Sunday Morning Sermon Series - Brother Christian Torres (Date:05/30/2021)

The Kind-Hearted Sovereignty of God

My sermon today is over the sovereignty of God. How God is in absolute control of everything that happens in the universe. Now as I was meditating on this sermon yesterday, I didn't feel quite content with the title.

I said, man, something's missing. And the more that I studied the Word of God, the more that I studied God's sovereignty, the more I felt led to put the word the kind-hearted sovereignty of God. Man, it's so kind.

God is so absolutely kind. I remember being a new believer a couple years back and being totally scared of the sovereignty of God. Totally scared. The idea that God has absolute control of my life, absolute control, no matter what I do.

One morning he could wake up and say, okay, he's gonna go to hell. I've had enough of him. Man, without knowing the character of God, God's sovereignty is terrifying. But the more you study the Word of God, the more that you are in tune with the Holy Spirit, you're gonna find out that his sovereignty is kind-hearted.

I'm gonna start off by reading a passage from the book of Isaiah 46, verse 9 through 10. I need you to listen. Remember this and be brave. Take it to heart, you transgressors. Remember what God has done long ago.

For I am God and there is no other like me. I am God and no one is like me. I declare the end from the beginning and from long ago what is not yet done, saying, my plan will take place and I will do my will.

God Calls Moses in Rebellion

Exodus chapter 2 starting at verse 23. My first point is going to be God will call you without your permission. Starting at verse 23. In just some scenario, I'm talking about Moses here, how he ran away from Egypt.

He had just murdered an Egyptian. He has left behind his people in slavery. He ran away in shame and in fear. Verse 23, after a long time the king of Egypt died and the Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor.

And they cried out and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. And God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and God saw the Israelites and God knew.

Continuing in verse 1, chapter 3. Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and it came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Then the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush and Moses looked and saw that the bush was on fire, but was not consumed. So Moses thought, I need to go over there and check this out and look at this remarkable sight.

Why isn't this bush burning up? When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to Moses from the bush, Moses, Moses. Now I want you to pay attention. What did Moses do to inherit that calling?

He was in the desert. He was in rebellion. He had left his people behind. He wasn't worshiping God on that mountain. He ran away from his past, from his people, and from his God. Yet God was the one that went up to him and said, Moses, Moses.

We need to understand, church, that God doesn't call us because we are so righteous. God didn't knock on my heart because he said, oh wow, yeah, he's seeking me more than everybody else. No, he called me in my rebellion.

I did nothing to inherit the calling. I did nothing. This is the most exclusive club I did nothing to get into. And everyone here, God is knocking. Let me in. Why are you so resistant to the Holy Spirit?

Moses, Moses, what are you doing here? What are you doing out here? God will call us in our rebellion. God's not going to wait on you to get your life right. God's not going to wait on you. God is the one that goes out.

In this relationship, he is the one that goes out to us. He doesn't wait for us to clean ourselves up. He'll do the cleaning. Don't worry. John chapter 15, verse 16 states this. This is Jesus speaking.

You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit, and that your fruit should remain so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Again, the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament.

Nothing has changed here. When Jesus walked by, he said, Peter, follow me. Matthew, follow me. John, follow me. We didn't do anything, and yet we are called, not because of our righteousness, but because of the kind-hearted sovereignty of God.

And understand this, church. God will call you in any season of your life. He will call you in any age. Look at Abraham. Abraham was so old. Useless to the world, I think, is what Hebrews states. God will call you in your old age, because what the world sees is not the same thing that God sees.

Men see the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. God doesn't see what is. He sees what can be. He says, oh, wow. Yeah, this one stinks. I can do a whole lot of this, a whole lot of goodness with this person.

Abraham, useless to the world, God said, come. I'm calling you. Go. Let's take a look at the Apostle Paul. When he was walking on the road to Damascus, persecuting Christians, was he worshiping God on the way to Damascus?

