Copyright © 2011 Grace Family Church of Rhode Island

Ideas have consequences. The way we think about God affects the way we respond to him. In other words, our theology affects the way we live. Some people think theology is dull and irrelevant, but perhaps that is because they think God is dull and irrelevant; they would rather get on with their life without dragging God into the discussion.

 

Everyone has a theology, whether they know it or not. They have some concepts of what God is like. They may think he is distant and unconcerned, or harsh and angry, or even that he doesn’t exist at all. All these ideas affect the way we live. If we believe God is distant and unconcerned, for example, we may be angry because we are suffering from the sins of other people, and God doesn’t seem to care.

 

We may need help, but God doesn’t seem to answer our cries for help. Or we may indulge our baser desires or take advantage of others with impunity, thinking God doesn’t care one way or the other.

 

Living by faith

My point is that the way we think about God affects the way we live. This is implied throughout the Bible, which repeatedly connects doctrine and behavior.

 

God cares about us, Jesus said, so we should not worry. Worry comes from a lack of faith that God is good, powerful, merciful and will not cease to love us and do what is good and right for us. If we don’t trust God, we may think that he doesn’t care, or that he doesn’t have the power to take care of us, or that he is harsh, unforgiving or unpredictable toward us.

 

But when we trust in God, we do not worry even when bad things happen to us. We are confident that God is faithful to us, suffering with us, holding us, and that he will use even our pain to make us stronger and bless us. He works all things, even bad things, for good. He brings light out of our darkness. Our belief about God’s power and love affects the way we react to the situations we face.

 

Paul uses a similar kind of logic in his letters. He explains that we are saved by grace through the work of Jesus our Savior, and then he writes, Therefore we should be living sacrifices, set apart to do God’s will, putting off the old self and putting on the new, acting like the new people that God has declared us to be. In other words, our theology should affect the way we live.

 

The book of Hebrews uses similar logic at several points. After explaining a concept, the author says, Therefore let us hold fast to our confession, therefore let us approach the throne with confidence, therefore let us encourage one another. He sees a close connection between ideas and consequences, between doctrine and practice.

 

Need for an accurate view

Since the way we think about God affects the way we live, we want to have the best understanding of God we can. If we think of God as a powerful physical being, then we will tend to focus on physical life, on external behavior, on a future based on physical things. We will tend to neglect spiritual qualities such as grace and love, and give little attention to concepts such as the heavenly and the eternal.

 

On the other hand, when we think of God as eternal and triune, then we see a God for whom relationships are essential to his very being, for whom love is essential, a God who gives himself when he gives his Son, a God who lives within us when his Spirit is in us.

 

The triune God is a God who has fellowship with us directly, not through intermediaries. In contrast, a God who is only Father, but not Father, Son and Holy Spirit, unity in trinity, is more likely to be seen as aloof, distant, legalistic, stressing law rather than mercy. This is just how many people view God. If such a God sent his Son to die on the cross, he would be sending another being to satiate his angry judgment, not taking humanity into his own being and redeeming it through union with his own sinless Son, with whom he, with the Spirit, is One God.

 

He highlighted two qualities of God—his greatness and his goodness. God always uses his enormous power to further his covenant of love and grace toward his people. He is gentle, loving, slow to anger and full of mercy. Here, I want to focus on the "so what" question. How is this relevant to us? What difference does it make in our lives? How do we respond to a God who is simultaneously powerful and gentle?

 

Trust

I would like to highlight two ways in which we respond to God. The first is trust. When we realize that God has all power to do anything he wants, and that he always uses it for the good of humanity, then we can have absolute confidence that we are in good hands.

 

He has both the ability and the covenanted purpose to work all things, including all our rebellion, hatred and betrayal against him and one another, toward our redemption and glorification in Jesus Christ. He is completely trustworthy—worthy of our trust.

 

When we are in the midst of trials, sickness, suffering and even dying, we can be confident that God is still with us, that he cares for us, that he has everything under control. It may not look like it, and we certainly do not feel in control, but we can be confident that God isn’t caught off guard. He can and does redeem any situation, any misfortune, for our good.

 

We need never doubt God’s love for us. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us" (1 John 3:16). The God who did not spare his own Son can be counted on to give us through his Son everything we need for eternal happiness.

