The God You Think You Know

Well, good afternoon, brethren. It’s always a pleasure to see all of you on this Sabbath day.

I wrote a Pillar article, and the Pillar article was titled, You Were Created in God’s Image, Not the Other Way Around. How many remember seeing it? We ran it in the March-April Pillar, and it’s good. How many remember seeing it? Okay. How many read it? That’s okay. I won’t embarrass you. I’m sure it’s on your reading list. We have so much content that comes out. But it’s good to see that many of you did read it.

But it was an article that I was very excited to work on, and it was about the fact that God is reproducing Himself, and I consider that just one of the most amazing doctrines in the entire Bible. And you really don’t hear any other church understanding it, let alone preaching about it. The Catholics, they don’t preach it. Muslims, they don’t preach it at all. They don’t understand it. Between the Catholics and the Muslims, Islam, they have heaven or hell as the destination for mankind, as mankind’s future. You don’t hear about it from Buddhists. They’re moreso focused on reincarnation, and I think, nirvana. It’s sort of, I think, kind of a heaven equivalent for them.

But just between those three religions alone, that’s three and a half billion people. There’s only eight billion people on the earth, and there’s many other religions. But you just don’t hear about any churches with that understanding and explaining that God is reproducing Himself. But you’ve seen the scriptures. It’s in the Bible. It’s all throughout the Bible. You’ve seen the scriptures. I’ve seen the scriptures. It’s very amazing.

So that was one of the things that got me really excited about working on that article, but also it was just to remind us of our future. But a big part of what I wanted to do with that article was really baked into the title, which was, You Were... we, you, but the title of the article was, You Were Created in God’s Image, Not the Other Way Around, meaning that we want to be careful not to create God in our own image or to shape God into our image of Him. It’s supposed to be the other way around.

People, even God’s people, can inadvertently or mistakenly have this self-made and as a result warped view of God, who God is, how He thinks. It can happen. There’s this human tendency to shape God into our image, our image of Him, instead of learning about who the true God is, the true God of the Bible, the true God of the universe, learning who He is, and then shaping ourselves into being more like Him.

Now you might think, okay, and because I said, you know, people have this tendency to do it. There’s this human tendency to do it. Even God’s people can fall into that trap. You might think, “Well, I wouldn’t do that. I’m an exception. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t try to shape God into my own view. It’s the last thing I would do.” Well, it can happen. It can happen.

Think about it. Think about some of the thoughts that you may have had. Maybe you might have found yourself thinking, “You know what? God is only happy with me when I’m doing well spiritually. God is only thinking about me when I’m doing well spiritually, when things are going well, when I’m studying and I’m praying like I need to. Those are the times where God is going to actually help me.” Or, “God is only really focused on punishment and correcting me based on the decisions that I’ve made. God steps in and I hear from God when it’s time to correct me or to punish me.”

Or on the other side of it, “God doesn’t really care about those little sins I commit. He doesn’t care about that kind of stuff. He’s only worried about the big stuff. You know, fornication or drunkenness or idolatry. But God doesn’t really care about those little sins. He overlooks that stuff. Or maybe because I don’t feel close to God, that means God is not really close to me. I don’t really feel Him in my life.”

We can, brethren, based on our emotions, our feelings, maybe we’re in the midst of a trial. Based on all of those things, we can inadvertently, subtly find ourselves shaping God into our perspective as opposed to the other way around. We can end up putting God in a box, limiting God and not even realize it, not even intending to do it on purpose. So my job today, my job in this message is to, of course, help us to understand the true God and really focus on the God that we think we know. The God that we think we know.

Now it’s natural for people to form opinions about others. It can be based on perception. It can be based on all sorts of things, based on our experiences with them. And we tend to base our feelings on people or situations, but in this case people, or others, based on the things we think we know about them. Based on our experiences with them, our perspective on them. And what people think about God, what we think about God, can also fall into that category.

But the truth is most people, and I talk about just people in general, people around the world, billions of people, most people just don’t know God. They don’t know who He is. In fact, I didn’t know God. I didn’t know who the true God was until He introduced Himself to me. You all can, I’m sure, say the same thing. I didn’t know who the true God was. I had this perception of who God was or who God is, but that was just based on my perspective. What I thought I knew about Him or what other people told me about Him. And throughout human history, that’s been the case. People have always had this sort of thought about, “Okay, well, who is God? I think I know who He is,” and forming their own perspective.

Turn to Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one. People throughout human history have formed their own ideas and had their own views of who and what God is. Romans chapter one. We’ll pick it up at verse eighteen. Romans chapter one, verse eighteen. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven,” it says, “...against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Right? So they have this warped view of truth.

Verse nineteen, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power in Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” Now, God is invisible. We can’t see Him. We can’t see God. And because of that, that opens this door, this opportunity for people to have all sorts of views of who and what God is. because God is not someone that can just walk in the room here and we can just see who He is and learn who He is. It doesn’t work that way.

So it talks here, verse twenty, about the invisible things, the things in creation. We can look around. And by looking around and having eyes to see, those things should leave men without excuse about who God is. We’ll keep reading. Verse twenty-one, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” So people had the opportunity to know who God is, but they didn’t see Him that way.

Verse twenty-two, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” So they had the opportunity to understand the invisible God through creation, but instead of understanding the invisible God, they made God into an image. In this case, it could be man, birds, beasts, creeping things, those are insects.

“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.” So because man reduced God down to what He created, which were men, animals, beasts, because of that, God gave them over to that thinking. Verse twenty-five, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator who was blessed forever.” So, men reduced God down to the things that He created.

