Who is God?

Jonathan Prater

Firm Foundations • Sermon • Submitted 4 months ago • Presented 4 months ago

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We are like the man who approached God & asked Him, "Lord, up in heaven how much time is a million years?" "Well," God said, "a million years is but a second in heaven."

"Oh!" said the man, "and up in heaven how much money is a million dollars?" "Well," said God, "a million dollars is only a penny in heaven." "Great!" said the man. "God, give me one of your pennies." "All right," said the heavenly Father. "Just wait a second."

This question has been at the center of human debate since the fall of man. It complicated though, isn’t it? Asking who anyone is can be complicated. Take me, if you ask someone who I am you will get very different answers. Jess says I am her husband, kids say I am their dad, Ralph and Deb say I am their son; you might say I am your pastor. All are true and all are good; but I am also a man, a musician, I am a sinner, I am a follower of Jesus; I am a Washington Commanders Fan….

God is called over 1,000 names in the Bible, but Yahweh- used over 6,800 times in the Bible .It is regarded as the most pure and Holy name for God- Jews would not even say the name out loud because of the high regard and respect they had for it.

Our God is a Creator

God is all powerful, self-existing and self-sufficient. He has no beginning and has no end.

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This establishes God’s creative character within the first sentence of the Bible

God was not merely a creator- God is still creating.

A little girl was visiting over at grandpa's house. She crawls up into his lap and says "Grandpa, did God make you?"

He says "Oh, yes, my dear, God created me a long time ago."

She says "Did God make me, too?"

He says "Oh, yes, my dear, God created you a little while ago."

She thinks about it for a moment. Then she says "God's been doing better work the last while, hasn't He?"

That's a girl who appreciates the way God made her!

Since God is the ultimate creator, he is then the ultimate authority. God is the source of life and creation and all things come from him. When the Bible introduces us to God it is not through a descriptions or through a definition but through an action- God CREATED. And from this moment on everything in this universe is understood in terms of creator and creation.

But God is still a creator. The big words theologians use for this is original and subsequent creation. That in Genesis God makes something out of nothing, and in the rest of the Bible God is bringing and creating order, structure, and purpose into that creation. God is still creating; we see this in the sunrise, the seasons, the birth of a child….

Our God is a Sustainer

Exodus 3:12–14 “He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ””

Colossians 1:16–17 “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

God is personally invested in the lives and affairs of this world and God’s people.

I came across some post-it notes that contain brief notes that kids wrote to God. Here are a few funny ones…

Dear God, I went to this wedding and they kissed in church. Is that OK?

Dear God, I think about you sometimes even when I’m not praying.

God, thank you for the baby brother but what I prayed for was a puppy.

If you watch in church on Sunday I will show you my new shoes.

Dear God, if you give me a genie lamp like Aladdin I will give you anything you want except my money or my chess set.

Dear God, please send Dennis Clark to a different camp next year.

Dear God, maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother.

Dear God, please put another holiday between Christmas and Easter. There is nothing good in there now.

God says to Moses that his name is I Am, and this is such powerful thought for us as God’s people. I am speaks to God’s presence here and this moment. How often do people think of God as I was- a God that once did something and now is not here. Or a God who will be; thinking of how God will one day fix or repair things; and forget that God is still here and now.

Colossians 1 reminds us that God is still very much in the business of sustaining. He supplies the needs of this world and all who are in it.

Hudson Taylor, a missionary, once said “Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning... He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all... Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply."

This world and all who are in it continue to function and exist because God supplies. Yes, by way of gravity, oxygen, etc. But God is orchestrating those things.

This is really at the core of the Lord’s Prayer isn’t it? Give us this day our daily bread- meet our needs and sustain us.

Our God is a Redeemer

The challenge, of course, is that there are moments in life when things go off the rails and fall apart. We all have the stories of when life did not go as planned.

