Expository Exaltation

Well, it's a joy and a pleasure to be with you today. And our purpose is to look at the role of doctrine in the life of the pulpit in the pew today, at the pulpit, and then later at the work of God among the people of God, the role of doctrine in the life of the congregation that this evening. John Piper, in his book on missions, Let the Nations Be Glad, said a rather shocking, surprising thing right at the very beginning of that book. said that missions is not the goal of the purpose of the church worship is. Basically, missions is temporary, but worship will be eternal. Well, I could extend that also to the issue of preaching. Preaching itself is temporary, but worship is eternal. Piper also talked about something called expository exaltation. If you're a pastor, I would like you to do that every Sunday. I'd like you to get a text of scripture and just exalt over it. Celebrate God through it. Lift the hearts of your people up into worship based on the text of Scripture. That's what we're talking about today. And what I want to do is I want to set before us the example of the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans. I'd like to ask that you turn to Romans 11 and we're going to look at verses 33 to 36 the doxology there. A glorious text of Scripture and the reason I've chosen that place in Romans, I'm actually just finishing this Sunday, preaching through the whole book of Romans and working on it since year 2000. Not steadily now. I take some breaks here and there. It's nothing but Romans all the time. That is not true. I go to Genesis and some other places from time to time for a break, but just marvelous time. One hundred and fifty sermons in Romans. And by the time we got to Romans 11, we've been through Romans 9, 10, 11, some challenging chapters of Scripture to preach on. And it was a delight for us to see what the Apostle Paul did as he just marveled over the depths of the doctrine that he himself had been writing. In effect, saying, I wrote it, but I don't fully understand it. I wrote it, but I don't see all the implications of it. Oh, but oh, how glorious it is, how wonderful Now, if worship is the ultimate goal, not just of missions, but of preaching, it would be helpful for us to know what worship is. And Jesus settled that for us in John, when he said that we must worship in spirit and in truth. We're a very pragmatic people and we're very technique oriented. And a lot of times you can you can be at a service where it seems like there's a sense or a feel of worship and you want to find out and parse what the techniques were, what were the chord progressions, what instruments were being used and all that. The fact of the matter is, it's truth wrapped up in human passion in the heart. That's what worship is. You've got to have both truth and the spirit. And I take that as a lowercase s, our human spirits wrapped up in the truths of God that we are passionate about. And they both have to be there. You have to have the right doctrine, but it's got to be on fire in your own heart, just as Tom was saying, it's got to have taken hold in your own experience or it's not worship. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. So it's got to be truth, but on fire inside your own heart. And so if you're a pastor, you can do nothing better than to take a passage of scripture and just let it marinate in your own mind, in your own heart for a while. Let it set you on fire and then go just pour that out into the microphone or into the people and they see the love of God just flowing from you over the text of scripture, expositional exaltation. That's what I want to do with you here. Now, having been through Romans nine through 11. I got to this section of scripture, and I believe that this was the hardest sermon that I had ever preached up to that point was the hardest text of scripture to preach. We've been through some things on the predestination and on the eternal purposes of God and the hardening of the Jewish hearts and all of these things. But I found this one to be the hardest of them all. And I actually think no pastor will ever preach a harder passage than this doxology. And I'm not the only one that thought it. Charles Spurgeon said this. He said, I will affirm that there is no man living who can preach from this text a sermon worthy of it. Nay, that among all the sacred orders and the eloquent pleaders for God, there did never live and never will live a man capable of reaching the height of the great argument contained in these few simple words. I utterly despair of success and therefore will not make an attempt to work out the infinite glory of this sentence. Our great God alone can expound this verse, for he only knows himself and he only can wordly set forth his own perfection. Well, my friends, if Charles Spurgeon can't preach a sermon worthy of this text, then I certainly can't either. But both Spurgeon and I, we can comfort ourselves in this. God himself will preach the truths of these things to your soul for all eternity. You'll have forever to be lifted up in worship on the truths that we're looking at today. All I want to do is just give you a little foretaste. And I think that that's what pastors ought to do week after week after week. We are weary and burdened with sin, aren't we? We're struggling. It's not easy to fight against the world, the flesh and the devil. It's not easy to have laid at our feet as Jesus did. They don't need to go away. You give them something to eat. Feeding the five thousand. He points to the unreached people groups and says they need to hear the gospel, you go take it to them. That's overwhelming. And so for me, I think it's important that we be refreshed and renewed day by day, week by week by right doctrine. We need to be encouraged by it. And that's what I hope to do with you today. Look at it with me, if you would, these incredible words, Romans 11, 33 to 36. Oh, the depth of the riches, the wisdom, the knowledge of God, how unsearchable is judgments and his paths beyond tracing out who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been his counselor, who has ever given to God that God should repay him for from him and through him. And to him are all things, to him be the glory forever. Amen. Now, here we come to the proper resting place of all true theology, and that is worship. True theology should move us to worship. Now, I believe worship is in