March 22, 2009 am Return to Study of God
A STUDY OF GOD (5)
Who Is God?
But having
established that He is God, we now need to learn who He is and what we
need to do for Him. This
will take considerable time and is the main purpose of this entire
series. The more we know
what His word says about Him, the better equipped we are going to be to
get to know Him and serve Him as we ought to.
Today we want to
begin addressing the question, Who is God?
To do this we need to study His characteristics.
That is what we will begin with today.
a.
Because we need to know God
– as students of the Bible it is my hope that we understand this fact.
John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
2 Peter 1:2, “Grace and peace be
multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”
The more we know about God, the better informed we are going to be as we
seek to properly serve Him.
AND let us understand that we are not just talking of knowing ABOUT God,
but actually knowing Him – that is developing a meaningful relationship
with Him.
b.
Because of our eternal destiny
– one day we are going to stand before
God in judgment. Romans
12:12 says, “So then each of us
shall give account of himself to God.”
In our study we will come to know that our eternal destiny will depend
on whether or not we have obeyed God.
And learning about God will help us prepare for that day.
c.
Because of Who He is. He is
worthy of our deepest reverence.
The more we learn about God the more we
will appreciate Him and see our need to render to Him the reverence He
is due (Heb. 12:28). Far too
many in our world today fail to respect God.
Why? Because they don’t really know Him.
MANY have their
own concepts of God that appeal to their own self-serving desires, but
in His word we learn that God will not accept such.
He demands reverence and obedience. He has NEVER accepted man’s invented
concept of God – from the first of the 10 commandments (Ex. 20:3)
to the lukewarm worship recorded in Malachi 1, to the warnings of
Romans (Rom. 1:21-25).
d.
Because we care – true
Christians care about the things we have just mentioned.
We are NOT indifferent in these matters.
In fact, we MUST understand that God must be FIRST in our lives –
Matt. 6:33. And that means
we serve Him with purpose BEFORE all other things.
As you study the word of God you find the life of a Christian is to be
one of sacrifice. We are not
going to sacrifice if we don’t understand why or the One we are
sacrificing for.
Most of us, if we honestly look at our spiritual lives realize that we
don’t sacrifice nearly enough for God.
Much of what we do is about ourselves and what we can get in this
world. I contend one reason
for this is because we have not taken the time (i.e. study the Bible) to
fully understand as much as possible about Who God is and how to serve
Him. We care about these
things – BUT DO WE CARE ENOUGH?
e.
So
how do we get to know God?
i.
Since we
cannot see God the way we see physical things in this life, getting to
know Him comes through a different avenue.
Primarily, it is through
revelation.
ii.
God has
revealed Himself to us. 1 Cor.
1:7-10, Romans 1:16-17 - we must study His word.
iii.
Study
Jesus! John 1:18 says, “NO one has seen God at anytime.
The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has
declared Him.”
Later in this study it will be established that Jesus is God with us
(Immanuel). As He lived, He
introduced the Father to this world by the way He lived.
He possessed the attributes of God (and man) and lived them
perfectly. Thus if we want
to know God, study who Jesus was and you WILL better understand God.
a.
Consider the following verses which introduce God
i.
Exodus
3:14-15 – “I AM who I AM.”
Spoken to Moses as to whom he was to say sent him to Pharaoh and
then to the children of Israel.
ii.
Deut.
10:17 – “For the Lord your God is
God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who
shows no partiality not takes a bribe.”
iii.
Jeremiah
10:10, “But the Lord is the true
God; He is the living God and the everlasting King.
At his wrath the earth will tremble, and the nations will not be
able to endure His indignation.”
iv.
1 Tim.
6:15-16, “which He will manifest
in His own time, he who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of
kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in
unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor
and everlasting power. Amen.”
v.
These
verses and many others call to our attention how truly AWESOME God
really is
b.
He
is a person
i.
What is a
person? “A person is a thinking, intelligent being that has reason and
reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing
in different times and places.” (Personality, McClintock & Strong).
ii.
When we
say that God is a person we are saying that He is not just some
impersonal force or eternal substance.
Some world religions teach that their god is not a person, but a
force, such as Brahman of Hinduism.
Islam, has a view of Allah that
is not personal. While they
teach Allah is merciful and cares (characteristics of a person) they shy
away from calling him a person or using the attributes of a person to
describe him. They do not
teach that God can dwell within us (as does 1 Cor. 6:19-20).
