Do we really know who God the Father is? If we were to sum up all that He is, what would the sum be? In Mark 11:22, Jesus said, “Have faith in God.” In other words, He said, “You can trust God. You can put your life in His hands.” And for Jesus to say that is something very special, because Jesus knew God better than anybody. And if Jesus said God can be trusted with your life, it’s a pretty good recommendation.

Jesus knew God the Father better than anybody: better than the theologians who have spared no ink in writing about Him through the centuries, better than the erudite philosophers and thinkers who have voluminous efforts of thought regarding deity, better than the prophets and apostles who received their information by revelation, better than any human source whose mind is limited by the confines of humanness. Jesus knew God better than anybody. And Jesus said, “You can trust God.”

You see, Jesus had spent all of eternity past in the presence of God. There never was a beginning of God, and there never was a beginning of Jesus. And so, always They had been together. And in John 1 it says that Jesus was face-to-face with God.

In fact, in His high priestly prayer in John 17, He says, “Father, give Me back the glory I had with You before the world began.” If anybody knows about God, He does. And He says, “You can trust God with your life.”

And so, I began to think about that. If I really want to know what God is like, then I ought to listen to what Jesus says. And what does Jesus say about God? He gives us a great presentation of God in the Gospels.

In John 4:24, He tells us about the nature of God. He says, “God is a Spirit.” In John 17:11, He tells us about the holiness of God. He says, “Holy Father.” And in John 17:25, He says, “O righteous Father!”

And then Jesus repeatedly tells us about the justice of God. In Matthew 21:33 and following, He tells about a vineyard owner who literally destroyed the wicked husbandmen who had ill-treated his servants and his son; and that vineyard owner is God, and He judges sin. In Matthew 22 He tells about a man who refused to wear the wedding garment and was cast into outer darkness. In Matthew 25 He tells us about five foolish virgins who came too late and were left out. In Matthew 25, at the end of the chapter, He even tells us, as He dies on the cross, that He is dying, in effect, under the devastation of divine judgment. And so, Jesus tells us about the justice of God, about the holiness of God, about the nature of God.

In Mark 10:27, He says, “With God all things are possible.” And so, He tells us about the power of God. In Matthew 23:22, He talks about heaven being the place of the throne of God, and thus He teaches us regarding the sovereignty of God. In Mark 6:4, He says, “The Father who sees in secret,” and thus He tells us of the omniscience of God. And in Matthew 6:32, He says, “Your Father knows you have need.” And He goes on to tell how if He clothes the grass of the field, He’ll clothe you too. And thus He tells us about the care of God. In Matthew 5:45, He says, “He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.” And thus He defines the providence of God.

If you want to know all about God, listen to Jesus. He’s known Him forever. Jesus taught us the major truths about God: His nature, His holiness, His justice, His power, His sovereignty, His omniscience, His care, and His providence. But you know something? In all of that – and there’s more even than what I’ve listed – we still haven’t touched on the main lesson Jesus taught us about God. There is one lesson that supersedes every other lesson He ever gave, and which should shape how we worship, meditate on, and enjoy God. This is what we will talk about next time.

This post is based on a sermon Dr. MacArthur preached in 1979, titled “Jesus’ View of the Father.”