Who is God?

Question implies we believe there is a God. Much like the Bible. Opens with the assumption that people believe there is a God.

When we look at creation the only logical conclusion is that God exists.

Illustration: Man who asked me “How do I know it wasn’t Satan who saved me?”

The Book that tells me about God is the same one that tells me about Satan. It says that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Satan would never encourage me to confess Christ as Lord.

This intelligent man was left speechless.

One of Satan's most impressive accomplishments is he has convinced many in our culture that atheism is synonomous with intellectualism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheism is such a foolish belief that God inspired a Psalm to be written to reveal its foolishness and then had that Psalm put in the Bible twice.

Our question is not “Is there a God?’ That should not even be up for debate. Our question is “Who is God?”

We begin by saying God is incomprehensible.

God cannot be fully known.

Why?

Because we are on earth and He is in heaven? No.

Because we are sinners? No. Even the elect angels do not fully comprehend God.

Because we are not glorified yet? No. Even in a glorified state you will not fully comprehend God.

God is too glorious to be fully comprehended by a created being. Let me illustrate it for you by telling you some things God is not.

Travel with me all the way to the beginning. We are before Genesis 1.

There is no earth

There are no heavens

There are no people

There are no angelic beings

There is only God.

God is not made.

God is not supported

God is not sustained.

Yet God is not alone.

The triune nature of God is in itself a mystery we cannot fully comprehend.

We have to say with Paul “Great is the mystery of godliness!”

Heaven for a hundred thousand years won’t help you to grasp fully the depths of the Trinity.

We can’t fully comprehend God because He is infinite. That means everything God is, He is without measure. There is no limit to any of the attributes of God.

As a finite creature if you were to choose one attribute of God and attempt to comprehend it fully you could study it for an eternity and still only scratch the surface. This is true for His:

Love

Power

Wisdom

Holiness

You pick the attribute.

There’s an old song that says:

Could we with ink the ocean fill And were the skies of parchment made Were every stalk on earth a quill And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry Nor could the scroll contain the whole Though stretched from sky to sky

We cannot know God fully but it is even more amazing than that. We cannot know one thing about God fully.

You might ask “Why try then?”

Because there is great benefit to understanding what we can know about God.

Let me ask the men a question. Can you love your wife like Christ loved the church? No.

Is there benefit in trying? Yes!

The incomprehensibility of God does not mean we cannot know anything about God. It means we cannot know everything about Him.

The truth is we should desire to know all we can about God.

In Scripture salvation is described as knowing God.

Jesus said in John 17:3

“This is eternal life that they may know You the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Jeremiah 9:24 says

but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

Not only can we know God, we must know God if we are to be saved.

Our catechism answers our question. It’s a basic answer. If I were to try and expound on the fact that God is:

A Spirit

Infinite

Eternal

Unchangeable in His

Wisdom

Power

Holiness

Justice

Goodness

Truth

I’m afraid our message would be wide but not very deep. Instead of doing that we’re going to look at one of the sections of Scripture our catechism references. This text is about Moses. Moses was a man who wanted to know everything he could about God. In Exodus 33:17 the Lord said to Moses “I know you by name.”

Moses responded by saying to the Lord “Please show me your glory.”

You know me. I want to know you.

Spurgeon said of this text “Why it is the greatest petition that man ever asked God!”

What is the glory of God? The glory of God is the sum and substance of all God is. It is the fullness of God. It is everything about God.

There was a rejection of God’s glory in Moses day.

A. The context.

In chapter 24 Moses went up to speak with the Lord on Mount Sinai. He is there for forty days and nights. Chapters 24-32 are Moses on the mountain communing with God. God reveals many things to Moses. He even gives him the Ten Commandments engraved on stone tablets.

The people grew weary waiting on Moses. They had no idea what happened to Moses. Maybe they thought he was dead or wasn’t coming back. They tell Aaron to make them some gods and shamefully Aaron obeys them.

It is amazing how quickly they reject the One True God. In 24:3 the people had a made a covenant with God saying they would obey everything that God told them.

But now they:

Make an idol

Worship the idol

Sacrifice to the idol

Celebrate a Feast of the Lord with the idol

Engage in drunkenness and immorality

God is about to wipe them out and Moses intercedes for them. God spares the people. Moses meets Joshua who has been waiting on the mountain for him. As they approach the bottom of the mountain Joshua hears a lot of ruckus and assumes there is a war among the people. He discovers it’s the sound of a drunken party going on.

