What is God Like?

Readings

1. Old Testament: Exodus 19:16-25

2. Psalm 38

3. Gospel: Matt. 3:13-17

4. Epistle: Col. 1:15:23

Devotional
What is God like? That is a question we have to be careful answering: careful because God has told us in His word what He is like, so that some answers are better than others, but also careful because we must make sure that our answers say something about God and not just something about ourselves. It is so tempting to reduce God down to a simple maxim: God is love, God is holy, God is you fill in the blank. And those things are true: God is those things. But reducing him down to just those things is dangerous...

Some of us focus on the love and goodness of God. Creating a good world, saving his people from Egypt, the blessings of grace given to us in Jesus Christ, even the benediction of kindness pronounced when God comes down in Matthew 3:13-17... all these events demonstrate the quality of God's goodness. We cling to these truths, because we know that we desperately need God to be good, and we delight to find that he is!

Some of us focus on the holiness and otherness of God. Examples abound in the Old Testament: his treatment of the Egyptians, the Psalmist writing that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, even the way that God appears to his people in Exodus 19:16-25, in a cloud of thunder and the danger of death. And this sense of the awesome otherness isn't confined just to the Old Testament... when the disciples encounter Jesus in his authority and power, their response is usually wonder and fear (cf. Mark 4:41).

The reality is, God as revealed to us in Jesus is both fearfully loving and graciously other. He is both of those things, and the life we live before him must acknowledge both. We must fear him; we must trust him. We must delight in him; we must obey him. These different character traits seem to be in tension, but the tension resolves when Jesus walks into the room. How can God be both just and merciful? Other and with us? When the person Jesus walks into the room, a light bulb goes on: "Ohhhhhh. That's how."

What does the fact that God is both of these things mean for us? Simply that we cannot use Him (or maxims about him) to control him or domesticate him. Rather, we must worship him. Perhaps St. Augustine said it best: "A thief was saved: do not despair. A thief was damned: do not presume."

Or with the old hymn:
O tell of his might, o sing of his grace,
whose robe is the light, whose canopy space
whose chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form
and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

Hymn
O Worship the King

Prayer
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant
us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way,
the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his
steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ
your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Prove Yourself

Readings

1. Old Testament: Exodus 19:1-16

2. Psalm 26

3. Gospel: Matt. 3:7-12

4. Epistle: Col. 1:1-14 

Devotional
The tryouts were exhaustive. What is your bench press? Your squat max? Your 40 yard dash time? Height? Weight? Can you catch? Can you throw? Prove it. Prove yourself. And the emotional stress of the tryout increased in proportion to its exhaustiveness. Will I be accepted? Am I good enough? Have I earned a spot on the team? 

Tryouts are stressful. Yet for some reason (perhaps we are worried a tryout is always ongoing?) we insist on living all of life as a tryout. Build the resume, show off your best qualities, hunt for likes on social media. Even our relationships become a tryout- lets prove ourselves to one another, then perhaps we can trust one another. 

God is different. Always has been, always will be. Exodus 19 makes it clear: "You yourself have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you up on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore be holy, as I am holy." God's order is the opposite of ours. He bestows grace, mercy, and salvation, and then calls us to respond to it. He doesn't ask us to prove ourselves; he proves himself to us! Whether you are an ancient Israelite wandering in the desert saved from Egypt by the exodus, or a modern day Christian saved from death by the resurrection of Jesus, you have this in common- the God of the Universe has proven his love for you, over and over. So our motivation to holiness, our motivation to seek justice, our motivation to grow as people is very different: we strive not out of fear but out of gratefulness, we strive not out of anxiousness but out of rest.


Hymn
Nothing But the Blood

Prayer
We thank you, heavenly Father, that you have delivered us
from the dominion of sin and death and brought us into the
kingdom of your Son; and we pray that, as by his death he
has recalled us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal
joys; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.