Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Unsearchable, Unfathomable, and Unmatched! │ Msg 2744

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Unsearchable, Unfathomable, and Unmatched! │ Msg 2744 · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

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  Speaker 1: I hope you did not miss the great theology in
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  Speaker 1: those hymns we sang. That last line is magnificent. While
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  Speaker 1: all that borrows life from thee is ever in thy
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  Speaker 1: care and everywhere that man or woman can be, thou
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  Speaker 1: God art present there. I want to thank Isaac Watts
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  Speaker 1: for the introduction to my message today. That is absolutely
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  Speaker 1: right on target. It's not my message, it's the Apostle Paul's,
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  Speaker 1: given to him by the Holy Spirit. One of the
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  Speaker 1: magnificent scriptures in all the Bible is now laid out
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  Speaker 1: before us in these last few verses of Romans chapter 11.
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  Speaker 1: When you locate the passage of scripture, I would invite you,
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  Speaker 1: out of respect for God and his word, to please
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  Speaker 1: stand as I read for you this section of scripture.
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  Speaker 1: we're reading from the inspired word of God. Romans 11,
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  Speaker 1: verse 30. For just as you once were disobedient to God,
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  Speaker 1: but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience,
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  Speaker 1: so these also now have been disobedient, that because of
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  Speaker 1: the mercy shown to you, they also may now be
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  Speaker 1: shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience,
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  Speaker 1: so that he may show mercy to all. Oh, the
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  Speaker 1: depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable
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  Speaker 1: his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord,
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  Speaker 1: or who became his counselor? Or who has first given
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  Speaker 1: to him that it might be paid back to him again?
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  Speaker 1: For from him and through him And to him are
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  Speaker 1: all things. To him be the glory forever. And all
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  Speaker 1: God's people said, amen. Remain standing, please. There are special
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  Speaker 1: times of worship that are set aside for the people
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  Speaker 1: of God. One of them is for the offering. This
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  Speaker 1: church doesn't exist to get everyone's money. This church exists
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  Speaker 1: for the glory of God, and we say that without
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  Speaker 1: any sense of false piety. We come for God's glory.
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  Speaker 1: We come to magnify His name, to obey His word,
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  Speaker 1: to receive from Him direction and guidance. If you're here
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  Speaker 1: without Christ and you're visiting with us, come again. Come often,
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  Speaker 1: but don't give. It's the responsibility of God's people to
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  Speaker 1: support God's word. To give as he directs us, for
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  Speaker 1: some it's 10%, for others it's 20%, even 30%. It's
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  Speaker 1: never a tip. It's never just a stray dollar or
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  Speaker 1: $ 5 bill. It's giving sacrificially, just as we give our
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  Speaker 1: lives first to him. May we bow in adoration of
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  Speaker 1: our great God. Of you and through you and to you,
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  Speaker 1: For all things. Only to you be the glory. So
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  Speaker 1: Father today. Be our hope.
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  Speaker 2: Our hope.
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  Speaker 1: Not only for strength today. But for guidance this week.
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  Speaker 1: Be thou our forgiveness. We all come as. As sinners.
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  Speaker 1: As sinners. We're not pleased with it. We're cursed by it,
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  Speaker 1: but it's true. And part of that curse has been
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  Speaker 1: acted out this week in every one of our lives.
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  Speaker 1: Be our forgiveness, Father. Be our joy. So little around
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  Speaker 1: us provides it. You be that for us, our Father.
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  Speaker 1: Be our provider.
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  Speaker 2: Remind us that what we have is not our own.
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  Speaker 1: It's all on loan. We'll carry none of it with
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  Speaker 1: us to the grave. So open our hearts and open
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  Speaker 1: our hands and open our wallets. Be our provider. Now
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  Speaker 1: be our vision, O Lord of our hearts. In the
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  Speaker 1: name of Jesus, we give and we pray. And all
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  Speaker 1: God's people said. It was Socrates who said on one
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  Speaker 1: occasion when realizing he could not put the truths into words,
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  Speaker 1: words are stupid things. At times we realize that more
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  Speaker 1: than others. It always occurs when we come to that
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  Speaker 1: place in life when we cannot describe in human vocabulary
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  Speaker 1: with sufficient superlatives what it is we're trying to communicate.
