The Majesty Of Our Maker

Many years ago, I was traveling with my son in the vicinity of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I had some business in a condominium development and had to drive past a local landmark. One of the golf course community developers had built an elevated water tower that looked like a golf ball sitting on top of a tee. As we left the development my young son looked at the water tower until it became impossible to see. A few miles down the road he asked me a question I remember to this day.
“Daddy, how big is God?” he asked.
“Son, I don’t really know. He’s bigger than anything we could ever imagine,” I said. How does one convey the magnitude of an infinite God to the finite mind of a little boy? Just as I was thinking about the challenge he floored me with what had occupied the thoughts of that little mind since the first time he laid eyes on that water tower.
“Then He’s big enough to knock that golf ball off that tee!” Oh, that we can catch a glimpse of the greatness of God. Often we receive that from the heart of a child. A child marvels at the wonder of life. Maybe they are small enough to think big about God.
Big enough and small enough. This is the God of the Bible. One who is so majestic it defies description and One who desires to be so intimate it defies reason. Today we come to another message about the cultural relevance of a biblical worldview. It is beneficial in our daily lives and is relevant in our culture for us to think rightly about God. If I can simultaneously understand that God is both majestic and personal it will benefit me in the way I make choices in life. We desperately need a revelation of God in our culture who is worthy to be called Majestic and yet Personal. One who is far grander than our situations and yet intimate enough to know us better than we know ourselves.
We will look at two portions of Scripture to give us a sense of this revelation. It is what God says about Himself, not what you or I think or feel. The culturally relevant biblical truth to explore today is a twin truth that is held in tension.

God Reveals Himself As Both Majestic And Personal.

Let’s look first at what the psalmist has to say about the majesty of God.

O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.
O that You would slay the wicked, O God; depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalms 139)

