PILLARS 8 - The Glorious God Who WALKS Among Us (1Cor 15.1-8)

Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity, somehow both the true God and true man.  He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin (Mary).  He lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the only sufficient payment for man’s sin.  He was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven and will one day return as King and Judge of the whole earth.

Last time we looked at the truth of the God Who walked among us.  The almighty eternal Creator God Who came to earth as a baby, born to a virgin in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, and He walked among us for 30 years.  His birth, AND the life He lived, and the death He died - including the fact that He did not in fact stay dead, constitute the crux of the entire foundation of the Christian faith.

C.S. Lewis puts it like this: The Christian "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.  In other words, in order to better understand ALL that God would have us believe, all we need to do is [take a good long look] at the God-man in the manger, on the cross, and walking out of the tomb.

Paul tells us that he received these all-important truths directly from the Lord.  Two things in particular.  The first we just observed, the celebration of the [Lord’s Supper] (1Cor 11).  The other is 1Cor. 15:3-4  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He HAS BEEN raised (perfect tense!) on the third day according to the Scriptures.  Christ was raised - HAS BEEN raised - on the third day, according to the Scriptures.  Perfect tense, referring to something that happened, with continuing effects in the present [obviously that's a really big deal].  Paul specifically says that this truth, this pillar is of first importance.  The entirety of the Christian faith rests on this fundamental pillar of all pillars.  He goes on to say, 1Cor. 15:14,17-19  If Christ has NOT been raised [emphasis mine], then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain… and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

What Paul is saying is that all of our teaching, all of our hope, is tied to the reality of the resurrection.  Our hope of eternal life is inseparably tied to THIS truth.  Cuz it means death has really been defeated.  For real.  Fact!  Our hope of heaven is founded on fact.  [The Tomb is Empty!] And it means the Scriptures are really true.

The LIE comes in and says, Jesus is dead.  He was just a man, and IF He ever walked this earth, He is dead.  He is certainly dead to me.  He is irrelevant.  1Corinthians 15:32 If from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, LET US EAT AND DRINK, FOR TOMORROW WE DIE.  It’s a logical conclusion: why waste your life trying to get to heaven if the dead are not raised?   But the premise is flawed - cuz Jesus smashed a gaping hole in it.  At this point both the skeptic and the apathetic need to carefully consider the question: [what happened to the body?]  All the Jews and Romans had to do to shut down this sect of Nazarenes, to stop it dead in its tracks, was to produce the body.  See, this one you call Messiah is still dead.  No way He’s who you say He is.  BUT there was no body in that tomb.  That tomb which was sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers (on threat of death).  [Mt 27] And when they couldn’t produce a body, they concocted the lie that the disciples STOLE the body.  Are you kidding me?  Those cowards?  Who scattered like cockroaches when Jesus was arrested?  Yeah right - that’s totally what happened.  Those timid untrained fishermen not only overpowered those Roman soldiers, they managed to dispose of the body, outwit the Jewish mob AND the Roman empire, and then live out the rest of their lives for a flat-out lie.  In fact all the hundreds of people who saw Him after He was raised were all lying.  1Cor. 15:5-8 He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.  There is no record that even one of these witnesses, many tortured and executed as martyrs, ever recanted.  Far more likely that these hundreds of people actually did see Jesus alive, risen from the dead (MANY convincing proofs) - and the reality of His resurrection changed them forever.   It gave them a hope AND a boldness that never fizzled!  The truth of the resurrection is what turned those early believers from timid cowards into bold world-changers.  They turned the world upside down!  He walks among us!

The miracle, the wonderful impossible of the Christian life, is that we have a Messiah Who has been raised!  That is THE game changer of all game changers.  No other religious leader, no one else in history has ever come back to life.  Jesus is alive, ascended, and He is present.  He walks among us!  The hope and joy of the Christian is that Jesus is not just an idea or a cute little baby or some dead preacher but that He IS.  Emmanuel: God WITH us.  And not just in some vague spiritual sense.  He is alive!  Christ alive - and living with us - is the cornerstone of eternal life, that is, a personal relationship with our Creator that lasts forever.  Jeremiah 31:34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”  John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” IF you are a believer in Christ today, almighty God the Son-Who-made-the-universe-and-everything-in-it is living in your heart!  Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

(Lewis) "The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the 'first fruits,' ‘the pioneer of life,' He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so.  This is the beginning of the new creation, a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.” EVERYTHING is different because Jesus has been raised!

