Joy Dawson emphasizes the greatness of God, sharing her personal experiences that affirm God's supremacy over all aspects of life, including our understanding, problems, and even our successes. She encourages believers to recognize that God is always greater than any circumstance, urging them to live in faith and expect remarkable outcomes in their daily lives. Dawson highlights the importance of intimate friendship with God, asserting that knowing Him deeply transforms our understanding and experience of life. She challenges the congregation to believe in God's greatness and to actively seek His presence in every situation, promising that such faith will lead to extraordinary testimonies. Ultimately, she calls for a revolution in how we perceive and interact with God, emphasizing that His greatness is limitless and ever-present.

I was walking along a road in Highbury, London, in February of this year, and I passed the Anglican Cathedral, High Church of England, that I had spoken in just on the Sunday night, and I think this was the Monday. And as I had entered into the Church of England at night, I hadn't seen the poster that was outside the church, or what was written on it. But as I was going to the little local shopping centre on the Monday for a few odd things, I was able to see what was on the poster, and the poster said, in red and white and in big type, God is always greater. I had an immediate reaction, which was twofold. I chuckled out loud in the street to myself, and I said, Hallelujah. A woman glanced at me like this, to say, well, what's this? And I thought, well, if you knew who it was I was chuckling about, and the truth, well, you'd chuckle too. Maybe you'd say, Hallelujah. And these words stuck in my mind and heart. I had no message on this. But all through that day, these words kept going over and over in my heart, and every time I'd say them I'd laugh a little bit more, and I'd say, Hallelujah again. Because I became more and more excited with the reality of the truth. God is always greater. And by about, uh, four o'clock in the afternoon, I realized that this was just burning in my soul, and that this was God, and that He was about to, to give me something from Himself about this. And so I, I got out the pen and the blank sheet of paper and wrote down, God is always greater, and waited on God, the way I always do to get any messages, and just said, Thank you, Father. I believe you're about to give a message here. It's going to thrill my soul, and no doubt you'll cause me to share it one day with somebody else. And He gave, that day, these six points as I listened. I didn't have to think them up. We just need to listen to the Lord, and then He has the message, and this is what He gave, and this is the order that He spoke to me. God is always greater than our understanding of His greatness. God is always greater than our problems, national, church, domestic, personal. God is always greater than Satan and demon powers. God is always greater than the people who oppose us. God is always greater than our mistakes. God is always greater than our successes. God is always greater than our understanding of His vision and His plan to reach the world problems and our part in it. To reach the world in its need and our part in it. We may have one point this morning, we may have six, we may have two. I don't know. He hasn't revealed to me how much we're to have, or even the order. But I believe He will give what He wants. Maybe He'll have other points altogether, I'm expecting that. But you know, if you're going to really believe, I mean, if you're going to be all burnt up with sureness, that's really believing. Ever felt like that? Ever felt filled with believing, or burnt up with sureness? Not a shadow of a doubt about a thing. That's how God expects us to pray. Because we've heard what His voice, to our hearts, and we know what is His will, and then we can believe Him. That's the prayer of faith, and you'll never have the prayer of faith outside that basis. I'm absolutely, totally convinced that He's always greater than anything, at any time, any circumstances, any other person, any power, anything. He's always greater. Now, if this is true, and I believe it is, there's never, ever need, or excuse, to be negative in our thinking or speaking under any circumstances. Because God is always greater. It's not an impossibility to carry out the command of Philippians 4 and 4. Rejoice always, and again I say rejoice. The God who wrote that verse has the grace to be released in our hearts to obey it. Are you going to dare to say, I challenge you as the body of Christ this morning, are you going to dare to say, I will to live by the standard of the word of God, that and nothing less. Just pray that prayer and mean it, and you'll have a revolution in your life. I believe that you have the grace to be released in me as I will to live according to the word of God, under every circumstance. Of course He'll test you. He wants to see if you mean it. And those tests are exhilarating and interesting, because you prove the truth, that God is always greater. Grace great enough to rejoice always, and again I say rejoice. He's greater than our understanding of His greatness. I'm so glad about that. Because I'm excited about the enlargement of understanding that He will always have to reveal to us about His greatness. I don't believe we'll ever exhaust in throughout the countless ages of eternity, the