Hope Church LV Sermons
The Greatness of God
We have an enemy in this world. How many of you understand and know that we have an enemy? Amen? We have an enemy. The Bible says of him in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 8, "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert, for your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." We have an enemy and our enemy is a liar. The chief tool and weapon in the arsenal of our enemy is deception. He's a liar. As a matter of fact, the Bible says of him in John chapter 8, "Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of all lies." That's how our enemy works against us. He lies and he'll tell you this is exactly what you need to be happy. This is exactly the relationship. This is exactly the activity. This is exactly the pleasure that you need to pursue. And if you can just get this, then you'll be content and you'll be satisfied. And as soon as we grab ahold of it, what do we find out? He was lying, right? Because we're just as empty and just as unsatisfied and just as discontent as we were before. Now interestingly enough, one of the primary ways that the enemy lies to us is he lies about the person and the character of God. He wants to present a distorted view of God in the world. He's gone ahead and given up the reality that the world mostly is going to assume there is a God. He just wants us to not understand who he really is. And so the enemy will twist and deceive and try to make people believe that God is this ruthless judge out there in the universe who's impossible to please and no matter how hard you try to measure up, you can never measure up because God's never going to be satisfied with you. The enemy would have us believe that God's just a big CEO up there in the sky that's too big for all of our problems. And when we have situations and circumstances in our lives, even as Christians sometimes we'll buy into the lie that God's too busy to care for our situation. And we may never say it that way out of our mouth, but as soon as we get in a circumstance or a situation and we begin to bring it to God like God, have you forgotten where I am? Have you forgotten? Are you aware of what's going on in my life right now? We've bought into the lie of the enemy that God's this big CEO that isn't concerned. Some people believe that God is just a genie and a bottle, meaning that the enemy tells us that, and this is a predominant lie that's even reported inside the church of Jesus Christ that God exists for our happiness, that the reason God exists is for human beings and that God's sole purpose in existing is to make sure that you and I have everything we want, everything we need, that every need is met, that we're constantly happy. And to show you how we bind to this, as soon as a problem or a difficulty or a challenging circumstance comes in our eye, we take it to God like, "Hey God, what's going on here?" As if God exists for us. It's even taught in pulpits all across our country and North America. It's taught in our own town that if things aren't right in your life, you just need to get some things that don't just rub the bottle just right and God will fix it all. Probably the worst lie that he could tell us about God and unfortunately we believe it and it's that God's like you and me and he has limitations. You know one of the difficult problems we have in relating to our father is we think he's like us. When I was being discipled by a man named Clyde Cranford, he really, God used this man in my life in a profound way. He taught me a very simple principle and I want to give it to you this morning and we're just going to give it and then move on, but I'm going to tell you it's worth coming for. Alright, here's the principle. The key to the Christian journey is exposing the lies of the enemy to the truth of God and by faith believe the truth. That's the key right there. Whenever you see this lie, expose it to the truth of God, understand it is what it is. It's a lie. Call it a lie and by faith believe the truth. No matter what my heart may say, my heart may say that's all that I need, but if the Bible says something different, it's a lie. Expose it to the truth of God and by faith believe the truth. Listen, all those things I was talking to you about God, those are not the truth. Let me tell you the truth about God. Look at it on the screen, Psalm 95 and verse 3. For the Lord is a, say it out loud, great God. The Lord is a great God. Read that out loud off the screen with me. For the Lord is a great God and any moment in your life you're believing God is anything other than a great God. Any moment that you're disappointed or you're dissatisfied, you've bought into a lie of the enemy because the Bible, the truth is the Lord, is a great God. Unfortunately, as Christians, we can become so familiar with God. The word great here is a word that describes the importance, the size, or the significance of something or someone. One of the dangers you and I face as followers of Christ is that we get so familiar with the person of God. We lose that sense of awe and wonder that the greatness of God, that we've sung some songs this morning about the greatness of God. You are holy, great is your faithfulness. We've sung some songs. Let's ask you a question, did you worship? Are you just going through the motions that we get to the sermon? Did you come to church to go home? There's a lot of people. We come to church just to go home. No, listen, we came to church to worship a great God and when I'm walking in from the parking lot, I should be asking God, God, would you prepare my heart? Lord, would you captivate me with your glory? God, would you give me a sense of awe and wonder at who you are? And when we begin to sing songs about the greatness of God, we should worship the God of heaven. That's why we've come together. I want to read one verse of scripture this morning and I want to unpack it for us and we're going