?

Now, some leaders think that they have sovereign power because sovereign authority because they have superior power.

This has been true throughout history.

It may even be true of some world leaders today.

But there is no authority except that which God has established, because he's the only one who has sovereign power and authority.

Romans 12, Romans 13 and verse 1, everyone must submit himself to governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

The authorities that exist have been established by God.

God is the only one who has absolute authority without any other control.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar was a king.

He ruled over a vast empire, and he arrogantly assumed that because he had supreme power, he had sovereign authority.

And so one night he's laying in bed, and God gives him a dream.

This is Daniel chapter 4 and verse 4, and this is the account.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

He says, I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at home in my palace, contented and prosperous.

I had a dream that made me afraid.

As I was lying in my bed, the images and visions that passed through my mind terrified me.

So he called all of the prophets, all of the sayers, uh seers of the time to give interpretation.

What does this mean?

And only one could interpret it, and it was Daniel.

And Daniel uh says in verse 24, this is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree the Most High has issued against my Lord the King.

You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals.

You will eat grass like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven.

Seven times will pass by you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he pleases.

No leader, regardless of how powerful, has sovereign authority.

Now, sometimes as husbands, we think we have sovereign authority.

And uh, when we were bachelors, we had a pool table and it was just fine in our dining room, and then we get married, and we it moves from the dining room to the garage, and then from the garage to the garage sale.

And we realize not only do we not have sovereign authority, we don't have supreme authority sometimes in our own house.

Some business people think they have sovereign authority because they have a superior product or they have market share or profitability, only to find out that they are subject to a greater authority.

James 4 in verse 13, come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You're just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or do that.

But as it is, you boast in your arrogance, and all such boasting is evil.

Only God is subject to none, pushed around by none.

He is absolutely independent, he does as he pleases, only as he pleases, and always as he pleases.

Now, when you think about this and you think, well, Tom, if if this is right, I'm not denying that it might be right, but sometimes it can make us feel like, uh, why why should I do anything?

I'm just insignificant here in God.

Why why should I even pray?

I mean, if God's all-powerful and he's the ruler of the universe, then what matters what does it matter if I pray?

It does matter that you pray.

We pray because he listens to our prayers, and our prayers move him to action.

We pray because our prayers are arise as sweet incense before him, and it pleases him to act on our behalf.

Listen, God is the one who moves mountains, but our prayer moves God.

In fact, let me say it this way: the thing about God's sovereignty, because God is a ruler, that the sovereign ruler, there's no one his equal, he answers to no one.

Why shouldn't we pray to him, knowing that if he says, it will be done.

If he declares it, it's going to happen because there is no one.

He answers to no one.

He doesn't have to get anyone's permission in order to be able to act.

We pray because God is in charge.

Proverbs 15, 8.

The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases him.

Verse 29: the Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

We pray because he's able to act upon our request.

Isaiah 56, 7.

These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

If we didn't know that God was kind and loving and generous and just and compassionate and merciful, then maybe we'd be concerned that God has this kind of authority and power and he answers to no one.

But he can't violate these other attributes of his great nature, and so he is good.

He is generous, he is faithful, he is just.

And that tells us, it gives us comfort in the reality that our God is acting, although he has all power, he's acting in a gracious way.

Numbers 23, 19 says this God is not a man that he should lie, nor the Son of Man that he should change his mind.

Does he speak and then not act, or does he promise and not fulfill?

We cannot understand the sovereignty of God if we measure it by the actions of men.

God is sovereign and he answers to none other.

Understanding and acknowledging that God is sovereign puts us in submission to his plan and it it gives us, it opens an opportunity for us to serve him.

And that's my my second point.

The Father has sovereign authority to establish his plan.

Now, God has a plan that was conceived before time began.

It's a good plan because God's good.

It's a perfect plan because he's all-knowing.

And because he is sovereign, nothing and no one can stop his plan.

Now, Joshua was leading the children of Israel.

Uh they had just come into the promised land, and they were on their way to Jericho.

And as they're on their way, uh Joshua encounters the commander of the army of the Lord, the incarnate Christ.

And in Joshua chapter 5, here's what happens.

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

Now, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.

Joshua went up to him and asked, Are you for us or for our enemies?

Neither, he replied, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.

Then Joshua fell down to the ground in reverence and asked him, What message does my Lord have for his servant?

Now you may know the story of Jericho.

The children of Israel went to Jericho, and the scripture says that it was shut up tight, tall walls, there was no going in, no coming out.

And as Joshua was on his way to Jericho to engage in this battle, my thought is that he was going thinking this is going to be a military conflict, a conquest.

I'm going to station some of my men on this side, some of my men on this side, we'll build a siege wall, we'll come over the walls, and we will win a great victory, and God's going to anoint us.

And while he's on his way with his plan, he encounters the commander of the Lord's army and he says, I have a different plan.

I'm not for you andor for your enemies, I'm on the Lord's side.

And Joshua bows down and says, Tell me what your command is, O king.

