1. Does this apply to me?
a. I will be with you.
Mathew 28.20
Romans 8.11
John 14.17
b. I will bless you.
2 Corinthians 1.19-20
2 Peter 1.3-4
Romans 8.32
What are the differences between you and those we have studied in Genesis to date?
What are the similarities?
What things about God's dealings with "them" do not apply to you today?
What things do?
Why?
2. "Perception is reality." Feelings can become facts.
a. It feels like God is distant. Is he uninvolved? No. He is omnipresent.
God is fully present everywhere.
There is no place where God is not.
God "fills heaven and earth as the ocean fills the bucket that is submerged in it." A.W. Tozer
Jeremiah 23.23-24
John 17.20-23
1 Kings 8.27
Psalm 16.11
Psalm 139.7-10
When it feels like God is distant and uninvolved in our situation, how can the truth about his omnipresence help us?
b. It feels like God is apathetic. Is he uncaring? No. He is good.
How does God treat his creatures (human and animal)?
Genesis 8.21-22
Matthew 5.45
Romans 2.4
2 Peter 3.9
How did God treat his people before the New Covenant?
Deuteronomy 7.6-8
Deuteronomy 10.14-15
Matthew 7.9-11
("Election" is not an invitation to an argument. Nor is it preached to unbelievers so as to produce anxiety or apathy. Election is a source of comfort and hope. Election = Affection.)
God is good.
He is the source of all goodness. He is the gold standard of goodness. He cannot be anything but eternally, immutably, and intrinsically good.
James 1.17
Psalm 100.5
Jesus is God.
John 5.15-17
John 14.8-11
Romans 8.32
Galatians 2.20
When it feels like God is apathetic or uncaring about our plight, how can the truth about his goodness help us?
Is the Father's care and character different than that of the Son?
c. It feels like God is impotent. Is he willing but unable to help? He is both willing and able. He is omnipotent.
There are things that God cannot do:
He cannot lie.
He cannot sin.
He cannot change or act inconsistent with his nature.
He cannot cease to be God.
Job 42.2
When it feels like God is impotent or willing to help but unable to do so, how can the truth about his omnipotence help us?
J.I. Packer quote:
God is utterly sovereign (he is both omnipotent and omniscient), and he is transcendent (in himself he exists above time and space, i.e., above the created order with its intrinsic limitations). God is omnipotent; i.e., he is able to do anything he wishes to do. Nothing is too hard for him (Jer. 32:17); he is the Almighty (2 Cor. 6:18; Rev. 1:8). Jesus insists that with God all things are possible (Matt. 19:26). His sovereignty extends over the mighty movements of the stars in their courses, over the fall of a sparrow, over the exact count of the hairs of my head. If you throw a pair of dice, what numbers come up lies in the determination of God (Prov. 16:3). Ecclesiastes shows that the ancients knew of the water cycle, but still the biblical writers preferred to say that God sends the rain. He is not the distant God espoused by deism. Through the exalted Son he upholds all things by his powerful word (Heb. 1:3); indeed, he "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will" (Eph. 1:11). This control extends as much to sentient beings as to inanimate objects. He can turn the heart of the king in any direction he sees fit (Prov. 21:1). He is the potter who has the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use (Rom. 9:21). There can be no degrees of difficulty with an omnipotent God.
Moreover he enjoys all knowledge. He not only knows everything -he even knows what might have been under different circumstances (more or less what philosophers call "middle knowledge"), and takes that into account when he judges (Matt. 11:20-24). There are plenty of examples where God knows what we now label free contingent future decisions (e.g.,1 Sam. 23:11-13). God's knowledge is perfect (Job 37:16). "He does not have to reason to conclusions or ponder carefully before he answers, for he knows the end from the beginning, and he never learns and never forgets anything (cf. Ps. 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8)." Precisely because he is the Creator of the universe, he must be independent from it. Indeed, in fine expressions that stretch our imagination, Isaiah affirms that God the high and lofty one "lives forever" (Isa. 57:15) or "inhabits eternity" (RSV).
