Loving God’s Sovereignty | Matthew 2:13-26 | Pastor Neil McClendon

Are you settling for superficial holiday sentiment, or are you grounded in the sovereign, sustaining love of God? Discover how God's absolute sovereignty guides, protects, and gives deep hope in the midst of life's deepest trials.

In this Advent sermon, Lead Pastor Neil McClendon preaches through Matthew 2:13–23, exploring the escape of the Holy Family to Egypt, the tragic massacre of the innocents by King Herod, and their eventual return to Nazareth. Unpack why biblical sovereignty is deeply relational rather than cold and distant, examine how trusting in God's ultimate authority sustains believers through tragedy and human depravity, and learn why waiting for God’s perfect timing increases your capacity for true satisfaction and hope.

In this episode, we cover:

• Sovereignty is Relational: How God intimately understands our thoughts, foresees the intentions of our enemies, and actively guides us through fear.
• Sovereignty is Sustaining: Why a strong biblical theology keeps us from reverting to impulsive reactions or despair during times of suffering and tragedy.
• Human Depravity vs. Divine Control: Understanding that while God is sovereign over all creation, He is not responsible for the sinful actions of human free will.
• Sovereignty is Hopeful: Resting in the truth that "God is for us" (Romans 8) and that earthly threats and hard seasons carry a limit.
• Time Fills Up, It Doesn't Run Out: Learning to wait patiently for God's prophetic fulfillment instead of settling for artificial, half-filled solutions.

Be sure to follow us:

Instagram

Facebook

Youtube

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If God is for us, who can be against us? How do you know God is for us? Because He did not spare His own Son He spared you. When is God gonna have to stop demonstrating and proving Himself to you? When are you gonna say? You know what? I I don't need God to dance monkey and do little tricks. He's demonstrated Himself. Why? He didn't spare His own Son, but He gave Him up for us all. How will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit our website at Grandparkway.org.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Amen, amen. Let's pray together, Church. Lord, we've come together to applaud your nature, to acknowledge it, to sing about it, to celebrate it, and to savor it today. You tell us in your word that you've exalted all things above all things, your name and your word. And so we've exalted your name. We've we we we've uh we've acknowledged uh the exclusivity of your name, and now we're going to uh uh exalt your word by submitting to what it says to us today. We've not gathered today to drink a bottle of syrup, we've gathered today to eat a steak. And there's a substantive uh there's substance to your nature, and Lord, we want to understand that. We want to get our head around that, we want to get into our hearts, rescue us from some chintzy sentiment around Christmas time that misses the substance of what God is doing. We derive nourishment from this today, Lord. And so we say, speak, Lord, your servants are listening. We pray in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen. Amen. You can have a seat. If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it open up to Matthew chapter 2. Matthew chapter 2. Uh, we are preaching through the gospel of Matthew, but we started in chapter 3, and we did that because we wanted to save the first two chapters for Advent. And it is a hearty journey if you actually preach and teach the Bible and not just sentiment during this season of the year. And so we do that here at Grand Parkway, uh, which, if you're visiting today, it is we're not a church full of vacante people. We just take the Bible seriously, okay? And so on this fourth Sunday of Sunday, where the theme is love, I want to talk to you about loving God's sovereignty. Loving God's sovereignty. Now you may be thinking, that's great. I'm down for that. Exactly. What is that? So I brought you a definition, and then I brought you a, hey, this is what this means. And so here's a definition I want us to think about. Don't try to write this down. You can take a picture. Uh take your phone and just take a picture. Uh, a definition of God's sovereignty. It is the belief that God is the ultimate king. Remember last week Jesus was born king of the Jews? Herod the king said, I don't like that. I don't want to worship him. Matter of fact, I want to kill him because I want to keep being king. And we by nature are like Herod, we want to be the king. Uh, but it is the belief that God is the ultimate king, controlling history, nature, and individual lives with perfect wisdom, justice, and mercy. Okay? Now, what okay, that's great. What does that mean? It means that God's sovereignty. Uh God's sovereignty means he has supreme, absolute power and authority over all creation and every event, working all things according to his ultimate will for his glory, with nothing outside his control or knowledge. Though this concept intersects with human free will and the problem of evil, implying he allows but doesn't direct, uh doesn't directly cause all negative events. Now, you may be thinking, okay, dude, come on, it's Christmas. I still got some presents to find, all right? Don't drop this on me. Uh uh just don't check out and go, Well, I came to church and I felt like an idiot. No, you're not at all. I just want you to just kind of hear this and then be kind of like, what? And then listen as I read the passage, because you'll you'll you'll you'll hear it and see it this morning. And uh and hopefully you'll walk away with this deep sense of, oh, okay, I'm not alone in this world. This doesn't all depend on me. There's a God and He's good and He's at work in it. The Bible reminds us uh uh of these truths uh in Matthew chapter 2, starting in verse 13. It says, Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he arose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt, and he remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt I called my son. And then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and all that region who were two years old and under, according to the time he had ascertained from the wise men. