How Great Thou Art

Isaiah chapter 40, we are going to read the first 14 verses.! In the desert, prepare the way for the Lord.

Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice says, cry out.

And I said, what shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall. But the word of our God stands forever. You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain.

You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout. Lift it up. Do not be afraid. Say to the towns of Judah, here is your God.

See, the sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd.

He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?

Or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket? Or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?

Who has understood the mind of the Lord? Or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him?

And who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge? Or showed him the path of understanding? Well, there's a reason why Isaiah chapter 40 is one of the most beloved chapters of the word of God.

Why it stands and towers like Mount Everest above all the other surroundings around it. It's because it sets before us a God who in his majesty and greatness towers above all else that exists.

And so in spending time in this chapter, we come away with a sense of God's greatness. Something that is absolutely essential for living the true Christian life.

It's what the Bible so often calls the fear of God. The fear of the Lord. A reverence. An awe. An amazement at just how great and awesome our God is.

Now, we simply don't live right without this sense of God's greatness. In one way or another, everything we do is affected by our view of God.

Now, wouldn't it be nice that once you got it, you had it? If it just worked that way. That once we were caught up with a sense of God's greatness, we never lost it.

But it doesn't work that way, does it? It's part of our fallenness to forget and keep forgetting how great God is. And to think less of him than what's true.

We're like that lump of pizza dough. And our task is to roll it out and to spread it thin enough so that it fills the whole pizza pan.

Thank you, Jason. And so we put the dough on the counter and we get our rolling pin out and we start rolling.

And what do we find? We stretch it out and just as soon as we take the pin off, it shrinks back into a smaller shape. And we've got to hit it again and thin it out.

But it has that tendency to keep shrinking. And so does our view of God. We walk away from church and we say, wow, what a majestic God.

And we're hardly into the weak. And we're treating our God as if he's some itty bitty idol. We give him no more trust and worship and love and respect than what we might give to a lesser being.

And so God gives us a book. And it's primarily about him and how great he is. And with this book, he is ever combating our sinful tendency to shrink him, to bring him down in size, to lessen him.

You know, I never hear him saying, John, you know, your thoughts of me have been too great lately. You really need to ratchet it down a few notches. You've just been thinking too great views of me.

And no, but. He often must say to me, John, your thoughts of me have been way too small. That's the problem we have.

And so he takes the rolling pin of Isaiah 40 and he stretches our view of him to bring it to what is true and what is reality.

God is he really is. So I thought of this this week. I thought how the world works to bring God down to our level.

Have you heard the way the world talks about God? The way they even refer to the man upstairs or the flippancy with which he's treated. It's it's bringing him down.

And what of the devil? He's constantly working to diminish God. And as I said, our own flesh has this shrinking idea of God.

And so we stand, do we not, brothers and sisters? We stand in continual need of being impressed all over again with the greatness of God. You need what Israel needed to behold your God.

That was the message then. And it's something we need to never get away from. This is the way God comforts us. This is the way God encourages us.

Let's not forget that God is out to comfort his downtrodden and despairing people. Verse one of Isaiah 40 comfort comfort. My people says your God.

So Isaiah is speaking about a future day when Judah will have seen their temple burned to the ground. Their capital city of Jerusalem destroyed.

Their nation conquered. Their king and best of the land taken away captives to Babylon. And when nothing will have changed for going on 70 years.

And into that context. Into a people who are defeated. And disillusioned and downhearted and doubting. Doubting that God knew about their plight.

Doubting that God cared about their plight. We see it in verse 27. My way is hidden from the Lord. My cause is disregarded by my God. He doesn't see. He doesn't care. And so feeling helpless and ready to give up.

God sends words of comfort. And some of the words of comfort were amazing promises. We read them again this morning. Amazing promises that he makes to these people.

About their long hard service down in Babylon having come to an end. And about all their sins that took them down to Babylon.

Being forgiven. And about their almighty God appearing in glory for their salvation. Wonderful promises that were made to them. But it all seemed to fall on deaf ears.

They seemed to draw no comfort from them. Because their circumstances seemed to mock all of these promises. When they looked at the promises. Oh wow. Look at that.

But when they woke up in the morning and saw the same reality of Babylonians. They found no comfort in the promises.

