Rebelling Against or Rejoicing in God's Sovereign Rule

Rebelling Against or Rejoicing in God's Sovereign Rule

Rebelling Against or Rejoicing in God's Sovereign Rule. This is the topic I want to discuss this month for all who read or listen to my content. I know this article is probably more for the rejoicing crowd than the rebelling crowd, because the Lord is conforming you into His image. However, I think the practical honesty this article hopefully cultivates in all our lives will help the rejoicing believer, the closet rebel in us, or even the full-throttle rebel who has yet to bow the knee to the Sovereign King.

This article will focus on two aspects of God’s sovereignty: His power and His position. I will then close with a few application questions. Last month, I focused on God’s wisdom, discernment, will, and judgment. This month, we are going to pop the hood and look at the engine that moves all of these wonderful attributes of our amazing God—His power and position.

God’s Power. A.W. Tozer said in The Knowledge of the Holy, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” [1]People throw the word “God” around all the time, but what they think God is like is of vital importance. Is He just a genie in a bottle? Is He just a grandpapa up in the sky? Is He whatever we want Him to be when we need Him?

The Bible provides a framework for understanding God rightly. When the Bible is rightly understood, our view of God is formed to properly grasp who He really is—not who we want Him to be. There is a big difference. All idolatry is men making a god to suit their liking, but the Bible establishes just the opposite—it reveals a God who rules from a position of power and authority that is unrivaled by all people, places, things, and even spiritual beings.

Alright, let’s jump into discussing God’s power.

“The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1).

Why does the earth belong to the Lord? Really—why? Did He inherit it from another deity from another realm? Did He buy it off cosmic Craigslist? Did He win a battle with another deity and take control like an angry tyrant?

If we answer these questions from various religious writings (except the Craigslist one), we will see that the answer varies from one text to another. However, the Bible testifies to itself, and it shows the picture we need to understand where the earth came from—along with all its inhabitants. We also get thrown in the rest of the cosmos to boot.

It is because of the sheer power of God that the cosmos exists, and the blue speck we live on—earth—is a part of God’s power put on display. The creative genius of God gave us this amazing ball of dirt with its intricate ecosystems of life and seasons, and the creative minds of humans to steward this complex and fascinating place we call home.

It is through the power of God that it was created, and it is through that same power that it is sustained moment by moment. By His creative and sustaining power, God by default assumes the position of sovereign Ruler. Here are just a few verses of Scripture that exemplify this quite nicely:

“For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10).

“For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another” (Psalm 75:6–7).

“Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6).

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?” (Isaiah 45:9).

In all these verses, it is seen that the reason He does as He pleases with all things is that He created it all, proving that it is His. In the Isaiah passage, God has a little fun with the object lesson: Pottery cannot say to the potter, “Why didn’t I receive handles, and the other did?” God does as He pleases with all of His creation. Which brings us back to the choice: either rejoicing in the fact that God is a sovereign Ruler or rebelling against this non-negotiable truth.

For those who believe, we rest in the power and position of God, realizing that He knows best and that we are to seek His will and trust His will as it unfolds in our lives. As He continues to sanctify us and walk with us through the ups and downs of life, the believer begins to rest more each day in knowing and trusting an all-powerful God who is in His proper place in our lives. It takes a lifetime to learn this, and all Christians are on this journey—some a little further ahead than others—but our trajectory is the same: trusting an all-powerful God in His position in our lives.

I have to speak to the closet rebel in all of us.

We all have that closet rebel that wells up inside us from time to time. We think we know best, and we try to tell God what He needs to be doing for us rather than seeking what His will is on the matter. God patiently and lovingly allows us to get our bumps and bruises to prove to ourselves—for He already knows we should trust Him—how much we need to follow God and seek to obediently love Him more every day. Through our confession, repentance, and faith in Him, He continues to show us His goodness and grace every day.

Finally, to the outward rebel who has yet to trust Him:

I would lovingly suggest: Just stop and think long and hard about creation, morality, rationality, and mathematics. Come to terms with what the God of the Bible has revealed and humbly submit to what He has revealed in creation and special revelation in the Bible. If you are a rebel, we pray that you will learn to rejoice in the power and position that reveals the goodness of a sovereign God.

Here are a few questions for all of us to help us either stop rebelling or continue to rest and rejoice in God's power and position.

Application Points:

1.      What area of your life are you a closet rebel?

2.      What steps are you going to take to expose your internal rebellion to the light of Scripture and allow others to hold you accountable for exposing your rebellion to the light?

3.      If you are an external rebel, what is holding you back from submitting in repentance and faith to Jesus? (Read John 3:16–19.) Get in touch with us.

4.      What situations or circumstances in your life are making it hard to submit to God’s power and position right now?

5.      For questions 3 and 4—Write them down and share them with someone you trust who knows Jesus on a biblical, personal, faithful level, and let them help you by entering into your struggle with you.

Until next month, go out and share and proclaim the Gospel to see a life transformed. Because the truth worth sharing is the truth that transforms.  

[1] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), 1.

[1] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), 1.