Introduction; God's Personality

Truly, whenever the Bible pictures God, he is exalted many times in the Bible. You find people getting a glimpse of God and who he is, what he is like, and that description is given. Isaiah and Isaiah 6 saw him exalted and lifted high on his throne. John sees the same image in Revelation chapter 4 and so many places. He is the Ezekiel chapter 1. So many places in the Bible where God allows himself to be seen in some form by man. He is described as being exalted. We don't really think in those terms anymore and I think that is a tragic loss. Our view of God himself is much too small, much too low. Last week we began a study on what the Bible teaches about God and we are continuing in that study obviously tonight. Let me begin by reading a quote from J.I. Packer. J.I. Packer wrote a book called Knowing God. It is one of the best books on the characteristics or attributes of God in print. And in that book, toward the beginning of the book, he is introducing the subject of the study of God. He quotes from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I don't know if you are familiar with Spurgeon's name, probably most of you have heard the name. Spurgeon was a pastor in the latter half of the 1800s in London. He started preaching when he was 19 years old at New Park Street Chapel. And God's hand was certainly on him and he began to draw tremendous crowds. And they had to build a new, called Metropolitan Tabernacle in the center of London. He would preach to some 6,000 people. And when liberalism swept through England in the late 1880s and 1890s, it's called the downgrade controversy. And Spurgeon was the one who stood in his pulpit and stayed true to the Word of God and suffered incredible abuse for that. But stayed true to the Word of God. He's often called the Prince of Preachers because he was an amazing preacher. His sermons, volumes of his sermons are still in print today. I didn't mean to say all of that. I meant to just read the quote. But the reason I say that is because this quote was from a sermon that he preached in 1855 when he was 20 years old. Okay? Now listen to this. Does this typically come out of the mind and heart through the lips of the average 20-year-old today? The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind and a contemplation of the divinity. It is a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity, so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects, we can compass and grapple with. In them we feel a kind of self-content and go our way with the thought, behold, I am wise. But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth and that our ego-eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild asses cult. And with solemn explanation, I am but of yesterday and know nothing. No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than thoughts of God. But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who often thinks of God will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. 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. 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. Twenty years old. I think that young man had a grasp of the nature and the person and the greatness of God that most of us never get to in a lifetime. But people thought more about God than. People read more about God than. People immerse themselves in their Bibles more than. Today we are entertained so easily that we do not think deep or great thoughts about God. And so it is with that backdrop that we get into this study of who God is, what the Bible teaches about Him. The greatest person and greatest subject we can possibly tackle is the subject of understanding more about God. Who is? What is like? It is, I believe, the greatest privilege of all to know Him. And in order to know Him personally, as we said last week, we must know more about Him. We must understand who He is so that we can come to understand Him and grow in knowledge of Him. Last week we looked at several things. We looked at the direction of our study, kind of introduced our study last week. We also looked at the definition of God and we saw that the Bible gives no formal definition of God, but it gives much description about God. And that is what we will focus upon in a good part of this study. We looked at the existence of God. If you are going to start a study of what the Bible teaches about God, obviously the place to begin is does He exist? What does the Bible say about His existence? And we talked mostly last week about the philosophical approach to arguing for the existence of God, rational proofs. We talked about the advantage of those, the value of those, but also the danger of those. And we looked at five of them last week. They are on the screen for you. The cosmological argument has to do with the cosmos, the world. It exists. Something doesn't come from nothing. And so there has to be a cause for that, which is here, the teleological argument, the purpose, the order of design in the universe, are just for a designer. And we talked a good bit about that one. The anthropological argument from the Greek word for man, anthropos. The very nature of man, the fact that man is a totally different part of God's creation than any other part. Man has a longing for purpose and meaning and a desire to look into the future and know what lies beyond the grave. No animal has any concern for that. And so that indicates that there is a being apart from the rest of creation that we must correspond