Astounded | Omniscient (June 20, 2021) Mike Armstrong

Welcome to the Redemption Church New Market podcast.

This morning we are hearing from Pastor Mike Armstrong, the senior pastor here.

The series is astounded, the attributes of God.

Amen.

Well, welcome, Redemption, and uh you're already taking your seat.

Don't need to wait for me to say that.

But great to uh be in the room with you.

I want to add my Happy Father's Day to it as well.

Thankful for all the pops out there, and uh trust that you'll be celebrated uh today by your families.

Uh but I'm also whenever there's um let's let's be honest, it's a Hallmark holiday, right?

Whenever whenever there's a Hallmark holiday like Father's Day, Mother's Day, I'm also very aware that this isn't always a celebration for everybody.

It brings back maybe some pain and some difficulty in your memories.

I'm aware that uh there are some who have lost their fathers this year.

And so this is the first one without your dad.

And uh I recognize the the grief uh that you're going through.

For some, it's been just the difficulty of trying to start a family, and and that just hasn't gone the way that you have uh wanted to, or maybe it's complicated relationships with your own uh father or your own grown kids, even.

And so I just want to know that I was praying for you uh this morning, uh, those of you who are battling through some of that and and and for whom today is uh just not always uh just fun and games.

Um but again, uh great that we have a perfect Heavenly Father who is um everything and more uh that we need.

And so we're excited to look more into who this God is, who our Heavenly Father is, and we're gonna get into that in just a moment here.

But before that, a couple of things uh to let you uh know about, and that is uh, first of all, our Church Center app, which again you can get on your phone, and it gets you really, it's the portal into the life of our church, everything that you would need from sermon audio and and kids' ministry at home if uh if you have that going on on any particular Sunday, that's helpful.

There's connection cards as well.

I want to just kind of urge you firmly, even if I could, to fill out a connection card.

Uh, that is not just for new people who are brand new with us, but it's for everybody because we want to be able to track with you properly uh throughout the week and uh know how we can be praying for you or helping you out uh in any way.

So please uh be sure to uh to fill one of those out for us.

That would be really helpful, of course, through Church Center.

You can give.

We've got different ways that you can do that.

You can follow the instructions through there.

Uh, you can do that right at the box here in person if you prefer to give uh your offering that way.

And in the same uh strain as uh as the offering, we've got our special offering going on now until the end of this month.

So you've got this Sunday and next Sunday, plus a couple of extra days in there, about 10 days or so, uh, where we're still looking to raise this$14,000 to the different projects that we have talked uh quite a bit about, and uh we're thrilled for how the Lord has used you.

And uh we're still we're kind of just over the halfway mark, so we're looking to uh have a strong finishing stretch here as uh as we typically do uh in the remaining week plus uh to all of this.

So again, bring this before the Lord if you would and uh ask the Lord to lead you uh specifically in how you could give above and beyond in these ways.

We're so thankful for uh you being willing to do that.

Now, prayer meetings, we've been doing those online over the last little while, and uh, they've been a major blessing.

They really, really have been.

We've been doing those Tuesday mornings at 6 a.m.

Uh it's been great to gather with a few people and get the kind of the earlier part of our week going with prayer.

It's uh it always sets off.

Tuesdays is always my busiest day, and uh Tuesday just is a great way for me to start uh my day off with prayer with God's people, and so we enjoy uh invite you to join us with that.

And then uh we're past this point of the day today, but 9.50 on Sunday mornings.

If you're ever uh at home for a service and you want to join us on Zoom, uh we have uh one of our leaders that will pray uh with you and for you during that time as well.

And you can find that through the email that gets uh sent out.

There's a Zoom link through that.

Again, you can find it through Church Center or even on our website.

And so everything should be available to you there.

If you can have a hard time finding anything, just let us know and uh we'll get you pointed in the right direction.

All right, Isaiah 40.

Get your Bibles open, turn them to Isaiah 40 as we continue in our astounded series uh today, as uh we will be going through this throughout this summer and really looking at the attributes of God, right?

Who is our God?

What is he like?

So, so important as believers that we have a real crystal clear view of who our God is.

He is not just whoever we might want him to be, he is not necessarily who someone might say he is, he is who the Word of God says he is, he is who he says he is, and so that is really the emphasis for our series getting us locked into our great God.

