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Article 1: Who God is - COMMUNITY AND COMPASSION

We believe in one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in a unity of love in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to establish a redeemed family from among all peoples and to make all things new for His own glory.

Objective:
To know more about God and to be influenced to live differently as a result.
[In each section start with the green question and do the others as time permits.]

 Open in Prayer 

 

Watch the Video [5–10 minutes]

 

Video Reflections [10 minutes]

• What do you think about the doctrine of the Trinity? What about it is confusing to you? What  about it do you find compelling, helpful, or even beautiful?
• How has your understanding of God grown over time?
• How have you experienced God's goodness and greatness in your own life?

 

Read 

"We believe in one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in a unity of love in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to establish a redeemed family from among all peoples and to make all things new for His own glory."
(Lake Avenue Church Statement of Faith: Article One – God)

 

Questions from the Statement of Faith [20 minutes]

  "Up" Questions (Worship)

• How does the idea of the Trinity inspire you to adore God more?
• Read over the text from the Statement of Faith and underline all the words in it that reveal that God is worthy of worship. Which words did you underline? Which of them is most meaningful to you and why?

 

  "In" Questions (Community)

• Our Statement of Faith says that we believe that "God has graciously purposed from eternity to establish a redeemed family from among all peoples." How have you begun to see this lived out within our community here at Lake?
• What about the diverse makeup of God's family makes being in community with one another difficult? What about it makes community a more fulfilling experience?

 

  "Out" Questions (Service)

• We were made in God's image, and God has always existed in a community of love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, he made us in his image to love one another as well! How will you show someone in your life, besides your immediate family, that you love them this week? How can you be a tangible blessing?
• What about God's character helps you understand our need to reach out to our community in service and grace, loving our neighbors as ourselves?
• CHALLENGE: How can you actively get to know the triune God better this week?

 

Questions from Scripture [10 minutes]

• Read Matthew 28:19–20. What does this passage say about God's character? What does it say about God's mission? What does it say about our role with him in that mission?
• Read Deuteronomy 6:4. How can your life be a sign to the world that God is indeed the one and only God?

 

Prayer 

Father, you are amazing! Your power is limitless; your knowledge is complete. You are the creator and sustainer of all things. And yet, despite your great and awe-inspiring power, you have chosen to make a way to be close to us through your Son, Jesus. Thank you! And may this fact of your grace compel us forward into love for you and for those in our world whom you created and for whom you sent your Son to die. In Jesus' holy name. Amen.

 

Share Prayer Requests and End in Prayer 

Pastor's Commentary

Article 1: We believe in one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in a unity of love in three equally divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God graciously purposed from eternity to establish a redeemed family from among all peoples and make all things new for his own glory.

Article 1

We believe in one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in a unity of love in three equally divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God graciously purposed from eternity to establish a redeemed family from among all peoples and make all things new for his own glory.

God's gospel originates in and manifests the holy love of the eternal, triune God.

(This commentary is based on a book, entitled Evangelical Convictions: A Theological Exposition of the Statement of Faith of the Evangelical Free Church of America. The exposition I have adapted from that book is shorter and re-drafted to fit the Statement of Faith we are proposing at LAC. I am thankful to my theologian friends—Mike Andrus, Bill Jones, Bill Kynes, David Martin, Ruben Martinez, and Greg Strand—both for the work together and for the opportunity to post this material. Though many contributed to the commentary, the writing was done mainly by Dr. Greg Strand and Dr. Bill Kynes. Your pastor accepts responsibility both for the abridging and for the re-focusing of the commentary now being made available to us.)

Commentary

When we begin stories, we usually start with basic data like "John Doe was born Jan. 28, 1960, at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, CA…" So, if you were talking to someone who knew nothing about the gospel, and you knew that Jesus is at the heart of the gospel story, where would you begin? Matthew and Luke began their accounts of the gospel with stories that occurred before the birth of Jesus. There were prophecies that had to be fulfilled, stories about Jesus that occurred before his birth. Jesus personally spoke of being "sent into the world by the Father" (cf. John 3:17; 10:36). Sent from where? Jesus' language suggests that his story did not begin in this world at all. He somehow existed before he came into this world, having a heavenly origin, a heavenly home, from which he was sent to live among us.

