sermonette: Sovereignty and Choice

If God is Sovereign, Why Does Everything Matter?
David C. Grabbe
Given 26-Nov-16; Sermon #1352s; 18 minutes

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The Bible contains a number of principles that at first glance appear to be contradictory. The reason for this appearance is that mankind does not have the same understanding as the author of the Book. It is common for man to hobble his own understanding through what is called binary thinking. Binary thinking is a mental model in which only two alternatives exist. There is only choice A or B. Some 15 years ago we heard the famous statements, “You are either with us or you are with the terrorists.”

In the last year this nation has experienced something similar in its politics where if one was not completely supportive of candidate B, then one must be a supporter of candidate A. In binary thinking, there is no middle ground, no overlap, and no other way of looking at the matter.

One common example of binary thinking and religion is the matter of law and grace. Carnal man considers law and grace to be contradictory. We regularly hear from subscribers that if one believes in keeping the Sabbath, for example, then one cannot believe in grace. In their carnal reasoning, it does not occur to them that law and grace work together.

There is another apparent paradox of principles that we are going to look at today, one that we have, I am sure all wrestled with at some point.

On the one hand, we have God's sovereignty, which you may have heard about a time or two. God is the supreme power in and over His creation, and nothing happens without His permission. We can add to this that not only is God absolute in authority, but He is also very closely involved in the lives of His children, directing events toward the end that He has determined. Right now He is upholding all things by the word of His power. In addition, we have been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.

On the other hand, underneath this awesome canopy of God's power and purpose, we have man as a free moral agent. Man is commanded to choose, and because of this, as you have also heard a time or two, everything in life matters. God gave mankind an Instruction Manual to follow. He warns against adding to it or subtracting from it and declares that none of His instructions has passed away. And since His instructions cover every facet of life in some way, everything that we do matters, if only in our approach.

The question arises, if God is sovereign, why does it matter what any of us do? Or, on the other hand, if what we do is so important, then where is God's place in His creation? At times we are challenged to reconcile these two principles.

Think about these verses: God is not willing that any should perish, and yet we are told that some will perish. We also have consistent warnings against falling away, against being deceived, against straying from the path that God has placed us on. God is not willing that any should perish, and yet many of us have witnessed apostasy, and we have seen spiritual understanding die out.

Our Creator God is the Head of the church, and yet we see doctrinal disputes and sectarianism, and God does not seem to be straightening these things out.

Christ works all things according to the counsel of His will, and yet we see things that are far out of alignment with His character and purpose.

All things work together for good for those called by God, but we are warned to make our calling and election sure.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, and yet one of Paul's companions, Demas, was separated through his love of the world.

In Psalm 139, David says that all of his days are written in God's book, and yet in Psalm 90, Moses says to teach us to prioritize our days so that we may have a heart of wisdom.

Not only does God's sovereignty and mankind's responsibilities sometimes appear to be striving for the same position, but any approach which takes one principle to an extreme and leaves out the other can lead us off the path to the Kingdom.

Today we are going to study an approach that should keep us from falling into either extreme of either neglecting our responsibilities through delegating them to God, or of taking on prerogatives that God retains to Himself.

One extreme looks at the sovereignty of God and concludes that individual choice and personal responsibility are essentially irrelevant. This is seen in teachings of hyper-grace or eternal security, wherein it is believed that Jesus Christ either has done or will do everything for us. In this view, everything that happens was caused to happen by God. This view has trouble differentiating between what God has permitted to occur, and what is actually pleasing to Him. Since God has it all in His hands, there is little thought given to personal responsibility. In this extreme, nothing really matters because God will take care of it all.

The other extreme places such <sound file error> matters so much that we have to manage everything that comes into our lives. We slide into this extreme when our focus is on our own will and our own efforts and what God thinks is pushed aside. Anytime we get up a head of steam toward what we want to do without genuinely seeking God's will, we are in danger of letting free moral agency become the sovereign. In this extreme, prayer loses its significance because we neither recognize our own need, nor acknowledge our limitations. Faith in God is absent because we believe it is up to us to make it all happen.

Now I mentioned Psalm 90 where Moses highlights our need for wisdom. And this is the approach that we are going to study. Within what the Scriptures teach about wisdom, we find a very hopeful intersection between God's sovereignty, and mankind's responsibility to choose. There are areas that God has given us responsibility over, and there are other areas that He has not, and spiritual maturity involves properly discerning which is which.

Please turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 4.

Deuteronomy 4:5-6 "Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'

So here is a foundational element of wisdom. It is carefully observing the instructions of God. Verse 5 mentions statutes and judgments, but in the larger context, what is in view is every word that has come from God. In short, wisdom comes from careful obedience. We could add what it says in Psalm 111:10 that those who do God's commandments have a good understanding. We could also add Psalm 19:7, which says that God's Word changes one's life. It makes the simple wise. It causes rejoicing because of the abundance, and it enlightens our eyes. Those are significant events that come from heeding God's Word.

It is worth noting though that godly wisdom does not happen overnight. Wisdom is developed through the consistent practice of God's Word, for that is how our hearts are made new, and our minds are directed in the right channels.

