Theology: God is Incomprehensible

Aaron talks about the theological theme of God being Incomprehensible. God is different from us; and that’s a good thing. God will always hold some mystery for us because an unlimited God cannot be fully known by a limited being. But if this is true, can we really "know" God, or will this barrier cause a wall between God and humanity? These questions and more explored on today's episode!

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00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 God is incomprehensible.

00:00:07 --> 00:00:09 What does that actually mean?

00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 The main idea of it is God is different from you,

00:00:13 --> 00:00:14 and that's a good thing.

00:00:15 --> 00:00:20 God will always hold some mystery for us because an unlimited

00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 God cannot be fully

00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 known by a limited being.

00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 Okay, so the way I think of this is, man...

00:00:29 --> 00:00:38 Man, God cannot be fully known by us as limited, finite humans.

00:00:39 --> 00:00:43 There are a few things that come to my mind when I think about this.

00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 The first is, okay, here's an analogy, all right?

00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 Imagine an ant, okay?

00:00:50 --> 00:00:55 A tiny insect that forages for food and is very,

00:00:55 --> 00:00:55 very,

00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 very tiny and small.

00:00:58 --> 00:01:03 And imagine that ant trying to comprehend a MacBook Pro, okay?

00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 If you use Windows, I'm sorry, but I use a Mac.

00:01:07 --> 00:01:08 I think they're infinitely better.

00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 And I used to use Windows a lot, okay?

00:01:11 --> 00:01:17 I was a Windows XP guy, and it was great for a time, but okay, I digress.

00:01:17 --> 00:01:18 Back to the analogy.

00:01:18 --> 00:01:19 So an ant.

00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 An ant looking at a MacBook Pro.

00:01:22 --> 00:01:26 Can the ant fully know the MacBook Pro?

00:01:27 --> 00:01:28 Probably not.

00:01:29 --> 00:01:29 Why?

00:01:30 --> 00:01:30 Why is that?

00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 Well, it's because of capacity.

00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 The capacity of the ant.

00:01:35 --> 00:01:36 If that ant looks at the MacBook Pro,

00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 if it crawls up on it,

00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 if it takes its feelers and starts feeling the MacBook Pro,

00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 what is that ant going to understand?

00:01:44 --> 00:01:48 It's going to understand that the Mac is smooth.

00:01:48 --> 00:01:49 It can feel that.

00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 And it's going to realize that the Mac is shiny.

00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 The bright screen is going to tell it that.

00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 But can the Ant fully know what that MacBook Pro is?

00:02:00 --> 00:02:00 No.

00:02:00 --> 00:02:06 I mean, the Ant can't see behind the metallic curtain of the MacBook Pro.

00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 It has no idea what a processor chip is.

00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 It doesn't know what a motherboard is or RAM.

00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 It has no concept of those things at all.

00:02:17 --> 00:02:18 It's unknowable to the ant.

00:02:18 --> 00:02:22 The ant can know some things, but it can't know all the things.

00:02:22 --> 00:02:26 And in a lot of ways, that's the reality of God.

00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 I mean, God is incomprehensible.

00:02:28 --> 00:02:32 We're like ants trying to figure out a divine spirit being from

00:02:32 --> 00:02:33 another dimension,

00:02:34 --> 00:02:34 right?

00:02:34 --> 00:02:34 Yeah.

00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 I mean, we can know some things for sure.

00:02:38 --> 00:02:42 We look at the Bible and the Bible tells us a lot about God,

00:02:42 --> 00:02:46 a lot about his character and his heart and who he is in his story.

00:02:46 --> 00:02:51 I mean, God has revealed so much of who he is to us.

00:02:51 --> 00:02:52 through the scriptures.

00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 We also have personal experience.

00:02:55 --> 00:02:59 I have experienced God in the ways that he's shown up in my

00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 life and blessed me and

00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 spoken to me specifically about things going on in my life.

00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 Yeah, I can know those things about God.

00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 But there's a lot of things going on in the spiritual realm

00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 that I just don't get yet.

00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 I mean, think about the Trinity, right?

