God Is Independent

So yeah, that’s it now.

And firstly, that God is self-existing, God is independent of creation, and God needs nothing. But again, firstly, God is self-existing.

1 God is self-existing

So if you want to turn with me now to Exodus chapter 3, and this of course is a passage that’s probably well known to most of us. This is God revealing himself and speaking to Moses at the burning bush.

So Exodus chapter 3, verse 13. And again, remember that at this point the people of Israel didn’t really know that much about God. They didn’t really know much about who he was at this point. They had heard the stories, the oral tradition passed down about their fathers and the promises that God had made, but they didn’t know that much about God. They had no Scripture at this point.

And so again, this is where Moses sees this burning bush, and then God speaks and reveals himself. So again, Exodus 3 from verse 13.

Then Moses said to God, If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name? what shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And he said, Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.

So again, what God says to Moses is, I AM WHO I AM. This is where God really begins to reveal himself. This is a very personal name that God gives. And even in the name, you can get the idea of I AM WHO I AM, that it emphasises the idea that God is eternal, that God’s something outside of himself. It’s this self-sufficient nature, even just in the name.

So this idea that God is self-existing, it’s very central to a lot of his attributes, a lot of his nature. And of course, they all interlap and they overlap, but because they’re perfect, none of them contradict each other. But this one is probably one of the most central, because what it shows us is that God is complete. That God is complete in and of himself.

So this is self-existence, his independent nature. It assures us that all those other attributes, his love, his goodness, his mercy, you know, his justice, his wisdom, that they are eternal. That he’s not dependent on or influenced by anything outside of himself. So those things are always as they’ve always been and they always will be.

And if you ever think of, you know, if your electric goes out, me and Naomi had, I don’t know what went on, we had the electric go out about six times in the one night about a week ago. And we didn’t need to light a candle, but usually what happens is in the evening you’ll light a candle. So you try and look at the phone torch or whatever, and you get a candle out and you set it up and you light a match. You see the wee flame on the candle? That flame, of course, then finally gives a bit of light into the room.

You sort of know what you’re doing. But again, that flame needs oxygen, it needs heat, it needs the wax to fuel it, it needs you to come, obviously, to strike that match and to light it just to get enough light.

But of course, when the morning comes, and well, not so much in Northern Ireland, but if you ever go out and the blazing sun is up, it lights up half of this half of the world. And of course, see, the sun itself, the sun is its own source, do you know what I mean? The sun is its own source of life and light and heat. And just to get an image, we are very much the little flame. We’re dependent on other things for our existence, but God is outside of that. He’s the sun, he is his own source of everything.

See, nothing and none of us, we can’t bring about our own existence, only God. You see, God just exists. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have always existed. They’ve always been there. God exists, period. And the thing again, he has no beginning. That’s something I can never wrap my head around. God has no beginning and he will have no end.

So again, we see this self-existence even in relation to time and space and everything that we know and just that we exist in. He’s outside of it all. Again, he says, I am who I am. He is who causes things to be. He is who he is. He is God and he is self-existing.

2 God is independent of creation

And then secondly, that’s a bit of a shorter one, that one. Secondly, the second aspect of this is that God is independent of creation. God is independent of creation.

So now if you want to turn to Acts 17, Acts 17:23. Now funny, we actually went here with James when he was last in the attributes. This is Paul speaking to the men in Athens. So Acts 17 from verse 23, Paul says:

For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, To the unknown god. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

So again, what we see in verse 24 is that God is the one who made the world and everything in it, that he is Lord of heaven and earth. If anyone can tell me the first four words of the Bible, the first four words in Genesis 1. Anyone want to have a go? In the beginning God made.

So the very beginning, it says, in the beginning God. That God was just there. He was outside of it all. He was over it all. Again, like Michael says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And just to paraphrase, God said, let there be light, and there was light. God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place, let dry land appear. And just like that, it was so. He said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate day from night. And it was so. God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly over the earth.

Think of all the birds, beautiful birds. People spend their lives looking at birds, learning each individual unique song. And God just said, let there be birds over the earth, and it was so. And he says, let the earth bring forth every living creature according to its kind, and it was so. And then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and it was so.

You see, God created the whole universe, all of creation and all of its intricacies and its uniqueness, just by the sound of his voice, by the word of his power. He spoke all things into existence. And the thing is, God is still sustaining, still creating, still bringing things into existence. And yet God’s independent of creation.

You know, our passage says he is Lord of heaven and earth. He’s Lord of the heavens, he’s Lord of the earth. Again, he’s Lord over all things. And as Paul says, he does not live in temples made by man.

