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I’m going to do with this sermon what the Bible does with the existence of God… it never argues for his existence. It simply ____________________ it.
“In the beginning, God created…” Genesis 1:1
God is infinite: Don’t be afraid to celebrate the mystery of God!
“If you can understand it, it’s not God.” – St. Augustine
"To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.
Isaiah 40:25
Why you should listen today:
WHAT YOU BELIEVE ABOUT GOD WILL CONTROL YOUR _________ IN THE PRESENT, and YOUR DIRECT YOUR ___________________ IN THE FUTURE!
With that in mind, let’s look at 4 core truths about God:
1. God is ______________________________.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth…” Acts 17:24
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” Genesis 1:1
2. God is _____________________.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Isaiah 6:1-7
What is “HOLINESS?” The Holiness of God is the ________________________ ___________________________ of God’s character.
Each of the four living creatures had six wings… Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." Revelation 4:8
But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." 1 Peter 1:15-16
(see also Leviticus 11:44; 19:2; 20:7)
Holiness is an attribute that God _________________________________. We’ll discuss this more when we talk about salvation and sanctification.
3. God is _______________.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him... We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:16, 19
4. God is _______________________.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth… he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else… so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” Acts 17:24-27
“…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:22
Come near to God and he will come near to you. James 4:8
“So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Matthew 6:31-33
“Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Luke 12:6-7
What does it mean for your life if you believe…
• God is the Creator – he made you?
• God is holy, and wants you to be?
• God is loving and forgiving?
• God is personal --- he wants to you know him?
Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God … Revelation 8:3-4
SERMON:
My purpose in this sermon is not to prove the existence of God. If you want me to do that, I would be glad to sit down with you and have a great conversation on it…
I’m going to do with this sermon what the Bible does with the existence of God… it never argues for his existence. It simply assumes it.
Look at Genesis 1:1. The first verse of the Bible, God’s personal revelation to you. If you were God, what do you want to say to make people believe? What do you want to do to convince people that you are REAL? Look at what God does:
“In the beginning, God created…” (Genesis 1:1)
As the old Japanese proverb says, “Do you want proof for the existence of God? Would you light a torch so you could see the sun?”
So, I’m going to do the same thing. God exists. He is real. Most of you here today probably believe that. If you don’t, then come talk to me. If you’ve got doubts, let’s go do lunch and talk about it. I can recommend some great books to you, etc. etc.
But today, we’re going to study what is WHAT God is like.
OPENING ILLUSTRATION:
Look at this thimble… imagine I was down at the beach, with the Pacific Ocean crashing onto the shore, and I scooped up a thimbleful of water, held it up and said, “I’ve got the ocean in this thimble…”
Would it be true?
What if I scooped up this coffee mug… would I have the ocean?
What if I scooped up this 5-gallon bucket… then would I have it?
< POWERPOINT> What if I used one of these, the world’s largest dump truck? (In case you can’t see, that’s a car and four men standing down near the bottom!)
How big of a scoop would you need to scoop up the Pacific Ocean?
That’s what it’s like to try to describe God with just words… he’s just too big! You can’t fit him into our language.He’s not just big, he’s infinite! That means there’s no start and no finish to him… no limits.
Isaiah 40:25 "To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.
A quick rundown of facts about God: (theologians call these “attributes” of God.)
• He’s eternal – he has always been, and always will. He is timeless.
• He’s infinite – he has NO limits.
• He’s omniscient – he knows everything.
• He’s omnipresent – he is present everywhere.
• He is Trinity in Unity – this is a great mystery, and is a fundamental Christian belief. You can’t be a Christian without believing in the Trinity… but we will unpack this more when we get to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
• He’s
Don’t be afraid to celebrate the mystery of God!
“If you can understand it, it’s not God.” – St. Augustine
“I’m drawing a picture of God,” replied the little girl.
“But, no one knows what God looks like,” the mom protested.
Without looking up from her crayons, the little girl replied, “They will when I am finished.”
Sorry, when I’m done, you won’t know what God looks like. But I’m going to try to communicate the CORE of what God is like, and show how it applies to your life.
HERE’S why you should listen today:
WHAT YOU BELIEVE ABOUT GOD WILL CONTROL YOUR LIFE NOW, and YOUR DESTINY IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!
What you think when the word “God” is mentioned is very important. It has all kinds of implications for your life, for how you live…
I don’t mention this to throw off on them… I would love to see them all saved, and converted to the genuine version of Christianity! I mention this only to show that what you believe about God has consequences for your life!
What you believe about God has consequences for your life!
Did you know that of the 10 countries with the highest suicide rates, 9 of them are also on the top 10 of least religious countries? (FOOTNOTE #3) Apparently, atheism has an impact on the way you live – or, in this case, die.