to. So the anthropological argument for the existence of God, the moral argument, man has a moral sense, a sense of right and wrong, that didn't just come from below. That didn't grow up through the animals that came down from God as part of being made an image of God. And then we saw the ontological argument, which basically I think is the weakest of them all. We have an awareness of God. We could not have an awareness if there really wasn't a God. But those are often proofs that are used for the existence of God. They do have some value. They have some value in talking with those who do not take the Bible as the word of God, who may need to be engaged in conversation, at least drawn into conversation and relationship on those grounds before we can get the word of God to them. There's some benefit there. But the biblical approach is where we want to really begin tonight. The biblical approach is found at least in these two verses. The biblical approach is basically that belief in God, the existence of God is a faith commitment. Genesis 1.1. Can you find Genesis 1.1? Certainly we can. Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible does not begin with trying to prove the existence of God. The Bible assumes the existence of God. The Bible just states that he was there in the beginning and does not try to prove it. The other passage that we have on the screen is Psalm 14 and verse 1. Psalm 141. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. Their deeds are vile. There is no one who does good. So the Bible declares anyone who says there is no God, a fool. Now remember, in the Bible a fool is not someone who is mentally deficient. In the Bible a fool is someone who does not see life nor live life from God's perspective. That's a fool. Proverbs quite clearly defines a fool in that way. And wisdom is understanding and living out life from God's perspective, according to his principles. So the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. He may have a whole string of Ph.D.s by his name, but his fool, if he does not understand and accept and live out what the Bible teaches about God. So there is no formal proof in the Bible. There is just the assumption that God exists and thus in order to believe we must make a faith commitment. The Bible does not try to explain God in the sense that here are proofs that he exists. It's just a faith commitment. Now the existence of God is assumed in other ways as well, not just those clear statements, but the writers of the Bible claim to write his words. Time and time again, they say, thus saith the Lord. God spoke to me. God said, so the writers of the Bible claim to be speaking and writing his words. The Bible records many appearances of God and many works of God. So that's another way the Bible just assumes that God exists. And then Christ himself claimed to come from the Father, from above, from heaven. And so Christ in his claims assumes the existence of God. He not only claimed to come from God, but he claimed to reveal God to us. So the Bible approach, the biblical approach, and that's not to say the other approach is wrong, like it's unbiblical. It's just that's, they don't, you know, the philosophical approach doesn't start with the Bible and try to use Bible proofs. There's some value to it. But the Bible, the way the Bible talks about the existence of God is basically just assumes it. And you've got a choice to make. You've got to make a faith commitment to believe it or deny it. God leaves that totally up to you. Okay, so the biblical approach basically is just to assume and offer on the basis of a faith commitment that God does exist. Yes, sir, Trevor. John 1.1, which says in the beginning, was the word. Yes, Genesis 1.1 is speaking of Christ in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. And then he defines who the word is in verse 14. The word became flesh and dwell among us. So he's talking about Christ. And what he's saying in John 1.1 is that Christ was in the beginning. He also existed in the beginning, just like God the Father did. And he was with God. The word with is a Greek preposition, which means face to face with and indicates a relationship. So it indicates that he was not the same person. He was in the beginning, but he was a distinct person had face to face fellowship with God the Father. And then he was God. It's a very, very powerful statement of the pre-existence of Christ. He was he was existing in the beginning. He was a separate person from God, but he shared the same nature with God. Powerful statement. And it is a statement also assuming the existence of God and calling for a faith commitment to that. Okay, any other questions or comments on the biblical approach? Steve? Steve is raising the question about the Jewish understanding of God found in one of the words for God in the Old Testament, Elohim, which is a plural noun. If we could hang on to that for about 15 weeks, seriously, we'll deal with that very concept when we talk about the triunity of God in the Old Testament. That is one of the proofs, by the way, for the Trinity or the triunity of God in the Old Testament among several others. But so that I have something left to teach when we get there. Let's hang on to that. Good observation. Okay, anything else here? Okay, let's deal next with some unbiblical views of God and we're still kind of on some introductory things. I don't want to spend much time on these. I don't want to talk about these in any great depth. Some of these you will have