All right, hey everybody. Welcome to Valley Creek. We are so glad that you're here with us today. Come on, whatever campus you're at, can we just welcome each other together for a moment? We are so glad that you are here with us. Last week, we started a brand new series called Yahweh – the Lord your God. We said, we're just going to take a couple of weeks to just talk about God. To just talk about who He is and what He is like. Yahweh is the personal name of God. This is how Yahweh was written in the original language, and we'll get there over the next few weeks, but we're just talking about who God is. We said that in this series, there's not going to be a lot of next steps, there's not going to be a lot of application, but there's going to be plenty of ways to respond. 

The main application for you is simply this, fix your thoughts on Jesus. The whole heartbeat of this series is that we would fix our thoughts, dwell, meditate, focus, think on God, think about God, think of God, think with God. That we would literally fix our thoughts on Jesus. If we want to grow in our lives, we have to learn to become conscious of God, to set Him before us. You see, if we will fill our mind with the thoughts of God, our life will become full with the life of God. Whatever you think on, the reality of that thing will fill your life. If you think on Jesus, His reality will fill your life. If you think on the world, the world's reality will fill your life. There's that famous little verse that says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." That word transformed is the same word that's used at the transfiguration when the glory of Jesus is revealed. In other words, if you will fix your thoughts on Jesus, your life will become full of the glory of God. 

One of the greatest freedoms you've been given in this life is the ability to determine what you think about. It wouldn't say fix your thoughts on it if you had no ability to control your thoughts. But, too many of us live like we are slaves to our own thoughts. We're in bondage to them. We can't control them. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. You have a free will and you get to decide what your mind focuses or fixates on. Now, yes, you may have created a lot of neural pathways, a lot of loops, a lot of patterns that your mind naturally and normally thinks; but, you can break those in Jesus' name. Just because a cloud of anxiety or depression or fear floats through your life, it doesn't mean you have to fixate on it. You can let that thought go. We want to fix our thoughts on Jesus. The question is not, is God with us? It's, are we aware or conscious that he already is? 

Then, the question beneath that is, is when I do think of God, do I think on Him rightly? Do I think thoughts that are worthy of who God is? You see, what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. It's what I've been trying to tell you over these last two weeks; that if I asked you to close your eyes and just tell me, what do you think God is like, and you gave me an honest answer to what comes into your mind when you think about God, that is the greatest predictor of your future. That tells us exactly what your future is going to look like. Why? Because, "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he." Whatever you think about God, shapes your life more than anything else. You might think God is angry, God's vengeful, God's distant, God's stingy. You might think He's compassionate, He's gracious, He's loving. The thoughts you think about God shape every aspect of your life, whether you're conscious of it or not. 

It impacts how you do your marriage, it impacts how you raise your kids, it impacts how you go to school, how you go to work, how you view money, how you view time, how you view your purpose, how you view eternity. It shapes every aspect of your life. We need to learn to think about God, but think about Him rightly. The problem for so many of us is we want this God that we can control, that we can shape, so we form and we mold Him into our image and our likeness, and we put Him in this little box as if in some way He was made in our image and our likeness. But, this says, "What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and you have crowned Him with glory and honor." God has made us a little lower than the angels in His image and His likeness, He's given us glory and honor. The problem is, is in our mind, we make God a little lower than us. We form Him in our image and our likeness. 

It's amazing how God looks a whole lot like you. It's amazing how God likes the things you like and doesn't like the things you don't like and is passionate about what you're passionate about and He's certainly frustrated about what you're frustrated about, right. We joked last week, we said, if you're a Democrat, you're convinced God's a Democrat. If you're a Republican, you know God is Republican. You're conservative, oh, He's a conservative. You're a liberal, oh, He's a liberal. We make God in our image and our likeness, and we strip away the glory and honor that are deserving of Him. The God who holds the water of the world in the hollow of His hands. The God who measures the heavens with the span or the width of His hands. The God who puts the dust of the earth in a basket, the basket weighs the mountains on a scale. The God who hung the stars in the sky, spoke the universe into existence. The God who says, “Where were you when I created the world?” Yeah, that God. 

