Well, today we are continuing our summer message series where, if you've been here, you know we've been talking about the attributes of God. We've covered a number of attributes of God already throughout this summer, but the one that we are going to talk about today has quite honestly, caused a little bit of a debate among some people. While it can be a great comfort to us, sometimes it can cause a lot of confusion about things, people can begin to doubt about how they reconcile this to what they know about God. But I trust that as we keep an open heart and we keep an open mind and we look at what scripture says about these things, that he will reveal His truth around this area that he wants us to know, and again, show us how it applies to our lives. The attribute that we are talking about today is God's attribute of sovereignty. God is sovereign. Now you heard a little bit earlier when Ashlyn was using that term, and no doubt that if you've been in church for a while, you've probably heard people use that term. You may have heard people say God is sovereign. But I wonder if there's anyone here this morning that would say, you know, I don't ever know if I really understood what that meant. I hear people say it all the time, but I've never studied, I've never thought about it. I don't even know what it means to say that God is sovereign. Well, I'm glad you asked, because we're going to look at that this morning. And here's the way that a few theologians and different pastors have defined God's sovereignty. God is the supreme ruler and authority. He ordains whatever comes to pass, and his divine purpose is always accomplished. This is Paul ends a W Tozer in the knowledge of the holy says God's sovereignty is the attribute which He rules his entire creation. And to be sovereign, he says that God must be all knowing, all powerful and absolutely free. And we've talked about some of those things already, and we'll continue to talk about them this morning. Here's the final one I want you to see. This is from Charles Ryrie in his book basic theology, and he says sovereignty means principle, Chief supreme. It speaks of first of position, which means God is the chief being in the universe. But then it speaks of power. God is supreme in power in the universe. God has a plan, he says, which is all inclusive, which he controls, which he includes, but does not involve him in evil, which ultimately is for the praise of his glory. And so God is sovereign. For God to be sovereign means that He is the supreme authority. To simplify it for the kids in the room. It means that God is the boss, right? He's the one in charge. He's ruling and reigning over all things now again, these are some definitions that people have come up with, and you see scripture references. They didn't come up with this on their own. They were certainly taking scripture into account. But let's now look at a few actual verses of what's said in Scripture about the way that God reveals this attribute about himself. First, let's look at Isaiah 46 because this is God speaking. And again, this is God's self revelation of Himself. And he says this, again, Isaiah, 46 I am God, and there is no other I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose. We see this in the book of Daniel. God does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand. Ephesians, 111 the apostle Paul, says God works all things according to the counsel of his will. Psalm, 103, the Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all again, he's ruling and reigning. Colossians. One, the apostle Paul says about Jesus, all things have been created through Him and for Him, He is before him, and all things hold together in Him, all things hold together. And then finally, job. We looked at this verse last week, but it applies here too. He says, I know that you can do all things. You're omnipotent, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. And so again, through all of these scripture passages, God reveals to us more about himself, his nature, his character. And one of those things that we see over and over in Scripture again is that he declares that he is sovereign, that he's the Supreme Being in all of the universe. God is ruling, and he's reigning, and he's directing things according to his plans. And nothing will ever be able to stop or thwart those plans. Now, when we think about this and we think about the other attributes that we've talked about, maybe it's helpful to even think about God's sovereignty in this way. We've talked about how God is omniscient, that He is all knowing, that he knows all things actual, and that he knows all things possible, and he knows them past, present and future. In one eternal act, we know that God is Omni sapient, which means that he is all wise. He doesn't just know all things. He knows how to take all of the information things that are actual impossible, and formulate that into the most wise plan possible for his creation that he created. And then finally, we've talked about God's omnipotence, and that He is all powerful. Not only does God have all the knowledge, not only does he have the wisdom to be able to formulate the plan, but it wouldn't mean anything if God wasn't powerful enough to carry out the plan that was the best plan for his creation and for our world. And so when you combine all of those things, you get God's sovereignty. Now, when we think about again God's sovereign plan, this idea that he came up with, that from his knowledge, one of the clearest places that we see references to that is when Peter is at Pentecost. Jesus has died on the cross. He has been raised from the dead, he's ascended back to heaven, and now he's sent the Holy Spirit. Things are going crazy, and people are wondering what's going on, and the apostle Peter stands up, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and declares to them, shares the truth about what is happening in this moment based on who God is in things that he had said before. And one of the things that the apostle Peter says during that speech to those who are there is this Acts two, verse 23 he says, This man was handed he's talking about Jesus. This man referencing Jesus. This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. He references God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, that God is sovereign that he has all the knowledge, all the wisdom, and he's put together an actual plan. And what was happening was that Jesus was being handed over to them, not according to their own plans and what they had hoped to accomplish, but according to God's deliberate plan, the one who was ruling and reigning above them all, and so we have to think about this now. We'll talk about this a little bit later. But he does declare that it's even with the help of wicked men involved, and that there were choices that are being made and and quite honestly, that's what one of the most confusing things for people are, that one of the things that they have the most questions about when we talk about the sovereignty of God, when we talk about him ruling, we talk about him reigning and involved in things and moving things along in some way. Then, does that mess with human choice? How do we reconcile those two things that we even see referenced here? So let's talk about that. Let's talk about what it means to for God to be sovereign, to be ruling and reigning in this idea of us having free choice. One of the questions that people have is, does God's sovereignty mean that human beings don't really have the freedom to choose? Does it mean is that God is like controlling everything in such a way that that the choices that we're making, or seem to be making on a daily basis are just some kind of an illusion. We're not really making choices. God's causing all things to happen in that way. Well, the answer to this found in Scripture, first and foremost, is that God talks about both being true. He talks about how we do have a choice in things, and how those choices matter, how we have responsibility in those things. I could take you to a number of scriptures, and we could read through a bunch of them, but let me just bring up one thing. Let me just highlight one thing, things that we see on the very opening pages of our Bible, when you look at Adam and Eve, when you look at the creation, and we see that God references that there were two trees, that there was a tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And what does God say to Adam and Eve, don't eat from that tree, the very fact that God had to tell them not to eat from that tree meant whatthey had a choice. They could have actually chosen to eat. Why in the world would they need to say don't eat from that tree if they didn't really have a choice to eat from the tree? So we see right off the bat that human choice. Choice is involved. Now what we need to think about when we're talking about choices is that God is after our heart. Let me say that again, God is after our heart. His heart is for us, his heart is for His creation. For God so loved the world, his heart was so for us that He gave His one and only son. Why? So that we could be forgiven and enter back into a relationship with Him that He desired his heart was to be in a relationship. God loves us with all of his heart, and He wants us as His creation to love him with all of our heart. And let me just tell you that requires choice. You can't force someone to genuinely love you. You can force them to act like they love you. A sovereign dictator could take a wife, right? He could force someone to marry him. He could demand that she do certain things that when all looking at them from an outward perspective would indicate that their acts of love would ultimately be revealed as acts of fear. I'm scared of what he could do to me being a sovereign ruler, so I'm going to sub Him, serve Him, and act like I love him in some way, but I'm really acting out of fear, not out of my heart for loving Him. God doesn't act like that when we're talking about his sovereignty, it's not some sovereign dictator where he's going. You will love me or else, because he knows that would not be genuine love. He wouldn't really have our hearts. There wouldn't be a real relationship that's happening in those ways. And we see this all over scripture. We see God in the Old Testament, through the prophet Hosea and in Gomer and the way he tells the story of of her prostituting herself and giving herself away, even though he's pursuing her out of His love and wants her heart in doing those things, she keeps running and he's making the parallel going you have left your first love, kind of like he references in Revelation with the church of of Ephesus. There, we know that God is love. It's not that we loved him, but he says it's that he first loved us. And so over and over and over again, we see that God's love is for us, his heart is for us, and his desire is for our heart to be his, and the only way genuine love can be expressed towards him is if he gives us a choice in the matter. And so what we're saying when it comes to this is that both things are true. It is true that God gives us choice. It is also true, stated in scripture that God is sovereign. Now, how those things play out? People have been arguing and fighting about forever. When you see the Bible talks about human choice, some people get really excited about that and say, hey, look, we have free choice, and they elevate free choice. And other people go, look, the Bible declares that God's sovereign, and they talk about and nothing they talk, all that they talk about is God's