SERIES OVERVIEW
Theologians have, for years, come up with all kinds of ways to describe God. And a lot of the words that they’ve come up with to describe God begin with the word OMNI. That’s the title of this four-part series. Omni means “all.”
This is part two, Omnipotent and Omniscient.
MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to week 2 of our 4 part series called OMNI. Last week we started off by talking about ways that we can describe and understand God. While He is far too glorious, far too infinite for us to fully grasp on this side of eternity, we said we do have some broad characteristics to understand something of His character. We said last week these are the omnis, the infinite, total, all-encompassing things about God. He is omnipotent – all-powerful. He is omniscient – all-knowing. He is He is omnibenevolent – all-loving, all-good. And He is omnipresent – simultaneously present in all times and in all places. And As we ended last week, we left you with a question. We said, it’s great for God that He is all these things but what does that have to do with you and me? We aren’t any of these things? We have very limited power, knowledge, presence, and love.
We said the good news is, God loves to share what He has with us. We said what God has, God shares. Fortunately for us, He has an infinite amount of all the things and is happy to share them with those of us who love and trust Him. That’s what we’re going to talk about tonight. How we can make sure we are positioned and ready and worthy of receiving all of these wonderful gifts from God. While this will apply to all four Omnis, tonight we will put special focus on His Omnipotence and His Omniscience. We’ll talk about His omnibenevolence next Wednesday and then finally, His omnipresence two Wednesdays from now.
If you are ready to hear what God has put on my heart to share with you tonight would you do me a favor and either say or type HIT ME WIT’ IT G! I’M READY! Awesome. Mahalo. Let’s get into it. As I mentioned at the end of last week, there are two big ways the omnis of God flow to us. —- 1) God’s omnis flow to the faithful. They flow to the faithful. We talk a lot about faith here. If you’ve been with us for any length of time, and especially if you’ve been with us on Sundays lately, then you know we have a powerful, biblical, working definition of faith. If you know it by heart, I encourage you to just shout it out loud with me as I say it. Ready? What is faith? Faith is the confidence that God is who He says He is and that He will do everything He’s promised to do. Let’s put it on the screens and everyone, would you say it with me again? Faith is the confidence that God is who He says He is and that He will do everything He’s promised to do.
So we don’t try to (GRUNT) faith God into doing whatever we want Him to do. But we do have confidence that God can do ANYTHING that GOD WANTS to do and we believe that WE can do ANYTHING that GOD WANTS US TO DO as well. When it comes to what God calls us to do, nothing is impossible for us, with His help. And we believe that where God guides, God provides, and we believe that our commitment always precedes God’s provision. In other words, if God tells us to do something, we do have to take an initial small step of faith before He unleashes His power and knowledge to us. He wants to share it with us so that we can successfully accomplish whatever He is telling is to do. We just have to have faith, confidence that He is who He says He is and that He will do everything He has promised to do. AMEN?
It doesn’t have to be a giant leap, but it has to be at least a little baby step of faith. We’ve got to step out of the boat and do what God’s told us to do, and then we’ll see that our faith was well-placed in Him. We will have all the power and knowledge we need. That’s what initially happened with Peter before he began to doubt Jesus’ power and knowledge. Jesus said, come walk on the water with me, Peter. Peter stepped out of the boat and he noticed he really was able to walk on water. He had enough faith to take Jesus at His word and he took a step of faith and did the impossible. He walked on water using the power and knowledge of Jesus.
That’s when Peter received a tiny part of the omnipower and omniknowledge of God. Then, when Peter’s faith in Jesus, faltered the power and knowledge of God left him and that’s when Peter began to sink. An unfaltering series of multiple steps of faith is what we’re supposed to do. Let me give you another example. When God told Joshua and the Israelites to go across the Jordan River and to finally occupy the Promised Land, it was the same kind of a situation. They were about to learn that their commitment always preceded God’s provision. God told the priests to take the Ark of the Covenant. If it’s been too long since you saw Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Ark of the Covenant was this big gold-plated box. It contained, among other relics, the Ten Commandments, the original tablets that Moses brought down off of Mount Sinai. And they carried this Ark of the Covenant, this big box in front of them, in front of their armies. It was a symbol of God’s power and knowledge and authority in their lives. It was a very important piece of worship for them.
