SERMON: Worship and Sovereignty

There is a question that has never stopped being asked. It rises in the halls of parliaments and in the silence of prison cells. It surfaces in both the boardroom and the bedroom. It haunts the philosopher and the peasant alike.

And it's not a complicated question. It is, in fact, the most elementary of questions a human being can ask. And that is, who is actually in charge? Not only who holds the title. Not only whose face appears on the currency.

But who, at the level of cosmic, uncontested, unrivaled authority, governs the world. Is it America? Is it Israel? Is it a secret cabal? Everything depends upon the way we answer this question. And the answer actually determines what we worship.

Because if man, in any capacity, is ultimately sovereign, if history is the product of human machinations and genius, human will, human coalitions, human conquest, then worship, at best, is nothing more than a psychological resource to get us through our next crisis.

If man is ultimately sovereign, then worship is no more useful to us than the national anthem at the beginning of a football game. It stirs the blood, it unites the crowd, but it changes nothing. Because the real power would sit somewhere else.

In that world, worship would be nothing more than a sentiment that some people do and other people do other things. But if God is sovereign, if the Lord of Heaven actually reigns, and that reign extends over rulers and rebels, and that reign extends over markets and mouths, over the proud and the poor alike, then worship cannot be the opium of the masses.

It's something much more. If God is sovereign, then worship is not something you add to your life like a daily vitamin, but it's the total orientation of our life beneath the universal authority of the Almighty God.

This morning, we're going to arrive at our sixth message in our series on true worship. And today, we're going to see how worship and the sovereignty of God co-mingle in perfect harmony. And the implication for that is massive.

The true worship, the kind that Proverbs demands, is the kind that actually costs us something. And it begins by bowing down to a sovereign God in every arena of life. Not merely on Sunday morning, but also in our politics, and in our hearts, and in our relationships, and our sense of justice, and above all, in our posture towards his word.

So this morning, we're going to look at how worship and the sovereignty of God collide. And we're going to do so by reading several passages, then we will talk about them, we will pray, and then we will feast at his table.

God Rules the Hearts of Kings and the Outcome of Battles

So let us read today. Proverbs, I'll start with Proverbs 21, 1 through 3. The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wishes. Every man's way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

To do righteous and justice is desired by the Lord more than sacrifice. Also in chapter 21, verse 23, he who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles. Verse 27, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination.

How much more when he brings it with evil intent? Proverbs 21, 30 through 31, there is no wisdom and no understanding and no counsel against the Lord. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord.

Proverbs 22, 2, the rich and the poor have a common bond. The Lord is the maker of them all. Proverbs 22, 12, the eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge, but he overthrows the word of a treacherous man. Verse 17 through 21, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your mind to my knowledge.

For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, that they may be ready on your lips so that you may trust in the Lord. I have taught you today. Even you have I not written to you excellent things of counsel and knowledge to make you know the certainty of the words of truth that you may correctly answer him who sent you.

Proverbs 22 through 23, for the Lord will plead their case and take the life of those who robbed them. And then chapter 30 verses 2 through 6, this is our final passage. Surely, this is a great life verse.

Surely I am more stupid than any man, and I do not have the understanding of a man. Neither have I learned wisdom, nor do I have the knowledge of the Holy One who has ascended into heaven and descended, who has gathered the winds into his fist, who has wrapped the waters in his garment, who has established all the ends of the earth.

What is his name or his son's name? Surely, you know, every word of God is tested. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words or he will reprove you and you will be proved a liar.

This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for all of the collection of passages concerning wisdom and then even more specifically in this series we've been looking at things that concern true worship.

Proverbs is a treasure chest of truth in very short and bite-sized forms in very profound and very deep ways. Lord, help us today as we look at another aspect of what worship is to learn and to grow in this discipline that Paul even would say whether we eat or whether we drink, give all to the glory of God.

Lord, help us to know that all of our life is worship and help us to understand that you are Lord over all of our life. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The first thing I'd like to mention as far as worship and sovereignty is that worship is a transfer of trust from you to the Creator.

Proverbs 21 .1 says, The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wishes. Now, Proverbs says it begins with small human relationships. It begins with the apex of human power.

It begins with the king. In the ancient world, the king was not merely a politician that you could vote on every four years. He was the axis around which the entire civilization turned. His word at the time was law.

His signet ring was what you would never defy. His mood was policy. His favor meant prosperity. His displeasure meant ruin.

So when the king moved, the nation moved.

And when he signed, men died. And Proverbs says that his heart is like a channel of water in the hand of the Lord. The Hebrew word here is peleg, which refers to a narrow irrigation ditch that was dug by the Israelites where they would direct water to the fields to irrigate their farms.

