Amazing. You know, this week, for whatever reason, I don’t know the Lord put it there, but almost all week long, I have been every moment that something wasn’t happening in my mind, in my heart, I began to sing, I can only imagine. And in that song where it says, I can only imagine when it says, surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus, or will I and all of you be still? Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall?

You know, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. But the point is, God is so unfathomable. We can probably sit and try to write down every adjective that God puts in our mind about who he is and how he is, and still never come close to describing God truly. He is absolutely unfathomable.

He is greater than we could even begin to imagine. I think that so many times we can be satisfied with less. And so we don’t think about the absolute fullness, greatness of God. We just kinda oh, yeah, God. Sometimes the things that are going crazy around you, it does make you wonder about God.

I I mean, it does me. I’m not sure if it does you, but it it does me. When there are so many things that are going on around us in this world, some of them very bad, some of them very good, but there are so many things that are going on around us all the time. And I think as humans, we began to think about God. We wonder about God, and sometimes the thoughts come, you know what?

Is God even real? I mean, is God even real? Look at these things that are happening in my life. Things are falling apart. There there are stuff that’s happening, and I don’t know how I’m ever going to recover from the things that are going on.

Things are really bad. Does God care? Does he does he care about the things that are happening in my life? And we began to question all of those things. Maybe we think, you know what?

Maybe he’s just too busy. I mean, you know, I’m just one person and there’s billions of people in this world, so maybe God is just too busy. Even the most faithful people sometimes struggle with those thoughts. So first of all, I want you to pause for a moment and go, I am just human, because there’s been times where I just was like, all these years and and why would that question even come in my mind? Why would I even begin to think, is God even real?

Does he even care? All the things that he’s done in my life over and over and over, yet somehow that still comes into my mind. I wanna tell you about another man named King David. If you go read through the Psalms, you’ll find many times where David is questioning God. He’s questioning God.

God, these things are happening, and it’s amazing how he goes through the passage, and it’s like he’s having this conversation with himself. He goes through the passage, and he begins with question, but then he tries to console itself that, you know what? Why am I even thinking this? And by the end of the passage, he’s saying, god is absolutely great. And he begins to realize that.

I think that’s kind of the process for a lot of us. As we go through these hard times and things happen, sometimes we struggle. It’s partially because we think of God with human attributes. Well, you know, people can’t do everything. And sometimes when we think about these human attributes, we put limitations on God.

We think about God and we say, you know, God just he just can’t. It’s just too much. And, you know, sometimes it’s just more than you can handle, not God. It’s never more than he can handle. Sometimes we think about God and we we want to talk about God as being our friend.

We have conversations and we pray with God and and a lot of people struggle. Well, how do I pray? And they’re told, well, just talk to God like you talk to anybody else. Because God understands and and when you talk to God that way, he hits that. But sometimes we’ll because of that, I think we look at God as just a a grander human.

And let me tell you, God is not human. God is indescribable. He’s unfathomable. There are so many things about God that the Bible says we won’t ever know on this side of heaven. We won’t know.

There’s too many things if it was all written down, the world couldn’t contain it. There are things that God says you are not meant to know. There are things that we’re just not meant to know. God is just that big. He is totally unfathomable.

So today, I want us to look back in the Old Testament to look at someone who, spent a lot of time talking to God and shared a lot of it with us in Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 40. Some of you say, oh, I love this chapter. I know part of this chapter. I I hold on to some of it, and I’m glad that you do.

I have Isaiah forty thirty one, I think it is, on a plaque in my office, and it does help us as we go through it. Isaiah forty twenty five. Look at this verse. It says, to whom then will you liken me that I would be his equal, says the holy one. Woah.

Think about that for a second. This is god. To whom then will you liken me that I would be his equal? God cannot be likened to anything we know. He is too great.

He is too big. He is too holy. To whom then will you liken me? How do you look at me? What do you do?

What do you think? Who is my equal? There is no equal. God has no equal. God is the creator.

