A God Worthy Of Your Love
#GettingBetter
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. – Psalm 19:1-4
Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. 2 Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. 4 For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.
5 The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. - Psalm 33:1-5
I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. 2 Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. 4 One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts.
5 They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty— and I will meditate on your wonderful works. 6 They tell of the power of your awesome works—
and I will proclaim your great deeds. 7 They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
– Psalm 145:1-7
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? - Isaiah 40:12
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
– Isaiah 40:21,22
Prayer
OKAY…
WELCOME – to week 4 of Getting Better at what Jesus said matters most.
UNDERSTAND – 2000 years ago God in the flesh told us what the most important commandments are…
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
– Mark 12:28-31
AND LISTEN – if you get better at…
NOW – for the last 3 weeks we have been focusing on the commandment about Getting Better at loving yourself…
Let’s do a quick review…
To Love Yourself You Must …
Plunge The Depths Of The Father’s Love
The Father’s Love for you is a love…
• Beyond reason
• That delights in you
• That is for you
• That pays attention to you, and
• That constantly pursues you
Push Through Insecurity (By…)
• Resisting and Replacing The Lies Of The Enemy With God’s Truth
• By Refusing To Drink The Deadly Toxin Of Comparison
Accept That You Loving Yourself Is Essential Not Selfish
You need to start getting serious about loving yourself
Go Back In Order To Move Forward
You need to examine the scripts that your past has handed you, and see how it is impacting your today.
Use 1 Corinthians 13 As A Template For Loving Yourself
Do I love myself?
Am I patient, gentle and kind to myself?
Am I slow to get angry with myself?
Do I easily let go of my mistakes and failures?
Let God’s Approval Become Your Validation
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. God’s love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life. – Brannan Manning
UNDERSTAND B/S – I want you to know that I feel it is necessary for me…
• To continually remind you of these things
• To constantly keep in the forefront of your mind, the commandment to love yourself
• To encourage you to go after the power to live your life in ‘real’ freedom, if you love what God loves and God loves you…
BECAUSE
THE BOTTOM LINE IS
IF - you don’t,
THEN - loving God as you should and loving others as God intends will seem like…
• A burden, not a blessing
• An obligation, not an opportunity
• A duty, not a desire
AND AGAIN – here are those book recommendations, that will help you in your journey to both love yourself and become the you God created you to be.
• Emotionally Healthy Spirituality – Peter Scazzero
• The Missing Commandment Love Yourself – Jerry and Denise Basel
• Me – John Ortberg
• Waking The Dead – John Eldredge
NOW
THIS MORNING – as we begin to look at the commandment about Getting Better at loving God…
WE WILL – unpack a conversation, I am calling…
“A God Worthy Of Your Love”
AND – in this conversation I will be making the case that our God, (the Triune God… God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit) is a God worthy of your love…
AND MY CASE – consists of 2 arguments, 2 core qualities about our God that should cause to fall on your knees to worship Him and reach out your heart to love Him.
MGCC – why is God worthy of your love…
First of all because (as we learned in the prayer that most young children pray)…
God Is Great
Check out this video about God’s greatness…
SHOW HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD SERMONSPICE VID
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. – Psalm 19:1
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. - Psalm 33:5
Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. – Psalm 145:3
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. – Isaiah 40:22
UNDERSTAND B/S – we are here this morning worshipping a God that is far beyond anything we could ever dream of or imagine.
A huge majestic God of grace and glory.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
- Genesis 1:1-3
AND – light came out of the mouth of God traveling at 186,000 per second.
LISTEN – if we want to know how great our God is, all we need to do is look up…
NOW – we live on a planet called earth that is located in one of billions of Galaxies called the Milky Way.
I HAD PICTURE OF EACH OF THESE ON THE SCREEN AS WE TALKED ABOUT THEM
The Milky Way Galaxy has a diameter of over 100,000 light years.
A light year is how far light moving at 186,000 miles per second travels in a year… 5.88 trillion miles.
YEAH – the Milky Way is huge!
God is great!
And Psalm 33:6 says that with little effort on His part, I mean – doesn’t even lift a finger, Our simply breathes out stars…
And stars are huge.
Our closest star is the sun… 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit
93 million miles away.
And it takes 8 minutes for it’s light to touch our skin here in C’ville Virginia.
If the earth which is a pretty big place… 24,000 miles around.
If the earth was the size of a golf ball…
OKAY (hold up golf ball)… this will represent the earth
Did you find yourself on it…?
The Sun would be 15 feet in diameter.
960,000 golf balls would fit inside.
That is a lot of golf balls.
In fact it’s enough golf balls to fill an entire school bus.
Now this second star when I first heard about it, it totally blew my mind, Betelgeuse.
HERE IT IS IN OUR SKY
YEAH – I know it does not look all that impressive but give it a break, after all – it is 427 light years away.
(a light year is 5.8 trillion miles)
AND – it is really big…
IN FACT – it is 2 times the size of… not of the sun, but 2 times the size of the earth’s orbit around the sun. It is 561 million miles in diameter.
