God, The Creator and Sustainer of All Things By Pastor Dan Kennedy © July 5, 2020 www.pastorkennedy.com Scripture Reading: Romans 1:16-25 How does God Reveal Himself to the World? “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:19, 20 God Has Revealed His Presence to the World through His Creation God’s Invisible Attributes His Eternal Power His Divine Nature clearly perceived in the things that have been made [Everyone is] without excuse God has Revealed His Family Relationship: One God and Father of All – Patterned in the Unity and Oneness of The Trinity Ephesians 4:4–6 (Unity – Oneness, in Diversity) 4 There is one body and one Spirit [the Holy Spirit]—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord [Jesus Christ], one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over alland through all and in all. o God, the Father holds “The Position and Power” over All “over (ἐπί) all” o God, the Son, “The Word,” is “The Means” through Whom all things exists “through (διά) all” (John 1:1-3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16b; Rom. 11:36) John 1:1-3 1 In the beginning was the Word… 3 All things were made through Him [the Word], and without Him was not anything made that was made. 1 Corinthians 8:6 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. o God, the Holy Spirit is “The Instrumentality” in Whom we live “in (ἐν) all” Colossians 1:27 27 … this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. [Christ is in us through the Presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19; John 14:17-20)] John 14:17 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. How Does God Explain Who He IS? What is God Like in His Relationship to Us? [In Emphasizing His qualities, it also reveals the qualities He wants us to emulate.] God, giving His Own Attributes: Exodus 34:6–7 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” · Merciful and Gracious · Slow to Anger · Abounding in Steadfast Love and Faithfulness · Forgiveness of iniquity, transgression and sin · Justice for rebellious – by no means clearing the guilty or their children Who Does Nehemiah the Prophet Explain Who God IS? Nehemiah 9:15–17 15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them. 16 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 17 They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. · A God ready to forgive · Merciful and Gracious · Slow to Anger · Abounding in Steadfast Love · Does Not Forsake His Own Who Does King David Explain Who God IS? Psalm 86:15 15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 103:8 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Psalm 145:8 8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. · Merciful and Gracious · Slow to Anger · Abounding in Steadfast Love How Do the Prophets Joel and Jonah Explain Who God IS? Joel 2:13 13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster. Jonah 4:2 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. · Merciful and Gracious · Slow to Anger · Abounding in Steadfast Love · Who Relents over Disaster Nineveh – an Example of Repentance, “Relenting” by God and God’s Judgment God sent reluctant Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh. They Repented. Around a hundred years later God allowed their destruction. “When Jonah preached repentance on the streets of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the people responded and were spared. A century later, sometime between 663 and 612 B.C., Nahum preached in a time when Nineveh would not repent. Nineveh, which had destroyed Israel’s northern kingdom in 722, itself fell to Babylon in 612—just a few years after Nahum’s warning. The Assyrians were notorious for the brutality of their treatment of other nations. Nahum declared, however, that God is sovereign: he punishes whom he will, and they are powerless to stop him. Much of Nahum’s prophecy was directed to the people of Judah, who could rejoice at the good news (1:15) of Nineveh’s impending fall.” [1] Israel was in slavery in Egypt for some 400 years…God waited for the cup of the iniquity of the Amorites to become full until He could give Israel their land. Genesis 15:13–16 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Esau – an example of a godly line, without “the blessing” because of no repentance. Hebrews 12:16–17 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. Who Does Nahum the Prophet Explain Who God IS in regard to the Nineveh of his day – no longer repentant 100 or so years after Jonah, having more recently destroyed the capital of Northern Israel? Nahum 1:2–3 2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. · God is Jealous, Avenging and Wrathful toward His Adversaries (against cruel Nineveh a century after their repentance when Jonah preached to them, but who had brutally destroyed Israel’s northern kingdom, and who themselves would fall to Babylon a few years after Nahum’s warning.) · God is Slow to Anger and Great in Power · God exacts Justice for the wicked and rebellious: by no means clearing the guilty How does the Writer of Hebrews Explain God’s Justice? God Sent His Son To Sacrificially Die, To Redeem sinners from the just Penalty of sin, To Free from Slavery to sin, To Forgive and Cleanse, To Adopt as His Children and To Make Them His Eternal Heirs! Hebrews 10:29–31 29 