To the Praise of His Glory and Grace

[0:00] Good morning, Watermark. The scripture reading today comes from Romans chapter 11 verses 33 to 36. Please follow along on your bulletin, on the screen or in your own Bible. Starting in verse 33, we read. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.

[0:23] How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. This is the word of God.

[0:50] Amen. Thank you, Iris. Short reading today. Let me pray for us and then we will dive in. Father God, your word is infallible. My words are not. Your word is perfect. Your word enlightens our eyes. Your word gives rest to the soul, rest to the weary.

[1:09] Lord, as we look at this word, I pray, God, won't you by your spirit write this word deep in our hearts. Lord, I pray that anything that's of me that is not of you, God, may it fall on deaf ears.

[1:22] Lord, we're not here to listen to the opinions of man. We're not here to hear what I have to think about this. We want to hear you speaking to us. And so, God, I pray, let these words be true of us at Watermark, Lord. God, I pray by your spirit, Lord, help us to understand and to know and to live and to own this wonderful scripture.

[1:43] In your great name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. If you are new to Watermark, we are in this kind of mini-series called Unchanged. And the reason is, as a church, we're going through so much change at the moment.

[1:57] We've got two more weeks in this venue and then we've been here for eight years. We're going to be soon moving to Wong Chukang, to our new venue that we've been working on. And there's a lot of change from a school hall to an office block, from a temporary venue to a more permanent venue, from Pak Valam to Wong Chukang.

[2:14] And there's a lot of change in our church. And at this time, we want to think about the things that are not going to change. In fact, the most important things about Watermark, the most important things about our church and our faith, must not change.

[2:29] They cannot change. If they change, that's a bad thing. And so, in this season of change, we want to remember what are the most important things and how do we keep them the most important things. How do we keep the main thing the main thing?

[2:41] And so, we're looking at the essential passages of Scripture and we're reminding ourselves and we're calling one another to remind each other of what the Scripture says, of who God is, and we're saying, let's hold on to these things.

[2:54] Let's not let these things change. And so, today we're looking at this very wonderful, very, very wonderful passage at the end of Romans chapter 11. Now, many years ago, 2001, I think it was, my father and I were hiking in the Himalayas.

[3:10] We were on a trip trying to get our way to base camp of Mount Everest. And of course, you don't just fly into base camp. You've got to start somewhere down the bottom. And so, we flew to a little place called Lukla, the world's smallest airport.

[3:22] And for eight days, you're hiking through all sorts of terrain and ravines and valleys and you go over little hills and into the next, you know, trough.

[3:33] And for eight days, you're hiking through all kinds of terrain. But every now and then, you come around a corner and you see this glorious, majestic mountain peak in front of you.

[3:44] And your breath is taken away. It could be Everest itself. It could be one of the other peaks at these snow-capped mountains. And as you come around the corner and you see the sight, you're not sure whether to exclaim out loud, Oh my goodness, that's amazing!

[3:59] Or whether to just be silent in awe and wonder. It's kind of like, on one hand, you want to praise this thing. On the other hand, you just want to be silent before its majesty. I wonder if you've ever experienced anything like that.

[4:12] Maybe the birth of your child, right? For nine months, you've been carrying this life. And then she or he is born. And you hold this little life in your hands. It's fragile and vulnerable, but majestic and glorious all at the same time.

[4:25] You're not sure whether to praise it or whether just to be silent. In some ways, the passage of Scripture that we're looking at today is a bit like that. For 11 chapters, the Apostle Paul has been explaining the many contours of the Gospel, of Christianity, and he's been explaining why the good news of Jesus Christ is such good news.

[4:48] And it's been pretty dense terrain. He's been going up and down all sorts of valleys and ravines and explaining the contours of Christianity. And his conclusion is this.

[4:58] His conclusion is that there's actually two ways to be lost. There's two ways to not know God. You can either be very religious or you can be very not religious. You can be very devout and faithful and miss God in your devotedness and your faithfulness.

[5:15] Or you can be very unfaithful. You can be a theist. You can be a non-theist. You can be very conservative and follow the rules and do everything that's expected and miss God that way.

[5:27] You can be very progressive and liberal and miss God that way. And his conclusion is actually that all people, devout, not devout, faithful, unfaithful, the Jews, the Gentiles, all people are equally lost and spiritually blind apart from Jesus Christ.

