Basic Christian Beliefs: God

This is the first in a series of sermon on Basic Christian Beliefs. What are some of the fundamental, historic beliefs at the heart of Christianity? I want to look at these particularly from a United Methodist prospective. We are a United Methodist church, so it might be good to get the United Methodist slant on these basic Christian beliefs.

I realize that today many people are not interested in denominations, and denominational loyalties that once existed no longer exist. However, people sometimes ask me questions about the United Methodist Church and its beliefs. Let’s take a look at some of the historic doctrines and beliefs of Christianity through the eyes of United Methodism.

Just a little side note here: I think that the United Methodist Church sometimes gets a bad rap. Newspapers, for example, have a way of only printing something about our denomination when it is controversial or bad. There is a rich heritage in our United Methodist tradition and I am happy to be part of it.

In 1968, the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Church and the Methodist Church merged to form the United Methodist Church. Each had an historic document the helped define its doctrines. For Methodists, it was the Articles of Religion, and for EUB’s, it was the Confession of Faith. Both of these documents have been kept as a means of helping to spell out the faith that is at the heart of United Methodism.

Perhaps the best place to begin our look at Basic Christian Beliefs is to ask: What do Christians believe about GOD? All religions start with belief in some kind of a god or deity. For Christians, the God we believe in is the God revealed in the pages of the Bible.

There are people today who don’t believe in a God. Agnostics. Atheists. A story is told about an atheist who was spending a quiet day fishing, when suddenly his boat was attached by the Loch Ness monster. In one easy flip, the beast tossed him and his boat high into the air, then opened its mouth to swallow both. As the man sailed head over heels, he cried out, “Oh God, help me! At once, the scene froze in place. As the atheist hung in mid-air, a booming voice came down from the clouds, “I thought you didn’t believe in Me!” “Come on, God, give me a break!” the terrified man blurted out. “Two minutes ago I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either!”

There are some people who don’t believe in God. But most people do believe in some kind of God. The Bible doesn’t try to prove the existence of God. To my knowledge, there is no place in the Bible where we find people sitting around discussing whether or not God exists! The Bible simply assumes not just the existence of God, but also God’s activity in the world and human life! The question in the Bible is not, “Is there a God?” but rather, “What is the nature of this God?”

What is this Christian God like? How do you begin to describe “God” in a 20-25 minute sermon? If I had 20 hours… 20 days… 20 years to describe what God is like, I would be unable to do it! No one can fully describe or understand God! God is beyond our human comprehension. God is that “mysterious Other” - separate and different from all created things. When the Bible says God is “holy”, it means God is “separate” or “different”.

Because God is “holy” or “other”, we can be sure that no one fully understands the Almighty. Job, in the Old Testament, once asked: “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?” Job 11:7. The answer is: No!

No sermon, no book, no creed, no teaching says all there is to say about the Eternal One.

No person, no group, has the Almighty in their hip pocket.

I have met some Christians who give the impression that they have God in their corner and have God all figured out! A young woman died. Since she was a member of the church I pastored, I visited with her grief-stricken husband and children. A relative was there who sang in a gospel quartet. When we had a time of prayer, this man prayed something like this: “O Lord, we can understand why You’ve allowed this. We understand your ways.”

I felt like screaming: “Well, I don’t!!”

Listen to what God says in Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

No one fully understands God or God’s ways. And because God is holy, God is naturally hidden and unknown to us. The prophet Isaiah once said, “Truly you are a God who hides himself” Isaiah 45:15. We can’t know or understand the true God through our own efforts! 1 Corinthians 1:21 says bluntly: “The world did not know God through wisdom.”

No matter how smart I am, no matter if I get an “A” in a philosophy class, no matter how much time I spend out in nature thinking about God, no matter how much I get involved in religion, I can’t know or understand God through my own efforts.

I can know God only if God chooses to make Himself known! And the good news is that God has chosen to reveal Himself to His creation. God has revealed Himself through certain people and through the events of history. The reason Christians place so much value on the Bible is that the Bible is the written record of how God has revealed Himself in human life and history. In the Old Testament God revealed Himself and His purposes through a group of people called Hebrews (Israel), through leaders like Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Amos, and others. In the New Testament, God revealed Himself supremely through One named Jesus of Nazareth. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

Let me try to illustrate what I’m saying. Suppose you’re a teenaged boy. A new girl moves into your school, and you’re interested. So, you gather some information about her.

She is 5 foot 4 inches tall, has short brown hair, an attractive face and figure. She is in two of your classes, plays on the field hockey team, and causes you to daydream a lot. You even check around and find out where she lives, that she has a younger brother, and that she and her family moved from Ohio.

You know some things about her. But you don’t know her. Whether or not you ever get to know her depends on whether she chooses to let that happen. So, you try to strike a friendship, and she responds. You ask her out on a date, and she accepts. You become good friends, and as you talk she begins to slowly reveal her inward thoughts and feelings, who she really is, and what she’s really like.

