HOW BIG IS GOD?
Isaiah 66:1
INTRO: “How Big is God?” The song writer, Doris Akers, asked and then attempted to answer that question in a song. Akers compared God’s bigness to the mightiest ocean, the tallest of trees, the broadest of rivers, the deepest of seas, and the highest of mountains. I like that song. But it falls far short of telling how big God is.
Men worship gods of every size and shape. They bend, bow, pray and worship gods they have made with their own hands and named from their own minds. The Chinese make a statue of a little fat man, call him Buddha then point at that and say, “there is my God.” The Hindu follows a cow across a green field and points at it (and everything else that moves) and says, “there is my God.” All the God they have is just what they see. If the bigness of those gods is based upon their ability to answer prayer and bless the worshiper; not one of them is as big as a hydrogen atom. If you serve Jehovah today, just how big do you think He is?
I. ISRAEL THOUGHT THEY KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT THE BIGNESS OF GOD.
A. They tried to make His bigness known by the names they used to speak of Him.
1. Yahweh (Jehovah) is the name they used for Him and like all O.T. names, it has a meaning. It means: “He who is at one with the limitless, unbounded universe because He has created it.” This name for God appears only four times in the scripture and held such awe for the Jews that some writers claim that they uttered it only once a year and then only in the Jerusalem temple.
2. One of the most beautiful names Israel used for God is ELSHADDAH; the literal meaning of which is simply “ALMIGHTY GOD.” Made from the two words EL, meaning the strong and mighty one and SHADDAH, or the breasted one. Clearly, to the mind of every Israelite God was a big God.
B. I am sure that everyone in the Old Testament who had one encounter with God thought they were in the presence of a mighty big God. Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, etc.
II. GOD NEVER SHOWED HIS BIGNESS ANY MORE CLEARLY THAN HE DID IN BETHLEHEM.
A. To the natural eye it looked like just another tiny baby laying in a manger crib. But he was no ordinary baby. Laying in that manger was one who represented to the fullest everything contained in every name Israel used to speak of God..
B. The natural eye would reveal only another infant child, but the spiritual eye observes that here lay the only hope of eternal salvation for a lost and dying world.
C. In every way he looked like just another infant human baby.. But what that manager held was the crucified savior just as surely as if He had already hung on the cross.
D. God help us to at least see Him in the bigness He showed then!
III. WHAT I WANT TO ASK YOU IS, “HOW BIG IS YOUR GOD?”
1. The real answer to that may lie in how big a role He plays in your life minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
2. If your can see God as big enough to make a universe, Surely He is also big enough to be worth offering Him your body as a living sacrifice.
3. If your can see him as big enough to put the stars in place, is he not also big enough to save your lost loved ones?
4. If you can see Him as big enough to lead Israel out of Egypt’s bondage, is He not also big enough to set you free from whatever it is that binds you and saps your victory?
5. If your can see Him as big enough to fill you with the Holy Spirit then can you not also see Him as big enough to work His spiritual gifts through you?
6. If you can see God as big enough to be due lip service of praise and glory is He not also big enough to be worthy of your total commitment?
7. If God is big enough to hear and accept the vows you made when he saved you and you joined His church; is he not also big enough to expect you to keep them?
8. It may be that someone here has not yet seen God as big enough to save your soul.
CONC: God is just as big as you think he is. Your thinking will not change his size but it will change your life. That change will happen in proportion to what you think about him. That is what determines what you will do with him. How big is God to you?