It’s interesting, you have people reducing God to some sort of animal, a bird, an eagle, just all sorts of bizarre things that people worship and worshiping animals. It’s interesting, God gave human beings dominion over the animals, yet men worship animals. So it’s backwards. Instead of worshiping the true and living God, they worship the thing that God put under mankind. It’s just utter confusion. But the thing is, it’s what people can see. It’s what people can get their heads around. And God gave them over to that thinking. He gave them over to that thinking.

But it’s just an example, and this is describing the end times, but it’s been this way, what we just read, but it’s been this way for a millennia. But it shows how people routinely just shape God into what they believe He is, instead of understanding the true God. Now, you might think, ‘Okay, that’s people in the world,” and that is describing the world, what we read there.

You think, “Okay, that’s people in the world. God’s people are different. We would never do anything, we would never do something so foolish as to have this wrong view of God.” And yes, sure, it’s extreme. I mean, I don’t believe God’s people are worshiping eagles and fish and creeping things or anything even close to that. But God’s people can fall into the trap. Turn to Exodus chapter thirty-two. Exodus chapter thirty-two. God’s people can fall into the trap of shaping God into their own view, into a view that’s based on their own perceptions and their own experiences. Exodus chapter thirty-two.

Now, by this point of where we’re going to read here, by this point, in God’s people, I’m referring to the children of Israel, by this point, they certainly were God’s people, and they should have seen themselves as such. At this point in Exodus, they had been through quite a bit. God had delivered His people from Egypt, from slavery. They had cried out to Him, and God at this point, of course, had heard their cry, and He used Moses to deliver them. And they had gone through many miracles. They had seen all the miracles that it took to be delivered.

They had seen the plagues, gone through the ten plagues, and that was in Exodus seven through eleven. They had gone through all the different plagues and opening or getting Pharaoh to understand who God was, at the same time helping the people understand who God was. They had gone through the Passover. Remember the death angel, they were to put the blood on their doorposts, and the death angel would pass over their homes if they had that blood out there. Again, another way to understand, for those people to understand who God was, the true God.

At this point, God obviously had not only the Egyptians’ attention, but had the people’s attention. They had crossed the Red Sea, that’s in Exodus fourteen, and you remember all of those experiences. And you know this point, they had escaped, they were trapped between the army behind them and the sea in front of them. They had cried out to God, and God, the true God, had delivered them. He opened up the sea, and they walked through it.

So the people had plenty and plenty of opportunity, plenty of opportunities to understand who God was, and to understand that they were His people, and how He had used Moses, Aaron, and the miracles to deliver them. It was God’s presence through the fire, and pillar of fire, and pillar of cloud. So really, they were without excuse, they were without excuse. Now hopefully you’re there in Exodus thirty-two, I just want to make sure you understand where we are, so you can appreciate what we’re going to read.

But Moses had gone up to Mount Sinai, he had been up in the mountain, and he had been communing with God, and he had been gone about forty days. So he had been there about forty days, communing with God, and you read in the verses, you know, getting the laws, and getting the statutes, and all of that understanding, all the things that God wanted Moses to take in, so he could lead and direct the people. But he had been gone for about forty days, and the people had started to get restless, and it only took forty days, just over a month, before the people reverted back to their old habits. This is where we’re going to pick up now, this is where we’re going to start to read in Exodus thirty-two.

All right, so Exodus thirty-two, verse one, “And when the people saw that Moses had delayed to come down out of the mount,” remember he was there, he was gone forty days, “...the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods,” you all know the account, “...make us gods, which shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”

We don’t know where he is. We don’t know where Moses is. He hasn’t come back. Some speculated that he died, maybe got lost, he got maybe burned up. You know, this is the mount that quaked and spewed fire. They started to speculate all sorts of things, “But we don’t know where he is, so get up, Aaron, and make us gods.”

Verse two, “And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, and your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.” So Aaron didn’t even hesitate, he just did it. Didn’t even put up a fight. This is kind of shocking, especially knowing who Aaron was and everything that he had seen. Verse three, “And all the people broke off their golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.”

Now I thought about this as, you know, you study this and you look at it and it’s like, okay, they had earrings, they had gold, and they had enough gold to be able to break them off and to, as we’re going to read, eventually make an idol. Where did they get that gold from? Where did that gold come from? Almost certainly, that was the gold that they had looted from the Egyptians, remember? When they escaped, they were slaves, so where did they get gold earrings and jewelry from? Almost certainly was the gold that they had looted from the Egyptians, so they had enough of it to be able to form an idol.

I just want to take a moment, brethren, and appreciate and help you understand the blessings, and they fell into this trap. Sometimes the blessings that God gives us, the blessings that come directly from God, they had gotten those things, they had looted the Egyptians, that was a blessing of God. Sometimes we can take those same blessings, turn them around, and misuse them.

We want to be very, very careful of that. Very careful of that. God can open up a door for us, bless us in some way, maybe give us more income, maybe give us a car or a home or just something that... some material thing that can make our lives better, but if we’re not careful, we can turn around that blessing and misuse it. We want to be very careful of that. Very careful of that.

Let’s pick it up in verse four. “And he, Aaron, received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a golden calf, and they say,” listen to this, “...These be your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” That was the most striking part of this account to me. The fact that not only did they create a golden calf to worship, but they actually credited that calf, that god, as the one that delivered them from Egypt.

These were God’s people, they had seen many miracles, they had many experiences with the true God. Remember, they saw the mountain quaking, everything, all of those things, and they so quickly turned around, not only made a golden calf, but they credited that calf with being the gods or the god that brought them out of Egypt. It only took about forty days of Moses being away. These were God’s people.

