God is Infinite
Notes
Transcript
God is Infinite and We are Not!
God is Infinite and We are Not!
Over the upcoming weeks we are going to be “Going back to the 90’s” of Psalms. These 10 chapters in Psalms describe God and certain attributes of Him. It is vital for us to understand who God is so that we can worship him in complete awe rather than just worshipping him because we have been told to do so. We worship God because there is no one like Him and he is perfect in all of his ways. Tonight the main attribute of God that we are going to be reading about in scripture is God’s infinity.
What does it mean to be God?
Can we imagine God?
Is there even a reason to try to understand God?
God is someone that we cannot comprehend because we cannot comprehend perfection.
Ok I want everyone to begin to imagine to most powerful being ever. Some might think of Superman without a weakness to Kyrptonite. Some might think of someone else even more powerful.
Ok does everyone have that being in your mind.
God is so much greater, more powerful, and more perfect that that being you just imagined.
That conception of God is called the Ontological Argument.
This is important to note because as we dive into who God is from the Psalms we cannot fully comprehend HIM.
We need to learn about God because our limited knowledge of Him brings about an awe for him. The more we learn about God to more seriously we take him and the more we want to worship him.
Let’s begin by reading through this Psalms.
A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning:
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.
7 For we are brought to an end by your anger;
by your wrath we are dismayed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
10 The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?
12 So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
This Psalm was most likely written by Moses during their time wondering around in the wilderness awaiting to enter the promised land. If you are reading the Bible through in a year we just began Exodus and this is the time in which this Psalm was written.
The Israelites were held captive in Egypt and then Moses lead by God rescued them from the hand of Pharoah to inherit the promised land. However, the Israelites began to follow false god’s and were punished to wonder around the desert for 40 years. During this time Moses said this prayer to God longing for the blessings of God to be poured out on to them.
In this Psalm there are three major points that we must pick up on in order to understand the importance of our God.
1. God is Infinite
1. God is Infinite
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
God is infinite!! Isn’t that kind of a scary feeling to think about that there is a person who never began and will never end. Moses began his prayer stating that God has always been from all generations to all generations.
What does this even mean and why is it so important for us?
The God that we worship is the exact same God that Moses and Abraham and Adam and Eve all worshipped! The God that they worshipped is the exact same God that we worship.
God does not die or reincarnate like some other religions because he is infinite. This also means that God is the exact same through out all generations and whenever you study how the OT and NT Christians worshipped God they worshipped him in awe and with all that they had.
They found comfort in God and that is where they rested. What is cool to think about when looking at God being infinite is that if you great great great grandmother prayed to God then she prayed to the exact same God that you pray too.
I know I keep repeating this but this is important for us to understand. God is the same.
God does not age and does not change over time because of him being infinite. Before the world was created he was there and when the world is no more he will still be!
God is always going to be God and will never change and can never change.
2. Man is Finite
2. Man is Finite
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
10 The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?
Spoiler Alert: This means that we do not live forever and thankfully we do not!
I know as a teenager some of you feel as if you are going to live forever and ever but the reality is that you will not. Our lives are relatively short compared to the big scheme of eternity. We will live for approximately 70 to 80 years and if we are lucky into our 90s. This may seem like a long time but in reality it is not really that long.
Nobody wants to die that is pretty obvious but it is a good thing that we do not live forever in our flawed bodies.
It is actually a really good thing because sin has made our lives very difficult. I know a couple of 90+ year old christians who do not like the fact that they are that old because they are hurting and aching. Sin made the world to begin dying.
Before sin entered the world Adam and Eve would have lived forever but the moment they sinned the world began to fall apart and through God’s Grace he took away the Tree of Life from the Earth. Could you imagine having cancer and living forever? That is how God was gracious in allowing us to be mortal.
The issues with us being mortal is that we will eventually die and when we die we will either spend eternity in Heaven or Hell.
This is not an option
Whenever our lives come to an end our souls either reside in Heaven or Hell. Thankfully God allowed for us to have a relationship with Him through the Gospel and those of us who have accepted Christ should then look at the last section of these verses.
3. God is Worshipped
3. God is Worshipped
12 So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Our entire lives should be focused on glorifying God. Even though we are mortal and we are plagued with sin there is hope in the end of this Psalm. Remember that this is Moses’s prayer while they are wondering around in the desert. Moses prays that God will satisfy them.
We need to realize the shortness of our lives and understand the impact our short lives can have on big scheme of eternity. The importance of us understanding that our lives are short should propel us to use every moment for Christ. It is easy for us to say that we can live the good christian life tomorrow or that I can begin to follow God after high school. The reality of life is that you do not know when the last time you can share your faith will be. Moses’s prayer longs for him and the people of Isreal to understand the shortness of their lives.
An example of this is in Winona I would go and eat lunch with the students each week at their school. Every week there was this kid who would sit with us but really would say too much and he was friends with the other students. I came to find out that he was a devote atheist who hated God. This kid went to school with the students in my youth group daily but yet no one including me shared our faith with this student.
At the beginning of the school year this kid had decided that his life was no longer worth living. There were no signs of him being depressed or anything like that and all of the students knew that he was an atheist and kept pushing off the fact of sharing their faith with him. But there came a time when they could no longer share their faith with him because he had died. Unfortunately, there is about 99.999% chance that he is suffering in Hell at this moment due to the lack of people sharing their faith with him.
Mose’s longs for them to understand the shortness of life so that they can grow in wisdom of Christ. Through growing in wisdom of Christ we begin to understand the importance of sharing this wisdom.
The very last verses of this Psalm bring about the Joy we as Christians can hold on too forever.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
This needs to be our prayer that we are Satisfied by God. There is nothing in this world that can satisfy us! Girls a guy will not satisfy you because all humans are going to fail! Guys sports and money are not going to satisfy you!
There is a story about satisfaction in the world by the scholar and religious guru “Eminem”. After he had recieved his one of his 50 platinum records a reporter came to interview him and said you have arrived you have exceeded every goal you have ever set for yourself. What are you feeling like now?
His response was nothing. I feel nothing. I have achieved everything I have set for myself now I feel depressed.
Wealth and material things will not satisfy us. We must pray for our satisfaction to come from God.
Moses’s longed to be satisfied through God’s unfailing love. We should be satisfied in the fact that God’s love is constant and infinite and does not fail. This is vital to hold on to now while you are not going through a difficulty because whenever difficulties arise sometimes God’s love is the only thing left.
If you personally lost absolutely everything and all you had left would God be enough. That is exactly what Moses was pray that he would be satisfied in God’s love.
As a Christian we are going to suffer through difficulties but through the difficulties we can glorify God because He is infinite.
This Psalm is all about God being worthy of our praise because he alone can bring about satisfaction. He alone should be our dwelling place. He alone should be the place we find our comfort.
God is all of that because this world is not going to be easy but we have joy because of who God is and because we have be