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Speaker: Jerry Cisar

How do you think about God? How do you process the turmoil in the world today? Whether we are talking about ISIS and the terrorist attacks in the last couple weeks, or hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis, or the brokenness of families and relationships, chaos – the opposite of order and peace – effects all of us and we are processing it somehow.

In their book, America’s Four Gods, the authors suggest that how a person thinks about God, is shaped by their answers to two other questions: First, does God ever intervene in life? Second, does God ever make moral judgments about what we do and say? Two people may say they believe in God, but if they answer these questions differently, their beliefs are two very different things.

Radical Islam proclaims a god who is wholly judgmental, and does not love. America’s pop-religious culture teaches of a loving god that is always accepting and non-judgmental. This acceptance is meaningless since it requires nothing of us. When one is confronted with his or her sin, the knee-jerk response is, “God knows my heart,” as if despite one’s actions, the heart is pure.

Genesis 6–8 teaches of a holy God who calls humanity to account, and shows grace in His love; a God who has holy-love. It is a story about mercy triumphing over judgment, or more accurately, about mercy triumphing through judgment.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2015/11/20151108.pdf