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah weeping in loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be comforted because they are no more. Verse 19 says, But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead. And he rose and he took the child and his mother, and he went to the land of Israel. But when he had heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. Now, basically, there's three things I want to tell you about God's sovereignty, okay? Uh, number one, God's sovereignty is relational. God's sovereignty is relational. That's what you see in this first little part, for the first little section we read, this flight to Egypt. You say, What do you mean? God is not a cold, indifferent God who executes executive orders without regard to the plight of humanity, all right? He's not up there like Bet Midler saying about years ago that God is watching us from a distance, okay? That's not the God of the Bible. He's highly relational. You say, Where do you get that right in these first three verses? Because so far he's appeared to Joseph in a dream three times. Wouldn't you like God to just three times, boom, boom, boom, maybe three nights in a row, just appear to you in a dream and tell you, here's what's gonna happen, and here's what you're gonna do. That would be incredible. Now, if God were not highly relational, why would he do that? He's appeared to Joseph three times in a dream and once to the wise men, all right? And this is because he's a highly relational being. Creation testifies to the fact that God is relational. Because otherwise, why does anything, why create anything if you're not a relational God, all right? Because creation exists because God is relational, and sovereignty is relational because God is relational. He's always been that way. Just go back as far as you can and just think about God's history of dealing with his people. He makes a promise called a covenant with a guy named Abraham, says, I'm gonna make you a father of many nations. He sets his affection on a people, he delivers them from bondage. They're wandering through the wilderness and they're like, We don't know where we're going. And he said, I tell you what, I'll give you a sign. There'll be a cloud in front of you by day. You just follow this. And what about at night? We can't see a cloud. How about a pillar of fire? And they're like, okay. And then later on, Isaiah he says, Listen, you if you stray to the left or to the right, you hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it. Hello. God is screaming from the rooftops. I'm not just some cold, all-powerful deity. I'm super relational. And everything about me is relational. So if you don't understand that God's sovereignty is relational, it's just some big word you want to stick in a book somewhere, it's stick on a shelf somewhere in a library that you'll never visit. And that's not what God is about. Verse 13, you see that not only does God know our thoughts, but he knows the intentions of other people towards us and he acts accordingly. Hear it again, what the Bible says. It says, um, rise and take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, okay? He appears to Joseph in a dream, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. Why? If God is not relational, why would God keep appearing to Joseph in a dream and saying, Hey, I know what you're thinking, I know what your fears are, as we'll see just a little bit later, but I also know what this Herod guy wants to do to you. So I'm communicating to you based on what I understand about your biggest enemy. If God was going to communicate to you today based on what he understood about your biggest enemy, what do you think God would say to you? And would it cause you to believe in God and trust this God more if you knew? You know what? There's nothing that people intend to do to me that God does not already understand. And he does this because not only is God relational, but everything about God, like his sovereignty, is relational. Here's the second thing I want us to see in the text, and then verses 16 to 18, that God's sovereignty is sustaining. God's sovereignty, the belief that somebody's at the controls in this world is sustaining because the traumatic nature of living in a fallen world is intended to make you not believe. Let me say that again. The traumatic nature of living in a fallen world is intended to make you and I just, I mean, just turn your TV off and go, cancel the cable. I cannot take any more. I'm paying to have this negativity pumped into my home every week. No, thank you. See, this this is this is why you just hear this. God's sovereignty is sustaining. What do you mean? Unless you have a good doctrine of God's uh sovereignty, when you suffer, you will revert to impulsiveness. Let me say this again. Unless you have a good doctrine, a biblical doctrine of God's sovereignty, when you suffer, you say, What are you talking about? Verses 16 to 18 basically tell us uh that Herod was so such an insecure politician that he's like, Oh, a king has been born, I'm