and as a church family, these are the commitments You can't be a member of Preston City Bible Church unless you agree with our doctrine, but that is good for everybody. It's good for the church family because membership has great responsibility in terms of decisions we make as a church family. And it's good for the people that want to come and join us because it helps them know who we are and who we should be according to the convictions that we have from the scriptures. and it is a challenge to get there. I was speaking to a pastor who planted a church some 12 years ago. It's doing very well in terms of its ability to reach people in his community, and he said, we don't allow people to join our church for at least a year after they begin attending. There's no way they can know our doctrine well enough. They can't know what we're about until at least a year. And I thought that was an interesting stance to take. And we don't have that in our bylaws or anything like that. But to honestly say I sign on to what this church holds to and to not have heard these doctrines before, it would take some time. And part of our intention with this study of basic Christian doctrine from our doctrinal statement, according to the Scripture as part of the design here, is that you and I would be able to help people that hadn't seen this communicated before. I know it seems strange that you would be in a culture in America where people don't know the fundamentals of the Christian faith so they could themselves articulate and defend them, but of course that's the case. When I first went to Dallas Seminary and we started taking theology courses, I was shocked at how little people understood the basic Christian theology. Master's level students were learning the doctrine of the Trinity for the first time. They were learning that the orthodox position is called the hypostatic union in terms of the person of Christ who is one person with two distinct natures eternally. From the beginning in the incarnation of Christ until eternity future, until there is no until, Jesus is God and man and one person forever. To be able to say that is our faith, that is our conviction, whether we understand it or not, was a new thought to some of my compadres in seminary, and that shouldn't be shocking to us if we think about the culture we live in. Well, we find ourselves having moved from the doctrine of what is the Scriptures, what is the Bible, to who is God, who has given us the Bible. And by the way, the way we know who God is is not because of the pretty sunrise. The way we know who God is is because of the Word that He's given us, especially through Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh. And that's not to say there isn't a value to natural revelation or to general revelation, the creation around us, but all you get is that we know we have somebody powerful and a designer who put this together. But to know that He is one God in three persons, that requires the Bible. So we've covered what is the Bible first, which our doctrinal statement does, and we're actually walking paragraph by paragraph through what we believe. And we talked about the Trinity last time, one God and three persons, not three gods, not one God with three faces or three names, but one God who exists eternally as three persons. Triunity is what Trinity actually means. It's a shortening of the word triunity, three in one. And if you lose the oneness, then you lose the Trinity. And if you lose the threeness, then you lose the Trinity. And we hold these truths in a biblical exegetically enforced tension. That's the doctrine of the Trinity, one God who exists eternally in three persons. And we talked last week very briefly, and our doctrinal statement just briefly discusses the attributes of God. Do you know the attributes of God? Do you know who it is that you are worshiping in terms of what he's like? What are his characteristics? This is a list. In theological writings that have gone from the Bible to trying to summarize the Bible, there are many approaches to summarizing the attributes of God. What is true about God that is absolutely certain from the text, that if you lose this statement about God, then you lose God. You don't have a correct identification of God. For example, righteousness is one that I think is very important for us to grab hold of. Righteousness, some theologians don't hang on to it. character in his being is his attribute of absolute perfection morally, absolute moral perfection or righteousness. It's what Romans was written to reveal, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. That is the character quality of God from which come his choices. It isn't right because God chooses it, it's right because God's righteousness is the source of all that which is morally good, and God's choice always accords with that character quality of righteousness. See, that's the kind of thing we're talking about in terms of the attributes of God. And you can, we can, maybe this is a level of discussion, you're like, I don't need to worry about that. But I think it is fundamentally very important to understand who we're worshiping. And sometimes you'll hear theologians portray somebody that cannot be the God of the scriptures. He is sovereign. Sovereignty is the absolute authority to make the decision. whatever the decision is, whatever the framework in which the decision is being made. It is the absolute fiat, the right to make the decision. Sovereignty, again, in some theological reasoning, is the main attribute of God, and then everything else is derivative from it. And I don't think that's how persons are. I don't think that's how it is to be a personal being. But God is absolutely sovereign. And we know this because of His being our Creator. We know this because of His infinite power. And we know this because His Word says as much. And it's very important for you and me in the time in which we live, anytime, in this fallen, horrifying, broken, nasty world, it is so vital for us to remember the doctrine of God's sovereignty. With respect to human government, my favorite place to take you would be Daniel, where at least four times we have God is sovereign and the kings are not. But the kings are doing wicked things. That's right. But God is sovereign and the kings are not. God establishes kings, God removes kings, and if you think your king is a problem, well, what's God doing in his sovereign arrangement