True God

Just as a bit of an aside, I encourage you to look at the blog this week.

It's something which is printed in the bulletin every Sunday.

And one of you folks corrected me after my sermon last Sunday, and I said I would mention it.

And so the way I mentioned it was I wrote about it in the blog.

So I encourage you to read the blog.

So this, about seven or eight months ago, my son Jesse and his wife Cavi were expecting a baby.

They live in London, Ontario, where they don't know anybody.

Well, they know people, but they didn't know anybody well enough that they thought they could just drop their daughter, Charlotte, off at the last second,

maybe for all night or maybe for a couple of days, depending on how the pregnancy went.

And so my wife went down to London, Ontario, to be there, to be able to look after the baby when the baby came.

And babies, of course, don't just sort of come on schedule.

And so Louise ended up being there for 19 days.

It's the longest time in our married life that we've ever been apart.

And now if, now this is just an if, it didn't happen, okay?

But if, on day 18, I had gotten a call from the police in the city of London, Ontario, and they told me that my wife had been arrested,

I would have thought to myself, there obviously is some type of mistake or misunderstanding.

Because I know my wife, I know her heart, I know her character, I know how she lives and how she acts,

and I know that there could not possibly be anything that she would do that would be so wrong that would require her to be arrested.

So obviously something else has to be going on because I know my wife.

And that would just be it.

It would be like an unshakable part of me that I would just know my wife.

And there must be a good explanation for what's happening.

I mention this because the way the book of Revelation is written, it's written in a very, very interesting way.

We're preaching through the book of Revelation, and we're doing a chapter a week.

And we're about, I don't know if you sort of noticed it, but when Nora began reading it,

she mentioned one of the things that she read was that the last judgments are about to come.

And so if you go back later on, maybe as part of your discipline this week,

and you read chapters 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 of the book of Revelation,

you see that there's going to be lots of judgments.

In fact, there's going to be two passages that talk about hell before we get to heaven.

And so it's almost as if God said, okay, we're going to get into these last sort of lessons or teaching on very, very hard doctrines for modern Canadians.

But before we do, let's just in a sense have a bit of a gut check and just ask ourselves, do we know who God is?

Do we trust him?

Are we willing to trust who he is and what his character is like and what he's done for us so that as we read chapter 16 and 17 and 18 and 19 and 20 and 21,

before we get to chapter 22, we can say, well, there's going to be maybe some things in here that we have a hard time understanding.

There's going to be things in here which we stretch, that stretch us.

But I know who God is and I know what he's like and I know what he does for us.

And just as if I was to have got that phone call from the police, I would just, okay, whatever's going on, I know Louise.

I know that there has to be a very good reason for this.

She had very, very good reasons for whatever's gone on.

And so that's sort of the flow of the text.

And the way it works is that this sort of fundamental teaching on God, reminding us of who God is, is given in the form of a hymn sung by the church triumphant, the redeemed,

before the throne of God in a picture of immense glory and splendor.

So if you have your Bibles, you're going to need, we're going to need our Bibles because we're going to keep looking at Revelation chapter 15.

Revelation 15 · chapter mention

There are some extra Bibles up there and there's also some more over there with Owen at the door.

I forgot to bring my Bible this morning, so I'm in fact using one of the Bibles which are down there.

But before we do that, up on the screen, if you could put that up now, Andrew,

I've given an essentially literal translation of the hymn and I'd like us to say it together.

So it's going to be a little bit different from some of your Bibles because it's essentially literal.

But please join with me in saying this great hymn.

Great and your deeds, Lord God Almighty, just and true are your ways, King of nations.

Who will not fear and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy, for all nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.

Great and amazing, great and amazing are you, Lord, the God, the Almighty.

Now some of us, we look at a hymn like that, great and amazing are your deeds, Lord, the God, the Almighty.

Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations.

Who will not fear and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy, for all the nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.

And for a lot of us, inwardly we go yada, yada, yada, yada.

Yeah, we know all that type of stuff.

It's like sort of normal type of Christian stuff.