How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The Amazing Privilege of Worshipping and Serving a God who: · Reveals Himself to all · Merciful and Gracious · Slow to Anger · Abounding in Steadfast Love · Has Profound Forgiveness · Redeems from Sin · Who Relents over Disaster when there is repentance · Who Justly recompenses disaster on the wicked God Sent His Son to Sacrificially Die, to Redeem, to Free from Slavery to sin, to Forgive, to Adopt as His Children! Galatians 4:4–7 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer slaves, but God’s children; and since you are His children, He has made you also heirs. So, Who then IS God? · God is Amazing in His Creation – Revealing Himself to the World · God is Relational, not Impersonal – “Oneness” in The Trinity, and His Kingdom · God is One who is ready to forgive those who repent from their sin and seek Him · God is Merciful and Gracious · God is Slow to Anger · God is Abounding in Steadfast Love · God has sought to Redeem Fallen Humankind, by sending His Son to be our Sacrifice, in our stead, for our sin · God is also Just toward the unrepentant and wicked, and will judge them severely · God, Our Father, Does Not Forsake His Own Children · God’s Desire is to Adopt those Redeemed and Make Us Heirs to Eternal Life in His Kingdom ______________________ ENDNOTES [Alternate Sources with explanations of God] Excerpts taken from The New Bible dictionary explaining God in this way: I. His Being In his being God is self-existing. While his creation is dependent on him, he is utterly independent of the creation. He not only has life, but he is life to his universe, and has the source of that life within himself. ‘I am who I am’, i.e. ‘I am the one that has being within himself ‘(Ex. 3:14). Christ gave this mystery its clearest expression when he said, ‘For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself’ (Jn. 5:26). II. His nature In his nature God is pure spirit, which means intelligent energy. ‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth’ (Jn. 4:24) God is eternal, all-present, all-knowing and all-powerful. His infinity likewise means that God is transcendent over his universe. It emphasizes his distinctness as self-existing spirit, from all his creatures. He is not shut in by what we call nature, but infinitely exalted above it. At the same time God’s infinity implies his immanence. By this we mean his all-pervading presence and power within his creation (cf. Ps. 139). III. His character God is personal. When we say this, we assert that God is rational, self-conscious and self-determining, an intelligent moral agent. As supreme mind he is the source of all rationality in the universe. …The attributes of God designate a relation which he establishes with those who feel their need of him. That bears with it the undoubted truth that God, in the full plenitude of his nature, is in each of his attributes, so that there is never more of one attribute than of another, never more love than justice, or more mercy than righteousness, but that God is unchanging, undiminished and wholly involved in all that he does. If there is one attribute of God that can be recognized as all-comprehensive and all-pervading, it is his holiness, which must be predicated of all his attributes, holy love, holy compassion, holy wisdom, etc. IV. His will God is sovereign. That means that he makes his own plans and carries them out in his own time and way. His sovereignty in willing and working is simply an expression of his supreme intelligence, power and wisdom. God’s will is not arbitrary, but acts in complete harmony with his character. It is the forth-putting of his power and goodness, and is thus the final determinant of all existence for the divine glory. There is, however, a distinction between God’s will which prescribes what we shall do, and his will which determines what he will do. There is, therefore, a realm in which God’s will to act is dominant, and a realm in which man’s liberty appears in exercise against God. The Bible presents both in operation. Christ uttered his agonizing cry over Jerusalem: ‘How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!’ (Mt. 23:37). Nevertheless, the sovereignty of God ensures that all will be overruled to serve his eternal purpose, and that ultimately Christ’s petition, which his followers echo, ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Mt. 6:10; 26:39–42) shall be answered.[2] V. His essential life In his essential life God is a fellowship. The supreme revelation of God given in the Scriptures is that God’s life is eternally within himself a loving fellowship of three equal and distinct persons, Father, Son and Spirit, and that in his relationship to his moral creatures God is extending to them the fellowship that is essentially his own. This truth might perhaps be read into the dictum that expressed God’s deliberate will to create man: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ That form of words stands as an expression of the will of God, not only to reveal himself as a fellowship, but to open the divine life of fellowship to moral creatures made in his image and so fitted to enjoy it. While it is true that through sinning man lost his fitness for that holy fellowship, it is also true that God willed to restore it to him. This was the grand end of redemption: here we see God in Three Persons acting for our restoration, in electing love that claimed us, in redeeming love that emancipated us, and in regenerating love that recreated us for his fellowship (*Trinity). It is the fitting climax of the biblical revelation that John affirms on the basis of Christ’s redeeming work, linked with the divine plurality and fellowship of which he had spoken earlier (1 Jn. 1:3–2:2; 3:24–4:6), ‘God is love’ (1 Jn. 4:8–10, 16). VI. His Fatherhood The personal God can enter into personal relationships, and the closest and tenderest that the Bible knows is that of Father. 