to just look today, we're in between series here at Hope, we're going to look at the greatness of God this morning. If you have your Bible, turn to Isaiah chapter 57 verse 15. Isaiah chapter 57 verse 15, let me tell you what's happening in this verse, Isaiah introduces God who then speaks. And Isaiah in his introduction tells us three things about God and then God tells us in his statement two things about himself. So there are five things in this simple verse about the person and the character of God that we're going to unpack. Three of them Isaiah tells us, two of them God tells us about himself. Isaiah 57 verse 15, if you don't have a Bible, it's on the screen. Here's what it says, for thus says the high and exalted one, who lives forever, whose name is holy, I dwell on a high and holy place and also with the contract and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contract. First of all, Isaiah tells us three things about God. Here's the first one, he is high and exalted. Isaiah says, for thus says the high and exalted one, and here he's using two adjectives to describe the position of God. Now adjectives are something that we use all the time in the English language, adjectives are very important. For example, when you go into a restaurant and you sit down and pick up the menu, it's the adjectives that make you order what you order, right? I mean, if it just said chicken, steak, fish, right? It doesn't say this, it says bang, bang, or it all these adjectives that describe that chicken, steak, and fish, right? That gives us an understanding about what it is. Well, that's exactly what Isaiah is doing here. He's using two adjectives to describe the position of God. The first one is the word high. It's a word that means lifted up or lofty and it describes who he is in himself alone. God all by himself is lifted up. God is high, he is lofty, but then he uses the second adjective, the word exalted, and this adjective describes him in relationship to every other thing in the universe. All by himself, God is high, but if you compare it, you put God up next to anything else in the universe. Let me tell you what happens. He's exalted. He is high and exalted. FC Jennings says it this way, alone and unrivaled supremacy. There is not one on the same level as himself. The reality is God is in a category all by himself. If we're not careful, we begin to communicate this truth about God and Satan, this enemy, as if there's a war going on and we're really not sure who's going to win. Can I remind you? I've read the back of the book. Have you read the back of the book? Listen, the battle is over. The victory is won. Our foe has been defeated. God is not on equal part with anybody. He's in a category all by himself. He is high and exalted. Jeremiah, Jeremiah one day was meditating on the greatness of God. Listen to what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter 10. Look at it on the screen. I want you to read it out loud with me. There is none like you, O Lord. You are great and great is your name in my. Did you hear that? There is none like you. Jeremiah had obviously been meditating on the greatness of God. He'd been meditating on an attribute. Listen, when's the last time that you just pulled aside? And we have to be so careful in this age of technology. I'm guilty now, I even have my quiet times, a lot of times, on my iPad, right? I got my Bible, I got devotional books, and I'm having my quiet time on my iPad. And doing that, messages start popping in, emails start popping in text. And it's so easy to get distracted. In our culture, we've lost the beautiful practice of solitude before Holy God. When's the last time you just unplug? When you just sat and you just begin to contemplate, you just begin to meditate on one of the great attributes of God to the point that you were left with all in wonder at the greatness of God. That's obviously what Jeremiah had been doing. He'd been thinking about the glory of God and he just burst out. There is nobody like you. There's no one like you. Let me say it another way to you this morning, God is big. I want you to say that out loud with me this morning. You ready? One, two, three, God is big. Sometimes we allow the situations and circumstances in our lives to get so big in front of us that we lose sight of the reality that God is big. Let me give you an illustration to kind of help us understand the goodness of God. I want you to imagine with me this morning that we're sitting in a space shuttle, all right? I know it's going to take a little imagination. I know it's early, but you can get there, all right? This is a space shuttle. And we're about to shoot in the outer space traveling 150,000 miles per hour. Now, that's moving. I know some of you drove fast this morning to get to church. But 150,000 miles per hour, that's getting somewhere, right? As a matter of fact, in the 1970s, early '80s, we sent the fastest unmanned space probe we've ever sent into outer space, and it traveled 150,000 miles per hour. We've never sent anything with somebody on it, but we're going to use our imagination this morning and pretend like we're on the helios too, that unmanned space probe that went into outer space at 150,000 miles per hour. If we could travel that fast this morning, do you know how long it would take us to reach the first star? Now, when I say the first star, I'm talking about star number one, right? Now, after you get past our sun, which is really the first star, the next star is Alpha Centauri. Now, that's star number one. I'm not talking about star number end, right? We don't even know where that is. As a matter of fact, scientists have created telescopes that allow us to see in the outer space, and all we know is, as far as we can see, there's still more of it. We don't know where the end is. We don't know how many galaxies upon galaxies, we don't know how many millions and billions and quadrillions of stars are. Well, we can't