Who is God?

Intro

Hey y’all! everyone good? everyone tired? I feel that. Anyone wish the weather would make up its mind?

cool cool,

So answer this for me, does thinking and believing in something effect how you act?

Lets get really practical, imagine that there are two chairs up here, one is a well made wooden chair, big sturdy legs, looks like it is built like a tank. Then there is another chair, and its looks like it is held together with stick glue and pipe cleaners. If you were to make me pick a chair to sit in which one would you tell me to sit in? Some of you would make me sit in the nice sturdy chair right? But, some of you are gonna make me sit in the pipe cleaner trap right? Right. Cause you think and believe one is gonna hold me or the other is gonna make me break the chair and fall down.

But what if you were up here and I asked you to take a seat in one of the chairs, which one are you going to sit in?

Probably most of you are gonna pick the sturdy one, why? Cause you don’t want to fall down in front of your friends,

You think and believe that the chair is going to hold you.

What you think and believe has an actual bearing in your life.

So that is where we are going to be tonight, talking about God. We talk about God every week, but talking about what we think and believe about God, and why that matters. Why it matters how we think about God.

Context

Thoughts are the beginning stages of belief.

If you are going to believe in something, you first have to think about it. Thoughts are how you start to believe things. Beliefs then, determine action right? If you think this is true, then you believe that something is true, then you act like this is true.

Just like the chair, you picked the sturdy one because you thought it was more sturdy and have believe it was the stronger one, so you would have sat in that.

What if someone told you if you came and cut my grass every week 52 weeks for the year. at the end of the year, they would give you a million dollars.

What would you do? Someone you don’t know. You are probably gonna ask if they have a million dollars right? You are going to think about it because it sounds too good to be true.

But let’s say you have thought about it and have determined it is true, so you believe that if you cut this dudes grass every week, you are gonna make sure you get that grass cut. Why? Because you believe you are going to get this million dollars, this belief is causing you to act in a certain way right?

So tonight we are going to be in a Psalm 97:1-12, the whole thing and we are going to try and answer the question who is God? Look at who and what is God. and why what we think and believe about God matters.

Okay if you have a bible go to Psalm 97 and let’s look at this passage, if you need a bible, throw a hand up and charley will get one to you. Who needs a bible? Okay cool,

Psalm 97 lets pray for our time in the word

pray

Psalm 97 ESV

1 The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around. 4 His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. 6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory. 7 All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods! 8 Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O Lord. 9 For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. 10 O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of his saints; he delivers them from the hand of the wicked. 11 Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. 12 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!

Okay cool, so what i want to do is just kinda unpack this then let’s talk about the implications of what is going on here.

so what do these 12 verses tell us about God?

Anyone want to take a stab at it?

Okay, so what I’m seeing is that if we split this Psalm in to two halves we see that God is the all powerful verses 1-6 are saying God is the all powerful king, the King over all, He has no equal, no rival, He is righteous and he is glorious.

then in the second we see that under His reign we flourish the best. Because He has ordered the world in a certain way, we are able to flourish best. He is for us, and his glory is our chief end.

What we think and believe about God matters

So, let’s think about it. If this Psalm is right, what do we do? Because what we think and believe about God should matter.

IF you don’t believe this Psalm is true, that God is none of those things, that is going to impact how you live. Even more so, if you believe these things to be true, it is definably going to impact how you live.

See the reason I want to talk about this, is because a lot of the time, I don’t think we put God in His proper place. when we think about God, we tend to think of Him in to different ways. Think about it, have you heard of the man upstairs? When some one talks about God and they say “the man upstairs” have you heard that before?

What are they saying there? What is their view of God? it’s pretty low right, they are viewing God and a distant neighbor who we probably shouldn’t bother too much right? like, the man upstairs is gonna be mad if i play music too loud!

I have a friend that I have been friends with for ever, and me and him live very different lives, he has nothing to do with the church, he has a lot of church hurt, and the last time he darkened the doors of a church was at mine and ll’s wedding. But when I talk to him about Christianity, church or anything spiritual, he says, “don’t worry about me, me and the man upstairs are good” and that just tells me what I need to know.

He is basically telling me, him and the guy who lives above him are cool, I don’t bother him, and he doesn't bother me.

See what I mean? Is God seen in His proper place? No, that doesn't reflect who God truly is. It doesn’t reflect HIs glory, His majesty, His rule, any thing we see in Psalm 97, nothing.

And my friend, basically lives like there is no God, which makes sense because His view of God is too low, if God is just a distant neighbor, why alter what you do.

See what I mean? What we think and Believe about God, matters.

Because there are a bunch of different beliefs about God and se we need to see what the bible says about God, because that is how God is revealed to us, through His word.

People have all sorts of different belief about god and how we think and believe about Him matters.

Just as an example, if you are mormon, you believe that God is relying on your works to get to heaven. If you are atheist, you still have a belief about God, that he is not there, and your life reflects that. If you are Muslim, you are relying on being a good muslim for Allah to see you as righteous, if you are Hindu you believe there are many different gods, and they all have different attributes and characters, some of their gods sound like humans. they are not eternal. If you Buddhist there is no real god, only oneness with the universe, so your life is spent seeking peace and quite.

