God: God Is Omnipotent

Omnipotent is one of those big words we don't use very often and we have to think for a second about what it means.  It's from the Latin. Omni means "all" and Potent means "powerful."  God is all powerful.  

That should be obvious to us to us when we look at creation.  We scan the sky with the help of a powerful space-based telescope like Hubble and we see an estimated 100 billion galaxies! We're talking galaxies, not just single stars. A hundred billion galaxies! Who can fathom the power that it took to create such a universe from nothing?  It is incomprehensible!

The Bible tells us that nothing is impossible with God.  God can do anything, anything that is, except something that violates his character.  God cannot be evil, because evil is not a part of his character.  Also, God can choose to limit what He does in a given situation.  The limitation is self-imposed and does not in any way alter the fact that God can do anything. Look at the Son of God hanging on the cross. He chose not to assert his divine power to rescue Himself from death at the hands of evil men, because He knew that his death would atone for our sins.  That was a self-limitation.  Could He have stepped down from the cross at any time? Of course He could have.

Miracles are common in Scripture. Even though miracles violate the laws of nature, God can do miracles because He established the laws of nature.  It is not too difficult for Him to do something that appears "impossible" according to the laws of nature.  Because He established them, He can also circumvent the laws of nature whenever He sees fit.

Because God is omnipotent, He will never get tired, grow weary or wear out.  He has all power at his disposal all of the time.  All power. Unlimited power. Absolute power.

What does this mean? You'll never find yourself is a situation that is too difficult for God to handle.  You need never doubt that He can intervene for you at any time, in any way imaginable.  However, that doesn't mean that He will.  Remember, I said that God can choose to limit his power, or simply choose not use it in a given circumstance. 

Sometimes, it's hard for us to understand why He chooses not to intervene with his divine power, but we need to remember that God is love.  He works all things, good and bad alike, for our good because He loves us.  We might wish that He would intervene in some miraculous way when we're facing a tough situation, but that is his sovereign choice.  

Nevertheless, when you're overwhelmed by whatever it is that you're up against, remember that God's power is never too small to see you through.  He is all powerful.  

God: God Is Love

One of the most wonderful things that the Bible tells us about God is that God is love. This should not surprise us in any way.  God loved us so much that He sacrificed his own Son in order to reconcile us to Himself.  But why should a Being who has existed eternally, wholly sufficient in and of Himself, have any conception of love? 

I believe that the reason God is love is because God is Triune.  The word Trinity or Triune is never used in the Bible.  It is a term Christians have coined to describe how God has revealed Himself to us in his Word.  The Bible clearly states that God is One and there is only One True God.  At the same time, God has revealed Himself to us in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

You can find all three persons of the Trinity in the very first chapter of the Bible. God the Father is the Creator at work to form the universe.  God the Holy Spirit is also present and active, "hovering over the waters." From the Gospel of John we know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God is the Word of God made flesh, and that "through him all things were made." Thus, we see the Son of God active in creation in the repeated formula, "and God said..."

There are numerous clear references to the Trinity all through the Old and New Testaments. Thus, we understand that although God existed alone before creation began, God existed in relationship with Himself from eternity and before He created anything or anyone else.  Because this is true, clearly God is by nature relational.  And relationships involve love. Of course, human relationships also involve conflict. Why was there never any conflict between the three persons of the Trinity throughout eternity? Although there are three persons, there is only one God. All three persons are of one substance and therefore there can be no conflict within the Trinity.

Don't try to figure out how there can be only one God yet three persons.  You and I are not smart enough to understand the Trinity.  We can't wrap our brains around God!  We can only accept what God has clearly revealed to us.

So what does this mean?  A God who has existed in relationship from eternity is a God who understands love.  God is love because God is relational. You can always count on God's love.  It knows no limits.  God was willing to take our place and bear our punishment in order to atone for our sins so that we could be restored to a relationship with Him.  Truly, that kind of a God is love!

God: God Is

God Is. That is a very simple but profound statement. The implication of that statement that I want to explore is this: God is eternal. The famous atheist Richard Dawkins likes to ask, "Who made God?"  It is a foolish question. Everything that has a beginning must have a cause. But behind every cause there must necessarily be one uncaused eternal cause of everything else.