[5:47] And that all people are in need of rescuing and saving. But that all people are able to come to know the wonder of God. To know the love of Christ. To have our sins forgiven.

[5:57] To be reconciled and brought into God's family. Not because of what we've done, but because of what Jesus has done. Not because of our righteousness, but because of Jesus' righteousness. Because of who Jesus is. And that's what the gospel is about.

[6:09] Every religion will tell you that you're either in and out because of what you do. And if you do the right things, you're in. If you do the wrong things, you're out. And Jesus Christ comes and says actually all people, all of us are naturally out of it.

[6:23] But because of what Jesus has done. Because of his life and his death and his resurrection. Anybody. Religious, non-religious. Caucasian, Chinese, black, white, rich, poor.

[6:33] Doesn't matter who you are. All people can come into God's cosmic plan for salvation. And that's what the whole book of Romans is all about. And so for 11 chapters, Paul has been trekking through this dense theology.

[6:46] And he comes around the corner and he stops and he pauses. And this is what he says. Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

[7:00] How unsearchable are his ways. How inscrutable, how unsearchable is judgments. How inscrutable his ways. Who is known in the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor?

[7:11] Who has got a gift that forces God to repay us? For from him and through him and to him are all things.

[7:23] To him be glory forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Amen. Now, what is Paul saying here?

[7:35] What is Paul saying? Well, let's think about this and look at it. Paul starts off and he's talking about two of God's limitless characteristics. Firstly, his riches.

[7:46] Secondly, his wisdom and his knowledge. Wisdom and knowledge are kind of the same category. Let's think about this. The depth of the riches of God. The depth of the riches of God. What is Paul talking about?

[7:57] Picture the oil fields of the Middle East, right? Or the gold mines of Nevada, California. The oil, the diamond fields of Russia. We tend to think that these natural resources are limitless, right?

[8:12] I hear oil companies talking about, you know, we produce hundreds of millions of barrels a day. And you kind of think there is so much oil, it's never going to run out. I mean, it just seems limitless.

[8:23] Hundreds of millions of barrels a day. But of course, these days we are becoming more aware that actually there's not an infinite amount of these resources. There will come a day when the oil in the earth will maybe run out.

[8:34] The diamond fields will run dry. The gold will all be mined. And it's why places like Dubai and Qatar and other places in the Middle East are having to pivot their economies.

[8:45] They've realized that their oil is not going to last forever and they need to find other sources for their economy. Paul tells us here that sometimes we can think of God a bit like this.

[8:57] That God is big and he's majestic and his resources are very, very vast. But Paul wants to tell us there's something God is not like that. Who God is, his divine attributes, his qualities, the way that God handles people like you and I is not vast, but one day will run out.

[9:17] It is absolutely inexhaustible. Who God is and his attributes and his qualities are limitless and nobody and nothing will plummet the depths or plunder the end of his resources.

[9:30] Look at how he says it. He says, oh, the depths of the riches or the resources of God. There is nothing that we can do that will get to the bottom of who God is.

[9:42] Nobody will ever say, I've drawn all there is. I can draw from God. I have taken all there is. There is no more for God to give. So there's no way that we can plummet the depths of him. But equally, so vast and limitless and inexhaustible are his resources that nobody can add anything to him or give anything to him that will add to him or enrich him in any possible way.

[10:06] So think about the very wealthiest people in the world. Okay. People who are like, you know, a hundred times gazillionaires. Even they are in need of things. Okay.

[10:16] Obviously they need food. They need sleep. Yes, sure. But they need friends. They need to be known. They need to be loved. They need to be understood. I had a friend in New York once who told me even the wealthiest people in New York City are some of the most lonely because they never know who their real friends are.

[10:32] They never know whether people are just their friends for their money or they really are their friends. Even the wealthiest, the strongest, the most powerful people in the world have needs. To be known, to be loved, to be accepted, sleep, food, medical intervention.

[10:45] Because though they can buy anything, that doesn't mean they don't have any needs. But the God of the scriptures, the God that we've come to know and sing and worship and adore this morning, the divine being who brought all creation into existence, is not like that.

[10:58] He's not just insanely wealthy or insanely rich and unlikely to ever be exhausted. This God is in a completely different category altogether. He is completely other.

