God Is…

AI Transcript

Man, thank you Ryan. Yes, and you guys should sign up for that church history class. I believe Lainey will be teaching that class as a 12 week class at Denver Seminary in the fall. So she's going to do it in four weeks for us. There's no required reading or homework. So you can just come in and hear about the history of our history, our brothers and our sisters, a class on church history. We do have a big...

Institute season ahead we got a theology on the ground. Remember those. They're back starting next week. So we're bringing out the world renowned New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg and he's going to talk about a faith that can answer apologetics in a world of competing truth. Obviously that there's not.

competing truths there is one truth but but but but but this is gonna be a fun time where we can engage this is a time that that you can bring your unbelieving friends and family members skeptics where we walk through apologetics why do we believe what we believe how to give an answer to our faith because we can so mark your calendars for that that's next week from 4 to 6 p.m.

here at the Pace Center and we do have child care for that as well. Well, you can begin making your way to First Corinthians chapter eight. That's where we will be this morning. First Corinthians chapter eight.

God is. How would you finish that sentence? God is. Seriously, what's the first thing that comes into your mind when you think about God? God is. Let's hear it. Good, awesome. Rock. Anyone else? Merciful.

Love, I love it. A.W. Tozer starts off his classic, The Knowledge of the Holy with this line, What comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. Now the reason I think it's the most important thing about you is because, well, everyone's a theologian. I'm not sure you woke up this morning and looked.

yourself in the mirror and said you my friend are a theologian but you are whether you want to be one or not theology simply means words about God we we all have them you have them your kids have them your your neighbors we all have words about God the Jew the Hindu Muslim the spiritual the the Christian the the atheist we all have words

about God. And how we think about God has massive implications. For sure for all of eternity, and that's a sobering thought. For ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, the unreached nations. How we finish that sentence, God is, is a matter of eternal life and death. But it's not just about heaven or hell.

Being a good theologian affects your experience of life here and now. For instance, theology is practical. How you understand who God is has massive implications for how you live your life. You are a theologian. Are you a good one?

If you're like me, you're feeling a ton of pressure right now. Man, I better get this figured out, be a good theologian, and you should be. But the cool thing is God has revealed himself to us. In the words of Tim Keller, what you think about God is not nearly as important as what God says about himself. I love that. What you think about God is not nearly as important as what God says about himself.

God has spoken. He has revealed himself to us. So for the next nine weeks, we're going to be doing just that. We're going to be getting our eyes on the one who, in the words of Anselm, there is none greater. The one who is transcendent, utterly other than, has become imminent, made himself known to us.

Now according to Jude 3, Christians are called to confess the faith once delivered to the saints. This is our aim. So we're calling this series God is. God is. And so for the next two months, we're going to do what the psalmist says in Psalm 27. We're going to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. There's a term called theology.

proper and it sounds fancy, it simply means the study of God himself, his nature, his attributes, his character. This series God is, will be all about that. We're going to look at God. We're going to try to figure out who he is. We're going to see some things about him that are nothing like us. And in my prayer is that we would realize how

big this God is, like his sovereignty. Or next week, his self-existence, his presence, his unchanging nature, his incomprehensibility. Often we live as if people are big and our problems are big and God is, well, rather small. My prayer is that during this series, that would get reversed.

that we would experience the total revolution of a big God theology in our lives. And we're gonna see some things about God that at some level we can relate to and yet we also desperately need from Him things like love, wisdom, faithfulness, goodness. My hope is that as we see God's character,

we would be encouraged that our God is not just big, He's good. And He's for you. Our hope is that this series would cause adoration and imitation. Worship and transformation. That we would behold God, And as we behold God, we would become

So that's where we're headed. you're not already there, 1 Corinthians chapter 8 is where we'll begin this morning.

just gonna read verse six.

yet for us, apostle Paul speaking, yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from Him and we exist for Him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through Him and we exist through Him. This is the word of God. Amen.

And if you were to come to my house, may wonder what's on the doorframe of our home. There it is. That's our mezusa. If you know the Shema from Deuteronomy, this is where the mezusa gets its credibility from. So Moses in Deuteronomy says, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart.

with all your soul, with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be as a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates. Well...

When our mezuzah came from Jerusalem, I mean Amazon, me and my oldest opened it up and we found this scroll inside the Shema, Deuteronomy 6 in Hebrew. And then we proceeded to do what would get you expelled for in Jewish school. We wrote on the back of that scroll. And what we wrote is the verse I just read for you out of 1 Corinthians chapter.

This verse is what New Testament scholars called the New Covenant Shema. Maybe you notice some similarities. Yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from Him and we exist for Him. Every faithful Jew will say yes and amen to that. But then the Apostle Paul, this New Covenant Jew, continues. And there is one Lord.

