Hey, good morning, Greenville! That is a great bumper, but like, why did they take the symbol from my computer for the fall? Like, what are they trying to say?
This morning, we informally call this Sunday "CP Sunday," and so all the CPS are preaching at the campuses. My name is Tyson Hodge; I'm the campus pastor here. I'm not being streamed anywhere; it's just you guys and me. So, we're sitting here; it kind of feels like we're around a small campfire having a conversation. I mean, we are streaming online, so there are those thousands of people around the world as well, but we're not going to think about them. No offense, guys, but it's just you and me. We're here talking around the fire.
I am grateful to be here. I'm grateful to be talking about week number two of the New City Catechism. The question that I'm going to be talking about is: What is God? But before we talk about question two, I want to dig into question 52. I want to talk about question 52 just briefly. Why? Because I want you to see where this series is going, and I want you to see why we call this the New City Catechism.
Question 52, and you can look it up in the book or you can look it up under your New City Catechism app, or you can just listen to me say it to you. Question 52 says: What hope does everlasting life hold for us? And the answer is this: It reminds us that this present fallen world is not all there is. Soon we will live with and enjoy God forever in the new city, in the new heaven, and the new earth, where we will be fully and forever freed from all sin and will inhabit renewed resurrection bodies in a renewed, restored creation.
So, all of this hope, this hope that we have as Christians, this future hope, is contained in the phrase and the idea of "new city." That's why it's called the New City Catechism. If you'd like to do some more reading on the new city, then go read Revelation chapter 21, and it describes this new city. Read the context thereof, and then you can also swing back to Isaiah 65 and read about the new city there. You can read specifically verses 17-25, Isaiah 65:17-25, and those two passages will tell you a lot about the new city.
But enough about question 52; we're on question two this morning. So, let's pray, and then we will talk about our number two question: What is God? Pray with me.
Our God, our creator, our sustainer, our savior, you are infinitely greater than we are. You are eternally powerful and good and gracious and just. We ask that you would reveal yourself to us this morning in your word, that you would open up our minds and our hearts to understand you just a little bit more accurately. We thank you for revealing yourself to us this morning. I pray that you would give me clarity of thought, that you would give me clearness of speech so that your word would make effective change in our hearts. Thank you for Jesus. Amen.
All right, we're on question two. So, let me read the question to you, and then you can follow along on the screen, and we'll read the answer together. Here's the question: What is God? And together: God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable in his power and perfection, goodness and glory, wisdom, justice, and truth. Nothing happens except through him and by his will.
So, in my sermon, we are going to go deeper into this question: What is God? But I'm not actually going to talk about the answer to that question all that much. I mean, I will; we'll get there, and we'll touch on it. But more specifically, I want to ask and answer the question: How do we get—how do we answer this question? How do we answer the question: What is God?
And so, we're going to consider three main categories, okay? And they build on top of each other. First, we're going to be talking about what the theologians call general revelation, or what we can learn about God by just looking around—just the general world, the information that we can reason to. Then we're going to talk about special revelation, or supernatural revelation, of God that we cannot get from nature, outside of nature. Then we're going to talk about ultimate revelation, or you might say full and final revelation.
Okay, so we're going to talk about those three categories. But before we get much further, let me ask you a different question: Do you ever take anything for granted? Of course, you do! You take things for granted all the time. I take for granted this smartphone, for example. Oh, look, there's Jada; they change their photos all the time, so next time I pull it up, it'll be someone else. I mean, my family, not just random people. I'm sorry, you guys don't make it on my—anyway, I take this smartphone for granted all the time.
At this point, it almost feels like a human right. It almost feels like this cheap, easy-to-access connection device that I have to have. So, if I were to drop this and break it, it would stop working. It's like a no-brainer; I'm going to get a new phone. I'm going to get a replacement phone. But the reality is that this thing is almost a technological miracle. At no other time in history have we been able to have an almost instantaneous conversation with someone on the other side of the city, or someone on the other side of the country, or someone on the other side of the world, while video chatting with them, while looking up directions to the closest McDonald's so I can get french fries, while checking my email. And then when one of those things doesn't work, well, I'm put out. I'm frustrated, like, "Verizon's working on the towers again!"
Do you understand what is required to make this thing work? The background behind you being able to find french fries so fast—there are thousands and thousands of cell phone towers, there are massive amounts of computers and hardware and software, there are millions of miles of cables, there are satellites that literally orbit the planet in space, there are armies of salespeople, customer service people—all so you can get your french fries effortlessly while talking about nothing at all with someone across the country. All of this is required to make my phone and make the internet on it and make that connection as convenient as possible. We take for granted this colossal human effort.
