It is a great joy to be here with you this morning and have the privilege of opening the Word of God to this community of faith that I love so very much. Dr. Mohler, thank you for your kind invitation, and Dr. Akin, you know, I just… it occurred to me as I was thinking I was going to thank both of you that I did this 25 years ago to Dr. Mohler and to Dr. Akin, and I love them both. I do, and Dr. Mohler, and Mary, you as well. We just are so grateful to be a part of the family of Southern Seminary. Twenty-five years coming up in June that we will have lived here and served here, and all I can say is God was incredibly kind to bring me to this place. At the time He did, to be able to witness what has taken place here and be a part of it, a little part of it along the way. What a privilege. Well, let's pray together as we begin this morning. Father, we do bow our hearts and our heads together and do confess to you that we much need your word and your spirit to be at work this morning. We pray, Lord, that the truths we look at would both be truths that we understand better in our minds, that we see more clearly and grasp more deeply, and that Your Spirit would work to inflame those truths in our hearts, that we would be changed and live more to Your glory. To this end, we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is Fearing the God of Awesome Greatness and Abundant Goodness. Fearing the God of awesome greatness and abundant goodness, and we'll be looking at Psalm 33 in just a few moments. Fear is a reality that most Christians face regularly, and in these past years, for many, even more forcefully. Sometimes fear can be so strong, so relentless, that it nearly captivates and paralyzes even committed Christians. fear of the unknown future, fear of unknown finances, fear of difficult relationships, of unwanted and unpredictable health problems, fear of carrying out one's responsibilities when one feels inadequate or unprepared, fear of violence and natural disasters, fear of cultural developments hostile to our deepest Christian convictions, and so many more. For most people, including most Christians, even deeply committed Christians, fear at some level is inescapable. Yet, there is hope. One of the great ironies of the Christian faith and one of the most important truths that we can ever embrace as believers is this. Fear can indeed be overcome, but it can only be overcome through fear. Now more precisely, fear of this world in any manifestation, any form, can only be overcome through fear of God. As we grow in the fear of the Lord, fear of this world and fear in this world diminishes. Fear God and fear nothing else. One of my favorite lines in all of hymnody is the second verse of John Newton's great hymn, Amazing Grace. "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved." There it is. Grace that teaches us to fear God is the same grace that delivers us from our fears of the world. As we grow in the fear of the Lord, fear of this world diminishes. Well, we're going to be looking this morning at Psalm 33, and I want to make just a few comments about the Psalm before we dive into it together. So just follow along with me, just a few points of introduction. First of all, Psalm 33 in our Psalter is one of four Psalms in the first book of Psalms, which is Psalms 1 to 41, that does not have a superscription that says a Psalm of David. Psalm 1, Psalm 2, Psalm 10, and Psalm 33 lack the superscription. But most people believe that Psalm 33 is a Psalm of David because it continues right out of Psalm 32, or at least it appears so by the themes that are there. If you have your Bibles open to Psalm 33, look back one verse at the end of Psalm 32, verse Listen to these words. This is from the New American Standard translation. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones, and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. Now, verse 1 of Psalm 33, sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones. Praise is becoming to the upright. So it appears that David is moving from his confession of sin to reestablishing his trust and hope in God, his fear of the Lord. as one who has now come back to the Lord after his sin has been confessed. So I think Psalm 33 likely is a psalm of David. It is a psalm of praise, calling for God's people to praise Him, give thanks to Him, sing to Him with joy in light of His awesome greatness and His abundant goodness that we'll talk more about in a few moments here. There are five imperatives in the opening three verses. It's just remarkable. Five imperatives calling us to give praise to God, followed then by three features of who God is and what He does that are focused on in verses 4 and 5. Look at the opening verses with me and notice the five imperatives. Sing for joy in the Lord, imperative. Oh, you righteous ones, praise is becoming to the upright. Give thanks to the Lord, imperative, with a lyre. Sing praises to Him, imperative, with a harp of 10 strings. Sing to Him a new song, imperative. Play skillfully with a shout of joy, imperative. So you have these imperatives of giving thanks and singing and praising God for what? Verses 4 and 5. For Notice, the word of the Lord is upright. All of his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. I would characterize the rest of that as the character of God. The words of God, the work of God, and the character of God are the basis by which the