heard about. You will have read about. The reason why I want to mention them is because many of these have very subtly found their way into our culture, particularly in the entertainment industry. And we are exposed to them in ways that we may not realize. And so it is good to be warned. In fact, one of the responsibilities of a pastor is to refute false doctrine. The Bible says in the pastoral epistles. To warn the church of false teaching. And so that's one of the reasons I'm mentioning these. I don't want to go into great depth with them. But we do need to at least recognize and be warned of some of these unbiblical views of God. The first one was atheism. Atheism basically believes there is no God. There is no God. Now there are two different kinds of atheists. There are what's called dogmatic atheists. A dogmatic atheist is someone who will say and try to defend and get in your face about use arguments against the existence of God and try to argue that there is no God. That's a dogmatic atheist. A practical atheist is one who really denies the existence of God in his or her life. Who really just lives as if there is no God doesn't believe in a God doesn't care about a God lives as if this life is all there is. That's the kind of person Psalm 14 one is talking about the fool has said where in his heart there is no God. The heart is the well spring of life out of it come all the issues of life according to Proverbs 4. And so the way a person lives their life can indicate that they do not believe in God. And we will refute atheism with verses on the existence of God when we get to that part of our study. Okay, the next one agnosticism agnosticism teaches what you cannot. Oh, right there on the screen is you cannot know for sure cannot know for sure that there is a God agnosticism basically an agnostic will not say there is no God they will just say one nobody can be sure you can't really be sure. In fact agnostics basically are that way about all spiritual truth anything in the spiritual realm and agnostic will say you can't really know for sure why would they say that. Why would they believe that. Because you have to take the Bible on faith yes for sure. Anything else. And then you can't prove okay. An agnostic would say you cannot know for sure. Because they believe everything must be proven by scientific evidence. You've got to show me the proof and if you can't prove it scientifically if you can't prove it in a test tube or a petri dish then it doesn't we you can't say for sure that it exists. It would be agnostic about any spiritual truth has to be tested and evaluated before they will believe it and we live in a world that values that very highly and while a lot of people are agnostic the different the difficulty about arguing for agnosticism is they say you can't be for sure. That there is a God and the question to ask a person like that who says that is what. Can you be sure about that statement. Can you be sure that you can say you can't be sure there is a God and you be sure about that and turn the argument back on them obviously. We will refute agnosticism when we talk about verses that show that we can know for sure Paul said in second Timothy 112 I know who might have believed an emperse weighted that is able to hold that which I've given to him keep that which I've given to him against that day that which I've committed to him. The whole book of first John is written so that we might know that we have eternal life and that by knowing may have eternal life first John 513. Hebrews 116 says he that come with the God must what must believe that he is and that he is a reward of them that diligently seek him so again yes you can't prove in a test tube that God exists it is a faith commitment but you can know that you can know for sure the Bible teaches that. Okay the third one is pantheism and that that's the idea that God is found in nature or God is everything around us. This is much more popular in our culture than we realize it basically comes from Eastern religions like Buddhism and other Eastern religions like that. Many cults believe in pantheism new age thinking which you don't hear much about anymore but new age thinking basically is very pantheistic in its outlook and this belief really has worked its way into much of our popular thinking. God is nature God is found in everything around us have you heard anything like that in popular culture. Scientology is similar to that it's one of the cults that kind of dabbles in this kind of thing. I'm thinking more of like Disney movies. The circle of life everything is connected in a great circle of life. Now believe me I'm not against Disney movies I love Disney movies we our kids watch them our grandkids watch them but you have to be very careful that you understand some of the philosophy that's being taught you just have to be aware of. That idea that there is a spirit that we share with all of nature that's animism that's that comes straight out of animism which is a pagan worship of spirits in things and that everything has a spirit in it rocks trees like grandmother willow in polka hunnus. You know that that kind of thing that everything has a spirit and we share that same spirit same things found in star war movies the force. The force can take either good or bad but it is a force and energy that really pervades all of the universe that is God. Next comes straight out of Buddhism which by the way you dig into the background of many of the Hollywood directors and that's what they