this order, revelation and response. God reveals, we respond. We're the responders. God opens himself up to us. He tells us who he is. And as a result, we respond in worship. That is true worship. And any time that God does this by his spirit, he opens up to himself the hidden counsels of his heart and his purposes, as he does in the book of Romans so magnificently. Then our breath is taken away and we're lifted up into the heavenlies in a sense, and we worship and the view is astounding. Now, the deeper our understanding, I think, The more profound will our worship be, our stunned and amazed worship, you know, stupefied, put your hand over your mouth, that kind of worship to be moved emotionally by the truths of God, by his ways and his plans, his thoughts, his actions and his strategies. And so my goal today is simply to stimulate you to wonder and worship. The same kind of wonder and worship that the Apostle Paul felt when he first. Wrote this. When he first spoke these words. And when he was captured by the truths that he was doing, and I cannot do it, but the spirit of God can, the spirit of God has the power to do it with simple preaching of the word. And that's what I hope to do for you this afternoon and what I'd like you, if you're a pastor, to do. Every week, and if you're not a pastor, you ought to pray that God would give you a pastor who preach like this, and if you have a pastor who preaches like this, then praise God for it, because this is what we need week by week. In 1855, a group of 49ers, led by James Mason Hutchings, entered the Yosemite Valley and discovered a different kind of gold than that which they'd originally been looking for in California. The glories of the Yosemite Valley. There were rumors that they had heard of a thousand foot waterfall and sheer mountain walls soaring thousands of feet above the valley floor circulating throughout California. They wondered if they were only rumor. They wanted to find if it was true, so Hutchings took a team and they went to find it. He wanted to see if the valley was as impressive as the stories and the legends about it suggested. And when the group entered the valley in June of 1855 and stood below the 1,430 foot Yosemite Falls, Hutchings wrote this. He said it was beyond the power of language to describe the awe-inspiring majesty of the darkly frowning and overhanging mountain walls of solid granite that hear Hemulian on every side. As though they would threaten you with instantaneous destruction, if not total annihilation, did you attempt for a moment to deny their power and quote? Well, that's what God's woven into his physical, natural creation, a sense of awe and grandeur. I don't know if you've ever been there to see Yosemite National Park or any of these other amazing things like the Grand Canyon. But if that's what is what God has done with his physical creation, how much more the revelation of his very heart in the written words of God and how much more here in the book of Romans. I think this is what the Apostle Paul was feeling as he surveyed these 11 chapters of doctrine that he had just got done writing. He surveys it and he responds in worship. It's doctrine turned to worship. Now, I think we adults especially, I'm glad to see that there's some children here, but I think we adults, we struggle with wonder and awe and amazement. We are suffering from the been there, done that problem. You know what I'm saying? We're kind of deadened. We've already seen it all. And it takes an awful lot to move us. But children, they're constantly moved to wonder and amazement. Their eyes are sparkling all the time, but our eyes are kind of dead like cows sometimes. You know, we're really not motivated very much to wonder and amazement. You're going to spend eternity filled with wonder and amazement. I think we ought to spend more time doing it now. And so when we come to the very first word of our text today, we come to a word of wonder. It's the word O. What is the purpose of that word? It's just a single letter, the Greek letter Omega, but it has an incredible purpose there. It's a word of wonder, a word of amazement, a word of awe. It's an emotional word. Oh, the depths of the riches, the wisdom and the knowledge of God. Theology is not meant only to instruct our intellects with unfathomable facts. Still less was theology meant to be the grist for mental mills, providing many battles for doctrinal wrangling so we can find out who's smarter, who can marshal better scriptural arguments. Least of all was doctrine meant to bore us and turn us off. Deep study of God was ultimately meant for one purpose, and that is to be lost in wonder, admiration and praise of the eternal being who created us to love him. We were created with the capacity for wonder and awe, and it's meant for him. It's his ultimately. As the hymn put it this way, change from glory into glory till in heaven we take our place till we cast our crowns before the lost in wonder, love and praise. When was the last time you were lost in wonder, love and praise? I think we ought to be. That's what this word O is about. Oh, the depth of the riches. There's a sense of emotion. When was the last time that Christian doctrine astonished you? How much do you think you're going to be thinking about yourself in heaven? How much are you going to talk about yourself? Will you be impressed with yourself? You'll be at your best. I mean, you will never have looked so fine as you will there in heaven. You will be glorious and radiant, just like C.S. Lewis talked about being a living light bulb. I don't know what that's going to be like. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. We're going to look fine. But I tell you, not one of us will be thinking about ourselves. Neither will we be thinking about the glory of our neighbors. But we'll be thinking about the glory of God and of his Christ permeating all things in the new heaven, the new earth, and how glorious will that be? Are you still amazed? That God could actually save you. Are you amazed that he would actually give his son for someone like you? You really should be. I mean, think what Charles Wesley said in the hymn, And Can It Be? Let me read it this way and just stress the words that are in my mind right now. And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he for me? Who caused his pain for me? Who him to death pursued amazing love? How can it be that thou, my God, should die for me? There's a sense of wonder there. Should never sing that in a dead fashion. There's a sense of astonishment to those words. It's really quite amazing. So we begin with just one word. Oh, I bet you're wondering how long this sermon is going to go. We're only at one word, one letter even. Amen. We'll be here a while. All right. Well, look at this majestic God. Let's ponder him. Let's stare at him and be overwhelmed. Paul's doctrine here is completely God centered. These words are very God centered words. This O is totally focused on God. Look again at these these verses. Oh, the depths of the riches, the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor, who has ever given to God that God should repay him for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever and ever. You see how God centered this worship is completely focused on him. What amazes Paul here is God. And what Paul's own writing of the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ has revealed about God, he marvels at the justice of God and the compassion of God and the love of God and the power of God and the mercy of God and the wrath of God. That's what Romans one through 11 is all about. That's what he's responding to with this word, oh, That the wonder of God and all that he has revealed of himself in the gospel of Christ, his ideas set on fire. Just by by the power of the spirit of God, now, during the first great awakening, the most astonishing and effective preacher of the gospel, I think, was George Woodfield. His preaching was unforgettable, he used startling images. that he could use to make his listeners feel the pain of sin and the terror of hell, as well as the enticements and delights of heaven. And then with tears in his voice, almost he could describe the love of Christ until his audience cried with him for forgiveness. Whitfield was so effective in his preaching that a famous actor of his day, David Garrick, said this, I would give a hundred guineas if I could only say, oh, like Mr. Whitfield. Well, I think the Apostle Paul could say, oh, perhaps even better than Mr. Whitfield, but maybe the same. Maybe they're motivated by the same doctrine and the same Holy Spirit of God. What about you? Can you say it like that? A sense of wonder and amazement at worship. And so I don't think any of us are going to be bored in heaven. We're reading in our home fellowship, Randy Alcorn's book Heaven, about 500 pages on heaven, but you're wondering, how could you ever have close to 500 pages on heaven? Well, we're going to spend eternity there, so I think you probably could get 500 pages. And the more you get into it, the more you realize I can see it. There's an awful lot to think about, but he is fighting against a dead sense or a static and boring sense of having, you know, sitting on the clouds, strumming the harp and things like that. That's going to get old quickly. I mean, unless you're really into harp playing, it's not going to be long before you say, OK, so what's next? All right. But instead, there is a sense that the person of God, the greatness of God and what he has made a perfect world, the new heaven and the new earth, our resurrection bodies, all of these things will be sufficient for eternity to keep us lost in wonder and praise. So what is the context of our doxology? Well, it's the book of Romans. Romans 116 is the theme of the entire book. I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Righteousness that is from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. That's what the whole book is about. Now, for those of you, I don't think any of you that are here today just having a sense of your approach to preaching and to doctrine and ministry would would wonder how you could end up with 150 sermons or even more on the book of Romans. What people forget sometimes is that Romans is itself a synopsis of Paul's doctrine. He sent it because he couldn't go in person. And he said, I want to just give you a sample of what I would teach you if I had every day with you for hours and hours, like in the lecture hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus. I could spend hours and hours. I don't. So instead, I give you this brief synopsis of my doctrine. That's what it is. And so in Romans one through three, it's the idea that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, both the pagans and the religious Jews stand guilty before God. In need of a savior. The righteousness insufficient for Judgment Day and then Romans three, twenty one through twenty six, the glowing heart of the gospel. That's the center of our faith, those verses. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe there is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a propitiation through faith in his blood. To demonstrate his justice, this is the center of the gospel, the glowing heart of the gospel is the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered on the cross for us sinners that we might stand free and clear from wrath on Judgment Day. What a delight that is, and we tap into that only by faith, by simple repentance and faith, we receive this gift of forgiveness. That's what Romans four is about justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law. The example of Abraham, the example of David. That's what they discovered about it. That's how they were justified. And so also we Romans five assurance of salvation having been justified by faith. We have peace with God for our Lord Jesus Christ. And if a dead savior takes objects of wrath and makes us adopted children, how much more a living and interceding savior at the right hand of God will finish the salvation work in us. And yes, there's still salvation work in us. We'll talk about that more tonight. But there's that whole journey of sanctification. Roman six, seven and eight, that whole journey having been justified. Now we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians says Roman six speaks of it more in terms of presenting the members of your body to him as instruments of righteousness, not of wickedness. Romans 7, a bitter fight against the flesh, the very thing I hate, I do, and the very thing that I love, I don't do. And as it is no longer I who does it, but it's sin living in me that does it worse than any growing cancerous tumor. The sin that lives within us and how powerful is it, how vicious. Romans 8, though, the power of the indwelling