Charlie:
The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big, deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that’s why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he’s called us to live. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Cultivate Podcast through The Grove Church. I am Charlie Lofton, the lead pastor there, and we have with us creative director Whoop. Big Gail.

Abigail:
I I feel

Charlie:
like big Gail. Like that.

Abigail:
Gail?

Charlie:
Just feel it doesn’t feel right. Hey, big Gail.

Abigail:
Yeah. That’s why a lot of people didn’t like it. But if

Charlie:
it’s if it’s your you gave yourself that name.

Abigail:
Well, no. No. I did not give myself that name. It started in PIFI. Shout out. Mhmm. And

Charlie:
Throw what you know.

Abigail:
Always. K. But they would you know, the it’s some rap song that’s like, hey, big girl. Make him back it up. So it’s, hey, big Gayle. Make him back it up.

Charlie:
Oh, okay.

Abigail:
Yeah. So it came from that, but then a lot of people just shortened it to Gayle. And so I would never suggest, introducing myself as big Gayle. But if you’re gonna play Xbox with me

Charlie:
because I were going to give you a nickname like that, and I think I have called you this before.

Abigail:
B Gayle.

Charlie:
B Gayle. Yeah. B Gayle. Yeah. Not big gail. B gail.

Abigail:
Yeah. That’s fair.

Charlie:
Anyways, we are in a series that we’re doing, working our way through systematic theology, which is kind of the study of who God is and what the bible teaches, but thinking about theology in very specific categories. And we’re gonna work our way through 10 different categories, actually fairly slowly, but not as slowly as one could. Right? Have you ever seen, like like, a lot of people around here are familiar with Wayne Grudem.

Abigail:
Yes.

Charlie:
He’s written some theology books. He’s got he’s got this book. It’s called it’s about, you know, maybe a 100 pages called 20 things every Christian should believe.

Abigail:
Yes. And then there then there’s then there’s the the the bigger

Charlie:
yeah. A bigger one medium. And then there’s what what even is this. Right? And so we’re somewhere between

Abigail:
The 20 and the

Charlie:
Yeah. Someone closer to them. Not 20. Yeah. Somewhere between the 20 and the medium. Okay. Anyways, working our way through this, and we started category 1 with theology proper. What is that? What is theology proper?

Abigail:
Theology about God.

Charlie:
Yeah. What do we believe specifically about God? The the theology, we use this to it’s the study of God, but we use it in this more overarching term to, like, things about God and things that are connected to God. Theology proper is, like, what do we specifically believe about God? Yeah. And we decided last week, we talked about his nature, which we decided we were theists. Not only theists, but monotheists.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And not only monotheists, but Trinitarian. Trinitarian. And we tried, question mark, to explain that. I think we did. With best one can.

Abigail:
Yeah. We circled around the fire a lot. Yeah.

Charlie:
We spent a lot of time talking about what it isn’t Right. Which is really sometimes the best that we can do. Sure. Justified some of the ambiguity.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And that just because it seems like Christians made it up

Abigail:
They didn’t.

Charlie:
We didn’t. We just we invented words to try to describe a very difficult concept that is revealed in a series of truths.

Abigail:
Kinda like colors.

Charlie:
Kinda like what? Colors. What about colors?

Abigail:
Like, that’s always boggled my mind that I’ll never create a new color.

Charlie:
That’s good.

Abigail:
But we just discovered colors and put them in categories and named them. We invented blue.

Charlie:
Also sometimes wonder, do we see does do we are we seeing colors the exact same way?

Abigail:
I think no.

Charlie:
We all agree on what orange is. But there’s But that doesn’t mean that what I see when I see orange is what you see when you see orange. Yeah. And how would we even describe? Because whatever words I used to describe orange are also the words that you used to describe orange regardless of what it is that you’re seeing.

Abigail:
But we point in?

Charlie:
Right. That that. Mhmm. Oh, it’s bride. It’s a bit.

Abigail:
Mhmm. Association. Yeah.

Charlie:
Anyways okay. That’s not what we’re talking about. Nope. So we talked about the nature of God. And what I want us to do now is talk maybe what is he like? What are some of the characteristics of God? And the first category I wanna talk about are the omnis. K. You know what omni as a pre as a prefix means?

Abigail:
No. I’ve never thought about that. Omnidirection you have something that’s omnidirectional? Omnidirectional marketing. Omnidirectional. What does

Charlie:
it mean? What does it mean? Something multiple? Omnidirectional. What does that mean?

Abigail:
Goes to a lot. It means every. Every.

