God the Father

Tom Shrader emphasizes that Christianity is fundamentally about belief (doctrine) rather than behavior, though what we believe inevitably affects how we behave. He addresses confusion about God's nature in contemporary culture, explaining that people follow their own hunches, believe all views are equally valid, and want to avoid their sinfulness. Drawing from John 5, he shows that God the Father is actively working in the world today, not distant or uninvolved.

“Christianity is not a matter of behavior, it's a matter of belief.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Christianity 101 (2004)

Recorded: 2004

Duration: 41 min

Themes: faith, belief, doctrine, truth, confusion, behavior, nature, foundation, questioning faith, confused about god, new believer, seeking truth, doubting christian, biblical student, church member, spiritual seeker

Scripture: John 5:16-17, Genesis 1, Romans 5:8, Psalm 121, Psalm 139, 1 Peter 5:7, Colossians 1:15

Theological Themes: theology proper, god the father, biblical faith, christian doctrine, divine nature, systematic theology, orthodox belief, biblical worldview

Full Transcript

This is session three, and because of the holidays, this will break up in an odd way. We've never done anything like this. Normally we end before the holidays and come back at the first of the year with "What kind of year was 2002?" or "How to make 2003 the best year of your life" and then start a new series. But we're going to have two or three messages left after the holiday break. I'm going to continue because all of these messages are important.

This is a very unusual message this morning. Someone asked me in the hall what we were going to look at today. It's broad in its nature and probably more preventative and reactionary than just trying to teach a specific point. If that introduction confuses you, that's okay.

We're going to take about twenty to twenty-five minutes and just provide a framework. When we get to your outline, we're really only going to look at the first three points. Today we're going to look at God the Father.

Setting the Framework

Let me remind you of what we've done, where we are, and where we're going, and react to some of the things we see around us. For example, there seems to be a great deal of confusion about God. Who is He? What is He like? So I'm going to talk about that.

Let me remind you of the territory we've covered. This is very important. The first week, we concluded that doctrine is essential. Webster defines doctrine something like this: principles or tenets of a creed or of a religion. When we tend to think of doctrine, we tend to think of something dull, dreary, something that puts you to sleep.

A couple of years ago, Phoenix Seminary was trying to be accredited. Part of the accreditation process is they have to have 50,000 volumes in their library to be accredited. To me, of course, that seems so antiquated with the internet and everything else, but I understand it. That's what you need: 50,000 volumes.

When I heard that, I found myself wondering—and there's no way to know—how many of those 50,000 volumes in the course of a year ever get read or even picked up, even opened, even examined. My suspicion would be that there are a thousand or two that get worked on pretty heavily, and the other 48,000 probably sit there closed most of the time. Maybe periodically they're picked up and scoured real quickly because someone needs a footnote or a reference or something for a bibliography.

When I think of doctrine, I probably in my mind go to those 48,000 books that never get touched. But what I want you to understand is that doctrine is absolutely essential.

The Foundation of Christianity

Here's something crucial to understand. One of the things about being away, like I was last week, is when you're away, you realize that so many of the things we talk about every week are brand new to other people. Not everyone has the opportunity to go through these things on a weekly basis, or even some of these insights.

One of the insights that we come back to again and again in this study is this: Christianity is not a matter of behavior; it's a matter of belief. That is a very important truth. Our Christian faith is based on what we believe, not how we behave.

You're talking about Bob. Bob's a good Christian guy. What makes him a good Christian guy? You start to say, "Well, he's a great businessman, he's a good dad, he's good to his wife, he's good to his friends, he pays his bills on time, so he's a good Christian." That is not Christianity. There are Buddhists who do that, there are Hindus who do that, there are pagans who do that.

What makes a person a Christian is their belief, their doctrine. Go back to Webster's definition: the tenets or the principles of their religion, of their creed. For us as Christians, we believe not that Jesus was a great teacher, or Jesus was a great philosopher, or that Jesus was a great man, or that Jesus is the greatest man who ever lived. We believe that Jesus Christ was God come in the flesh to live on this earth, to die on the cross, so that His people could have eternal life. We believe He was born of a virgin. We believe He rose from the dead. We believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God. We believe these sets of doctrines. We believe in salvation by grace through faith, not through works. That's our belief system.

