Your God Is Too Small (Romans 11:33-36)

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Thank you, Ricky. Go ahead and grab your Bibles. Turn to Romans chapter 11. If you don’t have a Bible, there’s a hard cover one right in front of you. If you use that Bible, you can find the passage on page 920. You don’t have a Bible, you’re free to take that one with you this morning. Before we get started, just want to say thank you to all of you who were praying and encouraging our families. We’re up for Jackie surgery this past week, just wanted to update you since we prayed for it last Sunday. So we’re here she’s here, new heart valve in place. And so we’re just praying out going forward that the valve works the way it’s supposed to. And she starts feeling better because of that. So we just want to say thank you, for your prayers, support calls, texts, all of that over the last week or so.
So the Lord has given you the story. So we’re thankful to be in this place with the new valve there. Now we’re going to start off a little bit differently this morning. So what we’re going to do in just a minute is I’m going to have you close your eyes, and we’re going to spend 30 seconds in silence, which weirds us out. I know 30 seconds in silence, we’re going to be thinking about something, a question that I’m going to ask. Okay, so we’re trying to get rid of the visual stimuli and all the distractions so go ahead and close your eyes. I will keep track of the time it’s gonna feel like eternity. I will keep dragging 30 seconds. This is what I want you to think of. Okay, who is God? Go ahead.
Okay, you open your eyes. Your neighbors still got their eyes closed. Give him a little elbow. All right. Are we good? All right, welcome back. What came to your mind? Who is God? What came into mind? You think about His grace, His love, His forgiveness, his faithfulness? Did you think about maybe an answer to prayer that you had recently? Did you think is God even there? I don’t know what came into your mind. But what I do know according AW Tozer is that what comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. What comes in our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. And here’s the reality no matter what you thought of in those 30 seconds, which was not long, no matter what you thought of in those 30 seconds, it was too small. Okay, your view of God was too small in that time. And if I gave you more time, if I gave you the whole day, I still know that no matter what you tell me, your view of God would still be too small. So if you’re here this morning, you you don’t have a personal relationship with God, like you’re just kind of checking this whole thing out, or you’ve been following Jesus. For decades, we are all in the same place because we all have a small view of God. If you are a child, a teenager and adults, a ministry leader, an elder or the person preaching right now, your view of God is too small. That’s the main point for this morning. We’re gonna say it over and over again. Your view of God will always be too small. Are we in church though? Like, don’t we gather because we sing these truths about who God is like we just did we say the Nicene Creed, we give money to this God. Yes. And your view is still too small. Listen to what Ray ortlund says, you and I have never once in all our lives had even a single thought about God that match the true magnitude of His glory. Our thoughts about God are like a child sketching out a copy of a Rembrandt. This truth is what’s called the incomprehensibility of God. Okay, the incomprehensibility of God. So we’re gonna look at this morning, we can think about God, we should think about God. Tozer says, we learned a lot about us, if we will, what we say when we think about God. But to grasp everything there is to know about God is impossible. It’s impossible to know everything to grasp everything comprehend everything about God, it is impossible. And the danger for us this morning is that we think we have God figured out in some area of our life. We box God in somehow, someway. And we do this because if God works outside of our box, we deny it, reject it or try and justify it. That’s how we know we’ve got this box that we built around. We tried to fit God inside of it. There’s popular phrases out there Oh, my God would never do that. Are you sure? My God would never say this? Is that true? Or is that a box that we’re creating around God? Our worship is stunted when our view of God stops growing. Or maybe you say, I’ll believe in God, if he does X, Y, or Z. It’s a box that we’re creating. So the incomprehensibility God, why even talk about this then seems kind of pointless to waste breath of something that we cannot do. But let me quote Tozer again, in his classic book, the pursuit of God, part of his introduction, he says, that I pray is really encouraging to us this morning that what I’m saying is actually encouraging. So listen to what he says, as he’s introducing the book that he is writing, he says nothing here is new, except in the sense that it is a discovery, which my own heart has made a spiritual reality is most delightful and wonderful to me. others before me have gone much farther into these holding mysteries than I have done. But if my fire is not large, it is yet real. And there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.
