Behold Our God
H.B. Charles

The following is an edited transcript of the audio

Grace and peace be multiplied to each of you tonight, and the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Let me rush to express publicly as I have privately what a joy, privilege and honor it is to be with you and to have the opportunity to sing praise to Jesus together with you and to stand here to proclaim to you the Word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ. I am grateful and thankful for C.J, for Bob, for all of the leadership team, and I've been blessed over the years in the sweet providence of God.

As a young pastor in Los Angeles being ministered to, built up, and in some ways really trained by Sovereign Grace work happening on the other side of the country. Y'all might as well have been on the other side of the world because I just never thought our paths would cross outside the books and resources. And yet God in His goodness has granted us sweet friendship and wonderful fellowship, and I'm grateful and thankful. I'm glad to have two pastors of our church, two of the elders of our church - Pastor Winslow, and then Pastor Joe. I'm grateful for my name being mentioned in connection to "Behold our God." There is a misprint on that CD. I didn't do ... My title should be official cheerleader, that's all I did.

And Bob and Joe and the guys did the rest. But I am grateful and thankful for the opportunity for us to serve the church together and to be back with you tonight. The musician got up and gave his performance and when he finished playing, the people cheered and yelled and said, "Encore, encore, do it again. Do it again." So he sat down and played through again. And when he finished, they cheered and they hooted and they yelled, "Encore, encore." So he said, "Well, I'll play it one more time, but just tell me what's so wonderful about it that you'd want me to do it again and again." And they said, somebody from the crowd yelled at the back. "Nothing's wonderful about it. We're trying to give you a chance to get it right." So I'm not sure if the pleading for me to come back was to correct whatever we messed up the last time. But for whatever reason it is a joy. It is a joy to be here with you. If you take your copy of God's word, I would ask your prayers tonight.

My text from Romans tonight has absolutely nothing to do with you and it has everything to do with God. It's such a grand text, I just feel that all I can do tonight is just say amen to its truth and I need God's help. Would you pray with me. "Our Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we do thank you, praise you and bless you for this time together. And for the privilege that is ours to worship publicly and corporately, the risen King, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the revelation of yourself in the sacred scriptures to us and for your glory and your beauty and your worth put on display in the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. And the time we'll have this week to meditate on the grand truths of your Word. Even now, I pray that you would open our eyes, that we may behold wonderful things about the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that you would help us to lay aside all malice, deceit, envy, hypocrisy, and slander so that as newborn infants, we may crave the pure and spiritual milk of your Word and grow there by having tasted of your goodness. Then I pray that you would grant me physical strength and spiritual energy to speak your Word faithfully and clearly. And may Christ alone be exalted as the Word is explained, we pray. Amen."

I want to talk tonight under the title, "God knows what He's doing." Romans 11:33-36, "Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. 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? 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."

God knows what He's doing. There is a pattern in the New Testament epistles of Paul. Paul first explains doctrine and then exhorts for duty. Doctrine and duty go together in the Christian life. Christianity is not religious activism disconnected from biblical doctrine, nor is it intellectual assent disconnected from personal devotion, Christianity marries belief and behavior. Christian disciples think and act biblically and so we must be on guard, on one hand against, if I may, undevotional theology and on the other hand untheological devotion. Paul begins his letters by laying a doctrinal foundation, then he calls his readers to live out the truth of the gospel. This is what we find in the book of Romans.

Romans 11:33-36 is a bridge between these two sections. After teaching the doctrine of justification by faith alone and before exhorting his readers to live as sacrifices to God, Paul writes this doxology in praise to God. This doxology rebukes our over-emphasis on practical Christianity. For many, the most important question about faith is, does it work? We view Christianity in pragmatic terms, but we see here that Paul was not hasty to try to make his faith practical before he teaches how to walk in the truth of the gospel. He pauses here, if you will, to dance to it. And in so doing he teaches us that sound doctrine begins and ends with doxology. As one theologian said it well - "Our study of God and his ways among us should turn our hearts to music." This is what happens to Paul here.