And any farmer in ancient Israel would have known exactly what this meant. You don't argue with water. You either direct it, or it will direct you. And it went, as they directed it, effortlessly, completely, and without resistance.

I watched a video recently. I thought it was fascinating. This surfer guy, who's a Kiaha dude, like one of those guys, he connected a river to the ocean.

Have you seen this?

And it started out as a tiny little thing, and then eventually, it was this massive thing because the water was eroding the soil quicker than it could replace it. And it became this thing where these surfers were literally surfing on the water as it's going from the river to the ocean.

It was epic. The water was being directed. This is the image that is being shown here of God. God directs the heart of the king. God directs the mind of the king. And the king, though he signs many decrees, and though he wages many wars, and though he issues many edicts, his heart is still a stream of water in the hands of God, and he cannot do what he wishes.

He can only do the will of God. That is how sovereign God is, that even the kings of earth must obey him implicitly, explicitly. Now, this works itself out practically in verse 31. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord.

So not only are the kings themselves controlled by the Lord, but even their armies and their armies' plans are directed by the Lord. They're under the banner of his sovereign will. This means that the nations can prepare the horse, they can tune up the tanks, they can fire the missiles, they can do the work, they can plan, steward, labor, and do everything that they wish, but everything that they do is under the banner of the sovereignty of God.

They cannot act outside of God's will. And here's where it connects to worship. Because if Proverbs is describing that the most powerful people on earth are still subservient to the will of God, and the most powerful armies of the earth are still subservient to the will of God, then there is no place in our life where we are not under the rule and sovereignty of God.

Not just consciously, not just ceremonially, but really and functionally. And you can actually, you can discern your heart in how well you're under the rule of God by asking a single question. What is the thing that if you lost it, you would feel lost?

What is the outcome that you pray will never happen? Or that position that you hope you're never put into? That, if it's not trusting in the Lord, is a functional king that you are bowing down to instead of the one true king who is sovereign over all.

That's the thing that's actually controlling you. That's the diagnostic question. What is it that if you lose it, you will be lost? And as we've said before, worship is not primarily about music. Worship is about where you locate your security.

So if your security is in anything other than God, even though He is sovereign over all, you are disobeying Him by putting your faith and hope and trust in something other than Him. See, God's sovereignty doesn't overrule our human agency.

It works with it. That's why Joseph could say to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. We're culpable for our worship, even though God is sovereign over all. Worship is the act of saying that I know what is best for me.

False worship, I mean. And true worship is I know whose hands holds everything that I cannot control and I'm going to trust Him even though I don't have control. The question Proverbs is leaving us with in these passages is not political.

It's actually deeply personal, maybe even uncomfortably personal. It's if the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, then the book of Proverbs is asking us the question,.

Is yours?

Is your heart in the hands of the Lord? Is your heart desperate, white knuckling in order to govern every outcome and circumstance? Is your heart desperate to secure that relationship, that girlfriend?

Is your heart desperate to guarantee that result? Is your heart desperate to have power or control? Because that power that you're searching for outside of God is not real power. True worship begins when we realize that God is the one who's in control and we trust Him with all things.

It begins by opening the same hands that we white knuckle everything else with and we say to ourselves, I can't even control my own heartbeat. I can't guarantee that I breathe at night while I'm asleep.

I can't guarantee literally any outcome in my life. And if that's the case, I must trust God because how could I sleep at night if I'm trusting in me? I can't even keep myself alive. I remember thinking when I was in Iraq, if I fell asleep on guard duty, which I did not do, thank the Lord.

But if I did and someone snuck up on me and I'm done. I could not even protect myself.

In staying alive.

And that is true of all of us. None of us have any control really when we boil it down to things. We either are going to trust the one who has all control or we're going to go on in a delusion thinking that we have it.

Even the king who sits on the highest throne in the world is stream in the hands of God. Which means that the thing that keeps you awake at night is not king, he is. You can prepare your horse, but trust the Lord with victory.

Trust him because he's in control. That's the first thing I wanted to share. Second is that worship is a whole life alignment because God is sovereign. If God is sovereign over all, then worship must affect all.

Proverbs 21, two through three says, every man's way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts to do righteous and justice as desired by the Lord more than sacrifice. And then verse 27, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination.

What we've seen is that true worship begins by transferring our trust away from the functional kings and idols that we've bowed down to and giving it to the living God,.

Which if we'll do that,.

We will very soon realize that worship trickles into every single facet of our life. Proverbs is asking us the question, what does this sovereign God actually want from us when we worship him? And the answer is all of you, every bit of you, from the pinky toe to the gray hair on top of your head.