00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 The God is three in one?

00:03:20 --> 00:03:21 One God in three persons?

00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 Dude, I don't even know.

00:03:24 --> 00:03:29 I have literally tried to wrap my brain around what that means.

00:03:30 --> 00:03:30 I mean,

00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 I even wrote in to a seminary professor and was like,

00:03:34 --> 00:03:36 what do you think about these questions about the Trinity?

00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 And his response was like, yeah, no one really knows.

00:03:40 --> 00:03:44 Like, I'm a seminary professor and I still don't have this figured out.

00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 The Trinity is a divine mystery.

00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 So yeah, in a lot of ways we can know God.

00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 But then there's some ways where we're not going to know him

00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 fully until we meet

00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 him face to face and we're able to ask those questions.

00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 And then I hope,

00:04:01 --> 00:04:01 I feel,

00:04:01 --> 00:04:06 I truly hope that all those questions will be answered.

00:04:06 --> 00:04:07 Now listen,

00:04:07 --> 00:04:07 this is like,

00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 it's not a disclaimer of,

00:04:09 --> 00:04:10 you know,

00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 we don't know this God.

00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 We have no idea who this God is.

00:04:14 --> 00:04:15 No, no, no, it's not that.

00:04:15 --> 00:04:20 It's rather we as finite beings cannot fully comprehend the God

00:04:20 --> 00:04:21 who created all

00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 because we have been created by him,

00:04:25 --> 00:04:25 right?

00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 Like we are creations of the creator.

00:04:29 --> 00:04:33 The creator is the one who has all of the inside information in

00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 how the creation was made.

00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 I don't have that information.

00:04:38 --> 00:04:39 You don't have that information.

00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 The reality is our knowledge of God is always going to be kind

00:04:43 --> 00:04:43 of limited.

00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 And I think it has to do again with capacity, right?

00:04:46 --> 00:04:47 We talked about the ant.

00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 The ant has a certain capacity to understand the MacBook Pro.

00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 Here's another analogy for you.

00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 Think about a cup of water, right?

00:04:57 --> 00:04:58 A glass of water.

00:04:58 --> 00:05:04 Let's imagine that this glass of water represents mankind's

00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 capacity for knowledge.

00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 A person like me, I would say like I'm...

00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 That glass is not full to the top.

00:05:14 --> 00:05:14 OK,

00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 I am somebody who,

00:05:17 --> 00:05:17 you know,

00:05:17 --> 00:05:24 maybe I have two sixth full of my knowledge and I'm two sixth

00:05:24 --> 00:05:25 full of a glass.

00:05:25 --> 00:05:26 That's my that's my capacity.

00:05:26 --> 00:05:27 That's how much I've learned.

00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 But I still have a lot more to learn.

00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 And then let's take the smartest person in the world, right?

00:05:34 --> 00:05:35 They're a full glass of water.

00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 But then God, how smart is he?

00:05:39 --> 00:05:40 How knowledgeable is he?

00:05:41 --> 00:05:42 Well, he's not a full glass.

00:05:42 --> 00:05:43 He's the ocean.

00:05:43 --> 00:05:47 How much bigger is the ocean than a full glass of water?

00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 It's infinitely larger.

00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 and so in that way yeah the smartest human is that full glass

00:05:55 --> 00:05:56 but god's knowledge

00:05:56 --> 00:06:00 is the ocean he will always know more than us

00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 So here's the theological proposition.

00:06:09 --> 00:06:13 God is incomprehensible because he's preexistent.

00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 He was around before us.

00:06:16 --> 00:06:17 There was,

00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 I don't know if you know this,

00:06:19 --> 00:06:24 but there was like an entire thing that happened before we

00:06:24 --> 00:06:24 humans showed up.

00:06:25 --> 00:06:26 A lot of us, we read the Bible, right?

00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 Genesis 1 verse 1.

00:06:29 --> 00:06:29 What does it say?

00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 In the beginning, God created the heavens.

00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 and the earth and then we know he creates plants and animals

00:06:36 --> 00:06:37 and eventually humans

00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 But, okay, I love what John Mark Comer says.