believe. So I'm not saying you know I've got all I've got all six of the Star Wars movies I love Star Wars you know if I could have a lightsaber I'd have it. But I'm also very much aware that there is some teaching there that we have to guard against. So pantheism is alive and well in many forms even in popular culture. Okay the next one is polytheism by the way we'll refute pantheism when we simply talk about creation God's work in creation very clearly he is separate from his creation in Genesis 1 in Hebrews 1. So in the last one is Psalm 104 many passages polytheism many gods many gods it's idolatry it finds its way into many religions Hinduism and the millions of gods that are worshiped in places like India and other places in the world polytheism is very much a part of of world religions today. So polytheism is the same many gods are they saying the draw of equal? Not necessarily they're not necessarily all equal polytheism goes way back to Babylon and it is found its way into most major world religions since then including the Greek and Roman world. Remember the gods Zeus and Thor and all of that and in their concept of gods they were not equal they fought with each other some overcame others. The head of the gods was in Roman mythology was Zeus right. Was that Greek? They were so similar I forget I get them confused but he was Zeus and but he could be challenged. So there was kind of a hierarchy but there was no overall supreme being. Okay dualism and by the way we'll refute polytheism when we talk about the scriptures on unity the unity of God there's one god scriptures very clear about that dualism is the idea that there are two principles in the universe principles of good and evil and they have been in conflict throughout history and this is again a very popular view of God basically holds that there is no personal God but there is no one. God but there is this eternal battle between good and evil again it's very popular in the entertainment industry to present the struggle of the universe in this way it's a good force and an evil force and they battle constantly and there's no necessarily no personal God. Well we will see that God is a person hopefully we'll get started into that tonight. Theism says that there is a there was a creator there was a god creator who started all things but is now uninvolved in his creation. He has backed away he created things and then he backed away he's letting us just kind of go our way he's not involved in the universe or in humanity in any significant way. There's a great debate about the view of our founding fathers some of them particularly Thomas Jefferson clear in his writings he was a deist. Yeah he believed in God but he believed that God had created all things and then taken his hand off of it like winding up a clock and then he's no longer in the picture. And I realize there's a lot of debate about the faith of our founding fathers and how many of them were true Christians how many of them were deists I'm not going to try to settle that tonight. A lot of ink has been spilled over that but we will see that that that is refuted when we talk about God's work in preservation remember last week we looked at four works of God that we'll look at at the end of the study one of those preservation. Colossians one for instance says that Christ created all things in him and for him all things were created and he is before all things and by him all things consist or are held together. God is responsible for holding all of creation together he took his hand off of it it would just fly off into a million pieces many more than that. God is sovereignly directing the events of human history we'll see all of those things as we as we continue on. And then the last one is materialism or naturalism that the laws of science control the universe. This is obviously the view of evolution which leads to the worship of material things or man because man really is the the pinnacle of evolution and can control the destiny of the universe. And we'll see that materialism naturalism is denied refuted by what the scripture teaches about creation. Alright those are some of the false views unbiblical views of God any question about those. Steve? Yeah I agree I think they are all related and they all come out of the mind of Satan because Satan is desperate for people to believe anything other than that there is a God who created them that they will someday give an account to and they're responsible to and that Satan will spend his lives in lots of different forms but they all have the same origin. So yeah they're all they're all connected no question. Alright I do want us to go ahead and get into the personality of God and again as I mentioned last week and introducing the whole subject we're not talking about whether God has an outgoing personality or an introverted personality we're not talking about personality in that way. So the term I don't want to turn to be confusing we're talking about the fact that God is a person so let's let's start right there with the meaning of personality we give a definition of personality personality is a group of functions or characteristics that makes one a person. A group of functions or characteristics that makes one a person that group of those functions or characteristics makes one a person. As opposed for instance to an object there a group of characteristics that distinguish a person from a tree. Okay there are certain characteristics that are different in a person than a tree so human