A few decades ago scientists liked to argue that the universe was eternal, until the universe itself provided irrefutable evidence that it had a beginning.  Scientists called it "the big bang."  What caused the big bang? According to science it just happened when an infinitesimally small point of matter and energy exploded and the universe was born.  But I would ask, "Where did that point of matter/energy come from?" If it existed eternally, what caused it to explode? Since it had remained an infinitesimally small point of matter and energy from eternity, then there was nothing within it to cause it to explode.  Something external must have done that. Otherwise it would still be infinitesimally small. 

God is. He has existed from eternity and always will exist. He is the cause of everything else that exists, including time and space, matter and energy. If there is no God, then nothing at all would exist.

Because God is eternal, God is also immutable, that is, unchangeable.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  His character never changes. His power never changes.  His wisdom never changes. His love never changes.

Because God existed before time and He created time, therefore He is not affected by time. God is. You cannot say that God was, because He always IS. You cannot say that God will be, because He is in the future right now! He knows the end from the beginning because He is apart from time. Just as He is not bound by the dimensions of space that we experience, so He is not bound by the dimension of time that we live in.  Time is what allows us to experience change. Without time there would be no change.  As a result, God, who is eternal and exists apart from time, does not change. 

What does this mean?  You can count on God! He is always there for you. He will never cease to be there.  He is always the same.  Therefore His love for you will never change.  His power to help you will never change. We live in a world of constant change, and this can leave us feeling very unsettled. Let God be your constant in a world of change.  God is.

The Counsel of the Holy

While on my bike this morning I was thinking what it would be like to have been inside the colloquy of the
Godhead before creation began.

Father: It’s wonderful to share this love we have among ourselves, but wouldn’t it be even more wonderful to share it with many others?

Son: You mean create being like us, in our image, to share our love with.

Father: Yes. 

Son: There’s just one problem. For them to freely love us they would have to be sovereign like us, which means they could also choose to rebel against us and despise us.

Spirit: And once they understood that they could choose their own will over our will, pride would make them want to be like God.

Father: Yes I understand that, but I think it would be worth the cost to be able to share infinitely more love than we share within ourselves right now.

Son: The cost would be tremendous.  Once they rebelled against us, they would never be able to restore our fellowship on their own.  We would have to do that for them.

Father: Yes, we will have to.  Are you willing, Son?

Son: Father, you know that I am.  If I become one of them and live in perfect harmony with us, then I can make the perfect sacrifice for their sins.

Spirit:  But what a sacrifice that will be!  Are you sure you want to do that?

Son: In order to share our love with billions of more people, yes I am.

Spirit: It’s wonderful that we have no rebellion or disharmony among ourselves.

Father: That’s because it’s impossible.  We are of one substance.  Even though there are three of us, there is only one of us.

Spirit:  And that will forever remain a mystery to those we create in our image.

Father: Impossible for them to comprehend.

Son: Just as it will be impossible for them to comprehend how I will be both fully divine and fully human at the same time.

Father: Another mystery.

Son:  But we must do more than redeem them.  Once I have atoned for their sins and credited my perfect righteousness to them by faith, we will have to transform them to become like me.

Spirit: That’s where I come in.  You will go and become one of them and live among them to redeem them.  I will live within them to transform their hearts and minds so that they will become holy.

Father:  That won’t be an easy task.  Sin will cling to them as long as they live, once they have tasted the pride of rebellion. 

Son: That’s why my death for their sins will not be the end.  I will rise again from the dead so that they too may live again, after they have died for their sins.

Spirit: So that even though they die, they will live forever with us.

Father: Yes, in perfect unity and harmony forever.  They will share our glory.

Son: That sounds like a plan.  Where should we start?

Father:  They’re going to need a place to live, a place that reflects our glory.  Let us make a spectacular universe that will declare the power, wisdom and glory we have to every one of them.

Son:  And let’s make them in a wonderful fashion, in such a fantastic manner that they will see our glory everywhere in their own beings.  It will be amazing when they discover the secret code written in their cells to give them life.

Spirit:  It will be just as amazing for them to realize that they are more than just physical beings, that they have a soul, a spirit so that they can share in our love.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Let us begin.  Let there be light…

I’m sure it was nothing like that, but that’s the best my puny mind can imagine about our glorious, holy, Triune God.  I’m just glad they had that conversation somewhere in eternity, because otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.

