Back in the 1800s, there was a famous intellectual and agnostic named T.H. Huxley. One weekend when Huxley was with a group of men at a weekend house party, on that Sunday morning, most of theEm were preparing to go to church - Huxley approached a man he knew was a sincere Christian and said, “Suppose you stay at home and tell my why you are a Christian.” The Christian didn’t want to. He knew how skilled an arguer Huxley… and he hesitated. But Huxley smiled and assured him, “I don’t want to argue with you. I just want you to tell me simply what this Christ means to you.” So the man did… and when he finished, Huxley had tears in his eyes. “I would give my right hand if only I could believe that!”
APPLY: This month we’re looking at the great songs of faith - and today’s sermon is based on the hymn “How Great Is Our God” written by Chris Tomlin a mere 16 years ago (back in 2004). It’s a powerful song of praise and it’s a declarative statement. It’s a statement of truth: Our God is great!!!
How GREAT is our God! He is great, He is majestic, He is worthy of praise. As part of the song says “Name above all names/ worthy of our praise. My heart will sing ‘How great is our God!’”
And I love the chorus: “How great is our God, sing with me, how great is our God, and all will see how great, how great is our God.”
But, as I thinking on the title of that hymn somehow it came out different. Instead of a statement, my mind put it in the form of a question: “How Great IS your God?”
How Great is YOUR God? Could you explain to someone - what God means to you? Could you explain why you believe He not only exists, but that He is a GREAT God? I’m not asking if you think you could convince someone to believe it. I’m asking if you could just tell somebody WHY God means so much to you?
That’s sort of what Psalm 145 is all about. David has written a song of praise to God, and in that song, he tells us WHY he believes what he believes.
He writes: “On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.” Psalm 145:5-7
David said “I will declare your greatness” (i.e. – “How Great Is My God”). And one of the reasons that David saw God as being great had to do with the wondrous works David has observed. The majesty of God’s creation.
David had been a shepherd, and he’d spent a lot of his time out underneath the stars. You can almost imagine him (as a young man) laying on a hillside. His father’s sheep are bedded down for the night, and David looks up into the night sky and begins to be filled with wonder.
ILLUS: Abraham Lincoln once wrote: “I never behold (the heavens filled with stars) that I do not feel I am looking in the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up, into the heavens and say there is no God.”
There’s something about a clear night filled with a huge moon and bright shining stars that creates a sense of wonder in most people. And this is probably what inspired David to write: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4
ILLUS: A father told of taking his family to the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. He said the stars seemed so close you felt as if you could touch them. Their 3 boys decided that they would put their sleeping bags out on the ground so they could go to sleep watching the stars. The man and his wife had just settled down for the night when their youngest came into the tent, dragging his sleeping bag with him. What is the matter? Is it getting too cold?" "No," he answered. "I just never knew I was so small." (Reader’s Digest, 9/81 p. 126)
And so you can imagine David looking up at the majesty of the night sky and being filled with awe, and suddenly feeling… REALLY small. How could a God who has created all this beauty be concerned with him? How could such a God be mindful of him or care what happens to him?
And that was the 2nd thing that David said spoke of when he thought on the greatness of his God. He wrote: “The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.” Psalm 145:14-19
Do you know what David was saying? He was saying that he knew that he mattered to God. He speaks of a God Who is there for the those who have struggled in life; those who have beaten down; those who’d been hungry; AND cried out for help.
Why would he mention those kinds of people? I suspect it was because David had struggled, he had been beaten down, he’d been hungry, and he had cried out for help. And when he cried out for help… God was there for him.
That’s why David’s 23rd psalm is so powerful. “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” WHY? Because “Thou art with me!” (Psalm 23:4) David’s been there, he’s done that… he’s got the t-shirt. He’d been through times when he felt death closing in, he’d felt helpless and hopeless, he had cried out to God - and God delivered him!!!
That was David’s testimony: God was GREAT because God had been there for him. And he could tell story after story where his back had been against the wall and God answered his prayers. His testimony wasn’t about how good life was (life isn’t always good). His testimony was that – when life got him down, God lifted him up. And that should be YOUR testimony - your witness. You should be able to tell people HOW God has intervened in your life.
But now, here’s the deal: people who don’t look to God for their help, don’t have that witness. “The LORD is near to all who CALL on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; He also HEARS THEIR CRY and SAVES THEM.” Psalm 145:18-19
ILLUS: I have a cell phone here. I use it to call my son and my daughter, my friends and others. A lot of times I just call to talk. Nothing particular – just talk. And that’s often what prayer is supposed to be… just talking to God.
But every once in a while, I may need some serious help. When that happens what number do you think that I’d dial? (911) And one of the first things I’ll hear on my phone is this: “What is your emergency?” Why are you calling and what kind of help do you need?
Now why would I call 911? Well, first, I have an emergency. But 2ndly I believe they exist, and I believe that they’ll be there for me.
That’s what Hebrews 11 tells us about God: “anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) You must believe he exists, and you must believe he will be there for you. That’s what David is saying Psalm 145 “The LORD is near to all who CALL on him, to all who call on him in truth.”
So 1) David believed God was great because of the wonder of God’s creation. And 2) David believed God was great because of how God had answered his prayers. David knew WHY he believed.
Now the question is… do you? Do you know why you believe? I Peter 3:15 tells us “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” In other words: KNOW WHY you believe. You don’t have to win an argument, or convert the person you talk to - but be ready!!!!
But there’s one more REASON - why you should believe that your God is great - and it’s a reason that even David didn’t have. It’s summed up in another song that speaks of the Greatness of God:
“Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee: How great thou art! How great thou art! And when I think that God, his Son not sparing, sent him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee: How great thou art! How great thou art!”
This is THE most important reason we (as Christians) should declare that our God is great - God sent His only begotten son to bleed and die… to take away our sins.
ILLUS: What I found really interesting about the story of T.H. Huxley was that there were tears in his eyes as said that he would give his right arm if he could just believe what his friend believed. In that story you can sense that Huxley WANTED to believe. (desperately wanted to believe). It was like there was an emptiness inside him, that he suspected only God could fill.
Someone once said “Everybody basically has an empty hole inside of them that they try to fill with money, drugs, alcohol, power – and none of the material stuff works.” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Another man named Blaise Pascal noted that “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”
Psychiatrist Carl Jung noted that “The central neurosis of our time is emptiness.”
Now I tell you all that because - if that’s true (and I believe it is that there’s an emptiness in the lives of people around us) - then, many of the people you talk to on a daily basis feel that emptiness, many of the people you know sense that something is missing. And you have the answer for what they need. You serve a Great God who loved you so much – that He gave His son to remove the shame and emptiness of life, to fill you with His joy and peace.
CLOSE: I read the story of a young salesman who had just lost a major sale. He went to a friend of his father’s (who was into marketing), to ask for guidance. And as he was explaining what he thought had gone wrong he said: “I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” And his dad’s friend smiled and said, “Son, your job’s not to make them drink, it’s to make them thirsty.”
The song we started out this sermon with declared “How Great is Our God… sing with me how Great is our God”; say it with me – how great is our God; believe it with me – how great is our God. It’s only when we passionately believe that truth that we can make the world thirsty… and maybe they’ll come to know the Jesus that can fill the emptiness inside them.
INVITATION
