HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD (PART 2)
Scott R. Bayles, preacher
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 4/15/2012
How great is our God!
When Chris Tomlin sat down to write that song, he began with those words—the chorus—how great is our God. And, at first, that’s all he was able to come up with. In an interview, he said he didn’t really know where to go from there. He prayed to God, “…this is all I have Lord, there’s no other words I can summon in the English language to describe how great you are.” For a long time, he just sat there with those words, like a question hanging over his head that he couldn’t find an answer for.
Who could blame him, really? How do you describe the greatness of God!?
Eventually, Chris did finish the song—borrowing a whole panoply of majestic and mysterious imagery from the pages of Scripture to try to capture God’s visage. The opening lines are among my favorite: “The splendor of a King, clothed in majesty.”
The Bible says, “The Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods” (Psalm 95:3). Both Jesus and God the Father are called: “the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15 NIV).
But if our God is a King, he’s unlike any king the earth has ever known. History is freckled with the tales of kings—some tyrannical, some tolerable, some truly noble, but all of them flawed, all of them only human. Our King is different. Our God is a great God, a great King above all kings. There is one particular passage of Scripture—a single verse, actually—that, I think, encapsulates the greatest of our God and King.
Here it is: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17 NIV).
In a nineteen word parade of praise thrown in honor of the King of Kings, this verse highlights three unassailable attributes of God. In boldface, underlined italicized font, this power-packed passage reveals just how great our God is.
First, our God is a great God because he is an infinite God.
• AN INFINITE GOD
The first two words that Paul chose to describe how great our God is are eternal and immortal. In essence, Paul is saying that God is without beginning and without ending. The psalmist underscores the infinite nature of God when he wrote, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2 NIV).
Have you ever wondered, or maybe had someone ask you, if God made the universe and everything in it, then who made God? Where did God come from?
The answer, of course, is—no one, nowhere; rather, God is an infinite, eternal being. He is the uncaused First Cause from which everything else came into existence. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around the notion of an infinite God, but the Bible, philosophy, and simple logic demand nothing less.
Think of it this way. If anything at all exists today, then something must have always existed. If there was ever a time when nothing existed, then nothing would still exist. As Julie Andrews once sang, “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.”
We know that the universe itself isn’t eternal. Everything we know about astronomy and cosmology tells us that matter, energy, space, even time itself had a beginning in the Big Bang. Thus, the only philosophically plausible possibility is that the universe was made by an unmade, infinite Cause greater than itself—the King eternal, immortal.
Intellectually or logically accepting the idea of an infinite God and actually wrapping our heads around it are two very different things. But, regardless, the very best part of having an infinite, eternal God is that that he invites us to spend the rest of eternity with him: “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Romans 2:7 NIV). When we our faith in God is finally made sight, eternity won’t just be a loving notion—it will be a living reality. And when we’ve been there ten thousand years, we’ll have no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.
Our God is a great God because he is an infinite God. Furthermore, our God is a great King above all gods because he is an invisible God.
• AN INVISIBLE GOD
There’s a story about a little boy who just loved to draw pictures. One day his kindergarten teacher peaked over his shoulder during free time and asked what he was drawing. Without pausing to look up, he said, “A picture of God.” The teacher smiled and responded, “But nobody knows what God looks like.” The boy carefully put down his crayon, looked her squarely in the eye, and declared, “They will when I’m finished!”
I’d love to see that drawing, wouldn’t you?
The truth is—there’s a reason nobody knows what God looks like, and that’s because, as Paul points out, God is invisible: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible…” (1 Timothy 1:17).
Again, philosophically and scientifically, this is exactly what we’d expect of God. Since matter or material was first created in the Big Bang, then who ever created it must be immaterial. This immaterial, invisible essence is what the Bible calls spirit. Jesus explained to the woman at the well, for instance, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24 NIV). See, your spirit is the immaterial invisible part of you that relates to and connects with God—who is a spirit.
Unfortunately, God’s invisible nature has sometimes stumbled seekers and galvanized skeptics. For some of us, it’s hard to believe in what you can’t see. If I can’t see it, taste it, touch it, smell it, or hear it, then I won’t believe it! Ardent atheists sometimes even mock Christians, claiming that we have an imaginary friend.