God possesses all the characteristics of a person (as does Jesus and
Holy Spirit) and is a person.
iii.
Hebrews
1:1-3 says, “God, who at various
times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has
appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who
being the brightness of His glory and
the express image of His person,
and upholding all things by the word of His power, when he had by
Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on
High.”
iv.
Throughout
scripture we continually read of the traits that God possesses which
show Him to be a person. God
speaks, thinks, has various feelings, hears, etc.
In fact, many of the attributes we will study in coming lessons
are characteristic of persons.
c.
God
is Spirit
i.
One of the
challenges man has in trying to understand God is that he tries to
relate to Him in human terms.
While there is correlation between some of the characteristics of
God and our character, we need to be careful to NOT bring Him down to
our level. We cannot fully
comprehend God in human terms.
Why? Because He is Spirit.
ii.
John 4:24
says, “God is Spirit.” This is the essence of His deity.
When Jesus spoke of God being Spirit, He was not dismissing that
He is a being. He was
pointing to the fact that God is above this realm.
That is why He can be everywhere and see all things.
iii.
Physically, He is invisible.
John 1:18 – “NO one has seen God
at any time. The only
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
While He is a person, He is not human (Ac. 17:29, “we
ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or
stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising”).
iv.
As Spirit,
God is living (Jeremiah 10:10), glorious (1 Tim. 6:16 – dwelling in
unapproachable light), and incorruptible (Rom. 1:23).
v.
But even
though we cannot fully comprehend His being and nature, we can try to
learn from it as much as possible.
In fact, that is one of the goals of this series.
The better we seek to understand the character and nature of God
the better off we will be.
That is why we will spend considerable time examining His attributes.
In this realize that those attributes He possesses
are perfect and as such
they set the standard that we ought to strive to conform to.
For example: In John 4:24 Jesus described God as Spirit and then made
application to our worship.
We are to worship Him “in Spirit and in truth”.
The essence of this statement is that our worship is more than
mere outward, physical acts.
It must come from the heart and with proper motive.
It is our spirit that is created in the image of God (Gen.
1:26-27) and it must conform, in our hearts, to His Spirit.
Understanding God is Spirit helps us worship Him in Spirit.
For example: God is love (1 John 4:8, 16).
As we study the love of God, we gain an understanding the
standard that we ought to strive to conform to.
For example: God is faithful (2 Cor. 1:18), as we learn of his
faithfulness we have a standard to work toward.
d.
He
is Our Creator –
Acts 14:15, Genesis 1:1. We
addressed this in establishing His existence.
Here we just mention it as a reminder that He made us, this world
& everything in it AND he sustains it by His word (2 Pet. 3:7).
As our creator and future judge, He has the right to set the standard we
need to conform to.
e.
There is ONE God –
We need to understand there are not many different gods. Some world
religions teach multiple gods, but the Bible says there is ONE God.
It
is because of this that it matters what we believe.
Exodus 20:3, the first of the 10 commandments.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Ephesians 4:6 notes that there is only ONE GOD.
1 Cor. 8:5-6 also notes that “there is one God, the Father, of Whom are
all things, and we for Him…” Yet, though He is ONE, there are three
persons who comprise the Godhead – the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. In a future lesson
we will address this in more detail.
f.
He
is eternal
Romans 1:20, “Even His eternal power and godhead…”
1 Tim. 1:17, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible,…”
Psalm 45:6, “You throne, O God, is forever and ever.”
Psalm 90:2, “Even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.”
Not being of this realm, God has always existed.
In past lessons we noted that in the temporal nature of matter it
is necessary that that which is eternal come from another realm.
God is of that realm.
g.
We
know Him through His attributes.
Note again John 1:18 which tells us that Jesus declared Him to us.
He elaborates on this later in this book.
Jesus in living as He did introduced the Father to this world in
even greater detail than prior to His arrival.
Thus if we want to know God, study Who Jesus was.
Another way of saying this is to examine the various attributes
of God. In so doing, we can
know Who He is and Know Him.
This is the BEST way for us to understand God.
The Bible is FILLED with descriptions of God’s various attributes.
In coming lessons we are going to notice many of these.
From those qualities that are the essence of God Himself
(holiness, eternity, omnipresence, etc.), to those qualities that show
how He cares for us (grace, love, mercy, goodness, patience, etc.), to
those qualities of justice that He possesses (righteousness, truth,
fairness, severity, jealousy, exactness, demands for loyalty, etc.).