We make Him a little lower than us, but we're lower than Him. He's not made in your image and your likeness, you're made in His image and His likeness. In fact, "But to the wicked, God says, 'You thought I was altogether like you.'" It's wicked to think God is like us because we've been made to be like Him. We need to think about God and we need to think about Him rightly. I left you, last week, with these three questions: Who do you think God is, and why do you think that, and how do you know it's true? I hope you spent some time this week thinking about those things, talking about it with your Circle or godly relationships. I hope you were honest with the answers. Because, again, let me free you if you're new to here, we don't do the churchy thing. I don't want the churchy answer. I want the real answer. Because the real answer is the only way you're ever going to find what's true and what's real and what's right. 

As you wrestle through these questions, maybe you kind of realize like, man, it's hard to have an accurate and a high and a healthy view of who God is. We're not the only ones who have struggled with this. I mean, you look at the Old Testament, you see how God is constantly trying to correct people's thinking of Him. He challenges it, He rebukes it at times. He tries to lift up their head to say, “I am better than you think.” Then, we see the disciples. A lot of us just assume that the disciples naturally had a perfect view of who Jesus was. Have you read the Gospels? They don't have a clue. They think He's a good man, a holy guy, a prophet. They knew something was different, but they didn't know and we see it. When the 5,000 people are hungry and the disciples want to send them away and Jesus feeds them with five loaves and two fish, they were amazed. When they're in the storm in the boat and they think they're all going to die and Jesus wakes up and rebukes the storm and it goes calm and they say, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him.” 

When Jesus who predicted His own death, burial and resurrection, resurrects and comes to them, they're terrified and they think it's a ghost. They didn't get it either. In fact, the place that we see it maybe the most that they were trying to learn who God was, was in John 14. Jesus is on His way to the cross, it's the Last Supper, it's the end of His life. He's kind of given them His last big speech, and He says to them, "In my Father's house, there are many rooms. I'm going there to prepare a place for you. If I will go, I will come back and I will get you. I won't leave you alone." He's talking about their eternal destiny in the kingdom of God. He says, "You know the way to where I am going." Then, Thomas speaks up, and he says, "Lord, we don't know where you're going, how will we know the way?" Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." 

Then Philip very quickly speaks up, and he says, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered, "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I've been among you such a long time?" Like three years, bro. "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the father?' Don't you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me?" After three years of being with His disciples, they speak up and say, “Show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” In other words, “Jesus, show us who God is. Show us what God is really like. We've been with you a really long time and we're still not sure who God is.” Jesus says, “Really? If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father.” 

This is so profound because Jesus basically steps forward, and he says, “Let me settle this once and for all. You want to know what God is like? Look at Me. I am the image of the invisible God. You want to know how God thinks? Look at how I think. You want to know how God acts? Look at how I act. You want to know what God believes? Look at what I believe. You want to know how God moves? Look at how I move. You want to know how God views people? Look at how I view people. You want to know God's worldview? Look at My worldview. Everything you want to know about God is found in Me. Look at Me, because I have come to show you exactly who God is like.” It's like, in Jesus, the invisible became visible, the spiritual became physical, the mystery became revealed. Jesus is telling us, in a sense, that He is perfect theology, that He is literally the will of the Father revealed. He is God's manifest presence, and He only did and said what the Father was doing and saying, so everything Jesus did and said is what God does and says. 

If we want to know what God is like, all we have to do is look at Jesus. I mean, look at these verses with me. "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only," Jesus, "who came from the Father full of grace and truth. No one has ever seen God, but the unique one, who is Himself God," Jesus, "is near to the Father's heart. He has revealed God to us." Jesus has come to reveal exactly who God is like to us. Or how about when Jesus says, "No one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." He says the only people who know what God is like is those whom the Son has chosen to reveal Him to, and He has come to reveal Him to the whole world. 

Or how about when Jesus says, "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me." He says, “I am in the Father, the Father is in me. Me and the Father are one. If you want to know what God is like, look at me because I am not only like God, I am God.” One more, "For God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." You want a verse? It says that when we look at the face of Christ, we get the knowledge of the glory of God. That it's in Jesus that we get to know exactly who God is like. In Him was life and that life was the light of men. In other words, the life of Jesus shines the light on exactly who God is like, so we don't have to spend our life wondering who He is, where He is, what He's like, how He's going to move, what He believes. 

