“Who is like Yahweh, our God,

Who makes a high place to dwell;

Who upon the lowly ones will look—

Those in the heavens and the earth.”

(Psalm 113:5-6)

The psalmist poses a challenge to adherents of all other religions: “Who is like Yahweh, our God?”  In other words, he is saying, “Go, look at your gods; bring them to bear in comparison with our God.  Either your god is puny and bound upon the earth (or even bound to the heavens), or your view of God is that he is so transcendent that he cannot communicate to his believers.”  Our God, though, is unlike all of these false gods.  Our God is great and mighty and transcendent and created not only the heavens and the earth—but everything in the heavens and the earth as well!  Why worship the sun or the moon when our God put the sun and the moon into their orbits?  Why worship the animals when our God made the very animals in all of their majesty and variety?  Yet, as high and mighty as our God is—and there is none who is mightier—our God condescends to have a relationship with us as his people.  What an amazing God we have!  What a God we worship!  He is God above all other gods, and he alone should be worshipped!

Friends, have you ever stopped and thought about just how wonderful it is that we have a God that, though he is almighty, he comes down and forms a relationship with us. And, beloved, do not let the world fool you, that relationship is initiated, formed, and empowered by God’s sovereign work—not because you or I pursued God in just the right way.  We have a God that pursued us because he chose, in his wonderful grace, to reveal himself to us and to have a relationship with us.  Oh, loved ones, do you not know that we could know nothing of the infinite God if he had not designed to reveal himself to us?  Do you not know that we could never have gazed upon his beauty had he not revealed that beauty to us, nor could we have known the wonder of salvation had Christ not come to earth to bear the guilt of our sins and had God not inspired the prophets and apostles to write for us the words of truth and life that we know as the Holy Scriptures.

Beloved, do not take this privilege and gift lightly, it was given at a great cost of Jesus, God’s son, himself.  For had Christ not chosen to bear our iniquity, we would know nothing of our God apart from the wrath of his judgment.  How often we take for granted the wonder of the God we have.  How often we take lightly our own sin and the price that our sin caused our God to pay.  How often, in our conceit and arrogance, we think that we know all things about God when the fact that we can even apprehend God is a marvelous gift given to us—yet, how can the finite begin to comprehend the infinite—we simply cannot.  Cherish this remarkable privilege and gift, and rejoice in the one who has given such a gift to you—who has chosen to condescend and to have a relationship with you even in this lowly world.