THE LIVING WORD TRANSCRIPT
Program Air Date - 3-14-04
LESSON TITLE: IMPORTANT DOCTRINES OF GOD: "THE DOCTRINE OF GOD, HIMSELF"
WELCOME
Thank you for joining us this morning, let me welcome you to the program. The Living Word is a work of our Lord, dedicated to doing God's Will in His Way! As always, it will be our privilege today to sing songs of praise and to study from His Word. In these acts of worship, may we all be encouraged, but ultimately may we each praise God according to the sacrifices to offer toward His Throne. It will also be our honor this morning to speak with God through prayer. Will you bow with me as we talk to our creator?
(PRAYER)
Before we begin with our first song of the morning, I would like to take just a moment to thank one of the good supporters of this television program. Do you live in the Crocker, Missouri area or have you ever been in that area. If so, I would like to encourage you to visit with the Crocker Church of Christ even this morning. These brethren meet today, and every Sunday morning beginning at 10:00 o'clock for Bible class. This is followed by a main worship at 11:00 a.m. Once again on Sunday evening at 6:00 there is provided an opportunity to assemble before God in Crocker, Missouri. The brethren at Crocker also have a mid-week service on Wednesday, in which they meet at 7:00 p.m. So, Please take time to visit with these good brethren if you have the opportunity. If you need further information or would like to contact this congregation please do so by calling James Meredith at (573)736-2484. Or you could contact us and we will assist in any way we can.
Now it's time to praise our God through song. So, won't you join in with the congregation at this time as we sing together, "Why I Love The Lord."
(SONG # 1)
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS
Are we ever guilty of putting other things before God? Maybe some of us have actually gone so far at times, as to have made the things of this life our true god! However, what does God expect of us as His Followers. Does He allow us to commit spiritual adultery and to put other things before Him? The answer is NO!
In Joshua 24:19-20, we read, "But Joshua said to the people, "You cannot serve the LORD, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good." I think this passage helps us to clearly see that God alone is God and He is the only true God which man can follow. In the book of James, we read this inspired writer saying that even the devils know and believe in the one true God, chapter 2, verse 19.
Oh, how important it is to realize that our God truly is a jealous God and He expects us to follow Him and Him alone in the lives which we live. Are you striving to put God first in your life? Are you striving to make Him your God and the only God of your existence?
As far as our study this day - we will be continuing our new series which is entitled, "Important Doctrines Of God!" Our specific lesson of the morning deals with: "The Doctrine of God, Himself!"
So please stay with us this morning and after our next song together, I will lead us in our main thoughts of the day. Now it's time to join in our second song of the morning, the name of this hymn, "When We All Get To Heaven."
(SONG # 2)
LESSON
Speaker: Ray Sullins
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Our Bible starts with that verse and what a glorious verse it certainly is because there it confirms for us something that we would not know without the book, the Bible. In fact, as we look here we find that God was there in the beginning and that's our discussion today as we've been looking together at this great concept of the doctrines of God. Here together this morning as we look at God and the doctrine of God Himself and who He is and what He's all about, I hope that we'll be able to investigate together and find out more about this God that you and I as His followers believe in, that we have committed ourselves to and that we are striving everyday to do those things that He has asked us through this book, His complete and divine will.
