- Well good morning, good to see all of you up here. Good to see everybody. Well, I actually don't see you downstairs worshipping in the warehouse, but welcome. I wanna ask you to do one thing for me before we talk about a few other things, and then we're gonna pray and jump right in our series. Take your worship guide out with your notes and a pen this morning. You're gonna need them, okay? You're gonna be writing a ton of stuff down. We're gonna have all the passages from the Bible up on the screen. You're gonna wanna write down the reference. The reason why I'm telling you that this morning is because the subject we're looking at is absolutely massive. There is no way I can cover everything this morning, and so you're gonna see how we've decided to do it. But I'm doing it for several reasons. I want us to come away with some awesome ideas about who God is. So there's a mission behind the madness, but make sure you get all that out. Now let me mention a couple of things here first. We do have podcasts now. We've got this little thing called Rockpoint podcasts that are coming out. You can access them on social media and also by our E news. The first one is out already. I interviewed Sean McDowell. You're gonna absolutely loves that one. And then we'll have some other ones with Josh McDowell and some other individuals coming up. The idea is we will unpack things we can't cover here on Sunday morning. So make sure you take a look at those. I think they'll be helpful for you. Also, Joel Rosenberg is gonna be with us on October the 19th and also the 20th. 20th, you'll be in all three of the services. On the 19th, he's here from six to eight. The tickets are sold out, but there's still hope for you. Maybe, okay? If you have secured tickets and you are not finding individuals to fill those seats, you'll be prompted over the next week or two, and everything will be explained to you online. We're asking that you return those tickets. You'll be able to do that online. And that way, we can get an idea of what tickets are still available so that others who want to actually be here will be able to come to that incredible event. So now with that, let me pray for us as we jump into our time together. Lord, I pray that you would guide us today with eyes that see your truth and minds to understand at least a portion of what you would have for us, and then hearts that would be pliable and mendable so that when we leave this place we can be dramatically changed by how awesome you are. Thank you for the truth. Guide us now as we spend time focusing on your word in understanding this massive subject about who you are. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. People for thousands of years have gazed into the heavens wondering, how did we get here? They've asked, what's the meaning behind this life? And how should we live in light of being here together? And then, where are we going? Ravi Zacharias actually refers to those four areas as a world view. A world view is how we look at the world. Questions about origin. Questions about meaning in life. Questions about morality and how we should live. And then questions about destiny. And as a result of that issue, we need to take some time this morning and look at who is God and how do we know he exists, and how did we get all of this? Now people have put together various theories throughout the years. I'll mention a few of them now, not to cover everything exhaustively but just to give you a taste. People have come along and said, "Well, it just kind of happened by accident." That's the theory of evolution. And it summarized, if I can quote one author this way, "From Goo to You By Way of the Zoo," okay? And that pretty much sums it up. There are other individuals that come along and they say, well, there's God, but it's a life force. We don't know who he/she/it is, but we know it's a life force and this is an all-encompassing universal life force. Nature is God, and God is nature and all is God and God is all. And that's kind of the idea of what you hear. You'll hear about it in things like the New Age movement. Oprah Winfrey is a big proponent of this. Movies like Star Wars, Avatar, other kinds of things that talk about yin and yang. And you'll see that. It's a life force, and it's out there. You'll hear it from certain politicians once in a while on the news who actually say, well, I'm a Christian but I do believe that there's an element of divine in all of us. That's just a mess of thoughts. And then there's other individuals that have come along, and this used to be a pretty big view several years ago, that there is a God, we're not exactly sure who or what or how, but there's a God and he kind of sets things in motion, maybe he even used evolution to get it going, but he's no longer connected to us. He's not knowable, and it's called deism. And in that concept, yeah, he's there, but we can't quite know him. And then honestly, if you were to evaluate and talk with friends and interview them, interview family members, people that you counsel work with, people in the neighborhood, my guess is, and I think it'd probably be 70 to 80 to 90% accurate, they would have a combination of all of the above, right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe there's a God but hey, all dogs go to heaven, right? All paths end up there. We just got to figure out how to live in this world. We kind of evolve, we showed up here. I'm