Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Attributes of God - Knowing God

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Attributes of GodIn this episode Jonny lays the foundation and discusses the profound privilege of knowing the God we call Father. Watch on YouTubeFollow on InstagramFollow on TwitterVisit our Website

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this series, we will be studying the attributes of God. And in this initial episode, I want to lay the foundation for you and discuss the profound privilege of knowing the God we call Father. If you've not already subscribed, would you consider subscribing, commenting, and rating Dial In on Apple Podcasts? Because that helps enable other people to find the show. Without further ado, let's dial in.

Now, there are assuredly a number of things that people would say define them. Athletics, academics, their social presence, their balance sheet. But A.W. Tozer once said, what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. It is the most important element of your thinking. How you view God determines, dictates, and defines the rest of the way that you live your life. No man's walk with God is ever higher than their views of God, and that would make sense for both of us. The most revealing thing about a nation is their view of God. The most revealing thing about a nation is their view of God. The most revealing thing about a church is their view of God. And the most revealing thing about your life today is your view of God. A low view of God leads to low views of holiness, which leads to low

views of your sin, which leads to low views of the cross of Jesus Christ, which inevitably would lead to low views of grace. And if your view of grace is low, it assuredly won't be amazing, even if that's what you sing. Everything in your life hinges on who you believe God to be. And everything about who we believe God to be hinges on his word, or else our view of God ends up being preferential and imaginative rather than biblical and true. I hear many people today say things like, well, that's not the God I feel like I believe in. And there's an obvious danger there because God is not subject to our feelings. He is subject to nothing and to no one. But you and I, we live in a world of preferences and tastes and opinions. And this is often, we live in a world of preferences and tastes

and opinions, and this is often rippled over into the way that many people today view God. You can have God however you would like him, is culture's cry. I'll expand on that, but first let me tell you about Howard Maskowitz. Howard is famous for reshaping and redefining the buying patterns of consumers. In the 70s and 80s, Campbell's Soup Company also owned Prego Spaghetti Sauce, and Prego was struggling against their competition, Ragu. And Prego came to Howard and said, fix us, Howard. Make us the perfect spaghetti sauce. And in response, Howard did not seek to make the perfect spaghetti sauce. No, he sought to make perfect spaghetti sauces, plural. He claimed that not everyone wanted the same sauce.

So he made 45 varieties in every single different way, by sweetness, by garlic, by tartness, by sourness, by tomato-ness, by spice, by color, by seasoning. And then he took these 45 sauces and went on the road. And Campbell's competition, Ragu, followed in similar fashion. And today, if you walk down the grocery aisle of spaghetti sauces in your local market, you will find 36 Ragu sauces in six main varieties. Cheese, light, Robusto, World and Hardy, Extra Chunky Garden, and Old Traditional. In the past,

there had been this attempt to match authentic italian sauce and there was this idea that one style would satisfy everyone's wants and needs but no howard came in and said there is no such thing as the perfect spaghetti sauce there are only perfect spaghetti sauces and this really affected the way that businesses approach the consumer mind. The great revolution of searching for universals, meaning one right answer or choice, was replaced with searching for variability and options and preferences to satisfy human desires. And this consumer trend, it sounds silly to say, has affected the way that many people view God. We live in a world where God

is treated like spaghetti sauce. The world believes God is whatever you would like him to be whenever you would want him. He comes in 45 varieties, like the Burger King slogan, you can have God your way. But as we approach this study of the attributes of God, that idea and that conviction cannot be any further from the truth of what the Bible declares. God is unlike spaghetti sauce. He doesn't change depending on your preference or taste. He is constantly the same. Malachi 3.6 says, for I am the Lord, I change not. So then, if God does not change, and if God has revealed himself to people back then, that is who he is now. And so the question then is, has God revealed himself to us? The answer is an emphatic yes. God in profound love stoops to our level and has, by means of revelation, declared who he is.

And although we can never know God exhaustively, we, by means of his word, the Bible, can know God truly and intimately. We then are the recipients and beneficiaries of God's revelation to his creatures. And this is what makes life worthwhile, knowing the God who has revealed himself to us. I'll always remember reading the words of J.I. Packer in the book, Knowing God. He says, what makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance. And this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God? The great comfort of my own angsty, overthinking mind is that there is a God who is there. And as

Francis Schaeffer says, he is not silent. We can know who God is through his word. And you have to, in some way, feel the angst of living in a world created by God, where you have never heard this idea of special revelation to us through the Bible. You would hypothetically just know in your heart that the migration pattern of birds and the hibernation of bears and the forming of a child in a womb are not the results of a cosmic accident. You listening are not a grown-up germ or a glob of DNA. But imagine wrestling with this for years and then for the first time knowing that you were created by a very real God who is not just incomprehensible, but knowable intimately, not because scholars and professionals have revealed what he is like, but because he has revealed himself to you in the