You see it's one thing to make such staggering promises. It's another thing to fulfill them. Can God be trusted to do all that he has promised?

That's the issue. Well that all depends on how big your God is. How big your God is.

And God tells his spokesman. You go comfort my people by telling them how great I am. I told you more than one occasion of that little boy who went with his father to hear George Whitefield preach.

And when he got home his mother said so. What did you think of the preacher? And the little boy said mommy he made God look big. And Isaiah chapter 40 makes God look big.

Because he is big. And he's set before us here in all of his greatness. His splendor. And it shatters our small views of God.

And that's how comfort. And that's how hope. And how strength is revived in the Christian life. So let's dive in to chapter 40 again.

Isaiah is out to show us that God is unequaled. In his power. His wisdom. His sovereignty. And he does it by comparing him to the vast creation.

To the mighty nations and rulers of the world. And even to idols. Those God substitutes that men fear and trust in instead of him.

And so he holds up creation and the rulers and nations and idols. And in the end we see that none of them really compare to God. That's where he's headed.

To whom will you liken me? Or who is my equal? Says the Holy One. Well he hits us with a number of questions in verse 12.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? Or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens. Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket?

Or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? And the answer that is assumed throughout is no one except our great God.

Now he first points us then to the greatness of God's power. And then we'll see the greatness of his wisdom. But first it's his power that is held before us.

And the picture is one of the creator at work. God making the heavens and the earth. And he's doing so with careful measurements.

Now anyone who knows anything about building and making things knows how important measurements are. Whether you're in the shop or on the job site. That tape measure is not far from you, is it?

And you refer to it often. Or if you're in the kitchen. At least if you're an early cook. A young cook. You've got the teaspoons and the cups and the measurements, don't you? When you're making something you need measurements.

Well, that's the picture we have here. God making a universe. God making a world. And he's measuring things out just right.

There are repeated references in verse 12. Some five or six to measuring distances and weights. So we begin with the waters of the world being measured.

We're told that water covers 70% of our planet. We find water in the oceans that we can't even see to the other side of. In lakes and rivers.

In glaciers and ice caps. In the air we breathe. In the ground we walk on. Even in you. And in your dog.

There's water everywhere. How do you measure all this water? Think of just trying to measure the water of just one ocean. You go down to the beach with your unit of measurement.

And so what are you going to take? A teaspoon? Oh no, that's too small. Well then take your gallon. Well that's really not much. A five gallon bucket? A 55 gallon drum?

You see, all units of measurement seem to be worthless. When trying to measure the waters of just one ocean.

It's estimated that if all the world's waters were poured onto the United States. It would bury us by 107 miles. It's a lot of water.

He measures the waters in the hollow of his hand. Right there. Now, he's not trying to teach us that God has a body like ours.

That he has a physical hand. The Lord Jesus does because he became man. But God the Father, God the Spirit do not have a body like men. What is he teaching us?

He's teaching us of the greatness of our God. Of the ease with which he measures this water. You and I would be put out. How can we go about this? And God just says, well here, let me take a couple scoops.

And I'll have it all right here. Just, no, just one. Right here. In the hollow of my hand. How easy it is for God to measure the waters of the earth. Well, what about measuring off the heavens?

And we living in the 21st century have all the more reason to think of our God as being big. Than what Isaiah and his original hearers had.

We have telescopes that have opened up the heavens to us in ways before not seen. So, how do you measure the heavens?

Well, let's just begin by measuring the distance from the earth to the sun. And so, we leave our yardsticks at home and we measure in miles. And it's 93, an average of 93 million miles between the earth and the sun.

Okay, but when we want to measure the distance to the nearest star after the sun. Well, it's 25 million million miles. And now, that unit of measurement, a mile, is starting to seem kind of meaningless.

What is 25 million million? So, we find our mile marker is becoming a meaningless unit to measure with. Like a teaspoon measuring the ocean.

And so, man has had to devise a different unit of measurement. And they've come up with what's called a light year. It's the distance you travel going at the speed of light in one year. And the speed of light is 186,000 miles per hour.

I'm sorry, per second. Thank you. That's, you know what it is to drive 70 miles per hour. That's 7 million miles per hour.

That's how fast light works. So, if you flip a switch over there, it comes at you that fast. 7 million miles per hour. 186,000 miles per second.

