Anush A. John Podcast
Anush A. John Podcast
Overview of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity
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This sermon makes a measly attempt to do an overview of God and the Trinity if that is even possible.
anushjohn.com
Good morning. My name is Anush and I'm glad to be here this morning. In the first week, today we're going to look at God. In the second week, we're going to look at humans and the gospel. Today we're going to look at God. We're going to look at God, the Father, god, the Son, god, the Holy Spirit, and then a little bit about the Trinity.
Speaker 1The concept of God, the concept of a higher power, has been known for millennia, right? I mean, people have been looking outside of themselves as something that's bigger than themselves and they're worried okay, is this thing gonna kill me? So they worship everything that is bigger than themselves. They worship the Sun, the stars, the rain, the moon, the water, the seas anything that they think is bigger than themselves, they worship. But the God of the Bible, the water, the seas, anything that they think is bigger than themselves, they worship. But the God of the Bible is different than the gods of every other religion. So, for example, in Islam, god is a transcendent being. In atheism and Buddhism, there is no God. In Hinduism, god is multiple, everything is a God. But the Christian God is a transcendent, but he's a personal God. So how do we know about God? The primary way that we know about God is through the Bible. The Bible talks about numerous attributes of God, and each attribute of God explains God a little bit more.
Speaker 1So let me just give you some clues, and I want you to guess what fruit I'm thinking about. Okay, I'll give you some clues. I'll give you four clues and with each clue, tell me what fruit I'm thinking about. This fruit is a round fruit. Any ideas? It could be anything, right? Okay, let me give you the second clue. It has inedible skin. Orange apple. Apple can be eaten, okay. So, okay, let me give you a third clue. So it's got. It is round, it has inedible skin. It is yellow, orange banana. Lemon, yes, lemon. So my fourth clue would have been very sour, very sour, and I did Google. Was lemon a fruit? And it did say yes, lemon was a fruit. Was lemon a fruit? And it did say, yes, lemon was a fruit.
Speaker 1So the thing is, with each attribute, we are able to identify the entity in question a little bit better than we could do with just one attribute. Now there are about 25 attributes of God in the Bible, and all of these attributes need to be taken together to get a more complete picture of who God is. If we see only one attribute, we may not know who God completely is. So this morning we're going to look at three attributes of God. Okay, the first one is the holiness of God, and if you will, please turn your Bibles to Isaiah, chapter 6, verses 1 through 5, isaiah 6, verses 1 through 5, and let me just read it for us. This is a very self-explanatory passage. It is talking about Isaiah, who was a prophet of the Old Testament and he had a vision of God and it completely changed his trajectory. From that point on, what he prophesied for the first five chapters is completely different than what he prophecies after that, after he sees a vision of God in chapter six. Let me just read this for us and you can follow along in your Bibles In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Speaker 1Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings With two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke and I said Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. The holiness of God is about the purity of God, and that is an attribute of God that we cannot grasp at all, and this is why God cannot sin. He is so holy. In fact, it is the holiness of God that defines all his other attributes. So, for example, you know about the holy love of God, the holy anger of God. Every attribute of God is defined by the holiness of God. It is an intrinsic nature of God to be holy.
Speaker 1Second, let's look at the love of God, and for this let's turn to first John, chapter 4, verses 8 through 10. And this is what it says God is love. This is what it says God is love. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we love God, but that he has loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. See, it doesn't say God is loving which he is. God is loving, but that's not what it says in this verse. It says God is loving which he is. God is loving, but that's not what it says in this verse. It says God is love, because love is an essential nature of God.
Speaker 1Back when I was in high school, we were given some metal to to see what metal looked like, and so one of the metals we were given was sodium, and sodium is so soft it's not available as pure sodium in nature. It is purified sodium, but it's so soft that you can cut it. But the thing with sodium is, if it touches water, it will explode. So of course, we took a very tiny piece, we cut off a very tiny piece of sodium and we dropped it into a test tube to watch it explode. So the explosive nature of sodium with water is an inherent attribute of sodium, and that is how it is with God. God's holiness, god's love is inherent with God, and and God's love is not based on us, it is is based on himself, and that is why, in spite of the crazy things that we do, god still loves us, because God's love is an inherent part of himself.
