SUNDAY MORNING WORSHIP SERVICE, 1 November 2026
Sermon Text: 1 Chronicles 29:10-15
Main Points:
Introduction
I. Our God is sovereign over all things
II. Our God is perfectly righteous and good in all His works
III. Our God’s sovereign grace deserves all glory and worship
Conclusion
Have you ever heard someone ask a question like this: ‘Why does God allow such terrible things to happen?’ Or perhaps you’ve asked it yourself: ‘If God really loves us, why does He allow so much suffering in this world?’ These are not unusual questions. In fact, people have been asking questions like those for generations.
At the heart of all these questions is one very important issue: Is God really in control? Does He rule over everything that happens in this world? Even those things that seem completely beyond our understanding? And if He does, how can we understand His sovereignty alongside all the suffering, injustice, and evil that we see around us?
Now, these are not questions that only non-Christians ask. Christians struggle with them too. We may know what the Bible teaches, but when difficulties come into our own lives, putting that knowledge into practice can be much harder. Brothers and sisters, this is why we need to understand the sovereignty of God.
God’s sovereignty is not some complicated theological idea that belongs only in a classroom or a theological textbook. It is one of the most important truths for our everyday Christian lives. Why is it so essential truth? Because what we believe about God’s sovereignty affects how we understand Him, how we respond to difficulties, and how we live our lives before Him. So today, I’d like us to consider three important truths about our sovereign God.
I. Our God Is Sovereign Over All Things
The first is ‘our God is sovereign over all things.’ Let’s begin with a simple question: What do we actually mean when we say that God is sovereign? Well, it means that God is the supreme ruler over everything. He is above all things, He is dependent on nothing and no one, and there is no authority greater than His. Everything that exists belongs to Him. Everything is under His authority. Nothing is outside His rule.
Arthur W. Pink, a well-known Reformed writer, once described God’s sovereignty as the centre of gravity in the whole system of Christian truth. He compared it to the sun in our solar system, around which all the planets revolve. That’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?
Think about the solar system. The sun holds everything together through its gravitational force. The planets don’t simply decide to go wherever they please! They move within the order established by the sun’s gravitational pull. In a similar way, God’s sovereignty gives us the foundation for understanding everything else the Bible teaches about Him.
Think about God’s knowledge, for example. The Bible tells us that God knows everything. We call this His omniscience. He knows everything that has happened, everything happening right now, and everything that will happen in the future. Nothing surprises Him. Nothing catches Him off guard. Why is that? Because He is the sovereign God.
The same is true of His wisdom, His power, His holiness, and His love. These are not independent qualities that somehow operate separately from His rule. They belong to the one true God who reigns over everything.
This is why God’s sovereignty is so important. It reminds us that we are not living in a universe that is out of control. We are living in God’s world, and He is its sovereign Lord.
Now, let’s turn to our passage in 1 Chron. 29. Here we find King David preparing for the construction of the temple. He has gathered enormous amounts of materials, made extensive preparations, and organised everything that will be needed for this great work. His son Solomon will eventually oversee its construction.
Now, if anyone had reason to feel proud of what he had accomplished, it was David! He had gathered the resources, organised the people, and made all the preparations. He could easily have stood before the people and said, ‘Look at what I have achieved!’ But, notice what David actually does. Instead of drawing attention to himself, he turns his attention to God. He praises the Lord. Listen to what he says in v. 11: “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and You are exalted as head above all.” What a wonderful declaration!
David recognises that everything belongs to God. The greatness, the power, the glory, the kingdom, and the authority, all belong to Him. And notice those final words: “You are exalted as head above all.” In other words, God is not simply one ruler among many. He is not competing with other powers to maintain control of His creation. He is the Lord over everything. Even the things that we possess, the abilities we have, and the opportunities we enjoy ultimately come from Him. David understood this very well. That’s why he could praise God rather than boast about himself.
Brothers and sisters, this is the God we worship! Sometimes we live as though everything depends on us. We become anxious about our work, our families, our finances, and our future. We try to control every situation, and when things don’t go according to our plans, we become frustrated.
Of course, we have responsibilities, and we should fulfil them faithfully. But we must remember that we’re not the ones holding the universe together! That’s God’s responsibility, and He is perfectly capable of doing it. Our God is sovereign over all things. Nothing is beyond His authority, and nothing is outside His rule. What a wonderful foundation for our faith!