So, you're going to the nearest star. You get your family on your spaceship. You tell them to buckle up. We're going to be going fast. And you take off. And you travel all day long.

You're just going to the nearest star. And you're traveling for a week. And all month. And after a year, you hear a voice in the back. Daddy, are we almost there? And he says, no, we're not.

We're not even halfway there. Two, three years, four years. After the fourth year. 4.22 light years away. You would finally get to the nearest star.

Proxima Centauri. What about the farthest star from us? Well, now we're talking about the farthest edge of the observable universe that's known to man.

Well, we'd have to travel at the speed of light for 47 billion years. And we'd finally get to that farthest star that we've been able to reach with our instruments.

The edge of the universe. Well, if you if you went from. So we're measuring the sky, the heavens, the whole breadth of it. Well, that's just the radius. So we've got to go the diameter is some 93 billion years traveling at the speed of light from one side to another.

And he measures the heavens with the breadth of his hands. Let's see. That's about two and a half hand breaths spans from here to here. Again, it's showing the effortlessness to measure the heavens to our great God.

Well, what about the dust of the earth? Dirt's heavy. And we struggle struggle with a bucket of it or a wheelbarrow full of it. Dump trucks measure it in yards or tons.

But how would you measure all the dust of the earth? Well, he he has held the dust of the earth in a measuring basket, a basket that's used to measure like.

A bushel basket or something. He measures it. He holds it in a basket. Think how heavy the mountains and hills must be. Some of them are made of solid rock.

And he's just like a kid in the play in the sandbox. He just picks up mountains and puts them on the scale, the hills and the balance. It's nothing to him. Again, it's what's being emphasized is the ease with which he measures these things.

The waters in the palm of his hands, the sky, the heavens with his hand breath. The dust of the earth carries it in a basket. Mountains and hills puts them on scales.

Do you understand what God is doing in verse 12? When he would impress us with his greatness, he points us to the creation that he made.

And we stagger before the vastness of it all, the mighty mountains, the huge oceans, the endless sky. What must he be who made them and measures them all so easily?

In fact, the scriptures speak of the heavens as just divine origami, the work of his fingers.

This is your God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. How often in the Bible is that fact held before us for our comfort and our encouragement? Jim quoted it in Sunday school.

Where does our help come from? Well, we could say our help comes from the Lord. But so often he doesn't stop there, does it? The Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, because that's for our comfort to realize that our helper is none other than the one who made all of this.

And made it so effortlessly. Our God made the heavens. So lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.

Verse 26 will tell us who created all these your God. That's where the Bible starts out, isn't it? Genesis 1, 1 in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And the Bible never gets far from that. But it keeps bringing us back to that awesome reality that our God made this world that we live in. A world that is so vast.

So precise. And it all keeps. Forcing the question, is anything too hard for God? That's the question that keeps raising.

Is it too hard for God to keep his promise of coming in great glory to save his people from Babylon? Is Babylon too big? Is Babylon too tough for God?

To set free. Are they too strong for him who measures the waters in the palm of his hand? And dear friend, is it too big for God? To set you free.

From some nasty sin. That has a strong hold in your life. Remember who he is. He's the mighty creator.

Can he save the hardest sinner? Can he save your children? Your parents? Your spouse? Your loved ones? Your neighbor? Can he who holds the dust of the earth in a basket not hold you up in your present trial?

Is he not able to keep you from falling? Is he not able to do immeasurably more than all you could ever ask or imagine? According to his power, is it working you?

The same power that stretched out the heavens like a canopy and spread them out like a tent to live in. Is he not able to restore you when fallen?

To encourage you when down? Is he not able to raise your body from the dead? Is it too hard for the one who made the original heaven and earth to remake a new heaven and a new earth where there's no more sin and only righteousness?

Is he not able to bring about his purposes and plans for your life and for this whole world that he's created? Do you see what Isaiah is doing, believer?

He's teaching us to sing that children's song. My God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There's nothing my God cannot do.

The mountains are his. The rivers are his. The stars are his hand he worked to. There's my God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There's nothing my God cannot do for you.

So that's the God who stands by as our helper. That's the one who's with us. And he'll have no problem at all doing what he said.

After all, who is there that could stop him? He's worthy of our trust. So I ask you, what kind of things do you need strength for? You say, for killing my pride, my lust, my greed, my bitterness.

