Who Is Yahweh?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Who is God?
00:00:07.480 | I can think of no more foundational question
00:00:09.560 | in all of the world.
00:00:11.200 | So who is this God, this one behind all of creation?
00:00:16.200 | Who is this one who made you and who made me?
00:00:20.440 | Who is this one who speaks to us through an ancient book,
00:00:23.960 | a book that is as alive as it is old?
00:00:27.960 | This is a beautiful topic covered by Pastor John's
00:00:30.800 | recent sermon he delivered in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
00:00:34.600 | He opened that message with 10 brief answers
00:00:37.280 | to the all important question, who is God?
00:00:42.280 | Have a listen.
00:00:43.760 | - Why did God identify himself as I am who I am?
00:00:48.760 | I absolutely am.
00:00:51.540 | Now if we can take off our clouded spectacles
00:00:56.800 | of mere religious jargon like G-O-D,
00:01:01.040 | this should come, will come as a bolt of lightning.
00:01:05.040 | God is.
00:01:06.880 | That's staggering.
00:01:09.380 | What sentence could be more important
00:01:11.600 | in any language than God is?
00:01:14.840 | So what did he mean when he said I absolutely am?
00:01:18.440 | I am who I am.
00:01:21.280 | What did he mean?
00:01:22.760 | Now I'm gonna linger here longer than you think I should,
00:01:26.480 | perhaps, because until God becomes dominant
00:01:31.480 | in our thinking and in our feeling,
00:01:35.200 | until God becomes the blazing sun
00:01:39.520 | at the center of the solar system of our daily lives,
00:01:44.520 | until God becomes the Mount Everest
00:01:47.720 | in the foothills of all of our concerns with this world,
00:01:53.240 | until God rests on the souls of the saints in Belfast
00:01:58.240 | and on the churches of Northern Ireland,
00:02:02.360 | until he rests on the churches and the people here
00:02:07.360 | with 10,000 times more weight
00:02:10.660 | than all your political concerns
00:02:12.720 | and all your church growth concerns,
00:02:15.640 | then all of our talk about the glory of God
00:02:19.340 | and singing and gathering for worship
00:02:21.640 | will be just more tinkering and engineering of religion
00:02:25.400 | to try to get people to do what we hope they will do
00:02:28.080 | in some kind of appropriate way.
00:02:30.760 | The world doesn't need any more tinkering with religion.
00:02:35.760 | It needs God.
00:02:38.080 | It needs to see God.
00:02:39.440 | It needs to be stunned that there is a God.
00:02:43.880 | So it's no accident that when Moses says,
00:02:47.320 | who's sending me?
00:02:49.360 | God says, I am who I am, period.
00:02:52.960 | And we need to linger over that.
00:02:55.640 | And I've got 10 things I think it means.
00:02:58.400 | They're very short.
00:02:59.600 | It's not the whole message, it's introduction.
00:03:02.000 | (audience laughing)
00:03:05.200 | Number one, God is who he is means he never had a beginning.
00:03:10.200 | And that just staggers the mind.
00:03:11.640 | Every child asks his parents, where did God come from?
00:03:14.760 | Who made God?
00:03:16.760 | And every wise parent says, nobody made God.
00:03:20.640 | He just was always there.
00:03:24.880 | Always.
00:03:26.880 | No beginning.
00:03:28.880 | Number two, God is who he is means God will never end.
00:03:34.680 | If he didn't come into being, he can't go out of being
00:03:39.960 | because he is being.
00:03:42.480 | Absolute being.
00:03:46.200 | There's no place to go outside being.
00:03:50.400 | There's only he.
00:03:52.720 | Before he creates, he's all there is, absolutely.
00:03:57.720 | Number three, God is who he is means God is absolute reality.
00:04:04.440 | There's no reality before him,
00:04:08.600 | there's no reality outside of him
00:04:11.520 | unless he wills it and creates it.
00:04:15.000 | He's not one of many realities before he creates.
00:04:20.000 | He is simply absolute reality.
00:04:24.640 | He's all that was, eternally.
00:04:28.260 | No space, space didn't exist.
00:04:31.220 | The universe didn't exist.
00:04:33.360 | Emptiness did not exist.
00:04:36.320 | Only God existed forever.
00:04:39.720 | Absolutely and absolutely all.
00:04:43.760 | Number four, God is who he is means
00:04:46.560 | that God is utterly independent.
00:04:50.140 | He depends on nothing to bring him into being.
00:04:54.120 | He depends on nothing to support him.
00:04:56.440 | He depends on nothing to counsel him.
00:04:59.560 | He depends on nothing to make him what he is.
00:05:02.080 | He is absolutely independent.
00:05:05.320 | Number five, God is who he is means everything
00:05:09.920 | that is not God depends totally on God.
00:05:14.920 | All that is not God is secondary, dependent.
00:05:20.880 | The entire universe is secondary reality.
00:05:26.120 | Let that sink in because nobody in this city believes that.