The Gospel of John takes us to the beginning of creation in its opening words. John encountered Jesus while John was a young man. After years of knowing him—as a man in Galilee, as a miracle worker, as a crucified Lord, as a risen king—John sought to write a story about Jesus. But how should he begin this story? He knew that he could have started with Jesus' earthly birth in Bethlehem. Jesus was born in a certain year at a certain place. He was a Jew, the son born through Mary—but John knew Jesus was more than that. But who was he? John had thought about that a long time.

John began where Genesis began, "In the beginning…" "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning" (John 1:1). John continued in v. 14 that this "Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." According to John, the gospel really begins in the beginning, the very beginning, in the eternity of God himself. In our LAC Statement of Faith, we begin where John began: God's gospel begins with God and his eternal purposes.

Some historic confessions start with a statement on the Bible, and that is entirely appropriate, for our knowledge of God comes most clearly from that written Word of God. But according to Genesis 1 and John 1, God spoke before speaking in the Bible, even though what we say about him is based on the Scriptures. The Bible is the story of God's work in creation, redemption and restoration, and it is a story that has as its center the person and work of Jesus. The structure of our SOF reflects the flow of this biblical story. The eternal God acts, and he acts by speaking—calling creation into being and, later, revealing his actions and his own character in human words that now come to us in the Bible. It all begins with God.

This starting point with God is also appropriate because any statement about the Bible as the Word of God must assume that there is a God who can speak. Moreover, our trust in the truthfulness of that Word must be based on a confidence in the character of the God who speaks. Our SOF begins where the Bible itself begins: with God as the ultimate starting point for everything else, including our own knowledge of God himself.

Beginning a gospel-centered SOF with a statement on God is also significant in that it emphasizes that the gospel itself begins with God. In the gospel we are recipients of God's grace, a grace that comes at his initiative, not ours. The gospel is God's saving work from first to last; it flows from within himself as the expression of his essential character. His actions always conform perfectly with his own nature. In other words, God does what he does because he is who he is. Thus, God's gospel originates in and expresses the wondrous perfections of the eternal triune God. Our first article describes two large categories about God, i.e., his nature and his purposes.

 

I. The Gospel is the Expression of God's Essential Nature

As fallen creatures, we are shot through with contradictions and inconsistencies and often suffer internal conflicts. We may say one thing and do another. God never does. He is always perfectly consistent with himself. He is always faithful and true. The first article sets forth essential aspects of the character of God, which provide the fountainhead of all that he does.

 

A. God Is One

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deut. 6:4). This statement, which became known by the Jews as the Shema, was affirmed by Jesus (Mark 12:29) as a fundamental truth about the God we worship. He is both a unity and unique. God alone is God (Ps. 86:10). He has no parts, and he has no rival. He is one.

The God who revealed himself as Yahweh in the Old Testament is the very same God who is now revealed in Jesus Christ and manifested by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. He is the God of the whole world, and for that reason his people have a responsibility to make him known to all people. As we read in the prophecy of Isaiah, the Lord says, "I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me" (Isa. 46:9).

 

B. God Is the Creator of All Things

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible affirms this divine act of creation. The various categories of Scripture—the law, the psalms, the prophets, the gospels, and the epistles—all speak with one voice: "You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them" (Neh. 9:6). Or, as the Apostle Paul put it in speaking to the philosophers of Athens, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth…in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:24, 28). God created all things outside of himself, a notion expressed in the theological term ex nihilo—"out of nothing."

Our Statement does not require a particular position on the mechanics of creation. However, to be within its doctrinal parameters, any understanding of the process of creation must affirm:

1. that God is the Creator of all things out of nothing (ex nihilo),
2. that he pronounced his creation "very good,"
3. that God created with order and purpose,
4. that God is the sovereign ruler over all creation that, by his personal and particular providence, he sustains (in other words, God remains active in history and in creation),
5. that God created the first human beings—the historical Adam and Eve—uniquely in his image,
6. and that through their sin all humanity along with this created order is now fallen (as articulated in our Article 3).

This understanding of a creator God leads to three affirmations:

 

1. God Alone Is the Creator

First, God and God alone is the creator of all things.The Genesis account distinguished itself from widely held views in the pagan world. No sun gods or gods of the sea are allowed for—God alone is the creator.

With this understanding, the Christian view of creation stands in opposition to all forms of polytheism. There is one God, and he has no rivals. There is no power in the universe that can threaten his supreme rule—either spiritual or material. Everything else has only the status of creature before the God who has created all. Therefore, to worship anything else is nothing but idolatry.