Charlie:
Every. Mhmm.

Abigail:
Multidirectional. Is going to a

Charlie:
lot of them.

Abigail:
Different. Omni. Omnichannel marketing is going to every channel.

Charlie:
Every every every all

Abigail:
That’s a big claim now that I think about it then.

Charlie:
Right. Sounds bold. And so there are some words that have the prefix omni that are very often used to describe God. We could probably come up with more, but there are primarily 4 that get used very often. Mhmm. Omnipotent. Omnipotent which means he is all

Abigail:
Not everywhere present. All

Charlie:
powerful. Omnipotent is all powerful. Okay.

Abigail:
Omnipresent. Omnipresent. He’s everywhere.

Charlie:
He is everywhere.

Abigail:
Omnipotent. You

Charlie:
already said that one.

Abigail:
Said that one.

Charlie:
But it’s close to

Abigail:
that one. Omnipotent.

Charlie:
That’s still that is just mispronouncing the first one.

Abigail:
I don’t know the next one.

Charlie:
And you actually might know it from literature, the different types of narratives in fictional categories.

Abigail:
No. I don’t know it.

Charlie:
Omniscient.

Abigail:
Oh, I have heard of that.

Charlie:
You have heard of that?

Abigail:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie:
So you can have, like, you’re reading a fictional book. It’s like it’s, you know, like, the author that is narrating knows everything about

Abigail:
Harry Potter.

Charlie:
Or you can have one that is limited to a particular person. But you know everything that that purse you know everything that person knows.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
But I don’t know what you know. I only know what this person knows anyways. So omniscient means that God knows everything.

Abigail:
Yeah.

Charlie:
K. And then so we got omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and the one that you’ve probably not heard before because it is omnibenevolent. He’s

Abigail:
really nice.

Charlie:
All good. All loving.

Abigail:
Okay.

Charlie:
So everything that God and God knows everything is everywhere, can do anything, and is always loving.

Abigail:
K.

Charlie:
So those are the 4 main characteristics that kind of these superlatives that are used to describe God. Obviously, there’s way more about God than those things, but those are the 4 big categories we have forgot. So there isn’t anything that God can’t do. There’s anything God doesn’t know. He is everywhere at once and he is always all loving. Which if any of those make you kinda go, what?

Abigail:
Maybe the all everywhere. Yeah. Just because I can’t comprehend someone enveloping a world.

Charlie:
Right. Yeah. And it’s and and and beyond that, if, our understanding of the universe is correct, then He’s so big. Time and location are very similar. Mhmm. So to be everywhere at once

Abigail:
Is insane.

Charlie:
Very similar, if not the same thing as being every win at once. Right. And so if you are everywhere and every win at once, that means God is existing simultaneously everywhere and at every time that has been or will be.

Abigail:
Yes.

Charlie:
And so at this point, we’re we’re talking about a God that exists outside of Mhmm. Linear time and space. So we are people. We exist in one place progressing through time in a linear way. There was yesterday, today is today, and there will be a tomorrow. I am here, and then I will go there, and then I was there. And so my location and time are very specific and are different. But if God is everywhere and every wind, then there is no place or time that God has ever been.

Charlie:
Yeah. He just is everywhere. Yeah. And so in that sense, it really does have more of an all encompassing

Abigail:
On earth. Right.

Charlie:
He just he’s he’s he’s he’s it like, everything that we are and we will call reality is kind of absorbed in him.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Which can kind of lead people then to some of these fancy words that we live that we used last episode, pantheism or panentheism.

Abigail:
Uh-huh. That he’s 1 in the same.

Charlie:
Less pantheism because pantheism is like the if the universe didn’t exist, God would cease to exist. But kind of this blurred panentheism can kind of where it’s just kinda like, I don’t know. I mean, it’s kinda like it’s not that we’re completely distinct from God. We’re kinda we’re like, we’re just this little small little part of him. No. I mean, what we’re we were created by him. There was a time that we didn’t exist. There was we we didn’t exist, and now we do.

Charlie:
So we are different from God, but yet what we would call reality, god is so much bigger than that. He is everywhere and every time all at once.

Abigail:
The movie?

Charlie:
Did you see the movie?

Abigail:
No. I didn’t. Okay.

Charlie:
Well, I was about to talk about Hot Dog Fingers, and you don’t even you referenced the movie.

Abigail:
I wanna watch it. I have been thinking of Loki and Interstellar this whole time.