Pick it up here, verse five, “And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, To morrow is a feast unto the Lord,” so now they’re keeping a feast in front of this false god. “And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.” So now they’re comfortable. “Hey, this is our God. Our God is here, he’s back, we can see him. We can see him now. He’s no longer invisible.”

“And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get you down for your people, which you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a molten calf and worshiped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” God had to be so hurt by that occurrence and angry.

“The Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation.” “Moses, I’m just going to destroy them and I’m just going to use you and make you into a great nation.”

“And Moses besought the Lord His God and said, Lord, why does Your wrath wax hot against Your people, which You have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did He bring them out, to slay them in the mountains and to consume them in the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said unto them, I will multiply Your seed as the stars of heaven and all this land I’ve spoken of will I give unto Your seed that they shall inherit it forever.” Moses was reminding God of His plan.

Verse fourteen, “And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people.” So God was merciful. God was merciful. We’re going to come back to that later. God’s mercy. Verse nineteen, we’ll just finish out the account here. Drop down to verse nineteen. “And it came to pass, as soon as he,” talking about Moses, “...came nigh into the camp,” so at this point he’s coming off the mountain, ‘‘...he came near into the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing and Moses’ anger waxed hot and he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them beneath the mount.”

I find it interesting, you know, God was angry. So Moses was sort of calming God down, saying, “Father, don’t be angry. These are Your people.” And God repented. You know, God decided not to... you know, His anger was waned. And then Moses got down and he got angry. I wonder if it was because Moses actually beforehand could only imagine what the people were doing. But when he saw it with his own eyes, when he saw the molten calf and the people dancing around it, he said, “What?” And he got angry. He actually got to see it for himself. Just got to find that interesting.

“And he took the calf,” verse twenty, “...which they had made, and burned it in the fire and grounded to powder, and strawed it up upon the water and made the children of Israel drink it.” Drink it. I can imagine him telling them, “Drink it. You want to dance around and worship this false God.” “And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people do to you, that you have brought this great sin upon them?” “Brother, what are you doing? What did the people do to you to make you do this? What were you thinking?” He’s saying that to Aaron. “What were you thinking?”

“And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot. You know the people that they’re on this mischief.” “You know how they are. You know how they get. I just had to keep them calm.” I’m sure Moses was just holding his head like, “Oh, Aaron, what have you done? What have you done?” Aaron’s like, ‘You know these people. They’re a handful. They’re hard to deal with.” Then he goes on through the account and Aaron basically explains exactly what happened and how he got to that place.

Verse twenty-five, “And when Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made them naked and to their shame among their enemies,” they were dancing around the statue naked. “Then Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves unto him. And he said unto them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.”

I wanted to make sure I got that part in. Three thousand people died. Brethren, three thousand people died because God’s people made God into their image of Him versus the other way around. Three thousand people lost their lives because of it. The people repackaged God. It was based on their fear, their impatience, their emotions.

What about us? What about us? We may not make idols, golden idols. We wouldn’t dare do anything like that. But do we reshape God based on our own fears, our own impatience, our own emotions? Do we reshape this view of God in our own minds like the people did? If we’re not careful, we can find ourselves limiting God. We can limit Him to being impatient. We can limit Him to being easily disappointed. We can have this God in our mind who’s just so easily disappointed with us. We can have this idea of God that’s too harsh, this idea of God that’s too lenient, or whatever human emotion or human perspectives that we have, we could end up putting those on God and not even realizing it.

Often our image of God, if we’re not careful, often our image of God can be based on how we feel about ourselves or how others feel about us, other human beings feel about us, or what we think they feel about us. And we can take that and we can superimpose that and say that’s what God feels about us. And that may not even come close to being the case. No matter the reason, we can unintentionally, subconsciously build this false image of God in our own minds. But remember, we were created in God’s image, not the other way around.

Genesis chapter one. Genesis chapter one. Pick it up in verse twenty-six. Genesis chapter one, verse twenty-six. Classic verse here. Genesis chapter one, verse twenty-six. “And God said, Let us make man in our image and our likeness.” I’ll repeat. “Let us make man in our image and our likeness.” When you look into that word image and likeness, they’re very similar words. Very similar words is image and likeness.

But for our purposes today, I want us to see image as looking like God, the image of God. So let us make man in our image to look like God. And let’s think of likeness as thinking like God or acting like God. So let us make man in our image to look like God and likeness to act like God. That was God’s purpose from the beginning. So our goal, brethren, the goal of Christianity, been in the church, you know this, but our goal is not to just look like God, but to think like Him, to have His spiritual traits, to be God fully through and through.

Now the first step to making this happen. Go to John four. John chapter four. The first step to making that come to pass, to be made in the... well we’re already made, but to become, to look like and act like God. John four, the first important step to making that happen. John four, twenty-four. John chapter four, verse twenty-four. John four, twenty-four reads, “God is a spirit.” That means we can’t see Him. He’s invisible. You know, spirit is, you can’t be perceived by the eyes. “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” We must worship God in spirit and in truth.

And I’ll add, we must worship and understand God in spirit and in truth. And of course, understanding has to come with it. How can you worship something or someone you don’t understand? So we must worship and understand God in spirit and in truth. To truly understand and to eventually become God, to understand and become God, we can’t just go by feelings. We just can’t go by our imagination of who God is.

To truly worship Him and to understand Him, we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We must go by God’s spirit in us or working with us if you’re PM and you’re working toward baptism or you’re not baptism age as of yet. But we must go by God’s spirit to understand and worship Him and the truth of scripture to understand and worship God, not our imaginations, not what someone told us about God. Someone who’s not led by His spirit or led by the scriptures.