sovereignty, right? And they elevate the sovereignty. And then the person that's elevating the sovereignty and the one elevating free choice, they're doing what? Come on. Let's fight right? Let's argue about who's right about this. We have free choice. God's sovereign, and they can't both be true. Kind of thing. Over the last five or 600 years, we know that people have been arguing about that based on Calvinism and Arminianism. You know, one tries to elevate the sovereignty of God and the other the choice of God, both things that we see in Scripture, and they're going, we're right, and they're going, No, we're right, you're wrong. And it's just all this arguing and fighting, and we've still been doing that, even today. One of the things I appreciate about CHIP Ingram in his book The Real God is He addresses that, and let me just read to you what he said in his book really quickly. He says some forms, extreme forms of Calvinism, though well intentioned, guard God's sovereignty so protectively that it virtually eliminates human responsibility. It makes God a cosmic puppeteer and denies that we have any real choices. That's un biblical. He says, At the other end of the spectrum are extreme forms of Arminianism, also out of good intention, these attempts to guard free will and human responsibilities so that protectively, that it creates a God who is up in heaven, biting his nails, hoping everything will work out, just waiting for our decision so he can figure out what to do, both extremes. He say, says, violates scripture. Scripture teaches attention between the two. God is AB. Absolutely sovereign. No plan of his can be thwarted, and he is in control of all people, events and history. The Scripture also teaches that we are free moral agents who make decisions, and those decisions can impact things for eternity. How these two truths go together is a mystery. He says, either extreme will land you in a theological ditch, like two telephone poles that hold their wires in tension. At one end, you're responsible, and at the other end, God is sovereign. One brings great comfort, the other great responsibility. This is just the way we have to talk about these things. We see both of them talked about in Scripture, so we have to hold them both as being true. We won't ever be able to reconcile Calvinism and Arminianism, because they're both right in some way, and so we'll continue to be fighting about those things. And I know we would love to have direct answers in all these ways. But listen, I appreciate that I can't figure everything out that there is to know about God, and I'm pretty sure most of you do too, because if we could, he's not a very big God. Okay, so we talk about sovereignty, free will, choice, how that fits into play all the above. The other thing that people get all worked up about, then, okay, God's sovereign. Then what does that say about evil and suffering? If God is sovereign, in control of all things, then why is there evil in the world? I mean, if he's all knowing, and he's all wise, Surely he's wise enough to know that evil shouldn't even be here. And if he's powerful enough to make that happen, then why did he let that happen? And if so, does that mean, if He's sovereign, that God causes evil things to happen? So let's look at a couple of things that Scripture says about this. John one five says God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Psalm 54 for you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell in you. So God has no evil in Him. God cannot do evil things. We've already talked about God's attribute of goodness earlier in the summer. We'll get to God's attribute of love, but most of us know that's one of his attributes. We're going to dive into it way deeper and really talk about it then. But listen, God is good and God is love. He can only do things in alignment with his goodness and His love. And so when we see evil in our world, we have to go back to choice in some way, Satan was an angel of light, but made the choice to rebel against God. Adam and Eve had a choice to trust in God's provision and draw strength in life from the tree of life, but they chose to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and disobey Him and brought sovereignty in the world. But the thing that we have to recognize about this, even with choice involved, is that in God's sovereignty, he allowed for that sin and evil to happen even as a part of his good plan for His creation. See, that's the thing that we can't seem to reconcile. We go, Well, if he's sovereign, and he really knows all things, and he's good and he's wise, then he should know that evil shouldn't be a part of this world, that that would obviously be what's best for everyone, right? We don't have a category for go going, how could that be good, to allow that to be a part of your plan, in the way that you're moving things forward. Well, let's see if we can talk about that a little bit. Let's see if we can think about this a little bit more. How do you truly come to know God's goodness,if you've never experienced evil and suffering,how do you know that God can calm the storm.If you've never actually been in a storm.You see what I'm getting at here, like you can learn to appreciate it even more whenever those things come into play and you begin to experience that. One of the things that we talked about in the first service was this, let's answer this question for me, do you believe that you today in 2025 have it better than Adam and Eve did in the garden at the very beginning of all creation? Most people would answer no, no. That's ridiculous to think about. There was no sin involved. They were walking and talking with God. Things were perfect. How can you say that we possibly have it better than Adam and Eve today? Well, once again, let's go back to