Do You Believe in GOD?
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Do you belive in God? Simpole and often good question to find out where a frined or family member or neighbour who doesn’t have tinme for church. Often you may be surprised that the answer is yes. INdeed most people do belivbe in God. But you may also be suprised for church going people, even pastors, in the crissi of life, dark dbouts, is God just a name we give for our eperience of the Spiritual side of life, but really nothing there at all. Worse than Wizzard of Oz, when curtain sis pulled backn t just an iept man in the clouds, like the SImposon idea of God. But nothing and no one there. It is no surprise then, that there are times in our own life - when might say someties I am not sure if God is really there, but others times no doubt that I don’t just know and experience an idea but the Living God HImself. Kind of like
Trumpkin meets Aslan.
Have you had moments in your life - not dealing with the God of the philosophers and scholars… but like Blaise Pascal … Fire. God of Abrhaam, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.
Interesting the missionary perspective of the Belgic Confgession, not just defense, explanation to King Phillip - this is the faith once delivered not jsut a branch - but meet living God, find the salvation - reformed faith not trying to be one perspective neat corneer, nor claiming only confession, or ven only denomination, not claiming no salvation those in other churches including R C church. Former ethic s professor, says of the confession, so interesting that in one page proof text sent with it, Matthew 28’s great commission - Calvin Van Reken - job of the church of people like you and me - to confess this truth -that the world may know - be baptized into the Name of this God and discipled in HIs teaching!
But we need to do with a clear understanding that so many in the RC, so many across the continent of Europe, have some language of God, Christ, salvation, hell, but they don’t have the gospel, the saving knowledge of Jesus - as a result living in the darkness of superspitions, smattering of trurth with error, but also living wihtout loving saving relatinoships with the God who sent His one ly Son to save them. Look at this our eariliest confession through its order F, S, Holy Spirit, the Church, and the End Times. You know that the confession was not just wirtten for Christians, but they through it over the castle wall of the one who persecuted the church. It is written for those in circles with religious background, no religious background - we need to share good news, need to be equipped. too. But the confession actually takes a step further back - and says we need to start with first of all a pure simple belief in God in general and how He is known through His word.
And this evening as we begin, we choose as our text Acts 17 where Paul employs the same stratgey. But before we check out the truth proclaimed and explained, I want you to see why we need to do the same today. Let me use a contemporary example of why we need to consdier where people are at!
J.K. Rawling, author of the Harry Potter Series just got in hot water. As someone who has suffered domestic abuse, a feminist, and a mother; she spoke out against transgender ideology that the government of Scotland was promoting. Goverment said that all it takes for a man to become a woman is to say so. Now how do Christains respond to this transgender ideology - we could just blast them with the Christain perpective on male and female, and say get with the program. But that’s not going to be really heard. Carl Truman says the first task in apologetics now isn’t just to explain our faith to unbelievers in the world, but listen to him, it’s to also explain the world to the believers. To explain the unbelief and distortions and suppression of God’s truth that our neighbours have to one naother. Why? So we understand them and can answer them in a way they will be heard. That’s what Tim Keller tried to do with a generation of skeptics millennial. If you expect someone to take your belief seriously, better take their position, their unbelief seriously. The truth can’t be proclaimed as a bubble of right teaching that exists in a vacuum out there in space, it like God’s word - coresponds with reality of this world, our brokness, darkness, it penetrates, as we saw in 2 Timothy 4 it encounters us on every level - mind - re-proof, the will corrects and train, the emtoiont he heart - parakaleo …
Well Guido do Bres like Paul, the pastors in France, Belgim , Siwtzerland. reviewed proof-read, and published it n a hurry. Why so many errors in first edition. It was urgent for them to get The Truth We Confess to world around thenm that either ignored or rejected it. They wanted to have a conversation with them. They didn’t take the approach we are tempted to: “It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere.” They could put their finger on what their neighbours believed, and speak gospel truth into it! Guideo grew up in the Roman Cahtolicism, learned some truth there from his mother from the word, and living by faith, but he was unashamed to bring the gospel truth to those he knew didn’t get the gopsel.
What about you and I. Most who don’t belive aren’t hanging on to a false religion. But a worldview in which SELF is the new god. You know why Rawling doesn’t make sense - why millenials are saying, look you’re against the old order, why wouldn’t you be in favour of trangenderism, your a feminsit… because the world of millenials, has one supreme value that allows - no limits - Trueman quotes Oscar Wilde - even against the body whici s a limit. What is the one supreme value - the autonomous self - nothing else really mattes or registers. Just like Guido had to start at ground zero, just like Paul did in Athens, so we do in our age. REally the simplest question we can ask and listen - Do you believe in God? Oh you do -what’s he like?
