Latest / HBCWestminster / 1.17.24 Foundations Week 1 Pastor Sam Porges

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1.17.24 Foundations Week 1 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

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As Danny said, we're going to spend some time this spring in a study of systematic theology.
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And if you were with me one year ago when we did this very thing, foundations,
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consider the next handful of weeks as a review for us because it's going to be so good.
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And I know that I've sat in a handful of theology classes.
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And when you love God, reviewing theology is always fun, right?
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Because it just pushes us toward God.
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And so we're going to spend 10 weeks this spring talking about the things of God
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and the things of the Bible, and that should excite us. Amen?
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Amen. Well, I want to begin this evening with a question for you all.
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When you hear the word theology, what comes to mind?
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And I want you to be honest. Yes, Beth?
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Doxology? All right, you're ahead of the game.
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Yeah, you were with me a year ago, so you already know.
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But what else? What ideas come to mind, good or bad?
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Studying God. Yeah, good.
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Okay. It can be abstract. Yeah.
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Does anyone, when you think of the word theology, does anyone get bored?
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You can be honest. We're not going to be offended.
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Okay. Yes, there are some.
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When they hear the word theology, it's like a bad word, right?
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Now, let me ask a little bit different of a question.
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And those of you who have answered, don't answer this one.
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When, or I'm sorry, what is the ultimate purpose of learning theology?
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To know God? Yeah.
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Understanding God? Yeah, yeah.
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What's the ultimate purpose? Why would we do this?
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Like, Pastor Sam, why would you put us through 10 weeks of this?
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Right? Like, what's the purpose?
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There is a theologian, the late J.I. Packer.
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He's an English-Canadian theologian, and he provides some great wisdom for us.
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As it pertains to this question, what is the ultimate purpose of learning theology?
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And if you, last summer, were coming here on Tuesday mornings
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and learning from that book, Concise Theology, with us, you'll remember this.
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Listen to this. He says,
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Theology, study of God, is for doxology and devotion.
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That is, the praise of God and the practice of godliness.
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Theology is at its healthiest when it is consciously under the eyes,
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eye of God, of whom it speaks, and when it is singing to his glory.
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Theology, the study of God, theology is for doxology.
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Now, we are going to ask you, every single Wednesday night for the next 10 weeks,
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what is theology for?
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Because we must get this drilled into, not only our heads, but even more importantly, into our hearts.
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Theology is for doxology.
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For words.
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Worship of God's name.
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And I would hope that as we come to Wednesday nights, we would have worship-ready hearts,
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and that when you leave here in an hour, your heart would be even stirred up more
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for doxology, for praise of God's name.
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Now, I need a couple of people to help me out with this.
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I forgot that I had these under here.
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You guys wouldn't mind passing these out. That'd be great.
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Every week, we're going to...
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There's some staples in there.
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Every week, we're going to hand out just a little handout to you guys.
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If you were with me in Foundations, this is the same thing that I gave you a year ago.
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But we are going to cover some topics this spring, which, if you took Foundations class last year,
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we did not get to cover because of the... just for the sake of time.
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Okay?
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And so, if these are helpful to you, please keep them.
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My goal is to give you something where, if you take some basic notes, you can look at it down the future,
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and it will actually be...
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helpful and not just abstract scribbles from some sermon.
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Okay?
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And so, those are coming around to you.
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For this class, or class for Wednesday nights,
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the way we're going to view theology is we're going to view it as having five basic founts or sources
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that flow into one another like a cascading fountain.
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And so...
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If you'll look up at the screen here, I'm sure at some point you guys have seen a fountain like this, right?
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Where the water comes up the middle, it overflows out the top, and then that overflows into a second level,
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and then that overflows into another level, and the water cascades down into differing levels.
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Well, for this class, the way we're going to study theology is hopefully, number one, not boring,
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because theology is not boring, and I hope that we wouldn't be in our presentation,
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but we're going to study it like a fountain.
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Tonight, we're going to study...
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Thanks, brother.
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Tonight, we're going to study, starting with, as you can see on your notes,
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week one here is the triune God.
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The triune God.
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That is going to overflow into our study next week of the scriptures,
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which is going to inform our understanding of the story of the Bible.
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That's going to inform the gospel itself.
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What is the gospel based on the Bible?
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The gospel.
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And then, really, the last seven weeks are going to be covering faith.
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What exactly is the faith that we have been handed, according to Jude, verse three.
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And so, when it comes to talking about the basics of Christianity, where do we start?
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Where do we start?
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Most people start with either the Bible or God, and then Wednesday nights here, we're going to start with God.
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We're going to start with God, and specifically the triune God.
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Now, in theology...
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In theology, there are many subcategories of study, but the one that lies at the center is what we call theology proper.
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Now, you can think of it like this.
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This is a map of where we live, okay?
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Does this one have a laser pointer?
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That one does?
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Is it the red thing?
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Okay, sweet.
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So, this is the 470, right?
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We're right about here.
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All of this is known as Denver Metro.
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But in the center, there is what's called Denver proper.
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It is the technical city of Denver.
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And so, when we go to the Philippines, we tell people, I'm from Denver.
