The Sovereignty Of God (Part 1)

I invite you to turn with me this morning to Isaiah 40, Isaiah 40 as we read together the chapter. You know that a matter of a few weeks ago we began to consider Scripture's teaching as summarized in the Belgian Confession. We considered Article 1, there is only one God, and in that article it talks about, it gives a description of God, of some of His attributes. He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good. In Article 2 there we consider by what means we may know him, both through the world book of creation and through the word book of special revelation, the Bible. And before we continue on with further articles, I would like to pause for just a couple of sermons and consider a few of the attributes of our God. Not all of them, but just a couple of them. And this morning, considering the sovereignty of our God. And Isaiah chapter 40 describes that sovereignty of our God. Now also, as you can tell from the outline on the back of the sermon, all the three points are scrunched together up top with a part one behind point number one. And that's because that's the only point we're going to have time for this morning. And the Lord willing, we'll consider points number two and three next week. We read together Isaiah chapter 40. Hear now the word of our God. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling, In the desert prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice says, Cry out. And I said, What shall I cry? All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout. Lift it up. Do not be afraid. Say to the towns of Judah, here is your God. See, the sovereign Lord comes with power, and His arm rules for Him. See, His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him. He tends His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads those that have young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand? Or with the breadth of His hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the Lord or instructed Him as His counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten Him and who taught Him the right way? Who was it that taught Him knowledge or showed Him the path of understanding? Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They are regarded as dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor is its animals enough for burnt offerings. Before Him all the nations are as nothing. They are regarded by Him as worthless and less than nothing. To whom then will you compare God? What image will you compare Him to? As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the people, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground than He blows on them. And they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. To whom will you compare me, or who is my equal, says the Holy One? Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord. My cause is disregarded by my God. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. Beloved in Christ the Lord, there is that Sunday school song that our youngest children sing which says, My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do. The mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars show His handiwork too. My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do. And then it ends with a resounding, for you. There's nothing my God cannot do for you. A simple song. Yet a song which teaches our young children such a great truth about God. Boys and girls, even though you may not understand the theological term for it, the song teaches you about the sovereignty of God. You see, we teach our children already from an early age about the greatness and the majesty and the might of God. we teach them that He is sovereign. But the question we need to ask is, do we believe this? Do we really believe this? Is this how we understand God? Is this how we treat Him in our relationship with Him? Do we treat Him and consider Him to be our sovereign God? As we get older and wiser, do we continue to cling to this childlike faith? My God is so big! there's nothing my God cannot do. I'm afraid for many that the Christian religion has degenerated into an easy believism, into an all roads lead to heaven kind of religion and worship has been watered down to a make-me-feel-good social time which is optional at best and all of this because of a lack of true knowledge of God. He has been reduced. God has been reduced to a tolerant and sentimental old grandfather type who loves everyone the same and really won't hold anyone accountable for how they live their lives. Just so you tried hard. Just so you did your best. What more can God ask for? You see, man has great thoughts about himself. Great thoughts. If you don't believe me, just look at interviews that take place on talk shows or I would never suggest that you watch Academy Awards and that kind of stuff. But if you do, you see there how man has such great thoughts about himself and exalts himself, but man has very small teensy-weensy thoughts of God. Now the truth is we know that we cannot have a complete knowledge of God because our finite mind simply cannot hold it all. We can only scratch the surface. As Paul says in Romans 11, verse 33, Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out. Indeed, we can only scratch the surface and only then by His illuminating grace. yet, beloved, we must scratch that surface. We must reflect on what God has to say to us about Himself in His Word Book of Special Revelation and in His World Book of General Revelation. And the truth of God's revelation of Himself is that He is sovereign. And as we consider the sovereignty of God, beloved, may it be that the Holy Spirit of God would bring each one of us to a deeper understanding of just how awesome is the God we profess and serve. And may we be comforted more than ever that