The Christian doctrine of creation also rules out every form of pantheism—the idea that the world itself is God or that God is the world. Pantheism views the world as an extension of the being of God. Genesis 1:1 says "no" to that understanding. The sun, moon, and stars reflect the glory of God, but they are not gods, nor are they God. He created the world apart from himself, ex nihilo—"out of nothing." And though God has created human beings in his own image, neither are we gods.

Our doctrine of creation also means that we are not materialistsorphilosophical naturalists. Before the world came into being, God forever was, and he now sustains all that exists by his powerful word (Heb. 1:3). In an act of freedom, God spoke, and it came to be.

 

2. God's Creation Is Ordered and Purposeful

A second aspect of the biblical narrative of creation is that God's creation is ordered and purposeful. The universe comes from the mind of God—it is a cosmos, rather than chaos.

The narrative form of Genesis 1, with its careful literary design, reinforces this notion of order and purpose. The progression of days clearly demonstrates the unfolding of the divine purpose and points to the increasing complexity of the cosmos. The Lord prepared the habitation, and then he populated it with its inhabitants. The creation week builds to its crowning act in the creation of man, as male and female, in the image of God. It then concludes with the seventh day, which, as the Sabbath rest of God, is the goal of creation. That day points to the supreme purpose of all creation—loving God and enjoying him forever (Heb. 4:6–11).

We are not the result of a blind process of chance. The world has been shaped into its present form, even if through means that may seem to be random and unpredictable to us with no discernible pattern, and it was more than a mindless process. God himself has revealed to us that this world is the result of a divine design with a divine purpose. The order of our world reflects the character of its creator: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Ps. 19:1). Wise living in God's world means living in accordance with the order God has established.

 

3. God's Creation Is Good

A third affirmation in the Genesis account of creation is this: God's creation is good. Five times we read that "God saw that what he had created was good," and after the sixth day we are told that "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). This affirmation is fundamental to a distinctively Christian view of the world.

On the one hand, we affirm that, as the good creation of God, the material world is not to be rejected. This gives value to the activities of human life—music and art, social or political work, manufacturing, sports, business, or scientific research. As C.S. Lewis put it so simply, "[God] likes matter. He invented it." [1]

A proper understanding of God as the creator changes our understanding of what it means to be spiritual, and it leads us away from an other-worldly asceticism that somehow denigrates our physical existence in this world. It tells us that salvation and spirituality are to be found not by fleeing from or avoiding the material realm, but by sanctifying it. God made us as embodied souls living in a material world. We cannot escape that fact, nor should we try to. There is nothing evil about the material world in itself, for God's purpose is to redeem and restore his creation, not to destroy it.

This world that God created is not to be rejected. In fact, it is to be enjoyed as a gift from God (1 Tim. 6:17). We should be thankful for God's creation and delight in it. We should appreciate natural beauty. We should look at it with wonder as it reveals the greatness and goodness of our God. "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim. 4:4).

This marvelous creation, however, has been spoiled by sin. God purposes to restore it, but creation is not God; therefore, it must not be idolized. Instead, we should act responsibly toward the natural world as good stewards of what God has given to us, neither worshipping it nor exploiting it, but respecting it as a precious gift from the hand of God.

God the creator is alone worthy of our worship. Our response to him ought to be like that of the heavenly throng pictured in Revelation 4:11: "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."

 

C. God Is Holy

Nothing more fully captures the revelation of God in the Old Testament than the word "holy." In Isaiah's vision of God's glory, the angelic beings call out to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isa. 6:3). The prescribed rituals of worship, and even the design of the temple itself with its most guarded space, the Holy of Holies, were all meant to impress this central truth into the minds and hearts of the people of Israel—the Lord God is holy.

God's holiness expresses the central notion that God is separate from us. He is separate in that he is transcendent, above us and beyond us, as we have previously described. But, more importantly, God's holiness speaks of his separateness from us morally. He is separate from all evil, and he is perfectly righteous in all that he is and does: "the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness" (Isa. 5:16).

Neither arbitrary nor capricious, God's wrath is his righteous repulsion against all that is contrary to his holy nature. Like the fire that came from the presence of the Lord and consumed Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10:1–3), so God's holiness consumes all evil that enters its presence (cf. Heb. 12:29). Consequently, sinful human beings are disqualified from coming before him. "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong," says the prophet Habakkuk (Hab. 1:13). Only God's mercy, in atoning for his sin and taking away his guilt, saved the prophet from certain death (6:6–7).