Charlie:
Loki and Interstellar? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they’re I mean yeah. So, I mean, we’re again, we’re not talking about a multiverse.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
I could talk about a multiverse, but that’s a different that’s a different category. But does are we the only universe that exists?

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Or or do all possible universes exist in in the mind of God? Right? And and and do we just exist in the mind of God? And we he created us, but he created us in his mind. But he’s not a physical being to have a physical mind. God doesn’t have a physical location. And so it’s just like when we talk about him being omnipresent, we don’t mean he’s physically here because he’s not he’s not physically anywhere. Just like he’s not physically any when.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And so I think it’s actually easier if we just limit it to kind of normal talk. It’s like, hey, Wherever you are, god is. And he’s he’s waiting for you in the future. Oh, that’s great. And then also you just ask one more question.

Abigail:
Then you’re off.

Charlie:
Okay. I don’t even know I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore. And a little bit like what we talked about last week with the trinity, the more I talk, it’s not the more likely I am to say something that’s false. Just the more I talk, the more I don’t even understand what I’m saying anymore. Yeah. I can act like I do. Oh, he’s just saying blah blah blah blah. Yeah.

Charlie:
But but what what did I what did like, I understand everything that I just said, but I don’t really understand

Abigail:
Yeah. You can’t really piece it all together.

Charlie:
Any of it because we only know we really only understand things in terms of limited by location and time. Yeah. And if you exist outside of those cons those constraints, then I don’t I really have a category

Abigail:
for it.

Charlie:
And we can be both comforted and scared by that. Mhmm. Abigail, don’t worry. Wherever you end up, whatever the future holds, God is already there. He’s waiting for you there. Yeah. That sounds very comforting.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
But a God who if God is already there in the future, then as far as God concern is concerned, the future already exists. And if the future already exists, does that mean that my life is predetermined?

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
And there’s a difference between predestination and predetermined, but I don’t like either one of them.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
But maybe maybe I’m more comfortable with it than some people are. Some people hate the idea. Yeah. But I really believe we get all been out of shape about predestination.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Because I don’t want to think that from my perspective that my life is predetermined because and, again, in a lot of ways, it’s not because I make a decision and something changes. Right? That that’s definitely true. But from god’s perspective, if he is every win, then what is going to happen is has already happened from his perspective. Yeah. Then that makes me think, well, then is my life predetermined? And so then I don’t like that. And it’s like, well, you’re I’m trying to figure out what the world is like from god’s perspective. Mhmm. I don’t like I don’t like what the world would be from God’s perspective.

Charlie:
Well, it’s great. You don’t live there.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
I live here where my cons where my my actions have consequences. Mhmm. So I’ll just continue to live there. Yeah. And just just focus on the the comfort that comes from living with a God that is bigger than

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
My perception of reality at one any one given moment.

Abigail:
Yeah. Similar to what we’re saying last episode of, like, you can maybe hear all of the pieces, but you can’t intrinsically understand it yourself. Right. But you can accept it to be true.

Charlie:
Yeah. So then you get omniscient. You get that for free.

Abigail:
That’s

Charlie:
You get a all knowing.

Abigail:
You get

Charlie:
all knowing for free with Yeah. Omnipresent and

Abigail:
Yeah.

Charlie:
Maybe not. Maybe you could be everywhere all at once and not really

Abigail:
Not know.

Charlie:
Not really understand.

Abigail:
But it does come with being a theist. Yeah. But I mean He knows and we know him. Yeah. Not that we’re omniscient, but

Charlie:
That every everything that is, he knows Everything that we think, everything that’s going to happen that has happened. And I think that’s really important. Because I think we’ll we’ll talk about this some. We probably have already talked about it some. We talk about prayer. Does prayer really work? Does prayer really change things? And it’s like, am I telling God something that he doesn’t know already? You’re not ever telling God something doesn’t know. And you’re not asking for an outcome that he doesn’t already know which way it’s gonna go. Sometimes we can get ourselves all spun up again

Abigail:
about up.

Charlie:
Spun up. Spended up. Spin up.

Abigail:
I like it.

Charlie:
About what what does that mean from from my perspective? Well, what it means from my perspective is there is a God infinitely bigger than me. Yeah. That has is already there, has already got all this figured out. And the only reason that should scare me is if God is not also omni benevolent.

Abigail:
Right. Yeah.

Charlie:
If if God is all loving, then

Abigail:
then

Charlie:
I can I can trust in that God? I can trust in the fact that he has a he knows the future, and he he he is everywhere. He sees everything. He knows everything. I can trust that because he is trustworthy. Yeah. That makes sense?