of history? He may be punishing you, and we have that in Scripture. My people are led by children, by the fools, and that is often, in God's dealings with Israel, a judgment on the people. God is sovereign and He's righteous and He's just. I believe righteousness and justice are qualities that God has inherent to His personal being so that Whatever God chooses, as I've said, is righteous because it's coming from God. If it is good, it is in accord with the righteousness of God. And if it is not good, then it is falling short of God's righteousness and under God's judgment, the execution of his righteousness being justice. This is what we mean when we say God is good all the time. There's nothing he wants, chooses, or does that is unrighteous. And this is why you need to refresh his essence in your circumstance. He's got this, he's sovereign, and he's righteous. And righteousness executes in perfect justice. The eternality of God is not simply that he'll never have an end. It is the understanding that God has no beginning. And when you say that, if you've never thought about this before, just imagine a kid that's never thought this way before, no beginning and no ending. I was already struggling with no ending. What do you mean no beginning? Now, the way this connects to the world you live in and the people you're surrounded by, the materialists that you live around, functional materialists that may believe in God when you think about it, but they live like there's no God, functional atheism, or convicted materialists that believe all there is is all they can see and touch. They have to believe that matter is from eternity past. They have to believe that there is no beginning to the material universe. And we believe from the very first verse of the Bible, there is a beginning to the material universe. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's the beginning of the material universe. But we also believe that there is somebody who's prior, someone who's prior to the material universe, who is a spiritual being who exists eternally prior. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, God was already there. This is Christian metaphysics, and it's really important to understand the difference between a Christian worldview and any alternative. The Christian worldview has an eternal preexistent personal being, right, who is always there. Now, in terms of eternality, you and I often will, without even thinking about it, start making assumptions about how time relates to God's existence. And I want to challenge you about this. I've been reading about this in theology studies a lot. The way God relates to time, what we'll say is, well, here in time, we're dealing with sequential things, but God's eternal. And if we really push that idea too far, we'd end up with a God who can't connect to us experientially because he's not, as we say, in time. He's in an eternal present, which also presupposes God has no sequential experiences that he's like a fixed point. And no one believes that we, nobody here believes that. So what I would say about the reasoning about how God relates to time is the scriptures have God dealing with us. He deals with us in our experience. And from our perspective, which is the only one we'll ever get. Okay. From our perspective, God is, acting, and then he's waiting and seeing how we'll respond, and then he's responding, and he's relating to us in our experience in time, and you and I will never be free of it. So when we talk about the eternal state, believers, I don't think there'll ever be a time when we will not be experiencing sequential experience. I don't think we'll be into an eternal presence someday where there's no experience of sequential glory. Like, are we gonna sing in heaven? Is that Revelation 5? Is there going to be ongoing choruses of praise and song to God? Well, to sing requires sequence because you have to have verse one and then sing the second verse to get to the chorus. There has to be a sequential experience. And if that's beyond what you want to talk about, let me just say, God exists eternally prior to creation. He'll exist eternally after through the new heavens and new earth. And you will with him because he's given you his life. And I also think that to try to think too deeply about the relationship of God to sequential experience or time will probably give you a headache, and it's beyond our capacity. It's also certainly beyond our experience. Now, physicists have proposed that time is a fourth dimension in our three-dimensional universe of solid space, solid object space, three dimensions. People have said the fourth dimension is time, which is an interesting suggestion, because time is a totally different thing than length, width, and height, totally different phenomenon. But they've said that's the fourth dimension. And if that's true, if that's right, then we're dealing with God who is beyond those space-time dimensions to an experience we could not possibly comprehend. And so if you were, just think with me, If you're on a sheet of paper, if you were in a two-dimensional world. Physics people like to talk about this. If this was your world and this width right here, the width of the sheet of paper doesn't exist. It's just length and height. Just the two dimensions. And you were on this planet. And that's you, that's you in this world, in this two-dimensional world. For me, in the three-dimensional space that I'm moving in, for me to relate to you, I've got to enter some sort of two-dimensional space, which means I have to enter the paper and look like you. And how you would see me, I don't know because you would be looking, I don't know how that would work. But the point is, This is a two-dimensional person trying to understand three-dimensional space. He can't even see off the paper because this is his universe. So we're out here functioning in a three-dimensional world. To say God is beyond our experience, I think, is something like the question of going from two dimensions to three dimensions. Again, I don't want to conjecture. I'm just saying eternality is a big deal. And what God tells us about it is that he's prior and he's forever. God is love according to John. John the apostle tells us God is love. And what this means is that God is infinitely loving. It means that there's no end to the capacity he has to love. And the way we know love from the scriptures is that God has shown it to us. My favorite is Romans 5, 8, but God demonstrates his own love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So we learned something of God's love. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world. Same word in Romans 5, as in John 3, agape, agapao. It apparently means from these passages, When you concern yourself for what the other person needs as God sees the need, as God defines what the person needs. When you concern yourself without regard to yourself to benefit the other person according to what they need. It isn't just the intention, it also carries the action. For God loved the world this way, He gave. Love gave. God demonstrates his love. You can't show it unless Christ died for us. And there's an action associated with it. So understanding God's love. And there's a lot the scriptures say about love. And one favorite verse is in Proverbs 3, quoted in Hebrews 12, whom the Lord loves, he chasteneth. and scourges every son who receives. God's discipline is a demonstration of God's love. Again, it fits into my understanding, my definition from all of scripture. God's love is when He thinks what the person needs and acts on that need. what he wants that person to have. And it flows from his righteousness and all his other attributes. You have the three O's in terms of God's being. Now remember, we're just summarizing who is God. We should do a series on the attributes of God and show them from the text. And I'm trying to quote scriptures that will apply, like eternality is from Genesis 1 and other related places, but omnipotence. God is all powerful, and I think this is more important than we tend to maybe reflect on. that God could do whatever it is He wants to do. God will do whatever His righteousness dictates. God will, with righteousness and love combined, send Christ to the cross. And God the Son will, in His humanity, go to the cross and die for our sins and pay that price, satisfying God's righteousness and justice concerning sin. motivated by his love for his creatures, because that's what we need. God can do this. God is capable of acting within the bounds of his righteous, loving intention. And I believe omnipotence is the teeth, if you will, of sovereignty. Moms and dads, we all know the experience of having the right to make the decision we make and having children who make a different decision that is contrary to the decision we have the right to make. We all know this, it's called disobedience. Does it reduce my sovereignty or my authority to make the decision? Just means the person in the institution here with me is making a different decision, is contradicting that or disobeying that. And so just as an example, We all know the limitations of our authority as parents, husbands. You have an authority over your wife. It shouldn't be irksome to hear that, ladies. It's God-ordained arrangement. It isn't the same as fathers and children, but it is a certain authority. And what do you do with the headship authority? What is your enforcement criteria? What is your enforcement ability, gentlemen? For I wanted to make this decision, but she won't submit. She won't do it. She won't do what? the scriptures or what I'm saying she should do. And there is nothing in the Bible presented for your authority, for your enforcement. And this is where God's sovereignty and our responsibility to make decisions part ways a little bit, because God is omnipotent. He has all the power in the universe to do any and everything he wants to do according to his righteousness and his good character. And so, omnipotence is the enforcement of, or the capability arm of sovereignty. If you have sovereign authority and you don't have omnipotence, then you don't really have sovereignty. And if you have omnipotence, then I think you certainly with that have the right or the capacity at least to make the decision. And when we get to splitting the hairs of do you have the right or do you have the ability? Well, in human affairs, might does not make right. But in God's affairs, righteousness only comes from Him. And so the might that goes with that righteousness combine with sovereignty to mean that God will accomplish His good pleasure. ultimately, according to His design. And I haven't just said anything in terms of sovereignty or righteousness or omnipotence. I haven't said anything contrary to human responsibility, because God has so sovereignly, through His omniscience, His all-knowing, He has so sovereignly and eternally arranged history that He gave us responsible choice. And if there's anything we learn from Genesis 1-11, God wants man to walk before Him and to serve Him, and man in his fallenness wants to rebel. That's the primeval story of God and man is we are going to mess it up. And so God in Genesis 12 starts over with Abraham and builds a people to bring forth the Messiah to save us from our brokenness. So he's omnipotent, he's omniscient, that means he knows all the knowable. I think this doctrine has come under attack in recent years, the doctrine of God's omniscience, that God knows the end from the beginning, he knows that which can be known. There are theological propositions out there, like open theism, which says God doesn't know what's going to happen because it hasn't happened yet, so that would be impossible. And it's a human reasoning process, open theism, to get to an answer to some of the difficult passages in Scripture, like when God says He's going to destroy Israel, and then Moses intercedes for Israel, and then God says He repents. And so God didn't know what He was going to do there until Moses interceded, so God was kind of—He hadn't already figured this out. It wasn't known the end from the beginning, and it's a denial of the omniscience of God. We believe that God was working with Moses and demonstrating His kindness and His sovereignty in that circumstance. And we're not saying that it's easy to reason through all of Scripture, but we do believe that God knows all the knowable. And what I believe about this, y'all listen, what I believe about omniscience and God knowing all the knowable is that He knows what would happen if you got your way, which He stops you from getting. When the Holy Spirit didn't allow Paul to enter Asia, God knew what would happen if he hadn't put the brakes on Paul entering Asia. And so that's really important for you and me in our lives when we're trying to think of how do I relate to this suffering, this circumstance, this hardship? God knows what you're dealing with. He knows better than you. He knows all the potentialities of what might happen if it was counterfactual. And this is the way that you're in right now. This is the way that you are going to reach the judgment seat of Christ with a well done through this circumstance, through this hardship. Like we read in first Thessalonians 5, 19, we give thanks to God for all things for his will for us and Christ Jesus. He knows the doctor of omnipresence. I've always believed in this. God is with you right now. What if God showed up in church today? What if Jesus came to church today? People, you would tell us that in seminary, we go to theology class and talk about God's omnipresence. And then we go to preaching class or whatever counseling class. What if God showed up in your church? And my little theological mind is thinking, is he not in your church? Um, The Church of Laodicea has Jesus Christ in Revelation 3 outside. It's a crazy thought. Jesus, behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whoever opens to me, I will come in and have fellowship with him. That idea has been misconstrued as a passage to tell unbelievers about Jesus. That's a church. That's a body of Christians in Asia Minor, Laodicea, that are neither cold nor hot. And there's a historical reference there. But there's a problem. It's the worst church of the seven in Revelation 2 and 3. And Jesus is outside banging on the door, let me in to your fellowship, which is a crazy thought. It's a corporate thing. It's talking about relationship with God and fellowship with God in a corporate sense. But Omnipresent. God is everywhere present. Here's the most important insight I can tell you about the omnipresence of God. Because if you push it too far that God is everywhere present, is God in the leather binding of my Bible? Is he in the cell structure of my body? Is that what this means that God is everywhere present? When we think materialistically, we think about just the material universe that we're in, and we say God is everywhere present within his universe, we start to try to think of God physically in the material of the universe. And when we start doing that, we find that God is everywhere. Be gentle in how you treat the solid surfaces. God is everywhere present. And that is called panentheism, God is in all the material. And that is also related to pantheism, that God is everything. And this is also related to a false idea about creation, which says that the universe is part of God's material being. Like it's a small part, but the universe may be like a toenail or something of God. Like God is materially part of the universe. The universe is part of God. And the Bible is the only ancient Near Eastern document that says, no, God is already there when he makes everything out of nothing. Genesis 1.1 is very profound. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God, who's there physically present, or I'm sorry, present, in his being, in his essence, makes the physical universe. And so he's not making the universe out of himself. He's making it from his word, from just speaking it into existence. And so he's everywhere present in his universe. But this is also important. That's the doctrine of eminence. But he's also not part of his creation. That's the doctrine of transcendence. He is not part of the material, physical universe. He is everywhere present in it, but he's not physically part of it. Again, remember, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how that can be because I'm sitting here on this page, on the two-dimensional page, and God is beyond our experience in His being. But God is everywhere present in the universe, and He is transcendent. He is not a part of the universe. And that doctrine takes you to the vital significance of the Incarnation, because God the Son, who is eternally preexistent as God the Creator, He took on flesh to become part of the material universe. He became one of us. He is very God of very God who is other than creation. And yet he became part of the creation by incarnating as a human. And it wasn't just for the sojourn on earth where he goes back to being other. He still is other as God, but he's forever in resurrection body as man. And that is huge when you think about the fact that God is omnipresent. He's everywhere present within his creation, but he is not. materially part of his creation. The doctrine of immutability, again, is related to that open theism thing I told you about before. If God changes his mind, if God repents that he made man, if God says, okay, I'm gonna repent that I made man, he brings the flood and starts over. If he repents that he brought Israel out of Egypt and I'm gonna destroy them, I'll start over with you, Moses. Well, this means that God is not immutable, but that's not true. Immutability is a reference to God's character. God will never not be righteous. God will never not be perfectly holy, omniscient, all these character qualities that we're describing. You and I are very mutable. We're fickle. We are easily distracted. We're not very far from letting go of commitments that we've made. But God isn't like that. God holds what he said he'll do, he'll do, and he doesn't change. And nothing in scripture including the difficult passages, like passages of God changing his mind, would indicate other than God is going to give Israel the land forever. Whatever else you do with the New Testament or the Old Testament, God said he would give Abraham and his descendants the land forever. He said it in Genesis 12. He echoed it throughout Genesis to Abraham and to Isaac and Jacob, and it's throughout the prophets. God said he would give Israel the land forever. Until you have forever, we don't have God fulfilling what he said he would do. And his immutability is in question, in my opinion, when people will say, well, it meant that maybe in the Old Testament, but now it means he's in our hearts. Jesus rules in our hearts and the land is heaven or something. Nope. The immutability of God makes me expect God to do what he said. And again, well, what about the hardship that I'm going through? God's faithfulness or his immutability is settled, and you need to trust in him on these terms. See why asking the question, who is God, as you're going through hardship, can really help you in terms of perspective. Voracious is not voracious. It doesn't mean he's really