A Christians View

Q: What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

The Bible teaches that God is sovereign over all creation, with no one instructing or counseling Him. Isaiah 40:13-17 highlights God's sovereignty and supremacy, stating that no one has directed the Spirit of the Lord or served as His counselor. This emphasizes that God's thoughts are unchallenged, His heart is unchanging, and He operates independently of human influence or advice. The scriptures consistently affirm that He is the ultimate authority who governs all aspects of life, and His will is perfectly accomplished without the need for human counsel.

Q: How do we know the doctrine of grace is true?

The doctrine of grace is rooted in God's unchangeable nature and is revealed throughout scripture. The truth of the doctrine of grace is established in scripture, particularly through passages that declare God's character as gracious and merciful. For example, Romans 3 emphasizes that no one can justify themselves before God, highlighting our utter dependence on His grace. Moreover, Colossians 1:19-20 reveals that it was through Christ’s sacrificial blood that peace was made, showing that God's grace is effectual and rooted in His divine plan for salvation. Thus, the infallible Word of God assures us of the truth of grace.

Q: Why is understanding God's nature important for Christians?

Understanding God's nature is crucial as it shapes our faith and understanding of salvation. Comprehending God's nature, particularly His sovereignty and holiness, profoundly influences a Christian's worldview. For instance, the sermon underscores the fact that God is high and holy, not seeking counsel from us. This profound truth shapes how believers view their relationship with Him, understanding that humanity's need for salvation stems from our inability to approach God without His intervention. Such knowledge encourages reliance on His grace and fosters humility as we recognize our own limitations and His infinite power.

Q: What does the cross represent in Christian theology?

The cross represents the sacrifice of Christ, which provides peace and reconciliation between God and humanity. In Christian theology, the cross is the central symbol of redemption. It signifies Christ's sacrificial death, which extinguished God's wrath against sin and provided a means for reconciliation. Colossians 1:20 states that through the blood of His cross, Christ reconciles all things to Himself. This divine act not only fulfills the requirement for justice but also reveals the depths of God's love for His elect, underscoring that our salvation is rooted in His initiative rather than our efforts.

Q: How does God's sovereignty affect His relationship with humanity?

God's sovereignty ensures that He alone directs the course of human history and the salvation of His people. God's sovereignty profoundly affects His relationship with humanity by establishing that He is the ultimate authority over all creation. The sermon discusses how, because He is sovereign, none can counsel or instruct Him in His purposes, as seen in Isaiah 40:13-14. This means that our salvation is entirely dependent upon His grace. For believers, this brings comfort, as we can trust that God is in control, orchestrating all events for His glory and the good of His people, which includes their ultimate salvation.

Good morning, everybody. I'd like to first pray for our pastor, Greg, and the conference happening there. Let's pray. Our Father God, you are glorious and great, and all your works are done in truth, Lord, and your words, your words are our bread and our food, Lord.

Please feed us with that food this morning that you know we need and we can only get from you, Lord. Our souls are weary and we need the refreshing, the times are refreshing from above, Lord. Please shower those blessings on us. Please give me a quick mind, Lord, and give us all ears to hear. We pray for those men in Pennsylvania now, God, who have and will preach. We pray that the time there would be used to glorify you and to draw your people closer to your son. We can do none of these things on our own, Lord. Please have mercy on us, God. Amen. Well, the last year or so at work, I've found myself in a training role. They have me show people new people or people doing new things. I'm always the one who they send over there.

As soon as I confirmed, I was a little worried because I thought of the expression, those who can't teach. As soon as I had them confirm that wasn't the case, I've actually enjoyed it. I have noticed one thing though. When somebody, when I'm able to get somebody to understand the basics, the very nuts and bolts of what we're doing and why, it always goes better. If somebody does not grab onto and grasp the basic ideas of what we're doing, they'll lose interest and go do something else every time. I figure we're not at work and I'm not training you. But I think some things are similar. I want us so grounded in the basics here.

For a perfect example, one person is told their whole life, worship God. We worship God, you must worship God. The other person is told their whole life, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, they're told their whole life that God is high and holy. He is the uncaused first cause. Everything he does is good and he is love. And that's why we worship him. Who's going to hang on? Which will go better? We understand these things.