No. He was speaking threats to the church of God. He was persecuting Christ himself, and it was Christ himself who called him. Why are you persecuting me, Paul? Why are you persecuting me, Paul? What did he do to inherit that calling, besides persecute him?

He did nothing. He was in rebellion. And God looked at him and said, I'm gonna show you how much you're gonna suffer for me in my name. I'm gonna show you how much you're gonna suffer for me. And it was this same man who later on in his letter said, don't make, don't bother me.

I bear the scars of Christ. Don't, don't bother me. I have his marks on me. It is a privilege. It is an honor to suffer for Christ. Or the prophet Jeremiah. Oh Lord, don't. I'm too young. I'm so inexperienced.

Send somebody else. I'm so, I can't be your prophet. I'm too young. God says, don't say you are too young. For wherever I send you, you will go. And whatever I tell you to say, you will say. Have I made the point that God will call us regardless of where we're at?

God Sends Moses Without Permission

This leads us to our second point. God not only calls us without permission, but he will send you without permission. Picking up in Exodus chapter 3 verse 7. Then the Lord said, I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I know about their sufferings.

Guys, let me stop right here. When I read this last night, look at what the Lord says. I have observed their suffering. I've heard their crying. I know their suffering. God isn't ignorant of our sufferings here.

He knows when we suffer. He knows. I have observed, I have seen, and now will act. Verse 8. And I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them forth from a land of from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hippovites, good Lord, and Jebusites.

So because the Israelites cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, therefore go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people of my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

Now check this out. But Moses asked God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And God responded, I will certainly be with you. And this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you.

When you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God on this mountain. First thing we need to understand is look at what Moses did as soon as God called him to go. Who am I that I should go back to the Egyptians?

Who am I? Who am I? You know what God's response was? I will be with you. Y 'all check that out. He didn't say, oh Moses, you know, you're the most qualified. Oh this, that, and the other. Who am I? Who am I?

Who am I? Are you kidding me? I am that I am. If I send a rock to go, that rock is going to fulfill my purpose. Because it's not the rock that's doing anything. It is me. Don't ask, who am I Lord? Why did you choose me?

I will be with you wherever you go. It isn't you doing the work. It is the Holy Spirit. He just chooses to use us. Okay. Fine. What do I say? Go into verse 13. That Moses asked God, Okay, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you.

And they ask, what is this name? What shall I tell them? God responded to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This is my name forever. This is how I am to be remembered in every generation. Our qualifications, our credentials, are found in Christ, not us. Not by my power, not by my might, but by your spirit says the Lord.

That's Zechariah chapter 4 verse 6. I mean, I got to say it again because, you know, whenever I get asked to preach, whenever I'm teaching a lesson, whenever I'm witnessing, I have to remind myself, because I used to take it personal, when I would be witnessing in you know, the person wasn't converted.

What did I do? Maybe there was something I should have said. Zechariah chapter 4 verse 6. So he answered me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by strength and not by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts, by my spirit.

Lord, who am I? I will go with you. I will go with you. So don't be afraid when God sends you out, and he will, and he has, because you are not alone. Church, remember, God will never send you somewhere he is not.

If he sends you to go over there, he's going to walk with you, and he's going to be waiting for you. At no point will you ever be alone. Can I recall who was the one that sent Jesus into the desert to be tempted?

The spirit of God. Who was the one that equipped the apostles to preach in the book of Acts? Was it not the spirit? Who is the one that convicts? Is it not the spirit? Who is the one that saves? Is it not the spirits?

It is the spirit of the living God, not by our power or by our might, but by his holy spirits. God will call you without your permission. God will send you without your permission. Brothers and sisters, God will keep you without your permission.

God Keeps His People Through Weakness

This one hits home. This one hits home. Exodus chapter 4 verse 10. Continuing on in this conversation. But Moses replied to Yahweh, Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past, nor recently, nor since you have been speaking to your servant, because my mouth and my tongue are sluggish.