The resurrection of Christ gives believers hope - real hope.  The assurance that we will live forever with God in heaven.  1Thess 4:13-14 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 1Peter 1:20-21 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.  There literally is, NO true hope apart from the risen Jesus.

He lives!  It’s the assurance that death HAS BEEN defeated.  Death has lost its sting.  We do not need to let death hold us in the grip of fear.  Resurrection assures us that this life is just the warmup for the real thing, a mere vapor.  Our real hope is that real life awaits on the other side of the veil.  So all the troubles and threats of this life, and even death itself, are truly nothing more than momentary and light affliction.  (Read below in Jn 11.25; Moses&Serpents in Num 21.5-9 --> point to Jesus Who was lifted up Jn 3.14; you will have tribulation Jn 16.33; and in it we are fixing eyes on Jesus Heb 12.1)  

Nothing in this life is guaranteed.  Tomorrow is not guaranteed.  But the resurrection of Christ is God’s guarantee of eternal life, a better life, life as God designed it to be.  It keeps us going.  The tomb is empty!  He walks among us!

Matthew 27:62-65   Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”  Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.”  And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.

John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”  

Num. 21:5-9 The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.  Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”  And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

PILLARS 7 - The Glorious God Who Walked Among Us (Jn 1.1-5, 9-14)

Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity, somehow both the true God and true man.  He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin (Mary).  He lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the only sufficient payment for man’s sin.  He was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven and will one day return as King and Judge of the whole earth.

We’ve been looking at the truths which support and secure our faith.   Truths which we find in the pages of this book, the Bible.  God’s Word (which is 100% true).  We’ve looked at truths about God, what He is like - that He is infinite, eternal, perfect, glorious.  How by glorious we mean exceedingly breathtakingly good.  That this gloriously good God created everything in the universe out of nothing, and everything He made originally was exceedingly good.  That He is infinitely powerful and in control of all things, and that everything that happens in the universe, even the hard things, He works out for good, and for the increase of His Glory.  Romans 8:28  And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:18  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  2Corinthians 4:17  For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.  2Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Which brings us face-to-face, literally, with the most mind-boggling amazing possibility in all of life.  Beholding the glory of the Lord.  [Ex 33.18]  Beholding God’s glory, His blazing, blinding, take-your-breath-away goodness.  Which is not only mind-blowing, but as we’ve seen from Moses, it is unsurvivable.  Feeble fallen human eyes cannot survive a full frontal glimpse of God’s blazing goodness.  And thus we arrive at what is perhaps the most mind-blowing event in all of history: John 1:14 And the Word [this infinite eternal glorious God] became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.  THIS - was Jesus.

THIS is that most wonderful truth that makes this THE most wonderful time of the year.  Not the kids-jingle-belling and everyone-telling us to be of good cheer.  No - the truth is, because He loved us so much, almighty God squeezed Himself into a tiny womb and out of a birth canal and allowed Himself to (need to) be swaddled, wrapped up in a baby blanket in a [feeding trough] in Bethlehem. And we beheld His glory.  Infinity wrapped itself up in “finity”.  Eternity itself showed up in real time, bound by the constraints of space&time & frail flesh.  The God of all Creation, needing to be nursed - and rocked, and wiped - by this teenage girl who is now His mother?  Placing Himself in the belly/arms of one of His own fallen creatures.  We beheld His glory.  Really?  I thought glory was supposed to be this amazing larger-than-life encounter with God’s great majesty.  But Glory is found in the most unexpected places, the most unassuming guises.

Literally v14 says, He pitched His tent and camped out among us.  [tents - and stables: not where you look for glory —> palaces/cathedrals].  By all outward appearances, [this] is not where you would think to look for glory.  This was not how you and I would have drawn it up.  Not how we would expect the almighty Creator of the universe to show up and walk the stage of human history.  This was not center stage - it was backstage.  Some Palestinian backwater.  Part of some tiny religious minority.  The son of a poor carpenter and his teenage wife.  This is NOT where the world looks for any kind of glory, for a king.  Much less for salvation.  

