“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Genesis 8:22

The changing of the seasons reminds us of God’s power, faithfulness and wisdom. The cycles of nature—fixed and sustained by his hand—each carry a unique beauty. The cold darkness of winter inevitably gives way to the light and warmth of spring, and anticipating that change is itself an act of faith in our Creator. Yet while there is beauty in this constant movement, there is also a kind of tyranny. We experience seasons in life as well—youth, early adulthood, middle age and old age. Each season brings its own blessings, yet each is mingled with frustration. Teenagers long for the freedom of responsibility, while adults long for freedom from responsibility. The old lack the energy of youth, while the young lack the wisdom of old age. In Ecclesiastes 3, the Preacher poetically describes this ebb and flow of life—sometimes gentle, sometimes violent—as we are carried from one moment to its opposite and back again. He presents this rhythm of change as both beautiful and burdensome, a reality we must face with faith.

The tyranny of change (Ecc. 3:1-8) — Change is necessary and good. No one wants a perpetual spring (“a time to plant”) without a harvest (“a time to pluck up what is planted”). Even the negative and tragic seasons of life (“a time to die… kill… weep… mourn… lose… refrain… hate… war”) give beauty and perspective to their opposites if viewed with the right mindset. Yet when we seek permanence and purpose in life, this constant movement can feel oppressive. The Preacher’s famous list in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 reflects life’s unrelenting rhythm: birth and death, planting and uprooting, war and peace. We often find ourselves swept along by events we cannot control, dancing to a tune not of our own making.

No season lasts forever. Whatever we pursue in one season—finding a marriage partner, growing a family, advancing a career, investing in our health, acquiring possessions—does not last into the next season unchanged. Whatever we pursue will eventually give way to its opposite. Sometimes, we may throw ourselves into a meaningful pursuit only to be forced by life’s circumstances to abandon it. The repetition of “a time for this and a time for that” can feel like a burden. Our plans are often at the mercy of forces beyond us.

We’ve all said, “Who would have imagined I’d end up here, doing this?” The peace-loving nation is forced into war (8); the shepherd slaughters the lamb he once nursed back to health (3); the collector sells the treasures he once sought (6); friendships end into bitter conflict (8); the need to keep silent gives way to the need to speak up (7). Life under the sun is full of these unexpected turns, where change not only shapes our days but seems to tyrannically rule over them.

The beauty of change (Ecc. 3:9-15) — Faced with constant change, our natural response may be frustration or despair (9-10). But the Preacher challenges us to see change not as chaos, but as something beautiful—a divine pattern woven by God’s hand (11). We long to understand God’s plan, to see how each moment fits into the whole. Yet our struggle is not with change itself, but with our limited vision. We see only fragments of life’s intricate design, unable to grasp how each season contributes to God’s grand masterpiece.

Rather than offering frozen perfection, God gives us something better: a dynamic, kaleidoscopic mystery. Each season has its own time to blossom and bear fruit, and each is “beautiful in its time” (11a). We catch glimpses of this beauty, even in hardship, but we can’t see the full picture “from beginning to end” (11b) as God does. God has placed “eternity” in our hearts—a longing to understand the lasting purpose behind life’s fleeting moments—but we are not meant to figure it all out (“he cannot find out what God has done”). Like standing too close to a giant painting, we can sense its quality and design, but only God sees the whole.

The faithful response is not despair, but trust. While life’s mysteries may trouble the unbeliever, the believer finds joy in God’s gifts (12-13). We embrace our time under the sun as a gift and do good with what we’ve been given, knowing all our blessings are from God’s hand. Even though our work is temporary, God’s work endures forever (14). We often strive for a legacy, but only by submitting to God’s will can we become part of his eternal masterpiece (Eph. 2:10; Rev. 14:13).

God’s control over life’s seasons is not oppressive, but comforting. Nothing is wasted or forgotten; all is known to him. History is not just an endless cycle (1:9); it is God’s story, unfolding according to his purpose. What is past, he will call to account (15), and what seems random or lost, he will bring to light. For the person of faith, this truth anchors us: life is not meaningless motion, but calculated movement toward God’s eternal purpose (Rom. 8:28-30).