In Romans 1-11, Paul climbs as high as he can up the summit of the truth of the gospel, and yet when he has climbed as high as he can, he still finds himself a long way off from the peak, unable to climb any higher. Paul prostrates himself in worship before the incomprehensibility of Almighty God. William Carey overcame many obstacles to take the gospel to India. He finally found himself aboard the Oxford bound to Asia, but before the ship lifted anchor, Carey was evicted by the captain who had received an anonymous letter against Carey. Carey wrote to his friend in the aftermath, Andrew Fuller, "All I can say in this affair is that however mysterious the leadings of providence are, I have no doubt, but they are super intended by an infinitely wise God."

This, brothers and sisters, is a God-centered perspective on life and ministry. There are times when the leadings of providence are mysterious. It is when life doesn't make sense. It is when you are forced to live with unanswered questions. It is when you do not know what God is up to in your life, even then, God is worthy to be praised because God knows what He's doing even when we don't. How should you respond to this marvelous truth that God knows what He's doing? Three answers in this doxology I would offer. How should you respond to the God who knows what He's doing?

Number 1, celebrate the wonder of God's greatness. Celebrate the wonder of God's greatness. Verse 33, "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways." This verse is filled with theologically loaded words, but the most important word is the first, O. It is the sigh or groan or cry of an enraptured heart. Romans 1-11, Paul gives the clearest explanation of the gospel anywhere. A.T.Robinson, the scholar of the languages, wrote that "Paul's argument concerning God's elective grace and goodness has carried him to the heights and now he pauses on the edge of the precipice as he contemplates God's wisdom and knowledge, fully conscious of his inability to sound the bottom with the plummet of human reason and words."

So here we find Paul, his mind is now empty, but his heart is full. With a sense of wonder, he celebrates the God who is too deep to be figured out and too high to be figured out. God is too deep to be figured out. Verse 33, "O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God." The governing thought of this statement is that God is deep. Gospel is shallow enough for a child to come and drink without the fear of drowning. Yet the gospel is so deep that the greatest of scholars can dive in and never touch the bottom. The deeper you go in the ocean, the darker the water gets and there is a pressure-filled depth where no human can survive. That breaking point is where God resides. Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. Let's linger over those words for just a moment. First, Paul says, "God's riches are deep. God's riches are deep."

What does it mean to be rich? It is to be independent, self-sufficient, without need. Ultimately then no one is rich. Wealthy people are still dependent on others in countless ways. Only God is rich. Some of the richest men, wealthiest men in the world monetarily have pledged to give half of their wealth to charity. That's impressive until you consider that all of God's riches are spent for the benefit of others. Romans 2:4, "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Romans 9:22-24, "What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy?"

Romans 10:12 and 13, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call upon him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." There is no reason for the Christian to live in sin or guilt or worry or doubt or fear because our God is rich. Philippians 4:19, "He will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." But not only are God's riches deep, God's wisdom is deep. Wisdom of course, is best understood in his relationship to knowledge. My pastor Melvin Wade says it this way. He says that, "Wisdom teaches knowledge how to behave."

In scripture, wisdom is spiritual, not intellectual. Wisdom is moral goodness. How do you become wise? James 1:5 says, "If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him?" True wisdom comes from God who always accomplishes the proper ends by the proper means. Want proof? Run to the cross and look at Jesus. 1 Corinthians 1:20 and 21, "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God. Through wisdom it pleased God through the folly of what we preached to save those who believe." The cross of Jesus is the wisdom of God at work in the world.

1 Corinthians 1:22-25 then goes on to say, "For Jews, demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man. And the weakness of God is stronger than man." The riches of God are deep. The wisdom of God is deep. And then God's knowledge is deep.

June 17th, 1972 five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate facilities in Washington DC. Fallout led to the resignation of president Richard Nixon. It is the first and only time that the presidency has been resigned. This second rate burglary erupted into a national scandal by the persistence of investigative reporters who just had two questions. What did the president know and when did he know it? Well, let's turn those questions to God. What does God know? And if so, God is omniscient. God knows all things. God knows all things known, unknown and knowable. God knows all things past, present, and future. God knows all things, actual, potential and theoretical. God knows all things in heaven on earth and in hell. When did God know it? God's perfect knowledge is eternal. God has never learned anything. In eternity past, God knew all things, and God will not know one new thing, in eternity future that He did not know in eternity past. Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. God is too deep for you to figure Him out. But then Paul goes in the opposite direction and declares God is too high for you to figure Him out.