But the fact of the matter is that this hymn speaks very, very deeply into several types of misconceptions that we have about God that we're not even really aware of that we have as misconceptions.

Now, I'll give you an example of the first one.

The first one is this, that it's very, very easy for us to drifting to believing that God exists to meet my needs.

That whoever God is, that God exists, the main characteristic of God is that God meets my needs.

And it's a very, very simple way to turn God into something like a genie, where we rub the lamp and he does what we want.

And rather than having God be God, we're God, because God exists to meet my needs.

Now, we, of course, if we say something so blatant, most Christians, at least, will say that that can't possibly be correct.

It's actually a very, very common theme, although put in different forms in a lot of contemporary spirituality in Canada.

And because it's a very common theme in contemporary spirituality in Canada, and we breathe that cultural air, it's something that we breathe it.

I'll give you an illustration.

And it shows where there's a very, very fine line between having great faith and actually living as if God exists to meet our needs.

Two and a half years ago, we walked away for, because as a matter of conscience, we felt that we, to fulfill our mission to make disciples,

gripped by the gospel, living to bring glory to God, we felt we had to separate from the Anglican Church of Canada.

And as part of that meant we had to walk away from our property.

Now, many, many people leading up to this told us, told me, that we would have a building very, very soon.

And I'm not stepping on any toes.

It's a very, very fine line to know the difference between when we have great faith and when we're slipping into thinking that God exists to meet our needs.

In fact, I had people tell me that they didn't understand why we were going to take a two-year lease,

because God was going to provide a building for us, and then we'd have to break the lease.

Now, it's been two and a half years since we walked away from our building,

and actually, it's not as if we have any particular building in mind or in sight.

In fact, at a human level, we're a million, a million and a half dollars away from being able to afford a building in downtown.

Like, for us to have a building, it would require for God to perform a miracle for us.

And when we walked away from our building, it wasn't as if we were sitting on two, three, four, five million dollars,

and we could just go out and buy a building.

We had very, very little money.

We walked away from most of our assets and most of our property.

We had very, very little money.

But, you see, it's very, very easy to...

I'm not trying to say anything about any particular person,

because part of the Christian life is having a sense that God is going to provide in a particular way

and having faith for that.

But it's also very easy to actually operate under the sense that God exists to meet my needs.

And we think that God's a very, very good God, and that when he doesn't meet our needs right away,

then what happens is he owes us.

And the way we think about God is that God is a really good God,

and when he owes us, when he's in our debt, he'll pay up when we need it.

And it's very, very...

And so why wouldn't God be in our debt and owe us because of our willingness to walk away

from hundreds of thousands and more of assets?

Why wouldn't he be in our debt?

You see, it's very, very easy to slip into understanding faith

in the context of God existing to meet our needs.

But it's almost as if there's a Christian form of slipping into it

that's no different than that book, The Secret,

or Power of Positive Thinking,

or a whole lot of other types of contemporary spirituality

which really exist within the framework that God exists to meet my needs.

And that's why sometimes we as Christians, when we have crisis of faith,

the crisis of faith that we have is that the God who exists to meet our needs

isn't meeting our needs, and so we don't understand why he's let us down.

But this hymn, which is said by the church triumphant in heaven,

this hymn says,

Note at the very, very beginning of the psalm, actually here's how I'd like to summarize it,

if you could put it up to the first point.

The true and living God exists.

He is great and amazing, the Lord, the Almighty.

The true and living God exists.

He is great and amazing, the Lord, the Almighty.

In most English translations, because it's not very grammatical,

they change the way that God is referred to in this hymn.

Like in my version, the ESV, it says,

Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord, God, the Almighty.

But in the original language, it says,

Lord, the God, the Almighty.

Not very good English, but it's really trying to emphasize this aspect of Lord,

the God, the Almighty.

And it's trying to communicate the idea that God is the one,

there is a God that does exist, and he sets the frame of references.

He's the one who determines what's going to happen.

He's the center, he's the beginning, he's the end, he's sovereign, he's immense,

he's all-powerful, and he is Lord.

And everybody else is creature, is subject, and he is the Lord,

and he is the God, and he is the Almighty.

