God is the Theme of the Bible

And those are all good things and we’ve studied them all. We even have studied practical matters as well. But the one subject that in my view is the most enjoyable thing to study is the subject of God himself. And that’s what I want to focus in on for the next little bit in our Sunday School class. Is I want us to take some time to just look at who God is and how God is and his various attributes.

And I of course don’t want to do it in a way that’s dry because if there is, when I was praying about this, I was talking to the Lord about how you study these different attributes of God and make them so that they’re not dry. If we study the doctrine of God, if we studied who God is and how God is and his various characteristics, and we came out of it with a dry study, we have done something wrong.

We have done something wrong. In fact, when you consider heaven, a lot of our songs talk about heaven and what heaven is and what we’re going to do in heaven and all these things. But really, heaven, as we’ll see in just a minute, the thing that will make heaven so it never gets boring is God. Right? The only thing that matters about heaven is God. Right? The thing that makes heaven worth being there is the fact that God is there.

And that because of these various attributes of God, it is utterly, even in a glorified state, even after we’ve met the Lord, we’ve been resurrected in a glorified body, no more sin, no more limitations as far as human limitations down here go. Yet, being in the presence of God and every moment discovering new things about our God who is himself inexhaustible, that is what makes heaven heaven.

Right? That is what makes heaven the blissful place that it is. So it’s not about streets of gold and it’s not about gates of pearl and walls of jasper and all of that, those kinds of things, although we know those things are all true, it’s about the God who is there. And we should all stand in awe of God. And to do that, we have to understand him. We have to know him.

Now, pretty much everybody in the world has a concept of God, but most people in the world view God basically, you could fit him inside of one of these cups right here. Right here. Basically, God could fit inside this little cup in most people’s mind. And that’s the extent of his character. In other words, they can just rattle off maybe a few things about God and he fits inside the cup.

But the truth is that we can spend all of our time on this one subject and never exhaust it. But more importantly than that is just the reality that when we study this particular subject of God in the Bible, we study who God is. It is the most rewarding subject that you can study in the Bible. It really is. This is what it’s all about. And what I want to do for the introduction today is I want to go through the scripture and I want to show you what the Bible is all about on this topic.

And just kind of do a very brief overview of it. Because we have to have the right focus and the right understanding of the text of scripture if we’re going to be able to understand and see God in the text of scripture. Because the Bible is all about the Lord. It’s all about God. But before we do that, first of all, let’s pray. And then I want to give you a challenge.

I want to give you a challenge to open up our study here. Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, that you are a great God and a great King above all gods. And there is none like you. There is none similar. You stand alone. And Lord, we use human language to try and describe you according to your revelation in scripture. We do a poor job. We acknowledge that.

We admit that. But Lord, you have put in our hearts at least some measure of a capacity to know you and to understand you and to stand in awe of you and all of your attributes, Lord. We look to you as the greatest thing that could ever be. There’s nothing greater that could be on our lips than the truth of who you are. And we say those things and sometimes we say those things and we don’t necessarily feel them as we should.

But Lord, it is still true. There is no greater subject that could be on our lips than our great God. Lord, through our study this in our Sunday school class, I pray that in each and every person here and myself included, that you through your word and your revelation of who you are, that you would cause each one of us to truly stand in awe of your greatness.

That we would not just listen and receive information, but we would be awestruck. That we would be stupefied. That we would truly have a glimpse of your glory through our study here. Lord, open up, we pray, your word to us as we examine it over the various weeks and look at the various characteristics. Make your word come alive to us that we can truly know you better.

And Lord, also please help us to know how to apply these truths. These things would not just be information or points on a doctrinal statement, but these truths would affect us in our personal lives and our walks in our daily life. So Lord, help us. We just look to you. Bless our study. Reveal yourself to us in a plain way, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, so for our exercise to begin, I want to give you an opportunity to, as a group, to list every attribute or characteristic of God that you can think of.

Every attribute or characteristic of God that you can think of. So who’s going to be bold enough to start us out? Joseph. Immutability. Immutability. What does that mean? Right. All right. Yes, sir. God is just. Holy. All right. What’s that? Creator. He’s the creator. He’s creative. All right. Yes, ma’am. Loving. Omnipotent. What does that mean? All powerful. Yes, sir. Longsuffering. God is longsuffering. Anybody else? That’s it. Yes, ma’am.

Forgiving. God cannot lie. I don’t know the word for that. True, maybe. Maybe. Truthful. All right. Yes, ma’am. Merciful. You stole it right out of his pocket. All right. Powerful. Right. That’s like omnipotent. Did you say omnipotent? All right. That’s right.

