Meditation on the Greatness of God

If you would turn with me in your Bibles, Psalm 96. Now if you're worried about this being heavy stuff, it won't be. It's a meditation.

What I want to express to you in a few moments is what has been on my mind and heart for several weeks. And in doing so, not only to enhance and increase our appreciation of the greatness of our God, but also to encourage our souls to seek to meditate more upon Him, and to be occupied with Him in such a way that we grow in our knowledge and understanding of our Lord Jesus and our God. Let's read in Psalm 96.

Read from verse 1. We could read the rest of the Psalm, but we'll stop at that point. Let's go to Psalm 104. Psalm 104.

Who maketh His angels spirit, His ministers a flaming fire. Who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed forever. Let's read that one except for verse 34.

Down to verse 34, the Psalmist says, My meditation of Him shall be sweet. And the Revised Version says, It will be sweet to Him. Our meditation is sweet to the Lord.

I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. I will be glad of the Lord. One more, and that's Psalm 145 and 3. Psalm 145.

I'm sorry, 143. I'll get back to the right one. Psalm 145.

The numbers are turned around there. Psalm 135, verse 3. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Thy works to another and shall declare Thy mighty acts.

I will speak of the glorious honor of Thy majesty and of Thy wondrous works. The men shall speak of the might of Thy terrible deeds, and I will declare Thy greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness, and shall sing of Thy righteousness, and so on.

Every Psalm is worth reading in its entirety. My purpose this morning in the time given to me is to meditate with you upon the greatness of our God. I don't know if we take very much time to think of how great God is.

I've read that man's tendency is to have thoughts of himself that are too high, and his thoughts about God are too low. Our desire and our ambition in life should be to exalt the Lord in every way possible and to learn more of himself in such a manner that he is exalted and praised. I've been convicted of my mind in a very definite way to realize that I do not want to arrive in heaven to meet a person, a man, who I hardly know.

This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. And our purpose in heart and life should be to increasingly, perhaps it's true as we get older, I've found that since my wife passed away over four years ago, that I've been able to spend more exercise and spend more and more time just in meditation, time alone with God. I hope you do that yourself.

I'd like to encourage that in every one of us. I'd like to encourage you to get up just a half hour earlier in the morning, just to sit alone and let the Spirit of God tell you something about the greatness of our God. You know what it does? It will change your whole day.

It will alter your entire attitude and the condition of your soul. You'll find yourself able to rejoice all day long. That's why I tell people when they ask me, how are you doing? Wonderful.

Every day is wonderful when you've been spending it, first of all, with the Lord Jesus. Meditation, I understand, and lifting are being occupied with things that are higher than us, more pure than we are, of a higher standard and level than we are, always has an effect upon our social aspect and our outlook. It always affects the person.

It will affect us and make us better believers by doing so. You might ask yourself, what is the value of meditation upon the person of God himself? Well, the first thing is it exalts him. Listen, brethren, we should be occupied with one great purpose in life, whether it's in what we do, what we say, how we think, or what we're entangled with in our activities, we want to exalt him.

To lift his name and to lift him up before the world as well as in our souls. Remember the Spirit of God has been given in John chapter 16. The Lord says he shall glorify me.

And I take it if there's anything the Spirit of God wants to do in your heart and mind, he wants to glorify Christ. He wants to make him large. Paul could say in his own words in Philippians chapter 1, my own great purpose in life is to make Christ known.

And he says also that I might magnify him by life or by death. You know, you magnify something that is very small by using a magnifier or a microscope. But I tell you, the Lord Jesus is not small.

You magnify also by using a telescope, but that brings things that are a long ways away, very close at hand. And to many people today, God is a very distant person. But you and I are entrusted with the responsibility and the privilege of representing him in this world, dear child of God, that we might magnify Christ and make him large in the eyes of man.

And that is the result of him becoming large in our hearts and our minds. We are to exalt him, to give praise and honor. I think it's a good idea to start learning how to praise before we ever get to heaven.

Right? You wouldn't want to start off in kindergarten sometime learning how to praise the Lord. It's a time that we learn even now. And it's a wonderful thing to develop.

