Unsearchable Greatness

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.

Preached at New Life in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday morning, May 31, 2021. Phillips opens from the book of Psalms — poetry and prophecy that teach the ebb and flow of the Spirit — and preaches the greatness of God that no single name exhausts. You can call him provider, healer, banner, or righteousness, and each name is true, but none of it is all he is; a God known only on the weekend must become the God of Monday through Friday too. His greatness is unsearchable: every title is one facet of a God who is always more.

Creation is the first evidence, from Genesis 1: God creating great things, down to the two great lights of verse 16 — and, in the preacher's own opinion, the lesser light made first, because this God reveals himself from lesser to greater, always moving toward the greater. Abram is the human case: God starts with a man in his father's tent and makes him Abraham, father of many nations, revealing his own greatness as he makes his people greater — the same pattern that runs to the incarnation and the cross. Plagues belong to the pattern too: great plagues in Scripture always precede a greater revelation of who God is, so even COVID-19 does not shake him; every plague in Israel's history brought God's people back and made God known greater.

The application is growth without ceiling: God is not interested in giving his people great victory but greater victory — more than conquerors — and the Holy Ghost in a believer is greater than what he faces. The close calls for Psalm 150:1 and praise as great as God has been, moves into altar prayer that God would make his people greater — in witness, testimony, and giftedness — and ends on Jesus' word to Nathanael, that he would see greater things than these: the best, the preacher insists, is saved for last.

Scripture index: Genesis 1:16; Psalm 150:1.