personality is different than being an object it's different than being a force like the wind the wind is a force but it is not it does not have personality it is not a person. That's why the whole idea of pantheism in its various forms is really a denial that there is a God because forces are not God that's not God not a person. Okay so an object is not a person a force is not a person an influence is not a person like an idea ideas are powerful ideas can influence people ideas can transform whole cultures. But ideas are not persons they do not have personality so God is not the figment of someone's imagination God is not in our mind God is not an idea he is a person and a person is also different from an animal like a dog or maybe even a cat might qualify. Yes yes definition one more time it is a group of functions or characteristics that makes one a person. So you can you can describe a tree the wind an idea or a dog you can describe those things but they will not have the same characteristics or functions as a person. So how do you distinguish the two and by the way it might it's easy for us that are familiar with our bibles to think well it's obvious that God is a person but not in eastern religions not in the kind of religions we talked about the false views of God God is a force God is an idea he is not a person. And so it's important to understand that the Bible teaches that God is a person he has personality is every bit as much a person as you are how do we know that because we're created in his image exactly right we're created in his image we share a likeness to God that nothing else in his creation does. And so he's every bit as much a person as you are the characteristics of person who these are generally assumed to be the characteristics of person who what are what are the functions or characteristics that distinguish a person from these other things you have to put them all together because a few of them will be characteristic of some of the other things we talked about first of all life intelligence. Purpose and here's where we begin to be different from animals. Life intelligence purpose freedom we are not ruled just by instinct with freedom to choose to evaluate options self consciousness. And spirituality in other words a person has a spirit in God's case God is a spirit right we'll see that later on so if you were going to define God maybe the best definition of God to distinguish him from all these unbiblical views of God. You know pantheism and all the rest would be God is a living intelligent purpose free self conscious emotional spirit being that's who God is. Okay now what we're going to do the rest of tonight and for the next several weeks is we're going to take each of those elements of personality and show from the scriptures that the Bible teaches God has that. And we're also going to see what that means to us how we can apply it to our lives and we'll begin with the first one God is living God is living the first characteristic of personality is life and we're going to see that God is living what does it mean to be living. Can anybody tell me what does it mean to be living breathing okay thinking. Having the ability to interact all of these things are true on a very simple level though life is the opposite of death isn't life means there is all of those things plus energy and activity. Okay so the opposite of death when there's life there is some form of energy and activity going on so when we talk about God being living we're talking about the fact that God is able to do things he is active. Now we're going to see this in the prophets this is the very distinction the prophets make between idols and God and they will over and over and over say the living God what they mean by that is he's not a stump of a tree like Jeremiah 10 we're going to see in one of the passages here in a minute. He draws that gripping distinction between idols and the living God the living God is active and able to do things and idols are not okay so that's what living really at least in the biblical sense of being contrasted with false gods what living means energy or activity the opposite of being dead God is able to do things. He is active now there are a lot of scriptures that support that we're going to look at some of them here each verse that we're going to look at mentions that God is living and then it describes some of his activity some of the functions the activity that shows how he is alive the first one is due to Rony me chapter five and I would encourage you to turn to these. I'm not sure we'll get to all of them tonight but due to Rony me five twenty six in this passage Moses has been rehearsing the law with the new generation of Israelites generations grown up in the wilderness and they did not have they were not the generation that received the law on Mount Sinai so he's rehearsing for them he's recounting for them how that happened. Let's go back to verse 23 when you heard the voice out of the darkness while the mountain was ablaze with fire all the leaders of your tribes and your elders came to me and you said he's speaking to them as though they were the nation back forty years ago the nation said the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty we have heard his voice from the fire today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks with them now verse twenty five. But now why should we die this great fire will consume us and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer for what mortal