Is Anything Too Wonderful For The Lord?
Sermon
Is Anything Too Wonderful For The Lord?
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (First Third)
Abraham was an old man and his wife Sarah was almost as old as he was. They had no children and assumed they never would, for whoever heard of having children when as old as they?
But one day three men suddenly appeared at their tent, angels of God, I suppose you might say. And these messengers brought startling news: Sarah would give birth to a son; this was the promise of God; he would see to it.
The story as told in Genesis, chapter eighteen, tells that, upon hearing the news, "Sarah laughed." Well, why not; after all, to have a baby at her age? It was actually a rather laughable idea; such things just did not happen.
Of course, the couple wanted a child, and always had. But to have one now? If God wanted them to have a child, and could arrange it, where had he been all these years? Why not sooner? Why wait until the days of arthritis and palsy? So Sarah laughed; she just couldn't help it.
She denied it later; but, denial notwithstanding, she did laugh. The prospect of late twilight childbearing was so far out of the ordinary, so wildly out of line with all normal expectations, so far beyond reason.
Well, the woman overlooked something, didn't she? She overlooked a wonderful truth, and that truth is this: God is not limited to the ordinary, or to normal expectations, or to what is reasonable. The messengers who heard Sarah laugh that day reminded her of this. They said: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" (Genesis 18:14).
When it's a matter of God's gifts and graces to his people, it seems that indeed nothing is too wonderful for him. He is a most generous giver, even extravagant. Psalm 40 offers praise to God for his generosity: "You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell them, they would be more than can be counted."
Seen alongside all others, God is by far our most extravagant giver; by our standards, he seems almost wasteful. We can see his abundances everywhere -- even in the natural world, for instance.
Seeds of plants and trees are produced in such quantity that should all take root and grow the whole world could not contain them even for a single season. They are blown in the wind and carried on the waters. They fall among the rocks, in the sands and seas, and occasionally one does take root and grow.
There is the immensity of mountains, the expanse of oceans, the multitude of stars, the awesome dimension of space. There are the minerals and jewels deep within the earth. And there is the beauty of things, the design, the color, the size, and number of them.
We can thrill to the extravagance of a sunset, where, as Lew Sarett once wrote, "God is at the anvil beating out the sun," -- and he who has not seen has really not lived. We can thrill to the glory of a sunrise, where it seems God uses far more clouds than he really needs.
Add to this the blooming of flowers and the life of all living things. Thomas Gray wrote that "... many a flower is born to blush unseen,/ And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
Waste? I wonder; I wonder if it's waste. Yes, those flowers may be out there where no human person is, but perhaps God himself enjoys the fragrance of a rose, and, as well, the music his whole creation makes.
Someone has said that there are on earth three elemental sounds: the sound of falling rain, the sound of wind in the primal wood, and the sound of the outer ocean where it meets the shore. And sometimes, when I have stood alone out there and listened, I have wondered if perhaps God and I were enjoying it all together.
Then, too, this most wonderful extravaganza of God's creation reaches down into the submicroscopic world of color and design and out into vast distances where no telescope has ever probed.
Every so often, we hear about some entertainment "extravaganza" or motion picture "spectacular," but all of that can never compare with this.
Great, however, as are the extravaganzas of God's work in nature, even greater are to be seen elsewhere -- and many are they who have seen, and among these is whoever wrote Psalm 23. It is a song of abundance: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want...." The psalmist lifts his cup for perhaps a trickle of blessing, and then joyfully shouts, "It runs over!" It's not merely full; it overflows!
The apostle Paul understood about the abundances of God. In Ephesians 3:20, he speaks of God, "who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine." There is a study in superlatives for you! And why not? God deals in superlatives on a regular basis.
Saint James, suffering persecution, struggling against the evils of his time, burdened by a crushing weight of responsibility, had probably come to the end of an exhausting day when he wrote concerning God: "He gives all the more grace" (James 4:6). He gives according to our need; the more we need, the more he gives; and the supply appears to be inexhaustible. At a time of great need the apostle Paul heard God say to him, "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9). It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. Well, so does grace; it seems to want to come in and fill up all our empty and hungry places.
And God desires, of course, that we heartily and thankfully open our hearts to receive his gift. The psalmist could never have known the joy of an overflowing cup had he left it always turned bottom side up on a closet shelf!
