SERMON SUBJECT: THE UNIVERSALITY OF GOD

SERMON TEXT:¹ “The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. ² Your throne is established from of old;You are from everlasting. ³ The floods have lifted up, O LORD, The floods have lifted up their voice, The floods lift up their pounding waves. ⁴ More than the sounds of many waters, Than the mighty breakers of the sea, The LORD on high is mighty. ⁵ Your testimonies are fully confirmed; Holiness befits Your house, O LORD, forevermore” (Psalm 93:1-5). 

SERMON THESIS: God is sovereign over His creation.

INTRODUCTION: We sometimes sing that little chorus, “What A Mighty God We Serve...angels bow before Him...heaven and earth adore Him...What a might God we serve.” This chorus speaks to the universality of God. Not only is He mighty, He is Almighty. There is no one greater than He. The Psalmist was addressing the universality of God in Psalm 93, when he said... “The LORD reigns ...”(v. 1ff).

About this Psalm, it is unlike some of the other psalms in that the praise is for God Himself. It must be noted that many of the other psalms, in the psalter, are psalms of praise that celebrate what God has done for people. It needs to be noted, also, that the rare kind of praise which appears in Psalm 93, appears in Psalm 96; 97; 100; and 150. Having considered this brief background of Psalm 93, we will now consider the universality of God, by looking at these three areas: His rule, His reign, and our response.

First,

I. HIS RULE -

1. He is Stable. The world in which we live is very unstable. There are wars and rumors of war, earthquakes in divers places, tornados, terrorists threats, etc. Nevertheless, according to the Psalmist, “The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved”(v. 1).

Why is this so? The Psalmist goes on to tell us ...

¹ “The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. ² For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers”(Psalm 24:1-2). 

⁶⁹ “And He built His sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which He has founded forever” (Psalm 78:69). 

⁹⁰"Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations;You established the earth, and it stands” (Psalm 119:90). 

2. His rule is Just. Unlike earthly judges whose judgments are sometimes imperfect at best, God is a just God. The Psalmist said...

⁷ “Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. ⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy ⁹ Before the LORD, for He is coming to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity” (Psalm 98:7-9). 

3. He rules with Supremacy. The word immensity best describes His supremacy. It means that God is superior to space. He is the God of the universe. No human concept can contain Him. It was the mighty king Solomon who said...

²⁷ "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house which I have built!” (I Kings 8:27). 

The Apostle Paul goes on to coin His supremacy, i.e., His sovereign rule in these terms ...

³³ “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! ³⁴ For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? ³⁵ Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? ³⁶ For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36). 

4. His rule is exalted in History. Concerning His exaltation in history, the Psalmist said...

¹ “The LORD reigns, let the peoples tremble; He is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake! ² The LORD is great in Zion, And He is exalted above all the peoples. ³ Let them praise Your great and awesome name; Holy is He” (Psalm 99:1-3). 

     5. His throne is in heaven. John the Revelator gives us a glimpse into the throne room from which the Sovereign God rules...

² “Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. ³ And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance. ⁴ Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads. ⁵ Out from the throne come flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God; ⁶ and before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind” (Revelation 4:2-6). 

Concerning His rule, I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, he writes ...

“Sea storms are up God, Sea storms wild and roaring,

Sea storms with thunderous breakers. Stronger than

wild sea storms. Mightier than sea-storm breakers,

Mighty God rules from high heaven.”

Second,

II. HIS REIGN

1. His reign is Universal. God sovereign reign is universal. He is so personally united with the universe that He created that He knows all the stars by name, and there are as many stars in the heavens as there are grains of sand on the sea shores. Hear what the writer of Hebrews had to say about the Creator, and His universal reign ...

¹ “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, ² in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world”(Hebrews 1:1-2). 

2. His reign is Eternal. There are seven moral attributes that describe God’s nature. These are: Immutability, Self-Existent, Omnipresent, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immensity, and Eternity, meaning “God has no beginning or end. The Greek alphabet puts God’s eternal reign in perspective for us in that the first letter of the Greek alphabet is Alpha, and the last letter is Omega. God’s reign is eternal in that it has no beginning and it has no end. Earthly leaders come and go, but God’s reign is eternal.

⁸"At the blast of Your nostrils the waters were piled up,The flowing waters stood up like a heap; The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea” (Exodus 15:8). 

¹³ “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations”(Psalm 145:13). 

¹³ "Even from eternity I am He And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?" (Isaiah 43:13). 

⁹ “Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (2 Timothy 1:9).  

3. His reign is Personal. He rules and reigns in the hearts and lives of all those who have put their faith and trust in Him. Hear what the inspired writers have said about His personal reign ...

⁵ “God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved;God will help her when morning dawns” (Psalm 46:5). 

²⁵ “He said, "Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!" (Daniel 3:25). 

⁹ “I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath (Hosea 11:9). 

²⁰ "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst" (Matthew 18:20). 

2. He reigns as Holy God. Not only are there seven natural attributes that describe God’s nature, three are four moral attributes that describe God’s nature. They are: Righteousness, Truth, Love, and Holy. “Holiness connotes God’s supreme moral excellence,” as described in...

³ “And one called out to another and said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3). 

⁴⁴ '”For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth” (Leviticus 11:44). 

In the closing verse of Psalm 93, the Psalmist said ...

⁵ “Your testimonies are fully confirmed; Holiness befits Your house, O LORD, forevermore” (Psalm 93:5). 

Finally,

III. OUR RESPONSE - Acknowledging the universality of God, calls for a response on our part. How should we respond to His sovereign rule and reign?

1. Our response to His universal rule and reign is first and foremost that of Submission. Psalm 95 speaks of submission ...

⁶ “Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. ⁷ For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice,” (Psalm 95:6-7). 

2. Our response to His universal rule and reign is that of Awe. I looked up the word “awe” in Webster’s Dictionary, and here is the definition I found, “A mixed feeling of reverence, fear, and wonder, caused by something majestic, sublime, etc.” This must have been what Moses experienced at the burning bush.

² “The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. ³ So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up" (Exodus 3:2-3). 

In his new book titled: Recapturing The Wonder, Ravi Zacharias writes, “There is wonder all around us, and it is God’s will to fill us with that wonder that makes life enchanting and sacred.” I like that old song that goes like this, “O the wonder of it all–the wonder of it all, to think He (the God of the universe) first loved me.”

3. Our response to His universal rule and reign is Singing. Psalm 98 speaks of singing. Singing should be a natural response of praise and worship to the God of the universe. It was the Psalmist who challenges us with these words...

¹ “O sing to the LORD a new song, for He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him. ² The LORD has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations” (Psalm 98:1-2) 

4. Our response to His universal rule and reign is Thanksgiving. Psalm 100 speaks to this whole issue of thanksgiving ...

⁴ “Enter His gates with thanksgivings and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name” (Psalm 100:4). 

CONCLUSION: The God of the universe has reveled Himself in His Son, Jesus. To know God the Father, and to understand His sovereign rule and reign, you must first know the Son. If you do not know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, your first response must be that of Repentance. Will you turn from your sin and by faith receive Jesus as your Savior? The choice is yours!!