Let's go ahead and begin this tonight by singing Love Lifted Me. I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore, very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry. From the waters lifted me, now safe am I. Let's stand to sing this. If we're singing about being lifted up, we should at least be standing. So we'll sing all three verses. I'll sing the name and song for the gifts of the Lord. Where'er ye meet me, sing with me, sing to Christ the Lord. Namo Buddhaya Namo Buddhaya All I have to have I give, all to Him I'll give. In His eyes He blesses me, there is grace to see. In His eyes He blesses me, there is grace to see. In His eyes He blesses me, there is grace to see. In His eyes He blesses me, there is grace to see. In His eyes He blesses me, there is grace to see. When I go to bed, love will be near. Love will be near. Love will be near. When I go to sleep. So let's give the Lord our heart and let Him hear our prayers. We believe in Christ our God and we believe in Him. He's the Christ we love to see and love to tell the tale. He our Savior wants to be seen. Singing, you may be seated. You know, as we look ahead to the coming days and events, just a reminder, we do have community outreach this Sunday. Let's be praying that the Lord would use that to reach souls. Our desire is to go out this Sunday and reach not only our neighborhood, but beyond to Boromay and Shillam as well. We also want to remind you that Third Sunday is not a Fellowship Sunday, but we will, Lord willing, have some folks joining the Church. So be in prayer about that. Fourth Sunday will be our Fellowship Sunday following Thanksgiving, or in the Thanksgiving neighborhood there. And so we're looking forward to that, and Dr. Kyrie Park will be there on that fourth Sunday as well. So we've got a full month, looking forward to what the Lord will do with us and in us and through us, and trusting that the Lord will bless our worship together. Well, this evening we've got one verse as really the springboard for the message. We've been in Romans for some time, and I kept on coming back to Romans 11.33. If you look at the bottom of the sheet there, you see the way that this verse is translated is, O the death. of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. Translate that a little bit different instead of with three attributes there having to The depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God But we have a list of three here the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways this evening we want to spend some time meditating on on the indescribable greatness of our God, seeking to meditate on this and so to worship Him. I'm going to ask Daniel to go ahead and turn off the lights so we can see the screen. And then from there, we'll go ahead and pray and give this time to the Lord. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do thank you that you are transcendent. You are great and glorious. When it comes time to describe who you are and all you are, our tongues begin to stammer and to falter with our inability to express How great you are. Lord, you are great. You are good. You are glorious. Help us this evening to taste and see, Lord, a bit of your glory, a bit of your goodness, just the edge of your greatness. Lord, help us to see you as you are. Remove the veil from our eyes. Open our eyes, Lord, that we may see you in your word. And Lord, as we catch a glimpse of your glory, we know that we will be changed. For who can stand in the presence of Almighty God and go away unchanged? Help us to see Everyone will be satisfied. In Jesus' name, amen. This is a tremendous verse. Just look at that there for a moment there. Oh, the depth of the riches in wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways. Now as you just savor that verse for a moment, look at what Paul is doing. He's gone through three chapters. meditating on God's Word, working out God's righteous, just ways in his dealings with the Jews, in his dealings with the Gentiles, and he finally comes back to God. It's all about him. And he says, you know, I haven't begun to plumb the depths here. You know, when we talk about the oceans, when we talk about the depths of the sea, we know that there's one place in the sea that is the deepest on Earth. For generations, none had seen the depths, none had known the depths. Even today, the Mariana Trench is beyond most of our abilities to plumb the depths. And yet to know our God, to know His love, to know His person is so vast, so great, so beyond us, that when Paul gets to the depth of something, he's basically beyond his depth. He's going deeper than he can describe. He's trying to convey how immeasurable this depth is. Because remember, he holds the world in his hands. All things were created by him by his very word. It is by him that all things consist, and yet he is greater than all that he has made. And so he tried to plumb the depths. You try to see how deep this goes. You try to think of what our God is. And you first stumble across him and you think, oh, here is riches. Here is the pearl of great price. Here is the one who has all, who is all. So you look at the depth of riches What does this look like? Measure the riches of God. His home is heaven. He's got streets of clear glass, gold, gold as glass. He's got rubies and diamonds. All things are his. And when you think about the depth of his riches, God made the earth. God made all that is in it, everything Here on earth belongs to Him. Turn to Psalm 50 for a moment. In Psalm 50, the psalmist spends some time just pondering God's possessions. How all is His, and it's like God is the Lord. the king, the master, summoning creation before him, and calling creation to give an account. And so look at Psalm 50. We'll read the first four verse, let's, verse six, first six verses. The mighty one, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the setting. So he's summoning everyone. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes. He does not keep silence. Before him is a devouring fire. Around him a mighty tempest. He calls to the heaven above, to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice. The heavens declare his righteousness. For God himself is judge. And so God speaks as one who is the possessor, the judge of all, who owns all things. And he says, you know what? Everything belongs to me. Verse 10, every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on 1,000 hills, I know every bird of the hills. All that moves on the field is mine. If I were hungry, verse 12, I wouldn't tell you. For the world and its fullness are mine. There is nothing that does not belong to God. It's all His. 100%. The earth, the fullness of it, the heavens, all that's in that, it is His. And so, here we have God saying, this is mine. I'm calling you as my people. And so, what God has is His to give, to bestow, in large portions and small portions, however he so chooses. And God's riches are freely given to us as his people, as his children. And so we see that God, when Jesus Christ came to earth, paid his people's taxes. You turn over to Matthew 17, In Matthew 17, here is Jesus, ostensibly a poor carpenter, the son of a carpenter, someone who did not have a place to lay his head. And some people come and ask Peter, one of his followers, his disciple, let's see how things are going. You know, do you take care of your obligations? So look at Matthew 17, we'll read verses 24 through 27. So they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two drachma tax, went up to Peter and said, has your teacher not paid the tax? He, Peter said, yes. And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him, first saying, what do you think, Simon, from whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? from their sons and from others. And when he said, Peter said, From others, Jesus said to him, Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea, cast a hook, take the first fish that comes up. When you open its mouth, you'll find a shovel. Take that give it to to them for me and for yourself. So here God, you know, he could have just he could have paid for this tax any number of ways Everything belongs to him. He says, you know what go fishing. That's your job and I'll pay your tax that way I'll have a fish swallow your taxes and We'll take care of it that The fish is his. The coin is his. All the earth is his. Take care of it. And so we see that for the prophet, during the time of man, the widow was ready to die. She and her son, they had nothing. And the prophet says, give it to me. Give it to the Lord, to the Lord's prophet. And she says, well, that leaves my son and I. And the Lord provided for them. Another time the Lord provided for another widow who had two sons with vessels, where they borrowed the vessels because they didn't even have enough jars to fill with oil and to provide for the family. So we see the Lord providing in the wilderness. God provided for his children for 40 years, day by day, every single day, the day's portion. He provided the daily bread, manna from heaven, which the psalmist tells us was food that the angels ate. And of course, This was freely bestowed. God meets our needs. Turn to your, you're still in Matthew, so go ahead and turn back to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6. We see that the one who has everything is your Father. And He is not just omnipotent, though He is. He's not just rich, though He is. He has a relationship with those who trust in Him. And so we, as His children, can trust that He will meet our needs as well. And so we're in Matthew 6, we'll read verses 25 through 33. Jesus, as he comes near the end of this chapter, says, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your body, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns. And yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to a span of life? Or another way of translating that is a cubit of height, right? Verse 28, why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all of his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more, much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your Heavenly Father knows you have needed them. Let's see first the kingdom of God and his righteousness And all these things will be added to you. We'll go ahead and read verse 34 too Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself sufficient for the day is its own So your father your God has everything And you are an heir of God remember we are joint heirs This does not mean we will always be wealthy. That is not the way it works. But he will meet your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. And so he feeds thousands. You see there John 6 where he feeds 5,000 and where he talks about man from heaven as well. So this is just a glimpse of what does God have, the riches of God? Well, possession-wise, he has everything. But more than possessions, we see that he has wisdom. The second part of this depth is the depth of his wisdom. All wisdom is God's. He is God-only wise. The all-wise God, he is the wisdom personified in Proverbs. Let me invite you to turn with me to Proverbs chapter 8. Here we have Lady Wisdom seeking those to whom she invites to partake of her wisdom. And we'll pick up We see in verse 12, I wisdom dwell with prudence. I find knowledge and discretion. Verse 13, Proverbs 8, 13, the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance are the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. I have counsel and sound wisdom. I have insight. I have strength. He goes on to say, or she goes on to say, in verse 17, I love those who love me. Those who seek me diligently will find me. Now come down to verse 22. Speaking of wisdom, this personification of this attribute of God. The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of will. Ages ago, I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. Before He had made the earth with its fields or the dust, the first of the dust of the world. When He established the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like the master wordsman. Here is, many of us believe that this is the Lord Jesus Christ, beaking things into existence with all wisdom. It was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited world and delighting in the children of men. And there is an instruction in verses 32 and following to partake of this wisdom. And so we see that God is the is the one who is the source, who is wisdom himself, and he invites us, human beings, to also have wisdom, to partake of this characteristic as those who are created in his image. And so we see that from the creation to redemption, to the glorification of His Son. All that God does, all that God is, is good