He's the one who sets all of the frame of reference.

Just a very, very simple little sort of imaginary experiment.

I get it from the C.S. Lewis, second C.S. Lewis space fantasy fiction called Voyage to Venus.

And imagine that God was to show up here in some way that we could sense.

Obviously not in all his glory it would unmake us,

but imagine that God was to show up here.

Isn't it sort of natural for us to think that when God shows up here,

that up is still up, down is still down,

and all of the terms of reference that suit us

are the terms of reference by which God will appear to us.

But why should we think that?

C.S. Lewis does it very, very brilliantly in the book The Voyage of Venus,

is that when an angel appears,

one of the things which is profoundly disorienting to him,

and he talks about it very well in good fiction,

is that he gets the sense that the angel has a different vertical than the room.

And the angel is greater than him,

and so he feels like he's off balance,

because he knows what vertical is,

but the angel isn't at that same type of vertical,

and it feels as if the entire room is tilting.

And it's very, very upsetting to have your normal terms of reference

completely and utterly upset.

But isn't that a true insight about what it would be like

for us to meet the living God?

Why is it that the living God would have to fit in

to our terms of reference,

our sense of what's up and what's down,

our sense of space and time and distance?

Wouldn't he, if he really does exist,

and he is Lord, the God, the Almighty,

we would be the ones who would have a sense

that our frame of reference was out of whack,

and that somehow or another,

we were meeting the true frame of reference,

the true up, the true down,

and it would be very, very unsettling for us.

So the Bible here in this psalm is saying,

beware of thinking that God exists to meet our needs.

Now some of you might be saying,

George, I mean, what you're talking about is very oppressive.

It's really the way,

it's the way a lot of religion talks, George.

It's this sense that somehow or another

that God is so immense,

it's a crushing type of sense

to think of God being so completely and utterly immense,

and just, in a sense, almost like willy-nilly,

just changing our terms of reference

and our sense of up and our sense of down.

Like, George, that's a crushing type of idea,

not a liberating idea.

But here, as in all the way through this psalm,

the cross changes everything.

If you look back at verse 3,

notice how the song is introduced.

And they sing the song of Moses,

the servant of God,

and the song of the Lamb,

saying.

And so that when all the way through this song,

as they're singing it,

it's the song of the Lamb.

It's the song of the Lamb who was slain.

It's all, in a sense,

sung from the perspective of the cross,

because the cross changes everything,

even our understanding of God being Lord,

the God,

the Almighty.

Why is it that the cross particularly changes this?

What it is,

is that

the cross,

it is, in fact,

true that God meets our needs.

But the first and greatest need that he meets

is a need that,

on one hand,

sometimes we have a sense that it is our greatest need,

but a lot of times we live in denial of it.

But our true and greatest need

is to be restored to a relationship with our Creator

and our Sustainer

and the end of all things.

Our true and deepest need

is to be restored and reconciled to Lord,

the God,

the Almighty.

That is our true and deepest need.

And the story of the Lamb who was slain,

the story of the cross,

is the story of God doing what we could not do,

that we could not reconcile ourselves to him,

and that God saw that we could not

and could never leave ourselves to fix ourselves,

to reconcile ourselves to him,

that everything that we touch

would be bent,

at least slightly,

if not a lot.

And so God,

seeing our great need,

sends his Son to die upon the cross

as a pure and utter act of love

and mercy and grace.

And he makes peace.

He provides the means,

by Jesus' death upon the cross,

that we can have peace with God

by putting our faith and trust in Jesus.

And so the very, very heart of the Song of the Lamb

is that our true and deepest need,

deeper need than money,

deeper need than health,

deeper need than strength,

deeper need than power,

deeper need than warmth,

that our deepest need,

a need that goes on till all eternity,

is to be reconciled to the living God.

And God provides for us

at the point of our deepest and truest

and, in fact,

an eternal need

by the death of his Son upon the cross.

And so in light of that,

can't we also trust him to order

and deal with our true deepest needs

rather than our wants?

The cross changes everything.