Bible. I love what R.C. Sproul says. He says, what kind of a God would reveal himself in terms so technical and concepts so profound that only an elite group of scholars and professionals could even understand that God. And the answer is not your God. If you're a Christian, a God who is wrapped in glory reveals himself to us. And when Moses is pleading with God to show him his glory in Exodus 33, God initially responds first and foremost by preaching on his own character. God does not slink or shy away from proclaiming his nature. He mounts the pulpit and declares his own attributes. Exodus 33 verse 19. God says, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and show And then in Exodus 34iquity, transgression, and sin, yet he will

by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. When God is asked to reveal his glory, he reveals his attributes. Now the question is, what is an attribute of God? An attribute of God is whatever God has revealed about himself to be true. It's something we attribute to God. And so although God is majestic and infinite, there are a number of God's attributes, which we can know the attributes of God are the answers to the question. What is God like? Don't you want to know that answer? And these answers though are not merely academic. They are heart-wrenching, soul-inspiring, life-altering, worldview-shifting, sin-slamming, joy-producing, evangelistic, encouraging realities that satisfy

the craving of our intellects and ravish our hearts. So I want to give you three truths regarding the nature of God's attributes and then three principles regarding knowing God that will guide this study on the attributes of God. But first, these three truths regarding God's attributes. Number one, all of the attributes we will study are present in all three members of the Trinity. We tend to study the character of God as if they apply uniquely to one of the members of the Trinity. We tend to study the character of God as if they apply uniquely to one of the members of the Godhead, meaning that God's wrath only applies to the Father, his love applies to the Son, his presence to the Spirit. But no, all of the attributes we will study are present in all three members of the Trinity. Number two, all attributes are eternally

permanent in God. If God, think with me, is the same yesterday, today, and forever, these attributes that define God now have been his attributes for all of eternity past and will define him for all of eternity future. Number three, God's attributes are not slices of the pie that is God. He is not 50% love and then 15% wrath and justice and 10% presence. He is all of his attributes all of the time. And these attributes are inseparable. They are woven together, never conflicting with each other. So those are three truths to keep in mind regarding his attributes. And now three principles regarding knowing God that will guide

our study. Number one, knowing God is our greatest privilege on earth. Jeremiah nine says, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the rich man in his riches, but let him whoasts, boast in this, that he knows me and that I know him. You were made to boast. The instinct of the human is to boast. And God tells you in Jeremiah 9, boast in this, that you know me and that I know you. So number one, knowing God is our greatest privilege. Number two, knowing God is redemption's purpose. The gospel is not the end.

The gospel is the means to an end, and the end is knowing God. God did not merely die to forgive us of our sins. He saved us so that we would have deep fellowship and intimacy with him. And this fellowship is dependent upon knowledge. And what lies at the very crux of redemption and the goal of creation is that man made in the image of God would be so that he comes to know this God intimately and personally. And this is the function of all of God's covenants, that we would know him. Jeremiah 31 verses 33 and 34 says, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,

declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people. They will not teach each other again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they will all know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity This is God's desire for his people.

This is God's desire for you, that you would know him. Habakkuk 2.14 says, Additionally, knowing God, here in the second point, is at the very burden of the heart of the Lord. Additionally, knowing God here in the second point is at the very burden of the heart of our Savior. John 17, 3, Jesus is praying in the garden before he's about to be crucified and says, this is eternal life. And he doesn't just say living forever. He says, knowing God, eternal life is knowing God. So number one, knowing God is our greatest privilege. Number two, knowing God is redemption's purpose. And number three, knowing God is also the foundation of the believer's perseverance and growth. Colossians 1.10 says this, for this reason, since the day

we have heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Verse 10, actually that was verse nine, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Increasing in the knowledge of God is fundamental to you increasing in holiness. Ephesians 1 17 says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. You can only grow in your walk with God as to the degree which you have a magnified and exalted view of him. When you become gripped by the glory of God,

knowledge of God, and we see here throughout the scripture is the great pride crusher. Its effect is to humble us as we contemplate God's greatness and glory in our own littleness and unworthiness and sinfulness. This high view of God will lead to low views of ourself. Now, this might seem like a weird question, but what's the danger in studying God's character? What's the danger? Well, the danger is we may know as much about God as our heroes in the faith, and yet at the same time, we may hardly know God himself at all. One can write papers, preach sermons, lead study groups, and find their way around in the scriptures. But the question is, does God care if we know these answers only?

No. If we pursue theology as the end rather than the means to the end, we will end up mechanical and stale. One writer says, It is possible to have a correct theological affirmation in your head without ever tasting in your heart the realities to which they refer. And a simple Bible reader and sermon hearer who is full of the Holy Spirit will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior

than a more learned scholar who is content with being theologically correct. To approach the Bible simply with the desire to know the answers is the highway of the hardened heart. So that's the danger. So then what's the goal? The goal is worship, that our theology would drive and fuel doxology. All throughout the psalm, the psalmist's desire was not just to have truth, but for truth to serve as a catalyst for praise. He wanted to understand the truth in order that his heart might respond to it

and his life be conformed to it. And we are compelled to worship when we realize that the God that we seek to know amazingly already deeply knows us. Isaiah 49, 16 says, I am graven on the palms of his hands. Exodus 33, 17, God says, I know your name. Jeremiah one, verse five, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born. I set you apart. And for all believers, Jesus says in John 10, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. I lay down my life for my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice.

I know them. They shall never perish. Ultimately, as we approach God's attributes in the word of God, we must ask the question, what is the Bible all about? Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. What is the Bible all about? The Bible is ultimately all about Jesus Christ. And we are compelled to worship when we realize that the one that Isaiah sees on a throne lifted up, who is holy, becomes flesh in the incarnation, when the eternal word becomes man and dwells amongst us. And these attributes, many of them find their most exalted and amplified form in the life, death, resurrection, and ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit. And the promise of the scriptures is in 2 Corinthians three 18, that as we behold this

glory, as we gaze upon these attributes and the really the God who is these attributes, it will direct our affection to Jesus Christ. And we will become like the one that we behold. Stay dialed in.