This is the effect of sin in our world. Sin breaks and brings in brokenness, and what is God’s response? Redemption

Colossians 1:19–20 “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

Redemption-The act of buying back or rescuing something or someone that was lost, enslaved, or in a state of bondage

The story is told of a little boy who built a sailboat. He built the sail and had it all fixed up, tarred and painted. He took it to the lake and pushed it in hoping it would sail. Sure enough a wisp of breeze filled the little sail and it billowed and went rippling along the waves. Suddenly before the little boy knew it, the boat was out of his reach, even though he waded in fast and tried to grab it. As he watched it float away, he hoped maybe the breeze would shift and it would sail back to him. Instead he watched it go farther and farther until it was gone. When he went home crying, his mother asked, "What's wrong, didn't it work?" He said, "It worked too well."

Sometime later, the little boy was downtown and walked past a second hand store. There in the window he saw the boat. It was unmistakably his, so he went in and said to the owner, "That's my boat." He walked to the window, picked it up and started to leave with it. The owner of the shop said, "Wait a minute, sonny. That's my boat. I bought it from someone." The boy said, "No, it's my boat. I made it. See." And he showed him the little scratches and the marks where he hammered and filed. The man said, "I'm sorry, boy. If you want it, you have to buy it."

The poor little guy didn't have any money, but he worked hard and saved his pennies. Finally, one day he had enough money. He went in and bought the little boat. As he left the store holding the boat close to him, he was heard saying, "You're my boat. You're twice my boat. First you're my boat because I made you, and second you're my boat because I bought you!"

Isn’t it interesting that every religion, every moral argument, and every social experiment out there agrees that there is something wrong with us.

Redemption implies helplessness. You cannot redeem yourself; it requires action by a third party.

Our God is our Father

While the OT only calls God our Father 15 times; Jesus calls him his/our father 162 times, Paul uses father to talk about God over 40 times and other NT writers add over 20 more.

2 Corinthians 6:18 “and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.””

1 John 3:1 “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

Tim Keller helps us understand how wonderful it is to have God as our Father: “The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 a.m. for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access.

J. I. Packer, “To those who are Christ’s, the holy God is a loving Father; they belong to his family; they may approach him without fear and always be sure of his fatherly concern and care. This is the heart of the New Testament message.”

But in the New Testament, although God remains holy and majestic in our eyes, Jesus adds a strikingly clear emphasis on God as Father—both his Father and our Father (John 20:17). It is Jesus who calls God “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36). It is Jesus who teaches us to pray to God as our Father (Matt. 6:9). It is the Spirit of the Son who leads us into intimacy with God as our own Abba Father (Gal. 4:6). Now we know that, as our Father, God cares for us and provides for us (Matt. 6:25–34). As our Father, he hears and answers our prayers (Matt. 7:7–11). As our Father, he disciplines us (Heb. 12:3–11). As our Father, he receives us and forgives us and rejoices over us when in repentance we come home to him (Luke 15:11–32). That God the Father has made himself God our Father means that he is personally, emotionally, and even sacrificially involved with us.

Calling God our father and calling God with male pronouns is under attack in many Christian circles. But calling God a man is not a term of gendering as much as it is a stating of relational connection. God is bigger than gender. When we use male terms to talk about God we are proclaiming God’s authority, his role in creating and sustaining, and his strength; when we call God our Father we are proclaiming his patience and compassion, his discipline and care; and reminding ourselves that God’s love for us is based in who he is not what we have done.

And if the Bibles refers to God in these ways it seems to reason that we should too!

Our God is perfect

2 Samuel 22:31 “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.”

Matthew 5:48 “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

A.W Tozer said “If God is self-existent, he must be also self-sufficient; and if he has power, he, being infinite, must have all power. If he possesses knowledge, his infinitude assures us that he possesses all knowledge. Similarly, his immutability presupposes his faithfulness. If he is unchanging, it follows that he could not be unfaithful, since that would require him to change. Any failure within the divine character would argue imperfection and, since God is perfect, it could not occur. Thus the attributes explain each other and prove that they are but glimpses the mind enjoys of the absolutely perfect Godhead."

God could never be the supreme arbiter of righteousness, justice, or faithfulness if he is not perfect.

All humans have a moving target for morality. When we do wrong we point to someone else and say “But I am better than that.” Like a kid who says “my room is cleaner than his!” Only God is able to point at himself and say- this is what I mean by righteousness.

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