not sure what the first cause was, but we're here. I got to live a good life and I got to connect with what's good in the life force, and maybe if I do good then I get reincarnated into some bug or some other person. I don't know, but ultimately we're gonna get absorbed into the karma of the universe. And it comes out like that. And so regardless of where you are in your faith journey, and regardless of whether or not you're investigating a relationship with Jesus Christ, regardless of the fact that maybe you've been a Christian for a number of different years, we have to start with this massive subject about who is God and how can we know him? So I've got three goals today. I want you to keep this in mind. we'll come back up to them. And believe me, I'm gonna work your brain today. And I'm doing it intentionally, okay? But there's three goals, and the first one is this. I want you to come away with an awesome understanding of how almighty and awesome God is. We have just sung about him. And I have to be honest with you. I think as followers of Jesus Christ, for those of you that made that decision, we think far too less of God. And quite frankly, some of the struggles that we have in life and the reason why we struggle with the stuff in life is because we haven't spent time thinking about who he really is and who I am and how I live in light of who he really is, and that's what we're gonna begin to uncover today. Second goal is in light of who God is and how almighty and awesome he is, I can trust him. I can trust him. And then because he's almighty and he's awesome and I can trust him and I can know him fully, then as I discover more of who he is, then I desire to become like him. And so let's begin with what we believe about God. Now let me mention a few resources because again, this is a 30,000 foot level we're looking at today. I know there's books on big concepts like systematic theology and that kind of thing. Let me just mention two resources that will help you in addition to the resource we're using for this series, Unshakable Truth. And the first one is this. It's a little tiny book written by an author that is no longer alive today. I found this years ago and read it. It's a book called "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer. Highly recommend that. Short little chapters with a prayer at the beginning of every chapter, and then he talks about the attributes, the character qualities of God and makes them incredibly practical. The second book is written by an author by the name of J.I. Packer and it's called, "The Pursuit of God." It's a little bigger, it'll take you a little more time to get through, but I'd start with those two resources. They're absolutely fabulous. Well, the essence of Christianity is a relationship, and the reason this is the case is because we worship a true, eternally existing God that we can know. How do we begin to know him? Well, let's start with the first book of the Bible. In the first verse of the first book of the Bible, we read the beginning, right? In the beginning, God, there it is, God. God created the heavens and the earth. He existed. He said, "Let there be," and things as we know it came into existence. Nothing was in existence before him. He's eternal. And here's the key, he created everything out of nothing. Okay, that's power. And then when we shift over to the New Testament, we get into the book of John 1. Some of you who are with us as we walked through this a year ago remember these words. John communicates to us, in the beginning. I mean, it's almost identical to Genesis. In the beginning was the Word. We find out the Word is God. So in the beginning was God. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. So in the beginning was God, but God is different than the other God that's here. What on earth is he saying? Well, he tells you later in the chapter. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory. Glory as of the only begotten from the father full of what? Grace and truth. Who is he speaking of? The lord Jesus Christ. And it was Jesus Christ, the agent of creation, the son of God, fully God and fully man. And why is it important to combine both the Old Testament and the New Testament as we begin to discover that this is the God, God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit who created everything through the person and the work of the lord Jesus Christ? Why is this important? Because if we have a God who is eternally existing, then the question comes up, is he knowable? And the answer to that is absolutely yes. Why? Because he's revealed himself in so many ways and specifically through the lord Jesus Christ who came wrapped himself in flesh. And as Jesus says what? I came to share with you and tell you about who? The father. I came as the way and the truth and the life. I wrapped myself in flesh. I wanna live among you to demonstrate to you that I am God, I am the son of God who has come to restore this broken relationship with the father, and I'm the solution to everything in your life. It all begins with God. God is knowable, and we're gonna take a look this morning at some of the key attributes or characteristics of God. Now I want you to think about it this way before we jump into this massive subject. The first is this: there are attributes or character qualities of God that he does not share with us. You'll see that. It'll be self evident. There are other character