Awe

Introduction

We use the word “awesome” all the time

Have you ever really thought about the word awesome?

Here are some definitions of awe:

“An emotion variously combing dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime.”

“A feeling of great respect sometimes mixed with fear or surprise.”

“A feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.”

Awesome

extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear.

So is that sandwich you had yesterday actually awesome, or is it just like, really good?

You might be like - no it is actually awesome - I had reverential respect for that sandwich

What is actually awesome?

You’ve probably experienced this feeling of “awe” at least a couple times in your life - Grand Canyon, other natural wonders - it’s overwhelming, it might you speechless because you just don’t really have words to describe what it is you’re experiencing. Even the definitions I read of awe and awesome might struggle to really put words to the feeling of “awe.”

We may struggle to define awe but we know it when we feel it.

Unfortunately we may have fallen into a trap: if everything is awesome, then nothing is. Awe itself may has lost its “awesomeness.” When was the last time you were truly in awe of…anything?

And more importantly…when was the last time you were in awe of God?

Living without awe saps the color out of life, it makes the mundane even more mundane, it dims the joys and magnifies the struggles. And, if you lose your sense of awe for God, everything about your relationship with him suffers.

Even worse, when you lose your awe for God, your sense of awe becomes cheap, counterfeit, and self-focused.

“in the heart of a sinner, awe of God is very quickly replaced by awe of self.”

Paul David Tripp, Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do

Humanity’s proper, natural, and good response to God should be awe due to his 1) being and 2) his work.

So, in the next few minutes, we are going to consider how you might awaken your natural sense of awe in your own life and direct that awe toward its proper place: God your Father, Creator, and Sustainer.

To do that, let’s first talk about you. Well, you as in humanity in general.

Outline

I. You

Cooper - reading books

He never really gets bored and is in rapt attention, every thing, even things he’s experienced over and over again, are amazing to him, even if it’s reading the same book for the 1000x.

When I think about Cooper and how it seems like he’s in awe of almost…everything, I can’t help but think of this passage from Matthew 18 - it’s a familiar one to you.

Matthew 18:1–4 (ESV)

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

There are many implications of this passage but I’m only going to focus on one for now.

One of humanity’s main problems is that we grow up.

We gain so much by growing up (and lose some things, I’m no longer mandated to take naps), but we also lose some things, including some things we need not lose.

One of those things may be: wonder. Awe.

We get bored of the normal, everyday things that used to enrapture us. The awesome becomes mundane, our wonder can be replaced by apathy or indifference.

Jesus says: “turn” - stop living the way you are living and instead become like…this. A child. It’d be impossible for me to unpack here all of what Jesus means by this but since we know children, we can say with confidence that at least one of those things is humbling yourself enough to be in awe of things around you. Humility really is part of the problem. It can feel cool, even safe to be aloof and detached, but it’s actually lonely, lifeless, and arrogant.

It’s not what you were created for.

You were created to be in awe.

Awe and wonder go hand in hand and we live in a day where we have effectively killed wonder.

Think about it, when you have a question about something, anything, what do you do? Pull out your phone, of course, I do it too. Why wouldn’t you? You have the answer right there?

But, with the answer to almost every question at our fingertips we lose the ability to wonder.

My Side of the Mountain illustration

Mike is going to talk about barriers to awe tomorrow so I won’t spend much time on this, but consider what things around you are killing your sense of wonder and awe.

Are you glued to your phone, entertainment, or other things so much that you can’t lift your head up enough to be in awe of something around you?

Are you hesitant to venture into a space that is not personally curated for you by your social media algorithm, your preferences, your interests, your desires?

Let me encourage you: you were not created to live in a bubble of repetitive, self-curated experience. It’s safe, but it’s boring. You were created to be in awe.

And who created you with this sense of awe? Sunday School answer time: God. If we want to understand how and why we were created this way, we have to consider the one who gave us this capacity…

II. God

Has God become commonplace to you? Is “God” just kind of a word, one that we use a lot but rarely think about? I know this happens in my life - and it probably happens in yours.

Because of that, being in “awe” of God may not be something that you think about very much, yeah he’s there and you believe in him, but are you in awe of him? Do you feel in awe of him, ever? Maybe during some really special worship times, or maybe when you’re out in nature, a literal mountaintop experience. But is your life marked by an attitude of awe toward God? This reverential fear, respect, and wonder?

Maybe you need to be reminded about some things regarding God - not an exhaustive profile - but let’s start with something you are very familiar with, breathing.

Not to get too technical with you…but breathing is basically just…

1. Inhalation (Inspiration)

a. Neural Activation

The brainstem's respiratory centers, primarily the medulla oblongata and pons, generate rhythmic signals.

Motor neurons stimulate the diaphragm and external intercostal muscles.

b. Muscle Contraction

Diaphragm: Contracts and moves downward, increasing the vertical dimension of the thoracic cavity.External Intercostal Muscles: Contract, elevating the ribs and expanding the chest cavity laterally and anteroposteriorly.

c. Thoracic Expansion

The pleural cavity expands, reducing intrapleural pressure (normally sub-atmospheric).

The lungs are pulled outward due to the surface tension between the pleural layers.

d. Pressure Gradient Formation

The expansion of the lungs decreases alveolar pressure below atmospheric pressure.

Air flows from the external environment (higher pressure) into the alveoli (lower pressure) via the respiratory tract.

And that’s just inhaling. I think we’re good there.

Do you realize the marvelous and detailed process that is involved in you do 12-18 times per minute? This intricate process that you don’t even think about. When was the last time you thought about the one who breathed the breath of life into the first person’s lungs? Who designed this process and all the other processes by which you are able to be alive?

