First Chronicles chapter number 16, we'll begin reading in this one verse, verse number 25, and then we'll go to Job chapter 36. First Chronicles 16, verse 25. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. He also is to be feared above all gods. Great is the Lord. Job chapter 36, verse number 26. Job 36, 26. Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out. Behold, God is great. Deuteronomy chapter number 10 and verse number 17. Deuteronomy 10, verse 17. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward, a great God. I wanna start preaching this morning on this simple thing, God is great. God is great. There was a preacher preached a message, and after the message was concluded and he went home, he had a seven-year-old son, and the young man came up to him and said, Dad, what is God like? What a question. What is God like? Well, I can say on the authority of the scripture that God is great. Amen. The loftiest thought that any mind could ever entertain is God, God in His person. It's the most profound vocabulary word of any dialect, the word God. We take it for granted often, we use it frequently, but the word God is an amazing word, amen. The songwriter penned it well. How can my tongue describe him? And so we want to try to talk about God. And this morning I want to talk about God and his sovereignty for this little while this morning. Our God is sovereign. I want you to think about that. And a lot of men have, I guess, I guess frustrated the sovereignty of God, tried to make it say something that it does not say. But when we think of God as sovereign, his personality, we know that he is simply, amen, he is just simply all-knowing, he is omnipotent, he is omniscient, amen, he is just all-knowing, he is God. and he is great. His works are great. The Bible said in Deuteronomy 3 in verse 24, O Lord God, thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand. For what God is there in heaven or in earth that can do according to thy works and according to thy might? What are you saying, preacher? I'm saying God is great. God's works are great. God's ways are great. They're always, amen, performed in holiness, something that this generation has downplayed, the holiness of God. Isaiah 57, 15 says, for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name Peter split it this way because it is written, be ye holy for I am holy. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works. Thy way O God is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our God? And so not only is his works great, His ways are great because everything about God and what God does revolves around holiness. Purity. Amen. Every time you read the word sanctification or sanctify yourselves and consecrate, He connects those words to His holiness. Sanctify yourselves because I am holy. And we understand that, amen. He is great in his ways. His worship is great. I thought about when Nehemiah was building the wall around Jerusalem and in chapter number eight of the book of Nehemiah, the scribe Ezra rose up above all the people inside of all of them and he opened He opened up the Word of God and he began to read it. And Ezra blessed the Lord and he said, bless the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, amen, amen, with lifting up of their hands. They bowed their heads and they worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. I'm telling you, he is a great God, amen. His worship is great. He deserves to be worshiped. He deserves to be adored this morning simply because he is great. His words are great. The psalmist said, I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth greats full. So what are you saying, preacher? I'm saying God is great. And we need, amen, he's not the man upstairs as some people try, amen, to catalog him as. He's not, amen, just someone that's our buddy. He is the God of heaven. He is the great God of the universe. And there needs to be a revival of who God is, the sovereign God of heaven in the minds of our children, in the minds of this generation. I submitted to you this morning that God is great. Besides him, there is none else, amen. His existence is great. Amen. Man has tried to prove and disprove the existence of God for centuries. Biologists and psychiatrists and scientists and everyone in a professional realm have tried their best, amen, to do away with the existence of God. Yet God in his book, the book that we have before us that God has authored, God in his book makes no attempt to prove his own existence. Not a verse in the Bible where God tries to argue with man about the fact that he exists. He just declares it in the beginning, God. He just says, amen, I'm here. I've always been here, amen. So it's senseless and a waste of time, amen, for one to exempt his efforts to try to prove he who already is, he is God. His existence is great, amen. Thank God before there was ever anything, there was God. His essence is great. Everything about his purpose, his plan, everything that God does, he does it in a great manner. His eternality is great. He is the great I am. There has never been a time when he did not exist. No matter where you travel in time, no matter where you find yourself in the scope of man's existence, he is always the great I am. He is the ever-present one. And thank God His eternality is great. So when you talk about theology and that's what, amen, the doctrine of God is about, it's vast. There's no possible way a man could explain the image and the personality and the attributes of God in a lifetime by the scripture. and all that he done. But let me just try to kind of just hit the highlights of the things that I think are great about God this morning for the sake of our young people today, that they would understand that when they walk out of this building, the God that has saved him, the God that has put them in the house of God is a great God. There is none like him. There