greatness of God. It's unlimited. We'll never come to the understanding of His greatness in our minds. We'll always be discovering, I believe, throughout the eons of eternity that God is still greater. He's God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, unlimited for every situation, for every given moment of every day. Our understanding that God is always greater is measured entirely on how we are proving Him to be great in our everyday lives. Not in the great big issues, the few major crises. If we really have an enlarged vision of the greatness of God, then every day will be lived in the light of that very fact, of that understanding. Now if you are not proving Him in your everyday life, in situations that can only be explained by God, if things are not happening from day to day in your life where there is no explanation other than the living God, then you need to say, God, my understanding of your greatness is, is very, very small. If you have an understanding of the greatness of God, you will be proving it in measure, you will be, you will be proving it in everyday life in continuously having remarkable things happening. I didn't say spectacular necessarily. Sometimes they are, but not necessarily. A remarkable God who is great in power is, and He is controlling your life, inevitably must produce a remarkable life. And you should be having remarkable things happen. And if you're not, well then your understanding of God's greatness is very small. I'm so glad as a housewife, a very ordinary little housewife in a very ordinary little home with two ordinary little children, I started to discover the greatness of God. And from that moment on, life became exciting. When I dared to believe that God was always greater, and He expected it to be a life lived in the knowledge of that. A remarkable God has a remarkable plan in everyday living for you and for me. At the end of any day, we should be able to say, this happened throughout the day, and the only explanation is God, a series of events. If we are under the control of a remarkable God, how can He have anything less than a remarkable plan? He'd have to do something inconsistent with His character. He can't. If He has our cooperation, our, our belief that He will do it, and our cooperation of will to obey the next thing He tells us to do throughout that day. Do you keep a diary? You will. You'll start to keep a diary when you start to enter into the, this dimension. You won't want to miss recording the remarkable, inevitably remarkable events of every day. Job 36, 26, God is great, and we know Him not. The number of His years is unsearchable. Have you really discovered the greatness of God in creation? Really. I know of no book in the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit at your request that will give a new dimension to the greatness of God in creation as the book of Job. Would you raise your right hand if you have discovered this from this book? Three people. We'll turn to it then. Job 36, God gave me no indication ahead of this message at all what points were to be used, but He never fails when we trust Him. We shall read the word of God from verse 22 of chapter 36. Before we do so, we'll bow our heads and pray again. Father, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that as thy word is read this morning, that your Spirit will come upon our minds and hearts and illumine to us, give us revelation that only you can give us of your greatness in power, in creation, and in controlling the earth and the elements that will absolutely change and transform our understanding of your greatness. We can't do it outside the illumination of the Holy Spirit, but we believe as we receive now by faith that your Spirit will come upon us, that this will happen right now in this church. Thank you. Amen. I'm reading from the Revised Standard Version. Behold, God is exalted in His power. Who is a teacher like Him? Who has prescribed for Him His way? Or who can say thou hast done wrong? Remember to extol His work of which men have sung. All men have looked on it. Man beholds it from afar. Behold, God is great, and we know Him not. The number of His years is unsearchable, for He draws up the drops of water. He distills His mist in rain, which the skies pour down and drop upon man abundantly. Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of His pavilion? But behold, He scatters His lightning about Him, and covers the roots of the sea. For by these He judges people. He gives food in abundance. He covers His hands with the lightning. Just imagine a God who can cover His hands with the lightning, that can hold it and control it and cover it, and commands it to strike the mark. He says to the lightning, strike there. That's why the lightning strikes there, because God has controlled it with His hand and said, strike it. Be struck. Its crashing declares concerning Him. He means us to see His character and know it and understand it through the lightning. He's talking to us when He, when He commands the lightning to crash. Have we ever stopped when the lightning is there and said, God, I want to hear Your voice through the lightning. I want to know what You're saying to me about Your personality and about Your character. He has the most exciting personality, this God. Ever discovered it? I'm not talking about His ways, that's a different thing again. His, His, His personality. We have a character, we have a personality. They're two