I'm not too concerned about the language. This is a sideline right now, but we oftentimes get upset with the language that a brother might use when they speak in thee or thou or you or whatever. But my mind goes back to something I heard one time as a recording of a message.

There was a man that was beginning his message by praying. He didn't use thee or thou, and I'm not saying one thing or the other about that. But that man spent five minutes or more in the most reverential expression of praise to God that I've ever heard with my ears.

I could tell he spent time in God's presence. It's worth it. The second thing that meditation does is, of course, it enhances our worship.

If you want to worship, brethren, if you want to worship, sisters, if you want to rise in your hearts to worship and praise God as he is worthy to receive, you need to meditate upon his greatness. The more we're occupied with him, the more our thoughts and our minds are concentrated upon the person. And we're taken up in a sense to, well, Paul was taken up into the third heaven, wasn't he? I don't know if he got there physically or what it was, but it changed his life in an entirely way.

You and I need to know what it is to be lifted up in spirit, to behold the greatness of our God and the wonder of our exalted Lord, and the one that is seated there in glory and power, majesty coming again for us. It will enhance our worship. You know, worship is really a deep heart-felt occupation with the greatness and the grandeur and the importance of the value of the person.

It's more than what I've received. I'm not occupied so much with what I've gotten from God in worship. I'm occupied with what can I give to God? What can I offer to him that will be commensurate with his worth and what he should receive? So it uplifts our souls and enables us to worship, because our hearts are warmed and our souls are encouraged, they're spiritually stimulated, because worship is a spiritual activity.

The third thing it does is also important, and that is that it strengthens our testimony. You and I are left in this world to bear witness for one that the world doesn't know. It's one the world cannot see.

The invisible God, the one who occupies heaven, the one who is the God of heaven and earth, the God of time and eternity, the God of believers as well as unbelievers, he's a God over all. And we're here in this world to represent him. And if you're going to represent any person, you need to know them to the full extent that's possible.

And I want to encourage us to do that, because we're linked with a great God. Are you ever ashamed to bear witness for the Lord Jesus? I hope not. You're bearing witness for the greatest person that ever walked this earth and ever will.

You're bearing witness for one that the world does not know, but he is real. And he is worthy of our highest praise and adoration. But you might ask yourself, well, of course, in these psalms, I should say something about them perhaps.

But the psalms are so full of the greatness of God. I love to read the psalms. I hope you read the psalms.

They're the expressions of worship and praise that rose from the hearts of men and women. Men, I should say. I think they wrote the psalms.

The expression of these men who knew not all that we know concerning the Bible. We didn't have it. But there were men that knew what it was to be occupied with God and to meditate upon him and think about him.

We read the words of Zophar in Job chapter 11, where he says almost sarcastically to Job, Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty under perfection? Obviously, no, it's impossible. But you and I study the subject of God and consider his greatness, dear brothers and sisters. I was thinking this morning when I was parked in the overlook along the highway this morning and sitting there looking out over the water, just thinking.

I thought, you know, I could see the other side over there. And when we get down to the shores of the water, you could dabble there, you could swim out a little bit. I don't know what it's like down there, but you could swim out in the water and you could go as far as you want.

But you know, there's another side. There's an end to it. When you go out in the ocean, you do the same, and you can't see the horizon.

It just goes on and on. Because dear brothers and sisters, you and I have an infinite God, unlimited, without any boundaries. But what his greatness is unsearchable, that's what we read.

Great is the Lord and his greatness is unsearchable. You can't reach the end of it. I need to stop that kind of thing, and I want to look at six ways, five ways, why the Lord is great.

First of all, he's great in his power and his wisdom. Great in power and wisdom. You ever, you know, we could take creation for granted.

We get used to it. We live in a world that we've been living in since the time we were born. That's all we've known.

But every intricate detail from the smallest to the greatest of this entire creation is a testimony to the greatness of God. The psalmist says a number of times, Psalm 77 and verse 13, Who is so great a God as our God? And he's thinking about the things that God has made. The marvel of creation.

