The Real God - The Sovereignty Of God, Part 1

These days, if you said, there's only one true God, you'd probably get some pretty quick confrontational questions like, who says so, or what makes you think your God is better than all the other gods?

How would you answer that question? Well, today I'm going to tackle it head on. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this daily discipleship program. I'm Dave Drouy, and we're in Chip's series, The Real God, talking about seven key characteristics that describe who God really is. The first characteristic Chip dug into was God's goodness. Now, if you missed it, you can catch up any time on the Chip Ingram app. In this program, he looks at the sovereignty of God. He approaches this massive topic with some practical insight that casts a whole new light on God's authority. After the teaching, Chip will wrap up with a few personal points of application, so be sure to stay with us for that.

Now, with this talk from Romans chapter eight, here is Chip. Everybody has a job, and there's parts of it that you sort of pinch yourself and say, wow, I can't believe I ever got to do that. And for me, it has been probably traveling to places around the world that as a young kid in central Ohio, I just never even kind of knew were there. And one occasion was a number of years ago, I was flying from Beijing to Hong Kong, and Annie and Theresa were with me, and they were separated like 20 rows somewhere, and this will surprise some of you, but sometimes I get in a talkative mood. Because I traveled a lot, I just found if you could say, hi, how are you?

You know, that was delicious. Just six, seven, eight phrases in five or six different languages, it really helps people connect. So I just thought, you know, I'm gonna probably say hi and how are you in Chinese, and then I'm gonna open my Bible and do some work. So there was a lady right next to me in early 30s, I think, and it gave her my best Chinese hi, how are you. And the answer just shocked me in the clearest British accent. I'm quite good, actually.

How about yourself? And I just noticed that she had very finely manicured hands. Her briefcase was at her feet and it was monogrammed, it was leather. Just from the jewelry that she had on and the very pristine business suit, I was aware, just like, I think she's probably a pretty successful businesswoman. And I think she saw my Bible and some dialogue begin to happen, and I've spent the next two hours explaining to her my best understanding of who God really is, the gospel, but I'd never ever, this was like one of those conversations of a lifetime, I'd never met someone who for the first 23 to 25 years knew nothing of God. She grew up in Beijing, her parents were a part of the cultural revolution.

God was outlawed completely. Her parents had some level of education and so they were discriminated against and they were made street sweepers. She was really intelligent, so, you know, less than 1% could get a college education.

She passed all the tests, did her undergraduate work in Beijing, did graduate work in Europe, and then she was in a multinational company in London and from all the externals, it was obvious she'd been very, very successful. And so if you can imagine someone who's had no concept of God, there is no God, who then gets educated and then had a very humble, very humble financial socioeconomic beginning and now found herself for about the last eight or ten years in London, multinational corporation, and she now was like exposed to this world that she didn't know existed and she was beginning to explore various truth claims and various religions and our conversation was different than anyone that I'd ever had because, you know, I began to explain just a little and she paused and it wasn't, you know, like antagonistic and it wasn't like, you know, prove this to me. It was like someone with a desire to know and she said, well, I've been doing lots of reading in the last ten years and I studied the world religions and different philosophies.

Would you explain to me why your God is better than all other gods? But not, it wasn't like, you know, hands on her hips. It was like a child who'd never heard and said, you seem to make sense. Would you please help me understand?

And, you know, it was one of those moments like oh God, please help me. And I explained to her the character of God, that there was a creator and that she was deeply loved and she's made in His image and there was a fall and the suffering in the world and all of us are separated and God the Son came and has died in her place, rose from the dead, He's a redeemer and He loved her, He had a new life and it's a free gift and, you know, for two hours, I mean, I'm just, you know, hmm, hmm, you know, and she was just leaning forward and, you know, taking notes and I gave it my best shot and I always had this thought, I thought if, this is not going to happen by the way, if like she would walk through that door right now, what I would say is, you know, I sort of did that on the fly but I've had some time to prepare now and I'd really like to make it a lot clearer about why I worship the one, the only, the sovereign God of the universe and on the front of your notes, if she would walk in that door, this is what I would share with her. I would tell her that the reason I think my God, the creator God, the unique God, the one and only God is better than all other gods, all other religions and all of the truth claims is because He's before all things, He created all things, He upholds all things by the word of His power, He's above all things, He actually knows all things actual and possible, He controls all things, He can do all things, He accomplishes all things, He rules over everything and He's in control even of prime ministers and nations and kings, He's actually in control of the visible and the invisible, He's the alpha and the omega, He is outside of time, He's the all-knowing, infinite, self-sufficient, holy, loving creator of all that is and ever will be and He loves you.