Speaker 1Let me give an example of human love. There's a song that I heard yesterday, a song by Teddy Swims, and In the Door he sings no more thinking about you late night, no more running around with your friends. Now I'm done, picking up pieces of my soul. Up off the floor I said I would die for you, but I can't take this pain no more. I thought I was willing, but tonight I saved my life. When I showed you the door I said I would die for you, but thank God Jesus didn't say that. Right, the love of Jesus is in spite of us, in spite of us. He loves us. Obviously, that's an extreme example of love.
Speaker 1But let me take another example, a good example of human love. A good example of human love would be parental love. Right, a maternal or paternal love. Obviously there are skewed maternal paternal loves. But a good mother or a good father, that love is a very high-level love. And to show you how far God's love goes above that, let's say that you are a good parent. You have a paternal love for your child. You may also be a friend to that child. So there are two loves that overlap, but to understand God's love.
Speaker 1In the Bible there are multiple analogies that are used. One of them is parental used. One of them is parental love, one of them is as a friend. In spite of that, there are other layers of love that God has towards us as a creature and creator, as a brother and brother, as a sinner and Savior. You see, there are multiple kinds of analogies that are used in the Bible to describe the love of God to us. It's so much higher than we can imagine and we need to see all these things together to understand the love of God.
Speaker 1Third, let's look at the justice of God. God, now, the justice of God is something that we are not so excited about, right? I mean, how many worship songs do we know about the justice of God? How many songs have we sung about the justice of God? I mean, there are so many songs about the love of God, so many songs about the mercy of God, about the grace of God, but how about the justice of God? Because if God is just, then I'm in trouble, and that's the usual reason why we are not so excited about the justice of God. But we actually all want justice, right?
Speaker 1If you have little kids, there's always injustice. One kid will say to another kid oh you, if you have little kids, there's always injustice. One kid will say to another kid oh, you have the bigger piece of cake or you have more chips than is on my plate. There's always injustice with kids. And so when my kids do something like that, I tell them well, life is unfair, suck it up. And then I follow up and say well, life is unfair, you've been unfairly blessed. Because we actually are unfairly blessed when we think about kids that are in war-torn countries. Our kids are unfairly blessed. We are unfairly blessed, but there is injustice all around.
Speaker 1When I was in my surgical residency in Kansas City, I was in surgical residency for seven years, from 2008 to 2015. And so when I was there, we had a call schedule, and the call schedule was every third day you were on call at the hospital and every call was 36 hours long. So it was an intense schedule that we had, and when we entered the residency, they said well, everything evens out at the end, which means some months you may get more call, other months you may not get as much call, but everything evens out at the end. In 2015, when I finished, I looked back and I counted and I realized that I had taken more call than anybody else during those seven years. There is injustice, life is unfair and that's just the way it is. And that's just the way it is because we live in a fallen world.
Speaker 1But God, being the God of justice, will make everything right. Let's read one verse as an example of how God makes things right. In Matthew, chapter 10, verse 42,. This is Jesus talking about his disciples who are going on mission. And this is what he says in Matthew 10, 42. He says whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water, because he is my disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. Every single injustice will be corrected. Every action will be rewarded or punished, because injustice needs to be corrected and it need not happen all in this life. In fact, most of the time it's not going to get corrected in this life. This is where the atheistic view falters, because the atheistic view and the Buddhist view is that life ends at death. If life ends at death, then all injustice continues on. You see, everything is not corrected at death.
Speaker 1So we looked at the holiness of God. We looked at the love of God, we looked at the justice of God and since God is so far away, we have been given Jesus, through whom we know God close by. So in the second half of this section, let's look at Jesus. If God is transcendent, jesus is imminent. He became Emmanuel. That's what we are reminded of during Christmas season. Jesus is Emmanuel. God, who was far away, is now with us.
Speaker 1Now there are many reasons why Jesus was born. This morning I want to look at five reasons why Jesus was born. Five reasons why Jesus was born, because why did he have to be born? He could have stayed in heaven and not messed with this little tiny world, but there were five reasons at least why he was born. The first one is to reveal God to us. To reveal God to us and turn your Bibles to John, chapter 14, verses 8 and 9. John, chapter 14, verses 8 and 9. Philip said to him Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him have I been with you so long and you still do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. He came to show the truth about God. Now, if I asked you, what is your opinion of India? You may have certain views of what you saw on TV or certain books you read, or a news report that came out, or whatever it is, but if you want an accurate opinion, ask somebody who came from there. I lived in India more than two and a half decades so I can give you an accurate idea about india. If we want to know about about indonesia, find somebody who has come from there and they will give you an accurate information.