If you'll turn over to the book of Exodus, we're going to begin to see something about this God that He first told to His own people there, the chosen people, the Israelites, there in Exodus chapter 20. We often refer to this as the Ten Commandments, those commands given especially there at Mt. Sinai through Moses to the Israelites and we find beginning in verse 1 where it says, "And God spoke all these words saying, 'I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and you shall have no other gods before Me and you shall not make for yourselves a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.'" As we see here in the introductory concepts and ideas of the very law of Moses, as we often refer to it, we find that God claims clearly that the believer can believe in no other god but He. The believer who chooses to say that yes, God is real, can accept no other god except again the one true God, the Creator, as was spoken of "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Here again we find also He says that not only can you not believe in other gods, gods maybe that other nations have or other cultures or other peoples, but also you cannot make your own god. You cannot make idols or images. Why? Because as we saw earlier this morning already, God is a jealous God and being the only God, it is unallowed that we can believe or follow anything else spiritually or religiously than Him. And doesn't that just make sense? If you were God or I were God and it's impossible probably to understand that but if we were and we truly were all powerful and all knowing and able to be the type of God that He is, would we allow that men worship other images? Certainly not! Even from a human standpoint, it makes clear and good sense that God being a great and mighty God, being the only God, would not allow us to worship that which does not exist, or those things that are not real or those things that are brought out of our own selfish desires or out of our own selfish nature or our own selfish wants.
If you'll turn over just a few more books to the book of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy chapter 6, we really learn some very familiar words that later were spoken by Christ in the books of Matthew and Mark and another gospel account, but there we read in Deuteronomy chapter 6 something that was really said long, long ago, here and recorded by our very own Moses, the one who certainly was a dear follower of God. There in Deuteronomy chapter 6 beginning in verse 4 the Bible says, "Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength." Sound familiar? Again, in Matthew 22 or we could say even in Mark chapter 12 in verse 29, we find the very same ideas being presented that we must "love the Lord our God," that one God, the Creator, the one in the beginning because He is the one God, the only Lord, and He is the one who deserves our homage and our reverence.
We might also see from the Psalmist David in a very beautiful Psalm there in Psalm 86 and verse 10 where he again proclaims that "you alone God are God." Here we find once again that God is God. He is real. He is true. And He is the only God and being a jealous God, we can worship none other. The Bible teaches us the doctrine that God alone is God and as His followers, as those who desire to be religious and to follow a God, we must believe in Him only and in Him only can we serve.
We find further references to where not only do we have the idea that God is the one true God, the truly beloved God, the one that should be reverenced and honored in all things, but we find further ideas about God that we would further like to look at in this lesson to understand His complete nature and His deity.
But as we continue to look at God, it might be interesting to know that God is one who clearly is stated as being really one of several personalities as is often referred to. In other words, His nature itself is identified in three separate persons, although again being one God. Now what do we mean by that? We mean simply that for instance at the baptism of Jesus, we find that all three parts of God were present. God the Father sending the Spirit of God in the form of a dove, and there lighting on the shoulder or really the body of Jesus, Jesus being the Son of God. John 3:16 says that "For God so loved the world that He..." what? "...He gave His only begotten Son (Jesus Christ)." So we see that the Godhead is really represented in three persons.
This is further represented in Matthew 28 when the Great Commission is given there in about verses 19-20 and how it later says that one should be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Why do you think these references are necessary? Well they are necessary because they again identify to us this one God, the nature of this one God, and how that He encompasses the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I want you to think also with me back all the way to the book that we began in our lesson this morning, in Genesis 1. There we find that "in the beginning was God." Who was this God? It talks about how that "God was in the beginning." It talks about how that "the Spirit of God was moving or hovering over the face of the deep." It talks about in chapter 2 how that God said, "Let us make man in our image." What's then God talking about? The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The further ideas that are seen evident in places such as the book of John that over and over is clarified by the son of God Himself that God the Father, Jehovah, Yahweh is real, is His God, is His Father. But at the same time, the same book and other books, that clarify to us that Jesus also is God. In fact, in John chapter 1 and verse 1, that is the gospel of John, we find there again that in the beginning, that is Genesis 1, "in the beginning God...", John starts by saying that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Notice here the deity, the reference to the Word being deity and being with God in the beginning at creation and the Word itself being God. Here again, the idea is clear that the God that we follow, the godhead, the trinity as modern man might place the word on it, really is encompassed in these three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I might also mention another verse that's important to our study in Acts chapter 5, verses 3-4 where we find clearly the story of Ananias and Sapphira and how that they had sold their land and were planning to give what they had sold to God to help in the work, the ministry of God, but yet when they came before it says that "they lied to God." Why? They had held some back. The apostles and others said, "Well, wasn't it your choice?" Did you have to give it all? Well, they had lied. They chose to lie and to infer at least that they gave all that they received for the land to God. Well the verses there say that they had lied to God. Do you know who that God was? A following verse continues and clarifies for us that it was the Holy Spirit. They lied to the Holy Spirit and then they were told, "You didn't lie to just another man or another individual or a person or just the Holy Spirit itself, you lied to the Holy Spirit, God." Well there again the reference is clear. The doctrine of God is that God is God. God is real. God is true. God is righteous and holy and God is the Father. God is the Son. God is the Holy Spirit. And the three make up the godhead and they all are one as Jesus clarified in John 17. The Father and the Son are one. They are in one another and the same in concept, in precept, in command, in idea, goals and every purpose and every area God is one and united and thus we serve one God, one God that is identified clearly as having three ideas or persons represented that certainly prove to us once again that our God is a multifaceted God with many, many purposes.
