The Sovereignty of God

, one of the blessings about being in this place is just all of the cameras everywhere. if you're here late at night, studying for a sermon, you feel somewhat safe, but it does bring out some of the conspiracy theorists in me. And I wonder who is watching me. I've, not many people know this, but I'm known for some unusual beliefs that have gotten me into hot water with some people.

I believe that we are always being watched, for instance, I believe that I am always being watched. I believe that much of my life has been hemmed in. And orchestrated by some power beyond my control. I have suspicions that my birth was genetically engineered.

Believe it or not, it was determined that I would be Caucasian, although I wish sometimes I was Mexican cause I, I don't know, I just love Mexican food and I love Mexican culture. But it was engineered that I would be Caucasian and that I would be a boy. I believe that there is a despot or dictator who watches my every step and hears every word that I speak. And I walk around every day with the knowledge that this ruler holds my very life in his hands.

And he can keep me alive or he can take my very life from me. let me tell you something about this dictator. I love him. He is a benevolent dictator.

He is a merciful Lord, you see, he is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God. He is the absolute sovereign of the universe. And this morning, I want us to explore a doctrine that we see really on almost every page of scripture, and this doctrine has been called the sovereignty of God or sometimes a residual doctrine, the omnipotence of God.

And we want to talk about this doctrine and explore it and its significance for us. And I hope in doing so, that we will first explain what God's sovereignty means, and secondly, we will explain what it doesn't mean. And lastly, we will talk about why this even matters. What should our response be to the sovereignty of God?

And in the end, I hope that we'll all walk away this morning. Here's what I'm hoping we'll walk away with, with a greater fear of God, first of all, and a greater joy in the fact that a good God is sovereign, and as such is able to do all His holy will. Now I need to give some credits here. I did not write this message by myself.

My daughter, Anna Berry had an assignment this last year to do a speech on the sovereignty of God. And so she helped me write this message, so I just wanna give that out to you right away. we worked on this, this doctrine together and worked on the speech and as I did so I was just, just reminded again of how practical and how vital it is for believers to understand and believe in the sovereignty of God. if we don't have a biblical understanding of the sovereignty of God, there are many passages in the Bible that will be absolutely befuddling.

In fact, when people attack the scriptures, when you hear various attacks that come from agnostics or atheists or people that are just laying out their various polemical attacks upon scripture, it's frequent that these attacks come from the vantage point of seeing contradictions in scripture. Say if, if your God is so in control of all things, then how can there be evil in the world? These people will set up these apparent contradictions in the Bible because they quite frankly do not understand that the Bible is very comfortable with a God who is in control of our lives, and yet people who are responsible for their actions.

And so it's important for us as believers to understand these dual truths, this antinomy as JR Packer calls it.

A wonderful book on the subject that I'd recommend for further reading is called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by JR Packer, and in the introduction, he talks about this concept of an antinomy that you can have two things that are clearly true when you examine them in isolation, but when you put them together, it's hard to figure out how they go together. He says that physicists have this problem with light. I'm not a physicist, so I don't really understand what the problem is, but physicists say that light can be proven to be particles, but it can also be proven to be rays.

And a common joke amongst physicists is that on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, we believe that light is particles, and on all other days of the week, we believe that light is rays.

And they can't explain how that it can, both can be true. So they call it an antinomy. It's verifiable that light is both particles and rays, even though it can't be explained at this point why that can, why both can be true. And so, let's take, the outline is pretty simple.

I want you to, if you have an insert or something on your bulletin. you can write down the outline. First, we're gonna talk about what God's sovereignty means. That's point number 1.

Secondly, what God's sovereignty doesn't mean. Thirdly, what should our response be? So let's talk about what does God's sovereignty mean? And I think I have, do I have this keyed up?

I don't think so. I think I need slide one if it's available. let me give you the definition here from calm.org. Sovereignty is the right of God to do as he wishes with His creation.

This implies that there's no external influence upon him and that he also has the ability to exercise his power and control according to his will. Do we have that yet or? No? OK.

Let me, let me say that again. Sovereignty is the right. You can just write down right of God to do as he wishes with his creation. So first of all, it's God's right.

this implies that there's no external influence upon him and that he also has the ability to exercise his power and control. He has the right and the ability would be the two sides of the coin, and we talk about God's sovereignty. So he has the right because he's the creator. But that doesn't mean that he could do anything that he wants if he didn't have the power.