I find these things are beyond my strength. Okay, good. I'm glad you see that. What do you need power for in your life? How many of your enemies are too strong for you?

How much power do you need to be patient another day? How much power do you need to withstand another day the world's pressure to cause you to conform to it and live like they live and value what they value?

Though it is all too much for us, it's not too much for him. So how many things on your to-do list require more strength than what you can produce? This view of God's power calls us to turn our to-do list into prayer lists and to bring those things to him and spread them out before him like Hezekiah did and say, God, these are too much for me, but not for you.

Give me help, O maker of heaven and earth. Are you making the connection between your own powerlessness and weakness and this mighty God of creation?

That's what we need to do from Isaiah 40. See how comfort and encouragement comes to us. He lifts up our eyes. He says, look to the heavens.

So study creation. Study it. Meditate on it. Think of it. Marvel at it. And let your study of it lead you to him, the creator, and to how powerful he is.

And do you see then how Darwinian evolution is just another of Satan's tricks to rob you, Christian, of one of your greatest comforts in the Christian life? To look up and say, God, my God, made this.

In six days, he spoke it into existence. He brought it forth by the word of his power.

Indeed, in believing Genesis 1.1, you're armed to believe all the promises in the rest of the Bible. So remember that he is your creator. It also points to the folly of the way the world worships created things.

Whether it be the sun, the stars, the moon. Or money. And position. And fame. And beauty.

Why worship created things? They're nothing compared to the creator. Well, chapter 40 is not done holding God the creator before us.

We'll find that throughout this chapter. But creation not only shows us the greatness of God's power, it witnesses to the greatness of God's wisdom as well. By wisdom, the Proverbs say, the Lord laid the earth's foundation.

By understanding, he set the heavens in place. By his knowledge, the deeps were divided and the clouds let drop the dew. Can you think of the wisdom needed to create a star?

A firefly? A molecule? A universe? How do you make gravity? How do you build photosynthesis?

How do you create the water cycle? How about a human body? That will be self-cleansing and self-healing. And that's growing and developing.

And stands erect. And does so many wondrous things. How do you even start building something like that? And in all that God built, there was no scrap.

There was no scrap. No pile of failed fish that couldn't swim. Or of birds that couldn't fly. No prototypes that needed to be tweaked a little and improved.

Because he got it right the first time. It's perfect wisdom. It's so unlike anything that we do and make. God, in infinite wisdom and knowledge, designed all these things that he made.

And the point emphasized in our next two verses, verses 13 and 14, is he didn't need anyone's help to do it. Verse 13. Who has understood the mind of the Lord or instructed him as his counselor?

Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him and who taught him the right way? Who was it who taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? Again, the answer, of course, to all these questions is no one.

No one. When God created the world, he needed no consultants. There was no engineer that tapped on the shoulders. If I were you, I would tweak that hummingbird's wing just a little bit.

None of that. No creation by committee. No consultants. There weren't any. It was just God. And nothingness.

And out of nothing, he created all things and did so perfectly the first time. And yet, that doesn't stop men from playing counselor to God.

That's where Isaiah is going with this. What is more common than man thinking he knows better than God? Man complaining about the way God is doing things in his world.

You know, Lord, if I were you, I would do this differently in my life. And I would do this differently and that differently. I would change this and that and the other thing. And we start consulting God as if he needed a consultant.

As if he needed someone to point to him the right way. To give him understanding. Lord, you don't understand. And we just, it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

The pea-brained little creatures like us would think to give God some advice. And that's what we do whenever we complain.

We're charging God with mismanagement of his world or with my life. You didn't get it right this time, Lord. You need some counsel.

Our complaining reveals how little we know God. How small our thoughts are of him and of his wisdom. What a shriveled view of God's wisdom. And so we want to know why.

Why this and why that in our lives, in the world? Why is there pain and suffering in the world? Why do I have to go through this problem? We don't understand.

But we assume we ought to understand. We don't know why, but we assume that he owes us the answer why. And it doesn't make sense to us, so we complain about it.