Do you suppose that it was in that encounter?

Because we know later that Scripture says that the Lord said to him, When you get there, want you to walk around the city, want you to do that for seven days, and on the seventh day with a mighty shout, I want you to declare the victory, and the walls came down.

It wasn't his plan, it was God's plan.

How did he change as a part of that?

He did so by acknowledging, you're sovereign, I'm not.

Your plan is above my plan.

I'll take your plan over my plan any day.

Proverbs 21:1, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.

Proverbs 21:1

He directs it like a water course wherever he pleases.

Psalm 135 and verse 6 the Lord does whatever pleases him in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all the depths.

Through his sovereign authority, God is guiding all of history to an end-time revival and the return of his son.

And no person, no man, no plan is going to stand in the road of what he intends.

Israel feared Goliath.

Gideon feared the Mennonites, Midianites.

Samson feared the razor, but God fears no one.

No one has the authority or the power to stand in his way.

Psalm 2 and verse 1 why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one.

Let us break their chains, they say, and throw off their fetters.

The one enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.

Last week, Pastor Robert said that supreme authority gives God the right to act.

Absolute authority gives him the power to act.

And I add this week, sovereign authority gives him rule without equal.

Sometimes when we think about this, it can lead to this whole idea of fatalism, Christian fatalism, that God's in charge and he has a plan and his plan's gonna be done.

No matter what, it doesn't make any difference.

You heard about the guy, right, that kind of had this in mind and he he fell down the steps, got down to the bottom in a pile, and he picked himself up, dusted himself off, said, Wow, man, I'm glad that's over.

If we think that God's plan is gonna happen, and it happens without any kind of involvement on our part, without any kind of participation on our part, that we have no uh no opportunity, we've we've entered into a kind of a Christian fatalism that isn't what God wants as we understand his sovereignty.

And that leads me to the third point.

Will the Father force his plan on you and me?

If God has a sovereign rule, there is no one, he answers to no one.

And if he has a plan, then how does that plan impact you and me?

God has a personal plan for our life, and that plan is part of his sovereign plan as it was determined way before time ever began.

We we see the picture of this in Psalm 139 when he talks about us and how we were formed.

Psalm 139 and verse 13, you were formed, for you formed my inward parts.

You wove me in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

God says, He has good plans for us.

His plans individually for us are for good, to give us a hope and a purpose.

At Jeremiah 29 and verse 11, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.

Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Then you'll call upon me and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

Now, let me let me try and apply this, at least as it has worked out in my life.

When when Jan and I, when I graduated from college, I went to work for my dad.

I I was raised in Omaha, went to the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and when I graduated, uh, as I went to work for my dad, he and his partners had an agreement that any son or child that was working in the business wouldn't work directly under their dad.

So I was transferred, because my dad was in Omaha at the corporate offices to our Oklahoma City office.

And I I was there in Oklahoma City for just not just short of two years.

And while I was there, I met a guy who worked for IBM.

He became a friend.

We went to church together, and one day he said to me, uh, we got a couple of openings, sales openings at IBM, and I think you'd be great at it.

Why don't you apply uh to work at IBM?

And I said, Yeah, all right.

And he goes, No, no, can I put your name in uh for the for this position?

I said, sure, go ahead.

I'd be fine.

Well, I get a call to come in for an interview, and so I go in to interview, and I was one of 11 candidates to interview for two positions in their their large mainframe computer division at the time.

This was in the late 70s.

And um I went through a series of interviews and tests and and uh came down to three of us to fill these two positions, and I was one of the three.

So I went into the final interview with the regional manager and spent about an hour with him, and he was asking me questions and going over different things.

Then we got to the end of the interview, and he he says, uh, I want you.

You're you're one of my two guys in this position.

I want you.

I'll be back to you in a few days with a with an offer.

So up until that point, I hadn't told my dad anything, even though I'd been through a number of interviews.

So I called my dad that day and I said, Dad, I want you to know I've been interviewing with IBM, and I think that uh I'm gonna get a job offer.

And because I think I'm gonna get a job offer, I just want you to know if if I do, I'm gonna take it.

And he he responded like a dad, not like a boss.

And he said, uh, well, is it a good opportunity?

I said, Well, I think so.

And he said, I yeah, I've always told you, son, you don't have to do what I'm doing.

And uh he didn't, I didn't say to him that day, he didn't know, but in my prayer was, God, I need you.

I need you to guide me.

I want to be in the center of your will.

And I don't, if if this isn't good for me, if this will do, if this will put me someplace that isn't what you want, I surrender what I want to what you would desire.

And so a couple of days went by and no uh no call, no offer.

Uh a week went by, no offer.

Two weeks go by, no offer.

And so I decide maybe I ought to call this guy.

Maybe he's lost my email address or hey, my phone number or something, you know.

Maybe you sent it in the mail and he got lost or something.

So I called him and he goes, Hey, Tom, good to hear from you.

Hey, man, I am sorry.

I don't know what happened, but you know, when you left, I fully intended to make you an offer.

