God's sovereign will: His character as foundation
Hebrews 13:8; Malachi 3:6 · Vern Peterman · Apr 11, 2004
Will of God, No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826234514289

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We did start last week on this topic of God's will, and I have no additional handout for this week. The thing that we did was introduce the subject, and as you see we've used this target, if you will, with the concentric circles, and the idea being that the starting point of God's will is God's sovereign will. the aspect of God's will that is fixed, unchangeable, and irreversible, the part of God's will that we can't miss or fall out of. And then the next part inside of that is God's moral will, and that's based on God's moral character, God being a moral God. And then the inside circle, as we drew it, was God's individual will, that is the will for each individual believer and the introduction there was to kind of give the big picture with the idea that over the weeks beginning today and the time to follow we get a little more detail on each of those three areas and what we intend to do this morning is to look at what's the foundation of God's will and that's ultimately it's God's character. Let's think about this for a minute. Why would God's character be the foundation for God's will? Why is that so critical? Can't God have his will and the character just be sort of extraneous or supplemental? Why is God's character so basic to God's will? What do you think?

He has a perfect plan. He wouldn't do something contrary to his character. It would reflect his character. Have you ever had somebody come up and say, well, this person did this, or we think this person did this, and you hear it and you say, that doesn't sound like that person. You ever had that happen? I mean, you had it said about you even. But the point being, I think each of us at various times have heard that. We say, that doesn't sound like the person because we're familiar with that person's character, whoever it is they might be talking about. And so we get a sense of that behavior or that way of thinking or that action comes out of character.

And God's will is that way as well. God is not going to will something that is outside of his character. He's not going to will something sovereignly that's outside of his character. He is not going to convey something to us as believers that's outside of his character. And he is not going to encourage or provide resources from himself to carry out something that's outside of his character. So that's, I think, something to get fixed in our understanding here, God's will springs from who He is. God's will springs from who He is.

Just in the same way that if we know someone's character, in fact we have a phrase, something is out of character for somebody. That doesn't sound like that person. Why? It's out of character. God's character is even more so than as human beings. It's fixed and immutable. Ever hear that God's all-powerful, He can do anything? Well, guess what? There are things that God cannot do. That's right. We saw in Titus, first week, the God who cannot lie. The Greek there, putting it, the cannot lie God. God cannot do anything contrary to His character. That's real interesting, because we think, oh, here's a God, He can do anything.

No, He can't. He is limited by His character. He is limited by who He is. And by the way, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. So I think that's key. As we look at this whole subject of God's will, it's real important for us to get this picture that God's character is the foundation for God's will. God is not going to set anything in place, either sovereignly or communicate to us in Scripture, this is my moral will, or he's not going to lead a person individually to do anything contrary to his character. Now, do things go on in the world that are things contrary to God's character? Well, you answered that quick. Ha! Whoa! Fast answer. How come you came up with a fast answer like that? Why is that true, Gary?

You look around and you see things that are happening that are not according to God's character. Yeah. You just say, hey, that's not right. One of the things that I heard just within the last couple of days, hey, there was a murder in town. They're trying to get that figured out.

Is that consistent with God's character? No. Okay. We will see things in the world that are contrary to God's character. Why is that? Ah, okay. The Lord at the time of the garden put in place the possibility for people to choose contrary to the Lord's will and therefore contrary to His character. And all human beings since that time have followed after that nature of Adam. the fallen man. So yes, it's possible for things to happen that are contrary to God's character.

But if we ask, what about God's will? What does God will to be? And particularly if we're looking as believers, how do I know God's will? We should not be looking for anything contrary to God's character. Who God is. His essence. So what we want to do is to look through those things because I think that's going to be a critical backdrop for us as we look at this issue of God's will. God's will is not something independent of His character. God does not will something and we find, well, God's like this but His will is like this. It doesn't work that way. God's will for every single believer will always be consistent with God's character. always, no exceptions.

Does that make sense? So I think that's a foundation that we want to start with. Let's take a look at that, and what I'd like us to do is, I want to have your Bibles out, because you're going to be looking at some passages here. Now, who created God?

Yeah, that sure is. Double-barreled too. It's loaded. Yeah, and you said nobody. Wow! Now that's kind of amazing. That's what children think when you tell them they live forever. Yeah. Okay. How is it that God didn't get created by something or somebody? How can that be? God is self-existent.

We are accustomed to living in a world where everything has a cause and effect, right? If we look at something, we assume in our way of thinking and in our world, because this is true with our experience, we always assume that that had a cause that was sufficient. If we happen to be walking out in the woods out in the Rockies and we find a guitar sitting in a guitar case, We don't say, boy, that just is a delightful thing to just pop up right here, isn't it? Just kind of happened. No, we don't assume that, do we? We assume somebody created this guitar.