qualities that he does share with us. And therefore, it begs the question, if he shares them with us, then am I becoming more like him as I allow him to develop those qualities in my life? So if you can think of this in those two categories, let's begin with the first one. This is one he doesn't share with us, okay? God is eternal. God is eternal. There's no beginning, there's no end. He self exists. Now we come face to face with this one right up front as we begin to read through the "Book of Genesis," and then we jump into the "Book of Exodus." And we enter into this story where by God's chosen nation, Israel's in captivity in Egypt, Moses is wandering around in the desert and he encounters a burning bush. And so for those of you that are not familiar, I'm giving you the CliffsNotes here, Moses is wandering around, he sees this bush that doesn't burn. He enters into the area where this bush is at, and all of a sudden he hears the voice of God. It's absolutely miraculous. And as he interacts with God, he hears a story about how God wants to deliver his chosen people out of Egypt and out of captivity. He's got a plan for them and a mission. So Moses does what you and I would do. He says, "Now, if you want me to do this, "we got to be on first name basis here, right? "You got to at least give me your name so when they ask me "who you are, I actually have a name for them." And so what does God do in Exodus 3:14? He says, "You go tell them that I am sent you." Now the Hebrew word for I am, let me unpack that, the Hebrew word actually means the self-existing God. And it means even more than that. It means the self-existing God who desires a relationship with his people and hears the cries of his people. That is what is meant by this word. And it is not insignificant that when Jesus comes in John 8:58, he says, "Before Abraham was," some you know this, right, "I am." Same title. He's the eternally existing God. I love Isaiah 40. I hope you spend some time in this. It's one of my all-time favorite chapters in the Bible. Verse 28 says, the lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. The next quality is one that I'm not so sure you thought of, and I've tried to pick ones that we don't always think about. You'll see a list of all the ones we do in just a minute. This one is the fact that God is independent. God doesn't need anything from us. He exists apart from us, and yet he wants a relationship with us. He doesn't need anything from his creation, he doesn't need anything from you. Acts 17:24-25, we get a glimpse of this. The God who made the world and everything in it being lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Did you catch it? He doesn't need anything from us. Now right away we find application here because this is just, this is massive. He perfectly existed in every way. He has a perfect relationship. God the father, God the son, God the holy spirit. We'll come back to the Trinity in several weeks. But there's a perfect love relationship. If he doesn't need anything from us, from you or from me, and yet at the same time has invited us into a love relationship with him, even though he doesn't need anything from you, I have to tell you, we could stop right there, close the book and say God is awesome. That a God like that would want to be in a relationship with someone like me. And then we find out that God is, he's sovereign. You know what this one means. This one means that God is in control of everything. He rules. God is in control of everything. He rules his creation, he is in complete control, and he will always accomplish his holy will because he's free to do so. That's what this one means. Psalm 135:6 says this, whatever the lord please, he does in heaven and on earth and in the seas and all deeps. When we get to the New Testament, we see the same pattern. Ephesians 1:11 says in him we have obtained an inheritance. Having been predestined according, notice this, to the purpose of him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Now of course he operates his will with the attribute of love and holiness and righteousness. We'll talk about that. But this area is so critical because another application that immediately emerges from this is if you are like me and I know you are, every person in this room at some season in their life, if you're not doing it right now, you do it periodically, there is this battle, there's this battle between king me and king Jesus. Can you identify with that with me? I struggle with that one all the time because I wanna control things. I wanna figure my way out of this mess. I wanna fix this thing. And right here, we begin to understand the tension that often times comes up when we consider the nature of who God is and who we are and how we are to submit to who he is. Right here's a tension point. Because at some point in our life, we come face to face with how big this world is and circumstances and events that we simply cannot control. And when that happens, our human reaction is to come up with coping mechanisms. And this is especially true when there are deep-seated wounds in your life. A couple of weeks ago, last week, we talked about the statistics of the culture in which we live, needing healing because of the wounds that are found there, the struggles. Sin's been a part of our life for years. But I tell you, it's really on the rise in terms of what has happened. And we talked about how the