The LIE comes in and says, this was nothing special.  Nothing to see here.  Jesus was nothing special.  IF He even existed (which is definitely a lie - hundreds of witnesses, mentioned by numerous ancient historians).  The LIE says, Jesus was just a good teacher.  A good example to follow.  Flat out lie [google, "the trilemma"]. Jesus was just a man.  Definitely not God.  Cuz that would be impossible.  Luke 18:27 But He said, “The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.”

This "impossible" incarnation - how can Jesus be fully God AND fully human?  Truly impossible to fully explain - OR understand.  Unfathomable.  Even theologians debated this for centuries.  How can it be both?  Cults have formed, heretics have been condemned, trying to land on one side or the other.  The True Church eventually decided and has embraced that we need to be okay living in the tension of the inexplicable both/and.  

But the world just tries its darnedest to dismiss Jesus altogether.  Cuz the world doesn’t want to deal with Jesus.  It can’t handle Him.  And it’s maybe not the seemingly benign truth about His miraculous birth, as significant as that is.  His mother was a virgin - she had never been with a man.  For her to have a baby (in that day certainly) would have been inconceivable.  Literally.  There IS some debate about whether the Holy Spirit used Mary’s egg, or if she was just a surrogate.  I lean towards the former:  Genesis 3:15  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”  Galatians 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.  Not something to be dogmatic about, either way.  It’s God’s Holy Spirit making it happen, either way.  Mary is a virgin, either way.  Miracle.  Amazing.  Fulfilled prophecy either way.  But 8lb 6oz Baby Jesus isn’t really why the world so wants to silence talk about Him.  Initially I was going to go so far as to say that the world didn’t try to get rid of Him until He started pointing out our hypocrisy and our idolatrous hearts and our need for forgiveness and for entirely new hearts.  But then I remembered that Herod actually did try to take him out as a baby.  Even Nativity Scenes are offensive, aren’t they?  The truth is, the world doesn’t want to hear ANYTHING about Jesus.  Don’t even mention His Name.  Unless of course you want to disrespect it or curse with it.  But otherwise completely remove Him from the conversation.  

The SALIENT point about this Baby, about this birth, of course, is that this Baby [was born to die].  His mission was not to simply take on human flesh, to crawl/walk among us.  His steps were to carry Him up a hill called Calvary where (tho completely innocent) He allowed His enemies to betray and abuse and torture Him, and execute Him as a criminal.  His mission was to take on evil, literally, to take on the sin of the world - and to pay the full penalty for all of it, to offer Himself up as the unblemished sacrifice for the sin of the world and take on the full measure of God’s righteous wrath poured out against it.  And even in death, even as He hung there on that cruel Roman cross, God’s glory was on display, blazing forth in that darkness [Matt. 27:54 Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”].  The world rejected Jesus then, and it rejects Him still today.  But for those who have eyes to see it, like that centurion, God’s glory is on full display.  Always.  For those who receive Him.  

He walked among us.  On the third day after He died, Jesus walked out of that grave, and walked among us, camped out for 40 more days [Acts 1:3 To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.].  Many convincing proofs.  Hundreds of witnesses.  Hundreds of fulfilled prophecies.  And perhaps the even greater miracle is, this same glorious Son of God stands ready to camp out in our hearts.  To walk with us, every day, every moment.  A friend who is closer than any brother or sister.  Always.  Jesus IS special, always and forever "1OAK" - and He makes everything good, even when it doesn’t feel good.  We are never alone.  No matter what you’re going thru, no matter what valley you and I are walking through, Jesus is still among us, walking right beside us.  Let every heart prepare Him room - is there room in your heart?  Have you received Him yet?

PILLARS 6 - God Pre-eminent (?) [Romans 11.33-36]

There is one God, existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

He is wholly perfect, breathtakingly good, and He is the sovereign almighty Creator and Sustainer of all things.

Last time we looked at the truth that God is good.  So exceedingly good.  And because He is good, He does good.  Everything He makes and does is good.  Even the things that don’t seem good, or feel good - God is somehow working all those things together for good.  Romans 8:28  And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  This dovetails with the truth we consider today, that God is sovereign: He is in complete control of everything in the universe.  He possesses unlimited power and authority as well as the infinite wisdom and knowledge to wield it, to work all those things for good.  

