Your View of God
4-30-00
A.W. Tozer in his book The Knowledge of the Holy states:
“What comes to mind when we think of
God is the most important thing about us.”
“Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a God we can in some measure control. We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing What God is like, and what He is like of course is a composite of all the religious pictures we have seen, all the best people we have known or heard about, and all the sublime ideas we have entertained.”
“The most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech.”
When you think of God what comes to mind?
I am not talking of the “right” answers, but your answer.
Proverbs 23:7
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
I have heard a quote that says the problem with having all the answers is that you usually don’t allow any questions.
In math, 2+2=4. When you bring things together, the sum is equivalent to the total that each part brings to the equation. A sum can not be greater than the total of it’s parts.
Let’s apply that to the church: the total or the condition of the church can not be greater than adding up all the individuals that make it up. Your view of God + the person next to you’s view of God + etc., etc., etc., = Our church’s view of God.
I hear you…but what about doctrine and statements of faith? Those things are great, but “…as a man thinks in his heart, so he is…”. As a church thinks, so it is.
Let me give you two views:
Isaiah 6:1-5
1 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. 2 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. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “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.”
Let’s compare that to the view in Roman’s 1
Romans 1:18-31
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
What makes the difference in the two views?
Isaiah 6:9-10
9 He said, “Go and tell this people:
“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
10 Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Jesus used these words to describe “The Parable of the Sower” in Matthew 13:14,15.
Turn to the “Sower” account in Luke 8:11-15
The fact of the matter is that the seed is the same in each instance, but the soil is different.
Who’s responsible for making the soil seed-ready?
Go back to the passage from Romans 1:18+
Think throughout Scripture, God leads and people have to choose whether to follow:
§ Moses in the desert was led by pillar of cloud and pillar of fire.
§ Jesus (we looked at a couple weeks ago was leading “and from that point some turned back) led his disciples who chose to follow or not.
§ The rich young ruler was given a choice to sell all and follow, he didn’t.
§ Eternal life has been offered, but the sheep and goats tells me not all are going to make it.
Gardeners, how do you make the ground ready for planting?
1. Till the soil.
a. Turn over the soil. Change ways.
2. Remove rocks. Get rid of the hard stuff
a. No more excuses as to why there is no growth in the garden.
b. Sin needs to be dealt with.
c. Love.
3. Fertilize.
a. What you fill up on is what you become, Prov. 23:7 “As a man…”
b. Garbage in, garbage out.
c. Read, Pray, Fellowship
When we become softened in our heart, not softies, we may have to give up our rights, beliefs, traditions, and friends that may be contrary to God.
“My Friends?” How am I going to lead them to Christ if I don’t hang with them?
Let me ask you, Is that what you have been doing so far as you hang with them?
Make no mistakes about it, God will lead his people, but will His people follow Him. Remember, God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
Driving and getting lost, you must consult the guidebook and return to the path.
In Christianity, when we realize we have not followed the leading mapped out for us as described in the Book, we have a choice to get back on the path whatever it takes; or continue in our own making.
Again, God has intentions of you walking as Jesus walked, conforming you in the very likeness of Jesus, that is not automatic and from the parable of sower not everyone is going to “get it”.
Closing Hymn #223 “What Will You Do with Jesus?”
