Beeson Podcast, Episode #611 Reverend Reginald Calvert July 19, 2022 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney. Kristen and I hope you’ve been enjoying our summer sermon series. We pray that the Lord has been using it to encourage you as you grow in discipleship. Before I tell you about today’s sermon, let me make two announcements. First, our Spring 2023 application cycle is open. If you are interested in beginning our MDiv or MATS program in the spring, or even if you just want to find out more about Beeson Divinity School, go to www.BeesonDivinity.com/admission. Second, as we’ve been announcing for several weeks now, we hope you will join us on October 24-25 for our Beauty of God Conference which will focus on preaching, worship, and the arts. Learn more and register early at www.BeesonDivinity.com/events. Today’s sermon was preached by the Reverend Reginald Calvert this spring for our chapel series, “Art and Beauty in the Bible.” His sermon was on Psalm 104 and is called, “God the Glorious Creator.” Dr. Calvert is a two time Beeson alumnus. He’s the pastor of New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church here in Bessemer, Alabama. He has become a dear friend of mine in the last few years. He was on the search committee that brought me here. I’ve worshipped with him in Bessemer. He’s currently leading a regional African American clergy group under Beeson’s auspices. And I should hasten to add that he was also a guest on our podcast on February 22, 2022. I encourage you to go back to that episode and learn more about him. For now, though, let’s go to Hodges Chapel and listen to a sermon by Dr. Calvert called, “God the Glorious Creator.” >>Reader: The scripture reading this morning comes from Psalm 104. The Psalmist writes ... Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, 2  covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. 3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; 4 he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. 5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. 8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth. 10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; 11 they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. 12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. 14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth 15  and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart. 16 The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. 19 He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows it’s time for setting. 20 You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about. 21 The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. 23 Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. 24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. 27 These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. 28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. 31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke! 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. 35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more! Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord! This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. >>Calvert: Lord, preach through me by the power of the Holy Spirit. For the purpose of transformation. The glory of God in the name of Jesus. This is your service prayer. Amen. I’d like to take a moment and thank Dr. Sweeney for this opportunity to stand and share the gospel with the Beeson community. I’d like to acknowledge my father in the ministry, Dr. Robert Smith Jr. And thank all of those who are on the platform with us on this day. But to also thank God for my wife being here as well as my brother and my sister and a few members from New Jerusalem Baptist Church. Greetings to the faculty, the staff, and the student body and those who are visiting with the Beeson community on today. So, thank God for each of you. God, our glorious creator. In 1996, after refusing to preach and wrestling with God for many years, I finally realized that God would ultimately win. I became sick one night, all of the physical stress took its toll on my body. And my sister carried me to the hospital. While in the emergency room I confessed my call to preach. I said, “I’ve been called to preach.” I was telling all of the doctors and nurses, medical personnel, and I said, “God, if you would just let me go home I’ll preach.” God said, “I’ve been calling on you for a long time and you took your time. Now that you’re calling on me I’m going to take my time.” (laughter) And I stayed in the hospital for some nine days. They carried me to my room. I had people visiting with me. And they would encourage me through the word of God. They were saying that, “Jesus is able.” And I would say, “Yes, I know that.” They would say, “He is a doctor in a sick room.” I’d say, “I understand that.” They said to me that, “He is the Great Physician.” “Yes, I know that.” “There is nothing too hard for God.” I said, “I understand that.” But I said to the nurse, “If you would just open the blinds to my window and the leave the blinds open for as long as I am in the hospital.” And what I did, I raised my bed and I looked out of the window. And I said to God, “Of all the descriptions that have been made of you, you’re greater than that.” I looked out at creation. And I said, “God, if you can handle all that I can see and beyond, I know you can take care of what’s going on in room #938.” I said to