If we sometimes fail to perceive how truly generous God is, the reason may be that we have failed to provide him large and ready vessels to put his blessings in. To receive the abundances of God, it helps a lot if we believe in them. In the case of Sarah, it is somewhat amazing, and an added evidence of God's generosity, that even though she laughed at the idea, a son was afterward actually born to her.
A major theme of the New Testament is well expressed by the one word more. Beyond where we can see, it seems that God stands always ready with more. From its shoreline, we can see only a little of an ocean, but far beyond the horizon, there's more, much more. From where we are, you and I can perceive only a little of God's loving, his caring, his giving. Now and then we see a flash of it, and this is about all.
Consider Calvary and what God, in Christ, has done for us there. The apostle Paul says this about it: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20 KJV). Of course, we all know that sin is monstrous, extensive, and powerful; but let us also know this: that sin's every dimension is more than matched by the dimensions of God's love and mercy and redeeming grace.
During World War II, when Adolf Hitler's hordes were ravaging Europe, a young layman and his pastor were speaking together about the gracious generosity of God. Reflectively and somewhat incredulously, the young man commented, "Why, just think: God could forgive even Hitler." And he could, of course. And would, I am sure, had that monstrous man been willing to accept the gift of forgiveness from our Lord.
When God wanted to make redemption available to our human race, after we had stoned his servants and killed his prophets, he sent his own Son into the wilderness of our sin; and we understand from our scriptures that he came so that we may "have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). Abundantly -- there's nothing miserly or niggardly about that, is there?
Oh yes, God is an extravagant giver. According to the dictionary, to be extravagant is to "go beyond the bounds of reason." And what are the bounds of reason? They are the fences we build around ourselves; by these bounds we fence ourselves in, confine ourselves to the narrow limits that convention and mediocrity demand. To be extravagant is to break these bounds, and God is doing it all the time.
Please listen to the marvelous King James version of 1 Corinthians 2:9: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." Do you hear this, my friend; do you hear what this is saying?
Eye has seen some rather wonderful things, hasn't it? Sunsets and stars; flowers in bloom, and art; the glow of life in the face of a child, the light of love in the eyes of one dear. But eye has seen nothing that will compare with what God has prepared for people who love him.
Ear has heard some wonderful things. It has heard the singing of birds, the flowing of water, the whispering of wind, great notes of song, words of love softly spoken. But nothing ear has ever heard can equal that which God has made ready for his own.
Heart has felt some wonderful things: surging tides of joy, deep stirrings of love, the stimulation that comes from great and creative thought. But the heart has felt nothing even remotely akin to that which God has provided for us who love him.
And all that God asks is that we love him, that we truly and joyously love him. That shouldn't be so hard, should it? After all, he "first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
I am sure that you know as well as I that the summit of all God's giving is the gift we are told about in John 3:16: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...."
Gave! That word here carries an enormous weight of meaning and importance. Understand, please, that for long centuries God had striven to get through to humanity with his message of universal truth and with some revelation of himself. To achieve this, he had used the skills and commitments of numerous persons through whom he sought to touch the human spirit and mind -- Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah.
Observe this, though, and note it well: All others God called! -- and commissioned; but his Son Jesus Christ he sent -- and gave. Others he summoned from among the general run of humanity, but not so Christ. Others were called, but Christ was sent; out of the workaday world, they were summoned to serve God; but out of the glory that was his, Christ was sent to serve humanity.
Here, I say, is the summit of all giving; giving can reach no greater heights than this. But even to all this we must add a further astounding truth: The given Christ gave himself, and there was a Calvary. Oh, the inexpressible generosity of God!
Always, by morning, noon, and night, at every altar, at every sea and mount, at every juncture on our journey, God is trying to get us to accept the abundances he wants to give. Concerning the Savior, it is written that "he came to his own, and his own did not receive him" (John 1:11). How tragic, how sad, to have missed so much.
And yet to all who do receive him he gives "power to become" the highest and best they can possibly be (John 1:12). Tell me, please, what greater privilege could anyone ever have? It seems to me that if life is valued at all, what God is offering is an opportunity no one should ever pass up.
While to pass it up is to miss so much, to accept it is to enter a new world of wonder. I am sure you know that our Lord, so generous with his love and grace, can put a light in eyes from which the light had sometime died away, can give an uplook to faces long downcast, can give hope to longing hearts from which all hope had long since passed.