Omniscient. What does that mean? He knows everything. So you’re telling me he knows things that haven’t happened yet. All right. We’re going to get into that later. Yes, sir. What? Faithful. All right. Okay. He’s a friend. How would you? That’s sort of like faithful. It’s sort of like loyal. Kind of like loyalty. Yes, sir. Triune. What does that Tencent word mean? All right. Very good. Our father. So he’s a father. His fatherhood, you could say.

Anybody else? Gracious. It’s one we haven’t covered. All right. Anybody else? All-knowing. That’s omniscient. Yep. That’s all together. Yep. Our refuge. All right. The only God. So that would be his uniqueness. Sort of like that. Omnipresent. What does that mean? Okay. Everywhere at all times. Yes, ma’am. Savior. He’s a saving God. That’s it. What’s that? The great I am. All right. Does anybody know what that attribute is?

Okay. You’re kind of in between two things. What? The only God. Well, that’s part of it because no one else is like that. Anybody else? We still have a few that you could mention that I have written down anyway. Yes, sir. He’s alive. Okay. Holy. All right. Eternal. That’s kind of like what Ms. Lynn was talking about. Eternal. Intercessor. All right. Yeah, I think somebody said righteous. I think. Yes.

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, I think somebody said righteous. I think. Yes. Perfect. Without sin. All right. Anybody else? Wonderful. All right. He’s the high priest. The bread. Now we’re going into what he is instead, which I mean, instead of his attributes. But the things that he is are informed by his attributes. Okay. So all these things are. Yes, ma’am. He’s the rock. That deals with faithfulness.

He never sleeps. Insomnia. I don’t know if you’d call it that. Wakefulness. That’s good. That’s sort of like omnipresence. Sort of. Yeah. He’s mine. What about everybody else? Personal. Yeah. All right. That’s right. Truth. Yes, sir. Jealousy. Okay. Yes, ma’am. Say that again. Light of life. That’s right. He never has any problems. All right. He never worries. I don’t know what you call that. Confidence. What about he is self-existent?

That’s kind of like what I am that I am. That’s sort of like what that hints at. Huh? Eternal. Yep. Eternal. That covers a lot of things too. What about incomprehensible? You know, the Bible teaches that. The incomprehensibility of God. That’s true. What about the goodness of God? That touches on mercy and grace and all those things. That’s kind of overlapping a little bit. What about God’s bigness? Yes, ma’am.

Indescribable. Yeah. Aseity. Aseity means self-existent. Yes. Aseity. How do you spell that? A-S-E-I-T-Y. A-S-E-I-T-Y. What about the quality of being self-existent having no source other than oneself? No theory. Yeah. Hey Google, list all the attributes of God. Here’s a summary from the Navigators in section one. Only one. Just. What about God has personality? That’s one people sometimes overlook. The personhood of God. Another one that’s often mentioned, but this is a big deal in the Old Testament in particular, in the law, is the unity of God.

The unity of God. God is one. Yes. He’s funny. Right? It’s true. He that sitteth in the heaven shall laugh. Now that’s not the greatest context, just saying. But I don’t know if he’s laughing at a dad joke or... I don’t think that’s the context of that. Alright. What about the fact that God is spiritual? He’s not material. He’s immaterial. Alright. Here’s another one that’s kind of a hot button, a hot topic, is sovereignty.

We’re going to cover sovereignty. We’re definitely covering that topic because there’s a lot of... The word sovereignty is kind of a bait and switch for other ideas about God that don’t really mean what the word sovereign means. But God is definitely sovereign. Yes. Yes ma’am. Punitive. That’s a good one. I didn’t write that one down. Leave it to the English major. Alright. Anybody else? He’s the provider.

That goes with caring, maybe. Right? Anybody else? Counselor. Wisdom. Right? God’s wisdom. That’s definitely a characteristic of God. You don’t know it, but what I’m actually doing is I’m actually using you to brainstorm with me. Yes, you’re preaching the message. Advocate. Covenant keeping. He’s a covenant keeping God. That’s related to true and faithful sort of. What about the fact that God is invisible? That’s one. Well, we’ve covered a bunch. So basically we’re going to be in this study until Jesus comes.

Basically. Wouldn’t be a bad study. We will, the ones we finally come down on, because these do overlap. We’re having fun. They do overlap some. We want to cover them all, but we might not cover them all as we term them today. But we do want to cover them. It is so important. Listen, it is so important for us to have a solid foundation of our understanding of who God is.

Because a misunderstanding of God in some way very often leads to downstream and cascading problems in our actions, in our life. Our view of God. And this is not only true of believers, but it’s also true of unbelievers. Because unbelievers, much more than believers, often pick up misunderstandings about who God is. Miscaracterizations of God. And let me give you an example. The trans identifying community or the people who engage in sodomy, which is an abomination in the sight of God, often have a misunderstanding of who God is because they read, or mostly they don’t read, they hear about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but they totally miss the fact that God was willing to spare the whole city for ten people. Ten righteous.