Psalm 19 and verse 1 is so familiar to us. The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament showeth his handiwork.

Day unto day uttereth knowledge. And night after night showeth the message. I didn't quote it correctly.

But there's a testimony going on continually to the greatness of God. Ask yourself maybe sometime, Why did God make a universe that is so large and so vast? Man doesn't know how large this universe is. As far as they can see, it seems to be 93 billion light years across.

But they can't see the entirety because that's as far as they can see. Why did God make that? It's to glorify him. To magnify his blessed name.

When I could sit in the heavens, The psalmist could say the work of thy fingers, The moon and the stars which thou hast made. What is man that thou art mindful of him? This sort of man that thou visitest him. And you could go for the greatness of creation in all its vastness.

As you might know, I was trained as a microbiologist. So I'm always interested in the bacterial cells. You know, if you were to take, Just to give you an idea of how small they are, If you were to take a pinhead And dip it into a colony of Escherichia coli, E. coli, And come out there, you'd have a million or more bacterial cells on a pinhead.

And yet every one of them expresses an intricacy of detail. A marvel of function that is perfect. Marvelous.

And scientists today that examine those things Have not yet discovered how it all works. But it does. Tremendous.

Great is our God. He's great in power, great in wisdom. Not only power to speak those things into existence, But to do so with a perfect design.

From every function, every aspect of it. It's amazing. I love it.

Because of my background, perhaps, but I just love to read that. I could go on and on about that. There's a perfection in every aspect of our solar system.

Do you know that? The sun gives out just the right amount of heat To reach the earth in a proper amount. To provide energy and heat that is so essential. Just the right amount.

And the earth is rotating around in its orbit around the sun At just exactly the right distance. And the earth turns on its rotational basis Once every 24 hours. Just exactly the right number.

That's all it can go. And the moon is essential too. It balances out the rotation of the earth.

Who made it? Great is our God. Great in power and majesty. Great in wisdom and amazement, brethren.

When we look at the things of this world, we ought to think How great is our God. How wondrous is his person. And yet to think that he looked upon you and me.

His kindness and his mercy. I could quote other scriptures too. In Psalm 92 and verse 5, he says, O Lord, how great are thy works! And thy thoughts are very deep.

In Psalm 147 and 5, he says, Great is our Lord, and of great power His understanding is infinite. So all is seen so perfectly in the wisdom of God. Brethren, occupy your hearts with the greatness of the God That made all things.

He sustains them. He's upholding them. The second thing I'll say is he is great in his plans and his purposes.

Things don't happen haphazardly. There's a God who is over all, who is in control, Who is moving things forward right to their ultimate destination. We read in Psalm 139 and verse 17, How precious are thy thoughts! Also are thy thoughts unto me, O God.

How great is the sum of them! And Isaiah 55 and verse 8 and 9 would tell us those words. God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts. And your thoughts are not my thoughts.

He says, As the heaven is higher than the earth, So are my thoughts higher than your thoughts, And my ways than your ways. Man cannot reach that high. But the plans and the purposes of God, Because he has made all these things, And he is working out his plans in the present day, All toward a future destiny.

You know, there is a destiny so far as this earth is concerned. There's a day coming and things are moving. We're not only moving physically through time and space, But we're also moving forward in God's purposes.

We read in Hebrews chapter 1, That he is the one who has made all things by the word of his power, And he is the one who is bearing them. He's carrying them forward. It's in him, by him, and through him, and for him.

All things have been made. You say, Why did God bring into existence all the things that he made? He has one great purpose and he's moving toward it Incessantly, unceasingly. He's going to glorify his son.

And he's going to put him in a place of absolute majesty and power and dignity. He's going to rule from sea to sea and from shore to shore. What are these things made for? It's for the honor and the glory of the eternal son of God.

And he's going to have the place that he rightfully deserves. And you look at the world around us, And you think of the chaos, and the confusion, and the violence, And the disorder, the divisions. That's all a passing scene.

One day he's going to get infinite glory to his name By vanquishing the power of the devil. By putting him in a place where he deserves to be. The first rebel against God is going to be found In the place that was prepared for him, In the lake of fire.

