I can think
of at least two reasons why modern Christians balk at the idea of a totally
sovereign God: Old Testament history and the spirit of independence. To our
modern sensibility, the Sovereign of the OT is distasteful. Yahweh slaughtered
thousands of His own people as punishment for their disobedience. He ordered
the annihilation of entire populations during Israel’s conquest of the Promised
Land. It is not enough to say that this was a common practice in ancient times.
We know that God ordered it whereas He told His people to abstain from many
other things that were common at the time, child sacrifice, for example.
For the last
250 years in America, we have come to think of government authority as granted
by the consent of the governed. We become citizens by our own free will. Prior
to America’s founding, authority usually rested with a king who declared
people to be his subjects. This is precisely what the Founders set out to
change. The Declaration of Independence is such an integral part of our
consciousness that we allow it to bleed into our understanding of God’s
authority. It is true that we “consent” to become His children through our
voluntary union with Christ, but we may forget that we are giving our
allegiance to a Father/King and not an elected representative. Scripture is
clear: we must subject ourselves to King Jesus.
The fact that
some people squirm under the sovereign authority of our Creator should not
surprise us. Adam and Eve forced us into our rebellious situation when they
were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Biblical history reveals that doing “what
was right in their own eyes” became the repeated mantra of the children of
Adam. We sometimes refer to pride as the original sin, but it has its roots in
a desire for independence. That root has rhizomes that creep into every
generation of humankind. The only escape from its stranglehold is to die to
Adam and be born again in Christ Jesus.
There are
people, myself included if I am being honest, who understand the intellectual
concept of a Sovereign God, but fail to live fully with its implications. Like
all Christian disciplines, it is not enough to understand sovereignty; you must
apply it rigorously. Submission to God’s authority is the most obvious
application of His absolute sovereignty. Repenting of our innate tendency
toward independence and submitting to God’s ultimate authority is essential to
genuine Christian faith. Sincere believers will always align themselves with
the will of God as found in the Scripture.
I think one
of the most common failures of Christians is believing that God is sovereign
but not trusting His work on our behalf. I know that is my biggest problem. I
have a sincere intellectual commitment to the sovereignty of God, but I am
emotionally detached from that truth. I believe that is the source of my occasional
worry. It also reveals a streak of independence trying to surface. If things
aren’t going according to my plan, I prove that I don’t trust God completely by
worrying. If I was fully committed to His total sovereignty, I would trust that
His plan will be better for me than my plan. No worries.
In his book, Shattered
Dreams, Larry Crabb makes the case that our innate drive for independence
often leads us to sinful positions in the most insidious ways. He suggests that
even when we think we are succumbing to God’s will, we imagine that His
response will be to bring our plans to fruition. Crabb says this displeases God
greatly, and He often adds to the discipline He has begun because of our
stubbornness. We must be fully broken of our tendency toward independence; God
wants us to be exclusively dependent on Him. Until we hit bottom, as it were,
we will never fully trust God’s sovereignty.
I know some
people struggle like I do because of a misinterpretation of Romans 8:28. There
was even a popular song a while ago that encouraged the misunderstanding by
saying “God works all things together for my good.” While the ultimate
outcome of “all things” will be for our good, we may have to go through some
serious “not good” things to get there. There was much good that came from Paul’s
God-ordained ministry to the Gentiles. To arrive at the good outcome, he had to
endure stoning, beating, near drowning, imprisonment, and more. His
understanding of what he told the Romans was that he was privileged to suffer
for Christ’s sake. There is not a hint of worry in Paul’s writings that he
doubted God’s good plan for his life.
Study the
lives of Noah, Job, Moses, Joseph, David, and more. I could mention that our
Lord Himself had to endure terrible not-good in His totally human self in order
to accomplish the best good imaginable. Yet, like Job, He said, “Nevertheless,
not my will but thine be done.” Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane
proves His humanness. He showed His willingness to fulfill the plan He and His
Father had initiated before the world was made, even though it meant suffering
the most brutal torture and death man has ever devised. Worse that that, He had
to be separated from His Father during the hours he bore the sin of all
mankind. That is truly a fate worse than death if you understand what it really
entailed.
James implied
that if you truly believe, your behavior will show it. I the case of our belief
in God’s sovereignty, our unbelief might be hiding behind our protestations of
belief. As Crabb says, it is not easy to trust God when a friend dies of
cancer, a wife departs a marriage, a job is taken from you, people treat you in
horrible ways, or any one of dozens of not-good things that must be a part of
God’s plan. They must be; that is what it means to say He is Sovereign.
Related
Posts: Necessary
Obedience; What
Happened in the Fall
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