hungry. Voracious is from the word veracity, and it means he tells the truth. God is the author of truth, just as Satan is the father of lies. And so, as the one who tells the truth, that's how we're supposed to think of Him. And, let God be true is my favorite verse to quote out of context in Romans 3-4. Let God be true, though every man a liar. God is merciful, and this is a character quality in which For some reason, and he doesn't tell you why, it is just his attribute, he is not desiring to drop the hammer that he could drop according to his righteousness and justice. Somehow with righteousness, justice, and love combined, we find mercy in God and his willingness to forgive, and this quality is expected of us as we are his children. God is good. This idea of goodness has to do with the moral perfection of His character, but also His kindness, His expression and kindness toward us. The doctrine of infinity. See, this list that's in our doctrinal statement, it's kind of a Popery list. of qualities. If you go look at Schaeffer's theology, for example, the attributes of God is a totally different list, and it's an awesome and excellent discussion. It's a different way of presenting it. I like this list. I like the way this is done and all these things we absolutely believe. Infinity is the consideration that God is without limitation. Without limitation, you could say, well, that sounds like omnipotence. Yeah, he's unlimited in power, but he's also unlimited in righteousness. He's unlimited in his love. Now, what about this question of God's omnipotence? Can God do something? Can we think of a case where God can't do something, where he's not able, not powerful to do something? And you might have heard of various riddles people try to do. Unbelievers that are smart will try to come up with a way to say, ah, we found your omnipotent God is an omnipotent. Can God make two three? Can God, say, go from the number two and make it into three? Can He do that? Is He powerful, omnipotent to do that? And we say, no, because that's a lie. Two is two and three is three, and God is voracious. He tells the truth, right? So that would be contrary to His character to do that, and it's absurd. Can God make, and every one of these little riddles people will do to try to disprove God's omnipotence or His existence, it's always a lie. There's always a lie in it. Can God lift? an infinitely heavy rock? Or let's make it harder. Can God lift a rock that's too heavy to be lifted? Can he lift a rock that's too heavy to be lifted? The lie is that there is such an item in his material universe. There is no such thing as a rock that is too heavy to be lifted. So no, he can't because it doesn't exist. You see? But imagine if there was one, could God lift it? That's a lie. There isn't one. So let's quit trafficking in lies. His gracious is a description of God's desire to bless His creation. His underlying desire is a manifestation of His love and His goodness. And this is the God we serve. He's the God described in one of my favorite places, if you think about it, Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23. Those qualities are the fruit of God, the third person of the Trinity. When He gets hold of your character, this is what's supposed to start happening, that you start loving. You start rejoicing in the joy of God. You start doing the things that love does in 1 Corinthians 13. because you're taking on the character of God. Well, some of these we've heard, or maybe you've heard before, are communicable attributes, and some of them are incommunicable. It's kind of thrown together in this list. Some of the things you have a scaled-down version of, like knowledge, is a scaled-down version of omniscience. You have certain capabilities, but you're not omnipotent. Some of these things are kind of understandable to us. Others are not, like infinity. And when you have a communicable attribute, like God's veracity, the scriptures are telling you to take on his character, tell the truth. and don't traffic in lies," one of the key statements. Well, I wanted to take a little bit of time this week and talk to you about the attributes of God, and now I want you to be able to apply it. Of all the doctrinal statement material, I think this is the most powerful for hardship in your life, and it's a very short little section in our doctrinal statement. The doctrinal statement is not meant to help you through the rough stuff. That's not its purpose, although it will in places like this. The doctrinal statement is meant for you to know God, but this section here is so applicable to your circumstance because you're personally dealing with the personal God who's personally there, and this is what he's like, and you can take that to the bank, and your friends aren't, and the people around you aren't, and the people that fail you are not this way, but God is this way, and as you talk to him, You can feed your prayer time with this list, for example, or any biblically sound list of God's attributes. God, you knew this from eternity past. This is killing me because of the recentness of it. The freshness of this hardship hurts, but you are not surprised by this, and thank you for the comfort I gain by combining the doctrine of your omniscience with your righteousness and your love. In fact, everything you read in the Bible that you could bring to bear on your hardship, Everything you could say from God's word about your trouble and how it applies is reflected in the character qualities of God. Like everything, like 1 Peter 5, 7, grab that one, God cares for you. Casting all your cares on him for he cares for you, right? Because you're just, you're compromised, you're emotionally out of whack and you're having trouble thinking and so you just grab, God cares for me. Right? That's an attribute of God issue reflecting His love and His grace. And when we say God, we're talking about the omnipotent, infinite being of the creation who is really the one with whom we have to deal. And so my other relationships are broken, and this is hurting me or this problem. Most of the hardships, the greatest hardships, are relationship-related. What we need to do is go back to the most important relationship, and you can do that in terms of God's attributes. Now, you know that I think that this list is what I call cut flowers. You know what I mean? I like a nice flower arrangement. My wife took a course in it in college. She