Maybe you don't know that it's gray yet. Maybe it hasn't turned yet. My printer is running out of ink. Solomon says that every man's way is right in his own eyes. Notice he's not describing necessarily a rebellious person here.

He's describing the one,.

Not the one who's living in open defiance and simply doesn't care about the things of God. He's describing someone who actually is in the camp, but who thinks their way is right. The person who's convinced that, yeah, I'm doing the right thing.

The person who examines his own motivations or his, her own patterns, their own spiritual life and arrives at the verdict. Yeah, I'm acceptable to God, just as I am. This is how every single one of us get into trouble because we are all, without exception, the most sympathetic narrators of our own autobiographies.

We say, well, we tried our best, and we're better than the rest. We'll say, when we cut someone off, I had a really important reason. And when someone else cuts us off, what a lunatic. There's no reason on earth they should have done that to me.

We excuse ourselves of the same things that we hold other people to and condemn them for. And under false pretenses, we actually believe that we've tried so hard. But Solomon tells us that the Lord Himself is the one who weighs the heart.

The word there is tachan in Hebrew, which literally translates as, He weighs the heart. And it's drawn from the world of commerce, and it refers to the precise technical act of placing something on a verified scale to determine whether it is true or whether it is false.

Not estimated, not apparent, but actual weight. And this is what God is doing to us. He's weighing our hearts. God doesn't consult our self-assessment. He doesn't say, hey, how do you feel like you're doing?

He doesn't read our faulty scales that are always tipped favorably in our direction. He places our heart on His scales, and He sees where they are wanting. And verse 3 tells us exactly how God's scales are calibrated.

It says, to do righteousness and justice is desired by the Lord more than sacrifice. What God is saying is that worship means so much more to Him than how we sing, or in our perfect attendance, or in the size of the offering check that we write, or in the raised hands, or the bowed heads, or the theologically precise vocabulary in the ecclesiastical settings.

He desires our entire life to be aligned with Him. God desires righteousness. God desires justice. You cannot do righteousness if you are not obeying God in all of life. You can't be just if His moral calculus given to us in the Scriptures is not the texture and the fabric of every part of our life.

And this is not just a minor definition of our theology of worship. It is the demolition of our assumptions that religious performance actually produces moral transformation. The Proverbs gives us a few examples of this to make the point.

For instance, he who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles. So if we're called to worship God in all of life, we have to control the tongue. James says that the tongue is a roaring fire.

Jesus says that out of the heart.

Comes the tongue.

Which means that the tongue is not incidental to worship. It's the greatest example of what our worship actually is. What pours out of your mouth tells you your heart. What comes out of your mouth in an argument, the ugly things that we say when we're frustrated, that's a better measure of your heart than what you say on Sunday morning.

Oh, hi, brother. Oh, hi, sister. How you doing? Oh, praise the Lord. And yet with the same tongue you use to curse your brother and sister, your father, your mother, your husband or wife. These things, James says, must not be so.

What about the conversation at work when you're just with the guys? Or what about the conversations that you have that are not pleasing to the Lord? All of that shows us our heart in its most unedited and unfiltered form and it indicts us in how we worship.

The tongue reveals what our religion conceals. And that is the point. God grants or God wants all of us in worship. Our whole life, our total obedience, every part of us in the tongue is a great barometer for how that's going.

That's the second thing. The third thing I'd like to talk about today is true worship sees us as God sees us. When we worship rightly, we don't have superiority complexes and we don't practice partialism and favoritism.

For instance, Proverbs 22, 2, the rich and the poor have a common bond. The Lord is the maker of them all. So as we've seen today, worship realigns our trust with God and it also defines that all of our life is dedicated to the Lord.

Now Proverbs moves the scales outside of our internal characteristics into the external environments that we live in and when we look to our left and to our right, we are in the room with people who are made in the image of God and there is no superiority or hierarchy even among us.

The man or woman sitting in the chair to the left or right of you, the person who greeted you this morning, the person who you walked past and were like, gosh, I really don't want to talk to that person.

The colleague that you respect or the one that you've written off, all of them are made in the image of God. Solomon says rich and poor have a common bond. The Lord is the maker of them all. So if you simply nod along at this in a typical way that we nod along when we hear familiar truth with no intention of actually allowing it to disturb you, you may feel some comfort in that.

But you'll miss what the passage is actually saying. The word maker here is asah, which means creation language. So what it means is when you disrespect someone else who's made in the image of God, you are practicing decreation.