every bit of our lives is under the control of this sovereign God. And may we be challenged in our call, in our call as those who live before the face of this God. Well, first of all then, what does it mean that God is sovereign? This is our first point, which we will only consider this morning. What is the meaning of God's sovereignty? Well, many of you may recall that about four and a half years ago, before he retired, Pastor Camming had preached a series of sermons here in this church on the attributes of God. Last fall, he was filling the pulpit at the Bethel United Reformed Church in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and he preached that series there. And I was privileged to listen to the CD of the sermon that he preached with the title, Knowing a Sovereign God, based on Acts chapter 4, verses 23 to 31. And in that sermon, Pastor Camming pointed out, as I trust he did here as well, he pointed out to the children that if you write the word sovereign on a piece of paper, S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N, if you write that down and do kind of a word search, where you might use one letter to do double duty for a couple of words, you can find two words included in that one word. If you circle them, you see that those words are over and reign. And those two words give you and me a simple definition of what sovereign means. It means to reign over. To reign over. And as someone said to me after the first server this morning, We take the S, stands for Savior, reigns over. But Pastor Kaminga points out that in Acts 4, verse 24, the apostles Peter and John begin their prayer, which is recorded there, translated in the NIV as well as some other versions. They begin it with the words, Sovereign Lord. Some other versions, though, translate it as, Lord, You are God. Sovereign Lord, or Lord, you are God. But the Greek word translated as sovereign or God in those two phrases is the word from which we get our word, despot. And a despot is a ruler with absolute power and authority. He does whatever he pleases. He answers to no one. He is the only and the complete ruler. What he says goes. No one is able to frustrate or change his plans, unlike our plans, which are often frustrated. I think our young people, especially in their high school years, find this out the most, don't you? That your plans are sometimes frustrated as you begin to think that you can make your own plans. But mom and dad says, wait a minute. You didn't talk to us. And in this house, we are sovereign. A despot is a ruler with absolute power and authority. That's how Peter and John understood God. As the ruler, the one and only, with absolute power and authority. And so did Isaiah. It's clear from Isaiah chapter 40. We have a similar situation here in Isaiah 40 verse 10. Again, the NIV along with some of the other versions says in verse 10, The Sovereign Lord. While other versions say, The Lord God. And the Hebrew words are Adonai, Yahweh. And it is agreed that Isaiah is speaking of Yahweh, Israel's covenant God, and then Adonai in the sense of the Lord of all the earth. The Lord over all. He is the sovereign Master, the God of power. This, our covenant God. And then just as in Acts chapter 4, Isaiah 40 gives a clear description of the sovereignty of God and of how and why He is sovereign. Now, it's not our purpose here this morning or next week as we come back to Isaiah 40 to focus on all that the Lord has to teach us in Isaiah 40. There is so much. But it's our purpose to consider specifically its teaching on the sovereignty of God. In Isaiah 39, we are taught that the future holds exile in Babylon for God's people, which also points then to our real bondage to sin. Not a very comforting thought, is it? And then Isaiah 40 speaks of deliverance and how those in bondage are to be comforted. The only hope of the exiles and the only hope of the sinner is this sovereign God. Beloved, God is supreme over all things, over all of His creation. Again, He answers to no one and nothing. All things and everyone must answer to Him. And because He is supreme over all, He is also sovereign over all. His is absolute authority and rule over His creation. And His sovereignty then means that He must be all-knowing, all-powerful, and absolutely free. We call these His attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and independence. He is completely independent, not dependent upon anything or anyone, unlike you and I, who are completely dependent upon Him, as well as all of creation, is dependent upon Him. One commentator says, He is unrivaled in majesty, unlimited in power, and unaffected by anything outside Himself. Therefore, He is not at any time in any way in danger of being harmed by anyone or anything. That must be to our comfort. Because our God cannot, He will not fail. We know that God's Word is filled with testimony to His sovereignty. For example, there is testimony to His majesty and greatness. We see that in 1 Chronicles 29, verses 11 and 12. David prays at the dedication of the temple. He prays these words, Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor for everything in heaven and earth is Yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom. You are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from You. You are the ruler of all things. In Your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. And then a little bit later in his prayer, David confesses that all of the abundance that the people provided for the building of the temple, all the gold and the silver and everything else really came from God. They gave back to Him what He first gave to them. Psalm 93, verses 1 and 2 says, The Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty. The Lord is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established. It cannot be moved. Your