Youth and the Awesomeness of God, Part 2

Reviewing the Awesomeness of God

If you remember from last week, we started a series on the awesomeness of God. This is an awesome subject because it pertains to our God—who He is, what He does, and His total control over everything. God is the highest awesome, the epitome of awesome. By comparison, all non-God things are non-awesome.

We examined Psalm 39:5-8, where compared to God's eternal existence, our lives are closer to non-existence. Humanity's existence is finite and fallen, while God's is stellar, immense, and amazing.

Human achievements—like sports feats or world records—may seem awesome, but they are insignificant compared to God's awesomeness. This seems extreme, but how could anything be awesome compared to God? Our video games, devices, relationships—none compare.

Yet, through redemption and sanctification, we can experience these things as awesome by giving attribution and gratitude to God. Even suffering or adversity, which aren't awesome in themselves, become awesome through experiencing God's awesomeness.

This revolutionizes our lives. Homework or schoolwork isn't awesome, but we can experience God through it. A tough job—like my time in child support, taking 110 calls a day, most from angry people—can become an awesome experience if we behold God. The key is experiencing all things with joy through God's awesomeness.

The Three-Step Process to Beholding God

The series follows a three-step process:

1. Examine God as revealed in Scripture. If you don't behold God, you won't behold Him as awesome.
2. Examine what God says about humanity and Jesus Christ.
3. Be enamored with God's sovereignty and awesomeness.

Many don't experience God as awesome because they don't behold Him as He is. Mysticism turns inward to feelings, redefining God like mythological gods—too human-like. Atheists reject a straw-man God, reading Scripture out of context. Believers may also redefine God, missing His awesomeness.

John Calvin said we don't understand ourselves without beholding God. Like a car manual from the manufacturer, Scripture tells us how humanity functions. God says we are sinful, deserving wrath, incapable of pleasing Him. This makes us desperate for Christ, where God's love is found. In Christ, we avoid wrath, experience love, and are equipped to behold God's awesomeness.

This process applies to any Scripture: What does it say about God? Humanity? Our need for Christ? Then be enamored with God.

God's Total Sovereign Control

Tonight, we behold God exercising total control over all things. Nothing happens unless decreed by God.

Psalm 115:3: Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

Nations mock, "Where is their God?" The psalmist replies: God is in the heavens and does whatever He pleases. Not just existence, but awesome existence—unrestrained sovereignty. When we behold God, we can't help but express His awesomeness.

Isaiah 14:27: The Lord Almighty has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?

God's purpose can't be thwarted—like an outstretched arm holding back a sibling. No one stops God. This is awesome for those in Christ: No one can thwart God's good purposes. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Beholding God's awesomeness makes verses like John 3:16 hit harder. God's love, unstoppable, is infinitely more than man's.

Isaiah 43:13: Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can reverse it?

"I am he" (ego eimi)—Jesus' words knocked guards down. No one delivers from or reverses God's hand. For believers, safest place ever—hidden in Christ in God. For unbelievers, terrifying. God has saved you; no one reverses it, not even you.

Suffering comes only by God's permission, for your good—to make you like Christ. Satan attacks only with permission; he's not more powerful than God. In Job, God ultimately incited the testing for Job's good and His glory.

Isaiah 46:10: declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’

God knows and decrees history, including your salvation and good things like marriage.

Daniel 4:35: All the peoples of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

Closing Applications

1. God acts for His pleasure. Everything pleases or offends Him—no gray areas. Concern yourself with what pleases Him.

2. Trust God more. His power and unthwartable purpose make His promises—like salvation in Christ—utterly trustworthy.

3. Thank God more. Your life is ordained for good. Thank Him in adversity, trials, everything—He owed you nothing but saved you anyway.