Then the Lord said to him, Who placed a mouth on humans? Who makes a person mute or deaf, seeing or the blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, I will help you speak, and I will teach you what to say. Moses said, Please, Lord, send somebody else.

Then the Lord's anger burned against Moses. Now before I continue on, I relate to Moses so much here. I relate. Oh my goodness. Do I wrestle with Yahweh? Do I wrestle with him? Man, I remember a couple years back.

I was at a church gathering and the preacher said, you know, the the person in the Bible that I most relate to is King David. I sing to him. I worship him. I'm a man after God's own heart. And I was like, okay, cool.

Sweet. Okay. I relate a lot to Jacob. Because I wrestle with God day in and day out. I wake up and I wrestle with God. I wrestle with him. I don't wake up and immediately start to worship him. That's not in my being.

I have to wake up and I have to reaffirm my loyalty, my love for him. It doesn't come naturally. I wrestle with him every second of all my life. I wrestle with him. Even when he saved me, even eight or nine years after my conversion, I still wrestle with him.

Not as much as I used to do in the past, but I still wrestle with him. I still wrestle. And when I see Moses, you're saying, no, I don't want to. Don't send me back there. I'm not the one. I'm not the one.

Don't send me back to my past. Please don't send me back there. I feel you, Moses. I feel you. Verse 14, then the Lord's anger burned against Moses. How terrifying. And he said, isn't Aaron the Levite your brother?

I know that he can speak very well. And also he is on his way to meet you now. Huh. It's almost like God had a plan. He will rejoice when he sees you. You will speak with him and tell him what to say.

I will help both of you and him to speak. I will teach you both what to do. He will speak to the people for you. He will serve as a mouth for you and you will serve as God to him. And take your staff in your hand that you perform these signs.

Let me tell you something. Who in this building has ever frustrated God? Who in this building has ever grieved the Holy Spirit of God? Who in this building has ever smothered the Spirit of God and what he's doing?

Who in this building has rebelled and has forsaken the pull to minister to somebody? Because that would be very embarrassing. Man. Rebel. I am such a rebel. I rebel against God's good and gracious Holy Spirit.

Even though I've tasted and seen that he is good, I still rebel. You know, at some point God has to get angry. At some point. I mean, like any father, he's going to go, right, see? God's going to get angry.

But he doesn't remain angry forever. You know, sometimes, um, I just see myself making the same mistake over and over. And I can just picture God going, all right, take 3 ,523. Let me take you out, clean you again.

Oh, he's back in the filth. Okay, take you out. Oh, there he goes back into the filth. Hey. God knew that it was going to be messy. God knew that it was going to be dirty. You think that God didn't foresee and know how much we were going to rebel?

For those that believe, I was ministering to somebody who believed that they could lose your salvation and asked them, okay, what's the cutoff point? How much do you have to sin for you to finally fall?

I'll tell you the truth. If you could lose your salvation, you would have already. A long time ago. So long ago. After conversion, the first thing you committed, oh, you lost it. What is God going to do with Moses?

Such a rebel. A person who can't speak. 80 years old in the desert. Grumpy. A man of weakness. So much weakness. I'm going to tell you what he's going to do. Second Corinthians chapter 9 verse 10 states this.

But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest upon me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I will delight in my weakness, in my insults, in my hardships, in my persecutions, in my difficulties.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. In the kindness of his sovereignty, he takes into account our weaknesses. We read that God already knew that Moses was going to say that. That's why he said, don't worry.

Aaron was already on his way. Aaron was already on his way to meet you. He takes into account our weaknesses. And he uses them. For his glory. Now that to me is mind-boggling. That a perfect and good God could take something so dirty, clean it up, and use it for his glory.

That is insane to me. And throughout my studying of the sovereignty of God, the only word I can come up with is just the kind-hearted. Just he is so kind. He is so absolutely kind. What will God do with Moses?