psalmist commands us. He implores us to give praise to God, give thanks to Him, to sing to Him a new song because of His great works and words and character that is upright, faithful, steadfast, loving toward His people. So the opening of the psalm really sets the stage for the rest of the psalm in terms of what we should look for. We should look for the works of God. We should look for the words of God. We should look for the character of God as we move through this. And we see as we move through the rest of the psalm that these two aspects of the fear of the Lord bring together the ways in which God's words and work are established by His impeccable character. So following the psalm's introduction, verses 1 to 5, the psalm now focuses on two aspects of the fear of God, both of which are meant to elicit reverence for and hope in God that overcomes any misplaced and ungodly respect for or hope in the things in this world. Many years ago, I did a study. I mean, I just think back of those days. It was so fun. It was so glorious. A study of every usage of fear of God in the Bible, and made a list of them, and looked at them carefully in context. And as I did that, I noticed that in places where you could tell what fear of the Lord meant in the context, there were two main ways, two predominant meanings of the fear of the Lord that were stated over and over again in the fear of the Lord passages. One of each of them is in this text in Psalm 33. It's just beautiful because we have a sample, as it were, of both of these prominent meanings of fear of the Lord in this passage. So, as we move through the Psalm, we'll notice fear of the Lord and those statements of the fear of God actually fit the context in which each of those is found. So, if growing in the fear of God enables us to conquer fear of this world, what does it mean to fear the Lord? Well, here are the answers we receive from Psalm 33. First of all, from verses 6 to 12, the first half, as it were, of the Psalm, the fear of the Lord means first, trembling before the God of awesome greatness. Trembling before the God of awesome greatness. Read with me, if you would, please. Follow along, verses 6 to 12 of Psalm 33. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth, all of their host. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps in the storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him, for He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast." The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance. Did you notice the first instance of fear of the Lord comes in verse 8? Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. So here fearing God is a trembling sense of awe and wonder, of amazement and astonishment before God's unmatched power, wisdom, majesty, righteousness, and authority over all of the earth. As you look at verses 6 to 12, you notice that the main focus is upon God as the creator and the governor of all of creation. And indeed, this is why He should be feared, because He is over all. I'd like to walk us through three things through this section of Psalm 33. First of all, the context of these verses as a whole. Secondly, the content of fear of the Lord in verse 8 itself. And then what I like to call a selection of canonical witness of other passages that help us understand that indeed this is a prominent teaching from other places in the Bible as well. So context, content, and canonical witness. First of all, the context. Well, largely, this is God's role over creation, and it begins in verse 6 with this statement, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. By the breath of His mouth, all of their host. Now, no doubt, this is taking us back to Genesis 1, where God spoke and brought into existence the universe that was created. And it may be that that is all that the psalmist is indicating here, or all that the intended meaning of this text contains. But I suspect it's more than that. Now, I can't prove this, but I do think, because the Holy Spirit inspires along with the human author writing, that there are times when there can be meaning that is put into that text by the work of the Spirit that perhaps the human author may not be aware of. And I think that may be the case here because of the words that are used by the word of the Lord, by the breath of His mouth. The words dabar and ruach in Hebrew are words that have a particular significance. And so you realize that that while the psalmist is looking back to Genesis 1, it may also be the case that there's a reflection of what John later would see in John 1 as he looked back at Genesis 1. So think with me about John 1 for just a moment. In the beginning was the Word. Now, notice in John's Gospel, after the prologue, he's always the Son. We heard a sermon on Tuesday, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, right? Why in the prologue is the Son spoken of as the Word? And I think it's because John is thinking of Genesis 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him. And apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. So indeed, He is the Creator, but He's the Creator as the Word spoken. So how did God create in Genesis 1? Then God said. Then God said. Then God said. So I think John is connecting Jesus, the one we know of as Jesus, that is the eternal Son of the Father called Word here, with the creation that takes place as the agent of the Father in