Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 23, 2017 | Christianity 101: Back To Basics - Who Is God?

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April 23, 2017 | Christianity 101: Back To Basics - Who Is God? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Topeka Bible Church.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: It is good to see you.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: We're going to start a new sermon series today called Christianity 101.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to deliver the first sermon, and then Pastor Jim will pick it up next week and clean up whatever mess I make, right?
0:20
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the Christian worldview, kind of the basics of the Christian faith, but not just a basic theology or basic apologetics, but really how do apology apologetics and theology inform the way that we see the world.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Anytime you hear people from different viewpoints, from different worldviews discuss the same issue, it can often sound like they're not even talking about the same issue.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this has been your experience.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Certainly if you watch on TV, if you watch the media, if you watch political shows where they bring on two people from two totally different viewpoints to discuss an issue, it will often sound like they're not even talking about the same issue.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of about 20 years ago when I was a young guy, uh young adult, was invited or asked by some friends who were going out of town, and they had a dog, they had a Weimariner, which is a uh good-looking dog, pretty dog.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever seen one.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: So they had it, it looked a lot like that.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And so they asked me to come and watch their house uh and take care of their dog for them.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: They were gonna be gone for a few days.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Said shouldn't be any problems, so you know, little did I know.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Foreshadowing, there were gonna be some problems, I guess, or else I wouldn't be telling you the story, right?
1:38
SPEAKER_00: So we I go to watch their house and they leave, and the first night everything was fine, dog was fine.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: I left for work the next day, I did everything they told me to do.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: When I got home from work, that dog had taken the cushions off of the sofa, ripped them open, and scattered the foam inside all over the house.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't easy to see because the dog had also gotten on top of the fridge.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: I kid you not, still don't know how he did it.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Got on top of the fridge, got the bread, pulled it down, ripped open the loaf of bread, and scattered bread all over the house.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Also, the story gets better.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Also, 20 years ago, everybody had a set of encyclopedias on their shelf.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Three copies, three books out of this set.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: The dog pulls the encyclopedias off the shelf, chews them the smithereens.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: There's paper everywhere, there's bread everywhere, there's couch stuffing everywhere.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: I come home to this.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: So later on, I'm on the phone with these people, and they said, How's it going?
2:52
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I gotta be honest with you.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Not as low maintenance as you may have told me.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, there's a whole thing.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: So I explained to them what was going on.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Their response, which I'll never forget, was, oh, not our dog.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, not our dog is the kindest, sweetest, gentlest animal.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: She would never mess anything up, and I thought to myself, I'm not even sure we're talking about the same animal.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when I hear people discuss an issue from two totally different perspectives, I think to myself, I'm not even sure the two of you are discussing the same animal.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: What we're going to talk about today and over the next few weeks is what is it that informs those of us who are Christians, which I'll admit might not be everybody in the room.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: If you're watching over in the cab building, might not be everybody in that room.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: But for those of us who are Christians, what is it that informs the way we see the animal called life?
3:52
SPEAKER_00: The way that we see the issues that get presented to us.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Where does all of this come from?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Why is it that we believe that God is incredibly relevant in 2017?
4:03
SPEAKER_00: In light of technological advances and scientific advancements, God is still incredibly relevant.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is still incredibly relevant in 2017.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is still incredibly relevant in 2017.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, those of us who are Christian not only believe that God and Christianity in the Bible are relevant, we believe that they never stopped being relevant.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: But why is that?
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Why do we believe that?
4:30
SPEAKER_00: As we navigate a culture where Christianity is becoming less and less of the default, how do we navigate it?
4:38
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like for us to understand not just what our worldview is, but where did it come from?
4:46
SPEAKER_00: What informs it?
4:47
SPEAKER_00: What are the theological underpinnings and the biblical foundations that undergird our practical views on all kinds of issues?
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Issues like the redefinition of marriage, or some of us would just say the definition of marriage, uh, gender identity and abortion and all these hot button topics.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And now that I've mentioned three that made us all really nervous, let's take a deep breath.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: So Pastor Jim texted me a few weeks ago, asked would I be willing to preach on April 23rd?