And not just that, but he is the same one who spoke the entire universe into existence - existing outside of time he created time for us - our reality is shaped by his hand. He hung the planets and stars in the sky and painted our earth with the exact palette that would sustain human life, and he created you and me.

Not just that - but in Hebrews 1 it says that through Christ God sustains all things - to use a word picture - all of reality is held in the palm of God’s hand as he keeps things moving as they should, everything from galactic significance down to your ability to inhale and exhale. All of it is created and sustained by God, this being so powerful that he transcends the very meaning of the word. Consider the irony that the very language we use to try to describe God is only able to be thought and spoken by the brains and tongues which he fashioned.

Such a God is more than wonderful, more than powerful, more than awesome.

It’s no wonder that the prophet Isaiah had this to say in chapter 6 of the book of Isaiah:

Isaiah 6:1–5 ESV

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

All of this leads us to what should be an obvious point:

God is worthy of our awe.

You were created to be in awe, and God is the only one truly worthy of that awe.

If you can truly begin to consider just how awesome God is, in the fullest sense of the word, there might be a reaction that leans into the parts of awe that feel like fear. Such a powerful and matchless being, able to create life by a word and take it just as quickly. He is so big, so mighty, so awesome.

We can be in awe of him, sure, but how could we ever approach or relate to a God this awesome?

III. You & God

There’s an interesting narrative in Acts 17 where Paul is in the Areopagus, in Athens, and he gives a sermon to the people there who had all of these idols to different gods - they were kind of like “god collectors,” even including one to the “unknown God.”

Acts 17:24–28 (ESV)

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Paul is very clearly saying here that in contrast to all the pagan “gods” they worshipped - the one true God, though mighty, magnificent and awesome, is not far away from us. In fact, he has revealed himself to us - and how has he done this? Through his Son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus came as fully God and fully man to redeem mankind and to show God to us (John 14:8-20). To be Emmanuel, God with us.

Let’s read one more passage, similar to the one we read earlier.

Matthew 19:13–15 (ESV)

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.

Consider this - the God that hung the stars in the sky, carved the mountaintops and dug the valleys, who fashioned man out of the dust now called to smallest, little humans and said, “come sit on my lap.”

God’s awesomeness is an invitation.

God’s awesomeness is not a barrier to us coming to him, but instead an invitation. God could have created us and everything else and then just dipped out, leaving us to our own devices. Or he could have decided to be a cruel, sadistic tyrant.

But that’s not who God is. God is worthy of our awe, and God is invitational.

We see this clearly in one of the Bible’s most famous verses.

John 3:16 (ESV)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God is love - it is his nature. Out of that love God created the world, God sustains the world, and God saved the world. He sent his Son, Jesus, to live the life we couldn’t live and die the death we couldn’t die, for us, that we could be made right with this awesome God. So we could sit on his lap.

It is really, really awesome that God created the universe and everything in it. I hope you marvel over that. But it might just be more awesome that that same God invites you and I to come sit on his lap.

You were made to be in awe, God is worthy of our awe, and God’s awesomeness is an invitation to us. But how do you begin to live a life that is marked by a consistent awe of God? There’s a lot there, probably, but let me give you three things really quickly:

Application

Awaken your awe.

Let yourself be bored

How many of you watch Netflix while you’re on your phone?

We are scared of boredom - of not doing anything - but sometimes that is the space where God can show himself to us

Wonder some more - think, dream. Stop killing wonder in your own life.

Meditate on God. Psalm 145:5 “I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty and your wondrous works.”

This may seem weird - but think about God. Who he is as revealed in Scripture. What he’s done both in your life and in others’. Dwell on him,

Maybe even keep a journal of what God has done in your life in the past.

Confess other things you have in “awe” over more than God

What are things that you dwell on and esteem more than God? What are the cheap counterfeits you are in awe over?

Believe the gospel

Belief = Behavior

The gospel doesn’t just save you, it sustains you. The good news of salvation continues to be relevant to your life each and every day. If you are willing to slow down and look, you’ll see the grace of God evident in your life.

Remember Cooper? Cooper, right now, doesn’t really get tired of every day things. He will listen to the same book again and again and be just as transfixed the 10th time as he was the first. It’s awesome to him.

God does little things in your life every day, things you may just not notice, you might ignore, or maybe you’ve just gotten really used to them.

Maybe part of the way to awaken awe in your life, really believing the gospel and its implications for every day life, is to not get so bored of God and his work. Be observant, be grateful for what you think is mundane. Maybe awe will become a little more commonplace in your life than you think is possible now.

Conclusion

Humanity’s proper, natural, and good response to God should be awe due to his 1) being and 2) his work.

I’ll leave you with this:

Psalm 139:13–16 ESV

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

There’s a word in this passage, in verse 15, it’s the Hebrew word raqam. In the ESV which I just read it’s translated “intricately woven,” which I really like, but your Bible might translate it “made” or “formed,” or even “skillfully formed.” Raqam can literally mean to “embroider.”

Now I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but besides here in Psalm 139, do you know the only other place where this word shows up in the Old Testament? It’s in Exodus, chapters 26-28 and 35-39. Raqam is used about eight times in those passages and it’s usually translated “embroidered” there in English.

Those passages in Exodus are specifically dealing with the instructions for the children of Israel in building the tabernacle. The tabernacle - a place where God dwelled, a place of worship, a place of reverential fear, a place of awe.

Live in awe of your awesome God. It’s what you were made, or intricately woven, to do.