generation in which we live, which includes all of us, we often times need healing. We find out that there's a God who can actually accomplish that. Here's what I want you to catch with this one. Until this seed is planted in your life, it is extremely difficult and I would venture to say impossible to move down healthy healing in those areas of your life. Why? Because the seat of God's sovereignty has got to be there first. There, I can talk with counselor after counselor after counselor, and they will tell you over and over again they're not ready. He's not at the end. She hasn't figured it out yet. They use all kinds of terms. Why? Because they haven't come to the end of themselves. And until you accept the fact that God is in control of all of this, it's at that point that peace can be found and that healing can begin to occur. And then with great wisdom and God's word that healing can begin to come. Now tied right into this one is the fact that God is omnipotent, he's all powerful. He rules righteously in control of everything because he has the power. Jeremiah 32:17 says, ah, lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power. And by your outstretched arm, nothing is too hard for you. He controls everything because he is totally, totally in charge. Now for a follower of Jesus Christ, this has enormous implications for us. When we come up against a wall in those huge circumstances that we face in life, we don't know how they're gonna be solved, but we go back to God who knows how they're gonna be solved. Whether he reveals that to me now or later in eternity, I don't know. Now when we get into the New Testament, we run into these one of these big problems because Gabriel comes to Mary and he says, "Guess what, you're gonna give birth to the son of God." Now don't you think she'd have a few questions about that? I do. And that's why Gabriel said in Luke 1:37, "For nothing will be impossible with God." He gives her a few facts, but she still doesn't quite get it. And neither would we. And it goes on further because Jesus says in John 15 to his disciples when he's having a private conversation, after he has communicated that he's the way, the truth and the life, you got to trust in me, you have to live with me in your life, here's how he summarizes it to his 12 before he goes to the cross. He says, "I'm the vine, you're the branches. "Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is "that bears much fruit," notice this, "for apart from me, you can do nothing." Nothing. Salvation is not by your works. Your Christian life is not by your works. It is totally by the mighty power of God, because you can do nothing. You need God for everything. That's the point here. He's amazing. And then we have this promise in Ephesians 3:. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us. Why would Paul give this? Because we're so limited in our thinking sometimes. Because we haven't spent time thinking about an awesome God. You see, some of us have a little God in our life, and that's the trouble that we often times have. Because we have a little God in our life and therefore we have a bigger us, and we are so far away from him that we're bigger than what he is. But the closer we get to him and understanding how awesome and massive he is, we begin to realize how small we are. And then we begin to uncover the riches of who he is. Now there's a tension here that is really applicable for us. If God is sovereign and God is all powerful, then why is there so much evil in the world and suffering? Where does it come from? Well first, God didn't invent evil. It's a result of sin. We'll get there in a couple of weeks. I can't uncover this topic in the time that we have this morning. So I'm gonna point you to another resource. It's written by Randy Alcorn. It's the book, "Is God Good?" Excellent, we've been through it. Our small group's has been through it. Excellent resource to help out with this one. Evil is a result of sin in the world. We'll talk about that. But often times, we, even as followers of Jesus Christ, struggle with the reality of living in a difficult, sinful, pain-packed world. And because we do, we often times struggle with how does this make sense? And what God does is he leverages it in our life so that we begin to grow in our understanding of who he is in ways we could not have grown before. Because you will tell me that you have a personal relationship with God, and I will respond to you because I know it's true in my own life that you don't know he's personal until you have experienced the pain of life. Because that's when it becomes personal. That's when he begins to walk with you with all of these attributes that we've talked about. When I was in Africa teaching a group of pastors in the slum, I was standing in the back of the room and, I was with Bob Bridges so you know who he is. And as I stood back there, one of the other pastors got up front and he was gonna lead this group of pastors from the slum in a prayer time. And I was amazed at what took place. I was kind of blown away. Because when he said, "We are going to pray," these men and women stood up, many of them, and the room erupted. I mean, exploded with prayers almost similar to the level of, not quite as loud, but our worship in here. I mean, it was such a contrast between prayer services up here in Swedeland and what I heard over in Africa. I grew up southern Baptist, okay? So when I went