So a small view of God is still a real view of God, or it can be. And that’s what he’s saying, here, maybe, maybe it’s not as large as somebody else’s, but it is real. And hopefully somebody can light their candle at its flame. So my hope this morning is that the small view of God that we have is real. And it can ignite in us and others a passion to pursue God more and more. And so we’re going to jump headfirst here into Romans 11, which means we need to do a little bit of a flyover, because we have not been in Romans. Now Shane did this because he was in Romans five a couple weeks ago. So he did a little bit of an intro into those first five chapters. But we’re gonna go a little bit longer for the first 11 chapters. So I’m going to oversimplify things, I’m going to try to give us some sort of an outline from Romans one, to this point that we come to date, because we have to know this in order to make sense of Romans 1133, through 36. So there is a good, great powerful creating God. That’s what Paul says, and he’s made each one of us all of humanity and humanity is in trouble. Okay, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, every single one of us, because we’ve chosen to rebel against that good, great, powerful creating God. And God is just, and you would think that he could get rid of us or should get rid of us, which is true, except that Romans five when Shane was here a couple of weeks ago was telling us that because he loved us, He died for us on godly, rebellious sinners, he still die for us because He loves us. And then once we confess that, we proclaim that we have the Holy Spirit and dwell us we probably proclaim proclaim it to others through the baptism, and say, We are not ashamed of this good news. We find out we’re sons and daughters adopted into the family of God. And then we live our lives fighting sin, killing Senator life, walking away from it, and following Jesus pursuing holiness. And all this good news is for all Jews and Gentiles, everybody is welcome into the family of God if we place our trust in Him. So that’s a snapshot real quick overview of Romans one through 11. And Paul, the apostle Paul is one writing this amazing story. He’s writing the story of God. That’s what he’s doing in these first 11 chapters. And all he can do at this point is breakout into praise when he thinks back and all that God has done, and that’s what brings us to Romans 1133 36. And our outline is pretty simple. This morning, we’re going to look at the incomprehensible God, we’re gonna look at finite man, and then look at the Worshipful response we are called to have. So what I want to do is I want to read all these verses, and then we’re going to go through and take them section by section. So let’s read Romans 1133, through 36. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, How unsearchable His judgments and his past be on tracing out? Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor who has ever given to God that God should repay them. For from him and through him and for him are all things to Him, be the glory forever? Amen. So my purpose this morning, what I hope you leave with is that you know that God’s incomprehensibility, and your finitude should lead you to worship to lead you to moments like this that Paul had in this letter. So let’s look first, the incomprehensible God, let me read that first. 33 Again, all the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God How unsearchable his job Prince and his past beyond tracing out. So the character of God is on full display here. Like in throughout Romans and even here what we see is God’s wisdom and his knowledge and his sovereignty and his justice and his holiness and on and on, we can go. Now the word incomprehensibility isn’t mentioned here, it’s not used. But look at the three words that kind of say, Oh, this is what that means. This is the incomprehensible God, three words depth, unsearchable, and beyond. And your translations, maybe you have inscrutable or unfathomable, but the point is depth, unsearchable and beyond. When you use those words, there’s a reason to say this is this is too much. We can’t do this, we can’t go deep enough. And that’s what Paul is doing here saying, this is the incomprehensible God. Now, if you picked even just one attribute, so you pick one attribute of God, you’re like, I’m gonna devote my life to this attribute to studying it to knowing it, you still would not exhaust it. It is incomprehensible. So let alone all of who God is. If you study, you can always study more, you can always go deeper. And then as soon as you think maybe I have God figured out, I know what God is going to do. He goes and does something that you weren’t expecting.