different things, and so has God. Ask God to, to cause you to discover how exciting His personality is. Vivid, wonderful, colorful, intriguing. You know, He can speak to us in different tones, just like a friend. I was seeking Him before coming out on this world trip one day, and I was talking to my best friend, and I said, do I go to Los Angeles? Have you purposes for me there? And he said, yes, like that. And I said, I heard you, but you were very remote, not like you usually are. It wasn't yes. Why did you say, yes, you will withdraw from me? Shades in the tone of this wonderful, exciting, intimate friend. And he explained why. Just as sometimes we say it like that to a person, and they know immediately that we've given the right answer, but there's something they're not very happy about, about us. And that's just how it was with me. He had a rebuke to give me. It was right that I was to go to Los Angeles, but it was the wrong time to be asking that question, because I needed to do other things in relation to other places He wanted me to go to first. Steps of obedience that He wanted me to take. I find that exciting. The tones of this intimate, wonderful friend, even though it was in rebuke and he was withdrawn, it was exciting to find that he can speak in a withdrawn way. Don't settle for anything less than intimate friendship with God. You haven't started to understand what the Christian life was all about until we've made intimate friendship with God our goal in life. No wonder the nations of the earth are heedless of Christianity in the main, and millions of them just bypass the churches and live as they do. There are thousands of people in Minneapolis this morning that know that there are churches open, and it doesn't mean that much to them. It doesn't affect them. They can say, so what, and roll over in bed and have another hour's sleep, because we haven't demonstrated that God Almighty is the most exciting person in the universe to know. That's why, and when they find that friendship with God makes life exciting and exhilarating, and you can hardly keep up with Him, then they'll want to know that sort of God. It's the poor, miserable picture that we've painted. We've said, come and know our God, and then we live as though He was some little being like this. We're not proving Him to be who we say the Bible says He is. We've got to know Him to be able to make Him known. We make Him known out of the overflow of intimately knowing Him. There's a price to intimately know God. The friendship of the Lord is with those who fear Him, not to be afraid of Him, but who will hate evil and deal ruthlessly with sin, and it's worth every single bit of the dealings, because He's so exciting. He's so wonderful. Do you know Him? When you really know Him, to make Him known will be no problem at all. You'll want to talk about this wonderful friend, this wonderful God. Just imagine a God that covers His hand with the lightning and commands it to strike the mark. It's crashing declares concerning Him who is jealous with anger against iniquity. Did you know that's why He was making the lightning come? The Word of God says you know neither the scriptures you earn knowing not the scriptures nor the power of God. At this also my heart trembles, chapter 37 verse 1, and leaps out of its place. That's what happens when you know God is speaking through the elements and controlling them. Hearken to the thunder of His voice and the rumbling that comes from His mouth. He's sending the thunder. He's speaking through it. Under the whole heaven He lets it go and His lightning to the corners of the earth. After it His voice roars. He thunders with His majestic voice. Oh what a God of glory and majesty and dominion and might and power. He does not restrain the lightnings when His voice is heard. God thunders wondrously with His voice. He does great things which we cannot comprehend. When the thunder rolls in the heavens I get excited because I believe these verses. And I stand there like an excited little child and I say listen to God's voice. Nothing to be afraid of, but it's very very thrilling. Why shouldn't we take God at His word What else does this mean if it doesn't mean what it says here? For to the snow He says fall on the earth. The snow falls because God says fall there. Now what about the times we complain about the weather? We have grieved the Holy Spirit. We have said God you don't know what you're doing. Either that and we've been rebellious against God or we have been ignorant and never understood that He sent it. He's controlling it. We have no business to ever ever complain about the weather. God controls the weather and we are speaking against Him and His wisdom when we speak against it. For to the snow He says fall on the earth and to the shower and the rain be strong. Go on rain real strong down there right now. And the rain comes down because God says so. Do we murmur against what God has said to be done? He seals up the hand of every man that all men may know His work. Then the beasts go into their lairs and remain in their dens. From its chamber comes the whirlwind and cold from the scattering winds. By the breath of God ice is given. How about that? The breath of God. Ice is given and the broad waters are frozen fast. He loads the thick cloud with moisture. The clouds scatter His lightning. They turn round and round by His guidance. Oh do you believe that? Do you believe God is controlling the