So he has the right and the ability to exercise all His holy will. And so that's where we bring in a residual doctrine, and that is God's omnipotence. Wayne Gruden and his systematic theology define defines omnipotence as this, God's omnipotence means that God is able to do all His holy will. So not only does God have a right, but he is able to exercise that right.

And I want you to turn with me to Acts 17. To see how Paul takes these truths. And, and develops them in the company of unbelievers. Acts 17.

This is Paul in Athens, Mars Hill speaking to A number of people who do not know the true God, and so he calls God the unknown God. And in verse 24, notice that Paul emphasizes God's sovereignty when speaking to the Athenians. He says, God, who made the world and everything in it, he is Lord of heaven and earth, earth. That's our word, Lord, Curios.

He is the sovereign one. Because he has made everything, he is sovereign. We see from this passage that God is the Creator of all, and he is Lord of heaven and earth. And because he's the Creator, he has the right to be the Lord.

He has the right to be the king because he has created all things. Now, what does this lordship entail? Paul goes on. Continuing in verse 24.

He gives to all life, breath, and all things. Think about that for a moment. Everything we have, including our breath, comes from God. My life, the fact that I am standing up here in this platform today and breathing.

The fact that my heart continues to beat is because God wills it. He has given to me life, and he has given to me all things. I don't know about you, but I have no memory of being in my mother's womb saying, I think I'm gonna grow myself a hand. And I'm gonna grow myself a second hand, and I'm gonna grow myself some feet and some eyes.

This all happened outside of my control with no knowledge. God did not ask for my opinion. How would you like to be designed? Would you like two hands or three?

He made me, and he sustains me. Verse 26. And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. What is Paul telling these Athenians?

God has made every race on the earth and he's determined when we would live and where we would live. Now I may, I can wish myself to be Hispanic all I want. I love listening to people speak Spanish, native Spanish speakers. In fact, I, I think Spanish, you may find this heretical, but I find Spanish much more pleasing to listen to than English.

Is that heretical to you? Spanish is one of the romantic languages, right? It's very beautiful to listen to. However, when I try to speak Spanish, it comes out very gringo-ish.

And I make all kinds of crazy mistakes when I try to speak Spanish. Like when I wanted to tell some of my friends that I wanted to sing another song. And instead of saying song, I used a different word for underwears. And, just things like that happen.

But God, God comes along and he, he makes us who we are. He makes us the race that we are. He makes us the sex that we are. And he's determined that we would live in this century, and that we would live in this part of the world at this time.

And here we are. we could have been born in the 1800s, we could have been born in the 25th century, but God determined that we would be born now. And that we would be here in this place. This is what Paul is telling the Athenians, verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being, our very existence subsists within the will of God.

Now this flashes in the face of, I don't have time to go into all the different philosophical people that Paul's talking to at this point, but this flies in the face of their Epicureanism and their stoicism and so on and so forth. The fatalism in some cases. God, God is the one that gives us our very existence. Now think about it.

Did you decide where to be born? Did you decide to be a boy or a girl? Did you pick your parents? Do you sustain your own heartbeat right now?

Answer, no. Then who does? According to the Bible, God has determined all of these things for you, without even asking your opinion. How dare he He, he can dare to do that because he is your Creator.

And he has the right. He has the right, and he is able to do it. He is the God who, as Paul says in Ephesians 1:11, who works all things according to the counsel of his own will. Think about that.

God works all things according to the counsel. Who does God counsel with? His own will. God takes counsel with himself.

He never sought your counsel on any of these matters. He only takes counsel from himself. Now, if you or I only took counsel from ourselves, what would we call that? Pride and stupidity, right?

But God, because he is all wise, and because he is God and he is other than us, he can and must take counsel from himself alone. He's God, right? so this is part of what the Bible means when it holds God up as sovereign. This isn't an exhaustive, covering of this doctrine, but this is part of what it means.

What Paul says here is God is, he is, able to do all of His holy will, and he has the right, he has the right inability. Can you guys say right? Say ability That's in summary, what we're talking about. When we say, when we talk about God's sovereignty, we mean that God has the right and the ability to do all of His holy will.

Now, let's look at the second thing. What is God's sovereignty? What, let's talk about what God's sovereignty doesn't mean. if we're not careful, if, if we're not careful to look at the whole counsel of God, we could come to really crazy and inappropriate conclusions about God's sovereignty.

