Are choices I make altering my future despite God’s sovereignty?
First off, I wanted to clarify God’s plan for mankind. (Micah 6:8- He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.) He has a general plan for all of mankind; turn to Him, follow His ways, spread the gospel, make disciples.
Yes. God does not meticulously control us. He has the ability to influence us with His law, responsibilities in our lives, truth, love, and persuasion. But he cannot make us choose one thing or another. He delights in us and wants us to live our lives according to his law, but in the end, we get to decide how our life turns out.
**Hand out- So God has his law that he has set before us, as well as life responsibilities. How does He get us to follow his law and take care of our responsibilities? Through truth, love, persuasion (intelligence) and influence. Now we have a choice, obey, or disobey, and there are results depending on which path we choose, penalties or rewards. After we have sinned, we have the ability (through the blood of Jesus) to repent and turn towards truth.**
He doesn’t have an intricate, detailed, plan for your life. Even if He did, it wouldn’t matter, because at the end of the day we ultimately get to decide how our life looks. God provides opportunities in our lives to further His kingdom, but we always have the choice to do so or not.
We have evidence from scripture that things have not gone the way God wanted them to go/ that man altered their future.
Extra Notes
“God had planned such beautiful things for mankind. But there was a great risk in creating moral beings in his own image a great risk in giving man creativity in his will. But if God did not run this risk there could be no worship, there could be no devotion. There could be no virtue in all of God's creation. If everything was instinctive and caused to be one way or another, everything would be routine, mechanical, programed, and the excitement of the moral universe wouldn’t exist. So, we mention that God ran a great risk because if man can’t disobey neither can he obey. And so, God created mankind with the serenity of self-causation. With all the abilities to evaluate what is valuable. In addition to all the persuasions that God has obviously exercised to keep man from making the wrong decisions and so we have to title this consideration rebellion against the loving and reasonable moral government of God.” – Gordon C. Olson
“Surprised or hopeful over man’s actions”; if we’re going to take God's reputation with any seriousness then we need to agree that He has the ability to be surprised or hopeful.
Jeremiah 26:3- God does not give false hope.
Prepared by the amazing Joanna Tyler.
Yes. God does not meticulously control us. He has the ability to influence us with His law, responsibilities in our lives, truth, love, and persuasion. But he cannot make us choose one thing or another. He delights in us and wants us to live our lives according to his law, but in the end, we get to decide how our life turns out.
**Hand out- So God has his law that he has set before us, as well as life responsibilities. How does He get us to follow his law and take care of our responsibilities? Through truth, love, persuasion (intelligence) and influence. Now we have a choice, obey, or disobey, and there are results depending on which path we choose, penalties or rewards. After we have sinned, we have the ability (through the blood of Jesus) to repent and turn towards truth.**
He doesn’t have an intricate, detailed, plan for your life. Even if He did, it wouldn’t matter, because at the end of the day we ultimately get to decide how our life looks. God provides opportunities in our lives to further His kingdom, but we always have the choice to do so or not.
We have evidence from scripture that things have not gone the way God wanted them to go/ that man altered their future.
- Genesis 6:5-6 The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth has become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. *The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain.*
- Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
- 1 Samuel 13:13-14a (This verse shows that God had a plan in mind for Saul. But Saul disobeyed and God changed His mind and took it away.) “You acted foolishly”, Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure.”
- Exodus 32:7-14 *God was determined to wipe out the whole nation of Israel after the golden calf apostasy and start a new nation through Moses but changed his mind through the humble and reasoning intercession of Moses. “I have seen these people and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation…..”
- Numbers 11: 1-2 “Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them, his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down.”
Extra Notes
“God had planned such beautiful things for mankind. But there was a great risk in creating moral beings in his own image a great risk in giving man creativity in his will. But if God did not run this risk there could be no worship, there could be no devotion. There could be no virtue in all of God's creation. If everything was instinctive and caused to be one way or another, everything would be routine, mechanical, programed, and the excitement of the moral universe wouldn’t exist. So, we mention that God ran a great risk because if man can’t disobey neither can he obey. And so, God created mankind with the serenity of self-causation. With all the abilities to evaluate what is valuable. In addition to all the persuasions that God has obviously exercised to keep man from making the wrong decisions and so we have to title this consideration rebellion against the loving and reasonable moral government of God.” – Gordon C. Olson
“Surprised or hopeful over man’s actions”; if we’re going to take God's reputation with any seriousness then we need to agree that He has the ability to be surprised or hopeful.
Jeremiah 26:3- God does not give false hope.
Prepared by the amazing Joanna Tyler.