A Focus on God’s Nature

I want to begin by doing two things. First, I want to remind you of the reading from Acts 17:16-31 that opened our assembly. Paul spoke to the elite minds in Athens by invitation to the Areopagus. Paul was surrounded by the evidences of active idol worship. He began his remarks to these elite minds by discussing the basic nature of God.

Second, I want to share with you a second reading, from Romans 11:25-36. Please read with me.
For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery–so that you will not be wise in your own estimation–that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,

Paul’s basic point in Romans 11 is that Jewish Christians have a concept and understanding of God that is much too small. To most Jewish Christians, it was unthinkable that God could save gentile people without those people first becoming Jewish proselytes. To them, idolatrous gentiles had to convert to Jewish ways before they could become Christians. Paul, who would have agreed with that view prior to conversion to Jesus Christ, said the reason these Christians thought as they did was that their concept of God was much too small.

This is the basic point I want to call to your attention: If a person is going to be transformed (his/her life truly changed), he/she must change his/her understanding of God. That includes everyone of you. That includes me. That includes everyone we know. We will not possibly understand God’s intent in Jesus Christ nor will we properly understand Jesus Christ if we do not first change our view of God.

1. Every horrible thing you can imagine has been done in the name of God.
   1. More people have been killed or severely hurt in the name of God than in any other name or cause we can identify.
      1. Wars have been declared in the name of God (God is often the first recruit on both sides when war is declared!).
      2. Persecutions have murdered–in the name of God.
      3. People who profess to belong to God destroy people who profess to belong to God–all in the name of God.
      4. As long as humans can justify their thoughts and actions by sanitizing those thoughts and actions in devotion to God, they can do anything–no matter how ungodly it is–as long as they think God sanctions it.
   2. Before you are tempted to get self-righteous in a sense of moral indignation, be honest enough to admit we do some awful things in the name of God.
      1. In the name of God, we divide congregations.
      2. In the name of God, we brand men and women in Jesus Christ as false teachers.
      3. In the name of God, we feel hostility toward men and women baptized into Christ whose preferences differ from our preferences.
      4. In the name of God, we knowingly and deliberately ruin a Christian’s reputation because we consider him or her dangerous.
      5. In the name of God, we pass judgment on brothers and sisters in Christ.
      6. Sometimes people cannot see the good things we do in devotion to God because they cannot get their attention off the bad things we do in the name of God.
   3. To us, the crusades are just a forgotten footnote in history, and they in no way represent true Christianity.
      1. To many people in Iraq and the Arabic world, the crusades are very much alive and a current truth in the real world.
      2. The crusades exist as the living evidence of just how evil and vicious anything that calls itself Christian is.

2. What is the biggest difference in Christian faith and Islamic faith?
   1. I realize there are many, but what is the biggest and most basic difference?
      1. If you suggest that the biggest difference is to be found in their concepts of morality and concepts of ethics, I would disagree.
      2. If you suggest that the biggest difference is to be found in their concept of Jesus, I would disagree.
      3. “Then what would you say is the biggest and most basic difference?”
         1. I would say the biggest and most basic difference begins with Christianity’s and Islam’s view of God.
         2. Parts of their view of God is quite correct–they have a much deeper sense of God’s holiness than do many Christians.
         3. Parts of their view of God is held in common with devout Christians.
            1. The way we view God must affect our behavior.
            2. The way we view God must affect our relationships.
            3. The way we view God must affect our motives.
      4. However, in a truly fundamental way, the way a devout Islamic views God’s nature and the way a devout Christian views God’s nature has some significant, basic differences.
         1. It is from the nature of God that the Christian understands redemption.
         2. It is from the nature of God that the Christian defines forgiveness.
         3. It is from the nature of God that the Christian understands the concepts of mercy and grace.
   2. Do not reduce these critical differences to the mere statement, “They call God Allah–and that is the wrong name!”
      1. The word ‘Allah’ simply means God.
      2. If you are a missionary to an Arabic people, you will use ‘Allah’ for the English word ‘God’ because that is the word for God.
      3. The earliest names for the living God are found in Hebrew, not English.
         1. The Jewish people called the living God by more than one name:
            1. Jehovah, the Self-Existent God [Jehovah is the English word that comes from a Hebrew word regarded as too holy to say]
            2. Jehovah Roi, the God Who takes care of us
            3. El Shaddai, the God who supplies our needs
            4. El Elyon, the God to Whom heaven and earth belongs.
            5. El Olam, the Everlasting God
            6. El Gibbor, the Mighty God
            7. Jehovah Melek, God Who is the King
            8. Adonai, the Master or the Head [actually a title rather than a name, the title of Lord].
            9. Elohim, the Source of all that exists
         2. In English we commonly combine all those names and titles that deal with God’s nature into one small three letter word.

May I assure you, the more accurately we understand the nature of God, the more radically our lives will change as we serve Jesus Christ. I also assure you that the better we understand God’s nature, (1) we will stop doing some of the things we do to others, and (2) we will do things in service to God through Christ we have never done before.