All Knowing, All Present, All Powerful Various Texts

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All of us have great limitations in our lives. For example, if we want to travel somewhere, we can't instantly appear somewhere else.
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We have to walk, drive, or fly to arrive at our destination.
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This takes time. We have limitations also in learning. How many of us remember what we learned in high school?
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I know there's so much that I don't remember. Learning can be frustrating because we only remember some things and we forget much.
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We have limitations in our abilities. People have talents that others do not have.
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Many of you have learned probably quite quickly that I am not very handy. I don't know how to build things and I don't know how to fix things.
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If you were to give me all of the wood and the tools and say, build a shed, you would come back at the end of the day and you would find that I probably did hardly anything at all.
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This is an area where I am limited, but I'm trying to get better. I'm limited in this way and you have limitations in other areas.
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What is so humbling is that even in our strengths, we have limitations. We don't know everything there is to know and we still make mistakes when we exercise our talents.
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As we strive to know God, we must understand that this is not
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God's situation. This is not God's position. He has no limits.
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He is limitless. This morning, we are going to focus on three qualities where God is limitless.
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This sermon is titled, All -Knowing, All -Present, All -Powerful. As we continue our sermon series, ultimate pursuit of knowing
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God, what is he and who is he? We are going to learn about his greatness in these three areas this morning.
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So our big idea is God is unlimited in all of his attributes.
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When we say that God is unlimited, another way to say this is that he is infinite. In reality,
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God is infinite in all of his attributes and he has no limits. But this morning, we are focusing on three qualities where God is limitless.
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The first is that he knows everything. He knows everything.
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Job 37 .16 says that God is perfect in knowledge.
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1 John 3 .20 simply says God knows everything. God fully knows himself also.
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And this is saying something because his own being is unlimited and he fully knows the depths of himself.
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1 Corinthians 2 .10 -11 says this, So God knows his unlimited self infinitely.
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God knows all things that exist and all things that happen. We looked at this verse this morning in Sunday school.
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2 Chronicles 16 .9 And Job 28 .24
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says, And sees everything under the heavens.
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So this means that nothing can happen without God knowing about it. It's not like God is focused on one part of the earth and he's not focused on the other.
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He's focused on all of it. God knows when an insignificant animal dies.
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Matthew 10 .29 says, Two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father.
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This means that when your pet dies, God knows about it. Whether it's a dog or a cat or a guinea pig or whatever animal you have, when it dies,
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God knows. This means that when, sorry, when you think about it, the fact that God knows everything should be unnerving to us in one sense.
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One day, every one of us will be judged by God. God's judgment is intimidating because God knows everything about you.
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We can't hide anything. He'll be able to look at the deepest parts of you and know everything.
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Hebrews 4 .13 says, All of us have had the experience of going to the doctor.
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And some of you have had surgery where the surgeon actually goes in and looks at the problem to see what is there and then fixes the problem.
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And it's a little bit unnerving when someone looks inside of you with that intimacy of knowing what the insides look like of who you are.
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In the same way, God is able to look at the depths of who we are to the point where we can't hide anything from him.
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He knows everything about us. Thankfully, those who belong to Jesus and have his righteousness will be justified and not condemned on that day when we stand before the one who knows all of our sins.
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Romans 8 .1 says, And so if you know
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Jesus, you're safe. But it doesn't change the fact that God knows all of your sins.
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But thankfully, you don't have to pay for them. God knows the future exhaustively as we saw last week.
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Isaiah 42 .8 and 9 says, There's numerous places in the
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Bible where God tells the future and precisely how he said it was going to happen. It comes to pass.
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He knows the tiny details of our lives. Matthew 6 .8 says that your father knows what you need before you ask him.
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When you prayed, did you realize that? God knows what you need even before you ask him. But we still need to ask him because James tells us, you did not receive because you did not ask.
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So he knows what we need, but we still need to ask. Matthew 10 .30
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says that even the hairs of your head are all numbered. God knows how many hairs you have in your head, and he can tell you in an instant.
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God knows how many H2O molecules are in the St. Croix River, from the furthest north part to the furthest south part.
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He knows how many blades of grass are in our church lawn. He knows how many seconds each of you have been alive.
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He can, he could tell you in an instant. As I already mentioned, do you realize that God knows you exhaustively?
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He knows you far better than you know yourself. One of the most wonderful passages about this is
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Psalm 139 .1 -4 where it says, You search out my path and my line down and are acquainted with all my ways.
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Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all together.
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And then verse 16, your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were written.
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Every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
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God knows our life even before we have lived one day.
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Think about the babies in this church, Annabelle, Jacob, Aletheia, Graham.
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God already knows their story, and they are just beginning, but he knows every detail of their life.