is no one that can compare to him. But about this, God is great in His government. The Bible said the Lord in Psalms 95 verse three, for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. God is great in his government. He is the ruler of all things. Now I realize that the devil is the prince and the power and the ruler of the darkness, but I'm telling you the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. God, amen, governs the world. He governs His people. He governs the saints of God. This morning, everything in the order of our universe is set in order and kept that way by the Word of His power. And this morning, God is great in His government. We are able to survive just a few miles. If this thing got out of kilter, amen, and we got closer to the sun just a few miles, we would burn up like a cinder. If we were just a few miles away from the sun, amen, we would freeze to death in a moment of time. But God keeps it all in place. God has it all ordered. Why is that? Because he's a great governor. It's never varied. It's always been in place because God is on the throne and God is the ruler. Hallelujah. God is great in his government. God's great in his goodness. Very simple. Amen. In Psalms 145 in verse number seven, the Bible said, they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness. God is great. God is great in his goodness. No, it's amazing the goodness of God. It's amazing. The Lord, the Bible says is good to all. Psalms 145 in verse nine, the Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works. You see, everyone is a recipient of God's goodness this morning. Now I'll say something about his mercy, amen, and his long suffering in just a moment, but everyone is not a recipient of the mercies of God. You see, the mercies of God are regulated by the will of man. If you're going to experience the grace and the mercy of God, you have to exercise your will to experience that. But the goodness of God, oh, it rains on the just and the unjust. Amen, God. Amen, the drunkard this morning woke up. He woke up in a world where the sun was shining. Amen, where daylight, amen, overcome darkness. That was all the goodness of God. Amen, the harlot on the street, she woke up this morning to the same world the saints of God woke up to. Amen, to exist in physically. Why is that? Because God is good. God is good to all. His goodness is great. Good for good, evil for evil, that's natural. Good for good, evil for evil, that's just a natural thing. But evil for good, that's devilish. Wouldn't you agree? But good for evil, that's divine. Amen. Because we were separated from God. Without hope in the world, lost on our way to hell, wicked in our mind, separated from the things of God. But God, in the midst of our evil ways, showed goodness to man that was wicked and evil. Oh, you see, amen. Good for evil is divine. God's goodness was initiated in creation. God saw that it was good. You've read it. He creates. God said, saw that that was good. His goodness is manifested, first of all, when he creates the world that you and I live in. He saw that it was good. He saw that it was good. He saw that it was good. And in the closing verses of the acts of God's powerful creation of the world, the Bible said God stood back and he saw that it was very good. And he laid that goodness in the lap of everybody in the building today. The fact that God's goodness, amen, is manifested to you and I this morning. And then, oh, that man would praise the Lord. Psalms 107 verse eight, he said, oh, that man would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. You know what it says in verse 15? It says, oh, that man, would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. You know what it says in verse 21? It says, oh, that man would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. You know what it says in verse 31? Oh, that man would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. God is great. God is great. God is great in his goodness. It's the goodness of God that led you to repentance. I don't know what you heard, I don't know what story you heard, or what gospel track you read, or what witness brought you to a place of repentance and faith, but it's the goodness of God that leads a man to genuine repentance, where a man would give his heart and his life to the Lord Jesus and be transformed by the grace of God. You see, the goodness of God, it's great this morning. So you young people, when you leave this building today, you take out of this message that God is just simply great. No matter where you put him, no matter how you define him, no matter what attribute of God you emphasize, no matter what you think about God in all manners of life and existence, you just remember this, that God is great! There is none like Him. God is great. God's great in His government. Everything is held in place by the sovereign hand of a holy and a righteous God. God is great in His goodness. God is good to all men. Amen. Everybody in the world, God expresses his goodness, even to those that do not believe him, even to those that claim he does not exist. God is good and his goodness is great. So God's government is great. God's goodness is great. but God is great in his grace. Amen. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, 10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace, which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me. You see, God is great in his grace. The songwriter put it this way. Grace tis a charming sound, harmonious to the ear. Heaven with echo shall resound, and all the earth shall hear. Saved by grace alone, this is all my plea. Jesus died for all mankind, and Jesus died for me. That's grace and it's great. It's grace, amen, that's great because grace brought the salvation that you and I experience. And if you do not know the Lord this morning in the free pardon of sin, the grace of God that bringeth salvation that has appeared to all men, it is the grace of God, amen. It's the grace of God that brought it. It's the grace of God that bought it. Grace brought it, grace bought it, and grace this morning bestows it to a world that is separated from God, to a world that don't know the Lord. The grace of God reaches out. The extended hand of God's grace reaches out to a world that is separated from the Lord. with a desire that that grace, as the apostle Paul said, would not be bestowed in vain, but they would embrace that love. You see, the grace of God is unmerited and unmeritable favor. In other words, you don't deserve it and you could never, ever do anything to deserve it. It's unmerited and it is unmeritable. It is the unmeritable and unmerited favor, His kindness, the kindness of God, with no cost to the wicked, with no cost to unworthy sinners, yet manifested and bestowed in their life. Grace, the grace of God, the grace of God is great. 1 Peter 5 verse 10 said, But the grace of our God, or the grace of God, let me read it correctly. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. Everything you need about life as a child of God, everything that pertains to life and godliness, everything that you need to live a productive life as a spiritual creature in this world is manifested to you and I by the grace of God. That grace is great. It brought salvation. but it teaches us to deny ungodliness, worldly lust, that we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world. That's the grace of God. The songwriter had it right. It is amazing grace. It is truly amazing this evening. Do you know the Lord? The grace of God that brings salvation has been bestowed to all men. Don't let, never let anyone question the reality of that truth. This morning, that grace, that unmerited and unmeritable favor is an experience that everyone in this building can know and realize that God is great. He is truly great in his grace. So much could be said. The grace of God saves, reaches down in the pit of sinfulness. Amen. Down in the horrible pit of the ungodly and snatches brands from the burning all because God chose a man in his own sovereign wheel of choice to love mankind. That's something that nobody, preachers, been trying to explain that, amen, for 2,000 years, amen, that God would send his son to bleed and die on the cross of Calvary, but that was the grace of God toward you and I. Let me hurry along. God is great in his grace. God's great in his glory. Deuteronomy 5, 24 says, Behold, the Lord our God hath showed us his glory. and his greatness. And we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God doth talk with man and he liveth. Amen. God is great in his glory. No one has ever been able to explain or define that word glory. It is just an honor and a respect, a reverence, and a sacredness that surrounds the character and the existence of God. The only way you see Moses wanted to see the Lord, you remember that story? He said, show me thy face. He wanted to see God's face and God had spoke to Moses as a man speaketh to another man face to face, but Moses had never seen the face of God for Jesus said no man could ever see God and live. yet we'll see him one day face to face. And so Moses wanted to see the face of God, but God had to hide him in the cleft of the rock and cover him, amen, when he walked by. And he just saw his hinder parts when he walked by. And the glory was so present, amen, just in what little bit of God that Moses got to see that day that the people could not stand to even look upon his face. But there's coming a day that we will see Him. We'll see Him as He is. And the way that we will see Him is that we will be like Him. Let me tell you what the Bible calls that. The Bible calls that a glorified body. You see, God is great in His glory and no man can see Him and live. but thank God there is a body. I don't know how it's fashioned. I don't know what it may look like. I have no idea what that body is going to be like. I just know that it's gonna give me the capability, amen, to be able to stand in the presence of a holy and a righteous God and for the first time in my life, amen, as an existing human being, I'll be able to see his glory because I will be glorified. What a wonderful day that will be. God is great in his glory. So great, man cannot fathom it. Man cannot see it. What are you saying, preacher? I'm saying that God is great. God's great in his government. He's still on the throne. No matter what's going on in the world, No matter what's going on in America, no matter what's going on in the state that we live in, or even in your family, God is still on the throne. He has everything under control. God is great in his government. Amen. God is great, thank God, in his goodness. God is great in his grace. I'm just trying to tell you this morning, that God is great. God's great in his glory. Amen, we've got a taste of that on this earth. Amen, God just manifesting his presence in our midst, maybe through a song, through a message, through a testimony, we've sensed the spirit of God real in our midst, working in our lives, and we truly can say that God is truly great in his glory. But lastly, and it's been short, just a survey, of what I feel like God has dealt with our heart about, just to remind our young children and our young families that God is great. Lastly, he's great in his gift. God's great in his gift. Romans chapter five and verse 15, the Bible says, but not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. For by grace are you saved, Paul said in Ephesians 2. For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. You see, it's the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. The gift of God, the gift of God is great. Man, I tell you, it disturbs me when we have lost the reverence of who God is and what God is about in our life. We've let Hollywood and the world around us deplete us mentally and