and wise. And what we see is that He is. Isaiah 9, 6, one of the titles of His Son is that He is that wonderful counselor, God all wise, the one who directs who is the prince of peace, but the wonderful counselor who with all wisdom directs the affairs of the nations. And he is the one who shares his wisdom with us freely and graciously. How do we know that? He's done it before. Solomon asked for wisdom and God gave it to him. And the promise of James is that if any man lacked wisdom, Let him ask of God, who gives to all men, abundantly, richly, and without limit. So if you need some wisdom, and let's face it, we all do, a lot of different things, handling different people, different situations, ask, and you will receive. See, and you will find. So he's a fount of wisdom. He is the dispenser of the medicine of love. So this is the one that gave Solomon the wisdom to write thousands of Proverbs, and the wisdom that caused the Queen of Sheba to marvel, that saw the kingdom of Israel rejoicing to have such wives. So Proverbs 11.33 says, O the depth of the riches and wisdom but also just the knowledge of God. So here we try to measure the measureless knowledge of God. And what do we see? Our God is Alpha and Omega. He's the beginning and the end and everything in between. He knows everything. Big fancy theological jargon word. He is omniscient, right? There is nothing our God does not know that is to be known. He knows all things. Now look at what does he know? He knows everything that has ever happened. He knows the past. He knows what happened from creation, before creation, since creation. He knows thousands and thousands of years of history. And he knows every detail about the past, every person. You know, I'm teaching life science this year for secondary school. He knows all the species, all the kinds. Before Adam named the kinds, God knew them. He knows the names of the stars. And so he knows all the past. He knows all the present. He knows the kings, the presidents, the rising of some, the downfall of others, the defeat of some, the election of others. He knows who's the president, even if some people aren't sure yet. He knows all these things. He knows what's going on in every corner of the world, by every person on the earth. And he doesn't just know what is going on, he knows what motivates what's going on. Because he is the one who searches and tries the hearts. And so what we see here is he knows the past, he knows what's going on now, and for him, the future is crystal clear. It's not this could happen, although he knows those possibilities, but he knows what will happen. Because He's God. He's eternal. He's outside of time. He's able to see the entire timeline from beginning to end. And He's in charge. He knows it all. Every person, every event, every moment. It's there. And so a key passage for seeing this is in Matthew 11. What does God know? Well, He knows it all. So turn in your Bibles to Matthew 11. We'll read verses 20 through 24. Matthew 11, verses 20 through 24. So this is Jesus Christ. He's been rejected by men, by his own, and so he talks about the cities that he's come to. Verse 20, Jesus, then he, Jesus began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done, So this is possibility. This is an alternate reality, right? If this had happened in Tyre and Sidon, they would have long ago repented in sackcloth and ashes. He knows the details of what did happen in Tyre, how the new ship fell. He knows the details of what happened in Sidon, how they sinned and judged. He also knows what would have happened if those miracles had happened there, right? But the possibilities and the reality he knows the past You Capernaum verse 23 Will you be exalted to heaven? I mean he knows what's going on He knows the hearts of the people who has seen the miracle. So he knows the present. He knows what's going on in horizon He knows what's going on. They said it he knows what's going on And they're in Capernaum you Capernaum. Will you be exalted to heaven? Now in the future, you will be brought down to Hades, right? He knows about the coming of the nation. He knows about the judgment. And he knows about the final judgment as well. You will be brought down to Hades or to the grave for that eternal judgment. If the mighty works had done and you had been done in Sodom and yet Genesis 19 Historical event what did happen? What could have happened if the same things? The blind seeing the lepers being healed all the rest if this had happened in Sodom What would have happened it still be around? It would have remained to this day Verse 24, I tell you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the Lamb of God than it could be for God. So here is God, Jesus, declaring He knows the past, alternate past. He recognizes what is going on now, how people are responding, and He knows the future. All of those things are known by him. And he knows the different possibilities. He knows the ways of nations. Here, he's addressing cities. He's addressing the region of Capernaum. He's talking about Sodom and all the rest. Tyre. He knows the individual lives. So whether we're talking macroscopic, big on national or city or the Apostle John or Peter. He knows all of this. Now turn back to 1 Chronicles 28. This is right before David prays in chapter 29, before, as Solomon becomes the second king of the Davidic dynasty. So 1 Chronicles 28. And here we see how, well, let's just read it here. 1 Chronicles 28. You're right, I mistyped. Verse 9, I was looking for 29. All right. 