1 John 1:1-3 & 5:21 – The Nature of God -- Faithfulness
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
John, in writing to the church some 60 years after the resurrection of Christ, is the last living eyewitness to the earthly ministry years of Christ. Yet he sees a danger arising in the church, as they are attempting to blend the ideas of their day (Greek philosophy) with the message of the Gospel of Christ. It is said that John is writing to address the rise of pseudo-incipient quasi-embryonic Gnosticism.
In the book of first John, after dealing with this “spirit of antichrist”, John seems to have an unrelated comment that ends his book “Keep Yourselves From Idols.” However, a careful study of the text, shows that this ending is a summary of what the entire book has been about.
Typically, when we think of idols, we picture statues of Buddha, Totem Poles, Golden Calves, and other physical graven images.
However, the greatest threat of idolatry is much more subtle. Let me say this for your careful consideration. The greatest idol in our world goes by the name of Jesus. Yet He is not the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus experienced by the apostles and His faith which must be contended for by the saints. It is a Jesus of our own crafting, who fits comfortably with our ideas, lifestyle, culture, selfishness, and sin.
Think of positive preaching that refuses to accept the “wild-side” of the Nazarene who turned over tables, not in the riotous party centers of Rome, but with a whip in the temple of the Chosen people. What was to be a house of worship, had become a religion of profit and greed. They still called the name of Jehovah, but He had long since vacated.
We can put the name of Jesus over our door, on our t-shirts and claim that God is on our side. But when Joshua asked the appearance of God that met him before Jericho, he asked “are you for us or our enemies,” the Lord said “NEITHER” but as captain of the armies of the Lord I come.
We want to put God in a box as being on our side – that we think He is republican, a UK Wildcat fan, and so many other forms of belittling as we create “God in our image” rather than seeing God for who He is and conforming our lives, worship, and understanding to bow before Him.
I. CAN GOD BE KNOWN? HOW?
A. PROBLEM OF KNOWING GOD
1. OUR SINFULNESS
2. OUR LIMITATIONS -- HOSEA 4:6 -- my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge
B. GOD’S AWESOME MYSTERIOUSNESS
1. GOD IS INFINITE, MAN IS FINITE
a. ISAIAH 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
2. GOD IS ETERNAL, MAN IS TEMPORAL
3. GOD CANNOT BE KNOWN THROUGH REASON
a. JOB 11:7 “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.”
b. Job 37:23 The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power;
b. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
4. GOD IS OTHER AND GREATER THAN MAN
C. IF THERE IS TO BE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, HE MUST GRANT IT.
1. IT MUST COME FROM HIS SIDE OUT OF HIS MYSTERY ACROSS THE CHASM OF FINITUDE AND SIN.
2. THIS IS REVELATION OR REVEALED KNOWLEDGE.
D. REVELATION -- UNVEILING
1. MATTHEW 16:17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
2. EPHESIANS 3:3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.
3. COLOSSIANS 1:26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
4. WHATEVER THE MYSTERY OF GOD OR HIS WAYS, IT IS ONLY KNOWABLE IF IT IS REVEALED.
• Look with me at how this world has changed in the two millennia since Christ’s birth.
• Empires have expanded and vanished; brilliant men and their ideas have enlightened and been forgotten. Poverty, plagues, persecution, prosperity, have criss-crossed with the history of humanity.
• Men have created inventions that have carved highways through the stratosphere and placed time in chains — so that you can have breakfast in London and lunch in New York City.
• We have through our scientific genius made this world a neighborhood, but through our moral ineptitude we have failed to make the Church a brotherhood.
• We have created weapons of mass destruction and entertainment of mass seduction and have failed to use our creativity to glorify the Creator of all things.
• Drunken with abundance and prosperity, we bury food while the bellies of our neighbor are wrinkled with hunger.
• Times have changed, ideas have changed, life has changed, governments have changed, morality has changed, entertainment has changed. Yet amidst all this change there is a faithful God who is unchanging.
• Some of changes world history have been for good, while others are the accelerated depravity of humanity carrying us faster than the unlocked wheels of time can carry us to a cataclysmic destruction.
• Yet our God needn’t be “New & Improved”; He is already all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving, Almighty I AM.
II. FAITHFULNESS RELATED TO ETERNAL OMNIPOTENCE
1. Hebrews 1:1-12
a. In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
b. but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
c. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
d. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
e. For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father”? Or again, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”?
f. And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God’s angels worship him.”
g. In speaking of the angels he says, “He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire.”
h. But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
i. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”
j. He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
k. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
l. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”
2. Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
3. God’s eternal nature is not abundance of time but overarching timelessness of past, present, future as "frozen now"
II. FAITHFULNESS RELATED TO IMMUTABILITY
1. James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
2. Always at the noon-day peak of power (never increasing or decreasing in power, knowledge, skill, experience
3. Only at sun’s apex of strength does sun-dial not have shadow
4. He has no teacher, parent, counselor, adviser, or mentor
III. FAITHFULNESS RELATED TO MERCY
a. Psalms 36:5 Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
b. Psalms 89:2 For I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.
c. Psalms 89:24 But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
d. Lamentations 3:21-26
i. 21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
ii. 22 It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
iii. 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
iv. 24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
v. 25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
vi. 26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
e. God’s faithfulness is seen in the constant, stubbornness of His mercy
f. Genuineness of mercy is seen in its faithfulness to faithless recipients
IV. FAITHFULNESS RELATED TO WORD
a. Psalms 89:33-34 but I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.
b. Psalms 119:89-91Your word, LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you.
c. Faithful character is seen in the surety of His declarations
d. Word is unstoppable because of His absolute power
e. Word is unalterable because of His eternal abode
f. Word is unchangeable because of His immutable Person