I. THE UNLIMITED MAJESTY OF GOD IS UNAFFECTED BY MAN’S LIMITED UNDERSTANDING OF HIM.

Because God is without beginning, God is also without boundaries. The psalmist is rightly saying that there is some knowledge and understanding about God that is too much for us to take in. Who can fully understand the ways of God? Once I was asked by a young man trying to put all the pieces together of how God has revealed Himself. He asked me some questions about the mysteries of God and I had to confess that I didn’t know. He said that if I didn’t know then tell him where he could go to get the answers. I said that for some of his questions God did not reveal the answers to anyone. After he protested a bit he stopped when I told him that if he had all the answers to every question about God that no one else did, then he would be God…and perhaps that was his real struggle after all. We all want to know what God knows. And we never will. That knowledge is reserved for him. I agree with the psalmist. Such knowledge is too high…I cannot attain it. God is not boxed into our reality. Some people say that we put God in a box. That we limit His activity when we compartmentalize Him. I would go farther and say that God is without boundaries. And if we really think we have Him boxed in and can control Him we’ve really got the wrong God hemmed in. He is loose and unhindered in the universe. And just because we are limited in our understanding of Him does not mean He is diminished in His majesty. The mystery of this majesty is that we get an occasional glimpse of it when He reveals it to us. The revelation of how much He knows us is revealed when we come to know Him.
God saw the length of my life before it ever began. That source of knowledge is something the psychics on the hotline would love to be plugged into. Not only does God know the words I speak before I speak them He knows the days of my life before I began to live them. According to verse 16 my days have been numbered. Sounds like a lot of biblical truth expressed in the days of the old western movies. One gunman would tell another to say his prayers, his days were numbered, and he was going to meet His maker. Wow! Now that is a culturally relevant message from a biblical perspective for people in our time. But no one seems to be listening very well. But that does not negate the truth from God’s perspective. It behooves us to have this biblical worldview even if many in our nation do not.
This Creator is unlimited in His knowledge of creation even when His creatures are oblivious and rebellious toward Him. The popularity of the biblical worldview does not carry any weight towards its veracity. God is true even if none of us believe Him. But how much more should these things shape the believer’s life? This revelation of God to us changes the way we live when we rightly think about Him. We can know God. But the greater truth is He knows us.
God knows everything we try to hide from all others, even ourselves. Often our greatest obstacle to being free to worship God comes in our self deception. We pretend we are something we are not and build up defenses so we do not have to disclose ourselves to God. We can lie to ourselves and believe the lies that we are good enough to justify ourselves to God. The psalmist knew that God knew him deeper than he knew himself. God has thought of everything. If He wants us to be free from sin that we have believed is not sin, He can help us see that by the convicting presence of His Holy Spirit. God knows us intimately. And He is majestic in His omniscience.
This Christ we worship is the God who had no need to be told about the nature of man because He knew all men. Such is the teaching in chapter 2 of John’s gospel. Chapter 3 introduces us to someone who by all accounts of man’s standards of righteousness was presentable to God. Now there was a man…tells us of the teacher named Nicodemus. And He lacked something to help him see the kingdom of God. He needed to be born again. This is the heart of man. We need spiritual birth to access God.
Our Maker is informed and engaged in our lives. An earthly king can be seen as very powerful in that he may have unparalleled access and control over a subject’s life. He may have knowledge over the subject’s personal and public life due to the gathering of information. A powerful king has a multitude of resources. But these earthly kings are very seldom acquainted with the subject on a personal level. This is where the contrast in God as our King is stark. He is not only intimately informed, He is powerfully engaged. He knows our weaknesses hidden from others. And He is powerful enough to do something about it.
Christ-followers who know God as all-knowing and all-powerful can live in a much different way than those who do not follow Christ. It shapes the way we make decisions in a culture that is bent on the pursuit of knowledge. We live in an information age. Knowledge is power, we hear many times. But instead of wielding this advantage to knowing more about everything to gain power over others, God gives us wisdom to apply His power to our lives. He gives us power to say no to running the rat race that the rats are winning. He gives us the power to say yes to His ways.
We can live as though we actually believe that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The intricate design of the human being shows the intimate care and power of our Maker. And we worship Him for that. His nature is what sets His children apart from the children of men. And even the struggles in this life cannot cancel out the majesty of our Maker. Pain is real in this world. We are not called to deny it. We are called to bring our struggle to God.
The losses and crosses in our lives as members of Christ’s body are diminished under the dominion of God. Sometimes life hurts as we live it under God’s authority. We are challenged as we are told by those of no faith that if God cared about us we wouldn’t be suffering. Rebuke that lie. God knows our plight. And He knows us personally. And He can remove the thorns in our flesh or He can sustain us with His grace to endure them. He is good. He is more than good. He is great.
We have a Great King in the Kingdom of God. Wouldn’t it be a bummer if we found a king much like “the man behind the curtain” in the Wizard of Oz? I pitied him when I saw him pulling the levers that put forth the fire and smoke and images of the great and powerful Oz. We do not have a God we need to pity or apologize to the world on His behalf. We have a Great King worthy of our worship and worthy of our loyalty. God is much bigger than the men He has made.

II. OUR MAJESTIC MAKER IS INCOMPARABLE IN OUR COMPARISON.

Our second passage of scripture to explore today leads up to the popular “eagles’ wings” passage that for thousands of years have encouraged God’s people. The secret of mounting up with wings like eagles is learning how to apply the knowledge of a great and intimate God to life when it presses in and bears down upon us. Hear the word of the Lord revealed to us through the prophet Isaiah.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and informed Him of the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust. Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.
To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him? As for the idol, a craftsman casts it, a goldsmith plates it with gold, and a silversmith fashions chains of silver. He who is too impoverished for such an offering selects a tree that does not rot; he seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman to prepare an idol that will not totter.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.
“To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God?” Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. (Isaiah 40:12-31)

