Psalms, chapter eight, as I pray about what to preach, I'm in my own study myself, the extent of the atonement. And in other issues, but I'm I'm not preaching through a book exegetically, which is the proper way to preach, and so as I sought God's face just for what he would have me to preach, I thought of the gospel. And so my aim this morning is to preach on the gospel, but in particular, what the majesty of God has to do with with the gospel. And I ended up centering on this on this verse. So let's just read. In chapter eight of Psalms, verse number one. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name? In all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to steal the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you've made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth? Well, let's go ahead and pray. Father, we seek your face this morning. Lord, our goal is far greater as we once again seek to plumb the depths of the infallible Word, and in particular, when it has to do with who you are. I'm quite aware of my lack of ability And I trust in your divine ability, Lord God, that you might do with this servant this morning what only you can do, that you might take me out of the way and that the gospel might be preached and that the hearts of your people might be blessed. Lord, we desire only to do your will. We ask you to move us through the preaching of your Word Pray that our hearts would be stirred, our faith would be increased, and we would somehow catch a glimpse of your glory that would change us. In Jesus' name, Amen. The majesty of God. I feel like I'm standing on holy ground, barely able to open my mouth to such a subject And the first thing that strikes my mind as I contemplate the majesty of God is. As as I look at the sunset, as I look at the stars at night and behold the creation, the the animals, the the insects, the scriptures say the heavens declare the glory of God. And the firmament shows his handiwork. And if you can look at a sunset and contemplate the universe in all of its vastness, understanding that there is a divine designer behind all of this. Godly men who have written on the subject and as I contemplate it myself. And I read that verse, the heavens declare. The stars shout out. They magnify, if you will, the radiance of the glory of God. And then I compare that my unfortunately small view of who God is. God is not like us, only bigger. That's not who God is. Like us, but bigger. That's who some people have as a God. A big, person with not so many faults and is able to do big things. He's not at all like that. Yes, we are made in his image. But he's things like eternal. Omnipotent. Omniscient. omnipresent, unchangeable, perfect, infinite in His majesty. As you begin to think about the majesty of God, the one thought that you have to have is that there is no end to that contemplation. You could contemplate with the highest thoughts for all eternity and never, never in your mind begin to scratch the surface how glorious our God is. We have been shaved in our view of God by our circumstances. by our upbringing, by our parents, by our leaders, by our culture, by preachers and teachers, and all these things that influence us. We have bad experiences, and so we attribute that to God. And we end up with a very, perhaps complex, but small and warped view of who God is. Your comprehension of who God is has to come from this book. God reveals Himself through His Word. And His Word does tell us that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. But then he says, well, what is man? We need to turn our filters off, if you will. The lens through which we live and view God. So that we come to grips with the fact that we have to deal with the biblical God. this infinite and majestic God. He said in Psalm 50 verse 21, you thought that I was one like yourself. I recall that in a letter from Luther to Erasmus, he said words to the effect of, your thoughts of God are too human. We speak of God and we think of God like a somewhat glorious genie or miracle worker or Santa Claus who is very benevolent, loving. And some of these things are true. But what we have to understand is Just like you can go outside at night and contemplate just your limited small view of this galaxy we live in and realize that what we can see is just one of multiplied billions of the same that God spoke into existence with no effort at all. And we let that begin to affect who who this God is. Let me read from Augustine. What, then, are you, oh, my God? What, I ask, but the Lord God. For who is the Lord but the Lord? And who is God? Save our God. Most high, most excellent, Most potent. Most omnipotent. Most piteous and most just. Most hidden and most near. Most beauteous and most strong. Stable yet contained of none. Unchangeable yet changing all things. Never new. Never old. Making all things new. Yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not. Always working, yet ever at rest. Gathering, yet needing nothing. Sustaining, pervading, and protecting. Creating, nourishing, and developing. Seeking, and yet possessing all things. You love, and burn not. You are jealous, yet free from care. You repent, and have no sorrow. You are angry, yet serene. You change your ways, leaving unchanged your plans. You recover what you find, having yet never lost. You are never in want, while you rejoice in gain. You are never covetous, though requiring usury that you may owe more than enough is given to you. Yet who has anything that is not yours? You pay debts while owing nothing, and when you forgive debts, lose nothing. Yet, oh my God, my life, my holy joy, what is this that I have said? And what says any man when he speaks of you? Yet woe to them who keep silence, seeing that even they who say most are as the dumb. When Isaiah got just a small glimpse in his heavenly vision of the glory of God, where the train of His Majesty filled the temple, he was struck with awe and cried out, Woe is me, for I am undone. I am as an unclean thing. My lips are unclean. I dwell in the midst of an unclean people. Mine eyes have seen the king. As I studied, I contemplated Isaiah chapter 40, which I recently read, and it says he's measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales. and the hills in a balance. Who has measured the spirit of the Lord or what man shows of his counsel? Whom did he consult and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on the scales. He takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor its beast enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him. They are accounted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness compare with Him? An idol? A craftsman cast it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts it? Cast for silver chain. He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me? That I should be like him, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these. He brings out their host by number, calling them all by name by the greatness of his might. And because he was strong in power, not one is missing. Our thoughts of God are too human. And we bring God down to a level that makes Him palatable and understanding so that we can live life the way that we want. Well, when you compare the majesty of God If you contemplate it biblically and infinitely like it is, and somehow get a glimpse of the gloriousness of His Majesty, this potentate, this King who runs the universe, And the Scripture says that he who sits on the right hand of the Majesty upholds all things by the word of His power. And we exist simply because it's the pleasure of God that we should continue to exist. If it were not for the power of God, we would all dissolve into nothingness. The very atoms of this universe, our existence, our bodies are held together by the power of His Word. What a majestic and a glorious King. That's where my study began. I immediately went to Luke chapter 7. to this encounter with the Lord Jesus. And this woman who broke the alabaster box as she worshiped the Lord Jesus, in verse 47, he says