God Never Runs Out
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Man, I really love this question today.
00:00:07.040 | Here it is.
00:00:07.880 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:08.720 | "My name is Alex and I live in Alabama.
00:00:10.860 | "I was just thinking today about all the things
00:00:12.940 | "that run out.
00:00:14.320 | "Money runs out, food runs out, sex runs out,
00:00:17.940 | "cars run out, time runs out,
00:00:19.820 | "people run out of time and die.
00:00:22.040 | "But God never runs out.
00:00:25.700 | "Can you elaborate on that subject for me?
00:00:28.180 | "It seems like a reminder not to rely on things
00:00:31.080 | "but on the eternal God.
00:00:33.340 | "Pastor John, what would you say to Alex?"
00:00:34.960 | - I am so eager for this question.
00:00:38.260 | I am so thankful that Alex simply threw open the door
00:00:43.260 | for me to talk about the inexhaustibility of God.
00:00:48.340 | Couple of reasons why I'm so excited to talk about this.
00:00:52.640 | One is that my introduction to Reformed theology,
00:00:58.040 | 50 years ago, was not mainly through
00:01:01.840 | secondary theological sources,
00:01:05.260 | but through texts of the Bible
00:01:07.740 | that elevated the self-sufficiency,
00:01:10.940 | the inexhaustibility of God
00:01:14.140 | as high as it possibly could be elevated.
00:01:17.540 | In other words, what struck me
00:01:20.140 | is that the very godness of God
00:01:23.540 | was that he is absolutely free,
00:01:27.800 | absolutely self-sufficient.
00:01:29.620 | He has no needs from outside himself,
00:01:34.620 | but he's completely and eternally sufficient in himself,
00:01:40.620 | and not just sufficient, but a Vesuvius of joy
00:01:44.940 | in the fellowship of the Trinity
00:01:46.820 | so that he has absolutely no need of me whatsoever,
00:01:51.820 | but he's so full that he is prone to overflow
00:01:56.340 | with a river of pleasures towards those
00:01:59.840 | who will have him as their supreme treasure.
00:02:02.800 | That picture of God years ago from the Bible
00:02:06.800 | was ravishing to me.
00:02:10.300 | The second reason this is such a golden invitation to me
00:02:15.260 | is that just the day before yesterday,
00:02:18.600 | I received an email from a friend
00:02:21.800 | who has gone through years of very, very hard times,
00:02:26.800 | and he wanted to thank me,
00:02:29.800 | even though I was part of the hard times,
00:02:33.080 | for something from a message years ago,
00:02:37.720 | and the gist of it was,
00:02:39.880 | well, I'll just quote what he sent me, quote,
00:02:43.280 | "Grace is the overflow of God's self-sufficiency,
00:02:49.040 | so you can't have grace if you don't have
00:02:53.080 | an utterly, infinitely, gloriously, self-satisfied,
00:02:58.080 | all-sufficient, overflowing God
00:03:02.000 | who does not need you at all," close quote.
00:03:07.000 | That's the picture of God that he was sustained by.
00:03:11.440 | That's the meaning of grace that held him
00:03:15.180 | and kept him from making shipwreck of his faith.
00:03:19.760 | Grace is the overflow of the self-sufficiency
00:03:24.560 | of a God who doesn't need him.
00:03:28.440 | That's what grace is.
00:03:29.520 | It's the overflow from an inexhaustible fountain,
00:03:33.280 | which means that the only way we can relate to God
00:03:38.000 | so that he's pleased and so that it glorifies him
00:03:42.240 | is not by hauling buckets of human labor up the mountain
00:03:47.240 | and pouring our supply
00:03:51.220 | into the pure, inexhaustible mountain spring of God,
00:03:56.040 | but rather by falling on our face,
00:03:59.140 | exhausted and putting our faith and our face in the water,
00:04:04.140 | and coming up and saying, "Ah, that's so good.
00:04:09.820 | Thank you, God, for the overflow that you are for me."
