MAKE IT MAKE SENSE: WHAT IS GOD REALLY LIKE? | Joel Gorveatte

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm glad you're here for this collection of messages we're going to launch into today called Make It Make Sense. I don't know about you, but I grew up in the church and I grew up around church in Christian culture, whatever that is, whatever that means, right? Grew up around uh people that were Jesus followers and Christian music and Christian radio, a lot of those circles. But if you would ask me as a 15-year-old, 16-year-old, even or maybe early 20s sometimes, like, what is what do specific things about the faith actually look like in your life? It might have been a little fuzzy. It might have been a little hard to understand. What can happen is sometimes we we hear things, we absorb things, we're even around things, and we don't fully understand the invitation at hand. We don't fully understand what it is that we're talking about. And so for the next five weeks, we're just gonna unpack and address and uh in some cases, maybe answer uh some of the questions that we may have, some of the areas of faith in our lives, in our communities, in our families, in our culture that can be a little bit fuzzy. And today I want to wrestle with this question, explore this question with you. This question of what is God really like? What is God really like? And I want to process this question, and I want to process it first because this question really lays a foundation for a lot of other things in our lives. This question lays a foundation for our faith, lays a foundation for our pursuit of Jesus, for our pursuit of spiritual things. And it's an important question, and it's a it's a relevant question because of this reality that a couple different studies have shown that around 80%, a little bit over three-quarters of US citizens, when you were asked, hey, do you believe in a God or a universal spirit, some kind of universal higher power that is in the spiritual dynamic, do you believe in the existence of something like that? About 80% of people in multiple studies said, Yes, I do. I believe in some kind of thing out there. I believe in some kind of creator, I believe in some kind of designer, some kind of cosmic being that is somehow in control, that is somehow influenced everything I can see, touch, and feel in my life. But here's the reality that only a fraction of those percentages believe that we can know that higher power, that we can interact with, that we can relate with that God, which is a little bit of a dilemma because it's man, we we believe in this thing out there. Many people, if you were to ask them, they would believe in some kind of higher power. But do you have a relationship, do you have a connection with that being, with that God that you believe created you and created me? And the answer would be no. For me, that feels a little bit of a dilemma, because then if I'm if I'm created, I want to know the one who's created me. If I realize, man, I I have a design, I want to get to know the designer. But many of us can can believe, but have this fuzziness not on the idea of God, but on the image of God. Not the existence of God, but the picture of what exactly is he like? What does he do and what doesn't he do? What is his nature? Many of us would say, Do you believe he's out there somewhere? We'd say, Yes. We maybe said, What exactly is he like? We may have a harder time answering that question. And as we start to explore this question, I just want to present to you and present to me that you already have an image of God. You already have that picture in your mind. Maybe that image of God, right or wrong, whatever it may be, maybe that's the reason you're here today. Because you want to seek that kind of God, you want to explore that kind of God, you want to get to know him a little bit better. Maybe you're here because your image of God said, Man, this is the right thing to do. So I'm gonna be in a place like journey, I'm gonna be in a place like church. But many of us have an image of God. And if we're honest, it it is fuzzy. We we we might not say it's fully clear. Maybe even for you today, it's a negative picture. If you were to start to give adjectives and descriptive words to your image of God, and not just who God is, but how he sees you and how he sees me, that even might evoke some negative description in you. And this can be true for Jesus followers and for non-Jesus followers. We all have this image of God. And I want to just explore a couple of different images, a couple different pictures we can have of God. Before we do, I just want us to wrestle with this reality, this important thing, that uh A.W. Tozer, who is a theologian and writer in the early mid-1900s, said this that what comes to our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. We tend by a secret law of the soul, a secret law, a deep law of the way we've been created to move toward our mental image, to move toward the deepest picture we have of God. We tend to live in that direction. We tend to believe and act and think in that direction. It's because of this. I just want to say, what what might that image be for you? What might that picture be for you? Because our picture of God is not just about our picture of God. Our picture of God is about our picture of life, a picture of ourselves, a picture of our purpose, a picture of why on earth are we here? So a couple different images of God that we can have, that we can have. Maybe even you'd walk in today and you'd resonate with one of these images. The first is distant. Distant. Another way you can say this is it's not reachable. Uh if you were to call the phone, there's no answer on the other side. That God is, yes, he's out there somewhere. I believe he exists, but he's a little bit beyond reach. Maybe because of how good he is and how bad I am, I just feel like he's distant. Or maybe the circumstances of life, which we'll talk about in a moment, maybe I just feel like he's just he's not reachable, he's not attainable, he's not accessible, he's distant. Image number two could be this that he's disinterested. Disinterested. Maybe