So what I have been talking about is by some called a Christian worldview. I'm not all that concerned about a Christian worldview. I want to talk about a Christian's worldview, the things that every believer knows, every word that every believers had written on their heart and the picture painted in their mind's eye about who is God, what are we, what are we doing here, the very basics. I hear people talking about a Christian worldview.

There's bookshelves filled with books about what it is, how it was lost in our country, what are the effects of losing it, how we can get it back. But telling unbelievers, forcing gospel precepts on unbelievers is not the gospel. It's just like the people at work. They don't understand the basics. They don't understand why. So they'll go through the motions for a little bit and then lose interest.

I want a Christian's worldview. So let's go to Isaiah chapter 40. A Christian's worldview starts where God starts. And that's knowing that God is high and holy and his throne is above the heavens. Thoughts are unchallenged and his heart is unchanging. And it starts with knowing that we are chaff in the wind. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 13, we'll start in 13. Now this is a question that everybody knows the answer to. And that means that it's a declaration of supreme rule.

Verse 13, who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counselor hath taught him. You remember, this is the same spirit of God who said, let us make man in our own image. This is the spirit of God who moved upon the face of the waters. And we have as much power over him as that dark abyss, that unformed, formless void had over him. And so he says, who has? Who has directed God? who can command the wind.

Our Savior said, the spirit blows where it listeth, and you hear the sound thereof, but you cannot tell where it's coming from and where it's going. So is everyone who's born of the spirit. You see, God doesn't react to us. These are the basics that we need to be grounded in. He doesn't react to us, we react to God.

In the book of Acts, remember the Holy Spirit said to Paul, Paul was forbidden from preaching the gospel in Asia. And in another place, the Holy Spirit told Paul, stay here, I'm with you. Stay right here, I have much people in this city who has counseled God.

Who counsels a shepherd about how many sheep he has and where? Who counseled God about how he would work in the minds and the lives of those lost sheep in that one place where he told Paul to be? How God would work in their hearts and ahead of Paul's visit to prepare them for the gospel? Who can tell the shepherd what to do with his sheep? Who has ever taught God Whose knee has he sat on and looked up starry-eyed, hanging on every word?

No one, nobody, and that's a comfort. In Matthew chapter 16, we don't have to turn there, we can see exactly what it's like when man teaches and when God teaches, a perfect contrast in Matthew 16. It says in verse 20 that Jesus Christ started from that time forth, to show, to teach his apostles how that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day rise again. He started to teach them that.

But Peter, Peter took him and he rebuked him and he said, be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. These things that you're going to do, this salvation that you're going to work out for us, it shouldn't be. Get thee behind me, Satan, Christ says.

You don't savor the things that are of God. The things that are of men is what you're after. You're looking after the things that you can see and touch and feel. You don't want me to die because you'll miss me. If I don't die, there is no salvation. When man teaches, it's about what can be seen. When man teaches, it's about man's concerns.

Remember in Acts chapter one, will thou again restore at this time the kingdom to Israel? That's the most exalted thought they could put their minds on with the Lord standing in front of them. Will you give us the kingdom again? You're going to be our next governor.

Verse 14, this is the same thing in different words. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 14, with whom took he counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment and taught him knowledge and showed to him the way of understanding. Look at this verse, path, counsel, way. These words are about salvation.

Who counseled God when his love made us sons? Who counseled God when the blood of the everlasting covenant made us accepted in the beloved? With whom did he take counsel when God decreed that his wife, his church, would sin against him and ruin herself being tempted by the one who said, I will be like the most high. Who counseled him and who taught him when he sent his son to be made in the likeness of her sinful flesh and to condemn her sins in his flesh on the cross? Who could think of such a way? If God asked our counsel, do you know what salvation would look like?

This is how we would save sinners. The ones who had been nice to us. The ones who had stroked our pride. The ones who gossiped with us. Those would be the ones we saved. The ones we liked. How we choose friends. It would be no different. There would be nothing glorious about it. What is glorious and what cannot be taught. is that God would choose some regardless of their goodness or their badness. They had nothing but badness and love them and love them.

