INTRO.- ILL.- A Sunday School teacher at Calvary Temple in Compton, CA, once asked her students this question. WHAT DO YOU THINK GOD LOOKS LIKE? Here are the answers the children gave.
- A human being with a heart, feet, eyes like fire, and He shampoos his hair everyday.
- He’s tall, gray hair, yellow skin, and brown sad eyes just like my puppy’s. (I’m sure God is sad at times)
- He’s tall. He looks like my daddy. He wears a jumpsuit on weekends and has a bald head.
- I think God has nice eyes. He wears a very pretty robe, and has a Beatle haircut. (when was this survey taken?)
- He has white hair and His eyes are bloodshot.
- He’s tall, black hair, wears sharp clothing, and a heart necklace. (Hollywood view of God, I suppose)
- He looks like Billy Graham. (I don’t think Billy Graham thinks so, however)
- He looks like Jesus, but I’ll tell you a secret. I’m not sure ‘cause I’ve never seen him. (that’s being honest)
- He’s an old man because of all the years He’s been alive. (I’m sure many people assume this)
- He looks like whatever you want Him to look like. (interesting observation. Some truth to this)
- He’s the picture of health (yeah, I guess so)
- I think He’s an old man with a long, gray beard. And He sits on a throne like a king, and drinks all the Dr. Pepper He wants.
While we may laugh at these various ideas or pictures of what God is like, I think we adults have just as many different and strange views about God.
I think there are several basic views that people have about God.
1- Some view God as “the old man upstairs.”
ILL.- Children touring a retirement home were asked by a resident if they had any questions. "Yes," one girl said. "How old are you?" "I’m 98," she replied proudly.
Clearly impressed, the child’s eyes grew wide with wonder. "Did you start at one?"
Many people view God as being a very old man. He must surely be thousands of years old and this must also mean that he is weak and helpless. His creating days are over. His dividing of the Red Sea days are long gone. He can no longer deliver from the mouths of lions or fiery furnaces. He has no strength or power any more. He is helpless. He isn’t able to do anything in this world any more. He can’t restrain evil and perform miracles any more. WRONG.
2- Others view God as the “great judge in the sky” who can’t wait to send people to hell.
ILL.- SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- Never underestimate the power of grandma. A 41-year-old granny in Springfield, Oregon, who stands 5 ft. 5 in. took down a 6 ft. tall teenager who stole the truck she drives to haul her grandchildren. The woman chased down the truck, pulled the driver out and started slapping him. By the time she was finished, he was crying and the truck was back in her possession.
That’s one tough grandma. “A-slap-them-around” kind of grandma. And that’s the view that some people have of God. Perhaps a Judge Judy of sorts. It’s true that He is judge of all mankind but some think of Him as slapping people around and sending them to hell in order to torment them forever and ever. WRONG. This is not God’s great desire.
3- Some people have no view of God at all. They claim there is no God.
ILL.- An atheist was spending a quiet day fishing when suddenly his boat was attacked by the Loch Ness monster. In one easy flip, the beast tossed him and his boat high into the air. Then it opened its mouth to swallow both.
As the man sailed head over heels, he cried out, "Oh, my God! Help me!" At once, the ferocious attack scene froze in place, and as the atheist hung in midair, a booming voice came down from the clouds, "I thought you didn’t believe in Me?" "Come on God, give me a break!" the man pleaded. "Two minutes ago I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either!"
Some people claim they don’t believe in the Creator, at least, not until they get between a rock and a hard place. I’ve always heard it said that there are no atheists in foxholes. I would think that when any person gets to the end of the road in this life and if they still have some sense left, they would most certainly have some belief and want someone to pray that God would have mercy on them.
The evidence is in and it’s very clear! The starry universe, plant and animal life, the human body and the human baby, etc. all speak clearly and loudly there is a supreme Creator who has revealed Himself as God!