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He knows exactly how their life is going to go. What is maybe even more incredible is that God knows things that don't even happen, but could have potentially happened.
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Sometimes we think about our lives and say, well, if I would have done this, my life would have turned out differently. God knows exactly how it would have turned out.
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I say this because of what 1 Samuel 23, 11 -13 says. David asks
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God what will happen if he and his men stay in the town of Calah. And this is what it says.
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Then David said, O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Calah to destroy the city on my account.
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Will the men of Calah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard?
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And the Lord said, he will come down. Then David said, will the men of Calah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?
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And the Lord said, they will surrender you. Then David and his men, who were about 600, arose and departed from Calah.
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So God knows, God knew that if they stayed, the people of this town were going to hand them over to Saul and his armies.
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And with that knowledge, they said, okay, well, we're not going to stay then. So they left. So God knows things that did not happen but could have potentially happened.
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God never needs to learn and he never forgets. Wouldn't it be nice to have that quality? I mean, how many times do we face this frustration?
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Psalm 90 verse 4, For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
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So he knows everything vividly and he never forgets and he never needs to learn. This is so much different from our experience because there is so much we do not know.
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And what we do learn, we forget so much of it. But God does not have this limitation. He is limitless.
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So as we look at God being all -knowing, this ought to blow our mind. It really should.
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When you realize that God knows everything. We should say with the psalmist in Psalm 139 6,
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Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it.
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God's thoughts as Isaiah the prophet says, For as high as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.
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And my thoughts than your thoughts. So this is the first quality that God is unlimited.
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He knows everything. The second quality that God is unlimited is that he is present everywhere.
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He is present everywhere. Last week we talked about how God is unlimited in his relationship to time.
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He is timeless. He is outside of time. In our second point, we are going to see how God is unlimited in his relationship to space.
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We know that God is Lord over space because he created it. Genesis 1 -1, In the beginning,
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God created the heavens and the earth. When it says that God created the heavens, that is referring to space.
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Since God created space, we can conclude that he is not bound by it. When we talk about space, by the way, we're talking about the universe.
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When you look up at the stars or if you look up at the sky during the day, that is space. The earth's atmosphere is space as well.
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Our everyday experience, we are bound by space. We walk, we drive, and any movement we make is through space.
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Moses told the Israelites of God's lordship over space in Deuteronomy 10 -14. He said,
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Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
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In addition to being Lord over space, God is also present everywhere at all times.
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Another way to say this is that God is omnipresent. Jeremiah 23 -24 says,
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The Lord says, I am a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away. Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him, declares the
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Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord? King David also describes
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God's omnipresence in Psalm 139, 7 -10. He says, Where shall I go from your spirit?
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Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
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If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utter parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
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So God's whole being is present in every part of space. He is present in galaxies that we don't even know about, light years away.
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He is present in parts of the ocean that are over 20 ,000 feet deep.
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He is present in heaven and in hell. There's one misconception that Satan rules hell, and that's not true.
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Satan is terrified of hell, and one day he is going to be thrown into hell. He's never been to hell, actually.
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But God is present everywhere, including hell. Because as God, he has to be present everywhere.
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No one could ever flee from his presence. This was a mistake that Jonah made. He thought he could run from God.
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And how did that work out for him? He spent three nights in the belly of a whale. If Jonah correctly understood
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God's omnipresence, he would have saved himself a lot of trouble. To say that God is everywhere is not to say that God is in his creation.
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There are false religions that say that God either is everything or is in everything.
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This is known as pantheism. Maybe you've heard of it. Eastern religions, the most well -known being
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Hinduism, believes this. God is not in anything in creation.
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He is set apart. He is distinct. And that's an important point to make. When we say that God is everywhere, this isn't pantheism where we say that he's in everything.
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He's not in everything, but he is everywhere. This past week during VBS, we played a game.
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It was a sponge relay where the kids ran to—they filled their sponge up with water.
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They had to run around a cone, probably about 30 or 40 feet away. And then they came back and they had to squeeze all the water out of the sponge.
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And some of you even got to play in this game. It was a lot of fun. This analogy might help you think about God's omnipresence.
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In a sponge, water is everywhere. But the water is not the same thing as the sponge, even though it is everywhere in the sponge.
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I know it's an imperfect analogy, but it might help you think about God's omnipresence. One thing we must understand about God is that he does not have spatial limitations.
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It's not as though we can measure God. John 4 .24 says that God is spirit.
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He does not have any physical dimensions. Now, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, did become a man.
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But he still remains an omnipresent spirit, even though he took on flesh. So he is fully
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God and he is fully man. When he became man, he did not give up his divinity, his deity.
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He still is fully God. Angels and demons are also spirits, but they are bound by space.
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They can only be in one place at one time where God is everywhere at all times. So this should encourage us when we think about Satan.
