Sermon
The Greatness of God
August 14, 2005
Pastor Donald Sheley

I'm going to ask you to take from your bulletins and notes that we have prepared for you today. And you'll notice our subject follows right along with all the hymns that we sang today in worship. I believe that I'll get a different response from today's sermon than I got from last Sunday's. Let me tell you about it.

Last Sunday the sermon was entitled "The Goodness and Severity of God", and the result of that I got two of the ugliest letters I've gotten in a long, long time. One of them wrote in hand and said, Shame on you preacher, our God is a God of love, and I'm glad I don't serve your God. Then I got another one, and I thought to myself...what's the reaction to?

Now it's not my words, because as you know I print the notes for you every Sunday, and what I do, as they come off the press, I get down with a little highlighter and I highlight all the Scriptures in the text. So page one is mostly all Scripture. When I got to the center page, it's all Scripture, and when I get to the back - about 80% of everything that was said last Sunday was just Scripture. And I thought to myself, I'm sad they didn't listen. And it's tragic that we live in a world where people would much rather ignore a God of judgment and hear about a God of mercy and grace. He's both folks, and that balance should never be taken from the pulpit or from the Scriptures.

Today, our subject is the greatness of God, and I didn't change the subject to appease my critics. This was already baking in the oven a few weeks ago and today our subject is taken from the words of David the psalmist: "I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness. They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness.

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. All Your works shall praise You, O Lord, and Your saints shall bless You. They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom and talk of Your power, to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations."

Dropping down the few lines in our lesson - No wise person argues the existence of God. The Bible does not do it. The Bible takes God for granted, and the Bible introduces us at once to His works. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." God is the Creator behind all creation. He is the Designer behind all design. God is the Lawmaker behind all law, and God is the supreme fact of philosophy. God is the supreme fact of personal life. God is the supreme fact of life, of death, of time, and eternity. God is the Mighty God personally and actively present in the affairs of the universe. God is the great need of every human heart. And only "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God..."

A creation without a God? Who can conceive of such a thing? Given the creature--and the Creator is an axiom. And I join with David today, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable."

Did you notice in our reading frequently the word majesty appears. Majesty is a word which our Bible uses to express the thought of the greatness of God, our Maker and our Lord. David writes, "The Lord reigns, and He is robed in majesty...Your throne was established long ago."

And Peter when he was recalling his moments up on the Mount of Transfiguration says that, "We were eyewitnesses of His majesty." And thus, the word majesty when applied to God is always a declaration of His greatness and it's an invitation to worship. So, "Come, let us bow down in worship."

The Christian's instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God.

Pause - I said something last evening and I believe it to be true, and that is the size of your faith will depend upon the size of your God. If you have a shriveled concept of God and you've tried to bring Him down into human terms and dimensions, it will deeply affect your faith. Somehow if we can grasp the magnificence and the majesty and the splendor of Almighty God, it will do something tremendous for our faith.

Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are--weak, and inadequate, and ineffective, and sometimes a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible.

Our personal life is a finite thing: it is limited in every direction, in space, and in time, and in knowledge, and in power. But God is not so limited. He is eternal; He is infinite; He is almighty; He is the God of the universe.

Dropping a few lines in our notes: How may we form then a right concept of God's greatness? And I ask that question in the context: some years ago J. B. Phillips, a great English writer, wrote a book entitles 'Your God Is Too Small,' and what he did is he wrestled with various concepts; one being, some people think of God as the great policeman up in heaven who has a 2x4 in His hand ready to hit us every time we sin. Some of us grew up in an atmosphere like that, but our Bible tells us that God is a God of mercy whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. Yes...He's a God that ultimately will judge, but He's not the policeman; He's a God of compassion.

And so I want to think just for a while with you today, let's try to grapple with this concept: The Greatness Of God. First of all God is eternal. The Bible says, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." And in God's sight a thousand years are as one day as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. And thus the weight of such ponderous thought makes the mind stagger.

Immediately when we come to the Scriptures and we're getting acquainted with God, we're confronted with this idea that God is eternal and that He has always been and that He will always be, and how do you wrap your little mind, our little minds around that concept. We are people who think in terms of time - a clock, a calendar, a sunrise, a sunset - not so in eternity. And so when I'm grappling with this greatness of God it's not a God that's limited with human dimensions or calendars, He's a God that has always been, and a God that will always be. He's never been less than everything.

Up at the top of page three: God is active from the beginning to the end of time, from every here to every there of space, and from every now to every then, in every person and in every society. Paul stood at Mars Hill and he preached that God is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and we move, and we have our existence.

Jeremiah says, "'Am I a God nearby,' declares the Lord, 'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?' declares the Lord. 'Do I not fill heaven and earth?' declares the Lord."