1 Chronicles 28, verse 9. Here, David is addressing Solomon. He says, You, Solomon, my son, know the God of your father. Serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind. Why? Notice what God does Yahweh the Lord Searches all hearts. He understands every plan Every thought if you seek him, he will be found by you But if you forsake it, he will cast you off All right. So here's one the Lord he knows what he knows people he knows nations He knows the heart That's something no one else has. Oftentimes people will judge motives and they'll get it completely wrong. Looking good. That's why we need to be so careful not to judge one another's motives. Because ultimately, the person knows and God knows. And that's really the only two people who can know. Unless, of course, they're telling you. So God's Word describes those who serve God, but not with their hearts. So think about all those who are legalists, the Pharisees. Think about those who are outwardly performing actions, but doing it not with their whole hearts, but for assorted motives. And oftentimes, as we read through the Old Testament, we see this, of the set of the kings and others. All right, so that's the first half of the verse, the depth of the riches of the knowledge, and wisdom and knowledge of God. Now, as we come to the second half, we go beyond measuring the measureless about God, to what God is doing. Notice the second sentence here is, how unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable are his ways. So if the first sentence is his attributes, his characteristics, the second attributes are his doings, his works. So you look at these And the different versions translate these different ways. So I've lumped them up, as you see in your notes, ineffable. In other words, they're just, how do you describe them? They're ineffable. And I had to look that up to make sure I was using the right word. They're just, they are so far beyond our ability to describe or know, and yet God has told us of them. And so we see there, look there, it says, how unsearchable are his judgments. And so what we see is that his ways are inscrutable. He is doing more than we can measure. He's doing more than we can see. He's doing more than you can put under a microscope. Right? He is at work in ways that you and I do not know. And so we see there how inscrutable are his ways, is the second part of that sentence. Inscrutable. They're just We can look, we can see, we try to understand Providence, we try to understand what God is doing, and we have to say, like Paul does, this is a mystery. When he talks about redemption, when he talks about the way that God provokes Jews to jealousy by saving Gentiles, and just the way that he interworks different lives and We know that God is at work. We know He's sovereign. We know He's in control. But we don't necessarily see how God is knitting everything together. We see parts. We don't see the big picture. Or we may see a part, but we don't see the big picture. We may think we see the big picture, but we don't see all the parts. So there's some things we see the big part. Sometimes we see the small part. But we miss out on, we don't have A clear picture. We are not on a mission. God is. God knows what he is doing, and he has not told us every single thing. Maybe in eternity we'll be able to find these ways better. But right now we just sit back and, you know, who would have guessed that in 2024 we would have had a president, sitting president, refused to decide not to run. that somehow his vice president would be acclaimed, that she would run a campaign of joy that becomes a campaign of joy for Republicans. Or that President Trump, just in America, in politics, Okay, that was not what I foresaw. Maybe you did. But, you know, there are things in our lives we don't understand. There are things in our family's lives. There are things in church. There is a lot going on, and if we think we know it all, we are sadly mistaken. Right? Whether it's about people's hearts, whether it's about what people are doing. We see some, but we don't see everything. And so this is just what God is doing in us, but there's, you know, so much we don't know. And there are things that we don't know that we don't know, right? So there, so his ways are really unfathomable. I mean, I was reading, again, I'm teaching science classes recently, so, you know, there are great portions of the ocean that are completely unexplored. We've got all these tools and we still don't know the ocean after all these years. And even with all the modern tools. And here's just, you know, a part of the earth that we don't know. or this, again, astronomy. Look out there, and there's so much where every time we build a new, better telescope, there's something we didn't know before. Right? And so his ways, his words. And then it comes to the first part of that second sentence is his judgments. His judgments are unsearchable. Well, you see, things that frustrate us To no end. We see the wicked prospering. Psalm 73. We see all kinds of wickedness, and it looks like they're getting their way. And we're going, God, where's your judgment? You're the judge of all the earth. Abraham said, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? And he was trying to get Sodom spared. And yes, the judge of all the earth did right, and Sodom What's just wrong? God is a judge. And so what he is doing now is not what he is finally going to do. The final day of judgment has not yet gotten here. There may be small judgments along the way, whether it's the fall of Jerusalem, which was pretty big to us, but before Armageddon or before the final Accounting Remember there will be an account for both those of us who are Believers the beam a seat where we will get an account for our lives in an accounting for the unjust the sheep and the goats the sheep those of us in The Good Shepherd's fold will give an account Those of us those who are not those who are goats will also be an account And so when we look at his judgments, we do see elements of it taking place. You reap what you sow. We see some of these things that the scripture has revealed. But sometimes these judgments take longer than we think they should, or they don't happen the way we expect, or something happens and that's okay, because God is in control. And even though they are, as it says here, unfathomable, or unsearchable, even though we don't know all that God is doing, we know that He's in control. And that His ways are righteous, and just, and good. So one of the key verses that we looked at earlier, behold what two things, the goodness and the severity of God. goodness, the love, the mercy, and also the justice and the righteousness that will punish sin. So this is a small glimpse in the few minutes that we've had together. I had a number of other scriptures I wanted to hit, but this is all we have time for. As we go to the Lord in prayer, Let us praise the Lord that our God is a God of great riches, great wisdom, great knowledge. His ways, His judgments are unsearchable and inscrutable. We may not be able to fathom them, to understand them, but He knows. He judges. Our father we thank you that all you do is good We thank you for you Jesus