But Jesus once compared the Spirit of God to the wind, saying, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going” (John 3:8 NIV). Can you see the wind? Can you catch a breeze? No, you can’t see the wind, but the see the effects of the wind. You can feel a breeze. And that’s how it is with God. You can’t see God, but you can see him at work in the world. You can sense his presence and feel his love and grace wash over you.
As one fifth grade once put it, “God is like Scotch tape… you can’t see him, but he holds stuff together.”
Our God is a great King above all gods because of his infinite, invisible nature. Finally, God is the King of kings clothed in majesty because he is an incomparable God.
• AN INCOMPARABLE GOD
During a Sunday school class, the pastor who was teaching the adults, selected a couple to act out the burning bush scene from the Old Testament. The husband was asked to supply the voice for God and his wife would read Moses’ lines.
All went well until they got to verse 15. The wife, as Moses, mistook her husband’s dialogue for her own and read, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers…’”
The pastor interrupted her. “Wait a minute. You’re not God.”
Without missing a beat, her husband deadpanned, “I’ve been trying to tell her that for 18 years.”
While I’m sure she was well aware of that fact, in case we’re ever tempted to deify ourselves or anyone else, Paul states emphatically that “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God…” (1 Timothy 1:17). There’s no one like him, none like him!
In other words, our God is incomparable!
And yet, our world is awash in the worship of lesser gods. What other gods could we have besides the Lord? Plenty. In the days of Joseph, Jeremiah and Jesus paganism and polytheism ran rampant throughout ancient near-eastern culture. Like them, the modern world is just as confused concerning the nature and character of God.
The names have changed, but the false gods they represented are still around.
Instead of Baal, we have new age philosophy; instead of the Sun god Ra, we have Eastern Mysticism, with its worship of Creation; instead of Aphrodite, we have the worship of supermodels and the sexuality they represent. Paganism in the Bible was a rampage of gluttony, drunkenness, and ritual prostitution. For us there are still the great gods Sex, Shekels, and Stomach (an unholy trinity constituting one god: self), and the other enslaving trio, Pleasure, Possessions, and Position. Football, the Firm, and Family are also gods for some people. Instead of idols made of silver, gold and wood, we have consumerism, materialism, humanism, and a host of other philosophies that draw from the same dark pool of idolatry represented by the gods of the Canaanites.
The list of lesser gods is endless, because anything that anyone allows to run their life becomes their god—and the list of contenders for that title is limitless. But all of these gods are just pale imitations. Solomon had it right when preparing to build the Temple in Jerusalem. He said, “This must be a magnificent Temple because our God is greater than all other gods. But who can really build him a worthy home? Not even the highest heavens can contain him!” (2 Chronicles 2:5 NLT). When it comes down to it—there is only one God. Our God is the only God. And he’s chosen to reveal himself through Jesus—the visible image of the invisible God.
I’ve always loved what the would-be world conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, once wrote concerning our God and King:
Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit awes me and his will confounds me. Between him and whoever else in the world, there is no possible comparison. He is truly a being by himself. One can absolutely find nowhere but in him alone the imitation or example of his life. I search in vain in history to find anyone similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach his gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature offer me anything which I am able to compare him or to explain it. Here everything is extraordinary.
Extraordinary. Uncontainable. Incomparable. The splendor of a King, clothed in majesty. This is our God. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17 NIV).
Conclusion:
How do we respond to such a God?
Well, if there is an Infinite, Invisible, Incomparable King over all the universe, the first response should be to bow before him.
Remember the old movies, when the king would come by and all the peasants would bow down in honor? Why did they do that? Because he was the king—some respected him, others dared not offend him. But we’re not talking about a human king; we’re talking about the sovereign Lord, the King of glory. The day will come when every tongue will confess him and every knee will bow in surrender. For those who trust in Christ while alive on this planet, it will be a day of awesome celebration.
The wisest, most intelligent move you can make is to surrender all that you are and all that you have to the infinite, invisible, incomparable King of Creation. Is there anything in your life that you haven’t surrendered to God? Does He hold the same place in your heart that He holds over heaven and earth—that He will hold for all eternity?
Invitation:
As the worship team leads this next song, I want you to stand in awe of splendor and majesty of our God and King. Consider the question—how great is our God? And consider your relationship to him. He created you to bring him honor and glory forever and ever, but you can’t do that until you’ve come to him in faith and accepted him as your King. If you haven’t done that yet, now’s your opportunity to kneel before him and confess Jesus as Lord—while we stand and sing his praise together.