And that cuts through all the man-made ideas. When we worship God in spirit and in truth, it cuts through all the man-made ideas of who and what God is. It cuts through all of that. We learn who the true God is when we worship Him in spirit and in truth. So let’s begin with a truth about God. Turn to Daniel chapter seven. What does God look like? What does God look like? Remember, we’re going to be made in His image. What does God look like? There’s no need to go through man-made ideas. We can go right to the scriptures.

Daniel chapter seven, what does God look like? This is a description of God the Father. Daniel chapter seven, verse nine. “And I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days,” that’s the Father, “...did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool. His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire.” So we get to see this image, this vision, this sight of what God looks like. His garment was white, and the hair of His head was like the pure wool. That was the Father. That’s what the Father... how He was described. There’s other descriptions throughout the scriptures, but that’s an important one.

What about Christ? Go to Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven. Excuse me, Matthew chapter seventeen. Matthew chapter seventeen. We’re going to look at the transfiguration, which we get to see Christ in resplendence. Of course, prior to that transfiguration, Christ was human wrapped in flesh, but we’re going to get to see a vision and perspective of what He looks like. Matthew seventeen, this is the transfiguration.

Matthew seventeen, verse two, “And He was transfigured,” referring to Christ, “...transfigured before them, and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment,” or clothing, “...was white as the light.” Sounds very similar to the Father. So we see that Christ’s face did shine as the sun. The sun is bright. You can’t look at the sun and not be blinded for any extended amount of time. So Christ’s face shone like the sun, and His clothing was white.

Let’s go to Revelation. Revelation chapter one, another description of Christ as a God being. Revelation chapter one. Let’s read a few verses here, picking up at verse thirteen. Revelation chapter one, verse thirteen. This is a little more of an extensive description of Christ as a God being. Revelation one, thirteen, “And in the midst of the seven candles was one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool,” sounds... yes, think back to Daniel.

“...His hairs were white like wool and white as snow, and His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned with a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters.” Brethren, I can do whole sermons on what God looks like, physically looks like. Do whole sermons on that, but I just chose a couple of verses that describe what He looks like to make the point that we don’t have to imagine and just think anything outside of the scriptures to know what God, the Father, or the Christ, what they look like, and ultimately what we will look like.

The world has all sorts of ideas of what God looks like. Some have Him as this glowing orb, which is just like a sphere. You’ve seen it in movies and culture. Or He’s just this bright light. God is just this bright light. Some have God as this old man, this wise-looking old man, or some even have God as a woman. All sorts of ideas, but we don’t have to do that. We can go to the scriptures to know what God looks like.

When you picture what God looks like, what do you picture? Do you have any sort of way out there ideas about what God looks like? If you do, you don’t have to. Remember, we have to worship God in spirit and in truth. We have the scriptures that explain and show us exactly glimpses of what God looks like. Of course, God can form Himself into whatever He wants, but He gave a description of what He looks like, and He did that for a reason.

Let’s keep that in mind when we’re picturing and thinking about what God physically looks like and ultimately what we will look like. Remember, we’re made in His image, and particularly when we’re born into the God family, we will almost certainly look like those descriptions that we just read. But it’s important to understand, as I mentioned, what God looks like so we can have a proper view, but also so we know what we will look like.

Psalm eighty-two. Psalm eighty-two. Go into the Psalms here. Psalm eighty-two. Just want to take some time here to inspire us. This kind of gets back to that article that I wrote in just getting into the doctrine of God reproducing Himself. These are some excellent scriptures to consider on that doctrine. Psalm eighty-two, verse six. Psalm eighty-two, verse six, “I have said, You are gods, and of all you are children of the Most High.”

So we’re being told here that you, talking about people, human beings, “...you are gods, and of all of you are children of the Most High.” That’s the Father. We are all children of the Most High. Most kids look like their Father. I look like my dad. Don’t ask me how I feel about that. I like my dad. But I look like my dad. But most kids look like their Father. Brethren, we are going to look like our Father in heaven. And we just read what He looks like. What Christ, our elder brother, what He looks like. Remember how similar they looked? The garments were white. The hair was like wool, was white. Picture yourself looking like that.

Luke twenty, let’s look, get more descriptions about our future. Luke chapter twenty. You are gods, children of the Most High. Luke chapter twenty, verse thirty-four. More description of our future. Luke chapter twenty, verse thirty-four. Luke twenty, thirty-four. “And Jesus answered and said unto Him, The children of this world marry and are given in marriage. But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world,” talking about the world to come, “...those who are worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. Neither can they die anymore.” So they are immortal. “For they are equal unto the angels and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”

Remember, we are children to be children of the Most High. You are gods. Back from Psalm eighty-two. And we’re being described here that they won’t die anymore. They’re equal unto the angels. They’re the children of God, the children of the resurrection. They are born again. Equal to the angels. Brethren, that’s our future glorified state. So we’ll be angels. Not quite. Not quite.

Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews chapter one. That was just a description of what we’ll be like. But ultimately, we will not be equal to the angels. Hebrews chapter one. Ultimately, we will not be equal to the angels. Hebrews one, thirteen. Hebrews one, verse thirteen. “But to which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits,” referring to the angels, “...sent forth to minister for to them who are the heirs of salvation?” The heirs of salvation.