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Because if we say, I'm from Westminster, they're not going to know.
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I mean, like, a lot of them barely knew where Denver was, okay?
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Until we said, the Nuggets won the championship.
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They just had no idea where you're from, right?
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Like, these kids love basketball.
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And so, they're like, where are you from?
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You're like, America.
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Like, you know Jokic?
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We're like, yeah, sure.
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And they're like, oh, you're famous, you know?
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Um, but we just tell people we're from Denver because technically, we kind of are.
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We're just from the greater Denver area, the metro area.
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Now, in the same way, theology encompasses a lot of topics, a lot of information.
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We could think of it like the Denver metro.
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But at the center of theology lies theology proper, like Denver proper.
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And theology proper is the study of God, both his character and his nature.
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Now.
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Okay.
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So, we're going to go to the next slide.
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But when you're thinking of God, maybe one of the most important endeavors we could ever
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take.
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Because in that study, we get to know God more accurately for who he is.
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And therefore, we are able to order our lives more rightly.
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Again, the theology must lead to.
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Doxology.
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And devotion.
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And so as we consider theology proper, I want to begin with this question.
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And I want some answers from you.
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So.
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Okay.
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say I had no idea who God is. I've never really come in contact with Christianity. I've never
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read the Bible. And I knew that you were a Christian and that you believed in God. And I
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asked you, what is God like? What would you say? God is love. Okay. God is all knowing. Yeah.
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All powerful. Creator. Yep. What was it? He's what? Saint. He is saint. What do you mean by that?
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Yeah. The holiest of holy, right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No, that's perfect. Yeah. Thank you.
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That's good. Yep. What else? Triune. Good. Immutable. Yes. He's just. He's the beginning
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and the end. Okay. So, man, we come to a good church, man. Come on. This is great.
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When we answer that question, what is God like?
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we inevitably answer with various attributes of God, his attributes.
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Now, an attribute, kind of an interesting word, right?
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But it's just whatever God has revealed is true about himself.
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This is what A.W. Tozer says, and I believe it's his book, Knowledge of the Holy,
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which I'm going to talk about here at the end as a recommended resource.
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But we talk about God's attributes, whatever God has revealed as true about himself.
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And as we're going to see in the coming weeks, every attribute of God,
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God, is true of each member of the Trinity.
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God's attributes are typically broken up into two categories, and this is in your notes,
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but we have what are called his incommunicable attributes and his communicable attributes.
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Now, his incommunicable attributes, I know it's a big word,
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but his incommunicable attributes are the attributes that he does not share with humanity.
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But his communicable attributes are the ones that he does.
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Now, think about diseases.
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If we say someone has a communicable disease, it means they share it, right?
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It's contagious.
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Well, in the same way, when we talk about some of God's attributes, they are communicable in that
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it's an attribute that's true of God, but it's an attribute that can also be true of us.
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But on the other side, there are attributes that God has that we cannot possess.
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And so for our study tonight, we're going to look at some of both of those types of attributes,
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as well as his Trinitarian nature.
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And so let's look first at God's...
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Now, when we think of all those things you just listed and more,
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when we think about things that are true of God, but that aren't necessarily true of us,
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what would some of those things be?
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Okay, perfect, omnipresent, eternal, all-knowing.
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Yeah, really good.
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Any others?
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Omnipotent.
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Yeah, really good.
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You're hitting the nail on the head.
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There are all these things that are true of God that he doesn't share with us.
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And so we're going to look at some of those things.
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We're going to look at some of these.
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The first one in your notes is that God is independent.
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Another way of saying it is God is self-sufficient.
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He's self-sufficient.
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This means that God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything,
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yet we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him joy.
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Okay, Highland.
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What is theology for?
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I need it better.
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I need it better than that.
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What is theology for?
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Doxology.
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Think about this idea.
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God does not need you.
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He doesn't need creation.
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He didn't create because there was some void in him.
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He was feeling lonely.
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No, he doesn't need anything, and yet you and all of creation can bring him joy.
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He delights in you.
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As the independent, self-sufficient God, he looks upon us and says,
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you bring me so much joy.
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And we can glorify God and enter into our purpose as humans.
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That is good news.
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Look at this verse.
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This is from Acts 17.
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It says,
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The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth,
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does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands,
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as though he needed anything,
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since he himself gives to mankind life and breath and everything.
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There is a glorious smallness that we should feel when it comes to God's self-sufficiency.
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We are small, and yet there's a glory in that
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that can quickly turn into devotion if we let it.
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And so God is independent, self-sufficient.
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Everything in creation belongs to him,
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yet he is himself apart from creation.
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He's independent, right?
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So that's first.
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He is independent.
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Next, we see that God is, and someone said it earlier,
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he is immutable.
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Another word for this is that God is unchangeable.
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And this simply means that God's nature, character, and purposes never change.
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Now, God does express and feel emotions.
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That's clear from the scriptures.
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And he does...
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He does cause the universe to change,
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but he himself never changes.
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Listen to Psalm 102.
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It says,
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Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
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and the heavens are the work of your hands.
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They will perish, but you will remain.
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They will all wear out like a garment.
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You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
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but you are the same,
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and your years have no end.
