Can our God be trusted? Col.2:20-23 & 3:1-3

So the title of my talk today is, Can God Be Trusted? If you look at the present global situation and conditions, you may think that it requires a healthy concern on our part. Our national, local conditions which keep us from experiencing the one nation under God or living a life of liberty and the pursuit of happiness that leaves us at a disadvantage. in the middle of a global condition. So the big question is, should we engage in correcting as much as possible the ever-expanding mental, moral, and social swamp that we live in? We're being led deeper and deeper into the murky darkness by much of the media. What we ought to know is not rightly reported. The well-entrenched power The well-entrenched power structure has great control and is determined to take even greater control in the immediate future in the name of caring. We sometimes think that things like fake news are new to us.

If you look at Matthew 28, 12 through 15, and this is right after the Lord rose from the dead, and when they had assembled the elders and consulted together, that gave a large sum of money to the soldiers. These were the soldiers that were guarding the tomb. And they said, you're to say, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. My question is, how would they know that if they were sleeping? And if this should come to the governor's ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble. And they took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story was widely spread among the Jews and to the city to this day. So these tactics aren't new. They're not new at all.

So what am I and you to do regarding... Let me take that back. What are the rulers in the world trying to do to control us? Well, it's really interesting what they do. The first thing they do is they get us fearing temperature. Then they legalize drugs for pleasure rather than pain.

They eliminate good old-fashioned common sense, and they take that out of our educational system. They promote confusion as to what it means to be male and female. They fail to rightly prosecute criminals. by fearing to correct, and they get us fearing that there's never going to be a health system that will be beneficial to us, by neglecting rightly to care for the military and for veterans or the local police, by our not seeking to rightly handle immigration, to name just some of the few. So you add to that the contamination of the morality which makes for an approving of what is wrong and attacking what is right, abandoning historic ethical common sense, public laxity and apathy about the religious, educational, sexual, and governmental realities. They don't encourage us to correct our course. So that leads to deterioration and loss of our good and foundation on which we can build. We can't rely on, like, the Declaration or the Constitution anymore. Again, not new information.

2 Timothy 3, 1 through 5, Timothy tells Paul, look, but realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, they'll be disobedient to parents, ungrateful, they'll be unholy, they'll be unloving, they'll be irreconcilable, they'll be malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, haters of God. righteous, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. And here's what Paul says to Timothy, avoid such men. There will be consequences, for sure.

These are ingredients for troubled people in troubled times. Even in the Old Testament, Isaiah wrote, Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Jeremiah said, We looked for peace, but none, no good came. For a time of health and trouble is all we got.

He who believes in him, this is from John 3, he who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment that light has come into the world and men have loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. But he I'm sorry, for everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds would be exposed. But he who's doing the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been produced in God. And in Galatians 6, Paul says, don't be deceived, God isn't mocked. Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. So the absence of truth and the presence of air, the absence of light and the power of darkness, those who mock will someday be shocked.

So what are we to do as believers? We live in this world. I think the first thing we should do is understand what's going on. We should be able to take a look at what is really happening. In 2 Timothy 3, and I'm going to spend some time in Timothy this morning, Paul tells Timothy, now you followed my teaching and my conduct, my purpose and my faith, patience, love and perseverance, precautions and suffering, such as happened to me in Antioch and Iconium and Lystra. What persecutions I endured, Out of them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. The number one tool used in the world today and probably for all time, is deception. Deception is the tool that's used the most. In Isaiah 45, declare and set forth your case indeed. Let them consult together.

Who has announced this from old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord? and there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior, there is none except me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. I have sworn by myself The word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to me every knee should bow and every tongue will swear allegiance." Then Isaiah says again, come now and let us reason together.

Says the Lord, though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. Jeremiah says, I say, if the Lord stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk in it. Back to Timothy 3, 14 and 15, Paul says, you, however, continue in the things you have learned.

Become convinced of knowing that whom you have learned them, from whom you have learned them, that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus even said, look, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.

And in 1 John, or in John 1.12, but as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become or sit down as the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

So I say all this to set up a scenario where I think the biggest problem believers have is their God is really little. He's too small. He's not what He says He is, or we don't believe what the Word of God says He is. He's tiny. We think we've got to help Him, or that He isn't involved enough, or for whatever reason.