00:06:41 --> 00:06:45 He talks about how when we read Genesis 1,

00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 it's like watching Star Wars and starting in Episode 4.

00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 You've got Luke Skywalker,

00:06:50 --> 00:06:51 you've got Han Solo,

00:06:51 --> 00:06:51 Leia,

00:06:52 --> 00:06:52 Chewbacca,

00:06:53 --> 00:06:54 Darth Vader.

00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 But what you don't realize if you're sitting there in the

00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 theaters in 1975 watching

00:06:59 --> 00:07:00 this movie,

00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 you don't realize that there is...

00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 Star Wars prequels that have been written,

00:07:06 --> 00:07:07 but they haven't been filmed yet.

00:07:07 --> 00:07:11 And so there's this whole history that actually is in the story

00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 and happened beforehand.

00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 Like Darth Vader just wasn't born Darth Vader.

00:07:16 --> 00:07:18 He has a storyline.

00:07:18 --> 00:07:22 There's a whole story leading up to him turning to the dark side.

00:07:22 --> 00:07:27 There's a war that has been going on for a long time before

00:07:27 --> 00:07:28 Luke Skywalker was even born.

00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 And in the same way for us as humans, it's very similar.

00:07:32 --> 00:07:33 We're thrown into this earth.

00:07:34 --> 00:07:35 We're thrown into this world.

00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 But what we don't realize is there's this war in heaven that's

00:07:38 --> 00:07:38 been going on for,

00:07:39 --> 00:07:39 I mean,

00:07:39 --> 00:07:40 we have no idea for a long,

00:07:40 --> 00:07:40 long time.

00:07:44 --> 00:07:45 Specifically,

00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 a battle between good and evil,

00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 between God and Satan,

00:07:50 --> 00:07:50 the enemy,

00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 between angels and demons.

00:07:52 --> 00:07:56 It's a war between heaven and the forces of darkness,

00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 a war for human souls.

00:08:00 --> 00:08:04 Angels and demons and powers of good and light and powers of

00:08:04 --> 00:08:05 evil and dark fighting

00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 for the future of humankind.

00:08:08 --> 00:08:12 God existed way before Genesis 1.

00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 There is a lot that has happened.

00:08:14 --> 00:08:15 before Genesis 1.

00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 And so we have to realize this plays in to that

00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 incomprehensibility of who God is.

00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 There are things that we don't know, and we have to be okay with that.

00:08:31 --> 00:08:31 Now,

00:08:32 --> 00:08:38 God can be known only as much as disclosed about him through his word,

00:08:38 --> 00:08:39 our world,

00:08:39 --> 00:08:40 the person of Jesus,

00:08:41 --> 00:08:42 and the work of the Holy Spirit.

00:08:43 --> 00:08:48 God is different than us, and his thoughts and ways are very different.

00:08:48 --> 00:08:48 God,

00:08:48 --> 00:08:52 he's on a whole different playing field in the way he thinks

00:08:52 --> 00:08:53 and operates.

00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 I mean, just like read the Bible.

00:08:55 --> 00:08:55 Yeah.

00:08:56 --> 00:09:02 He seems to revel in thinking and operating differently than us humans,

00:09:02 --> 00:09:03 right?

00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 Story of David and Goliath, you've got this giant terrorizing the land.

00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 The humans think, we've got to find the biggest, strongest guy.

00:09:09 --> 00:09:10 God says, no.

00:09:11 --> 00:09:15 Nope, I'm going to get the smallest dude, little David.

00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 Middle school-aged shepherd boy, David.

00:09:19 --> 00:09:20 Let's get him out there on the battlefield.

00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 It makes no sense to human comprehension,

00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 but God knew something that we didn't.

00:09:26 --> 00:09:30 Or, I mean, classic scenario, Joshua and the wall, right?

00:09:30 --> 00:09:30 You've got,

00:09:30 --> 00:09:31 like,

00:09:32 --> 00:09:36 some Ninevites terrorizing the Israelites,

00:09:36 --> 00:09:36 probably,

00:09:36 --> 00:09:37 you know,

00:09:37 --> 00:09:37 like,

00:09:38 --> 00:09:38 pouring...