even calculate that. It's so big and it's so vast, but just to get the star number one. You know how long it take us traveling 150,000 miles per hour? Over 18,000 years. You see, star number one is 4.2 light years from the Earth, or 23 million miles. And that's, say it with me, number one, that's just the first one. We ain't even got out of the block good, right? I mean, we're not even at the end of the call this the heck yet, 18,000 years. You know what Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 40 verse 26, he said, lift up your eyes on high. Hey, let me put that in English. When you get out tonight, go outside and look up. When the stars come out, Isaiah said, go out and just lift your head up and see who created these stars. The one who leads forth their hosts by number, listen, he calls them all by name because of the, what, greatness of his might and the strength of his power. Not one of them is missing. He's great. I want you to take it another degree if you can't imagine we could travel at the speed of light. Now, a minute ago, we were traveling miles per hour, the speed of light is measured in miles per second. Take your hands, hold them out like this. On the count of three, we're going to clap them together, one, two, three. We just traveled 186,000 to 181 miles. Now we're really moving. Did you know that scientists tell us that if you could, the moment you were born, be shot into outer space on a spaceship, traveling at the speed of light, 186,000 to 181 miles per second and live the average lifespan and die as an old person, traveling at the speed of light, you would still not see most of the expanse of the universe that is out there. I'm going to ask you a question. Where'd all that come from? Listen to Genesis chapter one and verse one, if you know it, set out loud with me. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and you know what that means, right? That's chapter one, verse one of this book. In chapter one, verse one of this book, there is more truth about God revealed than you and I can wrap our heads around. You got that verse figured out yet in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth? Everything we can see, taste, touch, feel, or smell, all the universe and its expanse and everything that lives on planet earth or God created it all. In the beginning God created the heavens. In verse number one of chapter one, there's more truth revealed than I can wrap my head around in a lifetime and he gave me 66 books. I can't even figure out verse one. As he begins to move on through chapter one, he tells us how he did it, he spoke. The Bible says he said, "Let there be light, and it was so." He didn't even break a sweat. I can't put together a kid's playground with the instruction manual. Let me give you a life application. Nothing is too big for God. Underline the word nothing. Hey, let me ask you a question this morning. What challenges are you facing right now? You see, there are some of us right now that in the middle of circumstances, maybe they're financial, maybe they're with your health, maybe they're with your family. And you are completely overwhelmed with what you're facing. Let me tell you what's happened to you. You have lost sight of how big your God is. He's big. Second thing Isaiah tells us, he tells us he lives forever. For thus says the high and exalted one who lives forever. If you read that in some other translations, it says he who inhabits eternity, or his existence is eternal, or he who resides permanently. I've become convinced that it doesn't matter how you phrase it. It's a really, really, really long time. He lives forever. The Lord describes himself in the book of Revelation chapter 1 and verse 8. Look at it on the screen. He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty. Something very interesting in that verse. If you and I were going to give a testimony about who we are, we describe ourselves past, say it present, future, right, I was, I am, I will be. Notice what God does. He starts in the present and then he goes past and then he goes future. He is. He was. He is to come. Why do you do it like that? I think I know why because he was describing himself in reference to time. You see, he is. He's the one who existed outside of the parameters of time. Before time ever ticked its first second off the clock, he introduces himself in the Old Testament and he says, "You can just call me, I am." You see, he am. Now, that may not be good English, but it's awesome theology. He just am. He always am. He existed before time ever began. He exists outside the parameters of time. He sees yesterday as clearly as he sees tomorrow. Why? Because he am. He's outside of the parameter, but listen to me, at a point in time, he was. At a point in time, this God who existed outside the parameters of time took on human flesh and in the person of Jesus Christ chose to exist in history in the confines of the time that he spoke into existence. He was. And aren't you thankful that he was? Amen? One day, he is the come, meaning he will bring all of time as we know it to an end. Why? Because he's the sovereign God of the universe. Here's what it means. There's never been a time when God was not. You go back to 600 B.C. over 2600 years and you'll find a young man named Daniel in a really weird predicament in a lion's den, and God is there as he shut the mouths of the lions and protected his servant. You go back over 3,000 years and you'll find a young kid named David in a field with a slingshot facing a giant, and God is there. As David said, the Lord is my shepherd. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. You can go back over 3,500 years to man named Moses who finds himself in a quandary. He has promised the children of Israel to lead him to the promised land. He goes into Egypt and he leads them out, finds himself face to face with the Red Sea with the Egyptian army behind him, and God is there. As he parts the Red Sea and makes a highway for the children of Israel to walk across, and then he doesn't just do that. He defeats the entire army by drowning them in the Red Sea. You go back to the book of Genesis with the creation of man and woman about 10,000 years ago and the Bible says it was God who breathed life into the, hey, you go back to the first four words of the Bible. What are they? Then the beginning God. You ever wondered how long God existed before Genesis 1-1? You ever thought about how long before He created the world? Now, let me encourage you this morning, don't think about that too long, right? You'll wind up with a serious headache and a bottle of Advil. I don't know the answer, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, Matthew Henry says of him that with him there is neither beginning of days nor end of life nor change of time. He is both immortal and immutable. Now, let me give you a life application. God is never surprised. You can underline the word never. Let me give you a little word in the English language God's never spoken, uh oh. Now you and I've said it, hey, about a week and a half ago when they said we're turning the power off at the school system from 1-7, let me tell you what we said, uh oh. It surprised us. Didn't surprise my father. There's some of you with circumstances in your life right now and you think they're unique. You think nobody's ever gone through what I'm going through. I encourage you this morning, God has seen it all. He has sustained his people through it all and he has led them out victorious already on the other side of it all. He's never surprised. There's not one thing in your life that caught him off guard. He not only didn't get caught off guard. He sovereignly in control of it and using it for your good and his glory if you'll just trust him. Third thing Isaiah tells us about God, his name is holy. For thus says the high and exalted one who lives forever, whose name is holy. Can I be honest with you? I don't know a more awe-inspiring phrase in all the Bible than that. His name is holy. You see, holiness does not define God, God defines holiness. The root word for the word holy is a word that expresses the idea of separateness or unapproachableness. You don't like to talk much about the holiness of God in the contemporary American church, and maybe it's one of the reasons we're in the situation that we're in. The separateness or unapproachableness of God, it speaks to the transcendency of God. And it means that God is separate and unapproachable from sin. God in his holiness cannot fellowship with sin, therefore God is separate and unapproachable from finite sinful human beings. Here's what that means. God's holiness demands that in order for man to ever know God, God must initiate the relationship. Man in his sinful condition finds God unapproachable. Isaiah got a glimpse of the holiness of God in Isaiah chapter 6. If you have your Bible open, turn back to the beginning of this book, Isaiah chapter 6. If you don't have a Bible that's on the screen, listen to what he said. And Isaiah 6 verse 1, he said, "In the year of King Uzziah's death," now, who's King Uzziah? King Uzziah was one of the great kings of Israel. Matter of fact, he was a king that the nation of Israel trusted in. They looked up to him. He'd been a great leader for them through much of his reign. He'd had some difficulties like we all do, but over the majority of his rule, King Uzziah had brought prosperity and blessing to the nation of Israel. And when King Uzziah died, it brought grief and despair all across the nation of Israel. And Isaiah receives this vision, God gives him the ability to see something that others could not see. He said, "In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord." Here's what he said. "When a king died, I saw the king sitting on the throne, lofty and exalted with the train of his robe, filling the temple with the seraphim stood above him, each having six wings with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew. He called out to another and said, "Holy, holy, holy." It's the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory, and the foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, "Whoa, it's me!" He'd become so familiar with God that we usher ourselves into his presence with a demanding spirit as though God owed me something. And Isaiah says, "When I saw the Lord, all I could say is, 'Woe is me!' For I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among the people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seemed king." The Lord of Hosts, God is holy. Let me give you a life application, only by grace can I know God. You can underline the word only, only by grace. And there is the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is, "God did for me what I could not do." In my sinful condition, God was unapproachable. In my sin, God was separate. And there was not one thing I could do to change that relationship. I was separate from God. I was far from God. God was not approachable, but thank God, when I could not come to where He was, He came to me. Listen to what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8. It says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourself." It's not anything that I've done. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Look down to verse 13, "But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been what? Not near how by the blood of Jesus Christ." The holiness of God demanded justice for sin. Christ on the cross took the penalty of my sin, and He died in my place, and He rose again from the dead, and now through faith in what Jesus did, I can be ushered into the presence of God. Because I deserve it, no, grace, it's only grace, how dare me walk in the presence of God, and think God owes me something. Things aren't going just right in my life, and I go to God like God, "Hey, and you're forgetting something here?" We don't want to talk about what we really deserve. We really deserve the wrath and judgment of God against sin on every one of us. Grace, grace is God giving me that which I do not deserve, righteousness and free access to the very presence of God Himself. Well, when Isaiah finishes his introduction, and that's what we've covered so far, then God speaks, and it's at this point we should all shout hallelujah that He speaks at all. He didn't have to. He didn't owe it to us. He was not obligated to speak. Grace, He came to us and He spoke, and God tells us two things about Himself, and we'll cover these quickly. Here's the first thing God tells us. I call it the expected announcement. He said, "I dwell on a high and holy place." And to that we say, of course, understanding after Isaiah's introduction, we would expect him to dwell nowhere else, right? I mean, this sovereign, omnipotent, holy, eternal God, when He says of Himself, that I sit sovereignly on the throne of the universe, we say that is where you belong. Then He makes what I call the unexpected announcement; and also, thank God for the end also. This great, glorious, holy God says, and I also dwell with the contract and the lowly of Spirit. In order to revive the Spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contract, the word "contrite" is a word that literally means "crushed into powder." It's the picture of something that has been shattered. What Isaiah is describing is when you and I come face to face with this glorious, great God, and our response is one of brokenness. Our response is one that recognizes our own inadequacy in the presence of this great God. Our response is that we are shattered and brought low. The word "low" could be translated humble. He is describing those who are crushed and brought low by the awareness of their own inadequacy in the presence of this glorious God, and God says, "Where I find that I will dwell." God manifests His presence in my life. When through fellowship with Him, I become desperate for Him. If there's one word I could give you that describes this phrase, it would be the word "brokenness." There used to be a word talked about a lot in church, "brokenness." Let me give you a definition of it, "Brokenness is desperation for God that is born out of truth revealed through intimate fellowship with Him." Now I want to ask you a real serious question. Since the last time, in His presence, you just got broken. You were just so in awe. You see, we've made God a little convenient part of our life. That's to help us when we get in trouble. You know the problem is we don't realize we're always in trouble. Jesus said, "Apart from me, you can do what?" The problem is we don't think that's what He said. We think He said, "Apart from me, you can't do big spiritual things." He said, "Nothing." And here's the promise. The promise of Isaiah 57 is that when we are broken before God and desperate for Him, He says, "He dwells in us, but I love this to revive." Not to bring condemnation, not to say, "Yeah, you're right. You're worthless. You're inadequate." No, to revive it means to make a lie. It means to live. Meaning when I get to the end of myself and with Isaiah, all I can scream is, "Whoa, it's me because I'm undone, God then fills my life with His life, and He lives. He lives." I've been reading a book. I want to recommend to you. I've read it. This is my second or third time through it. If you've never read it, I strongly encourage it. It's by Major Ian Thomas and it's called "The Indwelling Life of Christ, All of Him and All of Me." I want to read a little section out of this book, and I want you to listen to it because it really summarizes what I'm saying to you this morning and what Isaiah 57 is saying. I put it on the screen so you can read along if that helps you. Here's what he says, "Christ gave Himself for us to give Himself to us." His presence puts God back into man. He came that we might have life, God's life. In the years leading up to His death, the life Jesus lived was sinless, complete, perfect, and beautiful. Was that then all Jesus came to do? Simply to give us a beautiful example to emulate was He saying, "Keep your eyes on me and do your best to follow along." No. That would have been a message of futility. It could bring us nothing but despair. It is not a matter of our doing our best for Him. But of Christ being His best in us, all that He is in all that we are. We can never have more and need never enjoy less. Just receive and say thank you. This is the good news that is ours to tell. Listen, if you are here today and you have never experienced the grace and forgiveness of God, hey, it is true, God is holy and you will never be accepted on your own merit. You can't try to be good enough, you can't turn over enough new leaps, you can't come, listen, you can come to church till you wear the seat out you're sitting in and it will not merit you favor with God because He's holy. The only way you and I ever have a relationship with Him is to be holy and holiness is something we've already blown. So the only hope we have is to be given that, which we did not earn. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, you've never given your life to Christ. Listen, today you can give your life to Jesus. You can by faith embrace the gospel and be given by grace, not what we deserve, but be given what we don't deserve, forgiveness, holiness, righteousness and a relationship with God. But there's also a message to you and I who are believers. Brokenness and repentance is not just something that happens at the moment of salvation. Brokenness and repentance is the Christian life. Brokenness, by moment, in all of Him, to the point of brokenness where I don't try to live for Him, I die that He may live through me. This comes from beholding. As a follower of Christ, are you spending time beholding the glory of God? Amen. Amen. Amen. the Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.