In a way, this is how it is with our relationship with God. Christians believe we can come to know God and to know what God’s like, because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. God reveals Himself and His nature most fully through Jesus! Jesus once said, “If you’ve seen me, you have seen the Father!” When we place our faith in Christ and follow Him, we begin to live in a relationship with God, and experience what God is like!

The Bible also tells us what God is like. However, the Bible wasn’t written by people sitting around, philosophically discussing character traits of the Deity, but by people who experienced God working in human history, and especially in Jesus the Christ.

What is this God like?

In the Methodist Articles of Religion it says, “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

The Evangelical United Brethren Church had a similar statement of faith about God: “We believe in the one true, holy and living God, Eternal Spirit, who is Creator, Sovereign and Preserver of all things visible and invisible. He is infinite in power, wisdom, justice, goodness and love, and rules with gracious regard for the well-being and salvation of men, to the glory of his name. We believe the one God reveals himself as the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinct but inseparable, eternally one in essence and power.”

These statements point out Christianity’s historic belief in the Trinity, that God is one, but revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is one of the great mysteries of God. We worship one God, yet God revealed Himself as heavenly Father, also as Jesus the Son, and as Spirit – the Holy Spirit.

Christians also believe that God is eternal. God was not part of the created order. God always was and always will be. It is thrilling to know that this eternal God invites us into a relationship with Himself that will never end! It will transcend this life and go beyond death.

Then too, God is infinite in power. Psalm 147:5 says “Great is our Lord and mighty in power”. 1 Chronicles 29:11-12 also speaks of God’s might and power: “Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all.”

These verses tell of the awesomeness and power of God! God can do anything God wants!

The encouraging word here is that for those on the Lord’s side, for those who want to do what is right and good, the awesome power of God is available to us!

God is also God of justice. There are numerous verses in both the Old and New Testaments that talk about this quality of God. Psalm 9:7-8 “The Lord reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice.”

Ultimately, goodness will be rewarded and evil will be punished. God will balance the scales of justice and every human being will face our Maker to be judged. This is a part of God’s nature that our generation tends to sweep under the carpet. Many people have a sentimentalized view of God and see Him as an indulgent sugar-daddy who overlooks all evil and wrongdoing. It is incredible how flippant and casual our generation can be about the Living God! The God Christians believe in is continually working out His judgments in history and ultimately will judge every person’s life with fairness and truth.

God is also sovereign. To say that God is “sovereign” can mean different things. What I mean is that in the end, God rules! Nothing can ultimately thwart God’s will and purposes.

No matter how awful things get in human history…how evil people become…how much sorrow and tragedy there is…nothing ultimately defeats the purposes of God. Psalm 97:1 “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice!”

The God revealed in Scripture, the God Christians believe in, is not just this sovereign, all powerful Judge, this holy and transcendent God, but a God who reveals Himself as a God of love. I know, we’ve heard that over and over, but do we get it? The awesome Creator of all is a God of love! In fact, the Bible says, “God is love” 1 John 4:8

Many people today don’t believe that, for one reason or another. Maybe we’ve been so hurt by tragedy, beaten down by life. Perhaps we are filled with many unanswered questions about life. Maybe we are so down on ourselves that we find it hard to believe that God could love us. Listen! God is not just some impersonal, distant deity, some “life force”. God is a God who loves and cares for what He has made.

God’s loving nature is seen in different ways. For instance, God is good. Psalm 34:8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” As the gospel song has it, “God is good all the time.” God wants good things for His creatures. God is moving creation towards His good purposes. As the EUB Confession of Faith puts it, God is “infinite in power, wisdom, justice, goodness and love, and rules with gracious regard for the well-being and salvation of men.”

God’s love is also shown in His mercy and forgiveness. Look at Psalm 145:8-9 “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.” Over and over the Bible shows that when we are willing to humble ourselves, to confess our sinfulness, and turn from what is evil, God will show mercy to us and forgive us. God went the limit by sending His Son Jesus to die for our sins.

We are talking about a God who cares about us and all of His creation. Our God provides for our daily needs, understands when we hurt and fail and sin, wants to provide strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow! I once saw a film in which a huge, brawny pro football player, a Christian, sang with great tenderness the song “No One Ever Cared For Me Like Jesus.” Jesus revealed that kind of a caring God.

I would like to leave you with this closing thought. Do you know this God Christians worship? A lot of people know some facts about God, but have not yet entered into a relationship with God. Unfortunately, there are people in almost every church who know things about God, but haven’t yet come to know God. Any of us can come to know God by turning from all that we know is wrong, and inviting Jesus Christ into our life to be Savior and Lord. If you have never done that, why not do it now.

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