I'll read a quote from Charles Coates, who is an old brethren guy. The path through the desert, this world, must be rough, and it is well that it is so, for there is no right-minded person who would not rather be set in a rough way than a slippery way. The Lord sees our need of being exercised by roughness and hardness, not only that we may find the rest at the end sweeter, but also that we may be the more effectually trained and fitted for the place we are yet to occupy. We are constantly ensnared by looking at secondary causes.

We do not realize God in everything. Were we more alive to the fact that there is not an event which happens to us from morning till night in which the voice of our Father may not be heard, His hand seen, with what a blessed atmosphere would it surround us? Man and his circumstances would then be received as so many agents and instruments of our Father's hand, so many ingredients in His cup for us. Thus would our minds be solemnized, our spirits calmed, and our hearts subdued." I love that quote. It's really good. So in dealing with the issue of just God himself. Who is this one that we have to deal with? Who is this God that is in our Bibles and His Son, the Lord Jesus? Just exactly who is He? And what are His attributes?

And compare them with all of the input into you from the world system. The first thing is that God is holy. And by holy, He is set apart from everything that is not consistent with what his essential nature is. And understand, we cannot limit him. Psalm 99 says, Exalt the Lord, our God, and worship him as holy hill, for holy is the Lord our God. O God, your ways are holy. Then where is there any other as mighty as you? So he's holy.

The next thing he is, is he's righteous, which just simply said, he's absolutely right about everything. Absolutely right about everything. In the Psalms it says, the Lord is righteous in all of his ways and kind in all of his deeds. He's just, which means he is absolutely fair. Isaiah says, declare and set forth your case and deed. Let them consult together. Who has announced from old? Who has long since declared it?

Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God beside me, a righteous, just God and a Savior. There is none except me. So those are three things that we know about God. The fourth thing is that He's infinite. He's omnipotent. He is all-powerful. He just speaks and things are created. You know, the old joke that I can do what you did, God. I can create just like you. And God says, okay, show me. And the guy goes to the dirt and starts. And God says, no, no, you've got to get your own dirt. Genesis 17 says that when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless.

How important it is to know that he's God Almighty. And then we find out that this word omniscient, it means that he knows everything. And what does that mean? Well, first of all, it means there isn't anything that he doesn't know. The problem we have in understanding God being omniscient is that we think sequentially. You know what I mean by that? We think this thought and the next thought and the next thought and the next thought. God doesn't think like that. He has all knowledge in play right now. All knowledge in play right now. He doesn't think like a computer thinks. He doesn't have to go back and find it. It's in play right now.

He knows everything that's in our hearts. He knows everything and every single one of us intimately and personally. He knows the sorrows that we have. He knows about the joys that we have. There isn't anything about anybody in this room that he doesn't know.

Now, we would say, well, if he's that omniscient, does it mean that he causes everything? Well, he doesn't cause sin. He knew sin was going to happen, but he didn't cause it because he gave Adam a free will. Did he know ahead of time what Adam would do? Yeah. And he also had in place the entire program of the Lord Jesus Christ becoming a man and his death, burial, and resurrection. He had all of that in place before. Just because God knew Adam would sin, you cannot say he caused it. His omniscience is not causative, but he knows. He knows everything. He already knows what you're going to do tomorrow, because he's not thinking in time.

He's thinking in eternity, and eternity is now. Then he's omnipresent, which means simply he's just everywhere. In the Psalms, David wrote, if I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I'm still with you. You can't go anywhere and get away from God. He's everywhere.

And he's self-existent. In other words, he does not need anything outside of himself to exist. Nothing. You and I are here this morning, and if there wasn't air in this room, we couldn't exist. He doesn't need air. He's self-existent. He doesn't need to breathe. We exist, our physical bodies exist because of outside influences on it and how it functions. He doesn't need any of that. He's self-existent. We need all of these things to live, food and water and right temperature and all of those things. He doesn't need any of those because he's self-existent.

He is eternal life. Now we think of eternal life as as a commodity, that there's this kind of life and that kind of life, there's human life and animal life. Eternal life is his very own life. In John 5, 58, the Lord Jesus said, Truly I say to you, for before Abraham was born, I am. The egoe me saying is great. 14, 6, he said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one comes to me or comes to the Father but through me. He's trying to tell his disciples that he himself is this thing eternal life. Eternal life doesn't mean extended existence forever. It means his own very life. So when you and I place our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and we receive eternal life, It's His life that we receive, His very own unique life. And He's love.

