In Control

Theme: God is sovereign

Scriptures:

• Deuteronomy 10:17-22
• 1 Timothy 6:13-16
• Isaiah 46:5-13
• Acts 4:23-31
• Psalm 97:1-12
• Jeremiah 23:23-24
• Jonah 1:1-10

Objectives: (From the D6 Fusion Sunday School Lesson book)

Know: God sovereignly reigns through the expression of His natural attributes.

Think: Have the mindset that total obedience to God is best due to His worthiness to rule.

Do: Trust and obey God with the confidence that your loyalty is properly placed.

Song: Trust and Obey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8N9AaAGpU

A1 God’s sovereignty

B1 Views (3 broadly defined ways. There are variations in each group).

C1 Calvinist

D1 (From the TERCENTENARY EDITION of the Westminster Confession of Faith)

CHAPTER III.

Of God’s Eternal Decree.

God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.

III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.

D2 Second source

The doctrine that God eternally and unconditionally decreed all future things necessarily follows from the fact that God is independent, all knowing, and unchangeable, which is what chapter 2 of the confession teaches. Since God is independent, it follows that His decree cannot depend upon anything in the future or anything outside of Himself. Since God knows all things, it follows that God must have first decreed all things. And since God is unchangeable, it follows that God must have an unchangeable decree at the foundation of all that He does.

D3 Questions

E1 How can God escape being the author of sin?

F1 First general Calvinist answer: God decrees the highest desire and the individual in their free will chooses that desire. This is compatibilism.

F2 Second general Calvinist answer: Everything God does is holy, because He is holy.

E2 How can a person be judged and sentenced for doing God’s will?

C2 Classical Arminian (and Wesleyan Arminian, too):

D1 A. W. Tozer writes:

Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, “What doest thou?” Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.

D2 Jerry Walls writes:

The sovereignty of God is a vitally important truth Wesleyans badly need to recover. This is not only because it is crucial for understanding the biblical drama, but also because many Wesleyans have tended to neglect it because Calvinists often give the impression that it is one of their distinctive doctrines. But the sovereignty of God is not a Calvinist doctrine, it is a biblical doctrine, and no one who wants to be faithful to Scripture can afford to ignore or downplay this great truth.

So what is the sovereignty of God? Simply put, it is the truth that God is in control, that he has supreme power. It is the truth that he is the Lord of the Universe and of everyone and everything it contains. The sovereignty of God is not always appealing because it is sharply at odds with the popular illusion that we are in control. It is a common human conceit to think that our lives are our own, that human beings are running the show and answer to no one higher than themselves.

D3 Questions:

F1 Is God really sovereign if He allows (or decrees) a limited, libertarian free will?

F2 How do you explain free will?

C3 Open Theism: I had a difficult time finding Open Theists who could define Open Theism, and I don’t have the money to buy their books and find a correct quote from them. So, I am turning to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a reliable definition: Open Theism is the thesis that, because God loves us and desires that we freely choose to reciprocate His love, He has made His knowledge of, and plans for, the future conditional upon our actions. Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. Though omnipotent, He has chosen to invite us to freely collaborate with Him in governing and developing His creation, thereby also allowing us the freedom to thwart His hopes for us. God desires that each of us freely enter into a loving and dynamic personal relationship with Him, and He has therefore left it open to us to choose for or against His will. While Open Theists affirm that God knows all the truths that can be known, they claim that there simply are not yet truths about what will occur in the “open,” undetermined future. Alternatively, there are such contingent truths, but these truths cannot be known by anyone, including God. Another article that may help.

D1 First question: How can God be omniscient if He does not know clearly everything in the future?

D2 Second question: How can God not know every truth?

C4 Personally, I choose the Reformed Arminian view as correct because of the plain, normal reading and study of Scriptures. The other views use systems of interpretation and/or prior presumptions as their world view or theological standards. Please! Always interpret the Bible in its plain, normal sense.

B2 Main points

C1 God can do what He wants and no one can alter His decision.

C2 God truly gives a limited, libertarian free will.

C3 Love is a choice, not a coercion.

C4 Some verses:

D1 Daniel 4:35 (HCSB) All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does what He wants with the army of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. There is no one who can hold back His hand or say to Him, “What have You done?

D2 Matthew 19:25-26 (HCSB) When the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and asked, “Then who can be saved? ” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

D3 2 Chronicles 20:5-6 (NKJV) Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said: “O LORD God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You?

D4 Acts 7:51 (NKJV) You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.

D5 Matthew 23:37 (NKJV) O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

D6 In view of the above verses, if God is sovereign, how can people resist?

A2 Isaiah 46:8-13 (NKJV)

“Remember this, and show yourselves men; Recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. “Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, Who are far from righteousness: I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, For Israel My glory.

