What Do You Know About God? Series

Please note: the Scripture passage will be read before the sermon.

“A PSALM OF DAVID, WHEN HE FLED FROM ABSALOM HIS SON.

1 O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; 2 many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah 3 But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. 4 I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah 5 I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me. 6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. 7 Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. 8 Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! Selah” (Psalm 3:1-8)

Series Introduction

Think with me about everyday life for a moment. You are moving at a brisk pace as you exit your car, anxious because you fear you are late. You have an early morning meeting with your teenager’s teacher before you head off to work. Ladies, you have a cup of coffee in your left hand, purse over your shoulder, and white pants on, fresh from the dry cleaners. In a moment you discover the lid is not secure to your coffee. The coffee spills all over your beautiful white pants. The next instant there’s a pain from the heat of the coffee and you look down to discover there’s no way the coffee stain can be camouflaged. What if this were you? What would your thoughts about God be as you stand in the parking lot embarrassed and frustrated? Which of these might be your response in that situation?

• “God, are you punishing me for something?”

• “I guess You didn’t want me to go to that meeting.”

• “It was cool how You had this happen before I was inside the school.”

• “Why didn’t you protect me?”

Often our responses to life’s circumstances reveal how we think about God, whether it’s falling down stairs, getting a promotion, or discovering that your child has a learning disability.

How You View God Matters. How do you view Him? The truth is: how you view God matters… how you view God really matters. J.I. Packer in his classic book entitled Knowing God writes: “Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.”

Let’s talk about God’s character for a moment. We need to tread carefully here. God cannot be fully known. To think we can perfectly describe God is drawing you a map of Milky Way Galaxy … to scale. To think we can perfectly describe God is more of reach than to tell you what a woman is thinking -?. The Bible describes God as: “… who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.” (1 Timothy 6:16b) Augustine expresses the truth best like this: only the infinite God can fully comprehend the infinite. The difference between God’s being and ours is more than the difference between the sun and a candle. It’s more than the difference between the ocean and a raindrop. And more than the difference between the universe and the room we are sitting in. God is qualitatively different than you or I.

Every aspect of God is infinite for God is without limits in every aspect. While God cannot be fully known, we can be confident that we do know Him.

Yet, we trust Scripture here because inside the pages of Scripture, God has chosen to reveal Himself. The Bible is God pulling back the curtain so we can better see Him and know Him and ultimately trust Him. This is the value of our Bible! (hold Bible up) The Bible is God pulling back the curtain so we can better see Him and know Him and ultimately trust Him. Yes, while God cannot be fully known, we can be confident that we do know Him.

Think with me about organizing our thoughts on God. There is no way we can say everything the Bible teaches us about God’s rich character at once. Typically, God’s attributes or His character has been thought of as belonging to two categories. The most common way believers have done this is where we differentiate the characteristics God shares with us humans and those which cannot be shared with us. These are called communicable attributes. There’s the attributes God shares with us to some degree. These are the traits we can share with God. We will never be equal to God in His wisdom, love, and holiness, but God shares these characteristics with His children. But there’s also the attributes God is unable to share with us. These are called incommunicable attributes. These are the qualities that make God different.