If you don't believe that, you aren't a Christian. You may call yourself a Christian. You may think that you're a Christian. Bill O'Reilly last night said 95% of the people in the country are Christians. Well, they may call themselves Christians, but they aren't Christians. They are not going to adhere to these tenets of the faith.

Belief Affects Behavior

Having said that, what we believe has to affect how we behave. It inevitably affects how we behave. If I say to you, "Look, here's this stock, ABC stock, and it's trading today at a buck and a half. But I happen to know—I've got some friends doing some R&D, and I'm involved in a project here—and I'm just telling you, within a month or two, this company is going to have a product that's going to revolutionize their industry, capture the market, not just in this country, but around the world. And it is absolutely conservative to say that that stock is going to be at twenty bucks by the end of the year."

If you really believe that—first of all, if you really believe that, you're silly because you've lost a lot of money over the years. But if you really believe that, what are you going to do? You're going to buy it. You're going to call your broker, you're going to go online, you're going to do something, and you're going to acquire as much of ABC stock as is reasonable.

within your portfolio. Because what you believe affects how you behave. If you believe that Al-Qaeda has planted a bomb in this ceiling fan, and that bomb is set to go off at 7:15, and it's now about 7:12, and you really believe that, you are heading for the door. And the only thing that's going to be ahead of you is me. If you're going to stick around here, and some of you are very spiritual and you want to pray about it, you pray your little brains out, I'm gone. If I believe there's a bomb in there, I'm out. You see that? This isn't hard to understand. What you believe affects how you behave.

My doctrine that's so important inevitably affects how I behave. So doctrine has great practical ramifications. That was the first week.

Finding Answers in God's Word

Second week. If I say I need to have answers about God and who He is and all the other things that I worry about, where do I get those answers? And the answer to that is in the Bible, in the Scripture itself. The Bible is an infallible Word of God. I can rely on it. It can be proven true, either externally, through science, archaeology, all that kind of stuff.

Remember, I hadn't been a Christian very long, and I was reading some article in a magazine, critical of Scripture, and it said such and such a king. I don't even remember who it was. Such and such a king in the Old Testament, and the Scripture's built throughout this. There's absolutely no historical record that this man ever existed. Here's another example of Scripture making this up. And it was about six months later, in an archaeological dig, they found a coin. They found the reference. They found everything that referred to the very guy that six months before was the very reason not to believe in the Bible. And every time there's an archaeological dig, science comes along. It does not disprove. It only reinforces it. That's external evidence.

Internal evidence are the things that the Scripture itself brings that shows it's valid. And the most overwhelming of those is fulfilled prophecy. Some 2,000 prophecies made hundreds and in some cases thousands of years ahead of time that have been fulfilled. 61 dealing specifically with Christ alone. And the mathematical probability of that is so enormous that mathematically that Christ is who He said He was and the Messiah is more reliable than the second law of thermodynamics. So it's just there. You may not want to believe it, but it's there. It's reliable. So we go to the Word of God.

Understanding an Infinite God with a Finite Mind

When we come to the Word of God, we've got an issue. And the issue is this. There are lots of things in there that we cannot fully comprehend or fully understand. And yet we believe them because the Bible teaches them. And that's not to commit intellectual suicide. That's simply to acknowledge that God is smarter than you.

Daniel Webster was once asked, How can a man of your mental caliber believe that 3 equals 1? He's speaking of the Trinity. And Webster's answer is a classic. I do not pretend to fully understand the arithmetic of heaven now. I can't understand it. There are things I'm not going to be able to comprehend.

