The God I Want To Know

---

May 22, 2016 “The God I Want To Know” Psalm 8 Pastor Wayne Puls, Senior Pastor at Hope Lutheran Church Let’s start off with a quick celebrity survey. Name your favorite movie star (singer; pro athlete). Have you ever met him/her? What do you think he/she is like as a person? Most of us probably have our own pre-conceived ideas of what we think a celebrity is like, as a person. But if we ever met our favorite celebrities, actually spent time with them, and got to know them, we very well might be surprised at what they’re really like. Our pre-conceived ideas might get wrecked. I have a strong feeling that is true, also, when it comes to God. Many people today – and many Christians, even – cling to their pre-conceived and often unrealistic ideas about who God is, about how God operates. Instead of letting God be God, many of us try to define God. Instead of humbly acknowledging what God reveals about himself in the Bible, many of us try to decide for God. Rather than acquiesce and submit to him, many of us try to mold God into what we want him to be. We walk around with attitudes like this: “The God I want to know,” we say, “is never judgmental or harsh. He’s not some big, bad, scary dude. The God I want to know is approachable. He’s fun. He’s a buddy. And the God I want to know is cool with me being the way I am, living the way I live. He’s there to listen when I want someone to talk to, but he leaves me alone when I want to be left alone. So when I skip church, or break a commandment, or tell a lie, or say something hurtful to my spouse or kids, my God

understands. My God doesn’t mind. My God thinks the way I think. That’s the God I want to know.” How many people do you know with an attitude something like that toward God? Raise your hand. Many? A few? Now here’s the real question. You don’t have to raise your hand for this one. Do you ever show that attitude yourself? Do you ever take that me-first, me-centric tone with God? I think we all do, sometimes. We all tend to have our own pre-conceived ideas about who God is, about how God operates. Don’t we? Don’t we all try to define God, decide for God, mold God? How foolish! We don’t get to define God. He defines himself, and he is inscrutable, immutable, all-wise. We don’t get to decide for God, either. He has the final say every single time. And we definitely don’t get to mold God. God doesn’t mold. We mold. God’s the Potter. We’re the clay. He’s the Creator. We’re the creatures. We are God’s handiwork. So who’s the God you want to know? A god of your own design? Or the God who designed you? The God who reveals himself in the Bible? The God who dwells in majesty, rules in eternity, and interacts with humanity in mysterious and wonderful ways? Today is the perfect day for us to set aside all our own watered-down, personalized ideas about God, and to worship and embrace God for who he really is – whether we have all the answers about him or not. Today, we celebrate our festival of the Holy Trinity, and we marvel at the revelation of God in the Bible. Today we accept the incomprehensible mystery of the Triune God. Not because we understand it. Not because it makes any rational human sense. Not because it fits with our need for who God should

be. We believe in the holy Trinity because the Bible tells us that God is three in one, and one in three. Not three gods, but one God in three distinct but equal persons. The Trinity God is not the God that I would make up or design, if I had the final say about him. But I don’t have the final say, do I? I don’t have any say, when it comes to God. I can accept him by faith, and put my trust in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that speaks to me in the Bible. Or I can try to foolishly fashion my own god. So can you. Today I put my faith in the Trinity! No, I don’t have all the answers. No, I don’t always understand him. No, I can’t fully fathom God’s ways, or grasp his plan for me. Yes, I’m often surprised and frequently challenged, when God operates in ways that deviate from my thinking. But those are the moments when I can grow the most spiritually, when I can learn the most about God. In those moments, I need to let go of my pre-conceived ideas about God, and humbly say, “The God I want to know is the real God. The true God. The Triune, eternal God who comes to me in mystery, who blesses me with his love, who gives me all I have, who saves me from my sin, who sent his Son to die my death, who calls me to live this day and forever as his child. That’s the God I want to know!” How about you? Who’s the God you want to know? Let’s close by reading Psalm 8 once again, our Old Testament reading. Here David lets go of what he thinks about God, and how God should operate. He just accepts God for who God is, and offers his heart in adoration and honor. Let’s read and pray together, and do the same. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Isn’t that the God you want to know! Amen.