Without an understanding of God's holiness, the gospel makes no sense—we have no conviction of our sin and no need of a Savior. And without it, we have no understanding of the new life to which we are called and the final goal of our salvation—that we might share in the character of God himself. For the Lord says, "Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy" (Lev. 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:16).

 

D. God Is Infinitely Perfect

"Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom" (Ps. 145:3). His greatness exceeds our ability to grasp, to conceive, or to express in words. When we reflect on the nature of our God, we ought to bow in worship, echoing the words of Paul: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" (Rom. 11:33; cf. Ps. 139:6). Such wonder and awe before the greatness of God are captured in our apparently redundant affirmation that he is "infinitely perfect."

God's perfection means that he is totally without defect, fault, or blemish. The human mind cannot conceive of anything that would exceed our God in goodness and beauty. He himself is the ultimate reality, so he is the foundation of all that is true.

The use of the word "infinite" simply reinforces the notion that there are no limits to his greatness. He is not bound by space and time. "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God" (Ps. 90:2; also Gen. 21:33). His power and might, his wisdom and knowledge, his righteousness and goodness are all beyond the ability of our human minds to imagine. There is no deficiency in God; there is no way that God could be better at being God than he is. That is what we mean when we declare him to be "infinitely perfect."

Because God is perfect, he is self-sufficient. As the Lord revealed to Moses, "I am who I am" (Exod. 3:13), or, as Jesus declared, God has life "in himself" (John 5:26). God's self-sufficiency provides the answer to that age-old question: "If everything has a cause, what caused God?" Nothing caused God, because God does not need a cause—for there is nothing that stands over God or outside of him to cause him to come into being.

As self-sufficient, God has no needs (cf. Ps. 50:7–14; Acts 17:24–25). "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things" (Rom. 11:35–36). Consequently, his love is a gracious, self-giving love, for he has nothing to gain by it. In his perfection, he is unchangeable in his character, providing a sure foundation for our faith.

Also, because God is self-sufficient, he is essentially unknowable, unless he chooses to make himself known. Like the author of a book, God stands outside the story of creation. Nothing in the book can stand over the author as a cause, explanation, or authority. God is answerable to no one, and everyone is answerable to him. And the characters in the book can know about the author only if the author chooses somehow to reveal himself in the book.

In the same way, we are totally dependent upon God to make himself known to us. He cannot be grasped by scientific investigation, for he stands above our world of cause and effect. No wonder Job's friend Zophar can ask,

Can you fathom the mysteries of God?

Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?

They are higher than the heavens—what can you do?

They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know?

Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.

(Job 11:7–9)

 

E. God Is Loving

Though clearly both Testaments affirm God's holiness and God's love, when we move to the New Testament, God's love receives a new place of prominence. John, in his first letter, makes the statement not once but twice: "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:8, 16). With the coming of Jesus, God revealed himself in a new way. Instead of viewing God from the outside, in Jesus Christ we now see God's own inner life as the holy God who loves. Furthermore, these two divine attributes, love and holiness, are not contradictory but complementary. Because God is one, his love is always perfectly holy, and his holiness is always perfectly loving.

 

F. The One God Is Triune

Love is a personal quality, for only persons can love. This makes the God of the Bible different from some life-force of science fiction or from the "ground of all Being" found in Hinduism or Buddhism. The God of the Bible is a personal God who is love.

In fact, the God of the Bible has revealed himself to be so personal, so full of love, that he has personal relationships of love within himself. Though he is one God, he has within himself three persons, revealed to us as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of these persons is equally divine, and these three have forever existed as one God in an eternal union of love. As affirmed in the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), these three are one in nature and essence—they are of "the same being (homoousion)." They are distinct in the relationship they have with one another, for the capacity for relationship is at the heart of the notion of "person" when used of the members of the Trinity.

The term "Trinity" is found nowhere in the Bible, but that term crystallizes the truth found there. God is spoken of as the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (e.g., Rom. 1:7–9). Divine qualities and functions are ascribed to Jesus the Son (e.g., Matt. 10:37; Mark 2:5–7; John 5:18), and he is directly described as God (e.g., John 1:1; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Col. 2:9). The Holy Spirit, too, is put in the place of God (Acts 5:3, 4; John 15:26; Mark 3:29). Furthermore, a number of passages speak of the three together, most notably, Jesus' command to baptize "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19; cf. also Matt. 3:16–17; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4–6; 1 Pet. 1:2). Our God is a triune God—one God in three persons.