bringing about creation, confirmed by a number of other New Testament texts. So, may it be the case that Dabar there, by the Word of the Lord, the heavens are made, is actually a reference to the Son? Very well could be. And then Ruach, likewise, we know from Genesis 1 verse 2, the Spirit is present, the Spirit is named. you know, in Genesis 1, as being present and hovering over the waters. And so, indeed, this may be a Trinitarian statement of creation, the Father creating through the Son and the Spirit in Psalm 33.6. The minimal meeting may be all there is. You know, reference back to Genesis 1, God created as He spoke. And that, of course, would be confirmed in one sense in verse 9, as we come to that in a few moments, for He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. But I suspect given the words that are there in verse 6 of Debar and Ruach, that it may have that larger meaning. Now, going on to verse 7, this is fascinating. Verse 7, he says, you know, if you're going to pick out something about creation to extol God for, you might think you would do what the psalmist does in Psalm 8, when I consider the heavens the works of your hands, the moon and the stars that you have ordained. But here, it's a different aspect of creation. Look at verse 7. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps in the storehouses." What would that be referring to? I think it's a reference to days two and three of the creation week, where God separates. He puts this expanse between the waters above and the waters below. And then day three, He separates the waters below so that the dry land appears and plants can come, right? So, I think this is what the psalmist is referring to. So, as I was studying this, I asked myself this question, what is the big deal about separating the waters above from the waters below? And I think in both cases, they actually are quite remarkable when you think of them. The waters below, where does God go with Job to humble Job in chapter 40 of the book of Job to help him understand that he cannot fathom the ways of God? What does he talk about? the great sea creatures that have been made by God, how they move, who they are, what they do, the seas and the establishing of the boundaries. This is a remarkable feat, a remarkable work of God that He has done. The seas of our world testify to the greatness, the awesome power and wisdom of God. But then there's also the waters above. Notice verse 7, he lays up the deeps in storehouses. So I take it, this is a reference to the waters above the expanse, which we would think of in the clouds. So, this question came to my mind, how much water is up there in the clouds? And I couldn't find any commentary that answered that question for me, so I went to a very reliable source, Google. And I put the question in, how much water comes down in rain, right? And here's what I found out. I hope you're as amazed at this as I am. For every one acre of land and one inch of rain that falls, one acre, one inch, 27,000 gallons of water. Incredible. Now, a gallon weighs roughly eight pounds. These are conservative figures, by the way. Roughly eight pounds. So if you do the math, you're talking about for every one inch of rain, one acre of land, 200,000 pounds of water. That's 100 tons of water that used to be up there in the clouds, right? Not dumping all at one time, but, you know, gradually droplets as they go across the landscape. Now, just imagine how much water is up there. Think of these storms that have come through our country in recent weeks, how much water has dropped constantly. Every one acre, one inch, 27,000 gallons of water, 100 tons of weight held up there moving across the skies. And I think gravity is still in effect. Isn't that amazing? So indeed, you just look at this and go, wow, God, you are incredible. You are amazing. How did you design this to function in that way? Now, I'm going to skip verse 8 and we'll move on. Verse 9 simply does restate again the summary statement of God as Creator. Verse 9, for He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. So indeed, the authority of the Lord, the certainty of the works of God, that exactly what He wants done is done when He commands it to be done. This is God. And now, in contrast, are the nations of the world. We move on to verses 10 and 11. We move here from creation to providence, God's providential governance over this world that He had made. And He begins with the nations of the world and their ability to command and bring forth what they want. Oh my, it's not a pretty picture, is it? Verse 10, the Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the plans of peoples. What a difference with God, isn't it? Now, look at God in contrast, verse 11, but in contrast, the counsel of the Lord stands forever. The plans of His heart from generation to generation. So indeed, blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh, the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance. So God only creates this world, and the psalmist picks out certain features to help us be amazed at the wisdom of God and the power of God to bring this to pass. His authority in commanding it to take place, and then His rulership over all of it. So what God commands, not only of creation, but of all that takes place in human history, is completely in His control. and He never fails to bring about what He has planned. It always succeeds. What