#2 The Mystery of God- ps139
#2 The Mystery of God -Psalm 139 -Toronto 2007
Illustration: on my back northern lights- WOW
Where at a point in some 139 right now where King David can't move a muscle where King David just stops stocks still and is overwhelming goes wow. Not at the northern lights but at God.
Tonight were looking at the mystery of God.
So far in verses 1-5 David has talked about the awesomeness of God.
· You know my thoughts
· You know my words
· you know my words before a word is even on my tongue
He thinks himself how can that be.
How can God know all that?
David says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to
attain. Ps. 139:6 NIV
Look at the message translation of this verse,
This is too much, too wonderful-- I can’t take it all in!
Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above
me, I cannot reach it. Amplified Bible
David just pauses and says to God
"I can’t get how you can do the things you do"
Have ever been at that point in your life. Where you just can't comprehend the awesomeness of God.
Check out this clip
Joe versus the volcano (Scene 22)
“ I forgot how big”
Could it be possible for Good bible believing Christians
· Contributing to the new church building fund type people.
· Sunday school attending type people Bible reading type people
· To forget how big God is, to stop being blown away by God anymore.
Have you experienced that in your own life, where you have forgot God?
Where you aren’t blown away, anymore? ,
In this verse we see David focusing on something which blows him away.
In Psalm 139 David talks about things that are too big.
· About God knitting him together in his mother's womb.
· That every day of his life is written for him in the book of God before he was even born.
· And how God knows his words before he even speaks that and
He starts wondering about the spectacular mysteries like how can God can be that in control and David still have free will.
Unlike David what we have done when we don’t understand things like the Trinity or had God has complete sovereign control of this world. Rather than being humbled enough to say we just don't understand this God, we instead put God in his nice little box.
Our culture proposes that it is better if we don't understand for us not to even think about it. It is better to think about the things that we can understand.
But what David does in this Psalm he talks about one thing after another that just blows him away, that no matter how hard he tries it is can't get his head around.
Things are confusing and complicated and mind blowing and he doesn't try to understand them, he says you know what, these things are true, and I can't understand them, but I like to think about them.
But for no other reason other than its cool.
This verse shows us it’s not only okay to admit you don’t
understand God; in fact it’s a sign of spiritual maturity!
Sometimes we can think if I admit that I don't understand something, it’s a sign of a lack of faith or it’s a sign of doubt.
No, it's a sign of maturity.
There are some things the Bible does reveal to us like
· God's love and power and
· His purpose our lives and
· About Christ's sacrifice for our sins,
· but there are some things I don't know and will never understand.
But in saying that we need to note, “that Wonder and ignorance is not the same thing.”
There are things you can know about God that God has revealed to us so that we learn them and other things that all you can do is to stand back in wonder.
Why is this good thing to do?
There are many benefits to experiencing the mystery of God.
And I am going to go through five of them tonight.
1. Meditating on the mystery of God gives me a sense of wonder ... because God is awe inspiring.
Having moments of wonder is good for you.
Illustration:
Kids and ants (just a bunch of ant's)
You don't catch grown-ups staring at the ant hills or ant nests too often, unless there high on something. Forget about ant's what about God.
instead of being in awe Humans like to God and little box build a fence around him.
Illustration:
Kiama blow hole. (blasts then big gaps and blasts again)
It is great fun to watch people who arrive in between blasts, they stand at the fence. Thinking to themselves I’m safe here behind the fence Shellharbour council has put the fence here to keep us at a safe distance back from the power of the ocean.
But what they don’t realise that most of the blast are contained behind the fence but every now and then, a huge blast occurs and absolutely drenches the lot of them.
But that’s the fun of the blow hole -one moment you are dry detached observers the next thing you know you are experiencing first hand it’s awesomeness as it breaks the fence as you are swapped drenched participants.
Well you know what that's What God does to us.
We sometimes think we have God behind the fence but every once in awhile he says you know what those fences cannot keep me in.
Sometimes he swamps and drenches us in amazement and that's what happens here in Psalm 139 v/s 6 as David is left drenched in amazement in this verse and in verses is like
Ps. 47:2 How awesome is the LORD Most High, the great King over
all the earth!
The word awesome has kind of lost some of its meaning.
“that’s awesome”
How can we did rediscover what it means to be awestruck
I think for a start, like David, we must first allow ourselves to stand in wonder of how big God is.
Come to a place of awe. Where the dividing line between heaven and earth disappears
Sometimes you just need to let the waves of God, blast over your fences.
And be astonished because focusing on the mysteries of God not just the things you understand also gives you a sense of, not only of wonder, but also
2.humility ... because God is beyond my understanding _
Would you agree that this could sometimes to get a dose of humility big puts in your place.
Illustration: Joe Lewis Boxer
Walk humbly before God who every day shows us his business card.
Raise your hand if you know of anyone who thought the universe revolved around them.
Now raise your hand if you think they are sitting next to you?