You miss that. And so you get a one-sided kind of lopsided view of God, who God is, and then people react to that rather than the God of the Bible. There are many gods that claim to be the God of the Bible who aren’t really the God of the Bible floating around this world. So thank you for your brainstorming with me. You covered a few that I had not written down, and so we will look at all of these.

But before we do that, the introduction, as I said, I would like you to turn to Genesis, chapter one, and Revelation, chapter 21. So we’re going to go to the beginning, and we’re going to go to the end. So let’s start in Genesis, chapter one. Genesis, chapter one.

Now, our primary purpose in Sunday school is to study the Bible. And as we study the Bible, as we study the doctrine of God, who God is, our great God, obviously we’re going to do that from the text of Scripture. But it begs the question, which is, what is the Bible’s central theme? And what I want to show you is, from the text of Scripture, I want to show you that God himself is the central theme of Scripture.

He is the subject of the Bible. He, even though the Bible covers many, many, many, many subjects, it covers many subjects, as you’re all aware, but he himself is the primary theme. The Bible is about God. It’s not about a bunch of other things. It’s first and foremost subject is God himself, God as the true God. Look at Genesis 1-1. And I know this is a little bit anecdotal, but I think there is, you know, the books of the Bible, their order, and those kinds of things, there is the Lord’s guidance and providence in those things.

Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Now, we’re going to come back to that when we start looking at the eternality of God and things like that. But here’s what I want you to see. The opening verse, the introduction of the Bible to humanity, which is the revelation of God to humanity, is not an introduction of anything else except God himself.

That’s what you have to see. The Scriptures, the first thing the Scriptures introduce is God. Now, go to Revelation, chapter 21, Revelation 21 and verse number 22. Now, between what we just read in Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22, there’s been a lot of interesting things that have happened. A lot of material has been covered in the Bible. A lot of subjects have been touched on. A lot of prophecies have been told and fulfilled. A lot of human events have taken place, many of which the Lord himself is involved in, in the text of the Bible.

When you look at, so you got the cover of the book, the front cover and the rear cover of the book, and all of these things, all of these events in humanity have taken place in time and in eternity. And by the time you get to Revelation 21, everything’s consummated. There is no prophecy left undone. There is no I that hasn’t been dotted or T that hasn’t been crossed.

There’s no unfinished work that God has yet to do. Everything is finished. This is what is called the eternal state. In other words, this is the point at which time ceases. And it becomes like God himself in that it is eternal. And from that moment, it just continues all throughout eternity. So what you read in Revelation 21 and 22 is permanent. It will never ever change. It will never ever change. And so whatever we have there, after all of it said and done, in chapter 21, verse number 22, look at what it says. This is speaking of the New Jerusalem now.

And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Look at chapter 22, verse number 3. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. So when it’s all said and done, there’s still a lot of things in existence. There’s still, you know, talks about his city and, you know, his servants and all of the descriptions in 21 and 22.

But the featured person is God himself. And this is, remember, this is permanent. This goes into eternity forever. OK? Look at chapter 22, verse number 13. You’re very familiar with this, but this is what this means. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Now we read that in the Bible. They were not in the beginning God created. But now we’re at the end. Now we’re at the Omega part, not the Alpha part. We’re at the Omega part.

And we see what do we find at the very end? Who is the central figure at the very end? When you get to the eternal state, New Jerusalem, new heaven, new earth, the eternal state, in the eternal state, the primary subject, the central figure is God himself. It’s all about him. It started about him and it will end, if you can call it end. It will proceed into eternity, all orbiting God himself.

The Bible is about that. The Bible is about no other thing primarily except God himself. You know it’s ironic though, and I’ve mentioned this several times, but I’ve honestly the reason I mention it so many times is because I myself kind of stand in awe of this fact. That religious people are so uncomfortable talking about God. And yet he is the central subject and figure of the Bible.

And yet people who claim to believe and read and know the Bible get very antsy and uncomfortable when you talk about him. They want to talk about everything, everything in the Bible except the central figure of the Bible. And that just strikes me as very, very odd, very odd. So God is, these verses show us that God is at, he’s in the beginning, he’s the end. The scripture begins and ends with God. Not only that, the universe begins and ends with God.

He is there prior to its inception and he is still there at its close or at its consummation. Look at 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15. Now I’ll be the first one to admit that some of these verses that we’ll see here are difficult to wrap our brains around. This is, we’re at the upper limit of human language in some of these verses we’re going to read because of the subject matter.

Okay. 1 Corinthians 15 verse number 28 or verse 27. This is talking about, 26 says, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Verse 27. Now what are we talking about here? The last thing that is destroyed is death. This is at that moment of where the eternal state starts. Time ceases, death is finally destroyed, death dies. There’s a good song that has that concept in it. The death of death.