[11:09] In a different category of his own. He doesn't need anything outside of himself to sustain his own existence. So the Westminster Confession of Faith says it like this. He says, God has all life, all glory, all goodness in and of himself and is in himself all sufficient, not in need of any creature which he has made.

[11:32] So take away every human being. Take away every creature. Reverse creation back to what it was before the world was made when it was just utter nothingness. And God would not be one inch poorer for it.

[11:47] You see that? God doesn't need creation. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need us. Take away everything that is made. And God would not be one bit poorer for it. David Gibson says, God leads and loves us from the eternally undiminishing fullness and is never poorer for it.

[12:02] God pours out himself, pours out himself day after day and is never poorer for it. And that's what we see. The one day the oil fields of the Middle East will run dry. One day the diamond fields of Russia will be exhausted.

[12:15] Even the strongest and the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world will grow old and fail and die with nothing in their hands one day. But the divine being is not like that.

[12:26] He is the source of his own existence. No one and nothing can plunder him or plummet or exhaust the depth of the riches. Oh, the depth of the riches of God. Now, verse 34 and 35, if you've got your bulletin, look here.

[12:40] Paul quotes two verses in the Old Testament to kind of back up what he's saying. And so look at verse 35 with me. He says this, Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? And that's exactly the point, right?

[12:52] That God's resources are so deep, so vast, so inexhaustible that you could bring the whole earth, you could bring the whole of creation and say, God, here is my offering.

[13:02] And you could not add a single thing to him or enrich him in any way. Nothing that we bring adds to his worth, his value, his existence, his being. Who could give a gift to him that he might be repaid?

[13:15] God abounds in everything we need, and God needs nothing of what we have. And that's the point that Paul wants us to see here.

[13:26] That God super abounds in absolutely everything we need, but nothing that we have, not our wealth, not our worship, not our praises, not our being, not our service, nothing that we have does he need.

[13:39] And in this passage, Paul actually means something more than that. But in the New Testament, whenever Paul talks about God's riches, it's always in connection with his riches of his mercy, riches of his grace, riches of his kindness, riches of his glory.

[13:53] So for instance, Ephesians chapter 2 says this. Ephesians 2 describes the disastrous consequences of sin, that the kind of death has settled over humanity.

[14:04] And then Paul writes this and says, despite this, the disastrous consequences of sin, this death that has come, but God who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sin, made us alive as Christ, so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness towards us.

[14:29] Friends, God is not just infinitely rich and inexhaustibly well resourced. God is infinitely rich in grace, in mercy, in kindness, in glory towards needy people like us.

[14:46] Paul's great burst of praise here is not just about the general inexhaustibleness of God, but the inexhaustibleness of God's kindness, his grace, his mercy that will never run dry.

[14:58] Oh, the depths of the riches of God. Friends, do you know that? Do you understand that? Do you believe that? This is who God is. But look what else Paul says. He says, oh, the depths of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

[15:12] Paul here talks about the fact that everything that, that God is completely distinctive and utterly utter, sorry, utterly other and different from us.

[15:22] Now, on the one hand, this obviously means God's understanding, his knowledge, his wisdom is inexhaustibly deep. No one's ever going to teach God anything. So I don't know if you know when you have kids, right?

[15:33] When you have young kids, you teach them everything there is about the world, right? You teach them how to do math and how to read and how to work a computer. But it's not long, in fact, it's way too soon before your kids start teaching you how the world works, right?

[15:47] And your 10-year-old comes to you and says, oh, dad, you know, this is how the computer works. And this is how AI works. And dad, let me show you things, right? It's pretty soon before your kids start teaching you things.

[16:00] Friends, we will never, never teach God, lead God, help God understand anything about the world. There's nothing that you can teach him or explain to him. God is infinite and eternal in his knowledge, his wisdom, and his understanding.

[16:15] There's no scenario, there's no realm of possibility, real or imagined, in any possible universe, which God doesn't fully know or grasp or understand or manage or have a complete handle on.

[16:29] And so again, you have Paul quotes from the Old Testament to back up his point. And look what he says. This time he quotes from Isaiah 40. And this great passage of God's sovereignty. And he says this, Who has known the mind of the Lord?

[16:41] Who has been his counselor? Think about why do you go to a counselor? Sometimes we need to go to a counselor to help us untangle our thoughts or our emotions, right?