There is one God, but this one God has never been alone. God was love within himself before he ever created a world to love, for within himself the Father loved the Son and the Son loved the Father and the Holy Spirit himself was caught up in this unity of love. God existed eternally in this unity of love.

We confess that this Trinitarian nature of God is a great mystery beyond our understanding, but it is also glorious and beautiful in the way it shows our God to be a God of love—eternally. He is a God of relationships who creates human beings in his image to relate to him and to one another in love.

And if we may anticipate where our exposition of God's gospel will take us, we know that it is on the cross of Christ that God's holy love is most clearly displayed. Understanding God as Trinity is essential to our understanding of the gospel. Paul's affirmation that "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8) can only be true if the Christ who dies is also the God who loves. The Trinitarian union of the Father and the Son makes it possible for the holy judge who loves sinners to maintain his justice by taking their judgment upon himself in the death of his Son. The action on the cross is truly an action of God upon himself. In a marvelous way, mercy is achieved at the very moment that justice is satisfied. In this glorious gospel, God is holy and God is loving at the same time, magnificently manifesting the wondrous perfections of the eternal triune God. This triune understanding of God is central to our faith.

 

II. The Gospel Is the Outworking of God's Eternal Purpose

If you were to tell the story of your own life as a Christian, the story of your own spiritual journey, where would you begin? You might begin with the time of your conversion—that moment when you consciously turned from your sin and trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But as you think about your story and how you came to faith, you might realize that the moment of your conversion was not the beginning of God's work in your life at all. The Lord used many people and events before that point to influence you and draw you to himself.

The Apostle Paul said that very thing about his life with God. In Galatians 1:15, he recognized that God set him apart from birth and called him by his grace so that he might preach Christ among the Gentiles. But when Paul reflected on the story of God's grace in his life, he reached back beyond his conversion, even beyond his birth. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul took the story of God's grace in his life—and in the lives of everyone in the family of God—back to the very beginning, to the eternal purpose of God himself: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will" (Eph. 1:3–5).

Our first SOF Article provides five lessons about God's purposes:

 

A. God Has Purposed from Eternity to Redeem a Family

"God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world." And it's not just in Ephesians that Paul spoke like this. In 2 Timothy 1:9, the apostle confessed that God "has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time." Or consider Titus 1:2: "our faith and knowledge rest on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time…"

Even before the first sin spoiled the good world that he had made, God knew what he was going to do. He had created human beings in his own image so that the eternal Son of God would be able to take humanity into himself and to enter into our world and become incarnate as a human being like us. This was part of God's eternal purpose.

From eternity, God purposed more than just the incarnation of Christ. God's eternal purpose included Jesus' death, for the Bible speaks of Christ as "the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). The Lamb was slain to redeem a people who would be God's very own, a people redeemed to know him, to love him, and to serve him forever (Titus 2:14; 1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 1 Chron. 17:21).

There is a great mystery here, but the central point of it all must be this: the gospel that has impacted our lives does not begin with us. We are not Christians because of our efforts to seek God out. It is not because of our cleverness or our goodness or our religiosity that we are adopted into God's family. No, the gospel that has come to us and saved us begins with God. He loved us before we ever thought about loving him: "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Eph. 1:4). "This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time" (Titus 1:9). So we believe that God has graciously purposed from eternity to redeem a people for himself (cf. also 2 Tim. 1:9; Eph. 1:11; 3:10; Rom. 8:29–30).

 

B. God Acts with Limitless Knowledge and Sovereign Power

Certainly, among Evangelicals there are various ways of understanding how God's purposes play out in human history. Various views, including both the Arminian/Wesleyan and Reformed versions, with their different conceptions of the mysterious interplay of the human and divine wills, are acceptable within the parameters of our SOF. While affirming God's sovereignty, we believe that this sovereignty never minimizes human responsibility. And while we are morally responsible creatures, making significant choices to obey, rebel, believe, etc., and rightly held responsible for our actions, we can never make God absolutely contingent upon our wills.