And at that moment, here’s what it says. In all. Now I need a theologian in here to raise your hand and offer an explanation as to what it means that God is all in all. That’s pretty hard to explain, wouldn’t you say? But what? Oh, you’re the theologian? Okay, go ahead.

But the context of this extends even beyond a believer. This is, God is all. This is a kind of an absolute, kind of a universal statement. Of course, to us, that’s obviously true. If not now, will be for sure. But the idea that God is all in all, I don’t know how else to kind of wrap our brain around that, except to say that this whole thing, and by that I mean all of created existence, is about him.

Right? This whole thing, from start to finish, is about this central figure of God himself. No greater subject to talk about, for he is the central theme. Look at Revelation chapter 1. We’re bouncing around a little bit, but that’s okay. Revelation chapter 1. A little bit of repetition here. Revelation chapter 1, verse number 8. Revelation 1, verse 8. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending.

Sayeth the Lord, Which is, and which was, and which is to come. If he is, was, and is to come, then you could say, he is. No matter what period of time that you’re referring to, whether it’s before the foundation of the world or in the eternal state, you could say, God is. Or you could just kind of knock off the is, and you could just say, God.

And that kind of sums up all of existence. Right? Look at Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1. Verse 15. This is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, we’re kind of at the limit of our human language here. Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature? For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created, notice, by him and for him.

That not only tells you what the origin of all things is, but it tells you the purpose of all things. That’s why I say that all this is about God. It’s all his and it’s all for him. Every bit of it. Every bit of it. Go on to the next verse. Look what it says. And he is before all things, that is, he was here before it all existed, and by him all things consist.

If God’s hand was not involved in everything in his material creation, it would not exist. It’s all about him. Look at John chapter 17. John 17 verse number 3. This is during Jesus’ prayer. And this, the Lord says, is life eternal. This is life eternal. Not where you get life eternal, but this is life eternal. That they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

You know what eternal life is? It’s God and knowing God. That’s what it is. Knowing God is eternal life. That’s what it says. Does that mean all of a sudden this is this kind of touchy-feely thing? We don’t actually go to heaven? No, no, no. All that’s true as well. But if you go to heaven and you miss God, you’ve missed the whole thing. Which I know that’s not possible, but for argument’s sake.

Look at Jeremiah chapter 9. This is not only a New Testament truth, it’s an Old Testament truth as well. Jeremiah 9 verse number 23. Jeremiah 9 verse 23. So you have wisdom, might, and money. Those are the three things that pretty much everybody lives for in humanity. But let him, verse 24, that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. That I am the Lord which exercised loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things I delight, saith the Lord. The sum total of the greatest accomplishment that a human being can accomplish, it can be summarized in this way. The greatest thing that a human being can accomplish is knowing God. You know what the irony of that is? Is that that is available to even a child. Right? Matthew chapter 18 says it. It’s part of our study in Matthew coming up here.

Even though that is the greatest accomplishment that a human being can accomplish, yet it is available to the humblest of people. There is no greater thing you can attain or know outside of God. Look at 1 John chapter 5. Last verse we want to look at this morning. 1 John chapter 5. 1 John 5 verse 20. Another good summary verse. Verse 20 says, and we know that the Son of God has come and hath given us an understanding.

Remember what we just read in Jeremiah 9, right? It says that he understandeth and knoweth me. That’s what God says. Here it says, we have an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. So again, eternal life is not about pearly gates and all that. Eternal life is about knowing God.

We just got to meditate on this. Maybe over the next week we can just spend some time meditating on this truth. Lord, if I could just know you better. If I could just understand you more, my life would be greatly enriched. So in summary, the Scriptures primary theme and subject is most certainly not laws and rules or commandments. Although we find those in the Bible. The Scriptures primary theme and subject is not prophecy or proverbs or apostles.

Although we find all of those things in the text of Scripture. The Scriptures theme is not Israel or the church. It’s not heaven or hell. It’s not religion and faith. Although we find all of those things. And certainly the Bible is not about how to be a better person. And it’s not about tales of figures such as Adam and Eve and Abraham, Moses and David. Although those things are all in there.

The Scriptures not even about angels or devils. God himself is the primary subject of Scripture. And everything else that we find in the Bible is in some way related to him and his person. And if it’s not, we’re misunderstanding something. The Bible is a revelation of God. Historical books in Scripture were given to reveal God by means of his interaction with others. The law of God was given to reveal God by his judgment of good and evil.

The books of the prophets were given to reveal God by his message to his people and his plans for the future. The Gospels were given to reveal God by means of his son. He himself manifest in the flesh in his life on earth. The cross was given to reveal God in his love and grace. The epistles were given to reveal God as the head of his church.

Revelation, like we’ve seen, was given to reveal God as the consummate person and subject of all of history. All things begin and all things end with him and all things are for him. And that’s going to be the subject of our study in Sunday School. Let’s pray.