God is sovereign. This means he is supreme and always in control. The Bible says no one comes to the Father unless the Holy Spirit draws him. In both physical and spiritual ways, God started you, sustains you, and will complete you.
God’s existence and sovereignty are the most fundamental beliefs we can possess — the very core of our deepest roots. When we dig in to know God more, we are tapping into the infiniteness of his love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, power, and sovereignty. Nothing or no one is greater. He sees all, knows all, and controls all. Whatever happens in your life, God either brings it or allows it for his good reasons. Scripture tells us that ultimately he does everything for his glory and for our good (Romans 8:28). Spending time with him helps wrap our roots around these unchangeable truths.
When I walk through the book of Ephesians with someone, I like to spend a little extra time in chapter 2. “All right,” I say, “I want you to read this and look for yourself in this section, and then I want you to read it again and look for God.”
The first part of the passage focuses on who we were and where we were without God, and I stress those words as I read them aloud. The second part focuses on who God is and what he did for us, and I stress those words too.
First, here’s the you in Ephesians 2:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Ephesians 2:1 – 3, emphasis added
Quite a list of accomplishments. We should be so proud.
Now read what God did:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:4 – 9, emphasis added
Now, what was our part in this? We were dead. We sinned. We blew it over and over.
What was God’s part? He did it all. He chose us, made us alive, lavished his grace on us, started us, and will complete what he started.
The next few verses go on to emphasize that at one time we were separated from Christ, without hope and without God. Now that God has saved us, we have been brought near to God by the blood of Christ, and he himself is our peace.
If you think you did something to start your relationship with God, it’s only logical to think you could do something to end it. You can either rest in your picture of God or be haunted by it. This passage helps us determine whether we have painted a biblical picture of God and of ourselves. I can’t think of a better reason to study Scripture. Especially the part about understanding God.
One of the added blessings of being in Casting Crowns is that we get to be involved with a ministry called Teen Challenge. The word teen is in their name, but they help people of all ages who struggle with addictions or life-controlling problems.
If a Teen Challenge center is in the vicinity of one of our concerts, we let their students serve on our crew for the day. I know I’m going to have several touches with them, so I try to get to know them throughout the day. I learn their names in the morning, ask them about something in their lives in the afternoon, and then hopefully get a chance to deal with something they’re going through before we pack up and leave.
At one particular concert after a snowstorm up north, I met a guy I’ll call Steve. He was about twenty-two years old, a tall man who wore a dark heavy-metal T-shirt and a denim vest. He had a long, curly beard and hair down to his shoulders. As big and mean as he wanted to look, I could tell he was hurting. I knew he had a soft heart just from talking to him that morning. He didn’t make much eye contact. Life had beaten him down.
Later, I invited him to come to the band’s prayer time after sound check. My devotional that day was from Psalm 63:1 – 4:
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
I asked the group these questions: “Have you figured out yet that you live in a dry and weary land? Somewhere in the back of your mind, do you still think that something in this world is going to do it for you? A lot of people are searching for something to fulfill them. We all want to get to the verse that says we want to see God in the sanctuary, behold his power and glory, and experience a love that is better than life. We want to skip to that verse, but we can’t because we haven’t resigned ourselves to the truth in the first verse, which is that this world is a dry and weary land that cannot fill us.”
Steve heard the devotional and hung around afterward. We didn’t get into a deep spiritual conversation because he was a little standoffish. That night, he sat to the left of our sound board during the concert. I kept looking at him, because whenever I make a connection with one of the Teen Challenge guys — or anyone else I meet before our concerts — whatever I say on stage that night is for those people. I pick out a handful of folks to talk to because it helps me focus better.
Steve seemed glued to everything he heard. He was one of the crew guys, so he was loving the lights and the music, but I also sensed God working on his heart. After the show, I approached the crew and thanked all of the Teen Challenge and local helpers for their work. I walked up to Steve and tried to see if I could break through his barrier.
“What do you think about all of this — about everything you’ve heard?” I asked.
“Oh, I think it’s real good,” he said. “Real good.”
I tried to stretch the conversation, but that’s about as deep as it got. To my knowledge, Steve didn’t surrender to Jesus as his Savior that night, but I could tell that God had begun to redefine himself to Steve. Before that day, he did not have the correct picture of God. In Steve’s head, God picked others around him, because everything about his demeanor said what he thought of himself: I’m a crew guy. I’m a class below these people. I’ll never be in that group. I could never be one of the churchy people. I’ll never be one of the people in front of everybody. This is just who I am and all I’ll ever be.
I asked Steve how I could pray for him. He had a relative who was sick. I prayed for the relative, and I asked God to continue to pursue Steve and stay in his thoughts and not let him take his mind off of anything he had heard that day.
Several months later, Steve showed up at one of our concerts. He had also made a great connection with our drummer, Brian Scoggin. Steve drove four hours to get there and brought his dad. The next night, we were another four hours away, and he came again and spent the day with Brian. God is still working on Steve, and I’m still praying for him.
We have to let God paint for us the picture of who he is. If we paint our own picture of God, he’ll look a lot like our dads (for better or worse) and a lot like how love works down here on earth. And you know how it is — people will love us as long as and until. But there is always a line that human love won’t cross. That’s not what God’s love is like.
You’re going to attach your idea of God to what you know. If you don’t know what he says about who he is, how are you going to get to know him? If you let God define himself for you and let him define you for you, now you’re ready to start blooming. We operate on a faulty root system when we go by our own logic. We choose the finite over the infinite.
At the base of our roots must be the understanding that we did not figure this out; we did not turn over a new leaf; we did not decide one day that we were going to try this Jesus thing. The closest we can ever come with our own efforts is religion, and it will not grow. Religion has no roots.
First Corinthians 1:8 states that Jesus “will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What God starts, he finishes.
The fun part comes in between.
Point to Remember
God is sovereign. We did nothing to begin the relationship. He did it all.