Ep 152 | Cover to Cover 31 | Pastor Ryan Clark | Aug 2, 2026

Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Clark.

You are listening to a message from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

This week, I looked up biggest fools in the history of the world, and boy, there were a lot of people competing for biggest fools who have ever lived on the planet.

But there were three that stood out to me that I'd like to share with you here tonight as we begin this message.

During the Civil War, General John Sedgwick stood near the front lines.

His men were all ducking for cover from Confederate snipers.

He mocked his soldiers saying, "What are you hiding for? They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."

Just seconds after this proclamation, he got shot in the head and was killed.

Then there was Alexander Bogdanov, who was a Russian revolutionary, who was obsessed with finding the cure for aging.

His theory was that you could achieve immortality by swapping blood with other people.

The first 11 transfusions went well, and he claimed he felt decades younger.

But unfortunately, in his 12th transfusion in 1928, he swapped blood with someone who had malaria and tuberculosis.

No surprise to anyone but perhaps him, he died shortly afterward.

And finally, in 1859, Thomas Austin released 24 rabbits from Europe into the Australian wild because he wanted something familiar to hunt.

He didn't think that such a small number of rabbits would make little difference to the Australian environment.

He ended up being very wrong.

Within a few years, the rabbit population grew from 24 rabbits to 600 million.

The rabbits destroyed the local ecosystem and caused massive erosion and drove many of the native animals to extinction.

And Australia is still fighting what happened in 1859 over 150 years later.

I would say that probably these three people are fighting for the designation of biggest fool who has ever lived on the planet.

But as we continue our study of cover to cover, as we are literally going from Genesis through the book of Revelation, the Bible tells us who's the biggest fool of all.

In Psalm 14 it says, "The fool is the one who says in his heart there is no God."

We heard some pretty foolish things at the beginning of this message, but the biggest fool of all is the one who says there is no God.

If you look up fool in the dictionary, it says a person who acts unwisely, a silly person So who is the unwise person? Who's the one that is just downright silly, shouldn't be taken seriously? It's the person who says there is no God.

Now, the Psalms that we're going to be looking at here today were written by David.

In Psalm 9, David, just the opposite, says, "I'm no fool.

Not only do I believe that there's a God, but I'm gonna worship that God."

He says, "I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart.

I will tell people of all your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and rejoice in you.

I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High."

So David says, "I'm gonna give thanks to you for all the good things in my life.

I'm gonna tell people about all the wonderful things that you do.

I'm gonna be glad, I'm gonna rejoice, and I'm gonna sing your praises because not only are you real, but you're a good and gracious God."

And it got me thinking, why do we worship God? Why do we gather here every week to worship Him? Why do we sing these songs? Why does a band come up every Saturday night and practice and then lead the people in worship? Well, from the Psalms that you read this past week in our Cover to Cover study, I picked out six reasons that you and I are to worship our God.

We're no fools.

We worship the Lord because number one, He's a marvelous creator.

We worship God because He's a marvelous creator.

In Psalm 19 it says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the works of His hands."

We live in a day and age when we're always looking down at our phones, but if you put those phones away and look up into the sky, it's magnificent, isn't it? In fact, the psalmist here is saying that when you look up, it's practically screaming at you that there's a God.

It's screaming at you that He is a powerful and artistic maker It says, "The heavens declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of His hands.

Day after day, they pour forth speech.

Night after night, they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words, no sound is heard from them, yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."

The person that says there is no God is a fool.

Why? Because all of creation is screaming out, "There's a God."

We've had the opportunity to travel all around this country, and there are some beautiful landscapes, aren't there? Absolutely beautiful.

When we lived out in New York, you had those purple mountain majesty going on out there.

And then you come to the Midwest, and you've got all of the beautiful lakes and the sunsets.

Wherever you go, you have these beautiful landscapes.

Where did that come from? From God.

He's an outstanding creator.

Think about it.

He could have made everything gray and flat, and we wouldn't know the difference, but He made it beautiful, colorful.

He's a magnificent creator, and He's worthy of our praise.