A) Start with Understanding of your Neighbour’s (un)Belief
Do you see how that worked in our text: Just like with Guido and those in the age of the Reformation in needs to work with us.
Acts 17:16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
this is no small issue: Paul recognized idolatry of his age - and he wasn’t enraged, bigoted, his spirit was provoked - grieved hurt, deep concern. Guido and his friends saw those in superstition and darkness of medieval Catholicism as those needing the true gospel. Why, when they sent the confession to Phillip, when they distributed it to fellow believers, and congregations - they were super clear to say WE BELIEVE - they included a list of Scripture passages on a separate sheet, and after the first one about confessing Christ before men, was the second one
1 Peter 3:15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
This is indeed what Paul was doing in the people’s language and really connecting with where the Athenian neighbours where at spiritually. OK you’ve got you’re Parthenon of gods, like that but different. He makes a point of contact. Guido and his friends chose to write their confession, not in standard Latin, which would mean international audience of pastors and scholars, but in Walloon French to reach the francophone masses in the lOW cOUTNRIES. You say when we say I believe to our neighbours - to each other - we are professing the faith. To confess, in this sense doesn’t mean to say your sorry for sin, but to give a witness, make a defense to someone of what you believe: The sense of
Romans 10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Paul in Athens, DeBres in Flemish low coutnries and you and I need to understand what our neigbhour’s belive to be the absolute being, the One thing they are living for, and then be able to say liek that but different, this is what I confess, this is what I believe. Well then we need to get to the most basic content of that Belief. What and who is God?
B. Most basically God is a simple spiritual being.
I bought a dud of a john deer long tractor - someone trie to steal it wish they had, for all trouble chratging stytem. Sat for almost 2 years in back shed, got the idea in pandemic my neighbour is a whiz a mechanical things, maybe he’d like to fix it, sell and split on kijio, maybe he needs it. Used the name God for the first ime with me. I think God was looking over me, last year when I changed way ditch … He meant for me to have this lawn mower. Wow … married a nominally catholic, but very spiritual in new age way woman, has a refrence to God. But what Paul does and what Guido does in explaining and proclaiming true faith is remarkable; all people have access to knowledge of God in general, but what does the Bible say about how we should believe in one true God.
97% believe in God, but 25% a God made in their own image… man returne dthe favour…
Should have said more clearly, I think you’re right, the Living God who is everywhere present does see and know and act in our world and lives. Paul says, I will proclaim this personal and clearly distinct God, who is unknown to you. And there is a connection with the millennial - this God is simple and spiritual. No simplistic: Not divided into parts, self-consistent, all of his attributes are God - nothing above HIm - ie. love, Calvin He is the ruler, draw our lives in line with! Sometimes this is called the aseity of God - all the atributes are not parts of God - they are descriptions of who God is in the umpteenth degree. He is pure all those attributes, and He is pure Person-hood!
Your sense of the self - is rooted in God being a being who has a self. Ultimate Self - we were never created to live apart from the one whose image we bear - want to know how to do self well, relationship well, look to this God in whose image you’re created, a real personal God. My neighbour, I should have said: God knows you and you can know him. I think that’s what Guido means when saying this being that people call The Divine, the Force, the Supernatural - not just an energy or a spark in everything -pantheism, panenthiesm - he is a distinct spiritual being, like you are a distinct spiritual being.
Paul says, specific GOD is simple, one and only makers he is LORD Caesar unmistakable… but no bodily - big step to get someone to believe, life isn’t just stuff, or that they have a soul that can never die, that God is pure spirit. Acts 17:24
Aseity of God
Acts 17:25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
The way we speak about God ought to communicate, no he is not the big guy up there, transcendence - no other purely simple, self-existing, depending on nothing being, in the universe. They way we wrongly think Self is Supreme, we need to get people to realize self is dependent on this great God.
We live in an age of entitlement = the government owes, other people owe us, God owes us - but we must communicate that God doesn’t need us, doesn’t owe us - He ought of pure mercy and grace gives you and I our every breathe,. This is jumping to the end - but the most powerful unforgettable part of this confession for me - God as the overflowing source of all good.
Fantastic Biblical word - overflowing - land flowing with milk and honey, my cup overflows, come that they may have life and life more abundantly John 10:10, and those Epistles - 1 John 1:1-4 Life from above…
This is what we must communicate, is a God - life doesn’t make sense without Him - either just stuff or just God as beginning. That’s metaphysically true. But life doesn’t make sense - without PERSONHOOD -
Paul says, we’re all searching for this meaning beyond here and now touch and feel. Can't quantify and weigh it but we know life is about LOVE, FRIENDSHIP, COMMUNION of spirits. Those aren’t just chemical reactions of animal beings. We are Spiritual beings and we live and move in the Great Spiritual being there is: Acts 17:27-28
that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 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.’
