{"id":33210,"date":"2022-09-10T20:40:03","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T01:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-inexhaustible-masterpiece\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T20:40:03","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T01:40:03","slug":"the-inexhaustible-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-inexhaustible-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inexhaustible Masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say that students and lovers of art will spend weeks sitting before a single masterpiece by one of the great artists.\u00a0 Some repeat this process year after year. To fully enjoy such a masterful work of art they deem it necessary to immerse themselves in a painting for prolonged periods of time. Austin Phelps, in The Still Hour<\/em>, recounts a conversation he had with an admirer of one of Raphael\u2019s great works of art.\u00a0 This man said he spent years studying that painting and is able to \u201cdiscover some new beauty and a new joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

To me, an untrained and uncultured barbarian, it seems impossible that a person, even an expert or enthusiast, could spend weeks and weeks pouring over a piece of art and continue discovering something new, a \u201cnew beauty or joy.\u201d\u00a0 To invest that kind of time, attention and appreciative scrutiny to something I believe myself to be so familiar with and find some never seen nuance, a part of the painting, a certain stroke of the brush, a use of color or other fine detail is almost unthinkable.<\/p>\n

If there is that much beauty and intricate detail in a painting, a creation of man, how much truer of God\u2019s creation, one so vast we have yet to discover its full splendor much less study and observe it.\u00a0 That begs the question.\u00a0 If creation is so expansive and magnificent, what does that say about the one who created it?\u00a0 Our feelings of familiarity can easily become blinders that shield our eyes and serve as anesthetic to dull our mind and cause us to feel flush with a malaise of laziness that refuses to look beyond what we have always seen.\u00a0 Yes, God does not change.\u00a0 The picture is set.\u00a0 He is and always will be who He has always been. He is immutable.\u00a0 There is comfort in that but as we approach this never-changing God there is a word of caution as well.<\/p>\n

This God who does not change is also transcendent. He is much bigger than we could ever imagine.\u00a0 Job 11.7-8 says, \u201cDo you think you can explain the mystery of God? Do you think you can diagram God Almighty? God is far higher than you can imagine, far deeper than you can comprehend, Stretching farther than earth\u2019s horizons, far wider than the endless ocean.\u201d\u00a0 There is a depth to the nature of God that we have yet to see and enjoy.\u00a0 You can set out to swim in the ocean that is God and find that after a life-long pursuit of knowing Him and His ways that your toe has only touched the first ripples of God\u2019s majesty.\u00a0 Ten-thousand years into eternity we will have only waded beyond the shoreline and have yet to dive into the immensity of His glory.<\/p>\n

If God is so big, can our bound minds comprehend a boundless God?\u00a0 They can\u2019t.\u00a0 However, the impossibility is the very reason we keep coming back. There is a newness and a freshness to God, not because there is something new about God but because we see Him and experience Him in a way we have not done so before. It will seem as if we have discovered some new beauty and joy. Sometimes the joy comes in the rediscovery of a beauty that we have all but forgotten, one that God has framed in a new setting providing an even greater appreciation.\u00a0 As we grow so does our capacity for understanding and enjoying the person and work of our God<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not approach God, His church, ministry, prayer, the Bible or our preaching with the small-minded and arrogant thoughts of I\u2019ve seen all this before.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not allow feelings of familiarity to anesthetize our spirits and dull our senses. Approach God with anticipation.\u00a0 Preach God with anticipation. Expect God to reveal more of Himself as we study and to our people as we preach Him.<\/p>\n

A.W. Tozer in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy<\/em>, said \u201cwhat comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.\u00a0 The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man\u2019s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.\u00a0 Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.\u00a0 For this reason, the gravest question before the church is always God Himself\u2026The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him\u2026The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God\u2026The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him \u2013 and her.\u00a0 In all her prayers and labors this should have first place.\u00a0 We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of that, I believe my first and primary task is to preach the Bible and say here is your God. I know that I will never preach God as big as He is\u2026but I will keep trying.\u00a0 I will never preach Christ and His salvation as glorious as they truly are\u2026but I will keep trying.\u00a0\u00a0 I will never preach the sufficiency of God\u2019s Spirit as He deserves\u2026but I will keep trying.\u00a0 Words will fail.\u00a0 My passion will falter.\u00a0 My inadequacies will always be on display, but God will show Himself captivatingly beautiful and irresistible to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.\u00a0 May we be faithful to immerse our minds and our souls in the one great inexhaustible masterpiece of eternity, God Himself.<\/p>\n

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They say that students and lovers of art will spend weeks sitting before a single masterpiece by one of the great artists.\u00a0 Some repeat this process year after year. To fully enjoy such a masterful work of art they deem it necessary to immerse themselves in a painting for prolonged periods of time. Austin Phelps, … Continue reading “The Inexhaustible Masterpiece”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}