Now, there are some that would look at this stuff, they would look up in the sky, they would look at the landscapes, and they would say, "Oh, it's all done by natural processes over millions and millions of years."

But can you honestly look at any of these things up here on the screen and say, "No, it doesn't have a maker.

It was here by random chance"? Can you imagine finding a guitar out in the middle of a forest and going, "Wow, look at what millions of years have done"? Or a cell phone or a watch.

Nobody's saying over millions and millions of years, "Look at what nature did."

How much less so should we say that about a baby? For as amazing as a guitar and a computer and a cellphone and a watch are, we are spectacular.

As David says, and we're going to be reading more of his Psalms later, he says, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made," he says in Psalm 1:39 See why David would say anyone who says that there is no God that's behind all this is crazy.

Have you ever thought about the eye, the human eye or the human ear? There are so many little intricate parts that all have to work perfectly together, otherwise it doesn't work.

There's an argument that creationists have used for many years called irreducible complexity.

That means that, like the ear, the human ear is so complex, but if one little thing was just a hair, not what it is, the whole thing, the whole- the whole thing would not work.

Everything is exactly the way it is.

And so the idea that we've evolved over millions and millions of years, that would mean that over millions of years, there would be people and animals that probably couldn't see or probably couldn't hear until it evolved to that place where it is today.

Well, that doesn't make any sense, and that is certainly not what the Bible says.

And then of course, there's DNA.

Over the last 100 to 150 years, we've come to understand more of what DNA is.

And you know what DNA is? It's a set of instructions.

For those men out here that may not read instructions, what instructions are, if your child gets a complex toy, it usually comes with some instructions that you've got to open up and read, right? And it tells you how step by step to put it together When people discovered DNA, they realized, wow, that is a set of very complex instructions.

In each strand of DNA, there is the equivalent of eight thousand books of information.

In every single strand, in every single cell.

And you know how many cells we have in our body? About thirty trillion.

Francis Crick, one of the co-discoverers of DNA, he was not open to a God.

But look at this interesting quote, "Biologists must constantly keep in mind what they see was not designed but evolved."

In other words, he said, "You know what? When we look at DNA, it looks like there was a creator.

It looks like someone wrote these instructions, so we have to constantly remind ourselves that it wasn't written down, it evolved."

And my response to that is, is if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck, right? Quack, quack.

Once again, with all the information that we have about creation For a person to say there is no God, David would say they're a fool.

Theologian R.C.

Sproul put it this way, and I like this quote.

He says, "What are the chances of the universe being created by chance? Not a chance."

Not a chance.

We're no fools.

We worship the Lord because number one, He's a marvelous creator, and He is.

But that's not the only reason that we gather together to worship Him.

Number two, we worship the Lord because He actually cares about us.

Even though He's so big, He's so marvelous, He's done so many amazing things in landscapes, in the skies, and the universe, but He cares about you and me.

In our highlighted verse for today, it's from Psalm 8, and you can hear David, "Wow, God, You're amazing.

And when I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have all set in place, what is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them?" Lord, what is it about us that you being so great would care about little old me? Have you ever thought about how small you are? How small I am? Not only can they not see any one of us from a space shuttle, they can't see any one of us from a plane.

We're so small on this earth, and we are here today and gone tomorrow.

We're just a breath.

David says, "What are we that you would be mindful of us? That you would care about us? But you are.

You are mindful of us.

You do care for us."

In fact, in 1 Peter 5 it says, "Cast all your cares on Him."

Why? Because magnificent, holy, amazing God cares for you That's why we can cast our cares on Him, because He actually cares about us.

We worship the Lord because He's a marvelous creator.

We worship the Lord because He cares about us.

Number three, we worship the Lord because He hears and answers us when we call out to Him.

In Psalm 10, David says, "Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourselves in times of trouble?" Have you ever felt that way? Maybe you're in the midst of a really difficult thing in your life and you're calling out to God, and it seems like He's absent.

It seems like He's not there.

He's not answering.

One of the reasons I love the Psalms is because they're just so honest.

They're so honest.