Listen to Isaiah 55, which Caitlin read for us this morning, because this is a verse we probably quote quite a bit, in circumstances seem a little beyond us. He says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. We would expect this from a God who is incomprehensible. So to see How unsearchable and beyond God is Paul looks at his wisdom and his knowledge here. And that’s what Paul’s doing throughout Romans was, he’s telling the story of God. But if we look back just to chapters nine through 11, because again, I don’t want to jump into this passage, looking at that the immediate context before this is nine through 11. And if you know anything about Romans nine through 11, they are highly debated passages in the church. There are some difficult things here as far as the relationship with Israel, what the future is for Israel, the Gentile and Israel relationship. And so it is a difficult passage. So Paul is walking through all of that he gets to this point says, Oh, the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God. So what is happening here? Paul is answering a question for his Jewish readers. Is God faithful? That’s what he’s doing in nine through 11. He’s just trying to answer the question, Is God faithful? Is he going to fulfill his promises to us? Okay, is he going to fulfill his promises? I don’t think the question is asked, because they really doubt whether God can, it’s more looking at Israel’s history and say they are an undeserving people, they continue to reject and have unbelief in their hearts. And so will God come through? And Paul over and over again, in these chapters says, Yes, He will fulfill his promise. And He does that by quoting Old Testament, right? So they can go back and they can say, Yes, he said this, and he is going to do this. But then he had something else. This plan is not just for Israel. It’s for the Gentiles as well. As for the non Jews, the plan has always been for the entire world. So here’s a snapshot of what Paul says in these verses, which is so focused on Israel as he’s just kind of putting these things in here about the Gentiles. So in chapter nine, he says the Gentiles with the Jews are objects of mercy, who are prepared in advance for glory. He says, They have obtained a righteousness that is by faith. In chapter 10, he says, there’s no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is the Lord of all and richly blesses those who call on him. And the Gentiles had been grafted in in chapter 11, into the family of God. So Paul, a Jew himself, right, a Pharisee. knows the Old Testament knows the promises of God is there saying, Yes, God will fulfill his promises to you. But guess what? He’s bringing other people into this. The Gentiles are also included in God’s plan. So Paul’s expression of praise here in this passage, is looking at the amazing story of God and saying, God has been faithful to generation after generation after generation of Israelites. And he’s including this whole new people into this, bringing them into the story and saving them as well. And so as he’s telling this story, it’s just welling up inside of him and he says, I don’t understand it. I can’t grasp it or comprehend how God has done this. How he’s brought us to this point. It is deep, it is unsearchable. It is beyond tracing out. In other words, what Paul is saying here is no one but God would right This story, okay, no one would get but God would write this story in this way, because his thoughts are not our thoughts. And His ways are not our ways. And so what Paul says is basically the gospel doesn’t make sense to us in our finite minds, because we wouldn’t write the story in this way. Paul says that in First Corinthians, what does he say we preach Christ crucified. It’s a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, but the Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. So again, you say, it doesn’t make sense to us. In our finite minds, we wouldn’t write the story. But guess what our thoughts are not his thoughts, our ways are not His ways. This is God’s story. This is the purpose. This is what he’s been doing all along for the Israelites and the Gentiles. And so as you step back, and you think about what Paul is doing what he’s experienced in this moment, and he worships God, just as thank you,
for including everyone in this story through Jesus Christ. Now, I don’t know how many times you’ve read this book. I’m not sure how many times you’ve read gospel passages, and you know the story. And you’ve been to Christmas, and you’ve been to Easter. And so you kind of know these things. But I want you to think about, it’s kind of like, if you’ve ever watched the movie Inception, or any movie that talks about time travel, because everyone talks about time travel differently. So it’s really confusing, right? If you watch a movie like that, and you get to the end, you think that everything’s gonna be wrapped up real nice, so you can kind of explain it. And then the movie ends, you’re like, I don’t know what I just saw. Or the type of movie that your brain hurts while you’re watching this, you just want to turn on the comedy, so you don’t have to think because it hurts. And then you go watch the movie, again, you see different things, but you’re not quite sure if that all matches up. You’re like, Am I just interpreting things wrong? And then you think about what God is doing here. What Paul is doing, looking back in history says, Oh, I’m reading this. I’m understanding this. And then ah, I have more questions, and I have answers. That’s what I’ve been like in movies. And that’s