He IS all-powerful (omnipotent).  How much power does He have?  He has the power to bring [dust] to life, to bring the dead back to life, to form and fire up 200 billion trillion [stars] with a word.  2 words, actually.  And He could turn 'em all off again…[snap].  Limitless.   Jer 10:12 It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; and by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.  Eph 3:20  God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. He does everything by His power that is working in us.

And yes, He is all-knowing (omniscient).  He knows all things.  He sees all.  He sees every thing I do.  He knows every thought and intent of my heart.  He knows what I am going to say even before I say it.  Job 31:4  “Does He not see my ways and number all my steps? [an estimated 216million steps in a person's lifetime].  Hebrews 4:13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.  1Chronicles 28:9  “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. Psalm 139:4  Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all.  The word is prescient.  God knows everything that will happen, and Tozer suggests He even knows everything that could happen!

But wait - there's more!  The sovereign God of the universe sustains my very life.  Job 33:4  “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”  He watches over me, over you.  He cares about me and you.  Matthew 10:29-31 “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” 

What’s more, He has a plan for my life.  A good plan, full of wonder.  Psalm 139:16  Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.  Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”  Psalm 32:8  “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.”  Unlike me.  Left to my own devices, I don’t make the best choices.  Genesis 6:5  Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  Numbers 15:39 “It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot.” [The Hebrew word for tassel is tzitzit - these were special devices to help people remember important things, and they were often dyed a shade of blue, which was very costly to produce and became a precious commodity in that ancient Near Eastern culture*].

We all need tzitzits, tassels - reminders.  Constant reminders.  We need help.  We need a Helper, one to rescue us from our very selves.  And the all-knowing almighty sovereign God Who made the universe AND me, He stands ready to help me.  Psalm 46:1  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Isaiah 41:10  “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

This all-mighty God Who knows all, He knows my heart (He made it in fact), and though He possesses all power, including the power to form my heart and cause it to beat and pump life-giving blood throughout my entire body, He never forces my heart.  Psalm 33:13-15   The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; from His dwelling place He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works.  Deuteronomy 5:29 “Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!”  Joshua 24:15 “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.

He gives us a choice.  It’s a divine wondrous mystery, the sovereign all-powerful God, He created and is in control of the entire universe, including you and me, and yet somehow still gives us a choice.  And He uses all 66 books of [this Book], His Word, to convince us to choose Him.  To follow Him.  And it should be a slam dunk no-brainer.  Because…

Last time we looked at the truth that God is good.  He is sooooo good.  And like everything else about Him, His goodness is superlative.  Good, better, best.  He is the best.  And 2nd place isn’t even close [Paul calls it manure].  God is so exceedingly good as to be incomparably better.  Better than anything or anyone.  God is better than ________.  Anything you or I might care to write in that space, God is better than that.  And if we have difficulty swallowing this truth, if we choke on this truth, we have yet to truly [...taste and see that the LORD is good. Psalm 34:8].  Psalm 63:3  Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You.  Psalm 84:10  For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside.  Philippians 1:23 But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for [that is] very much better.  He is so exceedingly incomparably better, that He deserves first place in everything.  In our hearts, in our lives, in all we do.  Our love for Him exceeds all other loves.  It makes other loves look like hate [altho it is not license TO hate].  Our devotion to Him trumps all other loyalties.  Or should.  They pale in comparison. 

He is way better.  His ways are way better.  What He wants is way better than what I think I want.  Ephesians 5:17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord wants.  James 4:15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” Mark 14:36 And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I want, but what You want.”  His way, what He wants might seem crazy.  It might fly in the face of what I think I want.  The opposite of what I feel.  Counter-intuitive, counter-culture.  In the words of Robert Frost, "two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference".

The LIE comes in and says, I am the center of the universe.  I am most important.  What I want, what I feel, comes first.  That’s a lie.  Too much navel-gazing.  And it betrays us into settling for so many lesser loves, counterfeit joys [as C.S. Lewis puts it, choosing to make mud pies in a slum instead of opting for a holiday at the beach].  I.e. it’s not a failure of our pleasure mechanism.  One look at the Starbucks drive-thru lines will confirm that.  It’s not that our spiritual tastebuds are malfunctioning.  We opt for lesser counterfeit joys because we just haven’t gotten a real taste of how good God really is.