clouds? When this grips your heart you're going to live accordingly. Too many times without number. I can't remember how many. I've long lost count. I want to give you a very simple but utterly factual testimony from the time I believe this verse of something that's happened in my life over and over again. I will have gone outdoors. I love the outdoors. Miles rather be outdoors than in any time. And whenever the sun is shining and it's a little bit warm out I go. Whether it's summer or winter. And as so often I'm out there with my Bible or I'm praying seeking His face about something. Or if I feel this is what He wants me to do, just lying down listening to Him. Or if I feel I need sleep, sleeping. And on the occasions when I'm seeking the Lord through His word, many a time I've been out there because the sun has shone and it's warm on my body and a cloud will have come across the sun. And this testimony is for the glory of the Lord Jesus. And I look up and say, dear God, now you put that cloud over there and I'm cold and you know I'm cold. And I'm out here seeking your face. And because you are all powerful, it's nothing for you to shift that cloud. You're controlling them. And you're my best friend. And not in the light of who I am, but in the light of who you are, I know I can ask you to just move it over a bit so I can get warm. Because you're all love, I believe it would be consistent with your character to demonstrate it right now by doing it. Thank you. And He does because of who He is. He longs for us to believe Him and just bring Him in. And so prove. And I smile at Him and I say, thanks, you're so wonderful, so loving, so intimate, so understanding. Times without number. And then because we have iron roofs so often in New Zealand, I can hear a shower of rain coming and my clothes will be out on the clothesline and I'll run out and I'll say, oh dear Lord, just hold up the rain over the clothesline here, please, where I am, just for a minute while I can get them in. Thanks, I know you will. And I go like mad and pull the pegs off and it stops above my clothesline. And when they're in and I've got them in the basket and I've run inside, down it comes and I say, thanks so much, you're wonderful. Powerful enough to do it, loving enough to do it, just wanting me to bring you into it because you're controlling it. Oh, walking and talking with God is meant to be normal Christian living. Then we've got something to communicate to the neighbour over the fence or the person in the street. We can tell them that this is what God is like. He's real. He's vibrant. He's alive. He wants to be our best friend alongside us in everyday living. Have we limited the Holy One of Israel? Won't we believe this is what He's like? We've hurt Him every time we wouldn't believe Him. He's wanted to come into your everyday life. Do you know that there's not one area of your being He doesn't want to control? Do you know there's not one part of your life, the most intimate part of your life, that He doesn't want to touch and control? Our mind should be mentally alert. Our body should be physically fit. We don't need to have emotional disturbances. We don't need tranquilizers. I know there'll be a reaction to that one. If we'll pay the price of ruthlessly dealing with sin, the power of the Holy Ghost is sufficient under all circumstances. God is always greater than our pressures of life. And that's the point I haven't got. God is greater than our human limitations, our physical weaknesses. He can be made perfect in our strength if we will dare to believe, to exchange His strength for our weakness. When He says, do it, and you're tired, say, thank you, I will do it, I claim your strength. I stand here to give testimony this morning that physical fitness and alertness of mind and strength in my body at the times when I'm the most mentally alert and the most physically fit, strong, could take on anything, feel like that, could run a mile at times when in the natural it's ridiculous. And I shouldn't have any energy or any strength and I should be completely had it. But I believe that His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I believe His strength is greater than my weakness. And as we believe Him, the miracle happens and it flows through every fiber of our being and we're never stronger. It's true. He's greater. He's greater. He's always greater than any of the limitations. If we will just believe Him and then obey when He says, do it. Never ever say to Him, I'm too tired. If He's told you to do it, He will give you the strength. Now, He who knows if it's the right thing to go to bed will tell you just that. One night in New Zealand, I was physically exhausted, not tired. Every fiber of my being seemed to be aching with weariness. And I said, Lord, you know, I belong to the choir and as a member, I should be there. I'm ready to go out tonight into that choir. I, I've proved too many times the spirit natural energy that you can pour through my body. That's no problem. I can claim it. I know the miracle can happen, but I just need to know if it's the right thing to go, because I can claim nothing unless you're telling me to do it. And I said, I know the answer is in your word for everything I'll ever need to know. Do I go to bed or do I go to the choir? Thank you that you'll tell me. Because all this is unpremeditated, I hadn't a clue I was going to give this. I haven't been able to look up my diary where it