Your God Is Too Small!

YOUR GOD IS TOO SMALL!

Acts 17:24-31

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR:

1. Two ropes walk into a restaurant to get something to eat . The waiter leans over to address the first rope and asks, "Are you one of them ropes?"

2. "Why yes," quavers the rope. "We don’t serve ropes here," growls the waiter, grabbing the rope, twirling him around his head, and throwing him out the door.

3. The second rope decides that he had best disguise himself, so he ruffles his threads and twists his two ends together.

4. Glaring, the waiter looks at the second rope and asks, "You one of them ropes?" "No!" was the indignant reply. "I’m a frayed knot!"

B. TEXT

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[Epimenides] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[Aratus]. 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

C. THESIS

1. Today I’m asking the question, “Is Your God Too Small?” Many Christians are half-hearted because they don’t know the True God.

2. We’re going to see that the True God will incite our wonder, He’ll be a God we feel honored to serve, and that He’s big enough to meet any need we have.

3. The title of this message is, “Is Your God Too Small?”

I. A GREAT GOD INCITES OUR WONDER

A. STARVING FOR PERSPECTIVE

1. What drives people to go way out in the deserts of Arizona to see the Grand Canyon? They want to see something bigger than themselves! Why do they go to Niagara Falls? To see something majestic, mighty, staggering!

2. Bible translator J. B. Phillips wrote a book entitled “Your God Is Too Small.” In it he discusses how today we don’t have a God big enough for our modern needs.

3. “Our mental horizons have been expanded…but our ideas of God have remained largely static.” Our ‘God-in-a-box’ notion limits God to such a degree that we’re left inwardly dissatisfied or spiritually unmoved.

B. THE BIBLE’S GOD IS IMMENSE

1. The God of the Bible is a God described by words like “Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Infinite, Eternal, and Immortal,” to mention only a few.

2. But no words can adequately picture the immensity of God. He’s so big that we don’t even have the proper words to describe his bigness. He’s bigger than our biggest words and grander than our grandest concepts.

3. All around us are the signs of His POWER:

a. GOD’S VASTNESS -is seen in the physical universe which seems to have no limits and includes hundreds of billions of galaxies!

b. HIS POWER -- is mirrored in the great flaming orbs of the stars, in the power of the Sea and of the Wind (hurricanes, tornadoes).

c. HIS HOLINESS – is seen in the pristine purity of the highest, most remote mountain peak.

d. HIS ETERNITY – is seen in the measureless eons of time.

e. HIS TRUTH – is pictured in the brilliance of pure light, which exposes all defects.

4. WHAT OTHERS SAW:

a. Moses saw Him at the Burning Bush.

b. Isaiah saw Him at the Temple.

c. Ezekiel saw Him on the plains of Babylon.

d. Deborah the prophetess saw Him in prophetic vision.

e. John saw Him on the island of Patmos.

f. Paul saw Him on the Damascus road.

5. All these men/women did great works because of their revelation of God.

6.”Oh the depths of the wisdom of God.” Paul, who knew God better than most, said that it’s as if we stand on the edge of God’s vastness and can only stare into its great depth, beyond our fathoming.

7. At the ocean, we enjoy getting into it, as long as we can feel the sand under our feet, yet are afraid of being suspended over its great trenches.