God’s infinity
Introduction
1. Many folks do not take God seriously.
2. They joke about Him, misuse His Name as a figure of speech, or reserve Him for situations that parallel fire alarms: "in case of emergency, break glass."
3. The Bible tells us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." That fear is the fear of reverence and respect, and meshes with the Biblical teaching that, for the believer, God is Abba, Father. We do not dread His rejection, for we are completely accepted once we are in Christ, but we stand in AWE of Him, and we are aware that He lovingly disciplines us.
4. Some Christians are like the man in the following true story:
C.R. Smith was one of the founders of American Airlines, and he once made a stopover in Nashville, Tennessee. When he did, he found two desks in the American Airlines corridor of the airport. On one, a phone was ringing away. Sitting at the other, with his feet propped up, was a man reading the newspaper.
Smith walked up to him and said, ¡§Your phone is ringing.¡¨
¡§That¡¦s reservations. I¡¦m maintenance,¡¨ the man replied.
Furious, Smith walked over to the desk, picked up the phone, and began talking to a man who urgently needed to get to California. Smith rattled off the schedule from memory to the man and hung up. The man from maintenance couldn¡¦t believe it!
¡§Say, that was pretty good!¡¨ he said. ¡§Do you work for American?¡¨
¡§Yes, I do,¡¨ Smith answered. ¡§And you used to.¡¨
5. Last week, we considered the reality that God does as He pleases, that He does not need us but is complete in Himself, and that His All Knowing and All Powerful attributes guarantee Him success in all He purposes to do.
6. Today, we are going to contemplate the INFINITY of God.
Psalm 147:5 reads, " Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit."
7. That term, "has no limit" is a good definition of what we mean by infinite.
8. The human mind cannot really conceive of the infinite; we can think of a long time, a great amount of power, or a mass of knowledge; but nothing we deal with in daily life is limitless. We can believe God is limitless, but we cannot truly grasp all that this entails.
MAIN IDEA: The infinity and limitlessness of God is beyond our ability to picture in our minds, yet we can embrace these truths of Scripture with our limited understanding and worship God all the more zealously as we become overwhelmed with Who He is.
TS----------„³ Although every attribute of God can be extended outward to an infinite degree, God’s infinity can be better understood by looking at it from several angles.
I. Creaturely Limitations: We Should Not Expect to Fully Grasp These Deep Things About God because We Are Not Infinite
1. Psalms 36:5-6 reads, "Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast."
2. Turn with me to Romans 11:33; this verse is so deep that when we read it, we typically gloss over it
3. Psalms 139:4-6, "Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
4. If you think you truly grasp the Trinity or the Nature of God, you have an arrogance problem. We can understand some of the facts God has revealed about Himself, but not the extent of those facts.
The infinity and limitlessness of God is beyond our ability to picture in our minds, yet we can embrace these truths of Scripture with our limited understanding and worship God all the more zealously as we become overwhelmed with Who He is.
II. God Is Infinite When It Comes to Time
1. Time is "limited duration, measured by succession, either of time or motion."
2. God has no need of time but He observes time in His dealings with Creation.
3. Time and space are created entities¡Kturn to Romans 8:28
(1) this means that, although God is eternal if we use a time reference, God is outside the realm of time; He not only knows what will happen, but He is present at all times at once
4. If you cannot understand this, remember our first point!
If a sparrow flew to the Atlantic Ocean and filled his little beak with water; and then flew all the way across the United States to the Pacific Ocean and emptied his beak, then rested for 1,000 years; Then he flew back to the Atlantic, filled his beak, flew to the Pacific, emptied his beak; and continued this process until the entire Atlantic Ocean was emptied into the Pacific Ocean, resting for 1,000 years between trips, and then put all the water back, after he was done not one day of eternity would have passed!
5. We are eternal in the sense that we will live forever
(1) math class: a ray verses a line
(2) but God exists outside the realm of time
6. So if we use this created entity time as a reference, we can say that there was a time when there was no time, but God was there before that time and always¡K
Psalms 90:2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
NIV Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."
Do you feel overwhelmed? I do.
The infinity and limitlessness of God is beyond our ability to picture in our minds, yet we can embrace these truths of Scripture with our limited understanding and worship God all the more zealously as we become overwhelmed with Who He is.
III. God Is Infinite When It Comes to Space
1. God’s substance surpasses all spatial limitations; He does not have dimension or size
NIV 1 Kings 8:27 "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!
NIV Isaiah 66:1 This is what the LORD says: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?
NIV Acts 7:48-49
48 "However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
49 "`Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be?
2. More than one universe can exist in the same space¡K.the spiritual can exist within and around the physical
(1) most of what we see is actually force, not matter¡K
3. Though God is everywhere, He is transcendent
(1) What do we mean by "transcendent?" R.C. Sproul tells us
transcendence means literally, "to climb across." It is defined as "exceeding the usual limits." When we speak of the transcendence of God we are talking about that sense in which God is above and beyond us. He is higher than the world. He has absolute power over the world. The world has no power over Him. Transcendence describes God in His consuming majesty, His exalted loftiness. He is an infinite cut above everything else. [The Holiness of God p. 55]
(2) It also means "separateness" (the heresy of pantheism)
Heh, I’m not making this up. People really believe that.
(3) God is the being Who has always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; everything else is created; He is the creator and above His creation; He is much greater than the sum total of all He has made, more powerful than the combined power of every atom combined, more eternal than the universe, more creative than all men from all time put together¡K.He transcends all¡K
4. God is present in different ways:
(1) He is present everywhere (omnipresence)
Psalms 139:7-10, "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast."
(2) His localized presence is in heaven
(3) He specially indwells the believer: Colossians 1:27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others.
-- A. W. Tozer
(4) When we come to know Christ, we are indwelt by all 3 Persons of the Trinity in a way we were not indwelt before we were saved
The infinity and limitlessness of God is beyond our ability to picture in our minds, yet we can embrace these truths of Scripture with our limited understanding and worship God all the more zealously as we become overwhelmed with Who He is.
CONCLUSION
1. This great God we serve is infinite.
2. He is large enough to fill the universe and beyond, yet personal enough to live within your being¡K.
3. Do you personally know this God? Do you have a relationship with Him?
4. That is why Jesus died, to remove the sin that separates you from God¡K.
