To Him Be Glory Forever

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Romans chapter 11, this awesome section, three verses, four verses, three verses.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, it's the duck'sology, it's the praise at the end of the 11 chapters before it goes into a lot of practical things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, for 10 years, I was a worship pastor back in Spokane, Washington, and before coming out here in 2005,

[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, it had a lot of people involved in the ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to get spouses involved of musicians because, you know, usually it's one spouse is real musical and then the other spouse doesn't get to join.

[SPEAKER_00]: They don't get the serve together.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what we did, we tried to pull like technicians in

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember we had several life groups under the worship ministry at about five or six life groups, all of worship people and their spouses.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember there was one spouse of a gifted musician.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a one of my tech guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was up on the stage trying to arrange the stage, get it proper and ready each Sunday morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was a engineer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we developed a good friendship together what was true about him is that he was a natural born skeptic.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he just, his mind was always whirling, always finding difficulties in the scriptures regularly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was good for me to, it was good for me to keep me on my toes and remind me that a good portion of the church was made up of people, good people like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He appreciated my candor and he appreciated my honesty, but especially when I acknowledged a mystery, where concepts of the Bible could not easily be reconciled, and we just had to wait on the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had to trust the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when I acknowledge that, it's almost like,

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a relief to him because he could see it in a lot of places.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we had, for years, we had this kind of conversation going.

[SPEAKER_00]: With additional church drama, it further complicated our conversations.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I came out here in 2005, having lived here, maybe a couple of years, maybe about in 2007, I went back.

[SPEAKER_00]: on family vacation, we got together and I could tell he wasn't in a good place so I asked him how things were going and then a whole other round of questions came to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my heart went out to him because I was the person that he could lean up against, he could ask hard questions, I could support him, but now I was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the end of the conversation I said to him,

[SPEAKER_00]: You have remained in this low state of a low-grade skepticism for at least a decade now.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's always going to be mystery surrounding the God of the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to start praising and thanking God for the things that you do know about him and do can affirm

[SPEAKER_00]: instead of trying to test every thread of the fabric of your faith to see if it unravels.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to direct your mind to praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to direct your mind to thank God because God can't be on trial.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every time you come up with a mystery, every time you come up with things you can explain, God should not be on trial.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to come under.

[SPEAKER_00]: Currently, I'm, I love biography.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm working through a biography now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if anyone has read anything about Benjamin Franklin.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Benjamin Franklin was one of the framers of our country in Constitution.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he grew up in a firm, a puritan theology of the family, under the influence of Cotton Mather.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a guy's name, OK?

[SPEAKER_00]: early influencer in our country with a strong Calvinistic leaning, which Franklin rejected.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just said, no way.

[SPEAKER_00]: He believed in God, but hand-picked the doctrines that were agreeable to him, and he emphasized the practical over the doctrinal.

[SPEAKER_00]: He squirmed when it came to a mystery, things he could not grasp.

[SPEAKER_00]: when it benefit, because it benefited the nation, but he rejected the doctrine, he rejected the supernatural elements.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this might work for a generation, but the next generation will jettison both doctrine and practice, because without doctrine, it's transcendent truth that comes from outside of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ethics cannot hold.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you do when the Bible presents truths that are offensive to you, that are mysterious to you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you quiet your heart and trust the Lord?

[SPEAKER_00]: While you search it out, while you dig deeper, must everything be accommodated to your complete understanding in order for you to worship?

[SPEAKER_00]: because you're going to postpone worship till the day you die, if that's the case.

[SPEAKER_00]: So because after laying out some really heavy doctrine from chapter one all the way to chapter or the end of chapter 11, even doctrine that baffles the apostle at times, he breaks into praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not skepticism, not demanding answers, praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: prays.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's read that prays.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter 11, starting with verse 33.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me back up a little bit because, wow, there's a lot here, verse 28.

[SPEAKER_00]: As regards the gospel, they are enemies talking about the Jews for your sake.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their

[SPEAKER_00]: For just as you were, at one time, disobedient to God and now have received mercy because of their disobedience.

[SPEAKER_00]: So now too, they have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they may also receive mercy.

[SPEAKER_00]: For God, this is the final phrase before going into praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: For God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God, how insurgeable are his judgements, how inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has been his counselor, or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever on men, which is my title.

[SPEAKER_00]: To him be glory forever,

[SPEAKER_00]: And ever, amen, first point I want to say, God is beyond full comprehension.

[SPEAKER_00]: To Him be glory forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Glory forever, God is beyond full comprehension.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when Paul springboards into praise, is he basing that just on the last three chapters or from chapters one all the way to the end of chapter 11?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's hard to say, but I would say the entire way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, he laid down the doctrine now he's going to praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Praise is the natural expression when you just laid out the character.