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Satan is only in one place in the world right now. We don't know where he is. He's somewhere, but he's probably not here.
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He's probably in some other place. He probably sent some demons here or something. But they can only be in one place at one time where God is everywhere.
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So he has no spatial dimensions. King Solomon understood this, and so he made this prayer to God.
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In 1 Kings 8 .27, he said, And this is what the
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Lord said through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 66, 1 and 2. So we should not think of God in spatial terms, even though it is easy to do so.
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What people often fail to realize is that before creation, not only was there no matter or time, when we talk about matter, we're talking about the physical, and there was no time.
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There was also no space. It's not as though God existed with space for all eternity.
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There was no space before God created it. Try thinking about that for a second. God was just there with no space.
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And right now, God exists without space. He exists without space right now, and he always will exist without space.
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So this is the second quality that demonstrates that God is unlimited. He is present everywhere.
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The third quality that demonstrates that God is unlimited is that he has full power.
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He has full power. God is limitless in his ability to do his will. The Bible says that God is mighty.
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Psalm 24 .8 says, Who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle.
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When the Bible says that God is mighty, or he's given the title almighty, that is used next to his name, this is referring to his power.
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God's power. God shows his power in creation, in the fact that he created all things.
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Revelation 4 .11 says, So think about this for a second.
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Everything that we see, God created. And obviously, this is something that we know, but we don't often just stop to think about it.
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And it's good to do this. Stop to think about these things. Look up at the stars at night and see how enormous the universe is.
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Where I'm from, we can't see the stars very well. There's lots of light, there's a lot of lights, and obviously you can't, you can only see some of the stars.
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You can't see a lot of the stars. Up here, you can see a lot, you can see a lot more, because we don't have as many lights, and it's nice.
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And you can see the beauty of God's universe. Look in a telescope and see all that God created.
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When we do this, we see that God's power did this. It's God's power that created everything that we see.
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And it must cause us to ask the question, how great must the one who made all of this be?
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How great must he be? God also sustains the universe with the same power that he used to create it.
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Hebrews 1 .3 says that he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
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This is something we don't think about either, that every millisecond, God is sustaining everything.
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And if he didn't do that, it would just all fall apart. Actually, Colossians 1 .17 says that all things hold together in Jesus.
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Everything holds together, and it's incredible to ponder this. Scientists can't explain all of this, that everything just holds together because God is the one who is doing it.
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As we ponder God's power, we must realize, too, that nothing is too difficult for God.
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The prophet Jeremiah understood this. Jeremiah 32 .17, he says, Lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm.
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Nothing is too hard for you. So Jeremiah is saying the fact that you did all of this, that you created all of this, that you are sustaining the universe, the fact that you can do all this, nothing is too hard for you.
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I was thinking about this recently in regards to my prayer life. How often do we pray small prayers?
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Because we limit God and we say, you know, I don't think God can do this, and so I'm just going to pray something small, something that I think he can do.
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If we do that, we need to repent and realize that God can do far more than we can imagine.
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We need to remember that the one that we pray to has unlimited power, and nothing is too hard for him.
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And as a church, we want to do something. We want to do big things here. We don't want to settle for mediocrity.
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We want to do big things. And so we should pray for big things as a church and realize that God's power is able to do it.
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Ephesians 3 .20 says that he is able to do far more than we can ask or imagine.
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And we know from the Bible that God performed many miracles. A miracle is also a demonstration of God's power.
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When an angel came to Mary and told her that she was going to have a child, she asked, how is this going to be since she was young and not yet married?
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The angel told Mary, the Holy Spirit is going to cause you to conceive. How did all this happen?
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This is how the angel answers. Nothing will be impossible with God. So, this baby, baby
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Jesus, was able to be conceived in Mary's womb by a miracle because nothing is impossible with God.
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The fact that God can go beyond the laws of nature that he set up demonstrates that he is unlimited in power.
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God is also able to do whatever he pleases. Psalm 115 .3 says,
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Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. We know about Israel's disobedience.
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God miraculously took them out of Egypt. He parted the Red Sea and they crossed it.
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He did all of this and yet the Israelites complained. After seeing this wonderful miracle that God performed, the
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Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt. They said, we would rather die in Egypt than die in the wilderness after seeing all that God did.
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And so God was rightly frustrated. And this is what he told
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Moses in Exodus 32 .10. He says, Okay, so what
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God is saying here is that, you know what, I could just wipe all these people out. And I could start all over with you,
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Moses. And I can build up another great nation just from starting with you. Starting from scratch.
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Now God didn't do that. He, in his great graciousness and his mercy, he did not destroy them.
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But he could have. And he could have started, he could have built up a new great nation if he wanted to. If God wanted to, he could have brought 300 people to church this morning at Eureka Baptist.
