Believing in Christ
To be a Christian • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Who is God?
Who is God?
What do you think of when you hear someone say “God”?
When someone says “god”, do you know which “god” they mean?
This is something I’ve tried to be more specific about in my conversations, especially with non-Christians. God means many different things to different people.
When you read Scripture, pay attention to when you see capital G in God or lowercase g in god. This is how we differentiate which “elohim” in English is in context.
Remember elohim in Hebrew is more of a category, it does not by itself specify which god
Think of doctors. All brain surgeons are doctors but not all doctors are brain surgeons.
13 But Moses said to God, “Look, if I go to the Israelites and I say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’ then what shall I say to them?” 14 And God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” And he said, “So you must say to the Israelites, ‘I am sent me to you.’ ” 15 And God said again to Moses, “So you must say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my remembrance from generation to generation.’
4 “Hear, Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is unique. 5 And you shall love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might.
8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, and there are no works like yours.
6 Thus says Yahweh, the king of Israel, and its redeemer, Yahweh of hosts: “I am the first, and I am the last, and there is no god besides me. 7 And who is like me? Let him proclaim it! And let him declare it and set it in order for me since I established an eternal people and things that are to come, and let them tell them the things that are coming.
What is the Trinity?
Is the word “trinity” in the Bible?
No, it’s a concept later Christians came up with to try to explain what God has revealed about Himself.
Honestly, our words cannot truly explain God. Dr. Frank Turek says;
“It’s like seeing the ocean. We can apprehend what the ocean is, that it’s there. But we cannot truly comprehend everything that goes on in the ocean.”
What Christians came to call the Trinity was not a new idea made up. It has its roots in OT theology which Jews who denied Christ later declared heresy and stopped teaching “The Two Powers in Heaven” book by Alan Segal
This was referred to in 2nd temple Judaism as “the Two Powers in Heaven” idea. When reading Scripture (the OT) there are passages that have more than 1 person being identified as YHWH
20 “ ‘Look, I am about to send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, because he will not forgive your transgression, for my name is in him.
Who is God the Father?
Even though God the Father is not superior in essence or being to the Son or Spirit, He does serve as the functional head of the Trinity.
Who is God the Son
Jesus is the central figure of both the OT and NT, linking both testaments and the Father and the Spirit.
In the OT, whenever you see “the Word of the Lord...” that is Jesus:
21 And Yahweh appeared again in Shiloh, for Yahweh revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh through the word of Yahweh.
Earlier in this chapter, God is described as physically standing in the room calling out to Samuel
20 He sent his word and healed them, and he delivered them from their pits.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John tells us that the Word of the Lord is Jesus. The Word of the Lord is clearly YHWH
Who is God the Spirt?
6 And the Spirit of Yahweh rushed upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one might tear apart a male kid goat (he was bare-handed). But he did not tell his father and mother what he had done.
29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Approach and join this chariot.”
The Spirit is personal, just like God the Father, and Son
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory into glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
In this letter to the Corinthians, Paul identifies the Spirit as the Lord
Who remembers what it means to be made in the Image of God?
27 So God created humankind in his image, in the likeness of God he created him, male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven, and over every animal that moves upon the earth.”
Being an Image of God does not mean we look like Him. It is more like a role, our purpose here. We were given the Earth to rule and subdue on God’s behalf. We are His imagers.
God did not create you by mistake. You were made by God to be His son, His daughter.
You were made for a purpose.
You might not know your specific purpose in this life yet, that’s ok. Continue in prayer to the Spirit to guide you.
Closing Prayer (page 37-38 in the Anglican Catechism):
Gracious Father, I come to you through the saving work of your Son, Jesus Christ, upon the cross. Thank you for adopting me as your child through the Holy Spirit. Grant me the grace to know the fullness of your fatherly love, that I may delight in the promises of your eternal kingdom, both now and in the age to come. Amen.