Now, Isaiah 40 is where we're gonna be today, like I said, but as you're getting yourself there, um as we all know this, nobody, nobody, nobody likes to know it all.

You've maybe experienced uh that kind of an experience with a person.

It could be the kid on the playground back in preschool that you remember who just love to talk about himself or herself and and and puff themselves out by talking about the vast amount of knowledge that they have about this, that, or the other thing.

Of course, some of us know as adults that that doesn't always leave a person.

Sometimes adults are like that as well, right?

And they just love to have the focus on themselves and look how great I am.

And sometimes it comes from this place of you can just kind of see it.

There's this insecurity of needing to puff myself out in front of people.

Or, or uh maybe it even comes with a little slice of uh of condemnation and judgment towards you, right?

Where they're yes, they're talking about you know how much they know and how great they are, but it also seems to be in a way that is trying to also press you down and make you feel bad about yourself.

Again, know-it-alls.

No one's really a huge uh uh fan of all of that.

Now, when we when we call somebody a know-it-all, or when we use that that term, that phrase, it's obvious that we don't mean it literally.

Right?

Because nobody knows everything about probably any topic.

But but that's exactly what we mean when we say that that God is omniscient.

God being omniscient means that he is all knowing.

Now you might be thinking, well, what exactly does he know?

Or what does his omniscience extend to?

Well, a lot of things, to be honest with you.

We've been looking at A.

W.

Tozer quite a bit through this series, and we'll continue to.

Here's what he says: He says, God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every uttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell.

It's extensive.

These are the things that that our God knows.

Okay, but it's also it's also really important to understand or to say that these are not things, this list, these are not things that God has had to learn over time.

Have you ever thought about it that way?

You know, uh it's it's not as though God is just simply further along the education process than humans are.

Okay, I already looked at one tozer thing.

Here's another tozer quote.

I promise I've met my two quote quota, if you will.

Uh, but here's what else he says.

He says, to say that God is omniscient is to say that he possesses perfect knowledge and therefore has no need to learn.

But it is even more.

It is to say that God has never learned and cannot learn.

Do you feel like your mind is yet?

I mean, that's that's just that's amazing, right?

It's incredible.

Our creator, he has not he has not arrived at null at the knowledge that he possesses because he studied really hard.

Because he you know he was taught by somebody.

Right?

That's how we learn, that's how we improve in our knowledge, but that's not him.

Nor has God arrived at his his his knowledge by learning the hard way.

How many of you, if you're a man, you should have your hand up, how many of you have had to learn something the hard way?

Right?

Absolutely.

We've learned through failure, learned through mistakes.

We we often, all of us, we learn the hard way, but that is not that's that's not God.

Neither has has the Lord grown mature in his understanding of topic over time.

You know, that just kind of settles on his mind.

He's like, oh, okay, now I kind of understand this better than I did several millennia ago.

No, that that's that's not the Lord.

That's not how he works.

No, he he has always known everything perfectly and completely.

Always.

Okay, so think about it this way: God is the only true know-it-all.

Okay, only we don't mean that in the same way that we mean about the kid on the playground where we're kind of rolling our eyes or or or or in a way that is kind of annoying.

Not at all.

That's not God.

We mean it, we mean it quite literally.

We mean it with all due respect, coming from a place, at least it should come from a place of nothing but awe and wonder on our part.

Right?

And so here is our main idea today.

It's this I am astounded, right, as I consider that God is omniscient.

Okay, so like I said, Isaiah 40 for us today, and this just so happens to be the passage I mentioned it last week, but the passage that I have been studying uh basically daily over the last uh number of weeks, it is really all about God's greatness and full confession here, and I'm sure you would relate to me on this.

There are times in my life where I seem to lose sight of that.

I get overwhelmed by the world, by the horizontal things.

I turn my my my looking inward, navel gazing, and become overwhelmed by self and focused on self.

And I need to be overcome and overwhelmed again by God's greatness.

And so God's omniscience is something that we see in this very passage in Isaiah 40, verse 13 and 14, which we want to look at right now, follow along with me.

Isaiah 40:13

It says this, it asks the question.

It says, Who has measured?

Okay, measuring meaning like quantified, who has quantified or measured?

Some some translations, if you have the ESV, there's a little number by that word, and down at the bottom, it actually says that that some manuscript use the word directed.