No, no. Look at the face of Jesus and you will have the knowledge of the glory of God. It's like, in Jesus, we see everything we would ever want to know about God, is what it's trying to tell us. When we see Jesus forgive the thief on the cross; in that moment, we see the mercy of God. When we see Jesus stop the Pharisees from stoning the woman caught in adultery, we see the grace of God. Then, when He tells her to go sin no more, we see the truth of God. When Jesus reaches out His hand and He touches the leper, the contagious leper, and heals him, we see the compassion of God. When Jesus walks on the water, we see the authority of God. When we see Jesus cast out the demons from the demoniac, we see the power of God. When we see Jesus teach the Sermon on the Mount, we see the wisdom of God. 

When we see Him transfigured, we see the glory of God. When we see Him wash His disciples' feet, we see the servant heart of God. When He flips over the tables in the temple, we see the anger of God. Yeah, God has anger. But, in that moment, we realize His anger is never sent towards people, it's sent towards anything that interferes with His love for you. Huh! A different version and variation of the anger of God to now understand. When we see Him lay down His life for His friends, we see the love of God. Are you catching it? It's in the face of Jesus that we see the goodness of God. The reason this is so hard for us is because our version of God often doesn't look like Jesus. What comes into our minds when we think about God? If we're honest, it doesn't often align with the Jesus we see in Scriptures. 

We struggle with this. We're not the only ones. I mean, do you remember John the Baptist? He spent his whole life preaching a message of repentance, preparing the way for Jesus to come. Then, because he was preaching repentance, he's thrown in jail and he's sitting there and he's waiting for Jesus to come, but He doesn't come. He sends a message to Jesus, and he says, “Hey, are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?” In other words, “You're not living up to my expectation of who You are in any way right now. You are not doing what my mind says my God does.” Jesus says, “Go back and tell John what you see. The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are raised.” 

In other words, “Go back and tell John, I am. I am the King of the kingdom. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me. Blessed is the man who doesn't get offended because I don't do for him what he thinks I should do for him. Blessed is the man who doesn't lose his faith because I don't live up to his expectations of who I am supposed to be.” In other words, what Jesus is doing in that moment is He is contradicting John's view of who He was. He's challenging John's view of who He was. Can I tell you something? God has no problem contradicting your view of who you think God is. He has no problem violating your view of who you think God is and we should be thankful for that. See, when He contradicts your view of who He is, He's not contradicting Himself. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the Lord. He does not change. He is righteous and holy, so what He does is good. He's just contradicting or violating or challenging your small view of who God is.

He's trying to break open the box. You see, if you make God your servant, you will always be disappointed in Him. But, if you become His servant, you will always be in awe of Him. The problem is we make God in our image, and we think He's supposed to be our servant. When He doesn't do what we want, when we want, how we want, how we think, then we become offended, confused, we stumble, we get lost in it. God says, "Yeah, but I'm not your servant, you're Mine. If you will live as my servant, I will show you how good I am." How deep, and wide, and high and long is the love of God; no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived how great He is. He is immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine. Can I ask you, are you in a season like John the Baptist where maybe Jesus is contradicting your view of who you think He is or challenging it or violating it? 

We should be grateful because He is showing us who He really is and that He is bigger and better than we think. You see, God wants to reveal Himself to us. This is what I hope you get in the series, is that God is not like trying to be difficult or mysterious or withdrawn. He actually wants you to find Him. Finding Him isn't all that difficult, you just have to seek Him with all your heart. There are three primary ways that God reveals Himself to us. You with me on this still? These are the three primary ways you'll see that God reveals Himself. First is just through creation. "The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech; night after night, they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." 

The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. All of creation displays the knowledge of God. It is impossible to look at creation and come to the conclusion that there is not a Creator, that there is not a divine Designer, that this wasn't made with intention and with love and with power and with strength. It's like all you have to do is go out and look at a mountain or the ocean or a tree or the smallest of creatures or the largest of beasts or another person, and you see the glory of God all over it. It's like all of creation is literally declaring all the time, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." The whole earth is full of His glory. All of creation is literally saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, who is, and who is to come." 

In every speech, in every language, every place in the world, creation is revealing and declaring who God is and what He is like. In fact, this is why Romans says, "Since what may be known about God is plain" it's not hidden, it's not confusing, it's not lost, "because God has made it plain to them," to the people of this world. "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse." It says God has made Himself plain. He's made Himself known through creation. We can see His invisible qualities, His eternal power, His divine nature, and men are without excuse. You know what this verse says, really? The only people who don't find God are the people who don't want God. The only people who don't find God are the people who don't want God. 