Especially if you pick it up and it's tuned and everything. The more perfect this thing is, the more we look at it and say, that didn't just happen. God, however, is unlike all the things that we've experienced. God, however, is self-existent. And he made that clear.

Here's Moses. Moses is talking to the Lord, and here's the burning bush. And so Moses is in the process of coming up with some excuses, by the way. You know, different reasons why he shouldn't be the one to go talk to Pharaoh. You know, this is, after all, a rather challenging thing to take on. especially when you're 80 years old. So anyway, who should I say has sent me? And the Lord says, I am who I am. Tell them I am who I am has sent me.

That's Exodus 3.14.

So Exodus 3.14, somebody read that for us, that particular passage? If you've got that in front of you.

And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am, I am hath sent me unto you. It's recorded in the Old Testament in Hebrew. There is a Greek translation of that Hebrew Old Testament, and the Greek translation where it says, I am, that I am, is Ego Emi.

Ego Emi. Seven times in the Gospel of John, you know where Jesus says, I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd? You know what he says when he says, I am? Ego Emi. He doesn't just say, I am. And so the Greek structure is not just simple, I am the bread of life. It's, I am that I am the bread of life.

So he claimed to be deity. That's why in John 10 after he said, I am, they picked up rocks. Because it was a claim to deity. As Bob put it, God is self-existent. God unlike anything we've experienced. If we extrapolate based on what we have experienced, we're going to say, well, everything's got a cause. God is self-existent. He is the uncaused cause. And that's key to remember. That's key for us to remember.

That's not, by the way, the account that a great many of the pagan religions have. They've got stories of how God got created. Hinduism has thousands of gods, and all these gods were created in a kind of a series of creations, even to the point where we are gods, only we are a dream of God. I mean, a very lost idea. Scripture, however, teaches God is self-existent. God is self-existent. Is God limited? We mentioned earlier that He is limited by His nature. But is that nature entirely limited? Is God limited in time?

No, no. One way, and I notice a number of you have pens, one way to kind of look at the whole thing is, here we are, we're in time. We're kind of, we look at, here's this time behind us, and we have a pretty good vision about what's behind us. And here we are right now, and about five minutes later, there'll be another right now. And what's going on in the future, we've got a pretty foggy idea. about what's likely to take place. We've got a few things we'll say are certainties, but aside from that, most of it we really don't know what's happening next. Not for sure.

God's outside of it. If you were to take a look at the pen or a pencil in front of you, God's looking at it from one end to the other, and to Him it's all the same thing, isn't it? He is outside of time. Yeah, you know, we're looking at it. I mean, we're going to talk a little bit later on how we've been identified with Christ and His death. We'll say, wait a minute, that was 1900 some odd years ago. How'd that happen? I don't remember, you know.

But what's happened is we're looking at it. If you take the analogy, we're inside the pen. We're at this one spot. God's looking at it. To Him, it's all happening at the same time. He's looking at... well, there He is. You know, there's Bob Lockwood right there, and there's Jesus Christ, and there's Adam, and here's the second coming, and it's all in the same line. And he's looking at it all at once. He's seeing it all happen at one instance.

And is there any difficulty in making this point here relate to that point there? Not in the least. What for us looks like an insurmountable challenge is to him, what's the big deal? No problem. We need to have something here take place there. No difficulty at all. It's beyond time travel. He sees it all. God is infinite.

If we look at a verse, let's take a look at Psalm 145.3. Somebody read that for us when you get to it.

Psalm 145.3. Yeah, 145.3 from NID. Okay.

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praises. His greatness no one can fathom. Yeah, unfathomable. The Lord has depth and infinity that is beyond our own. We don't quite comprehend it. I can come up with an analogy like, okay, here's a pen and try to get something so that we can kind of stand outside of our own time a little bit. But the truth is that the Lord has a depth and an infinity that we cannot grasp.

It's one reason why the prophets of the Old Testament would laugh and scorn and deride the various man-made idols. Isaiah wrote, quoting the Lord, he says, I am the Lord and I will not give my glory to another. Most certainly not to one of those things made of rock. Most certainly not to a stick. All right, let's take a look here. How about, does God change? God is unchangeable. How on earth did you get that idea? Oh, okay. All right. I just was checking. Okay. Glad to hear it.

One thing that is key to look at, a lot of the pagan cultures taught that their gods would change. Change over time. They'd morph into this and that and they'd change in character. There was adaptation. And even a lot of the pagan cultures would deify the earth. And of course the earth changes. And they would make the earth, of course, subject to seasons. So there's annual change through all the seasons. The deities would be subject to change. We're accustomed to change. That's just the nature of things. God doesn't change. God doesn't change.