B1 How does memory help us in our spiritual life/walk?

B2 How can we know there are no other gods?

B3 How does He know the future?

B4 When God makes His mind up and makes a decision can it be changed? By whom?

B5 Why is God making an appeal to this group of transgressors? Does it suggest there might be some form of free will?

B6 What is foreknowledge?

B7 What is the condition of those described as stubborn hearted? Why are they stubborn? How does this kind of stubborness hurt people?

B8 Where does righteousness come from?

C1 Romans 10:3 (NKJV) For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

C2 Romans 1:16-17 (NKJV) For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

A3 A few more questions:

B1 How do you realize God’s sovereignty in your life?

B2 Does God’s sovereignty give you a sense of peace or restlessness?

B3 How does God’s love demonstrate His sovereignty?

B4 How can we explain the occurrence of evil, calamity, and trouble in this world and our lives?

B5 Do you want to resist God?

A4 Next week:

B1 Always the same

B2 Theme: God is Unchanging

B3 Scriptures:

1. Numbers 23:18-20
2. Numbers 23 25-27
3. Jeremiah 18:5-11
4. 2 Timothy 2:8-13
5. James 1:16-18
6. Hebrews 6:13-20
7. Genesis 12:1-3
8. Exodus 3:13-15
9. Lamentations 3:21-26

Holy! Holy! Holy!

Theme: God is holy.

Scriptures:
Exodus 15:1-21	Leviticus 19:1-4
Joshua 24:19-28	1 Samuel 2:1-3
Psalm 99	Proverbs 9:7-12
Isaiah 5:13-25	Isaiah 6:1-6
Ezekiel 39:1-24	1 Peter 1:14-21
Revelation 4:8-11

Objectives: (From the D6 Fusion Sunday School Lesson book)

Know: God is the Supreme Being in existence.

Think: Understand the holiness of God as foundational to proper respect and worship.

Do: Worship God with confidence, knowing His ways are truly best.

A1 Song: Holy, Holy, Holy Audrey Assad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTXn6O6I9wA

A2 Holiness

B1 Defined

C1 Words

D1 Hebrew: קֹדֶשׁ qôdesh (and related words) which means something set apart, separateness.

D2 Greek

E1 ἁγιάζω hagiázō (and related words) which means separated, purified.

E2 ὅσιος hósios which means something sanctioned by God to be holy, without sin, etc.

C2 Uses

D1 Hebrew

E1 Exodus 3:5 (MEV) He said, “Do not approach here. Remove your sandals from off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

E2 Leviticus 10:10 (MEV) so that you may differentiate between what is holy and common and between what is unclean and clean.

D2 Greek

E1 Matthew 6:9 NLT - Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. (Holy is γιάζω hagiázō).

E2 Matthew 23:17 CSB - "Blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? (Sanctified is γιάζω hagiázō).

E3 Revelation 15:4 NKJV - Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested." (Holy is ὅσιος).

B2 Holiness is not the same as sinlessness.

C1 No human, except Jesus Christ, is sinless.

C2 God does not pronounce anyone sinless, except His son, Jesus Christ.

C3 God does mention being blameless.

D1 Zacharias and Elizabeth were declared blameless: Luke 1:6 NKJV - And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

D2 Us

E1 Philippians 2:14-16 CSB - Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, by holding firm to the word of life. Then I can boast in the day of Christ that I didn't run or labor for nothing.

E2 1 Thessalonians 3:13 CSB - May he make your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Amen.

B3 Consider:

C1 Exodus 3:5 (MEV) He said, “Do not approach here. Remove your sandals from off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

D1 The ground, dirt, pasture, whatever was there, would have looked exactly the same as the non-holy ground. Moses didn’t even know the difference, but God did.

D2 What made it different?

D3 The universe and everything in it was holy when God created. It was pronounced good.

D4 After Adam’s sin, God cursed the universe and everything in it. It had become contaminated and not good.

D5 The ground where God commanded Moses to take off his sandals was holy ground that was not cursed. It had been sanctified by God. It was not cursed ground; it was holy ground.

D6 This is the first use of קֹדֶשׁ qôdesh in the Scriptures.

C2 God is holy. Here are some uses:

D1 His name: Psalm 33:21 (MEV) For our heart will rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name.

D2 His throne: Psalm 47:8 (MEV) God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne.

D3 His character and His speech: Psalm 60:6 (MEV) God has spoken in His holiness: “I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and measure out the Valley of Sukkoth.

C3 Difference between holy and unholy: Leviticus 10:10 (MEV) so that you may differentiate between what is holy and common and between what is unclean and clean.

D1 The word for holy is קֹדֶשׁ qôdesh. This something separated, set apart.