If I can just bring this down to an everyday level, we deal with those things all the time. I deal with stuff that I can't fully comprehend or fully understand all the time. And I use them rather effectively. The second thing I did this morning when I got up was turn on the light. I turned on the light. I don't understand it. I don't understand how you get water, and it's in the Colorado River, and it comes to this, and there's a power plant, and it goes through here. I don't know. I don't care. It doesn't matter. All I want to know is when I throw the switch, the light's there.

My life, like yours, has become pretty dependent upon a computer. I have not got the foggiest idea how this thing works, and absolutely no interest in understanding it. Now, those are inaccurate parallels, but they give you at least some reference for what we're trying to say.

The Mystery of the Trinity

You've got an infinite God who's communicating to a finite mind. And God has given us everything that we either are supposed to know or need to know to get through this life, and He's given it to us in this book. We don't add to the book. We don't take away from the book. Remember that? And that's why even thinking about heaven, because we'll hear this all the time, when I get to heaven, I'll fully understand. No, you won't. I don't think you will fully understand. You'll still have a finite mind trying to comprehend an infinite God. There are things that you cannot fully understand. There are things that you cannot fully comprehend.

Trinity is a great example. Genesis 1, when God says, let us make man in our image, plural, personal pronoun, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three separate, equal persons. Well, are we polytheists? Do we believe in many gods? No, we believe in one God. Well, how can three be one? I don't know. I just know that they are, because that's what the Bible teaches. And I say it to you again, that's not intellectual suicide. That's yielding to the fact that God's mind is greater than mine. And I can't necessarily understand everything that He says and everything that He does, and nor do I need to fully understand the whys to all things.

Introducing Our Study of God

So that's what we looked at the first two weeks. Today, we begin what will be three weeks looking at the topic of God. God the Father. In two weeks, because it's a holiday now, God the Son. And then the week after that, the Holy Spirit. As I said at the beginning, we're going to spend very little time on developing the idea of God the Father. I just simply want to tweak you more than anything. And I want to do it for this reason. Number one, there is a great deal of confusion about God and who He is. Let me give you from my mind, and remember I said this is going to be a long introduction, but I want you to get a hold of this. And this is very practical

for when you go out the door and you start to deal with other people. People are confused about who God is for three reasons.

Following Their Own Hunches

Here's the first reason: They're following their own hunches. When it comes to defining God, they're following their own hunches. They're going with what they think is true.

I'm at the bookstore checking out, and I get up. There's a guy and a gal in front of me, and the guy says, "I'm a Christian." So that's what's going on when I walk into the conversation. The lady says to him, "Well, how can that possibly be? You're a bright guy. You're an intelligent guy. You're doing this. How can you possibly believe in these ancient myths and all these things that go on? How can you possibly believe this?" And he said, "Well, I just believe the Bible."

She said, "How can you possibly—how can a loving God ever send anybody to hell? How can a loving God..." And then she just drills him with point after point after point. And what she's saying is—and I was waiting for this guy, but he's like most men—he didn't have any backbone when he had the chance here to turn around and just simply say to her, "What do you believe?" And then just simply say, "Why do you believe that?" And whatever she says, say, "Why do you believe that?" That's two. And then say, "Why do you believe that?"

If you get five "Why do you believe it?" You'll have her bankrupt because she's out of answers at that point. It's simply about how many whys we have in us. Why do you believe it? And I'll give you the answer: because that's what she thinks is true, and that's what she feels, and that's what she believes.

Years ago, I'm a non-Christian. I go to see a movie. Remember "Oh God"? I go to see "Oh God." There's George Burns. I should have known at the very beginning it's not necessarily biblically based if George Burns is going to be God, but I wasn't. I'm watching this movie, and do you remember the plot? Let me give it to you very quickly. God appears to John Denver, and John Denver now has seen God. Now John Denver starts to speak for God, so now they're going to have this inquisition. They're going to put him on trial, and they're going to test him.

He's having a prep scene the night before with God. George Burns is preparing him for these questions. And so John Denver says, "Is Jesus your only son?" And George Burns, God, says this: "No, He's not my only son. Jesus is my son. Buddha is my son. Confucius is my son. You're my son. I have sons all over the place. I'm God, and there are many ways to me—legitimate ways to me."