Speaker 1To know about god. The best person to tell us about God is Jesus, because he came from God and in the Gospels he gave many ideas to show who God is. So, for example, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, he showed that God does not show favoritism. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard, which is in Matthew chapter 20, he says that God is a generous God. In the parable of the, let's say, lost coin, you learn that God is a God that seeks after you. In the parable of the prodigal son, god is a God who waits for you to come back, and so there are so many stories that Jesus said to describe God to the people and he came to reveal God to us. The second reason why Jesus came is to show us the way to God. To show us the way to God. In the same chapter, john, chapter 14 and verse 6, jesus said to him I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. He came to show us the way to God.
Speaker 1We have a cousin who lives in Long Island and every time we go to visit this cousin, her dad tells us when you go back to Maryland, take the Verrazano bridge. Every time, and the first few times we put it on Google map. You know our home address and Google Maps said to come through the Washington Bridge and we like well, google says to come through Washington Bridge. You know why should we listen to my cousin's dad? So the first few times we did that one of the times, and every time he says take the Verrazano Bridge out of here. One of the times we accidentally, I think we missed a turn or something, we ended up on the way to the Verrazano Bridge and we might as well go on the Verrazano Bridge. That bridge ended up being an easier, faster way out of Long Island, but we didn't listen to him. He knew the way out of there and he told us and we just didn't listen About 6,000 people have gone up Mount Everest.
Speaker 1It's not an easy mountain to go up, obviously, and it's not a cheap mountain to go up, because if you want to go up, you have the option of taking a guide. A Sherpa is a Tibetan village person who knows the terrain and that village person to hire. Hire them. You can get a full service Sherpa or a part service Sherpa and the cost runs from between $45,000 to $160,000 for you to go up Mount Everest and come back. Or you can take option C, which is don't take a Sherpa at all. But I'm thinking that if you want to go up Mount Everest and want to come back, you will choose a Sherpa, and the reason why you would do that is because a Sherpa knows everything there is to know about Mount Everest. He has gone up and down, he knows the way up and he knows the way down.
Speaker 1The reason why Jesus can show us the way to God, the reason why Jesus is the way to God, is because he is God and he came from the side of God. A third reason why Jesus was born is to show what a perfect life looks like what a perfect life looks like. In in the old testament there were all these commands of how people had to be. God had given all these commands of how he wanted them to be, but nobody followed it, and so there was nobody in the old testament that was a perfect person. So let's say that god from the Old Testament was thinking about the New Testament and trying to see who would die for people's sins Just a hypothetical situation.
Speaker 1He comes to Adam. Adam is the one that caused the sins, so obviously he's not the one to die for the sins. He comes later. There is Noah. Noah was a drunkard and he's not the one who's perfect enough to die for the sins. Then he comes further. There is Abraham. Abraham was a liar. And then he comes to Moses. Moses had anger issues.
Speaker 1He comes to David. David was a murderer. You see, every person in the Old Testament had a major flaw and so many minor flaws. There was no perfect person. Even the best of them flaws. There was no perfect person, even the best of them. So Jesus came to show how life is supposed to be lived. In Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 15, hebrews, chapter 4, verse 15, it says for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who, in every respect, has been tempted just as we are, yet without sin. A fourth reason why Jesus came was to die for our sins. Why Jesus came was to die for our sins.
Speaker 1Usually, when we have a baby born, that is the last thing we are thinking about. Yesterday we went to a baby dedication ceremony and the baby was two months old. Nobody ever says, oh, the baby was just born. This baby was born to die, right? We never think that. We always think this baby was born to live. But in the case of Jesus, death was predominantly forefront as soon as he was born. One of the reasons he came was to die. In Matthew, chapter 20, verse 28,. In Matthew, chapter 20, verse 28, jesus said, even as the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. I want to take you to a verse that is not in our handouts and it's not planned, but see if you can turn your Bibles to Romans 3, verse 25, romans 3.25. And somebody can read it out.
Speaker 2For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past.
Speaker 1This is a very profound verse Because what it says there is that God held back the punishment. God held back the punishment. So for each year before Jesus came there was sin going on. Let's say, 1000 years before Jesus came there was sin going on. Let's say, 1,000 years before Jesus came there was sin going on. Was the sin adequately punished? No, all the sins before the death of Jesus was accumulating for all those years. And then it comes to the time of Jesusesus death and in one fell swoop all the punishment of sin from the past and all the punishment of sin for the future that anybody would ever commit was all at one time given to jesus. He came to die because there were all those sins that were unpunished and left hanging waiting for the right person to come and take the punishment, because we as humans cannot take the punishment.
