The God Christians worship is the God who has no limits. That’s hard for us to even imagine, because most of our frustrations in life are a direct result of limitations.
We’re limited by space because we can only be in one place at one time. A recent television commercial for a new minivan shows a guy driving between his son’s swim meet and his daughter’s soccer tournament, and of course the minivan helps him get there at just the right times. I have news for you: they don’t make a minivan fast enough to enable you to be in more than one place at one time.
We’re also limited in our knowledge. The old adage is true, "The more you learn, the more you know how much you don’t know". Living in an information based society like we do, we realize that we’ll never know even a fraction of what we could know. We encounter more information in one issue of The New York Times than a person in 18th century England encountered in his or her entire life. We’re constantly facing circumstances where we don’t know what to do, trying to answer questions we don’t know the answers to.
We also face limitations in our resources. As much as we like to pretend that we’re invincible, all of us have a breaking point; all of us reach the point of being physically exhausted, mentally spent, spiritually empty, and financially busted. We’re overwhelmed with the needs around us, whether it’s the transient at the gas station or a co-worker who can’t meet his rent, yet we look at our own resource and realize how limited they are.
Because we’re so accustomed to these kinds of limitations it’s hard for us to conceive of a God who isn’t bothered by limitations. We’ve been in a series on God’s attributes called SIMPLY GOD. Two weeks ago we looked at God as three-in-one. Today we’re going to look at God as the God who has no limits. We’re going to focus in on the fact that the Bible teaches that God is not limited by space, knowledge and power, and what this means to our everyday lives.
1. God Not Limited By Space (Jeremiah 23:23-24).
We’re going to see in Jeremiah that God is not limited by space. Jeremiah chapter 23 deals with God’s condemnation of false prophets who claim to speak in God’s name but who speak lies.
Jeremiah 23:21 says, "I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied." These false prophets were giving the nation of Israel false hope, because they were speaking lies in God’s name, comforting lies, but lies nonetheless. Apparently these false prophets thought that God didn’t see what they were doing.Here God reveals that he’s a God who’s everywhere.
Jeremiah 23:23-24—"Am I only a God nearby," declares the LORD, "and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?" declares the LORD. "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the LORD (NIV).
Back in the ancient world gods were thought to be localized to their own domain, usually indicated by a temple or a shrine. It was commonly thought if you went beyond a particular god’s territory you were no longer under that god’s protection. But here we find that God describes himself as being both near and far. These false prophets have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. God fills heaven and earth, which means there’s no place in the universe that God is not present in.
God has no spatial limits because God is not composed of physical matter. God doesn’t have spatial properties like size, weight, and height because God is Spirit, not physical matter. Because of God’s nature, He’s personally present in every place.
As Christians we sometimes forget that God is already present. We tend to think of God’s presence is being like a NASA spy satellite. The satellite is roaming around the atmosphere, present one day, gone the next. You never know when it’s here and when it’s not.
Sometimes our worship songs reflect a misunderstanding of God’s presence. When we ask God to "come" and "fill this place" we’re not asking God to be more present now then he was yesterday or last week. God is as present here today as he ever has been and ever will be. When we sing these words we’re not asking God to be present, we’re asking God to make his presence known, to draw us into an awareness of his presence, to help us experience his presence as we worship.
That brings us to the implication of God having no spatial limits. SINCE GOD HAS NO SPATIAL LIMITS, WE CAN BE CONFIDENT OF HIS PRESENCE.
We don’t have to beg and plead with God to show up, we don’t have to worry a Sunday might come when doesn’t show up in our worship. Since God isn’t limited by space, we can draw near to him at any time, in any place. God is as present today in the tattoo parlor as he is in our worship service. God is as present today in the adult bookstores as he is on the seminary campus, as present in the bedroom as he is in the chapel, as present on the battlefield as he is at the peace negotiation table.
We can be absolutely confident of this reality, that God is always present with us wherever we are. We may not always feel His presence, we may even feel alone, but we can be confident that He’s here.
One of the lines from our church vision statement says we view worship as "celebrating Christ’s presence." Think about that: "Celebrating Christ’s presence." We don’t have to beg and plead for Him to be with us, we don’t have to know just the right words or have a secret formula. He’s is already here, and we gather to celebrate that reality, to encounter together the living God as we worship. And when we do that people are changed: Seekers find Christ, skeptics are convinced, strugglers are strengthened, hard hearts are melted, broken relationships are mended. When we celebrate Christ’s presence, we’re changed, because suddenly we realize God was already here.
Now the technical term for this reality is OMNIPRESENCE, which means that God is personally present in all places. This is a Latin word, with "omni" meaning "all" and "presence" meaning—oddly enough—"presence."
