Special Episode I: Rethinking God Biblically Introduction | Behold Your God Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Mediagratiae, and since we started the Behold Your God podcast, we've sought to highlight materials that we've found helpful in pointing our hearts to Christ.

We believe the Lord has blessed that endeavor because a lot of you have reached out and told us how beneficial the letters and hymns and books that we've talked about on the podcast have been to you. For the next few weeks, we want to point you to another such resource.

It's the work that launched Mediagratiae, the study from which this podcast takes its name, the Behold Your God study series by Dr. John Snyder. This week's episode is the introductory message from the study, Behold Your God, Rethinking God Biblically.

But before we get to the message, I need to explain that the video or the audio, if you're listening and not watching this, is only one component of the study. The heart of the study is a daily devotional workbook, five days a week, looking at and interacting primarily with the passages in the Scripture where God describes Himself, and then wrestling with those incredibly important if-then questions.

So if this is who God is, then, well, how then shall we live? Because the workbook is such an important component to the study, we've made the first week of the workbook available via free download on the Mediagratiae blog, which you can find at mediagratiae .org or themeansofgrace .org.

Some of our team make it a regular practice to go back and listen again to the sermons of the Behold Your God study and read through the workbook again. So if you've been through the study before, we hope that your experience re-listening to these messages now will only be deepened and sweetened.

And you'll have the opportunity to share these podcasts with friends and families, members of your church, who you feel like would benefit from interacting with the themes that are presented in the study.

If you're unfamiliar with the study and this will be your first time going through it, let me explain how to get the most from it. Listen to the message in this podcast first, the introduction, Welcome to Behold Your God, Rethinking God Biblically.

Then head over to our site, Mediagratiae or themeansofgrace .org. Look for this podcast entitled, Special Episode 1, Rethinking God Biblically Introduction. And download a free PDF of the first week of the workbook.

Work through the introduction and the first five days of the workbook on your own before you listen to next week's episode, which will be the entire week one session of Rethinking God Biblically. But for now, let's be careful how we listen and give attention to Dr. John Snyder as he welcomes us to the study, Behold Your God, Rethinking God Biblically.

The Character of God and the Aim of the Study

Welcome to the Behold Your God study, a 12-week investigation into the character of our God. And we hope that over the next three months, we will all be confronted with the one being who is at the same moment, the most terrifying and the most captivating person.

Our aim for these 12 weeks is nothing less than really a reintroduction to God and a rethinking of all the areas of life as we rethink who He is biblically. We want to apply these great truths to our individual lives, to our families, as well as to our churches.

Why the Study Begins with Plowing Up Hard Ground

Now, the way the study is set up does require some preparation, which is why we're here together this evening. And I think that we can be prepared by answering three questions. And the first question is this, why is it necessary to do so much plowing in this study?

There are a number of places in the coming 12 weeks where it is essential in the material that we be critical of current trends in Western Christianity. I'd like to compare it to plowing up or breaking up hard ground.

It's a shock to the system to set the plow to our own lives. It's a shock to take the truths of the Bible and break up old traditions in our homes and in our churches. But there is a purpose behind the uncomfortable truths.

The prophets Hosea and Jeremiah both use an agricultural metaphor to describe the great dynamic that exists between a speaking God and a listening people who then are called to respond to this God. They mention things like sowing the seed, reaping a harvest, and breaking up fallow ground.

Let me read you those two passages. Hosea 10, verse 12, the prophet says, Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till he comes and rains righteousness on you.

Jeremiah says the same kind of thing, but in Jeremiah there's a very specific order with the command. Jeremiah 4, verse 3, he writes,. For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.

Now, it is important to note the context of both of these prophetic statements because these are commands that do not fit every situation in the church. Here in Hosea's day, as well as in Jeremiah's, Israel has drifted far from the Lord.

Their hearts have grown hard. Their religion has become cluttered with wrong ideas. Their lives are full of distraction. And God compares them in these passages to fallow ground. Now, what is fallow ground?

Fallow ground is a plot of land that once was tilled, planted, and productive. But now it has been allowed to lie neglected, and it's gotten hard over the seasons and the years, and it's covered with weeds.

By neglect, Israel's spiritual land, the soul of the individual, the soul of the nation, had become hard and unresponsive to the truths of God. And it had become subtly and quietly cluttered with weeds and distractions.

But this happens to us, too. One problem with fallow ground is this, that the cure to fallow ground is not to throw a great deal of good seed on top of the ground and hope that a new harvest will come.

Fallow ground doesn't receive the seed. No farmer would go to a patch of land that has been allowed to lie fallow and throw seed on there as his first act in hopes of a harvest. When we deal with fallow ground, we have to start with plowing.

