I am an only child; my husband is an only child and we have one son. Family size varies enormously, but as children, we have no choice in whether we have siblings or not. (Sometimes, even as parents, we have little choice in how many children we have!) For many, however, they have no experience of being an only child; they have never known what that is like, not being the eldest in their family.

It’s interesting to ponder how much we are influenced by the expereince of being an only child or having siblings, but the fact remains that ‘no Christian is an only child.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Journey’, P 159) We are born again into a family, the family of God. Whilst our relationship with God is personal, we belong also to a community of faith, which God likes to family. (Ps 133:1)

Often, people want a relationship with God without the baggage of family. People – even Christians! – let us down. We argue and fall out. We are frustrated by our differences and don’t like having to compromise, to share, to put others first. But God’s commandments to love include not only love for Him, but for our neighbours too (Matt 22:39, Lev 19:18).

We have no choice about our earthly siblings; we can’t ‘pick’ our family members. We also have no choice about our Christian siblings. God decides who is part of the church; we don’t! (see 1 Cor 12:18, 27) Sometimes we are glad about that; sometimes, we wish He’d send X somewhere else! But life becomes less complicated when we are willing to deal with reality as it is, and there is great blessing in learning to love each other as Christ loves us – and blessing as a result of living together as family in unity.

The most important – and indeed revolutionary – God-fact we have in the Bible is that God is love. (1 Jn 4:8) God is not just loving; He does not just act in loving ways; He is, we are reliably informed, love Himself. God’s love means that He eternally gives of Himself to others. (Jn 3:16) God’s love is steadfast and unfailing, not based on feelings, but based on His covenant and compassion. God delights in us (Zeph 3:17); He loves us with passion (see Song of Songs) and lavishes His love on us (1 Jn 3:1); He loves us faithfully and assures us that nothing at all will ever be able to separate us from His love (see Rom 8:37-39). That kind of solid, unshakeable love becomes the wellspring of all life and obedience; it’s a love which is totally different to so many religions which view God simply as a wrathful, vengeful deity.

God is also righteous and just. (Deut 32:4, Gen 18:25) He will always do what is right and just; His ways are perfect. (Ps 18:30) This can be hard for us to accept and understand, but gives us a solid framework for life, for we all long for justice. It is also reassuring, for as Christians it means we can exchange our imperfect righteousness for Christ’s perfect righteousness and therefore can find peace with God. (Rom 3:25-26)

God is merciful and gracious. (Rom 3:24-25) He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, but offers us pardon, forgiveness, grace and mercy. Mercy is God’s goodness towards those in misery and distress, and grace is God’s goodness to those who deserve only punishment. Our whole relationship with God is based on His mercy and grace; we can’t earn these, but can only receive them gratefully.

God is both generous and good. These are similar attributes to mercy and grace in that they are both manifest chiefly in how God treats people. (Js 1:5, Titus 3:5-7) Over the years, a myth has grown up that God is mean and stingy and really quite nasty, but the truth is in fact the complete opposite. God is good and all He does is good (Ps 119:68); ‘no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.’ (Ps 84:11) The enemy sows seeds of doubts into our minds about God’s goodness (as he did with Eve in the Garden of Eden); our imperfect perspective on eternity also makes us question God’s goodness at times, but having faith means having confidence and assurance that what we see is not the whole picture and that God’s goodness will not let us go.

God is forgiving. (Micah 7:18) We can be sure God’s forgiveness will cover all our sins (1 Jn 1:9) and as we receive forgiveness, we can then receive God’s power to forgive others, setting us free from bitterness, grudges, hatred and animosity.

God is both faithful and patient (see Ex 34:6, Ps 25:10, Neh 9:29-31). God’s faithfulness and patience mean He has not given up on us and are therefore the bedrock of our hope (see Phil 1:6, 2 Pet 3:9).

It’s clear from the Bible that God is far higher and vastly different to people, even though we are made in His image. God possesses life in Himself. He gives life and breath to everything (Acts 17:25) but does not need anything to give life and breath to Him, whereas we are created beings who are sustained by His powerful word (Heb 1:3).

God is immutable, unchangeable (Mal 3:6); Ps 102:27 says ‘you remain the same, and your years will never end’, whereas it’s obvious that we change from year to year, as any perusal of a photo album will testify! Js 1:17 says that God ‘does not change like shifting shadows’, so there is a reliability and dependability about God’s character which is vastly different to ours. Because God’s character does not change, we can also be confident that His purposes do not change either: ‘the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.’ (Ps 33:11) ‘What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.’ (Is 46:11)

God is different from us also in that He is eternal. He is not bound by time in the way that we are; He does not have a beginning and an end as we do. Ps 90:2 tells us ‘Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.’ This eternal nature is most clearly expressed in God’s name ‘I am who I am’ (Ex 3:14), a name Jesus revolutionised when He told the people ‘Before Abraham was, I am’ (Jn 8:58) and in the various ‘I am…’ statements in John’s Gospel which firmly revealed further characteristics of God.

God differs from us also in that He is able to everywhere at once; He is omnipresent, unlimited with respect to both time and space, whereas we can, sadly, only be in one place at one time! Ps 139:7-10 makes this very clear, showing us that wherever we go, we cannot escape from God’s presence.