00:09:39 --> 00:09:43 boiling acid off the wall on top of them, shooting arrows at them.

00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 Israel thinks, okay, we've got to get an army.

00:09:45 --> 00:09:46 We've got to fight.

00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 And God says, nope, form a marching band, march around the city.

00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 It'll be great.

00:09:50 --> 00:09:51 God just,

00:09:51 --> 00:09:51 I mean,

00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 he is on a whole different level because he's holding all of

00:09:54 --> 00:09:54 the cards.

00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 He knows everything.

00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 And so he sees every possible future,

00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 every possible contingency,

00:10:02 --> 00:10:07 and he knows exactly how to play things and how to make things work and

00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 in ways that we humans can't even comprehend.

00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 His thoughts and ways are different,

00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 and he's different in ways that we ought to be.

00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 What I mean by that is we should try to imitate him, right?

00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 Like, God is always the same.

00:10:21 --> 00:10:22 He's always faithful.

00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 He's always promise-keeping.

00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 A lot of times we humans are not.

00:10:27 --> 00:10:28 I don't know about you,

00:10:28 --> 00:10:32 but I tend to change a lot depending on my mood,

00:10:33 --> 00:10:34 depending on my circumstance,

00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 depending on how good or bad things are going for me.

00:10:37 --> 00:10:41 I change and I'm not always faithful to the things I say I'm going to do.

00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 I don't always keep my promises,

00:10:43 --> 00:10:44 but God,

00:10:44 --> 00:10:48 he's so different than us in that he always does these things.

00:10:48 --> 00:10:49 He always is faithful.

00:10:49 --> 00:10:50 He's always the same.

00:10:50 --> 00:10:51 He always keeps his promises.

00:10:52 --> 00:10:53 And so we as humans,

00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 we should look up to God as our spiritual father and say,

00:10:56 --> 00:10:56 man,

00:10:56 --> 00:10:57 I want to be like him.

00:10:58 --> 00:10:59 I want to imitate him.

00:10:59 --> 00:11:04 I want to live my life in a way where I am faithful,

00:11:04 --> 00:11:05 where I keep my promises.

00:11:10 --> 00:11:15 Another part of God's nature is God is always after his glory.

00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 Now, I'm just going to be honest for a second.

00:11:17 --> 00:11:21 This concept can sound weird, right?

00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 Like God is always after his glory.

00:11:24 --> 00:11:24 What does that mean?

00:11:24 --> 00:11:30 Like, I mean, imagine a human who's always after their own glory.

00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 Like I think of...

00:11:32 --> 00:11:33 Kanye West,

00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 before he went all Jesus-y,

00:11:35 --> 00:11:36 pre-Jesus Kanye,

00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 was all about the glory of Kanye.

00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 He was all about making Kanye's name known.

00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 He was all about being prideful and boasting and saying,

00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 I am the greatest of all time.

00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 So that's kind of like,

00:11:49 --> 00:11:50 I feel like when we bring up the reality of like,

00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 God is always after his own glory,

00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 it can be something where we kind of pause and go,

00:11:57 --> 00:11:58 huh,

00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 does God have like this moment?

00:12:01 --> 00:12:05 massive ego like what's going on there why is he always after

00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 his own glory okay so

00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 hold on just just stop for a second let's let's think about the

00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 hebrew word okay

00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 because the old testament is written in hebrew so we have to

00:12:17 --> 00:12:17 actually kind of

00:12:17 --> 00:12:23 consider what these words mean so the hebrew word for glory is

00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 kavod kavod kavod

00:12:26 --> 00:12:33 the kavod of the lord right and what it means is it is god's

00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 beauty and radiance

00:12:36 --> 00:12:42 all right it is his beauty and radiance it is something that is

00:12:43 --> 00:12:44 heavy something

00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 that is weighty all right

00:12:47 --> 00:12:48 So the glory of the Lord,

00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 the kavod of the Lord,

00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 is sort of like this bright light.