No atomic particle is so small that God is not fully present to it, and no galaxy so vast that God does not circumscribe it, and no space is without the divine presence. God is in touch with every part of His creation, and God cannot be excluded from any location or object in His creation. And again, it's a concept that's gone beyond our capacities and our dimensions, because again we think in times of location, experience; and here, God is everywhere.

Only God knows creation omnisciently, without limitation or qualification. Look at what Isaiah says, "I reveal the end from the beginning, from ancient times I reveal what is to be; I say, 'My purpose shall take effect, I will accomplish all that I please.'"

And when Paul is considering the vastness and the greatness and the majesty of God, he says, "O the depth of wealth, wisdom and knowledge in God! How unsearchable His judgments, how untraceable His ways! Who knows the mind of the Lord? Who has been His counselor?"

It's interesting; David in his writings is constantly trying to grapple with this greatness of God. But it's interesting when you read the book of Isaiah, he's doing the same thing. Look at what he says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." What an awesome concept; a God who knows the past, the present, and the future. The God who knows all external events, and He understands every inward motivation.

Jesus' metaphor that the very hairs of our heads are numbered by the Father suggests that every discrete aspect of personal existence is known to God. Solomon says that "The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, surveying evil and good men alike." And so God sees all simultaneously by looking in every direction at the same time. Now think that one through.

I saw a chart many years ago in a book and it depicted God...there is the beginning of time, there is the end of time. God sees it all (claps hands) simultaneously - all. Again, we space time because we are regulated by time, but God takes eternity in time and (claps hands) compresses it into a moment. He sees everything. This is the awesome God that we were singing about this morning.

Go with me to page four. Let's talk about His omnipotence. Omnipotence may be defined as the perfect ability of God to do all things that are consistent with His divine character. God is not limited in any way of His attributes by anything external to Himself. There are multitudes of Scripture verses that talk of the omnipotence of God. I've selected two.

David said, God does whatever, whatever, whatever pleases Him. And he says, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Now if God does everything there are at least two things God does not do, it says, He will not deny Himself nor does God lie. To do so, would violate His character. But the essential idea of omnipotence is that God has adequate ability to do what being God requires.

Go with me to page five. Isaiah is again wrestling with this idea, the vastness of God. Look at what he says, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand?" Stand on the Pacific Shores, go to the Atlantic, to the Baltic, to the Mediterranean, to the South China Sea, all the waters that cover this earth, Isaiah says that He holds them in the hollow of His hand. That's immense.

And then he says, He then measures heaven with a span. What a span? It is the distance from the end of our small finger to our thumb, and it says that he measures the immensity of this universe with a span of His hand. Isaiah goes on to say that He calculates the dust of the earth in a measure, and He weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance.

Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or who has been His counselor or taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding? What Isaiah is saying, God is the total source of all knowledge. He didn't get wisdom from anybody else; didn't have to ask.

"Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket and are counted as the small dust on the scales; look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless. To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare to Him?

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless.

To whom then will you liken Me or to whom shall I be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, and who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; Not one is missing." And when the Bible speaks of the host of heaven, it's speaking of the stars. And ask an astronomer and he will tell you there are billions, billions, and billions of stars. And He has named them all, given them all a name. He doesn't miss a one.

"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable."

Do you understand why David said, I will extol Thee, O my God. Great is the Lord and He's greatly to be praised.

We've thought about the greatness of God as a person, think with me just for a moment, the greatness of God in His creation; how He's demonstrated His magnificence. David says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handiwork."

Look up at night. See the stars lying like diamonds on the black velvet of the darkness. These are but dewdrops on the lawn of our heavenly Father's home. See the sun - ninety-three million miles away - it's but a porch lamp on our Father's house not made with hands.

President John Quincy Adams said that a study of the starry sky seems to lead man blindfolded up to the council chambers of Omnipotence and there, stripping the bandage from their eyes, bid him look undazzled at the throne of God.

The Milky Way is so big that it would take light, which travels at 186,000 miles a second, one hundred million years to travel from one end to the other, and He measures that distance with the span of His hand.

If our sun were hollow, it would be large enough to hold 1,4OO,OOO worlds the size on which we live. The sun is a ball of fire. Its flames flash out three hundred thousand miles, and it's estimated that the sun is so hot that if the earth were thrown into the sun it would melt or burn up completely in one minute. And yet, our sun is one of the smallest balls of fire in God's great universe.

Think of it; if the earth were as large as the sun and everything on it were as large in proportion, an object now weighing one hundred pounds would weigh 2,76O pounds. I'm glad I don't live on the sun. A man six feet tall would be one-eighth of a mile high; his arms from shoulder to finger tips would be 16O feet long and his legs would be over 25O feet long. His eyes would be nine feet in diameter and his nose would be fourteen feet long, and his ears would look like a wagon sheet half mast and the hair would look like a haystack.