The permanence of Christ — We often long for stability in a world that constantly shifts around us. But in the midst of life’s disruptions, we find peace in the unchanging nature of Jesus Christ, who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Though the seasons of life move beyond our control, they are never beyond his. Change is not random, and it is never wasted. When anchored to Christ (Heb. 6:19), even the most unsettling moments become part of a greater story—a story of grace, transformation and eternal purpose.

As we walk through the changing seasons of life, may we do so with faith—not just enduring the shifts, but trusting the One who orders them. For in the end, change itself is not our enemy, but often the very means by which God makes us more like Christ (Rom. 8:28-30).

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

Luke 2:52

In Luke’s Gospel account, he tells of the birth and infancy of Jesus, then fast-forwards to a story when Jesus was twelve years old (2:41-51). In chapter 3, Luke time-warps again to tell us of Jesus’ ministry when he “was about thirty years of age” (3:23). All he provides of the life of Christ in the interim is a one-verse summary reporting that he “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (2:52). The Bible gives us no other details about this time.

These “lost years” of Jesus have caused some wild and, more often than not, conflicting speculation. In the decades and centuries following Jesus’ earthly ministry, many texts were written attempting to fill in that large gap. The so-called “infancy gospels,” written in the 2nd to 3rd centuries, include sensationalized stories about the boy Jesus doing miracles: chastising his schoolteachers; bumping into kids while playing, then striking them dead only to raise them up again; shaping clay birds, then making them come to life, etc. Examples are the Gospel of James, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Arabic Infancy Gospel.

These texts were written long after the 1st century by cultish groups who broke from Christian doctrine. While these stories are interesting, they are not historically reliable. The earliest sources report that the people from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth were surprised when he began to do miracles (Mt. 13:54-58; Mk. 6:1-6) and rejected him (Lk. 4:16-30). If Jesus were doing regular miracles as a boy, why would the villagers be surprised by Jesus’ supernatural abilities as an adult? There is no merit to the fanciful stories of the “infancy gospels.”

One of the more popular stories claims that teenage Jesus traveled to India and was influenced by the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism. This theory of his supposed pilgrimage to the East was popularized by a Russian journalist from the 19th century named Nicolas Notovitch. He claimed to have found a Tibetan text called The Life of Saint Issa in a Buddhist monastery which recorded Jesus’ journey to India, then further east to Nepal, to study with Buddhist monks and Hindus before returning to Judea. Then, in 1894, he published his claims in a book entitled The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ.

Is there any merit to Notovitch’s claim? In short, no, and here’s why.

First, consider the distance covered. From Galilee to Nepal is about 4,000 miles as the crow flies. However, for a poor Jewish peasant traveling on foot in the 1st century, navigating river crossings and mountain passes, the journey would have been considerably longer. Such a voyage is possible but not probable. According to Notovitch’s claim, Jesus would have traveled farther east than even Alexander the Great during his conquests 400 years earlier.

Second, listen closely to Jesus’ teaching. They were deeply rooted in Jewish monotheism and contrast with Eastern worldviews in several important ways. He taught that there was one, transcendent, relational Being who is distinct from the universe he created. Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, embrace polytheism (the belief in many gods) or pantheism (the belief that God is identical to the universe). Buddhism focuses on discovering the true nature of reality (that “self” is an illusion) through enlightenment. Christ taught that God is the foundation for all reality, being the Creator and Author of life, and that ‘enlightenment’ only comes through a relationship with him (Mt. 22:37-38). Spiritual liberation in Eastern religions (achieving nirvana in Buddhism, cessation from suffering; achieving moksha in Hinduism, escaping the cycle of karma) comes through self-effort. In contrast, Jesus taught that spiritual liberation (forgiveness of sins, receiving eternal life) is a divine gift of grace that can never be earned. Jesus’ central message, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel” (Mk. 1:15), would have made no sense to Eastern mystics.