5:19
SPEAKER_00: I said, sure, absolutely.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: He said, we're actually going to start a new series that Sunday, and I want you to kick it off.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And then when he gets back, he'll finish up the other weeks.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, fine.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: That's not the way that I normally, I don't usually preach as a part of his series, but that's fine with me.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I can do it.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh what is it gonna what is it about?
5:39
SPEAKER_00: So he texts me, he explains it's Christianity 101, basic uh beliefs about scripture and about the Bible and about Christianity and the Christian worldview, really.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so the first week I want you to talk about God.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Right on.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, I texted him back and I said, What do I do with the leftover time?
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Right?
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Because my goodness, cover God in 35 or 40 minutes.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
6:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't even like I I do know where to start, but we didn't get very far.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: So uh I start uh studying and I um normally about a page, uh front and back of a page, maybe into two pages would be um uh a normal length sermon for me.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Just over years I've learned that for me that's how my notes work best.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: About two pages is good.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh I had eight pages of notes.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go ahead and give you this disclaimer.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: I promise you that at the end of this, somebody's gonna walk up to me, because it's already happened.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's gonna walk up to me and say, you know, you forgot to mention something.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: You left something out.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: You should have talked about this.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, it's in my notes.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: It's just that there are about six pages of notes on the floor of my office that aren't gonna get preached today.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: So either that or we can lock the doors and stay till Tuesday if you want to.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll tell you the two things we're gonna talk about this morning.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna get to the bottom of those.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: However, I do believe that you can catch a glimpse of who God is in one sermon.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: You can really, you can understand uh just a glimpse of who God is.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And really, our goal this morning is to wet your appetite and make you hungry so that maybe you'll follow up on some of the things that I'm I mentioned.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna mention a lot of names.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you some quotes, we're gonna have a lot of scripture involved.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so maybe you'll go and dig a little bit deeper into some of these issues.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: That's what I hope happens.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, if you're not a God person, you're not a Bible person, which there are some in the room, no doubt.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe some of you came to church last week at Easter for the first time, and you just decided to come back.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: So you're not sure about Christianity and you're not sure about the Bible.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think it's useful for you to understand and for those of us who are Christians to be reminded that actually there is evidence from God uh all around us.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: It's not just in the Bible.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: There's actually evidence from God all around us that tells us God is real.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: In fact, creation tells us God is real.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: We call this the cosmological argument for God.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: It tells us that the existence of creation proves that there's a creator.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And the key word, the key idea here is contingency.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: That if everything that exists was dependent on something before it, and that was dependent on something before it, and that was dependent on something before it, at some point you can't go backwards to infinity.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: At some point, there has to be something that started all the dominoes falling.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: There must be an uncaused cause.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: A cause that acted independently of itself, and we believe that that is God.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: William Lane Craig does a great job explaining this.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: He gives us three very simple premises.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Number one, whatever begins to exist has a cause.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Number two, the universe began to exist.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: So, number three, therefore, the universe has a cause.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: It has to.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: By itself, maybe that argument is not enough to convince you.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just that creation tells us that God is real.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Design and order also tell us that God is real.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: We call this the teleological argument for God.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: It says that because the universe shows order and structure, it must have had a designer.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: So you can see that key word there is design.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are at least passingly familiar with the second law of thermodynamics, which tells us that processes that go on in a closed system will tend toward disorder.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard the term chaos used there, that things generally in a closed system move from order to disorder.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing: for years it was believed, people who didn't believe in a God believed that uh the universe is infinite, that it's always existed.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: But if things move from order to disorder, why aren't we already in total chaos?
10:15
SPEAKER_00: If the universe didn't have a beginning, it's because the universe did have a beginning.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And if things move from order to disorder, who gave us the order to begin with?