Abigail:
Yeah. I mean, that changes everything because you could have all of the characteristics without the benevolent one that I can’t remember how to say it. But You said it.

Charlie:
Benevolent. Then just put omni in front.

Abigail:
Omni benevolent. Yeah. But you could have all of those with out that one, and that’s something to be scared of.

Charlie:
Right. Right.

Abigail:
But you add that in, and that, like, infuses the nature of who he truly is.

Charlie:
Yeah. So you add, you know, omnipotent, all powerful. Mhmm. And that’s the scary that is that is the scariest one. He could do anything he wanted to.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
But he he is all good, and him being all good restrains his omnipotence.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
The ability to do everything and to and and that we should be afraid he might do something. And that it’s not like that. I mean, could god do something inconsistent with his character? No. It’s kinda one of the well, it’s just kinda one of those little contradictions, little paradox.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Of course, god could do anything, but we we know he won’t do anything. He won’t do anything. Because there’s a difference between can and will. Now it’s gonna turn into like a session with one of my counselors.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
You know, there’s a question about what not what god can do, but what god will do.

Abigail:
Mhmm. And

Charlie:
those are those are 2 different things. Some often we can get afraid of what god can do, afraid of what god could do with what he knows, or based on everything that he is and the and the power and the and the bigness of him, we we worry about that. We could worry about that, but we should focus not on what is possible, but what is but what is true, what is going to happen, and and god has said that I that that he is good, and he will only act consistently with that.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
You know, people say the joke is I don’t know if it’s a joke, I know it is. That that the best, the best possible government is a benevolent dictatorship.

Abigail:
I’ve never heard that.

Charlie:
Like, if one person had all the power but he was

Abigail:
Yeah. But

Charlie:
he was good. Always good. Yeah. That is most without a doubt, the most efficient

Abigail:
Sure.

Charlie:
Form of government. Mhmm. And you could always count on that the government is always going to be good. But the problem is it’s not it’s not it’s not possible. Possible. Because there aren’t any omnibenevolent people in the world. Right. And there’s not any one one person or group of people that you could put together and they would be omnibenevolent.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
But that’s kinda the idea here with God is that that is what we have is we have an omnibenevolent dictator. Yeah. He is in charge of the whole thing. He has the power to do whatever he wants. He has all of the knowledge and of everything in the world, but I can trust in that because he is All but I will. All good. Yeah. If I said we live in a dictatorship now, you would be scared.

Charlie:
Of course. Because I do not trust the character of anyone. Right. And so we describe omnipotence, we describe omniscience, we describe omnipresence, and that’s scary because all of that power should not rest anywhere. Someone who has all knowledge and all and all power is by definition dangerous unless they are in fact all good.

Abigail:
Yeah.

Charlie:
Now I’m gonna ask a question, and then maybe this is the question that you’re just gonna ask me. Seems like that there’s quite a few things that God has done, maybe described in the bible Mhmm. Or the way that the world works that don’t seem good. Fair. Right? They don’t seem good. It does it doesn’t seem good. So he’s got all the power, and he is all good. Why aren’t things Going better.

Charlie:
Better?

Abigail:
Yeah. I mean, you can look at a ton of current events. I mean, you can look at the hurricane right now. Why would that happen? And I mean, I guess that maybe takes us back to the paradox that you’re saying of he should be able to overcome all these things, but why does he not?

Charlie:
Right.

Abigail:
And so looking into the character of his actions, I guess.

Charlie:
Yes. So to to me, this takes us to a separate category of characteristics of God Mhmm.

Abigail:
That I

Charlie:
think are very, very important to me. And if you have been listening to this podcast for, say, more than a year, you have probably heard me mention some of these things before because they’re very common biblical words that we use a lot to describe Jesus, to describe God, to describe various aspects, things in the bible. And and all of these words are various places used to describe God.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Gracious. Well, I’ll use the noun forms. Grace

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Mercy, just wrathful.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Right? These are these are all words that are used to describe God. And I wanted to find them

Abigail:
to kinda help us understand. K.

Charlie:
So we’ll start with justice. Justice is what justice is I I get exactly what I deserve.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
If if you earn something good, you get it. If you deserve something bad, you get it. You get punished when you deserve to be punished, you get rewarded when you deserve to be rewarded. Right. Okay? So God is Bible says, God is just.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Yeah. Reward, God God rewards people. A reward is you do something good, you get a good thing.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
Punishment is you did something bad, you get something bad.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
And I would like to suggest that the word wrath

Abigail:
Is that?