Thank God. Christ is going to receive greater honor and glory as a result of sin Than God ever lost when man sinned against him. God has great purposes.

His plans go beyond our capacity to understand. He's great in his purposes and his plans that will one day be carried out. Nothing is haphazard.

Nothing is going on by chance. But behind the scenes he is working and directing and controlling To bring everything to completion. And all that he's doing will arrive finally at the destination in his own time and way.

And it's really beyond our capacity to understand the entire picture. Too great. It makes my heart bow in worship.

The more I think about it, the lower I bow. You think of the greatness of God not only in plans and power, But he's great in his pity and his mercy. The psalmist says in Psalm 57 verse 10, For thy mercy is great unto the heavens.

How high is that? The greatness of God's mercy toward you and me. Mercy is God moving in his kindness to relieve the misery of men Who are suffering the effects of sin. Mercy continually expressed.

Psalm 86 verse 13, For great is thy mercy toward me, and thou hast delivered my soul, He says, from the lowest hell. And we can experience and appreciate the mercy of God As he's expressed it toward us. Psalm 103 verse 11, 13 and 14, he says, As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them.

And as a father pitieth his children, he pitieth them that love him. He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are but dust. The Lord has shown mercy far greater than we can comprehend.

When we think of what we really deserve, What you and I should receive from the hand of God, First of all, we should receive nothing good. We don't deserve anything. But out of his kindness and his pity, Out of his looking upon men, Realizing the weakness and all the evils that have come in because of sin, The awful suffering that people endure, We thank God that there is a God who is great in mercy.

And his grace is infinite. Grace is really God moving in a way Designed to deal with the guilt of man's sin. Graciously providing for us what we could never attain to ourselves.

Taking no account of whether we are worthy or unworthy. It's simply coming out of his heart in all of its largeness. All of its greatness.

The grace of God has not only been seen in the fact that he has delivered us from the sin That condemned us. He's not only delivered us from the judgment that we should have received. He's not only delivered us from a world that's far from God And brought us so near to himself, But he's even blessed us eternally.

The grace of God goes beyond just simply deliverance. The grace of God is what supplies our need And gives abundantly all that we have need of along life's pathway. The grace of God has brought us into the position that we enjoy sonship.

Adoption in the family. Being bestowed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. Great is his pity.

Great is his mercy. Great is his kindness. Maybe you think this is boring.

I hope not. I love it. Because you and I are the objects of the grace and the mercy of God.

Should appreciate it more. All that he is doing is so great salvation. That's why I can speak of it as great.

Not only because of what it cost him. Because there's no limit to the willingness of God to give the very best, The highest, the most valuable, the most precious In order for you and me to enjoy such a place that we have in his presence today. He's not only great in power and wisdom, but great in his plans and purposes.

And he's great in his pity and his mercy. But I'll just say this. God is great in his person.

You ever study the attributes of God? The attributes are not what God does. The attributes of God is what he is. He is love.

He is holy. He is just. He is righteous.

He is pure. He is infinite in his person every way. Every attribute of God expresses his greatness because there's no limit.

All of us have limits in the way we'd express that which we are by nature. But in relation to our God, he is great. In every attribute, every aspect of his person.

We read in Psalm 48 in verse 1, Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised In the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. And in Psalm 76 in verse 1 we read, In Judah is God known, his name is great in Israel. You know, when you stop to think about God's holiness, I mentioned last week in Blue River, He dwells in a light that is unapproachable.

He dwells in a sphere in which you and I cannot even penetrate. We might attempt to penetrate and to move into the darkness that surrounds him. We find it's too dark for us.

We might move thinking of the attraction of the light and all of his purity and holiness. But you can only go so far. It's so far beyond you.

Listen, don't ever limit God. Don't ever bring him down to our own estimation and our own understanding. He's far greater than we could possibly comprehend with our minds.

I hope I've given you a little bit to whet your taste and your appetite. To just study the theme of God. You know, some people would think that meditating upon God is a waste of time.

