God Has Nothing To Hide Series

God Has Nothing To Hide

FINDING GOD part 4

INTRO:

In an American History discussion group, the professor was trying to explain how societies ideal of beauty changes with time. "For example, he said, "take the 1921 Miss America. She stood five ft tall, weighed 108 pounds and had measurements of 30-25-32. How do you think she’d do in today’s version of the contest?"

The class fell silent for a moment. Then one student piped up, "Not very well."

And the professor asked, "Why is that?"

And the boy said, "Well, she’d be way too old."

While our idea of beauty changes, so do a lot of other things, there are a lot of other things that change. And many think that God has gotten old and he is outdated.

Joshua Ramo, in Time magazine’s December 1996 cover story, suggested that cyberspace will change people’s perception of God, since "technological revolutions…change everything they touch."

William Grassie, professor of religion at Temple University, predicts that the tendency is to view God "as a process evolving with us. If you believe in an eternal, unchanging God, you’ll be in trouble."

Like the Time Magazine article, we think we need a newer model, one that fits what we want, high in grace, low in wrath and throw in some love for good measure.

The only problem is that God’s word stands in direct opposition to that philosophy.

I know what you are thinking. Hey, wait a minute I thought this was a cool church that didn’t talk about outdated theological ideas like God’s Wrath and Hell and things like that. No we are not outdated, but the truth is it is important that you know that we don’t skirt around tough issues. We have two goals here at Mid-Cities Church. One is to help you love people, the other is to help you love God. Now we would not be doing you a favor if we talked about 90% of what God is like. You deserve to know every aspect of who God really is.

Now the first question we need to ask is should we even talk about this at church. I think so… I mean if you one of your kids is about to get run over by a car and you didn’t tell them to get out of the way, then what kind of parent would you be. If channel 5, 8, or 11 knew about a sniper killing people over at Northeast mall and didn’t want to tell people about that story, but instead went right to weather, then they would be considered poor journalist. What about a police officer that saw smoke coming from your house, or burglars breaking in but didn’t do anything to intervene. That police officer would get fired. What would you think about a pastor that just taught on God’s love, forgiveness, and patience, but left out information on His wrath, because it was to uncomfortable to talk about. Well, that pastor would be trying to hide something from you, and would be doing you a disservice.

Some of you are wondering now, that’s all fine and good Clay, but why talk about God’s anger on friend day, when more newcomers will be here. Good point! But I want you guys to know that at Mid-Cities Community Church we are not going to pull a fast one over on you. We are going to be straight up with you. The truth is that God is all loving, patient, and kind, but He is also a God of wrath. I need to share with you Today we are going to talk about four things we need to know about God’s anger.

1. The first thing we need to know about God’s anger is that God’s anger Is Not Hidden!

God is not up in Heaven going, “Oh come on Clay. What are you thinking! This was our secret, I don’t want anybody to know that I get angry. The truth is that God doesn’t hide His anger. His anger is not something that He hasn’t let us know in Scripture. God says this pretty plainly in

Leviticus 26 "’If you still refuse to listen to me and still turn against me, I will show my great anger”

Underline the words I will show. I’m glad that we have a God that is not trying to pull a fast one on us, but that is honest enough with us to let us know about Him. Some of you have not really trusted God or churches because you have felt like they have tried to cover up who they really are. Many of you have this idea that if you scratch under the surface of Christianity that you will find a deep dark secret. You will uncover God’s anger. The truth is God says “Anger, yeah I get angry!” He admits his anger.