Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: God knows our sin, but seeks us anyway.

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in Biblical Studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled First Things First. Let's listen in as JP gives us part two of The God We Worship.

JP Jones: The testimony of the entire Bible is that there is one God eternally exists as three coequal persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One in essence, distinct in existence. Not three parts, three persons who mysteriously, incomprehensibly, yet definitely exist eternally as one God. Let us make man in our image, in the image and likeness of God we have been created. Male and female we have been created. It is both maleness and femaleness that fully represents the nature of God. Wow, man. Genesis is kind of heavy book. Well, you know what else we learn?

We learn that God communicates his will. This incomprehensible God, who is the infinite creator, who just speaks and it becomes reality. He would who eternally exists as a Trinity in a unity, makes himself known, makes his purposes known, makes his will known, communicates with us. Genesis 1:28 to 30, God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and every living creature that moves on the ground. Then God said, I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, and they will be yours for food.

And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food. And it was so. Genesis chapter 2:15 to 17, the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.

God reveals himself. God speaks to us. God makes his will known to us. And the whole Bible is filled with that reality. In fact, the Bible itself is God speaking to us. God reveals himself in a variety of ways. Hebrews chapter 1 says that in the past he spoke to the prophets in many portions in many ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his son, whom he's appointed the heir of all things, who upholds all things by the word of his power, who is the exact representation of the Father's nature.

God speaks through miracles, through saving acts, through dreams, through visions. God has spoken us through the incarnation of his son. God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. God speaks through the prophets and the apostles. God has inspired scripture so that we have the 66 books of the Bible, which is the word of God. It speaks, you see. God communicates. God makes himself known. God reveals himself. So we don't have to, you know, be in some kind of philosophical abyss where we're just, oh gosh, is there a God? I don't know if there's a God and if if he does exist, what is he like?

And who knows? If God had not spoken and revealed himself, that's what we would be left with. But God has spoken. God has revealed himself. God's made his will known, his purposes, his nature. God wants us to know him. In fact, Jesus said in John 17 this great prayer between God the Son and God the Father, he says, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you've sent. God wants us to know him. So he's revealed himself. He's communicated with us. Here's a fifth observation about the true God.

God is the self-existent life-giver. The self-existent life-giver. Genesis 2:7 says, the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. I want you to picture and and even kind of imagine what's going on here. In creation, God took the dust that he had created and breathed into it the breath of life. And because God breathed into what he created, the breath of life, human beings came into existence. We have contingent, derived, dependent life. God has non-contingent, non-derived, independent life.

In fact, this this next week in the lecture I'm given for one of the classes I'm teaching about Biola is on the incommunicable attributes of God. What that means is those things that are unique to God, that that aren't part of us in being created image of God. There there are things that are unique to his own divine nature. And one of the first attributes in theology that we talk about when we talk about the incommunicable attributes of God is the attribute of independence. Some of you may think, well, I've read the Bible. I don't I don't know where it ever says God is independent.

Well, it's a term to describe what I am talking to you about right now, that God has life in himself that is independent from anything else. That makes him unique. That's why it's an incommunicable attribute. We have life, but we have life because God gave it to us. No one gave God life. He has life in himself. That why in Exodus chapter three we'll we'll be looking at that next week where Moses has this encounter with God and and God reveals himself to Moses and and Moses said, okay, if I go back to Pharaoh and I say, you know, hey, God said let my people go, and they ask, well, well, who's God?

What do I say to him? Remember God's answer? I am who I am. That's an interesting self-disclosure. I am who I am. God can say I am who I am. Why? Because he has life in himself. He is who he is. He is self-existent, self-sufficient. And God breathes into man the breath of life, we're told here in Genesis chapter one. So God is the independent life-giver. He is self-existent. He is eternal. And guess what? In John chapter one where John gives us this great description of Jesus in the prologue of John one, he says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. Nothing has come into being that has come into being except through him. And in him was life. And the life was the light. No, it says, and the life was the light of men. So here Genesis one, God breathes into us the breath of life. John one, Jesus, because Jesus is the eternal son of God as the word of God is also described as having life, and that life is the light of men. We have life because God has given us life.

God has life because he just has it eternally in himself. He is the self-existent one. If you're thinking, oh my gosh, I don't get all this. Now you're getting close to what it means to be a worshiper. See, if we got it all, why would we worship a God that we totally figured out and we could control and we actually, though we would never say it, would think of ourselves as actually a little superior because we fully got them in our head and we got it all figured out. So, you know, but when we can only speak about God in terms that he's revealed to us and we're continually reminded that we're the creature and he's the creator and that we're finite and he's infinite, now we're beginning to approach the true attitude of worship because we come down and we humble ourselves before God.