ILL.- BEHOLD THE SUN! Do you realize that every square yard of the sun is constantly putting out 130,000 horsepower or the equivalent of 450 eight-cylinder automobile engines? And yet our sun, as powerful as it is, is but one minor star in the 100 billion orbs which make up our Milky Way Galaxy! Talk about an awesome, all-powerful God!
Rom. 1:19-20 “Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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.”
4- Still others view God as the great Creator and loving Heavenly Father, which hopefully, is our view.
ILL.- Long ago a father overheard one of his sons say to his brother, “If you do that, father won’t love you.” That father said to both of his sons, “Sons, I will always love you. When you do what is right, I will love you with a glad heart, and when you do what is wrong, I will still love, but with a heart full of sorrow.”
God is our heavenly Father who loves us in spite of who we are, what we are and how we are. True, He does not condone our wrongdoing, but neither is He quick to condemn us. Just the opposite is true. He is loving, patient, forbearing, and quick to forgive.
Matt. 7:11 “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Our Father is a giving father.
I John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!”
ILL.- Someone wrote, “God is not a demanding tyrant; he’s a forgiving father. If you’re afraid to confess your shortcomings to God for fear he’ll condemn you or, worse yet, withhold his love from you, you need to know this truth: No matter how many times we fail, God loves us unconditionally. He never treats us as our sins deserve but patiently and wisely allows us to learn from our mistakes.”
Brothers and sisters, what is God like? We’ve always heard that He is omniscient (all-wise), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (everywhere present), and eternal. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
He has no beginning and no end. He is and always has been God! He has always existed and always will! He is our eternal God!
God is also holy. He is pure. He is clean. He is without sin.
Isaiah 6:5 “‘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.’”
After Isaiah saw our holy God he said, “I am a man of unclean lips.” What did he mean? Isaiah may have been guilty of profanity. He was certainly surrounded by a profane-speaking people, as we are today. And when he saw the holiness of God, he was humbled and convicted and thought, “How could I speak this way?”
ILL.- I remember walking into a restaurant one time in Missouri and several men seated there had been using some rather vulgar language. One quickly said, “Better hush, here comes a preacher!” A friend of mine, sitting nearby, said to me, “Yeah, better hush. Of course, it doesn’t matter what we say in God’s presence!” How right he was!
How much greater should we be silenced in the presence of our holy God!
It’s not bad that we are humbled in the presence of our holy God. It’s a good thing. If we never see holiness in its best form how can we ever hope to become better people? If we have no model, no mentor, no holy God, how can we improve?
God is also love. He is supremely, preeminently love!
I John 4:7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
I John 4:15-16 “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love….”
Our Heavenly Father is love. He is the very essence of love, the complete embodiment of love. Without God, there would be no real love in this world. Through Him, we know what real love is.
ILL.- Donald Grey Barhhouse said, “If we look at a map of the central United States, we can see the courses of rivers from many sources, all draining into the Gulf of Mexico. Waters from Pennsylvania flow into the Ohio River; from Montana and Wyoming they flow into the Missouri River; from Tennessee and Alabama they flow into the Tennessee. All these rivers join the Mississippi, which rises far to the north in Minnesota.
“Now, if we read this map in reverse and follow the mighty rivers back to creeks, from creeks to brooks, from brooks to streams, we have the picture of the source and flow of power. From one spring, all power flows. All power and guidance comes from God, and the powers that be are ordained by God.”
Likewise, all true love flows from God. He alone is the source of genuine love. And this love is described in I Corinthians 13 and is seen in action in the death of Christ on the Christ. There is no greater love. Jesus not only died in our place, He also bore the sins of the whole world in Himself! This is a burden that we will never be able to comprehend.
We parents have often bore the sins of our children in our own spirits, but Jesus bore the sins of the whole world, from beginning to end, in his spirit! Why would He do such a thing? How could He do such a thing? IT’S CALLED LOVE. God is love.
God is all-wise, all-powerful, everywhere present, eternal, holy, and love. How can we know Him? That’s the important question that many people want to know.