00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 Now you might be thinking like, I've never seen a bright light.

00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 Like I've never been in the middle of a rad worship session and

00:13:00 --> 00:13:01 all of a sudden the

00:13:01 --> 00:13:05 room just blinds me with a glorious kavod light of the Lord.

00:13:05 --> 00:13:06 Okay, so...

00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 That can be taken literally in the sense of,

00:13:10 --> 00:13:10 well,

00:13:10 --> 00:13:11 think of Moses,

00:13:12 --> 00:13:12 right?

00:13:12 --> 00:13:17 Moses goes up on the mountain to meet with God and he is literally like,

00:13:18 --> 00:13:19 not blinded,

00:13:19 --> 00:13:19 but man,

00:13:19 --> 00:13:20 I mean,

00:13:20 --> 00:13:20 close enough.

00:13:20 --> 00:13:21 The glory of the Lord,

00:13:21 --> 00:13:25 the kavod of the Lord meets him in that spot and his hair gets

00:13:25 --> 00:13:26 blown back and

00:13:26 --> 00:13:27 turned white.

00:13:27 --> 00:13:28 It's intense.

00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 So this idea of kavod,

00:13:31 --> 00:13:32 of God's glory,

00:13:32 --> 00:13:37 it points to this reality that God is something so different

00:13:37 --> 00:13:38 from us humans.

00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 Like, he is very different.

00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 One great analogy is the sun.

00:13:43 --> 00:13:44 Think about the sun.

00:13:45 --> 00:13:46 Is the sun like you?

00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 No, the sun is very different.

00:13:49 --> 00:13:53 It can be blinding if you stare at the sun.

00:13:53 --> 00:13:54 The sun is not a human.

00:13:55 --> 00:13:55 It's not an animal.

00:13:55 --> 00:13:56 It's not a plant.

00:13:56 --> 00:14:00 It is a big burning ball of fire in the sky.

00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 And yes, I know scientifically it's a star.

00:14:03 --> 00:14:04 But yeah, to quote...

00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 Pumbaa from The Lion King.

00:14:08 --> 00:14:10 It's like a big burning ball of gas in the sky.

00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 It is so different from you.

00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 If you get too close to it, it can destroy you.

00:14:16 --> 00:14:17 It can burn you.

00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 So this reality of God's glory is one.

00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 It's acknowledging God is different.

00:14:23 --> 00:14:23 He is different.

00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 He is amazing.

00:14:28 --> 00:14:29 And when I recognize,

00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 when I recognize how big God is,

00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 how amazing he is,

00:14:34 --> 00:14:35 how good he is,

00:14:35 --> 00:14:36 how fantastic he is,

00:14:37 --> 00:14:38 what I'm doing is I,

00:14:38 --> 00:14:44 I am recognizing the glory of the Lord and I'm stoked on it.

00:14:44 --> 00:14:45 It's a good thing.

00:14:45 --> 00:14:49 Sort of like when you go to a really good concert and you hear

00:14:49 --> 00:14:50 a band and you're like,

00:14:50 --> 00:14:51 oh,

00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 this band is amazing.

00:14:54 --> 00:14:54 It's so good.

00:14:55 --> 00:14:55 When you're doing that,

00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 you are reveling in the glory,

00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 the kavod of that band.

00:15:00 --> 00:15:05 When you go and see an amazing Star Wars movie like The Rise of

00:15:05 --> 00:15:06 Skywalker coming

00:15:06 --> 00:15:07 out in a few days,

00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 which I'm hoping is amazing.

00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 I'm hoping to be sitting in that theater experiencing the glory,

00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 the kavod of that movie.

00:15:17 --> 00:15:22 So let's circle back to that idea of God looking after his own kavod,

00:15:22 --> 00:15:28 like trying to go after his own glory.

00:15:29 --> 00:15:30 Is this a bad thing?

00:15:30 --> 00:15:31 Is it a negative thing?

00:15:31 --> 00:15:32 Is it an ego trip thing?

00:15:33 --> 00:15:34 I would say no.