It's not right. It's not fair. It's not good. It's not caring. And as if we were competent judges of God's ways with us. And Isaiah is saying, God got along just fine before we were born, before there was anything.

no one consulted him no one gave him advice who has understood the mind of the Lord do you think you do do you think you've got God figured out I wouldn't want a God that I had figured out a God that's small a God that can be confined to such little proportions as John Heaney's mind that would be pitiful no our God no one has understood him verse 28 his understanding no one can fathom it's so deep you wouldn't understand it if I told you God says so if your two year old went along to work with you for the day and thought that she ought to understand everything you're doing at work it wouldn't be as foolish as us thinking we ought to understand everything that God's doing in our lives and in his world

Isaiah's going to tell us in chapter 55 as the heavens are higher than the earth and we still haven't found out how high that is we only know how far our instruments will reach we don't know how high the heavens are above the earth but as high as the heavens are above the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts says the Lord that ought to humble us and so Paul quotes from our text here in verse 13 he quotes at the end of chapter 11 of Romans when he summarizes God's dealings with with Israel and the nations and he said oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor there's our text you see what he's saying to us if we knew better who it is that we're dealing with we wouldn't expect to be able to understand everything that he's doing in our own lives

Martin Lloyd-Jones says therefore you must start by being prepared for surprises if that's the wisdom of God then you little man ought to be prepared for surprises expect mysteries expect secrets that you cannot pry into expect to be standing in the dark on many questions and issues expect to not be able to understand it all expect that you'll spend much of your life in over your head where you can't figure it all out after all he's God and you're man that's what Isaiah is saying to us but this is so frustrating to man's proud mind isn't it the proud rationalist refuses to believe anything that he can't see and measure and explain and understand I don't understand how God could have created this world in six days

I don't get that and so I won't believe it until I can understand it I don't understand how there can be three persons and yet only one God how Jesus Christ could be born of a virgin how he could have two natures one divine and the other human and yet one person how he could walk on water how he could make the blind see so I don't believe in miracles because I don't understand how he could do that how there could be life after death how Jesus could actually rise from the dead and ascend into heaven how there could be a place called heaven and a place called hell where people exist forever and ever I don't get that people die and so I refuse to believe it can you see the wickedness of man's pride and all of that human thoughts judging God's thought so God says these things and we put ourselves above it

I don't understand it therefore I can't believe it we're judging God we're judging his mind by our own mind and if you've got to understand everything before you believe then you can never be saved you can never be saved because salvation is by faith salvation is by faith and it's faith in a God whose wisdom is unsearchable and whose ways are beyond finding out that's why Jesus says unless you become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of God you say oh kids are so gullible well they're easy they willingly believe what they're told and in this way children little children are held up as the model you'll never get to heaven unless you become like that willing to believe everything that God tells you not everything that anybody tells you but everything that God tells you you must take as a little child and believe it just because he said it you put your mind under

God's mind and you say if God said it then I believe it we must be willing to take him at his word in faith by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command Hebrews 11 3 by faith we understand that by faith we take it we walk by faith and not by sight we don't live by explanations from God we live by faith in his every word and God isn't always explaining everything to us he's just positing this is the way it is this is it this is what I did this is what you must do he doesn't explain it all he expects us to take it on board and believe it and obey it we don't demand that God explain everything first before we believe we rather bow in humble faith and embrace all that he has said so Judah was down in Babylon under difficult and confusing circumstances and they didn't understand how can God set us free from this mess we've been here almost 70 years it just keeps going on maybe you're in a confusing state of life and you feel like how can

God ever get us out of this one this doesn't make any sense you can't figure out what he's doing well welcome to the world that God made it's a world where his mind is infinite and ours are so finite and don't expect to wrap your finite little mind around the infinite mind you live and view what 70 80 years maybe more 90 years of just a little sliver of time God views the end from the beginning he's got the big view the long view in mind we see only a few little pieces of the puzzle he sees the whole thing we see a few threads in what he's weaving he sees the big picture one commentator wrote in any given event in your life God is actively accomplishing about 10,000 things that you aren't even aware of he's much bigger than what we know oh the folly then of demanding that I understand all that he's doing with us are you afraid of where he's leading you does it have you worried is he leading you through the woods where all is dark as night well he knows the way that we take even if we don't he knows what he's up to even when we don't so we look at the creation that he made and we trust his wisdom who made it and we draw comfort from