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  Speaker 1: The Himalayan mountain peaks range four and a half to
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  Speaker 1: five and a half miles above sea level. They have
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  Speaker 1: been the climbers' dream since the beginning of the whole
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  Speaker 1: thought of climbing, though no one attempted to scale the
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  Speaker 1: peaks until 1920. And between 1920 and 1953, 11 expeditions
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  Speaker 1: were attempted. The first 10 were failures. One of them
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  Speaker 1: was attempted by two men, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine.
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  Speaker 1: They were last sighted at 28,200 feet, still 1,000 feet
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  Speaker 1: below the peak of Everest, and they never returned. They
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  Speaker 1: were lost forever. It was 29 years later before finally
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  Speaker 1: Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, took
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  Speaker 1: on that task. On the 29th of May, 1953, for
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  Speaker 1: the first time in all of time, a human boot
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  Speaker 1: was felt at the peak of Everest, 29,028 feet above
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  Speaker 1: sea level. The freezing, wind-beaten peak of Mount Everest felt
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  Speaker 1: its first human foot. And unlike the one who stepped
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  Speaker 1: on the moon, Edmund Hillary, to my knowledge, never recorded
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  Speaker 1: what he saw. He told of the climb, but I've
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  Speaker 1: never read in all my research the words he used
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  Speaker 1: to describe what he saw and what he felt. I
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  Speaker 1: would say the reason is because words are stupid things.
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  Speaker 1: When trying to describe the panoramic peaks of the Himalayas,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps only one could really identify with him. 1900 years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: the Apostle Paul sitting in the city of ancient Corinth
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  Speaker 1: with stylus in hand, writing his magnum opus to believers
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  Speaker 1: in Rome, came to the place where he again found himself. Well,
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  Speaker 1: like the psalmist feeling it is high, I cannot attain
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  Speaker 1: to it. How can I put into words the truths
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  Speaker 1: of what God has revealed to me? As he walked
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  Speaker 1: the Himalayan heights of theology, we have felt the winds
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  Speaker 1: of ice-like sovereignty of God knifing their way through us.
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  Speaker 1: We have also seen the peaks of human responsibility and
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  Speaker 1: the remarkable plan of God's grace in setting aside the Jew,
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  Speaker 1: albeit temporarily, while allowing the Gentiles, like most of us,
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  Speaker 1: into his family by his grace. Paul has been building
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  Speaker 1: toward this point, this peak, and when he comes to it,
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  Speaker 1: it's as if he has run shy of superlatives. What
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  Speaker 1: words do you use to describe the mountain peaks of
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  Speaker 1: God's greatness? You're shut up to words like unsearchable and unfathomable, Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: those words are used, they're overused in our day. When
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  Speaker 1: the little Dodson sports car came out, all the ads read, awesome.
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  Speaker 1: Now I have looked at the old Dodson sports car.
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  Speaker 1: I've never seen a thing awesome about it. Doesn't even
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  Speaker 1: have the same name today. No car is awesome. That's
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  Speaker 1: a word reserved for only God. Be careful about awesome.
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  Speaker 1: Everything is now awesome movie, awesome music, awesome person. No,
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  Speaker 1: only God. Unfathomable. No, only God. No truth you've learned,
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  Speaker 1: no invention you've studied, no person you've met is unfathomable.
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  Speaker 2: Only God.
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  Speaker 1: That's as it should be. Now we are inserted into
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  Speaker 1: the picture of all things, we of all people, because
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  Speaker 1: of God's unsearchable mercy. Now I've left out a section
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  Speaker 1: of Romans 11 deliberately because in good Pauline fashion, he
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  Speaker 1: says the same thing again and again in different ways.