Perhaps that helps you understand why famous pastor and writer A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
What you believe about God can determine whether you have hope or despair, whether you have self-esteem, or self-hatred… whether you are moral or immoral, careless or careful, and a million other things!
WHAT YOU BELIEVE ABOUT GOD WILL CONTROL YOUR LIFE NOW, and YOUR DESTINY IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!
With that in mind, let’s look at 4 core truths about God:
1. God is the Creator.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth…” Acts 17:24
This is not all that popular.
The Bible teaches that God created the entire universe…
I believe that God created it all in just six 24-hour days, about 6-10,000 years ago. I will not try to prove or defend that in this sermon, except to say that this is what the most literal reading of Genesis tells us.
Some have tried to say that there are tens of thousands of years of time gap in Genesis that are not talked about. I will not comment except to say that the only reason that it would be necessary to believe that is to try to make the Bible harmonize with science, which has been proven wrong so many times over the last 200 years that they should get a recognition for it…
Literally, just this week, scientists came out and said a new study has come out that it’s actually better to drink WHOLE milk. Seriously, well what have we been drinking that skim milk for? Stuff tastes like water colored with chalk!!?
Many people ask, “Well, what about starlight from “million year old stars” that is already arrived here on earth? What about carbon dating that shows millions of years of ago on the earth?”
Let me ask you: Did God create a full-grown man named Adam, or did he create a baby named Adam?
If you answer that he created a full-grown man, then Adam would have looked 30 years old (or whatever) when he was really only 30 seconds old. Then what could have prevented God from creating a full-grown universe? One that looked 100 million years old when it was really just 6 days old?
I will not try to argue with you about it – just point out that it is not necessary to try to harmonize all the things about God and science…
That’s like trying to put God in a thimble – remember? He’s just too big… don’t cram God in a scientific thimble invented by fallible scientists.
Either the world (and you!) was created by a Creator God, or it happened by chance, by accident.
VIDEO: Accidental Masterpiece? (Available from www.bluefishtv.com)
God is the Creator. Next week, we will discuss exactly what that means for your life.
I will move on.
2. God is holy.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." Isaiah 6:1-7
But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live… When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.” Exodus 33:20
What does HOLINESS mean?
Holiness means “separated”
a. From the common or ordinary.
b. From everything unclean.
The core thing we have to say about God when we discuss his character is that He is not like anything we’ve ever seen… he is completely OTHER, he is completely ABOVE, he is completely SEPARATE in his purity and his glory and his light.
"There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.” 1 Samuel 2:2
God’s holiness is so unimaginably pure that Isaiah, a prophet, who was no doubt a better man than most – certainly he had spent the first part of his ministry carrying messages for God. If you look at the first 6 chapters of Isaiah… he’s saying “woe” to this person, “woe” to that country, “woe” to that king. But this great prophet walks in before God, and says, “Woe is ME!” When I realize the awesome purity of God, I realize it isn’t enough to be above average!
If you don’t have a sense of your own sinfulness, and how far it is from what you are to what God wants to make you, I can safely say, you don’t know God – you never have seen him.
Notice that the angels veiled their faces – even they could not look on God’s holiness! These are the angels that only one of them appeared to the shepherds, and they were terrified, only one of them rolled the stone away, and the professional Roman soldiers fell like they were dead men…
To see the glory and holiness of God is like looking directly into the sun, only far greater… imagine what it would be like to be suddenly transported to only 100 miles from the sun. What would your reaction be? Not just to shield your eyes… The truth is that you would be instantly killed by the intensity of the heat and light. It would simply be too great to bear.
This is the GLORY, the INTENSITY of the Holiness of God!
Each of the four living creatures had six wings… Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." Revelation 4:8
In modern writing, we have several ways to emphasize something – bold, italic, and underline. Without using those, how would you emphasize it?
Hebrew emphasizes things by repetition. Many times the Scripture repeats something twice for emphasis. But when the Scripture proclaims the holiness of God, it is usually 3X… this is for emphasis, like a BOLD, ITALIC, UNDERLINE statement.
No other attribute of God is repeated like this… for instance, “Love, Love, Love is God” or “Mercy, Mercy Mercy is the Lord.” Only holiness is repeated like this.
But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." 1 Peter 1:15-16
(see also Leviticus 11:44; 19:2; 20:7)
Holiness is an attribute that God gives to us. We’ll discuss this more when we talk about salvation and sanctification.
The holiness of God will come up from now on in VIRTUALLY EVERY AREA of theology we study – that’s why its imperative that you understand this!
MAN
The holiness of God is what MAN was created to emulate and worship.
SIN
The holiness of God is what makes SIN so bad – it isn’t just that it’s unacceptable socially, or that it is unjust… it’s that it is offensive to the holiness of God!