However we may formulate the notion of human freedom, we affirm that nothing can thwart God's gracious purpose. We believe that God has limitless knowledge and sovereign power, ensuring that he will bring that purpose to fulfillment. His exhaustive foreknowledge includes even the future acts of human beings, even future acts regarded as "free" acts, and his omnipotence entails that nothing is outside his sovereign will. He "works all things in conformity with his will," Paul writes (Eph. 1:11).

This is not a deterministic fatalism of the sort expressed in Islam but the outworking of the gracious will of a personal God. Our heavenly Father is working for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). Our response is not simply submission to an impersonal power but faith and trust in a loving Father.

 

C. God Will Redeem a Family for Himself from Among All Peoples

God's redeeming purpose in Christ is not simply to save individual sinners but to save a people—a family of believers united in Christ. At LAC, we often refer to this as "God's unexpected family." It is unexpected because a divided and warring world can hardly imagine such a diverse family. However, it is not at all unexpected to God, for it is in accordance with his eternal purposes. Beginning with his covenant with Abraham, God purposed to bring blessing to all nations (Gen. 18:18: 22:18; 26:4; cf. Ps. 72:17; Isa. 2:2). Now, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, that new people is coming into being (cf. Eph. 2:11–22).

"Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all," Paul wrote (Col. 3:11). John pictured this new people in its heavenly glory as "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb…crying out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb'" (Rev. 7:9–10). The creation of this new people, uniting Jew and Gentile into one new body, is "according to [God's] eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:11). This purpose of God is now ours to embrace as we seek to make disciples among all people. In so doing, the church becomes an outpost of that new people God is creating in Christ—a sign to the world anticipating the kingdom [2] that God will finally bring to pass in the new heaven and the new earth.

 

D. God Will Make All Things New

As the creator of all things, God's gracious purpose is not only to redeem a people for himself to live in some ethereal and immaterial state. He has revealed his intention to restore his fallen creation, or, to use the language of the Book of Revelation, "to make all things new" (Rev. 21:5). The final, glorious state is described in the final chapters of the Bible as "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev. 21:1), a place where "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain" (21:5). Paul speaks of creation itself waiting in eager expectation for that glorious day when the dead are raised and "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom. 8:19–21). There, God will dwell with his people forever.

God is great and God is good. In his grace and in his power, he is both willing and able to save what has been lost and restore what has been spoiled. Through his knowledge of all things, he will act in a way that one day will be understood to be perfect wisdom. We are to pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and we can be assured that it will be. At the climax of human history as we know it, he will remove the barrier between heaven and earth, and all of his creatures will proclaim him the king of all creation.

 

E. God Will Act For His Own Glory

To what end does God act? Ultimately, all that God does is for his own glory. This is the highest end, the summum bonum, the final good, for the glory of God himself is the end for which all things exist. All creation is to display God's power and majesty, and human beings, especially, as those created in his image, redeemed and being conformed into the image of his Son, are to reflect his holy and loving character in the world he has made. When God is glorified, all creatures see what he is like. The redeemed and restored global family of God is one of the two main places God makes his glory known, as Paul said in Eph. 3:21: "To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever!" When creatures seek to know what God is like, they should look first to Jesus, for to see him is "to see the Father" (John 14:9). And, they should look at his church that should declare his love, faithfulness, unity with plurality, heart for reconciliation, and power to re-create. God's purpose, according to Eph. 3:10–11, "was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."

We must never forget that the gospel is finally not about us but about God and his glory. In his wisdom, this gospel is ours by God's grace through faith, not by works, so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8–9; cf. 1 Cor. 2:28–29), and God alone will receive the praise. One day, John's vision will be realized, and "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them" will sing, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, forever and ever!" (Rev. 5:13).

To God's glory alone,

 

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor

 

Daily Devotionals

 

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Article 1: Who God Is: Community and Compassion
We believe in one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in a unity of love in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to establish a redeemed family from among all peoples and to make all things new for His own glory.

Family Devotional for the Week
2 Corinthians 13:14 (Read as a Family)

My dad has always been a terrible dancer. And when I say terrible, I mean terrible. He can't keep a beat to save his life. So imagine my surprise when on my wedding day, he comes to the dance floor for the Father/ Daughter dance with a big smile on his face. I had resigned myself to the fact that our "special dance" wouldn't be much of a dance at all; it would be more like an awkward hug with a little leg movement. But my dad gave me the biggest gift that day by learning how to dance! He had practiced; he had trained; he had learned the steps. And we moved as one on that dance floor.

