The King Reveals a Better God | The Last Kingdom – Week 4
Everyone has a version of God in their mind.
Maybe it was shaped by church.
Maybe by culture.
Maybe by wounds, disappointment, or silence.
But whether you’ve realized it or not—you already have an answer to the question:
What is God like?
And that answer shapes everything.
If God is severe, you perform.
If He is distant, you disengage.
If He is unpredictable, you stay anxious.
If He is impossible to please, you stay exhausted.
Because the version of God you believe in determines the relationship you experience.
So here’s the tension:
What if the reason trust feels fragile…
Is because the picture of God you’ve been given is incomplete?
All throughout the Old Testament, God is revealed as holy, powerful, and beyond us.
Mountains tremble.
Fire falls.
Distance is required.
God is good—but He is other.
And the question lingers:
How can a holy God dwell with sinful people?
That tension carries all the way into the New Testament—until one moment in John 14.
Philip says what we’ve all felt:
“Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough.”
Give us clarity.
Give us certainty.
Show us what God is really like.
And Jesus responds with something staggering:
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
Not I represent Him.
Not I resemble Him.
But: There is no hidden version of God behind me.
Jesus is not the softer alternative to God.
He is not Plan B.
He is not protecting us from an angry Father.
He is the clearest and fullest revelation of who God has always been.
Which means…
The way Jesus handles power?
That’s what God is like.
The way He treats sinners?
That’s what God is like.
The way He confronts hypocrisy?
That’s what God is like.
The way He touches lepers… washes feet… weeps… forgives…
That’s what God is like.
And nowhere is it clearer than in Luke 15.
A shepherd who pursues.
A woman who searches.
A father who runs.
If Jesus reveals the Father, then God’s authority doesn’t look like domination—
It looks like pursuit, mercy, and restoration.
Even the cross doesn’t contradict God’s character.
It reveals it.
In Jesus, mercy and justice don’t compete—they meet.
The cross is not God changing His mind about us.
It is God showing us His heart.
Because the tension was never: Is God powerful?
The tension has always been: What is God like in His power?
And in Jesus, we see the answer:
Power looks like self-giving love.
Authority looks like servanthood.
Holiness looks like mercy without compromise.
The God who rules the universe looks like Jesus.
And if that’s true…
Then trust becomes possible.
Because you don’t call someone “Father”—you don’t cry “Abba”—if you’re bracing for punishment.
Romans 8 tells us we’ve been invited into relationship, not fear.
Adoption, not anxiety.
Which means you don’t have to hide.
You don’t have to perform.
You don’t have to negotiate your way into God’s approval.
If God is really like Jesus…
You can trust Him with your life.
Because to see the King is to see what God is really like.
This week in The Last Kingdom, we confront a personal question:
What version of God have you been relating to?
And what would change if you truly believed His heart has been fully revealed in Christ?
Discussion Questions:
What version of God have you most naturally related to: distant, demanding, compassionate? Where do you think that image came from?
When you look at the way Jesus treats people in the Gospels what surprises you most about what that reveals about God?
If it’s true that “to see Jesus is to see the Father,” what needs to change in the way you approach God this week?