And when we deal with spiritually fallow ground, hearts that have been, through neglect, been allowed to grow hard toward God and His truth, hearts that have been cluttered again with the old weeds, well, we have to begin with breaking up this soil.

Now, this is obvious for all of us who have been a part of 12-week studies before. We start with very high hopes. We throw ourselves into our study books. We come each week. But at the end of the 10 or 12 or 20-week study, we look back on our life and there just seems to be so little harvest, so such little real spiritual change produced.

And we get used to the disappointment. So, if we want a different outcome at the end of 12 weeks of studying, in this study on God's character, our task must include not only learning new truths about God, but it must include a plowing up of our heart to make room for the things that God is saying about Himself and to make room for what God says about Himself to come and to affect us in the common areas of our life.

Each day, we have the opportunity of opening our Bibles, listening to God, and we will be required to do two things. Not one thing, but two things. The first is that we will be required to break up or to plow up those areas of our life that have grown hard and are covered in weeds in order to make room for something better.

And then the second, we want to take the things that God is saying and as believers, we want to find room for them so that they permeate every area of our life. Now, this is not an easy thing. Plowing is not easy.

And plowing the soft, tender stuff of our hearts, hitting those soft spots in our souls where we don't like God to press against. This is not a thing for folks who are cowards. It takes a lot of self-examination.

It takes a lot of honesty. When we look at the big picture of Western Christianity, it's not really an encouraging sight for us today. And those who love the Lord and those who love His church are often required to make some honest statements about the spiritual condition of the church.

And criticism can be misunderstood as being an attack from the enemy, from without. But the criticisms that we find in our 12-week study are not an attack from an enemy, but the wounds of a friend from within.

Now, of course, there is no real benefit in us becoming a group of professional, spiritual critics of the American church or the Western church. But there is a great deal of benefit that comes from being honest with God and honest with myself and honest with each other.

Maybe I'll give you one more illustration. Not a biblical illustration, but one perhaps that we can all relate to easily. Many of you have children who are now young adults, and they may be off at college or they live far away and they work, and you don't get to see them as often as you used to.

Let's take a college student. And they go to a college that's at some distance, and so the visits are more rare than you would like. And as they leave, you've got this bedroom that's rarely used, and by that irresistible, invisible force that begins to collect junk in everyone's house, and we all feel this force.

Our houses get cluttered. But we don't want the clutter in the front rooms where folks come and sit and talk with us. We don't want it where people can see it. We take the clutter and we put it in a place that we hide clutter.

And it's easy to take some of that clutter and begin to put it in the unused bedroom. You intend to pick it up later. You intend to put it in its right place, but you get busy and you don't. And you don't realize how much clutter has really gathered in your child's bedroom until you get the phone call that says, By the way, December 19th is my last exam and I'll be coming home.

Really look forward to getting back, seeing friends and family. And so happily, in anticipation, you go to the bedroom to get it ready, and you're a bit shocked that it's just crammed full of junk, your junk.

But you don't mind. No mother ever minds clearing out the room of the college son, does she? Because the joy of the anticipated visit far outweighs in her heart the amount of work it takes to get rid of the clutter.

It's the same thing spiritually. We allow wrong ideas about God. We allow wrong ideas about the Christian life to kind of gather in our hearts. And we don't like them in the front rooms where everybody can see them, and it's embarrassing.

So we put them back in the little corners of the soul that no one sees. But then when we come to the Scriptures and we're confronted with God, we're reintroduced to the God of the Bible. The Christian longs for a greater intimacy with that God.

We long for Him to return to us and for us to return to Him and there to be a reestablishment of a friendship and of a fellowship that we haven't had for so long. But when we go to look at the room of our life, we're shocked at how much clutter is there.

And it is our job to get rid of the clutter so as to make room for the visit. But really, Christian, when we think of who is coming, it's not such hard work, is it? So that really answers the first question.

Why so much plowing? Why so much self-examination?

Why criticism?

And the reason is we plow the old, hard, fallow ground to make room for the seed. Second question, who gets to do the talking in this study? Well, each week you have a workbook. And in your workbook you find that you have five days.

Each day begins with a devotional. Then there are Bible passages where you can look and see what the Scripture says. There are exercises to help you to kind of slow down and think through things. And at the end of every week, after you've done five days of exercises, you meet back together and you will watch a DVD together.

And then to discuss these things, things that you've studied during the week and that have really triggered some thoughts, questions, objections, things that were said on the DVD. Each DVD has three segments.

It's a little different, so I want to review the DVDs for you now so you'll understand. The first segment for the DVD of each week is a historical introduction. That is an eight to ten minute biographical sketch of some famous minister or missionary.

These are filmed on location, some in the United States, in New England, one in Chicago, some in the UK, in the countries of Scotland, England, and Wales. And in each of these biographical sketches we cover in a short period of time the life and the labor and the beliefs of this great Christian.