has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the fire as we have and survived the living God does what in this passage he speaks. Okay the activity that he's involved in is he speaks. It's interesting that in many of the ancient cultures when they built idols they performed magic tricks, ventriloquism and so forth to make it appear that they were speaking because for the God to speak shows he's alive he's real see so God is God is alive in the sense that he speaks. Alright let's look at the next one Joshua chapter three Joshua chapter three in verse ten. Israel is about ready to cross the Jordan River to go into the land of Israel. Joshua says to the verse nine Joshua said to Israel it's come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God this is how you will know that the living God is among you. And that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Parasites, Gurgishites, Amorites and Jebiusites and his preacher Jimmy always used to say the termites. He'll drive them out too. Do you remember that Jimmy always used to say that. What does the living God do in this passage? He drives out does he drives out other nations he is a warrior. He is one who will lead his people in the land and drive out nations he's living. He's not some dead force or idea he's living he will drive out nations. I love this passage Jeremiah ten Jeremiah chapter ten. I'll never forget this passage because when I was in Bible college and I worked on a maintenance crew at Hinnest trucking lines in Winston sale in North Carolina. Worked second shift while I was going to school during the day and had a guy from Piedmont that worked with me by the name of Nick Amio. Nick was from Italy and Nick took this passage in Jeremiah ten and tried to convince me that it was talking about Christmas trees. And that you should not have a Christmas tree. It was unbiblical to have a Christmas tree. Now as you read it I think you'll understand why he was saying that. We'll begin back in verse two. This is what the Lord says Jeremiah ten verse two. Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens though the nations are terrified by them. For the practices of the peoples are worthless. They cut a tree out of the forest and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow and a cucumber field. Their idols cannot speak. Jeremiah is being so sarcastic here in his description of the idols that people built. How do you get your aisle? You go out in the woods, you cut down a tree, you adorn it with gold and silver. You put boards underneath it so it won't fall over. Is that the kind of God you want? Can't talk. Look at the middle of verse five. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Oh, I've got to carry my God. He can't walk. Do not fear them. They can do no harm nor can they do any good. Notice no activity. No activity. No energy. Verse six. No one is like you, Lord. You are great and your name is mighty in power. Who should not fear you, King of the nations. This is your due. Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you. They, speaking of the idols, they are all senseless and foolish. They are taught by worthless wooden idols. The people are taught by worthless wooden idols. Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish and gold from Ufaz. What the craftsmen and goldsmith have made is then dressed in blue and purple. All made by skilled workers. Oh, how sarcastic Jeremiah is. You have to make your own God. You have to go cut him out of the woods, dress him up, put wood under him so he won't teeter and fall over. You have to carry him around because he can't walk. He can't speak. You are dressing him up in gold and purple and making him look really good. But it's just a dead stump. Look at verse 10. But the Lord is the true God. He is what? The living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles. The nations cannot endure his wrath. Tell them this. These gods who did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens. But God made the earth by his power. He founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar, he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. What a tremendous passage. It's one of the best in all the Bible to describe what the Bible means and how the Bible sees God as a living God. What does this living God do here? He gets angry, definitely shows emotion. He controls nature. Doesn't he controls things? What else? What other activity is described of God in this passage? He creates, doesn't he? He created, he made things. So this God is active. He's living in contrast to these idols. No, no. Jeremiah says, we serve the living God. We know the living God. It would be easy to summarize these next three passages, but we can't do that. They're too good. We really want to see what they mean by the living God. So we're going to stop here and and let you go get your kids and grandkids. And we'll pick it up next week. Okay. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your amazing, powerful word, which describes you the amazing, powerful God, the living God. Lord, I'm so thankful that we know that you're not a force or an idea or some inanimate object like a tree. Thank you that you are the living God who created all things who speaks things into existence, who works, who does things. And most of all, we thank you that you loved us enough to save us. The greatest work of all. Thank you for who you are. We worship you as the living God. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.