sometimes how I come to this. Where I’m reading is like, oh, okay, that makes sense. It’s like, oh, no, but what about that? And I have more questions than I have answers. Sometimes as I continue to dig and dig because it’s deep. It’s unsearchable, it’s beyond. Politics at one step further, look at verse 36. He says, You don’t think he’s incomprehensible. Now you will, For from him and through him and for him, are all things. So try to comprehend these truths in that simple sentence there. Everything is from him. So before creation, the only thing existing was God, the triune, God, Father, Son, and Spirit, nothing else was there. He was never created himself. So the whole idea of creation was God’s idea. So everything is from Him, try and comprehend that. Right? Try and comprehend that, then everything’s through Him. God is the only one who is truly created anything ever. Like we think we’re creative, but we’re really just taking all the things that God created and moving it around and putting it together differently and creating. He spoke things into existence, he spoke matter into existence, nothing was there, and then it was there. Try to comprehend what that’s like. And then for him, everything is for him. Everything is for His glory, everything should be worshiping Him everything should be leaning and pointing towards him. So how is your view of God? Is it growing? I hope so. It’s still too small. So let’s keep moving. Paul shows the chasm between who God is and who humanity is by asking a couple of questions. Look at verses 34 and 35, as we look at finite man, who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, who has ever given to God, that God should repay them. So these two questions are taken from the Old Testament from Isaiah, and from job to men who experienced the incomprehensibility of God, through experiences encounters with God. So Isaiah, a prophet of God, and His marriage showed us last week as he talks about Isaiah six, this is the encounter that Isaiah has in the throne room of God, and he’s exposed to the holiness of God. Now, Isaiah is ministering to people who will be exiled. And he wants to remind the people in Isaiah 40 He wants to bring comfort and remind them of who God is, what God’s plan is, what he’s doing. He wants to make sure they understand that this God is like no other. And so when I say afford I just want to read from where these this these questions are taken or this question is taken that way Paul uses but just Listen to Isaiah 40, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breath of His hand marked off the heavens, who has held the dust of the earth in a basket? Or weighed the mountains of the scales in the hills in a balance? Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord or instruct the Lord as His counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him? And who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? As you read that, as you hear that, that should knock us down a few notches. Right to think, measure the waters in the hollow of his hand. That’s hard to comprehend. So who are we to question God? Who are we to bring counsel to God? And then Joe,
a man who suffered all sorts of trials had all sorts of questions for God on His suffering, like, why is this happening? And then his friends come and his friends tried to give some advice, and they kind of have these theological debates and perspectives on who God is and why Jobe is suffering. And this goes on for 37 chapters. If you ever read the book, you’re like, Guys, stop talking. 37 chapters and then God speaks in chapter 38. And he goes a job and he says, this, who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man, I will question you and you shall answer me. That’s terrifying. God comes up and says, I will question question you and you will answer me. God then goes on to just basically ask a bunch of questions and say a bunch of things that say, I am God, I am like no one else. This is what I did. This is what I’m doing. This is what I know is happening right now. And then, job response. This is what he says, I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer twice, but I will say no more. God’s not done though. He keeps going. He continues to go on to say this is who I am, this is what I’m doing. He declares his greatness. And then job replies once more, saying, I know that you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge? Surely I spoke of things I did not understand things too wonderful for me to know. This is Joe coming to terms with the fact that God is incomprehensible. He’s beyond Tracy. Now. He is unsearchable. And what’s amazing, though, is he knows it’s not necessary. And not possible to know everything there is no about God, and yet he can still know him. Right? He’s incomprehensible, but he is knowable. That’s what Isaiah job and Paul understood as finite creatures following an infinite God trying to grasp all this and comprehend as much as they can. They saw their smallness. They saw their limitations, and they verbalize that truth. They recognize what Moses says in Psalm 90, he says, we may have 70 or 80 years. And in comparison, he says this about God, Before the mountains were born of you brought forth the whole world from everlasting to everlasting you are God. They had the right perspective understanding their limitations and who they are as finite men, before an infinite and incomprehensible God. Now, when you think about these questions, like, have you ever had a five year old question you have a five year old give you advice or say, Dad, you’re doing