Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

How big is your God? I don’t know how big your God is, but my God is huge.

How big is your God? I don’t know how big your God is, but my God is huge.

MARCH 13, 2023

/ Programs / Key Life / How big is your God? I don’t know how big your God is, but my God is huge.

Pete Alwinson:
How big is your God? I don’t know how big your God is, but my God is huge. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, we are here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Pete Alwinson to do the teaching this week. Pete is a former pastor, founder of ForgeTruth.com and the author of Like Father Like Son.

Pete Alwinson:
Thank you Matthew. It’s good to be with you today. Happy Monday. This is Pete Alwinson and I’m sitting in for Steve Brown a little bit this week and excited to be with you. I want you to know I’ve got a series of talks, for talks this week, entitled Experiencing Awesome: Enjoying God Transformed by Greatness. Of course, his greatness is what we’re going to be talking about. And we’re going to be looking at what the Bible tells us about God, which is to say, we’re listening to what God tells us about Himself. Now, you just had a good sermon this past Sunday, I’m sure this past week-end, but you know the Bible continues to illustrate to us that God is a great communicator. No wait, he’s the great communicator. And it’s very clear that what the Bible tells us about God and and what the world tells us about God is that God wants to be known. And the reality is there’s so many advantages when we as God’s people really get to know who he is. We enjoy him and as we experience his greatness, we’re transformed by his greatness. And so, I want to look with you this week at the attributes of God or the perfections of God that bring us deep joy and can’t help but change us every day of our life. Today we’re going to look at the self existence of God and the omnipotence of God, but since it’s Monday, let’s bow our heads and hearts in prayer and commit the whole week to him. Father, we come into your presence at the beginning of this week and I’m so thankful for Key Life and Steve Brown and all those who do so much in this ministry. Father, thank you that you are the God who has revealed himself to us and what you’ve made and in what you’ve done for us. And Lord, knowing a little bit about you, we would be absolutely overcome with fear, if we just knew of your power. And so, Lord Jesus, thank you for coming among us and walking among us and teaching us, and showing us the grace and the mercy and the care and the goodness of God. And so, we pray Holy Spirit, as we enter this week, that you would open our eyes, that you would help us to understand who you are and help us to experience that deep joy that comes from knowing you. Help us to experience you, not just know a whole lot about you. And so, we pray for the one who teaches that you’d forgive him his sins and use one who is finite to communicate your infinite truth because we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Well, I don’t know how long ago it was that everyone around you maybe started saying the same words that I started picking up. I mean, it shows how influenced I am by culture. But some time ago everybody started saying, man, that is awesome. That is awesome. And so, you know, I like that expression and it really appealed to my temperament. I’m an extrovert, I’m an energy kind of guy. I’m enthusiastic and so the word awesome was fantastic. I liked it and so I started using it. Until one day when I was studying the word of God and preparing some of these messages, I was thinking about the reality that there is only one person in the entire universe who is truly awe inspiring, who is truly awesome, and that is God the Father. And so, the reality is as I had to dial back my language a little bit and so I started saying things like, well, that’s dynamite, that’s fantastic. I have a friend, she’s amazing, she is always is so positive. And I say, how you doing? She says, super terrific. I can’t do that. But the reality is, is that God is absolutely the only one that is awesome. And he’s revealed himself to us as his people in a way that we could experience his awesomeness. And how he reveals himself are in his attributes and in his actions, in who he is, in his essence and what he does out of his essence for our good in the world. And so, today I want us to start off looking at the awesomeness of God as we talk about his self existence. And we see the self existence of God clearly taught in Exodus 3, verse 14.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”

God is the great I am, present tense verb. He’s eternal. He’s past. He’s present. He’s future. He is I am, which is the verb of being. I like what the little kid said to his dad. He said, I get it that God made you and that he made me, but who made God? And his dad said, well, God always was. And so, that’s speaking of the self existence of God. Steve Brown has talked about it using the word ex se-ity which comes from the Latin that means from oneself. A.W. Tozer put it this way.

