Calvary Road Baptist Church
“HOW BIG GOD IS”
My message tonight is titled “How Big God Is” and involves our perception of our God. I want to bring some things to your remembrance that you may already know. However, review is still good for us all. My message is constructed along a simple two-point outline. Point number one is directed to the unsaved in our midst, and is called, He Is Big Enough To, under which I will list four things God has done. My second point is directed to the saved people here tonight, and is called, He Is Big Enough To, under which I will list four things God has done. Therefore, it will not be a complex message.
When I finish we are going to have a testimony time to give praise to our big God, Who is concerned with little people like us.
First, let me say that unsaved people usually underestimate God. That is, if they think on Him at all. THEREFORE, to the unsaved person I would like to say that God is big enough.
He is big to create the universe and all that herein is, because that is just what He did about 7,000 or 8,000 years ago. Genesis 1.1 begins, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” John 1.1-3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Isaiah 40.28 speaks to unsaved people who have not heard this before. The prophet writes, “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary?” Unsaved people might not believe that my God created all things, but “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear,” Hebrews 11.3.
Not only is my God big enough to create the universe, He is also big enough to sustain the universe. In Nehemiah 9.6, we read, “Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.” In Colossians 1.17 we read of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist,” or stick together. Thus, it is more clearly revealed in the New Testament that it is the Second Person of the triune godhead Who holds the whole creation together. Jesus sustains it.
How big is God? The third thing I note is that He is big enough to fill the universe. Jeremiah 23.24 says, “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.” Then, of course, the 139th Psalm, a psalm of David, there are verses 7-10:
7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
How big is God? He is big enough to fill His universe. We call this omnipresence.
Finally, to the unsaved person, let me say that God is big enough to redeem the entire universe. We know from John 3.16 that Jesus Christ died to redeem all mankind from the marketplace of sin: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” However, did you know that His death also provided for the redemption of the universe? In a portion of his letter dealing with God’s glory, Paul writes these words in Romans 8.22: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Paul points out that all creation was affected by Adam’s fall into sin, and he characterizes the physical universe as being in agony under the curse of sin that came with Adam’s fall. Because of what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary, creation expectantly looks forward to the future time when God redeems His physical universe.
These words were primarily directed to unsaved people, people who usually think God is smaller than He really is. Not so. He is big enough to create, to sustain, to fill, and to redeem His universe.
Now for you Christian folks, for you folks who have responded to the gospel message and know that if you died tonight you would go to heaven, I have a somewhat different outline.
I have done this because I have sometimes observed that, for some strange reason, when someone becomes a child of God his thinking is sometimes transformed from a person who thinks God is too small for him to rely on to becoming a person who thinks God is too big to pay attention to him. How big is God?
First, He is big enough to create one person, you. I am not talking about your physical conception, for that is when your life actually began, some nine months before your birth. No, I am talking about when you were born again. Did you know that when you were saved God made you all over again? He sure did. Second Corinthians 5.17 says, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature.” When you responded to the gospel, God took that which was sinful and made you into that which was beautiful in His eyes, that which was unacceptable and made you acceptable. Big? Yes. Big enough for making you. You were recreated when you were converted to Jesus Christ.
Next, He is big enough to sustain the universe, and He is big enough to sustain you, too. Do you think God cannot meet your needs? I read Luke 6.38: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” I now read Philippians 4.19: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” He holds universes together. He sustains entire worlds. As well, He can and will sustain you. That is both a promise and also a comfort.
Third, my God is big enough to fill the universe, but He is also big enough to fill me, and to fill you. Did Paul command the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5.18? Sure he did. Why so? Because God desires to fill us with His Spirit, to guide and direct us: “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” When a believer is thus filled with the Holy Spirit of God, there is a pronounced effect on his attitude and on his conduct. Is it not an amazing thing that God can fill His child?
Finally, my God is big enough to redeem one person. It is a wonderful thing when a sinner turns to Jesus Christ and experiences the forgiveness of all his sins, adoption into the family of God, and the Holy Spirit accomplishes the immediate sealing and indwelling that. Do not, however, think that God has instantly completed everything He plans to do in your life. As justification results in an immediate change of standing before God, and sanctification results in a gradual growth and development into Christ likeness over the course of the Christian’s span of life, so there is also something called glorification, whereby the believer is instantly suited for eternity by means of a radical transformation. Closely related to glorification is something called redemption. Romans 3.24: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8.23: “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” First Corinthians 1.30: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Ephesians 1.7: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” Ephesians 1.14: “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 4.30: “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Colossians 1.14: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” Hebrews 9.12: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Redemption is purchased by the blood of Christ, will involve our bodies, will be finalized at some future time when we enter eternal glory, and will last forever. However, do not lose sight of the fact that is takes place in the life of one person at a time.
God is big enough to bring about your creation anew when you became a Christian, is big enough to sustain you as a Christian, is big enough to fill you with His Spirit, and is big enough to finally accomplish your eternal redemption.
With creation, God is big enough to create universe, and still big enough to create baby Christians one at a time. He can sustain all matter in the universe, and He can sustain us in our physical, emotional and spiritual needs. He can fill the universe with His presence, but He especially delights to fill the heart and life of one of His children. He has redeemed the universe, but Jesus died for you, too, with your certain redemption awaiting its timely completion.
How can we live our lives as if God does not care about us? He cares for us in a very big way.
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.
Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church