If you have bought in to the dominate American view of god then just being a good person is what would bring salvation. SO live how you want, do kill or steal and vote.

See what I mean by how we think and believe about god? It matters.

Why does it matter that He is reigning?

So, let’s unpack God. Let’s think about God. Let’s try to think about God rightly. The God of the Bible.

So first question, who is God? Who is God?

if we go to Exodus, when God meets Moses at the burning bush, Moses ask God, who do i tell sent me, what is your name? and God says, “I AM who I Am” this is where we get the word Yawheh, the Hebrew name for God. Basically saying God is eternal, God always is, God is the uncaused first cause. God is the reason for everything.

If we look at Psalm 97, we see that God is a personal being, someone that we can know. Someone who interacts with us, someone that can be known.

So how should we think about God? We should see God as the creator, looking at Genesis, “in the beginning God” God has always been there, God is the creator, the one who has ordered the world to be the way he saw fit. God.

God has certain attributes.

God Reigns, the first verse of Psalm 97, the Lord Reigns.

So, what does it mean that personal God reigns? Look at verse 2, Ps. 97:2 “2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.”

Righteousness and Justice are the foundation of His throne. What does that mean? Well we get a sense of what His reign os like, That there is righteousness, and there is Justice. This means the kingdom of God is built on Righteousness and Justice. Meaning Righteousness is rewarded, and Justice is doled out, evil is punished.

Think of it like this, what is the USA built on? i know we aren’t a kingdom, but what is the constitution built on? if you look at the preamble, it is build on these principles, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” basically, Life Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness. Freedom, that’s the USA.

So we see the principles that God has ordered the world by, Righteousness and Justice. So what does this tell us about God?

That God is both Righteous and Just.

So now we see that God is righteous and Just ruler. We see that He is all powerful, He is perfectly righteous and perfectly just.

God is ruling over creation. God has ordered creation in a specific way.

So because He is reigning and is the sovereign ruler of the universe, and he has ordered the world to work in a certain fashion, we should try to reflect that order by how we live our society works.

Who likes Baseball? I love baseball, think about how the game is played. 3 strikes you’re out, 3 outs and inning standard. Imagine if baseball had different rules, if 4 strikes was an out, think of how many different ways games might have been decided. Normally the bases are 90ft, imagine if they were 88 or 92? games would wildly different? Because the rules would be different.

The rules are the way they are for a reason. It is the best version.

So God, being all powerful, righteous, and Just, has ordered the world in a certain way, and if we follow that way humans will best flourish. society will best flourish.

You wouldn’t have to lock your doors at night, if we followed the was God has ordered the world.

He reigns over creation, but also over your life.

So we see that God is reigning and what that means for the world, so if we think that God is who He says He is and we actually believe He is who He says He is, then our lives should reflect that God is who He says He is.

If God is actually God, and has ordered the world in a certain way for a certain reason, we should take that seriously.

God is not the man upstairs, but the sovereign King of the universe. How we think about Him matters, lots of our problems would be solved if we view God the right way.

God reigns over creation but also over your life. If you are His, then you will be ordering your life in a way that reflects His order. You are going to play by his rules. One of the things Dr Dew, the guy from DNow says is “A follower goes where He goes, a follower does what he does, a follower loves what He loves.” Our lives should reflect who God is, and how God operates.

Too often we go through life thinking that God is cool with what ever we do, and that we know best, if we do that, we are making ourselves God, and we are telling God that we know how to do this better than Him.

So how we think and believe about God matters because if we get this wrong eternity is at stake.

So, how do you know you are believing and thinking correctly about God?

Well, you have to go back to scripture. God is revealed to us through his word. His word is the ultimate authority on who God is.

So if someone comes to you and says “wel i know this about God.” You need to compare that to scripture, Always go back to scripture. Go back to who we see in His word.

If it doesn’t line up then you know, something is not right. So what are you going to believe? Someone’s thoughts or the word of God?

P2Christ

So, why does this matter, whats the point of all this?

if you are a follower of Jesus then how you view God should have serious implications on your life. If God is who He is, and you claim to be a follower, your life had better reflect that. God is the one who changes your heart, who changes your life, if you are a follower and there is no life change then you may want to rethink if you truly know The Lord.

if you are not a follower of Jesus or you don’t know what you believe, then the question for you is wh is God? Who is Jesus?

CS Lewis has a part in one of his books where he basically says, Jesus is either a Liar, Lunatic, or Lord. If he is a Liar or a lunatic, then you can disregard wht he says, but if He is Lord, then you have to take His claims seriously.

So how do you view God, what do you believe about God?

As we wrap up, answer this question, “How is your life different tomorrow if Jesus is Lord?” If Jesus is Lord, what are you doing when those eyes open in the morning and those feet hit the ground. What does your life look like if Jesus is Lord?

Come See Christ as Lord, Come see Christ as King.