00:04:14.820 | Now I've eaten up half my time telling you
00:04:17.800 | why I'm so excited to talk about this question.
00:04:20.400 | So let's consider in the time that remains
00:04:23.280 | just a few passages of scripture
00:04:25.820 | that celebrate the fullness of God
00:04:29.720 | to the point where he doesn't need us at all
00:04:33.980 | and where it would be an offense to him
00:04:36.420 | if we tried to become his benefactors.
00:04:40.020 | For example, Acts 17.25,
00:04:42.540 | God is not served by human hands
00:04:46.340 | as though he needed anything
00:04:49.920 | since he himself gives to all mankind
00:04:53.960 | life and breath and everything.
00:04:56.260 | And that's not just true of God the Father.
00:04:58.500 | It's true of Christ as he comes into the world.
00:05:01.780 | Mark 10.45, the Son of Man
00:05:05.140 | came not to be served,
00:05:08.700 | but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
00:05:12.740 | We don't serve him, he serves us or we die.
00:05:16.580 | Romans 11.34, who has known the mind of the Lord
00:05:20.780 | or who has been his counselor?
00:05:24.020 | Nobody, you can't give God counsel.
00:05:26.980 | Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
00:05:30.780 | Nobody, you can't loan God anything
00:05:33.260 | to put him in your debt.
00:05:34.840 | Why?
00:05:35.780 | Next phrase, for from him and through him and to him
00:05:39.440 | are all things to him be glory forever, amen.
00:05:43.640 | Or Psalm 50, verse nine,
00:05:47.460 | Spurgeon called this Robinson Crusoe's text
00:05:50.260 | because if you read that novel,
00:05:52.040 | you realize Crusoe used these verses to get himself through.
00:05:56.220 | Psalm 50, verses nine to 15.
00:05:58.860 | Every beast of the forest is mine, God says.
00:06:02.080 | The cattle on a thousand hills.
00:06:03.880 | If I were hungry, I would not tell you.
00:06:07.940 | For the world and its fullness are mine.
00:06:11.820 | Do I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats?
00:06:15.980 | No, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving
00:06:19.820 | and perform your vows to the most high.
00:06:22.580 | Call on me in the day of trouble
00:06:26.660 | and I will deliver you and you will glorify me.
00:06:31.660 | That's amazing.
00:06:33.680 | So how do we glorify a God who has absolutely no needs
00:06:38.680 | and has all resources in himself?
00:06:42.260 | Answer, by not being his benefactors,
00:06:47.260 | but his supplicants, by calling on him for help,
00:06:52.220 | then we get deliverance, he gets the glory.
00:06:55.680 | Or as the Psalm says, I will deliver you
00:06:59.820 | and you will glorify me.
00:07:02.300 | You get the deliverance, I get the glory.
00:07:05.500 | This is what stunned me years ago.
00:07:08.280 | The bigger God gets, the more self-sufficient he becomes,
00:07:13.280 | the less he needs me, then the more resourceful
00:07:18.940 | he can be for me and the more riches of glory
00:07:23.280 | he has to pour out freely on me
00:07:25.840 | and the more glorious he looks when we find our joy in him.
00:07:30.480 | What a God.
00:07:31.320 | That's exactly the way God wants us to experience
00:07:35.760 | his absolute fullness and self-sufficiency.
00:07:39.200 | He wants us to experience it
00:07:41.800 | as the source of inexhaustible grace.
00:07:45.520 | Listen to the way Isaiah 40, 28 makes the connection.
00:07:49.640 | The Lord is the everlasting God,
00:07:52.020 | the creator of the ends of the earth.
00:07:53.960 | He does not faint or grow weary.
00:07:58.120 | His understanding is unsearchable.
00:08:02.140 | What's the consequence of all that self-sufficiency?
00:08:04.680 | He gives power to the faint
00:08:07.480 | and to him who has no might, he increases strength.
00:08:12.120 | They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
00:08:14.760 | They shall run and not be weary.
00:08:16.540 | They shall walk and not faint.