You are practicing destruction. You are practicing chaos. And what it means is that when the wealthy person believes that he's somehow better than the poor person, that his work ethic is better, that his family line is better, his genetics are better, his institutions are better, his credentials are better.

The century in the nation that he was born in is better. We do that a lot with anachronistics. We look back at people and we say, oh, how could they have done this? Oh, how could they have done that? We're so enlightened.

When we do that, we believe somehow that we are the masters of our life and that everything we've been given is not a gift. Every advantage, every gift, every fortunate circumstance that we've been given, we somehow think that that makes us superior.

The greatest example of this is Jesus, who even though he had everything and even though he spoke the cosmos into creation, knelt down and washed his disciples' feet. The rich man is not a self-made man.

He's a God-made man. And so is the man who can't pay his bills. Which means the distance between the rich man and the poor man does not reflect the difference in their quality. Both were made with equal intentionality from God.

Both were made with equal care, equal dignity, by the same creator. The wealthy person is not more valuable to God. The man that gives more to the church is not more valuable to God. The man who has more zeros in his ledger sheet is not more valuable to God.

And the poor person is not more valuable to God because he's free from money. Oh, I'm not tempted by those things, which can sometimes be an excuse to be poor. I've lived there. Oh, money's evil. I don't want it.

While my family's eating beans and weenies. Here's how this relates to worship. You cannot genuinely bow before the sovereign God who made you and then simultaneously treat someone else with contempt and call it worship.

The person beside you is one that he also made with equal intentionality and purpose and we must love our neighbor as we love ourself. This is the second and the second greatest commandment. It's the summary of the entire law, love your neighbor as yourself.

That's the third thing. Number four, true worship is not indifference. The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge, but he overthrows the words of a treacherous man. Proverbs 22, 12, for the Lord will plead their case and take the life of those who robbed them.

So, so far we've seen that worship involves trusting God as the supreme authority, having all of our lives come up under his lordship, treating others as though they were actually made in the image of God.

And then all of that should lead us to the point to where we are not indifference. The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge. He overthrows the words of a treacherous man. The treacherous man in Proverbs is not merely someone who tells casual lies.

He's the person who deliberately deploys deception in order to protect his position. He's a false witness. He's the corrupt official. He's the powerful person whose carefully constructed narrative ensures that victims are never believed.

He spent years building the edifice of deception and God will overthrow, turn, or throw down and dismantle him. And not always immediately, and not always visibly, but the eyes of the Lord are everywhere, going to and fro, watching and seeing, and they will not permit the things done in darkness to be concealed forever.

And that way, truth has a sovereign guardian and he does not sleep. Verse 23 then says, For the Lord will plead their case and take the life of those who rob them. The word plead here is a legal term.

It's a lawsuit. It's a formal advocacy. It's the sovereign God of the universe who's pledging to personally, covenantally,.

Take up the legal case of the weak.

Who is being afflicted, which means we can't be indifferent because God is not. God is their advocate and God cares for them. We must care for them. That's where indifference comes in, where we look at someone who's different than us and we say, I don't care for them, but God cares for them.

And if we're going to worship God in spirit and in truth, we must love what God loves.

And hate what God hates.

The text also cuts in a different direction as well. If you're carrying the weight of injustices.

That have been done to you,.

Pains of past hurts that have been perpetrated against you. If your voice has been suppressed, if your voice has been dismissed, if your legitimate claim to justice has not yet been heard, I want to tell you that the Lord has heard you and that the Lord cares for you and that the Lord says that he will plead your case and that the Lord says that he will not allow anything that's been done in secret to be secret forever, that he will protect you.

Trust in the promises of God.

Because he's faithful,.

Even when we're not.

There's no one in this room.

That has any actual power. All of us are at the feet of a sovereign God and we must love the things that he loves and hate the things that he hates and we must bring our entire life under the lordship of this God and that does not lead to indifference, that leads to passion, that leads to love, that leads to care, but it doesn't lead to apathy.

Worship Responds to the Word of God and Finds Christ as Wisdom

The final thing is worship responds to his voice. Every word of God is tested. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words or he will reprove you and you will be proved a liar.

What we've seen is that worship requires a transfer of trust from us to God, a whole life commitment to God. Seeing every person as God made them and refusing indifference and yet every single one of those claims has been built upon a foundation of the word of God, which raises an important question.

How do we know any of this is true? How do we know that the king's heart is turned like water? How do we know that he weighs our hearts? How do we know that he detests abomination? How do we know that he levels social distinctions?

How do we know that he advocates for the poor and for the oppressed and he loves righteousness and justice? How do we know those things? By what authority do we know those things? And Proverbs 30 begins to answer that question and it answers it in the most incredible way.

