Baptist Faith and Message Part 3- God

Answer Questions from this morning.

God-

We are going to go through this line by line like we did the Scriptures.

But tonight we will be walking through what our statement of faith says about God.

I would say the most important beliefs and thoughts that we have are the thoughts that we have about who God is- what he is like- what he expects of us- why he made us.

Our thoughts about this are our most important thoughts. And it is important that we think right thoughts about God.

If we have incorrect thoughts about God, that is by definition an idol. Right thoughts about God come from God’s thoughts about himself which are found in Scripture.

(Going to Africa- Meeting the people for the first time hearing about Jesus).

God is who he is and ought to be worshipped as He is.

So lets jump in to what we believe. Look at the first line.

There is one and only one living and true God.

First, we need to establish what is meant here. And I think there are two things the framers of this statement of faith are trying to do.

They are emphasizing the exclusivity of the Bible and the God of the Bible.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

They are making clear here for us that we serve the only one and true God.

We believe that our God is the one true God.

We believe all other gods that claim to be god are false gods. We believe believing in them means you are at odds with the God of the Bible because he is the only one true and living God.

The Bible speaks to this:

Deut 4:35

Deuteronomy 4:35 NASB95

“To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him.

Deut 4:39

“Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.”

2 Sam 7:22

“For this reason You are great, O Lord God; for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.”

1 Tim 2:5

“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”

And we see this in other passages- Romans 3:30, Galatians 3:20, Ephesians 4:6

And I could go on, but the point is that we are making a truth claim. In our statement of faith, we are unashamedly saying, “Our God is God.” There is no other.

By virtue of this, you should know, we do not believe that there are multiple ways to heaven. We don’t believe we have a good way among many.

They are emphasizing that our God is one God. Three persons-One God.

We are monotheist. Meaning we believe in One God. We are not polytheists. People who believe in many gods.

We will get to the Triune aspect of God here in a minute. But for now, I’ll just say, we serve one God in three persons.

Any questions or comments on that line?

Look at the next line-

He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.

Here in this line they are dealing with His Nature and His actions.

He is intelligent beyond all comparison. He knows all things. How all things hold together.

He is spiritual. God is spirit. Jesus says this in John 4-

John 4:24 NASB95

“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Which means God is not a white bearded white man up in the Sky.

Numbers 23:19 NASB95

“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

So He is not a man. God became man in Christ. And we will deal with that more next week.

But in his essence, he is spirit. Which is why he is omnipresent.

We tend to think in themes of time and space because we live within the realm of time and space.

God created time and space. He is not subject to time and space. He is outside of it.

Scripture refers to God as the invisible God.

Colossians 1:15 NASB95

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

1 Timothy 1:17 NASB95

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

So God is spiritual.

But he is also personal- which essentially means we have the ability to know Him.

Joshua 3:10 NASB95

Joshua said, “By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will assuredly dispossess from before you the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite.

John 17:3 NASB95

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

We can personally have a relationship with the God who created us. We serve a personal God.

Next our statement says that our God is the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.

So this speaks of our intelligent spiritual and personal God interacts with His creation.

He creates it.

Ex nihilo- out of nothing.

He redeems it.

By sending His Son.

He preserves it.

By the Word of His power- Hebrews 1

He rules it.

He enjoys sovereign control of all things.

These are God’s actions in creation. He interacts with creation in these ways. He alone is the one able to interact with Creation in these ways. No other being is able to do this.

Job 38:4–6 NASB95

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? “On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone,

Job 38:8 NASB95

“Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb;

Job 38:11 NASB95

And I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop’?

Job 38:12 NASB95

“Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, And caused the dawn to know its place,

Job 38:16 NASB95

“Have you entered into the springs of the sea Or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Job 38:18 NASB95

“Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.

Its only God who interacts with His creation in these ways.

God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections.

What does the word infinite mean?

The opposite of finite.

Finite- limited.

God is without limits.

So when we refer to attributes of God like

Omnipresent- limitless presence

Psalm 139:7–10 NASB95

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

Omniscient- limitless knowledge

1 John 3:20 NASB95

in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

Omnipotent- limitless power

Psalm 115:3 NASB95

But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.

Matthew 19:25–26 NASB95

When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Omnipotence does not mean that God can do anything. Amen? God cannot lie and God cannot deny Himself. God cannot be held by death.

Titus 1:2 NASB95

in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

Hebrews 6:18 NASB95

so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

2 Timothy 2:13 NASB95

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

Omnipotence refers to his limitless ability to work and do in accordance to His character.

God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures.

So we just touched on this. But this gets a little more specific.

God is all powerful. Meaning he has perfect power which he exercises according to His will.

Omniscience means he knows all things past present and future including the future decisions of His free creatures.

So thats a mouth full there.

And to be honest, there are questions that arise out of this that you and I don’t think will ever be able to answer fully.

But what we do know.

Is that God knows and controls all things according to His nature.

Ephesians 1:11 NASB95

also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,

We know God works according to what he knows and what he decrees.

We also know that man has been given a will and desires. An ability to choose, but it is also important to note that in that ability to choose, we choose according to our nature and God knows those choices.

So again, we know from Scripture. God is sovereign. We know God knows all the choices of his creatures. Omniscient.

And we also know that those creatures are held accountable for what they do.

For example, I want you to see this play out in Scripture-

Acts 2:22–24 NASB95

“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

Was this God’s plan? Were the men who cried crucify him and put him on the cross held accountable? yes.

So what we see is the sovereignty of God and the will of man working together.

I’ll be honest at this point to tell you this: I don’t know and I can’t comprehend how all of that play out. Volumes have been written and people have debated it for years.

My mind is not big enough nor is any human’s mind big enough to understand God and how he works. If that were so, we would be God.

In fact Scripture says this:

Isaiah 55:8–9 NASB95

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.

So while there is some mystery to this, we must believe it because this is what the Bible teaches.

Any questions on that.

In case of question regarding free will:

Our will is limited. Free will is a misnomer. B/C free will implies that you have the ability to choose to do anything.

And you may retort, I do. Well, exercise your free will and fly around the church building. As bad as you might want and will to do it, there are some limits to that.

So what that means is every one of our wills are limited by our nature.

Ephesians 2:1–3 NASB95

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Lastly: To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience.

Lastly because God is who He is.

He deserves the highest love, reverence, and obedience.

Because God is who He is, He deserves all of that.

Love- Affection

Reverence- Admiration

Obedience- Submission

We will deal with this last line next week and we will talk about the persons of the Trinity.