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He could have done that. But in his wisdom, he sometimes does not do what he is capable of doing.
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He has us where he wants us right now. And we will see where he takes us in the future. But we should not say, okay, let's just try to aim for mediocrity.
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Let's just try to survive. When in reality, God can do some wonderful things through this church. And that's something we must believe.
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And something we must pray for as well. Understanding who God is. That he is all -powerful. He is able to do anything.
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Because I am the pastor of this church, but God is the one who's in charge. Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd of this church.
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And so he is able to do so much more than we could possibly imagine. Now, we do not define all -powerful as God being able to do anything.
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What I mean by that is, God cannot do anything that goes against his holy character. God cannot do evil.
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1 John 1 .5 says that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.
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James 1 .13 says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
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So God cannot do evil. Titus 1 .2 says that God cannot lie.
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God always tells the truth. He is incapable of lying. Hebrews 6 .18
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says that it is impossible for God to lie. God can do anything consistent with his character, but to do evil or to lower himself in some way, this is impossible for God.
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When Luke 1 .37 says that nothing is impossible with God, we must realize that statement is made in context.
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Nothing is impossible as long as it agrees with his will, his holy, perfect character.
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God's power is unlimited, but his character determines the use of his power. We asked last week, why did
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God create the world? And do you remember the answer to that question? Why did
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God create the world? Well, the answer is, God created the world for his glory. That's why he did it.
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God created the world that we would see something of his nature, that he would make himself known to his creation.
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Romans 1 .19 and 20, this is what the apostle Paul wrote, but what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
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For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
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So, in creation, we see God's power has been revealed, and Paul highlights
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God's power here. We see his power in the fact that he created all things. Personally, I notice
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God's power, and you do, too, during thunderstorms. Do you think that the rumbles of thunder and the lightning show something about God?
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Absolutely, they do. In the Bible, when people had visions of God's throne, there was thunder and there was lightning around his throne.
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And this is showing God's power, his greatness. God has complete control over the weather.
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When Jesus was with his disciples, he was able to calm the storm in an instant. And do you remember what the disciples said?
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Even the wind and the waves obey him. So God produces natural wonders of storms, and he also has the power to tame them in an instant.
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Lastly, another way that God makes his power known is in salvation. When you first believed in God, his power had its effect in you.
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The Holy Spirit produced new birth in you. The Holy Spirit produced new life in you.
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This was God's power. Romans 116 says that the gospel is the power of God to everyone who believes.
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Ephesians 119 says, And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power to us who believe? according to the working of his great might.
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So when you believe, God's power is with you. God's power was there to initially make you believe, and God's power is there to sustain you as well.
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When you share the good news of Jesus with someone, that Jesus died for their sins and was raised from the dead, you must realize that God has the power to open the eyes of the heart, to give them new life in Christ.
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That's something we cannot do, but it's something that God can do through our words.
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The Holy Spirit can do it, and that's something we must understand. It's something we must believe. So this is the third quality that demonstrates that God is unlimited.
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He has full power. God is unlimited in all of his attributes. He knows everything.
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He is present everywhere, and he has full power. I mentioned last week that a potential criticism of this sermon series, and by the way,
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I haven't heard this from any of you, but just to say a potential criticism is that this isn't relevant enough to our daily activities, to what we are facing on a day -to -day level.
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After all, we are learning some deep stuff right now as we learn about God. But my answer to that is, what could be more relevant than learning about the author of all of life?
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God is able to face your challenges with you because he is infinite in his knowledge of your life. He is able to be with you at all times because he is everywhere.
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And no difficulty you are facing right now is too difficult because he is all -powerful. As you learn about God rightly, you will realize that you can give your troubles over to him, and he is always there for you.
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So you can see how relevant this is to your everyday life. We can face life and all the challenges that it brings when we understand who
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God is. And this morning, when we understand who— that God is all -powerful, all -present, and all -knowing.
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He is the only one who can face your challenges because of his greatness and because of his perfection. So it is my burden in proclaiming this to you that you would understand this.
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This knowledge of God will help you tremendously as you go through your daily life.
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God is great. And may we worship him and go to the one who is able to help us in all circumstances.
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Let's pray. Father, thank you for the opportunity,
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Lord, to share these truths about who you are, that you are all -powerful, you are all -present, you are all -knowing.
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And what a wonderful reality it is realizing that the
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Bible states clearly that these three qualities of yours are true. And so often,
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Lord, it's so easy for us to make you smaller than you really are, when in reality you are so big and you are so great.
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And so, Lord, may we come to you in times of trouble and may we come to you in every circumstance,
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Lord, whether good or bad, and go through life with you. And we can do this with you,
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Lord, because of who you are, because of how great you are, because of your attributes. We ask this in Jesus' name.