Scripture reveals to us the love of God. We read in 1 John chapter 3 that what manner of love is this, that we should be called the sons of God. Just think about that. Think about the love that God has for you. and for me, that we can be called the sons of God. I had a friend call me a couple of weeks ago, early in the morning. He's a believer.

He said, I had to tell somebody this. I said, I'm your guy. He said, I've been thinking lately that I'm just kind of lonely, you know, and I'm working And I'm going from one job to the next job, and between the jobs I'm thinking, gee, it's kind of lonely. And he said, I decided that I probably ought to talk to the Lord about this loneliness. So we did. And he said, the Lord showed me the kind of love it took for the Lord Jesus just to die for me. Just me.

He said, I had to tell somebody that. I said, so you finally figured out because God showed you that the God of the universe dearly loves you. He said, yeah, that's great, isn't it? I had to tell somebody. I said, it's cool because now you're free to love others and never worry about whether somebody loves you or not. When the God of the universe shows you that he loves you, do you care if the dog likes you? No. God loves me. So I'm free. I'm free to do what? I'm free to love myself. So I was pretty excited for this guy.

In 1 John 4.8 it says, The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. He is love. He doesn't have it. He is it.

The next aspect of God is grace. Out from His love comes this thing called grace, this unmerited, this unlimited blessing that only He can do. Because He is a God, He can bless us with unlimited blessings and totally unmerited, full on, all the time. And we're always trying to, I think, modify that grace, and He can't do it. It's like trying to shut off the Saturn V rocket once they lit it off. You can't shut it off. So He's grace, and He's mercy.

He never gives us what we deserve as believers. We don't have to suffer the punishment for your sins. You don't have to. He did it already for you. In His mercy, He withholds everything that we deserve. Now, sometimes He uses the circumstances that we create to child train us, but He child trains us in love and grace. He doesn't do it to punish us. He doesn't have to. He's taking care of the punishment.

Exodus 34, 6 says, when the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, The Lord, thy Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands and forgives iniquity and transgressions and sins.

The next aspect of God is that he's immutable. And what that means is that he will never change. You know, I've met so many Christians in my life who think that either their sinfulness or their praying or something will get God to change. He never changes.

He is who he is. He's self-existent. And I think it's arrogance on my part to think that I could make God angry at me when he took out all of his anger on his son about me. He can't. Because that's who he is. He will never change. The other thing he is, is that he's truth.

The Lord Jesus said, I'm the truth. He's God. Truth isn't concepts and information and an encyclopedia Britannica or a computer where all of this stuff is stored and then I get to pick and choose what I want and decide what truth is. The Lord Jesus said, I'm truth. Don't you find it interesting? That from God's perspective, truth is a person, not an idea, not a concept.

It's a person. And this one I really love. He's faithful. No temptation has overtaken you that such as common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able. But with the temptation will provide the way of escape also that you may be able to endure it. He's so faithful to us and we were just singing that great is thy faithfulness.

And I'm thinking to myself, I'm singing that how faithful I've proven myself to be to God. I haven't proven anything. He is always proving his faithfulness to me, and I'm responding. He's the faithful one, I'm not. And if I could change that song, I would, I'd rewrite it.

Great is his faithfulness, because he's always faithful. And the last thing is that he's spirit. Now, the second to last thing, he's spirit. In John 4, with Jesus talking to the woman at the well, he says, God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

How do you do that? I think a lot of it has to do with what you know and what you believe. You can't go through these attributes of God for very long and begin to worship him in spirit. You have to respond that way. The last thing I would say about God is that he's sovereign. Overall, no one needs to counsel God. In Genesis 1, he says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Romans 9.14 says, what shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be. For God says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it doesn't depend on the man who walks, or wills, or runs, but on God who shows mercy. So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires. So again, I ask you, what should we do as believers when we come to the information about what goes on around us in the world? And Randy read the verses this morning. We should be informed. And here's how Paul informed us.

Since you have died with Christ to the elementary, to the substance of the material world, to the delusive speculations of Gentile cults and Jewish theories, and treated as elementary principles the rudiments of the world, these were presented as superior to faith in Christ. That's how they're presented. I have died to the world, according to what God says.

Now, if you're like me, there are times that you say, well, Lord, I hear what you're saying. But this experience I'm having right now would go totally against what you tell me is true. So now I'm left with a choice. I either believe God and what he tells me, or I get engaged in whatever the circumstances are. In other words, I don't believe God.