Seeing God's Glory and Trusting His Care

Follow me to Exodus chapter 33. Moses finally went. Moses finally declared deliverance and brought the people of Israel out to the desert. Let's take a look at how God deals with him. Exodus chapter 33, verse 12 through 23.

Then Moses said to Yahweh, look, you've told me, lead these people up, but you have not let me know who you will send with me. You said, I know you by name. And I have indeed found favor. And you have also found favor with me.

Now, if I have indeed found favor with you, please teach me your ways and I will know you. So that I might find favor with you. Now consider that this nation is your people. God replied, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest.

If your presence does not go, Moses responded, don't make us go up from here. How will it be known that I and your people have found favor with you unless you go with us? I and your people will be distinguished by this from all the other people of the face of the earth.

And the Lord answered Moses, I will do this very thing you have asked. For you have found favor with me and I know you by name. Child of God, listen. You have found favor with God and he knows you by name.

In this relationship between you and Jesus, it is Jesus who holds you up, not you. It is God who holds his end of the bargain, not us. We break it. We break it. But when God calls somebody, guess what?

He keeps them. He doesn't give people up. He is not a man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind. If he chooses you, he chose you. God does not make mistakes. He doesn't make mistakes.

If he says you are mine, guess what? You are mine in the past, present, and future and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Nothing. The kind-hearted sovereignty of God. The more you know about God and who he is, the more peace you will have in his sovereignty and in his plan.

Continuing on, Moses, after he heard God say this, said, Please let me see your glory. Please let me see your glory. And he said, I will cause all of my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim the name the Lord before you.

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But he added, You can't see my face. For humans can't see me and live. The Lord said, But here's a place near near me.

You are to stand on this rock and when my glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of this rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away. And although you will not be able to see my face, you will be able to see my back.

God said, Hey, you can't see me and live. I'm so sorry. That's just a fact of the matter. And it's not because, you know, I'm so bad. It's because I'm so good in my holiness. You'll burn up, but I will put you here.

I will cover your eyes and then sort of start revealing my goodness because I have found favor with you. Where does God's sovereignty lead you in life? What is what is our response as believers in Jesus?

What are we to do with his sovereignty? We should be peaceful. Jesus taught, Hey, don't worry about your needs. Don't worry about your life. If God can take care of the birds, He could take care of you.

Are you kidding me? The plants, the flowers, you see how beautiful they are. They don't toil around. They don't plan for the summer. But God still takes care of them. And Jesus said not even Solomon in all of his glory was adorned like one of these.

God will take care of us, church, no matter where we go or where we're at. He will always take care of us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. Guys, he's going to see it to the end. He's going to see it through to the end.

You can't out sin the grace of God because if you can out sin the grace of God, it never was God's grace. It was just an emotional experience. You can never out sin the grace of God. To say that you can do that is to say that you are stronger than God.

And I'll let you stand with that opinion because I'm not standing by that. The last passage I want to read beautifully summarizes this entire message. Romans chapter 8 verse 26 through 38. Again, this is the same guy who said, look at my marks.

The man, the God who called me and said, I'm going to show you how much you're going to suffer from my name. Yeah, here he is. You ready? In the same way, the spirit also helps us in our weaknesses because we don't know what to pray as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes with us with unspoken groanings.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Here we go. For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called.

And those he called, he also justified. And those he justified, he left behind. Oh, no, no, no. That's not what it says. And those he justified, he also glorified. Because he's going to see it through the end.

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who can stand against us? He didn't even spare his own son, but offered him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?

Who can bring an accusation against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died. But even more, he has been raised. He is also at the right hand of God and intercedes with us.

I thought the spirit was the one interceding. You know, try your nature of God. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, or COVID?

It is written. Wanted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors. Through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, or any thing created, not even our sin, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

The sovereignty of God is mind-blowing, and it is a beautiful thing. Where does that leave us? Humility, and a state of understanding. Perspective is everything Christian. Perspective is everything.