Hello Team SCPC
I can’t wait for our SCPC family Olympics day on Sunday! What a fantastic way for families in our
church to connect with families in the community. Now, are you welcome if you’re single? Absolutely – you are part of our family! So, everyone, come and enjoy the fun and colour on Sunday morning at 9:30am, and then we have our regular 6pm gathering.
Now, our day does mean we will still tackle the question ‘Who is God?‘ But the way I approach it is very different to the study I prepared on Christian doctrine. I am thankful for having gone through the study with others during the week to help me consider how to ‘pitch it’ to a community member. But this has meant I will use Psalm 139 as an invitation to meet the God who knows you, and finish with the invitation to know God by knowing the son of God, Jesus, who is gentle and lowly.
Thus, as you engage the study next week, you will get no help from Sunday’s Bible talk! In the study I was following a traditional theological approach that suggests we can know God through his creation (see Psalm 19). But sadly, and devastatingly, due to the fall Romans chapter 1:18-32 reveals we (as a collective humanity) have a disposition to supress the truth, even though we can witness the majestic creator God in creation.
Now, not only does creation sing the praise of the majestic God (Psalm 96), his word the Bible reveals his character, nature, likes and heart to our world. Then, in fulfilment of the God who is Trinity, the Word (Jesus) enters our world. We see this powerfully in John’s gospel when Philip asks to see God, and Jesus replies (essentially) that you are looking at him! [1] This idea reveals the questions on the Trinity, and as I worked through the study during the week with others, and we saw the repeated passages that capture the Trinity, I found it very powerful personally!
Finally, the study ends on the wonder of God radiating his presence to the world, through the son, who is the exact representation of God.
So there you have it.
This Sunday we will see the God who is knowable and knows me from Psalm 139, then next week in your DNAs you will see the knowable God found in creation and his word (Psalm 19), who became flesh as a human in the God-man Jesus (Hebrews 1), and whose radiant glory can be exhibited in us through the Holy Spirit’s ministry, as we exalt the spectacular son Jesus Christ.
I simply loved preparing this material and benefited immensely from Michael Reeves’ book The Good God, a Moore College distance education course (you might like to enrol) and Broughton Knox’s book (through Matthias media) The Everlasting God. And here is a grab from Sunday’s Bible reading, how great!
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Psalm 139:1-6
SP
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[1] John 14:8-18