And so God said, I want the priests to go ahead of the people and I want you to carry the Ark of the Covenant. I want you to walk right into the River Jordan with it. Walk right into the water, expecting the waters to part for you as you walk, just because I have promised you that they will. Have faith. Have confidence that I am who I say I am and that I will do everything I have promised to do. I will part the waters for you AS YOU TRUST ME and start to walk into the waters, expecting them to part for you. Now, the normal reaction would be, “Well, wait a minute God. I mean, obviously, you’re telling us you’re going to part the water and we’re going to get across to the other side and everything’s going to be cool, just like you did for us back at the Red Sea. But couldn’t you part the waters a little bit first? Couldn’t you at least make them sort of lap away from the edge a little bit to show us You are for real? Do we really have literally walk into the water first before the water is going to part?”
And God’s answer was, yes, that’s what you need to do. Your commitment precedes My provision. I want you to have faith in Me. I want you to have confidence that I am who I say I am, and that I’m going to do everything I’ve promised to do. If you do, I promise I will unleash my omnipotence and my omniscience on your behalf. So walk into the water, step into the water and THEN I will part the waters for you. So the priests did it. The priests took the Ark of the Covenant. They went before the rest of the Israelites and they stepped into the river. And as they stepped into the river, God stopped the flow of the river and everything downstream was dry. And the rest of the people were able to walk across the River Jordan on dry ground and got to the other side.
Just like they had done when they went through the Red Sea during the early part of the Exodus. And they learned this lesson again and again and again through scripture that where God guides, God provides. If God tells you to do something, if He tells you He’s going to do something, you can count on it. You can take it to the bank. You can have faith that God will do what He’s promised to do. Isn’t that fantastic? AMEN? YAY GOD? And you think about “what is that like in my life?” You know, “what does God ask me to do?” And, maybe like me at times, you say, “You know, I’m willing to do that, God. But couldn’t you part the waters a little bit for me first? Couldn’t you show me that you’re really involved in this and that this is really the right thing and that this isn’t going to be a disaster for me, that I’m not going to sink when I step in it? Couldn’t you just give me a little sign that I actually do have access to your power and knowledge?” But that’s not what happened with the people of Joshua. They had to make their commitment first, and then God showed that He was trustworthy.
And we struggle with that a lot in our situations and our metaphorical situations like that. We ourselves, our own doubts, tend to be the biggest reason that we don’t experience the omnipotence and omniscience of God more often in our life. We so often feel completely impotent and ignorant of how to get through the challenges of life. Its’ because we rarely act like we truly believe that He is omnipotent and omniscient. We act like we are in this battle called life all alone. We get so stressed out over all kinds of little insignificant things that happen in our world. Our world goes topsy turvy and we think it’s a disaster of epic proportions, something that’s just too big, too terrible for even God to fix.
And sometimes it’s really small things. But just depending on the amount of stress we have that day, it feels monumental. Wal-Mart’s out of bread. What am I going to do? I got a big zit right here and I’ve got a date tonight. Oh, my God, the world’s gonna end, right? I got a flat tire, I got a flat tire. God, how could you let this happen to me? I have a flat tire. What am I ever going to do? (Oh, I have a spare.) Right? We just overreact sometimes to all this stuff, we just stub a toe or get a speeding ticket, or we miss out on a new job and all of a sudden we’re singing REM. You know, [PASTOR G SINGS] It’s the end of the world and we know it. Right?.
Or maybe we start singing that old song from heehaw, you know, [PASTOR G SINGS] Gloom, despair and agony on me. Woe! Deep dark depression and excessive misery. Woe! If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Woe! Gloom, despair and agony on me. We forget the omnipotence and omniscience of God and so we panic. It’s the end of the world. We don’t have the power or the knowledge we need to solve our problem and we forget that God has plenty of both to share.We are full of doubt and fear. “God can never bring anything good out of this. Not even God is powerful enough to turn this Exxon Valdez of a life problem around before the crash. My life is going to be a massive oil spill. It’s going to be terrible.” That’s the way we go with it. To which Jesus would reply, your problem is you have no faith.
… truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. ~ Matthew 17:20b
Now, remember C.I.E. Context Is Everything right? So the greater context of scripture, when we look at it, we see the Bible also says in Luke 1:37
… nothing will be impossible WITH GOD. ~ Luke 1:37
That’s an important distinction. It is not, as a Christian, nothing is impossible FOR ME. No. It is, with God, nothing is impossible. Anything God wants me to do, anything God tells me to do, anything God is going to help me do? That’s POSSIBLE. Nothing is impossible FOR GOD. And so it’s not that it’s possible for me to do anything and everything I want as long as I have enough personal belief. No. It’s only because of who God is, His OMNIS, that nothing God tells me to do will be impossible for me. The omnipotence is His. The omniscience is His. He’s just sharing His power and His knowledge with us. If I’m connected with God and doing what God has told me to do, not just some whacky idea I’ve come up with on my own, then nothing will be impossible for me because nothing is impossible for Him. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient.
We see that often in Jesus’s life when He’s faced with a task that was clearly impossible by human standards. He regularly asked His disciples to do things that were clearly impossible by human standards, and the disciples would protest and say, that’s impossible, that’s impossible. Nobody could do that. Nobody knows how to solve that.
And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” ~ Matthew 19:26
So here’s a question for you. What impossible thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? What impossible thing would you attempt to do if you knew it was a sure deal, that it was a God thing, that it was going to be possible you couldn’t fail? And again, just to be clear, the only way something is not impossible for YOU is because nothing is impossible for God.
And again, He would be the one telling you to do this seemingly impossible thing. Because God is omnipossible, you can do anything God tells you to do. Again, note that this is not just coming up with our own plan and then you try to (GRUNT) faith God into doing what you wanted Him to do. Faith is the confidence that God is who He says He is and that He will do everything He has promised to do. Not whatever you WANT Him to do. So listen. Don’t miss this. Listen. If God tells you to go stand in a river, do it. If God tells you to go talk to a mountain, do it. If God tells you to go back to school, do it. If God tells you to change jobs, do it. If God tells you to move to a new town, do it. If God tells you to stick with your spouse and keep working on the marriage even though it’s been a disaster so far and everything you’ve tried hasn’t worked yet, do it.
If God tells you, stay with it, stick with it, keep going, then do it. If God tells you to start flapping your arms and fly to the moon, do it. If He tells you to do it, even if it sounds crazy, even if it sounds impossible, it IS possible for you to do it. Because God called you to do it and because it will be His omnipotence and HIs omniscience that gives you the power and knowledge you will need to be able to do it. I said there are two big ways the omnipotence and omniscience of God flow to us. —- 1) God’s omnis flow to the faithful. The second way that God’s power and knowledge flows to us is 2) God’s omnis flow to the humble. They tend to flow to the humble. Proverbs 3:34 says
With arrogant scoffers He is scornful, yet He shows favor to the humble. ~ Proverbs 3:34
In other words, God blesses servant hearts. God exalts those who humble themselves by serving others. The greatest acts of Christ-followers are those acts of serving others. When Jesus came, He said He didn’t come to be served. He came to serve. And if anybody deserved to be served, it was Jesus. Right? But He said, “Even I, God in the flesh, didn’t demand to be served. I didn’t come to be served. I came to serve others. And if you’re going to be My followers, if you’re going to live up to the name Christian (Christ-follower) then you need to be the servant of others. You need to look out for other people’s interests, put their needs ahead of your own, work to serve other people.” He said that again and again and again. And so if you’re a person who’s always thinking what’s in it for me, what about me? How is this situation possibly going to inconvenience me? How will this situation possibly burden me? Your heart’s not right.
As a church, when we ask for volunteers or if we make changes in ministry times or procedures. And your first gut knee jerk reaction is, oh, no, not me. That cuts into my time. I have other plans. I have other things to do. Don’t inconvenience me. Your heart is not right. It’s just not. Those are the words of a proud heart, not a humble heart. If in your life, in your time, and your money and your abilities, if they’re all focused primarily on yourself and your wants and your comfort, then you may find that you don’t have a lot of God’s power in your life. You may find that you don’t have a lot of God’s knowledge in your life. If you’re always focused on yourself, then you’re always going to have to rely on your own power and your own knowledge to solve the situations and the problems and the struggles of your life. God isn’t going to share His power, His knowledge, His omits with the proud, only with the humble.
If you’re always focused on yourself, you’re going to have to rely on your own power and your own knowledge to accomplish what you want to accomplish and what God wants you to accomplish. And good like with that by the way because the Bible says God is actually opposed to the proud. He mocks the proud. It’s not just that He won’t share His power and knowledge with the proud, He is literally going to fight against the efforts of the proud. He will use His omnis against our plans. How many of you think you can beat God, win against God in a battle of the wits or in a power battle. Of course not, right? You’re always going to lose.