II. Our God Is Perfectly Righteous and Good in All His Works
Now, having said that God is sovereign over everything, we need to address a difficult question. If God is in control of everything, what about all the evil and suffering in this world?
How can we say that God is absolutely sovereign and, at the same time, perfectly good and righteous? This is not just a question for theologians sitting in a lecture room. It is a question that comes into our minds when we see terrible things happening around us.
Think about innocent people who lose their lives in wars. Think about families who suddenly lose someone they love. Think about people who suffer terribly because of someone else’s wickedness. We look at these situations and ask, ‘Why did God allow this to happen?’ And sometimes, when suffering comes very close to home, that question becomes even more personal. ‘Lord, why did You allow this to happen to me? Why didn’t You stop it?’
These are difficult questions, and I don’t think we should pretend that they are easy to answer.
But there are some things the Bible makes absolutely clear. First, God is perfectly holy and righteous. 1 Jn. 1:5 tells us: “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” There is no evil in God. There is no wickedness, no injustice, and no corruption in Him. Dan. 9:14 also declares: “The LORD our God is righteous in all the works that He has done.”
Think about that statement for a moment. God is righteous in everything He does. He never makes a mistake. He never acts unjustly. He never does anything evil. That is the testimony of Scripture.
But does this mean that everything that happens in this world is good? Of course not! Murder is evil. Oppression is evil. Betrayal is evil. Cruelty and violence are evil. We must never call evil good simply because God is sovereign.
Here, we need to make an important distinction. God sovereignly governs all things, including events in which human beings commit evil. However, this does not mean that God approves of their evil actions or shares in their sinful intentions. Although He permits and governs these events according to His sovereign purposes, He remains perfectly holy and righteous. The evil itself comes from the sinful hearts and intentions of human beings, and they remain fully responsible for what they do. In other words, God is never the author of sin, nor is He morally responsible for the wicked actions of His creatures. Yet, even their wicked actions cannot overthrow God’s sovereign purposes. In fact, the Bible gives us a remarkable example of this in the cross of Jesus Christ. We will come back to that shortly.
But, here’s another question: Why do we find this truth so difficult to accept? An important reason is that we often want to understand everything from our own perspective. We want to know why something happened. We want an explanation that makes sense to us. Unless we can understand everything, we find it difficult to trust God.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with asking honest questions. God is not offended when His children come to Him with their questions and struggles. But, we need to recognise something important: We are creatures, not the Creator. Our understanding is limited. God’s understanding is not. We see only a small part of the picture, while God sees everything. We know what is happening today, but God knows the beginning and the end.
Sometimes we are rather like a little child sitting in the back seat of a car. A three-year-old child doesn’t understand much about driving. The child doesn’t know why the father has taken this particular road, why he has slowed down, or why he has stopped at a traffic light.
Imagine the child frowning and asking, ‘Dad, do you really know what you’re doing?’ Well, the father doesn’t need to explain every decision to the child. The child can trust his father because he knows that his father is looking after him.
Of course, no human father is perfect. But how much more can we trust our heavenly Father, whose wisdom is perfect and whose knowledge is without limit? Listen to what God says through the prophet Isaiah: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” God is reminding us that His wisdom is far beyond ours.
This doesn’t mean that we should stop thinking or abandon our reason. Rather, it means that we must be humble enough to recognise that our understanding is limited. We cannot put God in the witness box and demand that He explain every decision to our satisfaction! We must learn to begin with what God has revealed about Himself in His Word.
And what has He revealed? He has revealed that He is sovereign. He has revealed that He is perfectly holy and righteous. And He has revealed that His purposes are always good.
Brothers and sisters, this is particularly important when we go through difficult times. There may be things happening in your life right now that you simply cannot understand. You may be praying about something for years without seeing the answer you hoped for. You may be carrying a burden that nobody else knows about.
I don’t want to give you a simplistic answer and say, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine.’ We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. And the Bible doesn’t promise that every difficulty will be removed in this life.
But, we do know something far more important. We know the character of the God who holds our lives in His hands. Our inability to understand His purposes does not mean that He has lost control. Our inability to see His wisdom does not mean that His wisdom has failed. Therefore, even when we cannot understand what God is doing, we can still trust who He is.
Our God is perfectly righteous and perfectly good in all His works.
III. Our God’s Sovereign Grace Deserves All Glory and Worship
Now, that leads us to our final point: Our God’s sovereign grace deserves all glory and worship.