[SPEAKER_00]: and glory of God before the people, you want to praise, because chapter 12 transitions into the practical outworking in our lives, directives for living right in light of who God is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's only fitting to praise him when you see him as he is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you've been taken to the heights of glory, you say, wow God.

[SPEAKER_00]: saying, wow, it's the expression when you see glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: I call it the wow factor of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Glory is the wow factor of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you see something that's astounding, the level of amazement is the level of its glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: When God is at the top, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: All His creation, we're wowed at His creation and think about the Creator, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Glory is that wow factor of an individual.

[SPEAKER_00]: And verse 33, Paul is giving us 11 chapters.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the conclusion of 11 chapters full of glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is much we can know about God because he wants to be known.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we have this piece of revelation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter one, what do we know about God and chapter one?

[SPEAKER_00]: He is noble and we will answer to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter two and three, we are condemned because of sin and we cannot save ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter three and four, Christ righteousness rescues us through faith in Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's our escape.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's our salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's in Him, chapter 6, by faith, we're in union with Christ which breaks the power of sin in our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter 8, he gives us the abiding Holy Spirit to secure assurance and hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Throughout all of life, even when there's a war with Iran, even when hardship comes into our life,

[SPEAKER_00]: We sin, and we feel very low.

[SPEAKER_00]: The abiding Holy Spirit secures our assurance and hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then chapter 9 through 11, God is in charge of the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's in charge of individuals, and nations is directing everything toward a goal that will give him praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is noble, he must be, because we're gonna answer to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God has revealed to us what we can know and should know.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if he hasn't revealed something to us, it's because we wouldn't be able to understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he deems it on something that we shouldn't understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are some things that we will not fully comprehend.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does that surprise you that there is a difference?

[SPEAKER_00]: That there is a gap between what God understands

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that big, is that a big surprise?

[SPEAKER_00]: It shouldn't be a big surprise.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that gap right there should elicit praise, not skepticism, because we praise individuals that are beyond us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't we?

[SPEAKER_00]: When they're beyond our beauty, beyond our knowledge, beyond our skillset, we praise those kind of people, whether they're actors or musicians,

[SPEAKER_00]: leave they could do that, or athletes, I mean the winter Olympics, okay, far better than the summer Olympics, okay, just from my perspective, the half-pipe.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, those people are jumping so high, 20 feet high, those, those, that bowl.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they're jumping about 10 to 10 feet, 20 feet above it, doing these acrobatic tricks and coming right back down.

[SPEAKER_00]: That astounds me, or with a big air hill.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see that one?

[SPEAKER_00]: Big air, I think they call it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're doing all these tricks in the air, spinning, and then landing this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm blown away.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I can't do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: or how about people who are so smart that they start to explain something you just go, wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: They use big words, wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Though you don't understand it, they could be snowing you with stuff and you don't know, but you're amazed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or the super wealthy.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they've got all these things that say they're glorious, all the possessions they have, and we're amazed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're not like them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we praise other humans, what must our praise be to God?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because when God speaks, he is accommodating us.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know that?

[SPEAKER_00]: He's accommodating us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about our young children, like toddlers.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can speak their language, but we have to accommodate our speech.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Baby Talk.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can allude to greater concepts, but full comprehension is not possible with the toddler.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it would be really odd for a toddler to question the truthfulness of a concept simply because his little mind doesn't understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: How arrogant, but that's what we do to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though we can, if we just pull back a little bit, okay, yeah, God understands a lot more than I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, that's true, come under.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be so arrogant, the God has to totally accommodate to your full understanding.

[SPEAKER_00]: He probably doesn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he won't.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of mystery that still is involved here.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Toddler's mind and a parent's mind are entirely at different levels.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you could see that our mind and God's mind are a totally different levels.

[SPEAKER_00]: CS Lewis explained it like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is not fully comprehensible to humans because he has not a thing to be analyzed but stands outside of the system.

[SPEAKER_00]: God's relationship to humans is like an author's relationship to the main character in a story he writes.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good illustration.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are entirely on different dimensions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know Paul uses similar language in chapter nine when he calls God the Potter and we are what we're the clay.

[SPEAKER_00]: and God is working with the clay.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the clay can't say, God, what are you doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you doing it this way?

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make any sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: There needs to be that acknowledgement that God is beyond us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 33 talks about this riches, the riches, all the depth of the riches.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that describes

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just written.

[SPEAKER_00]: Knowledge is talking about information.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wisdom talks about the skillful use of information.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God is past finding out.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has the depth of both of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: The depths of God's knowledge and wisdom are past finding out.