[16:52] So our thoughts, our emotions are very tangled up and we need an outside voice just to help us untangle those thoughts and emotions and help us make sense of life, to give us another perspective on the world.

[17:02] Friends, God has never needed a counselor. This divine being has never needed anybody's help or insight or wisdom or perspective. God has never been confused.

[17:14] He's never thought, well, that's an interesting scenario. I've never thought about that before. Here is the divine being. Who has helped God? And the answer is no one. And like the depth of his riches, the one who's brought everything into existence is not just super smart, super intelligent.

[17:31] Rather, he's in a completely different category. Isaiah 55 famously says this, Friends, the God that we've come to worship and adore this morning is not just smarter than us, bigger than us, more intelligent than us.

[17:56] He's in a completely different category altogether. He's completely other. And A.W. Tozer says it like this. He says, We must not think of God as the highest in an ascending order of beings, starting with a single cell and then going up to fish and then the bird and then the animal, then to humans, then to angels, then to archangels.

[18:17] And eventually at the top is God. No, God is high above the archangel as above a caterpillar or an amoeba, right? The gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is finite.

[18:30] But the gulf that separates God from everything else in creation is infinite. God is not just so much bigger than angels and archangels.

[18:40] He's in a different category altogether. And that's why here God is creator and we are creation. And this distinction means that there's an infinite gap between us and him.

[18:53] The God that Christians have come to worship and adore is not simply bigger and stronger than us. He's completely different, completely other from us. And Paul here writes, he says, Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

[19:11] And that's why in verse 33, Paul writes, he says, How unsearchable are his judgments. How inscrutable are his ways. The word inscrutable is a delicious word. It means mysterious, unfathomable.

[19:22] How unknowable are his ways. God is not just like us. He's unfathomable. He's undiscoverable. He's mysterious. Try in a hundred billion years and you'll never discover him or find your way towards him.

[19:38] Why? Because he is creator. We are creature. God is uncreated. We are created. But in the scripture, there's actually another reason why we can't find our way towards God.

[19:50] It's not only the creature, creator distinction dichotomy, but it's also not only our creatureliness, it's also our fallenness. Our fallenness. And the Bible says that all of us are born into a world that is fallen.

[20:04] And we ourselves are fallen as a result of sin. And one of the things that sin does is it blinds us. It deceives us from seeing and comprehending and understanding the world properly.

[20:18] And so one of the problems with living in a fallen world and being fallen ourselves is that we don't see everything the way it really is. It's like a virus has got into the system and the virus has convinced the system that all is well when actually not is all well.

[20:33] It's like someone hiking in a jungle in the mountains and they're lost, but they're convinced they know the way home. And so they get further and further lost, more and more confused, more and more disorientated as they go further into the jungle, convincing themselves, I know the right way home.

[20:50] And so the Bible says that living in a fallen world and being fallen ourselves, our minds are dark and we are deceived, we're blind, we don't see the way home. We can't find this God that we were made to know and worship.

[21:04] And we keep on going, going further and further away. And so listen to how Romans 1 describes this lostness that we feel. It says, having humanity, having exchanged the truth about God for a lie, we worshiped and served created things rather than the creator.

[21:21] That's what Bernard led us in that confession of earlier. And so we've become futile in our thinking. Our hearts have become darkened. Claiming to become wise, we actually have become foolish.

[21:34] And so here's this paradox. Here's this problem that we have. On the one hand, this passage, Romans, tells us about the infinite majesty and the glory of God. It's like we've come around the mountain and we've seen the mountain peak and this picture of the limitless, inexhaustible nature of God, of his majesty and his glory, draws us in and we want to know him.

[21:55] This is who we were made for. But on the other hand, we cannot find him. We cannot see him. We are blind to who he is. And we get lost on another track and we keep on going further and further away.

[22:10] And friends, remember this scripture is at the end of Romans chapter 11. And it's not just a random passage of scripture. It's building up an argument. But in the first few chapters of Romans, Paul is telling us that all people, Jews and Gentiles, religious, irreligious, all people are lost and cannot find our way to God.

[22:32] All humanity by nature is alienated from God. And so Paul spends the first three chapters explaining this. Listen to how he concludes it in Romans chapter 3. He says, No one is righteous.