Aside from God, nothing is uncaused, but God truly is uncaused.

And Jesus emphasizes the same thing in John 5 when he says.

For as the Father has life in himself. So, he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

So, God is Sui generis. He’s one of a kind. He is from eternity. He has no beginning, no end. He is self existent. And that leads to us understanding how, man, when you focus upon that, that leads you to this sense that he is awe inspiring, that he has no beginning and will have no end. And if you think about it, it helps you understand why you can trust him so much because God is that powerful. And so, the ex se-ity of God, the self existence of God inevitably makes us understand the power of God, which really comes out in Genesis 17 as we see that God reveals himself to Abraham as El Shaddai.

When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, El Shaddai, walk before me and be blameless, that I may make a covenant between me and you and multiply you greatly.

God is God Almighty. The self existent one, the uncaused cause is inevitably God Almighty, El Shaddai. And so, the reality is that, I love this, as he interacts with Abraham, he’s called Abram early in his life. As he interacts with Abram, he tells Abram what he is going to do to him, for him. Why? Because he’s God Almighty. He says, I’m going to make a covenant with you. You didn’t ask me, but I’m making a covenant with you. I’m flexing my muscles and I’m telling you here that I’m gonna make you into a mighty Nation and you’re going to follow me, and it’s going to be great because all the nations of the world, he eventually says in Genesis 12, will be blessed through you.

I will make you fruitful. I will establish my covenant with you. I am God Almighty.

57 times in the Old Testament, God is calling himself El Shaddai. What are some of the applications of that for you and for me? Well, number one, that God is self existent and therefore almighty, when Jesus says on the Cross, “It is finished.”, it really is finished because the work of Christ was done by the God of the universe. It takes God to redeem us for God. We truly have been justified by faith in Christ.

There is truly no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And to be convinced of this, we have to understand that the work of Christ on the Cross was done by the eternal Son of God, El Shaddai, in payment for our sins to the eternal Father, El Shaddai. And so, you can trust that your salvation is very secure. And that you don’t have to worry about it. If you put your faith in Jesus, it’s secure. J.B. Phillips one time wrote a book entitled Your God Is Too Small. And I wonder how many of us really do fall into that category. Oftentimes our God really is too small and we have a very small view of our salvation, and so we fear it. Listen, it’s Monday as you head out there into this week as you mess it up, and I will mess it up too, remember that Jesus died and rose again on the Cross for us. And the reality is, is that when he said that the penalty for our sins is finished, it’s finished. And we can trust him. One of my professors in college, Dr. Curtis Mitchell, used to always say at the beginning of the class and throughout the class, how big is your God? How big is your God? Well, my God is very big. He’s existed from eternity past. He had no beginning. He will have no end. He has God Almighty. You take it to heart. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Pete. That was our good friend, Pete Alwinson. And as he mentioned, he’ll be here all this week talking to us about enjoying God. Today, we talked about the self existence of God and his omnipotence, but of course we are just getting started, so be sure to join us again tomorrow. God himself stepped out of heaven into the womb of a teenage girl to be born into his Creation, to be a ransom for a lost and dying world. Without faith in Jesus, and his sacrifice in our place, we’re lost. We will become more like our perfect Savior because we are being made into the image of God daily by the Holy Spirit. But all the good works in the world won’t save us. Only Jesus does that. That gives us room to be honest about our failings. Well, that bracing little excerpt is from a brilliant article by Chad West called Be Not A Jerk. And you can find that article in the 2023 edition of Key Life Magazine. It’s new, it’s fantastic, and it is free. So, claim your copy right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for the magazine. And if you’d like to mail your request, just go to key life.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of Key Life Magazine. Finally, would you partner in the work of Key Life through your giving? You can charge a gift on your credit card. You can include a gift in your envelope. Or gift safely and securely through text. Just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word, two words. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.

Back to Top