IF – the earth were a golf ball Betelgeuse would be the height of 6 Empire State Buildings on top of each other.
AND IF – that does not blow your mind…
Hop in your car this week with your family and bring your golf ball. Go into midtown. Walk up to the Empire State Building and put your golf ball right up to it, and don’t worry no one will think that it’s strange – you are in New York.
THEN – walk across the street… and try to spot your golf ball and then look up to the top of The Empire State Building (1,454 feet) and image 5 more on top of it…
That is how big Betelgeuse is.
262 trillion earths would fit inside of it.
AND IF – earth were a golf ball, that number of golf balls would fill the Super Dome… 3000 times!
R U kidding me!
UNDERSTAND - it’s not
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
NO – I know what you are!
And what you are is – huge, intense, massive and ferocious…
Just one more star… and we are still in the Milky Way…
3900 light years away is one of the largest stars in our Galaxy
Canis Majoris
If there earth were a golf ball, Canis Majoris would be the height of Mt Everest almost 6 miles above sea level.
7 quadrillion earths would fit inside this star.
That’s a hard number to comprehend.
Now everyone knows a million right
A billion = 1,000 million
A Trillion = 1,000 billion
A quadrillion = 1,000 trillion
OKAY – so a million seconds ago = 12 days ago
How about a billion seconds ago?
(yeah, maybe you’re thinking I am going to say something like last August)
How about March 1979…
How about a trillion seconds ago…
Now your like the 1800’s (no)
Christopher Columbus (no)
Jesus (no)
A trillions seconds ago is 29,000BC
And a quadrillion seconds ago – is 30,800,000 BC
YEAH – a quadrillion is a huge number
And 7 quadrillion earths would fit inside of this one star that our God simply breathed out of his mouth.
AND – if earth were a golf ball that number would cover the entire state of Texas 23 inches deep.
AND WE ARE - just talking about a couple of star in one galaxy among billions of Galaxies.
YOU KNOW – when I consider all of this… A shrinking feeling comes over me…
NOT – a bad shrinking feeling, bad a good shrinking feeling.
BECAUSE SIN – has a way of shrinking God down in our minds and puffing us up in our own estimation.
BUT – just a glance in the universe that God has made, resizes everything in a heartbeat.
I MEAN – you realize B/S that we are worshipping an
Unrivaled, Uncontested God… Of all kind of might and power and glory and awe… and there is none like Him in of creation!!!
NO – we are not hear worshipping some teeny tiny God
We are the teeny tiny ones
We are small and weak, fragile and frail.
We are just one person among 7 billion+ on this golf ball size planet in a massive universe that God has made…
AND YET – though we are but a vapor we are marked by majesty and have ben created in the very image of this God who breathes out stars and put the universe in order.
YES – you and I have been fashioned and formed by the God of all creation…
And as David said in Psalm 139 God knit us in our mothers womb and we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
We are a miracle of creation.
You are a miracle of creation sitting in this room today.
Let me take you back to you very beginning…
This is how you happened.
One cell from your dad found one cell from your mom.
Each one carrying 23 chromosomes
The cell from your dad had ½ of his DNA
And the cell from your mom had ½ of her DNA.
And they merged into one cell. A brand new DNA code began to be written.
SHOWED YOUTUBE VIDEO ‘HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN 2 MINUTES’
DAVID BARLOW
B/S – our God is worthy of your love because He is great…
AND – to see that greatness all we have to do is to look towards the heavens or look in at ourselves…
NOW - by anybody’s standards, the human eye is a marvel.
It’s made up of a hundred million cells. There are seven million special vision cones that fire up information to the brain whenever any degree of light comes their way.
And here’s a little trivia…
On average, how many shades of color can the normal human eye distinguish between? Take a guess.
How many think about a hundred?
A number between hundred to five hundred?
How many of you are afraid to guess?
You know what the right answer is?
A thousand. The average human eye can differentiate between a thousand different shades of color.
AND - Beyond that, our eyes have the most sophisticated auto focusing capability ever designed.
Think about it - we can be sitting in a restaurant and in the space of a mere millisecond, read a menu on the far wall, then focus on the subtle smile forming on the face of our dinner companion, and then spot a hair in our salad.
We can do that in just about that (snap fingers) amount of time. No man-made device can or will ever be able to match the complexity, sophistication, and effectiveness of the human eye.
CONSIDER - your heart…
It has been perfectly designed to pump 2,000 gallons of blood a day. It beats around 100,000 times each day and 3.6 million times every year.
AND - it’s generates enough pressure throughout your body that it squirt blood up to 30 feet…
(Now, I’ve never done this, and would not recommend it)
Look at the kidneys and lungs. Your lungs are more than air sacs--they’re designed to filter oxygen out of the air you breathe. These organs contain 300 billion tiny blood vessels called capillaries. Your entire blood supply washes through your lungs once every minute.
I read that an adult human brain contains over a hundred thousand billion electrical connections – more than all the electrical connections in all the electrical appliances in the world.
Your tongue has 8,000 taste buds. Eating is boring without it.
