Overwhelmed
(Romans 11:33-36)
1. The subject of living for God is important. But a lot of times, we want to rush Christians into the Christian life without helping them understand the God they serve.
2. The study of God and His works is called “Theology.” The Greek word for God is “Theos,” which appears in such names as Theodore.
3. The “Logy” part comes from the Greek word, “Logos” which means word or logic or science. So Theology is a logical word about God.
Main Idea: Right Theology, if embraced and allowed to permeate our minds and hearts, produces right worship, a right attitude toward God. The Spirit can then use the right theology and the right attitude toward God to coax us along to surrender ourselves to Him.
I. God’s Sovereignty and Omniscience Should Wow Us to the Point that We BOW Down Before Him (33-34)
1. His wisdom is both RICH and DEEP (33a)
We humans have limits on our wisdom, but our stupidity can be limitless.
God’s wisdom is limitless
2. His KNOWLEDGE is as deep as His wisdom (33b)
The Greek word sophia is translated as wisdom; we get our word “sophistication” from the Greek Word; the Greek word, gnosis, means knowledge. The Greek letter “a” negates words, so an agnostic is someone who does not know.
· Knowledge would be information. He knows all things.
· Wisdom is cleverness, the ability to use and apply knowledge to achieve desired results
· I know some really smart people who do not seem to have even a little sense
· I know some now so smart people who have the wisdom to make good decisions
· I know others who seem to have both…God has both to an infinite degree…
3. His judgments, as sovereignly demonstrated, are UNSEARCHABLE (33c)
***We have to get over this hangup that says, “If I can’t understand it or it doesn’t make sense to me, it can’t be true…”
4. His pathways are BEYOND tracing out (33d)
The Newsboys, a contemporary Christian group, wrote and sang these lyrics:
there’s no use explaining what can’t be contained
I’m not following a God I can lead around
I can’t tame this Deity
That’s why Jesus is the final answer
To who I want my God to be
He’s who (I want my God to be)
And there’s no use explaining what can’t be contained
How we gonna work this out?
To fabricate a God like this no doubt
We’d end up worshipping a Christ of our own design
But Jesus doesn’t fit that profile
His ways aren’t mine
I’m not following a God that’s imagined
Can’t invent His deity
That’s why Jesus is the final answer
To who I want my God to be
He’s who I want my God to be
Lyrics by Steve Taylor & Peter Furler
5. God has a MIND, but non one can FATHOM it (34a)
---God is not some IMPERSONAL BEING, but a THINKING, FEELING, and DECIDING BEING
6. No one is capable of ADVISING Him or CORRECTING Him (34b)
Application: The kind of worship that overwhelms us comes from Bible study, and the kind of Bible study that pleases God sometimes OVERWHELMS us.
Applications
(1) We must accept that we cannot fully understand God; if we think we do, we have simplified God and distorted Him
Deuteronomy 29
29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
Isaiah 55 8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
(2) Those who reject the Majestic, omniscient, and sovereign God may worship God, but not exactly the God of the Bible…
Steven Curtis Chapman put it this way in one of his songs, “God Is God And I Am Not.”
Right Theology, if embraced and allowed to permeate our minds and hearts, produces right worship, a right attitude toward God.
II. God’s ASEITY (35-36)
1. God is SELF DERIVED
2. He NEEDS nothing from His creation
3. You really cannot GIVE God anything (the best we can do is RETURN what He has given us (35)
· One of the cutest experiences of parenthood has to be when a young child gives you something for your birthday or Christmas…pictures, toys, stones…it is so cute you just can’t contain the warmth you feel…that’s the best we can do to give to God…
· When we contribute toward the offering, we are giving God back some of what He has given us…and it pleases Him, not because He needs it, but because He sees our loyalty and love for Him…
· Acts 17
25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
4. He can never be in DEBT to us. This means we can never CONTROL Him.
· Some people give in order to be owed….
· People do not like to be in the position of feeling like they owe another…
· Which is more likely to get someone out to church? To have a church group come by and mow their lawn, or to ask them to help with Operation Christmas Child? The latter, not the former…
· This is true in child rearing; a balance amount of chores, etc., helps kids self-esteem and helps bond them to parents…despite some whining…
· But with God, He can never be in our debt
· In one sense, we are always in His debt; in another sense, debt is no longer a big issue because of Calvary…so we are free to relate to Him out of love…
5. Since God is the UNCREATED source of creation, all creation is VULNERABLE to Him (36)
· BERTRAND RUSSELL made a logical error in his book, “Why I Am Not A Christian.” He argued:
--If everything needs a cause, then so does God
--If everything does not need a cause, then neither does the world.
--But in either case, we need not conclude there is a First Cause of the world
The mistake was in his first statement, “Everything has a cause.”
The Correct statement would be: “Everything that begins has a cause.”
Since God did not begin, He does not have a cause!
(summarized from Come Let Us Reason by Norman Geisler & Ronald Brooks
· He is the SOURCE of all things (from Him)
· He is the agency of creation (through Him)
· He is the reason why creation came to be (to Him)
6. We AFFIRM that He is worthy of all the glory. Since this glory is reserved for Him alone, it explains WHY we should worship no one but Him. Only He, as FATHER, SON, and HOLY SPIRIT is worthy.
CONCLUSION
1. We can see here that WORSHIP is an ATTITUDE. It is not music, dance, drama, preaching, or praying. We can worship with and during such activities – if we have an attitude that is IMPRESSED with the nature and works of God.
2. Whenever we contemplate what is special about God, we are worshipping.
3. Right Theology, if embraced and allowed to permeate our minds and hearts, produces right worship, a right attitude toward God.
4. We then need to put that theology to work but letting it hit us, time and time again. As we rehearse Who God is and what is special about Him, as we contemplate His works in the past, present, or future,
5. John Stott put it this way: “The worship of God is evoked, informed and inspired by the vision of God. Worship without theology is bound to degenerate into idolatry. Hence the indispensable place of Scripture in both public worship and private devotion. It is the Word of God which calls forth the worship of God.”