an amazing God He is. Okay, now, the content of fear the Lord in verse 8. Look with me. Here it is, right in the middle of this section, and it really does provide kind of the frame, the main theme for this section of the Psalm. Verse 8, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. Now, here's a place where we can say we know what the fear of the Lord means, because of the synonymous parallelism that is here. Isn't that helpful? Oh, it's just so nice to be able to look at this and go, yeah, I get it. I know what this fear of the Lord means here. Because look, let all the earth is parallel to let all the inhabitants of the world, right? Those two are parallel. And then, let all the earth fear the Lord is parallel to Let all the inhabitants of the earth, of the world, stand in awe of Him." So here is what it means to fear the Lord, to stand in awe of God. I think this is the kind of awe in which you tremble before Him. You know, there is that statement in Psalm 2, rejoicing with trembling. because you realize this greatness so far surpasses anything we know in human experience. This authority so far surpasses anything that we have ever met at this level. This is God, and we tremble before Him in awesome amazement at His greatness. Now, just a bit of canonical witness, just a few passages. Psalm 96, verses 4 to 6. Psalm 96, 4-6, "'For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods, for the gods of the people are idols. But the Lord made the heavens.'" Sound familiar? So indeed, creation, splendor, and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Psalm 90 verse 11 provides another aspect of the fear of God that's in this category of fearing the awesome greatness of God because it includes also sometimes in some texts the anger of God, the judgment of God that comes. So Psalm 90 verse 11, who understands the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you? trembling before Him because of His awesome greatness included in judgment. And perhaps the most startling example of that stronger category of the strength and the power of God in judgment is this one in Exodus 14. This is the context here, is the children of Israel have been brought through the Red Sea on dry ground. They're on the other side. The Egyptians now can see the pathway to pursue the Israelites, and they take it. The Egyptian army is in the midst of the Red Sea, and God is causing their chariots to totter and shake. Excuse me. And at one point, he says to Moses, Moses, raise your staff. And as he does that, the waters come back over and kill the entire Egyptian army that is pursuing them. We pick up here at Exodus 14 verses 30 and 31. that end the chapter, and here's what we read. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses. So indeed, fearing the God of awesome greatness is a trembling sense of His majesty and power, His authority over all, and trembling before Him. Secondly, fear of the God, fear of the Lord means a second thing in Psalm 33, and it's a beautiful couplet with the first. They don't contradict each other. They beautifully cohere. The second meaning of the fear of the Lord is this, trusting the God of abundant goodness. Trusting the God of abundant goodness. So look with me, if you would please, at verses 13 to 22. 13 to 22, The Lord looks down from heaven. He sees all the sons of men. From his dwelling place, he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. He who fashions their hearts and understands all of their works. The king is not saved by a mighty army. A warrior is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a false hope for victory, nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope for his steadfast love." to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help. He is our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him because we trust in His holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us according as we have hoped in you." So indeed, here we have a different sense of the fear of the Lord. You see it there in verse 18. Right? Look at verse 18 with me. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His steadfast love. So here, fearing God is a confident and expectant trust that God will provide, protect, sustain, demonstrate His abundant goodness toward those who look to Him alone for their deepest needs and longings. So while God is awesome in His greatness, such that we tremble before Him, His incomparable power and wisdom and righteousness and authority, He also is abundant in lavish love and kindness, such that we trust Him with our very lives and all of our needs, both in this life now and for all the rest of eternity. We're in His hands, and that is so good. So, consider now, again, the three things, the context, content, and a bit of canonical witness in this portion of the psalm. First of all, the context. Well, it's very clear in terms of the context, it largely is focusing on God's universal presence with and over all of mankind, and then in particular his special manifest, even covenantally committed presence with and for his own people. So the broader presence of God, the universal presence, omnipresence of God, and then his special covenantal presence, his manifest presence in caring for his own people. So it begins with the broader category in verses 13 to 17. Look with me again. The Lord looks from heaven, and He sees all the sons of men. From His dwelling