Speaker 1The fifth reason why Jesus came is to defeat death and give life. To defeat death and give life, turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 20 to 22. 1 Corinthians 15, 20 to 22. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Jesus came to die, but he also came to defeat death by rising up from the grave, and because of that he's able to give us life. He's able to give us life. Let me end this section about Jesus with a fable. Let me end this section about Jesus with a fable.
Speaker 1There was a farmer who lived in a very lonely area in a house, a nice house. He lived in a lonely area and one cold winter night his house was warm and he had this fireplace going and it was very warm inside the house, though it was blistering cold outside and he was about to go to sleep. So he came to turn the fire off. And as he came to the hearth to turn the fire off, he felt what was like knocking at the very top. And he looks up at the topmost window and he sees a couple of birds trying to get into the house, because it's very cold outside and the house inside looks very welcoming. So this farmer takes a big cloak and he puts it on himself, he goes outside the door in the shivering cold and he tries to tell the birds to come out this way, because that window is kind of closed, shut, but the birds don't listen to him. So he tries to wave at them to to get them to come through the open door that is now dragging in cold wind, and then he thinks man, I wish for just one second. I was a bird. Because if he was a bird he could have gone up and told them which was the right way. And, ladies and gentlemen, isn't that what Jesus did? He became a human to live, to die and to rise up and to show us the way.
Speaker 1Third, let's look at the Holy Spirit now. Before Jesus died, he promised the Holy Spirit. In fact, one of the reasons why he ascended was so that the Holy Spirit could come. Fact one of the reasons why he ascended was so that the Holy Spirit could come. So if you turn your Bibles to John, chapter 16, verse 7, john, chapter 16, verse 7, it says nevertheless, I tell you the truth. This is Jesus talking to his disciples. It is to your advantage that I go away, for I do not go away. The helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. So Jesus sent the Holy Spirit in his place. So whatever Jesus was to his disciples, the Holy Spirit is to us now.
Speaker 1I want to tell you three things about the Holy Spirit. There's so much about the Holy Spirit, but we have to condense it in a short period of time. So let me tell you three things about the Holy Spirit. Number one the Holy Spirit is God in us. The Holy Spirit is God in us, is God in us. Let's read a verse Romans, chapter 8, verse 9. Romans 8, verse 9. You have the Spirit of God living in you. You have the Spirit of God living in you. Every believer, when they become a believer, they get the Holy Spirit. That is one of the things of becoming a believer. They get the Holy Spirit. That is one of the things of becoming a believer. And it is through the Holy Spirit that we experience the presence of God, that we experience the blessings of God, that we interact with God through the Holy Spirit that's living within us.
Speaker 1Now, in the Old Testament, things were a little different. In the old testament there was the holy spirit, but the holy spirit did not dwell inside anybody. The holy spirit came down for a specific purpose. Their purpose was done and he was gone. He came for to a prophet. They spoke by the Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit was gone. So there was no indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It was all for a purpose. But in the New Testament we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to be with us, to be in us.
Speaker 1Let's say that you're 10 years old. What would be an amazing birthday gift? You could ask for. What would be? What's that? A bicycle? Okay, anything else. 10 years old? A BB gun? She's dangerous. Yes. A puppy? Yes, a game system? A game system? There are plenty. Yeah, game system.
Speaker 1So when you're 10 years old, you know there are all these things. What if I said okay, you're going to restart life again and you're going to be born and you're going to be 10 years old, and when you're going to be 10 years old, I'm going to give you a little person who will be next to you, and this little person is gonna give you any advice you want. This little person knows everything and knows everything about you and will give you any advice you want any friends you have questions about, any guidance, you want any comfort, you want anything you want to know. This little person can tell you, is that slightly better than the bicycle and the BB gun? You see, that is the gift that God has given when we become believers. He has given us God. He has given us god. God is in us, available at any time, all the time, for us to interact with him.
Speaker 1The second thing I want to say about the holy spirit is that he changes our lives. He changes our lives. Let's turn to second corinthians, chapter 3, verses 17 through 18. 2 Corinthians, 3, 17 through 18. Now, the Lord is the Spirit. Beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. One of the key works of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life is to make them like Jesus. That is the image that we are being transformed to.
Speaker 1We all have our temperamental weaknesses. Some of us it may be, let's say, anger or pride, or laziness, or lust, or indiscipline, or fear, or anxiety or worry. So all of us have certain temperamental weaknesses. Every other religion talks about this and says that you have to change yourself. There's no other way For you to get better. You need to change yourself. There's no other way For you to get better. You need to change yourself.