10:27
SPEAKER_00: That you can look around you and see evidence of a designer.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: About 10 years ago, uh, when I was pastoring in Florida, we had uh Dr.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Tom Woodward come to the church and speak.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: And I had heard him prior to that, even.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's an apologist.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's on staff at uh, I think it's Trinity College in Florida, teacher, great uh apologist.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And and I loved the way that he explained it.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna kind of paraphrase what he told us because I've never forgotten this analogy.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: He said it's very clear from creation and from science that there is evidence of a designer.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't, whether you believe in God or not, there's evidence of design, and really of what we would call intelligent design when we look around us.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: And if you ignore that evidence of intelligent design, or if you look at the evidence of intelligent design and say, I believe that there was no designer, this is all just uh happenstance, this is all chance, this all happened as a result of evolution, or because of things that happened, and uh there was no designer.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: He said it's the equivalent of having a bag and putting all the pieces of a watch in the bag, shaking the bag up, and when you open the bag, you pull out a watch that's not only assembled and not only wound and not only running, but it's set to the right time.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: If you can look at the evidence of design and in spite of it all, say that there is no designer, that's how much faith you have.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: That's always stuck with me because wow, Psalm 19 tells us the same thing.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a Bible person or not, Psalm 19 tells us this the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Nature is speaking to us, creation is speaking to us if we'll just listen.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Nature's telling us about God.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Cosmological argument, teleological argument.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Maybe those aren't enough.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll give you a third one.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: It's the moral argument for God.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Morality tells us that God is real.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: We love C.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: S.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Lewis around here.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: I love C.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: S.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: He was brilliant.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: He was a brilliant apologist when it came to the moral argument for God.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Especially if you've read The Abolition of Man, if you haven't, you need to.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Phenomenal exposition.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: The way that C.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: S.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Lewis addressed this in his writings are just phenomenal.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: It's this idea.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you've heard this before.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: You can't enforce your values on someone else.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And yet, throughout history, not in just this society, but in cultures around the world throughout history, there's been one link that's held it all together, and that is we may not all agree on what's right and wrong, but we all agree that there's such a thing as right and wrong.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: This is the moral argument for God.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And we can say you can't enforce your values on someone else.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: But if I'm being attacked in an alley by a criminal and you're a law enforcement officer and you walk by and you see me, guess what I expect you to do?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: I expect you to enforce your values on someone else.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: In fact, our culture expects you to do that.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: That is your job.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: That's what you get paid to do.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And no one in our culture would think it's wrong for you to do so.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Issues like rape, torture, child abuse, murder, these types of things.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Phenomenal expose behind this moral argument for God.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Romans 2 echoes this.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: When Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: They show that the work of the law, say it with me, is written on their hearts.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: It's written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts either accuse or excuse them.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I know about you.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: If you're not a church person and you're not a Bible person, those three arguments may not be enough to convince you that God is real or that you should submit to him or that you should put your faith in him.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Those arguments by themselves may not be enough.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Because the posture, often, for those of us who are skeptics is to say, when I have all my questions answered, then I'll believe.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, there's nothing wrong with looking for answers to your questions.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: But at some point you just have to have faith.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: You're never gonna have every question answered.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: At some point, you just have to have faith.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 11:6 tells us without faith, it is impossible to please God.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: It's not really hard.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you can do it if you're talented enough.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Why?
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Because whoever would draw near to God must believe two things.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Number one, you must believe that he exists, and number two, you must believe that he rewards those who seek him.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: So you have to have enough faith to begin pursuing him.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: You believe that he exists, so you begin to pursue him, and you believe that as you're seeking him, that he wants to be found.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: So for our remaining time, here's what I want to do.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: For those of us who are Bible people and Christian, we have kind of a Christian worldview, or maybe we're moving in that direction.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: I want us to talk about kind of two extreme descriptors of who God is.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And neither of them is extreme on its own, but when you when you juxtapose them next to each other, they become extreme.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: And yet both of these are accurate representations of exactly who God is.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: The first one that we're going to talk about is a lot of fun.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it really, I believe, captures the essence of who God is, and that is that God is our father.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: God is our father.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, fatherhood can create a bad impression for people.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it can create the wrong impression for people if you're not careful.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, it reminds me of the joke that I heard years ago of the dad who was walking through the mall and he had his little son with him, and they're going to the toy store.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And so his dad, as dads will do, he decided to make a game out of going to the toy store and he says, Hey buddy, you want to race to the toy store?