Moses loses it. He slams the two tablets on the ground breaking them, confronts Aaron and commissions the Levites and three thousand Hebrews are killed.

B. Aaron’s mistake.

Aaron was more concerned about the approval of man than the glory of God.

Look at 32:22- “thou knowest the people”

We are infatuated with understanding people these days. We have given up on the transforming power of God. We’re like Aaron “you know how people are”.

There aren’t many people seeking to know God but there are many seeking to know man.

We study the drunk and conclude they just can’t help it so we excuse their sin.

We study the homosexual and conclude they can’t help it so we excuse their sin.

We study the idolater and conclude they can’t help it so we excuse their sin.

We mix all of that in with Christianity. What we have is a man centered religion that has robbed God of glory.

In a time where the church is trying to understand people we would do better to understand God.

The more we study people the more confused we will be. People change. God doesn’t change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. You study people and what you learn today may not be true tomorrow. You study God and what is true about Him today will be true about Him forever.

We have a movement that masquerades as missions today trying to convince us the problem with the church is we don’t understand people. Let me help everyone out. I’m gonna tell you everything you need to know about people to reach them with the gospel.

People are dead in their sins

People are spiritually blind

People are spiritually deaf

People are at war with God

People have a heart of stone

People are children of the devil

People are lost!

Their only hope is the resurrecting power of the preached gospel of Jesus Christ! Even Charles Wesley got it right when he wrote:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature's night; Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

We need preachers who are more concerned with knowing who God is rather than knowing who people are.

C. The people’s mistake.

They were religious. Their hope was in religion not in God.

They had a god

They had a priest

They had an altar

They had plenty of people

They thought they were ok. They thought God wasn’t concerned about details. They thought as long as they were worshipping they were ok.

God doesn’t care if we have an idol.

God doesn’t care if we get drunk

God doesn’t care if we’re sexually immoral.

Professing themselves to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:23-24

Idolatry exists because people do not know who God is.

In his sinfulness man will always make gods that reflect the culture he loves. This golden calf looked like something straight out of Egypt.

Our culture treats God like He is a celestial Santa Clause who sits us on his lap and says “Now what would you like little boy?”

We have created a hideous creature we call god who says “Amen” to every desire we have.

God is not our Mr. Potato Head. We are not to imagine what He is. There is no liberty in defining who God is. There is not an inch of liberty. To assemble our own god in our imagination is to reject the knowledge and glory of God Himself.

2. The Request for God’s Glory.

A. Moses continues to seek God.

He’s a little discouraged. The Lord told Him that an angel would be leading them to the Promised Land rather than God (32:34).

Moses creates a place for people to seek God. He sets up a tent outside of the camp and calls it the Tent of Meeting (33:7).

Moses would go out there and spend time with God. The people would watch from a distance because when Moses went in the glory of the Lord would rest above the tent.

The Lord and Moses would talk. 32:11 says they would speak face to face. This doesn’t mean Moses saw God’s face, it describes the intimacy in which they would speak. Moses and the Lord spoke intimately as friends speak to one another.

The hypocrisy of God’s people did not deter Moses. Moses faith was in God, not in God’s people.

Moses tells God that he cannot lead the people to the Promised Land if the Lord doesn’t go with him.

B. Moses asks to see the glory of God.

Moses asked Lord to go with him and He agreed. Moses doesn’t stop there. He asks the Lord for something unbelievable in 33:18 “Show me your glory!”

We have an unsatisfied Moses. Hasn’t he seen enough?

A burning bush that spoke to him

Waters turned to blood

Frogs overtake homes

Lice infest people

Flies harass Egyptians

Pestilence upon Egyptian cattle

Boils

Hale

Darkness

Death of firstborn

Red sea split

Egyptian army drowned

The reality is he’s asking for something he cannot receive. God tells him in verse 20 that no one can see His face and live.

Better to ask for more in ignorance than less in ignorance!

Thank God for a hunger like this! There are many who want to know just a little about God. There are those who would rather not know God in His fullness. They don’t want to know much about God for the same reason they won’t:

Step on a scale

Go to the doctor

Balance their check book

They may not like what they learn.

3. The Requirements for understanding who God is.

A. You must be saved (33:17).

Two things you see in 33:17. Moses found favor with God and God knew Him by name. In other words, he was saved. You won’t see God as He is if you are not saved.

If God does not know you, you will not know Him. (Matthew 7:23 “I never knew you...”)

Look what God does for Moses.

