The Nature of God

Manipulating the Master

When I was in high school, I had a maths teacher, who, despite the story I’m about to tell, was actually a really good teacher who helped me excel at the subject.

Well, many of us in the class figured out something about this teacher. We learnt that there were about 3 or 4 topics completely unrelated to Maths, and all we needed to do was to start talking about one of these topics, and we’d have the teacher captivated, which of course meant, no maths.

So if we walked into class and didn’t really feel like doing maths, we would asks one of a few select questions, and it would seem quite frequently it would work. We’d be half way through the period before we did any maths at all.

You see, we can think of ourselves as quite clever. If you’re smart enough, you can learn the ways of those in authority and you can start to manipulate things to your own advantage.

The more you know someone, the more you can use them for your own purposes.

It’s easy to think we can do the same with God. All we need to do is understand him well enough and we can use him.

You see, just master this thing can faith and prayer, and you can get almost whatever you want, and be free from whatever issue you’re facing.

Or if we understand God well enough, we can learn the loop holes so that technically we’re not “sinning” and therefore we remain in God’s good books.

The reality is, however, this is foolish thinking.

Last week, I made the case that God has made himself known in such a way that we now have it recorded for us in the Bible. This is super exciting and it should push us to wanting to know more.

But… and there is a big ‘but’ in this… this does not mean that we can now fully understand God and put him in a little box.

You see, once we think we’ve fully understood him, we can use him for our purposes. In the same way that a sailor can understand the winds and waves so that they can make the boat do what they want.

It’s actually our pride that thinks we can understand something bigger than ourselves, and as the old saying goes: ‘pride comes before a fall’. A saying, it’s worth noting, that actually comes from the Bible.

You see, even trying to put other people in a box is foolish, let alone God. How many times do we think we have someone pinned down… we think we understand how they think and how they tick, only to become completely surprised when things don’t go the way we expect.

So this morning, as we continue thinking through the basics of our faith, I want to start asking the question - who is this God that we serve and worship? But what we’re going to find is that as much as we’re going to start to understand him, after all, he has made himself known, but don’t ever think you’ve completely got there. Because at the end of the day, God is not there for us to use him, we’re going to find rather that we are here for him… we are here for his glory and his honour.

Who is God?

But let’s start with the question: who is God?

Creator

Well, let’s start at the start of the Bible.

The very first verse of the entire Bible says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.

Now, sometimes we might talk about someone being good at creating things. There are certainly some very creative people out there. However, even the most creative person that you could meet, well, they are fashioning something out of what already exists.

God on the other hand, he created from nothing. He brought things into existence.

So, one of the first things we learn about God, is that he is creator God, who can create something out of nothing.

Other titles

Now the Hebrew word for God in this first verse is Elohim. But throughout the Old Testament, we find a lot of other titles for God.

He is also called El Elyon, which means God most high.

Or El Shaddai, meaning God almighty.

El Olam: The Everlasting God

El Roi: The God who sees

Each one of these we could explore and you would fill in a bit of the picture of who God is.

Yahweh

But we then come to the passage that was read to us earlier.

It comes at a very interesting time in the development of Israel as a nation.

So let me really quickly back up.

You see, El Roi, the God who sees, saw man kind. He understood what was in the heart of humanity. Humanity had turned their back on God, and now they were not able to turn things back. And so we meet another aspect of God. The redeemer God.

You see God couldn’t just ignore what humanity had done. This would go against some of his other character attributes… his justice, and also very significantly, his holiness.

And so God chose a nation - actually, he didn’t so much choose a nation, but a faithful man from whom he would bring a nation. That man was Abraham, and from him, would come God’s blessing to all nations.

In God’s infinite wisdom, the nation essentially came of age in the heart of Egypt, but a time came, when this nation needed to return to the land that was promised by God.

It’s interesting that even with just this much of the story, we start to see many of the attritbutes of God. He uses a wisdom that, well, seems strange, and yet perfectly works things out for his own purposes. We see a God with a very distinct plan and the ability to carry it out.

Well, to bring this new nation out of Egypt is a man by the name of Moses.

We might often think of Moses as the big bold and fearless leader who forged a way where there didn’t seem a way. Interestingly, however, this is not what we find when we look at it. Actually, all that strength and ability to forge a way was everything to do with God, not Moses.

Anyway, by the time we get to the passage that was read before, Moses has actually run away from Egypt, having been brought up in Pharaoh’s palace, despite being a Hebrew.

His actually taken up being a shepherd, and it’s while he is out tending the flock that he sees a burning bush, though curiously, despite the very real flames, the bush did not burn up.

He approaches this bush and the voice of God comes from it.

God identifies himself as the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

This clarification might seem odd, but it’s a reminder that all of important stories that happened in the past, well, the same God that is with you now, is the same God that was with them.

Well, what comes next is a demonstration of the compassion that God has. When he sees people in distress, he is moved to action.

Sometimes we can picture God as a distant, almost cold and calculating being, but El Roi, the God who sees, cares about his people.

Now we see a God who has a plan. He asks Moses to go and bring God’s people out of Egypt.

Now maybe when you read verse 10 it almost reads as a straightforward request.

Moses knows this is anything but straightforward and you can see how freaked out Moses is by all of this.

Anyway, Moses then asks a question which at first sight might seem a little odd. He says: “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you” and they ask me, “What is his name?” Then what shall I tell them?”

I Am Who I Am

You see, in a name, you start to learn about someone.

Well, God then gives an answer which is going to become a very important moment in knowing who God is. He says “I AM WHO I AM”

Meaning

Now what does that mean?