the king, I want to settle the throne of my life for the rest of my life. I'm went and he ascertained from the wise men, tell me when you saw the star, and he crunched the numbers and said, Okay, he's at least under two years old, so he kills every male child to and under. Yes, this is how desperate people are for control. And unless you have a good doctrine of sovereignty, when something traumatic happens in your life and the life of someone you love, you will revert to impulsiveness. Oh, let's just get out of here. These cities are so full of sin. Let's move to the country and plant a vegetable garden. You think sin lives in the city? Sin lives in the heart of humanity. I got a friend that's saving up, and he's uh he's got that on his calendar. I'll tell you what, my last day, I'm checking out. I got 40 acres out in the country, we're gonna be self-sufficient, live off the grid. Thank you, Rambo. Are you taking your kids? Because I he said I don't want my kids to be corrupted by the public school system. Your kids are corrupted by their sinful nature. So when you take those kids of yours to your 40 acres, you take sin with you. Because sin doesn't abide in the public school across the street, it abides in the heart of your kid, who by nature is a sinner and who by choice sins. Amen, students? Merry Christmas. Yes, yes. We we revolt to impulsiveness because we want solutions or answers or experiences instead of the experience that it's right in front of us. And when we suffer, there's a difference in our spoken theology and our lived theology. However, I would just submit to you that it's during times of suffering and tragedy that what we believe is most on display. Now, you say, what do you mean? This is called the death of the innocent. You may have heard that in history. The death of the innocent. So although there's no such thing as an innocent, but I digress. But Herod goes and he slaughters every male child aged two and under. It's like, are you kidding me? Now let me ask you a simple question. If you were making up the Bible, like if you're sitting here today and you think, oh, the Bible's just written by men, that's not really true. It's not authoritative. Let me ask you a real practical question. If the Bible was made up, would you include parts like this? Wouldn't you leave stuff like this out? That's horrible PR right there, bro. It's not, it's it's not, oh, oh, your God allowed this wicked politician to kill these little kids. What kind of God is that? Well, there's three things you have to understand about God's sovereignty. Number one, God is sovereign, but he's not responsible for human behavior. This is not in your outline. I'm just trying to get it in an accessible way. God is sovereign, but he's not responsible for human behavior, okay? Put a star by this because it's easy to look around and just go, okay, well, if your God is so sovereign, then why did he allow something like this to happen? Why does a good God allow bad things to happen to people? You gotta understand this. Our unwillingness or our inability to hold the right doctrine of man causes us to doubt the existence of God and the goodness of God's nature. It sounds like this. Well, I mean, if God's real and God's good, then why do things like this happen? It's because you hear sovereignty and you think responsibility. And again, let me just say that God is sovereign, but he's not responsible for human behavior. Here's the second thing I want you to understand: God's sovereignty does not require God to rescue humanity from its sinful nature. God being sovereign doesn't obligate God to rescue everybody from their sinful nature. Because if God rescues people from their sinful nature, they never need a savior. They're their own savior. Now, you probably heard this past week there was a shooting at Brown University and MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which I took my kids to on vacation and said, You never want to go to school here. I took my kids to Harvard Square and said, This is the most overrated college in the world. This is a bastion of stupidity right here. And they looked at me like, Why is our dad so angry? Yes, and my oldest. I only got a Harvard square shirt. Here's the most overpriced garment you will ever own. Enjoy it. Merry Christmas. Now, why do I say that? Here's why. Because somebody called me this week and they were just like clutching their pearls on the phone, like, oh, Pastor, can you believe that two bastions of higher education such a thing would happen? And I said, You think colleges teach kids to believe in God? No, colleges, what they do, these pagans, these godless pagans, what they do is teach kids to trust their depravity more than the nature of a sovereign God. This redounds to the fact that you cannot watch something like this because these people are super educated and yet they kill each other? Yes, they do. Yes, they do. Why? Because man is sinful by nature, and God is not responsible for what a sinful man does with his free will. You should love God's sovereignty because you live in a world where every day you turn on the TV and some manifestation of man's sinful nature has happened again. Here's the third thing about God's sovereignty I want you to write down. Human depravity should cause us to believe in God's sovereignty. Human depravity. And you're like, what? Yes, the exact opposite happens. You see something tragic and you're like, how can there be a God that's that's all powerful and in control? Because human depravity should cause you to believe in God's sovereignty, and here's why. Because human depravity hasn't prevailed. Well, how do you know human depravity hasn't