God Likes To Work

5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

John 6:28 KJV 1900

28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

John 9:3 KJV 1900

3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Acts 2:11 KJV 1900

11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

If you haven’t noticed - there was a theme and a word running through all of those verse -

The works of God

God likes to work - He is working all around - He’s still working on me - as I spoke Wednesday night

Three things I want us to notice about the works of God

1. God Works

In his own almighty power

Nobody seriously believes the universe was made by God without being persuaded that He takes care of His works.

John Calvin

in and through creation He has made

In and through the Church

Where God works, he works with men that work.

The Powerful Truth Of God, Volume 62, Sermon #3518 - Acts 19:19, 20

Charles Spurgeon

132 We’re not called just to work for God. We are called to work with God.

John Ortberg If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat (2001)

2831 Our Lord’s conception of discipleship is not that we work for God, but that God works through us; he uses us as he likes; he allots our work where he chooses.

Oswald Chambers

God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.

John Owen

God works and...

2. God Works Well

He knew how to put every piece of this gigantic universe together and it stays together

The Psalmist talks about how Great God is because

Psalm 95:4–5 KJV 1900

4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: The strength of the hills is his also. 5 The sea is his, and he made it: And his hands formed the dry land.

He knows the number of the hairs of your head - think of that all the billions of people on the earth - he knows their name, where they live, all that is going on in their lives, and even how many hairs they have on their head.

The NSA and IRS has a lot of information about me - they have a file on every one of us here and has access to information on about every US citizen in the world.

But think of this - they have to file away information and then spend a lot of energy, money and security to protect and keep that information hiring thousands of employees to gather, store, analyze and keep that information.

The Census Bureau has tons of data and information on all of us. And yet again they employ thousands of employees and volunteers to gain, analyze, sort, and keep that data..

I'm talking about a God - who is so great - who without the help of employees or a computer knows instantly right now not just how many hairs are on your head, but how many are on all 7.125 Billion people on the earth right now.

If that has your head spinning - we aren't through yet

All of those 7.125 billion people have bodies that were designed and created by our God - that are so complex and detailed that science has never yet been able to duplicate. They can do a lot of amazing things but it has taken them years and years of research and development, hundreds of thousands of dollars on prototypes and designers and engineers and manufacturers working many many hours to create and produce all of the amazing things we have come up with today sometimes mind-blowing sophisticated technology -

(Psa 139:13) For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. (Psa 139:14) I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Fearfully and wonderfully made– Knit – when the microscope first began to magnify and look at the body they said “It’s woven”

Our skin - is made from collagen fibers that are very strong in fact stronger than steel and yet it’s stretchy which is made possible due to the knitting or because it is woven together. You weave it one way and it’s stretchy you weave it another way and its not stretchy like the eyeball.

Our Brain - The brain is the most sophisticated organ system in the universe. Billions and billions of neurons hundreds of billions of interconnections.

It remembers every single thing you have ever seen.

And every single thing you have ever heard.

It can processes more than 2 million bits of information per second. …

your brain and this is a conservative estimate can take in 1 new fact every second for over three million years before you begin to challenge your brains capacity;

and that’s our brain in it’s degenerate state. Can you imagine what it was like before the fall? It’s because we were made in the image of God.

I talked to you the other day about the Eyes -

but still none of it compares to what my God did when he as only S.M. Lockridge could describe it "God came from nowhere - there wasn't anywhere for him to come from - coming from nowhere he stood on nothing - he reached out where there was nowhere to reach and caught something when there was nothing to catch and hung something on nothing and told it to stay there. "

But as the Prophet says in

Isaiah 40:12 (KJV)

12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

My hands I can only get a couple of teaspoons of water in them - but this says the hollow of his hand measured the waters

the span of his hand measured out the heavens -

The Old Testament Book of Amos is a fascinating study

The entire book of Amos can be summed up in the word "judgement" God is getting ready to pour out his wrath and judgement upon the wicked and especially upon His chosen people that are wicked.