1. There is his Creational Fatherhood. In Heb. God is called ‘the Father of our spirits’ (12:9), and in Nu. ‘the God of the spirits of all mankind’ (16:22). 2. There is the Theocratic Fatherhood. This is God’s relationship to his covenant-people, Israel. 3. There is Generative Fatherhood. This belongs exclusively to the second Person of the Trinity, designated the Son of God, and the only begotten Son. ‘My Father, and your Father’ (Jn. 20:17), but the two are so linked together that the one becomes the ground of the other. His Sonship, though on a level altogether unique, was the basis of their sonship, by virtue of the faith-communion and Holy Spirit-union that bound them to him. 4. There is also the Adoptive Fatherhood. This is the redeeming relationship that belongs to all believers, and in the context of redemption it is viewed from two aspects: that of their standing in Christ, and that of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in them. This relationship to God is basic for all believers, as Paul reminds the Galatians: ‘For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith’ (Gal. 3:26). In this living union with Christ they are adopted into the family of God, and they become subjects of the regenerative work of the Spirit that bestows upon them the nature of children: one is the objective aspect, the other the subjective. Because of their new standing (justification) and their relationship (adoption) to God the Father in Christ, they become partakers of the divine nature and are born into the family of God. John made this clear in the opening chapter of his gospel: ‘To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right (authority) to become children of God—children born, not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God’ (Jn. 1:12, 13). And so they are granted all the privileges that belong to that filial relationship: ‘if children, then heirs’ is the sequence (Rom. 8:17). It is clear that Christ’s teaching on the Fatherhood of God restricts the relationship to his believing people. Nowhere is he reported as assuming this relationship to exist between God and unbelievers. Not only does he not give any hint of a redeeming Fatherhood of God towards all men, but he said pointedly to his cavilling opponents: ‘You belong to your father, the devil’ (Jn. 8:44). While it is under this relationship of Father that the NT brings out the tenderest aspects of God’s character, his love, his faithfulness and his watchful care, it also brings out the responsibility of our having to show God the reverence, the trust and the loving obedience that children owe to a father. Christ has taught us to pray not simply ‘Our Father’, but ‘Our Father who art in heaven’, thus inculcating reverence and humility. However intimate, rich and warm-hearted his love, God remains God, majestic, amazing and awesome.[3] Harper’s Bible Dictionary: In the ot God is presented as the Creator and Sustainer of the world, who enters into covenantal relationship with a chosen people, Israel, and who guides the history of that people toward a redemptive goal…. Further, belief in the incarnation substantially changes the understanding of God presented in the nt. For Christian thought, the primary locus of God’s self-revelation is not in the events of the history of a people but rather in the person of Jesus Christ (e.g., Matt. 1:23; John 14:9; 20:28–29). For this reason, the dominant image used to refer to God is the language of familial intimacy: Abba, Father.[4] Additional Scripture: God, the Son Colossians 1:16 16 For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether · thrones (places of authority) · dominions (areas of authority) · rulers (people in authority) · authorities (degrees of authority) all things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. 19 For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. God’s Response to the Self-Absorbed and Dismissive Wicked Psalm 50:21 [16-23] 21 These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. [1] The Introduction to the book of Nahum in the English Standard Version Bible [2] Finlayson, R. A., & Jensen, P. F. (1996). God. In D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, & D. J. Wiseman (Eds.), New Bible dictionary (3rd ed., p. 419). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. [3] Finlayson, R. A., & Jensen, P. F. (1996). God. In D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, & D. J. Wiseman (Eds.), New Bible dictionary (3rd ed., p. 420). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. [4] Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row and Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). In Harper’s Bible dictionary (1st ed., p. 351). San Francisco: Harper & Row.