something wrong? I have routinely this week. Have you ever had a newlywed couple that’s really in love. You know, weeks months into this marriage think that they can offer some advice to seasoned veterans. Marriages for decades. I’ve heard these types of things. Got some advice for you. And if you can help yourself from laughing at the newlywed couple you may smile and nod and think you have no idea what’s in store. Or maybe it’s that new young hotshot that your business just hired who comes in and says we’re doing everything wrong. We need to do this. We need to do that. We need to change everything and you just say you need to sit down and know your place right. If you think about it, that’s exactly how we come to God. Got some advice for you. So I’m gonna I’m gonna pray it. But this is what I I think you should do. Like I have wisdom to share. I have experience, I think this is the way that things should happen. And maybe we don’t say it, but we certainly think it. Because we start to question God, why would you do it this way? Put her hand over her mouth, we speak too soon. We don’t have the knowledge and the understanding that God does. If only God knew my situation, what I’m experiencing here, he would think this way. But here’s the thing about those examples. Sometimes the five year old is right. In my home, he’s sometimes right. Sometimes the newlywed couple is right. And sometimes that young kid is right. But guess what, those are finite people talking to other finite people.
God will never look at us and say, think you’re right. Thanks for giving me that perspective. The Eternal God, thank you for your 37 years of experience, Kyle, for showing me the way that I should do things. Like that’s never going to happen. I can’t offer him anything, any counsel, he won’t learn a thing from me. That’s the point. But like Job’s friends, we can just say, This is what I think we can question God. The other thing that we see with job in this question is God isn’t in anyone’s debt. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. That’s one of the biggest differences between Christianity, the God of the Bible and other religions and other faiths, other myths that are out there is that God owes you something. You do something for him too. He has to do something back. So the whole life, your whole life is kind of trying to figure out what does God owe me now? What can I do to make sure that he is in my debt. And what we have here is he’s never in our debt. There isn’t a cosmic whiteboard, that God’s trying to see who he needs to catch up to. We are completely dependent on him. He’s not dependent on us at all. When we come face to face with God’s incomprehensibility, and our finitude we can say with the psalmist and when 39 Verse six, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. It’s too wonderful. I don’t understand. And the other thing we learned, I mentioned already that joven is a and Paul teach us is that this incomprehensible, God is unknowable. God speaks to Isaiah, and job, and Paul. So Matthew Barrett says, this way, God may be incomprehensible, but he is not unknowable. Any doubt is removed the moment the moment God opens his mouth, he wants us to know Him. He knows we can’t figure it all out. But he wants us to know him. So he gave us this, the incomprehensible God said, I will write down my words for us. And then I will send my living word, my son, Jesus Christ. What does Colossians say? That He is the image of the invisible God, that the fullness of deity dwells in him, he persists in the last in these days, he’s spoken through his son. He’s exact representation of his being. If we want to know God, we know his son. We look to Jesus. Praise God, that he doesn’t require our complete comprehension of him in order to get into heaven, because then that’s bad news for us. The finite trying to explain the infinite cannot happen. Paul has been trying his hardest in all these chapters to say, This is who God is. This is what he’s like, this is what he’s doing. But he knows that he can’t tell us everything. It’s not possible. For finite, rebellious senators to know the infinite God and everything there is to know about him. But he tells us the good news and Romans 10. It’s not about comprehension. And knowing everything there is to know about God, it’s this if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is, Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. He goes on to say everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved. It isn’t full comprehension. It isn’t knowing all the answers. Thank God it isn’t. We’re saved by trust in Him. That’s all it takes. So is your view of God growing? Doesn’t it make sense why Paul would break into praise at this point? He’s overwhelmed by the truth of God, and the story of his salvation. His view of God is growing even as he writes and I hope yours is growing, too. So what we learned from Paul here is that theology leads us to worship. That’s the last point there. Look at what our worshipful response should be in verse 36. Just the last sentence there. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. That’s it. That’s what all this is leading towards. To Him be the glory forever. I’m sure you’ve had some good news before that you wanted to share with someone. You’ve had those emotions welling up in you, and you just can’t wait to get it out. And so Paul, with all the words and the phrases and the arguments, and the paragraphs that he’s putting together has led to these life changing truths. And ani as he’s writing, it just overflows into this letter.