JESUS
The reason a sinless Jesus was necessary is that God could not accept an unholy sacrifice for sin – it had to be holy enough to satisfy his holiness!
SALVATION & SANCTIFICATION
Salvation is God reproducing holiness in fallen people, repairing what sin damaged.
HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit comes to us the primary purpose of doing God’s work in our hearts of making us holy.
CHURCH
The Church is holy society. It is a community living out God’s holiness.
LAST THINGS
At the end of the world, God will judge it according to his holiness. He will vindicate his holiness in the face of all the evil and rebellion in the world.
You see?? It is impossible to understand any area of theology without understanding the core truth that God is holy!
What is HOLINESS? Say it with me:
HOLINESS is the unique, radiant purity of God’s character.
3. God is love.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him... We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:16, 19
If God was just HOLY, and that’s all we knew about him, we’d be afraid of him. He would be no different than the other gods of this world… ones that have power, but no desire for a relationship with you.
If God was only holy, we’d be afraid of him.
If God was only love, we wouldn’t respect him.
But since God is holy & loving, He made a way for us to become like Him! This way, we can come to Him without fear!
But the raw, incredible fact of God’s love is illustrated in this story by Philip Yancey. You’ve heard the story of the Prodigal Son… here’s Philip Yancey’s story of the “Prodigal Daughter”
“What’s So Amazing About Grace?” by Philip Yancey
A young girl grows up on a cherry orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, a bit old fashioned, ten to overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times, and she seethes inside. “I hate you!” she screams at her father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument, and that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.
She has visited Detroit only once before, on a bus trip with her church youth group to watch the Tigers play. Because newspapers in Traverse City report in lurid details the gangs, the drugs, and the violence in downtown Detroit, she concludes that this is probably the last place her parents will look for her. California, maybe, or Florida, but not Detroit.
Her second day there she meets a man who drives the biggest car she’s ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch, arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills that make her feel better than she’s ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her parents were keeping her from all the fun.
The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car-she calls him “Boss”-teaches her a few things that men like. Since she’s underage, men pay a premium for her. She lives in a penthouse, and orders room service whenever she wants. Occasionally she thinks about the folks back home, but their lives now seem so boring and provincial that she can hardly believe she grew up there.
She has a brief scare when she sees her picture printed on the back of a milk carton with the headline “Have you seen this child?” But by now she has blond hair, and with all the makeup and body-piercing jewelry she wears, nobody would mistake her for a child. Besides, most of her friends are runaways, and nobody squeals in Detroit.
After a year the first sallow signs of illness appear, and it amazes her how fast the boss turns mean. “These days, we can’t mess around,” he growls, and before she knows it she’s out on the street without a penny to her name. She still turns a couple of tricks a night, but they don’t pay much, and all the money goes to support her habit. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. “Sleeping” is the wrong word-a teenage girl at night in downtown Detroit can never relax her guard. Dark bands circle her eyes. Her cough worsens.
One night as she lies awake listening for footsteps, all of a sudden everything about her life looks different. She no longer feels like a woman of the world. She feels like a little girl, lost in a cold and frightening city. She begins to whimper. Her pockets are empty and she’s hungry. She needs a fix. She pulls legs tight underneath her and shivers under the newspapers she’s piled atop her coat. Something jolts a synapse of memory and a single image fills her mind: of May in Traverse City, when a million cherry trees bloom at once, with her golden retriever dashing through the rows and rows of blossomy trees in chase of a tennis ball.
GOD, why did I leave, she says to herself, and pain stabs at her heart. My dog back home eats better than I do now. She’s sobbing, and she knows in a flash that more than anything else in the world she wants to go home.
Three straight phone calls, three straight connections with the answering machine. She hangs up without leaving a message the first two times, but the third time she says, “Dad, Mom, it’s me. I was wondering about maybe coming home. I’m catching a bus up your way, and it’ll get there about midnight tomorrow. If you’re not there, well, I guess I’ll just stay on the bus until it hits Canada.”
It takes about seven hours for a bus to make all the stops between Detroit and Traverse City, and during that time she realizes the flaws in her plan. What if her parents are out of town and miss the message? Shouldn’t she have waited another day or so until she could talk to them? And even if they are home, they probably wrote her off as dead long ago. She should have given them some time to overcome the shock.
Her thoughts bounce back and forth between those worries and the speech she is preparing for her father. “Dad, I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. It’s not your fault; it’s all mine. Dad, can you forgive me?” She says the words over and over, her throat tightening even as she rehearses them. She hasn’t apologized to anyone in years.
The bus has been driving with lights on since Bay City. Tiny snowflakes hit the pavement rubbed worn by thousands of tires, and the asphalt steams. She’s forgotten how dark it gets at night out here. A deer darts across the road and the bus swerves. Every so often, a billboard. A sign posting the mileage to Traverse City. Oh, GOD.
When the bus finally rolls into the station, its air brakes hissing in protest, the driver announces in a crackly voice over the microphone, “Fifteen minutes, folks. That’s all we have here.” Fifteen minutes to decide her life. She checks herself in a compact mirror, smoothes her hair, and licks her lipstick off her teeth. She looks at the tobacco stains on her fingertips, and wonders if her parents will notice. It they’re here.
She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. Not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepare her for what she sees. There, in the concrete-walls-and-plastic-chairs bus terminal in Traverse City, Michigan, stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother and a great-grandmother to boot. They’re all wearing goofy party hats and blowing noise-makers, and taped across an entire wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner that reads “Welcome home!”
Out of the crowd of well-wishers breaks her dad. He runs toward her, arms open… She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes like hot mercury and begins the memorized speech,
“Dad, I’m sorry, I know…”
He interrupts her. “Hush child. We’ve got no time for that. No time for apologies. You’ll be late for the party. A banquet’s waiting for you at home.”
(Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Zondervan, italics at the end are mine…)
4. God is Personal.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth… he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else… so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” Acts 17:24-27
“…a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.” Hebrews 7:19
“…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:22
Come near to God and he will come near to you. James 4:8
“So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Matthew 6:31-33
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7
Probably one of the most popular ideas of God in today’s world is that God is IMPERSONAL…
In Star Wars, it was “the Force.” Just a vague, impersonal SOMETHING that was “in all living things.”
In The Matrix it was “the Architect” or “the Core”… depending on who you ask.
It’s really dangerous when we get our theology from movies, by the way.
So, let me ask you to turn to the person closest to you, maybe the one that you came with, and discuss each of these questions for about 30 seconds:
What does it mean for your life if you believe…
• God is the Creator – he made you?
• God is holy, and wants you to be?
• God is loving and forgiving?
• God is personal --- he wants to you know him?
OPTIONAL INVITATION/RESPONSE/WORSHIP
The bottom line: When you're hurting, you can't go to a Force and pour your heart out. When you need healing, you can't just hope the Force cares. The truth is that there IS a God who is a PERSON -- he thinks, feels, wills, acts, decides, loves good, hates evil -- and he cares for you.
So, as we finish the service today, I want to remind you that the most awesome thing in the world is to be invited into the presence of this HOLY CREATOR, this God of light and brilliance, and for Him to say, "Come... I will give you rest. I will give you guidance. I will give you healing for your hurts, strength for your weakness, guidance... What do you need? Talk to me. I am your friend."
Why don’t you come today, to one of our prayer stations… write on your card your request. You’ll find some Scripture there about prayer, next to the incense. Take a moment to pray. If you want to kneel, feel free. If you stand, that’s OK, too. Pour out your heart to God… tell him what you need, and leave your request there, knowing that God always keeps and stores up your prayers because he cares about every word you’ve ever spoken to Him.
Worship in Music – Song
As Close As The Mention of his Name
Lizzy sing this with just piano… while people come and do the prayer station…
Worship In Prayer
Prayer Station:
2 tables in the front, covered & decorated:
Vase/Bowl with incense…
Scriptures about the incense – prayers …
Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. Revelation 8:3-4
_______________________
REFERENCE
_______________________
REFERENCE #1:
(http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_7584821,
http://mormonism.suite101.com/article.cfm/utahs_high_antideprresant_usage)
REFERENCE #2:
Concerning suicide rates, this is the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health Organization's report on international male suicides rates (which compared 100 countries), of the top ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, all but one (Sri Lanka) are strongly irreligious nations with high levels of atheism. It is interesting to note, however, that of the top remaining nine nations leading the world in male suicide rates, all are former Soviet/Communist nations, such as Belarus, Ukraine, and Latvia. Of the bottom ten nations with the lowest male suicide rates, all are highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism.
It is important to keep in mind that atheism and agnosticism have no inherent proscription against suicide, so higher rates of suicide among agnostics and atheists should in no way be considered a failure of these belief systems.”
(http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html)
Really?! People are far more likely to kill themselves, but it shouldn’t be taken as a failure of the belief system? Hmmm… I would suppose that happy people don’t kill themselves. People with a purpose in life don’t kill themselves. People with meaningful relationships don’t kill themselves. People with a reason to live don’t kill themselves.
So, atheism didn’t do any of those things… but don’t hold that against them! What is this, a joke? (MY analysis…)
REFERENCE #3:
www.blogistan.co.uk/blog/mt.php/2006/10/06/open_season_on_muslims
