Who Is God?

When Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany, he came to America and bought an old two-story house within walking distance of Princeton University.
There he entertained some of the most distinguished people of his day and discussed with them issues as far ranging as physics to human rights.
But Einstein had another frequent visitor.
She was not, in the world’s eyes, an important person like his other guests. She was a ten-year-old girl named Emmy.
Emmy heard that a very kind man who knew a lot about mathematics had moved into her neighborhood.
Since she was having trouble with her fifth-grade arithmetic, she decided to visit the man down the block and see if he would help her with her problems.
Einstein was very willing and explained everything to her so that she could understand it. He also told her she was welcome to come anytime she needed help.
A few weeks later, one of the neighbors told Emmy’s mother that Emmy was often seen entering the house of the world-famous physicist.
Horrified, she told her daughter that Einstein was a very important man, whose time was very valuable, and he couldn’t be bothered with the problems of a little schoolgirl.
And then she rushed over to Einstein’s house, and when Einstein answered the door, she started trying to blurt out an apology for her daughter’s intrusion – for being such a bother.
But Einstein cut her off. He said, “She has not been bothering me!
When a child finds such joy in learning, then it is my joy to help her learn!
Please don’t stop Emmy from coming to me with her school problems. She is welcome in this house anytime.”
In the Same way the One that created Einstein and that great brain of his has invited us to come to know Him.
So many times we look at those that are famous and well known and say, man it would be awesome to get to meet that person.
I had a friend that went to Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and I hated when he told of getting to meet famous people. He once got to talk to Arnold Swartzenneger and I was jealous of him.
When I was in college I thought that would be the most awesome thing to meet Arnold.
Once at Allison’s place of work she got to meet Rick Flair the Nature Boy and she didn’t even know who he was. I was so jealous of her.
But today we have been invited to learn about Who God Is. We have been invited into His presence to learn truly about Him.
We live in a time that there is a false perception of God.
Wall Street Journal entitled Redefining God and listen to the thesis of the article.
"Across the country the "faithful" quote, unquote "are redefining God, dissatisfied with conventional images of an authoritarian or paternalistic deity. People are embracing quirky, individualistic conceptions of God to suit their own spiritual needs."
This is not what the world is doing but this is what the Church is doing. We create a God that looks a lot like us.
A God that is an American middle class God, that is comfortable with lukewarm Christianity, that is comfortable with materialism, that is comfortable for people that don’t care about the Gospel.
We create a God that will not punish sin but will give universal salvation to all.
We create a God that is just like us.
I would propose across the country today and all around the world people will go to places of worship in the name of Christ and claim to worship God but they will be worshipping a creation of their own.
In reality they will be worshipping themselves and not God.
Now hear me clearly, we are not here to redefine God, God will not be redefined and He is not a God to be trifled with.
3 Goals in our study of Who God is are the following:
1) To see and know the glory of God
2) To understand who God is and experience his glory from His Word.
3) When we understand who God is and His glory we will want to Advance His kingdom.