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Or what about...
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James 1.17
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Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
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coming down from the Father of lights,
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with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
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Can you take comfort tonight in the fact that the person in whom you're putting your faith doesn't change?
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Everything changes, but not him.
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He is steadfast forever.
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So that is second.
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God is immutable.
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Third, God is eternal.
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He is eternal, meaning he has no beginning or end,
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and he is not limited by time.
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God perceives time differently.
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And past, present, and future are all present to God.
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For us, the past is a memory.
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The future is unknown,
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and the future is unknown.
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All we have is the present.
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But for God, it is not that way.
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All of time is before him.
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Listen to this verse.
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This is Psalm 90, which we sing here, right?
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Psalm 90.
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Before the mountains were brought forth.
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Okay, let's pause there.
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We live in a place renowned for its mountains.
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The mountains are gigantic.
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It's a lot of rock underneath those things, right?
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They have been here for a long time,
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and yet, Psalm 90,
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before they were brought forth,
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wherever you had formed the earth and the world,
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from everlasting to everlasting,
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you are God.
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You return man to dust,
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and say, return, O children of man,
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for a thousand years in your sight,
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are but as yesterday when it is past,
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or as a watch in the night.
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And then this is echoed in 2 Peter 3, verse 8.
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It says, but do not overlook this one fact,
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beloved, that with the Lord,
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one day is as a thousand years,
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and a thousand years,
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as one day.
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This isn't giving us a formula
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for one day equals 1,000 years,
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and so you plug it into the math equation.
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No, he's saying, you guys,
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look at God.
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From everlasting to everlasting,
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he is God.
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His years have no end.
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He remains the same forever.
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The fourth incommunicable attribute we have
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is that God is infinite.
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He is infinite.
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God is not limited by anything
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except his own character.
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We know Numbers 23, 19, right?
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God is not man that he should lie,
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nor a son of man that he should change his mind.
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2 Timothy 2, 13 says this,
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and this is good news.
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If we are faithless, he remains faithful,
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for he cannot deny himself.
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And so to say that God isn't limited
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by anything except himself,
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that's not really a limit.
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Right?
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It'd be like saying,
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man, I can only do what is right.
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I can only do what is just and perfect.
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Like, okay, that's pretty good.
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Right?
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And so he cannot deny himself.
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Now, the infinitude of God
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leads us to three more attributes,
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which you guys named earlier.
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They're the three omni-attributes, okay?
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And so the first one,
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which you guys mentioned,
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is that God is omnipresent.
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If God is not limited by anything,
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then he is not limited by space.
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And he is present everywhere in the universe.
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Another way of thinking about this
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is that everything is present to God.
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1 Kings 8, verse 27 says,
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But will God indeed dwell on the earth?
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Behold, heaven and the highest heaven
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cannot contain you,
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how much less this house that I have built.
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Like, you cannot contain the presence of God.
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He is everywhere.
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And then Psalm 139, verses 7 to 12 say this,
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Where shall I go from your spirit?
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Or where shall I flee from your presence?
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If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
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If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
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If I take the wings of the morning
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and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
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even there, your hand shall lead me
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and your right hand shall hold me.
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If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me
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and the light about me be night,
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even the darkness is not dark to you.
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The night is bright as the day
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for darkness is as light with you.
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God is not limited by space.
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But not only is he omnipresent,
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he's also omnipotent.
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Omnipotent.
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God's power is not limited.
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And he is able to powerfully accomplish all his will.
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We could also call this sovereignty.
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What God sets out,
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what God sets out to do, he does.
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No one stays his hand or says,
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God, what are you doing?
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No, he accomplishes all his will.
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Psalm 115, verses 2 and 3 say,
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Why should the nation say, where is their God?
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Now, you guys, are there not people in our world
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who look at us and say, where's your God?
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Our God is in the heavens.
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And he does all that he pleases.
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He is sovereign.
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Sovereign and powerful.
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The problem is that we think our wisdom matches up with God's.
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And so we say, man, where's your God?
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No, he does what he pleases.
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So God is omnipresent.
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He is omnipotent.
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And then thirdly, he is omniscient.
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Meaning that God's knowledge is not limited.
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God knows everything actual
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and he knows everything possible,
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past, present, and future.
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And God cannot learn.
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God cannot learn.
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Listen to the beginning portion of Psalm 139.
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It says this,
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O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
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You know when I sit down and when I rise up.
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You discern my thoughts from afar.
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You search out my path and my lying down
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and are acquainted with all my ways.
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Even before a word is on my tongue.
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Behold, O Lord, you know it all together.
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You hem me in behind and before
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and lay your hand upon me.
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Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
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It is high.
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I cannot attain it.
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God knows everything.
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Man, just as a side note,
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if God knew everything and he didn't care,
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how cold this doctrine would be, right?
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God knows everything.
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Yeah, well, so what?
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What?
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But then out of Jesus' mouth when he says,
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no, God knows every hair on your head.
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Are you not of more value than the sparrows
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which God knows so well?
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Of course you are.
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God knows you intimately and he cares.
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And so God is unlimited.
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He is unlimited.
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He is infinite.
