Close Menu X
Navigate

Pastor Jay's Blog

People are Awesome, Grace is Awesomer!

The Scripture says in Psalm 139 that people are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” We see this regularly in medical discoveries, but I want to show you another way that the nature of people is getting revealed. What is that way? YouTube. That’s right. Sure, it is not as heady and academic as the inner mechanics of a cell or the brain, but it is still revealing the fearful and wonderful nature of man.

YouTube isn’t really how this is happening. How it happens is through the video recorders we all have in our pockets. Everybody has a phone with them 24/7, and therefore more is being captured on video and shown to the world on YouTube than ever before. It is a tsunami of video recordings of people being awesome. Now, of course there is also the tsunami of evil videos, but right now we are focusing on something good that technology is doing for us. We are seeing people that we would have never seen doing things we never would have believed. But there it is for us to replay over and over again, in slow-mo and hi-def. We are getting to witness incredible feats of strength, agility, balance, flexibility, precision, creativity, speed, ingenuity, teamwork, endurance and more. What fear and wonder this should produce. These things are amazing, perhaps weird and head scratching at times, but amazing nonetheless. No wonder God said, concerning the united people building the tower of Babel, “nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” (Gen. 11:6) Being made in the image of God, in both body and soul, is so powerful and enabling we cannot fully grasp the lengths of human potential. Let us not forget that we were created to take full control of the world and unleash its latent potential as co-regents under God. And let us not forget that the day is coming when we will be restored to that full capacity. YouTube helps us remember that people are awesome and people are doing awesome things, everything from making space ships that go to Mars to playing one guitar with hands and another guitar with feet. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Now, it is possible that I will not find you on YouTube anywhere. There is no awesome trick you can do or sweet Ping-Pong ball routine that is going to get you a thousand views. In fact, you are sitting there thinking you have nothing that anyone would find interesting. The only thing viral you are going to spread is Covid. However, I have good news for you. Grace is awesomer than people! And for the grammar Nazi chaffing with that use of awesome, I do it to remind you that sin and disorder and sickness and pain are just as prominent as our skill and abilities. Be glad to know that our hope is not in us and all our ability. Our hope is not in the arm of man. “A horse is a false hope for victory” (Psalm 33:17), and a viral video of amazing skill is false hope for eternal significance. That’s right, grace is what reigns in God’s economy. God takes weak things to shame the strong. God makes power perfect in weakness. My friend, if dependence is the goal, then weakness is an asset. And if God’s glory is the aim, then your smallness is a platform to display his greatness.

Make it your aim to offer up all your weakness and smallness and insignificance and obscurity to the God of grace. Strive to be faithful, to speak the word of God, to serve others, to love sacrificially, to be an instrument for God that is available, dependable and expendable. This will not go viral in the 80 years you have on earth, but God doesn’t normally use viral. He uses leaven and seeds that both work in the unseen. By grace small unseen things grow in unseen ways and make unseen impact that will only be revealed, measured and rewarded at the Judgment seat of God.

So yes, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are seeing that in more and more ways. But even still, grace is more awesome. God is displaying himself in and through us. We get to be the grand centerpiece of his great praise. His grace overturns our sin and brings good from it. Grace gives the gifts that bless many. Where sin increases, grace increases all the more. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.