Gods that Never Existed to Begin With, Part 2

Today on some at length with GE career accepts you because of an outward conformity to a set of laws is a father who receives you by grace. And when you realize that you will start to love him and circle of others and when that happens when you love God and love others are to obey all of his commands naturally as one people who obey him because that's how weight gain is favor. Once you abandon as you like.

As always, I'm your host Molly made a batch wrapping up a powerful teaching series called unknown God we've been looking at the evidence for a creator, and if you've missed any of the previous messages, you'll definitely want to hear them and share them with someone there all available@jdgreer.com but for now were talking about a problem that most of us deal with without knowing Pastor JD is arguing that most of us believe in the Bible be true.

Well Pastor JD have an answer to that question. So let's jump right into the book of Exodus. Today I want us to look at certain distortions of God that people reject thinking they are rejecting the real God when in fact what they are rejecting is a distortion of God ought to be rejected. The irony of the tragedy and rejecting these falsities of God that ought to be rejected.

Many people miss the real God. The tendency to reshape or reimagine God in a new form has been a major problem for all of human history, which is why probably why God addresses it in the second commandment ever gave the Magi Second Amendment of the Big Ten number two of the Big Ten reads like this, you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below the keyboard. There is image. This was in fact the command that Israel literally broke before Moses had even returned from the mountain where he received a commandment they took off their jewelry they melted down and they constructed a golden calf to represent God. They were simply worshiping the real God in the wrong way on bad in image the God that they thought would work better for them, but I knew God was insufficient to save them the true God had promised to supply all their needs. It promised to protect them from from from danger. You promise to feed them when they were thirsty, hungry to satisfy them when they were Thursday. One day he would give his life to redeem it. They traded God for an image of a cow that would serve as a good luck charm made a left over jewelry. Make sure you get this same strategy from the beginning has been to twist our view of God beyond what God has said about himself and then have us reject that distorted view thinking that were rejecting the true God.

I was can give you a few of what I see as the top distortions of God that I see Satan doing this with today, ways that Satan lies about God and gets us to reject the God. That's actually a false image of him ready. His first response, God was is water.

What I would call him goosebumps.this is a God. The idea that if God is real. You always be able to feel him did you goosebumps of the feelings of these overpowering emotions in your heart and so if you can't feel him within the must not really be there. Let me ask you where does your Bible ever say that you will always be able to feel the presence of God.

See Christianity. We don't feel our way into our beliefs. We believe our way into our feelings, the God of goosebumps does not exist is a figment of our imagination and Satan is because many of us to believe in him and then reject that God not God fails us. But it was never true of God to begin with.

Here's a second smooth sailing. God with smooth sailing God we assume that God is on our side. Life will work out great.

So when bad things happen to good people. What we assume mother must not be a God but where does Scripture say that bad, unfortunate or unfair things when I happen to good people. You don't get that from the Bible. What Scripture does teach us is that God will never abandon us even in pain and that ultimately he's going to use all paying for our good and his glory closely related to that one is what I would call on demand God on-demand got us. The God we believe always give us what we ask on demand God does exist, yet many people walked away from the faith, because they assume that's what the Bible taught about God.

You see, if she were doing the here's an ugly killjoy God killjoy God is the God he comes up with endless rules to oppress you control you just generally is out to kill your buzz.

He hates all pleasure, especially sexual pleasure EH sexual pleasure so massive? Where did you get the idea of killjoy God, the God of the Bible created joy and laughter in an even sense and this is why the songwriter Psalm 1611 says God in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures for evermore full. This means joy. The couldn't get any better for evermore means pleasure that could last longer.

Right. But let me give you couple reasons. I think people come to believe this distorted view of God. The first is I just they just don't trust God at the end of the day they just don't think he's a good God who desires the best for his children. That's one place.

It is come from a lack of trust. Sometimes, however, the idea of killjoy God comes from growing up in an environment where constant rules will put on you in the name of God to grow up in an environment like that. I see it all. These rules let me tell you where that mentality usually comes from.

It comes from thinking the God's acceptance of us is based on how well we conform to some set of laws. Jesus showed up.

He taught the opposite. In Jesus's day. There were a group of people that I'm sure you've heard about called the Pharisees come up with endless amounts of laws and regulations to be pleasing to God. You can trace their existence with Pharisees existence. You can trace it all the way back to the time of Ezra Nehemiah and Ezra Nehemiah. That was when the children of Israel came back from captivity.

They been sent into captivity because they rejected God's after 70 years of captivity.