We struggle here because we fail to see the Lord, how much better He really is.  But He comes first.  Pre-eminent!  What He wants comes first.  Such that the chief end of man then becomes to glorify God and [by] enjoy[ing] Him forever.  We glorify something, we show how good it is BY enjoying it.  1Corinthians 10:31  Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.  1Peter 1:8  And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.  Our greatest joy, our best life, is found right in the middle of what God wants, because He is what we really want…  May He grant us the grace today to get a real good taste of how good He really is, a real good glimpse of how great He really is, and to trust and enjoy Him more fully in all that concerns us.  He is better, He is worthy, and He's got this.

*At any rate the best and  [Vol. 2, p. 970]  costliest ancient dyes were the blues and violets and purples that were made from the secretions of various mollusks (primarily Murex brandaris and Murex trunculus) that swarm in the coastal waters of the eastern Mediterranean, particuarly near Sidon and Tyre (whence “Tyrian purple”) but also near Elishah (probably Cyprus). David Jacoby remarks that "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 g of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment.”

Reminders: Tassels and cords and forehead bands, annual Feasts, holy days, rituals, memorials - Holy Spirit! [Jn 14.26]

Pillars 5: There is a God, and He is…so good. (Ex 33.17-23)

Ex. 33:17-23   The LORD said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.” Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!”  And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”  But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”  Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”

We’re looking at the truths that support and secure our faith.  There is a God, and He is infinite, eternal, and breathtakingly good.  The Bible is the Word of God - every bit of it is true.  Last week we saw that the God is the Creator of all things.  Out of nothing.  None of this is an accident…

Today we want to look at the nexus of our Creator God being breathtakingly good.  We sort of flew past God’s goodness the first time.  And it’s always unfortunate when we do that.  Because if there’s one thing the Bible is really serious about, it’s the goodness of God.  From the first chapter of Genesis to the final prophecies of Revelation - the message is, God is good.  God is so good.  We sing about it - cuz it’s true, and this pillar is a real game-changer.

Right out of the gate [Genesis 1] God’s Word tells us about His goodness.  Everything He made was good.  The light was good, the sun and [moon and stars] were good, the plants and trees were good, all the creatures He made were good, and it was all SO good, we read, “Then God looked over all that He had made, and He saw that it was very good!” Genesis 1:31.  Psalm 119:68  You are good and what You do is good.  And I would flip that verse: God does good, He makes things good, because He IS good.  Take-your-breath-away good.  Good begins with Him, and flows from Him, oozes out of every pore and fiber of His being, permeates everything He does.  

This Hebrew word for good means, that which is pleasing.  Think about the things that are pleasing to you.  Let’s get to that place in our hearts right now - what do you find pleasing?  Things that are pleasing to the eyes, to touch, to smell, to taste, to your heart.  How about this fall weather?  Or, the smell of [cinnamon].  Things that are pleasing.  How about a job well done?  Acing that test?  Nailing that shot?  Starting the guy who goes off in fantasy football this week?   Or, how bout a beautiful [sunset]?  Thanksgiving dinner.  Time with friends.  Even in a world full of chaos and brokenness, there is so much that is pleasing.  We can still see God’s unbelievable goodness in so much of what He's made - Psalm 19:1  The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.  And one way to think of glory is God’s incredibly pleasing indescribably great goodness.  Things that take your breath away.  And Just how good is the Lord?  Exceedingly great.  Mind-blowing, goodness on steroids.  And the better good it is, the harder it is to describe.  Pick any of your favorite experiences.  Your favorite foods.  And try to describe that to someone.  What was it like, they ask?  And you’re like, it was so good - I can’t even begin to describe it.  One of my favorite experiences is [downhill skiing].  When the snow is just right, and the slope is just right, not too steep but not a bunny hill, and you’re cruising down that hill, carving and cutting and hitting the bumps, spraying snow and maybe even catching a little bit of air here and there, a little spread eagle maybe - and if you’ve never experienced it, I really can’t begin to describe it to you.  Goodness is like that.  The better it is, the harder it is to describe.  I like the word, breathtaking.  The best things really do take your breath away.  And the Lord is better still.  SOOO good.  Infinitely indescribable.  And when He makes something, He makes it indescribably good [waaaaay better than Zaxby's, who use that slogan to describe their chicken].  