Look let me confess something to you tonight. Sometimes in my life, I find myself really struggling, trying to come up with a solution to a problem, trying to accomplish a task that seems just huge, overwhelmingly huge to me. And I get so discouraged. I get really disheartened. I want to give up. I want to quit. Suddenly, my language turns really negative. “Oh, it’s impossible. I can’t do it. It’s too hard. I give up, I quit. It’s not fair. It’s just impossible.” Well sure. It IS impossible for me. But, as we’ve said several times already, there’s nothing impossible for God. And so the truth is the task IS NOT impossible. It’s just impossible for me to do on my own power and my own knowledge. I need God’s help, HIS power, and HIS knowledge. How do I tap into that? And sometimes in the midst of that, God’s voice breaks through to me. And I realize the problem I have is that I’ve been self-centered. I’ve been full of pride instead of humility. The problem I have is I’ve been so self-focused. The problem is I’ve been self-driven. I’ve been out of God’s will.
And the reason I’m failing or struggling is because I am actually fighting against God. And therefore, God is fighting against me. Why? Because the Scripture says, He mocks proud mockers. God opposes the proud. Do you ever think about it like that? Something in your life’s not going right. It’s not going the way you want it to. And no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you pray, nothing works. No matter how much effort you give, no matter how hard you struggle, no matter how much you study, no matter how hard you plan, no matter how much you throw at it, no matter how many hours you give, to it, no matter how much money you throw at it, nothing seems to fix it. Nothing seems to work. You feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall and the harder you try, the further behind you get. Is it possible, is it just possible that you’re fighting against God’s will for that situation? Is it possible that you’re working to accomplish something for your own will, for your own glory, for your comfort? And that will is actually opposed to what God wants you to spend your time and money and energy on?
Maybe the reason you’re having such a tough time is because God is actually fighting against you because of your self-sufficient pride. He’s like the team on the other side of the line of scrimmage and He’s keeping you from scoring the touchdown, right? God’s working against you. That’s what that scripture says. His omni resistance to your own godlike aspirations will always win out. God is the omni winner. He’s undefeated season after season after season. Don’t find yourself fighting against God because you will always lose. On the other hand, don’t miss the second half of this verse.
God gives grace to the humble, He shows favor to the humble. To those who are humble and not proud? He gives His power. He gives His wisdom. He gives His knowledge. He gives that little extra oomph of power and wisdom and knowledge that we need to overcome any obstacle that He has called us to overcome. Do you know why Moses was able to do so much in his lifetime? I mean, as we look through scripture and we look at all the different people that are described in their life stories and then we look at the life of Moses, that’s just amazing.
He stands out as a giant of the faith. What was it about this guy? He’s a guy who spoke face to face with God as if you were talking to a friend. That’s something that didn’t happen very often in scripture. There’s this unique relationship between Moses and God. There’s these miraculous things that take place in the freeing of the Israelites from Egypt. There’s this amazing history of astounding, miraculous, amazing, powerful things happening in the life of Moses through the life of Moses. We say, what was it about that guy? Why him? Why not everybody else? Why is Moses such an unusual person in scripture? Why does he stand out that way? What was it that was different or unique about Moses? Look at what Numbers 12:3 says.
3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than any man on the face of the earth.) ~ Numbers 12:3
God, is opposed to the proud, but gives grace, give strength, shows favor, gives wisdom, gives knowledge, gives power to the humble. Sometimes we try to CLAIM that title humble for ourselves but we do it with pride.
It’s like that old Mac Davis hit song. [PASTOR G SINGS] Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble. When you’re perfect in every way. I can’t wait to look in the mirror. Cause I get better lookin’ each day. To know me is to love me. I must be one heck of a man. Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble, but I’m going the best that I can. Boy, let me tell you. I am humble. Oh, yeah, I’m really, really humble. In fact, when it comes to being humble, I’m probably the most humble dude who ever lived. That’s me. I’m super humble when it comes to being humble. I am as humble as they come. I mean, I am omni humble. Nobody’s more humble than me. Listen, don’t miss this. Listen. If we have trouble being humble, God will help us out. Yeah, He’ll bring all of His omni self to bear on the situation and oppose us in our pride. And when we are faced with the omni-ness of God, it helps us put our own character and our own importance into perspective. That happens really quickly.
When we’re truly humble, though, God blesses us. God gives grace to the humble. That’s when He uses us in amazing, powerful and miraculous ways, just like he did Moses. Listen to what Psalm 25:9 says.