And seeing God do all this, and more, in the lives of real people, such as you and I may love and know, I shout a joyous echo to the word that
Sarah heard so long ago: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" No, apparently there isn't. There's nothing too wonderful for him. Praise his holy name.
But one day three men suddenly appeared at their tent, angels of God, I suppose you might say. And these messengers brought startling news: Sarah would give birth to a son; this was the promise of God; he would see to it.
The story as told in Genesis, chapter eighteen, tells that, upon hearing the news, "Sarah laughed." Well, why not; after all, to have a baby at her age? It was actually a rather laughable idea; such things just did not happen.
Of course, the couple wanted a child, and always had. But to have one now? If God wanted them to have a child, and could arrange it, where had he been all these years? Why not sooner? Why wait until the days of arthritis and palsy? So Sarah laughed; she just couldn't help it.
She denied it later; but, denial notwithstanding, she did laugh. The prospect of late twilight childbearing was so far out of the ordinary, so wildly out of line with all normal expectations, so far beyond reason.
Well, the woman overlooked something, didn't she? She overlooked a wonderful truth, and that truth is this: God is not limited to the ordinary, or to normal expectations, or to what is reasonable. The messengers who heard Sarah laugh that day reminded her of this. They said: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" (Genesis 18:14).
When it's a matter of God's gifts and graces to his people, it seems that indeed nothing is too wonderful for him. He is a most generous giver, even extravagant. Psalm 40 offers praise to God for his generosity: "You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell them, they would be more than can be counted."
Seen alongside all others, God is by far our most extravagant giver; by our standards, he seems almost wasteful. We can see his abundances everywhere -- even in the natural world, for instance.
Seeds of plants and trees are produced in such quantity that should all take root and grow the whole world could not contain them even for a single season. They are blown in the wind and carried on the waters. They fall among the rocks, in the sands and seas, and occasionally one does take root and grow.
There is the immensity of mountains, the expanse of oceans, the multitude of stars, the awesome dimension of space. There are the minerals and jewels deep within the earth. And there is the beauty of things, the design, the color, the size, and number of them.
We can thrill to the extravagance of a sunset, where, as Lew Sarett once wrote, "God is at the anvil beating out the sun," -- and he who has not seen has really not lived. We can thrill to the glory of a sunrise, where it seems God uses far more clouds than he really needs.
Add to this the blooming of flowers and the life of all living things. Thomas Gray wrote that "... many a flower is born to blush unseen,/ And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
Waste? I wonder; I wonder if it's waste. Yes, those flowers may be out there where no human person is, but perhaps God himself enjoys the fragrance of a rose, and, as well, the music his whole creation makes.
Someone has said that there are on earth three elemental sounds: the sound of falling rain, the sound of wind in the primal wood, and the sound of the outer ocean where it meets the shore. And sometimes, when I have stood alone out there and listened, I have wondered if perhaps God and I were enjoying it all together.
Then, too, this most wonderful extravaganza of God's creation reaches down into the submicroscopic world of color and design and out into vast distances where no telescope has ever probed.
Every so often, we hear about some entertainment "extravaganza" or motion picture "spectacular," but all of that can never compare with this.
Great, however, as are the extravaganzas of God's work in nature, even greater are to be seen elsewhere -- and many are they who have seen, and among these is whoever wrote Psalm 23. It is a song of abundance: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want...." The psalmist lifts his cup for perhaps a trickle of blessing, and then joyfully shouts, "It runs over!" It's not merely full; it overflows!
The apostle Paul understood about the abundances of God. In Ephesians 3:20, he speaks of God, "who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine." There is a study in superlatives for you! And why not? God deals in superlatives on a regular basis.
Saint James, suffering persecution, struggling against the evils of his time, burdened by a crushing weight of responsibility, had probably come to the end of an exhausting day when he wrote concerning God: "He gives all the more grace" (James 4:6). He gives according to our need; the more we need, the more he gives; and the supply appears to be inexhaustible. At a time of great need the apostle Paul heard God say to him, "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9). It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. Well, so does grace; it seems to want to come in and fill up all our empty and hungry places.
And God desires, of course, that we heartily and thankfully open our hearts to receive his gift. The psalmist could never have known the joy of an overflowing cup had he left it always turned bottom side up on a closet shelf!
If we sometimes fail to perceive how truly generous God is, the reason may be that we have failed to provide him large and ready vessels to put his blessings in. To receive the abundances of God, it helps a lot if we believe in them. In the case of Sarah, it is somewhat amazing, and an added evidence of God's generosity, that even though she laughed at the idea, a son was afterward actually born to her.