So, and then he asks the question, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as, don't handle, don't taste, don't touch? And that refers to things that are going to perish in the very use of them. They're going to perish. In accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. Notice that the best men can come up with. They can't come up with grace. So the best they come up with is don't handle, don't touch, and don't taste. That's the best they can do. They can give you a set of rules.

So these are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom and self-religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. So I find out from God's word, I have this whole world system over here, but I find out from God's world that I've been, I'm dead to it. So that's only half of the discussion. The other half of discussion is what am I to do now?

Colossians 3.1 takes the next step. Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, again, you guys remember when you were raised? Do you remember that whole event?

You don't. You have to take God at his word. You have to trust him and he will prove trustworthy. Since you'd be risen with Christ, he says, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind in your things above and not in things of the earth. Again, he repeats, for you died and your life is hid with Christ and God. Do you look at yourself as a dead man? Do you take God at His word that I'm dead to all of the rudiments of the world? If I'm looking at God to live in grace, I have to understand that I'm a dead man and I'm resurrected in Christ.

I can't avoid evil. in the world. If I try my own effort, I can't do it. It's interesting that God brings in through Paul's epistles, not only what happened to me in terms of my separation, but now that I'm risen with Christ, what am I supposed to do?

Well, how do you do that? How do you seek those things which are above? Well, we kind of just went through a bunch of them in terms of the attributes of God. That would help you understand what seeking those things are. The things that we're talking about are the attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we have been given His Spirit to do what? To reveal Christ to us personally. I think the most difficult thing for us as believers to come to grips with is that God desires that you and I have a personal, intimate fellowship with the resurrected, glorified Christ right now. And so when we read in the Word of God these things, we're left with only one thing to do. We have to trust Him, because we can't effectuate those things in our life. We have to trust Him.

So the apostle reasons from our being dead with the risen Christ, and it's not merely that we shall die and rise, but it's that we are dead and we are risen. Even many believers who use these words constantly don't really enter into the meaning of this language. For the obvious and sufficient reason, they are not living the truth of it practically. We are too habitually mixed up with the world to understand such absolute separation from it. It is not that we are dull of understanding in the things and interests of nature, but our speech and our ways betray us, proving how far they are from the intelligence of the Scripture. So, my last question is, The one who is risen with Christ, where is he to set his affections? Obviously it's on the things above. Is it possible for us to have motives both above and below at the same time? Think about that. Can we be loyal and have divided affections for the things of the world and the things of God at the same time? Well, the Lord Himself said you can't serve two masters. It's impossible to do. The Lord put it as a moral impossibility.

But here it is urged as an exhortation founded on the immense grace which has raised us up with Christ now. How strong is this word, seek? Since you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. It's an exhortation. It's founded on the immense grace that has raised up Christ. The word seeking carries the sense of making an examination, looking it over, and it does not imply pursuing something that is trying to elude us. It means we're pursuing something that is trying to hook up with us.

The Spirit of God is trying, trying to reveal the things of God to us. So these things, as I said before, these things, what are these things? You can start with the attributes of God. You can spend time in the Word of God and in Paul's epistles and you will see the incredible riches of the Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed to you by the Spirit of God in His Word. So the things of God are really important, who He is, His love, His mercy, His grace, all of those things. I know that sometimes we think that the things of God that you can't see and certainly has to do with His essence and His totality, who He is, the fact that He's holy and righteous, the fact that He's just and He's infinite. Can you trust God about those things when He starts to show us who He is?

Yeah, we can. Yeah, we can. Charles Coates, in that quote that I quoted a few minutes ago, said, we are constantly ensnared by looking at secondary causes. We do not realize God in everything. We are more alive to the fact that there is not an event. I'm sorry, let me start over.

Were we more alive to the fact that there is not an event which happens to us from morning till night in which the voice of our Father may not be heard, His hand seen, with what a blessed atmosphere would it surround us. Man and circumstances would then be received as so many agents and instruments of our Father's hand. so many ingredients in his cup for us. Thus would our minds be solemnized, our spirits calm, and our hearts subdued. So let's pray.

Father, how we thank you. We thank you just for who you are. We thank you that you have deemed in your own self that we should not only be saved, but saved to what? Saved to the fact that we can know you, we can fellowship with you, and we can trust you and in a world that is totally, totally against you. And we thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.