A New Sermon Series: The God We Worship

This is a new series I began September 25, 2005. I want to help the church to look at the mystery of God and to see more clearly who we worship and why. It is one of the most challenging series that I have prepared. I hope those of you reading find it helpful. God bless.
Larry

The God We Worship: “I am God, and there is none like me.“
Isaiah 46:9-10; 40:25-26

Introduction: In Kenya we lived just a few miles from the equator and one of the events that occurred several times in our years there were partial and even a full eclipse. These are rare events and people came from all over the world to witness it. One of things that they warn people about is looking directly at the sun during the eclipse; it can blind you completely in a very short time. In Exodus 33:18-20 Moses asks to see God but cannot and live. In a sense that is what we are going to try and do these next few weeks, look at God. We can’t do it directly but God has revealed himself in ways that we can perceive. That is what we want to try to do. It will be difficult because God is a difficult being for limited people like us to understand.
I. Why This Study?
Some of you may be thinking this sounds difficult and I confess that it is. This will not be easy material but it will be enriching. The more understanding we have of God and his character the more we will appreciate the God we worship. A lot of people have difficulty in believing in God. As one Bible professor who frequently had students come to talk to him about their doubts about God said, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in. I probably don’t believe in him either.” Our misunderstanding of God is not inconsequential. If our view of God is off then our worship will be off because we will be worshipping a false “god.”
Another aspect of this is that the better we understand God the better we will understand ourselves. We are a people created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). As we understand God we understand what God’s goal is. It is his desire for us to become as his children. Such an understanding can be transformative.
It also helps to understand how we should interact with each other. The revelation of God that Jesus brought and the Holy Spirit continues to teach is that God is community, one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How we as people and as Christians are to treat and deal with one another is based on the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit.
II. God is Unique
The text that was read this morning tells us something important about God, “I am God, and there is none like me.“ Isa.46:9. God is completely and totally unique. When something is unique it is unlikely anything else. Comparisons can be made but are always inadequate. Imagine for a moment you are talking to someone who has been blind all their life and they ask you, “What is ‘red’?” What would you say? This in a small way describes our difficulty in talking about God.
Language and culture is made up of shared experience and images. In most things it is easy to communicate but some are more difficult than others and this is true with God. God asks the question, "’To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One.” Isa 40:25. Words are inadequate to describe God and yet we try, God even uses our language to describe himself. Words like “Father” and “Son” bring images to our minds and yet even though the Bible uses these words they are limited. God is like a father in many ways and yet He is unlike any father we have ever known. Even the pronouns we use such as “he” imply certain gender connotations which are incorrect. While it is possible to go overboard with “politically correct” language we need to recognize the limitations of any language to describe our God who is totally unique.
The difficulty of describing God is seen in one of God’s early encounters with the man Moses in Ex. 3:13-14. Moses wants to know what God’s name is. The answer is, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" The words could also be translated, “I WIL BE WHAT I WILL BE.” This seems odd to us until we understand that “I AM” constitutes the name “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”. God is saying to Moses, “I exist, I am God.” God is not some local deity, some idol made of wood or stone. The burning bush where Moses encountered God should have been consumed by the fire but was not. God is unique, unlike anything Moses had encountered before.
III. What Does It Mean?
There are some real implications for us as people of God when we consider his uniqueness. Walking with the “I AM” of the Bible will always be an unpredictable adventure. We will never understand God. We will understand some things about God but even those things we think we know can, and often are, challenged by realities we face in life. Job found that out. This righteous, godly man who humbly obeyed God had his life turned upside down in the blink of an eye. Job challenged God to explain what had happened to him yet when God spoke it was not a defense, not an explanation, but an expanded version of “I AM WHAT I AM.” Job was overwhelmed by his encounter with God and could only say,
"I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
[You asked,] 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?'
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
["You said,] 'Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.'
My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes."
Job 42:2-6

Some people want a predictable God, a ‘safe’ God. If that is what you want then you are in the wrong place. Following this God is an adventure of a lifetime. Our God will bless us and let us suffer. He will call on us to do difficult, impossible things. He will lead us into dark places if we would follow him. He will take us in the midst of our most terrible failures and find ways redeem us and to use us for his purposes. In the words of C.S. Lewis, our God is not safe but he is good. God’s ‘good’ is not always safe or comfortable or easy or understandable.
We worship God because we have a relationship with him. To worship God in truth it is necessary to acknowledge God’s uniqueness, to stand in awe of God we cannot understand but desire to know. When we ‘see’ this God we, like Job, are struck silent. Our worship is like that of Paul who wrote,
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Rom 11:33-36

Livonia Church of Christ: September 25, 2005