00:05:29.600 | And if the church doesn't, you're just like them.
00:05:33.120 | All the universe is secondary.
00:05:36.840 | Humanity is secondary.
00:05:39.640 | God is primary, absolute, first, last, glorious.
00:05:44.640 | Everything else, secondary.
00:05:49.240 | Galaxies compared to God, nothing.
00:05:52.720 | That's number six.
00:05:53.560 | Let me just go back and restate it.
00:05:55.640 | God is who he is means all the universe
00:05:59.160 | is by comparison to God as nothing.
00:06:02.220 | All the universe by comparison to God is as nothing.
00:06:08.220 | Contingent, dependent reality is to absolute,
00:06:13.220 | independent reality as a shadow to substance,
00:06:19.500 | as echo to thunderclap, as bubble to ocean.
00:06:24.500 | All that we see, all that you are amazed by
00:06:30.180 | in your land or around the world,
00:06:32.420 | all the world, all the galaxies is compared to God
00:06:36.900 | as nothing.
00:06:39.420 | If you put God on one side of the scales
00:06:42.020 | and the universe on the other side of the scales,
00:06:45.700 | the universe goes up like air or dust on the scale.
00:06:50.700 | Isaiah 40, 17, all the nations are as nothing before him.
00:06:56.520 | They are accounted by him as less than nothing
00:07:00.100 | and emptiness.
00:07:01.720 | Number seven, God is who he is means God is constant.
00:07:07.560 | He's the same yesterday, today, forever.
00:07:11.960 | He cannot be improved.
00:07:13.520 | He cannot be diminished.
00:07:15.760 | He's not becoming anything.
00:07:18.600 | He is who he is.
00:07:20.380 | There's no development in God.
00:07:22.720 | There's no progress in God.
00:07:25.360 | Absolute perfection cannot be improved.
00:07:29.020 | Number eight, God is who he is means he is
00:07:34.800 | the absolute standard of truth and goodness and beauty.
00:07:39.800 | There's no law book which he consults
00:07:44.280 | in deciding what is right.
00:07:46.520 | There's no almanac to establish facts for God.
00:07:51.060 | There's no guild, no musical guild, for example,
00:07:55.540 | to determine what is excellent and beautiful.
00:07:58.840 | He's the standard.
00:08:00.120 | He himself is the standard of the right,
00:08:04.400 | the true, the beautiful.
00:08:06.960 | Number nine, God is who he is means God does
00:08:11.960 | whatever he pleases and it is always right,
00:08:16.040 | always beautiful, always in accord with truth.
00:08:20.140 | There are no constraints on God from outside
00:08:23.500 | that he doesn't will to exist and thus govern.
00:08:29.400 | All reality that is outside of him is subordinate to him.
00:08:33.520 | So he's utterly free.
00:08:35.800 | He's the only free being in the universe, in fact.
00:08:39.120 | He is utterly free from any constraints
00:08:42.380 | that don't originate from his own will.
00:08:45.360 | Finally, number 10, God is who he is means
00:08:49.920 | he's the greatest, the most beautiful,
00:08:53.880 | the most valuable, and the most important person in existence.
00:08:59.720 | He's more worthy of interest and attention
00:09:04.280 | and admiration and enjoyment than all persons
00:09:09.280 | and all realities put together,
00:09:13.480 | including the entire universe.
00:09:15.320 | Now, the Bible reveals and assumes that God everywhere.
00:09:21.280 | - Amen, that's so good.
00:09:23.800 | There's a lot more to God, but there's nothing less
00:09:26.440 | about God than these 10 incredible realities.
00:09:30.640 | This excerpt is from Pastor John's sermon
00:09:32.560 | in Belfast, Northern Ireland that he preached there in July.
00:09:36.240 | The message is titled "The Glory of God and Why We Sing."
00:09:40.020 | Video and audio of the message is available online
00:09:42.280 | right now at desiringgod.org.
00:09:44.200 | And wherever you're listening to this podcast
00:09:47.640 | in the midst of your busy day, thanks for joining us.
00:09:49.760 | You can subscribe to Ask Pastor John
00:09:51.320 | in your favorite podcast app in YouTube or in Spotify.
00:09:54.480 | And for our episode archive or to submit a question
00:09:56.640 | of your own, go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:10:00.880 | Friday, we're gonna close the week with a doozy.
00:10:04.600 | Is there a place in the church for female pastors?
00:10:08.040 | Female pastors, some say yes, others say no.
00:10:11.040 | Pastor John will weigh in on the factors
00:10:12.840 | that we need to understand in this growing debate,
00:10:14.880 | a debate growing within complementarian circles,
00:10:18.160 | not outside of complementarian circles.
00:10:20.960 | This is a very interesting factor in all of this.
00:10:23.880 | That's up on Friday.
00:10:25.120 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:26.440 | We'll see you then.
00:10:27.440 | (upbeat music)
00:10:30.020 | (upbeat music)
00:10:32.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]