And I walked out of that movie, and here's what I said: "That! Finally, somebody has said what's true. That's really good." Now here's what I want you to see. Here's what I did: That just worked perfect for where I was. That's very freeing to think that there's all these different ways to God, and God is just whoever He wants to be and whatever I think He is.

Someone has said this: "God made man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since." We're creating God as we want Him to be. So we shape Him. So when somebody says, "My God would never..." what they're saying is, "The God that I've created would never do this."

So there's a lot of confusion about God. Number one, because people are following their own hunches. When they do this, by the way, they're going to start to take God, and they're going to develop a God different than the God of the Bible, especially when things come into their lives that they don't understand or are difficult.

All Beliefs Are Equally Valid

Here's the second reason there's confusion about God: People believe that all beliefs are equally true or equally valid.

When I quit taking the newspaper—this was years and years ago—they did a survey. Now I know I'm a little weird here, because I know you'd read the survey and just go on with it, but it drove me nuts. Here was the survey: "57% of the residents of Maricopa County believe that the state is doing an inadequate job of disposing of toxic waste."

Now let me ask you: Do you know one person who's qualified to speak to that issue? Not one. But they're stopping people on the street corner, and they've got to come up with some answer. And of course there's a conspiracy here. So yeah, they're doing a rotten job, and big business is stealing money on it too, I'll bet you. It's absolutely stupid to ask that question. The people are not capable of understanding whether the government is doing an adequate job of disposing of toxic waste. You're just not. I don't know. I don't have the foggiest idea.

You see this? Not everybody's view is equally valid.

If you've got a young start-up company—you've got a young dot-com company—and you're thinking of taking it public, and you want to get some counsel on this, would you rather have lunch with me or Bill Gates? I mean, I've got an opinion. I'm with the baseball guys, and we're talking about mechanics, we're talking about pitching. If you want to talk about pitching, do you want to listen to me, or do you want to go over there and talk to Noel and Ryan who are sitting there? What do you want to do? This isn't hard to figure out.

If you're George W. Bush, and you want to look at the economy and evaluate the economy, do you want to bring me into the Oval Office or Milton Friedman? This is not hard to understand.

That everyone has a view is fine. And that everyone is entitled to a view is fine. That we are all equal in the eyes of the law is fine. But that we're all true and right on every subject is silly. We aren't. Everybody's view is not equally valid on every topic.

So you've got people sitting around, going down to Starbucks, having a cup of coffee, and having this deep theological discussion. And all they're doing is exchanging one ignorant thought for another uninformed thought. That's all that's happening there. There's no basis. There's no thought.

And I don't say that arrogantly. I'm saying this as a guy that's been there. I've been there. I've done that. I've lived it. I had a whole theology developed based on what I thought, what I felt, what I wanted to be true. That doesn't make it true.

A lot of confusion about God exists for three reasons. Number one, because people are following their own hunches. Number two, all views are viewed as equally true. Here's the third reason: we want to avoid our own sinfulness. I don't want to come up with some scheme where no matter what happens, in the end of the day, when it's finally done, I'm a victim. I don't ever want to have to deal with this reality that I have in my life—my own sinfulness. So I believe in the midst of this, that now I put these things together, I start to shape God as I want Him to be.

Common Responses to Difficulty

And I know, as I told you at the beginning, this is long, I hope it's not rambling, and I hope it's beneficial. But when you go and you talk to people, and that's what we encourage you to do—you're supposed to be salt and light, you're the ones that are supposed to be out there communicating with people—this is what you're going to run into.

Somebody has a difficult time. Somebody has a hard time. Somebody has hardship in their life. Their flinch, if they don't know the God of the Bible, is to create a God who somehow can be pardoned for the difficulty. That's all the idea of open theism is—that God just doesn't have a clue what's going on. God would have stopped September 11th, but He didn't know. Or He couldn't.

A Real-Life Example

Let me give you a great example. This, by the way, and I don't say this very often, this is really good right here. This is something that you can use day in, day out right here.