place, He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth." You get the point, don't you? He doesn't miss a thing. He sees it all. And this actually is good news and bad news, isn't it? The good news is, My goodness, God is not blinded by things that are taking place. He's never taken aback. He's never surprised. He knows it all. And for a believer, that can be enormously comforting, but that will really bring us to the next section of the psalm in a moment here. But for an unbeliever, you realize, or for any of us in our sin, we realize the Lord sees that too. He understands it all. He sees it all. There's nothing that escapes His notice. So the Lord looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. Verse 15, he who fashions the hearts of them all, he who understands all of their works, I dare say you do not understand you the way the Lord understands you. Amen? So we look to Him who gets it, who understands how we're made, who understands how we work, who understands how we malfunction. We look to Him who is able to instruct us and help us because He understands it all. And then verses 16 and 17, the king is not saved by a mighty army. The warrior is not delivered by great strength. The horse is a false hope for victory, nor does it deliver anyone from its great strength. So, because God is so great, he's over all of the earth, why do you look to little finite things out there? Why do you look to resources that can ultimately not deliver you, ultimately cannot help you, cannot sustain you? Why do you go there? Why do you do that, says the Lord? when here I am over all of the earth available for those who look to me. Now, that theme becomes far more intimate, far more precious in the verses that follow, verses 18 to 22. So again, I'll come back to verse 18, but I'll read it now, but we'll come back to it. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His steadfast love, to deliver their soul from death. Did David ever need that to happen in his life? To deliver his soul from death? Oh, yes. To keep him alive in famine, times when they were out of food. He's thinking of these things, no doubt. Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help. He is our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him because we trust in His holy name. So let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us according as we have hoped in you. So notice that the emphasis here is not the universal omnipresence of God, but His particular watchfulness, His gaze upon His own people. You see this in verse 18, don't you? Look again at verse 18. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on everyone No. The eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. What does it mean to fear the Lord? Keep reading. On those who hope or wait for, look for, trust in, anticipate His steadfast love. That's what it is. The watchful gaze of God, that's what he has in mind here. Not merely the omnipresence of God that he sees everything, it's the attentiveness, the watchfulness, the care, the concern, the commitment to act on behalf of those who fear Him, those who hope for His steadfast love. Now, I'm going to use an illustration here that I'll just admit right up front is a very feeble illustration, because I'm a feeble dad and make lots of mistakes, but here it is. I remember when Rachel, who's sitting here, and her older daughter Bethany were very little and we would go to the playground. And you know, those monkey bars, they were quite formidable for these tiny little girls, climbing the stairs up to the top of that tall slide. Yikes. You know, so I was there, and I was, think verses 13 and 14, I was there with all of the kids in the playground, right? I saw them all. But, verse 18, my eye was on my two, my two girls. And Jodi can testify. She's here. You can protest this later if you want, honey, but I think you'll remember this. There have been times in those years when I got there just in time to scoop and catch before they hit the ground, right? The eye of this dad was on my two girls. Now, it's just a feeble illustration because I'm a feeble dad. Who is making this promise here? Yahweh, the creator of the universe, the one with indomitable power, the one who is able to do anything that He chooses to do, the one with unfailing love for His own people. You realize what this is promising to the people of God. The eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who look for His, trust in His, wait for His steadfast love. I think often we make a terrible mistake as Christians when we face some new difficulty or new problem. Our minds kind of immediately go horizontal. We start thinking, who can help me with this? Maybe mom and dad can pitch in a few bucks to help, or maybe my good friend can give me some advice here. And it's not that those things are wrong, but it's that we go there first. Why do we do that? When God is saying, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear me, on those who hope in my loving kindness. Look again at verses 20 and 21. Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help. He is our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him because we trust in His holy name. You get it. God wants us to go to Him. Now, He may use horizontal means to bring about the fulfillment of His pledge to care for us, to sustain us, to provide for us. He may use that and let Him do so as He chooses. But let us be people who learn, who develop a reflex in the midst of problems that come, a reflex to go vertical, right? Vertical. to go to the Lord with these things that take place. So indeed the content of the fear of the Lord here then is this wonderful promise of God's watchfulness, His care for those who look to Him, wait upon Him, trust in Him, hope in Him for His steadfast love. He is our only ultimate hope. Put your hope in the Lord. Now, just a little bit of canonical witness to wrap this up. Psalm 31, 19. Psalm 31, 19, how great is your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you. which you have wrought for those who take refuge in you." Here's another place where you can see what fear of the Lord means because the fearing God is taking refuge in him, right? That's where you go for refuge. That's where you go for safety. That's where you go to have your needs met. Psalm 34, verses 8 to 10. Psalm 34, verses 8 to 10. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints. For to those who fear Him, there is no want. I did not misread that. That's exactly what it says. Those who fear Him, there is no want. The young lions lack and suffer hunger. The mightiest creatures in the forest, they can lack things, but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing." Now, I mean, I think we have to say this in the day in which we live with health and wealth teaching all around us. Do not interpret this to mean anything I want, God promises to give me. You know, He'll give me health and wealth and whatever else might be the case. You have to interpret good for you as God knows good for you. right, as God knows it. And he knows there are times when the good that he brings to us comes through suffering and not apart from it. Goodness, if this was true for Jesus, don't you think it's true for us as well? Hebrews 5, 8, and 9, although he was a son, get the significance of that opening statement. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things that he suffered, and having been made mature, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation. Indeed, don't interpret good by your own wants, but rather good as God knows it, and he will not fail to give all the good that he knows is best for you as you look to him." One more verse, Psalm 130 verses 3 and 4, If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be loved." Well, certainly that's true, but that's not what it says. That you may be feared. this trembling and trusting, trembling and trusting because of God's awesome greatness and abundant goodness. Well, just a few points of application as we bring this to a close. First, Fear of God conquers fear of this world. How? That's how I began the sermon, right? Fear of God conquers fear of this world. How? Because God is greater than any and all in the world, and He is unfailingly good to those who look to Him alone for their well-being. You see it, how both of these are so critical? If He was good without power, well, good luck with that. If He was powerful but He wasn't good, yikes. But he's both, he's both. He has this awesome, nobody can match his power. No one can stand against him. And he is on your side as you fear him. And his love for you is unmatched by anything you can fathom. He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not freely give us all things? So indeed, This is how fear in this world is overcome. You know you're on the side of the one who is stronger and the one who loves perfectly. Secondly, fearing the God of awesome greatness promotes humility that is deep and genuine and pervasive. You never forget how great God is. Greatness is His, not ours. When will we learn this and quit taking to ourselves accolades, compliments, accomplishments that we think boost up our egos and our importance, when all is by the grace of God? I labored more than all of them, said Paul. 1 Corinthians 15.10, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Amen? Amen. So, indeed, fear of the God of awesome greatness promotes humility that is deep and genuine, pervasive. Fearing the God of abundant goodness, third, promotes a joyous acceptance of hardships, of hopefulness, knowing that God will not fail to bring about what is best as long as we keep our gaze on Him, His gaze will be upon us. Remember verse 22, let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us according as we have hoped in you. And then finally, we can only know this God of awesome greatness and abundant goodness through Christ. This is the avenue, the one way. Jesus said it himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. You want to know this God. Why would you not want to know this God? Well, the pathway is through trusting in Christ, turning from your sin, and putting all of your hope in what Christ has done on your behalf, and entering into life with this awesomely great, abundantly good God. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the privilege this morning of looking at things that are just mind-boggling. a glorious, wondrous. And we pray, Father, that you would grant us eyes to see, ears to hear, minds to understand, hearts to embrace, what you want us to see of yourself, Lord, for your glory and for our good. We long for that to happen. Go with us as we go from here, and may we represent you well. We thank you for the great and good God that you are. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.