Verse 33, "Oh the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways." God is infinitely deep and transcendently high. Isaiah 55:8 and 9, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways," says the Lord ,"for as high as the heavens are above the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." God's judgments, says Paul here, are unsearchable. Judgements of course, is a judicial term used for the condemnation and punishment of sin. But the context here uses the word in a broader sense. It refers to God's decrees, God's decisions. In the ancient world the ruler was both ruler and judge, so is God. And his judgments are unsearchable.

Isaiah 40:28, "Has thou not known? Has thou not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary and there is no searching of His understanding." God's punitive judgments are unsearchable. If we don't know what God is up to when a person seems to be punished. Remember when Jesus passed by and saw a man born blind and the disciples speculated about who sinned, the man or his parents, that he be born blind. And in John 9:3 Jesus says, "It is not that this man has sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."

God's punitive judgments are unsearchable and God's gracious judgments are unsearchable. We don't know what God is up to when a person seems to be blessed. Do not be jealous when others experience favor. Do not be proud when you experience favor. His judgments are unsearchable, but His ways are inscrutable. Yet judgment refers to divine decrees, ways refers to divine activity, God's ways or God's path, God's road that He travels to accomplish His judgments. And they are, says Paul, inscrutable, which means they are unable to track or trace a footprint. They are unfathomable. They are past finding out. Psalm 77:19 says, "Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen." God leaves no footprints as He travels, God leaves no fingerprints as He works. God leaves no DNA evidence for you to trace. His ways are inscrutable.

Psalm 103:7 says, "That he made known his ways to Moses, his works to the people of Israel." Israel got to see God's mighty works, but they didn't understand his ways. He made his ways known to Israel and yet to Moses, that isn't yet, Moses didn't get it. He was disqualified from leading the people into Israel, Israel into Canaan. When his anger dishonored the Lord and he took matters into his own hands. God is too high for us to figure out. We should constantly say God works in mysterious way. His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps on the sea and He rides on every storm. My favorite verse of that song is "judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face." So we should celebrate the wonder of God's greatness.

But secondly, this doxology would bid us tonight to embrace the truth of God's greatness. Embrace the truth of God's greatness. The attributes of God are categorized two ways, communicable attributes and incommunicable attributes. Communicable attributes are those that we can share with God being creatures made in His image. In fact, the attributes mentioned in verse 33 wisdom and knowledge are communicable attributes. Incommunicable attributes belong to God alone. Verses 34 and 35 declare communicable attributes of God. We will see in verses 34 and 35, God is God and we are not. Paul makes this point by saying to each of us tonight, many of us who are in full time Christian service, Paul reminds us in verses 34 and 35, "God does not need our advice, and God does not need our assistance."

Brothers, sisters, God does not need our advice. Verse 34 says, "Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?" These rhetorical questions assume a negative answer. No one, no one knows the mind of the Lord. We can know God's mind through God's word. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness." We can know the mind of God through God's spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:12 says, "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God that we might understand the things that God has freely given us."

Outside of that, we can't know the mind of God. We should always avoid criticizing other people's motives. Words, these choices may be fair game, but motive should be off limits. A person could do the right thing for the wrong reason. A person could do the wrong thing with good intentions. You just don't know what's in another person's heart and mind. You know why that is, don't you? Because you're not fully in touch with your own motivations.

Jeremiah 17:9, indicts us all, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?" We are sinners, we cannot of ourselves know the mind of God. Jesus Christ alone is worthy of praise because he fully knows the mind of the Lord. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God, but the only God who is at the Father's side has made him known." That's in the original language, that's our preaching term, exegesis. Jesus is the exegesis of God who reveals to us the mind of God. 1 Corinthians 2:16, "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ". No one knows the mind of the Lord. Let's answer the other one. No one has been the Lord's counselor.