• Pause together as a family. Put on your favorite dancing music. Frozen soundtrack? VBS songs? The newest song on the radio? Have a dance party!
• Or, if your kids are a little older, you can watch a dance on YouTube. One of my favorites is from the show, So You Think You Can Dance. Watch this dance together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxSuWjkdrE0.

Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons of God have been known for almost 2,000 years as the Holy Trinity. Three Persons, One God. Isn't that mysterious? Confusing? Hard to understand, but also mind-blowing? And the church has—from the earliest years—called this dynamic the Divine Dance. The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are three separate persons who move so closely together, whose relationships are so vulnerable, it is as if they are one. And they are one. They are woven together in their love for one another. It's almost like the relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so close that "When one weeps, the other tastes salt" (said by C. Baxter Kruger). Can you imagine that? Being so close to your brother or your sister that you can actually taste their tears? That's really close. And that's how it is with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They move as one in the Divine Dance.

And the good news of the Gospel is that we are invited into this Divine Dance! We are invited to join in the mysterious love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is a God who IS LOVE, and he has invited us into that eternal love story.

Response Time:

• Take some yarn or string and braid friendship bracelets. Take 3 different kinds of thread/string/yarn and weave them together. As you do this as a family, talk about how the three strands are becoming one. Remind your kids that this is a lot like how God is.
• For families with older kids: How can you be inviting others into this Divine Dance—showing others the grace of our LORD Jesus Chris, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit—as you go through your day today?

~Annie Neufeld

 

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Monday
Psalm 8:1-4

Sirens pierced the countryside. My sisters and I stopped what we were doing and ran to see what it was. Growing up in the country the sound of sirens was not common. It was a rattling and upsetting sound that jolted all to attention. My grandma had a great way of handling this disturbing sound. She would encourage us to stop and pray. Therefore, causing a sound that began as a rattling fear to end as a connection with God, a plea through the blood of Jesus to protect the people involved in this tragedy.

Psalm 8:1-4 reminds us of God's greatness! God is the creator of all things. He is perfect, infinite, with limitless knowledge, strength and power. God is to be praised above all earth and heaven! With this knowledge and the faith of a child, something even as scary as a siren piercing the countryside is silenced. It is silenced because we know the end of the story. Our God conquers all foes and hears the prayers of His children! So when we hear a siren, which is a much more common call to prayer in the city, don't let fear take over, but instead run to the Father, the maker of Heaven and earth, and find peace in His strength and consideration of us.

"Lord oh Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth! You made your glory higher than heaven! From the mouths of nursing babies you have laid a strong foundation because of your foes, in order to stop vengeful enemies. When I look up at the skies, at what your fingers made – the moon and the stars that you set firmly in place – what are human beings that you pay attention to them?"

~Melinda Manus

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Tuesday
Ephesians 3:1-14

There are some key moments in human history where the church has shone so brightly that onlookers had to stop and take notice. Down in what is now Little Tokyo, at 312 Azusa Street, by what is now a Pinkberry, the Azusa Street Revival began. To the news media's horror and consternation, African Americans and Whites were worshipping together. The LA Times reported, "Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshippers..." Just a little while later, the Lake Avenue Church began because of what happened a few miles away in downtown LA.

Paul called this aspect of the gospel a "mystery"! Sometimes, when the church shines, its light confuses those who do not have eyes of faith to see what God requires and is bringing to fruition. The Apostle Paul was once opposed to God's plan. Having been graciously and miraculously "corrected" by an encounter with the resurrected Jesus, Paul counts it a privilege to give his whole life to this gospel that requires us to live reconciled to God and to one another. His task is now ours: to make known to all of creation that God's children are united because Jesus is our One Lord!

God's intent now calls for our intentionality. Think about who you see in the body of Christ at Lake. Now, think about people and groups of people in your neighborhood and in our city who are not yet in the body of Christ. Spend some time praying that God would raise up someone – perhaps even you – to cross over into their lives and that they would be reconciled to God and to his people.

~Jeff Liou

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Wednesday
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

How we teach children? Do we model the best examples we can be? Do we speak truth to them about this life? Do constantly fill them up with knowledge by experience?