Speaker 1So if you're a Buddhist or an atheist, there is no God. There is no other help. You have got to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. If you're of the Islamic faith, there is no additional help. Yes, allah is a judgmental God. He will judge you at the end, but you have to do whatever you need to do. There is no external help. In Hinduism there is a law of karma, which is an impersonal law, and if you do good, you will get good benefits. If you do bad, you will reap the rewards of doing what is bad, but nobody is going to help you to do good. This is where the Christian faith is so different. God commands what he wants us to do and then he gives us god, who helps us and changes us into the template of jesus christ. God wants us to be holy. Then he works in us to make us holy.
Speaker 1A third point about the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit guarantees the future. The Holy Spirit guarantees the future. Let's read a verse 2nd Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 21 and 22. 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, 21 and 22. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
Speaker 1In a marriage ceremony in Jewish culture, at the time of the engagement, the groom had to buy a ring. He could not borrow the ring, he could not borrow money for the ring. The ring had to be something that he bought and he would give this ring to his future bride and it would be on the index finger. He would put the ring on the index finger at the time of the engagement and he would go away. What was the ring? The ring was a promise. The ring was a guarantee that at some point in the future the groom will come back and marry the bride. The Holy Spirit given to us in our hearts is a guarantee that when time stands still and the earth has been swept away, jesus will be there to take us as his bride and he will be the groom. The Holy Spirit is a guarantee guaranteeing our future. We looked at God the Father, we looked at God the Son and we looked very briefly at God the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1Fourthly, for today, let's look at the Trinity Now. The Trinity is a concept that's very hard to understand If you leave here with more questions than answers, then we have all done our jobs, because that's what's going to happen. We cannot grasp the concept of the Trinity completely. There are many superficial similarities with other religions, but the Trinity in the Christian faith stands by itself. There's nothing remotely close to the Trinity as a doctrine in any other faith. So I want to tell you three things about the trinity. First we will look at the concept itself, then we will look at one implication of the trinity and then I will give you some illustrations about the trinity.
Speaker 1First, let's look at the concept of the Trinity. The Trinity is one God in three persons, one God in three persons, and each of these persons are co-divine and co-eternal and co-equal. Now, this word is not in the Bible, but the concept of the Trinity is throughout the Bible. The Trinity is is a doctrine that, even though it's not in the Bible, is like this key that once you insert it into the Bible, everything just makes sense.
Speaker 1In the Old Testament there are prophecies about Jesus Christ. Obviously there are so many verses about God. There are so many verses about the Holy Spirit. And then you come to the New Testament. There are so many verses about God. Obviously there are verses about Jesus and obviously there are verses about the Holy Spirit. But seeing all together was not done in the Bible because people were still trying to figure it out. Done in the Bible because people were still trying to figure it out. It was only in the first centuries that they tried to bring this concept together. So it is, I think in AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea, where they first established it as a doctrine, and then in AD 381 at the Council of Constantinople, where they established it further as a doctrine. But the doctrine was already there in the scriptures. Let's read one verse. There are so many verses about it, but let's read one verse that brings it all together. This is the benediction verse that we say all the time in 2 Corinthians 13, 13, verse 14. 2nd Corinthians, 13, verse 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. All those three persons of the Trinity are seen together in that one verse. So the Christian faith is one God in three persons. If it was one God in one person, that would be Islam. If it was three gods in three persons, that would be Hinduism and any one of the polytheistic religions that believes in multiple gods, but in the Christian faith it is one God in three persons.
Speaker 1There are many implications of this doctrine. I'm going to point to just one of them Now. The Trinity existed before the earth was created. They are co-eternal. The Father Son, holy Spirit lived together. They existed together before anything else was created, which means that they didn't need anybody else to express their relational attributes. To express their relational attributes, the relational attributes of love and kindness and grace. They didn't need anybody else to exhibit their relational attributes. Just to show you the contrast In the Islamic faith let's say there is one God.
Speaker 1Let's say that Allah, just for argument's sake, that he created the universe. Before he created the universe, how did he express love? There was no way to express love. There was no way to express any of the relational attributes. He needs the universe, then, to be complete. You see, every other religion that has a God needs the universe to be complete, but the Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity, because there was Father, son and Holy Spirit as one in fellowship for eternity. They don't need anybody else to express their relational attributes. Obviously, like I said, there are many implications of the doctrine of the Trinity that we just can't go over.
