To Know God - 260202

SPEAKER A Hello, I'm Rod Butler. Welcome to Let God Speak. To have a strong relationship with God, we need to understand His character. While our finite minds cannot fully understand God in all His glory or majesty, we can know enough about Him from the Bible to put our total trust in Him. Stay with us as we explore how we can know God and why that is so important for us to have a strong relationship with Him. On our panel today, we have Harold Harker, and Gayl Fong. Welcome. SPEAKER B Thank you. SPEAKER A Before we commence our discussion, let's have a word of prayer. Gracious Father, we thank you that we can have this discussion now as the Bible shows us, Lord, parts of your character and why it's so important for us to know who you are so we can trust you and, Lord, have that relationship with you. Please bless us now. Please bless our viewers too as we have this discussion. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, Gayl, to start our discussion, we're going to start with yourself. When we think of our friends, what is it about our friends that makes them our friends? SPEAKER C Well, people become friends for, for reasons like they like being around each other. So spending time, spending time with each other, and they discover they have similar values and similar interests. You like each other's traits of character. You see the genuineness and the honesty and the integrity of a person, and that really draws you to them. And you share together and you're creating strong bonds because you're sharing what's happening in your life, they're sharing what's happening in their life, and you fill each other's emotional and social needs by this interaction that you have, which you call friendship. SPEAKER A Yes, it's very powerful, isn't it? Now, when we think of our friends, they're people who make us feel safer, richer, less lonely, and also fun to be around. I just want to read what the scriptures say about friends, and I'm looking at John chapter 15. I'm going to read verse 15, and it says— now this is Jesus speaking— He says, henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends, for all the things that I've heard of my Father I have made known unto you. So here's Jesus calling His disciples friends, and this is, this is very personal because it's friends. You know, can we be friends with Jesus if we don't know His character, Harold? SPEAKER B Well, let's see what Jesus says. I'm reading John 17:3, and His words are, "And this is life eternal, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." So we can know enough about Him to know that He can be a good friend. And we can know about His character, and we know that while His thoughts and ways are beyond our comprehension, we can know enough about Him and how He relates to us because He is a great friend. SPEAKER A Yes, well, let's, let's look at some more texts in the Bible now and just sort of see what they say about the character of God. And Gayl, I'm gonna start with you. I'm gonna get you to read 3 texts. We're gonna start with Job 1:12. Then we're gonna go to Isaiah 46:9-10 and then Isaiah 30:18. So if you could read those texts in a very summarized way, tell us what that says about God's character. SPEAKER C Yeah, certainly. Well, we'll go to our first text in Job 1:12. And the Bible says, and the Lord said to Satan, behold, he says, all that he has is in your power. 'Only do not lay a hand on his person.' So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. So here we see that God has all power, and right here God is allowing Satan to test his faithful servant Job. But Satan cannot go beyond, beyond what God allows. And so we could see here God is omnipotent, all-powerful. We go to Isaiah chapter 46 and verse 9 and 10. The Bible says, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. So here God knows everything from eternity past to eternity future, and He is omniscient. And then if we read in Isaiah chapter 30 and verse 18, the Bible says, therefore the Lord will wait that He may be gracious to you, and therefore He will be exalted that He may have mercy on you, for the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him. So here we see God is just, he has moral excellence, and coupling that with his mercy, we see a beautiful picture of God. SPEAKER A So just in those three texts, we see omnipotence, omniscience, and we see justice. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER A So let's keep looking some more. Harold, I want to get you to read, go through three texts, and if you could look at Deuteronomy 7:9. Romans 2:4 and 1 Corinthians 2:7. SPEAKER B Okay, let's see what the Bible says. Deuteronomy 7:9 reads, "Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for 1,000 generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments." So God is merciful. Boy, I love mercy. But Romans, this is from Paul, that great apostle. And he reads this way in Romans 2:4, "Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" So He's patient, He's longsuffering. Boy, that's a great God. And then there's one a little further that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians And it's in chapter 2 and verse 7. It tells me this. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory. So He's the source of all wisdom. He's merciful. He's long-suffering. He's a great God. SPEAKER A Now, I just want to read two more aspects of God's character from two more verses. I'm going to look at Matthew chapter 6 and verse 14, and it says, 'For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.' There's a wonderful picture of a forgiving God, and how important is it for a forgiving God? If we turn over now to Deuteronomy, and we're going to look at chapter 33 and verse 27, and this says, 'The Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, and He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, destroy them. Now this is interesting for two aspects. It says eternal, and that word in the Hebrew means ancient, aforetime. But it also says everlasting, which in the Hebrew means perpetual, unending, eternal. So here we have a characteristic of God that He's been there forever. He's immortal, He's eternal. And again, that's something we can rely on. So when you read these characteristics, Garl, what's your impression? What does it mean to you? SPEAKER C Well, I like what you said just then, that these characteristics, they portray an all-powerful God. He's got everlasting arms, He's all-knowing, He's just, He's merciful, He's patient, He's kind, He's wise, He's forgiving, as you read earlier in Matthew, and He's the eternal God. There is none else. So these characteristics, they give us a reason to trust God. And to, and to want to have a relationship with Him and to share Him with others. And the more we know about God, the more we will want that personal relationship. SPEAKER A Now just on that point, if we say the more we know about God, the more we want to have that personal relationship, what then do we think that Satan is going to be at us to attack us on? What do you think, Harold? SPEAKER B Well, Satan's aim, his objective, is to stop us from obtaining a knowledge of God, or he misrepresents God's character. Let me read to you the first time he came to our parents in the Garden of Eden. Genesis chapter 3, and I'm reading verse 1 to 5. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent, that's the devil speaking, said to the woman, You will not surely die. 'For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' Lucifer comes speaking through the serpent and says, 'God is really lying to you, and He hasn't told you the truth. He wants to hold back the good things from you.' And he doesn't care what picture of God we have. You know, all the things that he has caused, pain and suffering, he blames on God. He says, "You call it an act of God." But, you know, he has other things. You can have many gods like pantheism or polytheism. He doesn't care what it is as long as it's not accurate like God is. SPEAKER A You can really see the focus on trying to misrepresent. SPEAKER B Oh, yeah. SPEAKER A So Gayl, how is God characterized in popular media today? SPEAKER C Well, he's definitely not portrayed in a good light. In popular secular culture, typically God is portrayed as a God sitting on a throne looking down at his creation, not with love. There's sternness, there's fear, there's judgment, a revengeful God. A God perhaps who's ready to punish you if you do something wrong. And this is another one of Satan's misrepresentations. So people would rather not get involved with a God like that. He's, because he's not portrayed as an unconditionally loving and forgiving God, which is what he truly is. SPEAKER A Yeah, they certainly missed out the love aspect of portraying God. A bit more personal then, is it possible that we as individuals can misrepresent God? SPEAKER B Oh yes. SPEAKER A How would you do that, Harold? SPEAKER B If we claim to be the followers of God and we don't believe and act the same way that God would act with the same characteristics, we are misrepresenting God. In fact, we become false witnesses. You know, if we become judgmental, If we become angry, if we are unforgiving, then we're misrepresenting Jesus. We're really representing the devil's character, not God's. You know, Jesus accused the Jews of misrepresenting God. Let me read what He said in John 8:44. He said, "You are of your father the devil." And the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, but he's a liar and the father of it. So if we lie and act that way, we're misrepresenting how God is. SPEAKER A Yeah, we have to be very faithful to what we— sure, we know we should be. Now another attribute of God which is really important is holiness. I want to read another verse now. This is again the Old Testament, Leviticus 20:26, and it says, "And ye shall be holy unto me, for I am the Lord, for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people that ye should be mine." Gayl, what does it mean? What's the implications of God being holy? What's that really mean? SPEAKER C Well, the Bible describes God as the epitome of holiness. God is completely free of and completely separate from evil and sin. There is no sin in him. God is 100% goodness from beginning to end, and that will never change because that's who he is. And in this sense, God's holiness is central to all