We are the created. All of us have been created in the image of God, but not equal to God. So I want you to understand that God is so great. And it’s when we begin to fail to look at God in that huge person that he is, that we start to have a lot of doubts. We start to wonder, well, maybe God just doesn’t have enough time.

Maybe God is just, you know, I’ve displeased him because I didn’t do something or I maybe God’s just, you know, he’s run out of patience with me. Whatever it is. No. God says that he calls you by name. He knows every hair on your head.

He knows all that about you. God loves you. Are you going to fail? Yes. But you know what?

His word says that he has forgiven us. If you’ve called upon him as your lord and savior, he has forgiven you of the things you’ve already done and things you will do. So there’s not something that you can do to to take yourself out of God’s hand. He says, no one can take you out of my hand. That includes you.

So when we begin to look at that and we look at God and we we put God in this small box, we don’t realize how big he is. But there’s nothing impossible with God. Nothing. God is able in every single situation. There’s nothing that God is not able to do.

And so when we look at this and we we hold on to this, God says, whom will you like in me? Who is my equal? Who is my equal? We’re still discovering new things about this world every day. Do you realize that?

Previously unknown creatures in the depths of the sea that we’ve discovered. How have they been unknown for so long? Because man is not able to go that deep. Machines even oftentimes are not able to go to the very depths of the ocean without being crushed. So there are things that we don’t even know about even in the depths of the sea.

Those are things that are created, and we don’t even know about those. New galaxies and new planets are discovered daily. We’ve discovered new galaxies and said, how you know, the telescopes now have the ability to see farther than they’ve ever been. We have telescopes and satellites that are traveling distances greater than we can imagine. And what do they reveal?

They keep showing new galaxies more and more than we ever thought possible. People say, oh, we know all about the galaxy, the Milky Way, but they don’t even know all about that. They don’t even know all about the galaxy that we live in because they keep discovering new stars, new planets, new things that they never saw before, and suddenly they’ve seen it. How amazing, how great that is. It’s nothing compared to the greatness of God.

That’s the created stuff. God created it all. Stars that were unknown before even listen. Near to me, even weather systems that suddenly don’t behave like all the past weather systems did. Part of forecasting weather is knowing what these elements, how they come together, what typically happens.

And all of a sudden, almost every time these elements come together, this is what happens, and this time that didn’t happen. Or this time, all those elements weren’t there, but somehow it still happened. How is that possible? Because it’s God. And all of those things that are happening, we don’t even completely understand all of that.

We don’t even understand all of that, and yet somehow we feel in our little bitty minds that we completely understand God. Oh, we we know that’s how God is. And God just evidently, he don’t care. Because if he cared, this would be the way that it happened. God’s ways are not our ways.

Understand that just because you think that’s how it should happen doesn’t mean that’s how it should happen. God knows because he created you in the first place. We’re still discovering all these new things about the world every day, and yet somehow we feel like we know all there is to know about God. We don’t even know all there is to know about what he created. There’s no way we know everything about God.

The great thing is we don’t have to know it all. We don’t have to know everything about God. Look at verses twenty six and twenty seven, that same passage. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The one who leads forth their host by number. He calls them all by name.

Because of the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, oh Jacob, and assert, oh Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God? Wow. Think about this. When things are hard, it’s easy to think that God just doesn’t have time for you.

It’s easy to get caught up into believing that God is so big and so busy, he doesn’t have time for us. He said, why do you think that I’m limited when even every single star that’s out there I created, I put them in the perfect place for them to be, I call them by name. I know exactly what they are. And if I’m gonna have that type of detail with the stars, certainly with a living breathing image of me, one that was created in my image, I’m going to know what is happening with you. God has time for every single person.

How? Because of his bigness. Because he is always present. He is present everywhere. He’s omnipresent, meaning he is everywhere at one time.

There’s nothing else that can be omnipresent. Understand, people say, well, you know, the devil the devil is not omnipresent. The devil cannot be everywhere at once. Now he has demons, but the devil cannot be everywhere at once. Only God can be that way.

