HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD (PART 3)
Scott R. Bayles, preacher
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 4/29/2012
In Chris Tomlin’s contemporary hymn, How Great is Our God, the second verse begins, “Age to age he stands and time is in his hands…”
Don’t you wish that were true for all of us? We just don’t seem to age as well as God does, do we? In fact, I heard a story about a little girl who climbed up on the lap of great-grandmother, looked at her white hair and wrinkles, and then asked, “Did God make you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Then she asked, “Did God make me, too?”
Grandma said, “Yes.”
“Well,” said the little girl, “Don’t you think He’s doing a better job these days?”
Our God may be from everlasting to everlasting, but you and I are getting older every day. And as we age, we may experience various symptoms: our eyes may strain a little harder, our hearing may grow a little weaker, and our memory may even get a little fuzzy. One senior saint scripted this prayer:
God, grant me the senility
To forget the people I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do,
And the eyesight to tell the difference.
While our spirits can be renewed day-by-day, our bodies just aren’t made to last forever. God, on the other hand, is eternal and immortal. From age to age he stands and time is in his hands. It seems strange then that we’d find this statement in the Bible: “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25 NIV).
For the record—God doesn’t actually have any weaknesses! This verse is anthropomorphism. The idea is that even if God did have some weaknesses, his weakness would still be greater that our strengths. God, on his worst day, would still be greater than you and me on our best day.
But, that being said, as ancient as God is, we can certainly imagine some symptoms of old age setting in, can’t we? What if God did have some weaknesses? And what if those weakness, actually made him that much greater? Well, I’ve searched the Scriptures and I’ve found three “weaknesses” that I think make God even greater!
First, God has a “weak” memory.
• WEAK MEMORY
I heard about an elderly man who moved into a retirement community and it wasn’t long until he had made a number of friends among the other residents. There was one lady he was especially attracted to and she was attracted to him, too. They spent a lot of time together. Finally one evening he proposed, asking her to marry him.
The next morning he woke up remembering his proposal, but he couldn’t remember her answer. So he went to her and said, “I’m really embarrassed to admit this, but I know I proposed to you last night but I can’t remember if you said ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”
“Oh, thank goodness!” she replied. “I remembered saying ‘Yes’ to someone but I couldn’t remember who asked me.”
Well, if you’ve ever walked into another room and forgot why you were there, don’t worry—the Bible says that even God has a few laps in memory. God says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25 NIV).
God has a “weak” memory—he just cannot remember forgiven sins.
This was the prayer of the ancients: “Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions...” (Psalm 64:9 NKJV). All through both the psalms and the prophets, God promised “forgetfulness.” Jeremiah received this joyful message: “I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins” (Jeremiah 31:34 NLT). God reiterated the promise in the New Covenant: “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12 NIV).
God’s forgiveness is so complete, it’s forgetfulness.
With this truth in mind, Corrie ten Boom once said, “When I bring my sins to the Lord Jesus, He casts them into the depths of the sea--forgiven and forgotten. He also puts up a sign, No Fishing Allowed!” We sometimes try to dig up the past—go fishing for those old sins, but our God assures us that forgiven sins are “erased” (Acts 3:19) and “washed away” (Acts 22:16).
Sometimes forgiveness can be hard to accept. I’ve done some pretty awful things. I’ve been selfish more often than not. At times, I’ve been downright ugly. We sometimes struggle to forgive ourselves—but not God. God will forgive anybody for any sin!
God’s heart was big enough to forgive those who murdered His own Son. He mustered enough compassion to forgive Paul, a murderer of Christians. He somehow managed to forgive the Corinthians who were guilty of all sorts of vile sins. When we confess our sins and mistakes to God, he offers this same “forgetfulness” to us!
Praise God for his “weak” memory!
Furthermore, in addition to his “weak” memory, God also has “weak” hearing.
• WEAK HEARING
I’ve heard it said that there are really only four stages to life. They are simply: Lemonade, Gatorade, Medicaid, Hearing-Aid. If you’re in the hearing-aid stage, you’re not alone. Even God struggles with hearing loss; though, his condition may be better described as selective hearing.
The Bible says, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear” (Psalm 66:18 NKJV). The New Living Translation phrases it a little differently, “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psalm 66:18 NLT).
In other words, although God is omniscient and always capable of hearing our thoughts and prayer, there are times when he simply chooses not to listen.