prevailed? Because there's still hope. Have you ever been in a situation where you're just like beat down and you're like looking at your wife, so it's like, I don't know what we're gonna do. We're gonna have to get a second mortgage or sell a kidney, or I don't know what we're gonna do. And you get in bed and your wife's asleep, and you're just staring at the ceiling, like, I don't know. And and and and then, like a little candle in a dark room, somewhere back here by your spleen, the you just this little flicker of hope just kind of says, but God's good and we're gonna get through this, we're gonna figure it out. I don't know how, but we're gonna be okay. That's hope. That's hope. Hope is not something you send to me on a Christmas card. And by the way, I love your cards, pictures of your kids. I know what your kids look like. I don't need pictures of them. I see them every Sunday. Stop wasting your money. And my favorite one is the people that have that little brag rag in there. It's a family Christmas letter. It's a brag rag. No one says Johnny spent six months in rehab because he loves heroin. Everybody's got their kids, and your kids are. Or my favorite, you're all on a beach in Florida in white shirts and jeans and no shoes. Nobody lives that way, bro. But I appreciate you sending me a Christmas card nonetheless. See, human depravity takes many forms. Uh see, here's something that happens. Stop laughing, you're in church. And I'm saying the word sovereignty a lot, and you're like, uh see, here's one of the things that happens. A component of suffering is that all the things that you trust in get exposed as insufficient. Here's one of the component of suffering. All the things you trust in get exposed as insufficient. And then look at me, something besides God becomes ultimate, becomes sovereign in your life. Your feelings, your unbelief, your problems, your hopelessness. This is what happened during COVID. Where people were like, I can't trust the government. Who can I trust? And I'm like, You you wait a minute, you trust the government? You got bigger problems, bro. I can't trust anything, so I believe anything. I I love what John Piper says. He says this he says, We simply we must simply listen to God when it comes to the sovereignty of God. We must have God tell us what it means for him to be sovereign, lest we import limitations or possibilities into God that he doesn't find in himself. And during a time of suffering, the biggest temptation is to import into God these limitations or these possibilities that do not exist in God. This is just us putting on God what makes ourselves feel better. Here's the third thing I want to say, and I want to drill down on this one this morning is about God's sovereignty in the third section, verses 19 to 23. God's sovereignty is hopeful. God's sovereignty, it makes me sad, it doesn't make me angry, it makes me sad when people hear sovereignty. Oh, you mean fatalism? That's an offense to the nature of God. Verse 19 says this. It starts off with a very hopeful statement. It says, But when Herod died, by the way, all Herods die. You say, Well, I don't I don't live next to a Herod. My kids don't go, yeah. You got Herods in your life, you got people that are out to get you, people that are threatened by you, they're jealous of you. You gotta comfort yourself with the fact that all Herods die. Matter of fact, you should text them today. All Herods die. Merry Christmas. This is why I'm dealing with your foolishness and your nonsense. And you're stabbing me in the back, calling me a friend to my face, and then wounding me with words behind my back. All herods die. I'm not rejoicing over that, but it does give me perspective on you, Susie. But I digress. Here's what I'm saying: what you're going through right now will not last forever, so don't give it or them that much power. How can you say that it's hopeful? Three reasons that God's sovereign is hopeful. Number one, it's hopeful because it reminds us that God is actively involved in all the affairs of my life. You say, What do you mean? I'll just keep reading in verse 19. But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel. For those who sought the child's life are dead. And he arose, great news, he arose and he took the child and his mother, and he went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warmed in a dream, warned in a dream, he withdrew to the dist to the district of Galilea. Okay, he was afraid, and then God comes to him in the context of his fear in a dream and says, Okay, here's the deal. This isn't plan B, this is plan A, because I want you to know, because I'm a relational God, I'm sovereign and all-powerful, but I'm highly relational. I can come to you in the context of your deepest fears. If God came to you today in the context of your biggest fear that you're feeling right now, what would he come to? What would he just walk to first and say, hey, I want to put this fear in you to death? This is what he does. He's intimately acquainted with all the details of your emotions, and he will gladly come to you in the context of your fears. Not only that, but he's working all things for good. And my responsibility is to live like someone who loves God and is called by God, by a God who has a purpose for my life. Uh I want to read a section of scripture that is so misunderstood and misappropriated, misapplied, and I want you to hear it in its context, okay? It's Romans chapter 8, starting in verse 28. You can't just read verse 28 because you're just ripping it out of context. It's like going to someone's house and ripping out their kitchen sink and say, I own a home. No, it it makes no sense. You're a homeless guy with a sink. And when we take verses, we just cherry-pick them out of their context. That's what happens. Here in its context. