The Supremacy and Sovereignty of the Will of God

There are many doctrines all Christians should be well acquainted with. The doctrine of the Trinity, original sin, Baptism, Atonement, Eschatology, Forgiveness, God’s attributes, holiness, justification, the Lord’s supper, marriage, predestination, redemption, regeneration, sanctification, union with Christ, worship, and many more doctrines and systematic theologies our God has blessed us with through vessels He has chosen to bless His Church. Let no one convince you we should ignore past and classical writings by Christian authors and theologians. They are God’s gift to the church for our edification.

Ephesians 4:11-14 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Not only did Christ give gifted people the ability to prophesy, evangelize, and become pastors, teachers, and writers of doctrine with the ability to reveal the mysteries of God. Part of His intent is for us to learn from each other, build each other up in the faith, and unite with one another and Jesus Christ. Yet, some will attempt to convince you that you do not need to go to a building with others to worship God. You can indeed worship God at your own leisure. There is nothing wrong with having alone time to study and worship God when you’re alone. We ought to. It is better to worship God alone than sin against Him alone. What are we doing with our time? But to declare that the bible does not state or imply that we do not need to go to a building on Sunday and worship God communally is a misunderstanding, a misintrution, a fabrication, a lie. Reread Ephesians 4:11-15 and tell me God does not want us to worship God in unity. What do you think worship is like in Heaven? We will desire to worship God together with other saints of God. We desire to be around Christians when one has the Spirit of God. When we are absent for business or whatever life endeavors get in the way, we miss our Christian brothers and sisters. Do you desire to be around Christians? Or are you too much a friend of the world?

God gave these teachers and preachers the gift to interpret the scriptures with rigorous labor and develop sound doctrine in a relatively easy way to understand. So that in our learning, we grow into mature spiritual adulthood and are no longer vulnerable to human and diabolical craftiness and deceit. Without sound doctrine, without sound theology, and without sound preaching and teaching, we will fall victim to every false doctrine and teaching carried by the wind. We were born in deceit. In spiritual darkness until the light of Christ removed our blindness to receive a glimpse of the glory of God.

One doctrine in particular left me with admiration of God’s majesty. That is the sovereignty of God and His supremacy. The sovereignty of God is an attribute of God. In conjunction with the sovereignty of God, I will reflect on the attribute of God’s supremacy. Significantly, His supremacy over salvation. These doctrines raised my curiosity and desire to learn everything that can be discovered within the scriptures. These doctrines also led to other doctrines, such as the attributes of God, which brought my intellect closer to a better understanding of who God is and what God is. It has brought my mind, my emotions, my spirit, my soul, and my heart to a helpless submission to the absolute sovereign will of God. It is my hope and prayer, you have the same or greater positive response today. As long as you can ignore your humanist approach to what you think the sovereign will of God is, the sovereignty of God will be a blessing to you. But suppose you cannot allow the scriptures to speak for themselves objectively without letting your emotions get in the way of understanding. In that case, you will miss one of the most glorifying doctrines Christianity has to offer on this physical dimension of God’s glory. Martin Luther told Erasmus in one of his letters, “Your thoughts of God are too human.”

You all know Martin Luther, one of the pinnacle leaders of the Protestant Reformation, and he needs no introduction. But fifteenth, sixteenth century Erasmus of Rotterdam was a Catholic theologian and philosopher. He was a voluminous writer and one of the greatest influential thinkers of the Northern Renaissance. Erasmus was not anyone you would look for to have a theological debate unless you were of a high theological caliber. It is said that Martin Luther and Erasmus never argued in public. They were professionals and corresponded with letters. For Martin Luther to tell Erasmus, “Your thoughts of God are too human,” was highly insulting to Erasmus’ intellect and knowledge of God. But can you comprehend the glory of God’s supremacy and sovereignty? Or, are your thoughts of God too human as well? I will boldly claim that without understanding God’s sovereignty and supremacy, especially over the salvation of man, your knowledge of God is lacking and too human.

God is supreme. To be supreme over something means to be the highest of all. Christ is the highest authority over all, and none can challenge His decrees. Our salvation rests in the hands of the good shepherd, and He will not let any of His sheep go astray. Christ is supreme over all the deception of the world. He warns us of false teachers who come to us with a Christian appearance and title.

Matthew 7:15 reads; Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

We also see in John 10:28 that God is supreme over salvation.

John 10:28 and I give them eternal life, and they shall never ever perish, and not anyone shall pluck them out of My hand.

Although Christ warns us of false teachers, Christ grants us eternal life, and as a result, Jesus will lose none of his sheep. Once God saves you, nothing and no one can remove you from His love. John illustrates a picture of God’s children securely resting in His hands. When I say God’s children, I mean those who believe in Jesus Christ as their God and savior. I do not mean God’s children in a general sense of all belonging to God due to His creation. There exists a distinction you need to acknowledge. The children of God whom He has saved and loved with an eternal love before the foundation of the world rest securely in His hands, and nothing can remove us from His nurturing hands. God’s forgiveness is supreme, and while we are constantly unfaithful to Him, He remains faithful to us. God does not discard us as a consequence of disappointment. Instead, God reveals His grace, mercy, and faithfulness to us by saving us when we call on the name of Jesus, and He will keep us. No one can pluck us from His hands. So, we praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are supreme over salvation. Praise Him, who reigns over all from the throne of Heaven. Praise God for being supreme over our salvation. It was not by our merit, will, nor our own decision, but solely and only by God, and our decision was based on His supreme eternal decision.