Brethren, we are the heirs of salvation. We will be beyond the angels. The angels will minister to us. We will be like angels in that we can’t die. Be very powerful beings. But we will be beyond the angels. The angels will minister to us. Just like the angels minister to God the Father and Christ today. We will be beyond the angels. Psalm eighty-two said you are gods. It didn’t say you are angels. You are gods and children of the Most High. God never spoke to the angels like He speaks to us in our future.

Brethren, we are to become God. The scribes and the Pharisees knew the difference. They knew the difference when Christ said that. They knew the difference. That’s why they killed Him. They killed Him for that very reason. Let’s go back to John ten. John ten. They killed Christ because He said you are gods. That you are to become God. John chapter ten, verse thirty-two. John chapter ten, verse thirty-two. Let’s start at verse thirty.

“I and My Father are one.” John ten, thirty. I and My Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.” Why are they stoning Him? Why are they about to stone Him? Verse thirty-two. “And Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone me?” Why are you going to stone me? I have only done good. “The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we don’t stone you, but for blasphemy. And because of that, you, being a man, makes yourself God.” You are a man. How can you say that you’re God?

Christ’s answer was just amazing. Verse thirty-four. “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods?” Psalm eighty-two. You’re gods. The children of the Most High. Verse thirty-five. “If He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken.” “So if He’s saying you are gods to human beings, say you of Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, referring to me that you blaspheme, because I said I am the Son of God. You are gods. I told you. Yet when I come, the one who was sent, the Son of God, and I come and tell you that I’m God, you want to stone me.” Make that make sense.

They accused Christ of blasphemy because He said that He was the Son of God. They accused Him of blasphemy. Brethren, some outside this church hearing this message and hearing me speak this way may accuse me of blasphemy. “You’re going to become God? That’s blasphemy.” I have to admit, when I first read that, when I first came into contact with that truth, with The Restored Church of God, when I first came into contact with it, I thought it was blasphemy. What do you mean? You can’t become God. He’s God. You can’t become God.

Brethren, we must worship God in spirit and in truth. We can’t have our own made-up imaginary ideas of who God is and what God is doing. This message is not blasphemy. Far from it. Far from it. Turn to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. Brethren, our future is bright. Our future is bright. Romans chapter eight, verse twenty-eight. Romans chapter eight, verse twenty-eight.

Romans eight, twenty-eight reads, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” This is referring to us, brethren. We’re all called, and we all are called according to God’s purpose. We’ve been talking about God’s purpose throughout this message. “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that we may be the firstborn among many brethren.” That is a direct reference to us being born into the God family. We were foreknown by God and predestined to be conformed to that. To be the firstborn, born again of many brethren.

Verse thirty, “Moreover, whom He did predestinate,” referring to us, “...them He also called, and whom He called, He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Brethren, I said our future is bright. Our future is bright. We’re going to be in glory. To be glorified, to look like the Father and Christ. That’s the goal. That’s our destination. We were made in His image. Made to eventually look like Him in glory. To shine. It’s amazing. Amazing.

We were made in the image of God, but also in the likeness of God. We’re also made in the likeness of God. We must think and act like God also. And that’s we’re worshiping Him in spirit and in truth. We’ve been reading about the truth of God going through. We just had some glimpses of what He looks like and what we will look like. And that’s truth. We read it. It’s truth. But we must worship Him in spirit as well. The spirit of God, that is the mind of God. That’s how God thinks. We must also think like God, Isaiah fifty-five. Isaiah fifty-five. We must look like God. We will look like God. And to eventually look like God, we must think like God, Isaiah fifty-five.

Isaiah fifty-five, we’ll read verse eight. Isaiah fifty-five, verse eight, “For My thoughts,” this is God speaking, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” So we’re directly talking about how God thinks and how God acts. He’s telling us that His ways, His actions, and His thoughts are above human actions and above human thoughts. How far above, as high as the heaven is from the earth. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, that’s how high and how far above God’s mind is above our mind. How far His actions are above our actions.

Brethren, when you have God’s spirit working in you, you have two thoughts, two ways of thinking working in you. What do I mean? When you have, and I’ll repeat it, when you have God’s spirit, you have two thoughts working in you, two minds working in you. You have the mind of God working in you, and you have your own thoughts, your own human thoughts working in you. So you actually hold two thoughts when you have God’s spirit in you or it’s God’s spirit working with you. You have two thoughts in you.

Think about it. You have a situation that you have to deal with, and perhaps it’s a temptation, and you have the still small voice of God’s spirit saying, “Don’t do that. That’s going to harm you. Don’t do that.” And you have your own thoughts saying, “That’s not so bad. I did it last time and it was okay.” Those are two thoughts warring within you, the thoughts of God, which are far, far, far higher than your own thoughts, and your own thoughts, which are far below God’s thoughts. The key is which mind are you going to listen to? Are you going to listen to the mind of God? “Don’t do that.” Are you going to listen to your own mind? “Go for it. It won’t hurt you. You did it last time. It was no problem.”

Your measure of growth, your growth as a Christian, as someone who’s seeking to become God, your measure of growth is how often you listen to the thoughts of God instead of your own thoughts. Those actions of God, and you act like, and do the things God would do versus the things that you want to do as a human being. Your measure of growth is based on how often you listen to God instead of yourself. It’s that simple. It’s that simple.

Brethren, we have to grow up. God’s thoughts are high above ours. His actions are high above ours. We have to grow from our own thoughts and actions, grow up into the actions of our Father. Grow up. We have to grow up spiritually. It’s that simple. It’s not easy, but it’s that simple. We don’t want to have this distorted view of God, this warped view of God as our Father. We need to have the proper view of God to know what we’re growing up to, what we’re becoming.