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Now, can we just leave that up there, guys? That that that passage up there, can we get the whole thing? I don't know if that'll mess up the starscape we're enjoying there for Advent. But but but we we hear verse 28, it's like a it's like a religious bumper sticker. We slap on the pain of people's lives, and I just want to say, stop doing that. It's not helpful. You gotta remind yourself when you see something like this. Oh my gosh, remind yourself all things don't just magically work together for good. Things do not have power or capacity, only God does. And it is a sovereign God who's at work. And he has the capacity and the willingness to bring good out of all things. I can know this because he knew me before I had the capacity to know him. He predestined me to look like Jesus. People like people hear the word predestination to go, why we're just robots. Wait a minute. Just stop. Just stop. You're impelling God's nature on your tiny intellect, like, and this is gonna, this is gonna rule the day. No, no. You can know this. You can know that God can bring good out of all things, all circumstances and situations, because he knew you before you had the capacity to know him. He predestined you to look like Jesus, all right? He calls you. You say, Well, I don't know what you mean. Uh let me just go back and start at the beginning, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, hard stop. For, verse 29, for, or because. Why? How can you know this? Because the people that God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. That's called sanctification. You're become more and more like Jesus and less and less like your own self. And then here's the next phrase. In order that we might be the firstborn among many brothers, and those whom he predestined, he didn't just say, Oh, here's fatalism. Let me just wind up the robots and send them out into the world. That he predestined you, he also called. And those whom he called, you say, What do you mean predestined called? He didn't choose you. He didn't look into the future and see who's going to choose him. And then, based on your exercise and your free will, he chooses you. No, that's that's not biblical either. What's biblical is that God that says, Hey, I didn't I didn't just predestine you to look like Jesus, I also called you and be I didn't just call you, uh, justified you, I made you right with God because you can't make yourself right with God. And by the way, everyone that I justified, I'm gonna glorify. That's heaven. So there's not a phase or an age or a stage of your life over which God is not sovereign. This is why he establishes a relationship with you. And then verse 31, don't miss it. This is why you got to get the whole thing up here. Verse 31 drops this bomb on us. What then shall we say to these things? Here's the problem with humanity. You say the wrong thing in response to these things. You say things like, Well, well, I mean, why do anything if God is sovereign? Oh, what do you mean, if God's predestined, if everything's already written out? I'm like, I what page is that on? I've never read that. Here's what you should say to these things. Verse 31, what shall we say to these things? Look at the next five words. If God is for us. Why is that in there? Because look at me. Because these things, what you should say to these things, you should say, Oh my gosh, God is for me. If you want to start an awkward conversation with religious people, the next time they say to you, How you doing? You just look at them and go, Oh man, I'm I am reeling like Jake Paul, getting paid $92 million to get my jaw broken, knocked out. By the way, I'm available to get knocked out on Tuesday if you give me $92 million. You can knock me out between services and I'll let Wade Burgess preach the next service. Somebody said, What did you think? I went, Well, when you get in the ring with an actual boxer and you stop knocking out a bunch of failed athletes, you get knocked out. That man couldn't box as well, a wet bag. But anyway, I digress. Uh but you say, Hey, what shall we say to these things? Here's some of you have backed yourself into a nihilistic existentialist uh identity crisis because you say the wrong things in response to these things. You don't say, What shall we say to these things? Oh my gosh, he's for me. He's for me. He's on record. So when I go through a hard time, it's not my circumstances are not some ring that God's got to crawl into and prove himself to me once again. No, no, no. The hardship that I go through, that is a platform where I demonstrate myself. I prove myself to God and everybody that knows me. So here's what I want you to do the rest of the year. You ain't got that long, but carry to the next year. People say, How are you doing? Oh, I'm good, man. I'm basking in the fact that God is for me. Years ago, I said to a friend of mine, he had a little kid, a little son, about this tall. And I told his son, I said, Hey, God, you know God's for you, right? Every once in a while you just got to yell out from your bedroom, hey dad, God's for us. And the little boy's like, and the dad's like, Oh, well, I appreciate that. Kind of like being super patronizing. I'm like, dude, if you don't believe that, you're gonna have a nervous breakdown. About four nights later, he said, My son was in bed and he called me, hey dad. He told him, Don't get out of bed, don't get out of bed, you stay in that bed. So he started calling out. He said, My son didn't