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But lastly, as far as his incommunicable attributes,
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God is unified.
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Simply meaning that God is not divided.
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He is divided into parts.
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His attributes do not conflict,
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nor does one outweigh another,
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but he perfectly displays all of them.
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Although we see different attributes displayed
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at different times.
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God's love and his justice are not intention.
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Like, man, I don't want to exercise this
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because I feel conflicted.
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No, there isn't a dichotomy
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between the Old Testament God
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and the New Testament God.
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Anyone who would claim that the Old Testament God
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is the God of wrath
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while the New Testament God
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is the God of love
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has not read the Old Testament.
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You just haven't.
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You can't claim that
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if you've read the Old Testament
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because God's mercy is so evident.
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His patience is so real in the Old Testament.
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And so there's not this dichotomy.
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God's attributes are not added onto his character
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as if they were outside of him,
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but he, rather, is his attributes.
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He is his attributes.
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And so think about
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all of this,
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all of this theology.
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Think about how it translates to doxology.
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We talked about God's self-sufficiency, right?
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That God says, listen, I don't need you.
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I want you.
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That he is unchangeable.
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Church, think about this.
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The only hope that we have
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is for us to change.
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But God doesn't change.
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Everything we want is to change into Jesus.
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We want to be more like Jesus, right?
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We want to be more like the unchangeable one
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who was the same yesterday, today,
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and forever.
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And so there's so much praise
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that can bubble up
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out of God's incommunicable attributes.
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But that isn't all that's true about God.
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On the other side,
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we have God's communicable attributes.
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God is like us in some ways.
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Now, we talked about the incommunicable.
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Now let's talk about the communicable.
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What are some ways
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or some attributes of God
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that could also be true of us?
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Love.
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Caring.
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Yep.
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Okay, relational.
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Yep.
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What was it?
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Justice.
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Yeah.
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Creator.
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Yeah, there's certainly an aspect, right,
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where humans create in ways
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that the rest of creation doesn't, right?
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And so there's some differences
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where God can create out of nothing,
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but he has put that in us,
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the creative impulse, right?
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Let's look at some of these.
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Number one, God is personal.
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God is not an impersonal force
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or an embodiment,
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but he's an infinite personal being.
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Now, there's too many scripture references
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to count here.
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The scriptures assume that God is a person.
24:27
He's not a force.
24:29
And there are some today
24:30
who would think that
24:32
like the idea of justice,
24:34
the idea of goodness,
24:37
those ideas are present in the universe
24:40
and that people of the ancient days
24:42
just called it God.
24:44
That's not how the Bible talks about God.
24:46
He is personal.
24:49
Next, God is holy.
24:50
Holy, which we mentioned earlier, right?
24:52
And this means that God is unique.
24:54
He's other than.
24:55
He's set apart.
24:57
He's perfect in his moral purity,
25:00
but he's also different than humanity
25:02
in his essence, right?
25:05
And so God is spirit.
25:07
We have flesh,
25:09
so he's different than us in his essence,
25:11
but he is holy.
25:14
Look at some of these verses,
25:15
Exodus chapter 15.
25:17
It just says,
25:18
Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
25:20
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
25:23
awesome in glorious deeds,
25:25
doing wonders?
25:28
And then 1 Samuel 2, 2.
25:30
There is none holy like the Lord,
25:32
for there is none beside you.
25:34
There is no rock like our God.
25:38
Man.
25:41
Doxology flowing out of the scriptures themselves.
25:44
Right?
25:45
And so God is holy,
25:47
morally perfect, set apart.
25:52
Thirdly, God is good.
25:55
Now we talk about God's goodness a lot,
25:58
a lot, and rightly so,
25:59
but what exactly do we mean when we say that?
26:02
I think a good definition of his goodness
26:04
would be that all that God does
26:05
is worthy of approval.
26:08
It's good.
26:09
It's worthy of approval.
26:12
God is the standard of goodness.
26:14
Now, do you guys remember
26:16
the ending of the book of Jonah?
26:18
In Jonah chapter 4, verse 2.
26:22
You remember this story?
26:24
God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh,
26:27
the capital city of the enemy.
26:29
He says no, flees to Tarshish.
26:31
The whale comes up, right?
26:33
Swallows him, spits him back up on the land.
26:35
God says, time to go.
26:37
He says, okay.
26:38
So he starts going.
26:41
He goes to Nineveh,
26:42
and he preaches this message of judgment.
26:45
Right?
26:45
Nineveh's about to be overthrown.
26:47
That's all he says.
26:49
And what happens to the people in Nineveh?
26:52
They repent.
26:53
The king, and they're like,
26:55
dude, put sackcloth on the cows,
26:57
like ashes on, no one's eating,
26:59
we're fasting, right?
27:01
Everyone repents.
27:01
And then Jonah, what does he do?
27:03
After he makes his little preaching tour,
27:06
he goes up on the hill,
27:08
and he, well, at first,
27:09
he sits there and he waits.
27:11
Because what is he waiting for?
27:14
God's about to Sodom and Gomorrah this place.
27:17
Right?
27:18
Fire is going to come down
27:19
and consume the earth.
27:20
The enemies of God's elect people is real.
