Doctrines - Message 1 - God's Nature

Theology is the systematic study of God.

Doctrines are the findings of that study.

What we do on a typical Sunday morning is a study of a passage with a focus on application of truth in our lives.

This systematic approach gives a rounded out, comprehensive view of who God is.

We often base our perception of God on one passage, on the Bible Stories that are most familiar to us or that we heard growing up.

We all know what it like for someone to get the wrong impression of us because all they know of us is one interaction or a story about something that we did.

Now, in God’s Word there are no false impressions of who God is- His word is truth and every representation of Him in the Word is truth, but Theology and Doctrine give a more comprehensive and detailed picture.

Have you noticed how incredibly more detailed ultrasound photos have become? It used to be that ultrasound photos were kind of like looking at a nebula. People would look at them and say, “Wow….” but have no idea what they were looking at…

Today you can make out all kinds of features and details.

I’ve even heard people say, he or she looks like the mom or the dad based on the ultrasound photos…

We don’t have any new information on who God is, the source material is still all the same, but when we study God in a comprehensive way it gives a greater picture of who he is.

Theology in the strictest sense is the study of God, but we’ll use that term to refer to the Christian doctrines which of course are all connected to God.

I’ll be using Thiessen’s book on Systematic Theology extensively and he points out early that there is a difference between religion and theology.

Theology is the study and organization of thought about God.

Religion or Devotion is the reaction these thoughts produce.

I think that speaks to the necessity of Theology.

Because we believe that there should be a reaction to truth about who God is- we believe that this truth is not neutral- it should have an affect.

It should influence the way that we think, act, feel, speak, and so on. It should change us, improve us, encourage us, challenge us, and convict us.

If that’s true, a better understanding of who he is should lead to greater and deeper reactions to this knowledge.

However, we can’t take that for granted.

Many people have divorced their knowledge of God from a emotional or volitional response to that knowledge.

Many people have been great students of theology with absolutely no devotion.

Psalm 86:11

11Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.

12I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.

13For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

This passage asks for God to teach us about His ways so that we can walk in them, so that our hearts will fear or respect and honor him, that we will respond with praise and a life that ever glorifies God.

Knowing God- Knowing His power, His majesty, His beauty, His Holiness, His mercifulness, it can and it should provoke a response in us, but I don’t want to take that for granted, so I’d like to invite you to pause a moment with to pray, like this Psalmist prayed that knowledge of Him will lead to greater appreciation for Him.

Intro:

1. God is Eternal.

He is without beginning or end.

He has no start and no end, He simply is and has always been and will always be.

Scripture regularly calls Him Everlasting God.

The Psalmist says in 90:2
“From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.”

It’s clear from scripture that God does not exist in time as we do.

God created time, it’s something that he peers down into, something that he chooses to step into, but now something that he is bound by.

Peter said that a thousand years is like one day and one like a thousand years to God.

Many people hear that and think that God can speed up or slow down time as He wishes, but really it’s more that God doesn’t experience time.
It’s all the same to Him.

He is all times and yet in no time.

When God sees the past, He doesn’t see it as a memory- faint and distant. When God sees the future, it isn’t hazy like a prophecy.

God sees all time as vividly and comprehensively as He sees the present.

Thiessen points out that you can view a parade from a street corner and watch as it passes by, or you could drive next to it in a car, passing it- going faster than it, seeing it from the end to the beginning, or you could watch it from the top of a building seeing all of it at once.

God is able to see all these angles of the procession of time, simultaneously.

Just as God is eternal in relation to time, He is eternal in relation to knowledge, presence, and power.

1. God is Omniscient (All Knowing).

Omniscience is the combination of Omni (All) and Science (Knowledge). God knows all.

This almost seems natural since God can see all things, all times, all perspectives, all at once.

Think about how limited your knowledge is because of your limited perspective.

I don’t think anyone in here knows Chinese.

But I bet if you had been exposed to Chinese your whole life, you would. There are people in China who don’t know English but if they had been exposed to it like you do, they would.

However, God doesn’t know all simply because He’s been exposed to it all- He knows all because it is in His nature to know.

God is not simply well read, or been in school for a really long time.

God has always known all.

Just as God is eternal in relation to time, he is eternal in relation to knowledge.

Creation is a demonstration of this Omniscience.

They way that nature simply works in concert- that the elements and systems of our world rely on one another and work together on a large scale like the process of weather but also to the minute in the systems that work on a molecular level in our bodies.

Scripture tells us in Isaiah 46:9-10 That God has known the whole story, form the very beginning.

9Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

10Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

This doesn’t just relate to what is actual, but what is possible.

Thiessen points out that Jesus said, Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they had seen the miracles that were done in Bethsaida.

God knows all the permutations, all the possibilities.

This is how He can make promise like the one He makes in Romans- that all things will work together for the good of those that love Him.

In other words, when things go wrong and are bad, 

God can not only see the future but what could be the future and He is able to steer us toward the outcome that will give purpose to our difficulties and adversities.

That’s the infinite knowledge of God put into practical use for you and me.

Thiessen points out something that I just love.

God thoroughly knows all, including Himself.

No one else completely knows Himself.

God knows you better than you know you.

1. God is Omnipresent (Present Everywhere)

Scripture repeatedly tells us that God is everywhere.

Psalm 139 says, if I ascend into heaven you are there, if I make my bed in the depths you are there.

God is present in all of the universe, but God is not tied to the universe. We should make that distinction.

Pantheism makes God out to be everything.

God is not everything, but He is everywhere.

He chooses to be in all places, so He is. But he is not limited by creation, in other words if He chose to no longer be present somewhere, He would not have to be.

If He were to destroy everything, He would continue to exist.

God often chose to withdraw the essence or the influence of His presence, but He was still present.

His omnipresence is an act of his unlimited power and knowledge. It is an extension of His infinite, eternal nature.

There is no time and there is no place that we are alone.

God is always with us everywhere.

This is a comfort and a warning.

1. God is Omnipotent.

All Powerful

Scripture teaches repeatedly that God is all powerful.

He is called the Almighty. (Revelation 4:8)

He is abel to do all things He purposes. (Job 42:2)

All things are possible with Him. (Matthew 19:26)

And Nothing is too difficult for Him. (Jeremiah 32:17)

In the beginning God said let there be light and there was light. God didn’t create the Sun and the stars until the fourth day, but when He said let there be light, there was light.

God is so powerful that what He says is. He speaks the truth and His words are so powerful, His nature so eternal that the very words will make it so, make it the truth.

Now, God’s unlimited power is an extension of His nature, so this means that He can do anything that He wills to do- Anything that is in perfect harmony with His nature- His perfection and His holiness.

Because God will not do anything that violates His nature, there is a list of things that God can not do.

God can not overlook sin. (Hab 1:3)

God can not violate His nature (2 Timothy 2:13)

God can not deny the truth. (Titus 1:2)

God can not tempt us to sin. (James 1:13)

This means that He can not or will not do what is absurd or ridiculous. He will not, can not make a square circle, make a rock so big that he can’t pick it up, etc.

I recently heard that there was a stone so big that God could not pick it up, it was the penalty for our sin.

It’s not that the stone was too big, it’s that it is against God’s nature overlook sin.

So He established a means of rolling that stone away through the sacrifice of Jesus.

The beauty of the gospel is that God made a way for us to be forgiven without violating His nature and destroying us.