Jeremiah 9: 23-24
23 Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches ; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth ; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD
Jeremiah the prophet invites us to try to understand and know God.
What comes in to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Our understanding of Who God is will shape everything about us.
The way we worship, live our lives, and view salvation will ultimately be shaped by what we think of when we consider God.
“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him”
—A.W. Tozer
II. We can know truly about God but we can’t know every thing about God.
Psalm 145:3
3 Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised, And His greatness is unsearchable (NASB)
In some sense God is unknowable.
We can never know God is fullness but only what He chooses to reveal to us. God is inexhaustible and even when we get to Heaven we will not be God and will never be able to fully comprehend his greatness.
1) We cannot know God because of sin
Through Christ’s redemption we can know God by the cross and the blood shed for us.
When are sins are removed we can start to understand and know God but even with the sin gone in our lives God will still be all powerful and infinite.
2) Even when we get to Heaven God will still be infinite and we will be finite.
We cannot know God inexhaustibly but you can know God truly
Some people might be depressed by this reality. If Pride leads our lives then we will have a problem with this.
In humility we must accept this fact.
Some say if Heaven is perfect, wouldn’t be perfectly boring.
That is a problem, we can never exhaust God – for eternity we will get to know more and more of His grace, love, wisdom and might.
For eternity we will get to know this.
III. God Must Reveal Himself to us. God initiates His communication with man.
The good news is that God is knowable – He does show us truth about Himself.
I Corinthians 2:9-16
9 but just as it is written, "THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM." 10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit ; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.
Only the Spirit of God knows the fullness of the glory of God.
If we want to know God, then we need the Spirit to reveal Him to us.
Therefore, a people who are desperate to know God will be desperate for His Spirit.
If we are not desperate for His Spirit, it is a sure indicator that we have grown content with knowing little about God.
Do we want to know the glory of God?
Then let us be a people desperate for the Spirit of God.
And when we’re desperate for the Spirit, our hearts will begin to understand God with the very perspective of Christ.
Do you want the mind of Christ?
John 16 Jesus tells us that He has revealed to us everything that the Father wishes. We should crave the Spirit of God and the mind of Christ.
This will bring a total transformation on how we see the world.
“We have but to want Him badly enough, and He will come and manifest Himself to us.”
—A.W. Tozer
Paul makes it clear that God’s nature and God’s attributes are
IV. Routine Religion is no longer tolerable when you know God.
A guy named Charles Misner, scientific specialist in general relative theory who commented on Albert Einstein's life.
And I want you to listen to what he said as a commentary on Albert Einstein as it relates to religion. Albert Einstein, obviously a genius.
Listen to what he said "The design of the universe" Misner said, "Is very magnificent and shouldn't be taken for granted.
In fact I believe that is why Einstein had little use for organized religions although he strikes me as a very – basically very religious man.
He must have looked at what the church said about God and felt that they were blaspheming.
He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined and they were just not talking about the real thing.
My guess is that he simply felt the religions he had run across did not have proper respect for the author of the universe." You think about what a scientist knows.
A scientist knows that our galaxy and our solar system is 100,000 light years in diameter. It contains 100 billion stars.
This was just one galaxy among innumerable galaxies that are among the range of our best telescopes, our galaxy alone, 100 billion stars.
The sun is a modest star burning at a minor 600 degrees centigrade, traveling 150 miles a second, and it will take 200 million years for it to complete a revolution around our galaxy. That's one star among 100 billion. Scientists know this.
Isaiah 40: 25-26
25 "To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his equal ?" says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name ; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing
All of these stars are named one by one by God.
100 billion stars and He can call them each by name.
How can you have routine religion when you realize this God is the God that created the world and the universe?
Consider the following when you think about the Greatness of God.
Think about an object in the Universe that is traveling at 67,000 miles per hour
This same object is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour- Welcome to Planet Earth
Earth 99 percent of our energy from the Sun and the Sun converts 4 million tons of energy every second –the energy output varies less than 1 percent over 11 years. If this energy output ever varied more than 1 percent – life on earth would not exist.
The Sun is 93 million miles away from earth. If it were 94 million miles away there would be no life, 92 million miles away no life on earth – it must be exactly where it is located for life on earth to exist.
The Earth’s tilt is 23.5 percent and this tilt is vitally important to our planet.
Without our tilt we would be tidally locked and one side of the earth would get too much energy
23.5 percent tilt is perfect tilt – if we had a tilt of 24 degrees or 22 degrees there would be no life on earth.
How do we get our tilt? 40 percent of our tilt comes from the Sun’s gravity and 60 percent from our Moon.
Our moon serves a vital function in that it regulates our tides and keeps our tilt. Without the perfect size moon and perfect distance from the Sun we would have no life on earth.
Our atmosphere is 21 percent Oxygen and this is the perfect amount of oxygen, 23 percent Oxygen no life, 20 percent no life.
Our Oceans have 3.4 % salinity and this is the exact same amount in our blood stream. If you changed either one of these percentages in our blood stream or the ocean there would be no life on earth.
There are hundreds more of these- these are like dials that made and adjusted just perfect for life on earth to exist.
If you take the largest object in the Universe and the smallest subatomic particle in the universe and measured them, guess what would be the midway point between these two sizes? The average human adult height is the exact midway point between the largest object in the universe and the smallest object.
Does that tell you something? Do you think all of this is coincidence?
Is shows us that someone has adjusted these dials.
Does this sound like a weak Creator?
A universe this big? Does that sound like a puny God?
Does this seem like an impersonal God?
From this we realize that we serve a Creator that is infinitely powerful and infinitely caring and loving for us even so much that He set our planet up perfectly for life to exist.