God brings them back to the promised land and it was in this they were so afraid that they were to do something that we can make God's in the back of the captivity that they develop a thing that they called the hedge around the law hedge around the law. It was like this if you imagine disobedience, the laws of pet they didn't want to get anywhere near the pits of the bill hedge around and so they came up with for example 65 different laws about the Sabbath that were beyond what God had said the mission is the book that they use that contain always lost 800 pages of extraneous laws that would keep them from breaking the law of God and Jesus showed up and just railed against him because he said you first of all you don't understand why God accepts you know and accepts you because of an outward conformity to a set of laws. He's a father who receives you by grace. And when you realize that you will start to love him and circle of others and when that happens when you love God and love others you can obey all of his commands naturally as one people who obey him because that's how they gain his favor.

Once you obey him because you love him, I am you know I've told you not to compel me to eat a steak take a nap kiss my wife or by gift for my kids you ever want to make laws about that.

I love those things. So I did a natural Jesus and that's how God wants you to be with him and that's not to be produced in your box at a loss. This can be produced in unit by the experience of love. So so killjoy God doesn't exist. Here's another distortion.

I see that I think is particularly relevant for the Triangle area on anti-science God is a God. A lot of people end up thinking is out there. Many people walked away from the faith, because they were told faith in God. Conflict did with the scientific method. So they got to college, they felt like the undeniable findings of science were in conflict with the unreliable teachings of their faith. So they left their faith so they can choose the scientific method and always want to say who told you that Christians launched the modern science movement on people like Galileo, Isaac Newton, Francis Sir Francis Bacon people today like Francis Collins. They believe that because God created the universe. Certain patterns were observable and identifiable the scientific method was new with Christianity. It didn't exist in the pagan world because there was no sense trying to do science in a world that was control of the whims of the gods, but Christians believe God given us minds that were able to detect the order he had built into creation.

So where did you get the idea of antiscience God.

I will admit Christians are partially to blame for this distortion because I have sometimes lazily use the Bible beyond what it was intended for. Was I believe the Bible is God's word. I believe that it is without error but also think you gotta know how to read Galileo wisely said it was a very committed believer. God gave us the Scriptures to tell us how to go to heaven, not how but not explained, was how the heavens go. That means the authors employed certain kinds of language that took into account their limitations. There are certain statements that the Bible makes in a poetic or metaphorical that it mean the wrong, just that they're not designed to be scientific statements only prove this is you do the same thing to be an example your five-year-old says to you, your parent, where do babies come from what is your answer never seen an inexperienced parent with her first kitty tries to get too much detail right it doesn't turn out well. So when you are an experienced parent like for me. My third kid I finally learned this your answer simply they come from my stomach. That's all I'm going to tell you right now that's different than the answer you give to a 15-year-old.

It's different than the answer that the professor gives the medical suit right, does that mean that you're lying to misleading her.

Now it just means that you are not speaking to them in a scientifically specific way that is designed to communicate that kind of information we speak like that on that in different ways than other areas. For example, we said the sun rose in the sunset while you know the sun didn't actually move or not line. We say that is just that our language there is not designed to convey scientific accuracy.

You say, what time is a sunrise sounds better than saying what time does the earth slowly orbit until we can glimpse the sun again. What time is not happening tomorrow. It just right and a lot of the Bible is the same way. I believe the Bible I believe every word of it is God's word but I know that if it's hand-in-hand with the other book the God wrote with all creation listening to some it might in a message titled, that never existed to begin with. Remember you can always catch up on teaching that you've missed. By visiting JD Greer.com someone in your life that you want to reach out to that really sure how to get started. Let me suggest a simple way. You might even call it an old-fashioned way we package together a set of green cards with inspirational versus on the Frank and blank inside for UT is to steer around Thanksgiving or any time throughout the year to encourage them when you are thankful for that. It can even be to simply reconnect to take the first step to mend a broken relationship for your gift of $35 or more this month.

Thanks by sending you this 20 cards give us a call at 866-335-5220 or go online to JD Greer.com to reserve this resource. I am constantly evaluating what is the best way to understand the science and the Bible, knowing that the same author wrote them both when it seems like there's a conflict. I'm in a keypress and then on both know that when I understand both properly they're going to say the same thing anti-science. God doesn't exist closely related. That is whatever called… God we get out once again.