spirit and how being led by the spirit of God were actually led into battle. To put to death the misdeeds of the body by the power of the spirit, Romans eight, and then the sense of the overarching grandness of the predestining work of God before the foundation of the world and those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to his image, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called and those he called, he also justified and those he justified. He also glorified a sense of the greatness of the sovereign purpose of God. And it completes there in Romans eight with a glorious sense. Of the certainty of God's love for us in Christ, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, God is so sovereign and so committed to saving you that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. But now we have a very bitter practical problem. Well, if that's so true, if God is so great and so sovereign, what about the Jews? What are we going to say about Jesus's own people, about Paul, your own countrymen? Why are so many of them rejecting Christ? Has God's word failed? That's the question he's dealing with in Romans 9 to 11. Absolutely, it has not. But God is working out a salvation plan that not one of us would have come up with. We would never have done it that way. that the Jews, Christ's own people, would reject him. But the Gentiles, those who were not his people, would in huge numbers love him and in some mysterious way be kind of engrafted into a Jewish olive tree and share nourishing sap flowing from the root system that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs. And we are we've become somewhat spiritually Jewish. Adopted children of Abraham and under the covenant of Abraham receiving salvation. Who could ever figure that out? Meanwhile, the natural branches are stripped off and they're off to the side. But if they don't continue in their unbelief, they can be grafted in again for God is able to graft them in again. But there's a mystery coming because all Israel will be saved. And he talks about all of these things. Oh, my goodness. Eleven chapters in about three or four minutes. That's Romans, and that's what he's responding to. All of that, not just the very end about the Jews in the future and all Israel be saved, but the whole thing. Oh, the depths of the riches, the wisdom, the knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments in his past beyond tracing out. Now, when we talk about the depths of God, what do we mean by that? The depths of God. I think God gives us physical creation. to help us know what that means. Like, let's take the ocean, for example. In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan, in the process of leading the first ships to circumnavigate the globe, he attempted to sound the depths of the central Pacific Ocean. Now, we don't know for sure where he was, but we have an idea generally where he was. And he took six lengthy lines of rope and spliced them together and attached them to a cannonball and lowered it over the side. Well, you know what happened? He ran out of rope. He ran out of rope. He had 400 fathoms or 2400 feet of rope, and he concluded that the ocean was immeasurably deep, literally unfathomable. At that place in the Pacific, he would have probably needed, we're guessing, but would have probably needed as many as 50 of those lines spliced together. Brothers and sisters, you don't have enough rope to hit the bottom of God. You don't have enough rope. None of us does. Paul didn't. He is infinite. Well, there is a bottom to the ocean, though. And man, just in that the whole world has been trusted to us, we're able to go there. And we have been there in the bathyspheres or whatever they're called, those deep sea submarines. We've hit the bottom of the ocean. But you will never hit the bottom of God. So maybe we have to look at deep space. See, that's where outer space comes in and says, will we ever hit the edge of space? In 1983, June 12th, as a matter of fact, while traveling at over 30,000 miles per hour, Pioneer 10 spacecraft became the first human made object to exit our solar system. 30,000 miles an hour is fast. I mean, that's that's a fast object. But at that speed, only after 300000 years will the spacecraft pass near the star Ross 248, a red dwarf in the constellation of Taurus. It's about ten point one light years away. Fifty nine point three trillion miles away, 300000 years, then it'll pass. I'm thinking Jesus is going to come back before then, aren't you? I mean, I think 300000 years. No, I'm I'm thinking a lot sooner than that. Maybe space is the picture of the depths of God. The infinite magnitude of the greatness of God, that's what we're talking about here. I think God made it like that. But he said through Solomon, when Solomon is dedicating the temple, do I not fill heaven and earth? He's talking about the temple, he said, will God really dwell on earth? Heaven, even the highest heavens cannot contain him, how much less this temple I have built. And that's what we're talking about, the depths of God, the depths of the riches of God. Look at that word riches. The idea is of limitless riches, a bottomless reserve of wealth. Paul frequently uses the idea of riches to speak of gospel blessings, for example, in Romans nine, twenty three, he says, what if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy whom he prepared in advance for glory, talking about the hardening of of the Jews and the salvation of of the elect working in the heights of what if he did this to make the riches of his glory known? He used that word riches or again, Romans 10, 12 and 13, he says, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So against the sense of wealth with the gospel. That if you're a Christian, you're infinitely wealthy, you are rich beyond all measure. C.S. Lewis said he has Christ and all the world. has no more than he who has Christ alone. That's the infinite value of Christ. Or again, Romans 11, 12, but if their transgression, speaking of the Jews, if their transgression means riches for the world and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring or get even wealthier when the fullness comes? That's what he's talking about. This is immeasurable wealth, the immeasurable wealth of gospel riches. To be totally forgiven by God, the father, through the blood of God, the son, to be adopted into God's own family, maybe the most