Five Things You Need to Know About God… Part III
Text: Psalm 139: 13-24
Proposition: God who is All Knowing and therefore All Present is All Powerful and Ever the Same, Eternally and is Worthy of All Praise.
Introduction: Let’s talk power for a moment. The world's most powerful computer, the IBM Roadrunner, has the ability to process 1 million, billion calculations per second. It has the strength of 100,000 MacBook Pro’s combined. It is so powerful that IBM estimates it would take 6 billion people armed with calculators nearly 50 years to process what the Roadrunner can achieve in a day. If you're searching for the world's most powerful creature, don't think elephants or whales--look instead to beetles. The average rhinoceros beetle can lift about 850 times its body weight. Ryan Kennelly holds the world bench-press record of 1,075 pounds. To equal the power of this 6-inch bug, Kennelly would need to bench press 300,000 pounds. Power is something that catches our eye, from the Wartsila-Sulzer boat engine with the ability to crank out 108,920 horsepower to the Soviet Union's Big Ivan hydrogen bomb that could vaporize everything in a 40-mile radius of its target, and that was 1961 technology. This morning we are going to consider a power that overwhelms all of these to the point that there is no comparison. Let’s talk about the Omnipotence of God, the attribute of God that we call All Powerful. Over the last couple of weeks we have considered the Omniscience and Omnipresence of God, the traits of God that refer to Him knowing all things and being all present. To these we now add the trait of God’s Omnipotence. Turn with me to Psalm 139:13-24.
I. God’s Omnipotence, Immeasurable Power Controlled By Perfect Will. If power can be defined as the ability to accomplish what one wills then this same definition also applies to God’s Omnipotence. All expressions of God’s power are controlled by His will which in turn is governed by His Knowledge and His Presence. Look at where David begins to describe this in verse 13, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.” In nine months the child who began to be the minute the sperm united to the egg is now ready to be born. The fetus' construction is complete and at birth a child is 100 million times bigger and 6 billion times heavier than its initial form when it was a fertilized egg. That is what the Omnipotence of God accomplishes. So David writes, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.” The power of God to create a human being works through us but happens in us by His design and His will. The beginning of life at conception is a topic of heated debate but there is no debate about the fact that it is a marvel, a wonder, non reproducible, it’s where we first see the uniqueness of another human being begin. When it comes to the sperm and the egg every child is a one in three hundred million possibility. That’s what the essence of that term, ‘wonderfully made’ refers to, each one of us is absolutely unique. God’s Omnipotent power controlled by His perfect will is what makes all creation marvelous. It’s that same Omnipotence that David refers to when he says, “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them.” God knows all of who we are, how each of us is unique, where we best fit and how long each one of us will live.
II. Immutability, the Unchanging Nature of God In All of Who He Is.
There are only three things that God in His Omnipotence can’t do. Heb. 6:17-18 says that it is impossible for God to lie. 2Tim. 2:13 then adds, "If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot deny Himself". Finally James 1:13says, "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone". The Omnipotence of God is controlled by His will but it is also governed by His nature, the essence of Who God is as being good, holy, loving, just and gracious and that never changes. The attribute of God that declares Him to be “the same yesterday, today and even forever” (Heb. 13:8) is called Immutability.
James 1:17…“Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.”. The Old Testament also declares it, Malachi 3:6 “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed”. The nature of Who God is does not change, He is always, always the same. Perhaps that’s what David had in mind when he said, “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.” Had you ever considered that God not only knows your name but that He has thought of you specifically more times than you could ever count? He is continually looking for a way to draw you to Himself, to strengthen you in being a person that is set apart to Him, holy, sanctified. To that end He always works all things together for good to those who love Him. When you wake tomorrow morning, He is right there. He’s been next to you throughout the night and He never changes. We believe that Immutability of the person and nature of God is also extended to His Word, the Scripture. So when we read of how God rescued people like Rahab or Gideon or David the principles in each case can apply today because God never changes. That’s why the Immutability of God is what our hope, faith and love are fuelled by. The Omniscience, the Omnipresence, the Omnipotence of God never change because Who God in His nature never changes.
IV. Eternality, the Attribute of God That Describes His Everlasting Being.
Have you ever tried to describe to someone what the word, ‘eternal’ means? I was trying to do that on Thursday night but really didn’t do too good a job of it. I’d said that it was like having a life that goes on and on. But eternal life is different than the realm of eternity. One pastor defined eternity like this, “It’s the unchanging present, without beginning or end, comprehends all time, and co-exists as an undivided moment, with all the successions of time as they appear and pass in their order.”(Paul Mizzi, Biblical Essays) You see every person has a beginning, the angels have a beginning, the world has a beginning but only God has the attribute of Eternality, without beginning or end. When Jesus spoke to the Pharisees saying, “Before Abraham was, I Am.”, He was referring to who He is as God, the only One who has this attribute of Eternality. Perhaps this is where David was headed in his thinking when he suddenly shifts the tone in Psalm 139, “Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God! Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men. For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.” It’s a surprising twist in the Psalm, one that as New Testament people we wrestle with. Is it ever appropriate to hate someone and is there such a thing as ‘perfect hatred’? From David’s point of view the answer is obviously ‘Yes’. He’s talking about a hatred against sin, against the distortion of truth as it relates to Who God is, a hatred that is perfect in the sense that it seeks to agree with God in how He sees things. In essence David has a zeal for God regarding His Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence and Immutability and Eternality. It’s a zeal that seeks to uphold that truth against all who would seek to minimize it or even tear it down. So David closes with these words, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” It’s a bold ending, David asks God to search me, know my heart, try me, know my anxieties, see if there is any wicked way in me and then having done that…lead me in the way of everlasting. Prepare me for eternity.
There are five things we need to know about God, in these five is the beginning of the understanding of Who God is. It’s the beginning of an awe of God that is in return the beginning of wisdom for us all. His Omniscience, His Omnipresence, His Omnipotence, His Immutability and His Eternality are five things you need to know about God.