Faithfulness to Christ’s teachings must also involve a knowledge of the sovereignty of God. The English Bible translator J. B. Phillips wrote a book entitled Your God Is Too Small. That title, which is also a statement, might well be spoken of the great majority of professing Christians who, in their ignorance of Scripture, inevitably scale God down to their own limited and fallible perspectives. We need to capture a new, elevated sense of who God is, particularly in regard to his sovereignty. Sovereignty refers to rightful rule. So to say that God is sovereign, as the Bible does, is to say that he rules in his universe. This means that nothing is an accident, that nothing catches God off guard.

The Great Commission contains four universals, each marked by the word "all"; all authority, all nations, everything (all) that I have commanded you, and always (all the days). The second of these is "all nations." It refers, as I indicated in the last section, to the universal authority of Jesus and the worldwide character of Christianity.

The second part of Jesus’ authority is authority over spiritual forces. Jesus’ claim to have been given all authority in heaven probably extends also to what in other passages are described as principalities and powers, that is, all spiritual forces, including those that are demonic. Paul wrote about these in Ephesians 6 in his classic description of the Christian’s warfare: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (v. 12).