Who instructed an eternal uncreated spirit. The Bible says, great is the Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. Who taught him in the path of judgment? Judgment means justice. How can God be the just and the justifier? Who taught him that?

Who could even think of what God taught Abraham in the very first chapters of the Bible when he said, the Lord will provide himself a lamb. Who could counsel God into that, that he would do the providing, he would receive what was provided, and he would be what was provided.

The Lord will provide himself a lamb. Who showed God's spirit the way of understanding that he would send messengers to preach the foolishness of the cross, to preach foolishness to dead, dying rebels. Go to Ezekiel 37, please. Ezekiel 37. Who has counseled the Lord? Who's taught him that this would be how he saves sinners?

In Ezekiel 37, we see just how glad we are that God did not ask us for our counsel. Ezekiel 37, it says, the hand of the Lord was upon me, in verse one, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley, which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about.

And behold, there were very many in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. When I passed by, they were very dry. What believer hasn't said that? They were very disinterested, these people I love. They're very, very happy with themselves. They're very far from God. These bones were very dry.

And he said unto me, son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, oh, Lord God, thou knowest. It's almost like he's too He's too sad to even say the words. The answer makes him too sad. He just defers to God. Or do you answer, I can't. Again, he said unto me, prophesy upon these bones and say unto them, oh, you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. God can say, you dry bones, hear, because nobody has counseled him. No one has taught him.

He teaches. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. Who has instructed him? He makes the dead soul to be a living soul who can walk with God in the cool of the day once again. Who has taught God and who would he listen to? Dry bones, why would he? He is in one mind and who can turn him? We can thank God He doesn't ask us. He comes to dry bones and He says, live. Hear the word of the Lord. Back in Isaiah chapter 40.

See, it's a comfort to me to know that somebody truly is in charge. People, sinful people, are a conundrum. We have a big problem with authority. We raise our fist in the face of all authority and anybody who would be over us and tell us what to do. But by our own lives and words, we prove that, actually, we need it. We need it. We don't do too well without it.

Verse 15. Oh, sorry. Back in Isaiah 40. Verse 15, behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he take up the aisles as a very little thing. The nations are a drop of a bucket. I hear about the United Nations, and all I can think of is the verse that says, though hand join in hand, yet shall they not be unpunished. Verse 16.

And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn. It is not sufficient for our God to burn all of Lebanon, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing in vanity. Now, Lebanon was a dense forest, dry, windy, I believe that the California wildfires would pale in comparison. And every victim of those fires, every new structure that they destroyed, it wasn't even close to being satisfied yet.

You've seen fires. They just keep going. They keep going. Fire keeps going. because it keeps finding more fuel. And our sins give God all the fuel he needs for his anger. That anger will burn forever against you. Against you, it will, forever, unless it runs into something that cannot be used for fuel.

And Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, He extinguished those flames by living a perfect life where He says, I do always the things that please the Father. And then by bearing in His own body on the cross our sins, He put out that anger by being an offering and a sacrifice that was a sweet savor to God the Father. Fire from heaven fell on Him and he extinguished it. On the third day, he rose again, and just like Daniel's three friends, there wasn't even the smell of smoke on him. You see, this is a Christian's worldview, an awe of God, who would deign to stoop down and have mercy on us, on us, someone like us.

And who could instruct him to do that? If we're grounded in this, We'll run the race with patience. If somebody is not grounded in this, that's when we see them misprioritizing, spending too much time on little things, picking pet doctrines that become the focus. That's because people are not grounded in these things. Who could instruct God?

Let's go to Colossians chapter 1, please. Because I just read that the fires of Lebanon and hundreds of millions of slain beasts are not sufficient to stop that fire of God's anger against our sins. They're not sufficient to stop the punishment that must happen to every one of us. But one man did what eternal burning can't do. eternal burning in one man.