V. Routine worship is no longer possible when you know God.
If Christians understood how great their God is they could never come to worship him and be bored by the experience.
How can we come here and not want to put our entire self into our worship and praise.
How we worship God shows exactly what we think of God.
VI. Knowing this Great God tells us that we must come in total submission
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his book the Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”
When we consider the greatness of God the only response to Him is to totally submit to Him and take up our cross and follow Him.
When we realize that God is Real and He is The Truth then it will make all the difference in the world.
There is a tale of the great English actor Macready. Macready was once asked by a preacher; "What is the difference between you and me?"
You see the actor appeared before crowds night after night proclaiming fiction and people listened with delight.
The preacher spoke of the essentials and the unchanged truths of God, yet, most listened with no passion upon their hearts.
Macready's answer was this, "I present fiction as though it were true; you present truth as though it were fiction."

VII. We will have a heart for Mission to share the Gospel with others.
WE will be so excited about this great God that we will want to share with others. We will have a heart for global mission.
To reach those that don’t know about God with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We will start to think about the Animistic tribes in Africa that do not know this God.
We will start to be concerned for the 350 million Buddhist in places like Japan, Laos, and Vietnam.
We will grow concerned for the souls of the 950 Hindus in places like India and Pakistan.
We will want to share the gospel with the 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.
To understand God means that we will want to share Him with everyone that doesn’t know Him no matter the cost.
When I think of mission I think of a man that I met at Riverside Christian Academy a few years ago.
I was very convicted in my lack of heart for missions.
This man had every reason to make excuses as to why he could not go on missions.
He started off by saying:
“I have everything I need for joy!”
Robert Reed His hands are twisted and his feet are useless.
He can’t bathe himself.
He can’t feed himself.
He can’t brush his teeth, comb his hair, or put on his underwear.
Strips of Velcro hold his shirts together. His speech drags like a worn out audiocassette.
Robert has cerebral palsy.
The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, and going for a walk.
But it didn’t keep him from graduating from high school or attending Abilene Christian University, from which he graduate with a degree in Latin.
Having cerebral palsy didn’t keep him from teaching at St. Louis Junior College or from venturing overseas on five mission trips.
And Robert’s disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.
He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972.
There he rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese.
He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language.
Then he stationed himself daily in a park, where he distributed brochures about Christ.
Within six years he led seventy people to the Lord, one of whom became his wife, Rosa.
I look at Robert Reed and I realized that this guy gets it. He really understands who God is.
I believe this morning that all of us, if we understood the greatness of God we would go into the world and boldly spread the Gospel.
Conclusion:
1) Humbling Journey to get to know God
We are not investigators setting out to learn about God – we are servants sitting at His feet.
Psalm 25: 9
“He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”
Isaiah 66: 2
“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.”
If we want to learn to know God – it must be from a humble and contrite heart.
2) This is about knowing God and not knowing about God.
This is a journey – our goal is to know God – not know about God
We are not seeking knowledge for knowledge’s sake



John 10: 14-15
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”
Like a sheep knows the shepherd in John 10 – this our goal or aim – to know God to be in relationship with Him.

This morning we want to invite you to get to know this shepherd.