Why? Because it's plain. He's made it obvious everywhere we go. To the Bushmen in Africa, to the nomad in Mongolia, to the Inuit in the Yukon, to the Gen Z’er in an urban jungle, he's right there. The question is, do you want Him and are you willing to slow down enough to look for Him? All I have to do is look at the sky and I can see the infinite nature of God. All I have to do is look at a sunrise, and I can't help but see the glory of God. You can look at the smallest of insects or the largest of beasts, and you can't help but see the wisdom of God. You see a deer walk through the woods or through a field, you see the majesty of God. You see a storm rip through the world, you see the power of God and yet His goodness because He is bringing rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. 

He has revealed Himself to us through His creation and we're without excuse. Second way He reveals Himself to us is just through Scripture. Jesus says, "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning Himself." This is so important. The Bible is about Jesus, not you. The Bible is so big that it's about God. It is not so small that it is about you. The great problem we have with the Scriptures is we have made it about us and we've made it so small that we think it's rules and regulations and ancient things that mean nothing is irrelevant reality trying to take away my fun and my freedom, trying to force me to be holy and religious. No wonder you hate it. I wouldn't like it either. But just so we're clear, it's not so small that it's about you, it's so big that it's about Him. 

Every page drips with His qualities and His characteristics and His attributes and His heart and His goodness and His grace. In fact, Jesus says, "These are the Scriptures that testify about Me." He says, “Let me be real clear, everything that is in there, it's not about you, it's about Me and because I am so big and so grand and so eternal and so almighty, I have revealed Myself to you through My word that you might know Me.” "The Lord (Yahweh)… revealed Himself to Samuel through His Word." You want to know God? Engage the Word. He promises to reveal Himself to you that way. Remember, the Scriptures, we're told, are living and active. It takes living and active words to discover a living and active God. "The words I speak to you," Jesus says, "are Spirit and life." It takes words that are full of spirit and life to discover God who is Spirit and God who is life. 

On every page of Scripture, He's revealing Himself to us through His Word. The third way He reveals Himself to us is through Jesus. All over the Bible, guys, He is the image of the invisible God. You want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Once and for all, He settled the debate. You want to know who I am, “I am the image of the invisible God. If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father.” Everything you want to know about God is found in the face of Jesus. You see, what's so fascinating, when you start reading the Bible, trying to figure out who God is, every time God directly tells us something about Himself. He almost always has to use the word, “I am like… (something).” It's like, He is so big and so grand, so holy, which means other, set apart, that He can't even directly tell us who He is like. He has to tell us He is like something that we understand to help us grasp it. 

When He talks about the kingdom or Himself, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who went out and scattered seed. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field. He can't even tell us, because it's so grand, He has to say “like.” Or when He talks about Himself, what does it say? It says God's face is like the sun. Is His face the sun? No, it's like the sun to help us understand how much it radiates. His eyes are like burning fire. Are God's eyes burning fire? No, it's like burning fire, that we might understand it. It tells us His body is like glowing metal. Is God a robot? No, but He's trying to help us understand this glowing metal reality. It says His voice is like the sound of many waters. Is God's voice many waters? No, but it is like the rushing of a raging river. That's how powerful it is. It says God radiates like a rainbow. Is God a rainbow? 

No, but He radiates like one, to help us understand. Are you catching me? Okay, so this is really for our students. Here's an analogy I want to give you. In many ways, and this is a trite analogy, but I want you to catch this about Jesus. In many ways, Jesus is like an iPhone. Think of your iPhone for a second. Underneath the face of your iPhone, it is incredibly complex. It is profound, it is deep, it is uncomprehensible. It does amazing things. The level of the nature within it, you couldn't even begin to understand, and yet at its face, it is so simple that even the smallest child or the wisest adult can use it. Okay. In Jesus, all of the depth of the mystery of the eternal realities of the omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing, all-powerful, everlasting, sovereign, infinite, holy God are there behind Him. 