had an elective sitting around. She was like, let's do that. And she still graduated at 19 years old. Anyway, I like to brag about her sometimes. But she took a course in flower arrangement. I learned a lot about the art of that by watching how that worked out. And later in life, I've become appreciative of that kind of work. It's expensive when someone does it. But when they do it, it's way different than if I try to do it. Ever go buy some flowers, guys, and try to arrange them? Save yourself $50 or whatever. Well, not great. I didn't take that class. I don't have the eye for it. It's art. It's just an artistic work. I love flowers. But cut flowers. Cut flowers are going to die. You put the little treatment in the water, and you hope for the best, and you refrigerate them. If you're me driving in the summertime from, well, let's be honest, Costco, and this beautiful flower arrangement that you're taking to your wife, you're going to cut the air conditioner on, and you're going to try to keep the car as cold as possible so that they don't wilt on the way home because they pulled them out of the refrigerator. And, um, but they're going to go, it's temporary. And that's part of the beauty of it is that you're saying, I love you gentlemen with, um, with something that's expensive and artistic and, uh, and it's, you have to do it again. You have to refresh that. I like the flowers thing. I think it's good. We had a good talk about that at the Chafer conference a couple of years ago, Dr. McGinnis, uh, didn't we, Mike? That was, that was great. Now, cut flowers is the product of the process of the seed germinating and growing in the soil and taking the nutrients from that soil and growing up, and now you have beautiful flowers. And then somebody comes along and cuts them and puts them in a beautiful flower arrangement. What I mean by that when I say theology is cut flowers is I've given you a list of doctrines and it's true, but the source of this list from our doctrinal statement is nothing compared to the word of God where we got this information. And what you really want to do is keep your hands in the soil. You want to go back to the source of these things and reflect on them in their contexts. So... The doctrines of God's attributes are inviolate. I'm absolutely certain and dogmatic these are all true. But the edifying value of reading the scriptures to see them is much greater than just reading the list or quoting the list. Go through a passage. Go through a passage. Let me give you one parting illustration on this before we flip over to the person of God the Father In the story of Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 14, we've read it many times, beginning in verse 22, Jesus walks on water and then calls Peter, and Peter gets to walk on water, and then Peter sinks and he falls. It's this narrative that God presents. In this, we see the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the master over nature. We see so many things about the attributes of God. But we're also seeing the relationship between Jesus and Peter when he calls Peter out. Why did you doubt? And he pulls him out. We see Peter's relationship to Jesus. Lord Jesus, save me. Right? When he sinks. And we see Peter's downfall and Jesus holding him accountable. We see all of these factors in the story. And from that, I can derive some doctrines of God's character and God's attributes and who Jesus is. Right? But from the passage which inherently tells me all those things. And don't doubt them, those doctrines. I'm seeing how Peter relates to Jesus and how Jesus relates to Peter. And what I mean by cut flowers is if I'm just going with, well, that passage gave me that God is over the nature or something, or God holds us accountable even, or any doctrine that you legitimately pull from that passage, I'm losing the context for that And God wrote that for me through Matthew's pen. The Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to write that so that I would relate to God on those terms. And so don't put, all I'm asking is don't put the cut flowers over the nursery. Don't say that my summary is more important than my Bible. That's the authority is the Bible. And the summary is only as good as it's biblical. And boy, is there a lot of Bible in this. Just to go through the character quality of God's justice through the scriptures. That'd take a long time, right? All right. In the doctrinal statement, we go to the nature of God as three persons who exist eternally as one God, in essence, three in person, usia being the old word for God's being, and persona being the nature that you have three of these persons in the Godhead. And so, God the Father is the first. I think this is number three in our doctrinal statement. And we say this, we believe that God the Father is the first person of the Godhead. The way we talk about the oneness of God is Godhead, and in that Godhead there are three persons. Just old theological language. He is the father, architect, and planner of all creation. This statement is a dogmatic assertion of what has been called the economic trinity. We believe that the best way to understand the relationship between the persons of the trinity is in what they do, the duties that each person carries forth, because that's how the Bible presents it. The Father does some things that the Son doesn't do. The Son goes to the cross, the Father sends the Son. These are different actions, different responsibilities. And that's why the language of architect and planner, the commander, if you will, the one who says, this is what you go do, and then the Son goes and does it. That's the idea. And we're saying God, the Son, is God. of the same essence as the Father. So He's the Father, architect, and planner of all creation. Now, when you read in Colossians 1, that Jesus is the creator of all things, we read in John 1, Jesus is created, the Word created all, and nothing came into being that came into being except by the Word, and that's the Son, God the Son. We say, okay, so when you say the word creator, we're talking about the Father, Son, and Spirit. When you talk about the planner, the one, how did the father create? Well, he's the planner, the architect of the creation. That's called, again, the doctrine of the economic trinity. And I know that word does a lot of duty in our culture, economic. Economic, that's where the presidents are failing. Economic, that's where