And so it is,

as we're gripped by the gospel,

as we're gripped by the sense

of what it is that Jesus accomplishes for us

on the cross,

that we're freed up

to understand that God is Lord,

the God, the Almighty,

in a way that does not crush us,

that does not completely obliterate us.

So what's the significance of the doctrine?

The significance of the doctrine

is that it invites us to adore God.

As we're gripped by the gospel,

we understand,

as we're gripped by what Jesus does

for us on the cross,

we're invited to understand

that we were made to adore God.

And we are invited to ask God

to teach us and help us to adore him.

Andrew, if you could put up the prayer.

It's this,

that we can pray,

Dear God, in light of the gospel,

please help me to learn to adore you

day by day.

Dear God, in light of the gospel,

please help me to learn to adore you

day by day.

You see, religion,

spirituality wants to tell us

that we don't have to think about confession.

And religion wants us to think

that it's as if the most important part of prayer

is saying we're sorry to God

over and over and over and over again.

But the deep teaching of the scripture

is that we were made to adore God,

to enjoy him forever.

And that, in fact,

in the classic understanding

of the five moments of prayer,

adoration, confession,

thanksgiving, intercession, and petition,

that the confession part of the prayer

should really be the shortest.

That we should ask the Holy Spirit

to convict us of those particular sins

which most have a grip on us

and that we're most ashamed of

and that we're afraid to bring to the light.

But that the heart of our prayer

should be to ask God

to grow in our ability to adore him,

to praise him for who he is

in and of himself.

That we should grow in thanksgiving

and thanking God

for what it is that he has done for us.

So what is it

that this great hymn of praise,

great and amazing are your deeds,

Lord, the God, the Almighty,

just and true are your ways,

O King of the nations.

Who shall not fear

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy,

for all the nations will come

and worship you,

for your righteous acts

have been revealed.

It's an invitation for us

to understand what Jesus

has done for us on the cross,

to understand that God

does not exist to meet our needs

because he is Lord,

but he meets our deepest need.

And if he knows

and meets our deepest needs,

he is Lord.

Can he not meet our other needs?

And the invitation is to adore.

Now some of you might say,

George, I remember,

I've been looking around

at the section,

you know, it's very helpful,

George, you said,

let's have the Bible open

and you've been talking

and I've been listening,

I've been looking at the Bible

and I also remember

what Nora said,

but George,

you're sort of dodging

over the biggie, right?

I think a week or two ago,

didn't you talk about

when there's an elephant

in the room,

you should talk about the elephant?

But George,

you know, look at that,

look how it begins.

It's all about wrath

and anger.

Like, George,

that Revelation 15,

it shows part of the problem

that I have

with the Christian understanding

of God,

that the Christian God

seems to be an angry God

and he's always angry.

George,

don't you think

it's better to understand

that God is beyond

good and evil?

I mean,

I've had many,

I've talked to many,

many people in coffee shops

and in other places

who will tell me

that they have a problem

with the Christian God

because he's judgmental

and angry

and the God that they worship

is a God beyond

good and evil

and so this text

doesn't sort of invite us

to understand

that God is beyond

good and evil.

Well, let's look at it.

Before we do,

Andrew,

could you put the hymn up

and let's say it together again?

I've been saying it myself

and it's actually,

I get confused

when I try to read it

because I've memorized it.

So why don't you say it out loud?

I'll start it,

you say it

and I won't confuse you.

Great and amazing.

That's the hymn.

Now if you have your Bibles,

it does talk about wrath.

It does talk about wrath.

Look at verse one.

Then I saw another sign in heaven,

great and amazing,

seven angels with seven plagues

which are the last.

For with them,

the wrath of God is finished.

And look towards the end

in verse seven.

And one of the four living creatures

gave to the seven angels

seven golden bowls

full of the wrath of God

who lives forever and ever.

A person who's connected to the parish.

By the way,

you know,

I mention movies and TV shows.

I have to be a little bit careful.

Because I mention it

doesn't mean that I'm saying

you should go out and watch it, okay?

Some of you might have,

I know there was one.

I remember once

I mentioned something

about Children of Men,

the movie The Children of Men.