You know, we did see a lot of what Paul wrote. But I think there’s some other things probably like as he journaled just even, what would his journal be like? His praises of God? Understanding that understanding who God is, and in trying to comprehend that and just overflowing into praise? Has anyone ever felt that the Bible is boring? You can raise your hands here. How many of you thought the Bible is boring at some point? Okay, thank you. How many of you have thought theology is boring, like going to a theology course or something like that? is boring, right? These things happen. But guess what? It’s not because they are boring. We need to point the finger at us. It’s not God, it’s us and how our heart and how we come to these words, because we can come to Romans one through 11 here and read this and think it’s boring, depending on how we’re approaching it. Or we can say this is the story of God. And he’s brought me in, and it’s life changing. It’s life changing. I’ve heard from people too many times. It’s dry to me. i One person said, read the Bible through once, why do I need to do it again? And we can just go through the motions, and I get that. But we have to say there’s something there. Why did Paul have this response in this way? Because he knew that this God didn’t owe us anything, didn’t owe us anything, yet. He gave us everything. So theology leads to worship, there is no such thing as boring theology. If we think so, again, we got to point the finger at us. So how can we make sure we have a workable response? Like Paul, did? We embrace the truth that our view of God is small? Embrace that truth? Okay. So here’s how I want to say it, as we close. Expect that your view of God will always be too small. Expect it, when you wake up in the morning, expect it because the other temptation is to say, I have God figured out. So expect that your view of God is too small as you head into the day, that’s not a bad thing. We’re talking about incompetence with God and finite minds. If we expect that our view of God will always be too small, that means we will never ever stop pursuing him. Because there’s depth. He’s unsearchable. He’s beyond tracing out. So there’s more. And there’s more, and there’s more. So why is it good to embrace the small view God, I’ve got five quick things. Expect that your view of God will always be too small, and it will drive you number one, to prayer and to the word. Because if you pick up this book, every time expecting that your view of God is too small, there’s more to learn, there’s more than no, there’s more to understand, there’s more to experience. And so you open this with that expectation that I want my view of God to grow more and more. And he’s made himself known. And then for prayer, your prayers will get bigger and bigger and more and more bold. That’s how you’ll pray as you get to know God more, and you see what he does in your life. The second thing expect that your view of God will always be too small, and it will lead you to know Jesus more and more. Because if we want to know God, we look to Jesus. If we want to look more like Jesus, we have to continue to look at him and what he does and what he says. And bring that into our life through the Spirit. And to live it out. Expect that your view of God will always be too small and it’ll grow your trust in and obedience of God. Okay. You will continue to walk and trust you have to because you can’t comprehend everything I know, a lot of times we want to, we want to know all the facts. We want to get everything laid out there before we make a decision. We never go into that in our walk with Christ, saying I got it all figured out. It’s step of trust, and it’s going to take that initial one and then once every single day after that. So we expect that review. God is always too small. We’ll continue to trust in and walk with Him each and every day and take those steps and then we will obey Him because we will say I don’t need to know all the reasons why you told me to do this. I’m just going to listen. And I’m going to take the step, and I’m going to obey and trust. And we’ll grow more and more last week marriage showed us from First Peter one, that we are called to be holy, because God is holy. And he said, but it’s not about perfection for us, because perfection was one on the cross through Christ, we’re not going to be perfect. So what is it, it’s progress. It’s moving forward. And it’s the same idea here, if we know God, and we’re growing in our understanding of who God is, if our comprehension is growing, then we’re going to see progress in our trust, we’re gonna see progress in our obedience. It’s not knowing the full depths of everything there is to know about God.