And at the beginning of Psalm 10, he says, "Where are you?" And then in verse 12 he says, "Arise, Lord.

Lift up your hand, O God.

Don't forget the helpless."

In other words, don't forget me It starts out, "Where are you?" But by the end of Psalm 10, look at where he's at.

"You, Lord, You hear the desire of the afflicted, You encourage them and You listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed."

By the end of the psalm, he's saying, "You do listen.

Sometimes it feels like you're not.

Sometimes I wonder where are you?" But by the end of the psalm, he says with great faith, "You do.

You do."

In Psalm 9 it says, "The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you."

Boy, you got to love that word never, huh? He's never forsaken those who say, "I'm gonna seek you until I find you."

So you know what He's inviting us to do? Seek Him.

If you're in a bad place, if you're struggling with something in your life, seek Him because He's never forsaken anyone who has sought Him like that.

How can you and I be sure that if we seek Him, we're gonna find Him? How can we be sure that God, who's holy and otherworldly, how can I be sure that my prayer's gonna get to Him? As Christians, we know how.

In John 14, Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one gets to the Father except through me."

That's why Jesus came here to this earth, to bring us back to God so that my prayers would get through to Him, so that He could talk back to me, so that when I need Him, my prayer gets through.

He can talk back to me.

He can help me in my time of need.

That's what Jesus is all about.

This is why Jesus came.

Our sin had separated us from Him But through the perfect life and the death and resurrection of Jesus, he brought us back to our God.

St.

Paul puts it this way in his first letter to Timothy, "For there is one God and there's one mediator between God and mankind, and that is the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people."

You and I, we needed a mediator.

We needed someone to take us and pull us together, and that's what Jesus did through his life, death, and resurrection for us.

We worship the Lord because he's a marvelous creator, because he cares for us, because he hears and answers us.

Number four, we worship the Lord because he counsels us.

In Psalm 16, David writes, "I will praise the Lord who counsels me, and even at night my heart instructs me."

You ever need counsel? Do you ever need wisdom? You can have it because you have a God who has promised to counsel those who ask.

In John 14, Jesus said, "All this I've spoken while still with you.

But the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of every wise thing that I have said to you."

Jesus was taugh- saying to his disciples, "You know, while I'm here, I can counsel you, but I'm about ready to go to heaven.

But I'm not gonna leave you without a counselor.

I'm gonna give you a counselor that's actually even gonna be closer to you than I am, because he's gonna live inside of you, and you can call out to that counselor at any time for counsel, and he'll give it to you."

That's the Holy Spirit.

In James 1, he puts it this way: "If any one of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

So if you ask for wisdom, you say, "Holy Spirit, I need counsel in this situation that I'm in in my life," the Holy Spirit is never gonna take into account the dumb thing that you did that day He's gonna give generously without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

For that, He is worthy of our praise One of the ways that the Holy Spirit gives that counsel is through the Bible.

Look at what it says in 2 Timothy 3, "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

God uses those eternal words on the pages of our Bible to speak directly to us by His Holy Spirit.

This is why we're reading the Bible over these two years, because it's unlike any other book that you've ever read.

It has living words on the page that our amazing God can take right off the page and speak right to you the wisdom and counsel that you need for whatever's going on in your life Number five, we're no fools.

We worship the Lord because His law protects us.

Look at what it says in Psalm 19, "The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.

The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.

They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold.

They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.

By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward."

Look at how glowingly David is speaking about God's law.

I wonder how many of us look at God's law that way? I think most of the time we probably look at the law as the opposite of the gospel.

The gospel's the good news, the law's the bad news.

And to a certain point it is.

When the law points at us and says, "You're a sinner and you need a savior," that is kinda bad news for us.

The good news is Jesus is our savior.

But the law in and of itself is not bad.

In fact, it's wonderful.

That's what he's saying here.

The law of the Lord is perfect.

Why? Because it keeps us out of trouble.

You know, life is hard enough the way it is without making a whole bunch of foolish decisions that are gonna make it even harder, right? And so God in His love for us has given His law in the Bible to help us know right from wrong, to help us know what we should do and what we shouldn't do.