00:15:34 --> 00:15:35 And here is why.

00:15:36 --> 00:15:44 Humans were created specifically to know God and to be known by God.

00:15:44 --> 00:15:48 That is like one of our primary functions to experience God,

00:15:49 --> 00:15:50 his friendship,

00:15:50 --> 00:15:51 his goodness,

00:15:51 --> 00:15:52 his fatherhood in our lives.

00:15:53 --> 00:15:58 And so when God is revealing his glory to us,

00:15:58 --> 00:15:59 when he's pointing to his glory,

00:15:59 --> 00:16:00 it's not God saying,

00:16:00 --> 00:16:00 hey,

00:16:01 --> 00:16:02 look what I can do.

00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 Hey, I'm pretty amazing.

00:16:04 --> 00:16:05 Hey, check me out.

00:16:05 --> 00:16:06 That's not what he's doing.

00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 He is trying to get us,

00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 the humans that were created specifically to be in this

00:16:12 --> 00:16:13 relationship with him.

00:16:13 --> 00:16:19 He's trying to get us to recognize who he is and how he loves

00:16:19 --> 00:16:20 and what he's about.

00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 That's what he's doing when he's after his own glory.

00:16:23 --> 00:16:28 He's trying to expose the goodness of himself to us.

00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 Like go back to that idea of the sun, right?

00:16:31 --> 00:16:32 The sun is good.

00:16:32 --> 00:16:36 Like, those rays of the sun give us life.

00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 They help things grow.

00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 They help us see.

00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 They give us light and guidance.

00:16:44 --> 00:16:45 The rays of the sun are good.

00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 The glory of the sun is good.

00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 It's good for us to experience the sun.

00:16:50 --> 00:16:51 If the sun were to be like, yeah...

00:16:52 --> 00:16:53 I'm pretty great,

00:16:53 --> 00:16:53 you know,

00:16:53 --> 00:16:54 as a star and all,

00:16:54 --> 00:16:55 but,

00:16:55 --> 00:16:55 you know,

00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 I'm going to hide these rays.

00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 I don't want to be all about myself.

00:16:59 --> 00:17:03 I'll just, you know, go and set in the West and never come back up.

00:17:04 --> 00:17:06 That would not be a good thing for us humans.

00:17:06 --> 00:17:11 We want to experience the glory of the sun because we need it.

00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 And so in the same way,

00:17:13 --> 00:17:17 For us as humans, it is good for us to experience the glory of God.

00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 When God is revealing his glory,

00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 when he's going after his own glory,

00:17:22 --> 00:17:24 he's actually doing us a huge favor.

00:17:25 --> 00:17:26 Because I don't know about you,

00:17:26 --> 00:17:26 but in my experience,

00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 the more I'm exposed to the glory of God and who he is,

00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 the better my life becomes.

00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 The deeper I go in my friendship with God,

00:17:36 --> 00:17:42 the more I realize his role and his power and his place in my life

00:17:42 --> 00:17:46 It is a good thing for God to always be after his glory.

00:17:46 --> 00:17:49 So let's take a second and talk about,

00:17:50 --> 00:17:50 man,

00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 what makes this difficult in our culture?

00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 The idea of God being incomprehensible.

00:17:57 --> 00:17:58 How is that hard?

00:17:58 --> 00:18:02 Like when we get out of theology speak and all of this jargon

00:18:02 --> 00:18:02 and we go to like

00:18:03 --> 00:18:04 practical daily living,

00:18:04 --> 00:18:05 what does this actually look like?

00:18:06 --> 00:18:07 Well, think about this.

00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 We like things that we can figure out.

00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 I don't know about you, but I don't like things I can't figure out.

00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 When I buy a new piece of technology and it comes with a

00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 20-page instruction manual

00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 that I can barely understand,

00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 that is frustrating to me.

00:18:23 --> 00:18:25 I like to understand things.

00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 I like to know things.

00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 Think back to when you were a little kid.

00:18:29 --> 00:18:30 Man,

00:18:30 --> 00:18:31 do you remember when your parents were like,

00:18:31 --> 00:18:32 hey,

00:18:32 --> 00:18:33 do this thing,

00:18:33 --> 00:18:34 and you were like,

00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 I don't understand why I have to do that thing.

00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 And they were like, well, just do it.

00:18:39 --> 00:18:39 I'm the parent.

00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 Dude, that is so frustrating.

00:18:44 --> 00:18:45 Oh my gosh.

00:18:45 --> 00:18:47 That just, that would kill me.

00:18:47 --> 00:18:48 I hated that.

00:18:49 --> 00:18:50 I wanted to know the reason.

00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 I was always asking the reason.

00:18:53 --> 00:18:54 And so for us,

00:18:54 --> 00:18:54 I mean,

00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 we really do like things that we can figure out,

00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 things that we can put boxes or Enneagram numbers around.

00:19:01 --> 00:19:02 But throughout the course of time,

00:19:03 --> 00:19:07 God has always stood outside our own human understanding.

00:19:08 --> 00:19:12 Things happen in our world that don't have an easy answer.

00:19:12 --> 00:19:16 things about the Bible and the nature of God that we don't have

00:19:16 --> 00:19:17 an easy answer for.

00:19:17 --> 00:19:22 But what we do know is that there is a God who made our world in us.

00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 And this God is love.

00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 His nature is one of self-giving love.

00:19:29 --> 00:19:33 And in Jesus, we see that, but we only see it in part.

00:19:34 --> 00:19:35 And man, this can be hard.

00:19:35 --> 00:19:36 I think for young people,

00:19:37 --> 00:19:37 honestly,

00:19:37 --> 00:19:42 this can be so hard because man,

00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 we are trying to be good Christians.

00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 We're trying to live our life and obey our parents and do the

00:19:48 --> 00:19:49 right thing and

00:19:50 --> 00:19:51 Avoid sin.

00:19:51 --> 00:19:55 And we grow up in Sunday school and we get these lessons passed

00:19:56 --> 00:19:56 down to us.

00:19:57 --> 00:19:58 Follow God.

00:19:58 --> 00:19:59 Obey your parents.

00:19:59 --> 00:20:00 Read the Bible.

00:20:00 --> 00:20:01 Trust God.

00:20:01 --> 00:20:02 Serve Jesus.

00:20:03 --> 00:20:04 Preach the gospel.

00:20:05 --> 00:20:06 This is what matters.

00:20:06 --> 00:20:07 This is what life is about.

00:20:08 --> 00:20:08 But man,

00:20:09 --> 00:20:13 all of that stuff can become so confusing when things happen

00:20:13 --> 00:20:14 that we don't understand.

00:20:14 --> 00:20:18 When we go through a really bad breakup with somebody that we

00:20:18 --> 00:20:18 thought we were going

00:20:18 --> 00:20:19 to be with forever.

00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 Or when somebody that we're really close to dies.

00:20:23 --> 00:20:28 Or when we go through a major life setback that we had no idea

00:20:28 --> 00:20:28 was coming.

00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 Man, it can be so hard.

00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 Because we look at God in those moments and we think like,

00:20:35 --> 00:20:37 why would you let this happen?

00:20:37 --> 00:20:38 I need to know.

00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 I need to know.

00:20:40 --> 00:20:44 what your reasoning is and when i read the bible i don't find

00:20:44 --> 00:20:44 the answers and it's

00:20:45 --> 00:20:49 so stinking frustrating i mean for me personally like almost

00:20:49 --> 00:20:51 just a year ago my my

00:20:51 --> 00:20:57 cousin tony who was one of my dearest friends an amazing guy

00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 just servant of jesus

00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 lover of jesus lover of people

00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 He had his whole life ahead of him.

00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 He was dating this girl.

00:21:06 --> 00:21:07 They were going to get married,

00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 just all of this amazing stuff in his life.

00:21:10 --> 00:21:13 And then out of nowhere, he gets hit by a car and dies.

00:21:14 --> 00:21:16 That happened almost a year ago.