God, The Creator and Sustainer of All Things

By Pastor Dan Kennedy

www.pastorkennedy.com

Scripture Reading: Romans 1:16-25

How does God Reveal Himself to the World?

“For what can be known about God is plain to them,

because God has shown it to them.

For His invisible attributes,

namely, His eternal power and divine nature,

have been clearly perceived,

ever since the creation of the world,

in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse.”

Romans 1:19, 20

God Has Revealed His Presence to the World through His Creation

God’s Invisible Attributes

His Eternal Power

His Divine Nature

clearly perceived

in the things that have been made

[Everyone is] without excuse

God has Revealed His Family Relationship: One God and Father of All – Patterned in the Unity and Oneness of The Trinity

Ephesians 4:4–6 (Unity – Oneness, in Diversity)

4 There is one body and one Spirit [the Holy Spirit]—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord [Jesus Christ], one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over alland through all and in all.

o God, the Father holds “The Position and Power” over All

“over (ἐπί) all”

o God, the Son, “The Word,” is “The Means” through Whom all things exists

“through (διά) all” (John 1:1-3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16b; Rom. 11:36)

John 1:1-3

1 In the beginning was the Word…

3 All things were made through Him [the Word], and without Him was not anything made that was made.

1 Corinthians 8:6

6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

o God, the Holy Spirit is “The Instrumentality” in Whom we live

“in (ἐν) all”

Colossians 1:27

27 … this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

[Christ is in us through the Presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19; John 14:17-20)]

John 14:17

17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.

How Does God Explain Who He IS? What is God Like in His Relationship to Us?

[In Emphasizing His qualities, it also reveals the qualities He wants us to emulate.]

God, giving His Own Attributes:

Exodus 34:6–7

6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed,

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

· Merciful and Gracious

· Slow to Anger

· Abounding in Steadfast Love and Faithfulness

· Forgiveness of iniquity, transgression and sin

· Justice for rebellious – by no means clearing the guilty or their children

Who Does Nehemiah the Prophet Explain Who God IS?

Nehemiah 9:15–17

15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them. 16 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 17 They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

· A God ready to forgive

· Merciful and Gracious

· Slow to Anger

· Abounding in Steadfast Love

· Does Not Forsake His Own

Who Does King David Explain Who God IS?

Psalm 86:15

15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Psalm 103:8

8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Psalm 145:8

8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

· Merciful and Gracious

· Slow to Anger

· Abounding in Steadfast Love

How Do the Prophets Joel and Jonah Explain Who God IS?

Joel 2:13

13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.

Jonah 4:2

2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

· Merciful and Gracious

· Slow to Anger

· Abounding in Steadfast Love

· Who Relents over Disaster

Nineveh – an Example of Repentance, “Relenting” by God and God’s Judgment

God sent reluctant Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh. They Repented.

Around a hundred years later God allowed their destruction.

“When Jonah preached repentance on the streets of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the people responded and were spared. A century later, sometime between 663 and 612 B.C., Nahum preached in a time when Nineveh would not repent. Nineveh, which had destroyed Israel’s northern kingdom in 722, itself fell to Babylon in 612—just a few years after Nahum’s warning. The Assyrians were notorious for the brutality of their treatment of other nations. Nahum declared, however, that God is sovereign: he punishes whom he will, and they are powerless to stop him. Much of Nahum’s prophecy was directed to the people of Judah, who could rejoice at the good news (1:15) of Nineveh’s impending fall.” [1]

Israel was in slavery in Egypt for some 400 years…God waited for the cup of the iniquity of the Amorites to become full until He could give Israel their land.

Genesis 15:13–16

13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

Esau – an example of a godly line, without “the blessing” because of no repentance.

Hebrews 12:16–17

16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

Who Does Nahum the Prophet Explain Who God IS in regard to the Nineveh of his day – no longer repentant 100 or so years after Jonah, having more recently destroyed the capital of Northern Israel?

Nahum 1:2–3

2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

· God is Jealous, Avenging and Wrathful toward His Adversaries (against cruel Nineveh a century after their repentance when Jonah preached to them, but who had brutally destroyed Israel’s northern kingdom, and who themselves would fall to Babylon a few years after Nahum’s warning.)

· God is Slow to Anger and Great in Power

· God exacts Justice for the wicked and rebellious: by no means clearing the guilty

How does the Writer of Hebrews Explain God’s Justice?

God Sent His Son

To Sacrificially Die,

To Redeem sinners from the just Penalty of sin,

To Free from Slavery to sin,

To Forgive and Cleanse,

To Adopt as His Children

and

To Make Them His Eternal Heirs!