I worship the sovereign God of the universe, His purposes cannot be thwarted, He has a purpose for your life, for nations, for peoples, that's why. And then I would have her read all those passages that I gave you on the front of your notes very, very slowly and as you open your notes, I put those purposefully and they can feel very overwhelming but here's something, if you would care to do this because we're going to talk about the sovereignty of God and there's some pretty significant intellectual issues about the sovereignty of God, there's some pretty big biblical issues about the sovereignty of God but when we finish, I believe what God would want you to get more than anything else is that perhaps the most comforting aspect of the character of the God that you serve is the sovereignty of God, that in the midst of a fallen world and pain and difficulty and mystery and things you don't understand and mistakes that you will make and I will make and betrayals and hurts and things that happen in a world of terrorism and the sex trade, of radical Islam, of upside down economics and corruption, I believe the most comforting attribute of God is that He's sovereign. So what I want to do is I want to give you sort of some intellectual aspects and I want to give you some biblical background but then I want to share what I think is the Bible's story of the sovereignty of God that's heart and intention was to comfort you and to answer the big question of life is if there is a good God and if He really cares, how can there be so much evil and suffering?

And what you're going to see is that for a season in a limited way, God will allow evil and He'll actually flip it and use it for good for those that are called, for those that love Him, for those that walk with Him. So as you open your notes, I thought I would give a definition of sovereignty because maybe some of you are like me, I've never heard the word. I was a new Christian, a Christian maybe a year, year and a half and a good friend was in an accident in our college campus. He was best friends with my roommate and he was in intensive care, he was paralyzed from the waist down, the doctors told us that there was very little chance he would live, he had internal bleeding and all I remember, I was a young Christian and I remember down in the emergency room and Frank was just screaming, I can't feel my legs, I can't feel my legs and about 20 of us college students, we prayed for him there, then we went up to the chapel and we just begged God for two days to save his life and God intervened but I remember as we were praying, a girl that was far more spiritual and mature than me, I remember just vividly her saying, God I thank you that in the midst of all of this that you're sovereign, that we can trust you, that you're in control and I don't know if you've ever been in a prayer meeting where someone was praying and they said something and you thought, I don't know what that means and so I was definitely not going to ask the girl so I asked a friend, I said you know when she was praying, thank you God that he's sovereign, what's that mean? I mean maybe I just had a bad education, I'd never heard that word before, I'd never heard anyone say God is sovereign and so notice sometimes the dictionary is a great place to do Bible study, the word sovereign means above all, superior to all, the greatest, the supreme in rank and power, holding a position of authority, a ruler, excellent, reigning, a person who possesses sovereign authority and specific like a monarch or a ruler and I put some synonyms down there that help me to think of, it's the ultimate authority, it's the king of kings, it's the lord of lords, it's someone who is completely without equal that is absolutely free in the universe, that's the God that you serve, he's the unique one, the creator, he's all powerful, he's all knowing, he's all wise, he's all loving, he's completely holy, he's infinite, he's self-sustaining, he needs no one, before there was time, before there were planets, before there was existence, he was before, he will be after, he is the sovereign ruler, king, creator of all that is, of all that ever was and that all will ever be, that's a huge, that's a huge statement about who you serve. I tried to take what I've learned about the sovereignty of God and put it in a couple paragraphs to summarize, the sovereignty of God is that which separates the God of the Bible from all other religions, truth claims and philosophies. We say God is sovereign, we declare that by virtue of his creatorship over all of life and reality, his all-knowing, all-powerful and benevolent rule, that he is in fact the lord of lords and the king of kings and in absolute control of time and eternity. Think of that, you might underline that, he's in absolute control of time and eternity and then put a little squiggly line under the last one because here's where the comfort comes, nothing will come into my life today that he did not either allow or decree for my ultimate good.