Romans 9:15,16 reads For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 

How many of you pray for the salvation of relatives, friends, and strangers. What are you praying? Hopefully, we all recognize we all need to pray for the will of God and His mercy to rain on people like a flood. We see how supreme God is over salvation. He is supreme over His mercy. It is by His mercy that God does not give all what all deserve, and that is hell. But it is by His mercy that God gives many what they do not deserve, and that is Christ the Son and giver of eternal life. So, it is not by the person who wills or runs, which illustrates how incompetent we are to achieve salvation by our own will and works. No matter how much we work for it, and no matter how much willpower we apply, and no matter how much we may think we must have some part in our salvation according to our will, we must realize that if it were not for the mercy of  God and His will, we would have willfully walked straight into hell.

Let’s talk about the human will a little bit. Because I have many brothers and sisters in Christ who love to boast about their “free will.” I know some in this room have heard Christians say, God gave me free will. God will never do anything contrary to my free will. God gave me grace, but the ultimate final choice in my salvation resulted from my free will; I freely chose to get saved. Now, does that sound humble to you? Does that sound like a character who focuses on giving God the glory? Listen, undoubtedly and most assuredly, we did make a decision to follow Christ. But let’s put it in proper theological and biblically practical perspective. We chose to follow Christ because God first chose us. In Genesis chapter 12, God chose Abraham to leave his country and family to go wherever God had told him to go. God initiates, and as a result man followes. When God initiates, it is always effectual because God does not fail in His purpose, He is Sovereign! I don’t think Abraham responded with, “Ya, so I have this thing you gave me called “free will,” and uh, I don’t want to go. Not gonna happen. That is not the way grace and mercy work. God’s grace and mercy is supreme. When God calls on someone, when God chooses, it is an effectual calling from God, and we have a positive and effective response because God’s calling is supreme. Let’s allow Scripture to speak for itself on this matter and see who chose who first.

Deuteronomy 7:6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Psalm 65:4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple! 

Ephesians 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 

Ephesians 1:5 reads according to His will. Does God have a free will? Is there anything in existence that can obstruct the free will of God? Or is the free will of God contingent on the free will of man? It is impossible for the free will of God to be dependent on the will or actions of man past, present, or future. If the will of God is dependent on anything or anyone apart from God’s own sovereign will, then God is no longer omnipotent, supreme, or sovereign. God is supreme in His perfection and supreme perfection is contingent on nothing. God is not contingent of His own creation because God did not create out of necessity. It is we and all of existence that is contingent on the existence of God, not the other way around. God is supreme; God is sovereign. Do you understand that rationality?

Who told you you had a free will? Of course, we have a will. But where, why, and when did we require to place the prefix “free” in front of will? It follows logically that if a free will exists, then a will must also exist that is not free but in bondage. But in bondage to what? We will explore that concept momentarily. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy states, “To have a will is to be able to desire an outcome and to purpose to bring it about. Strength of will, or firmness of purpose, is supposed to be good, and weakness of will is bad.” It is highly curious to me that they define the will as a determined faculty, as an end in itself to produce goodness. The will in itself has an imperative of good utility. Any weakness of the will and it falls short of that imperative and produces destructive utility, or evil. To further amplify my point, eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant distinguishes the human will into two categories. One is “the ability to act under the heading of reason and to obey the moral law.” The second is “a will affected by sensuous desire or inclination.”

I agree with both of Kant’s propositions. The first is because we all should make our decisions with sound reason based on God’s moral law, which He has established for us to obey. In his second proposition, when Kant speaks of sensuous desire or inclination, I believe he is referring to human emotion and, furthermore, making decisions based on what we are most naturally inclined to choose, based on our essential nature of being. Having developed the concept that the will in itself has an imperative to naturally produce goodness, and any weakness of that imperative produces evil, then the only existing being who truly and naturally has a perfect good will and whose decisions are free from all obstructions is the holy free will of God. The only existing beings who truly and naturally have an imperfect will and whose decisions are obstructed from producing pure goodness and, at times, produce evil and destruction, is the will of man that is in bondage to sin because, as born sinners, we are naturally inclined to disobey the moral law of God. How free does our will sound now?

Undoubtedly, we have a will to choose anything on this physical side of existence. But do not mistake your ability to choose what color socks you chose to wear this morning with the biblical definition of man’s will. Tell me, can you choose to stop sinning? We cannot, and do you know why? Because to stop sinning is contrary to our nature. We do not have the ability to naturally stop sinning as much as a fish cannot naturally choose to live on land.

Do you not remember that we were born spiritually dead and disinclined to the spiritual things of God?