Amos 5 is actually a funeral dirge somewhat like a eulogy. Can you imagine this hillbilly farmer from Tekoa coming to the big city in his greasy overalls, straw hat, and southern accent going through the city main streets with possibly a few paid mourners behind him singing this. That is what is going on here.

Amos a sheepherder and fig salesman, was from Judah but was used of God to prophesy to Israel and the Northern Kingdom. "Amos, like Hosea, prophesied during the reigns of Jeroboam II of Israel (793– 753 BC) and Uzziah (= Azariah) of Judah (792– 739 BC)."[1]

Amos 5:8 KJV 1900

8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, And turneth the shadow of death into the morning, And maketh the day dark with night: That calleth for the waters of the sea, And poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

I (From NET)Verse 8 - I like how the NET puts it - "But there is ONE!!!" This ONE made the "seven stars" or Pleiades and Orion - They worship stars - but YOU, YOU SEEK THE GOD WHO MADE THE STARS!!!

Did you know the Bible commands the stars to worship God!!! Psalm 148:3 - Praise ye him, sun and moon: Praise him, all ye stars of light.

Gen. 15:5 And he brought him [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.2.

Did you know that approximately 7,000 stars can be seen from earth without a telescope, but only 2,000 can be seen at one place at any time. Yet, what is beheld with the eye is but a fraction of the stars that exist in the universe.

According to one source by estimating how many stars there are in our Galaxy and by estimating how many Galaxies there are, it is estimated that there are about 3 thousand million billion stars (that's 3 with 16 zeroes after it).

According to one article I read recently about Jeremy Harper who won a Guinness world record recently, counted aloud from 1 to one million. It took him 89 days and was live streamed online.

Now Mr. Harper took a few breaks here and there but he "neither left his apartment nor shaved during the event; he recited numbers aloud (read off a computer monitor) for about an average of 16 hours every 24 hour period for 89 straight days."

The article went on to calculate that using the same method of Jeremy Harper except giving about 6 seconds to count the larger numbers instead of 2 seconds and assuming you are reading the numbers off a computer screen it would take around 244-285 years to count to 1 billion.

The estimated number of stars do you remember that number? 3 thousand million billion stars. We are talking hundreds of lifetimes for us to count the stars.

But the Psalmist says in Psalm 147:4 He telleth (or counts) the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. God knows the exact number of stars in the Universe, He does not have to estimate. He counts every one of them and call each of those 3 thousand million billion plus stars in the sky by name!!!

Psalm 19:1 (KJV)

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Psalm 96:5 KJV 1900

5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: But the Lord made the heavens.

The Psalmist tells us the Heavens declare the Glory of God

Our moon is our nearest neighbor 1 quarter of a million miles from us.

Our Sun is 93 million miles away,

Our solar system is flying through space at 134 miles per second spinning as it goes,

Scientist estimate and that’s all they can do as many as two 100 billion stars and that’s just in our galaxy.

And of those two hundred billion stars 6 Billion have planetary systems of their own.

Psalm 147:4 KJV 1900

4 He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.

I love Genesis 1:16 “16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”

It’s like God did a BTW text in the Bible

Have you ever recieved a text with those abbreviations in there - BTW

It means BY THE WAY

Think of the vast expanse of space - Voyager 1 - the most distant man-made object in space launched in 1977 traveling at a speed of forty thousand miles an hour it is just now arriving at the edge of our solar system Think of this though we live in the Milky Way galaxy just one of over 125 billion galaxies- our nearest Galaxy neighbor is Andromeda is 10 million million miles from earth it would take 2 million years to reach this galaxy traveling at the speed of light.

And yet God spoke it into existence. Just the word from his mouth and it appeared - we serve a great God - who truly his greatness is beyond investigation.