ILL.- Ever heard of Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas? What about Martin and Charlie Sheen? Billy Graham and Franklin Graham? Bing Crosby and Gary Crosby? Lloyd Bridges, Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges? John Adams and John Quincy Adams? George Bush and George W. Bush?
It’s been said “like father, like son.” This is very true in some cases. It’s extremely true for our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ!
John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, (the Son) who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”
John 14:9 Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father…”
John 10:30 He said, “I and the Father are one.”
If people want to know what God is like then they need to read the gospel accounts and consider Jesus. He reveals the Father, his love, his compassion, his thinking, his will, etc.
This is also why Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Our knowledge of God comes through Jesus Christ and our salvation from God comes through Him as well.
Once we begin to know God some changes should take place in our lives. We should become different people. We should become better people and live different lives than the rest of the people of this world.
PROP.- In the remainder of this message, I want us to think about three changes that should take place in our lives once we begin to know God.
1- Knowing God shapes our lives
2- Knowing God empowers us for living
3- Knowing God enables us to love
I. KNOWING GOD SHAPES OUR LIVES
I Pet. 1:15-16 “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."
ILL.- Did you ever see the 1990 movie QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER? It’s a good western movie starring Tom Selleck. Sharpshooter Matt Quigley (Selleck) is hired from America by an Australian rancher so he can shoot aborigines at a distance. Quigley takes exception to this and leaves. The rancher tries to kill him for refusing, and Quigley escapes into the brush with a woman he rescued from some of the rancher’s men, and are helped by aborigines. Quigley returns the help, before going on to destroy all his enemies.
Tom Selleck and I have some similarities, did you know? We are almost the same age and height! Well, maybe not exactly. He’s a year younger than I am, but obviously, a whole lot taller. He’s 6’ 4” and I must be near 6’. NOT. More like 5’ 8”
But ever since I saw Tom Selleck in that movie and several others: Monte Walsh and Crossfire Trail, I have wanted a thicker, broader mustache! He looks so good with his. And just think what it would do for my looks! And my personality.
Brothers and sisters, I think most of us have at some time or other wanted to look like or be like some other human being. Perhaps some famous movie actor or actress. When I was a kid it was Roy Rogers. He was not only the king of the cowboys, but he was also the king in my book! He was good-looking, fast on the trigger, and could ride like the wind. He was the good guy who wore a white hate most of the time. And many little boys wanted to be like him.
After watching him shoot and ride, I could shoot and ride with the best of them, even though my gun was just a play-gun and my horse was just a pretend horse.
People do influence people.
Prov. 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
When we get into the presence of God and begin to know Him we can’t help but want to be like Him. Knowing him shapes our lives. Why is this? Because no one is greater, more lovely and more loving! He is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and does not treat us as our sins deserve. HOW COULD WE NOT WANT TO BE LIKE HIM?
II. KNOWING GOD EMPOWERS US FOR LIVING
ILL.- In Brisbane, Australia, a 30-year-old man by the name of Douglas Birch dabbled in the cult of the Yoga until it cost him both his feet. Believing he had heard the voice of the Yogi commanding him to do so. Birch stood barefooted in a bed of hot coals until his feet were cooked to the bone.
Then he crawled quite a distance to a main road, where someone saw him and summoned an ambulance. After his feet were amputated Birch told a friend, “I am through with that stuff. I can see now how silly it was.”
Brothers and sisters, there are many people involved in Yoga, which they claim gives them power for living.
The word yoga itself has a meaning corresponding to “the mystical union with the universal spirit.” Yoga is atheistic in nature and has the idea of self-realization.
ILL.- The Church of Scientology teaches similarly. Here are some words from their internet site. “Nothing in Scientology, however, need be taken on faith. Its truths are self-evident, its principles are easily demonstrable and its technology can be seen at work in any church of Scientology.
“Scientology is a twentieth-century religion. It comprises a vast body of knowledge extending from certain fundamental truths, and prime among those truths: Man is a spiritual being endowed with abilities well beyond those which he normally envisions. He is not only able to solve his own problems, accomplish his goals and gain lasting happiness, but also to achieve new states of awareness he may never have dreamed possible.”