Nothing today, nothing ever, doesn't mean it's easy. People do terrible things, in a fallen world, terrible things happen but if God is sovereign, he either decrees this is his will or it is allowed and if I will cooperate and trust him, he will actually take the very worst that can happen in your experience and mine, the mate that walks out, the cancer that brought death, the drunk driver that went left of center, the wayward son, the wayward donner, the betrayal by a business partner, the upside down financial experience, the loss of a house, even terrorism, God says I'm in control of it all and I don't keep my people from the effects of a fallen world but I will use, I will use these things as you would trust me and go through the pain and lean in and let me love you through them, I will ultimately use them for your good and if you ever get that and it's a huge faith statement because in your pain and difficulty and betrayal, it is really hard to believe that but the Bible's clear on that. How do we know that? I've given you four or five things about how God reveals his sovereignty and I would encourage you to find one of these old things that force you to turn pages and go to where it says he's above all things and look up the verse and read it slowly. He's in control of all things and just read through each of those passages very very slowly and I think what you'll experience is your view of God will get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and there'll be phrases that he created all things and through him all things and for him all things, thrones and dominions and powers, his purposes aren't thwarted, you'll get this larger and larger and larger picture of God and faith is always rooted in the character of God and the promises that he makes and if you don't have a clear accurate picture of God, you can't trust him and if you have a small God, you'll always have big overwhelming problems but if you have a big big God, then little by little those problems, they won't be less painful but they'll be smaller and smaller in the perspective of a sovereign God who made you for himself but made you for eternity, not just this little window of time. So let's go through some of the intellectual, this is the proof of God's sovereignty and then we'll talk about some heart relationships. First of all, he reveals his sovereignty through his titles. Sovereign Lord, Most High, Alpha and Omega, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, you don't have to believe in the Bible, the Bible's very clear, God's not looking for any teammates, he's not looking for any syncretism, he's saying I am above all other gods.

Second, his promises demand that he's sovereign. Romans 8, 28, a very familiar passage says, for we know that God works all things together for the good for those that love him and that are called according to his purposes. Now that means if God's gonna work everything for good, he needs to know every situation of every person and every circumstance and every motive to weave it in a way that will work out for your ultimate good.

In Philippians chapter two, we get God's ultimate plan for God the Son. And in chapter two, verses nine through 11, it says, therefore God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Those in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Angels, demons, believers, unbelievers, everything that has ever been created, there will come a day and there will either voluntarily out of relationship or involuntarily out of power, every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Lord of lords and King of kings. You have to be sovereign in order to make a statement like that.

You gotta be in control. The third way that God reveals his sovereignty is through prophecy. I don't know if you've thought of this, but especially when this book was written or came to a close, and still a huge portion, one third of all the Bible's prophetic. One out of every three verses is God telling us in the future, specifically, without error, 100% of the time, this is what's going to happen. And it gives you tremendous confidence because he is the alpha and the omega. In the time of Israel, as today, there was competing gods, and so God made this challenge speaking through Isaiah in Isaiah 44, six through eight. He says, this is what the Lord says, Israel's king and redeemer. And notice how he identifies himself. The Lord of hosts or the Lord of heaven's armies, I am the first and the last, there is no other God. That's pretty clear.

Who is like me? Rhetorical question. The answer is no one. But he's throwing out a challenge. Let him step forward and prove to you his power. So in other words, okay, there's Baal, there's Molech, there's all these gods, there's all this competition, okay. Let him step, now here's the test. Let him do as I have done since ancient times, when I established the people and explained its future. So what he's saying is, I've told you in advance this is going to happen, this is going to happen, this is going to happen. And the challenge to these other gods is this.

Don't tremble or be afraid. He said, did I not proclaim my purposes for you long ago? You are my witnesses, is there any other god?

No, there is no other rock, not one. And the challenge is, if your God can tell the future with 100% accuracy all the time, then let him step up and do it because from ancient times that's what I've done. And I was a skeptic, I didn't believe the Bible growing up, I wasn't a Christian growing up, I struggled to believe whether I could trust the scriptures, all the things that you hear about, you know, is it like playing telephone and they were written so long ago, I didn't know about the Dead Sea Scrolls, I didn't understand about archeology, I've since done lots and lots of study, but for me the tipping point on the authority of scripture is prophecy.