And when we follow it, it's like a warning to us.

And in keeping it, it keeps us from going through some of the trials that we see our neighbors and, and friends going through.

In Deuteronomy 10 it says, "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I'm giving you today," and here's the important words, "for your own good."

Why did God give us His law? Not because He was trying to prove that He's God and we're not Because He loves us and He wants us to keep from going through unnecessary trials in our life and heartbreak That's why He's given us His law for our own good Finally, number six.

We're no fools.

We worship the Lord, and most importantly, because He forgives us when we fail.

So He's given us this amazing law to keep us on the right track, but we all fall.

We all fail.

We all rebel against that law from time to time, and when we do, we need forgiveness.

And the last and most important reason that we see in these Psalms for why we worship the Lord is because He forgives us whenever we fail.

Look at Psalm 14.

It says, "The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there is any who understand, any who seek God."

And what did He find? "All have turned away.

All have become corrupt.

There is no one who does good, not even one."

What does that word all mean? It means all, doesn't it? It means every single person that has ever lived on this planet, say Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is a fallen human being, is a rebel against God.

All have turned away.

All have become corrupt.

Once again, back to that picture of how small we are, how tiny we are, how seemingly insignificant we are, how we're just a breath, we're here today and gone tomorrow, and then add to that, that we're a bunch of rebels.

Why would God want anything to do with us? But he does.

In Psalm 1:30 it says, "If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, who could stand?" If God kept a record of every time in your life or in my life that we've rebelled against him, there's not a single person in here that wouldn't be down on your face.

We have all failed over and over and over again But with you, there is forgiveness.

Isn't that wonderful? Forgiveness means that God washes our record clean.

In Psalm 6 it says, "Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I'm faint.

Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony."

He understood that there was a connection between my sin and what I'm going through And he says, "Forgive me.

Heal me.

But once again, by the end of the Psalm, what does he say? "The Lord has heard my cry for mercy.

The Lord accepts my prayer."

Isn't that amazing? From time to time, I hear people say things to me like this, and I just heard it this week.

Someone said, "I must have done something really bad to have the situation that I'm going through."

My answer to that is, not everything bad that you and I go through is because of something we did.

A lot of times it's the fact that we live in a sinful world and we're sinners ourself.

And we all go through times of trial in our lives.

But whatever the reason is that we're going through a trial, God has promised to come to forgive us and to help us.

That's why we have a healing service here tonight In Psalm 103, these are my favorite verses in the whole Bible.

It says, "Praise the Lord, my soul.

All my inmost being, praise His holy name.

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits."

What are the benefits of following God? Here they are.

He forgives you all your sins, and He heals all your diseases.

Those two things.

He forgives you, and He heals you.

In Matthew chapter 9, we have the man that was lowered down through the roof to Jesus.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

And it says Jesus said, "Which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.'

So He said to the paralyzed man, 'Get up, take your mat and go home.'

Then the man got up and went home."

What did He do? He forgives you all your sins and heals your diseases.

Why do we worship our Lord? Because that's who He is.

That's who He's always been.

That's who He'll always be.

Why? Because of what it says in Romans 3, "But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, in which the Law and the Prophets testify.

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith."

None of us deserve forgiveness.

None of us deserve for this amazing God to come to our rescue.

But when we put our trust in Him and say, "Lord, forgive me, a sinner," He forgives us because of Jesus and then runs to our rescue to help us.

What an amazing God.

We're not gonna be fools, are we? We're gonna worship the Lord because He's a marvelous creator, because He cares about us, because He hears and answers us, because He counsels us when we need counsel, because His law is so good and it protects us.

And even when we fail in following that law, because of Jesus, He forgives us.

We're not gonna be fools.

We're gonna worship the Lord here tonight, and we have the opportunity to do it again in just a few minutes.

Amen.

You've been listening to a sermon from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

If you would like more information about St.

John's and any of our ministries to our community and beyond, you can go to our website, www.

stjohnsbuffalo.

org.

Thank you and God bless you.