A major theme of the New Testament is well expressed by the one word more. Beyond where we can see, it seems that God stands always ready with more. From its shoreline, we can see only a little of an ocean, but far beyond the horizon, there's more, much more. From where we are, you and I can perceive only a little of God's loving, his caring, his giving. Now and then we see a flash of it, and this is about all.
Consider Calvary and what God, in Christ, has done for us there. The apostle Paul says this about it: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20 KJV). Of course, we all know that sin is monstrous, extensive, and powerful; but let us also know this: that sin's every dimension is more than matched by the dimensions of God's love and mercy and redeeming grace.
During World War II, when Adolf Hitler's hordes were ravaging Europe, a young layman and his pastor were speaking together about the gracious generosity of God. Reflectively and somewhat incredulously, the young man commented, "Why, just think: God could forgive even Hitler." And he could, of course. And would, I am sure, had that monstrous man been willing to accept the gift of forgiveness from our Lord.
When God wanted to make redemption available to our human race, after we had stoned his servants and killed his prophets, he sent his own Son into the wilderness of our sin; and we understand from our scriptures that he came so that we may "have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). Abundantly -- there's nothing miserly or niggardly about that, is there?
Oh yes, God is an extravagant giver. According to the dictionary, to be extravagant is to "go beyond the bounds of reason." And what are the bounds of reason? They are the fences we build around ourselves; by these bounds we fence ourselves in, confine ourselves to the narrow limits that convention and mediocrity demand. To be extravagant is to break these bounds, and God is doing it all the time.
Please listen to the marvelous King James version of 1 Corinthians 2:9: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." Do you hear this, my friend; do you hear what this is saying?
Eye has seen some rather wonderful things, hasn't it? Sunsets and stars; flowers in bloom, and art; the glow of life in the face of a child, the light of love in the eyes of one dear. But eye has seen nothing that will compare with what God has prepared for people who love him.
Ear has heard some wonderful things. It has heard the singing of birds, the flowing of water, the whispering of wind, great notes of song, words of love softly spoken. But nothing ear has ever heard can equal that which God has made ready for his own.
Heart has felt some wonderful things: surging tides of joy, deep stirrings of love, the stimulation that comes from great and creative thought. But the heart has felt nothing even remotely akin to that which God has provided for us who love him.
And all that God asks is that we love him, that we truly and joyously love him. That shouldn't be so hard, should it? After all, he "first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
I am sure that you know as well as I that the summit of all God's giving is the gift we are told about in John 3:16: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...."
Gave! That word here carries an enormous weight of meaning and importance. Understand, please, that for long centuries God had striven to get through to humanity with his message of universal truth and with some revelation of himself. To achieve this, he had used the skills and commitments of numerous persons through whom he sought to touch the human spirit and mind -- Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah.
Observe this, though, and note it well: All others God called! -- and commissioned; but his Son Jesus Christ he sent -- and gave. Others he summoned from among the general run of humanity, but not so Christ. Others were called, but Christ was sent; out of the workaday world, they were summoned to serve God; but out of the glory that was his, Christ was sent to serve humanity.
Here, I say, is the summit of all giving; giving can reach no greater heights than this. But even to all this we must add a further astounding truth: The given Christ gave himself, and there was a Calvary. Oh, the inexpressible generosity of God!
Always, by morning, noon, and night, at every altar, at every sea and mount, at every juncture on our journey, God is trying to get us to accept the abundances he wants to give. Concerning the Savior, it is written that "he came to his own, and his own did not receive him" (John 1:11). How tragic, how sad, to have missed so much.
And yet to all who do receive him he gives "power to become" the highest and best they can possibly be (John 1:12). Tell me, please, what greater privilege could anyone ever have? It seems to me that if life is valued at all, what God is offering is an opportunity no one should ever pass up.
While to pass it up is to miss so much, to accept it is to enter a new world of wonder. I am sure you know that our Lord, so generous with his love and grace, can put a light in eyes from which the light had sometime died away, can give an uplook to faces long downcast, can give hope to longing hearts from which all hope had long since passed.
And seeing God do all this, and more, in the lives of real people, such as you and I may love and know, I shout a joyous echo to the word that
Sarah heard so long ago: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" No, apparently there isn't. There's nothing too wonderful for him. Praise his holy name.