Two weeks ago today, there's a gal that comes to one of the PL studies. Neat gal. Met her through the study. Came in. Thought she was a believer. Was here a while. Became convinced she wasn't a believer. Came to Christ. God changes her life. Lives a while. Gets engaged. Gets married.

Two weeks ago today, I'm teaching on the Bible, God, reliable doctrine. You know it. You can get the CD. I'm sitting at home that night. The phone rings. Susan's really good at dealing with the phone and not just allowing all sorts of calls just to come into the house, whatever nature they are. And so I hear Susan and I hear her say something, but she's got a strange reaction going. And she's doing her thing: "Well, can I tell him who's calling? Can I tell him what you're looking for?" And then she came and she said, "You're going to want to take this."

So I say hello. It's this lady, this girl on the phone. And she's crying. And she's not making a lot of sense. And the phone drops. Somebody else picks it up and says, "Her husband was just killed in a helicopter wreck." Remember the helicopter wreck in California a couple of weeks ago? This is it. She said, "Can you come over tonight? Can you come over now?" She's trying to figure out, "Can you come over?" She's asking if you would come over. I said, "Sure. So you've got to give me directions because I have never been there."

The Crisis Conversation

So I go. And we're in there and there's lots of stuff going on. And there's lots of people around. People are starting to come. Everybody that comes in, it's a moment. You know what it's like. So we're trying to talk. She's trying to talk. And I said, "Come on, let's go outside. Let's go outside where there won't be anybody around and we can talk, just the two of us." So I said, "Let's walk. Let's take a little walk here."

So we're walking along and she's just—can you paint the picture? Do you understand how this would be? This is not something that you've been prepared for through long illness. This is something that happens. This is a 36-year-old man, very healthy. And so she's processing it, all this.

So we've been walking maybe for 15 or 20 minutes. So I said, "Tell me what you're feeling. Tell me what you're thinking." She said, "Well, I'm angry. I'm confused. I don't know how it happened. Why did it happen? Where did it happen? What was the point? Was somebody at fault? What about my future? What do we do? How do we pay bills? Where do we live? I mean, help me here."

You got all that? You see that? And then I said this to her: "Okay, you told me what you felt and you told me what you believe and you told me you were thinking. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you know."

The Power of Biblical Truth

And she said, "Well, I know that God will never tempt me or test me beyond that which I can endure. I know that God will never leave me or forsake me. I know that if I pursue His kingdom, all these other things will be taken care of. I know that all things work together for good." And then she just gave me a litany of things.

And she stopped and she said, "This is exactly what we talked about this afternoon in Priority Living, isn't it?" Men and women, that's a key moment right there. And in your life, you're going to have the opportunity to implement that kind of conversation dozens and dozens and dozens of times. Maybe by yourself in a car. Maybe with other people.

See, at that moment, I happen to know her and I know she's a believer. And I met with her yesterday now that the dust has settled. And I said, "You know, you were incredible that first night. You went right to what you know. And that's what sustains you in the midst of this."

When you're dealing with somebody like that though, once they answer what they know, it's very helpful because now you can understand where they are and determine whether you have a discipleship issue or an evangelism issue. That's a very helpful technique.

The Alternative: False Views of God

Well, if I understand this misconception of God and all of a sudden my husband's just been killed in a helicopter wreck, all of a sudden I'm just saying, "Well, God just couldn't do anything about it. Satan won the battle." Are you sick of hearing that from the Charismatics?

The Battle Against False Perspectives

Pentecostals enough? It's a battle against Satan. It's like Satan is sovereign. Satan's defeated. I'm so sick of hearing about that. Or let me give you the flip side of this: testing and understanding God in times of prosperity.

It's said—I have no idea how they know this—for every thousand people that pass the test of adversity, there's only one who can pass the test of prosperity. That's a far bigger test. If I say to you, you're going to be tested today in some extraordinary way, you take a second and you think about it, and you're going to think of cancer and helicopter wrecks and all the other things. The greatest test you might have is prosperity.