Let me give you, I would, we've got a whole series called Why I Believe that develops this, and I'm really, because I was a skeptic, it was so helpful. But to me the greatest picture of that is Daniel's chapter seven through 12. And we won't get the whole, let me just give you the gist of it. Daniel is taken, you know, Israel disobeys God, if you know sort of your history of Israel, and God promised that when you disobey me, I'm going to scatter you, and they go into captivity, they go into Babylon. So Daniel is bright, and so they would take the young and the best, and they would put him in the king and they would want to try to brainwash him. And so Daniel ends up in three different dynasties, and he just, each time he ends up as an official with authority. And so Daniel is a very, very godly teenager, all the way through, in fact, you might be interested to know that when he's in the lion's den, he's 80 years old. And so he's in the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, and then when they get taken out, each time God gives him favor. So as the 70 years that God said there would be, Daniel's praying. And Daniel's asking God, this is a very tremendous passage, and God reveals to a human being, and in Daniel 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, in those chapters, God reveals to Daniel the next four major kingdoms that would come, identifies them very, very specifically, okay, everything will be followed by the Medo-Persians, the Medo-Persians, there'll be a great ruler and the Greeks will take over, they will have a great ruler that will take over the world, and then it'll break into four parts, the great ruler was Alexander the Great, it broke into four parts with four different generals, then the Romans will take over, and so I mean hundreds of years of specific prophecy in advance, so much so, that liberal scholars, when they read the book of Daniel, they try and date it hundreds of years later than it was actually written, because there's no answer for, how could anyone know those things?

And know them with such specificity. And so what God is saying is, you can know I'm sovereign, because I don't just tell you that like Cyrus, 100 years before Cyrus was born, God said he would be the king that would allow captivity and deliverance when they went back to rebuild Jerusalem and the wall. But all through scripture, God says, I know the end from the beginning, because I'm in control, my purposes can't be thwarted. The fourth way, not only through titles, promises, and prophecy, but through Christ. I mean his life is a picture of the sovereignty of God, his supernatural birth, and I don't mean just by a virgin, I mean, just think of this, just try and be a skeptic with me just for a minute and think about, okay, there's been lots of people, lots of leaders, lots of truth claims, here's a rabbi, a young rabbi who starts his ministry at 30 and has about a three year run.

He travels maybe 30 to 50 miles from his home. He doesn't have an established religious environment, he's actually a revolutionary. There's no technology, 80% of the known world is illiterate, there's nothing in writing. How in the world does one rabbi, without technology, without satellites, without putting things in print, how in the world does that one person turn the whole world upside down? In the first century, he turns the world upside down, by the way, a great book, a guy named Rodney Stark has written two books, he's a sociologist, I think he teaches at Baylor now, it's called The Triumph of Christianity and The Rise of Christianity. And in it, what he documents is the growth of Christianity, and I don't know where he's coming from spiritually, because he's viewing it as a sociologist. What were the events that happened, not the Holy Spirit, not God, not supernatural, but what are the world events happened so that by 313, when Constantine declares that Christianity would be the state religion, there's 60 million people in the Roman Empire and 33 million are followers of Christ. How could that happen?

Let me tell you how it happens. Galatians 4 says, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son. The word fullness, literally, we get our word, it's when the world, when the earth was pregnant, in God's game plan, in his sovereign plan to fulfill his purposes, there was a point in time when the earth, when the dynamics of life on the earth were this narrow little window that allowed a rabbi for three years to do something that would transform the world. Number one, corruption in Rome was at an all-time high.

Number two, the philosophies and the religion of the Greeks was at an all-time low. On top of that, for the first time ever in world history, there was one language, it was a trade language called Koine Greek, of which the New Testament is written in. So no matter where you were and where you came from, because Rome took control, it's we're going to have a language, it would be like the internet of today.

So now, there's a language to communicate a message everywhere in the world. On top of that, is that in the ancient world, travel was very dangerous, you'd get killed or beat up or whatever. Well they had Roman outposts, it was called the Romano pox, there was peace everywhere, and there's all these soldiers everywhere so that it was safe to travel. And you maybe have heard that line that every road led to Rome, guess what, it did.

There was a transportation system to all the corners of the world. So think of this little window of time, for the first time ever, Jesus is born when the Roman government and people are, that's not the answer, the religions and the philosophies are drained, communication at a new level like never before, transportation is happening, you can travel, and then before this happened, the Jews were persecuted, so synagogues have been placed all over the Roman world. So now, the New Testament rolls out, the gospel goes forth, and they have preaching points to say. The promise of the Messiah, he's come. So when you read the book of Acts, where does Paul always go? He always starts in the synagogue, they have a God consciousness, and this revolution occurs.

Only a sovereign God can pull that one off. Jesus' life fulfilled hundreds of prophecies, his messianic teaching. The whole book of Matthew is not, I'm a good teacher, this is a good example, there's a lot of world religions, I wanna get on the salad bar of the world religions, and this is a good way to live. That's not what Jesus said. The whole book of Matthew is filled with prophecy after prophecy after prophecy after prophecy, he claimed to be God, he said, I'm the king, I'm the king of the Jews, I'm the Lord of Lords, I'm coming to usher in a kingdom.