Isaiah 40:13 says, "Who has measured the spirit of the Lord or what man shows him his counsel?" No one, none of us. Sometimes we act as if we are God's counselor. We are not. And when you start to think like you are God's counselor, you better go back and read Job again. Job learned this the hard way. Job suffered more than any other person who lived probably except Jesus. His misguided friends assumed that he was suffering because of some hidden sin in his life when in actuality Job suffered righteously and Job knew there was no hidden sin and so he subpoenaed God for a deposition. He's being accused by misguided friends and he can't take it anymore. He subpoenas God, he wants God to answer some questions to defend his character.

To his amazement, God showed up. To his dismay, He showed up in a whirlwind and worse, God did not show up to answer questions. God showed up with questions of His own right? Job wanted to know, "God, where were you when all of this was happening to me?" And God wants to know from Job, "Where were you when I made the heavens and the earth?" In Job 42:2-6, Job responded, "I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is it that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Hear and I will speak, I will question you, and you make it known to me."

I love this. "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." God does not need our advice. God doesn't need our assistance either. That's verse 35, "Who has given a gift to him that he might be repai?" This is a quotation from Job 41:11 where God asks Job, "Who has first given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine." This is the first principle of Christian stewardship.

I can state it in four words. God owns it all. Everything belongs to God. Psalm 24:1 and 2, "The earth is the Lord's." And the throne is thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, but He has founded it upon the seas. He has established it upon the waters." God owns it all because God made it all. So we can never place God under obligation by anything we give to Him. Mark it down. God can finance His own undertakings. He doesn't need our assistance. David the man after God's own heart desired to build a temple. He's a godly man who couldn't rest knowing that he lives in a palace and God is in this tent. He wants to build God a house.

God will not allow David to build Him a house because he's a bloody man of war. But in His condescending grace, He permits David's son Solomon to build this house and before his death, He allows David to collect the offering. People of Israel gave generously, sacrificially and joyfully. Should go back in 1 Chronicles 29 and read David's prayer after they gave. 1 Chronicles 29:14 David says, "But who am I? And what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly for all things come from you. And of your own, we have given." You cannot give anything to the God who has everything.

You do not have a right to get angry when God does not give you what you want or when God takes away what you possess. Job was right. Job 20:21, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Luke 17:7- 10, one of my favorite little parables of Jesus. Jesus asks the disciples, "Well, any of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come on in and sit down and recline at the table'." No one would do that. Will he not rather say to him, "Prepare supper for me first and dress properly and serve me and then when I've eaten and drunk, then afterward you'll eat and drink." Yes, that's what a master would do.

Third question, does he thank the servant because he did what he was commanded? No. In Luke 17:10 Jesus makes his point. So you also, how often do I have to go back to this verse? Luke 17:10 "So you also, when you've done all that I have commanded you, you should say we are unprofitable servants. We've only did what was our duty to do." After brothers and sisters, we have done all that God has commanded. We should still say, "We are unprofitable servants who are just doing our duty." And how much more should we say that in light of the fact that we haven't done all we've been commanded to do.

God will always be operating in the red with us. Whatever favor he bestows on us is because of His grace, not our goodness, His mercy, not our merit, His kindness, not our credit. Go read 1 Corinthians 4 and 7 and answer the three big questions Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4:7, "For who sees anything different in you and what do you have that you did not receive? And if then you received, why are you boasting like you didn't receive it?" Celebrate the wonder of God's greatness. Embrace the truth of God's greatness. One more response to the God who knows what He's doing - Affirm the scope of God's greatness.

Verse 36, "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen." This is the perfect summary of the Christian worldview. Secular humanism fails to understand the meaning of life because it doesn't accept this bottom line truth of our existence. It's not about you. Jeremiah 9:23, 24 says, "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this that he knows and understands me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love and justice and righteousness on the earth. For in these things I delight says the Lord." God alone is worthy of all glory. Paul says, "Because God is in control of all things, God deserves the glory at all times." God is in control of all things.