It’s just running to him every day. And trusting that He will show us more and more of who he is. Fourth one, expect that your view of God will always be too small, and it will deepen your understanding of the gospel. If you’re in this word, and you’re honest, and you’re confessing each and every day, God will show you how deep your sin goes. And at the same time, you will see the holiness of God growing. And when that happens, the cross gets bigger. Okay, the cross gets bigger, because we start to see who we are apart from Christ, and who he is and his holiness. And the cross gets bigger. And we understand and appreciate the gospel more and more. And finally, expect that your view of God will always be too small. And it will keep you humble. It’ll keep you humble. If you’re here this morning, you still have questions, you still have doubts. You don’t know what all this means. Let me just tell you, every single person in here has questions still. No one in here can understand God completely, exhaustively, the differences? Are you willing to submit and say, I don’t need to know all of it. I just need to know him. Just need to know Jesus, that just need to follow and trust him. Because that’s what we have done. If you’re in Christ is just saying I don’t know everything. But he does. And he’s made himself known to me so that I can respond and follow him. And I do have some homework for you guys today. The homework is pretty simple, much to go home. today. Tomorrow, I want you to think about God just by yourself with the word open. And I want you to jot down what the Spirit does in your heart and how he leads you to worship. Pick a psalm, pick a Gospel passage, pick any passage you want, and read it, and study it and pray over and then see how the Spirit leads you to worship like Paul does here. And I want you to write that down. And then hopefully, in five years, you look at that, and you read it. And you say oh my goodness, my view of God was so small. And then you write more. And then 20 years down the road, you find that when you say oh my goodness, my view of CAD was so small. Then another 10 years, and you keep saying that over and over again. But guess what, every time you do you see your view of God growing, growing, growing. And you see that in your trusted him. You see that in your obedience of him, you see it, how you talk to other people, how you interact with them how you love. That’s when we know, we’re growing. Because we will see Jesus face to face. And I would like to know as much about Jesus when I get to that point as I can. I want there to be a near a smaller gap between what I don’t know what I do know about him. And that starts now each and every day. So I want to start off again, as I did the beginning with some time of silence, but this time it’s going to be in confession. Okay, so I’m gonna ask if everybody can, because I’m gonna, we’re gonna do this when it confess, I’m gonna try and lead you in some of this. And then we’re gonna move into our time of prayer and singing. So let’s close your eyes. If you’re here this morning, and any of these apply to you just confess it in your heart before the Lord because He knows it. But he wants us to respond. He wants to hear it from us. So maybe this morning you just simply need to confess that your view of God is too small
maybe you need to confess that you have boxed God in
maybe you need to confess that you find the Bible and theology boring
confess that you’ve been trying to convince God to do things your way.
Confess you are stagnant in your growth. You’ve not been viewed, you’ve not been growing your view of God.
With your eyes closed, just hear these words this morning, as you confess those things before the Lord, to the incomprehensible God, I want you to hear these words from Romans 10 this morning. I hope you rest in them, I hope you’re encouraged by them. The word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart. That is the message concerning faith that we proclaim. If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For us with your heart that you believe and are justified, and is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As scripture says anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. If there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls and the name of the Lord will be saved. Let’s pray. Lord, we we come before you thankful for the assurance of your word. That in understanding our small view of you, the fact that we cannot comprehend everything there is to know about you. We can read those words, because you have made yourself known to us. We will never know everything there is to know and that’s a good thing, because you are an incomprehensible God, and you love us. And you’ve called us to trust you and to follow you. And all we need to do is turn, turn and trust in You. Help us to see, help us to understand more and more of us so that we see our view of you growing, but help us to never be content with what we know today. Help us to pursue you more and more because you want that view of you to grow. We want others to see that if our fire is not yet large is real. We want others in our family, in our community, in our church, in our workplaces to see that fire, and they can ignite their candle at its flame and pursue you as well. You are deep, unsearchable and beyond and yet you are noble and you’ve made a way for us to be saved and we praise You for that this morning. We love you and we pray this in Jesus name