God is not some petty, vengeful being who holds grudges against His children. You do something wrong and God is just so angry and vengeful against us. That’s no. But He’s also not just lax and just laissez-faire, “Do whatever you want to do. That’s no consequence. I don’t worry about it.” God is not that either. Those are two ditches. That’s not who God is. People form their opinions of God for all sorts of reasons of who God is.

Maybe they had bad parents growing up and they’re thinking that, you know, “How my parents were, that’s how God is.” Maybe they had a bad minister or a bad religious experience and they think, “Okay, that’s who God is.” And that person misrepresented God. That’s not who the true God is at all. Maybe they had just bad experiences with authority. And growing up, someone had their thumb on them all the time. And they start to have this idea of God based on that.

Or maybe it was the opposite. People just let them do whatever they want to do, just very permissive. The people in charge, just very permissive. And they start to have that view of who God is. All sorts. They could just be ignorant. You just don’t know who and understand who the true God is. All sorts of reasons that people can have a wrong perception or a wrong view of God.

But brethren, we don’t have to guess. We don’t have to guess how God acts and how He thinks. Turn to Ephesians six. Ephesians chapter six. We don’t have to guess how God acts and how He thinks. Ephesians chapter six. The Bible is plain. We don’t have to grasp at straws and guess. Ephesians chapter six, verse four. Ephesians chapter six, verse four. “And, you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

So you notice, before we get into nurture and admonition, notice it’s saying fathers, to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Parents, we have a very, very, very important role to play in how our children ultimately view God. It’s no coincidence that human fathers are called fathers. Lowercase f, of course. But God the Father is also a Father, capital F. How we treat and deal with situations and deal with our children goes a long way to how they view God. That is a very, very important responsibility. We have to be very, very careful in remembering that.

But it says here, “...the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” God will nurture us through our problems. He’ll be there to help us. He’ll nurture us. Do you think of God that way? Scripture says you should. He’ll nurture us through our problems. But He’ll also admonish us if He needs to get our attention. Do you think of God that way? God will also admonish us to get our attention. God the Father is perfectly balanced. Perfectly balanced. He knows exactly what we need when we need it. He knows exactly how to involve Himself in our lives when it’s needed.

Romans eleven. Romans eleven. God is perfectly balanced. Romans eleven. Romans eleven, verse twenty-two. Romans eleven, verse twenty-two. “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God. On them which fell, severity, but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you shall be cut off.” God wants us to see His goodness and His severity. Both are necessary. God wants us to see both in Him. The goodness and severity.

We serve a God of consequences. Good consequences, bad consequences. Consequences aren’t always bad. You have good consequences. If you go to work, you get paid. That’s a great consequence. We serve a God of consequences, good and bad. Now I used to wonder as I think about God, my own view and picture of God, I used to wonder, okay, and I talked about balance, you know, God is fifty percent goodness and fifty percent severity. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know if that’s true. That’s just, you know, how my mind works. I meditate on that kind of stuff. You know, God is fifty percent goodness, fifty percent severity.

The longer I’ve been a Christian and just growing up and growing in the faith, I don’t know if that’s the case. I think God might be ninety percent goodness and ten percent severity. This was some of the things that I’ve been through and maybe some of the decisions that I’ve made. Perhaps you’ve been there too. I think God is ninety percent goodness and ten percent severity. He’s only severe when He needs to be, is my point. That’s the point of that.

You know, as ministers, you know, there’s a saying, we’re taught in the ministry, to be as gentle as you’re allowed to be and firm as you have to be. Gentle as you’re allowed to be by members, lay members, and firm as you have to be. It’s a great approach for parents as well. To be gentle as you’re allowed to be with your kids, but firm as you have to be based on their actions. I actually think that’s how God... I believe one hundred percent that’s how God is.

Psalm one hundred and eighteen. Psalm one hundred and eighteen. Psalm one hundred and eighteen. Reading and understanding more about the God that we serve, the true God. Not some idea, not some imagined thing about the God we serve, the God we’re becoming. Psalm one hundred and eighteen. Let’s read about this God. Psalm one hundred and eighteen, beginning of the Psalm, “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, because His mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say that His mercy endures forever. Let the house of Aaron now say that His mercy endures forever.” Are we getting the point? Verse four, “Let him now that fear the Lord say that His mercy endures forever.” God is merciful. That doesn’t sound like a father who’s just quick to punish us. His mercy endures forever. Second Peter; Chapter three, Verse nine. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” God wants us all to come to repentance, so much so that he’s willing to be long-suffering with us. He doesn’t want anyone to perish. God wants all human beings, all his children, remember, you are God’s, all his children to make it.

God will work with us and work with us and work with us. He will not give up on us. He will not give up on you. He will not give up on me. He’ll work with us as long as necessary. But brethren, we can’t take advantage of that. We can’t take advantage of that mercy. We can’t see that mercy as weakness. Galatians Chapter six. We can’t take advantage of that. Human nature is to take advantage of the mercy of the long-suffering. We can’t do that.

Galatians Chapter six, Verse seven. This Verse starts in a powerful way. “Be not deceived.” Okay, so what we’re about to read is something that we can be deceived about, that we could be fooled about, that we could misjudge or we could misread. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life. Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”

Be not deceived. Brethren, do not fall into the trap of thinking that God will just take whatever we want and just will be merciful endlessly and that there will not be consequences. Don’t be deceived by that. Don’t be deceived to think we will just get away with sin. Yes, God is merciful. Yes, God is long-suffering. Yes, God wants everyone to make it. But he’s not to be mocked. If we think we can get away with whatever because God is just so merciful, that is a form of mocking God. That’s not something I would want to do. We will eventually reap what we sow, positive and negative. It’s a promise. It’s a promise.