People are so self absorbed that they even make their own religions revolving around them.
A young, now well known nurse and activist "Sheila Larson, in a book “Habits of the heart” quotes,
Believe in God. I'm not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice.
When we stand in awe of God we would recognize were not the centre of the universe.
That's pretty healthy place to get to.
Illustration: Maybe that humility has reached you when you have been, standing on top of Mt Sugarloaf, or surfing out in the ocean, or in a plane looking down and the hugeness of our world, or camping and looking at the stars you get a sense of how small you are, and then when you think there is a creator god who is bigger still, a God that made all of that, created all that, and it blows your mind.
You know most of us rarely experience this.
We are in some room, an office or in our house or living room, in our car and frankly we are the biggest thing in them. Most of the time in your environment you are the biggest thing. But it helps to remember you’re not the biggest thing in-fact you’re not even close.
In the spirit of Psam 139 Isa. 55:9 says
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
How much higher are the heavens than the earth?
Illustration:
I looked at a show on TV which said that the sun is about 1,000,000 miles across. To put that in perspective if the Sun was an orange the earth would be a grain of sand and that's just one star, there are about 100 billion stars in our moderately sized galaxy one of 100 billion galaxies in the universe.
One scientist called it the immensities that chill the brain.
Now think of Isaiah saying as far beyond Earth as those stars are, so far are God's thoughts beyond our thoughts.
Illustration: this past week Susan I caught my kids lying side by side flat on their back out in the back yard looking at the clouds for what seemed like ages (before a fight broke out). When was the last time you looked at the clouds or stars and thought to yourself as high as the heavens are above the earth?
A good assignment for this week for 10min of your time on your back looking at the clouds or if you don’t think you will be able to get back up, on a clear night take a drive away from the city lights and receive a little reality check to recognize that .
Albert Einstein Mr. rational right had a great quote he said that sometimes “the most beautiful thing in life is the mysterious”. Sometimes church people try to demystify God to a point where God's mysteries are consumed by mans rational .
The Apostle Paul another guy you would think is a really rational guy he said in Romans 11
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of
God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths
beyond tracing out! Rom. 11:33
A little humility is a good thing.
Eccl. 3:11 says
God has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they
cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
We sort of get it he put into our hearts an Idea a category for God and eternity but we can hope to really understand it
So have a sense of humility.
So the benefits so far is wonder, mystery and
3. Peace ... because God is in control
Illustration:
Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber talking vegetables which teach kids about the bible.
There is one episode where this little broccoli boy is scared of the boogie man late at night and Bob the Tomato and Larry the cucumber show up out of this boys closet (That would scare me personally if some talking vegetables showed up out of my wardrobe) but they tell them look at the stars out of your bedroom window and they say God is even bigger than the whole universe and that means. And then they sing a little song. Which if you are a parent of young kids and they have watched the video you would be sick of hearing.
· God is bigger
· Than your fears
· Your emotional problems
· Your wants
· He is bigger than whatever you are worried about
· God is bigger.
It is great the way David puts in Ps. 131:1-3
My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I
do not concern myself with great matters or things too
wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a
weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul
within me.
Weaned.
You have to let go of a preoccupation with yourself, and dwell on God’s majesty.
In worship
In communion
In praise times
If we allow ourselves we can loose ourselves and concentrate on God, who he is and what he has done and he gives us peace.
4. Confidence ... because knows what he is doing
I can’t always figure out what in the world he is doing but he knows.
Job says in Job 42:2,3
I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be
thwarted. (You asked)’Who is this that obscures my counsel
without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
Like God what are you doing.
Job asked that question and came to the conclusion
That sometimes God is beyond comprehension but He is in control.
Sometime when we say that
“I feel like God is not in control”
What we mean more accurately is that
“I don’t understand what God is doing”
But just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean there’s no plan. Have confidence his thoughts are higher than my thoughts.
And finally meditating on the mystery of God gives me a sense of.
5. Purpose... because God is so huge and big and yet he chose me.
The greatest marvel of all is that as God made those hundred billion galaxies.
Is that he loves you and me. Can you relate to David in Psalm 8 as he speaks of the themes of Psalm 136 he says,
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the
moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man
that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for
him? Ps. 8:3,4
It is like that great Hymn “How great thou are” that Rod and Amanda had at their wedding.
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, How great Thou art!
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, How great thou art How great Thou art!
We have no idea why God would chose us and send his son for us only that God has a purpose and his purpose is to Forgive, Love us and walk with us.
Paul prays a Prayer that would be great to close with tonight.
Paul says, I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may
have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and
long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this
love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the
measure of all the fullness of God. Eph. 3:17-19
God’s love for you and me may surpass our understanding but because of what God has done in Jesus we have experienced his love first hand. How awesome.
It is by meditating on the mysteries of God
That we can reclaim a sense of Wonder, Humility, peace, confidence and purpose.