is recorded, the exact verse he gave me. I think it was somewhere in the Psalms. The word of God opened to me and the first thing my eyes fell on was something as poignant as he went to his bed and rested or something. I've got the reference there. I could find it and if you wanted it, any of you, I can give it to you. I have the exact reference in my hotel in the diary. It was just so starkly clear in front of my eyes. It's the only thing my eye fell on. God said, go to bed joy, in other words. But I'd said, I can believe you for the miracle strength first. You see, we can only believe when we are and claim when we are in the will of God by having waited on God in detail. He's greater than all our problems. Do you believe that? He's greater than all our problems. I found myself traveling from New Zealand to Switzerland, leaving New Zealand on the first day of the first month, which is exactly what he told me from his word, from several different parts of the word. The Holy Spirit had quickened the first day of the first month. So that's the day I left and that's because of his direction from the word. And when we were coming into India, we were not far off India and the pilot announced over the loudspeaker system that one of the engines was seriously leaking oil and that we couldn't go on as far as we had expected and planned, uh, that we would have to stop down at Karachi and repairs would have to be made. Well, that's all right. So we did. In about half an hour, I suppose, we found ourselves down at Karachi. Not a problem because God has no problems, only plans. Um, the interesting thing that we found as the night wore on, because it happened to me midnight that we dropped into Karachi, was that it took nine and a half hours to fix the engine that was leaking oil. Because of this, all plane connections in Europe just went all haywire. I was due to be in Frankfurt to pick up another plane to get me to Geneva. And of course it had gone hours before. To make a long story short, I found myself in the early part or the late part of the afternoon, early evening in the Rome airport. Frankfurt had closed with heavy snow. And I knew because God had told me back in New Zealand that I would arrive in Geneva on the second day of the first month. And God is not a man that he should lie, the word says, neither the son of man that he should repent. Has he said and shall he not do it? Has he spoken and it shall not come, shall it not come to pass? Now, who are we going to believe? God? Man? The devil? Circumstances? When we have sought the Lord in detail and he has said the second day to arrive in Geneva. And you find yourself at the, at a, every plane is fully and completely booked. And there is a waiting list of twenty people waiting to get on the first plane. And a waiting list for the only other one, the second plane. And two highly voluble, jabbering Italians with a lot of gesticulations in broken English were telling me that I was absolutely crazy to wait at the Rome airport to get on planes that had twenty people on the waiting list. And if I had any sense at all in my little English head, I would get on that plane that I just got off, which was going to London. That was the end of the route, you see, and it had left New Zealand. I would get back on that plane which was going to London, and I would get a plane from the London airport into Geneva sometime that night. And the Spirit of God in here was saying, mm-mm. No, that's not the way. The whole witness of the Spirit of God in my heart was that God was going to get me to Geneva from the Rome airport. And so I just said as nicely as I could, uh, I shall wait, thank you. I shall wait and just get on that list. That would be that I would be twenty-one people. Plane fully booked. Airport jammed. Other ports of air—around—airports around Europe closed because of weather conditions. People all milling into the Rome airport. Uh, airplanes lined up. Quite a business. I said, Father, I believe you want to do a miracle here. I believe what this is what—all this is about. I believe you've arranged these circumstances to give me the excitement of proving that you are always greater, far greater than man's, uh, what man says than overloaded planes and closed airports and everything. I believe back in New Zealand you said I'd get there tonight, and I believe the way I'm going to get there is from Rome. That's what I believe you're saying inside here. That's the witness of your Spirit. And then he said, now declare that to the other Italian man who was helping me. Because on the plane I had said, Lord, I need a prepared heart to help me. Please prepare a man. And I need somebody, an Italian that's sharp and that's really with it and that's going to cooperate with me. And he gave me Mr. Colombo, which was all that. And he was right at the steps of the aircraft, the first Italian I saw. And I turned to Mr. Colombo and I said, I had to take the step of faith. I believe, I said, that I shall be on that first plane that's going in about an hour and a half. And he smiled, as men often do to strange little women like this, with a tolerant, benign sort of look that's thought, well, it won't hurt her to think that anyway. You know, but she'll learn. Probably knew at the traveling. That's all right. And then the next step of faith, I was writing to my husband at the time, had been writing on the plane and the spirit of God said, tell him you believe that you're going to