His attributes. And I love this verse in Isaiah chapter 57 and verse 15. It says, for thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. SPEAKER A It's beautiful, isn't it? It is very powerful. Harold, what would it mean if holiness wasn't central to God's character? SPEAKER B Well, if God wasn't holy completely, then He could be a tyrant, because if He had evil in Him, it would be just like a tyrant. We wouldn't want a God like that. It's because God is holy From start to finish, He's an all-powerful God, 100% good all the time from start to finish. That really enables us to love Him and to trust Him, and He becomes our friend. SPEAKER A And the key point there is trust, isn't it? You can only trust if there's reliability and consistency. So, Agao, a question to you. But if God is holy and we claim to be His followers, what is our responsibility with our behaviour? SPEAKER C Well, we certainly have a responsibility to represent God aright by being consistent and demonstrating God's qualities in our behaviour, not self coming through. For example, if we claim to forgive others, but occasionally we're actually holding grudges against people who've hurt us. We misrepresent God and then people will not trust us. So with Christ in our lives, He gives us the power to consistently represent His character and to forgive others from the heart. SPEAKER A That's true. If we see in our friends erratic behaviour, we sort of back off a bit too. And the same would apply to God. We've got to see that consistency. Now, you know, Christians at sporting events and public things will hold up banners saying, you know, "God is love" and "John 3:16." And most people who aren't Christians, they know that Christians claim that God is love. But I just want to read the text about that, and I'm reading 1 John 4:8, and I've got a question for you, Harold. It's a very short text, says, "He that loveth knoweth not God, for God is love." And my question is, it says God is love. What does that really mean? How do you unpack that? SPEAKER B Well, it's not just saying God is loving, but it's His character. Love is God. Everything that we think about love comes from God. You know, it's the very essence of who God is because that's His nature. And some Old Testament stories at first glance or with superficial reading, you say, well, where was love there? But let's look at the full context of this. You know, the verse before what you read tells me this: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. 'And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.' So God is the basis of love, and when we have a relationship, love is part of that relationship too. SPEAKER A Yes, indeed. Gayl, can you add to that? What else can you say about the love of God? SPEAKER C Well, God's love is deeply relational, as Harold has just shared there. And if we read 1 John 4:16, it says, and we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. So this was a personal experience for the writer of this book. God promises that if we love him, He will live in us. That's an amazing thing. God makes his home within us. It's a beautiful, intimate, personal relationship. He created us to love and he desires us to love as well, to love him back. SPEAKER A Yeah, it's the mystery of God, isn't it? God in us is, man, it is amazing. I just want to bring out another, another aspect, just following off that, of God's love. And this is from the book of Romans, and the question is for you, Harold. I'm going to read verse 8, Romans 5 and verse 8, and it says, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do you, how does that reveal a different aspect of God's love? SPEAKER B Well, because God is love, God takes the initiative. We're sinners, we're lost, we're bound for death, but He takes the initiative and sends Jesus of Himself. I'm sending Jesus into the world to die to be our Savior. The death of the cross was the worst possible thing you could think of. But He says, because I love you, I'm sending Jesus. That demonstrates His love to the greatest degree. You couldn't get more love than someone giving His life for all of us. SPEAKER A That is the ultimate, isn't it? Giving their life for their friends. SPEAKER B Amen. SPEAKER A Gayl, there's another important reason why Jesus came to this world. What was that? SPEAKER C Well, Jesus came as a humble servant to live, to live amongst us and to show us God's perfect character, because that had been totally misunderstood. So God's perfect character of love in action and in everyday life, Jesus showed the perfect character of God. And the character of God as it had been misrepresented by the Jews themselves, themselves. They hadn't even understood it. Jesus came to correct that. And we can read this in the book of John, the Gospel of John, John chapter 14 and verse 9. And this is where Philip asked if he can see the Father. And Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, "Show us the Father"? If you've seen me, you've seen the character of God. You've seen what God is like. SPEAKER A Isn't that amazing that we see the character of God in the flesh, walking as a humble servant? That is very powerful. I want to look at another aspect too