And he was never killed, don't get mad at the Romans and never get mad at a Jew, Jesus said, no one killed me, I lay down my life, right, and I take it up again. He's a sovereign God, his claim was before Abraham existed, I am, I am that I am. Jesus' whole life demonstrates the sovereignty of God himself. You've been listening to the first part of Chip's message, The Sovereignty of God, from his series, The Real God.

He'll be back with his application, but before he is, let me give you a quick sketch of this series overall. In The Real God, Chip looks at seven key attributes of God's character and explains that none of them is ever diminished or overshadowed by the others, which means that God is 100% love, 100% just, and 100% merciful. Kind of mind-bending when you think about it that way, and why it becomes a lifelong adventure to get to know him for who he really is. A great way to learn how these attributes of God work together is to do this study with a small group of friends. So for a limited time, the small group resources for The Real God are discounted, because we want to do everything we can to help you get a clear, accurate view of God. To place your order, or to get more information on The Real God, go to livingontheedge.org, shop special offers on the Chip Ingram app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. Well, Chip, your teaching today really brings home how important it is to get into God's Word. But how do we turn that head knowledge into life change?

I mean, how do we get it to really sink in and then stick? Well, Dave, I'll tell you, you have to study. And doing the daily discipleship and some other things we've offered when people were stuck at home is absolutely critical. But what we know from all the research is that people have been isolated, and isolation causes anxiety, and isolation causes you to doubt yourself.

There's a huge need right now to get back into community, to develop relationships. And for some people, yes, maybe still, Zooming is the only way you can do it. But what I would say to people is, whatever you have to do in this season, I mean, whatever priority change you need to make, find a way to get in a room together face to face, and get into God's Word, and share your life. Boy, a video screen is never going to hug you. A video screen is never going to cry with you. A video screen is never going to be able to say, let's stop right now, and let's pray for so-and-so, because that's a big issue. You can read people's body language a bit through a screen, but there's nothing like sitting around in a circle with God's Word at the center, and having authentic, deep relationships.

It is fuel for your soul. And because of that and the huge need that we see, we've discounted all of our small group resources. We want to help you get into community, get connected, get loved, and give it to other people. Well, to help you do that, we've temporarily discounted all of our small group resources. There are so many available on relationships, marriage, parenting, doctrine, Christian living.

Doing a small group Bible study that meets a need will help you and everyone in your group take the next step, whatever that means to each of you. Included in each discounted workbook is a unique code to unlock the online videos. Get the workbooks, use your codes, and you're set. To take advantage of this limited-time offer, just go to livingontheedge.org or tap Special Offers on the Chip Ingram app. For more information, give us a call at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. Now here's Chip. Today we learned that far from simply making claims to be the supreme and sovereign God of the universe, that God has demonstrated it. This isn't an iffy doctrine.

This one isn't up for grabs. His titles reveal that He is sovereign. His promises reveal that He is sovereign. His story, history in itself reveals that He is sovereign. The prophecy in Scripture reveals that He is sovereign. He has made specific, multiple, literally hundreds of predictions that only a sovereign God in control of all of life could fulfill. And finally, first and foremost, His Son, the Lord Jesus, His life, His work, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension all demonstrate that God is sovereign.

He's in control. Isn't it a comfort to know that life isn't spinning out of control, that events and people and circumstances and the stock market and world rulers, they aren't randomly throwing wrenches into your life? God is purposely orchestrating all of life to fulfill His ultimate will and, get this, He's doing it for His glory and for your good.

There is a place, regardless of your circumstances, to find unbelievable peace. Jesus promised in the world we'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer. He has overcome the world, and the reason He can overcome the world is He is sovereign. But the sovereignty of God raises two critical questions. If God is sovereign, what about our free will or our choices?

And if He's in control of everything, what's our part? We are going to address those two issues head on in our next broadcast. Don't miss it. As we wrap up, I want to say thanks to those who make this program possible through your generous financial support. Your gifts help us create programs, purchase airtime, and develop additional resources to help Christians live like Christians. If you've been blessed by the Ministry of Living on the Edge and you'd like to bless others in return, would you consider sending a gift today? You can call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003. Tap donate on the app or donate online at livingontheedge.org. Your support is greatly appreciated. Well, that's all for this program. Until next time, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.