Paul using this word, Lord, or in the Greek, Kyrios is shocking. This would definitely get you thrown out of a synagogue. What's so shocking is that this is the same word that's used when the Hebrew Old Testament is getting translated into Greek. Anytime the Hebrew word Yahweh or Adonai came up, was translated Kyrios, or what we would translate as

Lord, so when you come to first Corinthians 8 6 and Paul says there is one curious one Lord Jesus Christ all things are through him and we exist Through him. Do you see what Paul is doing? Remember Christianity is not some new religion with the coming of Christ Christianity is the fulfillment of what we have from the beginning of

The story from Genesis three online from Genesis three onward. This story has an arc pointing toward a Messiah. I would even challenge you whenever you read the name Jesus Christ in your Bibles substitute Christ for Messiah. Christ is not Jesus's last name rather it's a title Jesus the Christ.

Jesus the Messiah, the King, the anointed one. And whose Messiah? Israel's. Christianity is the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in the garden, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Israelites. So when Paul gives this new covenant Shema in first Corinthians eight, he's not changing the oneness of God.

He's not starting some new religion. Yet for us, he says, there is one God, the Father. All things are from Him and we exist for Him and there is one Lord, the Messiah. All things are through Him and we exist through Him. He's saying Jesus, Israel's long anticipated Messiah is also God.

Jesus is Adonai. Jesus is Yahweh Himself. Jesus is the one God we see in both Shema's, Deuteronomy and 1st Corinthians. We'll see from other passages that the Holy Spirit is also God. We have three persons, yet one God.

mystery as we jump into this God is series, it would be wise for us to begin laying down this foundation, the Trinity. Now there's a lot that we could say about the Trinity, but for this sermon this morning, don't miss this. There is one God, one God who exists in three persons, Father, the Son, and

the Holy Spirit. God isn't made up of parts. In other words, God's not one third father, one third son, and one third Holy Spirit. All the pieces of the pie making one God. No. Rather, the father is fully God. The son is fully God. The Holy Spirit is fully God. And yet there are not three gods, but one God.

We'll stop there. This is not a class on the Trinity. And yet we can't even begin to say God is without defining God. And as we define God as Father, Son, and Spirit, and in the weeks ahead move into who He is as self-existent, love,

faithful, good, sovereign on and on and on. It's vital we understand that God is a being unlike us. God is a being utterly other. We have attributes. In some ways we're made up of parts. Maybe some of you guys right now are doing some parts work in therapy. For instance, some days I have patients.

Other days I don't, I can get quite impatient. have awesome moments of love where I truly feel like I'm walking by the spirit. And yet I easily have these moments of selfishness. In a matter of minutes, I can have wisdom in one decision and the next I can act extremely unwise. Not with God. God doesn't have attributes.

Even good ones like love, goodness, wisdom, justice. We're tempted to think that this way about God because we don't understand he's other worldly. We want to say things like God has justice. God has righteousness. God has faithfulness. But most of all, God has love. We want to rank out his attribute.

But this series is called God is not God has because all that is in God, his attributes is God. Let me say that again. All that is in God is God. For instance, God doesn't have love. First John says God is love. He doesn't have goodness. He

is goodness. doesn't possess faithfulness like you and I might possess it in a given moment. He is faithful. And I know I'm asking you to use your brains this morning, but are you starting to track with me just how great this God is? He is a being in which none greater could be conceived. And if these things are true, that means that all that He is

He is fully. So he's not just love, he's wise, perfect, faithful love. He's not just just, he's loving justice. We can go on and on. I think you get the point. And this God cannot change. Malachi says, I the Lord do not change. James says, he's the one with whom there is no shadow or variation.

due to no variation or shadow due to change. only can God not change, which is very good news to us, but God is also infinite. It's not that God is just love or that God is good, but even that love and that goodness is to a degree that we could never fathom. Infinite.

For all of eternity, we will never plumb the depths of God. In my house, we love Forrest Frank. We play his music all the time. And he's got that song, God is good. And he keeps getting better. And he keeps getting better. That's actually not true. God is. He doesn't change. If he could get better, he would not be

God but I actually don't think the song's wrong. I think what Forrest does mean is that our experience of God as finite creatures means he continues in our experience to get better and better and better and better forever. I hope you're beginning to feel quite small. I think that's a good thing because we are. Imagine if we could

truly and fully understand God. At that point, he wouldn't be a being in which there is none greater. Rather, all we as his creatures can do is fall on our knees and lift up our hands and say like Paul in Romans 11, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways for who has known

the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

John Calvin says all we can really say about God as, as finite creature, speaking of the infinite is mere baby talk. love that baby talk. And yet if you're a parent in here, even our littlest kiddos know us. Joey, my, three year old would not be able to tell you where I'm from. What college I.

went to explain to you my life story, my personality type, but if you ask him who his daddy is, he knows.

