Does God Really Care?

Max Fernandez

Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

Psalm 8

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Title: Does God Really Care?

Text:

Series: Spiritual Formation

Introduction:

What is it that compels you to worship today? What moves you to exalt the Lord? Is your worship a response to something or is it just something that is forced or fake?

Illustration:

Forced/fake worship - appears worshipful in body, but is cold, lifeless spiritually. This does NOT mean there are NO emotions but that they are simply conjured up emotions.

Exchanged goods worship - God gives me eternal life, and I give him worship.

Coerced worship - if I don’t worship the Lord, then he will punish me.

Spiritual worship - worship that is in spirit and in truth; supernaturally flows from your inner being; a worship where you body recognizes what your spirit is already enjoying This is where God is worship for his own merits.

For an individual who has never accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, option one is where you stand.....

For the truly, born again Christian, “spiritual worship” is where you should find yourself.

Quote:

Knowing God better is a means to kindling true, spiritual worship. The prayer of Richard of Chichester was “Thanks be to thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which thou has given us; for all the pains and insults which thou has borne for us. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother, may we know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly; for thine own sake.”

The question this morning is, Does God really care?”

40-year-old BBC radio host (podcast) dies of cancer after being told she had 1 week to live.

64 year old Maryland woman malled to death by Pitbull whom she had recently adopted

Teen falls 800 feet to his death from California cliff, while trying to take a selfie

If God is so relational and God is so loving, does he really care? Knowing this about God and learning this truth more deeply should cause us to love him more dearly and follow him more clearly.

Opening refrain ()

(a) Who he is - Jehovah Adon

(i) Jehovah - truth, righteousness, self-existing One

(ii) Adon - personal relationship, humanly: slave/wife; lordship, possession, “the slave/wife were not their own” - Jukes

(b) His Name is excellent in all the earth -

The Names of God in Scripture. In the Bible a person’s name is a description of his or her character. Likewise, the names of God in Scripture are various descriptions of his character....When we pray, “Hallowed be your name” as part of the Lord’s Prayer (), we are praying that people would speak about God in a way that is honoring to him and that accurately reflects his character...To honor God’s name is therefore to honor him. The command, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” () is a command that we not dishonor God’s reputation either by words that speak of him in a foolish or misleading way, or by actions that do not reflect his true character. - Grudem

The names of God reveal his nature. They do not merely tell us what He does, but they tell us Who He is. They do not merely describe him, but they reveal him.

Hallowed be thy name...

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord God in vain

To honor name is to honor Him

Proposition:

We are compelled to worship the LORD as we know Him more clearly!

(1) () Compelled by the LORD’S Magnificence

(a) His excellence is seen by his set glory

Illustration:

(b) His excellence is seen by what he has set against the Avenger. [motivated by passion to avenge - advancement of enemy]

The image of infants and toddlers, who are immensely vulnerable, is placed in sharp relief with that of powerful enemies. God is able to build up a people of weakness as a force to oppose his enemies (Wilson 2002: 202).

. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (p. 944). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

There is an innocence associated with babes.

Even the most hardened individual delights to see their children rejoicing, and would scarcely want to end the joyful delight of children. What a brilliant truth. Here God exposes the leverage of relational NATURAL ties that exist.

Principle:

real childishness is not seen in the child who recognizes the obvious and praises/worships the Creator. Real childish immaturity is noted in the individual who sees the glories of Creation and rejects that there is a Creator.

(2) () Compelled by the LORD’S Mindfulness

(a) The mind of man in consideration of creation ()

(b) The mind of man in consideration of man ()

Illustration:

“Even until the second decade of the 20th century, it was thought that the Milky Way galaxy was synonymous with the universe. This alone would be awesome in its scope, since our spiral galaxy contains more than 200,000,000,000 stars [billion] and extends to a diameter of 100,000 light years (keep in mind that a light second is more than 186,000 miles; the 93,000,000 miles between the sun and the earth is 8 light minutes). But more recent developments in astronomy have revealed that our galaxy is a member of a local cluster of about 20 galaxies and that this local cluster is but one member of a massive supercluster of thousands of galaxies. So many of these superclusters are known to exist that the number of galaxies is estimated at more than 100,000,000,000(billion).” - Kenneth Boa

Man is puny - It is the magnitude of God's creation that leads us to see our finitude. Endless explorations are available. Massive entities are visible. We should not be afraid of a right view of God. This perspective of knowing God should lead us to this right perspective of man. This may be avoided because in order to plainly declare with we see in Creation, we have to plainly declare what we don't see in us. This requires a humbling that is not characteristic of our human nature.

If creation presents God as so big, then why would you care about man?

David shows 4 reasons why he sees that God does actually care about man:

* "you made him little lower" (v. 5)

* "you crowned him"

* "you made [this lower being] ruler" (v. 6)

* "you put everything under his feet" (v. 6 - 8)

- flocks & herds (a shepherd is writing) (v. 7)

- birds of the air (v. 8)

- fish of the sea

- all that swim

God cares about man - In spite of the apparent disparity, God's care for man is evident. Note the dominant species upon the face of the earth. Having been created in the image of God, dominion was given to man. THE LOVE OF GOD.

God cares about man as evidenced by the image of God in man:

How did this come to be? Is it really a survival of the fittest, or has man always existed with a dominion? Clearly, there are animals, fish, and celestial bodies that are greater in power, strength than man, yet man has been given dominion (through various means: wisdom, technology, science...etc) over God's creation. Why? God is a relational God - one who cares deeply

(CNN)The double-lung transplant surgery, by all measures, appeared to be a great success. Claire Wineland, who has lived an extraordinary life with cystic fibrosis, needed it to be if she hoped to live much longer.

But while recovering in the ICU Monday night, Claire had a "massive stroke," according to an update posted late Tuesday by her mom on Claire's Facebook page and on Instagram."She had a blood clot that cut off blood flow to the right side of her brain and had to undergo emergency brain surgery to relieve the pressure building and save her life," Melissa Nordquist Yeager wrote.

God cares about man as evidenced by the express image of God in Christ:

Though this dominion has been impacted, it has not been completely eradicated. This image-evidence still exists today.

Salvation is thus first, where an unreconciled individual recognizes this truth in Christ, and cries forth "O Lord [Yahweh], our Lord [master] (see verses calling Jesus this) how excellent is your name in all of the earth."

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Sanctification is the process where by God's people are continually humbled in how God has worked towards them in Christ, and they cry forth praises to him; namely, they cry, "O Jesus, my master, your name is excellent in all of the earth. The whole earth is full of your glory."

There is no name like the name of Jesus!

Principle:

God’s mindfulness of man is by his choice. “He loved us because he chose to love us.”

This choice by God assigns to man dignity and worth.

When we consider how great God is, this should humble man. [This especially helps us to see the utter humiliation of God in Christ]

Conclusion:

Knowing God more clearly should cause us to love him more dearly and to follow him more nearly.

Knowing God more clearly should cause us to understand ourselves more rightly and to worship him more deeply.

Closing Refrain:

Thus our worship and love for him does not need to be Forced/fake worship

Thus our worship and love for him does not need to be Exchanged goods worship.

Thus our worship and love for him does not need to be Coerced worship

Our worship can be a Spiritual worship - a worship that begins by knowing him more clearly, understanding ourselves rightly, and lovingly worshipping him more deeply.