Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, December sixteenth. Ephesians chapter four reminds us that God is over all, through all, and in all. Today, you'll learn to appreciate God's awesome attributes and relate to Him as friend. In a recent copy of the National Geographic, on the front cover are two photos.
One of them is of Jupiter, the planet, and then Europa, which is one of the sixth closest moons to this planet. And under that it asks this question, is there anybody out there? And I thought to myself, well, I can answer that.
Is there anybody out there? And the question is, is there life beyond earth? Well, many people have been asking that question and trying to figure out how all this got started. And so, it's interesting when the finest scientists in the world come to the whole issue of the beginning of all of this, at some point they have to stop and say, well, there is something else.
Nobody can identify what the something else is. Because beyond all the creation we know, you would have to believe that out of nothing came something. No, that's not the way it is.
This is the way it is. If you read the first verse of the first chapter of the first book in the Bible, you'll find out that God created all of this, all of it. So, the issue is, who is this God that's created all this? And what kind of relationship are we supposed to have with Him?
And why did He do all of this? What is all this about? And so, I want you to turn to the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm. We won't read it all, but we'll read portions of it because it is so descriptive of exactly what we want to talk about. And David is asking this question and talking about it. He says in the first verse, O Lord, You have searched me and known me, and You know when I sit down and when I rise up, and You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
That isn't, he just doesn't know about us, but he knows us perfectly, intimately. For even before there is a worry on my tongue, he says, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. And then he comes down and he says, for example, in verse seven, Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I sin to heaven, You're there. If I make my bed and shield, behold, You're there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me.
And Your right hand will lay hold on me. And if I say, Surely, the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to You. And the night is as bright as the day, darkness and light are light to You. Now, listen to this next part of this passage. He says, For You formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. I'll give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.
Watch this. My frame, this physical being of mine, was not hidden from You when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance before it began to take shape. And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. That is, God knew before we were ever born exactly how long we'd live. And He knew what kind of life we'd live. He's the one who determined how long we would live. God knew that from the very beginning.
But you'll notice what He says. The days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. That is, God ordained the end from the beginning.
I didn't say He was responsible for all of our actions, but He knows the beginning and the end and He knew. Then He says in verse seventeen, How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
And if I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. And on He goes. Now, who is this God that you and I serve? And how often do you ever think about Him? And is He worth thinking about? And so, we have to think about what is He like? So, look at it this way.
Listen carefully. God is a person. He's not a thing and He's not a force.
He's a personality. And when we look in the Scripture, for example, and He says, Let us make man in our image. That is, He made us in the image of the Father. We're not things. We're persons.
Each one of us is an individual person. And so, wherever He is, there is the person of God in existence. That is, God is here and God is there. But remember that you can't localize God and you can't say, Well, God is over yonder, but He's not over here. Can't say that. You can't localize God.
And here's the reason. Everything that God has created is in the presence of God under the scrutiny and power of God. It all exists by His permission. And all the things that God has created still under His control.
So, therefore, you can't localize it. Now, when Jesus came, He came to reveal God to us in a way that man had never quite understood before. And so, when you and I trust the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, the Spirit of God, because He is Spirit and the Bible says that, the Spirit of God indwells us so that you can say, When you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, God came into your life in the person of the Holy Spirit. So that all of us who are believers are indwelt by God. And we can either obey Him or disobey Him, but we're indwelt by Him. And so, what I want you to think about, for example, this being true, how often do you even think about Him on a given day? What's the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning?
Is it the weather, the traffic, or your job? Listen, there is no place where God is not. You can't say, God is not here, God's not there.
Yes, all of here and there is in the presence of God. And because He is Spirit, because He is Spirit, He's not limited by anything. When you trusted Jesus Christ, His Son, who came to the cross and died for your sins and mine, and made us acceptable in the eyes of God, now we're His children. And listen, the Bible says He sealed us. When God sealed something, can't be broken. He sealed us with His Holy Spirit of promise, who is the Holy Spirit, but a person of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So, when He sealed you in your salvation experience, you are forever a child of God. You can disobey Him and suffer the consequences. You can obey Him and be blessed. But the truth is, you've been sealed by God. So, God created us and He created us in such a fashion that you and I could have a relationship with Him.
That is very important. God, in all of His awesome attributes of love and kindness and generosity and a whole list of things that He is, He created mankind in order to have a relationship with a person who could relate to Him in return. In other words, He created all the trees and the mountains and the seas and all the animals, everything He created. But think about this, you are number one in the creation. In other words, you can look at anything God created and you're superior. You're superior to trees.
God doesn't relate to trees like He relates to you. You can, you've got the, I have a sweet puppy and you have one, for example. You just love that puppy.
You all get along fine, but you know what? That puppy will never have the relationship with God you can have. You can't find anything God created that can match what you have. The possibility, the capacity to have a personal, intimate relationship with God that created through His Son Jesus.
Only you can do that. Nothing else He created. And you remember what He said? He said to Adam and Eve, I've created all this and I want you to take care of the garden. And it was their task. And now to make it ultimately real, He even gave them something that you and I would think, well, why would God do such a thing? He gave them the capacity to make choices in life. The ability and the capacity and the opportunity to have a relationship with Me, Holy God, you have to make a choice. I'm going to give you the freedom to choose whether you want to love Me or whether you do not.