 

God did not send somebody else: The Son of God, essential to the Godhead, became human so that he could die for us and rise again for us (Hebrews 2:14). We were redeemed not by the blood of animals, not by the blood of a very good man, but by the blood of the God who became human.

 

We can be confident that he loves us. Every time we take communion, we are reminded of the extent of his love for us—both of his death wherein we are forgiven, and his resurrection wherein we are given union with him and presented holy and blameless to God. He has earned our trust.

 

"God is faithful," Paul tells us. "He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear" (1 Corinthians 10:13). "The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one" (2 Thessalonians 3:3). Even "if we are faithless, he will remain faithful" (2 Timothy 2:13). He is not going to change his mind about wanting us, about calling us, about being merciful to us. "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:23).

 

He has made a commitment to us, a covenant with us, to redeem us, to give us eternal life, to love us forever. He will not be without us. He is trustworthy, but how do we respond to him? Do we worry? Do we struggle to be worthy of his love? Or do we trust him?

 

We need never doubt God’s power, either. This is shown in the resurrection of Jesus from death. This is the God who has power over death itself, power over all the beings he created, power over all other powers (Colossians 2:15). He triumphed over all things through the cross, and this is demonstrated through his resurrection. Death could not hold him, for he is the author of life (Acts 3:15).

 

The same power that raised Jesus from death will also give immortal life to us (Romans 8:11). We can trust that he has the power, and the desire, to fulfill all his promises toward us. We can trust him with everything—and that’s a good thing, since it is foolish to trust in anything else.

 

Of ourselves, we will fail. Left to itself, even the sun will fail. Our only hope is in a God who has power greater than the sun, greater than the universe, more faithful than time and space, full of love and faithfulness toward us. We have that sure hope in Jesus our Savior.

 

Worship

We also respond to God with worship, because worship is simply giving God what is fitting. He is praiseworthy, not only for his power but also for his gentleness. Raw power is neither good nor bad, neither to be praised in itself or condemned in itself. Dictators have power, volcanoes have power and bacteria have power, but we do not praise such power. Power is praiseworthy only when it is used in a good way, in a way that helps others.

 

God is love, and all that he does is done in love. This is praiseworthy. We praise love even on a human level, don’t we? We praise people who give their lives to help others. They did not have enough power to save their own lives, but what power they had they used to help others, and that is praiseworthy. In contrast, we criticize people who had the power to help but refused to do it. Goodness is more praiseworthy than greatness is, and God is both good and great.

 

Praise deepens the bond of love between us and God. God’s love for us is never diminished, but ours for him often grows weak. In praise, we rehearse his love for us and, in effect, fan the fire of love for him that the Spirit has started within us. It is good for us to remember and rehearse how wonderful God is, for that strengthens us in Christ and increases our motivation to be like him in his goodness, which increases our joy.

 

We were made for the purpose of praising God, of giving him glory and honor, and the better we are in harmony with his purpose for life, the greater joy will be ours. Life is more satisfying when we do what we were made to do: to honor God. We do that not only in worship, but also in the way we live every day. We honor God when we serve other people using the gifts God has given us. We honor God when we forgive instead of seeking revenge.

 

We honor God and show that he is great when we shape our lives around him, when we value his loving word to us more than the ways of the world. We honor God when we look to Scripture instead of society, when we meet our obligations and responsibilities to others instead of shirking them.

 

Worship is a way of life. We offer our bodies and minds as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2). We worship God when we share the gospel of his Son (Romans 15:16).

 

We worship God when we give financial offerings (Philippians 4:18). We worship God when we help other human beings (Hebrews 13:16). We say that he is worthy, worth our time and attention and allegiance. We praise his power, and his patience. We praise his glory, and his humility in becoming one of us for our sakes. We praise his righteousness, and his mercy. We praise him for the way he really is.

 

This is what we were made for, to declare God’s praises (1 Peter 2:9). Life works best if we live the way God intended us to. And this is our reasonable service. It is simply right that we praise the One who created us, the One who died and rose to save us and give us life eternal, the One who works even now to help us become more like him. We owe him our allegiance, and owe him our love.

 

We were made to praise God. John was given a vision of our future: "I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’ " (Revelation 5:13).

 

This is the right response: awe at the awesome, honor for the honorable, praise for the praiseworthy, allegiance to the trustworthy. That’s something worth thinking about.