Sep. 28, 2025

God, the Whole God, and Nothing but God

Introduction - This message is part of a broad series on a very important topic, that of Loving God.  Most studies on this subject which I’ve ever been part of have been easily intreated discussions on expressing warm and tender love to God.  The pastor reassures the congregation of God’s love toward us, described almost always in terms of human perceptions.  Before we can really love God in the manner in which He wants, we need to have a fuller picture of God Himself.  We can then spend time giving Him what He wants rather than what we want Him to want.

To have a well-rounded understanding of God, we must understand that He made and must deal with the entire universe, including all of us.  In our churches, we hear mostly about the obedient, Christian side of life, but little about how God deals with the disobedient and disorderly.  We must then start by understanding two basic natures of God: 

Romans 11:22 See then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; for otherwise you too will be cut off.  NASB

This verse is part of an explanation by Paul concerning the Jews rejection of Jesus and the subsequent grafting in of the Gentiles into the family of God because of the work of Jesus in uniting the two (Jew and Gentile).  He is making the point that God will be kind to those who honor and follow Him and will treat severely those who reject Him.  So, we must not only understand the sweet side of God if we are to please him; we must understand the severe side also.

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  NASB

There is lots of confusion in the world of the sidewalk Christian over what is meant by “fear” in the verse above, or in most verses where the subject appears in the Scriptures.  Usually, a humanized understanding emerges, one in which we view God as less than He is.  This results in the interpretation of “fear” as reverence, deference, courtesy, respect, or other tame definitions.  The Hebrew word here in Proverbs means “to be terrified” and “to be frightened” in most of its appearances. The Greek word for “fear” has the same meaning in the corresponding New Testament Scriptures.  Unless we have this fear, we do not have the foundation for true wisdom.  God will always be no more than our caretaker or buddy.  We will not have the fervor to live for Christ through testing and will always have our own comfort above His will in our priorities.  

When we have reached the state of mind in which we fear God, we can then move with freedom into the rest of our life without fear of anything else.  This will have many effects on our bodies and minds.  It is interesting to see how many different disease processes modern medicine attributes to “stress,” which is essentially fear of just about everything we encounter in life: fear of dying, disease, war, famine, childbirth, being judged by others, failure, poverty, etc.  To get free from this torment we must learn to love God: 

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. NASB

So, Let’s embark upon a search to find out how God wants to be loved:

Proverbs 8:17 “I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek me will find me.” NASB

This is probably the best verse to start from in pursuing the question “How does God want to be loved?”  Most Christians have learned some things in our church experience about loving God:  We have read about the offerings of the Old Testament and glimpsed some aspects of the Temple and tabernacle worship.  We have read about some of the earlier testings of men like Noah, Abraham, and Moses, who demonstrated incredible bravery and faith by building an ark, attempting to sacrifice a son, and dividing the Red Sea.  Does God today want offering cakes, or dead animals, or an ark, or some songs sung to electric instruments, to make Him feel loved?  No, obviously all those things I mentioned are circumstantial or superficial. The answer is found in this New Testament verse:

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. NASB

The surrender of our plans for our life is probably the starting point for expressing love to God.  The expression “acceptable” in this verse means “well-pleasing” to God.  Many Christians just want to go heaven.  They have no interest in turning over the control of their entire life to God’s wishes.  That is a state easily accomplished in the first seconds of belief in Christ.  Many will never choose to go beyond this and God will not force them to.  For others who wish to be a living sacrifice, there is no specific employment niche or life status for this yielded life.  God uses us in whatever station we find ourselves in life: mothers, fathers, waitresses, bus drivers, doctors, dentists, carpenters, etc., etc.  

The Jews Paul wrote to knew well that a sacrifice had no life of its own within its body.  It was a dead animal whose blood had been drained.  By contrast, we don’t lose our biological earthly life, but we, like the image of the animal sacrifice, lose all control of our earthly destiny.  In the sacrificed life, what we become, what we achieve, the type of earthly blessing we experience, the heavenly reward we receive after we die are all given over to God and guided, amplified, fortified, and multiplied by the love of God in direct proportion to how we love Him. This sacrifice is not arduous, or torturous, or full of self-inflicted pains:

Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, God, You will not despise.  NASB

Conclusion - God is really pleased, not by a dead or tortured body, but by a human spirit whose ownership has changed from human to God”s control. I think I have experienced some of what this sacrificed life is like.  It is great, much better than anything I could have imagined myself!  In college, I began to get a clearer picture of what I might be and do in adult life.  My training at the US Air Force Academy led naturally to the vision that I would be a fighter pilot.  I was devastated in my senior year after experiencing a simple optical migraine which disqualified me from pilot training.  I felt like I was no longer in control. I think I experienced the broken heart this psalm talks about and wondered “What can I ever do in life?”  Somewhere during this period I met my future wife, became a disciple of Jesus, married, and finished out my Air Force commitment in a safe ground-bound job as an aircraft maintenance officer.  We got involved in a good church in Alaska.  I got hired by the church as a counselor and pastor and eventually started a church in Pittsburgh, which led us to our present location in Monessen, Pa.  I can truly say that loving God in this simple yielded way has produced the richest life I could imagine.  He has multiplied blessings to me through a wonderful biological family, a wonderful church family and a deepening knowledge of Him.  In the weeks ahead, we’ll explore together more about loving Him.