God, I don't mean the God that's in conflict with the American Eagle, Goddard, Abercrombie, God, I mean I mean the God who Christians cannot plug into whatever is unexplainable in ancient days. Whatever was unexplainable they would just attribute to God. There's an earthquake. What must be the God stop in his foot is raining, God must be crying like God must be throwing somebody out of heaven and that's how they thought about that Christian sill pill that is God today, sometimes of science are sometimes on to explain why they got a parking space at Southpoint Mall. You know like a fly just Jesus knew I was late Jehovah gyrating gave you a parking space hallelujah is any good.

Maybe. Maybe God gave you parking space. I don't know what our entire faith cannot be billed on a God just shows up to explain the unexplainable. Because here's the thing. Listen the list of physical things that we cannot explain is getting shorter and personally, I'm glad for that. I want science to figure out the cure all diseases that we have the list of things that we can explain is getting longer gaps in our knowledge have more to do with our ignorance than they do with God. Our faith does not depend on God being the plug-in for unexplainable phenomena. Yet if anything be explainable is a better argument for God.

Many unexplainable we take out your phone. I'll take it out. Would you be too tempted to someone with I'm put your phone if you if you know how it works down the glass and the circuits and all the things working there together how Wi-Fi works you can understand every component you understand that that doesn't that doesn't convince you that nobody made it understanding it convinces you even more than somebody had to have made it understanding the beauty of the world is pointing to the magnificence of the creator, Richard Dawkins. Here's what he says in the God delusion, one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it's a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding you talk about the gap God right there… Exist. God never said that about himself. So what you gotta do is reject the idea of the job God and realize that the true God is, is fundamentally different.

The guilt God. This is a big one. This is the God who holds your past mistakes over your head uses them to belittle you to threaten you and keep you down.

Technically, this God may love you but he doesn't really like you. You did on his nerves. So you spend most of your life trying to get away from this God when you finally get rid of them you feel so liberated right or if you're one of those people that have left behind, the guilt, God, let me just say to you.

Congratulations. You should've left the Guild got behind because he never existed in the first place. The real God says yes you have sent you messed things up, but I can transform you into a new creation. The real God cares so much about you that he took your sins upon himself. He didn't hang your sins over your head. The hunger sands on his head when he went to the cross. Let me encourage you if you have been captive most your life to the guilt God and finally shaken him off. Let me encourage you to consider the true God is. Here's what happens when you shake off the idea of God altogether. You don't remove the problem of guilt when the best illustrations of this came from an atheist name Arthur Miller who wrote a play called death of a salesman back in literature class. You probably had to read that that play Arthur Miller says he says I quit believing in God because I was tired of being hounded by guilt, he said. After I threw off my belief in God. He said the strangest thing happened is that I couldn't shake the feelings of guilt. I just transferred I just transferred the feeling of inadequacy from God to the audience as I was trying to please. I needed to hear your good and your worthy. And you're not guilty from somebody so I lived and I died by audience reviews of my film because I desperately needed to hear you are excepted from somebody is that I realize that in losing my belief in God I didn't lose my guilt.

I simply transported to a different a different place. You were designed by God for him, and there is something in your heart that craves that approval. Once you kick got off the throne.

You're not gonna get rid of that you just to look for a new place to become codependent in marriage become desperate for the affirmation of others.

You need the real God. Get rid of the guilt God but look to the real cause because that's the one that on that exist that loves you and is pursued you one more more more real quick to coexist. God coexist God. This is a lot of times a reaction will yield God. This is the God who accepts everybody and just want you to be sincere and try your best right three problems with coexist.

God just work. If I get to say really bluntly because your heart was designed for the true God, even when the iPhone came out the light phones in the rain today but when the iPhone came out it was controversial because Steve Jobs had made it where you could not open the iPhone you couldn't tinker with it and you could net software do it. That's, what they did in the computer world and he said the iPhone is such a beautifully and intricately and perfectly designed device that if you try to jam other stuff into it is just gonna mess it up know whether or not that's true about the iPhone. I don't know but that is certainly true about the human soul the human soul is so beautifully and perfectly designed by God to simply jam and impulse conceptions of God is only going to mess it up. It's like St. Augustine set our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you because we were designed for you and here's the other problem with the coexist God is that he didn't really ever confront you with your problems with coexist. God is just a reflection of your heart and all he does is affirm you, but you realize that there are parts of you that probably should not be affirmed. That really ought to be confronted. We can see this in previous cultures right on your Viking guide young man in his mid-20s sees a Viking somebodies insulted his honor.

What is his heart, tell him to do.