Speaker 1But let me end with some illustrations about the Trinity. I'm going to give you four illustrations about the Trinity and you're going to try to see the two kinds of illustrations that I'm giving you. There are two kinds of illustrations that I'm giving you, but I'm going to give you four illustrations and you're going to try to see if you can figure out what the two kinds are. The Trinity is like and you've probably heard this illustration before. The trinity is like water, ice and steam all in one. Right, you put a block of ice in water and there's a little bit of steam. It's three components, but it's all H2O. Okay, that is one illustration. The Trinity is like the Sun that gives light, heat and warmth. Oh, sorry, warmth, heat, light and UV radiation.
Speaker 2You know whatever Three things that the sun gives.
Speaker 1So it's one thing that gives three things. That's one illustration. Let me give you two more illustrations. Imagine you took a paper and you put a dot on it. That dot is in one dimension. If you connected two dots, that would be a line that is in two dimensions. Let's say that you folded the paper up so it came out of the paper, that would be three dimensions. Right, when you're in two dimensions a line or a square you don't see the third dimension. In a two dimensional world, you don't see the third dimension. Let me give you a fourth illustration.
Speaker 1Let's say that I took a bowl of water and I put three fingers into the bowl of water. Just the three fingers are poking into the bowl of water. And I put three fingers into the bowl of water, just the three fingers are poking into the bowl of water. Now, if there's a fish in the water, he sees my thumb, he sees my index finger, he sees my middle finger. As far as the fish is concerned, these are three gods, it's three persons. But what the fish does not see is that it is connected to one hand.
Speaker 1Now I gave you four illustrations, but they are actually two different kinds. One kind of illustration the first two illustrations that I said is about trying to explain the concept and, as you can tell right off the bat, you know it doesn't explain the concept properly. The second kind of illustration the last two illustrations I gave is not trying to explain the concept as much as it is trying to explain why we don't understand the concept. It is trying to explain why we don't understand the concept. That illustration has more substance because we cannot understand the concept. We are three-dimensional or four-dimensional people living in a 20-dimensional world that God created and we will never understand the other dimension that we don't know about. It will not make sense to us. So the illustration I prefer is to say well, we don't know. We can know certain parts of it. We can see the three fingers and know that that's there. We can understand it on one level, understand it on a second level, but to combine the two levels is impossible in our hands.
Speaker 1God is complex and we can never fully understand God. Even if we studied the 25 attributes of God perfectly, how do we know that God doesn't have 25,000 other attributes that we don't know about? You see, ladies and gentlemen, god is infinite. Even when we go to heaven, we will never fully understand him, no matter how much time we have. It's just like an ant on my hand. If the ant on my hand wants to understand me, how much time does it need? It doesn't matter. He will never understand me. He will never understand my dreams, my ambitions, my nature, my attributes. It's not time that is an issue. The issue is that we are on separate levels of existence, so for us to understand God, he is on a different level of existence that, even if we had the entirety of eternity, we will never fully understand him. And here we are yet. Here we are trying to get a small grasp of who God is, on end with two, two tiny stories. A 2017 report showed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is moving across the universe. It's going from one side, which is called as the dipole repeller, which is a side that has no galaxies, to another side, called the Shapely Supercluster, that has several galaxies. And our galaxy, the Milky Way, is moving across the universe at the speed of 390 miles per second. 390 miles per second, that's 630 kilometers per second. We are traveling.
Speaker 1If you've watched the decade-old movie called the Lego Movie, if you have not watched it, I'm about to tell you the ending. So if you're not watching and you're about to watch it, you can close your ears for this one, you can sit this one out, but I'm going to give away the ending. The lego movie is about this ho-hum guy by the name of emmett. He's this vanilla guy that minds his own job, but he's somehow dragged into this situation where lord business is going to wreck havoc in the universes in Lego world, and so to save the Lego universes, emmett goes and he does all this other stuff.
Speaker 1They go through fly, I think Batman is there, lego Batman is there at some point. There's all kinds of stuff going on and then at the end of the movie and this is when, if you're going to watch the movie, you can close your ears at the end of the movie you find that this whole thing was in a basement and the kid was just playing this whole thing. And as we wonder how our milky way is moving at 390 miles per second, way is moving at 390 miles per second. Beyond that is God, outside of time, outside of space, managing the entire universe, and here we are trying to get a tiny, tiny glimpse of who he is. Thank you.