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And the little kid, of course, says, Absolutely, I want to race to the toy store.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Takes off running.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, as a good dad would do, as I would do as well, you let the kid win, but the dad's running along behind the kid, and he's saying, uh, hey buddy, I'm gonna beat you to the toy store.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna beat you to the toy store.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the kid's running in front of him, running away from him at the top of his lungs, screaming, Don't beat me, dad, don't beat me.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Wrong impression, right?
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Bad impression.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: And yet, anytime we talk about fatherhood, we need to address this because so many people, their story is uh that someone in their life, and maybe this is true for you, someone in your life misrepresented fatherhood, they hijacked fatherhood.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And so for you, when you hear the term father, that's not a good term for you.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: This is a term that's intended to imply familiarity and fellowship, and maybe for you it doesn't do that.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want to say.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: For the next few minutes, can we maybe put some of that aside?
17:55
SPEAKER_00: I know it's hard, but can we put some of that aside and can we all agree that God invented fatherhood?
18:03
SPEAKER_00: And that God is in fact the perfect heavenly father.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, for some of us, God is looking in our lives to redefine what fatherhood is.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: So can we open ourselves up to that?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Because this is what Jesus, this is how Jesus told us to address God.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: This is how Jesus told his disciples to pray.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 6, 9, he said, Pray then like this, say it with me, our Father in heaven.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: This is how Jesus told them to address God in heaven.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: I love this quote from J.I.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Packer.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: He said, You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's holy father.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and his prayers and his whole outlook on life, which sounds like a worldview, doesn't it?
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Fatherhood informs all of this, and if that's not the case, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Father is the Christian name for God.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: This is true.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Because if you read the Old Testament or if you read Jewish writings, you'll find that there's not a lot of talk about God being Father.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: It's there, but it's not as prominent as it is.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: In fact, when you read the New Testament and you read, we're going to talk in a minute about how much Jesus talked about God as our Father and how much Paul talked about God as our Father, it's out of all proportion.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: This was new.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: This was different.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just a way that Jesus taught his disciples to address God, it was the way.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus valued above everything else.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: It was his favorite term for addressing God or for talking about God.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: In fact, 65 times in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 65 times the term Father is used in reference to God.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: And in John, it's even bigger, it's 108 times.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: This is an important aspect of who God is.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's a great place to start in our understanding of God or in our explanation of God.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: We also see the word Abba used in the New Testament.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Many of you have heard it explained before.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to dive deep in it.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this was really helpful to me years ago.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: I had a Hebrew professor who explained that uh Abba really comes from the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph and Baith, and that Aleph standing for authority and Ba'ath standing for house.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: So literally, Abba means the authority of the house.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great starting point for us talking about a Christian worldview.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Because we believe that God is the authority of the house.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: Not just my house.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: He's the authority of the world.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's not the president, and it's not popular opinion, it's what God has said.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: This is our absolute frame of reference.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: That God, as the authority of the house, is not only our protector, and he's not only our provider, he is the last word.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's important to say it this way.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, not only do we believe that God is the authority of the house, we believe that we are not.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: We look to someone else.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Pauline, uh, in the Pauline epistles, uh, this is reflected as well.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Paul uh uses the term father in reference to God more than 40 times in blessings, doxologies, thanksgivings, creeds, exhortations, prayers.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the most famous passage that Paul talked about this was in Romans 8.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Love these verses.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: For all who are led by the Spirit, Spirit of God or sons of God, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back again into fear.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back again into fear.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Listen, this is big.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: If you are fearful, that's a doubting of God's fatherhood.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Having a perfect heavenly father will drive out fear.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: But if we're fearful of circumstances or of people, of situations going on around us, it shows that we need to grow in our understanding of who our heavenly father is.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: When we have an authority of the house who is trustworthy, we didn't receive a spirit of fear.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: By the way, fear is a spirit.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: And it didn't come from God.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Here's the second half.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry out, say it with me, Abba Father.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of God.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: So very quickly, here are three implications of God's fatherhood.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: These are so important.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: The first one is that God loves us.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: If he's our Father, that means that he loves us.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: 1 John 3:1 says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I love, love, love these verses.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: I love this verse.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: See what kind of love the Father has given to us.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And the Greek word that he uses here is almost a heralding.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: It's, hey, everyone, pay attention.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Lean into this.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Look up here.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, hey.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Listen.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And so we are.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: I sat in a church service with my dad last week for Easter.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Been raised in the church my whole life.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Never been a time when I didn't go to church.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And I still sat in a church service last week in awe that God would make it possible for you and I to call him Father.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: We should never get over it.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: That's what this verse is saying.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe how much God loves us?