Third, look deeper into Notovitch’s claims. Digging deeper into Notovitch’s claims reveals that they were a hoax. Shortly after Notovitch published his findings in The Unknown Life of Christ, Lama Lobsang, the head of the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh, where he claimed to have found the ancient Tibetan manuscript chronicling Jesus’ journey to the East, publicly stated that no Russian had ever visited the monastery and that no such writing on ‘Saint Issa’ existed there. Once scholars exposed Notovitch, who, by this time, had gained a good deal of wealth and notoriety through his claims, he confessed to fabricating the whole thing.

Despite all the evidence against Notovitch’s claim, it still makes the rounds in shallow documentaries (ahem—National Geographic, we’re looking at you!) and poorly researched articles. Why do people hold any regard for this myth? I suppose we’re enamored with the idea of secret knowledge, that the tradition view is always the wrong view, that “the truth” is being kept from us. There is something mysteriously attractive about uncovering hidden conspiracies, but in this case, the only conspiracy was Notovitch’s.

A question worth asking is, why is Jesus’ childhood largely undocumented in the Gospels? Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John were not simply negligent biographers. Rather, they wrote with a specific goal in mind. Though their writings are historical and report events that occurred, their primary goal was to elicit faith (Jn. 20:30-3; Lk. 1:1-4), not catalogue a full history of Jesus’ life. It’s not that Jesus’ childhood was unimportant, but that it must not have contributed to that goal. So they focused instead on the adult ministry of Jesus. Christ came to establish God’s kingdom. The authors record everything we need to enter into that kingdom.

Two weeks ago in our sermon series on Christian evidences, we established the Biblical significance of Christ’s resurrection and examined the historical evidence that supports it. We now want to conclude that series by listing the main competing theories skeptics put forward against the resurrection — the alternatives to the resurrection.

Theory #1: The disciples were either deceivers or deceived — Paul admits that the apostles would be liars if Christ had not been raised (1 Cor. 15:14-15). But if the apostles invented the lie, what was their motive? Usually people lie for some personal gain. Instead of gaining wealth, power, status or security, the apostles lost these things for believing in and preaching the resurrection. While many would die for a lie that they believed to be true, no one would die for what they knew to be false. There is no conceivable motive, nor is their any logical reason, to fabricate such a lie. Consider the prevailing beliefs of Jews at the time: first, they were waiting for a militant, victorious Messiah who would liberate them from their Gentile oppressors, not a peaceful, suffering Messiah who would die for the sins of the whole world; second, they were waiting for a general resurrection at the end of time, not an individual resurrection occurring in the middle of history. Despite telling them multiple times that he would be rejected, crucified and be raised on the third day, the apostles all fled from him after his arrest, believed his crucifixion to be an utter failure and did not believe the initial reports of the empty tomb and the resurrection. These facts make it highly unlikely that the apostles were simply deceived.

Theory #2: The postmortem appearances of Jesus were hallucinations — There are two main problems with this theory. First, hallucinations are usually individual experiences not group phenomena. There was a diversity of people at different times and different locations who witnessed the same person through multiple modes of perception: sight, hearing and touch. It stretches credulity that all these people could have experienced the same hallucination. Second, hallucinations usually come through intense wish fulfillment. However, after his arrest, the disciples had given up Jesus for dead. Disciples like James, the Lord’s brother who did not initially believe in him (Jn. 7:5), and Paul, who persecuted Christians (Acts 8:1-3), certainly were not “wishing” to see a resurrected Jesus. Yet, they both saw him risen from the dead (1 Cor. 15:7-8).

Theory #3: The corpse of Jesus was stolen from the tomb — This was the story propagated by the Jewish leaders at the time (Mt. 27:62-66; 28:11-15). However, the disciples lacked both the means and the motive for a corpse heist. The Gospel writers all describe the apostles as scared, scattered and in hiding. But according to this theory, we must believe that they somehow got up the courage to come out of hiding, sneak past the Roman guard posted at the tomb, roll away the stone, extricate the body, then betray their Lord’s teaching by spreading a blatant lie that invited the hostility of Jerusalem and the world to their own earthly hurt. Even if grave robbery could explain the empty tomb—and it cannot—it still does not account for all the resurrection appearances.