And yet, He brings the complexities of God to the simplicity of Jesus that even the smallest child or the learned adult has access to the fullness of God. It's like, in Jesus, the sinful, foolish, ignorant woman at the well had access to all of the depth of God, and so did Nicodemus, the wise and learned teacher of Israel. It's like Jesus takes all of the complexity of God and He brings it down into the simplicity of just saying, “Look at Me. Everything you want to know about God is in Me.” The next time you touch your phone and it's so simple, think about the complexities underneath that. That is a very crude and low analogy to show us that in Jesus, the depths, and the riches and the mysteries of the God of the universe have been made known to you. 

God wants you to know Him. He's not hiding. "He wants to give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know Him better." “Wisdom,” so that you will think about Him and think about Him rightly; and “reveal Himself” to you, so that you won't be confused or misunderstood or be lost in mystery; so that you would “know Him better,” not cognitively, not in an understanding, not so you can pass a quiz. An experiential, interactive relationship with the God of the universe. You with me on this? Okay, now, take a breath. I want to ask you another question. Why, then, did Jesus come to the earth? If I sat down with you and asked you the question, "Hey, why did Jesus come?” 

Like, if you could sum it up for me, why did Jesus come? There are a lot of good answers that you could give, but I've kind of summarized them for you into the main reasons that Jesus came, and this is really important to understand who God is, okay. You with me? Here's probably what most of us in the room would say the reason Jesus came. He came to save the world. We think Jesus came to save the world, and He did, "For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost." Straight up, He tells us, here's why I came. I came to seek and save the lost, the lonely, and the broken people. He came to defeat sin, death, and the grave. For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. While we were sinners, enemies, hostile against God, dead in our sins and our transgressions, Jesus came to resurrect us from the grave, to become our sins so that we could become the righteousness of God. 

Yes, Jesus came to save the world, but He came for more than that. He also came to show us what it's like to be human. "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing." This is incredibly important. Jesus shows us exactly what it's like to be human. You see, when God made Adam, the first person in the garden, Adam lived as a human. Fully alive, fully known, dead to sin and alive to God, walking with God in the cool of the day, he knew his purpose, he was righteous, made right with God, experiencing the presence of God. That's what it looked like to be human. But, when Adam sinned, sin so wrecked humanity and what humanity was like for the next thousands of years, we didn't know what it was like to be human anymore. 

We lost our understanding of what being a man or a woman in the image of God is actually like. Jesus is called the second Adam. He literally came to show us, again, what it looks like to be human. When He says, "You will do the things that I've been doing." If He did all those things as God, He can't say that to you. But, remember, He's fully man and fully God. Jesus did everything He did on this earth as a man in right relationship with God, empowered by the Spirit. He shows us, again, what it looks like to be human. He shows us how to love our enemies and forgive those who hurt us. He shows us how to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ. He shows us how to defeat temptation and how to live a holy life. He shows us how to walk in the power and the character of the Spirit. It's like Jesus came to show us what it looked like to be fully human. 

Now, I know some of you are super confused right now because you're like, "Bro, you just spent the last, like, 25 minutes telling us that if we want to know what God is like, look at Jesus." Ha! This is the profound mystery of Jesus, fully God and fully man. Son of God, Son of Man are the names given to Him. The Messiah and Jesus of Nazareth. Every time it says Son of God and the Messiah, it's talking about His divinity. But every time it says Son of Man and Jesus of Nazareth, it's talking about His humanity. It's like in that humanity, Jesus came to say, "Let me show you once again, what it is actually like to be human." This is why at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess because in Jesus and only in Jesus can we see fully God and fully man. We've lost the ability to be human. This is why Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened." You know why we're weary and burdened? Because we don't live like humans anymore. 

Sin has wrecked it to the point of not even being able to comprehend it anymore. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We were made to live in the glory of God. When I look at the world and I let the world tell me what it's like to be human and I live according to that standard, I am living a drastically inferior life than the one I'm created for. No wonder I'm weary and burdened. But, when I pursue sexual immorality and idolatry, when I live dead to God, but alive to sin, when I worry and I'm anxious and have fear, fear of man all the time in my life, and I love money and I'm selfish, and I use my time for myself and I have the lust of the eyes, the cravings of the flesh, the pride of life, and we look at Instagram, and say, "This is what it's like to be human." 