And I had a person say

that after a few minutes

of watching it,

they had to turn it off.

They can't imagine

the way I would ever watch such movies.

But some of you have heard me.

I've used The Walking Dead

occasionally as a sermon illustration

in the book of Revelation.

And in fact,

I think there's a lot

of sermon illustrations

from the TV series

The Walking Dead.

And I'm going to say this,

but I'm not encouraging you

to watch it, okay?

But The Walking Dead

is about zombies

and the end of the world

or near the end of the world.

And so somebody from the parish,

they decided to try watching

some of The Walking Dead.

And after about five minutes,

they turned it off

because it was pretty gruesome

and unsettling.

And so they told me about it.

And I said,

well, you know,

in some ways,

the first five or ten minutes

of The Walking Dead,

the first series,

it's in some ways

the worst part of the whole series.

And if you get over it,

you know,

maybe you'll end up liking it.

Maybe you won't.

That's fine.

And so they decided

to try it,

to watch a whole episode,

just to see if it wasn't

quite as bad

after the first ten minutes.

And then this is

what the person told me.

They said,

you know,

at first it's really unsettling,

but then they realized

that the zombies aren't evil.

They're just like animals

trying to eat us.

But they're not evil.

They're just like animals.

And then they were able

to watch it.

In fact,

it started to become

a bit gripping

trying to imagine

what it would be like

to live in a post-apocalyptic world.

Now, here's my point.

And I'm not trying to say

that people who are telling me

that they worship

a god beyond good and evil

are in a sense

worshiping zombies.

But notice the movement

that you watch it.

It's profoundly unsettling

because you think

the zombies are evil.

But then you realize

that they're not evil.

They're just like animals.

Not good or evil.

And then you can watch it.

The Bible,

this,

remember the great hymn here

is,

Great and amazing

are your deeds.

Lord,

the God,

the Almighty,

just and true

are your ways,

O King of the nations.

Who shall not fear

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

For all the nations

will come and worship you.

For your righteous acts

have been revealed.

Notice in there,

what's this fundamental claim

about the living God?

It's going to be

very,

very important

for us to be able

to ask ourselves

whether we can sing

this hymn

and affirm this hymn

as we're reading

chapters 16,

17,

18,

19,

20,

21,

and 22

of the book of Revelation.

And it's that last part

of verse 3.

Just and true

are your ways,

O King of the nations.

And the very,

very last one,

for your righteous acts

have been revealed.

Here's what the scripture text

is affirming.

The second point,

the true and living God

is only good

and fair

and just.

The true and living God

is only good

and fair

and just.

The problem we have

with Roth language

is that we

easily

see

angry people

that we know.

We immediately think

when we see

the passage

about God's Roth,

we easily think

of road rage.

We think of

something that we see

where a person

becomes completely

and utterly

anger driven.

Maybe we have

a father or a mother

where we had an aunt

or an uncle

or a grandparent

who would lose it

and when they went angry

it was as if

a switch went off

and they just

completely and utterly

lost it.

Their anger becomes

in a sense uncontrolled

and it becomes

completely and utterly

irrational.