he's closer, he's not so so distant. Maybe he's a little bit closer than that. But if I'm honest, I just don't think he's very interested and invested in my life. I don't think he cares about the things I care about. I don't think he's his heart breaks for the things that break my heart. I don't think he wakes up in the morning for the same reason I do. I just think he's I just think he's disinterested. He's not interested. And the third is this that he's disappointed. This is one step further than distant or even disinterested. This is, no, he he sees my life. He sees the things I do. And if I'm honest, I kind of feel like God is a coach on the sideline with his arms crossed. Wanting me to be a little better, wanting me to do a little smarter, wanting me to work a little harder. I just feel like he's not impressed. He's disappointed. He's disappointed because of the mistakes I've made in my past, he's disappointed because of the mistakes I've made in my present, he's disappointed because of my lack of knowledge, he's disappointed because of how not spiritual I am. Famana's my picture of God can sometimes be that he's he's disappointed. He's not he's not impressed. And friends, these are all real and they're all valid. They're all real. Those feelings we can have towards God, those pictures of God, they're all real. They impact us in real lives, in real ways. They're all real. But if we're gonna honestly answer the question, if we're gonna honestly address the question, what is God really like? I've just got to acknowledge first that I do have an image. And maybe it's not one of those three. Maybe you'd fill in your own blank. Maybe it happened to start with a D. I don't know. You fill in your own blank, you fill in your own descriptive word. But to answer the question, what is God really like? I've just got to acknowledge, I am seeing him already in a certain way. Um, I already have a certain lens of who he is that I'm wearing. Lots of you want me to put these on right now, right? Uh they they don't fit too well, by the way. That that I already have a way, a lens through which I am seeing God. That is shaping my view of God. And so if we ask the question, what is God really like? We've got to say, which lens am I looking through to ask the question? And there's really two options. There's two options. Uh the option one is my lens.

unknown 9:50

Right?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Option one is is my lens. Uh, however clear or however muddy those are, do you glasses wearers? You know, what it looks like when your glasses get a little too blurry or when the weather's just right and they get all foggy, right? It's hard, it's hard to see reality. It's hard to see what's in front of you. And the question would be: am I gonna wear my lens, or would I be open to trying on a new lens? Trying on a new prescription? Would I be open to not just my lens, which is shaped by my experiences, which is shaped by the church, which is shaped by disappointment, which is shaped by unanswered prayer, which is shaped by life circumstances, which is shaped by living in a broken world? Would I not just trust the lens that I currently wear, but would I be open to say, what is a new lens? And what is the lens that God would actually reveal about Himself? Because many a times we we've interacted with an image of God, we've interacted with a version of God that has been a little bit lost in translation. It's like the game of telephone, right? By the time it is reached to us, it's it's distorted, it's a little different, it's it's blurry, it's fuzzy. And for the next few moments, I just want to encourage us can we try on his lens for a moment? Can we try on the lens that God has revealed about himself? That he said, This is who I am. And we've got a whole book that has lasted for thousands and thousands of years that says, This is who I am. This is the lens to where. This is who I want you to know me to be. So, so where do we start? If we ask the question and try to answer the question, what is God really like? Where do we start? What is the foundation? What is the lens to where? I want to take us back to where we started. Most of us believe that there is a God, there's a higher power. And Jesus came. Jesus came at a real time, real point in history, hundreds of witnesses to his life, to his miracles, to his resurrection, hundreds of people that saw him and walked with him and talked with him. And Jesus claimed not to just be a higher power, but to be the higher power. Jesus claimed not to just be a voice, but the voice. Jesus claimed not to just be an influence on the universe and the spiritual realm and all that we can see, touch and feel. He claimed to be the influence, the designer, the creator. And Jesus didn't just claim that. He didn't just say, hey, hey, believe me. No, he showed signs and wonders and miracles, most, the most of which is life and death and his resurrection. But Jesus showed these signs and these wonders and miracles to validate his words. Jesus' miracles, the miracles of Jesus were not just to impress us or to gain a following. Jesus didn't need our applause or our following. Jesus was fine. He comes on the earth, he makes these claims about himself, he reveals truths about himself through his teaching, through his life, through his message, and then he validates them through what he does. People that can't see start to see. Water that you usually sink in, people are walking on it. And again, he didn't just do this to have a wow factor, to gain attention. He did this to validate who he was. To validate, like, I am God. I am that higher power. I am that influence. I am that creator. Look how we see it in the book of John, chapter 2, verse 11. We spent uh the last nine weeks in John, so I just figured let's sprinkle some John in today. Uh let's do that uh today. We see this play out a little bit of why Jesus did what he did. And Jesus has this first public miracle of changing water to wine. And look what the scriptures describe here. What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs, look, through which he revealed his glory. Through which he said, This is who I am. Through which he said, I'm not just a prophet, I'm not just a teacher, I am God, and I have power over the natural realm. I have power over things that you don't have power over. I have divine authority. He revealed his glory, his godliness, and his disciples put their faith in him and start to follow him, start to walk with him. We see Jesus backing up what he said, and this is the pattern of Jesus' words. And one of Jesus' key claims, in fact, the claim that got Jesus in the most trouble was when he came to a people, a group that had a picture of God, of who God was and who God liked and who God didn't like and what God did and what he didn't do. When Jesus came to that group and he made this claim, John 10, 30 says this I and the Father are one. I and the Father are one. Now that's what the scriptures say. Um dramatically, I wish I said the Father and I are one, but that's just my uh that's just my take. Jesus said, Me, me, and that God you think you know, we're the same person. We're the same person. We're one. We're one. We we are we are unified. We are we are together, we are one. Me and that creator you believed in, and your people have been believed in the nation of Israel for thousands and thousands of years to this point, we're the same person. The God you know in the in the prophets and in the law, the old testament of the Bible, Jesus is saying, I am that same God. We are one. One author said it this way Jesus' words, this is what Jesus is basically saying in kind of everyday speak here, that Jesus is what God looks like. Jesus is what God looks like. You want to know what God look thinks about the poor? Look at Jesus. You want to know what God thinks about forgiving people? Look at Jesus. You want to know what breaks the heart of God? Look what broke the heart of Jesus. You want to know what issues God gets involved in and what he doesn't? Look at Jesus. Jesus is what God looks like. Jesus is the proper lens to wear. Jesus is the pair of glasses we put on. Jesus is the lens that is clear, that is unfuzzy, that is unmarked, that is unblemished. Jesus is one one one part in the scripture in the book of Colossians says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is the picture of a God who doesn't have a picture and who limited himself, who who came in flesh and in blood to reveal to us what God was really like. So I just ask you again, would you would you be willing to put on a different lens, to try a different lens? I say, I'm gonna lay it, I'm gonna lay aside mine, I'm gonna put on the lens of Jesus. Who did Jesus reveal that God was? Who did Jesus reveal that He was? And would I put that on? And so I want to walk back through those three images of God we can often have, we can often find ourselves with, that He's distant, that He's disinterested, that He's disappointed, and walk through and say, what does what does the lens of Jesus have to say? What is God's word? What does his self-revealed character and word say about those three things? And to do it, we're gonna look at a passage of the Old Testament and a passage of the New Testament because Jesus said, Hey, they're all unified, they're all together in me. I'm the fulfillment of what Jesus said, the law and the prophets. They're all in me. The story of scripture is in the person of Jesus. So let's walk these through one at a time and say, what does God say? What is his lens we can wear? Number one, God is distant. This feeling of God is distant. He's he's out there somewhere, but I can't really attain him. He's not reachable. Look what God reveals in the book of Isaiah, a couple hundred years before the life of Jesus. He says, I live in a high and holy place. God's like, I am distant. I am holy, I am perfect, I am sovereign, I am above. But look what he says, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit. God can be in two places at once. He can be high and lifted up and magnificent and glorious and holy and also deeply present and near and close and with the one who is contrite, who is humble and lowly in spirit. Jesus expounded this reality. How exactly is he with us? How exactly will he be with us? John chapter 14, he's talking to his disciples. He said, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. The Spirit of truth. Look what he says. You know him, for he lives with you. Jesus is talking about the spirit that is in me, the Holy Spirit, like the Father and I are one, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we're we're we're together in the person of Jesus. He lives with you and will be in you. So for those of us who are followers of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God lives inside of us, which means we can feel like God is distant, but God is as close as he's ever been. And if you're here and you're not a follower, Jesus, you're explorer, exploring Jesus, this is this is part of the opportunity. This is part of the reality of stepping into following Jesus and wearing his lens for who God is and what he's like. God is closer than we may think. In different seasons of our life, that can feel true, but in different seasons of our life that can feel not true. It can feel like, man, God, where are you? And the reality is he's closer than we may think. He doesn't move. He's still near, close. We can feel like God is distant. He's closer than we may think what he reveals about himself. Number two, God is disinterested. This idea of like God, I don't think God cares about me. My life is too small or too broken or too fill in the blank for God to be interested in me. Look what look what the scriptures just reveal about who our God is. The psalmist said this, Psalm 139. The same writer David, who at times felt like God was miles away, felt like God didn't give a rip about him, felt like God didn't care, writes these truths. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts concerning me, how your thoughts about me, oh God, how vast, how many is the sum of them. God, you're disinterested. You're not disinterested. You are wildly interested in my life. You know, and you saw it all happen before I took a breath, before I took a step on the earth. Your eyes saw me. You knit me together. You gave me my personality. You gave me my gifts. You gave me the way I see the world. You gave me how I'm wired. You knit me together. He's interested. Look what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7. If you then, though you were evil, thanks, Jesus, know how to give good gifts to your children. I think I do sometimes. How much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? Now Jesus is not saying he's a vending machine. He's not saying like just ask and you'll you'll get the exact thing you want. No. What he is saying is that he is good in mind for our lives. That he has good interests in line and in store for me and for you. That he is interested. And here's the reality: God he doesn't withhold himself from our lives. We feel like God is disinterested. God doesn't withhold ourselves from our lives. But he also doesn't force himself into our lives. And if we say like God is disinterested, the reality is God is more interested than we may feel. More more attuned, more attentive, more interested than we may feel. Then the circumstances of life have led us to believe. That other people may have represented or misrepresented who he is, that he's not interested. And God is more interested than we may feel. And so it's an invitation to seek him, to invite him, to say, God, you might not break down the door of my life, but I can open it for you. I can't invite you in. And one last one that God is disappointed. That this kind of belief, this kind of realization that man, I don't know if I can be enough, perform enough. God must be disappointed, his arms must be crossed. Look at some of what God reveals in his word. Exodus 34, 6. This is one of the first times he reveals himself to a person in a very clear way and reveals his name, reveals his nature to this guy, Moses, and he, being God, passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, the Lord the Lord. Look at the first adjectives he gives. The compassionate and gracious God. The compassionate and gracious God. Some of us, that's not the God we heard about. Some of us, that's not the God that was taught to us. Some of us that was not the God that was revealed to us, other people who should have been revealing the nature of God. The compassionate and gracious God is slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. God said, This is who I am. This is my name. This is my nature. Jesus telling a story about uh this prodigal son, this prodigal that had run from home, that had left home. Many of us have heard this story. Runs from home, basically tells us, Dad, I'm I'm better off without you. You're better off to me, just dead. I want your inheritance. Like, can we speed that whole thing up? Leaves, squanders his father's wealth. Look what it says as he returns home. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. This reality that God I feel like God is disappointed in the lens that God would invite, the lens that God says, This is who I am. God is way more gracious than we may imagine. Way more gracious than we imagine. Way more gracious than we are with ourselves sometimes. Way more gracious than we've been taught, than what's been shown to us. The picture of the scriptures, the lens of the scriptures. Yes, he is this high, holy God who warrants our respect and our reverence, but he is this God who is who is close, who is interested, who is gracious. What's his lens? What is God really like? God is closer than we may think. More interested than we may feel. And more gracious than we may imagine. Closer than we may think, more interested than we may feel, and more gracious than we imagine. And let me just ask you again is that your lens? Jesus follower? Is that your lens? For who God is and not just who God is, who God is to you. If you're here today and you're not a Jesus follower, is that your lens? Or have circumstances and other people, the reality of a broken world, broken relationships, a broken systems, a broken choices. They clouded that lens. And today, God would say, I want to give you a different lens. I want you to help I want to help you see who I want you to experience me to be, who I really am. I want to take a few moments, both here in Caledonia and online in Middleville, to watch a story from a gal named Jill. And Jill attends our Middleville location. Jill is an awesome uh individual, her and her husband Dave, and just love them dearly. And Jill's experienced a shift. Jill's experienced a different lens. And I want to take you about five minutes to listen to Jill's story about how God has shown Himself in her life. Take a look at this.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Hi, I'm Jill Schilling, and this is my testimony. I was um born and raised in a traditional Catholic family in the 1960s. I attended Catholic school. Um I had nuns as my teachers and um church every Sunday, all the sacraments. For me, it was very scary, very like uh conditional. I had a very conditional love in my interpretation of things. Didn't feel comfortable reading the Bible, but the priest was the one to interpret it and going to the priest for confession. So I had a healthy fear of God. Not not anything that I even would feel comfortable like doing at home necessarily, like the church was the place that you went to worship God, and there was a formality to everything that you did. My emotional side was performance-based. Like, was is this good enough? I hope this is um okay and acceptable. I started to encounter a new understanding of God through a process. And it came about first when I was newly married. You know, life was crazy, and I started having some major health issues. So this would have been in the mid-1980s, and I um got scared because I was getting very dizzy. I I I would shake, my heart would race for days, um, a lot of things started happening, and I was going to a lot of doctors who were telling me you have a brain story, you have this, you have that, and nobody could give me answers. And I was very scared, and I also had just had my second child feeling overwhelmed, all the things I reached my wits end, to be honest. I was struggling with God, you know, not nothing was making sense to me at that point. I was really questioning one night in particular. I had a moment where um I didn't want to continue to live like this, which is hard to say when you think, you know, here's two children, a wonderful husband. But I life was that miserable for me physically. I said, okay, God, if you are who you say you are, then my next breath is on you. Because I'm done. At that moment, I felt a ball of fire from my feet clear to my head. And I knew in that moment that God had me. And I knew that it wasn't immediate, but I knew wow, this God is real, he loved me. He heard me, and so that was um a big transition for me. And from that moment I really started speaking and listening. We had to move for Dave's job a couple of times, and we found churches together, and and that really helped us grow um as new believers and being surrounded by by other Christians, that was huge. I still had a lot of conditions in place. Even when I look back to that night of, okay, God, if you are who you say you are, then I it I knew that I still wasn't where I needed or wanted to be. So to the course of the preaching, the people, the small group that we joined, and then the opportunity to uh do well spring session, and followed up by a re- uh retreat all totally by the hand of God. I can say I was totally reborn into oh, it's not a religion, it's a relationship. And I can honestly say I have been able to put to rest a lot of things that you carry with you for years in the form of shame and guilt and bondage, and I am walking in freedom. Um still learning, still growing, still messing up, but I can honestly understand the love of our father and that he doesn't change and his there's nothing I can do, it's not performance-based. You need to experience him on a personal level, that it's there aren't conditions, it doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter where you've been, there is no sin, there is nothing that he can't handle. Reveal your heart to God and ask him the questions you have, just as they are.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Can you hear that? Hi, I'm Jill feel it a little bit. The the power, the opportunity, the shift of seeing God a little more clearly, a little more accurately.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

And I love Jill's story for a lot of reasons, but I love the idea of continuing, uh, of a journey, of a process of discovering and uncovering and rediscovering that. And for many of us, that's what it is. It's a it's a process, it's a it's a journey. I was also just thinking about this reality that the way, the way to see God more clearly, the way to see him through the right lens is not to know more, do more, pray the right prayer. The way to see God more clearly is to let him show us, to invite him to show us. And not like Joel said so well, not with conditions, not with bartering, but with openness and humility. Say, God, give me a new lens, help me see. It makes me think of one more verse I just want to share with you. This is in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. This is Paul speaking. He said this, for God who said, Let there be light in the darkness, has made this light, the light of the gospel, the light of grace, the light of truth of who Jesus is, shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. I love that image of light. And that can be our prayer to say, God, help me more see, help me see, help me see you more clearly. Shine some more light on the place that's dark. Shine some more light. Help me see you in full view in the truth of the gospel, the truth of grace in Jesus, the truth that Jesus said, I have come to show you who the Father is, what he is really like, shines that light when we look at him. He wants you to encounter that. He wants me to encounter that. So I want to give us two invitations today. Two invitations to start to grow and how we see him more clear, to answer that question of who he's really like and to say, God, I'm I'm open to that. I want I want a new lens, I want a new experience. Number one, reflect with honesty. Reflect with honesty. Right here, August of 2026, this this moment, what is your lens of God? What is that image? Is it what he's revealed, or is it what the circumstances and moments and situations of life have got in there and influenced? Reflect with honesty. What's on my lens? And reflect honestly. Just look at that, consider that. Number two, reach out with faith. Reach out with faith. Not conditions, not with terms, but say, God, I'm reaching out. I want to see you clearly. Would you do that in my life? So both of our locations, I'd love to just close in prayer today.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

I'll maybe I'll hand it off for you guys to pray together. Here in Caledonia, let's pray. God, I love the what Jill said to reveal our heart to God, reveal our heart to you. And ask questions and ask him the questions we have just as they are. Not in third person, but but to you, God.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

What what are you really like? And would you show me that? Would you show me who you are? In my situation, in my circumstance. Would you show me who you are? In light of the things I've experienced or have been taught or been represented or misrepresented about you, God, would you show me who you are? Maybe for some of us, our relationship with you, our love for you has grown stale or cold or just tired. God, would you give us a new picture, a new experience, a new vision of who you are? Lord, maybe for some of us today we're we're seeking, we're searching, we're asking questions. God, I pray that you'd show us who you are. I love the story of scriptures, God, that all throughout these different moments to different people, you showed up. You revealed yourself. You had a conversation, you encountered them, and Lord, would that be true for us? That we'd seek you and find you. That we'd see you clearly, I pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.