And God can be everywhere at once. He knows everything all at the same time, and all of this stuff that God knows, he cares about you. When things are hard, sometimes we say, oh, well, you know, I haven’t been doing right. I guess God is he’s given up on me. No.

That doesn’t happen. If we pause and realize that every single star in the heavens, God created and he calls them by name, then we have to understand that if he created us in his image, we are more important than those stars. He didn’t create the stars in his image. He didn’t create all of that other stuff in his image. The only thing that he created in his image according to God’s word is us.

And if he created us in his image, we’re more important than all of that. And so if he is so incredible that he keeps up with every single star, then certainly he’s gonna keep up with you. Look at verse 28. Verse 28 says, do you not know? Have you not heard?

The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. God is truly unfathomable to us because he is so much greater. Do you not know when things are hard? Have you not heard when you’re so tired that God does not become weary or tired?

That’s a human aspect. God doesn’t have that. God never becomes weary. He never becomes tired. He is never too busy.

He never doesn’t care. He always loves and he always knows exactly what’s happening. Well, pastor, if that’s the truth, then why does he allow these things to happen in my life? For each person, there’s different reasons why God allows things to happen. I don’t know why he allows, as the world says, bad things to happen to good people, except this.

God’s word says, no one is good. Not one. So when you say, but I’m such a good person. Why is God letting this happen to me? No one is good.

Not one. What’s happening to you, the things you’re going through, the hardships you’re facing, it’s a possibility they have nothing to do with anything that you’ve done in the past. It may be something God’s getting ready for you to do in the future. It may be that you’re going through something in the whole reason to help someone else. We don’t understand why because God is unfathomable.

He’s so much greater than us. He knows exactly why. Listen. If we trust the Department of Transportation that when they put in a new road or a new turn or a new light or a new whatever that they have studied and examined and this is the reason they’re doing it is greater than what we know, then why do we not trust God that when we don’t understand it, he’s got a plan? I can tell you right now, there’s a whole lot of people in Mobile, Alabama that still don’t understand a traffic circle.

But according to the Department of Transportation and all their research, it speeds up traffic and gets people where they’re going quicker, causes less accidents, and makes people move right along, if they could only figure out how to do it. The point is, we trust that when they put in a traffic light, it’s there for a reason. Somebody’s done research and decided it needs to be there, and we have trust in it. But yet we don’t trust that when something happens in our life that God knows why he’s doing it, and he puts it there on purpose. Most of us, because we’re human, the first thing that happens when we run into hardship is, God, please take this away.

That’s the first thing we wanna do. God, take this away. It’s a hardship. I was talking to Jacob Watts this week. He and I get together once a month and and talk, and he was talking about going through the book of James and where James says, count it all joy when you face trials and hardship.

Count it all joy. The point of that is, God’s doing something. And instead of saying, take it away, we say, God, give me the strength to go through what I gotta go through. Give me the peace, the patience, whatever it is that I need to go through, whatever this is that I’ve gotta go through. Because, God, I trust you.

David did this often. I don’t understand, but I trust you. I don’t understand, but I trust you, and I know that you will see me through. I know that I will come out the other side one way or another. I trust you.

God is so much greater than us. We need to understand that we don’t always understand. He is the everlasting god. He will not grow tired. He will not grow weary.

We were created in his image, but it doesn’t mean that we’re the same or equal to God. One key to understanding is that even when things are down even when things are down, we are uncertain. We need to understand that God is able. We need to understand he is greater than all things. Even when we’re down, God is able.

He is greater than anything we face. So instead of feeling like you’re all alone, that’s when you hit your knees. That’s when you spend that time talking to God. That’s when you ask God to show you how to go through the next thing. What do I do?

How do I get through what’s happening? It feels like it’s there’s no way. The weight is too much. But God said, I’m never weary. I’m never tired.

He said, I can take your burden. Give it to me. Verse 29 through 31 says, he gives strength to the weary. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might, he increases power. Though youth grow weary and tired and vigorous men, young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength.