Let's turn to Malachi 3.6. He knew my Bible. The very last book of the Old Testament. Can we read that? Go ahead.

Malachi 3.6, I am the Lord, do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. And what he's basically talking about is, I've made some promises to Jacob. And so you're not destroyed. And since I've made those promises, I don't just change my mind and decide something else. And I don't change. I am unchangeable. That's the Lord's own declaration. How about in the New Testament, since the Lord Jesus Christ is God Himself, He made multiple claims to deity, including those seven places in John where I am the bread of life.

Hebrews 13.8 says, I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Lord does not change. The Lord is unchanging. We have an unchanging God. We're not going to wake up tomorrow morning and all of a sudden plop in front of everybody's doorstep. We've got a new Bible here, folks. Sorry, God changed. It's not going to happen.

I, the Lord, do not change. From eternity past to eternity future, the Lord says, I don't change. It's one thing if we look at His will, His will will be consistent with His character. And one key aspect of His character is the Lord isn't just constantly flipping and changing and turning into something else. The term we use is immutable, unchangeable.

One of the things that you brought up earlier here, and we saw in Titus, he's the God who cannot lie. Why is that? Why can't God lie? After all, he can do anything, right? Why can't he lie? Contrary to his character. Contrary to his character. Because he is what? Unchangeable. He's unchangeable, and his unchangeable character includes what? What's that? Truth. Yes. He's a cannot lie God because he is truth. God himself is truth. And that's interesting. We think of a true statement.

Having been through training in science and engineering, and let's hope your engineering is based on science. Having been through training in science and engineering, one of the things you're looking at is what's true. Key thing. I put my engineer stamp on plans. I put a stamp on it because it's based on truth. Let's hope it is.

We have this sense that there is truth about the world around us. Ultimately, the foundation for all truth is the fact that God Himself is truth. He is the definition of what is truth. We say, well, this is true about this or that in the physical world around us, and we get a sense of that. We have a sort of a basic identity understanding of things. I come to you and I say, well, two and two is six and a half plus or minus 0.25. And you say, wait a minute, that's not true. But God Himself is truth. By His character He is true.

And there are a number of scriptures we could look at for that. Let's look at John 17, 17. Someone can read that for us. This, by the way, is part of the Lord's Prayer, sometimes called the High Priestly Prayer. Prayer for us. John 17, 17? Yes. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Ah, okay, yeah. The Lord is truth. Therefore, what He communicates is truth. And that is what will sanctify the believer. That is, put the believer to the believer's intended purpose. Make holy. Jesus, in just a few chapters prior to that, which hadn't been that many hours before, John 14, 6, he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but by me. The Greek there is structured like this. I, in contradistinction to all others, am the singular way, definite article, the singular truth, and the singular life. Explicit, exact, singular, one and only. It is written as a, not a, I am a way, or I am a truth. Nothing of that sort. The way it is written is very explicit and specific.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. It's key that what the Lord is describing here is, again, it's His character is Truth. He is truth personified. Truth personified. If we read something in God's Word, we have no question. This is truth. It's true. Why? Because it is an expression of who God is and God is of definition. Truth. God is truth. Always.

It's interesting, the Greek gods, in their myths, the Greek gods would lie to each other. Can you imagine that? They had gods lying to each other, and stealing, and all sorts of things. The head of the Greek gods was married, but he would wrap himself in a cloud, commit adultery, come out of the cloud, and then tell his wife that he hadn't. So this is the very strange character of the pagan gods, the Greeks, to whom Paul and his companions were telling about the Lord, the one who cannot lie.

So here, however, the Lord says, in contrast to that, thy word is truth. Your word is truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life. You can count upon this truth. It's eternal. It's immutable. Another is God is love. And how would we know that God is love? How would we have any idea that that's the case?

Ah, okay. Yeah. He sacrificed his son. That's an ultimate expression. So this is not hypothetical love, is it? This isn't, you know, based on some theory or it should be nice. Based on an action? Yes, it's based on an objective, verifiable action. And a classical expression of that would be John 3.16. For God so loved coming out of His nature, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. So here is love that is not hypothetical. It is love that comes out of His character. It's expressed in reality in the person of His Son.

And that love was not a, you know, these people are awful nice to me. I think I'll do something nice for them. It wasn't like that. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were enemies, He acted way beyond anything the relationship would justify in terms of payback.