God, “God, I trust you and I know you’re able. And I know you’re too great to fit in this room. But you’re too merciful not to show up.” And God showed up. And God blessed me. He’s more than what we say he is. Sometimes I am confused with how we try to take and size God. How can we tailor the potter? He’s too great for that. And we make sometimes mediocre expressions of who God is. And we think we’ve done something. It is what Dr. Robert Smith says, that we give God a liturgical back scratch and we’re all satisfied. God is a great God. God is an awesome God. There are not enough words to express who God really is. Oh Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. You set your glory above the heavens and the earth. When I think about all you’ve done and the things that you’ve made there’s no praise that’s high enough to express how treat you are. God is a mighty God. It is the Psalmist who is having what I believe a Shabbat moment. A Sabbath moment. And he is reflecting on the goodness of God, he’s thinking about creation. Many theologians believe that he was eluding to Genesis, God in creation. But he takes and he makes this expression of the greatness of God. Bless the Lord, O my soul. My Lord, O, God, My Lord, you are very great. You’re clothed with honor and majesty. What he is really saying is that there is no one else like God. He says to God that you weareth or covereth thyself with light as with a garment and you stretcheth out the heavens like a tent or a curtain. The Psalmist is really saying that God is an awesome God and God is God and God is God all by himself. There’s no one to compare to God, even God says so in Isaiah 4:25, “To whom shall you compare me that I might be like him?” I can hear Hannah praying in 1 Samuel 2:2, “God, there’s none like you. You are holy.” God is in a class all by himself. It is John Piper who says everything has a class but God doesn’t have a class. We are human. Rover is a dog. The earth is a planet. The tree is an oak. Gabriel is an angel. Satan is a demon. But only God is God. You see? Men speak because things are, but things are because God has spoken. He is our great and awesome creator. But what really amazes me is that the Psalmist is saying this is our God, this is the God of Israel. This is a Psalm of praise to the creator. Following a psalm of praise to the Redeemer. I don’t think you can look at creation without thinking about redemption. I don’t think you can look at redemption without thinking about creation. You have to look at both, I think, together. And the Psalmist is saying, “Listen, you are my God.” I can hear David in Psalm 115. He says, “Their gods are made with silver and gold. They have mouths, but they cannot speak. They have ears, they cannot hear. They have noses, they cannot smell. They have eyes, they cannot see. They have hands, they cannot handle. They have feet, they cannot walk. Neither can they speak through their throats.” And what David is really saying is that our God, he knows what’s going on. Matter of fact, we can sing about God and speak about God in anthropomorphic language. Hold to his hand, God’s unchanging hand. We can talk about the eyes of God. His eye is on the sparrow. I know he watches me. We could talk about God like that because we know that God is our everything. Walk with me, Lord. Walk with me. But what amazes me is the fact that the Psalmist sees what flesh and blood cannot see. How often do we take for granted the Spirit’s power of illumination? When we see God, when we experience God, we cannot take God for granted. How do you see this? How do you talk about God being clothed in splendor and majesty to say God is above everything else? Because when you think about garments you think about filthy garments that represents the sinner. And you think about white raiment that indicates saints. And the Psalmist says that God is majestic, he’s greater than everybody and everything. He’s far above all that we can think and imagine. But how do you see that? I believe it’s what Jesus said when Peter made his messianic statement, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” And Jesus says that, “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. But my father, which is in heaven.” I think about Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:10, “For the Spirit reveals the deep things of God.” And we can’t see God unless God reveals himself to us. And we have to be mindful of the work of the Holy Spirit so that when I have an experience with God, when I’m trying to write a sermon, and everything is quiet I know the text. I’ve done my exegetical work, but God is not really talking to me. I don’t know what to say to the people. I don’t want to get up and read a commentary on Sunday mornings. I want God to preach through me by the power of the Holy Spirit. And God says, “I’m going to put the [inaudible 00:15:44], so you won’t think that you have me wrapped up. That you can call me anytime you want and I’ll show up at your disposal. I’m going to let you wait.” And all of a sudden there’s nothing coming to me. And I put down the piece of paper. Put down the pen. And then God decides to speak. And I get up and my pen cannot keep up with my mind because God has decided to talk to me. I am grateful when I sit in church and I can hear the message of God. Then it seems as though the place is empty and there’s no one else at church when someone else is preaching, but Reginald Calvert. It is the internal operation of the