spiritually of who God is and what He's about. But you young men and you young ladies walk out of this building today knowing that God is great. It's great in His gift. I thought about its vision, the vision of the gift. Paul said this, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according, talking about God now, according as he hath chosen in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. You see, the vision of God's gift is great. That's hard to fathom. It's hard to even comprehend. In fact, I think it's pretty much impossible. But God, before the foundation of the world, had a vision for man's salvation that reaches beyond the scope of our thinking. You think about it for a moment. God knowing because he's sovereign that man would sin. God knowing when God put the stipulations in the garden that man would fall. God knowing that Eve would be the seed and that Adam would fall into sin with his eyes wide open. God knows that. Yet before the foundation of the world, God would make a provision that through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in that vision of God, God would make a way for man be restored back into fellowship with God. Boy, I'm gonna tell you something, that's a great gift. The vision of that gift, I know that's beyond all of us this morning to even think about or to be able to, it takes days of meditating on the reality of that truth, but God and his gift, the vision of that gift, before the foundation of the world, God had made a plan so that you and I could be born into the family of God. The vision of that gift is great. The volition of that gift is great. What does that word mean? It just simply means God's will. God acted toward our need. The volition of God's will is great for God. You know the verse, for God so loved the world. I don't understand that word so. I can't define the magnitude of it. I can't figure out the scope of that word S-O. Yeah, the Bible said God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And what I'm trying to say to you today, that the volition of God is great in his gift. God willingly gave. And all he asks you to do to experience that gift is willingly give him your heart. But you have a will. You exercise that will to receive the gift or to reject the gift. But today, man, God loves you no matter whether you would receive it or reject it. In His volition, He acted with His will to give us His Son to die on the cross for the sins of mankind. It's amazing, isn't it? You see, God's gift is great in its vision. I can't fathom it. Maybe I'm just out of bounds with my own ability this morning. But the vision of that gift, it's way beyond me, the fact that God, knowing who I would be, knowing what I would be, knowing my thoughts, knowing my failures, would still show mercy if I exercise my will to the gospel. And by that, amen, before the foundation of the world, he made that provision through his son. You see, the vision of that gift is great. And then God willingly gave, when the fullness, there come a time, 4,000 years from Adam, amen, through the days of the law and the prophets and the judges, all that goes on for that 4,000 year period. Then 400 silent years between Malachi and the book of Matthew with no open vision, no word from God. And then all of a sudden, when the fullness of time came to pass, God sent forth his son made of a woman, and made under the law to redeem them that were under the law. And God made a choice, listen to me, God made a choice before the foundation of the world that that day, amen, we celebrate it on December the 25th, but we have no idea the day or the month that Jesus Christ was born or what time of the year, but there was a select sovereign timeframe in the mind of God that he chose, amen, for his son to come to this world and give his life a ransom for the souls of men. Not only is that vision great, that volition great, his will, but that gift is great in that it's vicarious. He became man to substitute our debt. You see, nobody in this building can pay the debt that we owe. Amen. The only debt that you and I, listen to me, we could stand up and say we owe the Lord, and I know there's a song, I owe it all to Jesus, and I understand the concept of the song, and I'm not being critical of the song this morning. But you could stand up and say, well, you know, I owe the Lord a lot, but you don't owe the Lord nothing. He paid the debt. And he paid the debt, amen, and he's not asking you to pay him anything back. Paul said, I'm a debtor, but he wasn't a debtor to God. He was a debtor to those that didn't know God. Amen? Yet we understand that God took our place. You know these verses, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And the Word, the Word, God, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Without controversy, Paul said, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received. up into glory. You see, the vicarious aspect of the gift that God gave is great in that he himself took your place and he took my place. That's an aspect of the goodness of God and the grace of God all wrapped up in mercy that you and I, we cannot ever in any way, shape, or form I guess comprehend what God done when he just simply stepped out of the portals of glory and manifest himself in the flesh so that he could be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He could walk among men. He would come into his own and his own received him not. But he came here that he might offer the gift of eternal life to you and I this morning. vicarious death of Christ is that he died in our place. Do you understand that? Do you understand the value of the fact that God himself came to this earth, the mystery of godliness came to die for you and I? What are you saying? I'm just trying to get us to understand. And this is just a few highlights of the attributes of God just to get you to understand this morning that simply God is great. I'm