Now, from the beginning, not only did the Lord make every thing very good, He then blessed His creatures, He repeatedly showered extra heaping helpings of goodness on them so that they could be fruitful and multiply.  And fill the earth.  God does this throughout the Bible.  Even after the people He makes and the people He chooses rebel against Him, He STILL shows them His goodness [the Hebrew word is chesed, for grace and undeserved love and favor].  God delights to show His goodness to His people.  

So, back to our passage: Moses asks God, show me Your glory.  And what’s God’s answer?  I WILL make all My goodness pass in front of you.  He adds, you can’t see My face, for no one can see My face and live, so I will put you in this crevice and cover you up till I pass by, and then you can see My back, the backside of My glory.  All God’s goodness.  How much IS that?  Even just that backside glimpse was enough to bring Moses to his knees [Exodus 34.8 - Moses made haste to bow down and worship]. 

Glory is that which is weighty, heavy, impressive.  Makes people bow down under/before it.  And God Himself is saying, what is most impressive about Him is His goodness.  He wants the whole world to see His glory, His impressive breathtaking goodness.  Numbers 14:21 Indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD. 1Chronicles 16:24,29  Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.  Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come before Him; worship the LORD in holy array.  That’s sort of the opposite of what we do tho, isn’t it?  We’re hard-pressed sometimes to see His goodness in our everyday lives.  We don’t hasten, we’re more slow to bow down and worship Him.  Lord, give us eyes to see, to recognize goodness.  Your goodness.  Give us knees that hasten to bow down.

Here’s a thought - the first time we see goodness, is when God creates light.  This light is inextricably tied to all of life.  John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The only thing God tells us was NOT good from the beginning was aloneness.  Living in a place of separation.  Genesis 2:18   Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”  Fast forward to Genesis 3, man rebels against the glorious God Who made him and showered goodness on him.  What sets in is this Ultimate Separation.  Disconnected from this oh-so-good God - and the light begins to dim.  Life - and now death.  Good - and now evil.  Rebellion.  And in this state of disconnection and darkness we struggle to bow down AND to see God’s goodness.  We fail to see God’s good hand.  The two are related.

See, the LIE comes in and says, God is not good.  The lie goes, because this doesn’t look good - or feel good - then God must not be good.  Or maybe He doesn’t see or doesn’t care, cuz this is not good, not at all pleasing, this current reality.  We blame God.  Yes, sometimes God allows things that don’t feel good.  That certainly extends to many parts of creation which are broken as a result of the fall.  We looked at this last time - that there is this brokenness about the world.  Things break down.  Good things get broken.  But failure to see God’s goodness is debilitating…  Psalm 27:13  I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.  Despair means, down from hope.  “Diseases of despair”: depression, substance abuse, suicide - are epidemic in our society.  Loss of hope.  Brokenness, and busy-ness obscure God’s goodness like a solar eclipse.  But my circumstances, my feelings, don’t diminish one ounce of God’s goodness.  The key is having eyes of faith that see the unseen.  That’s what got Joseph thru those long years, languishing in prison in Egypt.  Trafficked by his own brothers.  Genesis 50:20 “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”  Do we believe this is true?  Romans 8:28   And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  Psalm 23:6  Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  Psalm 34:8  O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!  Psalm 118:1  Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.

That’s the starting point.  Give thanks.  Guess what?  This very week we have an entire holiday devoted to that!  Thanking God reminds us that God IS good, SO good, and it reinforces the truth that He does good.  That’s why the Lord tells us, In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1Thessalonians 5:18).

"Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon."

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

And we talked about the importance of humility as we handle the truth.  About the danger of knowledge puffing us up, tempting us to think that we are better that the person who doesn’t know what we know (or think we know).  About the need for Christians to handle the truth with gentleness and compassion.  And love.