You know, Paul, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Athens. You know, me and Naomi have been. I know, I think a few of you have been. And you go to this place, this Acropolis that is now where Paul was, and it’s a pretty impressive place. Like, it’s colossal, all these ancient artefacts and these ancient buildings. And you can see when Paul was there, he was surrounded. The whole city was full of these things, these shrines, these altars to different gods and deities. The temples of Zeus and temples to Artemis and Apollo and Athena, who the city gets its name from. You can still go and see some of these temples that Paul would have seen. And as he’s surrounded by all of this, yet he says to them that this God that I’m talking about, he doesn’t live in any of these temples. He doesn’t live in temples made by man. And we saw it in Nahum a couple of weeks ago, the clouds. It says the clouds are the dust of his feet. He doesn’t live in temples made by man.

If you want to keep your finger in Acts and turn with me to Job 38, it’s the last place that I’ll ask you to turn to. To Job 38, just to get a glimpse of this.

So again, Job had been through this horrible trial that God had allowed, that he’d allowed Satan to take out on Job. And what’s happened is over 37 chapters, Job’s been crying out to God. He’s been loathing his life. He’s been wishing he’d never been born. He’s questioned God. His friends are there, basically, for the most part, giving him just terrible advice and blaming Job. And yet in chapter 38, this is where this God that we’ve been looking at, this is where God speaks. God responds.

Let’s look at chapter 38 from verse 4. We’ll read down to 12. From verse 4, God says:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?

Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place?

See, friends, we can’t even begin to fathom the greatness of our God, how much he works in everything. He knows every detail. If you go on throughout that chapter, it’s phenomenal to see how God knows everything, from the ostrich to the antelope to everything in between. He definitely does not need a temple made by human hands. He doesn’t need his creation to create another creation for him to live in. But he’s seated in the heavens. He’s over all things and he’s independent from creation.

So like we said, nothing exists in and of itself. Nothing can make itself exist. Even look at a baby. It comes from mum and dad. There’s the cake. It needs a baker. A garden needs a gardener. The candle, again, the candle needs a candle maker, someone to set it up and light it.

You know, I don’t know if you ever go to the beach, and I like to do this now and again, and you set up, you know, try and build a big sandcastle, but you dig a little trench from the tide right to the sandcastle and you make a little moat or a motte, motte and bailey, a moat or a motte, whatever that’s called, and you set the sandcastle and you try and get a wee ring of water around it, and you have to get it set up perfectly so the tide feeds it and flows through it but without destroying it. Well, see, that wee moat of water, that’s us. God is the vast deep blue ocean. He is our source of everything, he is the source of all that we need, and we are just a little drop in the bucket of his vast ocean. Again, he’s the source of our existence.

But even those analogies fall short. The parents, the gardener, the sun, the moon, all those things are his creation anyway. We saw it with the ocean, we saw it with, he just said, let there be two lights in the sky. This is just how mighty and wonderful our God is. It just falls short. Words fall so short to describe him.

So I want us to see that everything in creation and all of us, we require something outside of ourselves for everything. We need something outside of ourselves to exist. And you know, I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about each person having a God-shaped hole inside of them. That every person that’s ever lived has a God-shaped hole. If you go to a Pacific island that no one’s ever reached, or the middle of the Amazon, or in the Congo somewhere, if you find those people that no one else has found, you’re going to find them worshipping. They will be worshipping something, because humans have it in us. We know there’s something. We’re made to worship. We’re made to have a relationship with God our Creator. And yet we rebelled against him. But again, we have that God-shaped hole inside of us.

But yet God’s in stark contrast to that. We find our source in him, but God doesn’t need any outside source. God himself, he’s independent and he’s the source of life. His own life, his own being is found within himself.

So he’s independent of creation, he’s far above us, yet he’s not like a God, as Edwin, our principal in college, would say, he’s not like a God who just winds up a clock and then just lets it go and stands back and just lets the clock run out. He’s not like that. No, he is intricately working in and through his creation. He’s working in all things. And you’ll see at the end of verse 27 of Acts 17, it says, and yet he is actually not far from each one of us. This God still draws close to his creation.

I hope this has given us, you know, a wonderful glimpse of just how great our God is, that this should lead us to love him more, to worship him more. But at the same time, maybe you’re here and you’re thinking, I can’t relate. Who am I to this God? I don’t compare. Maybe it does make you feel very, very, very small. It’s like a worm compared to this God. But if that’s you, then you can lift up your head. Because this great God created you, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, that this God created you in his own image, that he cares, that he draws close, that we’re not something that is just nothing to him, but he cares for each one of us.

And again, this God then entered time and space. God the Son came into the world. He came alongside the weak and the sick and the sinner and the downcast, and he had compassion on them. He said that they’re like sheep without a shepherd, and yet he called them to come to him and he himself would be their shepherd. I think for a Christian, one of my favourite promises in Scripture is, if you draw near to him, he will draw near to you. This is a God who is available, who cares, who draws near to us. And that brings us to our last aspect, that God needs nothing.