And we use that to illustrate how the things you've been studying during the week in the Scriptures through the workbook and what's about to be said in the main talk of the DVD, how these people and their life illustrate what happens when you apply that truth to a Christian.

After the historical introduction there's a thirty minute sermon that is built on the same themes that you've been studying. Now not simply a repetition of the passages given in a sermonic style, but the same basic theme.

And taking the truths that you've been looking at all week long in the Scripture and bringing them to bear in a very specific way on us as individuals, on us as families, and as churches. There is a progression in the content of the twelve weeks and I want to run through that with you so you don't miss it.

In week one and two we are introduced to the need of rethinking God biblically, of being reintroduced to this divine person. In week three and four and five we look at the tools that God has placed in the hand of every believer to help us to return to the God of the Bible.

In weeks six, seven, eight, and nine we consider how are we to apply the things we've been learning about the character of God using the tools that God has placed in our hands. How do we bring those truths down to all the different areas of a Christian's life.

In week ten and eleven we shift gears and we look at two common dangers that must be avoided by every believer, by every church. If we wish to find the truths of this study really transforming us, if we leave these two dangers undisturbed, they will certainly rise up and destroy all legitimate hope of beneficial change for us.

And finally week twelve we take all that we've been learning about God and his character, the reintroduction that we've gone through and we remind ourselves that this being has called us into fellowship with him through his son and that in the Bible accounts this includes a glorious nearness.

And we consider what it takes for God to draw near to a group of people and what it takes for a group of people to cultivate the kind of life that God is pleased to draw near to. And we consider the glories and we entice ourselves with the thought that we might really know in our day, in our experiences, gracious seasons of God's nearness.

Now that's the middle section of each DVD. Finally the DVD's third and final segment is the interview. We have an eight to ten minute collection of excerpts from video interviews taken from contemporary ministers whose life and work are built on the very truths that we're going to be talking about.

And each of these men, each one is given an opportunity to speak to the issues that we've been discussing that week. Now I think that the men that we've chosen are a very helpful mix. They're all godly men and earnest men but more than that they're men from various backgrounds.

Some have ministered over sixty years, some ministered under ten years, some from America, some from Africa. Let me introduce you just to their names now. There's a more full introduction in your book.

The first name is Mr. Richard Owen Roberts. Sixty-seven years he has ministered as a Congregationalist minister. He has planted five churches and served as a pastor and an itinerant preacher during that time.

He is a revival historian and an author. Second, Paul Washer, a former missionary to Peru and author, the founder and director of Heart Cry Missionary Society and a popular conference speaker in our day.

Now the third man is not an American but an African, Conrad Mbewe, who is an author, pastor and a denominational leader among Baptists in the country of Zambia. Now the next two gentlemen are Welshmen.

That small country next to England which if you possess a proper map you'll find that it is in the center of the whole universe. The first of these is a man named Dr. Avian Evans, a retired minister and a revival historian and a significant author in the 18th and 19th century glorious works of God.

And the other man is Mr. Andrew Davis, who has pastored in Wales, England, Australia and New Zealand and has known the blessing of the Lord. Finally, two younger men that we interviewed who have recently been given an opportunity of applying these truths in the setting of a new church plant.

The first is Jordan Thomas, part of a pastoral team at Grace Church in Memphis, Tennessee. And the second is Anthony Methenia, a pastor of Radford Fellowship in Radford, Virginia, as well as being a missionary to Ethiopia.

Now, as you can see, there are a number of voices that will be speaking in the next 12 weeks. There's voices from history, great saints in the past. There is my voice. There's the voice of contemporary ministers.

And then there's your voice because at the end of the week you're given an opportunity to gather around and to discuss the things you've been learning. And this is an unusual way to approach a small group study, but we feel that these voices are helpful.

Yet, I want us to be very clear before we start to study about this one issue. Though there are many helpful voices that God gives us, all of them that I've just mentioned are optional. And all of them fade into insignificance when one voice rises above all others, and that, of course, is the voice of our God.

And that's why the study is designed in such a way that you have five days to wrestle with significant texts that deal with the character of God and how that applies to the Christian life. Before you listen to the voice of some great saint in history, before you listen to me, before you listen to the interviews with contemporary ministers, before we listen to each other, we have a week to sit with an open Bible at the feet of the throne of our God and to ask Him what does He say about these matters.

Now, I am confident that no matter how difficult the scriptures we look at may seem, no matter how many times they seem to guide us in walking with Christ in a way that is completely contrary to the traditional way that we've thought about things, that even in cases like this, that the true believer will not turn back.