Okay, so who has who has measured or who has directed the spirit of the Lord?

Okay, or or what man shows him counsel?

Okay, what man shows him counsel?

What man directs him?

What who can even measure and quantify how you know the the the immensity and the greatness of God's understanding?

Okay, no one.

Okay, but but isn't it interesting how you and I, we try to all the time.

You ever had a complaint against God?

You ever you ever grumbled about anything in life?

You you ever pleaded with God in prayer as though you're trying to impose your will on him?

Lord, I see that you're doing something in my life and I don't like it, Lord.

Would you would you do something different?

Don't you understand, God, that that I know what's best?

You'd be making my life easier, better, your life easier, better, God, if you would just do things my way.

You see how we try to we try to counsel the Lord.

We try to direct him.

We might know in our heads that God is all-knowing and that is best, but functionally, practically speaking, we try and reverse that with the Lord and get him to do things our way.

Again, it continues to ask questions.

It says, Whom did he consult and who made him understand?

Who taught him the path of justice?

Meaning like right and wrong.

Who taught God these things?

And taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding.

Again, these two verses are just rhetorical question after rhetorical question, aimed to provoke the rather obvious answer.

No one.

Okay, no one has or can do these things.

He consulted no one about anything ever, because there's no one with more understanding than him.

No one taught him the path of justice or or any other path or topic of knowledge, because he's already he already possesses perfect knowledge about everything under the sun.

Okay, and above and beyond the sun, including the actual sun.

Right?

The Lord knows all.

He knows everything.

And listen, as you allow that to settle on your mind and your heart and and you seek to have greater understanding about this, you need to realize here that God's omniscience, the fact that he is all-knowing, is intended to have a dramatic effect on your life.

On your life, on my life, everyday life, every single day.

You and I, we're not supposed to just have some kind of like conceptual understanding that God is all-knowing, sitting there, you know, somewhere in the back of our minds, like a whole bunch of other tidbits and facts that we might know about life, like how to plant a garden properly, or or what time we need to leave the house in the morning so as to avoid traffic on the 404.

Right?

Those are all just kind of facts and tidbits, but but God's omniscience is supposed to really mean something.

Again, it's supposed to have this amazing effect and actually transform us when it comes to the various realities of life that you and I encounter.

That God is all-knowing is to have a dramatic effect on you if you're a student.

As you're nearing the end of your school year and you've got assignments that you're trying to do, or if you're you're older and you're trying to write exams or cram and and write papers and all those things, and you're and it's it's all about knowledge, right?

And it's all about putting that out on paper.

You're supposed to rest in the fact, as you consider God's omniscience, that he knows everything.

You you have to learn to get there.

You have to put in blood, sweat, and tears to get there, but God, he just knows it.

That is that is meant to blow your mind.

It's meant to make you marvel and for you to rest in him.

It's supposed to mean something for the for the recently divorced person, so that you can take refuge in it, in him, you know, as you struggle to navigate the many unknowns that you're facing for life going forward.

That God knows everything is to mean something to the person who is making a career change late in life.

And a lot of question marks.

Which direction should I go?

Is this gonna work out?

Is this foolish?

Am I gonna be okay?

Is this what's best for me and my family?

It's supposed to mean something to you as you consider COVID in our world today, and you try and wrap your head around what how am I supposed to think properly, and how do I manage my emotions and my fears and my anger and my frustration and my jadedness about all of these things, about vaccines and about how to wrestle through and see properly the different political agendas at play and mixed into all of this?

How do I wrestle through all the unknowns as I think through how this is dividing my family or dividing my friends?

Okay, God's omniscience.

Again, it's not just to be some kind of trivia answer in your brain that you can recall if someone asks you what it's about.

No, it's supposed to genuinely help you and make a difference in your life.

You might be wondering, okay, you gave me a couple of examples there, but but how?

Can we unpack this a little bit?

Like what like give me some examples.

Alright, I got four for you.

Okay, how God's omniscience helps me or helps you right now.

Okay, here's the first one.

I have access to incredible wisdom through Christ because I'm his.

Now that would be generally true in some ways of all people, right?

God has created man in his image.

We've been given the capacity to think and problem solve and make plans and understand and all that type of thing.

But you realize you have special access to the Father through Jesus Christ by way of your salvation.