Genesis 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 

Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

This in no way means that David’s parents were in sin when they conceived David in any unlawful way. David is expressing that the very nature of his existence is sinful as far back as conception in his mother’s womb. To this effect, Bible commentator John Gill writes, “David, having been, from his conception and formation, nothing else but a mass of sin, a lump of iniquity; and, in his evangelical repentance for them, he is led to take notice of and mourn over the corruption of his nature, from whence they arose. The Heathens themselves affirm that no man is born without sin.” Now, if the heathens are willing to admit that no one is naturally born without sin, what do you say, my fellow Christians? And if David acknowledges the fact that we are born with a corrupted nature, what do you say?

Jeremiah 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. 

This rhetorical question is meant to provoke you to realize that you cannot choose what is contrary to your sinful nature as much as a person cannot naturally change the color of their skin or the leopard remove his spots according to their free will.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 

It is not until we are spiritually regenerated by the Spirit of God or born again, so to speak, that we are then inclined to the kingdom of God. We are then inclined to the spiritual things of God. Do you want eyes to see and ears to hear the wonders of God? Then call on the name of Jesus to save you from God’s judgment and repent of your sins now. Become baptized and live an upright life focused on the will of God. Not later, do it now for tomorrow is not promised.

John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

When we are born again. We are born again by the Spirit of God. Our nature is spiritually changed. We are still naturally inclined to sin, but once regenerated by the spirit of God, we are now inclined to see and hear with spiritual eyes and ears for the things of God. Our will is no longer in bondage to sin but is now free to follow Jesus Christ. Freedom of the will means to have an inclination toward God and love Jesus Christ. To this effect, Tertullian of Carthage AD 220 wrote, “He who is being born of God does not sin, because the seed of God abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. Herein are manifest the sons of God and the sons of the devil.” I specifically chose this quote to show you how, far back in Christian history, the nature of man’s will is believed to be changed by the regeneration of the spirit.

We need to humble ourselves and realize that God alone is the only being in existence with an absolute free will because His will is supreme. In contrast, the will of man is not free but in bondage to sin. It is not until we are reborn spiritually that we have freedom of will.

One last thought on free will. So many become offended when they are told that we are called according to God’s predetermined will. But when they are told that those who believe in Christ will never lose their salvation, and none can pluck them from God’s hand according to God’s power and will, you don’t hear anyone protest and say if I want to lose my salvation according to my free will, I should have that option. If I want to leave the faith indefinitely, God should not obstruct my free will to do so. In fact, there is a group that has realized this contradiction. As a result, in order to remain logical, they believe that they came to the Lord of their own free will and can fall away from grace of their own free will. I’ll let you study to realize what group or groups they are.

Early twentieth-century Bible teacher Arthur W. Pink, author of the brilliant book The Attributes of God, wrote, “Men may boast that they are free agents, with a will of their own, and are at liberty to do as they please, but Scripture says to those who boast “we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell…Ye ought to say, If the Lord will,” Here is a sure resting place for the heart. Our lives are neither the product of blind fate nor the result of capricious chance, but every detail of them was ordained from all eternity and is now ordered by the living and reigning God. Not a hair of our heads can be touched without His permission. “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” What assurance, strength, and comfort this should give the real Christian! “My times are in Thy hand.” Then let me “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him.”

How should our response be to such a doctrine as this? Should we harden ourselves in anger and resist a supreme and sovereign God? Are your arms long enough to box with the Almighty God. The God where Job 23:13 says He is unchangeable, and who can turn Him back? What He desires, that He does. In other words, there is no changing the mind of God. There is no changing the course of His chosen action. Whatever He desires to do, that is what He will accomplish. Do not place your will above the will of God. The will of God is supreme and good for your life. Don’t you desire to unite with Jesus Christ as a legitimate family member?

Mark 3:35 reads, For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Would you rather stand in opposition to God Almighty, the sovereign of the universe? Would you not rather love and worship God, knowing that the highest supreme God listens to your prayers.

John 9:31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, God listens to Him.

Even Jesus, while in the flesh, prayed to the Father in Heaven according to the will of God. He said not my will be done but yours. We need to emulate that exact same character of our Lord. While distressed and knowing the suffering He was soon to endure for the atonement of sins, He surrendered his will to obey the Will of the Father in Heaven.

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Remember that only the will of God is truly free and produces perfect and good utility. Whatever God’s will has planned for my life, so be it. You should welcome the will of God in your life. I see the evil in the world, and Scripture says, I myself have a deceitful heart that I cannot trust. I realize the very core of my nature is corrupted with sin and vulnerable to the temptation to disobey God’s commandments. I acknowledge the iniquity of my will to the point where I do not have and neither do I want free will. My prayer is that, I beg the Lord to overcome my will, trespass my will, and control my will with your good will God. Let us do the will of God not to please other men and women but become slaves to Jesus Christ and love the will of God from the heart.

Ephesians 6:6 Not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

Whether this is the first time you hear about the sovereign will of God and Christ or not. Whether this is the first time you hear about the lack of or bondage of your will or not. It does not matter. What matters is that you do not harden your heart and mind against God because you may have become offended. Instead, surrender to the perfect will of God for your life. Live the rest of your life in pursuit of the will of God. 1 John 2:17 The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.