Because the world is sending us a message.  A world which increasingly insists on deconstructing the truth.  Insisting that truth is relative.  That there is no one truth, no absolute truth.  There are many truths.  There are even truths that contradict each other.  Here’s where things have really gotten off the tracks.  Some people today want to reject either/or thinking.  They want to reject the law of non-contradiction, which says p ≠ not p.  If you reject that, then you think you can say, the Bible is true AND the Bible is not true.  Well, which is it?  Postmoderns want to say, well, it’s not an either/or.  That’s just Western thinking, they insist. They say it’s a both/and - which more of an Eastern mindset.  And so they try to reject to either/or, literally by saying, it’s either the both/and, or nothing.  In order to reject the either/or, they need the either/or to be true.  But postmoderns also are fully vesting themselves in the illogic of contradiction.  Sadly, a person who keeps contradicting themself is someone who can’t be trusted.  Confusion.  Feeling lost.  Embracing contradiction means life becomes full of uncertainty.  No wonder so many more people today are wrestling with depression and anxiety and suicide.

But why would someone want to embrace the both/and, the illogic that two things which contradict each other can both be true?  I think the world is sending a message.  Well, two actually.  The first message is an ancient one, that some people, many people just don’t want to believe the truth about God, because they want to run their own life.  That’s nothing new.  But I think there’s another message, and it’s partly in response to how the church has tended to handle the truth.  Many Christians over the years have come across as NOT humble, NOT compassionate, NOT gentle in how we handle the truth.  And I wonder if the world is saying, you know what, we’ve seen that, and we don’t like that.  We don’t want to be like that.  So if you disagree with me, if you believe something that contradicts what I believe, well, let’s just say we’re both right.  That’s certainly the easier/lower conflict way out.  What it really does is build the house of your life on the sands of illogic.  The "bedrock" people are seeking in relativism is nothing more than a sandy beach.  Feels good for a season maybe, but chances for surviving the storms of life are slim-to-none.  And in the end there’s no way to do it without appealing to logic.  You can't insist that there are no absolute truths without having that very statement be absolutely true.

There is a God, and He is SO good.  He showed it foremost by sending His Son to die for us so that we could experience His goodness forever, and He proved it by raising His Son from the dead.  Let's start with that truth...

Pillars 4: There Is A God, and He is… Creator (Is 45.18-22)

Is. 45:18  For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the LORD, and there is none else..."

There is a God.  He is eternal and infinite and perfect.  And He wants us to know Him, to enjoy His love and goodness today and forever and reflect that back to Him and to all the families of the earth.  And in sending His Son to die and pay the penalty for everything we’ve ever done wrong, He has accomplished everything necessary in order for us to know Him.  But the FIRST thing He accomplished is creation.  This infinitely good God is the almighty Creator and Sustainer of all things.  The very atoms and elements themselves, everything in the universe, all things owe their origin and their continued existence to Him.  Nehemiah 9:6  “You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them. Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.  

God’s Word is abundantly clear: God created all things.  Every-thing, out of no-thing.  Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  Isaiah 66:2  “For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD. Romans 4:17 God… gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

For centuries, there have been two schools of thought.  Either there is a Creator, this God Who created everything, or there is not, in which case it’s all random chance.  All this is the outcome of a long series of accidents.  But [accidents] generally do NOT produce something better, they usually make things worse.  Random chance does not produce order.  It does not result in beauty [bedhead].  Random chance typically results in disorder.  Chaos.  It's a defining characteristic of our present universe.  Newton’s Law.  Randomness increases.  Things break down - unless something or [someone intervenes].  And the more time you give it, the more brokennesss you can expect.  Everything breaks down.  They do NOT get better with time.  And yet - when we look around, whether through a telescope, or a microscope, or a zoom lens, what do we see?  In the midst of this encroaching chaos and brokenness, we see beauty to a breathtaking degree.  We see highly complex structures.  We see order of such a magnitude as to render the odds of all these things arising by chance to be so close to zero that it really takes way more faith to believe in The Accident than in the Creator.  Romans 1:19-20 That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.  For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

The LIE says there is no Creator.  So many people believe in the IMprobable accident because they’re so desperate to remove God from their equation.  Because the reality of a Creator means I'm dependent AND accountable.  No matter how smart or tall or strong or good looking or magnificent I think I am, I do not exist or take another breath apart from His provision.  My life is in the hands of this one true God.  And there IS a part of every person that is fully aware of this truth.  It’s evident.  It’s obvious.  We all know it, deep down.  It’s just that some of us are determined to attempt to suppress the truth [like our stubborn puppy Selah, who often is determined not to do what we ask].  This is the fundamental problem of man:  Romans 1:18b People suppress the truth in unrighteousness… No excuse.