They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary. Wow. Those of you that are here today and you’re tired.

And I don’t mean you’re tired because you didn’t sleep good last night or because you lost an hour of sleep. I mean, you’re tired because there’s so many things that you’ve been going through, and it seems like the burden is really heavy. You’re begin you’re getting weary, and you wonder how am I gonna get through this? Those who wait for the Lord will gain the strength. God gives increases of strength to the weak.

It means that those who have been knocked down or beaten up and feel that they just can’t keep going, God is there. When you put your faith in God and you trust him and you wait on God instead of trying to do it all on your own, God will strengthen you. God will give you what you need to get through the next hour, the next day, the next month, whatever it happens to be, God will give you that strength. God pours that out. His word just we just read it.

It says, those who wait upon the Lord will have their strength renewed. They will run and not get tired. They will not be weary. It means that even though people are tired, God is going to give us strength. When we trust God, he will renew our strength.

When we trust God, he will renew our strength. I want you to understand, even the young can grow weary. Even the young in Christ can grow weary. Every person can grow weary. There are so many things people can say all the time.

How do you do what you do? How do you go through all that? How do you make it through the day? You there’s so much that’s being placed on you. There are so many people that it seems like over and over and over, there’s just stuff piled up on their shoulders.

And I I I see a picture sometimes of a, you know, a circus clown or something that they just keep piling it on, and somehow they’re able to walk around with it on their shoulders. But eventually, they drop, you know, 1p on the top and the whole thing falls apart. Why? Because there’s too much. They can’t carry it all.

No matter how great it seems, they can’t carry it all. They’re gonna grow weary eventually. They can’t go that far. They can’t keep piling it on and lift it up. We can’t do it.

Here’s the problem with us, is we think we can. Why do we ever think we can? We cannot do it in our own strength. We are human. We are not God.

We are not able to just keep piling the burdens on and keep carrying it around. God never intended for that. He said to bring them to him. He said to lay them at his feet, that his way is easy and his burden is light. Bring it to him, and he’ll give it back to us.

He will take it away from us, and he will lighten our burdens. He has the strength. He will strengthen us. When we trust him, he will renew that strength. I just don’t think I can go another step.

Military, we had to do running and and hikes and different things and whatever, and I remember we were on a a 12 mile road march. Well, that that’s a long way to go, but we were on a 12 mile road march with a 50 pound pack. So you got all the weight on your back, and you’re still marching. And, oh, yeah. By the way, they like to throw the enemy at you along the way, so you gotta react.

Right? So you’re looking for the enemy, and you’re marching along, and you’re going you know, after a while, you just feel like, I ain’t gonna make it. There’s no way I’m gonna make it to the end of this. And they halt everybody and tell you, stop. Drink some water.

Everybody drinks a little water out of their canteen and takes just a short break. And all of a sudden they’re like, okay. Put your pack back on. Stand back up and you’re like, okay. I can go another couple of miles.

And away you go. Just that little bit, just a little water, a little break, take the pack off your back for a moment and suddenly your strength is renewed and you feel like you can go a little further. If just a little water and a five minute break can do that, think what God’s renewal can do. God can renew strength that you can’t even begin to imagine. He made this body that’s so incredible that even after all that, a little water and a five minute break, and you’re ready to go a few more miles.

He made us if we trust him, that no matter how much gets thrown on top of us, he will renew us if we call upon him. If we hold on to that, he will give us that strength. Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. We have to trust him. We have to trust him.

When we trust God, he will renew our strength. The reality for all of us is this, we’re human beings. We’re human beings, and we oftentimes, because sometimes of how we’ve been taught, sometimes just because we’re stubborn, we oftentimes try to do it all on our own. God never wanted us to do anything on our own. He never want us to do anything on our own.

God’s word says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. But he also says, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Through Christ who strengthens you, you can do all things. He will renew your strength.