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  Speaker 1: And I think you've gotten it by now. I think
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  Speaker 1: you understand that the Jew has temporarily been set aside,
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  Speaker 1: put under discipline, if you will. And it's true, a
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  Speaker 1: few in the remnant have come to Christ. A few
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  Speaker 1: have been converted to Christ, and some of you are
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  Speaker 1: among us. And some of those who have come to Christ,
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  Speaker 1: we know personally. Most of them we don't. But it's
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  Speaker 1: a remnant, which is the word.
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  Speaker 2: Paul uses when he describes those few.
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  Speaker 1: But during this period of time, God, by his mercy
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  Speaker 1: and grace, has allowed Gentiles to be grafted into the vine.
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  Speaker 1: And he describes that in the section we're leaving out.
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  Speaker 1: We come to the climax of it at verse 30.
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  Speaker 1: Down through verse 32, the unsearchable mercy of God is highlighted.
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  Speaker 1: Before we read the word four times in three verses,
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  Speaker 1: where we're shown mercy, we're shown mercy, mercy is shown us,
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  Speaker 1: we're shown mercy, let's understand what mercy is. The theologian A.W.
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  Speaker 1: Pink gave it this description, the ready inclination of God
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  Speaker 1: to relieve the misery of fallen humanity. Once again, Mercy
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  Speaker 1: is the ready inclination of God to relieve the misery
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  Speaker 1: of fallen humanity. That's all of us, as we'll see
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  Speaker 1: when we get to verse 32. How grateful we are
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  Speaker 1: for the mercy of God. Remember Ephesians 2? We were
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  Speaker 1: dead in trespasses and sins. We were engaged in transgressions
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  Speaker 1: that at times were downright filthy, wicked to the core.
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  Speaker 1: And God in his great mercy came to our rescue
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  Speaker 1: and relieved us from the consequences of or the misery
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  Speaker 1: of our lifestyle by delivering to us his son, Jesus Christ,
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  Speaker 1: who came to live inside us. That's called the mercy
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  Speaker 1: of God, his inclination, his ready inclination to relieve our misery.
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  Speaker 1: Look at the mercy of the Gentiles in verse 30.
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  Speaker 1: Just as you, it's plural, y'all, Paul was from the
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  Speaker 1: southern part of Turkey. Just as y'all once were disobedient
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  Speaker 1: to God, but now have been shown mercy because of
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  Speaker 1: their disobedience. What's he saying? The Jews, in their disobedience,
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  Speaker 1: finally God said, that's enough. You reject the Messiah, I
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  Speaker 1: have said. I will turn to the Gentiles. And God
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  Speaker 1: used Paul to reach the Gentiles. Our forefathers in Europe
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  Speaker 1: heard the gospel of Christ. We have no Abraham to
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  Speaker 1: point back to like the Jews. But the Jews in
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  Speaker 1: their disobedience turned from the Messiah. And the Lord said,
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  Speaker 1: then I will turn to the Gentiles. And by his mercy,
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  Speaker 1: we heard. We received the gift of eternal life. We
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  Speaker 1: were shown mercy because of their disobedience. But Paul doesn't
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  Speaker 1: leave the Jew out. He can't. He is one. He
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  Speaker 1: won't let us forget. Verse 31 reminds us. So these
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  Speaker 1: also now, meaning the Jews now, have been disobedient that
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  Speaker 1: because of the mercy shown to y'all, they also may
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  Speaker 1: now be shown mercy. We saw that last time. Our
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  Speaker 1: lifestyle is to be lived in such a contagious way
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  Speaker 1: that the Jew who is lost witnesses what Christ can
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  Speaker 1: do in a life. And will realize out of envy
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  Speaker 1: and jealousy what he or she is missing. And will
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  Speaker 1: turn to Christ. We are testimonies of that around us.