27:23
And then what happens?
27:25
It doesn't happen.
27:28
Nothing.
27:29
And do you remember Jonah's response?
27:33
Jonah, chapter four, verse two.
27:35
And he prayed to the Lord and said,
27:37
O Lord, is not this what I said
27:39
when I was yet in my country?
27:41
This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish,
27:43
for I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful,
27:47
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love
27:49
and relenting from disaster.
27:51
Is that God?
27:52
God, I knew it.
27:53
You're just dependably good,
27:55
even to our enemies.
27:57
Of course you would do this, right?
28:01
Jonah should have let that turn into some doxology.
28:03
You know what I'm saying?
28:04
He missed it.
28:05
But think about the principle in that verse.
28:09
God, I know that you are good.
28:11
Oh, that we would have this steadfastness in our spirits
28:15
when things aren't going okay.
28:19
That we would just be like,
28:20
God, I know that you're a steadfast God.
28:22
You're full of goodness.
28:25
I'm just going to assume that.
28:27
You've been so good to so many in the past, including me.
28:31
So I'm just going to rely on your goodness.
28:34
We just sang about it.
28:35
When darkness veils his lovely face,
28:37
I rest on his unfailing grace, right?
28:40
God is good.
28:41
Everything he does is worthy of approval.
28:47
Fourthly, God is just or he is righteous.
28:51
Meaning,
28:52
meaning,
28:53
meaning,
28:54
that he loves what is right
28:55
and everything he does is right.
29:00
He loves what is right
29:02
and he does what is right.
29:04
God himself is the standard of justice.
29:08
Listen to Deuteronomy 32 verse 4.
29:12
This is beautiful.
29:13
It's so poetic,
29:14
but it says,
29:14
The rock, his work is perfect
29:16
for all his ways are justice.
29:18
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
29:21
just and upright is he.
29:27
You and I one day,
29:29
we'll get to see each other again.
29:29
We'll see God's justice at work fully
29:33
when all the wrongs in the world will be made right
29:36
and all of the waiting
29:39
that the people of God do,
29:41
which I know Danny just preached on from the book of Acts,
29:43
all the waiting that the people of God do
29:46
will finally be over
29:47
and we won't have to wait anymore.
29:49
Man, I think about
29:52
the brothers and sisters that we have
29:54
in other parts of the world
29:55
who lose their lives for their faith
29:58
and the waiting that they're doing
30:03
and they're not going to have to wait anymore one day
30:05
because God's justice will flow freely,
30:11
correcting every single wrong.
30:14
The last communicable attribute of God
30:16
is that he is love.
30:19
God is love.
30:20
He eternally gives of himself to others.
30:26
That comes from Wayne Grudem
30:28
in Systematic Theology.
30:32
God's love is love.
30:33
God's love is displayed
30:34
not foremostly in his giving of gifts
30:38
because if God were to give you a lot of gifts
30:41
but not give you himself,
30:42
you would still be unsatisfied
30:44
and we see this,
30:45
glimpses of this in people in our world
30:47
who have moments of clarity
30:48
where they're super rich,
30:50
they have everything they want,
30:53
no limits
30:55
and yet they wake up and go,
30:57
there has to be something more.
30:58
I have everything this world has to offer me
31:00
and I'm not satisfied.
31:04
God's love is displayed in giving of himself
31:06
and we see this in John 3.16
31:07
where it says,
31:08
God so loved the world that he gave.
31:11
He didn't ask, he gave
31:13
and what did he give?
31:14
He gave his son.
31:16
He gave of himself.
31:18
God's love is displayed in his grace and his mercy.
31:21
Now a good way of thinking about these
31:23
is that God's grace is giving what is not deserved.
31:27
Grace is a gift.
31:29
But his mercy is not giving what is.
31:34
This could be compassion
31:38
or having mercy on those in distress.
31:43
You guys know 1 John 4, verses 8 and 9.
31:46
It says this,
31:47
anyone who does not love does not know God
31:49
because God is love.
31:51
In this, the love of God was made manifest among us
31:54
that God sent his only son into the world
31:56
so that we might live through him.
31:59
The epistle of 1 John makes it super clear.
32:02
You, like for us today,
32:05
you can see,
32:05
say all the right things
32:06
and you can intellectually assent to the creeds
32:09
and to the doctrines,
32:10
but if you don't love people,
32:11
you don't know God.
32:13
You can't know him because he is love.
32:16
It's so clear there.
32:18
And so we've got these five communicable attributes.
32:21
God is personal, he's holy, he's good,
32:24
he's just, and he is love.
32:26
But I want to end with one
32:27
to sum up not only the communicable attributes
32:30
but also the incommunicable,
32:32
and it's this.
32:33
This, God is incomprehensible.
32:40
He's incomprehensible,
32:43
meaning that he is so far beyond our ability to understand
32:47
that if he didn't reveal himself,
32:50
we would not know what he is truly like.
32:53
We would not know what he is truly like.
32:56
The way that I like to think about this
32:58
is that God is incomprehensible, but he is knowable.
33:02
And so Highland, think about this.