It may not be immediate. You may need to be driven to your knees for a moment because of the things that you have neglected in the life of your relationship with God. You may need to be driven to your knees to begin to trust God again because you haven’t given him that trust. You’ve trusted everything but him. You may need to be knocked down in order that he can pick you up and make you realize apart from me, you can do nothing.

But let me show you how it is when you trust me. Let me show you how it is when you give it to me. I will renew your strength. I will give you what you need, and I will strengthen you through the things that you go through in this life. We live a life, oftentimes, where we’re weary from battles.

Sometimes it’s battles of life. Sometimes it’s battles of of a job, or a relationship, or children, or financial battles. Whatever it is, we have all these battles that we fight in life, and we get weary. Sometimes all those things tend to knock us down. Sometimes when we don’t even think that those things are happening, we may be truly fighting a battle against Satan.

Yes. The devil and his demons do bring attacks on God’s people. They absolutely do. There is nowhere that we can think that that doesn’t happen. We do have satanic attacks in our life.

Everything that happens to you is not a satanic attack, but we do have satanic attacks in our life. Perhaps you’re going through that. Maybe you’re at a place where you think this, and unfortunately, this happens a lot. I have messed up. I have done all these things.

I’m looking at the the staring down the barrels of the consequences of everything that happened, and no one can help me. No one. I’ve I’ve examined everything I know to do. I’ve thought of everything I can think of, and yet no one can help me, and it’s my fault that I’m where I’m at. Maybe it is your fault that you’re where you’re at.

Maybe you did make the bad choices. Maybe you did do things that put you in the position that you’re in. But the thing you’re wrong about is when you say no one can help me, God can. God can. Unfortunately, in this world today, so many people get to that point and say, no one can help me, and so they end their life.

Not ever stopping to think that god can. Many of them are not. Why? Because they don’t know god. They don’t know god.

They’ve never experienced that. God knows your name no matter if you know him or not. God loves you and cares for you, no matter if you know him or not. God will lift you up and strengthen you, if you will call upon him. You see, God created every person in this world, and whether they have called him by name, whether they have asked him into their life, whether they have given their life over to him or not, God loves every creation that he made.

Every single one. That’s why that every single thing that people do in life can be forgiven. There’s only one unpardonable sin. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which is basically unbelief. If you don’t believe, certainly, you can’t receive forgiveness.

Other than that, everything can be forgiven because God loves the creation that he made so much that he gives every opportunity for you to call upon him and let him renew your strength. Let him give you that fresh life. He gives you every opportunity, but we have to call upon his name. Maybe people don’t know. Maybe they don’t know because no one’s told them.

That means if you know him, you need to tell. So the question I have for you today is this. Do you know the god who calls you by name? Do you know? Because he knows you, but do you know him?

Have you ever given your life to him? Have you ever gotten to that point and said, you know what? I need a savior. All these things that have piled up on me, and I cannot come out from under them, god, please come and forgive me and save me, and give me that strength that I need. Have you ever done that?

Only you know. I can’t look at here and see who does and who doesn’t. Sometimes people say, yes. I do. Later to find out, no.

They don’t. Later, they say, you know what? I was wrong. I thought I knew, but I knew up here, I didn’t know in here. I never gave my life.

I I thought that because I came to church every Sunday, because I have a Bible in my house, because I give some money to the Lord, because I treat people good that, of course, I will I knew God. I was saved. But that’s not what God’s word says. It says, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, and believe that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. But those are the steps you must take.

There’s no other way. There’s no other way. Do you know the god that knows you by name? If today you don’t know him, I wanna introduce you. I would love to talk to you about how you can know him.

Perhaps you know him, but you’ve been trying to carry the whole load all by yourself instead of calling upon the God that says, let me carry it for you. Maybe today you need to bring those burdens to the altar and leave them with him. Maybe there’s somebody on your heart that you know you want to pray for. The altar’s open. We’re gonna have a time of invitation this morning.

I just ask you simply this. Would you respond as the Holy Spirit touches your heart?