For life to exist today - an incredibly restrictive set of demands must have been present early in the universe

I don’t know if you have ever seen the photo from NASA that shows how massive our Milky Way Galaxy is along with a teeny tiny speck so small you can’t really even see it - with a label on it that says “You are here” That is within the Milky Way Galaxy which is the universe made up of many innumerable times galaxies - why are we the only planet that as of now seems to be inhabitable?

Some scientific facts to support this:

Earths distance from the sun - if closer we would burn if further we would freeze

Oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere. If it were 25 percent, fires would erupt, if 15 percent, human beings would suffocate.

If the gravitational force were altered by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power (that’s 10 followed by forty zeroes), the sun would not exist, and the moon would crash into the earth or sheer off into space (Heeren, 196). Even a slight increase in the force of gravity would result in all the stars being much more massive than our sun, with the effect that the sun would burn too rapidly and erratically to sustain life.

If the universe was expanding at a rate one millionth more slowly than it is, the temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees C. (ibid., 185)

If Jupiter was not in its current orbit, we would be bombarded with space material. Jupiter’s gravitational field acts as a cosmic vacuum cleaner, attracting asteroids and comets that would otherwise strike earth (ibid., 196).

If the thickness of the earth’s crust was greater, too much oxygen would be transferred to the crust to support life. If it were thinner, volcanic and tectonic activity would make life untenable (ibid., 130) (Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Supporting Evidence)

God works, God works well, and...

3. God Works When Nothing Else Will

Man was made to work, because the God who made him was a ‘working God’.

Sinclair Buchanan Ferguson

The Works of God

We do the works, but God works in us the doing of the works.

Augustine of Hippo

Thy God shall do the thing impossible.

Oh, question not henceforth what thou canst do;

Thou canst do nought. But He will carry through

The work where human energy had failed

Where all thy best endeavours had availed

Thee nothing. Then, my soul, wait and be still;

Thy God shall work for thee His perfect will.

If thou wilt take no less, His best shall be

Thy portion now and through eternity.

FREDA HANBURY.

Murray, A. (1896). Waiting on God! Daily Messages for a Month (p. 8). Fleming H. Revell.

The ‘quietness’ of Yahweh’s work does not mean he is not at work, but rather that the kingdom of God has gone into its mustard-seed mode.35

Dale Ralph Davis - 1 Kings: The Wisdom and Folly (Focus on the Bible Commentaries|FB)

I told you a little about Helen Roseveare this monring - but on one occasion while she was a prisoner of war in the Congo an interesting incident happened. She was taken to a home that was packed with Greek people. She couldn’t speak Greek but was able to speak several other languages and so everything she did she would speak in those languages and they would translate to the Greeks.

But she went specifically due to a lady who was in heavy pain in labor.

Helen was working with her and they delivered the baby but they lost the mother.

She knew they were going to have to keep the baby warm or the baby would die.

They got a warming water bottle and went to fill it and it burst - it was their last one and so all they could do is put the baby as close to the fire as possible and keep close watch on the baby.

Later Helen was at an orphanage and at the end of her visit she would have a time of prayer. She told them about the baby and one of the African orphans there in their characteristic and bold way prayed for this little baby ...

She prayed that God would send a water bottle this afternoon tomorrow would be too late. She also prayed that God would send a little dolly for the baby’s sister who was crying. And said Amen.

That very afternoon - the first package Helen ever recieved in the Congo came in and can you guess what was in that package???

Yes a water bottle and a baby doll

What I find even more amazing - is five months before Helen ever unwrapped that package God spoke to someone and told them to put a water bottle and a baby doll in this package

Yes it took five months for that package to travel from it’s sender to the Congo

I”m talking about a God who likes to work and and can work when nothing else will.

Tonight our situations whatever is on your heart and mind - is not too big for God

and we have a God who likes to work and who works well and can work when nothing else will

I say let him have your situation - let him work at it - let him fix it - let him help you -