And you see this happen all the time when people criticize the Bible, they try to point out contradictions. You even see it just in the thoughts and writings of believers, who don't seem to understand what God's sovereignty doesn't mean. Let me just suggest that God's sovereignty does not mean that humans lack moral responsibility before Him. In the Bible, God's sovereignty never contradicts human responsibility, but everywhere juxtaposes it and supports it.

we see this, for instance, in the prayer of Peter and John and their companions. Turn back in Acts to chapter 4. This is one of the classic passages on this. concept that God's sovereignty does not contradict human responsibility, but rather juxtaposes and supports it.

Acts 4:24 and following. Let's see. Yeah, look down at the middle of verse 24. Lord, you are God.

who made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them. So notice their prayers begin with God's sovereignty in creation. Verse 27. For truly against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod, Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together.

Now, if you just stop right there, and, and without looking at verse 28, try to fill in the blank. What is Paul gonna say? Or not, not Paul, what, what is this prayer of Peter and John gonna say? Here you've got some pretty nasty characters, Herod, Pontius Pilate, you've got the Gentiles and the people of Israel, all gathered together against the holy anointed Christ.

And what does he say in verse 28? To do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done. Think about it. What did Pilate do to Christ?

What did he do? He ultimately sent him to his death. What, what were the Jews crying out before Pilate, Crucify him. What were the Gentile guards doing with the hammers and nails?

They beat them into the wrists and feet of Jesus Christ. All of these people were complicit in the death of Jesus Christ. And yet it's not merely humans that are participating in these things. God is orchestrating the activities of human beings to do verse 28, whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.

Brothers and sisters, this is mysterious. This is amazing. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the Jews who were all complicit in the death of Jesus did exactly what God had determined to be done before. Here, human action and God's sovereignty do not contradict, but work together.

Now, does everybody understand all this? Do you understand everything that we've just said? No. We don't, I, I don't understand everything I just said.

I just said it and I don't have any idea what I'm talking about. What am I doing up here? I have no clue what I'm talking about. But the Bible is very clear, this, this verse is inescapable, that, that people did things, they exercise their will to perform certain actions, and yet these actions just slipped right into God's plan.

God was accomplishing His plan through the actions of individuals. This comports with what Peter preaches at Pentecost. Turn back to chapter 2, verse 22. This is very similar to the, the concept that, that Peter has, as he's preaching on the day of Pentecost.

Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you. By miracles, wonders, signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, him being delivered, delivered up by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God you have taken by lawless hands have crucified and have put to death. Being delivered by the idea of being delivered by as God is the one who was delivering his son over to death. Jesus Christ had been delivered up over to death on a cross.

And yet these people were complicit in that death. Him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands have crucified and put to death. Was the cross an accidental tragedy? Was the crucifixion Plan B.

It just things swung out of control, that God had ordained that Jesus would come and set a really good example for everybody, and everybody would love him. And then he would be the king of the universe in his first Advent. Was that God's plan? No, it's clear from the prophecies beforehand that Jesus came to die.

And yet this death was going to be at the hand of sinners like you and me. This was not Plan B. God superintended the choices of lawless people to accomplish his plan of re redemption. Jesus wasn't crucified by accident or by the whim of Pontius Pilate.

God used human choices to do exactly what he sovereignly determined to happen. God has the right. God has the ability. And we are moral agents who have real responsibility.

This is the antitome of these two doctrines. do we have any, anything yet? Nothing? OK.

That's fine. let me, let me go ahead and read a, a statement. there's People in the church have been wrestling with these issues for hundreds of years. This isn't the first time for any group of Christians to talk about this stuff.

I don't know if you knew that. this has been going on for a long, long, long, long time, right? And some people a lot smarter than all of us got together in the 1600s and put together a a statement of, of what Christians were saying, hey, we all believe this at this time. It's called the Westminster Confession of Faith.

It said, as opposed to what the Roman Catholic Church is teaching at this time, we're gonna affirm these things. And in wrestling with this issue, they put together a really Cool statement. And so I want to read it to you. Now, in reading this statement, let me preface it by saying, what these guys were trying to accomplish, whether you agree with it or not, what they were trying to accomplish is to summarize what they really believe the Bible taught on these issues, and not try to make everything work in our lower in our fallen minds, but just to state as clearly as possible, what the Bible seems to be saying.

Even if there's mystery left at the end of it. And so here's what the Westminster confession says in 3.1, if you guys want to look it up online later. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, he counsels with himself freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass. God has ordained whatever comes to pass, yet, So as thereby neither is God the author of sin.