know I'm in the living room trying to figure out my life. You're thinking, Do I have bourbon? This is gonna help me figure it out. He said, My son just kept calling out and went in. I was a little exasperated. I yanked the bedroom door open. What? What do you want, son? He said, Don't forget, Dad, God's for us. If God is for us, who can be against us? How do you know God is for us? Because he did not spare his own son, he spared you. When is God gonna have stopped demonstrating and proving himself to you? When are you gonna say, you know what? I don't need God to dance, monkey, and do little tricks. He's demonstrated himself. Why? He didn't spare his own son, but he gave him up for us all. How will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? You say, I I don't know. Here's what I'm gonna say. I'm I'm gonna move on. God cannot give you something he is not sovereign over. It would be a violation of and a contradiction to his nature. All things work together because it is our sovereign heavenly Father who graciously gives us all things. You can only stand, you could only understand verse 28. Well, God, all things work together for good? You can only understand verse 28 if you believe verse 32. That's why I have him leave it up there. How will you not also, how we not also with him graciously give us all things? The all things of verse 32 are the same all things up there at the very first sentence. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together. All things is the same, all things. You can't say, well, I like this all thing, but this is something different. No, it refers to the same things. And you cannot understand verse 28 unless and until you believe verse 32. That, hey, God has given me this, he's put this in our life, and God cannot give me something over which he is not sovereign. Here's the second reason sovereignty is hopeful. It's hopeful because sovereignty doesn't allow moments to become bigger than they were intended to be. It's hopeful because sovereignty doesn't allow moments to become bigger. When we allow our moments to become artificially big, the first hostage we shoot is hope. Well, it's just, oh, oh my gosh. We experience a breakup, a loss of a job, the end of a friendship. Like a uh a young lady I see for counseling, she didn't go to this church, told me last week she had a breakup with her boyfriend. And I said, Man, is God good or what? And she looked at me like I said, God still answers prayer. How do you see God at work in this? I don't understand what you're saying. I said, Here's why you don't understand what I'm saying. Listen to me. Go back to the not just remember the John Piper quote. I said, you're putting limitations on God that God doesn't put on himself. And she says, What do you mean? You're putting limitations on God as a 15-year-old. You're putting limitations on God because the only way God proves that he's God is doing what you want him to do. And what if, just crazy thought, what if God wants to do in your life is bigger and better than what you want God to do? Could you repent of putting limitations on God today and stop acting like you're sovereign? I have no idea what that word means. That's why I said it. I'm gonna preach about it this coming Sunday. Well, I don't go to your church. You should. Yes, because you don't need to see therapy, you need repentance. You are super frustrating. And so I took a pen, students, and I wrote that on my hand. She said, What are you doing? I said, God said he's inscribed me on his palms so he could never forget me. I never want to forget that I am super frustrating to a 15-year-old girl. And she said, Does it bother you that you frustrate me? No, I think I'm gonna get a crown, a jewel in my crown in heaven. And she said, I don't get the connection because she's a smart kid. And I said, Because you're frustrated? You're frustrated because you're running up against the insufficiency of your logic. And God is inviting you to live in a bigger world, not a small one where you can control everything, but a big one where God controls everything. Well, what if I like my world? You're gonna have to self-medicate the rest of your life. So, 15-year-old girls, I've I don't have many appointments between now and the end of the year available, but I'll squeeze you in. Life change can happen for you too. Because it's hopeful. Because when we allow our moments to become too big, the first hostage we shoot is hope. And again, I just say, what if God, what if God wants to do is bigger and better than what you want him to do? Don't put limitations on God with your preferences. Here's the last thing I'll say, and we're done today. You still with me? Y'all are like, it's Christmas, man. Come on. I wore a red sweater. Come on. Here's the third, here's the third reason sovereignty is hopeful. It's hopeful because time fills up, but it never runs out. Here's what you should have seen if you were reading this. See, here's what happens when you actually read and teach and preach the Bible. You have to think about things you by nature wouldn't think about. Verse 15, when you read the Bible, listen for what's repeated. There's this cadence of sovereignty all through this narrative. Verse 15, this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt I called my son. Verse 17, then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet. Verse 23, and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. So, what do you mean? In God's economy, time does not run out, it fills up. So you're not missing out. So I told my little 15-year-old friend, who by the way, I like, I'm not clowning on her. I mean, can you adults remember when you were 