Theology What is God Like

What is God like?

Why should we cover this?

God; 2 Truths

God is transcendent, He is unknowable in a human sense. He is above us in glory and majesty.

God is like us. He is personal. He is on the side of persons and not things. He is a HE not an it. He is aware. He thinks, decides, and loves. We relates to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

A thing does not care, love, feel, create, or influence. Only a person can do that.

Is God;

The absolute

The ground of being

Power of the universe

Maker

The man upstairs

What is wrong with all of those statements?

Philosophy versus faith or theology. They are basically worldly thought and not spiritual. They assume an unknowable transcendent God that does not involve himself with humankind. That line of thought makes God a clock winder.

It is impersonal, not personal.

God is not like electricity or gravity.

Those are all generalizations.

Only a personal God can deepen friendship, love, and commitment within us.

1 Corinthians 13:4-13 read in class.

Is your relationship personal?

Why or why not?

A personal relationship will drive you to discipleship.

Why?

How do you feel about your friends?

Do you want them to spend eternity in heaven or hell?

Your relationship with Christ will influence/drive your relationship with others.

How?

How much do you love/care about others?

Your relationship with God will pour over into your other relationships.

We have covered a little about our thoughts, philosophy, and some of the facts. What does the bible say about who God is and what he is like?

God knows my name!

Isaiah 43:1 ESV

1 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

God counts my tears

Psalm 56:8 NLT

8 You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.

God is Abba/Daddy

Romans 8:15 ESV

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

God is the judge

James 4:12 ESV

12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

God is merciful

Psalm 103:8 ESV

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

God loves us

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God is personal

John 15:15 ESV

15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

“The God of the christians is not a god who is simply the theory of geometric truths. This is the god of the pagans…The God of the Christians is a God of love and consecration, a God who makes them feel their utter misery and his infinite mercy…He makes the soul feel that its peace lies wholly in him, and that it has no joy save to love him.”

Blaise Pascal

We cannot project onto God what we think he is.

We cannot convince him, God, to change his mind or ways.

We cannot earn God’s favor or mercy.

What is your purpose in light of all this?

Acts 17:28 ESV

28 for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Psalm 139:7–10 ESV

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito.”

C. S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm

Doctrine of Imminence - Christ could return at any moment.

Avoid pantheism - all is god

Avoid deism - god is so far above that we cannot comprehend him and he does not stoop to interact with us.

God is often present to confront, not to comfort.

How do we know this?

Genesis 3:8–9 ESV

8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

God, not humankind makes the overture of love.

God makes a covenant, not a contract.

Again, what is God like, based on what we have discussed?