Transcription
We're teaching God's in control and it sounds blasphemous. When we say he's not, what we're trying to say is that everything that happens is not the will of God. Yeah, the power of life and death is in your tongue. If everything that's happening is the will of God, why'd he put that kind of power in your tongue? Men are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. If everything's God's administrative choice, then why are we being destroyed for the lack of knowledge? We'd be destroyed for God's choice. Let's get the knowledge and stop destruction. Men are reaping what they sow. That's not God's administrative choice. Sometimes there's repercussions in life because we're not walking in faith, walking in truth. And then in human wisdom, we turn around and put it on God as if he sovereignly designed this thing when we might be walking in ignorance or willfulness, and it has nothing to do with God. Are you following me? God ordains life, not death. He's the author, giver of life, okay? He's not the thief. God receives your lost loved one when they pass away. He doesn't ordain their death. He told us to raise the dead. Why would he be taking people out? Let's just get this thing straight. I don't know why God took them. God didn't take anyone. He received them.
There's a place for us to keep grown in faith. Listen to me very carefully and stay humble. You've been humble all week. You people are amazing. I have complimented you over and over again in my heart and to others. You guys are an amazing congregation. It's going to make me cry. You have been so receptive. I honor you. You guys, when I'm up here preaching, I'm saying some straight, sharp, challenging, convicting stuff, and you're sitting there like humble sponges, sucking it in. And even if it's more than you can process, you want it. You want to hear it. I can tell. And I'm honored by that. I'm like, whoa, you guys are awesome. You're really, really awesome. Okay, so, uh, man, I don't know where I need to go. I, I might just stop there.
The bottom line is this: we are accountable. We've got a sword, we've got a shield, and we've got armor. Let's fight the good fight of faith. Watch this. When God's sovereign and everything that happens is his choice, and you believe that, it takes the fight out of a Christian. When you have a belief that God is sovereign in the sense that everything is happening, it's God's choice, it takes the fight out of a Christian. So you're it. Unarm you. It disarms you. That would be the lie from hell. He would want to disarm you. Are you following me? So watch this. Jesus said, don't fear. And Jesus says, don't worry. And the first two reactions of the average Christian in crisis is to fear and worry and then cry out to God. And it proves that we're walking in a very low level of understanding of authority, power, and God's choice. So we reduce the gospel to a method and a principle that we apply to try to get help instead of a relationship that we already won. We're driven by fear more than we're ever driven by faith, if we'll be honest. And we ought to stay humble and stop creating analogies to explain our problems and saying things to make our hurting hearts feel better at the cost of truth, which makes us free. Let's get humble once again and let's get back to the word of God. Let's stop clinging. Let's stop writing it off as him. And let's grow up into him in all things through the unity of faith. And let's turn this world around because Jesus is Lord. You follow me? We can no longer afford to say it was God. Because if it was God that took your child, how can you worship him? If you really believe he took your child, in the sense of worship him as the Redeemer, the Vindicator, your Victory, because people don't understand that. So now their hands are in their pocket at worship, and they're crying because they believe God somehow took their child, and they can't even enter into the glory of who he is because their life is confusing them. God has given us every faucet and avenue to win, and he told us to do it without fear. And the fact that we fear so quickly proves we have a long way to go and grow. So that stops thinking we know so much and trying to explain everything when we still need to know him more. Because if I'm living without fear, I'm a lot closer than I've ever been before, and I'm going to see an authority in my life that I haven't seen before. And all of a sudden, I'm not praying because I'm a man in need. I'm praying because I have an amazing answer, and I'm in covenant. And all of a sudden, God's not defined by the circumstance. The circumstance is defined by God. That's the difference.
When we talk about sovereignty, sorry, but that's a passionate one in my heart. That's a good one because we have sold God cheap, guys, so many times. We have called him the thief. I was in intercessory prayer one day, and God said, Dan, they've been called me the thief for generations. And I could hear his heart, and I began to cry. And I said, God, you didn't steal anything. All you ever did was give your son. And we're accusing you of taking ours. And all you ever did was give your son. There's a thief sneaking like a snake in the grass, laughing as he's accusing God to men and men to God. Don't you listen to the devil anymore. God is good, and he's the giver of life. You get out your sword, and you hold up your shield, and you fight like you've never fought before. Amen.
How many people are mad at God because they've been taught that God's in control? It's not even in the Bible. It's not. You won't find God's in control in the Bible. It's not scripture. But we've made it scripture. Doesn't say I'm not saying God's not sovereign because he is sovereign. But God is sovereign and God is in control, it's two totally different things. Come on. When you, you say God is in control, now you encompass reality of everything that happens is ordained by God. That's huge. Because watch, there's so many things that happen in our lives. Bear with me because some of you right now are very, very confused with what I'm talking about right now, because there's a lot of people that have blamed God for a lot of things that God didn't do. Satan has snuck in and bit somebody and gotten away like a snake in the grass, and God has taken the wrap for it because of this. Because of this, God's look, I was in the world and I had no idea who God was, and I thought that if there was a God, he was in control. And it was not good. That means that anybody that dies, that means that, that means that anybody that gets hurt, that means that somebody that dies in early death or, or something that God ordained it, that God said it's time for them to be taken out. Listen. Then we'll have God is in control, and then we'll have everything happens for a reason. And your mind, the mind, what I've learned and what I'm learning and go, what God's teaching me is that when you hear that God's in control and everything happens for a reason, you will automatically link both of them together. And everything happens for a reason because God, God is in control. Do you see the, the, it, it, your, you're, it's automatic. Where God is in control, everything happens for a reason. Therefore, everything that happens for a reason is because God's in control. And then we'll wrap another scripture around both of them and we'll say, all things can work out for the goodness of God for those that know God. Listen. And it becomes a stronghold. And it becomes, how, how can you, if you're taught that God's in control and you lose a loved one to a horrible disease, and the preacher preaches that God's in control and he knows best, and that sticks in you, and all of a sudden 20 years later, you've got an anger with God because if God did that to your mom, then why, why would God not have done the thousand other things that you've put into the same category? And now you don't know who God is, and you think that he's the thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
There is a reason why everything happens. Here's the two of them. They're paired in two categories. One category is stealing, killing, destroying. The next category is life and life more abundantly. There's a reason. If it's stealing, killing, and destroying, it's never God. That's right. Come on. That's powerful. It'll change your life. It'll change all of a sudden all these things. When I start talking like this, all this stuff that we've got on God starts to well, and we're like, what? So you're saying is that wasn't God? If you can get to this point where you, where you can categorize steal, kill, destroy, life, and life more abundantly, and you can put them into the places where they belong, you will actually fall in love with God.