Colossians chapter 1 verse 19, here's why it is sufficient. Here's why what he did is sufficient. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. All the fullness of God, the Godhead bodily dwelt in this man. And now look for one second at verse 18, right above. He is the head of the body. Now this head of the body, which is us, the church, all fullness of God dwells in him, our head. That's why it is sufficient.

Now, verse 20, and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, he made peace. for God's elect, for every person that God loves and chose in the covenant of grace, there is now peace, there is no condemnation, and they will walk after the Spirit. He made peace, and how, how did he make peace? Through the blood of his cross, by his suffering unto death, he made peace, he took away everything that was between us and God.

Do you ever go to pray and you feel so burdened? You don't know what to pray or how to say it, and you just say, oh, Father God. Well, you couldn't do that if there was no peace. You couldn't be vulnerable to one who you had no peace with. These are the fruits of that peace. He made peace.

We can approach God and call him Father. through the blood of his cross. You see, all sin will be punished. It will. But for God's church, it already has been. What could drops of water in a bucket do to put out a fire? And what could dust on a balance do to tip the scales in its favor?

Nothing. You can't make peace with God It doesn't matter how sincere you are. You're sincerely condemned. You can't make peace with God. But this is the Christian's worldview. God made peace with God for us. Can we go to Romans chapter three, please? And we'll close with this. Romans chapter three. The apostles preached the same message as the prophets. The entire Bible says this. God will have his people to know him and to know the most basic things about the gospel so that they do not get caught up in the weeds and go off into obscurities. In Romans chapter three, please. Let's start at verse nine. What then, are we better than they? Are we better than the heathen in chapter one? Are we better than the self-righteous Jews in chapter two? Are we better than the slanderers in verse eight, right above?

No, no, in no wise, not in any way, for we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, That's how the believer knows everything that they know. And if it's not written, we don't know it. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. The nations are esteemed. He counts them as nothing, a grain of sand, a drop of water in a bucket. There is none righteous. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. We read in Isaiah 40, who has taught God understanding? Who has shown him understanding? Certainly, it couldn't be those who themselves have no understanding, could it? This is what drove Edgar to write this in the Proverbs.

He says, I am more brutish than any man, and I have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom nor have any knowledge of the holy. We cannot know these things. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They can't show God the way, surely, because they're not in the way, they don't know it. They are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used to see. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of peace have they not known? Who has shown God the way? He has to show us. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

The nations are a drop of the bucket. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Lebanon is not sufficient to burn. No deeds of the law are sufficient. A million slain beasts in offering to God are not sufficient. The law gives the knowledge of sin.

But now, but now, The righteousness of God without the law, the righteousness of God that can be had by us, that can be attained by sinners, the righteousness of God that he puts on his people is manifested apart from the law. The righteousness of God apart from our doing, apart from our effort is now manifested In the gospel, what we're doing right now, we're showing that the righteousness of God can be had by faith in Jesus Christ, who is God, and who lived the righteous life. He is the righteous man, and he is our righteousness. He is the righteousness of God, and it is apart from the law.

The righteousness of God speaks on this wise. Who can bring him down? or who can bring him up? How do we get him to where we are? But the righteousness of faith says he's already come down and he's already raised. This is the righteousness of God manifested without the law. It was witnessed by the law and the prophets. Now it's fully revealed and we can have the very righteousness of God imputed to us by faith. Us who are counted less than nothing in vanity. Us who can't show God the way we don't know the way we can't even see it. God has to show us and he does and he teaches.

God is salvation. Isn't that Jesus Christ's name? So. We are out of the way. We are an unclean thing, and we need God to teach us. I pray that we be grounded in these things and in the awesomeness of God, the weakness of us, and that it would cause our hearts to say, Lord, why us? Why me? Why would you love me? Help me to cling to you, Lord. Please teach me more. Amen.

A Christians View

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

How do we know the doctrine of grace is true?

Why is understanding God's nature important for Christians?

What does the cross represent in Christian theology?

How does God's sovereignty affect His relationship with humanity?

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A Christians View

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

How do we know the doctrine of grace is true?

Why is understanding God's nature important for Christians?

What does the cross represent in Christian theology?

How does God's sovereignty affect His relationship with humanity?

Sermon Transcript

Comments

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