surprising aspect of the whole salvation plan or actually adopted into his family. To be given an inheritance among the saints in the new heaven, the new earth, we are rich and you ought to feel rich. Don't be troubled by a temporary shortfall of cash right now. That's no issue. The providence of God can overcome that any time. He's just testing you, strengthening you, causing you to pray, rely on your brothers and sisters, whatever. But you're immeasurably wealthy if you're a Christian. It was Jesus who spoke of the riches of the gospel first, in Matthew 13, 44, he said, The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy went and sold everything he had and bought that field. It's like treasure, but it's better than treasure. As a matter of fact, many will lose the kingdom and have no interest in the kingdom because of physical treasure. But Jesus is using physical treasure to teach us about far better treasure, the treasure of God himself and of inheritance in heaven. The gospel has made us immeasurably rich, but here Paul speaks of the depths of the riches of God's wisdom and knowledge. That's what he's talking about here, the wealth of God's thinking. Rich thinking, that's what he's getting. Wisdom and knowledge. God's incredibly deep thoughts, so deep they cannot be measured. We can't make a strong distinction, I think, here between wisdom and knowledge. It just has to do with the way God thinks. The way God thought even before the foundation of the world. God's thoughts are complex. They're hard to understand. They're very deep. That is doctrine. That's what we're talking about here. The deep thoughts of God. And it's God's ability, I think, to search out all the possible universes he might have created to know which paths would lead where to reject all of them. But the one that was chosen in the end, the best possible universe, this one. And you would say, how could this be the best possible universe? I just know it is because God chose it. For his purposes and our ways are not his ways, but God knew what he was doing. And in the end, we will look back and see God's marvelous work. Through all of the suffering and pain and through all of the glory of redemption, and we will see how it was that God was wise in choosing this path and not the others. And we won't even know what all the others were. Paul says God's thoughts here are infinitely deep and infinitely rich, and they are valuable. Now, in verse 33, he says how unsearchable his judgments and his path beyond tracing out Paul is, to some degree, as I've already mentioned, humbled by his own writing. Like I said, I wrote it, but I don't get it fully. I don't I don't know at all, I can explain a lot of it, but I can't explain it all. That's what I'm getting here, a sense of wonder at his own doctrine. He's tracing out the salvation plan, Romans one through 11, he especially considers God's way of locking all humanity into the prison of disobedience. Look what he says here. It says in verse 30. Romans 11, 30 through 32, he says, just as you who are at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he might have mercy on them all. Oh, the depths of the riches of wisdom, the knowledge of God, you see that idea in particular, who would ever thought of that locked everybody up into disobedience so that he can have mercy on them all and so humble us so that we can say, let him who boasts boast in the Lord. I have nothing to say about myself. I didn't contribute anything to my salvation except the sin that made me needing a savior. That's what I contributed. And you, too, I'm not meaning to be insulting, but this is biblical doctrine. We contribute sin. And so God had bound up each one of us to disobedience so that he may have mercy on us all, as that repentant tax collector beat his breast and said, Be merciful to me, the sinner. And so let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. That's what he's doing. And so his pastor, beyond tracing out, Paul considers how God has sent Christ to be rejected and slaughtered by his own people, the Jews, thus providing atonement for wicked the wicked human race that he would save. He ponders how God raised Christ from the dead and then sent messengers to the Jews first, but they rejected the messengers. And the gospel then went out to the Gentiles and did incredibly well. He considers how God will use the astonishing advance of the gospel among the Gentiles to make the Jews jealous. and want to be back with their Messiah again. Oh, this is this is something we would never have come up with. It's the depth of the riches, the wisdom, the knowledge of God and his pastor beyond tracing out. He has unsearchable judgments. We can't figure them out, we can't fathom them. God sitting on his throne before he had ever said, let there be light, pondering all the millennia of human history and all the billions of people that he would knit together in their mother's wombs. pondering what he would do with all of it. What was his judgment? What was his decision for the human race? That's what Paul's talking about here. It's beyond tracing out like Job, we're humbled by this, aren't we? We're humbled by what we're confronting in this text, what we're confronting in the book of Romans, frankly, what we confront in the whole Bible. We're humbled by the person of God. With a being so immense, with an intellect so soaring, all we can do is shut our questioning mouths, quiet our questioning hearts, fall on our faces and be satisfied that God's decisions are perfect and unsearchable. Now, what does he mean when he says his paths are beyond tracing out? Well, the images of a skilled hunter or tracker. Like out west, you know, the mountain men were able to follow the trail of certain animals over mountains and through valleys, I don't know how they did it. You see those Western movies, they can tell you, oh, they were here three days ago, that kind of thing. I don't know how they do it, but they have a special skill. I was raised in suburban Massachusetts, so tracking is not taught there in the public schools. But anyway, Daniel Boone was an expert tracker in the wilderness of 18th century Kentucky. He could track deer or bear or an Indian war party. Bloodhounds can track an escaped prisoner, even in a river, I guess. They know where he gets out of the river. There's an expert tracker. Well, the issue, though, is that humans and animals, they follow in a line and so their footsteps can be traced out, you can connect the dots. Figure out where they're going, God's path cannot be traced out. You can't connect the dots, I'm not saying it's irrational or it makes no sense, I'm just saying, ultimately, you can't trace out what he's doing. You can look at what he has done, you can look at what he's doing, but you can't ultimately figure it all out. You may be tempted to question his wisdom sometimes, his power or his goodness. Have you ever done that when times are tough? Adverse providence is coming. It's a difficult time. You may be tempted to question what he's doing. I know I have been to my shame, but I have been. But we can't follow out, trace out what God's doing because he's working at an infinitely higher level. Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived up to the time of Christ. And he was humbled by what God had revealed, even up to that point. Ecclesiastes 311 says God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also said eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. We can't figure it out. It's too difficult. Now, in verse thirty four and thirty five, we have the absolute independence of God's position. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? Now, the context of these Statements is the book of Job. Paul is quoting Job here. Now, Job suffered greatly. You know the story. He lost all of his possessions and his children and then struck with dread illnesses that left him nearly dead. At first, he did not question God, merely worship, but he didn't stay there. You know, there's a development in the book of Job, and eventually he sins, he questions God, and that's why he repented at the end of the book. And so he's struggling, struggling mightily against the suffering that he's dealing with. In Job 19, verse 6 through 8, it says, God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I cry, I've been wronged, I get no response. Though I call for help, there's no justice. Did you hear that? There is no justice. Who is Job talking about there? Well, he's talking about God. He's saying God has wronged me. Well, that's sin, friends. God doesn't wrong anybody and he's never unjust. But you see what God was doing? He put Job in a circumstance. where the wickedness inside his heart started bubbling to the surface. You know what I'm saying? It just started coming up and he'll do the same to you. It's in there, friends. It's in there. You know it is. And so it just comes bubbling to the surface. Job repeatedly demands a hearing with God so he can make his defense, assuming he's going to win. He says in Job 31, 35, Oh, that I had someone to hear me. I sign now my defense. Let the Almighty answer me. Oh, my goodness. I mean, at what point? What do you have to get to to get to the point where you're saying that I sign my defense? Let the Almighty answer me. Let my accuser put his indictment in writing like I put my defense in writing. God listened for a while to that, and then he answered Job out of the whirlwind. You remember that? What a great moment in redemptive history that was. Then the Lord answered Job. Remember the word answered because Job was saying these things. He was saying this kind of thing. And you would, too, if you were in a similar circumstance. But the Lord answered Job out of the storm and he said, Who is this that darkens counsel by speaking words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you will answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me if you understand. And who marked off its dimensions? Surely, you know. Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footing set? Or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb? When I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness. When I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place. When I said, this far you may come and no farther. Here is where your proud ways halt. Have you ever given orders to the morning? or shown to dawn its place? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominion over the earth? Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you and say, here we are? What is God doing? Well, he's doing therapy. That's what it is. It's counseling session here. He's putting Job in his place because he loves him. He wants to free him from the tormenting thoughts that had troubled him, and he does it by putting him in his place. He does nothing more than ask him a series of questions which relate back to God's original creation of the universe. Where were you when I did such and such? Did I ask your advice when I did such and such? Are you able to do such and such? And when God was done with Job, Job was thoroughly humbled and completely put in his place. He was already healed from the real disease of his soul, which was sinful rebellion against Almighty God. It's the same plague that has beset all of us since Adam's fall. All of us murmur against God. We question him when adverse providence has come. And so Job finished with this, then Job answered the Lord, I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer. Twice, but I will say no more. I know that you can do all things. No plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge? Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, listen now and I will speak. I will question you and you shall answer me. My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. And therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. Now, I think I can tell you that Job was happier at this moment than he'd ever been in his whole life. There's an inner contentment and peace that comes from being in a right relationship with God. And it includes I despise myself for impotent dust and ashes. God wants to do that to all of us. He wants to heal us of rebellion, he wants to put us in our place and humble us so that we can be freed from this murmuring rebellion and just delight in what he does. Now, if all of that was true about physical creation, how much more the doctrines of our redemption, how much more the gospel of Christ, if Job can't answer about physical creation like the Like the hydrax, the coney, the rock badger and the ostrich and all that. How much more of the eternal councils of predestination, the will of God? We can't answer once in a thousand times. We don't know what we're talking about. And so, humanity, I think, is put in its place in this doxology. What God's speech did for Job in the Old Testament, Paul's doxology does here in the New. Paul has briefly probed the depths of God's unsearchable wisdom in salvation. He has touched on God's absolute sovereignty in salvation, on unconditional election, on a mercy given only as God sees fit. on a compassion that God bestows when and if he so chooses. He has traced out God's heart, wrenching dealings with the Jews and hardening their hearts against Christ, but finished with an astonishing mystery concerning that future generation of Jews. All Israel will be saved. Human beings start to roil and rise and argue against God. You've seen it. Debates about predestination. Ever been through it? I have. It's just as we do in our daily lives. When some difficult thing happens, this doxology brings us to Job's point of health. I repent, I despise myself in dust and ashes. Now, Paul does it by asking three questions. Do you see what they are? Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor and who has ever given to God that God should repay him? Look at the first one. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Do you understand God's mind? Would you be willing to make that boast today? Would you want to stand up here in the sanctuary and say, I understand the mind of God? These are rhetorical questions. I mean, they're meant to create an effect. No one understands the mind of God. Solomon said a king's mind is deep and his counsels are subtle and complex. So be careful dealing with kings because you never know what they're going to do. Proverbs 25, 3, as the heavens are high and the earth is deep, so the hearts of kings are unsearchable. Solomon's father, King David, killed men who thought that he would reward them. You remember those stories? You know, some lied and said that they killed King Saul and here's his crown and all that. Remember what David did? He executed him for killing the Lord's anointed. Now, that was a surprise. That's not what I hoped for. I was hoping for a place in the new kingdom. But instead, he gets killed for his unrighteous act. And then others came with the head of Ishbosheth, Saul's son, who is waging war against David, they murdered him. Remember, all thought David reward them and David ordered them put to death. The king's heart is unsearchable. You don't know what he's going to do. Well, how much more is that true of God's mind? Do we understand the mind of God? Do we know what he's doing? Do you know the deep things of the mind of God? You know for certain what he will do. No sinful man nor created angel has ever fully known the mind of God. But Christ has. He knows his father's mind and the Holy Spirit has. He searches the deep things of God. Father, Son and Spirit, they have the same mind, but we are on the outside. We don't know the counsels of God. Christ searched the counsels of his father's mind and revealed some of them to us by his teachings, by his miracles and his death on the cross and his resurrection. The Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God and reveals some of them to us in a book. Some of them, and we get the privilege of preaching on them. Isn't that incredible? The deep things of God right here. Why would we not preach the deep things of God? He has told us to them, told them to us. We we get the privilege of doing this. The secret things belong to the Lord, but the things revealed, these things are ours. We get to preach on them, but we cannot claim to know the mind of God. Not like Paul's talking about here. The second question is, who has ever been God's counselor? Are you in a position to give God advice? Would he ask you? Of all the six or seven billion people on Earth, would he choose you as his counselor? If he had five counselors, would you be one of them? Does God ever ask advice? Can you imagine this? Would God come to you and sit you down and say, you know, I'm really stuck. I'm in a quandary here. I'm perplexed about what to do. You know, things are getting they're spinning out of control here. What should I do? Wringing hands. Can you imagine God like that? Can you imagine God wanting to probe the depths of your wisdom and your experience, your vast wisdom and your vast experience to ask you advice? Can you imagine giving Almighty God advice on how to run the universe? Parenthetically, don't think that's what you're doing in your prayer life, OK? Some people are confused about that, getting down on your knees and saying, God, did you notice that so-and-so isn't saved? Would you please save him? It's like you're giving him insight he didn't have. Or did you know this or that other? God knows everything before you ask him. You're not giving God any advice in your prayer life. Is there any good thought or plan that you could tell God that he didn't think of already? Is there any mistake or trap that you could warn God that he ought not to fall into that he didn't already probe and think through completely? And yet, how many arrogant human beings want to sit at God's right hand and give him advice? How many question God's judgments and impugn his decisions? How many want to put the eternal God on the stand and cross examine him for taking the life of a loved one, for example? Or sending a hurricane or permitting an accident or refusing to answer a prayer? Thirdly, can you give God anything that isn't his already? Are any of your possessions really yours or are you merely stewards of all of them? Can any artist paint a picture of something that wasn't first in the mind of God? Can any photographer capture something that wasn't first in the mind of God? Can any inventor exalt over some invention that God didn't first think of? Can any explorer find some new place that God didn't put there? Can any poet or hymn writer pen something that God didn't think of first? Can any skilled musician compose a work that God didn't hear in his mind first? Can any human being ever give anything to God that God didn't have first? Where then is worship? If we're only giving to God what is already his, then why does he command it? Is God needy? Looking for a compliment like sometimes we are. Sending us out on some scavenger hunt to find some item he doesn't own already that we should find it and bring it back to him like for his birthday and make him happy. Is God needing us to delight him with some composition or painting or financial offering? or poem or good deed or bundle of wild flowers or something from the heart that wasn't his already. Surely, then God commands us to worship him, not because what we offer isn't his already, but because he loves us and in his presence is the fullness of joy. He commands us to worship him because he loves us and wants to give to us. That's why he's already full. He has it all. He is saying, worship me, because it will make you happy to do so, eternally happy. And that's what I want for you. Forever and ever. Now, does God ever owe anyone anything? Look at verses 35 and 36. Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. This is so profound. And it cuts out much false human understanding. Everything is mine already, says God. You cannot hand anything to God and then stand waiting as though he now owes you the corresponding item in return. Ever. This is a foundational principle of all business transactions. I give you your price, you give me the item. I hand over the money, you hand over the car, the clothes, the groceries, the jewelry, or the book. Intrinsic to the exchange is the moment of indebtedness. Right, it's a wage, you do the work, he owes you the wage. God is never indebted to anyone for anything. And thus, we do not view him as a shopkeeper selling salvation as though his price is repentance and faith, and that's ours to give, and we hand over the copper coins and they clink on the counter and then he hands over salvation. When we give the repentance and faith, he gives us Christ, he gives us the salvation, the forgiveness of sins. That's how some people look at it. Never. God doesn't ever owe anything to anyone ever. And we should not suppose that the faith and repentance that we give are ours to give anyway. They are from him as well. For from him and through him and to him are all things. Everything is his, so if you have anything to offer, God gave it to you first. And it really belongs to him anyway. God will never owe you anything. There's no demand you can make on him that he will be obligated to pay. And he doesn't owe the gospel to a single rebellious sinner or to an unreached people group. God will never be in a position of indebtedness, but he will be delighted to pay all of your debts for you freely. And so in verse 36, we end with the centrality of God's ownership and glory. For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever from him through him to him is the absolute centrality of God in the universe. God is the Alpha and the Omega and he's every letter in between from him. God is the originator and the creator through him. God is the sustainer and upholder of all things at every moment. And to him, God is the final destination and will take all things back and judge all moral agents for what they did with their temporary stewardship. Judgment day from him, through him and back to him are all things, all things like what the spiritual realm. From him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory. Physical creation from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory. Human history from him, through him, to him and all things to him be the glory. The gospel of Jesus Christ was his idea. He created it and he alone will get the glory for it. The gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit are from him and through him and they'll go back to him. All things pertaining to us personally, all your money, all your talents, your relatives, everything from him and through him and to him. It bothers me when people forget. that a sick child, maybe with leukemia and all that, God has more invested in that child than any parent. He created them. It's arrogant for a parent to think they have a greater claim on that child than God does. Parenting itself is a stewardship, isn't it? It's a privilege and a stewardship. And so from him and through him and to him are all things is an incredibly powerful concept. Our birth advantages and our disadvantages, both our wealth and our poverty, Our intelligence, our physical advantages and disadvantages, our height, our appearance, our hair color, blemishes, accents, athletic ability or disability. All of these things are from God, our spiritual upbringing, our hearing of the gospel, our faith and repentance, our spiritual gifts and ministries, our spiritual fruitfulness, our daily existence, the food we eat, the air we breathe, our common experiences, our unique experiences, the day of our birth and the day of our death from him and through him and to him are all things. to God be the glory for ever. Now this doctrine has the power to transform cold rebellious hearts and make them worship. I mean just as I've been preaching this I felt drawn to worship God. Motivated If you're a pastor, preach doctrine, preach the deep things of God, stay very close to the text of Scripture, just as I've done here, just say what God's told you to say in the word of God. In your preaching ministry, ask this, does it focus on the word of God for the glory of God? And are you constantly acknowledging this truth that all things come from God and going back to God? And are you accepting your place in redemptive history and just doing what God told you to do? Not hesitating to proclaim anything that would be helpful for the people of God. And opening wide all of the counsels of God, whatever would be helpful to build up the people of God, ultimately, brothers and sisters, are you anticipating a time when preaching will be done? By the way, that time here will come in about one minute. OK, but I mean all preaching, not just this preaching, but all preaching will be done. It will be someday. God will preach to you just by being in front of you and you will see him face to face and you will worship him forever and ever. Nobody will have to tell you how. You just will do it. Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time of meditation. In Romans 11, I thank you for the words that Paul penned. I thank you for the truths that are in here. And Father, I pray that you would please be working in our hearts to love you. Father, I thank you for Jesus Christ and him crucified. I thank you that by simple faith in Christ our sins can be forgiven. And I thank you that this is from you, O Lord, as all things are from you. And Lord, I pray that you would teach us to love you as Paul did when he wrote the word O. O Lord, that there would be a sense of wonder and amazement at the doctrine of God. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.