The Test of Prosperity in America

Are we a prosperous nation? Monday, I was meeting somebody downtown. I went into a coffee plantation. I quit drinking coffee like three or four years ago, but I'll have some funky drink every once in a while. So I went in and said, let me have one of those blim-blam-blom-blims. Whatever it is. So he gives me this thing: $4.27.

Now, I'm watching this. Here's what I'm watching—hang in there with me. I'm watching person after person come in, and this guy would say, "Hey, Carol, how are you? The usual? Yeah." Boom. "Hey, Bobby, the usual?" Here are people that—and I'm not picking on this at all—but here's somebody that goes to Starbucks every day. They'll spend $4.27. Hang in there with me. Five days a week, fifty weeks a year. That's a grand.

If you went in January 1st, and they said, "Well, your bill for the coming year is going to be $1,000. That's your dues to be at Starbucks," you'd say, "Are you nuts?" No, I'm not picking on that or Starbucks. I've got no problem with that. All I'm saying is, our general testing is in prosperity.

Lessons from the Persecuted Church

When I was in Texas, there was a guy who pastors what is supposed to be the wealthiest church in Texas, which I'm guessing is really rich. He just came back from China. He was with the persecuted church, with the poor, with everything. The last night they asked him to pray, and he prayed something like this: "Father, deliver these people from their persecution and their pain and all this."

When they were done, his host said, "I didn't want to say anything when you're there with the people, but all the time you were praying, I was praying, 'God, keep the persecution on us. God, keep the suffering coming.'" Because here's what he knew: that suffering was purifying the people, which means that the church is being purified.

When the communists took over China, there was something like—they don't know—something like 100,000 Christians. Now they believe as many as 100 million Christians. And without one missionary coming in there. There's all these things, and I can go on and on. We can talk about work. We can talk about death. We can talk about all these things.

Knowing the God of the Bible

All that introduction—long introduction—to say, when we talk about God, we want to know the God of the Bible as He's portrayed in the Bible. It doesn't do me any good. Larry King last night. Larry King's 70th birthday. So they got surprises—surprise this and Nancy Reagan. Madonna calls in. So Madonna calls in.

Madonna says—I think it was Madonna, I could be wrong, people call in pretty fast—I thought it was Madonna. And it was talking about so-and-so, and so-and-so died in such a time. And she said to Larry, "I believe he's there with you today." And he said, "Well, I hope he is." And she said, "No, I know he is."

Well, Dr. Phil was the moderator. And it would have been a great time to say, "Madonna, how do you know that?" See what Larry said? "I hope so. I hope there's life after death. I hope there's a heaven." But Larry will tell you, "I don't know." He's an agnostic. Not because he hasn't heard the Gospel, because every Christian that's ever breathed has sent him a Bible. And every one of these guys that go on there are trying to witness to him. He just doesn't believe. He will not believe, because he will not believe.

Essential Resources for Study

So here's what you need: you need resources. You need the Scripture. Let me give you a couple things, because two people today already asked me. I mentioned a book a couple weeks ago: James Boyce. B-O-I-C-E. James Boyce. It's a book about 800, 900 pages called *Foundations of the Christian Faith*. It's a book that you need to carve out six, eight months, and work your way through that.

You need to be reading books like *Knowing God* by J.I. Packer. That's the classic that we come back to again and again. *Pleasing God* by R.C. Sproul. *Chosen by God* by R.C. Sproul. *Pursuit of God* by A.W. Tozer. If you want something that's more devotional, but it's really practical, anecdotal, helpful information: *Loving God*, Chuck Colson.

Do you get a theme there? God, God, God, God... If you want to know who you are, then you need to know who He is. And if you want to know who He is, you have to go to the Bible. You don't go to the conjecture. You don't go to anticipation of things as you wish they were. You don't make decisions about God when you're overwhelmed by your circumstances and trying to figure out how does God fit into it.

The Nature of God's Attributes

Now, the outline you have in front of you. You've got about 10 minutes. Three points here. What I didn't do is give you what is a typical study of God. That would be a systematic study. And the way that you would do this is you'd look at the attributes of God.

