What if I said: Joe, in my world I can be in front of you and behind you, all at the same time? Joe goes wow, it begins to blow his mind. Do you realise these are the simplest things in our world? What if I had somebody who understood say physics. What if I had somebody who understood physics explain nuclear trajectory to Joe and Jane. Their heads would come off. Everything I do, anything I do to them; if I stick my hand through their world what would they see? They would see my hand in two dimensions which what does that look like? Five circles coming at roughly different times, followed by a series of dashes. Five dots followed by a series of dashes.
Joe says to Jane: did you see that? That was five dots followed by a series of dashes, and then it disappeared! Jane says: you know what? I think it was bigger than that. I think it was the hand of Shane! Joe says: are you smoking crack?! That was just five dots, followed by a series of dashes. Who's right and who's wrong? Both.
It's just their perception of God in two dimensions, and if I'm a loving, caring God, I'm not thinking they can ever understand me. What I'm wanting them to do is engage me. The rabbi said: if we talked for two hours tonight about God, if most everything we said was wrong, God would still be pleased - because we spent a night talking about Him, instead of something else - it's the heart of God.
Every dimension, mathematicians call it a degree of freedom. Let me show you what I mean by that. Give me some artistic margin here. If this is a puzzle space, and this is the piece that's supposed to go in that puzzle space; if all you have is two dimensions, can you ever twist this around enough to get it in there? No. What do you have to have to do that? You have to have a third dimension. You have to be able to pick it up, and put it over the top, and drop it down. That's called a degree of freedom. Every dimension you live in, adds a degree of freedom.
That's why if I tried to explain this to them - what is this in two dimensions? It's a circle. What is this in two dimensions? It's a rectangle. What if I wrote to Joe and said: listen, in my world the same object can be a circle and a rectangle, all at the same time. Joe goes: unbelievable! How's that possible, a circle and a rectangle at the same time? Of course it's very easy. All you need is an axis to turn something on. A salt shaker, anything changes shape if you can turn it. That's a circle, that's a rectangle, any way you look at it. You just need something to turn it on.
Now listen, these are the complications that exist when a 3-dimensional person tries to communicate with a 2- dimensional one. How many more complications exist?
How many dimensions does God live in? A lot! I mean He could be everywhere, all the time; at least 3; and maybe 300 more we haven't thought of. How many complications exist when an infinitely-dimensional God tries to communicate with 3-dimensional people? Huge, and in order to journey with that God, what does it take? Large doses of humility! Everything we're going to talk about this weekend requires, at the end of the day, humility.
The First Century rabbis called it: the Disposition of Messiah. It's from Exodus 34:6. It was the basis of all prayer and Hebrew thought. God consciousness around His character, He is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness.
He is the Lord, the Lord; He is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness; that we must be filled with humility; that when we're dealing with other people, that we need to have an attitude, a disposition, a countenance, that is: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness.