30-Minute Theology – God

Pastor Scott Smith- January 12, 2026

This message launches the 30 Minute Theology series by explaining why it is essential for believers to understand what they believe and why they believe it. It highlights that while many people claim faith in God, they often rely on sound bites, social media, or personal feelings to shape their understanding of Him rather than Scripture. Theology—simply the study of God—is something everyone has, whether they realize it or not, and our beliefs about God shape our behaviors, decisions, and worldview. This message emphasizes that believing there is a God is not the same as knowing who God is, and that a proper view of God (theology proper) must be anchored in God’s Word, where He reveals Himself and invites us to truly know Him.

This message then focuses on who God is according to Scripture: He is spirit and person, the source of life, self-existent, unchanging, unlimited by time and space, and eternally unified as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It corrects common misconceptions of God as a distant “sky fairy,” a wish-granting genie, or a harsh rule-enforcer, showing instead that God is holy, loving, and deeply personal. God desires holiness over temporary happiness and invites relationship, not performance. The message concludes by reminding listeners that knowing God rightly leads to experiencing Him more fully, and that the most important belief in any person’s life is their belief about God. As believers grow in understanding who God truly is, their faith deepens, their lives are transformed, and their relationship with Him becomes stronger and more grounded.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Okay, so we have started a series called 30 Minute Theology, where we are looking at the main pillars of the Christian faith, kind of the basic tenets, if you were, to put it like that. But before we actually open up the series, we need to establish some rationale for the series, and I have a disclaimer for everyone. So the reason we would do a series called 30-minute theology is really very simple. And there's kind of a twofold reason for our church in particular. One, people claim to have faith in God, but oftentimes don't know much about that faith because it can be a little intimidating. Or what we do is we come to church on the weekend and we listen and we say, great, check that box. I know enough, or I'm learning what they want me to know, right? And so it's hard maybe to own that, especially because when we endeavor to maybe learn more about our faith, the Bible is a very large library of books with some words in there that maybe don't make sense and some stuff in there that's hard to understand. And then the resources available to us, big theological textbooks. I mean, I have one in my office, it's a thousand pages long that I pulled out and dusted off from college just to help prepare this series. They're intimidating. They got big words, lots of syllables in those words, and we're just kind of thinking, all right, that's maybe above where I need to go. And so oftentimes we have faith in God, but we don't know too much about it. And the other side of that is we live in a day and age where everyone's an expert on something. Everyone's an expert. And so what ends up happening is we get our theology from sound bites. We don't get our theology from the best places to get it, the word of God, scholarly resources, godly others. Instead, what we tend to do is we take uh theology from TikTok and we apply that to our lives, or we grab our understanding of who God is in a 60-second reel on Instagram or maybe our favorite podcaster. Now, I'm not knocking on those uh online resources. In fact, throughout this series, we have online resources on our website, sunrise.net, to help us bolster our growth in our understanding of who God is and to better strengthen our Christian theology. Because you can use Chat GPT or Google something somewhere and you'll find a lot of opinions about a lot of different quote gods. But when we say 30-minute theology, we mean Christian theology, our belief of who God is as we are informed through God's word. Spoiler, that's gonna be the anchor for us in this entire series, is if we are going to learn about who God is, who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is, if we're going to learn about salvation, the end times, if we're going to learn about sin, if we're gonna dig into these, we should probably take the resource available to us through which God reveals Himself, His Word, and utilize that as an anchor. So we will be doing that. That's the rationale. And also, in the last year as a church, a lot of people have taken steps in their journey with Jesus. I had conversations with people in the lobby in between services today, who admittedly are getting to know faith. And as a result of that, you could be running with the devil or Jesus Jr. or anywhere in between there. This is the type of series that for anyone will help us grow in our faith. Sundays are not meant to be the start and stop of this conversation. Sundays are supposed to be protein shakes in your theological formation as a believer. Whether you're on your way to professing faith in Jesus or you have been walking with Jesus for any time, our conversation is pump up those muscles, get to work, and grow in your faith. That's the goal. That is the objective. Now, that being said, here's a disclaimer. It would be impossible to condense centuries of study and scholarly writings into 30-minute segments on a Sunday, considering it is one of the, if not the most widely approached topics in the history of the world, faith or God. So again, we're gonna look at the main pillar posts and encourage everyone to use this series to dig more into your faith. It's gonna be a very teaching-centric series. That's why I have maybe more notes and quotes than I might even normally use. This week we have the whiteboard we'll be using to learn more. It's gonna have a little bit of a different dynamic to our conversations from week to week because the idea is to use our time together to dig into it. Because if we're not careful, we will let the wrong things tell us who God is. Because maybe we go online and well, this person seems to know a lot, or they say this with a lot of confidence. Don't forget that a strongly held opinion does not necessarily mean it is a strongly formed opinion. And so it would behoove us as followers of Jesus, maybe in that journey or walking with Jesus, to strengthen our theology. Because everybody has a theology. Everybody has a theology. You might not know that, but you do. And just to be clear, when I say theology, because I realize as I'm saying this, you know, it's a big syllable word, it's churchy, it's seminary-like. Okay, what does that mean? It's on books. I see that it's not necessarily uh a word that I use in common conversation. So I want to I want to define theology for you. Um, and we're gonna take it from two Greek words, which is where we get it: uh theos and then logos, or depending on the derivative, logia, which essentially means God and then word or study. Theology is simply put the study of a religious belief, the study of the nature of God, or to condense it down in our word, theos, logos, the study of God. That's what theology is, and everyone has a theology. Everyone has something they believe about God. And I would offer this your belief about God will be the most important belief in your life because it will impact every area of your life. We'll look at how it does that. But everyone, even though you might think, I don't feel that smart, I don't know that I have a theology. I believe in God, I follow Jesus, but I don't know that I have a theology. You do. Everyone has a theology because everyone has a belief about God. Even an atheist who does not believe in God has a belief about God. It's a belief that God does not exist, but it's a belief nonetheless. Everyone has a theology, and our theology has implications in our lives. I would say it like this your beliefs impact your behaviors. The way you see things impacts the way you say things, the way you think about things, the way you do things. Your theology will impact what you believe. So it's important to know what you believe and why you believe it, because your beliefs are going to show up in your life. They're gonna show up in your decisions, your beliefs are gonna show up in your attitude, your relationships, your perspective. Beliefs impact behaviors. So it would be, if we understand that everyone has a belief about God in whatever shape that might come in, it would behoove us then to know who is God. And that's really where we start our theological series, is at the core, who is God. Because every other conversation is going to flow from this one. As we talk about who Jesus is, as we talk about who the Holy Spirit is, the end of days, as we talk about salvation, all of that is gonna stem from what we would call a proper view of God. The word for that, or the I guess the academic way of saying that, is going to flow from our theology proper, a right view of God. And for us to get started in learning who God is, we actually want to see it from God's perspective. A lot of times we don't do that. A lot of times we approach our Christian faith only from our perspective. Why? Because we're a human being and that's the way we are conditioned to do so. But I want to challenge all of us to see it from God's perspective. In the book of Psalms, it's right in the middle of your Bible. In fact, this entire summer, we're going to go through the book of Psalms. We're doing a series over the summer called, now that's what I call music, as we unpack that series. We're going to have a lot of fun with that one. But in Psalm 46, you've got a songwriter here who's in the midst of kind of a trial, troubling, scary time. And in that is having this, you know, moment with God as God is kind of divinely inspiring words to be written. And God is essentially, you know, it's communicated that God is saying this in Psalm 46, 10. It says, be still and know that I am God. Most people don't actually consider that God wants you to know Him. A lot of times people think that God is just this ethereal in the clouds figure who is so far away that you have to like treasure map your way to God. Like you got to partner up with Nicolas Cage and somehow find your way. Some of you National Treasure fans got that. And you somehow got to find your way to, well, if I can figure out the formula to get to God, then I'll know him. And we we don't realize, be still and know that I am God. God actually wants you to know him. Why? Because he wants you to know him. It is an invitation. In fact, you could say there's no greater reason to study God than the very fact that he invites us to know him. So if you're in the room or watching online and you maybe feel like God is too far away to get to know, and maybe you got to earn your way to know him. Well, I didn't do enough school, I don't read my Bible enough, I don't, you know, sometimes I still say some, you know, bad words sometimes, or, you know, when I stub my toe or whatever, and I don't know that I can be theological or study God, you need to hear this. God wants you to know him. He wants you to know him. That's why he reveals himself through his word. So who is God? What a big question to ask. What an impossible question to ask. I mean, truly, we put this series together and I thought, oh, this will go great. Because for centuries, scholarly authors have written about who God is, and you can read a thousand-page book and still think, whoa, I am overwhelmed by that. And so we are going to try to do our best to sum up who God is on a basic level so that it provides us with a starting line to operate from and grow in our faith. Because people ask those questions who is God? What is God? Why is God? How is God? How did God exist? Uh, what is God here for? What does he want from us? Why are we here? And it all can be kind of traced back. And you can Google it and the internet will tell you that God is essentially described as a supernatural being, some type of supreme being, a creator, self-existent, meaning no person, no thing has ever created God, a deity, a principal object of faith. That's typically what you're going to find as a definition of God. Because it's actually a widely held belief that there is such a thing as God. I talk to people all the time who tell me, yeah, Pastor Scott, I know that you want us to like invite people to church and to kind of share our faith, but I don't think, I mean, look, I was always told you don't talk politics, you don't talk religion, you can talk sports, weather, those are always fair game, and maybe, you know, that that bump on your toe if you really know the person really well. But other than that, they're like, no, no, no, people would rather see a scab than listen to you talk about your religion. And we we we seem to kind of think that, and so we're a little intimidated, we're a little nervous. So I want to encourage you with some real numbers. Remember, facts are our friends, and so you need to understand that this belief that there is a God or a higher power, it's more widely held than you would realize. In fact, a few years ago, there was a group that did a poll, and they did a national poll and an international poll, national to America, and then an international poll of 35 other countries. In the international poll, they found, and this was just three years ago, they did this, they polled people in 35 different countries. 83% of the people polled said they believed that there was some form of higher power or God. 83%. In America, it was 81%. What does that tell us? It tells us that this awareness of their likely being a God is greater than we think. We don't have to be as uncomfortable bringing it up or talking about it. More people are open to it than you realize. I mean, you see it in, you see it in uh, my goodness, it's in pop culture. It's in media, it's in movies and television. Alanis Morset. In case you don't know who that is, I'll give it to you. Isn't it ironic? There you go. Now it's in your head the rest of the day. Alanis Morset played God in a movie. You're like, what? I'm not gonna tell you what movie it is because I'm not gonna endorse it. But that's a thing. Whoopi Goldberg played God in a movie twice. That's how that this concept of God is not this thing contained to the church. People are more open to talk about it. You know who else played God in two movies? Morgan Freeman, which is probably the voice you hear when you read God in your Bible. It sounds like Morgan Freeman to you, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. You're like, oh my yes, it does. Or you weren't, and you're like, it does now, it does now. Be still and know. You're gonna hear his voice. It's a it's a relatively ubiquitous posture. Oh, yeah, I believe, because it makes it actually makes logical sense. It makes logical sense to believe that all this had to be made by something or someone. It actually takes more faith to believe nothing created something than it does to believe that a creator made a created thing. It's logical. Nothing did not create nuclear physics. That just makes sense in our minds. It is a ubiquitous uh posture to assume that there is some form of what we call divine design. The majority of people admit that there must be some type of higher power or or something had to had to make all this. But here's where we dive into our conversation, and here's here's the the launching pad for our theological series in what we are calling an approach to theology proper, a right view of God. Believing there is a God and knowing who God is are not the same thing. I need you to hear that. That's why it's so important to have a proper understanding of who God is. We call it, as we said, theology proper, because your view of God will affect your view of everything else. You'll see that pop up. A high view of God, a right view of God, a proper view of God, knowing who He is, that's gonna move you in the direction of faith. It's gonna move you in the direction of humility, and it's gonna move you in the direction of obedience as a Christian. But a low view of God, an improper view of God, might actually be the cause of many subtle sins that we see or experience in our day-to-day lives. One of the really probably one of the most well-known Christian authors and pastors from the 20th century was a man named A. W. Tozer. He actually said this. He said, a right conception of God is basic not only to Christian theology, but to practical Christian living as well. It is, theology is to worship what the building foundation is to the temple. Where the theology is inadequate or out of alignment, the whole structure will sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced to imperfect or irreverent thoughts about God. You could drill down on this and say the most important thing about any person is their thoughts on God. Because everything else will stem from that. Who you think God is will impact your life more than you even realize it. So it is imperative that we have a proper view of God. How do we do that? How do you see God for who he is? The best way for us to do that is to go to the very place God reveals himself, which most people don't. Most people look to their feelings and their own personal interpretations to define who God is. I'll give you an example you've all known, and again, so the internet hears this and everyone hears this. This is not an endorsement for this movie. We all heard me say that. Most of us, if we're being brutally honest with ourselves, form our view of God based on what we want God to be like. Like we're Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights. Yep, let it catch up to you. Did he just mention Talladega Knights in a theology message? Yes. What kind of church is this? An honest one. You've been there. What do they do? They're having that lunch dinner table conversation. He's like, I like to picture God like this. Well, I like to picture God like this, and it's just open season because I like God, and we tend to do that. Well, I like to picture God like this, and I like I think God is this. And why do we do that? You know why? Our faith, when left to our own interpretation, is guided by our feelings, not by the truth. So what we end up doing is we form a perspective, a view of God, that relies on who we want him to be instead of who he says he is. And it is impossible, you need to know, it is impossible to describe the indescribable. It is a fool's errand to try to define the one who defined definition. As we try to apply this description and definition that we learn of God, no words could contain it or fully satisfy the human mind's desire to wrap our heads around who God is. The only possible way we have to do this, the only viable shot that we have at knowing who God is, is to go to the very place he revealed himself to mankind, which is his word. If God divinely inspired this library of books we call the Bible, which in just a few weeks we will dig into more and more as we understand what that really is and what to do with it in our lives, if we're going to start with understanding who God is and knowing who he is and applying definitions and descriptions to this God who is indeed indescribable, the best place we can go is to the very place he tells us who he is. And so I have seven things. This is not a comprehensive list because, again, God cannot be contained by the human mind, but our hearts and our heads can apply faith as we learn and endeavor to know him after all, because he wants us to know him. And if God wants us to know him, he wouldn't make faith unavailable to us, he would actually give us the ability to learn who he is. And by his goodness, he has revealed himself to us through his word. And so if you're a note taker, you can start here. God is defined in Scripture as one spirit. God is spirit. In fact, it's in the Gospel of John, chapter 4. It's in fact Jesus himself is speaking to a woman, and he tells her, God is spirit, meaning, okay, God is not contained the way we would normally see a being contained. Does that make sense? God is spirit. But also, God is person. You've heard this before. You have heard even James, the brother of Jesus in James 1, he calls God the Father of lights, whom every blessing good in our lives comes from. And in fact, Jesus himself calls God the what? Heavenly Father. As a person, God is not off in the distance, unaware of who you are or what you're going through. God is spirit, God is person. God is also life in 1 John. God is the author of life, the source of life, creator of life. God is life. It's not just there. You also see it in Deuteronomy chapter 5. Deuteronomy is something I'm not going to endeavor to spell. Even though it's right here, because every time I try to spell it on that whiteboard, something happens, and some of you are loving enough to take a photo of it and text it to me or put it on the internet, and I'm going to save us all that. And just tell you that not only do you see this in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament, God is the source of life. He is the author of life. God is also self-existent. Meaning that God, as defined, you've seen it. You can probably say it with me. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. What does that mean? In the beginning, God. God did not rely, does not rely, will not have to rely on anything to create Himself. God is, God was, God will be. God was, was before, was, was, God will be, when will be, will be. Give it time, it'll catch up to you. God is self-existent. God is, I love this one. I love this one. We all have things about God that we we probably can relate to more than others. God is unchanging. What a powerful truth to hold on to. When the world changes all the time. Your circumstances change, situations change, people's opinions change, what's popular changes. In the book of Malachi, chapter 3, it's in the Old Testament of your Bible. He says, I am the Lord, I do not change. Someone needs to hear this because this week we have had prayer requests come in. I have met with people. Others here have met with people, and here's what's going on. Life is going on for people. There are some highs and lows, and life gets real. Here's what we tend to do when life gets hard. We punish God for life getting hard. And we retreat from a relationship with Him because we don't like the way things are going. I want to encourage you with this. Your circumstances do not change God's character. Oftentimes God teaches and trains us through those circumstances to reveal to us his character, that he is unchanging. When we wander, he doesn't. When we doubt, he's solid. God is unchanging. In Luke 24, Jesus says that God is unlimited by time and space. That God exists beyond our own human minds, and we can't fathom that. In fact, in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 40, we are told, no one can fathom God's understanding. He is unlimited. Our finite minds cannot necessarily wrap our heads around this. It's why we call it faith. But I would say this: if God were not unchanging, self-existent, author of life, spirit, person, and unlimited by time or space, would you have the confidence to go to him when all you can see is imperfect? But it is an anchor to know who God is, theology proper, who he is. And finally, God is, and we'll talk about this in the coming weeks, unity. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. This is again found in the Old Testament of your Bible in Isaiah 1. It is found in 1 Corinthians and in other letters to the early New Testament churches. Why was that the case? Because this concept of God, although having been around since the beginning of time, is sometimes hard to grapple with in our finite minds. And even as the early church was learning who God is, who Jesus is, and all of this, you would find these letters and these divinely inspired works that reveal to us that God is spirit, person, life, self-existent, unchanging, unlimited by time and space and unity, found in Old and New Testament scriptures alike. You may have heard terms like this: God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. God is omnipresent. Those are big syllable words. It just means God is everywhere at all times. He is not limited. Again, as we see in Scripture, God is omniscient, He is all-knowing, He knows everything. Sometimes we try to hide stuff from God. He already knew. Here's a grammatically incorrect phrase for you. If you ever feel like you're ashamed or afraid to go to God, before you do, whatever it is you do, know that God already knew what you're gonna do. So know that he is unchanging and you can go to him. As unity, God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we can go to God. Now it's important for us to understand who God is so we can grow in that faith, in that relationship. Because if we have a wrong view of God, we're not going to grow up the way God wants us to. See, again, if God invites us to know him because he wants us to know him, he wants us to know him for his glory, because he deserves it, and he also wants us to know him for our good. Because there is no love without the one who is it and defines it. There is no grace, there is no mercy, there is no forgiveness apart from the one who invented all of it, owns all of it, doles all of it out. The one who is unlimited, unchanging, self-existent, who we can trust. There is none of that. So not only does God want us to know him so that we can acknowledge who he is, theology proper, but so that we can experience who he is. And that belief about God will flow from what we believe, everything else in our lives. But if we have a wrong view of God, we'll also see that show up. Because we see what God is, who he is, why he is, how he is. We see that in his word, divinely inspired to be written as he revealed himself to humanity. But we also see who God is not. God is not a sky fairy who sits up in the clouds playing a harp, wishing happy thoughts on everybody. But think about it for a moment. Sometimes we think that's who God is, and I'll tell you where it shows up. Remember, we said your beliefs impact your behaviors? Remember, we said that the way you view God is going to impact the way you view everything else? When's the last time you heard this phrase, or maybe even said it? Prepare to be offended if you are this person, but there's grace, so bring it on. It's fine. We're all beggars trying to find bread with other beggars. That's what we do around here. But when's the last time you heard this phrase? Oh, no, no, no. As long as they're happy, it doesn't matter what they do. That's a theology. No, no, no, no, no. As long as it makes them happy and it doesn't affect me, I don't care. If it makes them happy, it can't be that bad, uh, ad. Some of you know the song. That's a theology. Do you know what that theology says? That theology says this. Well, God's a sky fairy and he's wishing happy thoughts on everybody. And as long as they're happy, that's what God wants. No. That's not who God is. God wants you to be holy more than he wants you to be happy. And it's not that God doesn't want you to be happy, it's that God knows this. Happiness depends on happenings. Joy relies on faith in God. So God wants you to be holy more than he wants you to be happy. Not that he doesn't want you to be happy, but happiness is about searching and situations. Holiness is found in a relationship with the Almighty God. God's not a sky fairy. God's also not Robin Williams in Aladdin. He's not the genie in the lamp. Which oftentimes we do. Some of us do that. We treat God like the genie in the lamp. God, life's really hard. I'd really like this, this, and this. Appreciate it if you could hook that up. Thanks. We'll talk to you later on. We door dash prayers to God. I'd like a number 14, hold the rice, extra soy sauce. Great. God, I'll talk to you next week when I'm hungry again. God's not a genie in a lamp. Don't treat him that way. He's holy. He's almighty. But here's also what God is not. Here's who he's not. God's also not this holy hall monitor. Before you feel like, man, I'm kind of beating you up a little bit. God's not a holy hall monitor. Does anybody know what a hall monitor is? Great. If you were born in the 1900s, you do. But the rest of us, okay. Here's what a hall monitor is. You would go to school, and if you were going to be in the hall outside of class, you had to have a pass. You had to have a reason for that. We had them in college, my freshman year of college, I don't know what the term was. Um you can call them a hall monitor. I don't know what they're what what their actual job title was, but their job description was to bust you for breaking the rules when you were in an academic building. So when I was in college, you would have classes in these academic buildings, and our college had a dress code. They don't anymore. They were nice enough to get rid of the dress code the year I graduated college. So thank you for that. Um, but while I was there, specifically freshman year, it was a pretty tight dress code. And if you were going to be inside of an academic building, you were not allowed to wear tennis shoes. You had to wear like dress shoes to be in school. And one day, a buddy of mine called me and said, Hey, my car's in the shop. Can you come pick me up from class? I said, Sure, I'll be right there. And so I drive, I park, I walk in, but I had been at the gym and I had tennis shoes on, and I didn't think about it. And so I walk in this academic building and I'm picking up my friend, and we're walking out, and this guy comes up to me, and I remember his name. I'm sure he doesn't watch online, so I'm not gonna get in trouble for this. But his name was Luke, and he was one of those college hall monitors, and he walked up to me and he goes, Um, excuse me, sir, which is a red flag, because no 20-year-old calls an 18-year-old, sir. And he goes, Um, are you aware you're out of dress code? And I said, No, I am not aware of this. I'm just picking up my buddy. We're walking out right now. And he goes, Yeah, I get that. And that's what did it for me, and it did it for you. Some of you had a like guttural reaction when I went, because you've been on the receiving end of somebody doing that to you. Because you know what comes next is nothing fun. Hey, did you like that dish I made? Don't do it. Don't do it. I mean, that happens. You know? Oh, I I forgot my wallet. Well, then I forgot to give you your coffee. Have a great day. Uncaffeinated. He goes, see, here's the deal. You're wearing tennis shoes. And I was like, dude, I get it. I'm so sorry, but I'm not in class. I'm just picking up a friend. And he says, I know, but they're on your feet. Look at them. And I was like, I can see my feet. Thank you. Yes. He goes, so I'm gonna have to write you up. And they would give us these things called reprimands or reps, which was a way, I think, for them to just make $30 off you if you broke the rules. I'm not terribly sure. But you would get reps for being out of dress code and then you would have to pay a fine. Now, fortunately for me, in that moment, I didn't have my student ID on me when he asked me for my student ID. Unfortunately, for my friend Alan Tomlin from high school, who walked by and made fun of me for getting reps, I didn't have my ID. So when I told this hall monitor, I don't have my ID, and he said, That's okay, just give me your name, I replied, Alan Craig Tomlin Jr. So, Alan, if you're watching, I owe you 30 bucks from 25 years ago, buddy. I'm so sorry. But sometimes we treat God like a holy hall monitor and we say this, no, but I looked at, man, I looked at this thing on my phone this week and nobody was looking. So I probably can't just X out of that and now read my Bible because God probably doesn't want to let me read my Bible because the app probably won't work because what I was just looking at is not something that you find in the Bible app. And we think that God doesn't want that. Oh, no, no, no. No, Scott, you don't understand. Like, ah, this is how I see God. Like, I've I've messed up pretty bad. I've abused some some substances, maybe I've lied about this, I have stolen this, I've done this. So I can't walk into church. I might catch fire if I walk into church. God doesn't want me to come in. I've, you know, because God's up there why, and he's just waiting. He's waiting for us to mess up so he can tell us, ha ha ha, I'm perfect. You're not perfect. That's not who God is. Again, before you do what you're about to do, understand God already knew when you do what you do. Knew your past before it would be your past. Gave everything for you to know him. God is not a holy hall monitor, but he is holy. God is not saying, hey, I just want you to be happy, so if I give you enough good stuff, you'll like me. God's not trying to get a date to the dance. That's not, no, that's not who is. But also, God doesn't hold your sin over your head so he can show you how holy he is and how messed up you are. He reveals to us in his loving kindness our sin so that we can recognize our need for a rescue, and that the God who is spirit, person, self-existent, unlimited, unchanging, unity, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-existing, that very God who hung the moon and the stars would be so holy and set apart, but so loving and gracious to invite us to know Him in a personal relationship. That's who God is. Now it is impossible to sum up in a 30-minute message exactly who God is on a Sunday, but if we can start with a proper perspective of who God is, we'll be able to grow in our faith the way he desires for us. Because as we started in Psalm 46, be still and know that I am God. God wants you to know him for his glory and for your good. Because the more you know who God is, the more you experience who God is. And that's the hope of the message. That's really the hope of the entire series is the more we study God, the more we learn about our faith, the closer we will get to the God we know and love. And the more we will experience all of the character he offers when you choose to put your faith in him. I would encourage you to lean into this series. Maybe even invite someone to this series, someone you think, oh man, theology seems a little far off for maybe my friend or my family member or my coworker. Next week we're talking about who Jesus is. This could be the type of message that changes someone's life because we are talking about the rescue, the human soul needs. We are unpacking these items in a very practical, honest approach in the coming weeks. So not only do I want to encourage you to bring people with you, I want to encourage you to lean into it. Lean into those resources we're gonna put out. They're on the website, sunrise.net. You will find resources. There's free online courses, there's stuff out there for you to dig into your faith and to learn more. I encourage you to dig more into Scripture, into John, into James, into Deuteronomy, into Isaiah, into all these places where we can inform ourselves of our theology and grow in our faith with God. There are so many to get involved. Huddle up with people on a Wednesday, invite people to your home, huddle up, study God's word together, get in a group, have conversations at the dinner table, whatever it is, to use this as a starting line to grow in your faith. I want to encourage you to lean into that as we cover these topics over the next seven weeks because your belief about God is the most important belief in your life. It will affect everything else in your life. So I want to encourage you to lean into this conversation. We're gonna learn who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is. He is not that weird uncle you worry about inviting to Thanksgiving dinner. We're gonna learn what sin is. Not the most popular topic. That's not the popular thing to get famous with on the internet. But it's real, and we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about what salvation is and why we need it. Spoiler, the two are tied together. And we're gonna talk about the end times. What on earth is going on on the earth? We're gonna look at that, and hopefully it helps us grow in our faith. But it all starts, it all jumps off from our belief, our study of God, who God is. There's perhaps no more important thing about a person than your belief about God. And as it's impossible to describe the indescribable or to sum God up in a half-hour message on a Sunday morning, I'll close with these words. From a modern-day theologian, a pastor named Dr. Paul Tripp, I think he does a really good job of eloquently putting a bow on our first installment of our 30-minute theology series with these words about God, and I will close with this. God is the source of all life, glory, goodness, and blessedness in and of himself. He alone is all sufficient in and unto himself. He does not stand in need of any of the creatures that he made, nor does he acquire any glory from them. Rather, he reveals his glory in by to and on them. He alone is the fountain of all being. All things are from him, through him, and to him. He is sovereign over all things, to do by, for, and on them whatever he pleases. He sees all things, and nothing is ever hidden from him. God's knowledge is infinite without error and without dependence on anything he created. For there is no chance or uncertainty for God. All his purposes, works, and commands are holy. He is due whatever worship, service, and obedience he is pleased to require from angels, people, and every other creature. In the unity of the Godhead, there are three persons of one substance, power, and eternity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Father is neither begotten nor proceeds from anyone. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. The Son Jesus is who we're talking about next week. I'm going to put a bow on this conversation with those words and close in prayer and hope to see everyone Wednesday or Sunday before you linger in the lobby after service. God, thank you again for revealing who you are through your word. I pray that it reaches us, teaches us, and what we learn here doesn't get left here, but that we take it with us. As we grow in our faith, in an awareness of who you are, and a desire to move in the direction, knowing that you want us to know you. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation to know you, God. I pray we take that invitation and lean into it in the coming weeks, days, months, years ahead in our lives. I pray again that you are honored by everything we have said, everything we have done, every bit of singing, every bit of learning, every bit of fellowship, everything we have celebrated. I pray it honors you and helps us grow in our faith. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church. We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you. If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal. Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partner. If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.