Romans 11:33-36; NASB
33 Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him, that it would be paid back to him? 36 For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. There are so many things in life I marvel at. I marvel at the fact that my little dachshund, with such tiny legs, can run so fast. How does she do it? I have much longer legs but I can’t keep up! I marvel at some magic tricks. I don’t get it. You can slow it down and show me where everything took place but oftentimes I still don’t see it. Like, honestly, how does the magician have a stranger write his name on a card and then it is found in a brand new deck of cards that is wrapped in plastic? I marvel at how easily I can get irritated while I drive. Really, Brian, what’s the rush? Anger doesn’t help anything, especially my outlook on life. Why not just enjoy the scenery or music or sky or anything else there to be marveled at instead of anger. I marvel at the fact that an individual or a family can have someone commit a horrible and unjust atrocity against them, and in time they can turn around and forgive the individual. Wow, right?! And then Paul reminds us of something truly astounding: the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God and the knowledge of God. The riches of these things. It is greater than Scrooge McDuck diving into his vault of billions of gold coins and swimming in it. And the depth of those riches. So deep that you would never reach the bottom. Think about that. Marvel at that. You and I can never exhaust the riches found in the wisdom and knowledge of God. And if that’s not enough (by the way, that alone is more than enough), Paul keeps going. His judgments are unsearchable, and his ways unfathomable. You cannot google to get an understanding of God’s judgments. There’s no wikipedia page for that. It’s beyond measurement or comprehension. And His ways unfathomable. A fathom is a unit of measure when it comes to the depth of water. It is about six feet. The deepest part of the ocean is the Marian Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is 36,021 feet deep, or 6,033.5 fathoms. That’s deep. It is measurable. It comes out to roughly 7 miles deep. And yet God’s ways are deeper than can be measured. We haven’t come up with enough fathoms to reach the depths of the understanding of His ways. It is far beyond our comprehension. And then Paul writes this about God in 1 Timothy 6:15-16: He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. He lives in unapproachable light. Unapproachable. What in the world. I can’t even begin to comprehend that! I don’t even know what to say, or even try to describe. Paul’s words about the bigness of God are overwhelming. All to say this: the God of the Bible, the God we profess as Lord, the God we worship and live for….this God is beyond your understanding. He is bigger than anything you can ask or imagine or think of. He is simply greater than everything. And I write this to remind you. This financial struggle you are in right now, where you feel like you are drowning and there’s no way out. God is bigger than that. It doesn’t mean He is going to make riches come your way, or deliver you out of it. But He is there with you, holding you in His hands. The health struggle you are going through, where you feel overwhelmed and crushed and tired and ready to give up. God is bigger than that. It doesn’t mean He will bring healing. It doesn’t mean your health struggles are going to go away. But it does mean you are not alone, and at the end of the day when we find ourselves in Jesus, we know and believe that He has gone ahead of us and prepared a place for us where there is no more pain or dying (another thing God has done that is unbelievable!). That loneliness. The depression, anxiety, fear. The injustice that is done around the world. That ominous cloud of unknowingness that is oppressing you and making it difficult to make any decision or take a single step forward. God is bigger than that. God. Is. Bigger. Than. That. I can’t possibly begin to describe or define or explain the grand bigness of God. I can’t tell you about all His ways. I can tell you He is bigger than anything you are currently facing, or ever will face. I can tell you that He invites you to come and be with Him, to cast all your worries, burdens, and fears upon Him. I can tell you that He promises to never leave you. That even now, He has you in His hands. And I invite you, as I invite myself, to stop, sit down, take a deep breath and relax. Then to get lost in the greatness of our God; to lose ourselves and to be found in Him. To allow Him to bring the strength, the comfort, the healing, and the times of refreshment that only He can bring. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! -Pastor Brian
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