James 1 tells us if you lack wisdom, what are you supposed to do?

You're supposed to ask him for it, right?

Which means that he will give it to you.

It says abundantly he will give that to you.

Special wisdom, divine revelation will be given to you by Christ because you know him and he knows you.

That's an amazing thing to think about, that God's all-knowingness actually can impact me and affect me in day-to-day life.

How about how about this second one here?

How God's omniscience helps me right now.

I can rest knowing that while I don't know everything, God does.

You ever come up in a place in your life, a circumstance, a situation, you realize, man, there is a certain mystery to this.

I'm just not gonna understand it all.

I'm never gonna get all the answers.

I'm never gonna be able to fully answer the question, why?

Why is this happening?

Or why did this happen in that way, or why is this not taking place the way that I would desire it to?

But have you found the comfort that exists, knowing that God knows it all?

When you start to absorb just how deep his knowledge is, how extensive, how perfect, and knowing that he is your God, again, it brings us great comfort, it brings us peace.

We can even have joy when we don't know everything, but realize that the Lord does.

How God's omniscience helps me right now.

Third thing, I have yet another astonishing reason to worship him passionately, another amazing reason, as if we need more reasons, but here it is, Psalm 147, verse 5.

Psalms 147:5

The psalmist says, Great is our Lord and abundant in power.

His understanding is beyond measure.

He's like, How awesome is he?

His understanding, you can't measure it, you can't limit it.

He's awesome, and you can tell as he's penning this, it's an act of worship, it's him expressing worship to the Lord.

Again, that's a that's a major impact that knowing that God is omniscient is to have on you and I.

It's to it's to drive us to exalt him, it's to drive us to worship.

Last thing here, how God's omniscience helps me right now.

I can marvel knowing that God knows everything about me, yet loves me anyways.

You ever considered that?

I know we're all wearing masks here this morning, but in many ways we wear invisible masks, don't we?

Meaning that we kind of have this sense, some of us, very painful, painful awareness of our brokenness.

We carry around, we carry around shame with us about it.

We carry around with us fear.

I I don't want anybody to see me for who I really am.

I I don't want anybody, even my closest loved ones, to know that dark secret.

Yet isn't it incredible that in in God's omniscience, he knows everything about you.

He knows more than you can even put your finger on.

And he loves you anyways.

That should give us joy.

That should that should give us a fire to worship him.

That should help us get through the day, to know that God loves us anyways, despite all of our brokenness and failures and our fears, all of it.

And it's completely shown to us, revealed to us through the gospel.

Right?

That Christ came and was willing to put himself through that suffering.

He didn't deserve it, but he put himself through the pain of the cross, the the mockery of a trial leading up to it, the excruciating death, all of it for you because he loves you.

He didn't at any point get to a point in that process or afterwards where we realize, wait a second, that's what they're like?

I wouldn't have gone through that for them.

No, he already knew that going into it.

And he was willing to pay the price that you deserved to pay, that you should have paid, that I should have paid.

He took all of that on himself.

He paid the price for our sins, and he offers us forgiveness and everlasting life.

Life in return.

As we confess our sin before him and invite him to be our savior, we enter into a relationship with him where we continue to unpack and wade into the amazing love of our God.

So listen, we're going to pray about some of these things right now.

We're going to have some prayer points on the screen that are just kind of to help you kind of kick start some prayers for you as you pray for yourself and you pray for others.

You pray for our church.

As we get to that here, I want to pray for us.

I want to pray that the Lord would continue to show us and help us unpack deep in our souls his amazing omniscience, the fact that he is all knowing.

That we continue to trust him and rest in him.

So let's pray.

Lord, we come before you.

As the amazing God who knows everything, you know what the rest of our afternoon will look like.

You know what the rest of our lives will look like.

None of it surprises you.

Lord, that's awesome.

It's amazing how in Isaiah 40, just a few verses after the ones we looked at today, to whom then will you liken God?

Or what likeness compare with him?

Lord, we thank you that even though you have made us in your image and there are some similarities between you and between us, Lord, we thank you that you are different.

You are perfect.

You are all knowing.

God, we worship you, we praise you, Lord.

Hear the prayers of your people now as we come before you, as we lift up our hearts, Lord, hear and answer our cries.

Lord, show us your goodness.

Help us to rest in you.

We pray all these things in the powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.