throne was established long ago. You are from all eternity. And then Paul says in 1 Timothy 1.17, Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. But a glimpse of all that Scripture says about the greatness and the majesty of God all throughout Scripture. We find that testimony to the truth that God is great over all, that all things are subject to Him. And we cannot talk about the meaning of God's sovereignty without including the scope or the extent of His sovereignty. How far-reaching is it? How far does it go? Well, as David says pretty plainly, God rules over all things. He does as He pleases, when He pleases, how and where He pleases, for the purpose that He pleases. In Psalm 115, in contrast to idol gods, which are absolutely dead and useless, verse 3 says, Our God is in heaven. He does whatever He pleases. And as somewhat of an echo, Psalm 135, 5-7 says, I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever pleases Him in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from the storehouses. You see, when we speak of the sovereignty of God, we must specifically speak of His sovereign will and His sovereign power. God has determined, God has willed all that happens, and therefore nothing that happens in this life, not one thing that happens throughout the course of history, not one little bit of it is a surprise to Him. Not a bit of it. And that's because, as Abraham Kuyper rightly said, there is not one inch of the universe that does not belong to God. It all belongs to Him. He is in control of every last inch of it. And by His sovereign power, God carries out His will. By His power, His plan unfolds in history just as He planned that it would. So then, is this a mystery to us? Absolutely. But the simple truth is, it all belongs to Him. He controls it all. As the psalmist also says in Psalm 135, 5, as the psalmist makes clear, nature is also under the rule and command of God. And Scripture also bears testimony to that over and over again. Just to think of some of your favorite Old Testament Bible stories. It was God who sent the flood. And notice in Genesis 7 verse 4, after the ark was built, the Lord said to Noah, seven days from now, seven days from Now I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. God did not need a weatherman to forecast the rain, when it would come, how long it would last, how much it would get. Because He turns the rain on and off. And then verse 17 of Genesis 7 says, For 40 days the flood kept coming on the earth. Of course, that's no surprise to us, is it? Because that's what God said would happen. But there's so much more there. It was God who parted the Red Sea so Israel could pass through on dry ground, making the walls stand up like a wall without the help of dams or dikes. It was God who stopped the sun in the sky so that Joshua and the Israelites would have daylight to continue the fight and defeat the enemy. It was God who made the ground open up to swallow Korah, Dathan, and Abiram when they rebelled against him and his servant Moses. it was God who caused the fleece to be wet and the ground to be dry and then the ground to be wet and the fleece to be dry as Gideon asked it was God who stopped the rain for three years and sent the drought at Elijah's request in the time of Ahab and it was God who sent the ravens then to feed Elijah during that time and it was God who started the rain up again beginning with the cloud the size of a man's hand It was God who shut the mouths of the lions to keep Daniel from being harmed. It was God who turned the sun dial back ten degrees for Hezekiah, really allowing history then to repeat itself. It was God who would not let the fiery furnace consume Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. None of this happened by chance. And it was the Son of God, God the Son, who calmed the storm with simply the word of His mouth so that even His disciples were amazed that the winds and the waves obey His voice. And it is God, the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth and all things therein, who, as Isaiah says in verse 26, knows the stars. Each one by name. And not one of them is missing. We might see them fall from the sky from time to time, but not one of them is missing. And it is God who, as Psalm 145, verse 15 says, gives to all their food at the proper time as well. Take some time today to read Psalm 104 to see how creation depends upon God and how He has ordered creation in such a way that the trees become home for the birds and badgers find their home in the rocks and even the lions seek their food from God. And still today, beloved, it is God who brings about the seasons faithfully as He promised to Noah. It is He who controls the different climates of the world to fit the plants and animals that depend upon those climates. He is the one who sends the snow in the wintertime to moisten and to prepare the soil for the Midwestern corn and the soybeans in the summertime. He blankets the mountains with snow to fill the reservoirs that we might have the necessary water to live. We pray, don't we, for rain. We pray to God for rain. Why? Because we know that it will only come at His direction. He is the one who sends the gentle winds and the strong winds, the tornadoes, the hurricanes, even the earthquakes. And of course, there's so much more to say, But all of this is true because indeed He is the one and only sovereign God. Again, listen to how we read about it in Isaiah beginning at verse 12. 12-14 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand? Or with the breadth of His hand marked off the heavens? That's talking about a span of a hand. We know, of course, boys and girls, God doesn't have a literal hand. But to give us an idea of how He measures the heavens, He uses hand. Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills on a balance? Who has understood the mind of the Lord or instructed Him as His counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten Him and who taught Him the right way? Who was it that taught Him knowledge or showed Him the path of understanding? Who did God need to call on to counsel Him? Not the greatest theologians. He doesn't need their help. Notice verse 28. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. And beloved, if all of this is true, and it is, then notice also God's greatness in relation to man as Isaiah records. It's recorded here in Isaiah, beginning at verse 6. A voice says, cry out, and I said, what shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. And then again in verse 15, Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. The nations, not the billions of people on the earth. He doesn't point out the people, but the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They are regarded as dust on the scales. How much does dust weigh? It's not even recordable. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor its animals enough for burnt offerings. All the cedars of Lebanon, all the livestock on Lebanon, are not enough of a sacrifice, really, for our God. Before Him, all the nations are as nothing. They are regarded by Him as worthless. And less than nothing, the idea here being, in comparison to God, they are nothing. It doesn't mean here that God doesn't care for them. But they are, in comparison to God, who is so great, they're considered as worthless. To whom then will you compare God? What image will you compare Him to? As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashioned silver chains for it. A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? Really pointing to what Paul says, that men suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The truth of that world book of general revelation. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground than he blows on them and they wither and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. See, beloved, again, man has such a high estimation of himself. So high that he either makes God's after his own image or after his own imagination or he denies that God exists. How arrogant. And how eternally deadly, at least for man. God doesn't depend on man to determine how God will act or what He will do. Again, God did not have to counsel with anyone or anything. But man is dependent on God. God rules over the hearts, the actions, and the will of man. Proverbs 21, verse 1 says, The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. He directs it like a water course, like a river of water, wherever he pleases. Proverbs 16, verse 9, In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. Again, a little bit about like parents with their children. The children may plan. They may go ahead and plan. But the parents direct what's going to take place. Proverbs 16, verse 33, The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Boys and girls, when you play a board game, and you have to roll a dice to see how many spaces you have to move, and you need three spaces, you want to get a three. You shake that dice in your hand, you need to throw it. It ends on a two, maybe a six, but not a three. Maybe a three. It's not luck. It's not chance. It's not in how you shook it. How many times you spun it in the air. God controls even something that seems as insignificant as that. As the supreme and sovereign creator, God has complete dominion over all things, even man. Isaiah 45 verse 9 says, Woe to him who quarrels with his maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground, Does the clay say to the potter, what are you making? Does your work say he has no hands? Paul echoes this a little bit in Romans 9, verse 20. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, why did you make me like this? God rules sovereignly over men, over nations, over history. And man's will is subject to God's will. Paul found that out on the road to Damascus, didn't he? The Lord Jesus Christ didn't say to him, You know, Paul, I would like you to come over to my side. Would you consider it? No. The Spirit of God turned Paul from a Christian hater into a Christian, into a Christ lover. Nebuchadnezzar found this out, didn't he? One year, 12 months. And Daniel even told him 12 months. 12 months after Daniel told him that he would be driven away from people to live with wild animals to eat grass. Sure enough, 12 months later, Nebuchadnezzar was boasting to himself about his mighty power and the glory of his majesty. And what happened? It happened. He was driven away. He became crazy for seven years. He lived as a wild beast. But then, as Scripture says, the Lord restored his sanity. And we read in Daniel 4 verses 34 and 35 that Nebuchadnezzar says, Then I praise the Most High. I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him, What have you done? Amazing words, if you think about it, to come from the mouth of Nebuchadnezzar. Scripture teaches us that King Cyrus of Persia was an instrument in the hand of God. And again in Acts 4, Peter and John pray these words, Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and your will had decided beforehand should happen. Herod and Pontius Pilate were also instruments in the hand of God to do God's will, what God had determined. And then Peter and John connect the dots back to Psalm 2 by quoting these words, Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one according to the will of God. As Joseph said, they meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And as one commentator says, before him, presidents, popes, kings, and emperors are less than grasshoppers. Again, that's what Isaiah says, and he makes it clear that they barely get into power. Their roots haven't been able to get secured into the ground