Hebrews 10:29–31

29 How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

The Amazing Privilege of Worshipping and Serving a God who:

· Reveals Himself to all

· Merciful and Gracious

· Slow to Anger

· Abounding in Steadfast Love

· Has Profound Forgiveness

· Redeems from Sin

· Who Relents over Disaster when there is repentance

· Who Justly recompenses disaster on the wicked

God Sent His Son to Sacrificially Die, to Redeem, to Free from Slavery to sin, to Forgive, to Adopt as His Children!

Galatians 4:4–7

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer slaves, but God’s children; and since you are His children, He has made you also heirs.

So, Who then IS God?

· God is Amazing in His Creation – Revealing Himself to the World

· God is Relational, not Impersonal – “Oneness” in The Trinity, and His Kingdom

· God is One who is ready to forgive those who repent from their sin and seek Him

· God is Merciful and Gracious

· God is Slow to Anger

· God is Abounding in Steadfast Love

· God has sought to Redeem Fallen Humankind, by sending His Son to be our Sacrifice, in our stead, for our sin

· God is also Just toward the unrepentant and wicked, and will judge them severely

· God, Our Father, Does Not Forsake His Own Children

· God’s Desire is to Adopt those Redeemed and Make Us Heirs to Eternal Life in His Kingdom

______________________

ENDNOTES

[Alternate Sources with explanations of God]

Excerpts taken from The New Bible dictionary explaining God in this way:

I. His Being

In his being God is self-existing. While his creation is dependent on him, he is utterly independent of the creation. He not only has life, but he is life to his universe, and has the source of that life within himself.

‘I am who I am’, i.e. ‘I am the one that has being within himself ‘(Ex. 3:14).

Christ gave this mystery its clearest expression when he said, ‘For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself’ (Jn. 5:26).

II. His nature

In his nature God is pure spirit, which means intelligent energy.

‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth’ (Jn. 4:24)

God is eternal, all-present, all-knowing and all-powerful.

His infinity likewise means that God is transcendent over his universe. It emphasizes his distinctness as self-existing spirit, from all his creatures. He is not shut in by what we call nature, but infinitely exalted above it.

At the same time God’s infinity implies his immanence. By this we mean his all-pervading presence and power within his creation (cf. Ps. 139).

III. His character

God is personal. When we say this, we assert that God is rational, self-conscious and self-determining, an intelligent moral agent. As supreme mind he is the source of all rationality in the universe.

…The attributes of God designate a relation which he establishes with those who feel their need of him. That bears with it the undoubted truth that God, in the full plenitude of his nature, is in each of his attributes, so that there is never more of one attribute than of another, never more love than justice, or more mercy than righteousness, but that God is unchanging, undiminished and wholly involved in all that he does. If there is one attribute of God that can be recognized as all-comprehensive and all-pervading, it is his holiness, which must be predicated of all his attributes, holy love, holy compassion, holy wisdom, etc.

IV. His will

God is sovereign. That means that he makes his own plans and carries them out in his own time and way. His sovereignty in willing and working is simply an expression of his supreme intelligence, power and wisdom. God’s will is not arbitrary, but acts in complete harmony with his character. It is the forth-putting of his power and goodness, and is thus the final determinant of all existence for the divine glory.

There is, however, a distinction between God’s will which prescribes what we shall do, and his will which determines what he will do.

There is, therefore, a realm in which God’s will to act is dominant, and a realm in which man’s liberty appears in exercise against God. The Bible presents both in operation.

Christ uttered his agonizing cry over Jerusalem: ‘How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!’ (Mt. 23:37).

Nevertheless, the sovereignty of God ensures that all will be overruled to serve his eternal purpose, and that ultimately Christ’s petition, which his followers echo, ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Mt. 6:10; 26:39–42) shall be answered.[2]

V. His essential life

In his essential life God is a fellowship. The supreme revelation of God given in the Scriptures is that God’s life is eternally within himself a loving fellowship of three equal and distinct persons, Father, Son and Spirit, and that in his relationship to his moral creatures God is extending to them the fellowship that is essentially his own. This truth might perhaps be read into the dictum that expressed God’s deliberate will to create man: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ That form of words stands as an expression of the will of God, not only to reveal himself as a fellowship, but to open the divine life of fellowship to moral creatures made in his image and so fitted to enjoy it. While it is true that through sinning man lost his fitness for that holy fellowship, it is also true that God willed to restore it to him. This was the grand end of redemption: here we see God in Three Persons acting for our restoration, in electing love that claimed us, in redeeming love that emancipated us, and in regenerating love that recreated us for his fellowship (*Trinity). It is the fitting climax of the biblical revelation that John affirms on the basis of Christ’s redeeming work, linked with the divine plurality and fellowship of which he had spoken earlier (1 Jn. 1:3–2:2; 3:24–4:6), ‘God is love’ (1 Jn. 4:8–10, 16).