to a prayer meeting, my dad was verbal. I'll just put it that way. And others were verbal. This was off the charts. I couldn't believe it. And I come away from experiences like that and I think to myself, now that's a prayer meeting. Do you know what was going on there? What was going on there was a group of pastors who probably have one suit, who may not even know where the next meal is coming from. Who are going back to a tin shack that leaks, feeling terribly irresponsible as a man because he can't provide for his family. And that's a pastor who gets up and he says, "God, you're everything to me. "And unless you show up, nothing is gonna happen." And my fear for us in the western culture is we have so much we don't need God anymore. You can walk down the street and find something to eat. Everyone of you, you're gonna go to a house, it's warm. You're gonna pet your dog, you're gonna see your cat. Your kids have clothes, you have money, you have food beyond comprehension. And it is because of that, those things that we enjoy most about our western culture that oftentimes keep us from understanding the depths of an almighty God and trusting in him for everything in our lives. As a matter of fact, you can travel to China, I've met some of these individuals. And I'm telling you, these pastors, they will often times tell you you are not worthy to pastor a church until you have been persecuted and you spend time in a jail cell. They will tell you that your seminary training is not going to Dallas Theological Seminary. Your seminary training is going to jail for your faith. That is relying on an almighty God. And in the midst of those times, when we wonder, God, where are you, when we face the full effect of sin and suffering and trials in this life and God doesn't deliver us from those things, we need to know that God is omnipresent. He is with me in the midst of it. That's why in Psalm 139:7-8, it says, where shall I go from your spirit? Or, where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, I know that you are with me. This is a promise You can take to the bank. We also know that God is omniscient. He knows the beginning form the end. He knows the trial I'm gonna go through. And if he knows it, then we know he loves me and therefore he's preparing me to go through that time. That's why I love this verse. I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from the ancient times things not yet done, saying, "My counsel shall stand "and I will accomplish all my purposes." So I love the image the God has his eye on the clock and his hand in the thermostat and he turns it up and he accomplishes his great sovereign will in my life according to his holy purposes for his glory and for his honor. He knows everything. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 6:8, he says, "For your father knows what you need "before you even ask him." And then he says in Matthew 10, "But even the hairs of your head are all numbered." For some of you, that's easier to keep track of than others. He knows everything. Are you resting in it? Here's another big one. God is immutable. You know what this one means? God doesn't change. He keeps his promises. And you can take it to the bank. He's not someone who's over here and he loves me and then then I turn around over here and now he's after me again. He keeps his promises. He doesn't break them. Psalm 102:26-27 says they will perish but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment, but you will change them like a robe and they will pass away, but you are the same and your years have no end. By the time we get to the New Testament, I wanted you to see both Old Testament and New Testament. And there's a real logic to this. You're gonna see that in a minute. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. And here's a great one. I want us to fill this room with God's truth as we speak the truth. And downstairs, I want you to participate with us, okay? So let's read this together. Let's speak this truth about who God is into this room. You ready? Here we go. The steadfast love of the lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. God is faithful, he keeps his promises. He keeps his promises to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament when he gave specific literal promises that are being revealed even today and will when he comes back and sets up his 1,000-year, his kingdom on earth. The reason why that is so important to understand, that those promises are true, true for Israel and true for the church, is because my eternal security is based on the fact that when I enter into a covenant relationship with the lord Jesus Christ, almighty God, that promise is secure. And the moment I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ, I can proclaim this promise: there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. My sin is paid for based on the finished work of Jesus Christ. Now here's one you haven't thought of, and this one kind of begins to pull it all together for us. God's unity. It's often times referred to as God's simplicity. It doesn't even that God is simple minded. It simply means that all of his attributes, all of them come together. He's all of them all at once. He's not divided into parts. That's the idea. These are character qualities, they don't stand alone. I know it's kind of hard to wrap our mind behind it or around it, I should say. Now this doesn't mean that