June
11, 2017
“God's ways are unfathomable, but to Him be the Glory forever. AMEN (Rom. 11:33, 36)”
“God's ways are unfathomable, but to Him be the Glory forever. AMEN (Rom. 11:33, 36)”
Humankind
has been looking to the skies and viewing the heavenly bodies of the sun, moon
and stars since man was created. From
solar eclipses like the one that will come on August 21, 2017, to the biblical
account of the sun standing still in the sky for Joshua. Only in the last 200 years has our
understanding of the micro and macro universe grown and allowed us to
understand that the universe that surrounds us is greater than what we can see
with the naked eye. Even today scientists
continue delving into the mysteries of the micro and macro universe, here on
earth, in the Space Station and even via telescopes whether ground based or
even in the heavens like the Hubble or other probes that visit planets inside
and now outside our known universe. What
we tend to forget is not only is our universe unfathomable, but also a clear biblical
truth revealed to us about God and our understanding Him.
In
1st John 4, John the ‘elder’ and evangelist wrote, “If
anyone says, “I love God.” And hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does
not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen”. Truly even John with foresight given by God understood
the challenges of our technological world that we face not only of being able
to believe in something we cannot see, but also how we can love one another, and
trust not only each another, but even of God.
Yet for us today, we still struggle with the simple age old question of
the existence of God and having a tangible truth and proof of His existence.
There
is the story told of a philosophy teacher who while teaching his students questions
God’s existence. Ultimately it fell to a
Marine to not only stand and defend the teacher’s right to question if God
existed, but also for the Marine to respond that God is to busy and God sent
him to prove that God existed.
Yet, Paul from our reading this
morning, not only answers our age old dilemma of God’s existence, but tells us
exactly what we Christians are to do in both the worst and best of times. Paul says, “God’s ways are unfathomable, but
to Him be the Glory forever. AMEN!” Paul the father of most of the New Testament
gives us what should be our response and points us in a direction that humanity
is at times not comfortable to go or even believe. Simply God is infinite and even beyond our
understanding.
We as humans are created finite in
our existence. We are born on a certain
date and we will die on a certain date.
God, our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier is different from us. God will never die, but God the Father willingly
out of His love for us as we heard in the Gospel this morning that we all know
and can probably quote, sent His Son to take on our humanity in order that we
will no longer be limited by our finite. For God demonstrating His love for us by
sending His Son, Jesus Christ and is graciously giving us the infinite when we
in faith believe in the unfathomable vastness of God and the gift of eternal
life given to us through His Son Jesus Christ.
With our baptism into Jesus Christ life, death and resurrection, we no
longer are limited by our earthly vessels, but we are set free. As Pixar’s Buzz Lightyear would say, we are
set free “To infinity and beyond” and we will not be limited in our death when
we enter the veil of heaven. And this is
the gift we receive from God through His Son, Jesus Christ out of God’s great
love for us.
And today on this Trinity Sunday, we
celebrate this gift of grace, mercy and love, as we do every year with our use
of the Athanasian Creed. As the third
Creed of Christendom, we not only Confess and connect together in our
Confession, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but we truly claim and acclaim that “God’s
ways are unfathomable, but [continue to declare] to Him be the Glory
forever. AMEN!” Though we only use this Creed once a year,
our remembering it as one of our Confessions of Faith, our use of it today is the
exclamation point that this Creed makes.
With our Confessing our Faith in God, we make it very clear that God
clearly receives from us not only our adoration, but we give “to Him”
“the
Glory forever”! This is why we
seek to give God Glory in how we live our lives, how we love one another and
even how we are called by God’s Word to ‘put the best construction’ on all
things in our daily lives no matter what people may do, even those who claim they
are Christian, but clearly don’t show their love for their brothers or sisters
in Christ.
For in our as Christians loving God
and one another we show our adoration of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, but also clearly express our belief that God has our best interests in
mind no matter our own personal circumstances or the headlines in our world. We clearly not only invoke today, but lay
claim to the blessings of God of eternal life from Father, Son and Holy Spirit in
the Athanasian Creed. And today with our
confession we firmly, faithfully and fully confess and believe the
following. That “God’s ways are unfathomable, but [we
can lovingly give] to Him [our adoration as His baptized children so we can
firmly believe and give to Him] the Glory forever. AMEN!”
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