And over the course of his life, he'll continue to know me in deeper and deeper ways that the same is true in our relationship with God. And all of this is possible friends, not only because God is, but that God is the gospel. John Piper wrote a book with that title years ago. God is the gospel and in it, his basic argument is simply the gospel.

The good news of Jesus is not just that we get forgiveness of sins, not just that we get eternal life or justification. We can go on and on and on. There are so many benefits of the gospel. But ultimately, the best news of the gospel, the greatest benefit of the gospel, friends, is that we get God Himself. We get God.

Maybe you're in here this morning and you don't know God. You've yet to jump on this journey with Him. Maybe you think, hey, I'm a decent person. I have more good than I have bad. I think God will be just fine with me. Well, if I could add to that Tim Keller quote from earlier, I'd add this. He says, what you think about God is not nearly as important as what God says about Himself. And I'll add,

and what he says about you. We've been talking about what God says about himself, but here's what God says about us. Before we get to the good news that God is the gospel, the bad news is that we are sinners. Born in sin. Our nature is one where we rebel against our

Creator like like Adam and Eve. We don't want to follow God We want to be God We want to be number one Do whatever makes us happy the Bible says there is none who is righteous No, not one that that apart from him our destination is eternal separation from him and yet God shows his love to us in that while

We are still sinners. The Lord, the Kyrios, Jesus, the Messiah died for you. The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity took on flesh, became a man and not just any man, the God man. He came here to live the life that we could not live and die the death that we deserve because of our sin.

So that by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, you can have God himself. Every one of us comes into this world looking for somebody looking for us. We all feel this. At our core, we are created to be known.

And we can spend our entire lives longing to fill this void, sometimes without realizing that because of the gospel, we can have what our souls long for. To be fully seen, to be truly known, to be utterly loved beyond comprehension by the one to whom there is none greater, God himself. Amen.

Amen. So for us, there is one God, the Father. All things are from him and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him and we exist through him. This morning, we've done a little theology. Thanks for rolling your sleeves up with me. We've looked at who God is and for the next eight weeks, we're going to continue to

gaze on the beauty of our Lord. But as we close this morning, have two points of application that are right from this passage here in first Corinthians eight in light of who God is. How then shall we live? Not, not that one. That's bad timing. It's a verse passage. There it is. We exist for him. We

exist through him. First, we exist for God and we exist through God. It sounds simple, but this is the call for all Christians. You exist for God. You belong to him. You're no longer your own. You've been bought with a price. And how do we exist for him? Well, by living.

through him. As we get our eyes on who God is, I hope we see as a church how glorious God is. And it would cause us to worship. Our God is better than we ever dared imagine. And yet we're called not just to adoration, but we're called to imitation. Paul in Ephesians says, imitate God as

beloved children Paul in first Corinthians is gonna say imitate me as I imitate Christ this is now our Calling Church to imitate Jesus so so what does this actually look like existing for him and Existing through him sound sounds great, but but what does this look like on a Monday morning? I'm so glad you asked

There's how I would answer that question. The Holy Spirit dwells in every single Christian. So if you're a follower of Christ in here this morning, God the Spirit lives in you. should just pause on that for a second. The Holy Spirit lives in you. And in a very real way, He unites us to

Jesus we're gonna do our baptisms here shortly and that's what baptism is all about us in Christ Christ in us through our Union with Jesus we die with Jesus We're raised with Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit Imagine come Monday morning if we actually believed the power we possess Christ lives in you

with the purpose of making you look like Christ.

I finished an interesting book this year. Only God can judge me. The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur by Jeff Perlman. know Pastor Mark reads great novels like Thew of Golden and I read Tupac. But what's, what's fascinating to me about Tupac that I didn't know was I just figured he was all West coast thug life, but is actually more nuanced than that. Tupac wasn't raised in the streets of LA like his image portrays.

He attended Baltimore school for the arts where he studied acting, poetry and ballet. Let's throw the picture there with his ballet suit on in high school. That's Tupac. But when he got his first acting role in this movie, Jews, he played this character Bishop. Now this dude Bishop was a gangster and getting into the character Bishop changed Tupac's entire persona.

After he finished the movie, he never stopped being bishoped. In his imitation of this made-up character, Tupac goes on to becoming an icon, a rap legend, thug life, his mantra. Now imagine.

Imagine if we realize the role we get to play in what John Calvin calls God's theater, namely our lives here on earth, lived out before our director, God, called to exist for him and through him. Imagine if we actually believe that God is in us.

And by the power of God in us, we can put on Christ. can imitate Jesus. We can walk as Jesus walks.

Imagine what this would mean for you and for your family, for your neighbor and for the nations. Redemption Parker together by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's exist for Him and through Him. Amen. Amen. Let me pray.