So let me break that down for you. When we talk about the attributes of God, I think you understand what that term means. Those are those characteristics we see in God. When we see attributes of God, they break into two categories. It sounds complicated. It's not. There is non-communicable attributes and God's communicable attributes.

Now, God's non-communicable attributes are the things we see in God that are unique to Him. For example, self-existence. When did God begin? Well, God had no beginning. Eternality. Immutability. Those are all things that are attributes of God that are unique to

God also has attributes that are communicable. By that we mean we should see the same things in our life. We see them perfectly in Him. We see them imperfectly in us.

So what would be a great example of that? Love is a great one. God is love. God is perfect love. What does love look like? You and I, we're going to pick up Cosmo and try to figure out what love is. Or we're going to watch Dr. Phil try to unpack what love is. If I want to understand what those characteristics are of love, then I look to God.

Now, what do we know about God's love? Well, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. So love has this idea, this aspect of giving. It has this unconditional aspect. Romans 5:8 says God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners.

Understanding Love Through Experience

I met with... there's eight of us that meet on Tuesday and six of them are young guys. The oldest one is 26. We're just talking about life. So one of them is getting married. I said at lunch on Tuesday, "Guys that are married, tell them what surprises you about marriage. You've been married a year. You've been married a year and a half. You've been married two years. You've been married six months. Tell them what surprises you."

It was really interesting. Two of the guys said, "I'm just surprised that I don't want to have sex every day. I just thought I'd want to have sex every day. I just thought that would be a big part of it, but it's not. I mean, it's great and all that, but that's not a big part of it."

One guy said this, "I'm surprised... and this sounds harsh, but let me explain to you. I'm surprised at how much more my wife loves me than I love her. I'm surprised at how unselfish and how yielding and how giving she is toward me and how I don't respond to her that way." That's great. That's really a great answer. What he understood is love has with it this sense of unconditional aspect to it.

I added to it, the only time, and every guy I've ever talked to felt this way, the closest a man ever comes to unconditional love is at the birth of a child, primarily his first child. It's not that you sit in there and you're in awe. I wasn't in awe of nature. Here's this little bundle of nothing across between Gandhi and Churchill, ugly as can be, and I feel love for this thing. Every guy I've talked to has said the same thing. It's as close as a man is ever going to come to unconditional love. Something extraordinary about the birth of that, especially the first child. Not the awe of God and nature and all that stuff. All of a sudden, this guy has these feelings because every other sense of love a man has ever had is totally conditional.

God's Love as Our Standard

Well, if I want to understand love, I have all of a sudden landed on one of God's communicable attributes. If I want to understand love, I look at how God loves. How does God love? He gives. He demonstrates His love in that while we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us. In other words, this love is somewhat unconditional in its nature. And yet it punishes, it disciplines all those things.

Here are three points from John 5. Jesus says, and the Jewish leaders are attacking Him. "So because Jesus was doing these things," He's healing on the Sabbath. "The Jews," and there in verse 16 it means Jewish leaders, "persecuted Him. Jesus said to them, 'My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I am working too.'"

God is Actively Engaged

We learn something about God the Father, and that is, that He's actively engaged in this world. He is not, as Bette Midler sings, and as many religions seem to feel, a distant God. He is not a God who wound this thing up and then walked away from it. He's a God who's intimately involved in every detail of life.

Psalm 121, the psalmist writes this: "I will lift my eyes to the mountain from whence shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth, and He will not allow your foot to slip. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper."

Psalm 139 says it's all through Scripture. Where do I go to escape God and who He is? I can't be afraid or away from Him. God is at work. Sometimes we read the account of Genesis and we go, God did this and it was good, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good. Day six He did this and it was good and then He rested. We're thinking He was pooped and He was done and then He's never gotten back in the game again. No, He's involved and He's working today.