33:05
Man, maybe even for some of you
33:06
who have been to Bible college
33:07
or who have had theological training,
33:10
think about how much you know about God.
33:14
It's true.
33:16
And yet the sum total of our knowledge
33:18
is as if we were reaching out
33:19
and grabbing just the fringe of his garment,
33:22
just the hem.
33:23
That's how much of God we have got a hold of.
33:27
And so to ever become arrogant and think,
33:29
man, I know so much about God.
33:31
I'm a theological expert.
33:32
It's funny, I graduated from seminary last year,
33:35
with a Master's of Theological Studies.
33:41
It's so funny.
33:43
That title, I understand what it means.
33:46
But master?
33:47
No, man.
33:49
We are never the master of the study of God
33:52
because he is incomprehensible.
33:55
There is so much to him.
34:00
He's so far beyond our understanding.
34:03
Listen to Romans chapter,
34:05
which we just covered a handful of months ago.
34:07
But at the end of a difficult section of Romans 11,
34:10
where Paul describes the mystery of the gospel
34:13
and of the church,
34:14
that God has united his people
34:16
and the Gentiles together in one body.
34:19
He just says this,
34:20
Oh, the depth of the riches
34:22
and wisdom and knowledge of God.
34:27
How unsearchable are his judgments
34:29
and how inscrutable his ways.
34:31
For who has known the mind of the Lord
34:34
or who has known the mind of the Lord?
34:35
Or who has been his counselor?
34:36
Or who has given a gift to him
34:38
that he might be repaid?
34:40
For from him and through him
34:43
and to him are all things.
34:46
To him be glory forever.
34:48
Amen.
34:50
He is incomprehensible.
34:53
So he is knowable.
34:54
But what we know
34:56
is a whisper
34:58
of who he truly is.
35:00
Now God reveals
35:02
himself
35:04
in a couple of ways.
35:05
Both in general revelation
35:07
and in special revelation.
35:09
And we're going to talk about this next week.
35:11
But first,
35:13
well actually lastly,
35:14
not first, lastly,
35:15
I want to talk about God as Trinity.
35:17
And so we've talked about some of his attributes.
35:20
And I want to talk about
35:21
this very, very important subject.
35:24
And it is going to be brief.
35:27
But the word,
35:29
or the idea of the Trinity
35:30
is essential to understanding the nature of God.
35:33
And that word, Trinity,
35:34
is a compound word.
35:36
It comes from tri-unity.
35:39
Or three in one.
35:42
God has eternally existed
35:45
as one God.
35:48
Eternally existent
35:49
in three persons.
35:51
Now this may seem like a contradiction,
35:53
but it isn't.
35:54
Rather, it is a paradox,
35:55
meaning it seems contradictory,
35:57
but upon further investigation, isn't.
36:00
Now you have a diagram in your notes.
36:01
And I'm going to put it up here as well.
36:03
This diagram helps
36:04
us to think
36:06
about this difficult
36:08
topic. Okay, so we've got
36:10
the Father,
36:13
the Son,
36:14
and the Holy Spirit.
36:16
Now the Father is God.
36:18
The Son is God.
36:21
The Holy Spirit is God.
36:23
But the Father is not
36:24
the Holy Spirit.
36:26
Nor is he the Son.
36:28
And the Son is not
36:31
the Holy Spirit.
36:33
They are distinct
36:34
persons, and yet they are all one God.
36:36
Now here's how I like to think of this, okay?
36:40
When we talk about
36:41
God as one being,
36:42
we're talking about his what-ness.
36:44
And when we talk about the persons
36:46
of the Trinity, we're talking about God's
36:48
who-ness. Now,
36:51
if you were to ask
36:52
somebody, what is
36:54
Sam Porges? That's me.
36:56
If you were to ask someone,
36:58
what is Sam Porges?
37:01
What would they answer?
37:03
They could say,
37:04
Sam Porges is a human being.
37:07
That's what I am.
37:08
But if they were to ask,
37:10
who is Sam Porges?
37:12
That answer would be entirely different.
37:14
Just like if someone were to ask me,
37:16
who is Julia?
37:18
That answer becomes a lot more complex.
37:21
Because now you're dealing with a lot
37:22
more information. It's not just, she's a human being.
37:24
It's, okay, let's open up
37:27
all the information
37:28
that is Julia, or that is
37:31
Sam, right?
37:32
Now the same thing applies,
37:34
to God. When I ask you,
37:36
what is the Father?
37:38
He's God.
37:40
What is the Son? He's God.
37:42
What is the Spirit? The Spirit's God.
37:45
Who is
37:46
the Father? That becomes an entirely
37:48
different question. Because now you're talking about the
37:50
ministry of God the Father in the Scriptures.
37:52
You're talking about the ministry of the Son
37:54
in the Scriptures. This is important, because if we
37:56
ask who died on the cross, the Father
37:58
did not die on the cross. The Spirit
38:00
did not die on the cross.
38:02
The Son did.
38:04
Who created the
38:06
Father, right?
38:09
And so
38:10
when we're
38:12
talking about what is
38:14
the Father versus who is
38:16
the Father and the Son and the Spirit, they're very
38:18
different answers, right? Now the persons
38:20
of the Father,
38:22
Son, and Spirit have all eternally existed
38:24
in perfect unity.