24:22
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, we can't get there.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, we have a hard time wrapping our mind around it.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: We have a hard time believing that God's on our side.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of both of my sons play soccer and they play out at sunflower soccer.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And so when we go out there, they have the field, but there's no bleachers or anything.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: All of us parents just kind of bring our lawn chairs.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: So when we go to the field, there's the coaches and the team have their bench on one side of the field, and then the parents sit across on the other side of the field.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting to watch because one team will be on one end and the other team on the other end, and the parents will kind of line up that way across the field from their kids.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And so all of the parents for my son's team, we all wind up usually sitting close to each other, and we bring our lawn chairs and we sit together because we're all cheering for the same team.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: If I went to my son's soccer game today and I sat in the middle of all these parents who were cheering for his team, but I stood up and loudly cheered against my son.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how odd that would be?
25:27
SPEAKER_00: If I went to my son's soccer game and I cheered and I said, No, I hope you missed that goal.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: I hope you lose the ball.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that kid took the ball from you and scored because you deserve that.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: You're a horrible player.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know why they let you out there.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Who does that?
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Good fathers cheer for their kids.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: In fact, nominal fathers cheer for their kids, right?
25:58
SPEAKER_00: So why in the world would you and I believe that our heavenly father is not cheering for us?
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Where would we get such an idea?
26:08
SPEAKER_00: God is on our side and he wants to see us succeed.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Now he wants us to do it the right way, but he's a loving and perfect heavenly father.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: He really does love us.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just love us, he also understands us.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: This is an important implication of his fatherhood.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: God understands us.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 103, 13 to 14 says, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: For he knows our frame.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: He is mindful that we are dust.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: He remembers that we're dust.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: He knows our weakness.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: He knows not just what we can do, he knows the things that we can't do.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell you what, at my house, I have little boys.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: At my house, one of the most powerful things that can be uttered is when they come to me and say, Dad, I don't know how to do this.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Can you help me?
27:00
SPEAKER_00: You better believe I'm going to help them.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to drop everything and help them right then.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Because admitting weakness is a powerful thing.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, first of all, you and I should be admitting it to ourselves.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: And then remembering that God knows, He understands us.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: He's not surprised by our weakness.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: The third thing, third implication, is that God provides for us.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 6, when Jesus was teaching his disciples about prayer, he's talking about how people can get stressed out and frustrated about where they're going to live and what are they going to wear and what are they going to eat.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: This is what he says.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: The Gentiles seek after all these things.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And all these things will be added to you.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: If you pursue God, you can trust him to meet your needs.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: So that's God as Father.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: So what's the opposite end of the spectrum?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that God is our Father, it's also that God is holy.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: God is holy.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: The words holiness and the adjective holy occur more than 900 times in the Bible.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: It carries with it the idea that God's separated from sin and God's devoted to seeking his own honor.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 12 says, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: An idea that's contained in both the Old Testament and the New Testament in many places.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: I gave you two, a Leviticus 11.44, 1 Peter 1.16.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: So God is not just holy, he's calling us as his followers to grow in holiness.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: And as we become holy, we will be, listen, this is so important to understanding holiness.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: We will be separated from something and we'll be separated to something.