The Mercy Seat

Many Old Testament prophecies foretold the coming of the Messiah. Most of them are familiar to us.  Other Old Testament rituals also foreshadowed the gift of a Savior, such as the Passover Lamb.  There is one such Old Testament foreshadowing that many Christians have missed, however.  It is found in Exodus 25, when God described to Moses the construction of the Ark of the Covenant and specifically the cover for the Ark, called the Atonement Cover or the Mercy Seat.

"Then make the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—from pure gold. It must be 45 inches long and 27 inches wide. Then make two cherubim from hammered gold, and place them on the two ends of the atonement cover." (Exodus 25:17-18)

This Atonement Cover took on great importance once a year on the Day of Atonement.  The High Priest was to offer a goat as a sin offering and would then enter the Most Holy Place and sprinkle some of the blood of the goat on the mercy seat in order to atone for the sins of the people. Thus the blood of the sacrifice would rest on the flat surface between the two cherubim on each end of the Atonement Cover.

On the first Easter the women went to the tomb and were surprised to find the stone had been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. They were greeted by an angel announcing that Jesus had risen from the dead.  They ran to tell the disciples and Peter and John ran to the tomb to see for themselves, with Mary Magdalene following them.  She lingered after they left and John reports in his Gospel: "Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot."  This description of what Mary saw is remarkable. 

The empty tomb of Jesus had essentially become the Most Holy Place. Just as the veil in the temple had been torn when Jesus died, now at his resurrection the stone had been removed, allowing complete access to the tomb.  And instead of the Atonement Cover, there was a flat rock shelf on which the body of Christ had been laid, bloodied from the flogging and crucifixion.  Instead of two cherubim of hammered gold, God sent two angels, one to sit at either end of the place where Jesus' body had been. 

Interestingly, the Ark of the Covenant and its Atonement Cover no longer exist.  They were lost, long before the coming of our Savior.  After the time when King Josiah restored the temple of the Lord the Ark of the Covenant disappeared.  The prophet Jeremiah said that this would happen.

"In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the LORD, “men will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made." (Jeremiah 3:16)

Thus, the Atonement Cover of the Ark of the Covenant was a foreshadowing of the new place of Atonement that God had in mind, the Atonement Cover of the New Covenant that Jeremiah spoke of.

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel... This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD... I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The empty tomb became the Most Holy Place. The rock shelf where the body of Jesus lay and on which his blood dripped down  became the Atonement Cover, and the angels who spoke to Mary served as the fulfillment of the golden cherubim at each end of the original mercy seat.

The fact that the tomb was empty and that Jesus was alive was the proof positive that his blood was indeed sufficient to atone for our sins, that his sacrifice was acceptable to the Father, and that we have been redeemed and made right with God.

What an awesome God we have who would give us this foreshadowing of the death and resurrection of Jesus thousands of years beforehand! This demonstrates the truly unique and amazing character of Holy Scripture as the Word of God.  It gives us all the more confidence to believe that the events recorded in the Gospel which procured our salvation really did take place and really do seal our salvation.  Thank God for Jesus!

Have A Very Merry Materialistic Christmas!

If I told you that I’ve never been a big fan of Christmas, my wife Diana would have said, “Now, that’s an understatement!” I think a big part of my turn off has always been the materialism of Christmas.  Merchants use it to sell everything imaginable at exorbitant prices.  So when I was assigned to preach this year on “The Materialism that Stole Christmas,” I looked forward to the opportunity with relish.  Interestingly, it turned out differently than I expected.  I discovered something about Christmas that I had forgotten, or at least neglected in my mind.

The real message and meaning of Christmas is story about materialism.  It is the story of how the God of the universe who is Spirit, but who created everything material that exists, entered into the world which He created in the person of His Son.  It’s the story of how God became man in order to save sinful human beings. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

In reality, the most important aspect of Christmas is the material one, the fact that Jesus Christ took on flesh and blood in order to become our substitute. Only as a real human being could Jesus take our place in living a life of holiness in perfect obedience to His Father’s will.  This is the life that God’s righteousness demands of us, but that we can never live because of our sinful human nature. Because of our sin, we are under the condemnation of the Law.  We deserve to die eternally.  But Jesus took our place. “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5)

Because Jesus lived His life perfectly in our place, he was able to offer His life as the sacrifice for our sins by dying on the cross.  He was only able to do this because He had a material body, because He was fully human, even though He was also fully divine.  This is the miracle of the Incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas.