He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way. ~ Psalm 25:9
James, 4:10 says,
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. ~ James 4:10
In plain language that is saying, “If you will come to God in humble faith He will share His power and knowledge with you. He will teach you and He will exalt you. He will share His omnipotence and His omniscience with you.” And so for me, I NOW God is omnipotent and omniscient, not just because theologians tell me, not just because the Bible says it, but because I have experienced God’s infinite power and infinite knowledge many times over in life. And it’s been in those times when I had faith and it’s been in those times that I have been humble. It is in those times that I have seen and witnessed and felt and experienced God’s omnipotence and God’s omniscience at work in my life. I’ve seen Him do amazing and miraculous things through me and around me, over and over. I’ve seen things happen, impossible things. I’ve done things, impossible things, that are only explainable by the omnipotence and omniscience of God. I’ve learned and known and accomplished things that were clearly impossible without God. But with omni God, omni things are omni possible.
So here’s the big question to wrap things up tonight. What are you facing? What are you facing in your life right now? What is God calling you to do? We talked about this a few weeks ago. What is God calling you to start? What is God calling you to stop? Where is God calling you to stay? Where is God calling you to go? What fears have power over you right now? What doubts are paralyzing you right now? What is God calling you to do, in faith? What is God bringing to your attention? Maybe God is calling you to serve in some way, lead in some way, make a difference somewhere and you are holding back from starting it because you are thinking “I’m not powerful enough to do that! I’m not smart enough to do that! I don’t know how to do that. It’s too big. It’s too hard. I don’t have the knowledge to do that. I don’t have the power to do that.” God says that’s OK. I DO! I have all power. I have all knowledge. And I want to share it with you.
“So go step into the water. Go talk to that mountain. Go start to do this impossible thing that I’m telling you to do, trusting Me that I’m going to give you the power and knowledge you need to be successful when you get there. I will never set you up for failure and I can do all things. I have the knowledge and the power to do anything.” God reminds us, “With Me, nothing is impossible.” To state it positively, with God, all things are possible. Do you need to learn how to do something God is calling you to do? He will teach you. He wants you to know Him. Do you need strength, power to accomplish something? God will give it to you. He wants you to know His power. He wants you to have His knowledge.
So you say, well, how can I really meet God? How can I get connected to God? How can I know what God is like? How can I have the kind of faith and humility required for God to share His omnis with me? The answer is, you need to get closer and closer to Jesus. Because Jesus showed us and told us, He and the Father are one. If you know Him you know the Father. If You’ve seen Him, you’ve seen the Father. If you’ve heard from Him, you’ve heard from the Father! AMEN? Countless eyewitnesses give their testimony of the truth of this and I will add my name to this list. In my spiritual relationship with Him, I have found Jesus to be reliable and true. I’ve had an experience. I have a personal relationship with God through my connection to Jesus Christ. I pray and He hears me. He communicates back to me in my heart. I can tell that He’s guiding me. He’s directing me. He’s real. He’s the real deal. He calls me to do impossible things and then He gives me the power and the knowledge to do the impossible. He’ll do that for you as well. Connection to Jesus. That’s is how we can know God. That’s how we can describe God. That’s how we can experience His infinite power and His infinite knowledge in our life. How do you get close to God? You get close to Jesus. How do you come to know God better?
You get to know Jesus better. How do you experience God’s love, God’s power, God’s knowledge, God’s presence in your life? You trust in Jesus. You put your faith in Christ because everything you need can be found in Christ, If you talk to people who are Christ-followers, people have been following Christ for years and you ask them “What do you find in Christ? What do you get from that relationship?” They will all say things like, I”n Christ, I am free. In Christ, I am saved. In Christ, I am rescued. In Christ, I am transformed. In Christ, I have direction. In Christ, I have power. In Christ, I have authority. In Christ, I have knowledge. In Christ, I have wisdom. I’m directed in Christ. I feel treasured by God. I feel connected to God. In Christ. I am all these things, all these wonderful, amazing, powerful things that are only found by my connection to Christ in Christ. I am intelligent in Christ. I am powerful in Christ, I am humble in Christ. I am pure in Christ. I am loving in Christ. I am generous in Christ. I am found in Christ. I am loved in Christ. Everything I need to be, I find in Christ.” AMEN? YAY GOD?
~~~~~ LET’S PRAY ~~~~~