Holy Spirit which enables the hearer to understand and to receive the Word of God. And I believe that the Psalmist can see God by the power of God who reveals himself and enables the Psalmist to see God. Do we see God as we go along? Do we hear God as he speaks to us? When he goes on to say in verses 5-9 he talks about God as creator. He’s talked about the creator. Now he wants to talk about creation. “God the creator now has laid the foundation of the earth that it shall not be removed forever.” Verse 5. And he goes on and he talks about verses 6 and 7, how the waters cover the mountains at God’s rebuke, that the waters fled. What he is really saying is that God is in control of all the earth. He’s alluding back to Genesis and creation and he knows that God is in charge of everything. He’s talking about the sovereignty of God. God is creator. And although he does not mention, I do want to let us know that God created everything out of nothing. God didn’t start with something and made something. God started with absolutely nothing and made everything. God, who is in his own self existence, in the words of Charles Spurgeon says that had God had a conversation before God created there would not have been anything to respond to God. God would have had to talk to God because there’s nothing there to respond to God. Which means that God created everything. Thank you for this emphasis month on African American Church and Preaching because when I think about creation I think about the old Black preacher. Who used his sanctified imagination looking at creation and think about the power of God and he would say God stepped out from nowhere, stood on nothing, reached into nowhere, caught something, and hung something on nothing, and told it to stay there, and it’s still there. That’s the power of God. It James Weldon Johnson that says, “And God walked and where he trod his footsteps hollowed the valleys out and bulged the mountains up.” It is the Black preacher who said when Jesus was on the boat and there arose a storm and they woke him up, said Jesus stood up and said to the winds, “Stop whistling.” Told the wave to lie down. And he said to the lightning, “Stop taking snapshots of your creator,” and told the thunder to stop singing bass in the cosmic choir. It is the sanctified imagination of the preacher to look at God and creation and just give him glory. And so the Psalmist says, verses 5-9, that God is the one who creates all things. And verses 10-18, he says God sustains all things are sustained by God, verse 11, that God causes the streams to flow, and when the streams flow the grass grows, and the beasts of the field can eat. And the trees will grow, verse 15, and he will provide oil for man’s face, wine for man’s enjoyment, he will also provide trees where birds will make their nests. Our sovereign creator and sustainer, God creates and God sustains. He keeps us, verses 19-23, he says even the heavenly bodies are under the control of God. The moon, at God’s command, rises and the sun, at God’s command, sets. God is in charge of everything. Why do we worry? Why do we question God? When God is in control of everything. I think about Job. Job is afflicted. He’s really afflicted. Ten funerals. Wife says to him, “Why don’t you curse God and die?” Scales from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. Job wants an audience with God. He wants to talk to God. “I need an explanation from God.” The problem is that God cannot find omnipresence. How is it that God is omnipresent and Job can’t locate him? Job 23:3, “That I might find God that I may come even unto his seat as I may plead my cause against him.” Finally in chapter 38 God shows up. “Guard yourself like a man.” And Job stands and God shows up in a whirlwind. I would expect that God would say, “Job, listen. I gave your resume to the devil. I told the devil that you were a righteous upright man, you shun evil, you’re just a wonderful person. I gave your resume to the devil. And I just want to give you an explanation, Job. I’m so sorry about all that you’ve been through. And I was standing in the shadows keeping watch above my own, but you just didn’t know it.” But that’s not what God says. God says, “Job, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me who measured it, Job? What is it fastened to, Job?” And after just two chapters of God describing himself and never giving Job an explanation the bible says that Job put his hand over his mouth. I do want to say sometimes when we’re complaining and don’t know what we’re talking about and we look at all the God is doing, all that God has done, how God keeps, how God sustains, we ought to put our hands over our mouth. And then Chapter 42, Job says, “I’ve heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but guess what? Now my eye can see you. I can see you, you hadn’t done anything, you hadn’t healed me, but I can see you right now. And I give you praise before you manifest your glory.” God says, “Listen, I am just creator and that’s really all you need to know.” Martin Luther in his theology of creation, Martin Luther says that when you look at creation it is always sola gratia and creatio ex nihlo. Always. He says, “God’s action is always sola gratia and creatio ex nihlo.” He’s not denying the fact that God allows humanity, his creatures, to participate in creation. But what he is saying is that God doesn’t need any of us. That God creates everything he needs and God can maintain all that he has created