The Apostle Peter put it this way: “The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil” (1 Peter 3:12 NLT). The Proverbs even went so far as to say, “If you refuse to obey what you have been taught, your prayers will not be heard.” (Proverbs 28:9).
There’s a recurring theme in all of these passages. If I don’t confess the sin in my heart, if I continue to do evil, if I refuse to obey what I’ve been taught from God’s Word, then God’s selective hearing kicks in. Sin stops the flow of my prayers.
Did you know that an estimated 500,000 tons of water rush over Niagara Falls every minute? However, on March 29, 1948, the falls suddenly stopped! People living within the sound of the falls were awakened by the overwhelming silence. Some believed it was a sign that the world was coming to an end. It was thirty hours before the rush of water resumed. What happened? Heavy winds jammed the ice fields of Lake Erie into the entrance of the Niagara River near Buffalo and stopped the water’s flow. Sin has the same effect on the Niagara of God’s blessings.
When you and I aren’t living right, when we harbor sin—anger, hatred, malice, jealousy, lust, pride, selfishness, etc.—in our hearts, it jams up the flow of our prayers. It prevents God from listening to us and pouring out his blessing in our lives.
Fortunately, God has a good hearing aid—confession and obedience. If we confess our failures and do what we know if right, then God will listen and our prayers will be heard! Like his “weak” memory, I think God’s weak hearing actually makes him even greater because it highlights his holiness and it gently prods us to be more like him.
Finally, God not only has a “weak” memory and “weak” hearing, he also seems to have a “weak” sense of smell.
• WEAK SMELLING
In the Old Testament, Yahweh is sometimes pictured as “smelling” the sacrifices his priests offered him. In the New Testament, Christ’s sacrifice of Himself is said to be a sweet savor to God. And when Christians demonstrate love and compassion, the Bible says, “It is like a sweet-smelling sacrifice offered to God, who accepts that sacrifice and is pleased with it” (Philippians 4:18 NCV).
But, when Israel offered God unacceptable sacrifices, God suddenly developed “smelling problems.” He warned that if they continued to worship lesser gods, “I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices” (Leviticus 26:31 HCSB). Many years later, it happened that Israel continued in their disobedience and the Lord said, “I hate, I reject your festivals, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies” (Amos 5:21 KJV). The NLT has a more in-your-face translation: “I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies” (Amos 5:21 NLT).
The Lord just cannot stand the smell of hypocritical worship.
A man sat down to supper with his family and said grace, thanking God for the food, for the hands which prepared it, and for the source of all life. But during the meal he complained about the freshness of the bread, the bitterness of the coffee, and the overcooked roast. His young daughter questioned him, “Dad, do you think God heard you praying?”
He answered confidently, “Of course.”
Then she asked, “And do you think God heard what you said about the coffee, the roast, and the bread?”
Not so confidently, he answered, “Why, yes, I believe so.”
The little girl concluded, “Then which do you think God believed, Dad?”
The man was suddenly aware that his mealtime prayer had become rote, thoughtless habit rather than an attentive and honest conversation with God. By not concentrating on that important conversation, he had left the door open to let hypocrisy sneak in. God will not accept hypocritical worship—he just cannot stand the smell!
God once told Isaiah, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13 NLT).
So the question is—where is your heart? When your lips sing “How great is our God,” does your heart sing along? I’m glad that God has a “weak” sense of smell because it forces me to look within, to search my own soul, to take off the mask, lay aside the pretense, stop putting on a show—and truly worship him for how great he is!
Conclusion:
Aren’t you glad that our almighty, infinite God has some “weaknesses”? While our inabilities serve to make us weaker, God’s “weaknesses” actually make Him that much greater! His “weak” memory allows Him to completely forgive and forget our faults and failures. His “weak” hearing forces us to live righteous lives, so that we can enjoy the blessings God has prepared for those who love him. His “weak” sense of smell keeps us honest with him, with ourselves, and with others.
Invitation:
As our worship team leads us in praising God for his greatness, I want you to know that he stands ready to receive you, to forgive you, and to embrace you. Age to age he stands, and he invites you to stand with him—if you’re ready to do that and you want to receive his forgiveness through prayer or by being baptized, or if you’d like to talk with me about what getting rid of the sin or hypocrisy in your heart—then come forward now while sing God’s praises.