God is love. By the way, before we pass on this, have you ever been in a church where that's not communicated? Ever seen that? Where God's severity and sternness is so so severely brought out that God's love is not made apparent? Some churches, unfortunately, will go to that.

Yeah, yeah. There was a young lady who was here from Czech Republic over in Europe. Elishka was her name. Elishka Novakova. And Crystal, Craig and Crystal Case, She was staying with them. Anyway, she's majoring in English literature over in the Czech Republic, and so she was emailing back and forth with me, and she was having to do sort of an oral report on a work by Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

And the whole write-up is completely lacking in love. It's instead expressed as God's just dangling you over the flames, and if it pleases Him, He'll let you go. And this expression of God's love as a part of His character was completely missing. There was nothing conveyed in that. Of course, it just scared the wadden out of people, but it doesn't convey who God is.

Because Scripture clearly teaches it, and John 3.16 being case in point. God didn't just say hypothetically, oh sure, I love you.

But He expressed that love in this day that we celebrate here, this Resurrection Sunday, is part of that expression of love in the person of Jesus Christ and the work of the Lord on our behalf. Okay, let's take a look a little bit further here. This is another aspect of something we've already talked about, God's infinity, God's infinite character.

Isaiah 57, 15. As human beings, while you're turning to that, as human beings, we tend to think of people being born at a certain time. As a matter of fact, we'll ask how old somebody is, and when were you born, and that sort of thing. If you ever go and walk through a cemetery, you'll see starting points and ending points for all these different people that are in the cemetery. But now we find Isaiah 57, 15, something very different, at least a concept that's even hard for us to fathom a little bit. Somebody read that for us?

This is what the High and Lofty One says, He who lives forever, whose name is Hoban. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and holy in spirit. Revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite. Yeah, okay. Yeah, one translation has it even, one that inhabits eternity. That's my translation. Yeah, what do you got there? Yeah, one who inhabits eternity. Here's eternity, I live there. That's what God says. Isn't that something? inhabits eternity.

Now that is amazing because we're used to thinking of why I live between here this time and this time. That's how we think. And it's interesting, you ever look like your family's genealogy or something of that sort and you start looking at this person live this time and live that time and that's interesting stuff.

The Lord says no, I'm not limited by that in the least. Will we ever understand that? Probably not. I mean, when we get to be with the Lord. Ah, when we get to be with the Lord. Well, that's a different question. I think when we get to be with the Lord, there will be a lot of aha moments. Things that puzzle us now will be, why of course! You know? Yeah, I think there will be a lot of those kinds of things. But for now, we're very much accustomed to living between this time and another.

And we have time brackets that we relate to. We very much think, for example, we talk about something being characteristic of the 80s or the 70s. Nancy and I were married in the early 1970s, and so you can imagine the color of the various pieces of kitchenware that we have. You can date us by the color of the kitchenware. A certain era has a certain look to it. Or how about the Formica in the 50s? You know what that's like? It has a certain character to it, doesn't it? The Lord's not into that. He doesn't get dated by his Formica. The color of his kitchenware is of no concern. We tend to get plugged into certain dates and the Lord's not the least bit of that mindset or character. That doesn't limit him.

I'll just reference it briefly. 1 Timothy 1.17 says, Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Lots of things about the character of God in that verse, isn't there? Unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. How about this one? God is holy. God is holy. Now what do we mean by holy?

Without sin. Without sin. Pure. Yeah. It's interesting. We can talk about, you know, we could say, gee, that person is holy or something of that sort. God is the definition of holy. See, as human beings, we tend to look at almost at somebody's behavior and say it's holy. God is, by character, completely holy. Now, what difference does that make? You say, well, that's nice. I'd look at a couple Bible verses.

In fact, let's start turning towards 1 John 1.5. But what difference does that make? Why does it matter that God is holy? Well, that's in the foundation we were talking about earlier this morning. Certainly. Okay. That's the example that we see in Jesus Christ. That's the example that we see in His Word as we see that expressed. Does God ask us to be anything different than who He is? Yeah. So as we look at what's God's will, One of the things that's very clear is when God asks us to be holy, it's because He Himself is holy.

So I'm going to read 1 John 1.5 there.

1 John 1.5 Okay? Yeah, I was going to say, why don't you read what you... Do you have something different? Oh, you're reading a 2-5. Yeah, yeah, 1-5. Yeah, there we go. I was going to say, that's a little bit That had me scratching my head here.

Basically, it focuses that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. As we looked at earlier in the main service, light and darkness is frequently, those are physical pictures given to us of the sense of God's holiness. The passage we looked at, we have been transferred out of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son.