God is also both omniscient and omnipotent: He knows everything and is all-powerful. Our knowledge is incredibly limited and our strengths and power definitely not endless! God’s power is such that nothing is too hard for Him (Jer 32:17) and He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. (Eph 3:20)

God is also very different to us in that He is utterly holy and pure. When we were first created, we too were pure, set apart for God, made in His image, but sin and rebellion soon spoilt that picture of perfect innocence. God, however, is untainted by sin and is often described as the ‘Holy One of Israel’ (Ps 71:22, Ps 89:18, see also Is 6:1-8).

We do well to ponder the greatness of God revealed to us in these differences. God is not simply a ‘bigger version’ of ourselves; He is, in the words of the hymn, ‘ineffably sublime’ (‘Crown Him With Many Crowns’) – inexpressibly supreme, utterly marvellous, totally unique!

It would be impossible to have any other word than ‘God’ for the letter ‘G’ in our essential alphabet of Christian faith! God is not only the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end of our faith (Rev 22:13), He is also the centre of it. Right at the beginning of the Bible, we read ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Gen 1:1) and are told ‘the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.’ (Gen 1:2) Jn 1:1-14 and Col 1:15-17 make it clear that Jesus was also involved in this work of creation. The Bible does not ‘prove’ God’s existence, but simply reveals God to us and asks us to respond to that revelation. It shows us God as the Creator and Maker of heaven and earth (Ps 121:2); it shows us God as a loving Father, a powerful Spirit, a mother yearning for the safety of her children, a dutiful Son delighting to do the will of the Father. It talks of God’s powerful love for mankind, of His plan of salvation, of the lavishness of His love and the magnificence of His power; it gives us layer after layer building up a truly awesome picture of the God who calls us to follow Him and serve Him and love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. God’s story is a love story intended to win our hearts and prompt our obedience.

A.W. Tozer said “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” (‘The Pursuit of God.’)

Other religions worship God and have very different ideas about God, so it is important to explore what the Bible reveals to us about God. What we know about God, we know because He has revealed Himself to us (see Amos 4:13, John 1:1-18). We believe there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries to us (Dan 2:28) and without this supernatural revelation, we would never be able to work out what God was like! Without that revelation, we would all have our own ideas and views of God and all be vastly wrong (!), but we can be confident that however limited our understanding is, God has revealed enough of Himself to lead us into light and life and truth.

Christianity is a monotheistic faith (like Judaism or Islam), but although we believe in one God, we believe also in the Trinity: that is, that one God exists in three persons: Father, Son and Spirit. There is a relational aspect to the God of the Bible which is not found in other religions, where good and evil are often seen to be vying with each other in a desperate attempt to prove the relative supremacy of one or the other. The Godhead is portrayed as a loving unity and Jesus came to reveal this God to us (see John 17, John 5:19-20). God took the initiative in revealing Himself to us; as the song says:

‘You did not wait for me to draw near to You,

But You clothed yourself with frail humanity;

You did not wait for me to cry out to You,

But You let me hear Your voice calling me.’ (‘Forever Grateful’, Marty Nystrom & Mark Altrogge)

Garry spoke this morning from Phil 2:12-13, commenting on how obedience is a key ingredient to working out our salvation. God gives us many commandments (rules) to guide and guard us. So often, we perceive obedience negatively, viewing it as restrictions, but actually obedience is the pathway to freedom.

A phrase such as ‘biGe.hthO,useredexPen,sive’ is hard for us to understand because it does not follow the usual rules of spelling, punctuation and syntax in English. When we re-write this as ‘the big, red, expensive house’, it is much easier to understand. All languages have rules to follow if we want to communicate well (German uses capital letters for nouns, for example; in French, most adjectives follow the noun, unlike English.) Obeying rules is actually the key to freedom. In DIY, using the correct tool for the job makes life much easier; trying to make a screwdriver do the job of a chisel usually leads to problems!

Freedom comes when we follow God’s rules, when we allow whole-hearted obedience to be our modus operandi (see Rom 6:17, Eph 6:5-6, Rom 12:1-2). This kind of obedience has to become our way of living, not just something we do when we think someone is watching. Salvation is God’s free gift to us, but He expects us to work with Him with the basic tools He gives us (just as in a woodwork class, the raw materials are given to students, but they must, following the pattern and with the teacher’s help, make a tray by themselves.)

We have to ‘unlearn’ the wrong patterns of thinking and behaving acquired before salvation and work out our salvation with fear and trembling (having a reverence for God, listening attentively as one under His authority, distrusting our own sinful tendencies and developing a sensitivity towards God’s ways.) We need to set good examples (see Eph 5:1, 1 Cor 11:1, 2 Thess 3:9), understanding that these examples of diligence are contagious! Responsive obedience is the best way to live.

Igor (injured, alas, from his endless adventures) has been to Wales.

He explored an adventure park aptly named ‘Greenwood Forest‘:

He eyed up swans and cygnets at Llanfairfechan:

He wasn’t overly impressed with the animals at the Welsh Mountain Zoo, but we were!

He saw the magnificent castle at Caernarfon:

There were amazing views from the Great Orme in Llandudno:

We enjoyed time in Betws-y-coed, even learning how the locals pronounce the town! (Bet-oos-ee-coid) The signpost is to the nearby Swallow Falls, but also gives distances to Victoria Falls and Niagara Falls!

He was glad to miss the rain on several occasions, though! This view is of the lake at Llanberis:

He didn’t get to ride on the Welsh Highland Railway, either: