I spent a lot of years angry at God. I was so angry that there came a point that I decided he was a fable, he did not exist, he was a crutch for the weak who could not handle the troubles of life. I took every opportunity to prove to others they were living a lie. That was until the faithful day I met my wife, who after we were married decided she need to get back to church. I had no intention of stopping her, and I also had no intention of joining her. As time progressed, she return home and tell me that many people at church had asked her to lunch but she felt guilty leaving me at home alone. She eventually convinced me to go with her, if only to go out to lunch later. It was in that church, that I was confronted with the truth of who God is. I was invited to join a class called Christianity 101; I reluctantly went vowing I would not participate. In that class, I was confronted with the reality of who God really is, and what he had done for me. He was nothing like I had imagined, my eyes were opened not only to my own sin, but my eyes were opened to who this God was that I was sinning against.
Paul in his letter to the Romans declares, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Today we live in a world where evil has become good, and good has become evil. There is a prevailing wind where no one wants to or in many cases are held accountable for their own actions. It always seems to be someone else’s fault. The church has not been immune from this thinking and the truth about sin has been replaced in many churches with a I want to make you feel good attitude. The outside pressures of a politically correct world have infected many churches and the thinking of many Christians to the point that sin has become nothing more than a minor inconvenience. There are some pulpits that are afraid to make people feel uncomfortable by speaking about sin for fear people will not come back, because it makes them uncomfortable. They ignore God’s holiness, righteousness and justice. An ever-growing number of Christians ignore sin because they fear the backlash of being labeled intolerant. The truth is that when we sin it should make us uncomfortable, if you go to church every Sunday and leave feeling better about yourself every Sunday, there is a problem. I can tell you that there are Sundays when Pastor Pat has preached the word and it has caused me pain as I have come face to face with things in my life that fall short of God’s desires Sin is defined by Webster’s dictionary as: The voluntary departure of a person from a known rule or duty prescribed by God.” What makes sin serious is not that we sin, what makes sin serious is that we sin against God.
Psalm 51-1-4
Have mercy on me O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleans me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
The good news is God is good, the bad news is that God is good and we are not.
Paul Washer made this comment about sin; “If the bravest and most hardened person understood even in the smallest portion of who God is; he would immediately collapse under the weight of their own sin.” Every sin we commit we commit against God. That is why it is of the utmost importance that we have a right view of who God is. To have a wrong view of God is to have a wrong view of sin and that can cost you your eternal soul. It is written that a fool that says there is no God how much more foolish it is to have a wrong understanding of who God is and believe ourselves to saved when we are not.
My goal today is for us to renew our understanding of who God is, I am going to concentrate on five specific characteristics of God. God’s Supremacy, Sovereignty, Holiness, Righteousness, Faithfulness and Love.
God is Supreme
1 Chronicles 16:25
For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and he is to be feared above all gods.”
We live in a time where man has decided to name himself as being supreme. We see ourselves the top of the food chain, this of course is a lie, strip a man of all his technology and place him on the African savanna and he quickly discover how vulnerable he really is. Some take this same thought process when they deal with God lifting themselves above God, in their own ignorance and pride they see themselves as God’s equal or even as God’s better. If we truly understand God’s supremacy, we soon realize for lack of a better word how I significant we really are.
There are several aspects about God that reveal his supremacy. God is self-existent, that is to say God is not created, nothing created God, God has always existed and is by default the Creator of all other things. This is a hard thing to grasp when we have the mindset that everything needs to have been created by something. Yet God does not. We find it uncomfortable to acknowledge that God has always existed and is our Creator. If we seek the truth then we must acknowledge that we are created, we are not self-existent. We must the acknowledge that we have a Creator and that Creator is God. We understand that we are not the result of some mathematically impossible random act of nature but created by God for his purpose. and since he is the one that has created us we are created for a purpose. That we are then accountable in every way to our Creator.
God is self-sufficient. There truly is nothing God needs from us, there is nothing God needs at all. He was God before creation and he would still be God even if he created nothing.
Every living creature needs oxygen, food, and water, remove one of these and they die. God needs none of these, he is self-sufficient. If there was not a person made, not a creature made, not a planet made God would be fine. God creates because he is a Creator; he creates because he is relational and personal. And he creates to show his power and his glory. The Psalms declare that the very heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims his hands work. Without God there is no sun or moon, no rain, no wind, every breath we take every beat of our hearts, are dependent upon God. When we sin, we sin we sin against God, God who is supreme and the Creator of and above all things.
God is sovereign
1 Samuel 2:6-8
The LORD kills and brings to life, he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy rom the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s and on them he has set the world.
I found this post on my Facebook timeline the other day, “I understand that if I advance confidently in the direction of my dream and endeavor to live the life I have imagined, I will meet with success. First I have to be clear as to what my dream is. Today I spend time with my dream.” While this all sounds great the problem is there is no much “I”. This is a great example of how we want to think that we are in control of all things at all times. That is a lie the world wants us to believe. We live in a world that promotes self-reliance, self-control and self-evident truth. That can make it hard for us to accept the fact that we are not in control and that there is a sovereign God who is always in control of all things at all times.
The hardest time for us to grasp this fact of God’s sovereignty is in times of trouble, we often wonder where is God? We think this because we continue to think of him in an earthly way. We only see the present we only know the trouble of the moment and forget that he is sovereign but in the sovereignty everything he does he does for his glory and our good. To surrender to the sovereignty of God is to find peace a peace that only be found in complete surrender. Earthly rulers will reign for a season, God remains sovereign forever. His is an everlasting dominion and will endure from generation to generation. When we sin, we sin against the sovereign ruler of all the universe.
God is holy
Revelation 4:6
Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”
To have a misconception of the holiness of God can lead to a multitude of problems. In proverbs it says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” The word holy comes from the Hebrew root which means to separate or placed apart. In regard to God we see that he is separate and above everything he has made. God is separate and yet approachable; he alone is God. Because of his holiness there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can compare to the glory of God.
Because he is holy, he has total separation from any form of moral corruption that has been caused by man. God is separate from all that is sinful, he is impeccable and pure. In him there lies no darkness he is the light. God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt others with evil. In God’s holy eyes sin is such an abomination that he cannot look upon it. Faced with the undeniable truth of the holiness of God, we must declare as the prophet declared “Woe is me! For I am lost” The holiness of God is hard for us to even imagine, and yet as his children we are called, to be holy. It is impossible for us to achieve the holiness of God, but we can separate ourselves from the immorality and sin that this world embraces. Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians that we must no longer walk as Gentiles, alienated from God. We are to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. We have no choice but to live in this world, but we do have the choice not to embrace the things of this world. When we sin we sin against a Holy God.
God is righteous.
Psalm 119:137
You are righteous, Lord and your laws are right.
God is not righteous because of what he does, God is righteous because it is who he is. Righteousness is part of his being; it is within his very nature to be righteous. He cannot act in a way that is contrary to his nature.
We need him to be righteous. To have a God who is supreme, who is sovereign over all things and all-powerful and who is righteous is wonderful news. To have that same God be unrighteous would be fearful beyond anything we can image. He would have the potential to make Hitler or Stalin to look like petty criminals with the waste and grief he could force upon this world. We need God to be righteous.
Being holy and righteous God must oppose all evil and unrighteousness. He is a God that will, judge such things not by our standards but by his standard and that standard is perfection. and that should make us tremble. For we are all guilty of unrighteousness and evil. Scripture declare that none is righteous no not one; no one seeks God. All have turned aside together they have become worthless; no one does good not one
As a people we have lost our fear of God because we do not believe in nor do we take his righteousness seriously. We drag God down to our level and we believe that our self-righteousness is acceptable to God, that we in our own power can stand before God with confidence. God demands absolute moral perfection, he demands a life free from sin and unrighteousness, a life that is without flaw or imperfection, and if you believe you have achieved that you are living a lie. There are far too many people who believe their good will one day our weight their bad. This false sense of security is brought on by our own prideful hearts. The other guy is more sinful than me, so I am good. Scripture says if you have broken one commandment you are guilty of breaking them all. If we were righteous the fact that a just and righteous God reigns supreme would bring us immeasurable joy. But we are not so his righteousness brings with it fear as we realize that we are worthy of God’s wrath and we have sinned against a holy, righteous and just God.
God is Faithful
2 Timothy 2:13
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.
God’s faithfulness knows no bounds. He provides sun and rain, night and day and the breath of life to all men. To those that are evil and those that are good, on the just and the unjust, and on the righteous and the unrighteous. He is faithful to provide us with every good gift because it is within his character to do so. Even when we are unfaithful God remains faithful. We have a tendency to think of God at times as ignoring our needs, when many times the thing he is ignoring is our wants. Being God he knows our needs before we know them and he knows. Every breath you take, ever beat of your heart, the rising of the sun, every bite of food on your plate, the water you drink are there for you because he is faithful. He sustains the universe because he is faithful.
God is love
1 John 4:8
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love
Perhaps the most preached about and most misrepresented attribute of God is love. More and more pulpits will speak of God’s love and ignore his supremacy, sovereignty, righteousness, holiness and justice. And if God is none of these and is purely love then his love is worth nothing. God’s love does not supersede all things, but like all his attributes it is not something he does but something he is Scripture clearly and plainly states “God is love.” The only source of love flows from God to us and through us. We like to bring God’s love down to our level; we compare it to the love of men. A love that fades and wains, one day God loves us and the next he is nowhere to be found. We believe that when bad things happen it is because God no longer loves us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God’s love unlike our love, has no depth, no width, no height and is beyond our ability to fully understand. There is not a moment in time that God’s is not there, and in the end because of his love everything works for his glory and our good. I will be the first to admit there have been times that I have had my doubts of this truth. And many times, God has shown me in the end, he was always there. Even though we cannot totally comprehend the love of God we must know that without it we are all doomed. It is in the shadow of God’s love that our sinful nature is expose. If we loved God as he loves us, then sin would be a thing of the past. We profess our love for God and yet we still sin. That is because we are incapable of loving as he loves. Not because we do not care, not because we do not strive, but because we are not God. For his love is so great that he loves us and cares for us even in our sin.
Psalm 145:9
The LORD is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made.”
God’s love is the power behind his faithfulness so he is faithful to fulfill the promise he made at the beginning of time because he is love. It is his love that results in his patience and log suffering. It took Noah over one hundred years to construct the Ark. As a righteous man he preached to all who would hear the coming judgment. God’s love wants that none should perish but that all people should come to repentance. God knows no joy in punishing the wicked. yet if he is to be righteous and just the wicked must be punished.
When we sin, we sin against a God who is supreme there are no gods above him, he is sovereign in control of all things, we sin against a holy, righteous and just God who demands payment for sin and evil. We sin agonist the one who loves us without condition, and who’s love and faithfulness knows no bounds or limits. A God who’s love was manifested in the flesh, so that he might die so that we might live. God’s justice demanded more than death it demanded a perfect sacrifice, it demanded that wrath be poured upon the sinner. His righteousness and holiness demand that sin cannot go unpunished. We by all rights should be the recipients of his wrath and be crushed and instead because he loves us he was faithful and sent his Son. God, who is supreme, God who is sovereign, God is who is holy, righteous and just, God who is faithful, God who is love, came down to live among us humbling himself for our sake.
He was despised and rejected by his own people, unjustly accused of crimes he did not commit and condemned by sinners to die on a cross. He was deserted by those that professed to love him a swore to follow him. As he hung on that cross oppressed and scourged beyond recognition, AS he carried the full weight of the world’s sins on his shoulders, he was crushed by the full wrath of God’s justice, and then forsaken by His Father, who being righteous and holy could not look upon the sin that crushed. Sin that he had no part in, but took it upon Himself because He is love.
Sin is serous not because it harms another person, or breaks a law, sin is serious because of who we sin against. “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Sin is serious because we sin against a supreme, sovereign, holy, righteous, just and loving God, a God who is worthy above all things worthy of all devotion, praise and love and is worthy of our obedience. Sin is serious because of the price that had to be paid, a price that was high and beyond any we could pay. A price only he could pay in pain and suffering, in death and despair. We should be grieving over our sin daily, and then rejoice and be humbled by what was accomplished on that cross.
While we use words, mere words fall so short in describing who God is. It is like trying to describe a beautiful Arizona sunset to a blind person, there really are no words that come close. A pastor by the name of Isaac Wimberley does an admirable job with his words are powerful and I hope I do them justice.
“If there are words for Him then I don’t have them.
See my brain has not yet reached the point where it could form a thought that could adequately describe the greatness of my God.
And my lungs have not yet developed the ability to release a breath with enough agility to breathe out the greatness of His Love.
And my voice, see my voice is so inhibited, restrained by human limits that it’s hard to even sing the praise up, you see, if there are words for Him, then I don’t have them.
My God, His Grace is remarkable, mercies are innumerable, strength is impenetrable, He is honorable, accountable, favorable. He’s unsearchable yet knowable, indefinable, yet approachable, indescribable, yet personal He is beyond comprehension, further than imagination, constant through generations, King of every nation, but if there are words for Him, then I don’t have them
You see my words are few to try and capture the ONE TRUE GOD, using my vocabulary will never do, but I use words as an expression, an expression of worship to a Savior, a Savior who is both worthy and deserving of my praise, so I use words.
My heart extols the Lord, blesses His Name forever. He has won my heart, captured my mind, and has bound them both together. He has defeated me in my rebellion, conquered me in my sin, He has welcomed me into His presence, completely invited me in. He has made Himself the object of my sight, flooding me with mercies in the morning, drowning me with Grace in the night, but if there are words for Him, then I don’t have them.
But what I do have is GOOD NEWS, for my God knew that man made words would never do, for words are just tools that we use to point to the truth. So He sent His Son Jesus Christ as
THE WORD, LIVING PROOF, HE IS THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD, THE FIRST BORN OF ALL CREATION, FOR BY HIM ALL THINGS WERE CREATED, GIVING NOTHINGNESS, FORMATION. AND BY HIS WORD HE SUSTAINS IN THE POWER OF HIS NAME.
FOR HE IS BEFORE ALL THINGS AND ABOVE ALL THINGS HE REIGNS. HOLY IS HIS NAME! SO PRAISE HIM FOR HIS LIFE! THE WAY HE PERSEVERED IN STRIFE. THE HUMBLE SON OF GOD BECOMING THE PERFECT SACRIFICE.
PRAISE HIM FOR HIS DEATH! THAT HE WILLINGLY STOOD IN OUR PLACE THAT HE LOVINGLY ENDURED THE GRAVE THAT HE BATTLED OUR ENEMY, AND ON THE THIRD DAY ROSE IN VICTORY. HE IS EVEYTHING THAT WAS PROMISED.
PRAISE HIM AS THE RISEN KING. LIFT YOUR VOICE AND SING, FOR ONE DAY HE WILL RETURN FOR US, AND WE WILL FINALLY BE UNITED WITH OUR SAVIOR FOR ETERNITY! ETERNITY! SO IT IS NOT JUST WORDS THAT I PROCLAIM, FOR MY WORDS POINT TO
THE WORD, AND THE WORD HAS A NAME, HOPE HAS A NAME, JOY HAS A NAME, PEACE HAS A NAME, LOVE HAS A NAME, AND THAT NAME IS JESUS CHRIST! PRAISE HIS NAME FOREVER!
Fifteen years ago, I came face to face with reality of who God is and that changed my life. The only way to truly know God is to have a relationship with him, to come to know him personally. It is then that not only do you read his word with new eyes but, you begin to experience him daily. God sent his Son, Jesus to die on that cross so that we may get to know God on that personal level so that we can experience all that he is in our lives. Christ died on the cross for our sin, he rose on the third day and is our living Lord. When you believe and put your faith in him as Lord and Savior you can experience God. If you have not done this then today is the day to make that change.