Nor is violence offered to the will of the creature. Nor is the liberty of contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. OK, what does all that mean? God ordains just like it says in in Acts 4 and Acts 2, God has predetermined all the things that have come to pass, right?

Including the death of Jesus Christ, the highest example. And yet, in doing so, God is so magnanimous and so far above any of us, that he's able to accomplish all of His holy will, without violating human contingency, without violating human responsibility. In fact, he uses human responsibility to get his will accomplished. So that's what it means what it says, without, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor is the liberty of contingency of second causes taken away.

Contingency of second causes is just a big fancy word for saying that there are things that happen underneath the sovereignty of God, that we are responsible for and culpable for. That's what the, the writers were trying to, to establish this concept of second causes. And in doing so, all they're trying to do is summarize Acts 2 and Acts 4 and other such passages. That God is entirely in control of all things.

And yet humans are responsible for their actions. And they are held culpable for those actions. Now, this helps us understand what we don't mean by God's sovereignty. God's sovereignty does not mean that human beings lack more responsibility.

Rather, his sovereignty is everywhere established through the means of human agency. His sovereignty is everywhere established the means of human agency. Now, in my mind, this is actually one of the greatest apologetics of the Bible is divine and not a human fabrication. How can that be?

What, what do by that? Look at, look at virtually all religious literature throughout the entire world. Christianity is not the only religion or philosophy that tries to deal with this issue of human responsibility and God's sovereignty. Everybody has to deal with it.

This is something that's been going on since the beginning of time. Where did evil come from? Who's in control? Is everything ultimately just dependent upon me and is everything flying out of control?

Should we all just become postmodernists that there's really no control of anything? We've just all evolved from the slime and things are just accidental and spinning out of order. How did any order come out of anything? Is there any control of all things?

If you look at a lot of the Eastern religions and philosophies, they tend to, to side on the side of fatalism. The idea that everything is controlled, you really have nothing to offer. You're just recycling your life over and over and over again. This is what the stoics believe that Paul was debating.

They just said that everything's being relived. Time is cyclical. In fact, this is a very popular philosophy today. If you go take any philosophy class today in your average university, they're gonna argue against the concept of linear time.

Anybody had any philosophy classes lately where they're arguing against linear time? Nobody? Come on. OK, there we go.

A few people. Time is all circular. It, it, we're just recycling over and over and over again. the, the concept of linear time is something that's been foisted upon us by Christianity.

so, so the East is, is purely on the side of fatalism. The West is almost entirely on the side of absolute, free will. The idea that human beings determine their own course and that if you just believe and you just try hard enough, you can change the course of history. And you put your mind to it, you can do anything you want to do.

And that's what we as Americans totally buy into. That's our philosophy is you and I are ultimately determinative of everything that comes to pass. The Bible does not do either one of those. The Bible does not side with absolute free will.

The Bible does not side with fatalism. The Bible teaches that God is entirely sovereign over the universe, and yet humans are entirely responsible for their actions. And the Bible says things like this, the secret things belong to the Lord, but the things revealed to us belong to our and our children, us and our children. 29, 29.

You got it. The Bible's very comfortable with this concept of antinomy and mystery. And this is one of the greatest, I think, apologies or supports of the divinity of Scripture, is, is that if you or I were to write the Bible, we would have written it, we would have either written it very deliciously or according to Western philosophy, but the Bible doesn't come out that way. So let's talk about our final thing.

We've talked about what's, what do we mean by God's sovereignty? What do we not mean by it? Thirdly, what should our response be to the sovereignty of God? So what?

Why does this matter? First, I want to suggest that God's sovereignty should arouse in us a sense of great fear. That you and I are at the bidding and will of a sovereign. That is massively powerful.

He is incredible In his power. Paul finishes his evangelism. When he's talking to the Athenians, he spends all this time talking about God's creation and his power and his sovereignty. And he finishes with these words in verse 30.

Truly these times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now commands, doesn't suggest, commands all men everywhere to repent. to change their mind because he's appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained, that's Jesus Christ. What's the response to God's sovereignty that Paul is calling for, up on Mars Hill is change your mind because God commands you to do so. He is your Creator.

As your Creator, he has the right to command you to repent, and he has the ability to judge you. Jesus says in Luke 13, don't fear the guy that can kill you, kill your body. Fear the guy that can throw you into hell after you die. That's the guy to fear.

That does bring me great fear. In a, in a biblical sense. Hebrews 9:27, I'll share this verse frequently when I'm evangelizing, and it's appointed for men to die once after this, the judgment. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.