This reality can bring you comfort or cause you grief depending on how you look at it. If you’re seeking God it’s a wonderful assurance, but if you’re trying to run from God it’s a powerful warning.Christian historian Skevinton Wood says, "We can never talk about God behind his back. We cannot speak of God in his absence...To deny Him is to spite Him to His face" (Wood Christianity Today Vol. 36, no. 12).
Because God is omnipresent, we can be confident in His presence.
2. God Not Limited In Knowledge (Rom 11:33).
But God is not only unlimited with regard to space, but he’s also unlimited in regard to knowledge. Romans 9-11 are among the most difficult chapters in the New Testament. In these chapters Paul struggles with the question of whether the nation of Israel’s rejection of Jesus as their Messiah implies a failure of God to keep his promises. Paul struggles with the role of Israel in God’s plan, and how Israel’s failure to trust Jesus opened the door to non-Jewish people to trust Jesus. Throughout these chapters Paul grapples with the mystery of God’s election, and this mystery is so complex and controversial, some people just assume avoid these chapters altogether.
But after grappling with these mysteries, look how Paul concludes his discussion:
Romans 11:33—Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (NIV).
After Paul stretches his thinking to the limit, he breaks into spontaneous praise about God’s infinite knowledge and wisdom. The phrase "the depth of the riches" pictures God’s wisdom and knowledge as being like a gold or silver mine with no bottom, riches with no bottom.
God’s wisdom is God’s ability to weave our free decisions into His plan in such a way as to fulfill his will (Godet). For instance, even though Israel freely rejected Jesus as their Messiah, God used their rejection as a way to reach non-Jewish people with the good news of Christ, which fulfilled God’s plan. Only an infinitely wise intelligence could do that.
God’s knowledge is his inexhaustible understanding. The infinite depth of God’s wisdom and knowledge make it impossible for limited, finite creatures like us to figure God out.
I used to think I had to answer people’s questions about God’s decisions and God’s ways. Why did God create Adam and Eve with the ability to sin? Why did God make a world where there’s such a thing as AIDS? Why didn’t God heal my daughter? Why did my marriage fail?I used to try to answer these questions, but my answers sounded hollow, like cliches and pat answers. But here I find that God’s knowledge is infinite, and because his knowledge is infinite and mine is limited, I can’t figure out why he does what he does.
Now what does God’s infinite knowledge include? God knows the past, every skeleton, every failure, every moment. God knows the present, everything currently happening and how it all fits together. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig says, "With regard to things present, nothing escapes the knowledge of God…But God does not merely observe what goes on in the created order; he understands it" (22).
God knows the future, he knows exactly how the story’s going to end. Personally I also think God knows all possibilities. I believe in what some Christian thinkers call middle knowledge, which is simply that God not only knows what will happen, but he also knows what would happen in other circumstances. For instance, God knows what kind of a father I would be if I had four daughters instead of four sons. William Lane Craig says, "He knows all the possible individuals he could create, all the possible circumstances he could place them in, all their possible actions and reactions, and all the possible worlds…he could create. God could not lack this knowledge and still be God" (129).
If God knows everything, what impact will that have on our lives? SINCE GOD HAS NO LIMITS IN HIS KNOWLEDGE, WE CAN TRUST THE WISDOM OF HIS PLAN.
Have you ever seen a tapestry before? On one side it’s usually a beautiful picture or complex design, but from the back all you can see are a bunch of threads, knots, and material scraps that seem to make no sense. From the back, a tapestry looks ugly, but from the front, seeing the entire picture, it’s beautiful. Think of your life as being like that tapestry, and God sees the finished product—the design on the front—but because we’re limited in our knowledge all we see is the back, the knotted thread and material scraps.
From the back, we don’t understand how it all fits together.
The fact that God has all knowledge—that he sees the completed tapestry from the front—gives us the ability to trust his plan when it doesn’t make sense from our perspective.
When people we care about die, can’t see how it makes sense. When painful circumstances crush us, fracturing our hope, robbing our joy, and spurning our love, we wonder what in the world God is up to. It helps to remember that God knows, he knows everything, even thing things I don’t know.
The technical term for this is OMNISCIENCE, which simply means that God knows all things, both actual and possible. This word comes from the word "omni" which means "all" and "science" which is the Latin word for "knowledge."
In recent years some Christians have rejected the idea that God is omniscient, that he has all knowledge. Some people who hold to what they call an "open view" of God, and these people claim that God doesn’t know the future (Pinnock 122). They claim that the Bible teaches that the future is open and unknown, and that God is sometimes surprised by our actions and has to change his plan in order to fit our decisions. This view holds that God can actually learn things from creation. Unfortunately, this open view of God is growing in popularity among Christians. But if God doesn’t know everything, then how can we trust his plan? This "open" view of God is a lot like the God pop singer Joan Osborne sings about in her song "One of Us." This is a God who’s winging it as he goes along, a God who’s trying to figure out his way in life.