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  Speaker 1: All around us. How grateful we are. But God in
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  Speaker 1: mercy has not forgotten the Jew either. Verse 32 says
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  Speaker 1: there's mercy to all. Talk about unsearchable. God has shut
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  Speaker 1: up all in disobedience so that he may show mercy
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  Speaker 1: to all. The next time you're tempted toward arrogance, the
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  Speaker 1: next time pride gets a foothold in your life, remember
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  Speaker 1: verse 32, God's mercy has been shown to all of us.
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  Speaker 1: I've left out words that we weren't allowed to say
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  Speaker 1: when we were little kids, shut up. See verse 32,
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  Speaker 1: God has shut up. It's the word that means to
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  Speaker 1: enclose together. The Greek term is a combination of two
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  Speaker 1: words to enclose together. It's the idea of a fish
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  Speaker 1: caught in a net was said to be shut up
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  Speaker 1: in the net. An animal caught in a trap was
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  Speaker 1: shut up in the trap. In this case, our prison
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  Speaker 1: is depravity. Wesley realized it when he wrote, Long my
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  Speaker 1: imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night.
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  Speaker 1: Thine eye diffused the quickening ray. I rose. Listen to
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  Speaker 1: these words. My dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off.
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  Speaker 1: My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
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  Speaker 1: What's he describing? Being shut up in depravity. Called in
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  Speaker 1: his language, of that grand hymn, and can it be,
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  Speaker 1: a dungeon. We have all been in the dungeon of sin.
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  Speaker 1: We are all depraved. One of my mentors used to say,
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  Speaker 1: if depravity were blue, we'd be blue all over. Isn't
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  Speaker 1: that good? We're all blue with depravity. How do we
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  Speaker 1: get free of it? How do we get out of
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  Speaker 1: the trap? How do we get released from the net? Mercy.
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  Speaker 1: God's ready inclination to relieve the misery of our dungeon.
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  Speaker 1: James Montgomery Boyce has written a four-volume work on the
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  Speaker 1: letter to the Romans. In that third volume, he writes
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  Speaker 1: this about mercy. Listen carefully. Picture the Ark of the
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  Speaker 1: Covenant in your mind. It was a wooden box about
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  Speaker 1: a yard long, covered with gold and containing the stone
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  Speaker 1: tablets of the law of Moses. The lid of this
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  Speaker 1: box was the mercy seat, constructed of pure gold with
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  Speaker 1: images of cherubim or angels on each end. Their wings
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  Speaker 1: spread backward and upward. almost meeting over the center of
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  Speaker 1: the ark of God. I take it they were with
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  Speaker 1: their backs toward it and their wings spread above it.
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  Speaker 1: Now with that in mind, their wings went backward and
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  Speaker 1: upward meeting over the center of the ark. God was
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  Speaker 1: imagined to dwell symbolically between those outstretched wings. As it stands,
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  Speaker 1: it is a picture of judgment for what does God
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  Speaker 1: see as he looks down from between the wings of
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  Speaker 1: the cherubim? He sees the law that we have all broken.
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  Speaker 1: He sees that he must judge sin. But here is
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  Speaker 1: where the mercy seat comes in and why it is
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  Speaker 1: called the mercy seat. Upon that covering of the ark
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  Speaker 1: once a year on the Day of Atonement, the high
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  Speaker 1: priest sprinkled the blood of an animal that had been
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  Speaker 1: killed just moments before in the courtyard of the temple.