get on that plane. So that was the second step of faith. So I did so. And then, uh, events got a little bit more interesting. Uh, I came down and was sitting outside, um, in the foyer park where the passengers were collecting. And I said, God, I've made my two steps of faith from the witness of the spirit and your character for what you've said back there. I believe I shall go. And I no sooner had said that I looked up and a whole lot more people were pouring in off a plane. And I recognized all my fellow passengers who'd been with me from New Zealand, who were booked through to London. And I thought, oh, that's interesting. They're all coming off. And so I said, what's the story with And they said, we've just, we've just had word that the London airport is now closed and we can't get in there tonight. Now, just imagine if I had obeyed the two jabbering, uh, Italians and gone back there, the clock was ticking round and the time was coming near for that plane to take off. All my luggage would have gone back onto that plane and I would have missed the miracle. Who are we going to believe? The circumstances, man, Satan and demon powers who could attack the minds or try to thwart the will of God. Or are we going to believe that God is always greater than every circumstance and every problem. And then finally I said, dear Lord, took this Bible out of my Air New Zealand bag and said, what do you think about all this? Now I believe what, how you've been guiding me from the witness of the spirit within, but here's the word and let the word confirm the spirit. There's nothing like it. I said, Lord, what do you say about all this? I believe that you're going to perform a miracle. By this time, I think it was about 20 minutes for the plane to be leaving. And I just opened the word of God. My eyes were shut. My hands were tight on that Bible like that. And I just said, what do you say, Lord? And the word of God opened to me like this. And my eyes fell first of all down here on the left side of the page in Jeremiah, which says, um, I am the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? And then my eyes came across here and fell upon this verse that says, call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and difficult things that you know not of. I laughed out loud again in the Rome airport and said, thanks. I thought that's what you thought. Went and stood because there was a paper that a man had given me with a computer going, don't ask me what it was all about. It was something to do with all the people who were to go, the names that were finally to go onto the plane. And, uh, I wasn't sure whether the man had, this piece of paper was something I was supposed to have or he had, and I misplaced it. And I thought, goodness, I hope I haven't lost it. So I just went back to this little box and I said to the man there operating this thing, I said, excuse me, cause I'd been there 10 minutes before I said, excuse me, that bit of paper, was it, have you got it? Or was I supposed to have it? And he looked at me and he said, lady, your chances of getting on that plane is so slight. And he had that nice sort of benign look that Mr. Colombo had had, you know, poor little woman, you know, does she, will she not get the message? But they were kind. And then the clock ticked round and it was about 10 minutes to go. I said, Lord, I believe you. How you work is not my business to work out. You're beyond me and I'm not going to try, but that you will do it, I believe. And then the same man who had just finished saying a few minutes before, lady, your chances are so slight, you know, you're 21 on the waiting list. I don't think he knows to this minute what happened to him. And I don't think he knew what was happening to him then. He just sort of like a robot looked up into me and said, lady, you're on. I was on all right. I could have walked 10 feet above the ground. Praising God. Don't be ashamed to praise the Lord in streets or airports. He's worth praising. Perhaps if we praised him, they'd hear how wonderful he was. And on I walked. Oh, hallelujah. Because God is always greater than our circumstances. And the eyes of the Lord are running to and fro to Chronicles 16 and 9, seeking to make himself strong on the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward him. Have you got a mountain of unbelief this morning that stops and hinders and ties the hands of almighty God? He cannot perform miracles in your everyday living because you won't believe him and it grieves him and his hands are tied. Are you tying the hands of God? Finally, he is far, far greater than our present vision of his purposes to meet a lost and dying world. And this will take about five minutes and no more. Through us. Through us. The vision that we have in this church today, every single one of us, I believe, of how God is going to meet the needs of the world and our part in it is, is like a, a little peanut in compared with the vision that he wants to give every one of us. If we'll ask for it, if we'll believe for it, if we'll lay hold on God for it, and if we'll keep obeying the next thing he tells us to do, which will bring it to pass. Will you turn with me to in these last two or three minutes to second Chronicles, first Chronicles four and 10, Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, Oh, that thou wouldst bless me and enlarge my border and that thy hand might be with me and that thou wouldst keep me from harm.