his attributes aren't emphasize from time to time. But the point is this, God is not wrathful over here as a part of him, and then as a part of him, he's love over here. And the reason why that's essential to understand is because some people come along and say, well, God is a wrathful God and that somehow he's taken the attribute of love and he places it on the shelf. Or, it's only 50% operative at this point in time in life. It's just not true. I've actually heard it said by a Christian that, well, you know, the wrath of God, that's the God of the Old Testament. I wanna focus on the God of the New Testament. He is the God of love. Please hear me lovingly say that that's heretical. It's not true. God is a God of love 100% of the time. He's the God of holiness and righteousness 100% of the time, not in parts. When I punish my children, it doesn't mean I love them less. They may have thought that. I tried to communicate in some way that it wasn't the case. As a matter of fact, I can make a strong case that it's because I love them that I don't want them to turn out a certain way so we guide them through this loving act. Now this is perfectly portrayed in the person of Christ. Paul deals with this in the massive "Book of Romans" when he defends God's righteousness and his holiness. And he talks about how God is righteous and holy and sin must be punished. But then it's in the "Book of Romans" in the New Testament that he communicates who Jesus Christ was, and that it was Jesus Christ, the son of God, who came to bear the punishment for our sins so that God is righteous and holy and just, and yet he's created this incredible plan of redemption to save us. And that's why in Romans 5:8, which we looked at last week, it says, but God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Because he took the punishment. And we see this coming together. Now let's come up for air real quick, and then we do have a few moments and we'll land the plane rather quickly as we run through the rest of this, because this is were I wanted to spend my time. But I want you to think about a couple of things here first. God is awesome. He's transcendent. And our response should be awe and worship. And then the second response should be, as we wrestle with some of these concepts of good and evil and he's sovereign, do I trust him? Doubts are not the enemy of faith. Unprocessed doubts are the enemy of faith. And when you wrestle with these concepts, they push us in the direction of who God is. And do I trust him? And the closer I get to him, the more I realize this. Isaiah 55:9 says, the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Because I can actually trust him. And the closer I get to him, the more I discover attributes that you are probably already familiar with, and here's where I warned you ahead of time we're just gonna mention these. The resources that I told you about actually unpack this. But you're familiar with a lot of these. God is holy and righteous. Sin must be punished. But yet he's holy and he wants me, and these are qualities he shares with me. Because as I see how holy and righteous he is, I'm encouraged to be like him. We discovered that in 1 Peter, to be holy because God is holy. God is love, got is wise, God is truthful, he's good, he's gracious and he's merciful. And as I get close to him, then I begin to embrace the fact that not only can I trust him but now I want to be like this God. But then the next question that comes up is how do we know he exists? And that's why I wanna spend just a few moments talking about why we know God exists. I'm just gonna mention these. They're found in different resources. The one that we're going through. But they're still important. I just talked with a man after the last service. He stood right out here, he's an engineer. You know what he told me? Because I know some of you are like, oh, I don't wanna go through all, this is just too much information. My head is sore, you know, that kind of thing. Let me tell you how relevant it is. He told me right on here, I was standing right in front of that window. He said to me, he said, "That's how I came to Christ, "because I began to think through logically "these things about the existence of God." So maybe they aren't for you. Maybe they're for somebody else. So when he goes to China, he has conversations with people who are in China, who are atheists, and he begins to ask them these kinds of questions. And the first one shows up here. The cosmological argument. You know what this one is. This one means that everything has to have a first cause. And because God is the eternally existing God, he was the first cause. All things that begin to exist have to have a cause, and the universe began to exist, and therefore it was caused to exist by inference, by God himself. You can't get something from nothing. And if I were to bring one of you up here and we had a conversation and I kept asking you, so where'd that come from? So where'd that come from? So where'd that come from? We got past the birds and the bees light years ago. So where'd that come from? So where'd that come from? Eventually you get to, I don't know. Well, again, the most plausible understanding is that there's a God. Now this one's actually fun. I wish I had time to unpack this. It's the teleological argument. Don't get caught up in the word. It's an argument for design. If there is complex design, intelligence built into