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: We'll be separated from sin and from sinfulness and we'll be separated to God.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: There's a real relational quality, which just means we're putting distance between us and something.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: And then there's also a moral quality.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: We're not just moving towards God.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: We're moving away from sin.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: We're being separated from sin.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: We're being separated from evil, and we're being devoted to God and his goodness and his glory.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And all of this is happening while we continue to live in this culture and love the people around us with God's love.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: See, the first aspect of God's holiness is his uniqueness.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: This is one that I think we miss sometimes.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: That God's unlike anything, he's totally separate from creation, and he's unlike anything or anyone else that we could ever come into contact with.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Hannah in her prayer, after she gave up Samuel at the beginning of 1 Samuel, in 1 Samuel 2, 2, she prays and says, There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: There is no rock like our God.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: God is unique, God is different, God is separate.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: The other aspect of God's holiness is his absolute purity or his goodness.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: He's untouched by evil, he's unstained by evil, he does not participate in evil in any way whatsoever.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: This is echoed in one of the earliest written books in the Old Testament, in the book of Job.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Job's friend Elihu says this of a truth God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: So if God is separate, then moving towards him is going to naturally involve that we move away from something.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to catch this because I think this is really important.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: As we grow in holiness, we don't do it because we think we're better than other people.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: That's not what holiness is about.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: We move towards holiness in response to our loving Heavenly Father, who is calling us to have a relationship with Him, to grow in our knowledge of Him and our familiarity of Him.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, as we move closer to God, we will of a nature move away from things that aren't holy.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not because God wants us to be better than anyone.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Paul said in Philippians 3, these powerful verses, whatever things were gained to me, those things I've counted as lost for the sake of Christ.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: And more than that, I count all things to be loss in view of, listen, the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: We grow in holiness not because we want to be better than someone else.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: We grow in holiness because we love God.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: And as we move closer to Him, we become more like Him as part of our nature.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: But God's calling us to be different.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: In Philippians 2, we're described as children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom we should shine as lights in the world.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Now I ask you, does that verse sound like it was written 2,000 years ago, or does it sound like it was written on Monday?
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Right?
32:05
SPEAKER_00: We're called to be children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: And we're supposed to appear as lights in this world.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think we miss about holiness.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: I think we miss that there's both a moral aspect and a practical aspect to holiness.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: See, God said some things about marriage, and he said, and I'm just using marriage as an example.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: He said some things about marriage and the way that it should work and the way that it shouldn't work, and that's right because God said so.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: But there's also a practical side to it.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: God invented marriage.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: So the way that he tells us it's supposed to work really is the best way that it works.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's really the only way that it works well.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: There's not just the moral side, there's the practical side.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: His way is right, but he's also incredibly wise.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: He's a loving heavenly father.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want you to catch in application of all this as we're kind of wrapping things up.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: As you're trying to faithfully hold on to both God's holiness and God's fatherhood, you need to be careful that you don't let either of them go or allow one to overshadow the other.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: See, these things may sound like they're intention to you and to me, but they're not intention to God.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, in order for God to love us, he doesn't let go of his holiness.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: He never stops being holy.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't wake up in the morning and say, Well, what am I going to be today?
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Am I going to be loving or am I going to be holy?
