Unsearchable Greatness

Summary

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

On a Tuesday Night Live revival service at First Pentecostal Church of Durham in April 2023, Jacob Phillips preaches his signature message from Psalm 145:1-3: David blesses the name of his God and king, calls the LORD great and greatly to be praised, and then, as Phillips reads it, runs out of adjectives — his greatness is unsearchable. The Psalms are the Bible's picture of the never-changing yet always-moving character of God: Psalm 103 lists His benefits, which are His character — forgiver, healer, redeemer, lover of the soul, compassionate, renewer of youth like the eagle's — and Psalm 23 shows Him as shepherd, keeper in the dark valley, and anointer of heads with oil. But unsearchable is the word that holds: God's greatness is a mountain range in which every summit reveals a bigger mountain. Good is not good enough, great is not great enough. Whatever a person needs Him to be — healer, deliverer, waymaker — He is that, and He is more; when the enemy produces great bondage, God produces a greater breakthrough, and when religion fails, God gives an experience greater than religion.

The sermon's through-line is that God always starts with great and works toward greater. Aaron's rod swallows the magicians' rods because God will not be matched. Abram is promised greatness not for where he has been but for where he is going; the promise must live a while at Pharaoh's house, and after great plagues comes great revival — a pattern Phillips applies directly to the post-COVID church, which he tells Durham has not yet seen its best revival. Ishmael will be great, but the promise runs through Isaac, who grew great until he became very great; Esau will be great, a man of the field with his eyes on earthly things, but the greater line runs through Jacob, who dreams of heaven. At Jacob's well, the Samaritan woman asks if Jesus is greater than Jacob, and learns that the water He gives ends thirst altogether. Creation itself preaches it: Genesis 1:16 sets a lesser light and a greater light, and the evening-and-morning order shows God working from the lesser toward the greater — the moon toward the sun, John the Baptist toward Jesus. John was the greatest born of women, yet the least in the kingdom is greater than John; Phillips brings an eleven-year-old Holy Ghost-filled boy to the front to stand as proof that this generation will see what John only prophesied. Even Christ's first miracle preaches it: at the wedding, the best wine was saved for last.

The close lands on Psalm 150:2 — praise Him according to His excellent greatness. If God's greatness is unsearchable and therefore greater now than when the sermon started, praise that matches His greatness can never decrease; Tuesday's praise must exceed Sunday's. Phillips turns that logic into an altar call for miracles, healing, and the baptism of the Holy Ghost: because He is greater now, the greater miracle is available now.

Scripture index: Psalm 145:1-3; Psalm 103; Psalm 23; Psalm 145:4; John 4; Genesis 1:16; Matthew 11; Acts 2; Psalm 150:2.