the question, how did they really know the goodness of God and His love for them without knowing or being involved with Eve? Evil in some way. How do they know what to compare it to? How do you know how good you've really got it if you don't experience the other end of that? So let's talk about it from our end. You know what evil looks like? I know what evil looks like. You've experienced that the world is broken. You know that you are broken. You've done evil things. I know that I've done evil things. I know that I don't deserve anything from a holy and a perfect God, yet you and I get to experience what the apostle Paul writes about in Romans chapter five eight, when he said, But God demonstrates His own love for us in this that while we were still sinners, Christdied for us.We get to live on the other side of the cross. We see, we see, we know thatthe God of the universe left the glory and the riches ofheaven to come here, to ultimately suffer and die for us, who are sinners, who know that we were deserving. We were completely deserving of what we got. We're deserving of His wrath, and now we get to experience His goodness and love in our lives and appreciate it even way more than Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had no category for the God of the universe ever going, I'm going to leave this place. I'm going to leave the glory and riches of heaven and come here and suffer and die brutally on a cross for you, but you and I know that today, we get to experience his love in a way that they didn't get to experience His love and goodness, knowing what evil and suffering is like and how he entered into evil and suffering all out of His goodness and His love for us. And so what we're saying is that God, again, is certainly not the author of evil. He doesn't cause evil to happen, but he allows for it in his sovereign plan, and he even uses it to accomplish his goodand loving purposes.Maybe it helps to think about it like one big chess game. I'm not a big chess player because I'm not really that good at it. Some of you may be really good at chess, and if you're not, you at least know, like I do, that there are some really good chess players, and these chess players can actually make moves in some way where they're so good and they can see so many things happening at once, and what one move is going to cause the other ones to have to do that, they can play certain things, knowing that the other person is going to eventually be led into their trap and going to lose the game. Now, they will still be making their choice to move when that person is thinking about it, they're going to choose in their own to put that thing here. But there's something happening above and beyond that. The master chess player is played that there. That's even though that's the choice that they're making, there's something going on. It's leading them to also be involved and make that choice to this ultimate trap here. And so maybe, if we think about God being the ultimate chess player against Satan in the game of life, that he is able to know all things have the best plan possible and all the information that we talked about, to be able to make moves in such a way that leads Satan to his eventual trap. Now, Satan will be making those choices. He'll be making those moves to cause evil. He'll be making those moves to cause destruction, to steal, kill and destroy. But even though that's what he's making those choices to do and will experience the pain of those things above and beyond that will experience God working in and through it for our good and for His glory. That will lead to his ultimate trap. God, again, going back to wanting our hearts and his attention to live in an intimate relationship with us knows that we were created for dependency upon him. When we think about the activity of Satan and spiritual warfare, God can work even in and through that to do what, oh my gosh, I have to depend on Jesus. Now we get to experience what we were created for the dependence of God that we couldn't experience in a way if we didn't enter into that evil and enter into that suffering, and have to cling to him and go, Oh, I've got to really lean on you as the vine and me being the branch. We just read when we talk about these two things in play, just to highlight it again, where Peter was talking in Acts and Pentecost and saying, This man, Jesus was handed over to you by his deliberate plan and foreknowledge. But what with the help of what wicked men? Wicked men were acting in their choices. They made the choice. Their choice was evil. I'm going to do this to Jesus. Jesus. He doesn't deserve this. He's not the best plan for us. We're going to cause destruction and all the things that we want to but God was allowing that to happen because he had a bigger plan above it all, working with the choices in the evil involved to accomplish the most beautiful thing that we'll ever experience, and that is the cross and his resurrection so that we can be in that union with Him. Now, the thing that I want to just make a few more points about before we finish is that when we talk about God's plan, we talk about him working with choices. When we talk about him working with evil and suffering in the way that he did in the lives of Jesus to deliver him and bring him, bring that forth to us. It doesn't just stop there. God is involved in his plan, in doing this for each one of us, as well as part of his creation. One of the most famous places that we see this, and your mind probably went there, when you think about God's sovereignty, and you think about his choices, is the life of Joseph in the Old Testament, I mean, Joseph experienced suffering. He experienced evil as the result of choices that his brother made that would cause destruction. And he was thrown into a pit