God to the degree that we know him and know him to be our mighty God creator mighty in power mighty in wisdom time is gone we don't have time to to look at Job but I just remind you that Job had the same problem he didn't understand some of the things God did with his life did he remember what God did with him first two chapters just questions okay Job since you know so much questioning my justice complaining that I'm unfair then you're going to answer some questions and he just peppers him with questions about things that Job has no idea whatsoever about from creation takes him to creation and Job at the end of two chapters he's just how can I reply he says I put my hand over my mouth now I spoke once but now I have no answer twice so

I will say no more and God just pours on another two chapters more questions okay Job since you're so smart and you're questioning my wisdom then answer these if you might and at the end you remember how Job got it I know now that you can do all things and no plan of yours can be thwarted that's what Judah needed to believe about God's plan to set them free from Babylon that's what you and I need to believe about God's plan to work everything for good in our lives we who love him and know him we must trust him and he points us to his creation have you made the connection between God's power and wisdom in creation and your own personal needs in your life to trust in him in all the difficult and confusing trials we honor God when we trust him even when we cannot understand him it's especially then that we honor him when walking in the dark we take his hand and we say father

I'm in good hands lead me lead me as a child well we didn't get very far today you don't climb Mount Everest in a day do you but we got far enough if we beheld something fresh of our God if we leave wisdom and of our greater need to know him as the all wise almighty God we got far enough if if we put our fears to rest in the light of our creator we got far enough if we learned that our complaining is a sign that we're not thinking right about God that we're actually questioning the wisdom of God we got far enough if we can silence our questioning and we can silence our counseling God about the way he's doing things and rather receive every word and every providence he brings with a child likeness that is willing to be taught and to accept his way we got far enough if no matter what's happening in our lives we can still sing how great thou art how great thou art and draw comfort from that reality someone has said if

I had God's power I would change many things in my life but if I had God's wisdom I wouldn't change anything and what we see again this morning is the blend of two attributes we saw last week the conquering king and the gentle shepherd in one savior and here we see the almighty power of God but that mighty power is governed by the perfect wisdom of God we see the wisdom of God but we see the mighty power of God bringing to pass all that in wisdom God has planned and purposed these two meet in our great God who's worthy of our trust and our worship well there was a day more than any other day when everything seemed confusing and it seemed that everything was spinning out of control that everything was going wrong it was the day that the

Lord Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross of Calvary and human wisdom looked on and said that's disaster happening there that's weakness that's folly that looked like God's great plan of salvation had just been thwarted brought to an end because his great savior was being murdered by wicked men so much for that old promise about the seed of the woman crushing the head of the serpent so much about that great promise to Abraham that one of your seed will bring salvation blessings to the whole earth so much about that promise of God coming in great glory to save his people the circumstances at Calvary seem to mock all of those promises!

of God so what do we learn from the cross don't trust human wisdom don't judge God by human wisdom by your finite mind because what men were looking at when they looked at Christ crucified was the very wisdom and power of God yes it was there on Calvary what seemed like the greatest tragedy was the greatest victory there God in Christ was coming in glory to save his people there the seat of Eve the woman was crushing the head of the serpent and Abraham seed there was bringing salvation blessing to all the earth to you to me living in this nation and their sinful men were being purchased for God ransomed!

healed! restored! forgiven! Believe that this Savior will save you from your sins and make you right with God trust in him come to him cast yourself upon him and never doubt his gospel promise never doubt any promise in the book it comes from this God of infinite wisdom and power well would you stand with me and sing of him how great thou art from the overhead let's pray!

! We thought better of people than we have of you there are some people we don't complain to but we have not thought light we've done very easily in complaining to you oh please stop our mouths with the remembrance of your greatness interrupt us in the very midst of our thoughts and remind us who you are we thank you for not only giving us a Bible that is full of who you are we thank you for sending your son to show us how great you are great in holiness and righteousness but also great in grace and love and mercy we thank you for putting us in a world that is ever shouting how great you are help us to stop and look at the flowers and look at the birds and the heavens and to make the connection between the one who made all these things in such perfection and the very problems that we're facing that it's the same

God that we've just sung! how great help us Lord you know how quick we are to forget so meet us each morning each noon each evening with the reminders of your greatness help us to fellowship around that theme how good you have been to us how great you are we pray in Jesus name Amen