Great Is the Lord

Great is the Lord!

Opening Question: Where can you say that in your life?

I know for Team Jones, we can praise God one minute and be tempted to freak out the next.

Sometime Christians adopt a faith rooted in the Healthy, wealth, and prosperity lie that says “do good and good things will happen to you.”

So we say things like, Ok God, I did this for you, now you do this for me.

Need: We all need to understand God’s greatness is attached to His ways not ours, His thoughts not ours, His glory not ours.

But that does not mean that He does not see you or does not care.

Today we will see how

1. God’s promises are Great and that we cant trust He will do what He says He will do.

2. If we Keep His truth in front of us, rest in His promises to us, we will worship him instead of doubt Him.

Prayer:

Background: So much of this text and the Old Testament points us to God’s greatness linked to His sovereignty. Meaning His all-knowing nature and His ability to predict and dictate outcomes in the world.

He uses this ability for His glory.

Terms in modern day doctrine attributed to these teachings are

Predestination

Election

Does God choose some over others, are there some created for hell and others for heaven?

Simply put, yes.

The Old Testament is so clear that on it that the burden of proof is for those who do not hold that view.

Now, I am not saying there is no free will,

I am saying the Bible is clear that we cannot do what is right by God We only do wrong apart form God.

So there is some room for choice, However the choices we are free to choose are only to rebel against Him.

Atheists can be kind and loving, but they are made in the Image of God, so they are doing what God created them to do in that moment. If they reject God, they are rebelling against their created nature.

So how much free-will do you want?

Illustration: Lecrae Background

“So let me just shadow You, and just let me trace Your lines Matter of fact, just take my pen, here, You create my rhymes…”

“You pulled my card, I'm bluffing, You know what's in my hand Me, I just roll and trust you, You cause the dice to land. I'm in control of nothing, follow you at any cost Some call it sovereign will, all I know is You’re the boss Man, I'm so at ease, I'm so content I'll play the background, like it's an instrument.

God uses His sovereignty to establish promises known as “covenants.”

Abrahams Covenant

Genesis 12:1–3 HCSB

The Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Genesis 15:4–21 (HCSB)

Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.”

He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then He said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”

Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.

He also said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

But he said, “Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?”

He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

So he brought all these to Him, split them down the middle, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut up the birds.

Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

As the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him.

Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years.

However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.

But you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.

In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River:

the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim,

Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

Abraham has kids the most important are Ishmael and Issac.

Issac is “the offspring” God was talking about.

Ishmael was the son of Hagar Sarah’s servant (Arab tribes, & Islam)

Then God Makes a promise to Issac’s wife Rebekah

Genesis 25:23 HCSB

And the Lord said to her: Two nations are in your womb; two people will come from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.

Jacob is the father of Israel

Esau the father of Edomites.

They were still family but they rejected Judaism and became pagans who always fought with Israel .

Obadiah 10–12 HCSB

You will be covered with shame and destroyed forever because of violence done to your brother Jacob. On the day you stood aloof, on the day strangers captured his wealth, while foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them. Do not gloat over your brother in the day of his calamity; do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction; do not boastfully mock in the day of distress.

Ezekiel 35:15 HCSB

Just as you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it became a desolation, so I will deal with you: you will become a desolation, Mount Seir, and so will all Edom in its entirety. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.

Edomites, were taken captive by the Maccabeans during the inter-testimonial period, renamed Idumaeans once Greek was the dominate language. They had a King later installed by the Romans to rule over Judah. Any guesses who that King was?

Context: Where does this take place?

This is roughly a 100 years after Cyrus released those in Babylonian custody back to their homes and allowed them to rebuild their temples (Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah)

God used Isaiah to Prophecy His sovereign intentions over Israel.

Isaiah 45:11–13 (HCSB)

This is what the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and its Maker, says: “Ask Me what is to happen to My sons, and instruct Me about the work of My hands.

I made the earth, and created man on it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.

I have raised him up in righteousness, and will level all roads for him. He will rebuild My city, and set My exiles free, not for a price or a bribe,” says the Lord of Hosts.

However, Their lives suggest something much more grim. They are in a famine, poverty stricken and their priests are corrupt.

Malachi 1:1–5 ESV

The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’ ” Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”

v. 1 Genre, authority, audience, and writer.

v.2 The meaning of love, their response, God declares His greatness.

v.3 There are moving parts to His covenant. Edom’s destruction is first.

I will bless those… This is nationalism, or a pleasure in others pain It is pointing to the promise that first Edom would be destroyed and then Israel rebuilt

v.4 God’s anger is aimed at them because He knew their hearts would never pursue Him (neither would ours if God had not intervened)

v.5 God puts the covenant in front of His people again.

They would see it as a people but not individually.

“Great” in the Mesopotamian world meant, Deity and Kingship

Yahweh stands over protecting His people He has chosen.

How does this apply to us today?

God’s sovereignty guided those in the Old Testament to the New, and He is still guiding his will in our lives today.

Jesus is the Great Lord.

Silence followed Malachi over 400 years then

Isaiah 9:6–7 HCSB

For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on His shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

God has secured our eternal destiny and is calling people to Himself. from death to life.

1 Peter 2:4–12 HCSB

Coming to Him, a living stone—rejected by men but chosen and valuable to God— you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it is contained in Scripture: Look! I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame! So honor will come to you who believe, but for the unbelieving, The stone that the builders rejected— this One has become the cornerstone, and A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the message; they were destined for this. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and temporary residents to abstain from fleshly desires that war against you. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that in a case where they speak against you as those who do what is evil, they will, by observing your good works, glorify God on the day of visitation.

Application

God’s promises are eternal our circumstances are not.

Trust God’s sovereignty, don’t trade

Faith for doubt

Hope for despair

Truth for a lie

Romans 8:29–30 HCSB

For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; and those He called, He also justified; and those He justified, He also glorified.

Prayer