We come dependent upon God. We come thirsty and we come needy and we come saying, God, you're the only one who can get me out of this. God, I worship you because you're bigger than I am and bigger than all my problems. You see, really being a worshiper is only as true and as life-giving as the one you worship. And many of us have such a small view of God that we're not very good worshipers. We're false worshipers cuz we're worshiping a false God. And right there in Genesis it's laying out who God is. He's the self-existent life-giver.

Here's the sixth thing. God cares about us and he meets our needs. He cares about us and he meets our needs. Genesis 2:18-22, the Lord God said, it's not good for man to be alone. I'll make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the air, and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with the flesh. And then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Don't miss the simplicity of this revelation. God said it was not good for man to be alone. So God provided a means to meet man's aloneness need. God knows what we need and God provides what we need.

God cares about us. God cares about you. God cares about me. And God, better than ourselves, really knows what we really need. And God, better than ourselves, can really provide what we really need. God cares and God provides. Wow. God cares and God provides. God cares and God provides. Well, you could write that over whatever your face in right now, whatever your struggling with right now, whatever you need right now, God cares and God provides. That's the true God. Here's a seventh observation. I mean, for some of us we we may take this almost casually.

But it blows me away to realize it's true. God knows our sin, but seeks us anyway. God knows our sin, but seeks us anyway. Genesis chapter three describes the fall of man, not just the misstep of the first couple, but from a cosmic perspective the invasion of sin into God's creation. You know the story. The serpent tempted Eve. She was deceived and she followed on the serpent's deception. She offered the fruit to Adam and he willfully disobeyed and rebelled against God's instruction. And immediately they became aware of their alienation from God. Immediately they became aware of their nakedness.

Immediately they realized that their fellowship with God had been interrupted. They immediately experienced what God said would happen on the day you eat of it you shall die. They died spiritually. Boom, right there. Separation. And so what they do? They hid themselves from each other and from God. Now some of us because of the view that we have of God would think God would just go, oh, don't worry about it. Others of us because of the view that we have of God would think God would go, zap, I'm zapping you right away. I told you not to do it.

You did it. You're zapped. Gone, destroyed, judgment. This is what the passage says. Genesis 3:8-9. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you? You think God knew what they'd done? Of course he did. He's the infinite creator. He speaks and it just becomes reality. But he still comes looking for him. Why? Cuz God is a seeker of relationship.

Jesus said in John chapter three, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. God did not send the Son in the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. God seeks relationship with sinners. And how many of you can say hallelujah because of that? I can. God sought me when I was a sinner. In fact, the Bible says in Romans chapter five, God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God knew their sin, God knew their deception, God knew their rebellion. God knew things about them they didn't even know about themselves. He sought after them anyway. God still does that. God seeks sinners. In fact, Jesus told a story in Luke chapter 15. It's one of the only times you even see something like this. Jesus told three stories in a row to illustrate one simple point. Told the story of the lost sheep, 100 sheep, found the 99, lost one. Told the story of the lost coin, the older widow who had 10 coins that was just going to be what she lived on.

And she found nine of them, lost one. And then told the story of the lost son. We call it the story of the prodigal son. And all three of those stories is prefaced in Luke 15 with this description. Jesus told these stories to show God's love for sinners. God loves sinners. And God seeks relationship with sinners. God knows our sin, but seeks us anyway. Now having said that, God is the lawgiver and the judge because Genesis chapter three follows this with these words. Genesis 3:14, and the Lord God said to the serpent, because you've done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals.

You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life, and I'll put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman he said, I'll greatly increase your pain in childbirth. With pain you will give birth to children, your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you, and through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since uh from it you were taken. From dust you are and to dust you will return. God holds us accountable and God punishes sin. He's the lawgiver and he 's the judge. Romans chapter two Paul says, when according to my gospel there is coming a day when God will judge everyone and the secrets of their hearts. God is a judge. He's not some kindly, compassionate, senile, grandfatherly figure who sits in a rocking chair and just kind of gives us new geese and says, ah, bless your heart, don't do it anymore.

Ah, you know, don't worry about it. Ah, you know, boys will be boys. Don't worry about it. He's holy. He's the lawgiver. He's got a truth. He's a judge. But he is also the author and provider of salvation. There's a little line here in Genesis that I think if we read over it we will miss the significance of what's really being said. In Genesis 3:21 after pronouncing this judgment it says this, the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Well, if you were reading through the text on your own you realize they closed themselves.

