Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility?!?!

Lake Country Bible Church is committed to preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God.  Our overarching goal is to bring everything into conformity with the perfect Revelation of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16; Psalm 19).  This includes our doctrinal convictions, our worship, as well as our daily lives (John 17:17; Psalm 119:105-112).  Our theology is built solely on the Word of God because Scripture alone is inerrant, inspired, infallible, and the source of Divine wisdom.  God speaks to us, both of Himself and His truth, through the Holy Bible.

Having said this, not all Scripture is as straightforward as John 3:16 or 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.  Peter makes this very assertion in 2 Peter 3:14-16; “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” 

Passages such as Romans 9-11, Ephesians 1, and 2 Thessalonians 2 are but a few texts that require greater effort (2 Tim. 2:15) in order to interpret them properly.

The Bible teaches twin truths with regards to God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Both are equally true.  The absolute sovereignty of God does not lessen or eliminate human responsibility and/or human culpability one iota. 

Concerning God’s absolute freedom to be God passages of Scripture such as Psalm 115:3 remind us, Our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases.  “As our sovereign Lord, He does always as He pleases, only as He pleases, and all that He pleases.”

In reference to this holy attribute one author writes, “Our God remains incomprehensible and retains His simplicity. He tells us in His Word that He is not a God of confusion but of order. He is not at war with Himself. He is altogether good, altogether holy, and altogether sovereign. This we must affirm to maintain a biblical concept of divine sovereignty. Yet we must always balance this understanding with a clear understanding that God always exercises His power and authority according to His holy character.

He chooses what He chooses according to His own good pleasure. It is His pleasure that He does.  He chooses what is pleasing to Himself. But that pleasure is always His good pleasure, for God is never pleased to will or to do anything that is evil or contrary to His own goodness.

In this we can rest, knowing that He wishes for, and has the power to bring about, all good things for us His children.”  Note also Psalm 103:19; Psalm 66:7; 1 Chronicles 29:12.

How God's Sovereignty Impacts the Pulpit and Preaching.

Few doctrines impact the preacher and the task of expository preaching more than the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. But before presenting the many ways this truth impacts the Word preached one first needs to define this eternal attribute of God.

 In his systematic theology Wayne Grudem identifies sovereignty as “God’s exercise of power over creation.”[1] The Prophet Jeremiah says to God, “nothing is too hard for You” (Jer. 32:17).  The angel Gabriel reminds Mary, “With God nothing is impossible” (Luke 1:37), while Jesus Himself adds, “With God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).

Because God is God he can do “whatever He pleases (Ps. 115:3).” And whatever God wills to happen will happen.[2] Or as R.C. Sproul puts it, “God owns what He makes, and He rules what he owns.”[3] In short, God has the right and the authority and the power to do whatever He so desires. He is the sovereign Creator and Lord of heaven and earth (Psalm 146:6; Acts 17:24; Rev. 4:1-11).