[22:44] No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks after God. We've all turned aside. We've all become worthless. No one does good. Not even one.

[22:57] Friends, you see the problem here? Because reflecting what we just considered about God, not only is all humanity estranged from this majestic divine being that we're created to know and love and find our hope and our peace and our fulfillment in, not only are we estranged from him, not only have we rejected him and gone our own way, but we could never find our way back.

[23:22] It's like, you know the story of the prodigal son? The prodigal son says, Hey, let me have my wealth. I'm going to go my own way. And he goes his own way. And then he wakes up one day and says, I'm lost.

[23:33] I should go home. But actually the Bible says we can't find our way home. And every time we try and take a path, we take the wrong path. And we go from this avenue. We try and find meaning and hope and purpose there.

[23:44] And we try and find fulfillment here. We try and find God and created things. And we get more and more lost and disorientated and confused. And we cannot find our way home. Romans tells us that God's ways are inscrutable.

[23:56] God's ways are unsearchable. Who could ever find him? Who could ever discover him? Who could ever say, Okay, you're right. I was wrong. God, let me come back. Who could ever find him?

[24:07] And so we're more and more lost. More and more lost to the one who's called us to be with him. And furthermore, even if there was a way we could find our way home, even if we could possibly find our way back to him, what could we give him?

[24:23] How could we repay him? How could we come and say, God, you know what? You were right. I was wrong. Here is my gift of atonement. I don't know if you've ever offended somebody.

[24:33] You've hurt somebody. And so you buy them a gift, right? Or maybe a Chinese New Year. You buy them some oranges. Or you take them out for lunch, right? And you try and placate them.

[24:44] You try and restore the friendship. You try and offer them something to say, Listen, I'm sorry. Take this as my gift. This sign of my repentance. Friends, what could you bring to God?

[24:56] What could you bring to the one who has everything and needs nothing? Remember verse 35 says, Who could bring a gift to him and to repay him? Friends, even if we could find our way to him, what could we give him?

[25:07] Friends, enter this state of affairs, this hopeless situation of our own making. The God that we've been talking about, the one, the uncreated being who is inexhaustible and limitless in his resources, his glory and his grace.

[25:22] This God does two things. One, this God steps into our world and comes and finds us. He says, you can't find me, so I will come and find you.

[25:34] You can't make your way to me. I will make my way to you. This God lays aside his incomprehensible glory. He takes on flesh and blood. He who is infinite takes on finitude.

[25:48] He who is infinite becomes finite in a way and draws near to us and makes himself known. And he says, you could never find your way to me, so I will come to you. You could never discover me, so I will uncover myself and make myself known to you.

[26:03] Friends, Jesus Christ, the uncreated, immortal, invisible, all-knowing, all-wise God, comes and dwells amongst us and reveals himself and makes himself known and invites us back to him.

[26:16] And then this God does a second thing. He says, what will you give me? What will you offer to restore relationship with me, to bring about reconciliation? What can you offer that did not come from my hand itself?

[26:29] No, I will give myself to you. And Jesus Christ, the one who is inexhaustibly rich and has everything and in need of nothing, says, I will give not just my gold, not just my silver, I will give my very self.

[26:43] I will give my very life. I will give my life to reconcile us and to restore relationship. I will give myself for you and to you that you can come back and know me.

[26:54] In Acts chapter 17, the Apostle Paul is walking the streets of Athens. And remember, Athens is the capital city of the ancient world of wisdom, philosophy, knowledge, insight.

[27:08] It's the city where all the philosophers gathered to understand the way the world works. And the Apostle Paul is walking down the streets and the next day he comes to the place where all the philosophers are gathered.

[27:20] And this is what he says. He says, As I walked along, I observed the objects of your worship and I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What you worship is unknown, I have come to proclaim to you.

[27:33] The God who made the world and everything in it does not live in temples of man. He is not served by human hands as though he needed anything. Since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

[27:46] And then Paul goes on to tell them about Jesus Christ, the uncreated one, the one that they do not know, but has come to make himself known so that they can discover him. The one who lived and died and rose again, the one who gave himself to them, gave himself for them, that he might give himself to them.

[28:05] Now friends, what does that mean? What does it mean? Friends, if you are faithful, devoted, religious person that believes that God somehow owes you because of all your devotion, because of your hard work and your service, maybe you come and you serve here in many ways.