Let me give you another example of what you take for granted, and I know you take it for granted because I do. Do you understand just how complicated your existence is? We get so distracted by our phones, our french fries, our little bitty personal kingdoms, our life missions, that we forget to look up. We forget to look around, to examine the world, to consider the world. Do you know that your body contains 30 trillion cells? 30 trillion! Of course, no one's counted them because that's such a high number; that's an estimate. 30 trillion cells just so that you can walk around, just so you can sit here, just so you can listen to my words and process my ideas, just so you can eat, breathe, and do your normal functions.
Linus Pauling, he's a scientist. The magazine New Scientist calls him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. He says just one living cell in the human body is more complex than New York City. New York City has over 1 million structures and buildings across the five boroughs, with a complex network of plumbing, electric, gas, telecommunications, waste management, transportation, food supply, and you have 30 trillion of these in your body.
Now, zoom out and consider that this is true for every individual on the planet—all 8 billion people, also the trillions and trillions of animals, also the whatever comes after trillion of plants. And then to consider that all of these trillions of people, billions of people, trillions of animals, and plants are interconnected in ecosystems that are required for life. Like, pull apart the ecosystems, and everything dies. All of our growing knowledge of the world and how complex it is only further underscores the truth that the Apostle Paul talks about in Romans 1.
Romans 1, verses 19 and 20 says: "For what can be known about God is plain to them." Plain to who? Us people! Because God has shown it to them. "For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature"—as in, like, this nature that he has that is so far different than us—"his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made." This, my friends, is general revelation.
General revelation—ever since the creation of man, we have been able to look around and examine and observe the unequivocal, extreme complexity of the world and its systems and how it's all put together for life. That just screams of a Creator! And the longer and closer we look, it only proves the point harder and deeper and truer. Psalm 19 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge."
So, what can we learn about God from just looking around, from just general revelation? Well, first, logically, if something is this complex, then we know there's got to be something behind it. My smartphone didn't just pop into existence and self-function, but rather we completely understand someone had to create that. Some mind of design had to make all of that work to build the systems. So then, if we consider creation that is magnitudes more complicated, then it only stands to reason that there is a grand architectural mind behind it.
Okay, we can also learn about the Creator himself by looking at creation. The creation is not going to be grander or greater than the Creator. An ant is not going to build the Eiffel Tower. A baboon is not going to carve Michelangelo's David. These great works testify to the Creator. We see traits of the artist in the art. We see their creative genius and ability in what they made.
So then, when we look at the world, as Paul puts it in Romans, we see a couple of things about God. Number one: His eternal power. If the world is this vast, how much more is God? If the world is this complex, how much more is its creator? If the world is this beautiful, then how much more is our God? I can hardly do simple algebra, let alone come up with something that would be even close to the universal laws that govern the world that keep it running like a precision clock.
So, in that alone, we see number two: God's incredible knowledge and wisdom. So we see his eternal power, we see his knowledge and wisdom, and then when you think about these things, you just scratch the surface of his divine nature. He is not like us at all. I cannot even come close to creating anything like this. This is amazing! Through his creation, God has made himself known, but not entirely clearly. Through general revelation, we can see these things.
But what else can we know about God? And this is where the world divides. The concept of God is almost entirely universal. In the book "The History of God," Karen Armstrong says men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became recognizably human. She is speaking from an evolutionary mindset, but whether you believe in evolution or if you believe in the biblical creation account, the point stands true: that since creation, man has been religious. Man has worshiped God. Culture after culture, throughout history, across the world, has sprouted different theologies from only considering what they can see through looking at general revelation.
Some developed monotheistic theologies—one God, ruler, you know, and he behaves this way and thinks this way. Some polytheistic—lots of different gods, and they do this and they do that, and they fight and destroy and create and have all this big drama. But the important thing that I'm trying to point out is that no matter the theology that pops up from just general revelation, they all contradict each other at some point. General revelation isn't enough to give us a consistent understanding of God. Is there only one God or a dozen? Is God knowable or unknowable? Does God care about humans, or does he disregard them? Are we co-regent with God, like do we reign with God, or are we just slaves trying to appease him? What is the truth about God?
So, this is our tension. This is the question that we have come to answer: What is the truth about God? Last week, our question was: What is our only hope in life and death? And the answer said that we are not our own, but we belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior, Jesus Christ. So then, if I belong to this God, then who is he? What is he? Is he angry? Is he going to kill me if I mess up? Does he know me at all? Does he hear my prayers? Does he know that sometimes my heart is so swollen with negative emotions that I don't know what to do? Is he happy when I'm happy? What is God?