Theory #4: The differences between resurrection accounts invalidate them — Some claim the Gospel accounts of the resurrection do not harmonize because they do not report the exact same details. However, with a little careful reading we can see they compliment, not contradict, each other. Consider that all four Gospel accounts agree on the core facts: Jesus died, he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, early Sunday morning certain women went to the tomb and found it empty, they met an angel or angels, they either told or else discovered that Jesus had been raised, and that Jesus subsequently appeared to a number of people at differ times. Consider also, that genuine eyewitness accounts, while agreeing on the core facts, should differ in the details they report. Historians call this the “complexity of truth.” When multiple people witness the same event, their testimonies are bound to exhibit some differences that reflect their unique points of view. These differences actually serve to confirm their testimony as evidence of non-collusion. When people conspire to fabricate a story, their testimonies are suspiciously identical. Any differences between the resurrection accounts in the Gospels are not discrepancies or contradictions; they are variations in perspective that reflect independent eyewitness testimony, enhancing rather than undermining their trustworthiness.

For example, Matthew and Mark record that an angel spoke to the women at Jesus’ empty tomb (Mk. 16:1-8; Mt. 28:1-10). Luke and John record that two angels were present (Lk. 24:4; Jn. 20:12). Rather than contradicting Matthew and Mark, Luke and John supplement Matthew’s and Mark’s narrative. We don’t need to necessarily read Matthew and Mark as saying that one, and only one, angel was present at the tomb. For example, both the Greek historian Polybius and the Roman historian Livy describe Hannibal’s crossing the Alps during the Second Punic War. Their accounts greatly differ in detail and style and even appear to contradict each other at certain points, yet no historian questions whether Hannibal made the journey. Why then do people discount the resurrection when the differences between the Gospel accounts are far less egregious?

Conclusion — After all the evidence for the resurrection has been presented and all the alternative theories have been heard, we are essentially left with two options: a) one simple, cohesive, supernatural explanation, or b) multiple, complex, contradictory, supernatural explanations. Ockham’s Razor is a philosophical principle that states that the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts is usually the best and that we should always avoid unnecessary assumptions when explaining something. For example, if you flip the light switch in your closet and the light doesn’t come on, do you assume (a) the light bulb has burned out or (b) that aliens invaded your house and sabotaged your wiring?

These are the very best alternative theories to the Biblical account of the resurrection — the body was stolen, Jesus swooned on cross and revived in the grave, the witnesses experienced mass hallucination, the women visited the wrong tomb, Christians borrowed the idea of the resurrection from pagan myths, the resurrection developed later as myth, etc. They all require multiple assumptions and all suffer major flaws. The only option that accounts for all the historical facts is the story presented in the New Testament. But because it is a supernatural explanation, many people dismiss it a priori.

The Greeks didn’t believe in a bodily resurrection at all. Most Jews believed in a bodily resurrection, but only on the last day. In the New Testament, the thing that Greeks thought impossible and Jews thought was reserved for the future, happened in the present. Our anti-supernatural, Enlightenment-based culture chafes at the concept of the resurrection. You’ve heard the evidence for it and read the alternatives to it. What do you think?

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Matthew 4:5-7

In the verses above, Matthew records the second temptation of Jesus. There are many things to learn but notice how the devil misuses Scripture. He brings Jesus to the highest point in the temple complex, possibly the eastern peak of the Royal Stoa overlooking the Kidron Valley 300 feet below, and tells him to jump. If he really is God’s Son, then God would surely save him because of what Scripture says in Psalm 91:11-12: “He will command his angels concerning you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”

If you turn back to that Psalm you will notice that Satan quotes the passage accurately. That is, in fact, what God’s word says… but it is not what God’s word means. Going back to the Psalm and reading it in its entirely reveals the bigger picture. Psalm 91 extols God’s faithfulness. He protects all those who flee to him for refuge. It would be a mistake, however, to take the Psalmist’s words as a guarantee that saints will never experience pain, injury or loss (see Psalm 73 or any of the prophets). Psalms are poetry and often speak in general, sometimes proverbial, terms. This doesn’t make the words any less true or comforting to us. Though we experience hardship, God does protect and deliver his people.