there's a supply chain problem. Economic, that's where all of our resources are made in China, and they're opposed to us, so they're shutting it down. That's economic. But that's not what we mean by economic. We mean from the old Greek oikonomia, household responsibility, within the divine household, different jobs, different responsibilities. I have a friend that absolutely detests this doctrine because he's trying to prove Unitarianism, because he doesn't want Jesus to be God in the flesh. He doesn't want Jesus to be God. And so if you ever have pushback on the economic trinity, scratch it a little bit, you'll find Unitarianism. You'll find the denial of Jesus as God. In Malachi 2.10, regarding the Father, we have an interesting statement about God's fatherhood in the Old Testament. So as to profane the covenant of our fathers, so our earthly fathers with God as our one father. The Jews opposing Jesus in John chapter eight talk about how their father is Abraham. Fatherhood's a big deal in the Old Testament, but the doctrine of fatherhood did not come about of God in the New Testament, though the revelation of God the Son was made explicit in the New Testament. The doctrine of God as father is older than just the New Testament. In Acts chapter 17, I'll go there very briefly. In Acts 17, you have the Apostle Paul trying to explain to a pagan audience the nature of God as opposed to what they worship, the real, the living God. In Acts 17.29 in Athens, On Mars Hill, verse 22, Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, this I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and all things in it." Paul's talking to unbelievers and he's telling them the nature of the real God. He's wrecking ball. He's trashing the entire worldview of paganism and replacing it. He's building back the nature of God. He made the world and all things in it since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist. That means by his power, as even some of your own poets have said, for we are his children. So the pagan poets are identifying God as father by creation, fatherhood in terms of creator. Being then children of God, we ought, he includes himself, and then is talking to the pagan audience, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. So Paul is addressing a pagan audience and includes them with himself in discussing God as father. Now this is important to our doctrinal statement because we'll hear that we say God is not the father of unbelievers. Well, in the sense we mean, in terms of a new birth relationship in Christ, they're not. He's not their father. But in the sense Paul uses, he says as creator, he is father. In 1 Corinthians 8.6, yet 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 all things are, and we exist through him. And so 1 Corinthians 8 verse 6 is almost like the Gospel of John 1, 1 through 3 in its description of how the Word is not God, but the Word is God. The Word is with God, so not the same, but the Word is God, so the same. And so the creator status, you can see the economic trinity in 1 Corinthians 8, 6. Now let's go, in our last little moment today, as we open up this doctrine of God the Father, to John 8. If you want to turn there, it's one of my favorite places to really dial in on our theology. We talked about it a little bit in the Trinity when talking about the deity of Christ. In John 8, you have this long presentation of Jesus' reasoning with the Jewish community. Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. That's John 8, 31 and 32. They answered him, we are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? What is the sense in which you're offering freedom? Because we're not enslaved, we're from Abraham. Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son does remain forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Now he's emphasizing the son and he used the son in two different ways in verses 35 and 36, and they're going to catch it. They're going to hear since that statement. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, yet you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak the things which I've seen with my father, therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father." Jesus identifies his father and makes a distinction between the Jewish community that he's speaking to and his heavenly father. They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Because, see, they don't understand what he's saying, and the reason that the crowd doesn't understand what he's saying is because they're not trusting him. They're not opening their hearts to hear from God the Son tell them how it is, which is how we approach this. Abraham is our father, verse 39. Jesus said to them, if you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you're seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do. You're doing the deeds of your father. See, he's telling them they're not sons of Abraham here. They said to him, we are not born of fornication. We have one father, and that is God, the fatherhood of God. Jesus is about to tell these unbelievers that God is not their father, which is important to our doctrinal statement. We have one father who is God. So notice we're playing off of the son in the house versus the slave, and then the son, I am the son of God offering you the truth. And then we're playing off of our father's Abraham. Well, Abraham had God for a father. Well, we have one father who's God. Okay, yeah, yeah, he's our father. And Jesus says, you need to act like you're children of your father. You are acting like the children of the father you're actually submitting to, your actual father. And fatherhood in this context is defined as the one you're following. If you're following God, then you do the deeds of Abraham. You trust in God and you obey God and you go as far as God takes you. If you're trying to kill me, then you are acting in accordance with your father, the one that you're following. That's the idea. In verses 42 through 44, Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. This puts the answer to the question, what about those who believed in God and his promised coming Messiah in the old system, but then when Jesus came, they didn't identify him? There weren't any. This is my sheep hear my voice in John 10. It has nothing to do with whether I'm your right pastor. My sheep hear my voice is actually saying you have believers who are already my sheep. And when they hear me, they're like, oh, that's our shepherd. They identified the Messiah. So there's some have said there there's this whole category of Jews, Jewish, Jewish believers that rejected Christ. And they want to say Saul of Tarsus was this and absolutely not. No, Saul of Tarsus was unregenerate until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. I'm absolutely convinced. If God were your father, you would love me for I proceeded forth and have come from God for I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. Don't be like these people. When God's speaking, open your heart and say, God, teach me. And when you have some idea that God is contradicting, own it. God, I'm struggling with this. And there is room for repentance, the change of your mind. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he's a liar and the father of lies. It is because of this statement that Jesus to these Jewish people who are descendants of Abraham, who should be calling God their heavenly father, according to Malachi 2. It is because of this that we'll say, he is the father of all believers and the Lord Jesus Christ, but not the father of unbelievers. This is an interesting point in our very detailed doctrinal statement that we believe. Now, why is this in there historically? I'll tell you why. Because there was a big ecumenical movement in the 70s and 80s to advance with the world council of churches and the world of liberal theologians that everybody, all humans are brothers with God as our father. An emphasis on God as creator and the brotherhood of man and therefore the fatherhood of God in that sense. And so remember we had that passage where Paul says in Acts 17 that God is our father and he includes the pagans. So we're trying to cancel John 8 with the reasoning of creation in Acts 17, and that's just absurd. But that's what the liberals want to do. They want to see all people have a spark of divine. A recent talk show billionaire who no longer does the TV talk show, I guess, said, you're God. raised in a Baptist church in the South, I guess, but now telling everyone they're God. And we're supposed to say, yeah, yeah, even the Hindus have a version of divinity, and we're going to get this whole thing together, and everybody just be brotherhood and harmony. And that's not what the scriptures are teaching. And so that ecumenical movement that was rejected by the fundamentalists found its way, the idea of its rejection found its way into our doctrinal statement where we're saying we absolutely deny this lie that, in the sense Jesus is talking about having God as your Heavenly Father through the new birth in Christ, that all people are brothers. We're not. And so remember God as creator in two creations. He's created you twice, according to the scriptures. He made you in his image, which is corrupted through sin, but you're God's image bearer. And in that sense, all humans, we have that in common. We're all made in God's image. And we need to embrace that truth as we engage people with evangelism. But in terms of what we're saying here, the new birth where God is your heavenly father, because you're in Christ, God, the son, In that sense, you're created new in Christ, and only believers are that. And so we have to make that distinction to understand the nature of humanity, our responsibility, our relationship to the world we live in. Because if we don't, if we absorb the ecumenical idea of brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God, if we go there, not evangelistically in Acts 17, but in terms of not saying there's a distinction that you're dead in your trespasses and sins, and you need to be born into God's family. If we're not insisting on the new birth, as Jesus says in John 3, then the people around us have no witness. The salt has lost its saltiness, and it's good for nothing to be thrown out and trampled on the ground. we have a role here, and that's why this is in our doctrinal statement. It has some teeth, I know. Psalm 103.13, just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. This kind of echoes that idea of a special sense in which God is our Father. And in Galatians 3.26, which we'll close, you are all huios, not children. It doesn't say paideia, it doesn't say technon, it says huios. This is one of my problems with the King James. I love the King James Bible. I especially love the Elizabethan, this is in thousand and thus and so, and, um, and he stinketh. And I love that. I love the King James, but, but we are all the children of God by faith in Christ. Jesus doesn't get it because in Galatians three, the concept is inheritance and in inheritance in the Roman system, as with Israel, it was through the sun. And so ladies, your sons in terms of your inheritance, your heirs of God, which is the emphasis he's making there. And the way you got to be a son of God in terms of your inheritance is by faith in Christ Jesus. Father, we thank you for our inheritance. We thank you that we can call you our heavenly father. Thank you for some insights that we might've gained today by thinking through these thoughts together, considering who is our heavenly father and redeeming the time. Father, we feel in the time which we live that it's short. We feel a crunch from so many different directions, morally, culturally. It's difficult to see where history is tending with such a mismanagement of so many resources across the board. But we haven't mismanaged our time today, and we ask that you would bless us In our lives, in our relationship with you, let us see success in our ministries of sharing you with others. Because of the time we spend, we want to redeem the time well. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Slavery, care, and all in chains. We'll deal them not, we trust in God, New England's God. in spires full of light. Their ranks were broad and their lines were broad. Their ships were ♪ O'er swiftly driven from our coasts ♪ ♪ The fog comes on with a deep stride ♪ ♪ Our troops and battles with martial noise ♪ ♪ Their veterans fleeting before our youth ♪ ♪ And generosity to bid us close ♪ ♪ What grateful offerings shall we bring ♪ ♪ What shall we render to the Lord ♪ ♪ Thou, hallelujah, set us free ♪ ♪ And praise his name on every corner of the earth ♪ so so so You. you so so Oh oh oh Yeah. So, so so you do do you It's funny, I heard you was, uh, 75. Yeah, right, I was 75 years ago, but I don't know anymore. you you