The world doesn’t understand that about God. They don’t understand his mercy. They don’t understand the fact that he is not to be mocked and that there will be consequences. The nurture and the admonition, the goodness and severity. They don’t understand that about God. We do. We do. We’re in an excellent position in this church with his spirit and with his truth to understand who and what God is. So how do we shape ourselves to look more like him?

How do we shape ourselves to look more like God? First of all, brethren, we have to talk to him. We have to talk to him. First Thessalonians Chapter five. First Thessalonians Chapter 5.

We have to talk to, to God if we want to look like him eventually and we want to act like him, means we have to talk to him.

First Thessalonians Chapter five, Verse seventeen. “Pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Brethren, prayer is talking to God. God wants to talk to us. Or he wants us to talk to him through prayer. When we pray, ask God to help you look more like him in actions and to think more like him. Make that a part of your prayer. Give thanks, as it says here in Verse eighteen, in everything. Do it in prayer and do it without ceasing. Don’t cease to pray on a regular basis.

James Chapter five, Verse sixteen. James five, sixteen. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” Now that’s in the context of praying for one another and being healed, but just in general, the effectual, effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Regular prayer, brethren. We must pray and talk to God on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be hours and hours. We don’t have to pray to God for hours and hours at a time. We don’t. You don’t have to do that. If you’re dealing with something, maybe you’ll pray for a longer amount of time. But you don’t have to pray to God for hours and hours, but it also shouldn’t be five minutes. Maybe if you’re a child or maybe newer in the faith, you may have a little difficulty praying for longer periods of time, but build up. We’ve heard that in other messages. Build yourself up in your prayer and in the amount of time that you pray.

But ultimately, talk to God. That’s the point. Talk to God. Impair that talking to God. As it says here, the effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much. Make sure your actions are also righteous when you pray to God. It is the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man that avails much. But not only should we talk to God, but not only should we talk to God, we should listen when God is talking to us.

Second Timothy; Chapter three. It’s two-way. We can’t do all the talking. Second Timothy; Chapter three, Verse sixteen. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God for it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for corrections, and instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

Inspiration there in that Verse. The inspiration means divinely breathed. When we’re talking, we are breathing. We’re breathing out words. Well, the inspiration of God is divinely breathed scripture. All scripture was divinely breathed or spoken by God. The point is, it’s God talking to us. The scriptures are God talking to us. When we pray, we’re talking to God. We’re directly talking to God. When we read scripture, God is directly talking to us. It is a two-way communication.

Sometimes I’ll hear brethren say, and maybe myself have to feel like, oh, you know, I don’t really feel like God talks to me or like I’m close to God. I don’t feel like he’s talking with me. Well, he does talk to you. You just have to listen. It’s called opening up your Bible and reading it. That is God talking to you. It doesn’t have to be anything, you know, just mysterious. The word of God, when you read it, it’s God talking to you. 750,000 plus words in this book. Those are the words of God talking to us. We just have to open our eyes to read it and open our spiritual ears to understand it.

Second Timothy; two, fifteen. “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” We have to study the word of God if we want to hear what God has to say. It’s one thing to read it. It’s another thing to study it, to dig in it. It takes work to do that. It’s like homework. Brethren, there’s times I didn’t want to do homework when I got home from school. I didn’t want to do homework. But if I wanted an A in the class, I needed to do my homework. I needed to study.

God will tell us exactly what it takes to eventually look like him and to act like him if we open the book and listen. Study doesn’t have to be overly difficult. It doesn’t have to be overly difficult. Read an article. Read one of our pillar articles with your Bible open and read the scriptures. Go on the website when you can click through. If you like reading online, you can go into an article. The verses are there. They’re hyperlinked. Click the Verse. There’s the scripture right there. Read an article you just studied. You just studied the word of God.

It doesn’t have to be difficult. Listen to a sermon on the way to work. Listen to a sermon on a walk. Listen to a sermon with an open Bible. All sorts of ways to study the word of God. Read a Chapter in the Book of Proverbs. Read one of the Psalms. Think about it. Study it. Look up a definition. It doesn’t have to be difficult. Do whatever you have to do to listen to God and shape your view of him based on what he tells you, not on your own imagination, emotions, or what someone else tells you. God will talk to you if you listen.

We also not only should talk to God and listen to God, we should think about God. We should think about him. He should be on our minds. After all, it’s our future. It’s who we’re looking to become. Psalm seventy-seven, Verse twelve. “I will meditate also of all your works and talk of your doings.” So I will think about you, and I will talk about you. I will think about you, and I will talk about you.

Brethren, we should think about God often. Our minds should be on God and the things of God. It doesn’t have to be in an odd way where it’s just God, God, God, God, God. But we should be thinking about God and the things of God. It should just be a natural thing for us. God should be at the forefront of our minds. Again, not in some strange kind of odd way. You’re at work, you’re working on a spreadsheet, and you know, God made this spreadsheet, and God put the numbers in the spreadsheet. No, that’s strange. You’re not going to just be thinking about God just at the forefront of your mind constantly. But it’s like someone you care about. You think about them often. They’re on your mind. You wonder how they’re doing. You check in with them regularly. We should think about God and the things of God.

The scriptures say, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. When we think about things, we say them. We talk about the things of God. Brethren, we should talk about the things of God. It doesn’t have to be in a preachy way. That’s self-righteous. I mean, if you’re just God this and God that and God this and God that. It doesn’t have to be in a preachy way.