[SPEAKER_00]: The depth cannot be measured.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't think in those terms because everything in our world is measurements and limits.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like to think about the highest of mountains and the deepest depths that we have on earth and the highest mountain is Mount Everest.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's 29,000 feet high, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what the deepest trenches?

[SPEAKER_00]: The Marianna trench.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that thing is deeper than Everest is high.

[SPEAKER_00]: So 29,000 feet above sea level, and now below sea level, the bottom of the trench is 36,000 feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you remember about a couple of years ago when that submersible imploded, that the pressure was so great, it just smashed bits and all the people inside.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the trenches, three times that, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's at 36,000 feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you think about, he says, all the depths, all the depths of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're pass-finding out.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's beyond our depth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are out of our depth in so many ways when we come to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could come up with questions like, God, why this world created and not another.

[SPEAKER_00]: or why allow sin and suffering, or why choose this person or this nation over another, or why the set back in my career in my health.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't I get more opportunities in life and we've all had those kind of conversations, but we're not going to know the answer to these questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: God gives us the answer to things we need to know and then we're gonna have to trust with the rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he keeps us in the dark, just like in the dark, when you're a toddler, you just want to grab a hold of your father's hand tighter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we should do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we should give him glory, do his name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, he doesn't need our counsel.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't need our counsel.

[SPEAKER_00]: For who has known the mind of the Lord, who's been his counselor?

[SPEAKER_00]: Parents, have you ever been counseled or schooled by your teenager?

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes they're right, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the hard thing about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the right.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's hard to hear from them because of their lack of time and experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: When they've led no one and they've carried very little responsibility and yet they know, that's the hard part.

[SPEAKER_00]: But who really knows the mind of God?

[SPEAKER_00]: And who has the audacity to counsel God, who has depths of wisdom, riches of wisdom and knowledge?

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows how to use all the knowledge perfectly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yet we will rail against God at times and question what he does when we don't agree with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do we really think we have enough knowledge and wisdom to make a better decision?

[SPEAKER_00]: Many of you are familiar with the last sections of the book of Job.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Eric alluded to the book of Job last week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Job gets tested by God through horrific tragedy, falling upon his family, and then it falls on his own body.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard enough to carry the tragedy for someone else, but when your body is not feeling well, it's easy to cave in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for 36 chapters, here's Job talking to his friends

[SPEAKER_00]: I am innocent.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, if I had time, if God could come and I could lay out my case and tell him I'm innocent and question why these things are happening and how unfair it is and ask him why and then God shows up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And chapter 38 verse 2, this is God saying, who is this the darkened counsel by words without knowledge?

[SPEAKER_00]: Dress for action like a man, I will question you, Job, and you make it known to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where were you?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of where were you, questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And have you commanded the morning and cause the dawn to know its place and for two chapters, God asks Job for his credentials.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God says, you don't know any of these things or have the ability and you're going to counsel me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Job chapter 40 verse 4, here's Job's response.

Job 40:4

[SPEAKER_00]: Behold, I'm a small account.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gets humbled really quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: What shall I answer you, O God?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what he says?

[SPEAKER_00]: I lay my hand on my mouth.

[SPEAKER_00]: God comes again, dress for action like a man.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will question you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you make it known to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Will you even put me in the wrong job?

[SPEAKER_00]: Will you condemn me that you may be put in the right because really that's what we're aiming at.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, we need to form our worldview around some fixed points found in the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is in charge.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing's out of his control.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we find ourselves in a position where we're limited, injured, hemmed in on every side, not able to understand what's going on, we should humble ourselves under the mighty end of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of putting God on trial, every time we come up to a mystery, things we don't understand, quiet yourself before him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then praise him like the apostle does.

[SPEAKER_00]: Praise him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we do the things we don't feel like it, and God gives us then the strength, and it will come, the song will come, but you need to be moving in that direction.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't need our help.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't need our counsel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Third of my outline, God is not beholden to anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is not beholden to anyone, verse 35, or who has given a gift to him

[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: This reminds me of Job again, verse, chapter 41, verse 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, Who has first given to me that I should repay him?

[SPEAKER_00]: God is speaking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine, you're going to give something to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're only going to be able to give something to me because I've given it to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: What would we give to him anyway when he owns it all?

[SPEAKER_00]: We are, he has not dependent on us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're dependent on him, entirely.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Isaiah makes a mockery of such thoughts that God has beholden to anybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Isaiah 44, let me turn to Isaiah 44 and read a section starting with verse 13.

[SPEAKER_00]: The carpenter stretches a line, he marks it out with a pencil.

[SPEAKER_00]: He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass.