3 God needs nothing

So again, we’ll look back at Acts 17. We’ll read verses 24 and 25 again. He says:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

You see, God owes us nothing. He owes nothing. He needs nothing.

You see, again, where Paul is in Athens, all of these temples, these altars, part of that worship is they all have to go to these altars and you give food, you give wine, you give drink, you give money. The idea is these gods need something, so you have to give them something to basically appease them or bribe them. So then you get what you want from this god, fertility or good crops or whatever it was, prosperity. These gods needed something, so you had to give them these things to feed them and to keep them happy.

Yet our God’s not like that. See, when we worship God, we’re not giving him something that he needs. We’re not meeting his needs in any way. Even in the Old Testament, the animal sacrifice system, it wasn’t to feed God or give him something that he needed, as if he was hungry. But again, it was the shedding of blood to atone for their sins against God. In Psalm 50, God says:

If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

He says:

Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?

It’s a rhetorical question. He’s saying, no, I don’t get hungry, and even if I did, I wouldn’t need to tell you. Everything in the world is mine. Everything in it is mine.

So it’s just good to remind ourselves that when we do give things to God, when we are sacrificing things, and if it is money or our time or our resources or our abilities, whatever it is, when we’re giving things to God, ultimately we’re giving him back what he’s already given us. Everything we have is from him. Again, he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Again, verse 25 says, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

So you see, friends, God is not needy. We are needy. We are needy. You may have heard some evangelical lingo at times where we hear Jesus needs you, or that Jesus died because he needed to have a relationship with you. And of course there’s an element of truth to that, but it’s a bit backwards. It’s a bit misleading. Because like we talked about, each person, each one of us is a worshipper. Each one of us has a God-shaped hole inside of us. God doesn’t have a human-shaped hole inside of him. God doesn’t have a man or a woman-shaped hole that he needs to fill. There’s nothing lacking in God that we can fulfil.

And again, he’s never been alone. Within the Godhead, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, co-eternal, co-equal, there’s always been perfect harmony, perfect bliss, perfect unity. So God doesn’t need us, but he wants us. He wants us.

See, God truly does. He longs, he longs for all people to just stop sinning, to turn from their wickedness, to stop rebelling and to turn back to him. You know, God is not wishing that any should perish, but that everyone should come to repentance, as 2 Peter 3 tells us. He wants a relationship with his creation, but he doesn’t need us. He’s not needy, but again, we are needy.

We know that we need oxygen, we need food, we need shelter, we need sleep, we need all kinds of things. We need relationships, things to do. We have so many needs. It’s a good daily reminder that every time we need something, it’s a reminder that we’re not self-sustaining, a reminder that we are needy, that we’re totally dependent on him. And yet God provides all of those things. God provides all of those things. He cares.

And I even love the fact that, you know, the great prophet Elijah, after the whole thing with the prophets of Baal, Elijah was totally exhausted and he was in despair. And God sent an angel to him to tell him to eat something and to sleep. God basically said, you know, have a snack and a nap and you’ll feel better. God knows we need these things and he provides these things.

So again, we are the needy ones. And like we saw, he gives to all mankind, the atheist, the righteous, the unrighteous, everyone. He gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. So he is a good and he’s a gracious God, even to a wicked creation.

But just to conclude, we know that ultimately our greatest neediness, our greatest need, is salvation. That our greatest need above all else is to be made right with this God of the universe. We’ve all committed cosmic treason, that we’ve all sinned against him, rebelled against him. But again, like we saw that we needed something outside of ourselves to exist, well, we need something outside of ourselves to be saved from his punishment. To save ourselves from this, we can’t do it on our own. We just can’t just stop sinning. And yet even in that need, the greatest need we have, it’s he himself, it’s God, this God himself initiates. It’s God himself who provides the way, that he himself is the way, that he meets the greatest need.

So this self-existing God becomes the sacrificial lamb so we could be forgiven. Again, as John says:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

And it goes on to say the Word became what? Flesh. And dwelt among us. See, that’s the Word, the eternal self-existing Son of God. He came into this creation and he died for the sins of his own creation.

So again, if you feel far from this God, you can draw near to him. You can draw near to him and he will draw near to you, because he already has through his Son. And again, he didn’t do any of this because he needs us, but because we need him and he loved us first.

So again, I just hope this is just a little glimpse of who our God is, how great and how wonderful he is. And hopefully this will help us to just lead us to trust him more, to pray, go to him more, to love him more, to obey him, to worship him more, knowing he is our self-existing, above creation, need of nothing, loving, unchanging God, to whom we owe everything, and yet we have everything in him. Amen.

Let’s pray.