COMMUNITY GROUP/FAMILY AND DAILY STUDIES BASED UPON OUR PREACHING SERIES AT COMMUNITY CHURCH PUTNEY)
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COMMUNITY GROUP/FAMILY STUDY NOTES
There was a specific moment, the moment of your conception, that
you began to exist – this is your true age (life begins at conception)!
Consider your earliest memory; it may have been when you were around 3 years
old. I remember going to a café and seeing a child drop an ice cream, clearly
this was important to me! God, however, has no earliest memories. That’s right,
no early memories because He has never got any older because He is eternal.
Like the Trinity, we know of things that are like God’s eternality, but nothing
is very like it. There are lots of old things but they all had a beginning,
unlike God, who has no beginning and no end.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR GOD TO BE ETERNAL?
Ø What does Psalm 90:2 say about God’s
eternality compared to creation?
Eternity is sometimes
included in what can be termed God’s infinity or that He is limitless.
God’s eternity is His infinity in relation to time.
It is indisputable that
God’s eternity means that He has and will always exist. What is less clear is
God’s relationship with time. Many bible teachers (myself also) believe that God,
whilst working in time, is also outside of time and knows past, present and
future as equally now. God is “I AM”.
Wayne Grudem puts it this
way, 'God's eternity may be defined: God has no beginning, end, or
succession of moments in his own being, and He sees all time equally vividly,
yet God sees events in time and acts in time.’
Ø What does 2 Peter 3:8 say about God’s
experience of time?
LET’S RESPOND TO GOD’S ETERNALITY
Ø
Reading Deuteronomy 33:27, how does God’s eternity bring comfort?
Ø Read aloud together the following extract from the Athanasian
Creed,
‘We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity
in Unity… The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost
uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost
unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And
yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal…’
Ø What does John 5:24 tells
us about our eternality and how it can be transformed by Jesus?
GOING DEEPER PERSONAL DAILY STUDIES
'God's eternity may be
defined: God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being,
and He sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in
time.’ (Wayne Grudem)
Monday: God is “I AM”
Begin by meditating
(reading slowly, repeatedly, with feeling) on the text,
Exodus 3:14 God
said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites:
‘I am has sent me to you.”
Revealing Himself as
“I AM’, God is wants us to know His unlimited nature as a comfort and
inspiration to worship.
Tuesday: Eternal Son
Jesus is also infinite
in time. The incarnation saw Him become a man but this was not Jesus’ creation!
Jesus has always been God and with God.
John 14: 3-5 Now
this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the
work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the
glory I had with you before the world began.
Wednesday: Eternal cross
Revelation13:8 The
Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
God’s
experience of all of time as being eternally now is seen in this verse. In
eternity past (because God does not change, He has no new plans!) Jesus, to
God’s experience, had already died for the salvation of sinners. And, to state
the obvious, these words in Revelation are written about the future – as we
read we are (to a very limited extent) ‘experiencing’ future time as God does.
Thursday: Alpha and Omega
Revelation 1:8 “I am the
Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is
to come, the Almighty.”
How can God know a future
that doesn’t exist yet? We live in a universe bound by time. To us, neither
the past nor the future exists. But God is supernatural and is not bound by the
laws of physics and time. He really does exist in the actual past, present and
future reality right now. All of His limitless being is in every successive
moment equally. God is with us yesterday, today and forever, let His
greatness inspire trust and worship.
Friday: Eternal foundation
Psalm 90:2 Before the
mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting
to everlasting you are God.
The
mountains may seem eternal but they are not! Mountains rise and fall as tiny
drops of rain wash them away. So mighty and yet so weak!
God is an
everlasting, unshakeable foundation for those who will trust.
Are you
anxious and weighed down? Express your trust in God’s everlasting nature and
greatness. Let the eye of faith see past these mountains that cast a shadow on
your heart.
Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the
everlasting arms.
Saturday: God has done it
Romans 8:30 And
those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also
justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
This amazing promise
is in the past tense. For God your predestination, calling, justification and
glorification are past and future! The eternal, almighty nature of God means
that our greatest hope – to be with God in perfection – can only be thwarted if
God Himself can be ended.
In eternity past God
chose you for glory – to be in heaven and then, when He comes again, to live
with Him in a new heavens and earth. Why did He choose you? It’s not that God
looked into the future and saw that you would be nicer or more responsive than
others. The only answer we can give is that God chose to love you, from all
eternity, by His grace alone and to the praise of His name.
Ephesians 1:4-6 For he chose us in him before the creation of the
world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us
for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his
pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has
freely given us in the One he loves.
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