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  Speaker 1: The animal was a substitute, an innocent victim dying in
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  Speaker 1: the place of those who deserve to die. Now, when
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  Speaker 1: God looked down from between the outstretched wings of the cherubim,
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  Speaker 1: what he saw was not the law that we have broken,
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  Speaker 1: but the blood of the innocent victim. He saw that
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  Speaker 1: atonement had been made and that his love was now
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  Speaker 1: free to reach out to save anyone who would come
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  Speaker 1: through faith in that sacrifice. What a grand portrayal of
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  Speaker 1: the ancient and most sacred piece of furniture in the
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  Speaker 1: tabernacle and later the temple. the mercy seat. That is
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  Speaker 1: the role that Jesus Christ filled when he came. He
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  Speaker 1: became the once-for-all sacrifice for sins. And as Hebrews writes,
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  Speaker 1: if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes
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  Speaker 1: of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying
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  Speaker 1: of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of
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  Speaker 1: Christ relieve us of our sins? God sees his Son
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  Speaker 1: as and sees the blood that was given on our behalf,
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  Speaker 1: and he in mercy saves the sinner. How important is
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  Speaker 1: the mercy seat? My older brother Orville visited our home
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  Speaker 1: a number of years ago, and as he often does
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  Speaker 1: when he visits, he sat down at our piano, and
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  Speaker 1: I heard him playing an old hymn that dates back
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  Speaker 1: to the 19th, early 19th century. I asked him what
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  Speaker 1: it was. He said, oh, this is a hymn you
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  Speaker 1: should know and you should learn. And once again, older
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  Speaker 1: brother telling younger brother what to do. I listened and
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  Speaker 1: I realized he was again right. Marvelous hymn that we
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  Speaker 1: no longer sing, though it is in our hymnal. From
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  Speaker 1: every stormy wind that blows, from every swelling tide of woe,
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  Speaker 1: There is a calm, a sure retreat that's found beneath
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  Speaker 1: the mercy seat. Ah, whether could we flee for aid
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  Speaker 1: when tempted, desolate, dismayed, or how the hosts of hell
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  Speaker 1: defeat had suffering saints. No mercy seat. Isn't that a
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  Speaker 1: great hymn? We have the mercy seat. The tabernacle is gone.
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  Speaker 1: The temple is gone. Even the ancient golden chest is gone.
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  Speaker 1: Never to be found again for we no longer need it.
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  Speaker 1: We have the person of mercy who has come to
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  Speaker 1: our rescue and he's rescued all of us. His mercy
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  Speaker 1: is unsearchable and how grateful we are for that. Now
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  Speaker 1: this causes Paul to look across the theological mountain peaks
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  Speaker 1: and begin to describe the greatness of God. I just
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  Speaker 1: hope I can get through it. Oh Bathos, writes the apostle. Bathos.
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  Speaker 1: The Greek term is bathos. We get our word bath
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  Speaker 1: from it. William Beebe was the explorer in the ocean
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  Speaker 1: depths when I was a little boy. Later came Jacques
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  Speaker 1: Cousteau with all of his interesting expeditions. But William Beebe
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  Speaker 1: invented a spherical submarine, a large steel encased submarine with Air,
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  Speaker 1: of course, going in and out. And one large window
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  Speaker 1: made of quartz so it could handle the depths of
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  Speaker 1: the ocean. And bright lights shone out all around this
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  Speaker 1: globe-like submarine as it was dropped into the deepest parts
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  Speaker 1: of the ocean. He took the first pictures taken down deep.
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  Speaker 1: He called his invention the bathosphere. Bathosphere. The word means depth,
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  Speaker 1: as we see it rendered here. It's used in 1
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  Speaker 1: Corinthians 2.10. The Spirit searches all things, even the bathos
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  Speaker 1: of God. The depths. The old Latin vulgate renders this
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  Speaker 1: profunda Dei. The profound depths of God. No one can
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  Speaker 1: plumb the depths. A.T. Robertson writes of it, Paul's argument
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  Speaker 1: has carried him to the heights and now he pauses
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  Speaker 1: on the edge of the precipice as he contemplates God's
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  Speaker 1: wisdom and knowledge, fully conscious of his inability to sound
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  Speaker 1: the bottom with the plummet of human reason and words.
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  Speaker 1: Once again, they're stupid things. The best he can do
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  Speaker 1: is unsearchable, unfathomable. What is that? Well, look closely. depth
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  Speaker 1: of God's riches, the depth of God's wisdom, the depth
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  Speaker 1: of God's knowledge. If you and I could live ten lifetimes,
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  Speaker 1: we would not ever come near plumbing the depths of
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  Speaker 1: any of the above. We live in a humanistic era
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  Speaker 1: when everyone, it seems, is important and influential people are, again,
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  Speaker 1: pointed out as being awesome in their presence. None of
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  Speaker 1: the above is true, only God. And when we reserve
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  Speaker 1: those thoughts for him, there is a respect that opens
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  Speaker 1: up and a trust that is then ours to enjoy.
