January 18, 2026
Message

Welcome to the first week of the sermon series “Christianity 101”.  Over the next five weeks leading up to the Season of Lent, we are going to look at the foundational truths of the Christian faith.  Once our celebration of Easter is complete, we will resume and complete this series.  As I wrote in the newsletter last week, every major question in life: “Who am I?”; “Why am I here?”; “What happens next?” hinges on one primary question, “Who is God?”  The answer to this question determines how we see ourselves, how we treat others, and how we handle suffering.  Many people have a “utility” version of God, who we can call on when we are in serious trouble; others have a “genie” version of God, who exists to make us happy, but today, I want us to look at who God says He is; that is, how God reveals Himself in Scripture.

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Imagine walking through an art gallery and seeing a painting so detailed it looks real.  You instinctively look for the artist’s signature.  When we look at the universe, the “signature” of the Artist is everywhere, but we often struggle to read the Name.  Some see a distant “watchmaker”, who wound the stem of time setting creation in order, then disappeared with little or no concern for creation or its inhabitants.  Others see a vengeful judge, just waiting for them to make a mistake so the execution of severe punishment can take place.  Still others look at the cosmos and see nothing at all, just random chance, no order and no purpose.  I say that to say that this morning, we are not just looking for a god; we are looking for the God who has purposefully revealed Himself.  It is interesting to me that the Bible does not spend time trying to prove God exists; instead, it declares that God’s existence is obvious through what He has made.  Rather than attempt prove God exists, the Bible tells us who He is.

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The very first thing Scripture reveals to us about God is that He is the Source of everything: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” [Genesis 1:1, NKJV]  I cannot begin to explain it, but God is uncreated; before there was time, space, or matter God was.  In Revelation 1:8, Scripture records these revealing words: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,’ says the Lord God.  ‘I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.’” [NLT]  Because God is without beginning and end, He is fully independent.  Unlike us, God does not need anything to survive; He does not need air, food, water, angels, or even us.

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I said earlier that I could not begin to explain the mystery of God and in one of our texts for today, the Prophet Isaiah wrote that God’s “. . . understanding is unsearchable.” [Isaiah 40:28, NKJV]  I know they are out of season, but imagine, if you can, a slice of watermelon, vibrant red against a green rind.  Famed lawyer and theologian William Jennings Bryan once used the watermelon to describe God’s incomprehensible nature.  He asked how could a small seed take dirt and water and turn it into a green rind, a white shell, and a red heart with black seeds.  If we cannot fully explain the mystery of a common fruit, Bryan continued, how could we expect to grasp fully the Creator of the entire cosmos?  He then concluded that we do not have to understand God completely to know He is there and that His work is good.

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​As a teenager, I remember watching the first movie in the original Star Wars Trilogy and its catchphrase, “May the Force be with you!”, still lingers in my memory.  Many people think of God as an unknowable “force” or some kind of a supernatural “vibe”, but the Bible reveals a personal God.  While standing on holy ground, in front of the burning bush, after receiving the assignment to lead the Hebrew people out of Egyptian bondage, Moses had the audacity to ask God for His name and God replied, “. . . ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ . . .” [Exodus 3:14, NKJV]  This was not merely a title for God, a way of referring to Him; it was a declaration of God’s constant, personal presence in the lives of His people.  In Hebrew, this phrase means that God has always been with us, that God is with us right now, and that God will be with us every moment in the future.  By giving Moses His personal name, God revealed that not only is He eternal, but that He neither faints nor does He ever grow weary of watching over His people, as the Prophet Isaiah wrote in one of our texts for today [Isaiah 40:28].