yet, and the Lord blows on them and takes them out of power. King Jehoshaphat prayed, You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand and no one can withstand you. And beloved, our comfort must be as well that even our leaders today are in God's control. Nothing happens by chance. And God knows the thoughts and the intentions and the words of man. Psalm 139 says God knows our thoughts before we think them. He knows our words before we say them. And Jesus Christ Himself demonstrated this, didn't He? With the Samaritan woman. Telling her all things she had ever did. Telling her about her life she hadn't told Him. And Scripture bears testimony to that as well. That Jesus Christ knew the thoughts, the intents. He knew the hearts of man, especially of those who hated Him. But I trust that you see the problem here. At least for some. Because God is sovereign over all, over all things. This includes Satan. It includes his forces of evil. It includes evil men and evil situations. He is sovereign over wicked things that happen. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. That included Nero's heart. It included Hitler's heart. It includes Osama Bin Laden's heart. It includes Saddam Hussein's heart. We think of these and we think of other evil rulers and we're probably tempted to think sometimes, well, how can we believe that God is in control? This is indeed a mystery, isn't it? And we need to be careful with it. Wicked deeds are not done by God. He is not the author of sin. He does not commit sin. Yet He is sovereign and these deeds are not out of His control. We don't understand it. We can't understand it. But God uses the wickedness and even the sin of man to bring forth His kingdom. To unfold His history. To prepare His church for His glory and for her glory. The Heidelberg Catechism says, Whatever evil He, that is God, sends upon me in this veil of tears. The writers knew that nothing happens by chance. That God is in control of everything. Bad things happen even to God's people. We face difficult, even terrible situations of life. We face wicked people who seek to hurt us. And of course, this would all be so much easier for us to understand in our puny, finite minds, wouldn't it? it would be easier for us to reason all of this through if the devil was in control. Then it would make sense. But praise God, he's not in control as Job teaches us. Praise God that God is in control, even of the wicked things that happen, because God is indeed merciful. The Belgic Confession says, God rules and governs all things according to His holy will so that nothing happens in this world without His appointment. God is sovereign, yet man is responsible for his sin and wickedness. Yet it just doesn't seem to fit yet, does it? Yet our comfort is that this is true. Because this is what our God teaches us in His Word. And our further comfort is that God is in control of all things, even evil. and therefore I may have the assurance that when the veil of tears is heavy upon me, when it's wrapped tightly around me, I may have the assurance that as the catechism says, He will turn it to my good. How can we know? Because Paul says, and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Beloved, it's time to close the sermon this morning. But as we do, looking forward, the Lord willing, to the completion of it next week, may God be gracious to us. And may He open our minds and hearts either once again or maybe for the very first time. May He open our hearts and minds to the beauty and the awesomeness of our sovereign God. And may we be humbled before Him as we consider who He is. and who we are. And as we consider our lives that are to be lived before the face of God. Next week, we hope the Lord willing to consider in greater detail the comfort of the sovereignty and the call or response from us that His sovereignty demands. But until then, may we be encouraged that there is not one small area, Not one little box. Not one small area or moment of our lives that God is not aware of or in control of. And may we be challenged as we come to realize that we spend every moment of our lives in the sight of and in the company of an all-knowing and ever-present God. And may we be filled with joy, finally, and most importantly, May we be filled with joy that our God is also sovereign over salvation. Tis not that I did choose thee. For, Lord, that could not be, this heart would still refuse thee. Hats thou not chosen me? Thou must have loved me first. He ordained our salvation. He accomplished it through Jesus Christ, His Son. He applies it to our hearts by the power of God, the Holy Spirit. And He will complete that good work. which He has begun. Today on the Hallmark calendar, we celebrate Mother's Day. And may we thank God that in His sovereign grace, He gave to us godly mothers who desired to teach and continue to desire to teach us about Him. But more than that, may we praise Him because our sovereign God, who has absolute authority and rules over every inch of this universe, this sovereign God is our Father. For Jesus' sake. Who tenderly loves and cares for His children and comforts them, as Isaiah says, like a mother. The sovereign God is our Father from whom there will never be separation. No separation forever and ever for Jesus' sake. Amen. Shall we pray? Father as we bow before you we bow before you humbly considering your greatness your majesty that we always live in your presence in your company that your eyes always watch over us and as your people you protect us day by day may we have a greater understanding and hope in our sovereign God we pray too Father that our faith would be strengthened that through this knowledge and assurance we might have an increased assurance of our eternal salvation which comes only from your hand in Jesus name we pray these things Amen