Surely I am more stupid than any man and I do not have the understanding of a man, neither have I learned wisdom nor have I learned the knowledge of the Holy One. This man is not morbidly depressed. This man is not fishing for a compliment.

Have you ever been around someone who's like, you know, I'm not really that great? Oh, sure you are. Sure you are, agger. It's the guy who wrote this part of the proverb. He's not fishing for a compliment.

He's making a precise epistemological confession that I know nothing in comparison to this God. The reason that I can know that kings are in the hands of God and that I don't have to trust my circumstances is because I'm actually quite dumb.

My vision of what's going on in my country is limited. My emotions are limited. My thoughts are limited. Even my ability to understand my own life is limited.

So if that is the case,.

Then I am quite dumb and I can embrace my stupidity. I'm finite, limited, and I don't know anything in comparison to the infinitude of God, so therefore I can trust Him when He speaks. I have been sure as the day is day that I knew something was right.

And I was absolutely wrong.

And I've done it a bunch of times in my life,.

Swung and missed.

I was a pretty good baseball player and I averaged like 340. That's three times out of ten that I got on base. That's pretty terrible. I'm way worse when it comes to my own morality, my own sin nature.

I'm batting zero because everything that I've ever done has been tainted by sin. My mind, my thought, my heart, my affections,.

Everything.

So how can I trust me and how can you trust you? Worship, in that way, is about trusting the only one who has actual authority, control, and power. That's how we realign our worship from ourselves to Him is by actually coming to the admission that I am a stupid person.

I know we live in a therapeutic age where we shouldn't say that. I know that you pay thousands of dollars to counselors, not you particularly, you as in people, to encourage you and tell you that you're special.

You and I are stupid. We're compared to sheep. Have you ever seen, have you ever been around sheep? They are dumb. They have the self-surviving capabilities of a moth flying over a fire pit. They are dumb and we are dumb.

So if you want to trust in you, just know that that plan is pretty dumb. And that plan will lead you to hell. But if you can admit that you're dumb and you can admit that you're stupid, like Agger, then you can actually have real hope because the one who knows everything is the one that you trust.

And I love how this continues on because he says every word of God is tested. He is a shield for those who take refuge in Him. He even says He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. And all of this crescendos in some of the most beautiful words in the Old Testament when it comes to pointing to Christ.

He says,.

I skipped ahead and I'm so excited.

He says,.

That every word is tested. What does Jesus say? In the beginning was the word. He is the word. He is the word that was tested by God. He says, come to me all who are heavy laden. And I love the fact that in this passage, in this passage from Agger, when he says, I should not have skipped ahead.

I just got too excited. Here we go. He says, neither have I learned wisdom, nor do I know knowledge of the Holy One. In Jesus Christ we know the Holy One who is the true word of God. He says, who has ascended into heaven and descended?

Who is that but Jesus? The only one who has ever descended from heaven and ascended back in triumph and royal power. He says, who has gathered the winds into His fist? Remember Jesus on the sea said,.

Be still.

And He gathered the winds into His fist. Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? You know, in the ancient world, the waters were chaotic. The waters were something you could not control. The only way you could control them is to cut these little channels.

But don't get on a boat. Don't go into the ocean because you're taking your life.

Into your own hands.

And literally only the crazy people were fishermen in those days because the water was so chaotic that you were taking your life.

Into your hands.

In the Psalms it says that God puts His throne over the waters and Jesus is the one who stepped out onto the water and made the sea be still. Who has established all the ends of the earth? Christ. What is His name?

Or His son's name? Isn't that amazing?

Right there. Who is His name? God. Who is His son's name? Christ. Christocentric application. So here's the point. The good news today is you're stupid. But the better news is that Christ is the wisdom of God.

And if you trust in Him, your life will have meaning, purpose, and value. And if you don't, you will be led to ruin. And as we trust in this God today, let us have great joy because He is smarter, better, more powerful than us.

And He leads us to good and verdant pastures. And He protects us all the days of our life. So let us trust and praise Him. Amen? Let's pray. Lord, we thank You that You take the foolish things of this world and You use them for Your glory.

Lord, we are dumb. We don't have knowledge of things like we think that we do. We don't have mastery over things. We are vulnerable. Every place and every step that we walk in this life, we are vulnerable.

So Lord, help us not to trust ourselves. Help us to trust in only You. The One who has grabbed the winds by His grip. The One who has wrapped the waters in His cloak. The One who has ascended to heaven to reign at the right hand of the Father.

The One who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross to die for our stupidity and finitude and to give us eternal life. Lord, help us to trust in Him and not ourselves.

It's in Jesus'.

Name we pray. Amen.