So, to answer our tension, more is required. We cannot just go to general revelation. And so this is where we come to our next level: special revelation. What God reveals to us outside of nature. And as Christians, that special revelation we believe comes from the word of God in the Bible. God reveals to us creation; he reveals to us how he created man, how man fell, his continued relationship with them in their fallen state, his eventual redemption of them, and how he's going to restore all of creation.
But before we dig in here to find out what we can find out about God, I want to ask us another important question: Why the Bible? Why are we considering the religious writings of a people called the Hebrews to be the accurate presentation of God? They're not our people—well, not most of our people. They're not our fathers; they're not our ancestors. Why don't we consider Hinduism? Why don't we consider Chinese Taoism? Why don't we consider some traditional religion from Africa or from the Americas or Greek mythology? Like, we've got a lot that we could choose from. So why the Bible?
Well, the answer to that question could take its own sermon series, but we don't have time for that, so we'll have to just stick with a short, sweet answer, and I'll dig a little bit into that answer, and then we'll move on. So, why the Bible? And the answer is this: The proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the proof is in its verifiability and its fulfilled prophecy.
Okay, so the Bible, the Old Testament, is full of amazing stories. It's full of amazing accounts of God and what he did with his people, and those stories are backed up time and time again by archaeology, by other sources. The Bible's stories are verifiable. Our very own David Bolan, who goes to the Afon campus, just recently came back from a trip to Israel. He was there for a few weeks, and while there, he got to participate in an archaeological dig that was pulling up evidence that supported biblical history. The stories and accounts in the Bible are verifiable.
Also, the Old Testament is full of prophecies of God that he made in Israel's timeline that came true, continued to come true, and will come true. The Bible is full of fulfilled prophecies. Specifically, I want to point out the prophecies about the Messiah. You can go into the Old Testament before Jesus was even on the planet, before the New Testament said his name, and you can see the Old Testament telling us what the Messiah would be like, what his mission would be, his character, that he would die, that he would resurrect, that he would draw the nations to worship the true God.
And again, going back to archaeology, you can go and find the Old Testament that existed, copied, that are older than when Jesus was on the planet. These prophecies are proven to be before Christ, and Christ fulfills and continues to fulfill them. The Bible is full of fulfilled prophecies.
Also, the Holy Bible states for itself that it is the revelation of God, of his character, of his actions, and it backs itself up with all of this fulfilled prophecy. So, why the Bible? Let's answer that with three real quick points.
The Bible continues to be proven historically accurate and prophetically reliable for 3,500 years because the Bible changes the lives and hearts of the hardest and darkest individuals, including myself. The Bible is doing work in people's lives today, and it will not stop. When you read the Bible, as our point number three for why the Bible, the Holy Spirit verifies its validity in the hearts of God's people.
That, very briefly, like I said, which could take its own sermon series—lots of books have been written on it—that very briefly is why we seek special revelation from the Bible. So, general revelation—nature; special revelation—God in scripture. So now, let's talk about what we can learn about God and how we can answer this question from the Bible.
Well, I hope you have the rest of your life because the answer to that question is bottomless, and we don't have time for that either. We're not going to be here the rest of our lives, but there are a few foundational things that I want to point out from scripture, okay? First, there's a huge download that we can take from Genesis about God, so we're just going to nail a couple of those really quick.
First, God was in the beginning, and he was not created. So we learn that God is eternal, and he's pre-existent. Like, he's not a created thing. Number two: In him, everything was made; everyone was made. So what do we learn about God? God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. Next, God created man and dwelt with him in the Garden of Eden, and so we see God is personal; he wants a relationship with us.
Then we see that everything that God created in Genesis was good. God is the source of all that is good. Then man fell; he sinned, and God promised that he would provide an offspring to crush the head of the snake, to deal with sin. And so what do we learn about God? God will provide a solution for sin that we all experience, this broken world that we can all observe. We could download lots more from Genesis, but we're not going to do that. We're going to jump to Exodus.
We'll talk about just a couple more foundational things, and we'll move on. So, in Exodus chapter 3, Moses sees this burning bush. It's on fire; it's not being consumed. And he's like, "What is that?" So he's getting closer to check it out and see what this thing is, and God speaks from the burning bush, and he says, "Do not come near; take off your sandals; this is holy ground."
And so we learn two things about God in this moment. We learn that God is holy, that he cannot be approached by sinful man. Then they have a conversation. God is sending him back to the people: "Go free my people." And he says, "Whom shall I say sent me? What's your name, God? What do I tell them? What's your name?" And God says, "I am who I am." Even in his name, God is saying, "I define myself. I am." He's about to tell you more about himself. "Who I am defines who I am." His eternal existence defines who he is; his actions define who he is. God is the one who tells us who he is.
