THE CHURCH | Week 1 | Sermon · Rewind

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Oct 2, 2023 · 46 min watch · 3 min read

THE CHURCH | Week 1 | Sermon

Big Idea

How we define God defines us — and only Scripture, through the person of Jesus, reveals who God truly is.

Every person carries a mental image of God shaped by upbringing, culture, feelings, and hearsay — and those images are often wrong. In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas encounter people who filter a genuine miracle through their preconceived gods rather than receiving the truth. Pastor Daniel argues that this is not a problem unique to the ancient world: we do the same thing today. The only reliable corrective is to let Scripture — not culture, not celebrity pastors, not our emotions — reveal Jesus as the exact image of the invisible God, because how we define God will ultimately define how we live.

Key points

1
1The people of Lystra filtered a genuine miracle through their existing belief system, worshiping Paul and Barnabas as Zeus and Hermes rather than recognizing the one true God.
2
2Paul and Barnabas forcefully rejected worship, pointing the crowd away from worthless idols and toward the living God who created everything and left evidence of Himself in creation.
3
3It is easy to have the wrong image of God — we can attach the name of Jesus to a self-made concept of God without that concept actually matching who Jesus is in Scripture.
4
4God commanded His people not to reduce Him to an idol because finite human beings cannot fully encapsulate who He is.
5
5Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God — the only way the unseeable becomes seeable and the unknowable becomes knowable.
6
6Satan actively blinds minds to prevent people from seeing the glory of Jesus Christ, meaning the struggle to know God is a spiritual battle, not merely an intellectual one.
7
7Only Scripture reveals the exact nature of Jesus; the Word of God is alive and powerful, exposing our innermost thoughts and reshaping our understanding of God from the inside out.

Application

Pastor Daniel's call to action is straightforward but demanding: every person in the room should honestly examine the image of God they have built — recognizing how family background, cultural voices, social media, and personal feelings have quietly shaped it — and then have the humility to release that image and allow Scripture to replace it with the Jesus who actually exists. The practical next step is to open the Bible. Bible literacy is at an all-time low precisely because the Word cuts deep and challenges how we live. But that is exactly the point — the Word of God is alive and powerful, and as we sit with it, God will expose the places where our picture of Him is wrong and reveal Himself as He truly is. Find community to wrestle through these big questions with, and let the pursuit of the real Jesus — not a culturally constructed one — begin to define how you live.

Take it into your week

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“if you brought a Bible, open them up to acts chapter 14 is where we're gonna be today. We've got a lot to cover. So you turn there, I'll pray for us and we'll get jumped in”
From the transcript
“Acts chapter 14, here's how it starts in verse eight. It says, Meanwhile, they were at Lystra. Paul and Barnabas came upon a man with crippled feet”
From the transcript
“they decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Zeus and that Paul was Hermes since he was the chief speaker. They go, okay, Barnabas, the old guy with the gray beard”
From the transcript
“Look at the next verse. It says in verse 13, now the Temple Of Zeus was located just outside the town. So the priests of the temple and the crowd brought bowls and wreaths of flowers”
From the transcript
“Verse 14, but when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard what was being what was happening, they tore their clothing in dismay and they ran out among the people shouting, friends, why are you doing this”
From the transcript
“Continues in verse 16, he says, in the past, he permitted all the nations to go their own ways, but he never left them without evidence of himself and his goodness”
From the transcript
“doesn't matter what they say. It says in verse 18, But even with these words, Paul and Barnabas could scarcely restrain the people from sacrificing to them”
From the transcript
“It says, then some Jews, verse 19, arrived from Antioch in Iconium and they won the crowds to their side. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the town thinking that he was dead”
From the transcript
“Look at Leviticus chapter 19. It says, Don't put your trust in idols or make metal images of God for yourself. I am the Lord your God”
From the transcript
“You wanna know what the scriptures say about who God is? Look at Isaiah chapter 66. It says, this is what the Lord says. Heaven is my throne. The earth is my footstool”
From the transcript
“Look at how it continues in verse two. My hands have made both heaven and earth and they and everything in them are mine. Do not try to just understand God through your limited experiences”
From the transcript
“Only Jesus is the image of God. Look at what Paul says in Colossians chapter one. He says, The Christ, he is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything”
From the transcript
“He was created in supreme over all creation. Look at verse 19. He says, for God in all of his fullness was pleased to live in Christ. If you wanna know who God is, get to know Jesus”
From the transcript
“Here's what Hebrews chapter one says about Jesus. It says, Long ago, God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days that we live, friends, he has spoken to us through his son”
From the transcript
“Look what Paul says in second Corinthians chapter four. This is where this gets really interesting. It says that Satan, who is the God of this world, he's blinded the minds of those who don't believe”
From the transcript
“This is why Jesus in Matthew chapter eight told his disciples, you're either with me and fighting for me or you're against me. There is no neutral ground where we go, I like a little bit of this Jesus”
From the transcript
“here's what it says in John one. Last couple of verses, I'll get you out of here. It says, in the beginning, the word already existed. The word was with God and the word was God”
From the transcript
“Here's what Hebrews four says will happen to you and I as we sit with this word of God and allow it to transform us. It says the word of God, it is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two edged sword”

