Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Have you ever thought about the immensity of the universe?
Have you ever thought of the immensity of our planet?
The earths circumference is 24, 901 miles.
We have the perfect mixture of gasses to keep and sustain life.
It is perfectly positioned from the sun for this life to happen and continue.
The earth is made up of 36,794,240,000 acres.
It is massive but in comparison to other planets in our solar system it is tiny.
And those planets are tiny in comparison to the rest of the universe.
The known universe is 93 billion light years across and just one light year is 63,000 astronomical units.
One astronomical unit is 92,955,887 miles.
This makes one light year to be 5,856,220,881,000 (5 trillion) miles.
Therefore the known universe is 544,628,541,933,000 (544 trillion) miles across.
These are numbers so vast that we cannot comprehend them.
They are huge and beyond our thoughts.
Let me put this into perspective.
Imagine a smooth glass surface.
Shrink the sun from 865,000 miles in diameter to two feet and place it on the surface.
Using this scale, Earth would be 220 paces out from the sun, and would be the size of a pea.
Mars, the size of a pinhead, would be 108 paces beyond Earth.
But to reach Neptune, you'd need to step off another 6,130 paces from Mars.
By now you would be five miles from the sun--but there still wouldn't be room on the glass surface for Pluto!
And you would have to pace off 6,720 miles beyond Pluto to reach the nearest star.
Yet, this glass model represents only a tiny fraction of the universe.
It is immense and so vast that we are in utter shock to its size, yet God is above it all and it all is here because of His power and creating.
He made it all.
He sustains it all.
He made it to be as it is for a reason and He is still running this show.
That is why I titled this message from Psalm 97 “The God Who Reigns Above All.”
He reigns above everything and when we read the text we see all that he reigns above and how we should respond to that.
We see first that....
He Is Exalted Above all People (vv.
1-6)
The Lord Reigns.
Rejoice He reigns.
All are to be glad of this because He reigns and sustains all things.
He is surrounded by dark and ominous clouds.
He is encased in darkness so thick we cannot perceive.
This is not an evil darkness but one of intrigue and power beyond our comprehension.
We do not fully understand the providence, protective care and power, of God but we do know He rests on Righteousness and justice.
He is perfect and powerful and right to judge.
He controls the devastation of the wicked and adversaries.
He lights up the earth with Lightning and causes all to tremble.
Mountains collapse and melt before Him.
All people see His glory through His mighty works of creation and in creation.
We all see His power in storms and other natural disasters, as we call them.
Everyone sees the amazing beauty of the sunrise and sunsets.
We all breathe air that is just perfectly set so we can breathe.
His power is seen and known and it makes us tremble at times because it is scary.
A tornado bearing down on us is frightening.
Being in a hurricane is frightening, an earthquake, tsunami, or any other powerful act of nature.
All of these are frightening and nothing compared to Him who is above it all.
This section is alluding back to when God descended to Sinai to give Moses the Law.
He was cloaked in darkness because to look upon His holiness is death to all unholy people.
He was ominous in that descension and lightnings flashed people were afraid.
And after the law was given and Moses descended to find the camp worshiping a false god, God devastated the adversaries.
He is powerful and majestic at the same time.
Much like the scene in Band of Brothers in the battle of the Bulge.
They are being shelled like crazy on a regular basis.
In one scene Sergeant Lipton is in a fox hole after running through his men yelling for the men to find cover.
He is laying there watching this amazing display of power and begins thinking of the fourth of July.
He is watching it and laughing because it was the most awesome and terrifying display of power he had ever seen.
He was impressed by its display above anything he had ever seen before and that made him laugh and relish in this terrifying time.
But that power is nothing compared to the power God has over all things.
That power is the power of man and creation.
It is like a god of destruction that destroys all things.
Even though it is that way God is above that and reigns from His throne.
It is because of His power that the heavens declare that all worshippers of false gods are put to shame because...
No god Compares to God (vv.
7-9)
Just as God put to shame those who were worshipping the golden calf, He puts all false gods and those who worship them to shame now.
Anyone who thinks they can attain to something because they are great, will fall.
No god, regardless of what that god is will ever get you what you desire because that god is useless unless that God is the Lord God.
This is because He is exalted above all gods.
He is above all the earth.
He is the one true God and as such only He can cause you to rightly rejoice.
Like Elijah with the priests of Baal.
He had a challenge for them and whichever one was able to get their god to rain fire on the sacrifice was the worshippers of the true God.
Elijah mocked them and their false god because he could not hear.
He said maybe he is asleep or using the toilet, but the point was, Baal is not God and he cannot do anything.
Or the time the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant and placed it before their god Dagon.
In the morning Dagon was on his face before the Ark.
They stood him back up.
Look at that THEY stood him up, not himself but they did.
Then the next day the same thing happened but this time Dagon’s head and hands had been cut off.
This so called god of the Philistines was not a god at all but a mere creation.
Even if this god was based off of a demon like many gods of the past were, t is still a created being powerless against the one true God.
Those people were put to shame because they were worshipping a false god who can do nothing for itself much less them.
An idol and false god can be anything.
It can be a spouse, job, child, money, looks, anything.
None of that is above God and none of that can give you what you need most.
Tim Keller states it well when he wrote about all who place these loves in their lives as their god.
He wrote:
when our expectations and hopes reach that magnitude...“the love object is God.”
No lover, no human being, is qualified for that role.
No one can live up to that.
The inevitable result is bitter disillusionment...This cosmic disappointment and disillusionment is there in all of life, but we especially feel it in the things upon which we most set our hopes.
That is why no other “god” can fulfill you or sustain you like God can.
Nothing can satisfy your hopes and life like the one true God.
In Him is joy and genuine happiness.
In Him is peace and comfort.
It is because He reigns above all and He is above anything we will ever encounter.
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