The Best Counselor

Interestingly, let me give you another passage. It's 1 Peter 5, verse 7: "Cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you." Cast all your cares upon Him. It is amazing to me how many people when we meet them for the first time, either through a study like this or through church, will say, "Do you know a good counselor?" That seems to be the thing to say nowadays. "Do you know a good counselor?"

Yeah, I know the best counselor. I know the perfect counselor. I'll even tell you how you approach that counselor. He's not going to take insurance and he doesn't charge you $150 an hour. "Why so downcast, oh my soul, put your trust in God?" There's your counselor.

I'm not saying we don't have things in life that we've got to process and it's good to talk to other people, but counseling really is nothing more than discipleship. Cast all your cares upon Him. One of the translations or paraphrases says, "Deposit your cares upon Him." I took that one step further in line with banking and where it is now. Pre-deposit your cares upon Him. In other words, automatic withdrawal. That's what he's talking about. Automatic withdraw your cares upon Him. When life comes with all its cares and all its difficulties and all...

Moving from Flesh to Spirit in Hardships

Its hardships, and they're coming, and I am in no way minimizing those at all. I know they come. When they come, your flinch ought to be to move out of the flesh and into the Spirit. And by that I don't mean some extraordinary experiential way. I mean, I all of a sudden rely on Him.

I acknowledge when difficulty comes, we move in the flesh. We have an instinct. We have a flinch. Something happens and we're afraid. Something happens and our first impulse may not be to trust Him. I understand that. That's fine. That's natural.

Here's the problem. We're supposed to be acting supernatural. What I'm saying to you is, after you have that natural response, and it begins to settle in, and now you stop. The dust settles. Now, you trust Him.

It's interesting. Right after this, Peter says, cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you. Be sober. Be on alert. Your adversary the devil. You have an enemy.

Jesus and the Father Are Equal

So that's the first thing about God. The second thing is that Jesus and the Father are equal. They're linked. For this reason, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only because He was breaking the Sabbath, but because He was even calling God His own Father and making Himself equal to God.

When somebody says to you, Jesus never claimed to be God, that was the whole reason they killed Jesus. He said, I and the Father are one. Before Abraham was, I am. We'll look at that in two weeks.

To Know the Father, Look at the Son

The other thing, and I want to make this point. If I want to know who God the Father is, I look at the Son. Colossians 1:15 God and His invisible powers are made visible through the Son. Jesus says, the night before He dies to Philip, Philip says, show us the Father. Show us the way out of it. And He says, listen, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. What is God the Father like? I look at the Son. I understand who He is.

Summary: Finding God in Scripture, Not Our Own Ideas

Now, let me summarize real quickly, because time is away from us. When I'm talking about God and God the Father, I'm saying to you, that's a gigantic topic. And you need to go and you need to do some work on that. And you look at God's attributes. You look at those things that are unique to Him. Separate Him from every other being in the world.

But you also see communicable attributes in God. If you want to know how you're supposed to live, how you're supposed to love, what wisdom is like, all those things, you find them in the Scripture. You find them in God and who He is.

You live in a world that's very confused about God, because people are following their own hunches. And because people are saying, if somebody has a view, all views are equally true. And people desperately want to avoid their own sinfulness. So we create gods in our own image.

If you want to know who God is, you have to go to the Scripture, because doctrine is important and the Bible is reliable. And now, if I want to understand who God the Father is, I go there and I find the answers. Do you see that? I'm not asking you to agree with it. I'm just saying, do you see that? That's the point.

Next week you're off. Thanksgiving. Have a great... That's my favorite holiday of the year. I love Thanksgiving. It's the best holiday of the year. It's got all the good things about Christmas with none of the hassles with the gifts. It's just a great holiday. So have a great Thanksgiving. And then we'll see you in two weeks and we'll look at Jesus. And I think primarily, we'll camp out in John chapter 8. So we'll be there in two weeks.

Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You for Your Son Jesus Christ. God, thank You that You've given us this Word. And because Your Spirit indwells us, we can begin to understand and comprehend who You are. God, thank You for that truth. We pray to You in Christ's name, Amen. Have a great week.