The Lord Is Great and Does Wondrous Things

By: John Piper

Scripture: Psalm 86:8–10    Topic: The Glory of God

There is none like thee among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like thine. All the nations thou hast made shall come and bow down before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great and doest wondrous things, thou alone art God.

The text has three verses 8, 9, and 10. Verse 10 says, “For you are great and do wondrous things, you alone are God.” Notice it is given as a reason (“For you are great . . . “). When you say, “I bought a bagel, for I was hungry,” you mean that your hunger was the reason you bought the bagel. So when David says, “For you are great and do wondrous things,” he means that God’s greatness is the reason for verse 9—that “all the nations will come and bow down before him and glorify him.” And his greatness is the reason for verse 8 too—that there is none like him among the gods, nor any works like his. In other words, God’s greatness makes him stronger than all the gods of the universe and God’s greatness makes him stronger than all the nations of the world. He rules the gods and he rules the nations, FOR (because) he is great and does wondrous things; he alone is God. God over all gods and God over all nations.

The Greatness of God Is Central to All Life

One of the things that your pastor, Brent, and I have in common is the overwhelming persuasion that God is great. God is very great, and his greatness is unsearchable. But not only that. Every pastor and every Christian would agree with that—that God is great. What Brent and I believe is that this is central to all of life. This is relevant to everything we think and feel and do. The unparalleled, incomparable, unequalled, unrivaled greatness of God is utterly important in the ministry—in building a church and caring for people and spreading the gospel. We believe that, even when people don’t know it, what they need most and are most starved for is a vision of an awesomely great God, and fellowship with an infinitely great God.

The Greatness of God Is Utterly Relevant

It is utterly relevant for everything in life.

• If we saw the greatness of God, we would not be so greedy and covetous.
• If we saw the greatness of God, our eyes wouldn’t stray after lustful images and thoughts.
• If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn’t get angry at our children so easily.
• If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn’t pout and get hurt so easily in our marriages.
• If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn’t worry about our looks so much.
• If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn’t spend time watching mindless and sordid and defiling television programs.
• If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn’t get so discouraged with the evil and godlessness of our culture.
• If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn’t give in to our appetites and overeat in boredom and depression.

And there are a hundred other unforeseen good effects that would come into our lives if we could keep the greatness of God in the front of our minds and be gripped by his awesome reality. In other words, just like the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, if we saw the greatness of God—the glory of God—we would be changed from one degree of glory to the next.

Have You Seen the Greatness of God?

What the Seward neighborhood needs more than anything else from Immanuel Baptist Church is to see the glory of God. And don’t think that your smallness is an obstacle to that. A telescope is a very small instrument, but it helps people see stupendous realities in the sky. God loves to magnify his greatness by shining through vessels of clay. “My power is made perfect in weakness,” Jesus said. The issue is not smallness. The issue is: have you seen the greatness of God? Have you been taken captive as it were by the glory of his power and knowledge and love, in such a way that all human power and all human knowledge and all human love lose the power of their attraction? That’s the issue of your impact in this neighborhood and on the mission field. Have you seen the greatness of God?

So let me point to the two ways that God’s greatness is shown in this text and illustrate it from what God is doing, and is willing to do right here.