the design, then it means that there is a designer behind. The level of complexity. The life in the universe indicates the improbability that it simply happened by chance. When you consider a building like this, it didn't just happen by chance. When you look at the eye, it didn't just happen by chance. Let me illustrate it this way. Consider, if we were to consider certain life-sustaining variables like gravity, okay, if the force of gravity were changed by this amount, there's 37 zeros there, by this percentage, the earth and the sun would cease to exist. Do you see that? That's a wow moment. That's an, are you kidding me? That's totally improbable. By that percentage point, we would not be here. And the number of years, for just one simple irreducibly complex cell to come into existence, the number of years for just one simple cell to come into existence is 10 to the 40,000th power. Now scientists will say that it is improbable, okay, improbable by chance for anything to happen with 10 to the 50th power. That's so minuscule. You get the difference? This is 10 to the 40,000th power. And each cell is irreducibly complex. You know what that means. That means that every part of that cell had to come into existence all at one time. Not a little bit along the way or else life doesn't happen. That's irreducibly complex. Designed intelligence was built in. This is so much fun, I would encourage you to get after it on your own. The next one is the moral law argument, and this is one that my friend actually used in China. If there's an evil, there has to be a good. And when you have cultures come together, there's a general agreement about good and evil. There's a general agreement about right and wrong. There's a general agreement about courage and justice. He even was asking atheists over in China about this, and they're in agreement with him. Otherwise, ISIS is correct. But we all know that they're not, and so the whole world is against them. Where did that come from? Has to be a moral lawgiver. And then finally, as personal experience, this is the one where it comes home because as you begin to share your personal experience by faith, that doesn't make it less real. And as you have entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ, because facts don't save you, faith does, and you begin to experience the transformation that takes place in your heart and life, Romans 8:5-16 becomes very, very clear to us. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. As I am growing in my faith while getting to know the lord Jesus Christ, getting to know the eternal God more and more, as I am experiencing who he is and desire to become like him, he's transforming him, showing me that I really am a follower of Jesus Christ and demonstrating to those that are watching me that my faith is real. Even a relativist, who doesn't believe in objective truth, cannot deny the reality of the change in your life. They can't. And so as we learn who he is, as we begin to understand, we begin to grass in the midst of the doubts and the wrestling who this great God is as we trust him, desiring to become more like him. And then we get to this final verse I want you to see. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the lord and being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the lord who is the spirit. This verse is so powerful. I want you to understand the concept here. Glory, the glory of God is not an attribute. You know what it is? The glory of God is the sum total of all of his attributes that creates a brilliance that is unbelievable. That's what glory means. What he's saying here is that as I enter into this relationship that often times is tough and there's tension, and I got to get rid of me so that God is bigger and I begin to trust in him and follow him and get to know him, yes within the pain and the suffering that he doesn't always remove in my life, and then I begin to uncover how holy and righteous and gracious and merciful and loving he is, I desire to be like him so that his attributes, glory is the sum total of God's attributes, are beginning to shine forth in your life as you live it in front of others. See how powerful that is? And so here's the three questions for us as we end this massive subject. I told you I'd come back to them. Because God is almighty and awesome, do you worship him for who he is and all that he has done? Isn't it about time that we stop taking God for granted? And because God is almighty and awesome, are you trusting him fully even when life doesn't make sense? He's using that to leverage it, to move you, to understand more of who he is so that because God is almighty and awesome, and you can trust him fully, are you seeking to be like him in how you live differently and love radically? Let's pray. Father, thank you for the truth that we have just really scratched the surface of regarding who you are. Lord, it is with a sense of awe and wonder that we come into your perfect and holy presence in which you don't need us for anything. And yet because of your great love, you invite us into that relationship. And not only do you give us an invitation, you provided a way through Jesus Christ whom we trust is savior and lord. And so father, as we have heard about who you are, would you change us? Would you change our hearts as we seek to trust you and become more like you in the world in which we live? It's in Christ name we pray. Amen.