[SPEAKER_00]: He shapes it into a figure of a man with a beauty of a man to dwell in a house.

[SPEAKER_00]: He cuts down cedar or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong on the trees of the forest.

[SPEAKER_00]: He plants a cedar and rain, nourishes it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then it becomes fuel for a man.

[SPEAKER_00]: He takes part of it and warms himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: He kindles a fire and makes bread.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, he makes a God.

[SPEAKER_00]: and worships it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes an idol and falls down before it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Half he burns in the fire, half he eats meat.

[SPEAKER_00]: He roasts it and he satisfied.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he warms himself and says, ahah, I am warm, I have seen the fire.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the rest he makes into a God, his idol and falls down to it and worship it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He prays to it and says, deliver me for you or my God, how silly.

[SPEAKER_00]: You remember what Paul said to the Athenians when he was addressing them seeing all the idols.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says in Acts chapter 17 verse 25, God has not served with human hands as if he needed anything.

Acts 17:25

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, for the 21st century mind, Western mind, bowing down before a little figurine doesn't make any sense at all, it's actually silly, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you ask a 21st century, youngster today,

[SPEAKER_00]: The truths that they come up with, that they ascribe to, are truths merely, they're merely projections out of themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're a mere projection of what they want God to be and how is that any different.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not transcended truth outside of them but from within, figurines of their own likeness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul told the Athenians that the end of his talk in Acts 17, started with verse 20, 90, says, being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver is stone.

[SPEAKER_00]: An image formed by the art and imagination of man.

[SPEAKER_00]: The times of ignorance got us overlooked.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means you need to change your mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to change your mind, which will change your actions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he has fixed the day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of this, he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ is risen from the dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to bow.

[SPEAKER_00]: God cannot be controlled, bribed, blackmailed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not beholden to anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: He owes nothing to any person.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the center of existence.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's my final point.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the center of existence.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see it from him through him.

[SPEAKER_00]: To him are all things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it says back in chapter 11, verse 36, for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever, from him, all things originate from him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he speaks the world to do existence, let there be and there is.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sustains all things.

[SPEAKER_00]: You remember what Daniel told that rebellious Babylonian king?

[SPEAKER_00]: In chapter 5, the God who holds your life breath, you have not honored your days are numbered.

[SPEAKER_00]: We live today because He sustains our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We live because He wants us alive for the moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the goal of everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of creation is to live for His glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything we do, we are to offer to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is the centerpiece.

[SPEAKER_00]: You just think about what you're gonna do tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that boring work, that really heart, you do it to God's glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do it unto God, no matter how mundane.

[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how brainless the activity is, you do it on to him as worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: It gives so much more meaning to life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We live on to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: from him, through him, to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is the centerpiece.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the center of our existence.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know the old Roman architecture, you know the architecture use this beautiful archways, you've seen them, and they come together with the keystone.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, here you have these big stones, and they are all leaning like this, and they would fall, except for the last piece it gets

[SPEAKER_00]: put in, called the keystone, and now they all lean together and they hold together fast.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's who God is.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the keystone, and without which everything falls, everything comes undone.

[SPEAKER_00]: You try to ignore God and live like He does not exist, and you do that to your own peril.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm asking of you is not to become this, you know, a more of a moral person.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, certainly an upstanding citizen and a moral person is better than an evil one.

[SPEAKER_00]: But unto God, that doesn't work.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what he wants more than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That will not do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Benjamin Franklin was a moral person.

[SPEAKER_00]: At least as moral as he could be.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he lived for himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: He lived for the advancement of the country.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's still idolatry.

[SPEAKER_00]: that's still unacceptable.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were made to live not for the glory of a person or a nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were to live unto him, the glory of him, to bring him glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: You originated from him, you're sustained right now, your life breath, sustained by God and you are, he, you owe him everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's gotta go higher than self-improvement.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even then, your own elevator cannot go high enough of self-improvement.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to call on Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ has to lift you up.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to call out to Him in faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what you would say.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to trust you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do trust you.

[SPEAKER_00]: My heart has been hard from years of independence from you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's sin, forgive me, save me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something like that needs to be uttered from your mouth, from a heart that is true and listen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your situation is not that unique from everyone else in this room.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are many things in this world that defy easy answers,

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you read the Bible, there are mysteries like God's election of peoples and nations, the existence of evil in this world, and you're never going to get complete answers.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're never going to get complete answers, but he still demands your worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what if that's how God designed this world without complete answers in order to humble you, to humble you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because faith is definitely humbling.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to trust in someone beside yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, you demand that God abide by your rules but he's demanding the very opposite.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to bow to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: The question is will you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Will you bow to Him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.