God says in 33:21 There is a place by Me! Thank God for that! Thank God for a closeness we can have with God.

God says Moses will:

Stand on a rock.

Be hidden in a cleft.

Be covered by the hand of God.

All of this is to prepare Moses so he can see the glory of the Lord. I got excited when I thought about that.

As believers God has prepared us to see His glory in all its fullness one of these days!

We are standing on the solid rock of Jesus Christ!

We are hidden in Christ!

We are in the Father’s hand!

.

B. You must have the Word of God.

All Moses is going to see is the back part of God. But even that is veiled. Notice he is in the cleft of the rock, he is covered by the hand of God, and God is even covered by a cloud (34:5).

The Bible says the Lord stood with Moses there. And God proclaimed Himself to Moses. God spoke. In His speaking God was declaring His glory. Passing by Moses, He proclaimed Himself.

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,  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.”

What we see here is the glory of God revealed through the Word of God. God preaches Himself to Moses. It’s not about Moses simply seeing God. It’s about Moses understanding the character of God.

If there is no interest in the Word of God there is no interest in the glory of God. To know the glory of God you have to know the Word of God. The preacher’s job is to declare the Word of God so you can see the glory of God. Just as God did here with Moses.

What makes Moses different than his culture? Take a look at him coming down that mountain side. He has the Lord in his life and the Law in his hand. If you envy him, know he would envy you. Like Abraham he would rejoice to see the day you live in.

Moses had the Law in his hand and the Lord in his life.

You have the Law, the prophets, the wisdom, the history, the gospel, and the epistles in your hand. You have the Lord Jesus Christ in your life.

In these last days God has spoken to us by His Son , whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.  He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

What do you need to Know the Lord?

You need to be saved

You need the Scriptures

You need the Bible

You need to be born again

According to Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 we can shine brighter than Moses did because we live in a better covenant

If God has saved you you will want to know the God who saved you. Thee means by which you come to know Him is His Word! I love the Word of God.

It can be so simple!

I am the Bread of Life

I am the Living Water

I am the Light of the world

I am the First and the Last

I am the Way the Truth and the Life

Please hear me: If you are saved you can know God deeply & personally.

You can know His character.

You can know His ways

You can know His desires

You can know His purposes

I want to encourage you not to imagine who God is, but to meditate on who the Word of God says He is.

You will never know all there is to know about God. But God can be known through His Word to such a degree that one would love Him, worship Him, and even die for Him. Let’s look briefly at what is revealed about God here:

God is unchanging

Loves us like a mother loves her child

Gives chance after chance to the sinner

Committed to the covenant He has made with His people

Maintains His love for His people throughout the ages

Forgives the most terrible of sins

Punishes those who refuse to forsake their sin

The Word of God is so powerful you can meditate on one of these truths for ages. It’s like the Everlasting Gobstopper in Willy Wonka. You can chew on it forever and it never gets smaller and it never loses its flavor.

If we want to know who God is that’s what we’ll do.

We’ll listen to the preached Word with an eager ear.

We’ll study the written Word with a hungry heart.

We’ll meditate on the memorized Word with a holy focus.

As the days go by we’ll learn more about God. God will be magnified in our life. Our understanding of God will broaden.Our love for God will deepen. Our faith in God will be stretched. Years of mining the Scripture will pass until one day we find our self lying in a hospital bed.

Hands to feeble to hold a Bible

Eyes to dim to read the Scripture

Ears to weak to hear a sermon

But a heart full of heaven from years of God declaring Himself to us.

And then in a moment our eyes will close on this earth for the last time.

And perhaps we will even hear the promise “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Our eyes will open in heaven we will see the most beautiful Being in all the universe. “They shall see His face! (Rev. 22:4).

Though we see God for eons upon eons He will never grow dim to us. The beauty of God is so spectacular we will stand in awe of Him for eternity!

We will say with the seraphim “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts!”

We will sing with the elders “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Who is God?

He is the infinite, unchanging Eternal Spirit who in His wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth created everything.

This great God is a judge. He has swung His gavel and declared the world guilty of sin.

This great God is also a Savior. He has come to this earth and paid the price for our sins.

He has commanded us to turn from our sin and to Christ.

When we do this He will reveal Himself to us through His Son and the Scripture.

A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. (John 4:24; Ps. 147:5; Ps. 90:2; James 1:17; Rev. 4:8; Ps. 89:14; Exod. 34:6,7; 1 Tim. 1:17)