It's appointed for men to die once, by whom? By God. Your death is on his calendar. I, I, I didn't decide to be born on August 10th, 1968.

That's when God determined I would be born. And my death has been predetermined by God, right? And he knows when that is, and my number's gonna come up. And when my number comes up, I will enter in to the presence of a holy being, who is the most powerful entity in the universe, who never had to be born because he's absolutely eternal, who doesn't need anything.

And I will enter into his presence and give account for my soul, my choices in this life. And on one train of thought, that freaks me out. I don't know about you. But when I stay there before I come to this other stuff we're gonna talk about here shortly, I'm shaking in my boots.

Hebrews 10:31 says, it is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God. But secondly, God's sovereignty should not just arouse us great fear, but it should arouse in us great delight. If we really understand God's sovereignty biblically, for the Christian, this should bring incredible delight. Psalm 2:11 says, serve the Lord, serve the sovereign with reverent fear and rejoice with trembling.

These are not mutually exclusive concepts in the Bible that we can fear and rejoice at the same time. Verse 12 of the same Psalm says, submit to God's royal Son. what joy for all who find protection in Him. Isaiah 6:1 says this, the Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me.

This is new living translation, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed, for he has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come, and with it the day of God's anger against his enemies. On the day of the great and awesome day of the Lord, there will be great rejoicing over God's people who have repented and have responded to the gospel, repented of their sins, but those who have not repented will come into the presence of an Almighty holy God, with utter terror in their hearts.

But Jesus would have you this morning not remain in terror, but come to God who offers you his love and peace through Jesus Christ.

If you would repent and call upon him and ask him to forgive you of sins, he is willing, he's not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repent and know him. Let's talk about some things that we need to keep in mind when we talk about this doctrine as we conclude. Number one, don't go beyond what the scriptures say. I've heard people on both sides of this issue go way beyond what the scriptures affirm.

The Bible clearly affirms that God has the right and the ability to do all His holy will, and that he it's clear that he's done so throughout the pages of history. And yet we need to be careful not to bring this to unbiblical levels. at the same time, we need to be careful not to compromise in on biblical levels. The secret things belong to God.

There are things that are not revealed to us in the pages of Scripture. Those belong to the Lord. But those things which are revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law. So what we see revealed, we, we rejoice in and we do.

So don't compromise. Don't explain away passages. Don't look at passages that clearly affirm God's absolute control over the cross, and try to explain that away. Don't look at passages that absolutely affirm man's responsibility for his moral actions and explain that away.

Don't misuse this doctrine. The Puritans would speak of the right use of doctrine. If you study any of the old Puritan sermons, They would normally start off with the, here's the exposition of the doctrine, here's the scriptural passages, and then they would always get into its uses. And when they get to the uses part, that's what we would think of as application.

But Puritans would always be careful to talk about the right and wrong uses of a doctrine. so when you come to like God's sovereignty, one of the wrong uses of this doctrine is to excuse your own sin and blame it on God. Right? I've, I've seen this a number of times in my own heart, first of all, and then also in counseling.

counseling with, people who, if somebody who's committed adultery on their spouse, and, and, and it's in the past, and they'll say, well, God's sovereign, I, there's nothing I could have done that was in his, in his sovereign will. No buddy, you could have done something. God makes you responsible. That's not how you apply this doctrine.

you are a responsible moral agent. David, when he committed sin with Bathsheba, he was getting run out of town by his own son as God had prophesized. And up on a rock, there was this prophet that was throwing stones down at him, not a prophet, like it was actually a crazy guy. Shamai, and he's throwing rocks down on David's head.

And David's mighty men are like, hey, just give me the order and I'll go take that guy's head off. And David says, No, no, no, the Lord has sent him to buffet me. He, he, he was remembering that, these are consequences. I'm getting run out of town because of my sin with Bathsheba.

And if God wants to send a crazy guy to throw rocks on my head, so be it. I'm the one that's, that messed this thing up, right? And so he's receiving God's discipline in his life, even though he'd been forgiven. worry and regret can be one of the ways that we misapply or don't apply, God's sovereignty, that we, we don't trust in the fact that he's ultimately in control of the circumstances of our life, and we, we worry about things that we have no control over.

I see, I just turned, how old am I now? 46, is that right? Katie here, I think I'm 46. I was born in 1968.

And I'm old enough now to have regrets. Some of you young people, you have no idea what I'm talking about. But when you get a little older, those of you guys who are older, you can shake your head and there's things where you're like, I wish I'd have done things differently, right? And there's things that just happened in life where you're just like, man.