So when we look back over what we've learned so far, God is pre-existent; he created everyone. He's the source of all good; he's eternally powerful; he has a divine nature. We are fallen, and he has a plan for our salvation. Of course, he gets to define himself! Of course, he gets to define himself! We don't get to define him. We are fallen humanity; we are fallen people. If we were to define God, then our version of God would only come from our fallen wants and desires and values and culture and offenses and standards—all would be wrong.
The only thing that we are capable of defining are images of God that just look like humans—fallen humans. Consider Greek mythology; the Roman gods—all that they were were exaggerated human nature. Like, they were nasty; they were evil. That's the best we can do. Bible scholar D.A. Carson puts it this way: "To get to the heart of who God is and to bow down before him in some small measure of genuine understanding"—because that's all we're capable of as humans, some small measure of genuinely understanding God—"it's important to think through what the Bible says again and again and to then integrate the whole with the same balance and proportion that scripture itself gives."
That true understanding of God calls us to worship. And if we put anything else in the place of God, any other understanding besides what this teaches us, any other understanding, that is the very definition of idolatry.
So let me put it in my own words: When we define God by our reason, by our desires, by our cultural values, instead of what the scripture has to say about God, then we have created an idol. We are not worshiping the true God. The special and supernatural revelation that God provides us in the Bible is necessary.
And so if you believe that you can have a relationship with God and define God based on just your emotions, just your reasoning, just on what you think God should be like, you are worshiping an idol. However, as important as scripture is to defining God, there's still a higher level of revelation—what I'm calling ultimate revelation, or the full and final revelation of God. God even further reveals himself in the person of Jesus Christ.
So turn with me or read the scriptures on the screen to Colossians 1:15-20. And yes, we're going back to the Bible because, as we've already established, that is God's special revelation of himself. Colossians 1:15 says: "He, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God." Or in other words, we can't see God; he's invisible until we look at Jesus. "He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent, most important. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." All the fullness of God! God dwelt in Christ—all of it! It doesn't say some; it doesn't say a spark of divinity; it says all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him.
2 Corinthians 4:4 and 6 says: "The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness'"—referring to Creation Day number one—"like the Creator God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
When we look at Jesus, we see God. Whether that's standing right in front of us, like the apostles experienced, or if we're looking at the face of Jesus by studying the gospels and the entirety of the scriptures. And one more: Hebrews 1:3 says: "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature." Not partial, not similar, not shadow—exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the power of his—by the word of his power.
My friends, Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God. In Jesus, we see the heart of God, his love for the people. In Jesus, we see a desire for people to understand God fully and accurately. Jesus would correct the misuse of scripture. Jesus would show them God through his parables, his teachings, his miracles. In Jesus, we see the fulfillment of God's promise to provide a savior way back in Genesis 3. In Jesus, we see God's perfect justice—not letting sin go unpunished—but we also see the balance of his grace, being willing to take that punishment on himself.
And consider this: The fact that Jesus was the ultimate revelation of God wasn't lost on him. He knew; he understood this. If we look at John chapter 5, Jesus is speaking to Pharisees who, for the record, knew the scriptures better than any of us will ever have hopes of attaining. They knew the scriptures front and back; they knew the Old Testament; they had large parts of it memorized. And so he's talking to the Pharisees, and he says in John 5:39: "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me." Remember, there's no New Testament at this point; he's talking about the Old Testament. And what he's telling them is that if you seek the Old Testament, you will know me. They would know the Messiah of God through just studying the Old Testament.
We'll talk about that more in a minute, but let's move on. Jesus is saying that the scriptures—knowing the scriptures, even exceptionally well—wasn't good enough. But rather, the special revelation of scripture, which points us to God, ultimately points to the Messiah, to Jesus.
One more passage: Let's look at Luke 24:27. So this is right after Jesus's resurrection. His disciples are confused. The twelve main disciples are together, but there was a lot more than that, if you didn't know. And so there's two—not of the twelve disciples—on the road, and they're walking to Emmaus, and they're like, "Oh dear, what's going to happen? What's going on? Jesus is dead!" Jesus is resurrected, and he meets up with these two walking to Emmaus. Somehow, he keeps them from recognizing him; they don't know who he is. And he talks a long time with them, and our passage says: "And beginning with Moses"—the first five books of the Bible, because Moses wrote those—and "all the prophets"—the rest of the Old Testament, because those are written by prophets—"he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."