I don't want to get

into a debate

about spanking

but I've had people

tell me that one of the

reasons they don't

spank their children

is that they have

a fear that if they

allow themselves

to do something

like that

they won't stop

because they have

a sense of the

amount of anger

within them

that once they

let that out

even a tiny little bit

that anger will just

go and go

and go

and go

and go

and so for many

of us

we understand

how easily

anger is connected

to hatred

and how easily

that anger

is connected

to losing it

and how easily

anger is completely

and utterly

separate

from any type

of right

or wrong

I'm not making

this up

just before Christmas

I got hit

I was driving

very slowly

down my street

and I got hit

by a car

a car

one of my neighbors

backed out

of her driveway

and she banged

into my car

and

I was angry

but she was angry

at me

she thought it was

my fault

that I was driving

on the road

and that she

backed into me

well I wasn't laughing

but

and you see

we're so familiar

with this idea

that anger

is completely

and utterly

separate

from right

and wrong

and that's

in a sense

where our

imagination

immediately goes

but what is it

that the hymn

says

great and amazing

are your deeds

Lord

the God

the Almighty

just and true

are your ways

O King

of the nations

who shall not fear

and glorify

your name

for you alone

are holy

for all the nations

will come

and worship you

for your righteous

acts

have been revealed

the fact of the matter

is

is that there

is a proper

for us to have

a complete

and utter indifference

to injustice

is not a sign

that we've matured

as human beings

for us to have

a complete

and utter indifference

to horrible evil

is not a sign

that we have become

more mature

as human beings

and the fact of the matter

is that what the Bible

presents of God

is he is Lord

he is the God

he is the Almighty

and it means

that his goodness

is always good

that his truth

is always true

that his justice

is always just

his mercy

is always merciful

that nothing can stop

God from being good

nothing can cause him

to lose it

nothing can cause him

to turn

from a correct perception

that something is evil

to moving into hatred

that nothing can stop

God from being loved

and being good

and being true

and being just

he never loses it

he's never anger driven

he's always the same

and in fact

I think that for many people

remember I said to you once

that whenever somebody

says they're an atheist

we should ask them

what is the God

that you don't believe in

because maybe after

they've explained

what the God is

that they don't believe in

we agree with them

and we don't believe

in that God either

I think for many people

when they say

that they worship a God

beyond good and evil

they don't really mean it

what they're actually

trying to articulate

is the Christian God

not a God

who's indifferent

to right and wrong

but a God

who never is anger driven

who never loses it

who's always himself

because he's Lord

the God

the Almighty

who's always loved

and never stops being loved

but who's always good

and never stops being good

who's always true

and never stops being true

nothing can bang him away

from being true and just

and that ultimately

without realizing it

what they're actually

articulating

is a longing and yearning

for the God

who's described in the Bible

it's a very hard sell

to convince of that

but that's you see

the glory of this hymn

great and amazing

are your deeds

Lord the God

the Almighty

just and true

are your ways

O King of the nations

who shall not fear

and glorify your name

for you alone are holy

for all the nations

will come and worship you

for your righteous acts

have been revealed

this beautiful hymn

that captures

and holds

all of these things together

and once again

once again

the cross

changes everything

that's how we're to understand

the wrath of God

in this particular case

I've used this analogy before

it's a very very good analogy

but if all of a sudden

God was to show up

in this room

and I was to be

completely and utterly

frozen in this particular

moment right here

and then all of you

are given an ability

to understand things

the way angels understand

and all of a sudden

on that screen

you see everything

that's gone on

in my mind

in my life

from the moment

of my conception

to now

and just from

the moment of my conception

to now

and you hear

and you see

articulated

and envisioned

the grudges

that I've held on to

how I think about people

maybe how I've thought

about you

maybe a time

that I've been angry

at you

and you were to see

that go on

and on

and on

flat

screen after screen

after screen

after screen

and you are like

an angel

and you can take

a whole lifetime

over 50 years

of me doing this

every week

every month

every day

every single thing

and it goes on

and on

and on

and as it goes

on and on

and on

if you are not

numbed

you will be

increasingly horrified

at George

you will go

from saying

how on earth

could George

be up there

as a pastor

to saying

how on earth

could George

be married

to how on earth

could George

