With a new year comes a new sermon series in which we will be looking at different pictures, or illustrations, of God in the Bible. The Westminster Catechism says that “God is a Spirit whose being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, truth, and love are infinite, eternal, and unchangeable.” As finite beings, we can only say what God is like by relating aspects of His being to images that are familiar to our humanity. So, for example, God the Spirit descends on Jesus at His baptism “like a dove” (Matt. 3:13-17); or in the days of Moses, God’s presence is frequently associated with fire and smoke (in Ex. 3 or 19, for instance).
This is also the reason why God has many names in the Bible. He is Adonai (Lord); Elohim (God); El Shaddai (God Almighty); Jehovah (Yahweh; Great I AM), and many other designations according to His infinitely holy character and righteous works. Likewise, Jesus comes on the scene and describes Himself as the “Light of the World,” “the Vine,” “the Door,” “the Good Shepherd,” and so forth. The Kingdom of God, too, is described as like “a mustard seed,” “a treasure hidden in a field,” and a kingdom of light that conquers the domain of darkness.
Besides being fascinating information about God, what this means for your worship on Sunday is, first, an imagination of faith. Secondly, it requires your active engagement with Him. And thirdly, it provokes a genuine expectation to hear from Him.
An imagination of faith is given by the Holy Spirit, informed by the Word of God (for example, the “pictures” listed above), and is cultivated by regular engagement with Him. The Holy Spirit dwells within all who have authentically placed their faith in Jesus alone for salvation, and one of His primary roles is fanning the embers of our faith into a roaring flame. The imagination He gives is not subject to the whims of our fleshly desires (see Phil. 3:19) but is anchored to what He has revealed about Himself in the Bible. It is our duty to stir that gift of the Holy Spirit up, like a fire poker that works with the wind of the Spirit to keep us shining His light (see 2 Tim. 1:6).
This leads to the second thing that God’s infinite nature requires of us in worship: active engagement with Him. What good is a fire poker if it is never used to disrupt those parts of the fire that have grown stagnant and cold? As a general rule, we are creatures who like to avoid discomfort, so we are likely to come to God in worship with only a surface-level offering (“I’m here, after all, and I’m thinking good thoughts about you, God… but don’t ask me to do anything hard!”) which may appease some sense of obligation in our minds but, in reality, has denied the Holy Spirit an opportunity to smash idols, confront sin, or exhort in righteousness. What if we did not play it safe this Sunday, but all determined in our hearts beforehand to be genuinely open to any operation deemed necessary by His sanctifying Spirit?
Thirdly, the result of an imagination of faith and vulnerable engagement with God is a profound sense of expectation. We come not to a god of stone but to one who is living and powerful, and who works wonders on the earth (Ps. 77:14). Therefore, we come not merely acknowledging that God can or has raised the dead (literally and figuratively) but that that same resurrection power lives in us as a gift from God to be continuously stirred and fanned into a living, breathing, and very present faith (Rom. 8:11; 2 Tim. 1:6).
Finally, as I reflected on the second point above—that worship requires genuine, vulnerable engagement with God–I was reminded of a classic movie moment.*
On a lakeside park bench in Boston, a counselor sits with his young, headstrong client. The young man is a genius, able to solve advanced mathematical equations with ease, and has a perfect memory of every fact he ever read on any given subject. But he’s never traveled left his hometown. The counselor then confronts his arrogance with a hard truth: In short, it is that reading about someone or something in a book is not the same thing as intimate, personal knowledge. Below is an excerpt, edited for language:
(Counselor): So if I asked you about art you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope… the whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that.
If I ask you about women, you’ll probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been [intimate with some of them]. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.
You’re a tough kid. I ask you about war, you’d probably, uh, throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help.
If I ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone who could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you…who could rescue you from the depths of hell.
And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel and to have that love for her, to be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms “visiting hours” don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.
Authentic engagement with God means being vulnerable and risking temporal discomfort for the sake of ever-deepening intimacy with Him. To say that you “know” Him because you read about Him in the Bible–but rarely or never actually experience His sanctifying presence–is to have the appearance of godliness while denying its power (2 Tim. 3:5). What will He ask you to surrender that He will not replace with something infinitely greater? Will you dare to love Him that much when we gather for worship this Sunday?
“Prayer and praise are the oars by which a man may row his boat into the deep waters of the knowledge of Christ.” (Charles Spurgeon)
Your brother,
Ryan
* This is not a movie recommendation! Unfortunately, pervasive bad language and some foul content corrupt an otherwise brilliant story. If your conscience does allow you to watch, please use discretion (it is certainly not for kids!) and consider using a content-filter app such as VidAngel.