to die, and he was taken into slavery, and he was falsely accused of things, thrown into jail, and eventually, though, he was made second in command of all of Egypt, and when he encountered his brothers, after all of those things, we know that in Genesis, 5020, he said, guys, I know that you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. We see all those things in play. There were choices that were being made. They had intentions. There was an evil intent to cause destruction. But even though all those things were in play in the lower story of things, God in his upper story was going this has to happen. This is going to happen because it's going to lead to him being in charge. And then we're going to save lives through those things. And then the Israelite nation is going to be moving in and beyond this into all the things that we see in the Old Testament, where eventually Jesus would come through the Israelite nation, and how he would save all of humanity, all the way even back to these things that we see him doing and allowing through other people's choices in this way. And so again, all that to say that when we talk about God's sovereignty, it still allows for our choices in some way, and it also brings purpose in and through the evil and the suffering that we face in this world. And listen, we won't always get to see that. We won't always know what God is up to. There are going to be times where we look out at things in the world and just go, it seems like absolute chaos. Maybe you felt that way over the last five or six years. I mean, from the time that we entered into this thing called COVID and the way it disrupted our entire life, things have never quite been the same since things have been weird on a number of different levels. It caused a lot of people to doubt God, and there ever being a god and walking away from their faith or ever returning to church, and then we experience things happening in our economy and our political system and all the things we just feel like everything is just intention right now, and you just go, I don't even know if there is a God, and if there is, if He's sovereign and working a plan, it can't be this. This can't be good. But here's the thing that we get to sometimes God is gracious enough to pull back the curtain and reveal what it is that he's been up to, even during that time. And one of the things that we're starting to see is some data come forth that shows us what God was up to during that time. I don't know if you saw this or not, but a few months ago, the latest Barna Research came out, and what it's revealed is that there has been a 12% overall increase in the number of people that have come to know Christ and had their lives transformed and changed since 2021 and the majority of those people happen to be in Gen Z and our millennials. All Yes, right. But if you were to look out over the last four or five years, and you were to be thinking about all the things that have been happening, you would have been going, this is chaos. This is terrible. We feel the frustration. We feel all the stuff that we're walking and going through. And we see all the things of people walking away from their faith and denouncing God and all of these things. But now we're starting to get evidence that God had allowed all of those things to happen in order to cause us to somehow go, Oh my gosh, there must be more. I'd put all my faith and hope in the economy. I'd put it in my health. I'd put it in things just going smoothly, in the 401 K that I had, and all of us being a. Of the same church and politics, doing a certain thing and always supposed to be this way and that way, and those were the ultimate things that we're putting all our faith in. And God is going I need, I've been working in that to stir those things up and allow you to feel it more, to cause you to go those things are not ultimate. And when we realize that those things aren't ultimate. It opens people up to God and going, what is ultimate? And then He reveals Himself to them, and now more and more people are coming to know Him. Guys, God is on the move right now, and it wasn't like he wasn't on the move before, but he was at work in allowing us to feel things in a little bit of a different way, so it would open us up a little bit more to what it is that he's doing right now. And so when we think about the sovereignty of God and His plan and how he moves things along, and where we're at in history, and we start to get a sense that God is up to something in the lives of our young people and all throughout the world, then what is our response to that? Good job? God, boy, you're doing great. Keep it up. All right, I'm sit back here and just let you do your thing. No to enter into it and go, Oh my gosh, I am part of your family. I'm part of your kingdom work. I'm one of your instruments. I get to be involved in what it is that you're doing right now in this world, and this is a time that you seem to be working and moving and stirring things up for our good and for your glory. And so yes, Lord, here I am. Send me. I want to be a part of that. Let's enter into it, not just individually, but as a church, right? This is a response to God being sovereign, working a plan and our choice to go. Here I am. I'm available. I can't wait to see what you're going to do in and through me and in us, through us as a church, because you are shaking things up right now. Or we can go, Gosh, and our economy just isn't the same as it was. Ah. Politics just seems to be so different right now, our world's crazy. It's not like it used to be, and just on and on and on or go, Oh my gosh.Bible tells us that God is sovereign and working a plan, and he's working that plan, and we're seeing evidence of it today. And so let's make ourselves available and join in with him.