Great is the Lord, the magnificence of His creation. But let me shift our thoughts. I like to look at the miniature things of life to see how God demonstrates His greatness. You can look at the stars...and I can't comprehend a God who measures the span of the universe with the span of His hand, but I can watch the little things.

Down at the bottom of page six. Look at the little bee and observe its activity. A red clover blossom contains less than one-eight of a grain of sugar. Seven thousand grains are required to make a pound of honey. And a bee, flitting here and there for sweetness, must visit 56,OOO clover heads for a pound of honey; and there are about sixty flower heads to each clover head. And when a bee performs that operation 60 times 56,000 times or 3,360,000 times, it secures sweetness enough for only one pound of honey.

Now I put that in there because when you are sitting at your breakfast table tomorrow and you are looking at the little honey jar, I want you to see the magnificence of God at work! He created that little bee, and that little bee made over three million visits in order to provide us with a pound of honey.

Consider another creation by Almighty God...the humming bird. It's the only bird that hibernates at night. So beautiful are the colors of that little bird that it's called them "glittering fragments of the rainbow." These humming birds are the only land birds that can reverse their wing action, moving backward and forward . Amazing. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

Now if you like to think of God in the mystery of science - man can send an electric current through a copper wire at sixty degrees below zero, and at the other end of the wire, heat a platinum wire to one thousand degrees. Where was that heat? From whence did it come? God, our God, working in mystery.

Black carbon and colorless oxygen are both tasteless. Hydrogen is a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas, fourteen and one-half times lighter than an equal volume of air and 11,600 times lighter than water. We combine the hydrogen with black carbon and oxygen and we get sweet white sugar. God working in mystery.

Look again to the skies with me. Water weighs eight hundred times more than air, yet to have rain, it must be lifted against the force of gravity, held in suspension above the earth, moved to definite locations, and brought down as rain. It's been estimated that approximately sixteen million tons of water fall every second, and obviously this must have been raised from oceans and lakes and rivers to make it possible for us to have rain.

Now I put that there because when rain comes we're complaining, but I want you to see the marvel of it. Look at what happens in God's universe. During this time of the seasons of the year, the summer, He's evaporating that water off the lakes and off the streams and the rivers, and He's holding that water in suspension so you can enjoy a great vacation in the summer. And remember it's 800 times more in weight than air and He's holding that water in suspension, and so when it comes time for the rainy weather He just moves it to the right spot and... So the next time it rains don't complain, stand out there in the rain and say, Thank you God that You didn't send it during my vacation in Hawaii.

God - the greatness of our God, the marvel of His universe, the intricacies of miniature, but our God is a great God. But I'll tell you what folks, there's a greater marvel, and this God who flung the world into space and who names the stars and who works in the miniature, is a God so great that He loves us. That's the marvel. He who names the stars counts the hair on my head, and He loved me so much - in fact, His love is far greater than we as humans beings can have for our children - 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

Here's the wonder of it...the God who flung the worlds in space becomes very, very personal because in His work of grace and mercy through the work of His Holy Spirit, He tugs away at our heart and convicts us of our sin, reveals His mercy and His love and His grace, and then invites us into His eternal family. And I may not be able, because He's beyond my understanding, to grasp the immensity of this world, but somehow I understand His love. And you who have come to know Jesus Christ and have felt His love embrace you and His mercy forgive you, His greatness has become very personal.

And here's what Isaiah says, the God who inhabits eternity comes to dwell in my heart, and that makes the eternal God understandable to me.

When you leave the sanctuary today I want you to think and to pause and to express gratitude for the world that God gave to us. You know we hurry through life so fast. I hurry into work, and out in front of our office is a little flower bed, and I very seldom notice those flowers because I've got work to do, but I sit there when the little children go for their PE period. Those little children will take the flowers and count the petals, and watch the little bugs crawl through the garden. They are amazed.

We take so little time to appreciate the greatness of our God, to stand and watch the sunrise and the color change that takes place across the eastern horizon, and then stand on the shores and watch the sunset. How can we not worship the greatness of our God, and then to be able to come to a worship service and take those communion elements and realize that our great God demonstrated Himself in love sending Jesus Christ for us. How can we help but not worship Him. Let's bow our heads please.

Father God, we allow the dimensions and the measurement of time to somehow distract us from the glories of Your majesty and Your greatness. Please forgive us. Please forgive us. May we be a people whose hearts flow with worship and praise and adoration to You, our wonderful God. And may we never ever be guilty of taking the wonder of Your love demonstrated in the sending of Your Son and the provision of our salvation, may we never take that for granted, but may it be always that its wonder causes our hearts to bow in worship. We worship You, dear God; we worship You.

Let's stand together please. Father, as we go our way now may You flood our hearts with Your presence, with Your peace, and with heaven's divinest benediction. I pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you all. God bless you.