And so he said, "Hey, look at this passage; this is prophecy about the Messiah. And then look, this is where it says that he must die. And look, here's a story that is typologically pointing to Christ." And then it just goes on and on and on. And so what Jesus is doing is he's implying that even before he was on the earth, even before his name was written down, the people of God could know him, could know the Messiah through the study of the Old Testament.
The Messiah, Jesus, is the pinnacle of God's revelation to us. To understand God, we need to understand his mission, and his mission is the Messiah coming and the salvation and the recreation that he would bring to his fallen creation.
Let me ask you this question to help you understand what I'm trying to say: What do you want to be remembered for? What is the pinnacle of your life? Let's say you die; your family is going to say nice things about you at your funeral. What are they saying? What do you want them to say? "He was a great father." "She was a great mother." "He was a great leader." "She was so hospitable." "They built this great company that did lots of good." Like, what is that thing? What defines you? What do you want people to think of when they think of you? What is the pinnacle of your life?
Let me tell you: Jesus is the pinnacle of God. Jesus is that pinnacle of God. This is what he wants you to know about him. He wants you to know a lot more about him, but it starts with knowing who the Messiah is, what his mission is, and how it affects you. Jesus is the pinnacle of God's work. Jesus is the pinnacle of God's plan for creation, for man, for the redemption of both into the new city, the new heavens, and the new earth that is to come. To know God, you must know Jesus; he is the ultimate revelation of God.
So now, let me turn to you, and I'm going to ask you this question: How do you answer this question: What is God? How do you answer the question: What is God? Do you try to define God in some other way besides studying the scripture and what it says about God and his Messiah?
As we look at general revelation—God in nature; special revelation—God in scripture; and ultimate revelation—God in Jesus Christ, we should be driven to many things, but I want to tell you three things that this must drive you toward, okay?
Number one: We should recognize our unholiness and call out to God for salvation. We can see God's divine nature. So what does that mean for us? You can explain away your sin; you can even come up with this imaginary idol that doesn't care about your sin, but it doesn't change the fact that what God has revealed of himself has declared you a sinner, has declared you condemned unless you turn to his grace—the freedom and forgiveness that he offers you. Friends, will you believe this? Do you believe this? I would love to talk more with you about this. If you don't know what this means, if you don't know if you truly believe that Jesus is the Christ, that he has died for your sin, and that through that alone you have salvation, let's talk. Let's have coffee; let's meet together, or find someone to walk you through these questions—a mature believer who can walk you through this.
Number two: We should be moved to worship God every day. To know God accurately should humble us. We should recognize the greatness of God, and if not proclaiming it to the world, at least to ourselves—at least proclaiming the greatness of God to ourselves so that we can remember who we are, so that we can remember: I am not the creator; I am not the sustainer of anything; I am not the savior. As much as I would want to be for, you know, even my family, as much as I would want to be for my wife or my kids, I am not. I fail them every day—at least every other day. It is good to remember these things; it is good to remember these truths and to worship God and to put ourselves into right perspective of this holy God.
Number three: We should have hope when the world seems hopeless. When we understand to whom we belong—oh, I really need to get down that "who" and "whom" thing. If you got a trick, let me know afterward. When we understand this God that we belong to, we do not have to worry about what or who our God is, but we can stand firm in hope and trust that our God is amazing, that he is eternal, that he is beyond wisdom, that he is gracious, that he is just, that he will make all things right—even if I've got to be patient and wait till the new city. It will be made right; it will be made right. And so I can have hope when the world is chaotic, when the world is hopeless, because of my God.
I would like to finish by reading the passage that our catechism attaches to this question for us. And so you can either follow along on the screen with me, but I'd love to encourage you to just close your eyes. Close your eyes; let me read this for you. Meditate on these words; let them wash over you. Absorb these truths of our God.
Psalm 86, verses 8-10 and 15: "There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. But you, O Lord, are a great, merciful, and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness."
Friends, this is our God—a great God we have. Let me pray for us, and we will finish.
God, you are our creator; you are our sustainer. Everything holds together in you and for you and by you. The smallest of creatures are known by you; the largest armies are at your command, and nothing happens unless you will it to happen. And so we rest in that. We praise your name for that—that we can have hope when the world seems chaotic, that we can have hope in the God who made us and loves us and wants to redeem us. God, help us to submit to your spirit. Remove the heart of sinful stone that we all are born with and give us a heart of flesh that loves you. And help us every day to know more accurately what you are and who you are, primarily looking to Jesus as the ultimate revelation of who you are. Thank you, God. We love you. God, you loved us first, of which we are eternally grateful for. Amen.
on Nov 05, 2023