I would like to further suggest just for a few minutes the great attributes of God because this God that we follow who was in the beginning, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, there again the Son actually being the Creator as we find further clarified in John chapter 1 and verse 3 that "He made all things and nothing was made that was made without Him." As they all were in the beginning, well what are some of these attributes? Well obviously God is all powerful. He is so powerful that He could create everything that we see, everything that we know, and even us. He is so powerful that He could make man and put a soul in man and even breathe into His nostrils the breath of life. He's so powerful that you and I today live and exist and have our being. Truly God is powerful.
God also is a God that is a spirit. Who has seen God at any time? No man. Why? God is a spirit. John said in John 4 and 24 that God is a spirit and we must worship Him as true worshipers in spirit and in truth. As God is a spirit, a Holy Ghost concept, one that really is "not of flesh and blood," as Paul says in the book of 1 Corinthians. Again, our God being spirit is invisible. He is one that is not seen with a naked eye, but one who can be clearly seen through the powers of His creation.
We also see that God is not only all powerful, not only is He everywhere, not only is He a spirit, but He is one who has such knowledge that it is incomprehensible to us, something that we really cannot comprehend because "His thoughts," as Isaiah said, "are greater than ours. His ways are greater than ours." Certainly as finite beings, as those who are really able to conceive how magnificent God is, it's hard to understand His power, all of His nature, His abilities, His knowledge, but yet still the Bible confirms the doctrine of God that these things be true, that He is real and that we must believe fully and wholeheartedly in all that He is, in all that He knows, in all the wisdom that He has, and the ability that He has to be everywhere at all times, to be an individual, a being who is holy and perfect and just, a sinless individual, an individual who has made us in His own image. Oh I don't know about you, but how blessed and how wondrous it is to know that you and I are created in the image of God because as we consider the doctrine of God that He is real and to know that He made me spiritually like He is and to know that someday He wants my spiritual essence, the soul, to live eternally with Him. Praise be to God that He loved me enough to give His son to die on the cross so that we might know that doctrine also as we'll discuss it later so that we might be saved and be called His children.
So why not then focus on the Bible, the Word and know the doctrines of God and specifically as we've seen today, the doctrine of God Himself. Is He your God? The true God? The only God of your lives? The one that you serve and the one that someday will take you home for eternity to live with Him forever?
(SONG # 3 - "Have Thine Own Way Lord!")
CLOSING COMMENTS
Let me thank you again for choosing to be with us today, in this offering to God. I know our time together has been an encouragement and blessing to all of us. We invite you back every Sunday morning at 7:30, as we commit ourselves to this service of God!
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Isn't it great to know that God is real and that He alone is God! May we always realize and acknowledge who are Creator is by doing His Will and obeying His Precepts!
(Program closing)