ever stand

and look a single

one of you

in the eyes

and you

would be

angry at me

and you would

think

George has gotten

away with

far too much

and you are

imperfect

not perfect

like God

and the wonder

of the cross

is

that after

all of that

is revealed

on the screen

Jesus comes

and taps me

on the shoulder

I just want

there is no

crack too small

in this place

that I would

wish I couldn't

be in

because such

a revelation

would unmake

me

and would

unmake you

and the message

of the gospel

is that God

comes up

Jesus comes

up

he taps

me in

the shoulders

and say

George

I'll take

all of that

on myself

for you

and all

of the wrath

and anger

and disappointment

and demand

for justice

that you in

the room

would feel

Jesus says

I will bear

that

on my

shoulders

and in

my person

because it

will unmake

you George

and I

love

you

and that's

what Jesus

does for us

on the cross

God is both

just and true

but his profound

righteous act

the profound

revelation

of the glory

of God

read John's

gospel

the profound

highest revelation

of the glory

of God

is the death

of Jesus

upon the cross

our wrath

on him

in my

place

condemned

he stood

here's the

doctrine

of God

being just

and true

here's what

it invites us

to do

in light

of the gospel

as we're

gripped by the

gospel

we understand

the need

for Jesus

to form

our conscience

and how we

live our lives

dear God

in light

of the gospel

please guide

my conscience

and my walk

dear God

in light

of the gospel

please guide

my conscience

and my walk

some of you

we move to the next

point to the sound

of crying children

some of you

might be saying

George I'm really

and I just

I'm going to have to

just do three points

not the four points

and I'll have to do

this last one

a little bit quickly

George

you know I'm really

worried when people

get this sense

of God

forming their conscience

and God

forming how they

walk and live

their lives

in this sense

that God

is just

and true

and righteous

George I'm really

concerned because

it's really easy

to go very quickly

from that

to believing

that God

is somehow

on our side

he's with our tribe

like look at Putin

in Russia

and look at how

the orthodox church

it's almost like

the orthodox church

is his lap dog

encouraging him

to do these bad things

George

think of how

it's been often

in the United States

hasn't often

the evangelical church

appeared to be a lap dog

to the U.S. military

like George

isn't it really easy

from going to thinking

that things are just

and true

like this

to somehow or another

that he's our God

and George

that's why

it's not like so much

George

that I want to get rid

of the idea

that God is good

but isn't it better

to understand

that God is everywhere

like isn't that

sort of a protection

against that

to think that God

is everywhere

that he's in everything

that he is everything

doesn't that help

to try to protect us

from this type

of parochialism

that

and tribal animosity

that comes along

with the goodness

of God

to think of God

as being everywhere

in everything

that he is everything

now part of it is

that when people

say that to me

I don't always know

how a gentle way

to say it

but what they're expressing

is a human problem

that in fact

cultures that have

believed that God

is everywhere

and in everything

aren't necessarily

characterized

by having no armies

and living in peace

with people

and never doing

any acts of violence

that what they are

capturing in fact

is a human problem

it's not

a Christian problem

it's a human problem

and it's a human problem

that's profoundly

addressed in this hymn

Andrew if you could

put the hymn up again

and I'll start it

and you folks say it

so I don't mess up

my memory

from what the word

I don't mess you up

by using my memory

with what the words are

because I can't see the screen

say it with great

and amazing

notice

notice

all the way

through this song

if you leave it up

notice something

very very interesting

great and amazing

are your deeds

oh Lord God

the almighty

just and true

are your ways

oh king of the nations

who will not fear

oh Lord

and glorify

your name

you alone

are holy

all nations

will come

and worship

you

for your righteous

acts

have been revealed

here's the thing

if you

could just put it up

Andrew

the true and living God

is a who

not a what

and he

is the high creator

and intimate sustainer

the true and living God

is a who

not a what

and he is the high creator

and intimate sustainer

you see

why is it that we think

when it comes to God

that being an it

or a what

is higher

if

if a

if a young

young woman

is dating a fellow

and she starts to think

that he's treating her

like an it

like a thing

like a what

does that make the young woman

love the fellow more

does that make the young woman

say oh

I just want to get so close

to Bobby

he treats me like a thing

he treats me like an it

he treats me like a what

like that doesn't inspire love

it never makes

any young woman

want to grow closer

to a young man

to be treated like a thing

doesn't work in marriage either

if Louise starts to think

