Measuring God

Tonight we are going to turn to four or five different sections of scripture, but we can

perhaps focus our attention first of all on the passage that's identified up there, Jeremiah

31, 35 to 37. And I'll explain in due course as to why we're looking at these verses and

some of the others which we have read. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light

by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up

the sea so that its waves roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If this fixed order departs

from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a

nation before me forever. Thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured and the

foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of

Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.

As you can see on the bulletin, our title tonight is measuring God. Now as most of you

will probably know before I became a minister, I used to be an engineer. And one of the things

that I love to do is measure stuff. I think ever since I was a child, I loved to know

how heavy things were, how tall they were, how old they were, how valuable they were,

how powerful they were. And I'm still the same. I love to measure things. I love to

know the quantities and powers that lie behind things. A couple of weeks ago, we were at

the Royal Highland Show, which was full of awesome tractors. Now one of the tractors

we saw in real life was this, which is possibly the coolest thing I've ever set eyes upon

in my life. And if you don't agree with me, Derek was talking about repentance in the

morning so you can think that through. This tractor, 692 horsepower, 12.9 litre engine,

if you know anything about engines, that is enormous. Most of your cars will be something

pathetic like 1.6 hybrid or something hideous like that. 28 tonnes, absolutely awesome.

I love measuring things. I love knowing how big, powerful, heavy and strong things are.

Because if you want to learn about something, you have to measure it, don't you? Particularly

if you're in engineering or construction or anything like that. Measurement is important.

And it's especially important if you're going to rely on that thing. So imagine somebody

had just released a new type of plane and you were on the very first flight and you

were sitting next to the designer of that plane and you were chatting about how the

whole thing was constructed just before you were going to take off on this maiden flight.

And you were sitting there and you said to the chap beside you, how do you measure the

correct length of wingspan? If he replied to you and said, I'll have to guess, then I think

you'd be feeling very uncomfortable. Measuring is really important. You can learn a huge amount

about something by measurement. So tonight our question is, can you measure God? Is that

even possible? Can you discover God's limits? Can we identify the boundaries in which God

exists? Can we quantify His power? If that tractor is 692 horsepower, what's God's power?

What's His knowledge? Can we measure His strength? Now that might seem like a silly question

in some ways. Surely it's impossible to measure God. But yet at the same time, if we are to

have knowledge about God, surely we have to be able to measure Him somehow. And we're

kind of faced with a dilemma. Measuring God seems impossible because God is infinite. By

definition, that's immeasurable. But at the very same time, measuring God seems to be

essential because we need some kind of measure if we're going to know anything about Him.

And because of that, whether we realize it or not, we very often measure God, or perhaps

to put it in different words, we often place God within measured limits that we can understand.

That's been true right through the history of humanity. Back in the Old Testament, one

of the most common ways to do that, one of the most common ways to measure and understand

God was in terms of territory. So the religious mindset of the ancient Near East was very

much linked to geographical location. So a certain God was associated with a particular

area. A great example of that is in 1 Kings chapter 20. The Syrian king, Ben Haddad, had

1 Kings 20 · chapter mention

come to launch an offensive against Israel. He came with a vast army expecting to win,

but they engaged in battle and they were defeated. And in the aftermath, the king, Ben Haddad's

advisors, came to him and they said this, their gods are gods of the hills. So they

were stronger than we, but let us fight against them in the plain and surely we will be stronger

than they. And do this, remove the kings, each from his post and put commanders in their

places and master an army like the army that you've lost, horse for horse and chariot

for chariot, then we will fight against them in the plain and surely we will be stronger

than they. And he listened to their voice and did so. There's this really strong link

between territory and the extent of God's power. You can read the rest of 1 Kings 20

when you get home to find out what happened next. But this pattern of associating God

with a territory has been repeated throughout history. It's not so much been with geographical

territories, but in other ways. So sometimes God is measured as far as the limits of the

territory of history. So people will think even today, well, a religious mindset is

something that belongs to the era of days gone by. It's not for now. Sometimes God is

just limited to the territory of morality. So faith has just about been a good person.