now, just moving this on to the name of God. If we go to Genesis 1:1, and Harold, if you can respond to this one. In Genesis 1:1 it says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." What is the picture of God we see from this verse in terms of His name? SPEAKER B Well, it's interesting. If you knew the Hebrew word for God here, it's Elohim, and that means the transcendent God, the God who's beyond all things. He's in control of everything. And so the God who knows everything, Who can do everything is starting here to create things. The Almighty, the powerful God. And when He speaks, it happens. SPEAKER A The transcendent, powerful God. I like that. Amen. If we, if we go to chapter 2 and we look at verse 7 and Gayle, if you can respond to this one, chapter 2 and verse 7, and it says, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." What does that bring out? SPEAKER C So here in chapter 2, we find there's a different name used for God. And Yahweh, this name connects Elohim, Yahweh Elohim with Genesis 1:1. As it's just been brought up. So beautifully there, the same all-powerful Almighty God. But here Yahweh is a more personal name of the one true God, and it's often used to emphasize that God is the covenant God in a loving relationship with His created people. So the name Yahweh presents a more intimate picture of God. And here we see, we see God, He's here and He's forming the first human of the Dust of the ground, and so intricately is he forming him. He's so close, and he's forming him with his own hands. And this is a God who's extremely personal. This is a God who's extremely relational and loving and who gets so close to his creation of humanity. SPEAKER A That's a beautiful picture. SPEAKER C So his name comes through as Yahweh. SPEAKER A So the name's also indicate His character. Now Malachi 3:6 says, "I am the Lord, I change not." Why is that important, Harold? SPEAKER B Well, we can't trust the judgment of people who keep changing their mind. But here God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes His mind. So this God of love is always unchanging. What a great friend who loves you always, whatever you do. SPEAKER A Isn't that amazing? You're right. Look, um, to close our program today, I just want to look at the Gospels, and they also paint a picture of God's character. So starting with you, Gayle, um, what can— what picture do we get of God from the books of Matthew and Mark? SPEAKER C Well, we see here Matthew, um, he was a Jew and his Gospel was definitely for the Jewish readers, and his gospel is focusing on Jesus there as a long-awaited Messiah who fulfilled what was promised in the Old Testament there, because they had the Old Testament scrolls. We see there in Matthew chapter 1, verse 23, behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us. Or we could say God is with us, and that's a present tense there. So we see Jesus there is focused as King with royal lineage and teacher of the Kingdom of God. And then we see in Mark, we see that Jesus is portrayed as an action God, someone that's there, he's a servant Messiah, he's emphasizing his miracles, his action and ultimate sacrifice. SPEAKER A They're two important aspects, aren't they? SPEAKER B They are. SPEAKER A Harold, just in terms of the other two gospels, Luke and Luke and John. What picture do we get of God in those? SPEAKER B [Speaker:SR] Well, Luke was a Gentile physician. He was a doctor and he emphasizes in his gospel the compassion that Jesus had for the outcasts, for women and for Gentiles. He even mentions many of the healing miracles. So, he knows that Jesus touches those lives. John, who is a Jew, he starts this way and talks about, who God is. Let me read a couple of verses. "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." And so it focuses on Jesus as the divine one. So we have someone who is divine but who loves us, and He's the incarnate Son of God. What a wonderful picture that is. SPEAKER A And as you read earlier, Gayl, John 14:9, that incarnate God, that God is, if we see that person Jesus, we see the Father. Amen. Character. Fantastic. Well, that's all we've got time for today. Well, we can have a strong, close relationship with God because the Bible reveals a loving God who loved us first and who never changes. We can trust with our lives this holy, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, loving Creator God. And the Gospels provide a beautiful picture of the character of Jesus. If we've seen Jesus, we've seen the Father. If you do not know God or have wandered away from him, pick up a Bible, and a great place to start reading is the Gospel of John. You will see a God of love whom you will want to know. We're glad you joined us today on Let God Speak. Remember, all past programs plus teachers' notes are available on our website, 3abnaustralia.org.au. Email us on [email protected]. Join us again next time. God bless. SPEAKER B You have been listening to let God speak, a production of 3ABN Australia television. To catch up on past programmes, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au. Call us in Australia on 02 4973 3456. Or email [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you.