VI. His Fatherhood

The personal God can enter into personal relationships, and the closest and tenderest that the Bible knows is that of Father.

1. There is his Creational Fatherhood.

In Heb. God is called ‘the Father of our spirits’ (12:9), and in Nu. ‘the God of the spirits of all mankind’ (16:22).

2. There is the Theocratic Fatherhood. This is God’s relationship to his covenant-people, Israel.

3. There is Generative Fatherhood. This belongs exclusively to the second Person of the Trinity, designated the Son of God, and the only begotten Son.

‘My Father, and your Father’ (Jn. 20:17), but the two are so linked together that the one becomes the ground of the other. His Sonship, though on a level altogether unique, was the basis of their sonship, by virtue of the faith-communion and Holy Spirit-union that bound them to him.

4. There is also the Adoptive Fatherhood. This is the redeeming relationship that belongs to all believers, and in the context of redemption it is viewed from two aspects: that of their standing in Christ, and that of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in them. This relationship to God is basic for all believers, as Paul reminds the Galatians: ‘For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith’ (Gal. 3:26). In this living union with Christ they are adopted into the family of God, and they become subjects of the regenerative work of the Spirit that bestows upon them the nature of children: one is the objective aspect, the other the subjective. Because of their new standing (justification) and their relationship (adoption) to God the Father in Christ, they become partakers of the divine nature and are born into the family of God. John made this clear in the opening chapter of his gospel: ‘To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right (authority) to become children of God—children born, not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God’ (Jn. 1:12, 13). And so they are granted all the privileges that belong to that filial relationship: ‘if children, then heirs’ is the sequence (Rom. 8:17).

It is clear that Christ’s teaching on the Fatherhood of God restricts the relationship to his believing people. Nowhere is he reported as assuming this relationship to exist between God and unbelievers. Not only does he not give any hint of a redeeming Fatherhood of God towards all men, but he said pointedly to his cavilling opponents: ‘You belong to your father, the devil’ (Jn. 8:44).

While it is under this relationship of Father that the NT brings out the tenderest aspects of God’s character, his love, his faithfulness and his watchful care, it also brings out the responsibility of our having to show God the reverence, the trust and the loving obedience that children owe to a father. Christ has taught us to pray not simply ‘Our Father’, but ‘Our Father who art in heaven’, thus inculcating reverence and humility. However intimate, rich and warm-hearted his love, God remains God, majestic, amazing and awesome.[3]

Harper’s Bible Dictionary:

In the ot God is presented as the Creator and Sustainer of the world, who enters into covenantal relationship with a chosen people, Israel, and who guides the history of that people toward a redemptive goal….

Further, belief in the incarnation substantially changes the understanding of God presented in the nt. For Christian thought, the primary locus of God’s self-revelation is not in the events of the history of a people but rather in the person of Jesus Christ (e.g., Matt. 1:23; John 14:9; 20:28–29). For this reason, the dominant image used to refer to God is the language of familial intimacy: Abba, Father.[4]

Additional Scripture: God, the Son

Colossians 1:16

16 For by Him all things were created,

in heaven and on earth,

visible and invisible, whether

· thrones (places of authority)

· dominions (areas of authority)

· rulers (people in authority)

· authorities (degrees of authority)

all things were created through Him and for Him.

17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

18 And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. 19 For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

20 and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.

God’s Response to the Self-Absorbed and Dismissive Wicked

Psalm 50:21 [16-23]

21 These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

[1] The Introduction to the book of Nahum in the English Standard Version Bible

[2] Finlayson, R. A., & Jensen, P. F. (1996). God. In D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, & D. J. Wiseman (Eds.), New Bible dictionary (3rd ed., p. 419). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

[3] Finlayson, R. A., & Jensen, P. F. (1996). God. In D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, & D. J. Wiseman (Eds.), New Bible dictionary (3rd ed., p. 420). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

[4] Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row and Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). In Harper’s Bible dictionary (1st ed., p. 351). San Francisco: Harper & Row.