The best known attempt today of course is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.  And we need to be clear about one thing - this is still just a theory, (which Webster’s defines as) an idea that is suggested as possibly true but that is not proven to be true.  Darwin’s idea is about the origin of species (life?).  He observed that some species of birds can mutate, come out with a different color or a different shape of beak.  Fruit flies can and do develop different colors of eyes.  This is micro-evolution.  But macroevolution?  Nobody has ever seen plankton mutate into a perch, or a lizard mutate into a monkey, much less a tiny protein spring to life.  It’s STILL just a theory.  It assumes that if you have enough time, random accidents eventually will result not only in something completely different, but something viable, AND better.  But it’s only a theory.  And no one can prove Darwin’s Theory true, not scientifically.  We can’t stick it in a lab and make it happen.  Yet, in many places today, this theory is presented as indisputable fact.  And IF you dispute this idea, if you don’t bow down to it, you are disrespected, dismissed.  Literally.  There IS this kind of religious devotion to this idea, whose end goal is to explain away the existence of a Creator.  And that’s what it really is: an idea (one of many) that has been seized upon as part of the concerted attempt to suppress the truth about God.  It’s the religion of rebellion, the age-old rebellion against God, and Darwin’s Theory is today’s standard bearer.  Many have dressed it up in all kinds of flowery robes and tassels, but underneath, it’s all about a [roll of the dice].  An accident.  The LIE says, WE are an accident.  But rebellion is no accident.

Growing up in a family that never went to church or gave much thought to God or religion, I was only ever presented with Darwinism.  The Accident.  On TV.  In public school.  In fact, the notion that there might be a credible alternative to “The Accident” wasn’t even allowed into the classroom.  And I was fully bought-in to The Accident.  But let me share two reasons why I no longer believe in The Accident.  The first is what I call the [spark of life].  Life is a miracle.  The longer I live, and the closer I get to death, the more I realize how life on this [beautiful blue ball] is truly a miracle.  A wonderful impossible.  And once the spark of life is extinguished, there is no power on earth that can bring it back.  Squish a bug.  It ain’t ever coming back.  For all its posturing and theorizing, science has no ability to bring anything back to life once it’s dead.  MUCH LESS produce that initial spark of life.  Life from non-life is the stuff of science fiction.  Just because someone has an idea about how something could have happened doesn’t make it possible, much less probable.  That primordial soup they concoct in the lab trying to recreate the conditions where they so desperately want to believe that the first single-cell creature came to life (by accident)?  They can produce amino acids, building blocks of life, but the precious spark of life that would somehow give rise to even the tiniest, most primitive form of amoeba, they can’t do it.  And they never will.  Highly improbable.  That power/knowhow resides in no finite being.

Which leads to the second reason why I reject the accident, which is again, this whole idea of chance and complexity.  Whenever we see even the lowest degree of complexity, our brains intuitively tell us that there is intelligence behind that.  Somebody did that.  Somebody made that.  [Like when you see a forest full of trees which look random UNTIL you see the trees are all planted in long lines?  Long straight lines of trees are never random - there is intelligence behind the existence of that grove or forest][And how about the amazing complexity of the eye - it takes WAY too much faith to believe that such a level of complexity happened by any series of random mutations].  This truth is as plain as the nose on your face (or the eyes).  All God’s people see it - except those in denial, suppressing the truth in their heart.  And that’s the rub.  Once we allow for a Creator, you and I become contingent.  Entirely dependent.  We become accountable to Someone with all the authority and power in the universe.  We don’t even exist apart from Him.  Acts 17:28 In Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’  And some of us, we don’t want that.  We are seduced by The Accident, The LIE, the prospect of happiness APART from our Creator.  

But here's a truth - just as rebellion is not an accident, lasting love is no accident.  That’s what we really want, and true lasting love only found in a relationship with the God Who made us and loves us… 

There is one God, existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  He is breathtakingly good, wholly perfect, and He is the all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of all things.

1Cor. 8:6 For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. 

Isaiah 48:13  “Surely My hand founded the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand together.”