33:41
SPEAKER_00: He's both simultaneously.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: And just because you and I may have a hard time reconciling that in our mind, doesn't mean it's not true.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: God is both of these things simultaneously.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: He's loving, but he's also holy.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, as you continue to hear issues addressed in our culture, sometimes by Christian teachers and preachers and people on TV who claim to be Christian, they claim to present represent the Christian worldview, they will begin to redefine things.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And they'll run to God's love and they'll talk about how loving God is.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: And if we're not careful, we run so far into the love of God that we totally forget about and totally obliterate the fact that all the time he's loving, he's also holy.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: He never stops being holy.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: And you and I don't get, oh, you and I don't get to define holiness because we didn't define it the first time.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to redefine anything.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to redefine holiness.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: God defines holiness, He's the God of the universe.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: You and I aren't qualified to define holiness.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: All we need to do is dig in scripture and talk to people who understand the Christian worldview and find out what holiness is.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: But it's not up to us to determine what it is or to define it from the get-go.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: That's God's job.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: God's the only one who's qualified to do so.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Augustus Strong, that great Baptist theologian, said this that God is only love has been called the doctrine of the Papahood of God.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Love can be exercised by God only when it is right love.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: Holiness is the track on which the engine of love must run.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: So this is the encouragement that I would give you.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Hold to both of these things tightly.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Hold to God's love and God's holiness tightly.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Hold to God's fatherhood and God's holiness very tightly.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't allow yourself to become so focused on one that you lose sight of the other.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, the struggle is that God's not very close.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: We get the holiness side of God.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: We understand that he's separate and that he's different and that he's very distant from us or from who we are in a practical way, that God feels so far away.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: So if God's too foreign to us, we may need a reminder of his fatherhood.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: We may need a reminder that God's not out to get us.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Hey, friend, God's not out to get even with you.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: He got even with you on the cross.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the story of Easter.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, some of us become maybe a little bit too familiar with God.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: God's too familiar to us, and we need a reminder of his holiness.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: We need a reminder of the fact that he's unlike everything else that goes on around us.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: One of the phrases that I've used with my sons more than once, as we joke around and we laugh and things get a little too familiar, I will tell them, I'm not your buddy.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad for us to be close, but I'm not your buddy.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: God's not our buddy either.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: God's the God of the universe, and He has this holiness around him.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I think is good for you and I, not just to think about God's holiness, but to remember our sinfulness.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: To be reminded of our sin.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: To be reminded of the fact that this holy God made it possible for you who are anything but holy, to spend eternity with Him.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: That's the miracle that we can't get over.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: This is the story of the gospel, and it's a gospel that's not just useful for people who are coming to God for the first time.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: It's useful for you and I every day that we wake up and breathe in.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: The reminder that without God, I'm bankrupt every day, that there's never going to be a day that I don't need the love and the grace and the forgiveness that's offered through Jesus Christ.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: That today I can't do anything good in my own power and in my own strength.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: It's only as God and the Spirit of God energizes me that I can begin to see his kingdom come to fruition in my life.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: God relates to us with a holy love and with a loving holiness.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's the miracle.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the miracle.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: That this holy God made it possible for me in all of my sin to be declared righteous, to be declared holy.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: Not because of anything I've done, but because I've put my faith in his son.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: He paid the ultimate sacrifice.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: He sent his son to die for my sin.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: I sat in a church service with my dad last week, just amazed, overwhelmed that God would do such a thing.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a message for Easter Sunday, it's a message for every day.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: And when we say he is risen, what's the response?
38:56
SPEAKER_00: To me, when you say that, what you're saying is, you better believe it, buddy.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: It's the craziest story in the world, but it's absolutely true.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it at work in my life.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: I've read it in scripture.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: The God of the universe who is perfectly holy is also my heavenly father.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: And he made it possible for me to be declared positionally holy, to be seen in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and then in my day-to-day life to grow in holiness, sanctification, to grow to become more like him.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: And as I do that, even when as I'm in the middle of this culture, I will look less and less like this culture.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: It's not up to me to be hateful, not up to me to be angry at anyone, but to never let go of the holiness of God and the love of a heavenly father.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: God, thank you so much for your holiness.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: We don't always understand it.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: I think we don't always like it.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: I know in my life and in my experience, my flesh oftentimes rises up against your holiness.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't change the fact that you are holy and you've made me holy positionally, and you're calling me to be holy practically.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's true for all of us who are Christian, for all of us who have put our faith in Jesus.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: God, thank you for that.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for calling us to be weird and different and to be called to be out of step with what's going on around us.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: I also pray that you would help us to not be hateful about it, but that we would deal with others out of the love that you've shown to us.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Help us to catch a glimpse this week of your holiness, but also your your incredible perfect fatherhood.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Help us to relate to you this week as our Heavenly Father.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Such a unique privilege to have that extended to us.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray as we walk through this week, not only that we would have a Christian worldview and that we would see things through a Christian worldview, but even more importantly that we would grow in our knowledge and our understanding and our passion for and our commitment to you and your word.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Your holiness.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for Jesus who makes all of this possible, and it's in his name that we pray.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: He's risen.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.