God has always revealed Himself as powerful and personal to people in times of despair. Desperate times require desperate measures, the old saying goes. Desperate times require a Majestic Measurer. God had the times of Isaiah and the times we live under His sovereign control. This great passage tells me that anytime I am struggling with the struggles in life and weary beyond my capacity, I need to consider and compare my circumstances to this incomparable God. There is none like Him.
People who lived in the time of Moses, Gideon, and Isaiah were despondent much like the people today…when God was compared to cultural adversity and hardship. Life is getting increasingly harder for the believer in America. It seems that the prosperity we have lived with is dissipating and the false faith of easy-believism is fading away. But real faith considers the circumstance and compares it with the God of the circumstance. For believers, hard times reveal the character of a rock-solid God.
Life is hard for the person who does not follow Christ because they are trying to live outside the authority of the Life-Giver. The Bible tells us that the way of the transgressor is hard. They want to enjoy life without the joy of the Lord, live in the Garden of God without the Gardener, and the Kingdom of God without the King. They want to do life on their own. This is man living outside of his purpose. The one who lives and struggles with the natural world in natural ways will not overcome. It has only been granted to those who surrender to Christ to be overcomers. Are you weary of being overwhelmed and desire to be an overcomer? Surrender your life to the authority of Christ today. He is King.
So You are a king? This is the mocking question posed to Jesus by the Roman governor Pilate just before Jesus completed His work on the cross. Jesus responded, My kingdom is not of this world…and …for this I have been born… Jesus was born to die so that we may be born to live. Are you living your life according to the pattern that Christ left for us to follow? Are you working for the King?
We cannot do the work of Christ but we can get to work with Christ. By this I mean that His work on the cross was His and His alone to do. That was His purpose. My purpose is to know Him and serve Him. And I must join Him in His work of redemption. First of all I must not resist what He is working out in me. He is conforming me to His image. This means I must be in a constant mode of repentance and change. When I find myself serving myself, I must say no to me and yes to Christ. We have worked long enough trying to make a name for ourselves rather than exalting the name of Christ. We must be clear in our culture as to who it is we follow for our following to be relevant. Christianity without following Christ is meaningless.
The church is the Body of Christ no matter who is president of our nation or no matter who is leader of any other nation. This passage tells us that God sets these people in place and the nations are as drops of water in a bucket. Does God care about the lives of men? Yes. But He is first and foremost concerned about His glorious name. It will be exalted in the earth. All will come to know He is God and there is no other. There are no other gods who have any power. Idols are teeterers and totterers in the scheme of things. Idols fall and idolaters stumble.
Today the church is God’s chosen spiritual army no matter who has access to nuclear missiles. The threats of world leaders to wield this horrendous sword are not a factor in the waging of spiritual warfare. Is global nuclear war a serious threat? You bet it is. But the greater threat is the loss of the souls of men and women and boys and girls who are too focused on the potential of calamity to give thought to their Personal Creator. Church, are we making much of this majestic and intimate God? If we don’t, where in the world will the world hear of such a Being?
The church of the Living God has all the resources of God no matter whose bank is bankrupt. Do we testify by our words and actions that we believe that God is able to sustain His people in these uncertain and perilous times? Do we act in faith by living out a faithful lifestyle before a watching world? Do we encourage our brothers and sisters who are struggling financially and help when we see a need? This Great God has placed His name upon His church. This is our greatest resource. The name of Jesus.

Our So What today comes to us in the form of three questions God asks in the Isaiah passage. To continually ask these three questions to ourselves is to help give us application in living out the days ahead of us.

To whom then will you compare God? (verse 18) Because we are flawed and fail, we imagine this about God. Here is where we err in our thinking! He is incomparable in His ability and compassion.

Why do you think I’ve abandoned you? (verse 27) Repent from this mindset that thinks God does not care about His people. The cross sends a different message. This kind of thinking dishonors God and diminishes His sacrifice.

Haven’t you heard about who I am? (verse 28) God is God Almighty; He gives strength to the weary, hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless. Believe the gospel…God’s good news about man’s bad condition.

After we have compared the incomparable God to our circumstance in life, we can mount up with wings like eagles. Wait on the Lord. He will come and help His people. He is that powerful. And He is that personal.

We can love a God like that.