The measure of moral living is as big as God gets. Sometimes God is measured by the territory

of our minds. So the idea that God must fit into the limits of our understanding. That's

the mindset that has kind of rejected the biblical doctrines that we struggle to get

our heads around. Things like the Trinity and the incarnation, people have pushed them

away because they think, well, God, we can only measure as far as our minds go, and that's

the limits in which he must operate. Sometimes God is measured by the limits of what we'd

call a kind of spiritual territory. So God is kind of this sort of being, sort of reality,

sort of something. But it's out there, and it's detached from physical life that's in

front of us. In all these ways, whether people realize it or not, they're measuring God.

So God's relevance is measured up to a certain point in the past. His authority is measured

as far as just being a good person. His nature is measured as far as our minds can go, but

no further. His existence is measured as far as some kind of mystical spiritual realm.

People do it all the time, and maybe we do it as well. We think that we can measure God,

and as a result, we confine him to these territories. Things like time or morality or rational thinking

or spiritual mysticism. And we think that if we can keep God in these boxes measured

out carefully, then we can get a workable knowledge of God. But the truth is, all of

that is a wrong approach to measuring God, because it puts us above God. It's like looking

down on him and saying, God should fit into that measured off boundary, which I've created

in my mind. It's creating our categories and forcing him into it. It's basically based

on the presupposition that whatever God is, we need to be able to have a handle on it.

But we must never forget that true knowledge of God will not fill your mind. True knowledge

of God will blow your mind. But we're still left with a question, can we measure God?

And if we can't measure God, how are we going to learn about God? Is there a territory that

we can use to measure God? And after everything I've just said, you're probably sitting there

thinking, well, no, there isn't. You can't measure God according to the hills, and you

can't measure Him just according to rational thinking. Surely there's no territory that

we can measure God. Is that true? Well, is there a territory that we can use to measure

God? The Bible's answer is yes. There is one territory that we can use as a tool to measure

God. Do you know what that tool is? It's the universe. The universe is a tool that we can

use to measure God. Now, I just want to mention two important points right at the beginning.

I want us to note that we're not saying that the universe is God. That's pantheism, the

idea that everything around us is divine. That's not what we're saying. That's just another

example of limiting God to our own boundaries. We're not saying that God is the universe.

Not are we saying that the universe is as big as God. When the Bible uses the universe

as a tool for measuring God, it does so by analogy, not by equivalence. So we're not

saying that the universe is God. We're not saying that the universe is as big as God.

We are saying is that the universe is a tool that we can use to help us get some sort of

information in terms of measuring God. I want us to look at five passages tonight. We've

actually looked at all of these passages already tonight. We've either sung them or read them.

Each of these passages uses the universe as a tool to try and measure an aspect of God's

nature and character. We'll just go through them one by one briefly. First of all, our

call to worship tonight. My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways, my ways

declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher

than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Here in Isaiah 55, we have a contrast between

earth and heaven. You'll remember that the Old Testament word for heaven can mean the

sky. It can mean the universe and it can mean the heavenly realm where God dwells. Here,

the emphasis is primarily on the sky because verse 10 talks about rain, but we're being

pointed towards just the vast expanse that an Old Testament man or woman would see when

they stood outside and looked up. From their perspective, the difference between earth and

the heavens above is huge. It's just way up there. There's a vast difference in height,

and that vast difference is an analogy for the difference between the way we think and

the way God thinks, between the way we are inclined to go and the way God is inclined

to go. Often, we can think that God is just really quite like us, but just a little bit

higher. He's kind of like a super person. The truth is God is way higher than we are,

way higher. When it says God's ways are higher than our ways, it's using the universe as

the tool to tell you how big that difference is. God operates at a level that is just altogether

higher than us. That explains why we should not be remotely concerned if there are some

theological truths that we cannot completely grasp. Often, people are really worried when

they can't fully understand something about God. Really, we should be far more worried

if we had a God that we can completely get our heads around. A God that a human mind

can fully explain is always going to be a man-made God. Second passage, we sang in

Psalm 147. He determines the number of the stars he gives to all of them their names,

great is their Lord and abundant in power, his understanding is beyond measure. This

Psalm explicitly uses the universe as a measuring tool for God. It's talking about God's power.