And check this one out…
If all the DNA in your body were placed end to end, it would stretch from here to the moon… 500,000 times.
And if this densely coded information were placed in type written form it would fill the Grand Canyon… 50 times!
YES – to see the greatness of our God all we need to do is to
Look up
Look in at ourselves, and
Look around at the incredible earth that surrounds us ebvery day.
• Did you know that a caterpillar has 228 separate and distinct muscles in it’s head? That’s quite a few for a bug.
• The avg elm tree has approximately 6 million leaves on it
• AND - how about the way plants defy gravity by drawing water upward from the ground into there veins and stems.
• Or what about the simple fact that plants take in carbon dioxide (which is harmful to us) and produce oxygen (which we need to survive)?
I’m sure you knew that, but have you ever stood in awe and marveled at it?
AND – these same poison-swallowing, life-giving plants came from tiny seeds that were planted in the dirt.
B/S – God is worthy of your love because HE IS GREAT!
AND AGAIN…
To see the greatness of our God all we need to do is to look up toward the heavens, look in at the wonder of our own body and look out and see the incredible earth that surrounds us.
NEXT – God is worthy of your love because…
He is good.
God Is Good
NOW – the word good is used several times in the creation account… IN FACT – after every day of creating God said that is was good!
NOW - I think most people take that to mean that God looked at his handiwork and thought to himself, ‘nice job!’
YOU KNOW – the kind of thing we would say to ourselves after painting a room in our house or building something… That’s good. OR LIKE ME – whenever I make a facebook post or comment.
BUT YOU KNOW – that sounds a little bit silly when you stop to think about it… ‘God saw that the light was good’
LIKE – He didn’t know it was good until He paused to look at it. LIKE – it was an experiment.
OR PERHAPS – he had tried before and it wasn’t good, but this time he got right?
NO – I am not buying that one either…
Another option suggests that creation was good in a moral sense. But that doesn’t really work either.
Dry land isn’t morally good or bad – it’s just dry land.
BUT GOD – declared it good. Good for what?
Good for whom? God?
I MEAN – did God benefit from the division of the land from the sea or from the creation of birds or fish?
Was it for God that certain plants were created for food and others for beauty?
Would God who is Spirit really benefit from either?
NOW – in other parts of Scripture, we discover that all creation declares God’s glory…
BUT – who exactly hears this declaration? We do!
UNDERSTAND –
God declared each phase of creation good, because it was good for us!…
YOU SEE…
Majestic sunsets – those are for us
The seasons that enable us to plant and harvest – those are for us
The variety of fruit and vegetables we enjoy – those are for us
The fish, the shrimp, lobster and scallops – those are for you
The mountains, beaches, lakes, rivers, streams, desert plains, rainforests, sunrises and sunsets…
YEAH – God made all of those for us too.
MGCC
God is good because of this amazing world He created just for us… Amen
I MEAN – He did not have to make it so awesome, but He did because He is good!
NOW – in Psalm 145, David not only talks about God’s greatness…
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can understand. – Psalm 145:3
BUT HE – also talks of God’s goodness…
They will celebrate Your abundant goodness… – Psalm 145:7
AND THEN – David goes on… to declare, to list, to celebrate various examples of God’s abundant goodness.
The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made. – Psalm 145:8,9
Anybody know what Mercy is?
How about grace?
Anybody thankful that God is slow to anger and that His love for you is steadfast and unfailing?
B/S – our God is good and worthy of your love because of His Mercy, His Grace and His steadfast love.
YOU KNOW – I think Jesus’ story of ‘The Prodigal Son’ that we read in Luke 15 is the perfect picture of the crazy goodness of our God.
IN – verse 13 David celebrates another aspect of God’s abundant goodness.
The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made. – Psalm 145:13
B/S – God is loving (you know I Corinthian 13 kind of loving) towards all that He has made (and that includes you) and God keeps His promises!
Romans 8:28
John 14:1-3
Revelation 21:1-6
HEY – check out the goodness of God that David is celebrating in verse 14…
The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts those bent beneath their loads. – Psalm 145:14
B/S
The God that we worship
This star breathing God is God who
• Comes to our side when we have fallen
• And who lifts us when we are bent beneath our loads
Ever been there?
Are you there now?
Guess what so is God.
He sees
He cares
He upholds
He lifts
He says
Come to me all you who are weary
And carry heavy loads
IN – verse 16 David celebrates yet another facet of God’s abundant goodness…
You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. – Psalm 145:16
OH MY B/S… - Our God is so good.
He longs to satisfy our desires
Quench our thirst
Fill our hunger
He wants to do for you what he did for a broken lady in John 4
Give you living water so that you will never thirst again!
AND – David concludes His Psalm of celebration with these words…
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth… He hears their cry and saves them. The LORD watches over all who love him… - Psalm 145:18-20
R U kidding me! This is so insane, that a God who…
Breathes out stars like Canis Majoris
And who spreads out the universe like a curtain
Is a God who is near to all who call on Him…
Yes our God is full of abundant goodness
He hears our cries
And longs to save!
