November 4
November 4
The sovereignty of God doesn’t crush gospel witness. It propels it like nothing else can.
One summer my brother turned my biblical world upside down. Tedd began to talk to me about the sovereignty of God; that is, the rule of God over everything and everyone, so that his will will be done, his plan for humanity will be accomplished, and his glory will be eternally known and celebrated. At first I thought this meant that I was nothing more than a mindless robot. It made me mad. I was convinced that my brother couldn’t be right. At one point I got so mad at Tedd that I took off my shoe and threw it at him. His response to me was loving, wise, and patient. He gave me a paperback Bible and a yellow highlighter and told me to read through the Bible that summer and highlight all the places where Scripture talked about God’s sovereign authority and rule over everything. By the end of the summer, my Bible was yellow almost everywhere, and my view of God and myself had radically changed. Rather than making me passive, the truth of God’s sovereignty has propelled my Christianity and given me great rest of heart.
One of the common misunderstandings of the sovereign rule of God is that this doctrine crushes our choices and service. If God has chosen those who will believe in him, then why go out and preach the gospel? The chosen will be saved, no matter what. Right? But this is not what Scripture teaches. Hear and consider carefully Jesus’s words in John 15:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (John 15:12–17)
John 15 includes some of Jesus’s final instructions to his disciples. These verses are a call to action. Jesus calls them to love one another as he has loved them. He reminds them of the friendship they now enjoy with him, which comes only by means of reconciling grace. Jesus reminds his disciples of who they are and what he has called them to do. In giving them these final instructions, Jesus recognizes the importance of their choices and actions. Then he reminds them that they are his—not first because of their choice but because of his—and that he chose them to bear good fruit in character and ministry. God’s sovereignty doesn’t crush the significance of our belief or our ministry; it motivates them. Because the Lord rules, we know that in choosing to believe him and serve him, we will bear good fruit.