Talk about the hope that lies in you. Why are you hopeful? Why are you hopeful? What makes you happy? The blessings of God. Talk about a mistake maybe you made and then how you repented and you applied some portion of scripture in some way and you’re the better for it. Maybe you’re working on a weakness and you’re overcoming. That’s talking about the things of God. Talk about how you were blessed in your third tithe year. How you didn’t think you’d have enough money but you ended up getting a raise at work or maybe a significant bill was taken care of. That’s talking about the things of God. But to do that, you have to be thinking about God. And to be thinking about God, you have to talk to him and let him talk to you. It all works together. It all works together.

Now, we’ve been looking at becoming God, of course, looking like him in the future and acting like him. We’ve been talking about that. It’s fun to talk about praying to God and studying his word and meditating and talking about him. But that’s not the only way. That’s not the only way to be more like God. In fact, there is another critical way. A way that’s actually a little more difficult. A little more difficult than all those things. But it’s necessary. It’s necessary for us to do it to become more like God. That thing that we must do is endure trials. Endure trials. God is describing himself as long-suffering. We read it earlier. He’s longsuffering. God suffers. He’s very patient. But God wants us to be like that as well.

Romans Chapter fifteen. The father is very patient, very long-suffering. Therefore, by definition, we have to be that as well if we’re going to become and think and be like him. Romans Chapter fifteen. I’ll read several verses here. Romans Chapter 15. Pick it up at the beginning of the Chapter. “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not Himself, as it is written, ‘The reproaches of them that reproached you fell on me.’”

So Christ didn’t always look to please himself. He could have. He’s God. Obviously, the father didn’t look to please himself. He allowed his son to be sacrificed. Verse four. “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”

So patience, waiting on God. When we get uncomfortable, going to the scriptures for comfort.

Verse five. “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded, to be like that.” The God of patience says to be like that. “One toward another, according to Christ Jesus.” The God of patience wants us to be like-minded. That patience comes in situations where we may be uncomfortable. Those that lack of comfort is called trials that we have to go through. Suffering kicks in the learning mechanism. I’ll repeat. Suffering kicks in the learning mechanism.

Hebrews Chapter five, Verse eight. “Though he were a Son,” referring to Jesus, “yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the author of internal salvation unto all them that obey him; Called of God and high priest after the order of Melchisedec.”

Christ was made perfect, and yet he remained that way despite suffering. He was made perfect. He had a plan. He came to die for our sins. But he learned through suffering. He maintained his perfection through suffering. It can be done. It can be done. It’s hard, but it can be done. And we too, brethren, can become perfect. Christ was already perfect, remained that way through suffering. We can become perfect by suffering and we can learn obedience if, if we obey Second Timothy; Chapter two. Verse three. Turn to Second Timothy; Chapter two, Verse three. “You therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” We heard about that the other day. “Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

The Father is the Lord of hosts. Christ is the captain of the hosts. Brethren, we are soldiers in that army, but we have to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. That hardness comes through trials that we have to, that we have to face. Sometimes they are fiery trials. Health trials that we go through. A loved one may die. That’s a trial. A family member or a friend leaves the church. That’s a trial. You get fired from your job. That is definitely a trial. You need a new roof on your house and you can’t afford it. Your car breaks down. These are all trials. An unconverted spouse is giving you grief about going to the feast. These are all things, brethren, that we must suffer through. Endure hardness. But the goal is to become more and be made into the likeness of God. Those trials that we go through.

First Peter; Chapter four, Verse twelve. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing has happened to you.” Why am I having trials? That’s very strange. You’re being told here, don’t think that’s strange. Don’t think that it’s strange. Anticipate it. Expect it. But rejoice. So instead of being surprised when the trials come, rejoice in as much as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. When we suffer and go through trials, we are being more like Jesus Christ who went through trials. So we should rejoice over that fact. We’re not rejoicing because of the trial. We’re rejoicing because we’re being made and we’re being likened to Jesus Christ. That is something to rejoice about.

Picking back up, “That when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy.” So when we have trials and we’re compared to Christ, we should rejoice. Why? Because look what happened to him. He became glorified. That’s something to rejoice about. When we’re going through that fiery trial, don’t think it’s strange. Instead say, you know what? I’m becoming more like God by going through this trial.

Trials are a powerful, powerful, powerful way for us to be more like Christ and ultimately be more like God. Brethren, as we begin to wrap up, I want you to, if you can write this down or just remember to do this, but regularly ask yourself, is the God that I see in my mind, the God that I pray to, that I’m studying about or reading about, is this God that I see, is it the one that’s revealed in the Bible? Or is it some idea of what I have of him? Prosecute your thinking. Is the God that I think about on a daily basis, the one I see in my mind, is he the God that’s revealed in the Bible? Don’t just go by feelings or someone else’s perceptions. Go by God’s spirit. Go by the scriptures to understand God.

Brethren, we were created in God’s image, not the other way around. We should not limit God into our own way of thinking. That’s not the way it works. That’s the wrong way to look at it. I had a fun time just going back through that article, and it was fun to write it. That Pillar article that I wrote, it was fun to write it. I encourage you to review it. Review it periodically along with other articles, but review it periodically. Get inspired. I read it as I prepared for this message, and I got inspired. It reminded me, first of all, of the fact that God is reproducing himself. Amazing, amazing understanding. I believe it’s the greatest knowledge available to mankind.

But just as important, it reminded me that we must worship God and understand him according to his spirit and according to truth. Don’t just go by what other people say about your father. He’s your father. You have a chance to understand him. Learn and remember your God, your father, for yourself. Brethren, make sure that the God you serve is not the God that you think you know. Make sure he is the God that you know for certain.