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7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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There is something almost uncomfortably familiar about the crowd at Lystra. A man who has never walked in his life suddenly stands and leaps — and the first thing the people do is reach for the nearest category they already have. Zeus. Hermes. Their existing picture of the divine swallows the miracle whole before the truth ever has a chance to land. It would be easy to read this and feel a quiet superiority, as if we would obviously have responded differently. But Pastor Daniel's point is that we do the same thing every day. We all carry a mental image of God assembled over years — from a parent's tone of voice when they talked about faith, from the loudest personality on our social media feed, from a wound that never quite healed, from a hundred cultural signals we absorbed without realizing it. When something happens that doesn't fit that image, we bend the miracle to match our picture rather than letting the miracle challenge the picture. The people of Lystra were not uniquely stubborn or foolish. They were human. And so are we. That's what makes this passage worth sitting with. The question isn't whether we have a preconceived image of God — we all do. The question is whether we are willing to notice it.

For reflection

What is one picture of God you grew up with that you have never seriously examined — and where did it actually come from?

Pray

Pray for honest self-awareness about the images of God you carry and where they were formed.

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about the first word that comes to mind when someone says the word 'God.' This message explores where those instincts come from — and whether they're actually reliable.

Discussion questions

1
In Acts 14:8-12, the people of Lystra witness a genuine miracle and immediately interpret it through the lens of Zeus and Hermes. What does that tell us about how people tend to process something that doesn't fit their existing framework?
2
Pastor Daniel argued that it's possible to attach the name of Jesus to a self-made image of God — one quietly assembled from family background, culture, and emotion — without that image actually matching who Jesus is in Scripture. What are some of the sources that tend to shape a person's picture of God today?
3
Colossians 1:15-19 describes Jesus as 'the visible image of the invisible God.' What does it mean for us — practically — that Jesus is the place where the unseeable becomes seeable?
4
In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul says that Satan actively blinds minds to keep people from seeing the glory of Jesus Christ. How does framing the struggle to know God accurately as a spiritual battle — rather than just an intellectual one — change the way we might approach that struggle?
5
Hebrews 4:12 describes the Word of God as alive and powerful, able to expose our innermost thoughts. Pastor Daniel pointed to low Bible literacy as a real obstacle to letting Scripture correct our picture of God. What do we lose when we let other voices — however well-intentioned — do our Bible reading for us?
6
Pastor Daniel called the group to find community to wrestle through these big questions together. What might it look like for a group like this one to help each other hold their image of God up against Scripture — honestly and with humility — over time?

Pray together

Asking God for the humility to release the images of Him we have built, and the courage to open Scripture and let Jesus reveal Himself as He truly is

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Where these passages are preached

Acts 14 Leviticus 19 Isaiah 66 Colossians 1

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False Images of God Idolatry Today Knowing Jesus Truly Scripture Over Culture Spiritual Blindness

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