And then the other two guys, I interviewed them and I offered those two guys the job.

And he goes, but but we've got other opportunities here, and uh, why don't you uh let me put your name someplace else?

And I said, Oh no, no, uh, that's okay.

I I appreciate, thank you for uh you know letting me go through this process, but I I I think I'm good.

Uh I'm right where I need to be.

It was within a month or so I was transferred from our uh Oklahoma City office to Amarillo into a sales territory, and uh while there, nine months after we got there, I was a part of starting a church in Amarillo that was a Trinity Fellowship, and then four years after that, uh left business to to go on staff, and uh now some 26 or 7 years ago, uh God had a plan that wasn't my plan.

And and it's a it's an issue that for all of us, we have these opportunities that are critical.

And uh it's what I call an opt in.

God has a plan, it's a it's a perfect plan, it's a good plan, it's based on his full knowledge, but we have to make the choice to opt in.

Here's what's an amazing.

Thing.

Because God gives us the opportunity to opt in or opt out, we can, by our own choice, stand on the sideline while his plan unfolds all around us.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be left on the sideline.

You might think, well, Tom, what about that?

Is that really true?

Let me just give you some scriptural examples beyond my own examples of how this takes place.

Esther had an opportunity to participate in God's plan to save the Jews.

And Esther chapter 4, her uncle Mordecai is declaring, identifying this opportunity for her, and he says this Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, do not imagine that you and the king's palace can escape any more than all the Jews.

Esther 4 · chapter mention

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise from the Jews, from another place, and you and your father's house will perish.

And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?

Or what about Mary?

Mary had an opportunity to opt in to God's plan to bring Jesus to humanity.

She's a virgin girl, an angel shows up and says, Hail, favored one.

And what Mary says in response, Luke 1, verse 34, how will this be?

Luke 1:34

She said to the angel, since I'm a virgin.

And so the angel goes on to explain to her what's going to happen to her, how this is going to take place.

And here's Mary's response to opt-in.

I'm the Lord's servant, Mary answered.

May it be to me as you have said.

And the angel left her.

Jesus had an opportunity to opt in.

You know, Jesus was fully God, but he was, he subjected his godness to his humanity.

So he was fully dependent on in everything that he did on earth to the Holy Spirit, just like you and I are.

You know, it's and so he gets to the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's under tremendous pressure.

And this is what he says, what the account says in Luke chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

He withdrew about a stone's throw away.

Beyond them, knelt down and prayed, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours.

And an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.

And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

Let me just say to you today, there's only one answer that we can give to a sovereign God and to a plan who that he has for our life and for all of eternity, and that is yes, Lord.

Yes, Lord.

I don't know what you might be facing today, but I do know this.

You have or you are, you may be right in the middle of some opt-in opportunities in your life.

Maybe you're in the middle of a situation like Esther was, and it's life-threatening, and you don't know.

It could cost you your life.

Could cost you if you stand up or take a stand or opt-in.

There might be something that would be of a nature that you go, I just don't know if I can do this.

Maybe you are where you are today because God has a plan for your life, and the decision you're making is an opt-in or opt-out decision.

Maybe you're like Mary today.

You were living life, following God, pursuing God, but God has a specific assignment for you.

And there's a nudging in your heart that you need to go a certain direction.

The sovereign God has tapped you and said, I have a plan.

I have a plan for you.

It's something personal, just geared right to you.

And I brought you to this day.

Will you opt in?

Maybe you're here, somebody brought you today, and you've never made a commitment of your life to Christ.

When I was 16 years old, I was my first opt-in opportunity with God.

I'd been in church, I knew all the religious stuff, but for the first time I heard that Jesus Christ was Lord and King, and He died to take my sins away.

It was an offer.

Do you want to receive Christ as the substitute for your penalty of sins?

I opted in.

If you've never opted in, you can do that today.

Maybe, maybe you know.

I know that God's been speaking something to me.

He's been speaking for a long time, and I've just been asking him, is there another way, God?

Is there another way?

Maybe today what you need to do is just say, God, you're sovereign.

Your plan is the right plan, and it's a good plan.

And I'm going to trust in you.

Would you bow your heads?

Let me just ask you, what's the Holy Spirit saying to you today?

God is ruler without equal.

The first time, good.

He's all good.

His power knows no end.

His presence is everywhere, but his rule is unchallenged.

You can take just a minute there and make an opt-in choice right now.

All you have to do is say, God, I'm in.

I respond to you.

Just like Joshua did.

Prostrate your heart before God and say, What is your command, O Lord, for me in this day?

Because you're sovereign King.

Father, I pray for every person here today.

I pray, Lord, that you would make us keenly aware of the opportunities that are before us.

Lord, we we just declare as a people that you have a plan, and your plan is marching toward an eternal conclusion.

And Lord, you even care about us, and you have determined an opportunity for us to participate in your plan.

Lord, help us to see it today.

And Lord, we just receive your work in Jesus' name.

Amen.