God is holy of a nature. God is holy of character. As we said, God is the definition of truth. God is also the definition of holiness. God doesn't have holiness. He is holy. See the difference there? It isn't just something he's got, as if it were some sort of a possession. It's His character. It's who He is. Why did Christ have to die on the cross? Because there wasn't anybody else that could. Yeah, nobody else that could. Yes, you got that right.

Can't God just look at it and say, boy, those folks, they just have a tough time not sinning, but we'll just pass on it and call it good and leave it at that. Why does Christ have to die? God's holiness is not something that He can set aside. God's holiness is not something He can set aside.

He can't just say, you know, well, boys will be boys, and girls will be girls too. Because God's character is holy. It is who He is. It's basic to who he is. Therefore, he said, consistent with his character, I cannot simply let sin be. It must be reckoned with. And the only reckoning of that sin, contrary to his holiness, is also consistent with his love. And that is, okay, that sin must be reckoned with, it must be paid for, I'll pay it. Out of love. consistent with God's complete character of holiness and his complete character of love. Here he says that there's no darkness at all. No unholiness at all. None whatsoever. See, God isn't a mixture. God isn't a... well, he's mostly holy. That's not the picture. It's not a percentage deal. Now, suppose I came to you and I said, we're going to have a steak dinner. OK?

And just pick your night. We'll come have this steak dinner. And it's just going to be the greatest steak that you've ever had. I mean, delicious. Oh, you're going to rave about it. Well, maybe not. But anyway, you're going to really enjoy this. The only thing is, I need to tell you, it's got just a little bit of arsenic in it. But it's delicious. It'll be the best steak you've ever had. And I mean had. So here's a really, really good steak, but it's just got a tad bit of arsenic in it.

Now, what's going to happen? You're going to be downright reluctant to chomp into that steak. Downright reluctant, knowing that. Even if I swear to you, it's the best steak you'll ever eat. Maybe the last one you'll ever eat, but it'll be the best one you'll ever eat. And why? It's because that little bit of arsenic is just unacceptable.

Well, that's somewhat of an analogy to the Lord's character. The Lord isn't 99% holy and about 1% something else. His holiness is absolute. And some tiny little percentage of something other than that is not consistent with His character. In Tennessee it would say that 99% of the ball that's out is 100% in. Yes, that's right. So that's character.

Let's look at one more thing here and I think we've probably run out of time. Now, are we concerned that we're just going to be going along this track and we've been putting our trust in the Lord and going to church and studying the Bible and what we collect around here is like the Church of the White Binder. We collect all sorts of handouts and all sorts of things of that sort. But some Sundays, are we worried that someday I'm going to get up front there and folks, I've got an overhead to show you and I'm afraid it's a little tough to handle, but God died. Is that something you expect to happen? Do you expect that it might happen? No, you don't do that. And why is that?

He is eternal life. We talk about having eternal life as believers. It is God's character. That same verse, 1 Timothy 1.17 that I made reference to earlier, hear it again. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever.

Not until next Tuesday. Not until the century turns again and then that's it. God is immortal, unending. I'm not going to come up one Sunday and have some PowerPoint slide that announces the funeral services for the Lord. Not going to happen. God is immortal. It is of His very character. He, unlike us, does not die.

If we look around us, we've got all sorts of things that are characteristic of the life around us. We look at the world around us and we say there's all sorts of unholy things that happen. We say that everything has a cause. we cannot extend from the world around us to arrive at the character of God. That's why it had to be revealed to us, didn't it?

Instead, what we have is revelation from God Himself, this is my character, because we could not otherwise know. I've been through all sorts of science classes and doing experiments and things of that sort, and as fun as all that stuff is, and as insightful as it can be, it can't tell you about the character of God. Only God Himself can do that. Only God Himself can do that. And those are the things that are revealed in His Word.

Well, we've run out of time. So, we'll have to stop there. Now, is that the end of God's character? No. We're just touching on it here. But as we go through this, I think to keep this perspective in mind, everything else that we look at about God's will from here on out will be founded upon who God is. There will be nothing that we will take a look at here that will give us insight and guidance and understanding about God's will that will be in conflict with God's character, with who God is. And that's key as we look at this whole thing. We're not trying to just find out what's God's will independent of the Lord himself. All of God's will is founded on who He is.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for these aspects of your eternal character, your unchangeable character that we can count upon, that we can depend upon as we make decisions, as we seek to gain understanding into different circumstances and situations. Your character, is always dependable. As we sing, great is your faithfulness. You are faithful to who you are. And that's a wonderful thing. I give you thanks for that.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, next week we'll take a look at God's determinations in history. what God has determined in the past and what God has determined in the future is yet to take place, most certainly, not just God's best guess. Okay? So we'll take a look at that.