You see, when we think about God’s sovereignty, we often find ourselves asking questions. We may question His fairness, or struggle to understand why He allows certain things to happen. But, we need to step back for a moment and ask a more fundamental question – that is, what do we actually deserve from God?
I think this is where we need to begin. Before questioning what God gives or does not give us, we need to understand our own condition before Him. What does the Bible tell us about ourselves as sinners? And what do we really deserve from our holy and righteous God?
Rom. 3:10 tells us: “There is none righteous, no, not one.” And Rom. 6:23 reminds us that the wages of sin is death. The Bible doesn’t give us a flattering picture of ourselves. We are sinners who have rebelled against our Creator. We’ve failed to honour Him, failed to obey Him, and failed to live according to His holy standards. And what do sinners deserve? God’s righteous judgement.
Now, this is important because sometimes we talk about God’s fairness as though God owes us something. We may think, ‘Why did God allow this to happen to me? Why didn’t He give me a better life? Why did someone else receive something that I didn’t?’
But, have we ever stopped to consider what we actually deserve before God? None of us can stand before Him and demand His favour. None of us can say, ‘Lord, You owe me something because I’ve been a good person.’ We have no righteousness of our own that we can present to God as a reason why He must save us.
One clear indication of our sinful condition is our tendency to question and judge God’s sovereignty. When things don’t go as we expect, we question His fairness and judge His decisions by our own standards. Think about it: we’re sinners, but we presume to judge the perfectly righteous God! Isn’t that a reflection of the pride of our hearts?
Of course, we can bring our struggles to God, but we must never put ourselves above Him. We have no righteousness of our own by which we can deserve His salvation.
And yet, what has God done? Although we deserve His judgement, He has graciously chosen to save His people through Jesus Christ. This is the wonder of God’s sovereignty expressed in His grace! God sent His own Son into this world to become our substitute. The sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, took upon Himself the sins of His people. He bore the judgement we deserved, and died in our place. And through His death and resurrection, God has redeemed us and brought us into His eternal kingdom.
Just think about what this means. We were sinners, but God showed us mercy. We were guilty, but God justified us through faith in Jesus Christ. We were enemies, but God reconciled us to Himself and made us His children.
We had nothing to offer Him that could earn His favour. Yet, in His love, He freely chose to save us through Christ. Isn’t that extraordinary? This is not something we achieved. It is not something we earned. It is entirely the work of God’s sovereign grace.
But there’s something even more remarkable here. Remember what we said earlier about God’s sovereignty and human evil? Consider the cross. The crucifixion of Jesus was one of the greatest acts of human wickedness in history. The religious leaders rejected Him. Judas betrayed Him. The authorities condemned Him. And the Roman soldiers nailed Him to the cross.
Those who were responsible for these actions were guilty of their own wickedness. And yet, through that very event, God accomplished His greatest work of redemption! What human beings intended for evil, God used to fulfil His saving purpose.
The cross of Christ reminds us that human wickedness cannot defeat God’s sovereign plan. Think about that for a moment. The worst thing human beings ever did became the very means through which God brought salvation to His people. What a remarkable demonstration of God’s sovereignty and grace!
Now, let’s return to the questions we began with. People often question God’s fairness. They ask why God allows suffering, why He doesn’t intervene in every tragedy, or why life seems so much easier for some people than for others. And we should never respond to someone’s suffering with a cold or careless attitude. We should grieve with those who grieve, and we should show compassion to those who are hurting. But, as Christians, we must also remember that God’s grace is never something we can demand.
If God dealt with us according to what our sins deserve, none of us could stand before Him. But, God has shown us mercy in Jesus Christ. Everyone who believes in the Son will be forgiven and saved!
That should change the way we look at our lives and the world. Instead of taking God’s blessings for granted, we should become people who are deeply grateful. Instead of boasting about what we have achieved, we should give God the glory. Instead of thinking that we deserve better treatment from God, we should marvel at the grace He has already shown us in Christ and worship Him.
Conclusion
So, my brothers and sisters, how should we respond to this truth? First, we may not understand everything about what God is doing, but we know the God in whom we have believed. He is the sovereign Lord who rules over all things. He is the righteous God who never does wrong. And He is our loving heavenly Father, who has demonstrated His love for us through His Son, Jesus Christ.
So, this is our conclusion and prayer that the Lord may help us to live each day with confidence in His sovereignty, gratitude for His grace, and joy in knowing that we belong to Him. ***