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A belief unique to Christianity is the Doctrine of the Trinity, which is the conviction that while God is One in essence, He exists in three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  This means that for all eternity, even before He created the heavens and the earth, God has been in a relationship of love.  Other than its attempt to remove the references to God as our Father, the main reason I reject modern expressions of the Trinity, such as, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, is that they do not convey the divine love between the members of the Godhead.  Yes, God is our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer, but that is God’s relationship to us not an expression of the Trinity, which is essential to us knowing who God is.  I will readily admit that the Trinity is the most difficult to understand of all the aspects of God; it is more challenging than following Abbott and Costello’s famous comedy routine “Who’s on First?”, and I will further admit that all metaphors regarding the Trinity breakdown and sometimes leave more questions than answers; nonetheless, think of the sun.  Ponder the physical star we know as the sun, now focus on the light that comes from this fiery celestial ball, and, lastly, reflect on the heat it generates.  The star, the light, and the heat are distinct, yet you cannot have one without the others; together, they make up what we know as the sun.  While we can never touch the sun directly, we can see its light and feel its heat.  Similarly, God the Father is the source of divine love; God the Son, which is Jesus the Christ, is the Light revealed to us; and God the Holy Spirit is the “heat” or presence of God within us today.

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If you truly want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.  The Bible, in Colossians 1:15, tells us “No one can see God, but Jesus Christ is exactly like him. . . .” [NCV], and the opening passage of the Gospel of John tells us that in Jesus, the Creator became the creation when it says, “. . . the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” [John 1:14, KJV]  All of this means that we see God’s heart most clearly when Jesus seeks the lost, heals the sick, welcomes the lonely, and, ultimately, when He gives His life on the Cross of Calvary.  These things are how we know that the declaration, in First John 4:8, is true—“. . . God is love.” [NKJV]

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Much of the modern American Church focuses almost exclusively on the love of God, but the most fundamental thing the Bible says about God is that He is holy.  In the sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, the angels around God’s throne do not shout: “Love, love, love!”  Instead, they cry, “. . . ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; . . .’” [Isaiah 6:3, NKJV]  In Hebrew, repeating a word three times is the highest form of emphasis; it means God is the “holiest of holy”.  God is not an improved version of us; He is fundamentally different in His moral purity and His majesty.  God’s holiness is like a light so bright it is blinding and it reveals every flaw and every sin.  This is important for us to know because God cannot tolerate unrepentant sin since His nature is absolute purity.

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If God were only holy, we would be in trouble because His purity would have to consume our impurity, but as I indicated earlier, the Bible also says that “. . . God is love.” [First John 4:8, NKJV]  Love is not just something God does; it is who He is.  God’s redemptive love is not a reward for good behavior; instead, it is unfailing, unrestricted, and steadfast; that is, God’s love is unconditional.  In Romans 5:8, the Apostle Paul wrote, “. . . God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [NKJV]  Not only is God’s love for us unconditional, it is sacrificial.  The greatest proof of God’s love is that He did not stay distant in His holiness; instead, He came to us in Jesus.  This is the clearest window into God’s heart: While we were still in rebellion, Jesus stepped into the “prison cell” that our sin built and took our place on the cross.

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Before I conclude, I want to mention the sovereignty of God.  This one point, as with every statement about God that I have made today, merits its own sermon series, but for brevity sake, I want to say that God’s sovereignty means that He has supreme authority and absolute power over all things.  God is not a spectator in history; He is the Director.  Psalm 103:19 tell us “The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all [the universe].” [AMP], and Ephesians 1:11 teaches that even when the world feels chaotic, God works “. . . all things according to the counsel of his will,” [NKJV]  The tension we live with, as Cumberland Presbyterians who reject both pure Calvinism and Arminianism in favor of Medium Theology, is the reality that God is in total control while inviting us to make real choices to follow Him.

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So, who is God?  He is the eternal Creator, the personal Three-in-One, and the loving Father revealed in Jesus.  God is the holy One, who cannot look on sin.  God is the loving One, who died to pay for that sin.  And God is the sovereign One, who holds your entire life in His hands, but my efforts in this sermon series is not just to help about learn facts about God; it is to aide you in knowing Him.  With that in mind, I want you to know that God invites you into a relationship with Him.  In Psalm 46:10, God said, “Be still, and know that I am God; . . .” [NKJV], so I want to encourage you to take five minutes each day this week to be still, and, in that stillness, pray this simple prayer: “God, show me who You are.”  Next week, we will look at the second question of this series: “What is the Bible?”

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