38:26
They aren't conflicted
38:27
like the Greek gods.
38:30
But they are completely unified
38:32
in their essence, their character, and
38:34
their purposes. And for eternity
38:36
past, the Father
38:38
has showered love on the
38:40
Son in the unity of
38:42
the Spirit. And so the
38:44
God we worship is a community
38:46
within Himself that we call the Godhead.
38:48
It's a community within
38:50
Himself. And this is not a man-made
38:52
doctrine.
38:54
How could it be?
38:56
Rather, this is a doctrine that
38:58
was acknowledged by the early church
39:00
from the Scriptures. Now I'm going to give
39:02
you guys four handled
39:04
by which we can think about this doctrine
39:06
and then I'm going to conclude our time together
39:08
tonight, okay?
39:12
If we think about the Trinity as a heavy
39:15
doctrine, because it is, right?
39:17
Can we just agree on that? It's heavy.
39:19
Difficult to think about.
39:20
But think about if we were to mentally try to pick
39:22
it up and handle the doctrine of the Trinity
39:24
in a way that is right. Think about
39:26
there being four handles on it
39:28
by which we should lift it up and
39:30
handle it, okay? The first one
39:35
is that,
39:36
is unity.
39:38
So God as Trinity, you have in your notes
39:40
U-M-E-M.
39:41
U is for unity.
39:44
We believe there is one God.
39:46
We do not
39:48
worship three gods.
39:51
We're not polytheists.
39:53
We are monotheists.
39:54
So there's one God, but then
39:56
M, multiplicity, eternally
39:58
existent in three
40:00
persons. Then E
40:06
for equality.
40:08
Each of whom is equally God.
40:10
The Father's not more God,
40:12
than the Son, who is not more God
40:14
than the Spirit. And then lastly,
40:17
and this one's very, very important,
40:19
the last M is for mystery.
40:22
So we believe there's one
40:23
God, eternally existent
40:25
in three persons, each of whom
40:27
is equally God,
40:29
and the whole of which is
40:31
intellectually incomprehensible.
40:33
Here we are again at the
40:36
incomprehensibility of
40:37
God.
40:39
At the end of the day,
40:41
people have come up with all sorts of analogies,
40:43
to try to describe the Trinity
40:45
like an egg or water.
40:47
Those aren't great
40:49
analogies,
40:51
which we can talk about another time.
40:56
I'll leave it there.
40:57
I don't want to call anyone a heretic.
40:59
Okay, so, but we try to come up with
41:01
all these analogies to describe the Trinity because
41:03
it's just something that is so foreign
41:05
to our minds, and yet,
41:08
it's something that is
41:09
evident from the Scriptures.
41:12
And we're going to talk more about
41:13
the deity of the Son and the deity of the Spirit,
41:15
in the weeks to come.
41:18
But this is not
41:19
something that the early church just made up.
41:23
It was acknowledged
41:24
by the church from the Scriptures.
41:26
And so, if we hang on to the unity,
41:29
multiplicity, equality, and mystery
41:31
as kind of the four
41:33
fences of the playground,
41:34
and if we play inside that, we're safe,
41:36
doctrinally, then we'll be
41:39
good, right?
41:41
And so, I'm going to
41:43
just conclude by saying
41:45
this.
41:47
Do we have one more?
41:48
Nope, okay.
41:50
Hyland, the triune God
41:52
is the source of all
41:54
things, and He invites
41:57
us to know Him and participate
41:59
in the holiness,
42:00
goodness, righteousness,
42:02
and love that define
42:04
His character.
42:07
God is like us
42:08
in some ways,
42:10
but He's also not like us
42:12
in a lot of other ways. And studying
42:14
Him is like exploring the ocean
42:17
You know, when we flew to the Philippines,
42:21
we took a flight from Seattle
42:23
to South Korea.
42:25
And so, pretty much
42:27
that whole time, we're flying over the Pacific
42:28
Ocean. It is
42:32
big. When you fly for
42:37
11 hours,
42:39
and you are over ocean the
42:40
entire time,
42:43
it just makes you realize
42:44
how massive the ocean is, and
42:46
it's astounding. I'm sure you guys have heard these things where
42:48
they'll say, we've explored, you know,
42:51
25% of the ocean.
42:53
With all of our technological
42:54
advancement, we still know this much
42:56
about what's really in the ocean.
42:58
And the same thing is true of God.
43:00
The more you study God,
43:03
the more you realize it's like
43:04
dealing with the ocean.
43:06
There's so much
43:09
here. And do you
43:10
see, I hope you see
43:12
tonight,
43:14
how God's incommunicable
43:16
attributes, and how His
43:18
communicable attributes, and how His
43:21
secondary nature should cause us
43:22
to worship.
43:25
I hope that we would never
43:26
become a people or a church that would
43:28
deal with, well first, I hope that we would
43:30
never become a people that are bored with God.
43:33
That's just first, because He's
43:34
not boring. But secondly, I hope that we would
43:36
become a people who always lets our theology
43:38
roll up into worship.