gonna tell you something, if we had a revival of the greatness of God in our mind, in our families, in our churches, we'd have a revival. God is great. This gift This gift, it was great in its vision, great in its volition, great in the fact that it was vicarious. Lastly, it's great in its victory. But thanks be to God, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. You know, there's a lot of things that people try to emphasize and put at the forefront of salvation. Heaven, hell maybe. Jesus never asked anybody that I recollect in the Bible if they wanted to go to heaven. But that's what most people ask individuals when they're witnessing to them. Wouldn't you like to go to heaven when you die? Jesus never asked that. I don't recollect that he ever said anything about trying to avoid hell. Outside of, remember, offend thee, cut it off, better for thee, to enter into life. But Jesus, in his message, is always dealing with a subject that this generation of Christianity wants to avoid. And that's dealing with sin. You see, the influence and the primary subject of the gospel is Jesus saves from sin. Thank God for heaven. Thank God for the fact that saved people don't have to go to hell. Thank God for that. But you see, salvation from the Bible, not the world, not the social gospel that's being promoted by the world. No, it's the gospel message that delivers from the power and the destructive aspects of sin, which I'm afraid this generation have gotten so familiar with and wrapped up in so much pleasure thereby that they know nothing about living out from under the dominion of sin. and the course of this world, and the direction of wickedness. But I want to tell you something about this gift. This gift that God gave, that is great, because God's great. This gift that is given, that is great, boys, delivers from the power of sin. Now we all fail the Lord. I'm not preaching a sinless perfection gospel. I'm preaching a gospel that keeps us out from the dominion of sin. We don't have to go the course of this world. We don't have to live our life, amen, under the dominion of sin. We are given precious promises in the word of God that if we'll simply be responsible to our faith, that God has enabled us to believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus, that through that adding to our faith and nurturing our faith and being responsible to our faith, the Bible said that we don't have to fall, we don't have to fail. Is anybody listening? We don't have to fall, we don't have to fail. That's the power of this gift. You see, you have the life of Christ living in you when you give your heart to the Lord. And the life of Christ is manifested by the great gift that God has given, and that makes him great. So let me ask you a question. God is great. How great is God to you? Is God supreme above all? Everything else? Is God first place in your life? Has God had the place of priority in your life as an individual? That's the emphasis, that's what I'm trying to bring about this morning in my feeble efforts. Is God great to you? His government is great. I promise you, when God begins to govern your life, that's the greatest world you'll ever experience. I have no complaints. I've been saved for 40-some years. I've been pastor in this church for 38 years, and I promise you, When I've made a point to let God lead and guide my life, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. And I rejoice, amen, in the fact that God has the ability to govern his people. Do you let the Lord, is the Lord in control of your life or are you in control of it? What you do, where you go, how you look, what you say, what you listen to, Who's in control of all that? Oh, that man would realize the Lordship of Christ and how great his government is. His goodness. I woke up this morning about, I don't know, four o'clock. Got up, went to study for a little while. When I got in, I said, I walked in the study, I got a pocket door from the bedroom to my study, I slid the door open, I stepped in, and it just hit me in my mind. This is the day the Lord made. God made it. You know why he made it? Brother Jim, you know why God made today? Because he's good, that's why he made it. He didn't have to. There could be no day for you to wake up to this morning. But God is simply good. And he made today, today. You know what? Because of that, you know what we ought to do? We ought to rejoice. And we ought to be glad, we ought to be glad in His grace. Paul said this, I am what I am by the grace of God. Add nothing to it. If you're saved this morning and going to heaven, it's only by the grace of God. Nothing you can add to it. Amen. The gift of God is great. So my question is, how great is God to you? Is he supreme? Is he the focus of your life and your existence on this earth? Is he your God this morning? The attributes and the blessings of the greatness of God, boy, I tell you what, it'd be a blessing just to read through the scripture and emphasize in our mind that God is great. Come to church. Go to Sunday school. Some of you need to realize we do have Sunday school here. Someone say amen. Come to Sunday school and sit in a class with the anticipation that you're gonna learn a lesson from the Bible. With that being said, that lesson is learned with the mindset that God is great. The choir sings. You listen to them sing with that mindset. God is great. That one phrase of that song that the lady sang about, that's Him. A wave. I just try to imagine that in my mind. A wave tapped the wind on the shoulder and said, that's Him. Boy, that just intrigues my thoughts. But I promise you, amen, I doubt the wind has a shoulder, and I doubt the waves have anything to tap it by a finger, but I promise you the winds and the waves know that's Him. You know why they know that's Him? Because He's great! I'll say it again, He's great! And there's none like Him! The greatest joy you could ever