How powerful is God? How great is his understanding? Well, if you can count all the stars, then

that will give you some idea. Now, for the Old Testament mind, way back in the days when

the Psalms were being written, that was an immeasurable quantity. Today, we actually have

a little bit more of a grasp. But the scientific facts of today only make the analogy even

more amazing. I googled how many stars are there in the universe. Please allow for the

fact that this might not be a definitive total, but this is what Google said. There are about

10 billion galaxies in the observable universe. The number of stars in a galaxy varies, but

assuming an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy, that means there are about, I'm not

even going to start trying to say that, a billion trillion stars in the observable universe.

God has a name for every one of them. So if you want to measure God's power and understanding,

you need a measuring tape that has the name of a billion trillion stars written on it.

One passage speaks about God's strength. It's what we read from Isaiah 40. Behold, the

Lord comes with might, his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him, and is recompensed

before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms.

He'll carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. Who has measured

the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span? Enclose 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 him 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. Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine

dust. First 10 speaks about God's might. So this

passage is measuring how strong God is, and the focus primarily is on the imagery of the

palm of God's hand. So I want you just to look at your own hand and imagine that there's

a wee pool of water in it. Often if you try to pick up water, you only end up with a tiny

little pool in your palm before most of it dribbles away and you just end up with a wee

bit left. So we can only hold a bit of tablespoon of water in our hands. Now I want you to imagine

that your hand was so big that the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean

and all the seas of the world were contained in that tiny pool. That's a measure of how

big and strong God is. The vast imagery continues in verse 15, to God all the nations of the

world are like a drop in a bucket, or like the leftover dust on a set of scales. Those

are who bake if you put flour on a scale and then put it into your bowl. There's always

this kind of tiny little bit of flour just left on the scale, just leftovers. These things

are a picture of the nations of the world to God. The dust and the drop in a bucket

are like the nations. That of course is why idolatry is so utterly ridiculous. Verse 18

says, to whom will you liken God? To what likeness can you compare him? The idea that

the God who holds the ocean in his hand and to whom the nations are like dust, the idea

that you can make a statue of him is just crazy. That's why the Second Commandment prohibits

worshiping God through images. The point being emphasized is that God's strength is immense

and only the universe itself comes close to measuring that. Do you not know, do you not

hear, has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundation

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. The entire universe is just like a curtain to God. If you close the curtains

tonight when you go to bed, that's what the universe is to God.

Most passage speaks about God's presence. We sang it in Psalm 139. Where shall I go

from your presence, spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to

heaven, you're there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings

of the morning and dwell on the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall

lead me and your right hand shall hold me. The imagery here is remarkable. The Psalm

speaks about space travel. It speaks about ascending up into the heavens, into the universe.

It speaks about underground probing, going down to the grave. That's what that word

Sheol refers to. It was the grave, the place of the dead, which in the Old Testament mind

was down. Heaven was up, grave was down. He speaks of ocean exploration, flying across

to the uttermost parts of the sea. If you could reach the limits of all of these things,

will you get beyond God? And the answer is no. God's presence is inescapable, and the

universe is the measure of that. Can a human get out of the universe? No. Can we get beyond

God's presence? No. And then lastly, we come back to the passage we read from Jeremiah

31, which speaks about God's commitment. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for

light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs

up the sea so that its waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name. If this fixed order

departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from

being a nation before me. Thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured and the

foundations of the earth below be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of

Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord. Now, this is a famous passage. It's

speaking about God's covenant relationship with his people, and in particular, it's

speaking about God's commitment to the new covenant, to the ultimate fulfillment of all

his promises. And verses 36 and 37 are simply saying that if time stops and if the universe

can be measured, then God's commitment will fail. And of course, the whole point of that

poetic language is to say that that is never going to happen. And the principle behind all

of these passages is that if you want to measure God, the best tool available to humanity for

doing that is the universe itself. But while that gives us something to look at, while it

gives us a tangible point of measurement and comparison, yet at the same time, we all know

that the universe is immeasurable to us. That's why it's such a good tool for measuring God.