Charlie:
Is the same as that. We use the word wrath and we think of it as equivalent to cruelty.

Abigail:
Right. But it’s just a just punishment.

Charlie:
Cruelty is I give you something bad on my own whims. Right. That’s not what God is. And that’s not what wrath means. When we say the wrath of God is revealed, it is the just the just punishment. A just punishment has been revealed. Mhmm. So just, I get what I deserve.

Charlie:
Punishment, I get a bad thing I deserve slash wrath. Reward, I get something good that I deserve. Grace, I get something good I don’t deserve.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Mercy, a bad thing I do deserve is withheld.

Abigail:
Okay.

Charlie:
You deserve a punishment. I don’t punish you. That’s mercy.

Abigail:
Uh-huh.

Charlie:
Which is different than grace, which is

Abigail:
Here’s a good thing.

Charlie:
Here’s a good thing. Right? Technically, maybe mercy is a subset of grace.

Abigail:
Sure.

Charlie:
To give someone mercy is to be gracious in in a Uh-huh. In in a in a sense.

Abigail:
Yeah.

Charlie:
But mercy very is more specific and that it is the withholding of a punishment. And so God is always cover to cover described as just. Mhmm. But really, God is also described as being gracious and merciful. And if we wanna talk about inherent contradictions in the character of God, some people like to talk about, well, how can you be all loving and all powerful and bad things happen? Well, my question is how can God be just and gracious? You can’t be just and gracious.

Abigail:
Uh-huh.

Charlie:
You can’t be just and merciful. But he is. Right? And so our definition of these words are limited and are really our descriptor of God, or we need to say this, God is always just, but when he is not, it is to our benefit. Yeah. Never to our harm.

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
We will never receive less reward than we deserve or get more punishment than we deserve.

Abigail:
Yeah. I like not I like that as unfavorable, but I think that’s a really good way to break it down of he’s not gonna be unnecessarily cruel, but he will be just in punishment, and he also will show beyond what you would expect grace.

Charlie:
Right. Yeah. And so, God is

Abigail:
We have 5 minutes.

Charlie:
K. So God is he is good, which means he will never punish someone for something they didn’t do and will always reward, and give people what they deserve.

Abigail:
Mhmm. That does not mean that punishment does not happen. Right. Because he’s

Charlie:
just But then they’re so then the question then becomes, does there seem to be more punishment out there in the world at large than is deserved? What did the people in the hurricane do

Abigail:
To deserve that.

Charlie:
Deserve this. Right? And so then we just start to start to have ask more meta questions about, well, each individual person, what did this person do

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
As opposed to what the world has done over the course of its existence, what people have done over the course of our existence. We have accumulated together

Abigail:
Mhmm.

Charlie:
Where these levels of punishment are just for all of us. Right. And we tend to think of it as why did this bad thing happen to this one person when God really, in a lot of ways, and especially in the natural disaster and illness kind of category, thinks of us way more collectively than American democratic capitalists would like to think of it.

Abigail:
Right.

Charlie:
It that that God is dealing with all of us only individually and not collectively. Mhmm. Here’s where I am right now. My brain, Abigail. In my brain, we we we had a nice I had a nice little category. Last last episode, we’re gonna spend 1 episode talking about the Trinity, and we’re gonna spend this episode talking about the characteristics of God, and then we can move on to the next category.

Abigail:
Okay.

Charlie:
I feel like we have only scratched the surface on this. So if you will indulge me We’ll

Abigail:
do another.

Charlie:
We can do another on this.

Abigail:
Let’s do it.

Charlie:
And I apologize for sending you an inaccurate.

Abigail:
That’s alright. We can bounce back. We can definitely bounce back. We get because we have more questions here.

Charlie:
So I I think why don’t you just think about this these topics that we kind of already talked about with the characteristics of God. Yeah. We’ll just jump in and just start Go further into that. Just kinda talk more about what we can really know and trust and appreciate about the character of

Abigail:
God. Okay.

Charlie:
That sound good? Yeah. And we would love for you guys to join us too. Again, as we’re working our way through theology, systematic theology, and specifically the theology of who God is, theology proper. And so as always, thank you for joining us on the Cultivate Podcast. Send any questions you have to [email protected] and find everything you need to know about our church at the grovechurch.org. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Cultivate Podcast. Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith.

Charlie:
That you’re asking big questions and you’re looking for answers. We hope that we can be a resource for you through our podcast and any other way that we can help you. You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can find podcasts including YouTube. And again, thank you so much for joining us.