Satan misuses the text in an effort to manipulate Jesus. The Lord responds by quoting another Scripture, this one from Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Satan’s application of Psalm 91 (prove your faith by jumping off the building) violated a clear principle outlined in Deuteronomy 6 (don’t test God like Israel did in the wilderness, see Ex. 17:1-7). Satan’s example warns us against certain dangerous approaches to Scripture.

The danger of oversimplification — Sometimes we say about a passage “It says what it means and it means what it says,” as if that should end any debate about its interpretation. To be sure, some verses are very straightforward and are easily grasped—and we often make the opposite error of overcomplicating what is simple. But others, like Psalm 91:11-12, require more than a surface reading. It says God will “command his angels concerning you” and promises “their hands will bear you up.” So, saints never fall down or experience pain in life because God protects them with his angels, right? That’s what it says! Psalm 91 just isn’t that simple. Oversimplifying the text will result in all sorts of twisted applications.

The danger of ignoring context — The context in which something is said is part of what it means. What comes before and after a text always matters. We wouldn’t like it if someone took our words out of context. How much more careful ought we to be with God’s? Who is speaking and who they are speaking to also matters. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit’s direct guidance to the apostles (Jn. 14:26). This was not a universal promise of infallible memory and direct revelation for all Christians, but a specific promise for the apostles to help them with their task of teaching the Gospel. Even the style in which something is written matters. For example, we read Hebrew poetry like Psalms differently than we do historical narrative like 1 Samuel. Then there’s the context of the Bible as a whole. God’s word will not contradict itself; in light of Deuteronomy 6:16, Satan’s application of Psalm 91 was a dead giveaway. If we lift verses out of their original context we are much more likely to draw the wrong the conclusions.

The danger of proof-texting — A “proof text” is a passage of Scripture chosen as a proof for certain beliefs or practices. While it is absolutely vital that we ground our convictions in God’s word, there’s a major difference between basing our beliefs in the text and finding the text to support our beliefs. If we begin with an idea and try to find justification for it in the Bible, chances are we’ll find what we’re looking for whether it’s there or not. Reading Scripture with this confirmation bias will cause us to interpret verses in a way that supports our previously held views, often ignoring or downplaying other ideas that challenge them. This outcome-based approach to Bible study is especially common for emotionally charged issues and deeply entrenched beliefs. Such an approach is a far cry from the noble Bereans’ who “received the word with all eagerness” (Acts 17:11).

The danger of shortcuts — Studying the Bible is always rewarding but it can sometimes be frustrating because, while the Bible tells us everything we need to know (2 Tim. 3:16-17), it doesn’t always answer every question we have with the specificity and precision we would prefer. We want flowcharts, formulas and organized recipes, but that’s just not the way God chose to communicate to us. Instead he gives us poems, histories, parables and narratives that contain commands, warnings, encouragements as well as negative and positive examples. God expects us to patiently and prayerfully read and reason through these texts, draw appropriate conclusions and build our convictions on what we find. If we approach Scripture less like mathematicians looking for a neat formula and more like lawyers building a cumulative case for our beliefs, we might not have all the answers but we will have a strong faith beyond any reasonable doubt.

God’s word is a gift to be received, not a gimmick to be exploited. We honor God by reading it carefully, thinking it through critically and applying it faithfully—never twisting the truth for convenience, but seeking the truth for transformation.

Imagine arguing with someone who said, “I don’t really believe in gravity. It’s fine with me if you believe in gravity. It’s fine if you want to order your life around your notions of gravity, but what I just can’t stand is people imposing gravity on me.” Initially, we might think they weren’t playing with a full deck—imposing gravity? gravity just is—but we would be compelled to correct them (Prov. 26:4-5). How would we persuade this imaginary person to believe in gravity? We certainly wouldn’t argue from the subjective, that is, arguing why gravity is true for us and therefore may also be true for them. We would more likely focus on establishing the existence of gravity in a more objective, fundamental way. We might ask what they think is holding them to them to the ground.

Let’s hold that thought and return to it later.

