Is Your God Too Small?
These last few weeks at CCK we have been spending time in the book of Ecclesiastes. An added feature to our Sunday evening service during this time has been the Q and A session after the close attended by those who want to hear answers to questions arising from the sermon.
It is something of an experiment for us and we are doing it now and then to see if it serves our vision well. People text their questions to a number, and Tim Jones (a Zone Leader) filters them through to a screen. We shamelessly thieved the idea from our friends at Mars Hill, Seattle and tried it first when another friend Michael Ramsden was with us back in the spring.
Sunday night of last week we hit a peak number of texted questions. There is never enough time to handle all of them so Tim helps me by emailing through the remainder that night. This means I get to see some of the issues sparked.
That night the questions pretty much hinged around the sovereignty of God, which is a major theme in the passage we studied (Ecclesiastes 3:1-22). You can read the blog entry below to find roughly what I had to say about it.
Reflecting on the questions fired in, it occurred to me that there’s a profound need for people to grow in their grasp of God’s character, the breadth of it and the glory of it. God’s sovereignty and its relationship with evil and with human free-will is a big deal for anyone trying to get to know truth.
When we become Christians we meet God for sure, but it’s a bit like a first date. We don’t really know him yet – and much of what we think we know has been told us by others (some who know him well and some who have no idea what they are talking about).
Every culture has a prevailing concept (or many concepts) of God which is either slightly or monstrously wrong – and every preacher is called to disabuse people of these ideas, replacing them with the God of the Bible (yes preacher, that is your glorious and dangerous job…).
One of the prevailing ideas of God in much western religion is a pretty sentimental one. Many believers are shocked to find him replaced by the one Paul describes as a God of kindness and severity (Romans 11:22). Nevertheless it is absolutely necessary to keep thinking through the full character of God as revealed in scripture – letting him do the talking and not us.
Christians go through a pilgrimage of having their sentimental view of God replaced by a more grand vision – and then come back to see his sympathetic attributes (his love, grace, mercy, compassion and goodness) again in the light of his majesty. And this makes them appear all the more glorious.
So it’s essential we look to broaden our picture of God.
It occurred to me that people would maybe want some recommended resources on the theme of God’s sovereignty – especially the vexing question of how it relates to human freedom – but I reckon I’d best recommend some more general books on the character of God. This way we see it in perspective. There’s a danger of trying to suss out the doctrine of predestination before we have allowed our minds to be caught up with worship.
Real worshippers are the ones fit to investigate doctrine. And all our theology ought to lead to worship – or it’s not theology (look at how Paul ends his big discussion on God’s sovereignty through human history: Romans 11:33-36).
So here are some books I would love you to read as you fill out your view of God.
The Joy of Fearing God by Jerry Bridges
The Living God by Peter Lewis
Knowing God by JI Packer
The Pleasures of God by John Piper
The Holiness of God by RC Sproul
Incomparable by Andrew Wilson
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