God IS Sovereign

I was listening to a message today about the sovereignty of God by Pastor Mike Fabarez from Compass Bible Church. I was so encouraged and exhorted and thought I would expound upon exactly what I so desperately needed to be reminded of in prayer that it too may encourage you!!

GOD IS SOVEREIGN! We hear it all the time but what does sovereignty even mean? God retains ALL rights and exercises supreme and ultimate authority over everything and everyone. 1 Timothy 6: 13-16 talks about the fact that God is the creator of ALL and therefore He is sovereign. And that He is the KING OF KINGS and the LORD OF LORDS. For example the illustration between the potter and the clay. The potter gets to exercise all rights over the clay. God is one who retains all rights! The problem is many Christians do not like this because we don't like to "give our rights" so to speak to anyone.

GOD HAS A PLAN! He actually has an involved part in His creation and He is working His plan out. God decrees things...it is not the doing it is the planning. If God plans it, He does it! For example...Isaiah 14: 23-27, He says He is going to turn her (Babylon) into a place for owls and a swampland, He will sweep her away with the broom of destruction says Yaweh...He promises that he has surely planned and purposed this...the working out of the plan is the powerful authoritative involvement in history. And what happened? The Assyrian empire was defeated, look in history! Most Christians would agree here that God was sovereign but the moment we have to apply it to ourselves we have a hard time believing it. I can say He is sovereign over Babylon and Assyria, but is he really sovereign over my life? Didn't I have a part of this? Like Nebuchadnezzar you think you have a part but the truth is that it wasn't you, even the kings get their authority from God (Romans 13). So what about us and our salvation?? It is true even here. Look at Ephesians 1: 3-12...God had predestined and choose His kids from BEFORE the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight (imputed righteousness). He choose you before you were born, before your grandparents were born, before the earth was created! This leaves no room for pride. To say it was your decision is to say that it was the decision of a deceased person coming back from the dead. You and God are not co-pilots! He is the ONLY pilot! Your will is inferior. Our will is contingent on God's will.

EVEN BAD THINGS ARE PART OF HIS GOOD PLAN! Don't we teach that to ourselves and others when we are suffering? Romans 8:28 right?! Joseph said to his brothers, you meant it for evil but God meant it for good. Lamentations 3: 22-40, this is a negative passage where God responds to negative stuff. You know that this talks about the decrees and planning of God and that even the bad things He works together for the good. We have all heard the saying "why do bad things happen to good people?" THEY DON'T...bad things happen to bad people. The point is we are all dead in our transgressions and sins, the amazing thing is that God would choose any of us for salvation, not that God would not choose some because we are all bad people, no one is good no not one!

So understanding that God is sovereign and in control should bring comfort and rest to our souls in knowing that the God of the universe is ultimately working in and through our lives for his purposes despite our circumstances and all that seems to be going on around us.