of her, Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much. He who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven, then those who were at table with him begin to say among themselves. Who is this who forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. This woman just got a glimpse of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what was the first thing that she thought of? What brought conviction as she witnessed the life of the spotless Lamb of God? It was her sin. And before such a God, her sins were greatly magnified. That's what the majesty of God does to the believer. He sees his sin in the light of the glory of God. And his sin seems to him to be utterly abhorrent. He doesn't esteem it a little thing. As he contemplates the majesty of God, he's like Job who said, I have heard thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself. Have you ever come to that place? Because that, my friend, listen to me closely, that is salvation. And nothing less. It is when the Holy Spirit of God illuminates your eyes just to get a glimpse of the real and the sovereign God. And you see your sins. in the line of eternity and who this God is. And you fall prostrate on your face because you absolutely abhor yourself. It is our warped view of God that has caused evangelicalism to give a wink and a nod as the gate to heaven. The end result being there is little, if any, life change, very little fruitfulness and still much sin. Job said, I abhor myself and I repent. He was shook up when God revealed Himself just with a few words. It utterly changed his life. He said, I abhor myself and I repent in dust and ashes. Once he got just a small view of who God is. The Scriptures say, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, and His ear is not heavy that it cannot hear, but your sins have separated between you and your God, and your iniquities have hid His face from you. That's to an unbeliever. The prophet was revealing who God was and talking to Israel about their soon coming captivity by the Babylonians and what God was going to do in response to their sin. He was revealing some of His majesty and saying, yes, in the picture that He painted of their sins and the affront that it was to God. The result was God said, I will obliterate you from the face of the earth. You will no more be my people. But in the same the same sentence, he says. It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm and nothing is too hard for you. I like what Scott said last week or whenever it was. I wasn't here, but I heard of it, and it was that salvation is impossible. Most of what goes on in church today is not really salvation. It's the work of man. Boy, I hope we understand that. That when God does a miraculous, life-changing work, the people that He touches, first of all, are brought to deep, earth-shattering conviction. Their lives are radically changed because they abhor themselves in contrast to who God has opened their eyes to Him to be. It changes them. It should change us. In the same book, God said, Behold, I am the Lord God, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? You see, the Bible says that the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, you can still be a fool if you want to keep the warped, small view of God that you have and believe that you'll not answer to a God other than the God you believe in. Search the Scriptures to see whether these things that I say are so. That our view of God is not too small. That He is more majestic than we can comprehend. And that we have taken our sins far too lightly. And we have begun our journey with a wink and a nod and so often continue as if this God, who the Bible says is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, that He, this majestic God, would wink at our sin. Let me ask you to turn to Psalms 139. and just contemplate the majesty of God and who He is as I read this passage. And just ask questions in your heart about this God with whom you have to do this morning. Psalm 139, O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all together. You hem me in behind. and before." I love that. You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as day, for darkness is at light with you. For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I'm still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God, O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with a malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way of the everlasting. I have two thoughts that have to do with what the theologians call the transcendence of God. That He is mighty. He is awesome. He is majestic. beyond our comprehension, the transcendence of God. That's why I'm not able to adequately scratch the surface concerning this subject, but then the other subject is the imminence of God. This is who God is. The imminence means He is here and He is near. He is a God at work and involved in His creation and in the lives of His people, and He is whispering in your ear. As He does that, the depths of our sinfulness gloriously reveal to the believer the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice. I want you to look at Romans chapter 3. Let me just read a couple of verses, beginning in verse 24. "...and are justified by His grace." Well, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. "...and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith." And of course, the propitiating God, that word propitiating means wrath quenching. We discussed this several weeks ago that Jesus Christ quenched the wrath of God that was due you. And there remains no wrath nor condemnation. Someone in the back quoted, there's therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. who walk in the Spirit, not after the flesh. Well, then he says in Romans 3, this was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. In the light of who this God is, there is Nothing that you could do because of the magnitude of your sin problem. When you saw who God was and God brings a conviction, the Holy Spirit is working, and you abhor yourself and repent and trust in Christ as a sufficient sacrifice, that in itself is a work that God did. small and insignificant. Isaiah 57 verse 15 says, For thus saith the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit. In a nutshell, the majesty of God, rightly contemplated, will humble you to the ground. It will bring you so low that the only place you can look is up. You won't take sin lightly ever. You won't wink at it. You'll get a glimpse of this majesty and you'll see that that same majestic Savior loved you so much that He went to the cross and He bore your sin. He loved you that much. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, which is what we deserve. but have everlasting life. How glorious to contemplate that this God would not only want to have something to do with us, but purposed from eternity past that He would. What a Savior. That's all that I can say. What a glorious and a wonderful Savior. Live a life of worship and praise. Just being caught up in who He is. Set your affection on things above and not on things on this earth. Hold loosely to all that is vain and passes away. This world is going to be burned up, but our King, rules forever. Let's bow our heads together in prayer. Our Father, Your Word is perfect. And You are right in all things. And certainly you deserve all the praise and honor and glory that our lives can give. You are so glorious, so majestic, so loving. How can you have anything to do with us, but then to think that you do? and that you draw near, that you came down to this earth and took upon yourself humanity, that you might be the perfect sacrifice to quench the wrath that we deserved and that some will bear for all of eternity. and brought us into your throne room as your own children. It just blows us away. Thank you, God. As you might open our eyes, cause us to search the scriptures and to see you more and more as you really are. We thank you for this time that we could share and worship today. in Jesus' name.