There is a place for natural theology or whatever term use for it. We can know, without Scripture, before working of the Spirit in our hearts - There is a God, he is there and knowable, That’s not saving knowledge, not without distortion… But vitally important pre-evangelism. Romans 1:19
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
Hunger of human heart, not alone and there is a God we can all go to who is there and is able and willing to act in love.
Even for believers - Calvin’s Institutes - practically got a real need, wonder if God exists - and then you see or feel or sense His great work in your world - and wow - Teach the benevolence of God, fatherly kindness, if anyone is goign to turn in faith need to know this. Some religious homes, some nominal Christians - God mean judge, imopresonal distant. That’s also what people in superstitiouns of medievel Catholicsm, - they need to sense simple spiritual being - overflowing source of Goodness!
Calvin’s Institutes - church people, neigbours kind of high on ourselves, don’t really give living God a thought… our job to begin with is to get people to coisder ilfe, world, in light of one true God. Value of meditating on his attributes!
But Paul doesn’t leave it there, he fills in the content of what God - as He can be known by all peole in genreal revelation before the word comes, before the working of the Holy Spirit - what is he like. We need a clear idea of the attributes of God. So much church life has become horizontal - about other people, our sevles, fellowship and social jsutice. Place for that, but almost replace vertical. Almost replace God. We need to interact with people and promote correct introduce right ideas about God.
We ought to begin with ourselves:
Sprugeon “Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued, investigation of the great subject of the Deity. The most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and Him crucified and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity.”
When I was in kindergarten they had blocks, wihtout those blocks couldn’t build my strctures. so too without knowledge of God how press on to know Him and to imitate and enjoy and serve and obey him. Knowing Gods attributes essential: Thomas Watson said: God’s glory chiefly lies in his attributes which are several beams by which the divine light shines forth.” Can’t we share one of those beams, one of those aspects of God with those around us - yes God knew it end from the beginning, Yes God sees all and is present all times and fills all places…
C. God’sIncommunicable Attributes are Out of This World!
Guido starts with three that are the most common misunderstandings that obscure and offend the true God. But they are common and understandable questions that we and our neighbours would ask.
Who made God? Can you prove God scientifically, rationaliitically, and even phyiccally see and understand him? Can God create a rock so big he can’t move it?
Paul says in
Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
Paul like Guido is correcting wrong ideas about God - one supreme God who was before the beginning, all things in heaven and on earth - heavens a creatd reality, earth a created reality, all things seen and also unseen things, God made and is before. God is a person, But He isn’t a POerson, a thing within the world like you and me, He is with and in the World He cretaed, but He is also greater than, and Beyond this World. Philipsophically if you go, back, through causes, come to an uncaused cause, eternal one. God is infinity in respect to time - eternity to eternity - creatd from him and will go to him. but God is also infnite interms of space, - immensity of God - means unlike anyone or antyhign else he is everywhere present!
So too, incomprehensible. It doesn’t mean can’t know God, true knowledge about him. But as Augsutine said, the moment you think you compeherend, totally know God - you’re not holidn gon t the true living infinite God. You can apprhend God - tak e hold of truth as far as he makes himself known to you in Creationa and in His Word and Action in this World, byut HIs Psirit work within you. But listen there is what theolgoicans have called a hidden part of God - beyond our comprehension - and if it were not so He wouldn’t be the being beyond all beings. It part of the definition of who God is. As simple as that a And he is so unahgningly , imutable - his will, his love, his plans! gernal defnitnio of God: Being of which no greater being can be imagined.
What these frist three attributes are are teh incommunicable attributes of God - not like us!
Why confession, witness is about WONDER, sheer WONDER!
Paul is describing the infinite Almighty God, and he says, not just created it - and stepped back as Deism suggests, but active, wise , just and good way - moral characteristics ov his providence and involvement in our lives. Yes, my neighbour, appointed you to live , blessing you receive, opportunities, and even this conversation we are having:
Acts 17:26b And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
Paul is concerned that the Athenians understand God as the one who with meticulous providence arranges the boundaries of life - geoprahically history. But morally we are answerable to boundaries he sets, but even more personally and physically set up the time we live in. Why? - so that we reach out and seek him and find him.
And here Paul is saying, we’re not left on our own as autonomous selves to make up who we think God is, or how he ought to wroship. Why am I a Christian, becuae God has shown Hismelf to me and He reveals how I am to be saved and to live for HIm and enjoy HIm. Isn’t that what you’d expect from an artist who has been commissioned to do a great street mural work.
That artist would be Interested in how it’s appreciate and mainatined? ie. Greatest Roman artist, hide behind the canvas here the remarks of passerby. Everytime Warren ctus his lawn, see smile on his face, care about how its cutting - so to God absolute ruler of heaven and earth - arranging all things for where you and I live, to come in contact with HIm, he is a God who in seting boundaries reveals how we are to come to him. We all live our lives beofore God - the audience of One!