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  Speaker 1: We're trusting in an infinite God. See the explanation that
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  Speaker 1: needs no proof? God knows no bounds. God cannot be measured.
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  Speaker 1: God defies comparison. His activities have no human explanation. How
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  Speaker 1: often we find ourselves, as Wesley put it, lost in wonder, love,
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  Speaker 1: and praise, saying, what is God doing? Why is God
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  Speaker 1: not changing this situation? Why did God allow this to happen?
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  Speaker 1: You cannot get the answers. You simply trust him. And
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  Speaker 1: when you trust him, you trust in one who is infinite. A.W.
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  Speaker 1: Tozer writes in his fine work on God's infinitude, when
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  Speaker 1: we say that God is infinite, we mean that he
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  Speaker 1: knows no bounds. Whatever God is and all that God is,
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  Speaker 1: he is without limit. And here again, we must break
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  Speaker 1: away from the popular meaning of words like unlimited wealth.
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  Speaker 1: and boundless energy. They are further examples of the misuse
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  Speaker 1: of words. No wealth is unlimited, and no energy is boundless,
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  Speaker 1: unless we are speaking of the wealth and energy of God.
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  Speaker 1: Stay with me. It gets deeper. Again, to say that
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  Speaker 1: God is infinite is to say that He is measureless.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Measurement is the way created things have of accounting for themselves.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: It describes limitations, imperfections, and cannot apply to God. Weight
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: describes the gravitational pull of the earth upon material bodies.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Distance describes intervals between bodies in space. Length means extension
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: in space. And there are other familiar measurements such as
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: those for liquid and energy and sound and light and
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: numbers for pluralities. We also try to measure abstract qualities
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: and speak of great or little faith, high or low intelligence,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: large or meager talents, Is it not plain that all
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: this does not and cannot apply to God? It is
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the way we see the works of his hands, but
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: not the way we see him. He is above all,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: outside of it all, beyond it all. Our concepts of
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: measurement embrace mountains and men, atoms and stars. Nothing in
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: God is less or more or large or small. He
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: is what he is in himself. Without qualifying thought or word,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he is simply God. Now some of you right about
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: now are going, what?
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I understand.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Because words are stupid things. I mean, we read that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: he's infinite. Here's this preacher trying to describe the infinite.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: One of my Former teachers at Dallas Seminary used to say, Lord,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: humble us, guard us against trying to unscrew the inscrutable.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: He is inscrutable. How unsearchable are his judgments, how unfathomable
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: his ways. And if statements aren't enough, he offers three
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: questions that defy an answer. Verse 34, who has known
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the mind of the Lord? He draws that from Job.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Remember Job asking that? Remember back in our marathon going
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: through Job for 28 years?
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Remember?