15? You not want to go back and get your 15-year-old self by the neck and just kind of shake you a little bit? Of course you do. You're not missing out. Your time just hasn't filled up yet. God's not forgotten about you. Your time just hadn't filled up yet. And listen to me. If you settle for a cup that is only half full, you'll never be fully satisfied. And my little 15-year-old friend is settling for a cup. It's not even, there's just a couple drops in the bottom of it named Johnny. And she's like, oh, huh, oh, I've got to get back with him. No, you don't. You're putting limitations on God. Why do you talk about God so much? It's called reflective engagement. You look inside yourself and you reflect back to the person you're counseling, what you sense and see. And so I reflectively engaged her and said, Why do you talk about yourself so much? And the reason you talk about yourself so much is you're God. But you can't save yourself, you can't die for yourself, you're not sovereign like God is. What do you mean? This happened. Verse 15 is referencing the prophet Hosea. Then it was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. That's from Jeremiah. And when he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so there was what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled that he'd be called a Nazarene. This we get this from Isaiah. When you wait for God's timing to fill things up, you're increasing your capacity to be satisfied by what is coming. The reason people do not have hope is because they do not wait for God to fill things up. And so they know deep in their bones, hey, even when that gets here, it's not going to satisfy me. However, when you wait for God's timing to fill things up, you're increasing your capacity to be satisfied by what is coming. Somebody asked me this week, how old were you when you got married? I said, I was 28. And they were like, Oh, were you married before? And I said, I know. And they said, What was it like being 28 and getting married? I said, it was very satisfying because I waited. I didn't settle. I waited. I was enjoying my life. I was traveling around the country, preaching everywhere, okay, spending all of my money just on myself. Oh Merry Christmas to me. I would go to the store and buy whatever I wanted. It's been a long time since I've done that. But look at me. Don't miss this. I was so satisfied by the fullness of what God brought into my life. It was worth the wait. Let's pray together. If you're a guest, just relax and just some questions come up on the screen. We'd like to think here. We don't like to just feel. Christianity engages your mind. It's why the Bible says, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And on this fourth Sunday of Advent, God has kind of said, Hey, let's think a little bit. We're not here to drink a bottle of syrup and beat everybody to the Western Sizzler. We're here to eat a steak. Thinking about God's sovereignty is like feasting on good steak. So let's just take a minute and digest what we heard this morning. Lord, we confess with the great hymns of the faith that this is your world. We're just living in it. We're just a squirrel trying to get a nut. This is your world. We don't want to live in a world where we're sovereign, where we get our way all the time and nothing bad happens. And that doesn't mean we seek out calamity. It means when it gets hard, God's still sovereign. We're not going to magnify moments to where they just exasperate us and make our anxiety spike through the roof. But if we've been eating steak, when that traumatic or hard time comes, we're not going to spit the bit. If we've been drinking syrup, it's going to knock our rotten teeth out. Because there's no substance to our faith. It's sentiment and superstition, but no substance. I pray God this will be a church that cranks out 15-year-old girls who, when they go through a breakup, they just smile and say, Thank you so much. I've enjoyed this. God is for me, so you being against me doesn't affect me one bit. Thank you for the time. And that's not to be catty or vindictive, it's to be theologically oriented, godly women who find their worth in God and not in a relationship or an accomplishment or a scholarship. So while we teach the Bible, we want to crank out those kind of students. So, Holy Spirit, aid us in that process, we pray in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. If you're our guest today, uh let me say thank you for being here. You're always welcome. Uh, if you have any questions about anything you saw or heard, some of our pastors and elders will be available down front. We would love to answer any questions you have, pray with you. We kind of uh we do not have announcements during Advent because we want you to leave with this taste in your mouth. That kind of a that savory char of a good steak, okay? Uh but what we do is we do uh conclude our service with a spoken blessing. So if you would stand to your feet, hold your hands out. He's for you. Stop wasting your life trying to be against him. He's for you. He's demonstrated that he's for you. So stop insisting that he prove himself. Now's your time to prove yourself. Depart now and live in the illuminating reality that God is for you. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bless you.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Thank you for listening to this message. Be sure to give us a five star rating in review and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you'd like to go deeper with our sermon content, you can hear more on our Circling Back with Neil McClendon podcast at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.