It's tangible, but immeasurable. It gives us a reference point for the immensity of God,

but at the same time, the fullness of that is too much for us to take in. And of course,

it all makes sense. The whole reason the universe is so big is because the heavens declare the

glory of God. Sometimes when we see the vastness of the universe and the tininess of earth,

it can shake our faith because we think, can God be real in all of that? But the truth is,

of course, God is real in all of that. If God is God, if God is infinite, then He needs a massive

universe if it's going to declare His glory. It's a great reminder that the theology of the Bible

is mind-blowing. But in all of that, you might be thinking, Thomas, what on earth has any of this

got to do with me? And in many ways, measuring the vastness of God can hit us with a sense of total

insignificance. And if we're talking about the universe as a measuring tape, if you measure

yourself against the universe, then it makes you look like absolutely nothing. And in many ways,

one of the great tragedies of Godless science today is that the immensity of what we discover

leaves us feeling more and more worthless and insignificant. You think this universe is huge,

a hundred billion trillion stars, I can't even begin to get my head around that. I feel so tiny

and so insignificant in comparison to that. And maybe you feel the same, maybe you feel lost and

worthless in this massive universe. Well, if you feel like that, there's something amazing that I

want you to see in these five passages that we read. Because if we go back to them, we'll see that

they've got something else in common. Yes, on the one hand, they all use the universe as a

measuring tape for God. But they all do something as well. They make a direct connection between the

infinite magnitude of God and his astonishing commitment and care towards you. Look at these

passages again. If we just go a couple of verses behind what we just read in Jeremiah, it says,

this is the covenant I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord,

I'll put my law within them, I'll write it on their hearts, I will be their God, they shall be my

people, no longer shall each one heach his neighbor and each his brother say, know the Lord, for they

shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive

their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more. And then he goes on to talk about the

order of the day, the light, the moon, and the stars. Psalm 139, if I ascend to heaven, you're there,

if I make my bed and she'll you're 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.

Psalm 40, speaking about God's might and strength, the one who has the oceans in his hand like a pool

of water, the nations like the dust of the scales, it says he will tend his flock like a shepherd,

he'll gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are

with young. Psalm 147, numbering the stars says that he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their

wounds. And then Isaiah 55, the whole reason that God's, that we've been told that God's thoughts

and ways are higher than our ways is because he's telling us to return to the Lord, that he might

have compassion on us to our God, but he will abundantly pardon. The great truth that's been

said before us is not simply the mind-blowing immeasurability of God, the great truth been

said before us is that the immeasurable strength of God means that he can hold you and never let

you go. The limitless power and understanding of God means that he can bind up your wounds and heal

you. The inescapable presence of God means that he'll always be with you and he will never leave

you. The vastly superior thoughts and ways of God means that he can forgive you and pour his

compassion upon you. The eternal commitment of God means that you can know him forever,

that you are his and he is yours. And the reality of all that is brought together in the second

passage that we read from Colossians chapter one. It speaks about how all the fullness of God is

found in Jesus Christ. All that vastness that we've measured is seen in Jesus. He's the image of the

invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on

earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were

created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

He's the head of the body, the church, he's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,

that in everything he might be preeminent, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell

and through him to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood

of his cross and you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has now

reconciled in the body of his flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and

above reproach before him. All that vastness and greatness of God is revealed in Jesus and in

him the immeasurable greatness of God's power, his strength, his understanding, his presence,

his commitment is all being channeled towards God's great goal, which is to save you and to

have you with him. And Jesus Christ, the one through whom the whole universe was created,

the one in whom the whole universe is being held together, he came to die for you so that that

can happen. That means that the hand that can hold the oceans and the nations and the universe,

that hand was nailed to a cross so that you could be saved. And this is why measuring God is so

important because the more you can use the universe to measure God, the more you will discover how

loved you are. And that's where we see that theology will not just blow your mind, theology will

warm your heart. And I really hope you can see that. The Christian Gospel presents you with a God

whose love and commitment to you is so great that the only tool that can come close to measuring

it is the universe. And God grant that every one of us would respond to that by worshiping him,

trusting him and following him. Amen. God our Father, we bow before you as the immeasurable God,

but we also run into your arms as the one who loves us so much. And we thank you so much for all

that your word is teaching. And we marvel at the size of the universe, not because the universe is

great, but because it just shows us how amazing you are. Amen.