Yeah, no wonder your soul is burned out, man. That's not what it's like to be human. That's like one of those sad little commercials you see on TV of animals that have been so abused they're not even recognizable anymore. No one would elevate that and say, "Look at this." No, we would say that's disastrous. It's heartbreaking. Jesus says, “Come learn from me, I will teach you. I will teach you what it's like to be human. My way is easy and light.” It's easy and light by the grace of God. This is the majesty and the mystery of Jesus, fully man, fully God. With me? Third reason: To destroy the works of the Devil. Straight up, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the Devil's work. You can't misconstrue this one. Appeared; Jesus wasn't created or made. He has always been and always will be. He appeared, He was revealed, He was manifest to destroy the Devil's work. Jesus came to destroy all of Satan's stealing, killing, and destroying. 

He came to defeat sin, death, and the grave once and for all. He came to destroy the Devil's work. In fact, this is why it says, "God anointed Jesus. He went around doing good, healing all who are under the power of the Devil." It's like, super clear. Here's the problem. We attribute the works of the Devil to God. In our life, we look at things, a sickness, an evil, a storm, brokenness, darkness, and we will often attribute that thing to God. We will say He caused it to teach us something. Or maybe He didn't cause it, He allowed it. Then, we say dumb things like this, "God works in mysterious ways. It's the will of the Lord, brother. It's the sovereignty of God." Okay. 

If I broke my daughter's arm to teach her a lesson, or I allowed someone to break her arm to teach her a lesson, you would call CPS on me so fast, you wouldn't even think twice about it. Why are we okay attributing that kind of work of the Devil to God? If Jesus is the image of God, look at the Gospels. You never once see Jesus going around and causing evil. He never sends sickness into anyone's life. If Jesus is healing people from sickness, the same sickness that the Father was sending and causing, it's a divided kingdom. He's no longer God. He's no longer righteous. He's no longer holy. He's no longer good. Come on, remember, sickness to the body is like sin to the soul. God doesn't send sin into your soul to teach you a lesson. Let's stop attributing sickness to Him. Jesus rebuked the storm because the storm wasn't from God. 

If you think the sickness is from God, then why do you go to the doctor? It's a great thought. "Well, it's from God, but He wants me to go and get some medicine." Really, because if it's from God, maybe He wants you to just like take it. It's not from God. We've got to be really careful that we don't build really bad theologies, because here's what happens. A storm comes into our life, a sickness, an evil, a darkness, and we want to understand it. We want to control it. It's not aligning to our little theology in our head, this infinite nature of God. Then, we take our lack of experience, is usually what it is, the lack of what's happening in the moment, and we take this evil, and then we make a dumb theology statement like, "It's the sovereignty of God, brother." Really? How about let's not let your lack be the way that we create our theology? Yes, God is sovereign, but He's also giving free will to man and He's given the earth to man. 

Satan has come to steal, kill, and destroy. When you put all that together, there is a lot of things that happen that is not the will of God. That's why we look at Jesus for our theology, because we watch Him going around destroying the works of the Devil. Don't accept it and don't embrace it and don't be okay with it. Say, in Jesus' name, this sickness is not from God, and so I'm going to fight it. I'm going to prophesy, I'm going to intercede. We're going to bind and loose. We're going to seek God. We're going to align our life with His kingdom. Here's what I know. He came to destroy the works of the Devil, either in the here and now or in the then and there. I don't know if it's going to be in the here and now or the then and there, but by golly, I'm going to live like it's in the here and now by faith. even if it's in the then and there, it's still going to happen. It's still going to happen. "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come," be real clear, "that they may have life and have it to the full. I am a good shepherd and I lay down My life for you." 

Jesus has come to be good and lay down His life because that's who God is. Not because He wanted to be like, "I've got to step in here. You've gone a little too far. I'm going to go in and take care of it." No! He's God, and He's always been good, and He's always been doing good things. Okay. I wish I could keep going on that, but I can't. Fourth reason is to make the kingdom available and accessible to everyone. Jesus' main message was the kingdom is at hand. The rule and reign of God is available to you. You can live under the reign of God of righteousness, peace, and joy in the here and now. Those four reasons, if that's why Jesus came, they'd be amazing. But, the main reason that Jesus came was to show us what the Father is really like.