[28:24] You think that maybe you've earned God's favor, that God must somehow be pleased with you because of what you've done. You've misunderstood the God of the Bible. You've misunderstood Christianity completely.

[28:35] The God that we've been talking about does not need anything. He is not served by human hands. He does not need anything from us. And everything that we need is found in him.

[28:46] So why does God call us to worship? Why does he invite us? As Angelina read us this morning, God doesn't stand far off and say, well, bring your worship and I'll see how I respond. God invites us.

[28:56] Why does he do that? Because he knows we need it. We need it. Friends, maybe you are a Christian this morning, a follower of Jesus. You've come to know him. Friends, if you have followed Jesus, the only reason you know him is because he made himself known to you.

[29:13] It wasn't your brilliance. It wasn't your wisdom. It wasn't your insight, your devotion, your moral aptitude. It's all his initiative, all his grace, everything we have, even the ability to know him and worship him and love him is all of his doing.

[29:29] And so look at the final verse in our passage. Look at what it says. Verse 36 says, Friends, all things material and immaterial, temporary and eternal, the mundane, the most existentially satisfying.

[29:53] Friends, the things that your heart longs for, the things that keep you awake at night, the things that you live for, the things that you think will give you life and meaning and purpose in life, all these things come from him, are sustained by him, are held by him, are given to you by him, are withheld from you by him.

[30:14] All things come from him and are through him and are ultimately to him, to the praise of his glory and his grace. To him be the glory forever and ever.

[30:25] Friends, why does Watermark Church exist? For from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be glory forever and ever. Friends, why do you exist? All things are from him, including you, and through him, sustained by him, and are to him, to the praise of his glorious grace.

[30:44] To him be the glory forever and ever. Friends, why do we come to church and sing the songs we do and give of our finances and serve the poor and love one another and do mission and ministry?

[30:54] All things are from him and through him and to him, to the praise of his glory, to him be the glory forever and ever and ever. Amen.

[31:07] So friends, what does this mean for us? What does this mean? Well, as we come to a close, let me give us four very brief things for us as a church. We, we're thinking about the things that must not change, the things that remain unchanged.

[31:18] Friends, as we move from Ebenezer to Pocqueville, as we move from this season as a church to the new season, I want to ask us, let this be the anthem of our church that in five years time and in 15 years time and in a hundred years time that this song does not change, that the anthem of Watermark Church is this.

[31:37] All things, everything we have, every good thing about Watermark, if there's anything good about this church, all things are from him. It's not the leaders, it's not the elders, not the pastors, it's not your money, my money, all good things are from him, sustained by him, maintained by him, carried by him and to the praise of his glory and his grace.

[32:03] So what does this mean for us? Four quick things. Firstly, let's come to him empty-handed. Come to him empty-handed. Friends, maybe you come to church this morning, maybe you're new to church, maybe you're here because you need something, you need a job and so you figure, hey, I better come to church.

[32:20] You want a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you want a wife, you want a husband, you need a medical breakthrough, you want to get to university, you need something and so you figure, let me come to church.

[32:31] Maybe if I give something to God, he will help me with what I need. Friends, the God of the Bible doesn't need anything. He doesn't need anything from us and everything we need is found in him. This God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

[32:49] Friends, every religion operates on the basis that if you do good things for God, God will return the favor and bless you. You bring him worship, he will bless you. You give your money, he will bless you.

[33:00] You give him praise and he will give you favor. But Christianity doesn't work like that. Christianity says that the only way we come to God is with nothing in our hands. The only thing we bring is our need, is our nothing, is our empty hands.

[33:16] And when we come to him with empty hands, that's the one place that God says, okay, now you'll realize that everything comes from me. Friends, when we come with something in our hands, our worship, our money, our offering, we're trying to barter with God, we're trying to negotiate, we're trying to do a business deal.

[33:31] And God says, I don't operate like that. You'll go home empty handed. But if you'll come empty, if you'll come with your need, Jesus Christ will come and say, now you're discovering the real God. Oh, the depth of the riches of his mercy and his grace.

[33:45] Let's come to him empty handed. Let's stay humble. Let's stay on our knees. Let's stay dependent upon him. Secondly, friends, let's come to him honestly. Friends, in Jesus Christ, there's no scenario.

