God’s Sovereignty - Part 1
God’s sovereignty has enormous practical importance. It is because God is sovereign that He can keep His promises to us. Nobody can trick Him. Nobody can defeat Him. Nobody can make Him do what He doesn’t want to do. It is because God is sovereign that we can trust in Him.
Sovereignty is a word that means supreme power and authority over a particular area. And since God created the universe, when we say God is sovereign, we are saying that God has supreme power and authority over the universe that He created. And God is in fact sovereign. He has dominion. He has the power and the right to control everything. In Hebrew we pray, “Baruch atah Adonai elohenu melech ha olam,” “Blessed are you O Lord, our God, King of the universe.” Another translation of this would be “Blessed are you O Lord, our God, King of eternity.” God is the ultimate ruler over time and space. He is King over the heavens. He is King over the Earth. He is King over everything.
The God of the Bible is the God of all power. The Bible says, “And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns” (Revelation 19:6).
God’s sovereignty is based on His omnipotence. Omnipotence is a word that means that God is all-powerful. In other words, God can do anything that is consistent with His nature. But He cannot lie, He cannot die, He cannot change, and He cannot be tempted with evil. Let me give you chapter and verse for that.
God cannot lie. Titus 1:2 says that God cannot lie.
God cannot die. First Timothy 6:16 says that God is immortal.
God cannot change. James 1:17 says that with God “ there is no variation or shadow cast by turning” (HCSB).
God cannot be tempted with evil. James 1:13 says, “God cannot be tempted with evil”
So we see that God cannot lie. He cannot die. He cannot change. He cannot be tempted with evil, or in other words, He cannot be tempted with wickedness. But when we preach about what God will and won’t do, it is important to line up our teaching with the Word of God, because God doesn’t think the same way we do. In Isaiah 55:8, God says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.
Right about now, you may be wondering why I’m re-hashing these basic Bible truths. They need to be restated because there are so many preachers out there who are ignoring what the Bible actually says in order to preach what they wish it said. People seem to have forgotten that God does what He wants, and not necessarily what we want. And sometimes our desire to get our own way interferes with our ability to interpret scripture.
Coming Thursday: Can we actually boss God around?
Margot Armer