In Acts 17, when Paul enters Athens he sees that the city is “full of idols” (16) so he begins to “reason” with the citizens (17) until he catches the attention of the local philosophers (18). They bring him to the Areopagus (19), a prominent outcropping across from the Parthenon that served as a place of public discourse and legal hearings. Two kinds of philosophers were present. The Epicureans attacked superstitious, irrational belief in the gods, expressed in idolatry, while the Stoics stressed the unity of mankind and our kinship with God, together with man’s moral duty. In a masterstroke, Paul manages to agree with aspects of both philosophies while demonstrating their insufficiencies. He expresses the gospel in terms his audience would understand while turning their ideas inside out.

Paul begins his message by referencing their altar to the “unknown god,” using it as a starting point to introduce them to the one true God (22-23). The altar was not a concession to the possibility that there might be one God but rather a display of their ignorance. Notice how Paul unfolds his message. He doesn’t say, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. Let me present an alternative way to think about the world…” Rather, he says, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 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,” and proceeds to tell them about the reality of this God.

He makes three basic claims that have unavoidable consequences.

God is Lord of creation (24-25) — Since God is the Creator of all things, he doesn’t need humans to provide him with room and board in the form of temples and sacrifices. He “does not dwell in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything.” As created beings, it is we who are contingent and dependent upon him, not the other way around. He “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

Humanity is God’s creation (26-27) — Paul underscores his first point by repeating that we are God’s creation and that we are all related through a common ancestor (“one man” = Adam). God exercises his rule by establishing certain limits over humanity throughout history so that we would “seek” him and find him, “yet he is actually not far from each one of us.” He describes humanity’s universal search for the divine while also implying that though God is near he remains out of their reach to those who try to find him on their own terms. God can be known and found relationally only when he reveals himself to us.

God and humanity are related (28-29) — He strengthens his argument by quoting their own poets, emphasizing two ideas: first, all people depend on God for their very existence (“in him we live and move and have our being”), and second, all people share a deep connection with God as his creatures (“for we are indeed his offspring”). Since we originate with God, it is foolish to think that he could ever be represented by idol statues of “gold or silver or stone” that we design in our minds and make with our hands.

Conclusion: call to repent (30-31) — In light of this reality, Paul concludes by urging the Athenians to abandon idolatry and worship this God: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Let’s return to our imaginary gravity-denier. Such a person would be clearly out of touch with reality. Naturally, we would worry for such people because sooner or later, they will be forced to learn the reality of gravity the hard way. Sometimes, little boys think they can fly like Superman until gravity brings them down to earth—their parents hoping that the cost of such a lesson isn’t too damaging. Compassion would compel us to say to such people, “One day, you will come face to face with the reality of gravity so you need to recognize it now. If you don’t, you might fall and never recover.”

We need to think this way about God. The next time we speak to others about him, regardless of how it is received, we should never feel like we are imposing our beliefs upon them. Rather, we should think of it in terms of explaining reality, explaining what is. The way Paul preaches in Athens indicates he was not simply sharing his view with them. He was making bold assertions about the way the world is and ended by calling them to change their lives completely. Yet, he managed to do all this with tact and love.

People may not like the consequences of such a reality, namely, that we are answerable to this God in judgment (24:25), but that is beside the point. God is. And though God has allowed people to walk in ignorance in the past (“the times of ignorance God overlooked”), now that Jesus has come, “all people everywhere” (including God-deniers) must turn from falsehoods to reality. There’s urgency here because God has “fixed a day” when there will be no more second chances. Would that we shared Paul’s conviction!

Every time we take a breath or move our bodies, we are reminded that we live and exist only because of the reality of this wonderful, terrifying, patient, just, lovely God. His divine nature can be discerned by the beautiful, ordered world he created (Rom. 1:18-20; Psa. 19:1-6), but his mind and will for us is revealed through the gift of his word (1 Cor. 2:6-13). In that word we meet Jesus, God’s final Word, the definitive revelation of God, the “exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:1-3; cf. Jn. 14:9), “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). God sent his Son to this earth because he wants to be known and found by us. It is only in Jesus that we can “know” God (Jn. 1:18; 17:3) and find God (14:6; Acts 4:12). God has assured us that judgment will come “by raising him from the dead.” Jesus is now in heaven awaiting his return and awaiting the lost to face the reality of God and turn to him.