However, since the beginning of Christianity, there have been false prophets who have sought to deny that Jesus was fully human.“Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.” (2 John 7) So there is a form of “anti-materialism” that can steal Christmas by denying that Jesus came into the world as both true God and true man.  If Jesus wasn’t fully human He could not take our place.  He could not be our substitute.  He could not die and rise again for us.  And that lie can also rob us of eternity. 

This was probably my wife’s favorites Christmas decoration.  She loved it because to her, Santa Claus has come to represent the materialism of Christmas, but Jesus is the reality of Christmas.  So this image shows us the false materialism of Christmas becoming subject and submitting to the real materialism of Christmas, which is Christ, the Son of God born as a real human being.

So do not forget the truth that Christmas really is about something material.  It is all about God becoming a man.  It’s all about the Incarnation.  Without the material gift of God’s Son, we would not have anything to celebrate at Christmas. That’s exactly the reason why we give material gifts at Christmas, to commemorate the gift of God’s own Son.  It is appropriate that we give material gifts to those we love, because God, out of love for us, gave us a material gift of His own, Jesus Christ our Savior.   But even as we buy and wrap and exchange material gifts at Christmas time, let’s make sure that our focus always remains on Jesus, the greatest material gift of all.

Unrestrained Evil!

This afternoon, shortly after returning home from church, I heard the devastating news about the horrific church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas.  This small town is about 35 miles southeast of where I live in San Antonio.  For such a massacre to take place so close to home forces one to come to grips with the reality of this evil in a whole new way.

I am a man of great faith, but I have to confess that my first reaction to this report was the same as my first reaction to the reports of the massacre in Las Vegas a few weeks ago.  "God, why would you let this happen?"  In a sense, we can never understand the answer to that question because we will never have  a command of anywhere near the knowledge, understanding and information that God has at his command.  God does restrain evil.  His Word makes that clear.  But God does not restrain all evil.  And we probably would not be able to understand why evil is seemingly allowed a free hand on some occasions even if God tried to explain it to us.

As I reflected on this shooting through the course of the day, a number of thoughts came to mind.  This world is very evil.  Why is that?  It's because ever since Adam and Eve misused their free will to rebel against God's command, sin has been a reality in the heart and mind of every human being that ever lived.  Evil is real, but it is not just an impersonal force floating around in the universe. It is a part of the very nature of our being.

If you doubt that evil is a very real part of your being, just imagine a machine that would portray your every thought on a theater screen for everyone to see.  How long do you think you could perfectly control your thoughts while sitting there looking out at the audience of your friends, neighbors, family, co-workers?  How long before thoughts of jealousy, envy, hatred, lust, revenge, greed, or a thousand other sinful ideas would be played out for everyone to see?

Yes, evil resides in everyone of us. Left to our own devices, we are all capable of the worst evil that we can imagine.  But thank God that for those of us who know and believe in Jesus Christ, there is a check on the evil within us.  That check is our faith and the power of the Holy Spirit.  It begins with the realization that there is a God to whom we must answer.  The Bible says that "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom."  The fear of God can restrain evil within us and help us make wise choices about our actions.

But even more so, it is our new birth though faith in Jesus Christ that helps us overcome the evil within us and helps us live our lives to the glory of God.  "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation."  It is Christ living in us that empowers us to say no to sin and say yes to God.  Furthermore, the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is going on in us to transform us into the image of God's Son.  "It is God's will that you should be sanctified," Scripture says.

The more we immerse ourselves in God's Word, the more we seek God's face in prayer, the more we honor Him in worship, the more we taste of His grace in the Lord's Supper, and the more we serve Him with our hands and feet as we serve others in love, the more the evil within us will be overcome.

What America needs to overcome the kind of evil that we've seen in Las Vegas and in Sutherland Springs is repentance and faith.  Jesus warned us, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world." Because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ at work in the hearts and lives of God's people all manner of evil is restrained every moment of every day.  But because unrepentance and unbelief is rampant all around us, there will always be evil to contend with.  Some of it God will choose to restrain outwardly. Some of it will be limited by His divine power.  And some will seemingly go unchecked. In the last instance we must trust God's promise that He works all things for the good of those who love Him, even if we cannot comprehend how that will be.

But to give up on faith because of evil men like the one who senselessly massacred 26 people at First Baptist Church this morning will only make the world more evil.  When we who have faith lose it because of evil, we become more evil ourselves.  Cling to faith, it is the only thing that can restrain the evil within us.