The main reason Jesus came to this earth was to show us what the Father, what God is really like once and for all, so that the mystery would be revealed and we would forever know exactly what kind of God we have. Last big verse for you, "Throughout our history God has spoken to our ancestors by His prophets in many different ways. The revelation He gave," that was about him, "was only a fragment at a time, building on one truth upon another." You look at the Old Testament, you see a little bit of God, a little more of God, a little more of God; He keeps revealing Himself. "But to us living in these last days," are you in the last days, "God now speaks to us openly in the language of a Son, the appointed heir of everything, for through Him God created the panorama of all things and all time. The son is the dazzling radiance of God's splendor, the exact expression of God's true nature, His mirror image." 

You're like, "Wow, that was a lot; what does that mean?" It means that Jesus is exactly what God is like. God is saying it openly so anyone who wants to know God can know God. You want to know who God is like? He's like Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is God. There is no disparity between the Old Testament, God, and Jesus. It's where a lot of us get lost in our theology. We read the Old Testament, we see wars and plagues and death and violence, and then we see Jesus, and we're like, "Yep, not the same guy. Glad this guy came because I don't want anything to do with that guy." It's the same guy. Here's what you see in the Old Testament, the severity of sin. The severity of our wickedness and rebellion against God. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." The wages of sin are death. Then, we attribute our rebellion and our consequences to God. 

Well, the Old Testament shows us the severity of sin, the need for a Savior, and our hopeless sense of saving ourself, and the goodness of God that He was going to come. On every page of the Old Testament, you see the mercy and the grace and the love of God getting ready to come. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the Lord. He does not change. I'm trying to help you have a high view of God, but listen, you also have to have a high view of sin. If you have a low view of sin, and say, "It's no big deal," then, you're always going to take the work of darkness and attribute it to God. Your sin is a really big deal. We act like it's not, let's be honest. It's a weird season. It's a weird season because I'm just watching lots of people being stripped away and their hidden sin come to the surface. We act like it's no big deal. 

"The Jesus I know will forgive me." Hmm. I'm not sure that's the Jesus I see in Scripture. If you know a different Jesus than you see in Scripture, you might want to reconcile those two things. Not that He won't forgive you, but when we live in this ongoing, unrepentant, willful sin, we have to be very careful about that choice, to the point that sometimes we need to question our own salvation. Because the Bible teaches us that salvation is not about getting to heaven, it's about turning from dead works and of faith towards God, living now in a kingdom that He rules and reigns over. I've now become dead to sin and alive to God. If I'm living a life to sin, does that mean I'm also living dead to God? The answer would be yes, in that moment, if you're saying, "I'm going to do this anyways, He'll forgive me later." What are you alive to? 

We just did a series, Awaken. What would you be awakened to in that moment? To sin. You catch what I'm saying? We can't attribute all these things to God. No! God is good. That's what we see in Jesus. When we ask the question, who do you think God is, and why do you think that, and how do you know it's true? Listen to me, any thought that you have that doesn't align with the Jesus we see in the Gospels is something you want to reconsider. You can't afford to have a thought in your head about God that is not true. Because there's nothing worse than spending years of your life believing something about God that's not true. Who do you think God is? Jesus. Why do you think that? Because He is the image of the invisible God. How do I know it's true? Because if I've seen Him, I've seen the Father. 

He has the exact radiance, the mirror image. In the face of Jesus, we see the very knowledge of the glory of God. This is why, at the name of Jesus, every tongue will confess and every knee will bow, whether on earth, under the earth, above the earth, all of creation. Why? Because Jesus is Lord. In Jesus and only in Jesus is the splendor and the majesty and the glory of God revealed for all of creation to see. You want to know who God is like? He's like Jesus. He is so much better than you think. Close your eyes. 

Come on, what's God want to say to you today? What's the Holy Spirit saying to you? Does what you think about God align with who Jesus is? Because any place that it doesn't is a place, God is inviting you to reconsider that He's better than you think. I believe, today, God is challenging some of your views of who you think God is. He's contradicting things you've said for years. He's okay contradicting you because He wants you to know the truth, a truth about Him that will set you free. 

It's in Jesus. This is why we're a Jesus-focused church and we talk about Jesus all the time because everything we want to know about God is in Jesus. Maybe, this week, as you walk through life with God, ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything you think about God that is not in agreement and alignment with Jesus. Jesus, it is hard to put into words who You are. Thank you for making the majesty, and the mystery, and the glory and the infinite reality of God so available and accessible to us through Your face. 

May we fix our thoughts on You because You are exactly who God is like. We love You, Jesus. In your name, we pray. Amen.