00:21:16 --> 00:21:18 And man,

00:21:18 --> 00:21:19 when that happened,

00:21:19 --> 00:21:22 I remember just lying on the ground,

00:21:22 --> 00:21:24 staring up at the ceiling and saying like,

00:21:24 --> 00:21:24 God,

00:21:25 --> 00:21:26 how could you let this happen?

00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 Why would you let this happen?

00:21:28 --> 00:21:29 I don't understand you.

00:21:30 --> 00:21:31 This doesn't make sense to me.

00:21:32 --> 00:21:33 How could you allow this?

00:21:33 --> 00:21:37 And I know a lot of you guys listening to this, you've been there.

00:21:37 --> 00:21:41 You've been in situations where all of the fuzzy,

00:21:41 --> 00:21:42 happy,

00:21:43 --> 00:21:44 sing-songy,

00:21:44 --> 00:21:44 churchy,

00:21:44 --> 00:21:45 flannel graph,

00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 veggie tales answers don't work.

00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 where it doesn't make sense to just throw up your hands and say,

00:21:52 --> 00:21:52 praise the Lord,

00:21:53 --> 00:21:53 all is good.

00:21:54 --> 00:21:57 When you go through these radical life challenges,

00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 it can be so hard to trust God.

00:21:59 --> 00:22:01 It can be so frustrating.

00:22:01 --> 00:22:03 The reality that he is incomprehensible,

00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 that we can't know everything is so,

00:22:07 --> 00:22:08 so hard.

00:22:09 --> 00:22:12 But that is where faith really does come in.

00:22:12 --> 00:22:15 That is where we have to trust God.

00:22:16 --> 00:22:23 We have to put our faith in the reality of who God has told us he is.

00:22:23 --> 00:22:24 And what has he told us?

00:22:25 --> 00:22:26 He's told us that he's loving.

00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 He's told us that he's good.

00:22:28 --> 00:22:32 He's told us that he cares for us.

00:22:32 --> 00:22:36 He's told us that he thinks of us as his little lambs.

00:22:37 --> 00:22:39 He's told us that he wants to protect us.

00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 He's told us that he wants to save us.

00:22:42 --> 00:22:46 He's told us that the powers of darkness are after us to destroy us,

00:22:46 --> 00:22:50 but he is a warrior who is fighting on our behalf.

00:22:51 --> 00:22:52 That's the God.

00:22:52 --> 00:22:53 That we serve.

00:22:53 --> 00:22:54 That's the God that we love.

00:22:55 --> 00:22:55 And you know what?

00:22:56 --> 00:22:56 The crazy thing is,

00:22:57 --> 00:22:58 if these were just words,

00:22:59 --> 00:22:59 I mean,

00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 it would just be his words against our reality.

00:23:02 --> 00:23:06 It would just be God up in the clouds saying, I love you.

00:23:07 --> 00:23:08 And that would be all we had.

00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 But we don't just have the words of God.

00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 We have the actions of God.

00:23:12 --> 00:23:18 God backed up his words with action by becoming a man and

00:23:18 --> 00:23:20 coming to this earth and

00:23:21 --> 00:23:22 living among us.

00:23:22 --> 00:23:22 And just like,

00:23:23 --> 00:23:23 man,

00:23:24 --> 00:23:29 just going through the worst of the worst things a human can go through.

00:23:29 --> 00:23:30 He was beaten.

00:23:30 --> 00:23:32 He was spit upon.

00:23:32 --> 00:23:33 He was oppressed.

00:23:33 --> 00:23:34 He was hated.

00:23:34 --> 00:23:34 He

00:23:35 --> 00:23:39 He literally came to this earth and just like gave himself for people,

00:23:39 --> 00:23:44 spent his entire life spreading the glory of God,

00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 helping people see a God who loves them,

00:23:47 --> 00:23:49 a God who cares about them,

00:23:49 --> 00:23:50 a God who loves them.

00:23:50 --> 00:23:54 cares about them so much that he would have died for them if

00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 they were the only one

00:23:56 --> 00:23:57 on this entire planet.

00:23:58 --> 00:24:05 And then he backs up his words by dying on a cross for humanity,

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