Now consider this in terms of God's sovereignty and our choices.

God in His sovereignty has revealed the way to live. His revelation contains the same principles of life that He lives by, and in His superlative wisdom, He knows that His instructions will bear the best fruit. If we therefore claim God as our sovereign, then our responsibility is to be careful to observe everything that He has given. God's sovereignty does not mean we get to coast. It means we are duty bound to do what He has said.

Wisdom comes in choosing to follow His entire revelation. Because our God is our sovereign, everything we do matters. This seems so simple. And yet, look at the typical resistance even to this basic concept. Untold billions have claimed Jesus as their Savior but then repudiate His sovereignty by rejecting what He says. It is as if they claim Him in order to be saved from what He says to do. On this point, Jesus quotes Isaiah as saying, these people draw near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. A false Christianity shakes its collective head at the Jews who are in focus there but then lives as if God's grace undermines God's sovereignty. Yet Moses says wisdom is to be found in careful observance, because one's life is tied to living by every Word.

The second element of wisdom is found in Proverbs chapter 15.

Proverbs 15:33 The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility.

This is found in several other places, and this repeated link in the Scriptures between wisdom and the fear of God likewise helps us to discern both God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. If we fear, honor, and respect God's sovereignty over us and the rest of His creation, that will give definite boundaries to our thoughts and thus to our choices. This helps us in steering clear of misjudging God's sovereignty because one of the extremes is to only consider God's sovereignty in terms of benevolence towards us, as if His only purpose is to make things nice for us personally.

Yet if we approach God's sovereignty with the proper fear, we will remember that His sovereignty includes both goodness and severity, and that our choices play a significant role in how God exercises His sovereignty in our lives.

Now this does not mean that God is just waiting to smash us for every stumble, but neither does it mean that God is indulgent and will shield us from all consequences. Our salvation probably will not be abandoned through a single choice, but it certainly can be given up through a series of choices over time.

Not only does each choice become part of our character, but it can also hobble us in our spiritual walk, such that it gets harder to keep on choosing life and harder to remember why we are doing what we are doing.

Now this verse also brings in another crucial element of wisdom, which is humility. We will see the same thing in Proverbs chapter 11, verse 2.

Proverbs 11:2 When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom.

Wisdom and genuine humility go hand-in-hand but so do pride and shame. This is similar to what happens when the proper fear of God is neglected. What will inevitably be produced by pride will always be damaging, perhaps not immediately, but certainly down the road as the chickens come home to roost. Humility comes from a clear though painful recognition of who and what we are in relation to the sovereign God. The greater our respect for God's sovereignty, the humbler our responses become both toward Him and toward our fellow man. As we grow in humility, we realize just how much every word and deed do matter, and it creates in us a desire to navigate life like Christ, who was the epitome of wisdom.

The flip side though is that when we think too highly of ourselves, God's sovereignty loses its gravity with us, and we make choices based on our own wisdom rather than God's. We may skirt the consequences for a while, but God says here through Solomon that the fruit of pride is always shame.

Similarly, Proverbs 3:7 admonishes us not to be wise in our own eyes. Proverbs 26:12 is even stronger, saying (paraphrased), “There is more hope for a fool than for a man who is wise in his own eyes.”

Speaking of pride, Proverbs 13:10 tells us that by pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well advised is wisdom. A matter of being well advised is the subject of our next element, which is found in Proverbs 12.

Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise.

This is a remarkable statement considering who wrote it. Solomon had the corner on the market when it came to wisdom, and that wisest of men says it is wisdom to heed counsel. None of his counselors had the God-given wisdom that he did, and yet he writes that there is wisdom in heeding counsel or advice, rather than standing on one's own wisdom.

Now this relates to the wisdom of humility because the very act of seeking out advice involves acknowledging that there are limits to our understanding, and gaps in our worldview. It can be difficult for our ego to admit that we do not have all the answers but therein lies wisdom. Because our choices matter, we need help in making the right ones. Solomon says that includes being well advised and heeding counsel. We should never forget that our greatest counselor is God Himself, and yet He may give His counsel through another servant. In either case, the wisdom of humility is needed for the wisdom of heeding council.

Finally, please turn with me to Proverbs chapter 17.

Proverbs 17:24 Wisdom is in the sight of him who has understanding, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.

In other words, the focus of the first man is on acting in wisdom, while the focus of the second is on his own horizons, his own ambitions, his own desires. The ESV says, “The discerning man sets his face toward wisdom.” Wisdom is not some esoteric philosophy that we have to climb Mount Everest to achieve. It is nearby and available to us when we turn ourselves toward it, especially since God says that He is pleased to give it to us if we will acknowledge that we lack it. This is contrasted with the fool whose eyes and thoughts are all over creation because he is not satisfied with the true wisdom that is available. In his unsettledness, he keeps looking for something that matches what he already believes rather than yielding to what is wise and yet may be uncomfortable.

Wisdom entails the proper fear of God's sovereignty plus careful observance and humility. And this is what allows us to make the best choices.

As we have seen, there is no contradiction between God's sovereignty and man's choice. They are both part of our spiritual reality and both necessary for taking on the image of God.