Human Limits and God's Goodness

We’re going to begin today with a passage from the book of Psalms. This is a passage from David, King David. Parts of this Psalm are very well known from songs you’ve probably sung to poetry and even some passages you’ve probably memorized for yourself.

This has to do with something we began to uncover last week when we looked at the topic of rest.

So we’ll start with this passage, and then we’ll just think and dig a bit…and then look at how we can maybe rearrange some of our thinking or ground it even further…so that we can see God better…make changes in our lives with clearer intentions…and as disciples…help some other people as we’re all on this journey together.

Let’s ask God to bless us this morning…Lord, please help us today to see a bit more of truth. Help us to keep unwinding the twisted nature of life that the enemy sometimes gets us into. Lord help us to have open ears and hearts. All for the sake of us loving you more and knowing you more. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

Psalm 8:1–9 ESV

1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

One commentator wrote that when he thought of David writing this…David might have been lying on his back at night…looking up at the stars and just wondering about God and creation and God’s order of creation.

Here we have David writing about how great God is…and then David notices how incredible God is and how we can see order in the universe. Then David notices how mankind is so much....not God.

Not even angels.

But even so…God loves mankind. God cares for humanity.

And even though we might have been created a bit lower than the angels, God has given mankind, in ordered creation…God’s given humans the position of ruling over creation…over the animals and birds, to care and tend to creation.

God even gave the vegetation as food for mankind to sustain him and for enjoyment no doubt.

Humans…made a little lower…but still given authority and purpose and meaning. But...

…and before we go any further we’re going to quickly pick up where we left off last week.

Rest. We talked about how God established the Sabbath or “rest” day on day seven. And the more I look at this the more that I think this day was to give us a concept or principle of God…and our relationship with Him.

This was for God and humanity. God stopped his work…that’s simply what Shabbot or Sabbath means…to stop. It doesn’t necessarily mean refresh. However, with humanity…we see that it very well might mean rest and enjoyment, refreshment.

And this rest was given before the fall. So it wasn’t given to us because we needed something that sin ruined…it simply was a gift …a gift of grace from God. It was part of God’s created order. It was how He created us.

Last week we also considered that we, because of sin and the enemy, that we have a skewed image of what work and rest truly are. What they were truly meant to be.

So here’s where we’re going today... the goal I have this morning is this…just a simple change in how we view God and relate to Him. Maybe who He truly is to and for us. I guess this is all about our, or your, relationship to Him.

I’m going to throw a word out there and just think about it for a second.

Limits

Now what I’m not thinking about here are limits…like....the speed limit.

The speed limit is there for safety and order.

If there were no speed limits…and we were all to take our cars or trucks out there and draw a line and say “go”…we could all see what the top end is for each of our vehicles…how fast they could ultimately go.

And they would each have a limit…what they could handle. Smaller engines…larger engines…all that stuff tied together gives us an upper limit of speed.

But there is a limit.

Some of you are dealing with medical things right now. Some of you know what I’m working through right now. I tell you, it is amazing what the medical world…and what doctors can do right now isn’t it…even compared to 10 or 20 years ago. It simply amazing. But there are limits aren’t there to human, just mankind alone....limits to…medical intervention.

Years ago Martin Luther King said this...”We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

Limits - Limitless

Finite - Infinite

Finiteness is - The quality or condition of being finite. The condition of being limited in space, time, capacity, etc.

God would be infinite…omnipotent.

We are not. How we were created.

I think we’ve often heard it said this way..

He is God…and I am not.

God is infinite…we are not God. Therefore…we have some limits.

We were created with these limits…and God’s word still says…after He created mankind like this…on the 6th day...

Genesis 1:31 CSB

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

This was just after he created humankind…no sin involved. He didn’t create them as other God’s …He created them as people, in His image no doubt…but just like He wanted to. In love and care.

Sin would come later. Sin would expound and give us an illusion of limits.

When I say the word limits…that word I think for us is sometimes taken wrongly.

I mean, if I were to say…I’m going to place limits on you....that just feels weird…wrong…doesn’t it.

That just feels like it is the exact opposite of what Disney tells us all the time right? Be anything you want to be…do anything you want to do. Wait…can limits be good?

If God created us just like he wanted…and there are some limits involved…and then He said…this is very good…I would tend to think…God probably knew what He was doing.

Let’s go back to that image of David, lying down looking into the sky. Looking at the motion of the stars or galaxies…and the order of it all....and then wondering why God still cares for little puny tiny David…David truly is in awe of this. His response is pretty much…wow…”God it’s awesome how much you love and care for me…and it so cool how even thought I’m small than the angels…you still give me incredible purpose and meaning…even though I’m limited in what I can do.”

Let’s look at this from another point of view. The idea of control.

How many of you have ever said the phrase, “Only worry about what you can control”?

Who’s said that before…or you’ve had someone say that to you?

How many of us live like that all the time though?

We like control don’t we?