Whether you want to follow Me for the best or whether you want to rebel against Me. I'm going to give you a choice. And He gave them a choice.
And you know what happened to the choice? They chose to disobey God. You say, well, why didn't God just create what He created and just forget it? Because that's not who He is. God created man in order to share Himself, the God of creation with you and with Me. And with anybody who would respond to Him. He created us to have a relationship with Him so He could do what? Express His love, express His approval, express His kindness toward us, and all the wonderful things that God has, He created us to have an intimate relationship. Let me ask you a question.
Here's, here are all the constellations up there in order. Here are all the different kind of trees, mountain peaks everywhere, seas, sand, farmlands, prairies, deserts, fruitful, you name it all. Now, let's have all of that. And here's God.
What kind of relationship can He have to any of that? Only that He's created, but there's nothing intimate about it. It's when He created man and put him in the garden and said, Now, I want us to have relationship. I want to be more to you than this spirit. I want to be your very life.
And here's what I've created and here's what you can enjoy if you'll just follow what I say. Why did He create us? To have a relationship with us. And think about this. God didn't overlook anything in His creation.
You let the scientists take those first couple of chapters and they can scrutinize it all they want to. They all have to agree it came in a perfect order in which life is. Well, He gave man the possibility of following Him and expressing Himself in us and without humanity, without you. Think about this, without you and everything else God created and there's no humanity. What meaning does creation have? It's expressing the power of God, but expressing it to whom? God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
In other words, the deity, the God who is God. If there's nobody to relate to, why did He create all that? He created it because out of His love, He wanted to express His love. In His power, He wanted to express His power. In other words, you just take all the qualities in Almighty God, what was He doing but expressing Himself to you and to me. He wanted us to understand who He is.
We're talking about an intimacy. We're talking about something that's indescribable, this awesome God that we have. So, He had a purpose in creating us.
And that purpose was simply in essence to share Himself, to reveal Himself so that those who were His creation would understand who He really is. This is why I can't imagine a person waking up in the morning never giving God a thought. You get to your work, don't give God a thought. You work all day, don't give God a thought. You don't give God a thought all day, you come home, you have a good meal, whatever, maybe you watch TV and so forth.
And listen, you've got all these other thoughts in your mind. And when I think about people who sit every night and watch TV, never give God a thought, what a horrible waste of your time. Where is God?
And I wonder sometimes where is this awesome God in your schedule on any given day that you would stop and thank Him and praise Him and bless His name. God wants to build a relationship with His creation. Because what was His purpose? His purpose was to, watch this, His purpose was to express Himself in His awesome love.
So, He not only created us and expressed His love for us in lots of ways in creation, but when you trusted Christ as your Savior, this awesome God, the Holy Spirit, came to my life, came, the Bible says, watch this, to dwell in you and to seal you as a child of God forever. What is He doing? He's loving us. He's expressing Himself.
He, in other words, He's revealing who He is. Not only does He want to save us, but He wants to give us a part of Himself that we can never be lost no matter what happens. And when I think about what He said about the Holy Spirit, for example, He called Him the parakletos.
Para means beside, kletos to call. He, listen to this, He sent the Holy Spirit to live within you, to abide in you, to seal you as one of His children, and He said, He sent Him also to be your Helper. Read the fourteenth chapter of John. He said, I'm not leaving you as orphans, I'm sending you the Holy Spirit.
He's going to be your Helper. So, when you think about God's creation and who He is and why He created it all, and even though things turned sour back in the Garden of Eden, I'm still glad He didn't dump it all right there. He could have said, mm-mm, that's it, let's start all over again. Would you have wanted God to just dump it all back there?
No, you wouldn't exist. And you talk about praising God and loving God. When you really begin to think who He is and what He's done and how He's worked it all out, we should be shouting every day. We should wake up every day thanking You, Jesus. Thank You for a good night's rest.
Thank You for taking care of me. Thank You for what You're going to do today. Thank You, Lord, for Romans eight twenty-eight, because what You promised, You never failed to keep a promise. You said, whatever happens today, You're going to turn it for my good, no matter what. Now, anybody else who promises you that, you can laugh. But when the sovereign God of the universe, Creator and control of everything, makes you a promise, listen, you can bet your life on it. Whatever happens, I'm going to turn it for your good no matter what happens. That you may not be a believer and you think, well, now I don't know that I can grasp on that.
I wouldn't expect you to. Until Christ comes into your life, until the Son of God who came into this world, because Adam and Eve sinned and all of our sin of all mankind. So, what did God do? He started out loving us, building a relationship. And even when it cost Him, His Son crucified before a wicked, vile world.
He was still loving you and me enough to do that in order to express His indescribable, immeasurable love for this creation for you and me. So, you see, when you reject Him, what do you have? You have nothing. And when you accept the death of His Son as payment for your sin, you have everything.
You say, well, how can I have everything? Because God becomes your heavenly Father and He's going to take care of you no matter what. If you've never trusted Him as your Savior, you have no hope, no assurance of life after death. You ought to be wise enough by now to know you're going to die.
At some point, you're going to die. And no matter what you believe about life after death, there is a God who is our God Jehovah, the Father of Jesus, His Son, who desires a wonderful relationship with you and has paid the price to make it true if you'll just let it happen by trusting Him as your Savior. And it's my prayer that you will and that every day you will praise Him for who He is. Thank you for listening to Relating to Our Creator. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia. .