Go kill whoever insulted, Your Honor, so that you can restore your family name mass was heartfelt, how many will look at him say just all your heart and your heart is always good to be a reliable guide to what you should do now is to know that your heart is telling you the wrong thing. Don't follow your heart. In our day. We assume that whatever heart tells us is true. Why would our heart always lead us correctly. There are parts of you that need to be confronted and coexist. God never confronts usually just affirms you is cosmic blanket in which you curl up in and find yourself some parts of you will need to be found many to be lost because they are lost so easy killing for exist. God can't confront you should third prop coexist. God does not exist when I see the coexist God dynamite coexist even exist. To begin with just a figment of your imagination is like somebody writing a biography of you having others when this before marriage is my job you would like to write a biography of you think it's awesome biography of me okay in my biography, you are an astronaut who has filled out relationships because you so better relationships you with 19 tax, which is the ultimate sign of failure. Like right so you like this is you and your life. I'm scared of heights. I will ignore a dog person I met you, not better relationships that IBMers are so much more interesting. The way that I have you go from being honored about their biography to be insulted right because you like that version that exist.

What's wrong with the real me. How do you think God feels more like you not need you to be like this and this is how I want you to be in.

This is what my Jesus would be like.

He's not a build a bear God you assemble the deity that makes you feel warm at night is not a Burger King God when you have in your way.

Jesus said, John.

46. On the way the truth and the life. No way to treat the life. Nobody comes to God except through me. If you see me you seen the father think about his response.event exist. Smooth sailing.on-demand.killjoy.antiscience God doubt God guilt God coexist God.

They don't exist in some of you have walked away from one of these distortions of God and I want to say again to you. Congratulations on leaving them they never existed there like you better cast for the friendly ghost, but is figments of somebody's imagination.

I want to invite you to consider the real God. The God that's revealed to us by Jesus.

The God Jesus said if you see me you seen the father.

That's a God whose promises are better than temporal feelings.

God's promises were given in Scripture and then validated by Jesus death on the cross and his resurrection. God says yes and not just out to make your life smooth got bigger purposes for you on conform you to my glory and I died for you to get ready your semi-resurrected and I want you to learn to express my power in the midst of pain. I'm not an on-demand God. He simply gives you what you need is it you know everything I know more than you and you can trust me because I'm your father is your father I you you can you know that sometimes I give you what you would've asked what you know what I knew. I'm not a killjoy got on the creative showing on the daughter cared so much about your joy that when you would put yourself in misery. I came in I rescued you among anti-sign Scott on the God who said that the heavens declare the glory of God that by studying the heavens. You can actually learn more about my glory. I'm not a God who hangs guilt over your head, I'm a God who took your guild into myself so that I can liberate you and set you free on not just the coexist. God, because I don't want to exist with things that are not true. I'm inviting you God says to follow me on the way the truth and the life of the central Christian confession. Listen to this, the central Christian confession has always been the Jesus is who he says he is because he rose from the dead. Here's the question do you believe that Jesus is a recess is because here's what Jesus said. Jesus said that your problem is that you're separated from God all your other problems in life come from that one core problem but God cared so much about you even want to leave you.

That way he came to earth to rescue you and he says whosoever will will if they receive this I will restore them to God and I will guide them all the way into eternity. Have you ever done your offer of salvation.

You can learn more about what it means to follow God. When you visit@jdgreer.com you're listening to summit the conclusion of a study called unknown God. Our goal through teaching the last several weeks has been to help listeners see how the gospel changes every aspect of their life, not just Sunday morning right JD. Yeah, I could see her before Sunday morning but I know the majority of their week is lived out the other six days of God is as concerned, if not more concerned with what looks like to follow Jesus and know him and bring those other six days. God wants to transform not Sunday party you but all of you. That's one of the reasons that we have the gospel partner program. Here's where inviting listeners to not just be receivers of the word, but to become channels of blessing to become a gospel partner means I'm not only be benefited by the word I want to give to help others be benefited by the word and we invite you to join that ministry team I see you become a participant with us in ministry a choice, a gospel partner, we are able to develop a relationship with him give you some to some special promos some ways of saying thank you. We love to start that relationship with you. You computer more and more jaded where.com we take seriously our responsibility lies Hon. Stuart every financial gift receipt is a growing ministry we desire more essential in helping others into the love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And when you sign up for an ongoing monthly gift of $35 or more, you become part of our gospel call 8665 24. You can set up monthly connections online clear.com hi Molly, that event inviting you to join us tomorrow when were kicking off take a look at all the things that corrode our relationship and destroy our home.

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