I can’t trust someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing because that kind of God is apt to make the same kind of mistakes I make. But I can trust the wisdom of God’s plan if God is as the Bible claims he is, the all-knowing God.
3. No Limits to His Power (Matthew 19:26).
God’s not only unlimited in space and knowledge, but he’s also unlimited in his power. The setting of this passage is Jesus’ meeting with a wealthy young man. Jesus invites this rich man to sell of his possessions and to become a Christian, a follower of Jesus. But the man rejects Jesus’ invitation and walks away. Jesus turns to his followers and says that its harder for a rich person to be made right with God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, which of course is impossible.
In Jesus’ day it was commonly believed that rich people were especially blessed by God, that riches were an infallible sign of God’s favor. So Jesus’ disciples respond by saying, "If it’s impossible for rich people to be made right with God, how can anyone?"
Look at Jesus’ answer to their question:
Matthew 19:26—Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
From a human perspective, it’s impossible for anyone to be made right with God, rich or poor. But with God anything is possible. God is the God of the impossible, the God who makes all things a possibility.
The way the Old Testament emphasizes this reality is with the title El Shaddai, which is a Hebrew phrase translated "God Almighty" in our English Bibles. God is unlimited in his resources; he has all power.
Now some people have questioned this. Nikos Kazantzakas, the guy who wrote the novel The Last Temptation of Christ, says, "My God is not Almighty. He struggles, for he is in peril every moment…He is defeated incessantly" (cited in Bloesch 245). The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead claims, "God depends on the efforts of humans for his growth and meaning" (Bloesch 245). And then of course there’s the age old question, "Can God make a rock so heavy that even he can’t lift it?" If the answer is no, God can’t make such a rock, then God lacks power. But if the answer is yes, God can make such a rock, then He also lacks power. Of course this is just a self contradictory statement that doesn’t really describe an actual action, but it’s just a collection of words (Erickson 176). This is like saying that unless God can do contradictory things then He can’t be God, which of course is silly. I’m glad God doesn’t do contradictory things, because if he did we couldn’t trust him to keep his promises.
The consistent teaching of the Bible is that God is able to do anything consistent with his character. For instance, while God can’t lie or break his promises, because that would violate his character, God does have sufficient power to cause anything he wants to bring about. God has no limits to his power.
What does this imply for us? SINCE GOD HAS NO LIMITS IN HIS POWER, WE CAN EXPECT HIS INTERVENTION IN OUR LIVES.
God is working to bring about his will, to fulfill his purposes, and he has all the resources he needs to accomplish his will. Because of this, we can anticipate God working in our lives, often in surprising ways. We can anticipate God bringing about amazing circumstances in our lives. We can expect to even see God intervene miraculously in our lives. We can anticipate divine appointments in our lives, where our path crosses with someone else at just the right time.
This describes God’s OMNIPOTENCE, which means that God is able to do anything consistent with his character. Again this is a Latin word, with "omni" meaning "all" and "potent" which is Latin for "power." God is all powerful, able to use whatever means he deems necessary to accomplish his will.
In our church vision statement, there’s a line that reads, "We believe God wants our church to be a place where our passion for God inspires us to believe God for the impossible." This means our church will never be a play it safe kind of church, but God will always be leading us to take new risks, to venture out into new territory. The moment our vision for the future is no longer God sized, at that moment we cease really believing in God’s omnipotence. When our church started in 1971 our members had a God-sized vision of being a lighthouse for Christ to this Inland Valley; when twenty families collectively bought this property for $380,000 in 1977 they had a God sized vision; when we moved ahead to build this new facility in 1996, we had a God sized vision. I’m not saying we should take foolish risks, but I am saying that part of believing in God’s omnipotence as a church means having a God sized vision for the future, a vision that’s doomed to fail unless God intervenes, a vision that’s impossible unless God is in it. I know many of you share that vision with us, that you too believe our God is a God of the impossible, and we will reflect his omnipotence by anticipating his intervention, not only in our personal lives, but also in our church.
We worship the God who has no limits. While we are limited by space, our knowledge, and our resources, God knows no such limits. As the all present God we can be confident of his presence; as the all knowing God we can trust the wisdom of his plan; and as the all powerful God we can expect his intervention in our lives and in our church. This is the God we worship.
Sources
Bloesch, Donald. 1995. God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness and Love. InterVarsity Press.
Craig, William Lane. 1999. The Only Wise God: The Compatability of Divine Knowledge and Human Freedom. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Erickson, Millard. 1998. God the Father Almighty: A Contemporary Exploration of the Divine Attributes. Baker Books.
Pinnock, Clark, with R. Rice, J. Sanders, W. Hasker and D. Basinger. 1994. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. InterVarsity Press.