00:08:18.840 | So the inexhaustible hand of God
00:08:22.560 | is good news for the exhausted.
00:08:26.760 | I remember in those early days
00:08:28.600 | when I was first being amazed
00:08:30.680 | by this kind of self-sufficient,
00:08:32.560 | inexhaustible, overflowing God,
00:08:34.720 | that two of my passages were 2 Chronicles 16, 9,
00:08:38.920 | "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro
00:08:41.640 | throughout the whole earth to show himself strong
00:08:45.960 | on behalf of those whose heart is blameless toward him."
00:08:49.160 | In other words, he's on the lookout.
00:08:51.200 | He is actually on the lookout
00:08:53.640 | for anyone who is humble enough
00:08:56.520 | and weak enough to let him be strong for them.
00:08:59.560 | And Isaiah 64, 4, "From of old no one has heard
00:09:04.720 | or perceived by the ear.
00:09:06.620 | No eye has seen a God besides you
00:09:10.160 | who works for those who wait for him."
00:09:15.160 | Can you believe that?
00:09:16.680 | In other words, God's uniqueness,
00:09:19.440 | nobody's seen a God like this.
00:09:21.240 | God's uniqueness is that in his overflowing fullness,
00:09:25.800 | he delights to work for us
00:09:28.960 | rather than have us work for him.
00:09:31.840 | The giver gets the glory.
00:09:34.420 | So not surprisingly,
00:09:37.280 | this kind of absolutely self-sufficient,
00:09:40.160 | inexhaustible, overflowing God
00:09:43.040 | is where the gospel comes from,
00:09:45.240 | the gospel of our salvation.
00:09:47.360 | "For those who have absolutely no way to save themselves,"
00:09:51.840 | he says, "ho, everyone who thirsts,
00:09:55.400 | come to the waters.
00:09:57.160 | He who has no money, come buy and eat.
00:10:01.440 | Come buy wine and milk without money and without price."
00:10:06.440 | Isaiah 55, 1.
00:10:10.400 | It's like the machine shop that I jogged by for years
00:10:14.040 | until it closed recently.
00:10:15.960 | It had a permanent help wanted sign
00:10:18.280 | nailed to the wall on the side of the building.
00:10:21.880 | So every time I go by,
00:10:23.520 | almost big permanent help wanted sign,
00:10:27.120 | but some days there was a big red diagonal line
00:10:32.120 | through the sign with a big no in the middle of it.
00:10:36.000 | No help wanted.
00:10:38.440 | And I used to leap for joy while I was jogging saying,
00:10:41.800 | "That's my God."
00:10:43.440 | Yeah, yeah.
00:10:44.260 | "That's my gospel."
00:10:45.240 | No help wanted, no help needed, no help demanded.
00:10:51.680 | I exist to be inexhaustible
00:10:54.720 | and to help those who will trust me.
00:10:57.120 | That's my glory.
00:10:59.240 | That's the glory of the gospel.
00:11:00.860 | So, amen, Alex.
00:11:04.160 | Everything else runs out like you said,
00:11:06.840 | but God never runs out.
00:11:09.400 | He will be giving and giving and giving to all eternity
00:11:13.040 | as we receive and receive and receive
00:11:16.040 | like little children with joy.
00:11:18.640 | So important.
00:11:20.080 | And if anything in this episode does not make sense,
00:11:22.120 | go back and listen to it over and over until you get it.
00:11:26.360 | These are glorious and crucial truths here at DeGrasse.
00:11:28.720 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:29.660 | And thank you for joining us today.
00:11:30.720 | You can ask a question of your own,
00:11:32.040 | search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast.
00:11:34.480 | You can do all of that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:11:38.640 | I am your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:40.920 | We break for the weekend,
00:11:42.380 | and Pastor John and I will be back on Monday, Lord willing.
00:11:46.840 | Thanks for listening.
00:11:47.680 | We'll see you then.
00:11:48.500 | (upbeat music)
00:11:51.080 | (upbeat music)
00:11:53.660 | [BLANK_AUDIO]