[33:57] There's no realm of possibility, real or imagined, that is beyond his immediate grasp, his ability to handle, his ability to know and fully understand. And that means he knows everything there is about you and about me.

[34:11] He knows the secrets of our hearts. He knows our deepest longings. He knows our fears. He knows our worries. He knows the things that keep us up at night. He knows the things that we tempted to keep away from him.

[34:23] He knows the masks that we wear. Friends, he knows everything about us and he loves us still. So you can come to him honestly. You can come transparently. You can come genuinely and say, God, this is who I am.

[34:34] These are my fears. These are my pains. These are my worries. These are my hopes. God, this is what I need. Let's come to him honestly. He knows you anyway. There's no point in playing the game and wearing the mask.

[34:45] Friends, let's come to him courageously. Let's trust him courageously. He is inexhaustibly wise and perfect. The New City Catechism says it like this. He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable in his power and his perfection, his goodness and his glory, his wisdom, his justice, and his truth.

[35:03] Nothing happens except through him and by his will. Friends, you and I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. We don't know what's going to happen in 10 years time or a thousand years from now. But Jesus Christ does.

[35:16] And even if we did know what was going to happen, there is nothing we can do about it. But everything, everything is in his hands. And what that means is we can trust him. We can trust him personally and individually.

[35:29] Friends, the things that are on your heart, you can trust him. The things that God is saying, will you hand that over to me? You can trust him. But friends, for us as a church, God is going to lead us through good times but also through difficult times.

[35:42] Sometimes he'll lead us through quiet waters and still pasture greens. And sometimes he'll lead us through the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes he'll lead us through the fire. Sometimes he'll lead us through the storm.

[35:53] Sometimes he'll lead us through a raging river. With this God, we can trust him. And so when God speaks us through his word or speaks us by his spirit and says, Watermark, follow me.

[36:05] Trust me. Let's trust him courageously. He knows what he's doing. Oh, the depth of the wisdom and the knowledge and the resources and the riches and the glory of God.

[36:16] Let's trust him where he calls us. Finally, friends, let's be a church that worships him generously. Friends, Jesus Christ does not need a single thing from us.

[36:27] He doesn't need our time. He doesn't need our money. He doesn't need our worship. He doesn't need our effort. He doesn't need our affection. He doesn't need our love. Friends, the whole world could disappear and he would not be one milli-inch, whatever the metric is, poorer for it.

[36:48] Not one cent poorer for it. But we do need it. We need to worship him. We need to give him ourselves because it's the only way to find life. It's the only way to be whole.

[36:59] It's the only way to be free from the tyranny of the rat race of this life. It's the only way to get off the hamster wheel of this world and to be free to live the lives that he's called us to.

[37:12] And so let's give him our all. Let's worship him and love him extravagantly, generously, not because he needs it, but because we need it for the praise of his glory.

[37:23] Oh, the depths of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments. How inscrutable are his ways. Who has known the mind of the Lord?

[37:34] Who has been his counselor? Friends, who could bring a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him is everything.

[37:45] To him be the glory forever and ever and ever. Amen. Let's pray together. Let's pray. Amen. Father God, this morning I have felt very much the limit of vocabulary to explain and express and describe your inexhaustible nature, God.

[38:15] God, we do confess that we are blind to you. We do not see even one millionth of who you are. God, we pray by your spirit won't you open the eyes of our hearts to see you and to know you.

[38:31] Won't you help us, God, to discover you and to love you more deeply. Lord, I pray for us as a church that as we move to Viva Place in two weeks' time as we move to our new venue, God, may this be the anthem of our hearts and the anthem of our church.

[38:46] May this thing never ever change, Lord. That God, in a hundred years from now, may the thing that resounds and rebounds in this church is all things are from you and for you to your glory to you be the glory forever and ever.

[39:01] And so, God, come and do a work in our hearts, I pray. Come and help us, Lord. Lord, we confess we need your spirit. We need your grace. Thank you, Jesus, for coming to us and making yourself known.

[39:13] God, we pray, give us your spirit and make yourself even more known that we may know you and love you and live for you, that we may trust you courageously, that we may live honestly, that we may come empty-handed and withdraw our life and our strength from you.

[39:28] Help us, we pray, in your great name. Amen.