Scientology states: “Nothing in Scientology need be taken on faith,” and yet the Word of God teaches that we must live by faith even though there is still tons of evidence to prove the existence of God and Christ.
II Cor. 5:17 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
Heb. 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Both Yoga and Scientology point to man himself as being the answer to life’s problems. WRONG!
I think many people already believe in themselves too greatly. They think all power comes from within, that they have the ability to overcome anything by themselves. NOT SO.
Phil. 4:13 “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
Eph. 3:16 “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.”
We have a power source for life that beats any human being or any human source there is! God is greater than man. God is greater than anything man has conjured up: Yoga, Scientology or whatever!
ILL.- Dr. James Boice of the Bible Study Hour broadcast said, “We do not have a strong church today nor do we have many strong Christians… We have forgotten what God is like and what He promises to do for those who trust Him. Ask the average Christian to talk about God.
“After getting past the expected answers you will find that his god is a little god of vacillating sentiments. He is a god who would like to save the world but who cannot. He would like to restrain evil, but somehow he finds it beyond his power.
“Such a god is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is not weak. He is strong. He is all-mighty. Nothing happens without His permission or apart from His purposes – even evil. Nothing disturbs Him or puzzles Him. His purposes are always accomplished. Therefore those who know Him rightly act with boldness, assured that God is with them to accomplish His own desirable purposes in their lives.”
God is with us! He does live within us and empower us by His Spirit! We are weak, but He is strong! Knowing God and knowing that He lives within us gives us strength for living!
III. KNOWING GOD ENABLES US TO LOVE
I John 4:7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
I John 4:11 “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
ILL.- Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Everybody knows what happened at the half-time on the Super Bowl on Feb. 1st, 2004, even if they didn’t see it. But that wasn’t the half of it. The rap singers grabbing their crotches and the dishonoring of the American Flag, all these and more did not go over well with the American public. Oh sure, some Hollywood people were interviewed and they thought nothing of these things. They thought the American public was making too big a deal over these various forms of vulgarity. Many passed it off as just a part of real entertainment.
Frankly, brothers and sisters, I don’t like rap singing. Most of it can’t be understood and what can be understood isn’t worth listening to. I don’t like rap singers. I don’t like a lot of the music that is being produced because it isn’t music! Not as far as I’m concerned. BUT LET ME SAY, I STILL LOVE PEOPLE.
I don’t like Justin Timberlake, but I have to love him because he is a soul for whom Christ died and he needs Christ just as much as anyone. HE IS JUST ONE OF MANY ON MY LIST. I don’t even hate people like Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson, Madonna, the long list of rappers, the foul-mouthed Ozzy Osborn and a host of others.
Let me say again, knowing God enables us to love people, even the unlovely and unlovable. Knowing that God loves such people and knowing that He lives within us and gives us power, how can we not love others?
ILL.- I remember sitting in a Sunday night Bible study at the Fairview Christian Church in Carthage, MO. Boyce Mouton, the preached asked if anyone would go pick up an old man who lived in a shelter care down the road. When no one responded…because you know, that’s what we do. We always wait to see if someone will do it…to see if George will do it. Since no one responded, I said, “I’ll go get him.”
I don’t even remember the old man’s name, but he always wanted to come to church even though sometimes he could be something of a nuisance. Why did I do it? Because I figured if Boyce loved that man then I could demonstrate some love by going to pick him up. I WAS MOTIVATED BY A BETTER MAN THAN I AM.
Knowing God, knowing that He loves people, should enable us and motivate us to love others.
CONCLUSION-----------------------------------
ILL.- After Mark Twain made his triumphant tour through Europe, where he was honored by great universities and kings, his daughter said to him, “Daddy, I guess pretty soon you will know everybody except God.”
There is a great emphasis on education and knowledge today, but the greatest knowledge of all is that of knowing God. We all need to know personally and as intimately as possible. Why? Because life starts with Him and life ends with Him. How can we know Him? One way. Through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