Well, this is something that has been debated a lot.

On one level, it almost seems to not be an answer - just a statement of an existential reality. Of course he is who he is, just as I am the person that I am.

But as we dig into it, we start to see something quite profound. He is a God that is everlasting and unchangeable. He is a God that is self-sufficient.

But I think there is more to it then just this. In fact, I think there is an element in which you’re not actually meant to get it.

That is to say, God isn’t meant to fit any of our simple little definitions.

It’s great to think of all of the titles that I considered before, and each helps us gain a little insight into who God is, but this is just a picture that keeps growing and growing.

Yahweh

Now, this phrase “I am who I am” is shortened in the Hebrew to four consonants… Y H W H.

Now, we’re not entirely sure how it’s meant to be pronounced, largely because Jews don’t say this out loud, based on the fear that they might blaspheme the name.

But it’s often said as Yahweh. Some older translations have it as Jehovah, although Yahweh is generally considered closer to the mark. This name for God is often used throughout the Scriptures, however, in the NIV, as with many other translations, it has been translated as Lord, but we can know that Yahweh is intended when you see it in all capital letters.

So everytime you see Lord in capital letters, you can know this is linked to the name Yahweh, which links us back to this story in Exodus 3.

Trinity

Well, Yahweh might be a name that becomes deliberately impossible to fully define, but there is a further aspect of God that we really need to cover.

Let me just go back briefly to Genesis 1.

I’ve already mentioned that the word for God here is actually Elohim… what I didn’t mention is that this Hebrew word is actually in the plural form of the word.

This becomes clear in the English translation when you see Humans being created, and it is accurately translated as God saying: “Let us make mankind in our image...”

I believe we’re seeing the first hint at the Trinity.

Now, I’m not going to suggest that we can form a detailed doctrine of the Trinity, based purely on Genesis 1, but it is worth exploring further.

What the trinity is

So first, what do we mean by the Trinity?

Well, the Trinity is the concept that God is three, but God is also one.

Throughout the Bible, we see God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

The Bible talks about each of them as distinct beings, each with their own function and identity, what’s more, they interact with each other. It is clear that each have divine attributes. They are worshipped as God. They have the power of God. Indeed, each of them are God.

But the Bible is also clear that there is only one God.

Deuteronomy 6:4, perhaps the verse that is most familiar to a devout Jew, says “the Lord our God, the Lord is one”

So we can’t have three Gods, because God’s own revelation of himself is that he is the one and only. There is no other God beside him.

This begs the question, how can there be three God’s if there is only one?

This is the paradox that is the Trinity. The Bible doesn’t clearly give us the answer, it just unapologetically holds that each of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be God, but also that God is one.

There have been various attempts to explain it. A common one is the analogy of water, which can be either water, ice or steam. Each have the same essence. They are one, but they are also different. It’s not a perfect analogy, because God, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all three, all at once, where as water, ice and steam are only at one of their states at any given time.

The reality is, we actually don’t need to fully understand it.

You see, rather than seeing how three can be one, we can rather look at how we find the Trinity operating.

God the Father is the head. He sent his Son, Jesus the Christ, who became one of us. Jesus was both fully human and fully God. And being fully human, he identified with us. He taught as one of us. He suffered as one of us. But he saved as God, one who could truly make a difference.

Jesus and the Father worked perfectly together. They worked as one.

From the Father and Son, the Spirit is then sent. The Spirit is God’s presence in our world. We see the Holy Spirit plenty of times throughout the Old Testament, but Jesus promises that shortly after he leaves, the Spirit will be poured out in much bigger way. You can read John 14-16 to see Jesus speaking about this.

Well, we see the Spirit poured out in Acts 2, which we can the day of Pentecost.

You see, the Holy Spirit illuminates all of the teaching of Scipture. He is the one that makes things alive for us today.

You see, we have the Holy Spirit with us today. He prompts us. He guides us. He helps us to know when we go astray.

We can listen to him, or ignore him, but he is always there.

The concept of the Trinity helps us understand the way God works, and it is an amazing things to explore.

Application

Now the reality is, there is so much more in all of this that I could say.

Hopefully what I’ve said starts to give you a bit of a picture of the type of God that we worship.

He is completely worth all of the praise that we can give him.

But as immense as he is, his attribute that I want to impress the most on you, is his love for you.

Let me quickly go back to our reading earlier in Exodus 3. You see, I mentioned Moses’ question which led to the great “I am who I am” answer. Before that, however, Moses being unsure of himself asked, “Who am I?”

God with us

God’s answer was not to try and inflate Moses’ ego, but simply to say “I will be with you”.

You see, the one who is the I am who I am… the one who is beyond measure… is also the one to choose to be with us.

While this quote might have been said to Moses, the reality is that God says the same thing to you. He wants to be with you.

He wants to wrap his arms around you and tell you that he is bigger than any scary thing this world can throw at you.

And God is not just full of empty words. His love is full of action.

I love the quote in 1 John 4:10 which says:

1 John 4:10 NIV

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God is love.

Conclusion

I started talking about how we sometimes seem to think that we can manipulate things bigger than us if only we understand them sufficiently.

Well, let me tell you, we may be able to learn a lot of different things about God, but one thing we learn is that God will always have his way.

But he does so in such a way that shows his complete love for us. That is why he wants us to pray to him. For us to ask for what we need, and he will give it to us.

It’s not our way of manipulating him, it’s rather a way of him showing his love to us.

What we actually find is that the more we learn about God, the more we want to fit into his ways.

He won’t fit into our agenda. We need to allow us to fit into his good purposes for this world.

Let me pray...