43:40
Especially as we get to sit out
43:42
here, looking at words
43:44
on a screen that are describing the very
43:46
theology we just discussed.
43:50
Deep things
43:51
from the scriptures that we get to
43:53
put into music and
43:55
praise God with.
43:57
That we would come to worship ready.
43:58
Why? Because our God is worthy of
44:01
worship.
44:03
As you consider your faith.
44:05
We often talk about faith as a
44:06
fire, right?
44:10
Like the
44:10
Holy Spirit, Book of Acts,
44:12
our symbol here is a fire.
44:15
But we talk about faith
44:16
as a fire. I hope that as you consider your
44:18
relationship with God, every single one
44:21
of these attributes
44:23
would be like, not like
44:25
a small little twig that you put
44:27
on the fire of your faith to help it burn a little bit
44:28
brighter, but rather like a tree trunk
44:30
that you lay on that thing.
44:33
I want my faith for God to burn
44:34
brightly, and so
44:37
I want to study Him and grow
44:38
in my knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
44:40
Because when I grow in the knowledge of Him, I can
44:43
grow in my worship of
44:45
Him. And so, one big
44:46
question remains from tonight.
44:49
How are we able
44:51
to know what God is like?
44:52
And how can we get to know Him personally?
44:55
And that's what we're going to study
44:56
next week in our study of
44:59
the Bible. And so I would
45:01
encourage you guys, as you're considering
45:02
some of this stuff, if you guys have questions, please
45:04
feel free to reach out to any of the pastors on staff.
45:07
We'd be happy to talk with you. But I
45:09
want to end by recommending
45:11
some resources to you.
45:13
Okay?
45:14
There are a lot of really good resources
45:18
that deal
45:18
with the study of God and that are
45:21
worth your money
45:23
and your time in reading
45:24
them. Okay? I'm going to
45:26
start with this one, which kind of contradicts what I just
45:28
said. But there's this book called
45:30
Systematic Theology. Okay?
45:32
By Wayne Grudem. This book is
45:35
gigantic. Okay? The
45:36
pages are massive and the font is small,
45:38
which just seems like a disservice to the people
45:40
reading it. But it is very, very
45:43
good. And so if you are serious about
45:44
wanting to know more about this, I would encourage
45:46
you to pick this up. You don't have to read the whole
45:48
thing. You can pick out chapters
45:51
like, man, I've always wondered about
45:52
this.
45:54
What does this book have to say about it? Right?
45:56
So this book is really, really good.
45:58
Here are some others.
46:01
I mentioned this one earlier, but
46:02
A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy.
46:06
You
46:06
should read this book
46:08
before you die.
46:11
Make it a priority.
46:13
You, I'm telling you, you must
46:15
read this book. This
46:16
book,
46:19
some books, a lot of books will make you think.
46:21
Okay?
46:22
This book will make you sing.
46:25
It is incredible.
46:26
The chapters are, I mean, you're talking three, four
46:28
pages on the sovereignty of God.
46:31
And at the end, you just go, I can't
46:33
read this anymore. I just need to think about it
46:34
for a couple weeks. Right? It's very, very
46:37
good. Another one is
46:38
this. This is a workbook, but it's
46:41
Fundamentals of the Faith by John
46:42
MacArthur. I've taken some information
46:45
for these lessons from this.
46:47
But you
46:48
fill it out and work through it, and it is
46:51
basically what we're talking about in
46:53
this series. Okay? So this one by
46:55
John MacArthur.
46:57
This one called Everyone's a
46:58
Theologian by R.C. Sproul.
47:01
This is very, very good. It's much
47:03
more manageable than Wayne Grudem.
47:06
And yeah,
47:06
it's good, because you're all theologians. You have a
47:08
theology, knowledge
47:10
of God. And so I would encourage you to check this out.
47:13
And then lastly, there's
47:15
this book here by Michael
47:16
Reeves. It is called Delighting in the Trinity.
47:19
I have never read anything better
47:21
on the Trinity than this book.
47:23
It is fantastic.
47:24
And so all of these books are going to be up here.
47:26
I would encourage you guys to come
47:28
check them out.
47:31
Yeah, look through the table of contents
47:32
or whatever. And again, if we can
47:34
help you in any way
47:36
in your pursuit of God,
47:38
please let us know. But I'm going to pray for us,
47:40
and then we will be done. So
47:42
pray with me. Father, we are
47:44
grateful tonight
47:47
to have some time
47:49
to think hard
47:51
about you.
47:52
I pray that we would be a church
47:54
who takes theology seriously,
47:56
because theology is the study of you.
48:00
God,
48:00
we are not bored by you.
48:03
You're too grand
48:04
for that.
48:06
And I pray for these men and women that
48:08
as they consider their relationship with you,
48:10
that they would understand that growing
48:12
in the knowledge of Jesus
48:14
and of the Scriptures is an important piece
48:16
in that. We want to be a church
48:18
that honors you,
48:21
and that takes you seriously.
48:22
And so we ask that you would just bless the coming
48:24
weeks of study, that our thinking
48:26
and our theology would always roll up
48:28
into doxology and
48:30
worship of your name.
48:32
We love you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray.
48:35
Amen.