Here’s a quote from a scholar who’s been studying this idea of finitude…finiteness..

Kelly Kapic wrote this, “All of us bounce between the illusion that we are in control and the world’s demonstration that we are not.”

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you had no control…either you or someone very close to you. Nothing you can do. Maybe it involved suffering or loss or maybe just the unraveling of something you had in your control but now you didn’t.

Limitations - Are there some limits that are good?

When we fight against this idea…that we have limits…and that we want to control life....it literally becomes exhausting. Health threatening. Mind numbing. Soul killing. Just like the enemy would want it to be.

Sometimes we say things that might be true…but we live or act as though this truth about reality isn’t …and then we have phrases that explain our feelings and emotions…Here’s one that we’ve all heard or said…

“It feels as though we’re carrying the weight of the world is on our shoulders.”

Psalm 8:4 ESV

4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

What is it about us that you like so much, God?

David asked this…within the context of …God, we’re limited…you created us like this/lower than the angels (heavenly beings) - looks like David was in touch with the reality of another type of created realm around us right…and we’re not like the angels (Lower)…and you still gave us glory and purpose and meaning. Wow…that’s incredible.

I think David was coming to realize something.

He needed God.

And not the type of Need that we often think of.

We’ve been using words like limits and control and need. Sometimes we find that there’s a bigger picture in all of this than just the negative side of things.

It’s easy to see that we need things. But remember Satan is going to want to skew reality so we don’t quite see truth.

Needs - Sometimes my car needs gas. It’s neither good or bad. It just has the limit of needing something outside of itself to operate correctly…functionally…to be what it was created to be.

I love scrambled egg sandwiches. When I go to make a scrambled egg sandwich, I need something to cook those eggs…to melt the cheese that I’ll put on that. I need energy in the form of heat. Now, needing that heat isn’t good or bad…it’s just what is needed for that sandwich to be made…to be what it is suppose to be. A delicious, egg and cheese…with lots of butter…sandwich.

Now…with sin in the world, needs can take on a different look can’t they. We might have needs because we’ve done wrong things…we might have needs out of anxiety and worry. We might have needs because we think we can control things and we really can’t and we get caught in a bind. Along with those needs we feel shame, disgust, anger, resentment. Someone didn’t fill our need therefore…We neglected to do something therefore we have a need for…We tried to control the outcome of a situation all by ourselves and we failed and so our needs come about by weakness.

What if being in need isn’t always a bad thing?

What if we, in our limits as humans, were created with a simple need to be with God?

Do you remember that phrase you have probably heard or even said yourself...

Everyone has a God - shaped hole in their heart.

What if that’s really true…that we were created to be with God. And having that need of him…is a really Good thing...

It’s not a weakness that we can’t do everything...

That we can’t do things on our own...

That we don’t have all control...

What if its all good…just how he created us…limited, but living with our best friend…the infinite God.

Someone once wrote these things about humanity…and how God created us..

We are not under any requirement to be infinte. Rather...In our creaturely limits, we are asked Love God with everything we have and love our neighbors as ourselves.

We need to stop asking for (or feeling that we should ask) for God’s forgiveness when we can’t do everything, and we need to ask forgiveness for ever imagining that we could.

Some simple points to remember.

God is the good creator who designed us as good, very good, creatures.

Part of the good of being a creature is having limits.

We are never asked to relate to God in any way other than as human creatures.

God’s goal for humanity is for us to become lovers of God, neighbors, and the rest of creation.

God designed the person for community…and community for the person....we know we need each other…and with God in, through the H.S., in each of us…this becomes a supernatural family.

Lastly…The Creator is the Sustainer and Redeemer.

We were made for each other…and made to be with God.

Limits actually allow us to see the love from each other and ultimately from God.

We do not apologize for our creaturely needs and dependence on others, for we discover this is how God made us…and it is Good

Amen!

The world is searching for ways to control life…many people try to make life fit them…what they feel is true…and we see this in the world today. The lies of the enemy are everywhere. Do your own thing. You do you. You take control your own life…and in these ways…you’ll be fulfilled.

Jesus actually said…I’ve come to give them a full life. Sounds like the only way we get it, is to have Him with us…to believe in Him and to follow Him.

We were made to be with God. We were made to be sustained and held up by God. And God loves to do those things for us.

That’s what David found out…what is man that you care for him....we’re so small…but you gave us so much…and you want to be with us and sustain us.

It is good to need God. Amen?!

Will you place all of your life in His hands? That’s a question for all of us isn’t it. We were made to be in His hands…in His care…with Him.

Sometimes we pull away from the goodness God created…with the false reality that we can take care of things on our own.

I encourage you this week to find words to express to God that you need Him. Pray for Him to be with you in all situations…in all of life…in the good times and the Bad.

Maybe our prayer should simply be for help is simply living all of life with Him…that’s what He want’s isn’t it. That’s what He wants for your friends and family too. Live well so you can show others your dependancy on God…and that its a really good thing!

Let’s pray together.