Let’s play a game called “Who Said It.” I’ll say the movie line, you shout out who said it or where it came from.
“Here’s looking at you kid.” - Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca.
“I’m the king of the world!” - Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), Titanic.
“You can’t handle the truth!” - Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson), A Few Good Men.
“I feel the need, the need, for speed!” - Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Goose (Anthony Edwards), Top Gun.
Okay, one more, “Phenomenal cosmic power! Itty bitty living space.” Genie (Robin Williams), Aladdin.
In Disney’s 90s movie Aladdin, the main character, Aladdin, meets the Genie in the cave of wonders. There the Genie reveals that he has this unlimited power to make all of Aladdin’s dreams come true. However, for the Genie, there are some limitations to that power and we find out about what defines him by the rules he tells Aladdin. With how the Genie references modern day celebrities, as only Robin Williams could do, we see an almost limitlessness to the character.
It’s this idea of being limitless that launches us into our Christmas series on the seeing the attributes of God in the baby of the manger.
As we jump into this series, let’s define the next four weeks first. The omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, transcendent, holy, loving, just, matchless God, is the God that is revealed through the Bible’s sixty-sixty books. Through the interaction God has with people throughout time, we can see who he is. As one theologian wrote about God’s attributes “… we are referring to those qualities of God that constitute what he is, the very characteristics of his nature. We are not referring here to his acts, such as creating, guiding, and preserving, nor to his corresponding roles of Creator, Guide, Preserver.” God’s attributes are features of God that pertain to the triune God that we see reveled throughout both the Old and New Testaments. As that same theologian states, “The attributes are permanent and intrinsic qualities, which cannot be gained or lost.”
Christmas is the celebration of when God wrapped himself in flesh. As the apostle John wrote in his first chapter, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn. 1:14, [ESV])” The prophet Isaiah said it like this, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Is. 7:14)” And again the prophet would write two chapters later, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Is. 9:6)” These are the Christmas passages that we read every year, and they tell us that the God of the omni’s is the one who is in the manger.
So we are going to look at several of God’s attributes over the next four weeks, and see how those are brought together in the Messiah Jesus.
Like the Genie we’re going limitless. Except God’s limitless is vastly different. The limitless that we’re talking about is God as infinite. God is greater than anything he has made, and far greater than anything that has existed or will exist. Let me give you several ideas to help with understanding God as limitless. First, God isn’t limited by space, meaning unlike us, who are limited by where we can be at any time. God is beyond the constraint of space. Another idea that walks hand-in-hand with the spaceless concept is that God is beyond space, yet has access to all things. God sees, hears, and knows what’s going on throughout his creation. These two things put together hold in tension God’s transcendence, or his being nowhere, and his immanence, or his being everywhere. Both these ideas are seen when God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah, “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord. (Jer. 23:23-24)” So God is both unconfined to any place, but is also able to be in all places. One helpful definition of God’s omnipresence and omniscience speaks to this infinite attribute as, “… all things are present to God… all events are present to the divine mind…”
This limitlessness isn’t something we can easily illustrate. If we said it was like being on the Autobahn in Germany, with it’s areas of unrestricted speed, we’d still see that there is a limit to the car’s ability. If we tried to connect it with the energy of the sun, we come face to face, with the reality of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which basically carries with it the idea that energy is depleted over time. God is beyond any limiting except in one area, and that’s not being able to sin. God is only limited in that he does only good. Therefore there’s no illustration that could do this justice.
This is the God who spoke all things into existence, that no space, or time, can confine. It’s here that the limitless God sets limits. It’s a limiting that we see in John’s opening chapter, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us … (Jn. 1:1-3,14)” Here we need a deep understanding of the triune God of Scripture. That the three persons, are all co-equal in all the attributes, glory, and majesty of the Godhead. It is the Son, the eternal Word, who descends to be clothed in the flesh of his image bearers.
Paul writes this in his letter to the Philippians, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phil. 2:5-7)” Verse seven is an extremely important statement on what happened when the Word of God took on flesh and in so doing limited himself. Theologian Ralph P. Martin writes that verse seven, “teaches that [Jesus’] ‘kenosis’ or self-emptying was his taking the servant’s form, and this involved the necessary limitation of his glory which he laid aside in order that he might be born in human likeness.”
Though Jesus was still fully the Word of God, though he was still God, co-equal in all things and still containing the full attribute of limitlessness that he had from eternity past, the Son limits himself for a space and time to be a servant and sacrifice for humanity. It is an overwhelming illuminating realization that the infinite God, would become finite with the intention of saving his creation.
This is why the words of Mark Lowery’s song, “Mary Did You Know?” has such an impact. Lowery writes,
“Did you know
That your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby
You've kissed the face of God …
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy is Lord of all creation …
This sleeping child you're holding
Is the Great I Am!”
The child in the manger, the one whom both angels and shepherds herald, is the limitless God who limited himself for the sake of humanity, for the sake of you and me. Never did Jesus lose his limitlessness, yet for a moment of time, compared to his eternal nature, he let himself be limited by the space of flesh and the time of roughly thirty-three years. No god of myth limits themselves for the sake of their creation, yet the true and living God did.
The gift of the limiting of God is given to humanity, that humanity might begin to experience the limitless God. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection opens the gate to the narrow path of eternal life, which is God’s desire for all those who would accept him.
God’s intention is that whoever would accept Jesus’ as Savior, would begin to experience that eternal life today. To begin to see the limitless God in action. Where we see defeat and dead ends, God sees a limitless work through the victory found in Jesus. That victory is what God is calling each of us into.
If you have not put your trust in Jesus as Savior, the limitless God is calling you to himself. God created us to experience his eternal limitlessness, but our sin, those things that we have done in rebellion against God, have placed us in bondage. Apart from God, we are headed to an eternal separation where there is no hope. Our sin places us in that separation, in a sense, we’ve earned it (Rom. 6:23). Yet, Jesus offers his own self in our place. The limitless God, for the limited human. With him, comes limitless forgiveness and freedom, and an eternity of joy in the Lord. God is inviting you into that very relationship with him. If you feel that call today, then I want to ask you to speak with me after the service, that we might pray together as you enter into eternal life with the limitless God.
If you have put your trust into Jesus as your personal Savior, I have a challenge for you this week. What are those things that are looking like they’re dead ends? What are those things that look like there is a limit to what God can do? Is your marriage falling apart, is your career at a dead end? Are you struggling with hurt, anger, addictions, un-forgiveness? Our you feeling no hope, or peace, or love? Are you facing death itself? I want you to make a list of those things and then take them to the Lord, crying out to him as the limitless God, to show you the work he is doing so that you know there’s a path forward. This takes a humbling of us before him. It takes a life position that puts God’s will over our own (Matt. 6:10; Lk. 22:42); a position that our Savior took when speaking with the Father.
Let us be a people who see the limitless God who has saved us through limiting himself to become a human baby that he might die on the cross, that all those who believe would experience his unlimited work and life. Amen.