Yeah, that things could be different. and yet this is now water under the bridge. And this is now in the past. And while we receive the fact that we still have consequences for choices we've made and there's circumstances outside of our control, we are here now, and we can trust God and believe God and praise God for where we are now that we're still in His grace.

We're still in his love, even with past mistakes. Let me ask you, what is going on right now in your life? that can be comforted by the, the doctrine of God's sovereignty that God is in control. is, are there things going on that are outside of your control that you wish were different and they're just not?

And, and yet knowing that you have a good God that's in control of your life, that can be a great comfort. It's not just spinning out of control. It's not all up to you. and Katie and I, before we came back to Cornerstone, a lot of you guys may, some of you guys know this, but, Katie and I met here at Cornerstone.

Pastor Milton married us, and then they sent us off to Bible school, and I was doing ministry up north, doing youth ministry, and things seemed to be going well. The youth group wasn't ready to stand on its own 2 ft yet, but through circumstances, at that church. Suddenly the leadership just decided, hey, you've done a great job and, we love the work that you've done, but we think maybe it's God's design for your life to go back to your home church. And I did not feel that way at all.

And Cornerstone didn't really necessarily feel that way, but they were really willing to take us back. And totally outside of my control, I find, I found myself in a brand new job here at Cornerstone. Within two weeks, I heard about it, boom, we moved, and then just left all these kids that we loved, we poured our hearts into. A lot of them, we didn't feel like we're ready to stand yet on their own.

And after we left, that ministry just completely caved in. A lot of the kids walked away from the Lord. Some of them are still with the Lord to this day. And it was incredibly painful, totally outside of our control.

We just, we're like, God, why did you do this? we were pouring our hearts into the ministry. These kids were growing, and then you yanked us out of there. And you have all these kids that are now just thrown to the wind.

And, and we hadn't found ourselves questioning God. it wasn't too long after we got back to Cornerstone that I found out that I had cancer. Up in Lebeck, I didn't have any medical insurance. When I got here, the church hooked me up with medical insurance.

I got cancer. And then, Katie was pregnant with our first child, Joshua, and we began to see God's sovereignty in bringing us back to Cornerstone. And we began to see what God was doing. There's still questions about our past ministry that are still painful when I think about it, but I can look back and see how God was guiding us.

God was guiding us all the way. at the time seem to be bad. Let me ask, finally, have you repented and submitted to God's authority in your life? Everybody in this room, really, any, any group of people, there's always two sets, right?

In this room, there are people that right now are on their way to heaven. Because of the grace and shed blood of Jesus Christ. And right now in this room, there are people who do not yet know the Lord Jesus Christ. And if they were to die today, they would enter into terrible judgment.

The Bible, because God loves you, he tells you, I've appointed your death, your death is on my calendar. And after you die, there will be judgment. And so God, the Spirit calls out to you today and says, change your mind. You think that you're in control of your life, you think that you're the sovereign one that you should be calling the shots.

God says to you this morning, I am your creator, and I have a right to your life. And I have the ability to take you out. But God has the ability to save you today. And God in His sovereignty can use your choice today.

To save your eternal soul forever. Will you call upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in him? Will you call upon him and say, save me from my sin. I repent of my independence.

I repent of thinking that I'm in control of my own destiny, that life is all about me. I want my life to be about you. Forgive me of my sin. Will you do that today?

Let's pray Our Lord, we thank you that You are such a good God and that when we just consider our lives, those of us in this room that know you, we can think of so many circumstances that you orchestrated to cause us to be at a place at a certain time or just in my own life, just coming back to live with my dad and then my dad hiring a live-in babysitter who knew Christ, who then began to teach us the Bible. And then me coming to know the Lord with many, the rest of my family later.

Lord, we see your sovereignty in our lives, and we thank you, Lord, that Lord, if it were up to us, we would have never sought you. There's none who seek you, no, not one, and we love you because you first loved us.

We just pray, Father, that you would pour out your Spirit in this place. We pray, Father, that You would open up hearts to believe in you. We pray, Lord, that there would be some today. That would recognize.

Their rebellion against you and their need for Christ and the eternal nature of their soul that they must go somewhere forever and you determine that. Lord, may they cry out to you today for salvation. Knowing that you are a loving God. That you are a caring God and that you will give them true happiness and satisfaction, not only in this life, but forever in the next.

This we all pray To a God who is able to hear and able to act. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.