without the help of humanity. And he said that this should lead us to sola gratia, grace alone. That God in his own free will and love created all things without any obligation to anybody and we are experiencing the gift of God. Which should bring us to a place of gratitude. That there are things that we need to thank God for that we would consider to be ordinary. Do we thank God for water? Do we thank God for food every day? Do we thank God for the clothes on our back? I think we’re waiting for a great miracle, for something major to happen, when something is happening every day we live, every day we breathe, every day we walk. Look at our awesome God – how he keeps us, how he sustains us. Because he is God. I’m pressing on. I have a member and there’s a certain cereal that she loves. I was doing my phone visitations during COVID and I called to check on the family. And the parents told me, “Our daughter, she’s in the back. She’s upset because there’s cereal in the house but she doesn’t have her favorite cereal.” I called my wife. I said, “Can you go while you’re in the store and pick up a certain brand of cereal?” She says, “I can do that.” She picked up two large boxes. And she brought them home. The next day I called the family on my way to the church. I said to the family, “Listen, I want to stop by and just drop off this cereal.” She didn’t know I was coming. She came to the doorstep outside and I gave her the bag and stepped back. And she pulled out the box of cereal and she said, “Look at God!” And I laughed, but I understood something. Who thanks God for their favorite cereal when you have other cereal in the house? There are some things that we need to stop and thank God for because God is good. Do I have a witness in here? Oh, that’s what I would say if I was in the New Jerusalem on a Sunday morning. And so God, he sustains all things. Let me press on. I’ve got to get to the finish line. Now, I’m on my way. In verses 24-30 the Psalmist he talks about God who sustains all the sea creatures. The great creatures. And he says in verse 29, “God, if you remove your breath the die.” Verse 30, “If you send your spirit, they are created.” And he talks about God in verse 31 to say, “May the glory of God live forever.” Verse 33, “I will sing praises unto the Lord for as long as I live,” and then it gets to verse 35 and he says, “May the sinners be consumed from the face of the earth and the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O, my soul. Praise ye the Lord.” The Psalmist is just grateful. He’s thankful. He’s praising God for who he is. He’s thanking God for creation. He knows that God is the God of creation. He knows that God is the one who sustains everything. He’s the God of preservation. But he also understands that God is the God of redemption and recreation. May the sinners be no more. May the wicked be cast off. And what he is doing, he’s putting his hope in God for the coming of the new world. How will God bring all of this to fruition? Because we do know that Jesus was right there in creation. That’s what John tells us. That all things through him were made. And without him was not anything made that was made. Jesus was right there. And what he did, he took off the majestic garments of eternity and came down through [inaudible 00:27:00] and two generations with a birth certificate in his hand. That reads he who is, was, and is to come. And put on the swaddling clothes of time. Walked the dusty roads of Galilee for 33 long years. I could hear John saying, “I am not that light, I have come to introduce that light.” I could hear Jesus saying, “I am the light of the world.” But he had to make his way to a place where [inaudible 00:27:27] would show up. He had to go up on a hill called Calvary. In order to redeem us back to our father. And they lifted them high. They stretched him wide. And they dropped him low. And when they dropped him low [inaudible 00:27:41] lost its equilibrium. And the sun refused to shine because two s[u/o]ns cannot shine at the same time. And nature shut her eyes. His head fell in the locks of his shoulders. And he gave up the ghost and he died one Friday. They took him down off the cross, put him in the tomb, and he stayed there all night Friday night, and he stayed there all day Saturday, and he stayed there all night Saturday night, but early Sunday morning ... I said Sunday morning God got him up with all power in his hands. And he ascended back into the Heavens. And God didn’t send a Cadillac but Jesus stepped on a cloud and made his way to the celestial shores of Heaven where he is seated at the right hand of the Father. But that’s not how the story ends. One of these old days, one of these old days, he’s coming back again and I can hear John saying, “I saw a new heaven and I saw a new earth.” I’m talking about consummation and the fact is that it has not yet been made known to us what we shall be. But as his appearing we shall be like him. And when we get there, I wanna make something clear. Just in case we look so much like Jesus, that we cannot determine who he is. I just want everybody to hold up your hands and let me look at your hands. And when I see the one who has nail prints in his hands, I declare that’s my Lord. That’s my Jesus. And I will praise him, because every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess. [inaudible 00:29:30] That Jesus, Jesus Christ, is Lord. Can you give him the glory today? >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.