When they sinned and they immediately became aware of the consequences of their sin that they were separated from God, they found leaves and they covered up, you know, the parts that they were kind of ashamed of, which they weren't ashamed of before because the Bible says they were both naked and not ashamed. But all of a sudden when they sinned their eyes were opened because now they developed a moral conscience and they realized they disobeyed God and they had a sense of shame. And they tried to cover themselves up. And then here in Genesis 3:21 it says, the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife Eve and clothed them.

This is a metaphor for the fact that God provided the way of salvation and then he saved them. Don't you appreciate the fact that God has made a way for salvation and God has saved you? We don't get to decide our own way of saving ourselves. We can try that, but it does not save us. It just covers up. God is the author of salvation and God provides the salvation we seek for and God saves. That's why Paul says in Romans 3:25 and 26 that God is just and the justifier of whoever has faith in Jesus.

God has a just plan, God has a salvation plan. And when we receive God's salvation plan by faith, God saves us. One last thing. And I know that in it this is overwhelming, but if any of these stick and cause you to see the true God for who he truly is, then that will affect you to truly worship him. God is worthy of acceptable worship. Genesis chapter four says, now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil. And in the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.

But Abel brought that portions from some of the first born of his flock. And the Lord God looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast. Two guys worship God. One's acceptable worship, one's unacceptable worship. God's worthy of acceptable worship. God receives acceptable worship. He rejects false worship. It's quite possible that those of us gathered here, it's probably 500 more people here right now, we're coming here to worship. Some of us are bringing acceptable worship that will receive and glorify God and some of us are bringing false worship that God will reject.

By the way, I I'm not the one who determines that. I I I'm personally accountable to God for my own offering of worship. But I do know based upon Genesis 1-4 I can worship God falsely and unacceptably when my heart is not right. And I can worship God falsely and unacceptably when I don't bring an offering that is acceptable to God. Cain offered worship, but it was unacceptable because Cain was believing something that was not true about God. He was believing a lie and therefore his false belief led him to false worship. And God didn't accept it.

Abel understood what was true about God and offered an offering that reflected that truth and God accepted that worship and was glorified. Our worship is acceptable or unacceptable based upon believing what is true about God and allowing that truth to transform our minds and our hearts and our offering. What are you believing about God? And what are you bringing to God as an offering? Worship reflects what we believe about God and then how we respond to that belief with what we offer. If we don't believe what's true about God, we can't be acceptable worshipers. We got to know what's true about God.

We got to let that truth set us free and then out of the freedom of that truth we humbly come before God bringing our offering that glorifies him as God because we're believing what's true about the true God. So this morning as we respond to our worship, we're going to respond with prayer and and songs of praise. And for that to be true worship it needs to come from a heart and a mind that surrendered to what's true about God. So I invite you to do that.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just $5. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 233 31 Molten Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or give us a call at 949 916 0250. That's 949 916 0250. For your gift of $25 or more we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book Facing Goliath.

Please join us every Sunday at 9 or 11:00 a.m. at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 233 31 Molten Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment. But before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. You know, we're in a study talking about worship and worshiping the true God. We are to worship the true God and worship him in the true way. The Bible says that God is the creator. We're looking at Genesis, the first couple of chapters, and we're seeing that God's the infinite creator. And what we learn is that there are certain things that are true about God that are unique to him, that they are not expressed in us as his creatures. And then there are certain things that are true about God that we share in, that we participate in.

And when we study this in theology we call those the incommunicable attributes of God and the communicable attributes of God. The incommunicable attributes of God are those things that are unique to God alone because God is unique. But the communicable attributes of God are those things that are true of us because we've been created in his image, so we share in them as well. Uniquely God is the infinite creator. That is true of his incommunicable nature. But he is a revealer and he makes himself known. He has communicated to us. In fact, in the first few chapters of Genesis we see that God creates, God speaks, God blesses, God judges, God provides.

We were created to know God and to worship God. We know God because he's revealed himself to us. We can be in a personal relationship with God because he has paid the penalty for our sin and he has provided the way of salvation. Do you know God? Have you experienced his salvation? If you have not yet done so, would you call on the name of the Lord and be saved? Lord Jesus, I pray that you would speak to every person listening to this that we would seek after you because you've made yourself known to us, that we'd call on you because you've revealed yourself to us.

We'd invite you into our hearts because you have died on the cross to save us. I pray, Lord, that we would know God because you have made him known. In Jesus name, amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 233 31 Molten Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or call us at 949 916 0250. On the Internet you'll find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.