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: A little exaggeration there. Who has known the mind of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the Lord? Second question, who has been his counselor? Who
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: advises God? Who has given to him that it might
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: be paid back to him again? Oh, we've got it
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: backwards here. Who understands God? Who informs God? Who provides
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: for him? Job and Isaiah blend together in the quoting
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: of that verse. The whole point is there is none
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like unto God and how easy to forget it when
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: our lives break down. During the era of our darkest
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: time as a nation, following the assassination of our 16th president,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: following our bloodiest war, when a third of the male
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: population in the South had been killed. It was a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: time of reconstruction, and we were a people in chaos.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: People were uneasy and restless. Across the Atlantic in the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: little Scottish village lived Walter Chalmers Smith, whose heart went
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: out to our country in 1867. And he wrote a
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: hymn we should have learned and sung, but it didn't
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: become a beloved hymn until years later. Immortal, invisible, God
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: only wise. In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes, most blessed,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: most glorious, the ancient of days, almighty, victorious. Thy great
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: name we praise, unresting, unhasting, and silent as light. Nor
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: wanting nor wasting thou rulest in might. What words of
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the unfathomable depths of God. Words a nation needs to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: hear when we're back on our heels, wondering if we
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: will ever reconstruct and recover. The next time you find
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: yourself flat on your back, the doctor's report is dark
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: and the future is foreboding. Remember your God is limitless, unfathomable.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And as soon as we use the word impossible, it's
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: an exciting thing to God since that's his specialty. Now
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: when you realize this, you finally come to the doxology.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Don't you love the doxology? For of him and through
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: him and to him are all things. Meaning what? Of him.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: He is the ultimate source. Through him, he is the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: ultimate means by which things occur. To him, he's the
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: ultimate goal. The ultimate end of all things. Source, means, end.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Of him, through him, to him are most things. Let's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: look again. One of Paul's favorite expressions, all things, all things.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: That includes your current situation. That includes what you cannot
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: figure out. That includes your loss of employment. That includes
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: your promotion. That includes the test you're going through right
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: now that you cannot see an end to. That includes
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: where you find yourself regardless of how painful or how
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: pleasant the situation may be. Of him. Through him. To him.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Of him. Source. Through him. Means. To him. Gold. And
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: all things. Only one thing to say after that. Soli
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Deo Gloria. Only to the glory of God. And we
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: might as well.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: You know what this does to all of us? It
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: reduces us. to something smaller than a fleas whisker. I
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: don't know if fleas have them, but they need them
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: right now. I need them to have whiskers right now.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I mentioned William Beebe earlier. He was a good friend
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: with our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, and they would on
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: occasion have dinner together at Roosevelt's great home at Sagamore
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Hills on Long Island, New York. They had a little
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: game they played together when they would finish their meal.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Bebe and Roosevelt would walk out into that great yard,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and they would lie flat on their backs, and they
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: would look up into the night sky. Great thought, huh?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: President on his back, looking up. This brilliant explorer next
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: to him, looking up. My source tells me that they
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: together would look for that faint spot of light beyond
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the lower left corner of the great square of Pegasus.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: One of them would then recite these words, there, there,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that is the spiraled galaxy in Andromeda. It is as
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: large as the Milky Way, and it is only one
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of 100 billion suns,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: each of which is larger than our sun.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Pause.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt would turn and look at his friend with a
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: smile and say, now, I think we're small enough. Let's
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: go to bed. Isn't that great? You can't remember the
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: last time you laid on your back and looked up
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: at the stars. I can't remember the last time I
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: saw the stars in Dallas. I think they're there. Out
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: in some distant area when you find yourself free to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: do it, get alone. Get on your back. The only
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: way you'll look is up. And let the wonder in.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: How unfathomable his ways.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Of him, source. Through him, means. To him. Ending are
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: all things.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I am nothing.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: You are everything. And by your mercy, you have let
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: me be.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Your child.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: That's the right mental attitude.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, God.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Degrees or no degrees. influential or unknown, male or female,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: young or older, ruined past or magnificent past, significant today
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: or struggling today, Lord God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: awesome God. I bow before you. Let's pray. Father, when
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: we survey this wondrous cross on which our Savior died,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: we realize after a message like this that it is
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the bridge that connects the undeserving to the awesome the
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: depraved to deity, the unworthy.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: To the sovereign God of glory. Thank you for the cross.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Lord, our trust in you has been strengthened as a
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: result of hearing what we have heard. we have been
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: reduced to nothing but an observer of the stars, a
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: sinner trapped in a dungeon. Without your mercy coming to
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: our relief, we would never have known the light, our life.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Our Father, we come back to this epical moment where
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: we remember our.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Savior's body and blood. Again, accept our gratitude, our profound
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: gratitude for the sacrifice, for the perpetual mercy seat that
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: is in operation 24-7-365. May our worship now honor you
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: in whom we trust. In the name of Jesus, everyone said, Amen.
• 37:30
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