that I'm treating her

like a dishwasher

it does not create

intimacy and romance

it creates

a confrontation

designed

to help us reconnect

which it should

guys

remember

often when women

confront

it's because they want

to reconnect

okay

there's a free

relationship lesson

for you

right there

women usually

confront

to reconnect

us guys can sometimes

just blow our top

okay

forgetting about reconnecting

but we have to

anyway

so here's the thing

it's rarely in relationships

viewed as a better thing

to be viewed as a what

and it

a thing

but why is it then

that we think that somehow

a God

who's a what

and it

or a thing

is somehow

higher

great and amazing

are your deeds

Lord

the God

the Almighty

just and true

are your ways

O King of the nations

who shall not fear

and glorify

your name

for you alone

are holy

for all the nations

will come

and worship you

for your

righteous acts

have been revealed

God

is revealed

as a person

he is revealed

as a who

not as a what

or an it

but at the same time

he is

he is

completely and utterly

separate from us

which means that he's

the transcendent creator

that that's what this is

trying to capture for us

that God is completely

and utterly

separate from us

and completely and utterly

different from us

and that's why we can have

a relationship with him

because he's not us

I don't have a relationship

with my image in the mirror

like that's sad

God is different

and yet at the same time

the teaching of the doctrine

when it's

when the scriptures

are saying that

that he is the Lord

the God

the Almighty

it's saying that he is

the creator of all things

and he sustains all things

in a sense

he means that

that God is

is not only closer to us

than we think

that he's closer to us

than we are to ourselves

because we are bent

and broken

and separate

and and not in perfect

relationship with ourselves

that as as as many Christians

have said over the years

in a sense

God is closer to I am

than my breath

is to me

that's how close

God is to me

as the intimate

sustainer of all things

and once again

the cross

changes

everything

because on the cross

Jesus does not die

for humanity

he doesn't die

for white people

or black people

he doesn't die

for old people

or young people

he doesn't die

for rich people

or poor people

he dies

for me

he dies

for you

he dies

for you

and me

as if you

or I

are the only

person

who exists

he does not die

for me

or you

as an abstraction

that earlier

analogy I gave

as if God

was to do that

and put everything

down there

that's what

he dies for

for me

and he does it

for you as well

he dies

knowing my name

and knowing

your name

he dies

for you

he dies

for me

he takes

my place

he takes

your place

as an act

of intimate

substitution

for the real

you

not the imaginary

you

but the real

you

and that's why

this doctrine

invites us

as we're gripped

by the gospel

to say

dear God

in light of the gospel

please help me

to not only

know about you

but also know you

if you could put it up

dear God

in light of the gospel

please help me

not only to not only

know about you

but also

know you

let's stand

we not only accept

the gospel

but we're gripped

by the gospel

the gospel

is a story

of grace

it's about what

God does

unmerited for us

with his son's

death upon the cross

and it is

something unmerited

that he does

for us on the cross

that as we enter

into the gospel

as it enters

into us

as we're gripped

by it

it creates

an opportunity

for us to be

pushed and pulled

and shaped

and drawn

towards adoration

to be pushed

and pulled

and drawn

to allowing God

to shape our conscience

and how we live our lives

to be pushed

and pulled

and drawn

and shaped

in terms

of the desire

to know God

and to be known

by him

to have

within it

a cry of our heart

for an intimacy

with our creator

for which we were created

not just adoring him

but intimacy

with him

and it comes

as we respond

to the gospel

and as we're gripped

by the gospel

let's bow our heads

in prayer

Father some of us

are wanting to be

gripped by the gospel

for the first time

some of us

maybe Father

have wandered far

and need to be

gripped by the gospel

again

and all of us

Father need to be

gripped by the gospel

we ask Father

that your Holy Spirit

would gently fall upon us

but deeply fall upon us

turn our hearts

towards Jesus

his sacrifice

upon the cross

for us

and what he accomplishes

for us

to reconcile us

to you

and to restore us

to you

Father

fan in the flame

within us

such a desire

to come to Jesus

in humble repentance

and trust

that he becomes

our living savior

our reconciler

our peacemaker

and Father

we ask that you

would make us

disciples

so gripped

by the gospel

so gripped

by what Jesus

has done for us

on the cross

that we desire

to live for your glory

fan in the flame

within us

a desire to adore you

fan in the flame

within us

a desire to know

about you

and to know you

fan in the flame

within us

a desire to have

our consciences

and our daily walk

formed by you

and this we ask

in the name of Jesus

your son

and our savior

amen