Acts 17:29-30 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
In other words, the living God confronts us. The nature of a confession, is to witness. God doesn’t give us abstract theological statements, he doesn’t philosophically try to to prove his existence. God gives us witness in story of who he is and what He does to Israel and to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. About a story of the world in history,. But his God, His actions, This story of His, He reaches out by it to confront each one of us - repent and believe the old old story - the unchanging God who is with us in time and space - and in Christ comes with slavation!
Though he is unchanging, he enters new circumstances with his creation with you and me. Not cold and unemotional. Full of emotion, responding to us in interacting with us, in meaningful ways! But as immutable God who is the same yesterday, today, and fover. The Rock who never changes!
God is Almighty, the most comforting and with holiness such an all-encompassing attribute - He is Soveriegn who holds all power. Able and willings to accomplish all He Promises! HIs Wrod will never fail!
Paul was confessing the faith… limited reference to Scripture but with Scriptural language and concepts -toaking unchaning truths of Scritpure - and bringing them to our changing world, your neighbours changing world - church confessing the truth of the gospel! Barth a descirption of provisional insight currently given to the universla church. Not unchanigng perfect word of God - but how we in our time articulate and explain and dfend it! Need to know how Guido and company did it then, how we can now!
D) God’s Communicable Attribute are Relatable
This brings us to the last three of the moral attributes of God. Communicable attributes that God is like us but in perfect degree! Not just wise and good and overflowing source of goodness. But listen He is just. Whether you realize it, by writing the moral code of the universe on your conscience, in the laws of every lands, or by receiving His revealed law from His Word, He has stamped your conscience with a sense of justice.
And we intuitively long for this - don’t want to live in a world where evil isn’t addressed, and punished, and rectified. We deep down know that goodness ought to be valued and rewarded. You and your neighbour, no matter how spiritual or unspiritual know this about the world and therefore about God.
And in the back of our minds like just about every honest religion -even if don’t h ave full truth, no saving truth, they know there will be a day of final reckoning. That’s not just folk lore or myth, its God’s revelation in man!
Now it is striking is it not, that in Acts 17s summary of Paul’s evangelism: 95% of the verses are about this general knowledge of God, and 5% at this point are about Jesus and specific knowledge of atonement, resurrection, forgiveness. When we confess God to each other and our neighbour, not wrong to start and even start for a awhile with the basics of who God is, and we might even be surprised with how much God has already revealed that to them, and then to move on to really knowing and responding to God, and therefore our need for Jesus Christ!
CONCLUSION:
This Belgic Confession of ours and our task to share the good news with our neighbours, it requires that we meet our neighbours were they are at. Need to listen carefully, ask wisely. Those who are not yet Christians, we can’t just treat them as uninterested in spiritual things, and so we don’t talk to them until slain in the Spirit, converted and coming to church. They are created in touch with God, every day revelation springs up from God to them too. We are to understand their response to God - to find common ground in where they are at in relating to him, but also push on to testify to the truth that God has revealed to us! But a first step is in recognizing that people without Christ, hold to a belief in the supernatural, in God, in the what’s ultimate in life - that needs to be challenged to pursue further, deeper. You and I need to stand beside them, as those unafraid to be ridiculed, misunderstood, but so ready to give the answer to the hope of God within us!
Don’t doubt it - before the missionary arrives God is at work in those people, revealing Himself, even drawing His own. Before you ever summon the courage, or have the opportunity to speak with your neighbour, God is at work revealing Himself, and you and I have something to talk about with them that they can understand about the general revelation of God. It is an essential beginning fore they find God in a saving way.
Dear Congregation, when this confession was published, not dusty document that sat at the back of Psalter Hymnal. Printed so quickly first editions so many typos, He living in back room of friends house, study in city wall. But cheaply produced it to get on the market so anyone could buy it. Small enough octavo format - portable hidden,, but easily fit into shirt or coat pocket.
How I saw my friend Matt first use catechism, visited Ottawa picking up kid from school or something, Still had his Datsun pick-up, surpsied pulled out and started asking me Shorter Catechism Q - Amazed, why? Oh I street preach, planting church - lot’s of questions. Rooted well thoguh Scriptural answer! Hope that as we go through the topics based on Scritpural text, function the same way for you - confession that tells outsiders what we believe - and a confessio that can be effectively used to train and disciple believers to share the faith! Too often people look at doctrinal statements as narrow, denominational badges, boundary armkers designed to set us apart and make us smug. But furtherest from the truth especially witht he Begic Congession - ought to inspire us as Reformed Crhsitians to be missional and outward looking!