I pity such people. I pity them. Because the highest thought that you and I can have as moral creatures has to do with God himself.

Theology is a study of God. And you and I should be theologians. And I hope you make time to just think about God.

It takes your mind away from the evil things of this world and the frivolities and the trifles and all the empty activities of a passage scene. It's all going to be gone one day. But there's one who's going to do it forever.

Our God is forever. And so we find that he is one who is perfect in every attribute. Great in every expression of all that he is.

And he's expressed that greatness toward you and me in our low estate. And what we were by nature. And what we still would be had it not been for the movement of God on our behalf.

The marvel of God providing salvation. And giving the very creator of this world, the eternal son of God. The one who inhabited the light that is unapproachable.

The greatness of the one who participated in the deity. All that God was is what he is. Our savior.

But he is God from eternity. He's the one who was the word from eternity from the beginning. With God, toward God, in God's presence, like God, participating in the nature of God.

And yet he became man. Perfect man. It's a mystery.

But thank God we're linked with one who has accomplished the entirety of the work that we might be brought. In the enjoyment of this condition and position to be able to know God. But I go on.

One more thing that I'll mention before I sit down. He's great in his prominence. His potential prominence, preeminence.

As you'd say, not prominence, it's preeminence. I'm thinking of the future. Many of these Psalms anticipate the day when Christ will be exalted in glory.

They're looking for the day when all creation will join. Even the trees of the wood, he says, will clap their hands. In praise and adoration for the Lord himself.

When he comes in his glory and his power. And the Psalms, for instance, in Psalm 48, verse 2. A Psalm that says, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. The city of the great king.

There have been kings in this world. And perhaps the greatest king that ever sat upon a throne was Nebuchadnezzar. The head of gold.

At the beginning of the Gentile domination. Times of the Gentiles. Daniel could say thou art the head of gold.

He was a great king. But his greatness pales into insignificance when compared with our great king. You know, kings can occupy a large territory in this world.

Nebuchadnezzar's area of domination was large. These in the Persians perhaps was a little larger, but less glorious. And Alexander's empire reached into India in all of its greatness.

But we find, of course, the Roman Empire dominated the entire Mediterranean area. Farther, they're absolutely nothing compared with the greatness of the Lord Jesus. He rules over everything.

He's the one that's going to have control from sea to sea and from shore to shore. And he's the one that the Psalm speaks about. In Psalm 95 in verse 3, For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.

And again he says in Psalm 86 in verse 10, For thou art great to doest great things. Thou art God alone. And I'll close with one more verse in Psalm 104 in verse 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God.

Thou art very great, very great. Thou art clothed with honor and majesty. When he says thou art very great, it just makes me think that he says the words are exhausted.

I can't find any more words to express it. The greatness of our God is far beyond our capacity to describe. But you and I have been brought by the grace of God to know him.

And I ask each one of us today, How much do you know God? How well do you know God? You might know all the doctrines of the scripture. There are men that can outline the whole Bible. There are those that can give you all the elucidation of all the teachings and all the words and all the meanings and all the rest of it.

But the real question is, do they know God? The test of spirituality is how much you and I really know what it is to be in close fellowship and communion with our God. That's what the Spirit of God wants to do with you and me. He wants to teach us more of the person.

He wants to enlarge our hearts and minds to a larger, greater apprehension of the infinitude of our God, the one who suffered, bled, and died for us. When I speak about God, I'm not speaking about the Father. I'm not speaking about the Spirit of God or the Son.

I'm speaking about God. Triune God. The one who himself gave himself for us and accomplished the work.

Dear child of God, you and I, we're going to be worshippers for all eternity. Worshippers. Occupied with the greatness of the person.

And the theme of praise in that day will be, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory and honor and dominion and power. Majesty. And we give it to him now.

That he might receive a foretaste before we are gathered home with himself. He's coming again. He's going to rule.

He's going to reign. And he's going to have the place that God intends for him. All this was created for him.

And you and I have been brought to associate with him or reign with him and enjoy his presence for eternity. May God help us to do so even now. Let's pray.