Look at verse 36 "For from him and through him and to him are all things." Ya'll know when to get excited on a sermon. This is the good part, "For from him and through him and to him are all things." Let me clean that up for you in a word. God is sovereign. He has unimpeachable jurisdiction over all things. When you get down to the bottom of it, when we declare the sovereignty of God to say that God is sovereign, it's just another fancy way of saying God is God. Sproul is right. If there were one maverick molecule in this universe running loose outside the scope of God's sovereign control, God would not be sovereign. And if God be not sovereign, He is not God. What is it that makes God, God? I'll tell you - "For from him and through him and to him are all things."

If for you I went too fast, let me slow up because I think you missed the magnitude of that sentence. Here is the unfolding of history in one sentence - "For from him and through him and to him are all things" Here is the way of salvation in one sentence - "for from him and through him and to him are all things." I don't know who, I don't know you, but here is the story of your life in one sentence "for from him and through him and to him are all things." God is the first cause, the effective cause and the final cause of all things. God is the source and sustainer and significance of all things. God is the source of all things. The force of all things and the course of all things. God originates. God perpetuates. God terminates all things. All things find their foundation in God, their being in God and their purpose in God. God is the Alpha and the Omega and every letter in between - "for from him and through him and to him there are all things." Hallelujah.

God is in control of all things. Thus, God deserves the glory at all times. One commentator wrote up this verse. "If a man can say that all things come from God, that all things have their being through God, and then all things end in him, what more is left to say?" Commentator is right and wrong.The fact that God is in control of all things ends the argument, but there is one more thing to be said - "to him be glory forever." Scripture speaks of the intrinsic glory of God. Intrinsic glory is inherent glory. It's the essential nature of God. It's the weight of his being. It's the brilliance of his presence. It's the sum total of his attributes. In a real sense, the glory of God is God.

Moses, God's man, pleaded with God, "Please show me your glory." Exodus 33:19 and 20 remember God's answer? "Moses, you're my man and all, we're cool and you've done a lot for me and I'm willing to do something for you, but I can't grant that request. You're my man but I can't do that. Tell you what I will do, I'll just let my goodness pass before you. I'll proclaim before you my name. I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious and I'll show mercy on whom I'll show mercy. But I can't show you my face, for man shall not see me and live."

God's glory is too much for us to handle. And so when we speak of the ascribed glory of God, we're not making God greater. We're just recognizing His inherent glory and giving credit where credit is due. You ascribe glory to God, you don't make God greater than He already is. We just recognize and respond to who God is and what God has done for us through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. This glory that is too much for us. John says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." So this ascribed glory is what Paul calls for in this doxology, because all things are from God, and through God, and to God, to him belongs the glory. May you leave this conference singing with the psalmist, Psalm 115:1, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name, give glory because of your steadfast love and your faithfulness."

Throughout this conference, may you obey the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So then whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God." May the heart of all that you do together share the song of Revelation 4:11, "Worthy are You our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for You created all things and by your will they existed were created." Well, from him through him and to him are all things and to him be the glory forever.

One more word, amen. I don't want to be a part of a church, where it's not okay to shout out, "Amen." That's not a cultural thing, that's a biblical thing. That's how the Jews responded to God talk. They didn't clap, they didn't really clap. We clap for performers at a show who did nothing but take your money for the show. But when Israel in worship heard God talk, they would open their mouths and reply, "Amen." It is true; so be it. Thank God the text doesn't say that "from him and through him and to him be all things to him be glory forever, maybe." Thank God it doesn't say, "maybe, we hope so. Let's pray about it. Let's see how things turn out" It says He deserves the glory, Amen.

He knows what we don't know. Amen. He's in control of all situations. Amen. Down at the cross where my Savior died, down where for cleansing from sin I cry, there to my heart was the blood applied, glory to His name. I am so wondrously saved from sin. Jesus so sweetly abides within. There at the cross where he took me in, glory to his name. Oh, precious fountain that saves from sin. I am so glad I have entered in, there Jesus saved me and he keeps me clean, glory to his name. Come to this fountain so rich and sweet. Cast thy poor soul at the Savior's feet. Plunge in today and be made complete. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Sovereign Grace Churches: Pastors Conference 2019