Now, my confidence is not because the study is so clever that at the end of the day's activities you're convinced that everything that I've written for you is just perfect. And I say this not because I'm confident in you, that you're always going to make the right choices, but our confidence is in our King who in John chapter 10 said this, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

This is the one voice that we cannot afford to take lightly. This is the one voice that contains in it the hope that we need. There is no hope in another workbook. There is no hope in a new preacher. There is no hope looking within yourself, smiling bigger and working harder as a church.

We must determine that we will come together to hear what God has to say. And that can only really come to us by a long soak in this book. So, these days are set up in a way that you could work through them 15, 20 minutes.

You could fill out all the blanks and check the boxes and read the passages quickly. But really the book is designed as a door opener, as a friend to point you down a different path. You have to walk down the path.

You have to slow down enough to hear what God is saying about Himself. And not to rush over it because it's Bible phrases you've heard before, but to really listen to Him and to ask Him, what has to be plowed up?

And where do you want to place this glorious truth.

In my life, in my church?

The voice of God is unlike any other voice. It is always effective. It brings life. It brings death. It brings health. It brings destruction. But it always calls for a response from us. So, that's the answer to the second question.

Who gets to do the talking for these 12 weeks? Now, the third question is this. What can I or you honestly expect from another 12-week study? Wrong expectations always lead to a certain amount of disillusionment and we want to get the right expectations of this study.

So, let me say right off that these 12 weeks are not a well-done travel documentary on DVD that you can pop into your spiritual DVD player and sit back in the comfort of your living room on your spiritual sofa and safely watch your favorite actors go to the exotic corners of the world and explain to you what life is like there.

There's no risk involved in traveling the world like that. You get to see everything. You don't have to move. There's no reality in seeing the world through your television. There's no life. There's no adventure.

There's nothing. We don't want what I would call a postcard Christianity where we gather together throughout a long life of religion. It's so easy to do it. We gather together a whole series of spiritual postcards.

Each one of them is a picture of some amazing destination, some wonderful event.

But they're not your postcards.

They're postcards that you've gotten from reading the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints and biographies of missionaries and preachers and the stories of those people around you who have walked with God.

And so, you see this person and Abraham, a David, a Jeremiah, an Isaiah, a James, John, Peter or Paul, a Hudson Taylor, a Charles Spurgeon, a person that lives next to you that lives such an enviable Christian life.

It's their pictures. It's their stories on the back of the card. And people come over and you talk about them. And in a sense, you pull out these cards and you tell them the life of Spurgeon and the life of Hudson Taylor and the things that Paul endured for Christ and the things that even David after sin found to be true of God's mercy.

And people ask you, wow, have you gone there? Have you been to these destinations? You say, oh, no, no, these aren't my stories. These are someone else's stories. But aren't they impressive pictures? These 12 weeks are designed to be something very different.

It's really designed to be something more like this. A pair of new hiking boots and a backpack full of everything you need for the journey. But you must lace up the boots. You got to leave the comfort of your living room.

You are going to have to meet God. And he is going to have to have the freedom to take you wherever he wants, as far as he wants, for as long as he wants. There's no safety in sitting in your living room and thinking about Christianity, thinking about fallen Christ.

There is a risk when you come up to the living God and say to him, I will listen to anything you want to say to me, and I will go anywhere you tell me to go with you. But there is life, and there's reality, and there is the adventure.

To know the God of the Bible really, to be responding to him hourly, to walk with him in the midst of all the common events of life is an adventure far more exciting than any exotic corner of the planet.

And it lasts forever. It's not like a vacation where you go away to some beautiful spot and you empty your bank account and you come back home more tired than when you went away, sad that it had to end, and now needing to get back to work to pay the bills.

Christianity is an adventure. It's like a journey where you open up the door, you walk on the path, and there's a person in front of you. It's not a map where you have to turn right and left and stay at this place or that place.

There's a person, there's God, and he takes you, and in complete trust you follow him. And it's a journey into a land that has no equal for beauty, and it does not have a border. It never ends. It is the beginning of the everlasting life.

It's like getting into a small boat and being pushed off by God out into an ocean that no matter how far you travel, there is no end. What we're talking about in these 12 weeks is being reintroduced to God, but the reason we're talking about that is because there is a journey to be made with him.

It is a journey made with God. It is a journey made by God's work in our soul, and it is a journey made for God's everlasting honor. That's what we're facing.

Let's pray.

Our gracious King, we pray. God, we pray that you would deliver us from a kingdom of words, a kingdom of good intentions. God, take us out of that barren land and bring us into the reality of being reintroduced to you and of rethinking everything because of who you really are.

Open our eyes in these 12 weeks to behold you in this holy Bible, and God, grant us courage to set the plow to our hearts and to open the door to meet you face to face and to walk with you wherever you want.

Lord, we ask this for the glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and we ask it in his name. Amen.