D2 The word for common/unholy is חֹל chôl. This is something common, not separated. It is something contaminated.

A3 What is holiness?

B1 We must start in Genesis 1. We must understand Genesis 1 in a plain, normal sense. If we cannot, we have no choice but to reject everything in its plain, normal sense.

B2 After creating, God reviewed everything and pronounced it good: Genesis 1:31 (MEV) God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

B3 The standard God used to judge creation, is the standard we call holy/holiness. Thus, it is always separate from what is not holy, that is, common or profane, for those things are stained by sin and the God’s curse.

B4 God’s standard is always the best for society, family, church, business, government, environment, etc.

B5 God does not change His standards: Malachi 3:6 NKJV - For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Also see Hebrews 13:8.

B6 The Old Testament was for Israel, a DNA, a people who has a land with boundaries. This will not change: Genesis 15:18 NKJV - On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— and many other places (Genesis 17:8, Genesis 24:7, Numbers 34:3, Joshua 1:4, Nehemiah 9:8, Psalm 105:11, etc.

B7 The New Testament is the standards of doctrine and practice for Christians. Again, all must be understood and interpreted in the plain, normal sense. It is the standards for preaching the Gospel, building a church, a family, and an individual. We do not need to follow some other plan, for the other plan will not measure up to God’s standards.

A4 Scripture

B1 1 Samuel 2:1-3 (MEV) Hannah prayed, saying: My heart rejoices in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is bold against my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation. There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none besides You, and there is no rock like our God. Do not multiply proud speech, nor let arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is the God of knowledge, and by Him actions are examined.

C1 Is any human—other than Jesus Christ—who is holy like the Lord?

C2 Will following any other standard be the best for the church, the family, society, business, leadership, government, etc?

B2 Some things

C1 We worship in holiness: Psalm 105:3 CSB - Honor his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.

C2 Everything about God is perfect: Deuteronomy 32:4 CSB - The Rock —his work is perfect; all his ways are just. A faithful God, without bias, he is righteous and true.

C3 We follow His standard, because: 1 Peter 1:16 CSB - for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.

B3 Psalm 99:4 (MEV) The King’s strength loves justice; you establish righteousness, and You execute judgment and fairness in Jacob.

C1 What 3 things are declared to be holy?

C2 What is justice?

D1 Justice is making a decision involving another.

D2 We are to make a just decision, too.

E1 For the poor, that is, not to decide for the rich because he is rich or the poor because he is poor: Exodus 23:2-3 CSB - You must not follow a crowd in wrongdoing. Do not testify in a lawsuit and go along with a crowd to pervert justice. "Do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit.

E2 One of the reasons for the book of Proverbs is: Proverbs 1:3 CSB - for receiving prudent instruction in righteousness, justice, and integrity.

E3 Not loving truth results in a lack of understanding for justice: Proverbs 28:5 CSB - The evil do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand everything.

D3 How has God administered justice?

C3 What is fairness?

D1 It has the idea of being equal and even handed.

D2 Jesus is completely fair. We see this prophesied and in the records of His life. This passage was not fulfilled in His first coming but will in His second. Isaiah 11:4 (MEV) but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and reprove with fairness for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

C4 What is righteousness?

B4 Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

B1 Why is the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom?

B2 Bill Crowder writes on this passage: Albert Einstein was heard to say, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” Sadly, it does seem that far too often there is no limit to the foolishness we get ourselves into—or the damage we create by our foolishness and the choices it fosters.

It was in such a season of regret that David poured out his struggle and complaint to God in Psalm 38. As he recounted his own failings, as well as the painful consequences he was enduring because of those failings, the shepherd-king made an insightful comment: “My wounds are foul and festering because of my foolishness” (v.5). Although the psalmist does not give us the details of those choices or of his worsening wounds, one thing is clear—David recognized his own foolishness as their root cause.

The answer for such destructive foolishness is to embrace the wisdom of God. Proverbs 9:10 reminds us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Only by allowing God to transform us can we overcome the foolish decisions that cause so much trouble. With His loving guidance, we can follow the pathway of godly wisdom [emphasis is mine].

A5 A few more questions

B1 What is holiness?

B2 What is the standard for holiness?

B3 Why are we required to be holy?

B4 How do we become holy?

B5 How do we stay holy?

B6 Is holiness the same as sinlessness?

A6 Next week:

B1 In control

B2 Theme: God is sovereign

B3 Scriptures:

• Deuteronomy 10:17-22
• 1 Timothy 6:13-16
• Isaiah 46:5-13
• Acts 4:23-31
• Psalm 97:1-12
• Jeremiah 23:23-24
• Jonah 1:1-10