The things I remember most of my early Christian training were done by real leaders coming to experience the power of God together. I remember when my leaders would take me to lunch with them and show genuine kindness to others and genuine interest in me. They would impress upon me the way of living that brings glory to the Father. A life that is open to the Spirit. An appreciation for the Son and His sacrifice for us.

This passage is a powerful one, Moses is writing to his people telling to them never to forget where they have come from. Specifically to interact with your young people, let them hear the laws of our people and how the God we worship is the God of wonder, power, and is the one true Lord over all.

Today, think of how you have impressed the ways of our Father onto this next generation. How can we, as a church, make sure that those who our own children grow knowing that they belong to one true Lord?

~Blake Riboli

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Thursday
Matthew 28:18-20

I don't know how many times I have prayed or wished that Jesus would just show up in person and help me through a difficult time. Have you ever hoped for that? Like one of the popular super hero movies where the hero arrives just in the nick of time to save the world or the person in distress. We know those movies are a fantasy, but somehow, we want Jesus to be there for us in a very real way.

Jesus knew we would want that, and he knew we would need that...but why do we have a hard time experiencing what he promised in Mathew 28? "I am with you always..." Perhaps we struggle in the same way as the early disciples. As finite human beings they had a hard time understanding how one God could be experienced through three distinct persons. Maybe this is why Jesus was so explicit in his instructions to baptize people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Maybe I keep looking for Jesus to show up and I am overlooking the fact that the Holy Spirit is with me always, just like he promised. He is not in my life to help me accomplish my plan. When I put my faith in Jesus it was not so that he could come follow me and be with me as I pursue my dreams. Jesus invites us to come and follow HIM. His promise of his presence is for those who belong to him by faith and who are living in obedience to everything Jesus commanded (v.29).

Are you in trouble? Are you crying out to Jesus for help? Stop and think about this... The One God, Creator of all things, with limitless knowledge and power; loves you and has promised to be with you always. Put on eyes of faith and follow him in obedience and hope. What do you think God wants you to see today through eyes of faith?

~John Secrest

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Friday
Galatians 4:6

I love music and I've been to many concerts over the years. There's just something special about watching a live performance! However, one thing that I've never had the privilege to do is to go backstage. I've not been given the chance to meet some of my favorite musicians face-to-face.

But there is an access that I have been granted, access into the "backstage area" with God! In fact, anyone who has been granted the forgiveness of God thanks to the saving work of Christ is given this access. We've been transferred from being slaves to "the basic principles of the world" to becoming full children of God.

The Holy Spirit, based on the finished work of Jesus, is the one who places the lanyard around our necks that gets us into the backstage area. And what happens there? Well, we are given the opportunity not just to do a brief meet-and-greet with God, but instead we are granted full access to a relationship with him forever.

And the way the Paul talks about this relationship with God in this passage is like that between a loving father and a child.

As his children, we can fully trust God because he is fully loving toward us. We can, through the power of the Spirit, call out to God, saying "Abba, Father," which means something akin to "Daddy."

This intimate relationship is at the core of what it means to belong to God. This is everything!

~Matt Barnes

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Saturday
2 Corinthians 13:14

My dad has always been a terrible dancer. And when I say terrible, I mean terrible. He can't keep a beat to save his life. So imagine my surprise when on my wedding day, he comes to the dance floor for the Father/ Daughter dance with a big smile on his face. I had resigned myself to the fact that our "special dance" wouldn't be much of a dance at all; it would be more like an awkward hug with a little leg movement. But my dad gave me the biggest gift that day by learning how to dance! He had practiced; he had trained; he had learned the steps. And we moved as one on that dance floor.

Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons of God have been known since the early years of the church as the Holy Trinity. Three Persons, One God. And the church has—from the earliest years—called this dynamic the Divine Dance. The persons of the Trinity are three separate persons who move so intimately together, whose relationship is so vulnerable, it is as if they are one. And they are one. They are woven together in their love for one another. J. Baxter Kruger has said that the relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so close that "When one weeps, the other tastes salt." They move as one in the Divine Dance.

And the good news of the gospel is that we are invited into this Divine Dance! We are invited to join in the mysterious love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is a God who IS LOVE, and he has invited us into that eternal love story.

Take a moment to sit in silence, allowing the words of Scripture to rush over you: "God is love." Meditate on those words for a minute or two.

How can you be inviting others into this Divine Dance—showing others the grace of our LORD Jesus Chris, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit—as you go through your day today?

~Annie Neufeld