September 14/15, 2002

WHO IS GOD?-The creation tells us who God is not.

Genesis 1:1

There are a lot of very different ideas about God floating around in our world. The Hindus say there are thousands of gods. The Buddhists claim that there really is not a god at all and that everything shall one day return to nothingness. The Zoroastrians say there are two competing deities, one good and one bad, and neither is able to gain control over the other. New Age religion says that god is inside of us and that we just need to discover our own divinity. The Jews say God is one. The Muslims say God is Allah. The Christians say God is three in one. Atheists say there is no god at all. Who is right? Who is wrong? With so many conflicting claims, everyone cannot be right. Some have to be wrong. How can we know what God is like? How can we know anything about God with any degree of certainty?

The Christian tradition has always claimed that God is the Creator of all that exists and that we can know something of who God is and what God is like by looking at His creation.

The Christian scriptures begin with these magnificent words-

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

You may be surprised to learn that one of the things this verse does is tell us is who God is not-

1. God is not us.

Some people teach that if you want to find God, you should look inside of yourself. They say that God is in all of us. They teach that we are divine creatures and that with proper instruction and understanding we can manifest our own divinity.

Not so says Genesis chapter one. God is completely external to us. He made us. We are the workmanship of His hands. We are made in His image. We are like God in some ways, but we are not God and God is not us. God is completely external to us. He is over us and above us and completely separate from us. There is no confusing us with God or God with us.

2. God is not two.

Have you heard of Ying and Yang? Good karma and bad karma? Some religions teach that there is a good god and a bad god struggling for control of the creation. The worshipers' job is to keep them in control, to not let one god get supremacy over the other god. This explains where evil comes from and why bad things happen to good people. The bad god is the source of the evil in the world. The good god is the source of the good in the world.

Nonsense says Genesis one. There is only one God. He is totally omnipotent. He is totally in control. God made everything, even Satan. And everything in the creation is subject to God's authority.

This creates problems, of course. If there is one God and if God is all-powerful and if God is all-good, then why does Satan exist and why is there evil in the world? The Bible never answers these mysteries. But the Bible does make us to know that the mysteries cannot be explained away by saying that part of the creation is beyond God's power. Nothing is beyond God's power. God is absolutely sovereign over all. If that creates philosophical and spiritual problems for us, then so be it, but we cannot explain it away by limiting the power of God.

3. God is not the creation.

From time immoral people have worshipped the creation rather than the creator. Even today many people would rather spend time outdoors than in the house of worship. They say they can worship God better on the golf course or in a boat or hiking in the woods than they can in a church. Many people say that they are spiritual, but they do not want to be a part of a church family.

Don't you believe a minute of it. Genesis one says that God is separate from His creation and that He is greater than the creation. The creation is a product of God's workmanship and reflects God's glory, but the creation is infinitely less than God. God is so much greater than His creation as a builder is greater than the house he builds.

God's great creation is filled with mystery and with beauty and it invokes in us a sense of wonder and of awe. But the creation is not worthy of our worship. God's presence in the world is found, not in the creation, but in the lives of believers. The old temple in Jerusalem is gone. The Romans destroyed it. The temple was the place of God's throne on earth. The new temple is in the lives of believers. As God's Spirit resided in the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem, so now His Holy Spirit resides in the lives of believers in Jesus Christ. So those who want to meet God and experience His presence in the world need to find a place where Christians gather. As strange as it may seem to us, worshippers will encounter the God of Creation in the failings, in the weaknesses, in the immaturity and in the genuine love of the people of God.

The creation reveals to us the mystery and the wonder and the beauty and the awe of God, but if we would meet the person of God, we must get with other Christians. It is in their lives that God resides in our world and it is through their lives that God reveals His glory to us.

4. God is not nothing.

In ancient times it was practically unheard of for anyone to not believe in God. But since the rise of scientific rationalism it has become fashionable in some parts to deny the existence of God. The Big Bang is said to explain the creation and how it got to where it is today. And evolution is said to explain how life came to inhabit this planet. Neither theory actually addresses God's presence or His absence, but many interpret these theories to mean that they explain away the need for God.

The Bible never argues for the existence of God. Genesis one begins with the words, "In the beginning God . . . ." It assumes God's existence. This leads to the observation that the difference between believers and non-believers is not really one of knowledge. Believers do not have some secret knowledge of God that non-believers do not have. The difference between believers and non-believers is one of the will. Believers believe because they choose to believe. Non-believers reject God because they choose to reject Him. Whatever else being made in the image of God means, it means that we have freedom to choose to believe or not to believe in God. We get to choose to accept God or to reject Him.
Scientific rationalists indicate that they would believe in God if they could be convinced with hard evidence of God's existence. But, of course, God cannot be proved. If we could prove Him, God would not be God. Anyone who can test something and measure it and quantify it is greater than the thing they test and measure and quantify. So the very definition of God means that God will always be beyond our human minds to understand or to comprehend.

This means that the only way anyone is ever going to accept God is by faith. But faith does not have to be completely blind. There is considerable evidence that points to God. The creation itself continues to be the greatest argument for God's existence. If you believe the Big Bang theory explains God away, you must be prepared to explain why there was a big bang? You need to be able to answer who or what caused it to bang? You need to be able to explain from where did the physical laws come that governed how the elements coming out of the big bang organized themselves into the creation that we know? And you need to be able to give some explanation of why the creation shows such a favoritism toward the development of life on this planet?

Faith requires belief in a God whom we cannot see or comprehend or touch, but it does not have to be blind faith. There is plenty of evidence pointing toward the existence of God. Just look around you. You will see people whose lives have changed radically because they say they "found" God. And the holy lives of people like Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer argues strongly for an objective presence of goodness and love. After all, they were people like the rest of us until some power greater than themselves took hold of their minds and hearts and transformed them into saints. What power was it that took hold of them? From where did that power come? Both Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer said that it was God who touched their lives and transformed them into who they became. Belief in God requires faith, but it does not require blind faith. There is plenty of evidence for those who want to see it.

But the issue is not evidence. The issue is the will. Those who want to believe find reasons to believe and those who do not want to believe find reasons not to believe. So, in the final analysis belief in God is a matter of the will. We believe because we choose to believe or we reject God because we choose to reject Him.

CONCLUSION:

There are many ideas about God floating around in our world. All of these ideas cannot be true. How can we know which one to believe? We believe that Genesis one points us to the one true God.

INVITATION:

Those of us who are Christians need to make a greater effort to know what we believe about God and why we believe it. We would be stronger in our faith if we did.

Those of us who are not Christians have a wonderful opportunity to exercise our free will by confessing our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.