Systematic Theology (part 7)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Dear God, our Heavenly Father, we come here this morning to worship you, to adore you, to fill our minds with who you are and what you have done for us.

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Help us, O Lord, to be reading these verses with a heart full of gratitude and accept our praise and adoration.

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In Christ's name we pray, Amen. All right, so this is Adventures in Theology.

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We have done a brief review of the Word of God, what that means, and we started out on theology proper, the doctrine of God.

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And last week, the last time, two weeks ago, I gave you a handout, but I'm going to take a little detour from it.

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The handout that you have in your hands, you should see two sides to it. On one side is a list of some of the major attributes of God, and you can see them grouped in some general fashion.

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Right in the middle, you have unity and trinity. There is one God, and we have three persons in that Godhead, what we call the trinity or the triune

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Godhead. And then we have different attributes, some spirituality, and then talking about some of the attributes relating to that, leading to the relationship with moral beings.

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And then we have infinity. I think many of these words are actually just negations, so finite, infinite, not finite.

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And you get to see all His attributes leading, on the other hand, to creation. And then in the bottom, perfection.

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What are some of the things that, and what we mean by God alone is perfect.

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And then we see some of those attributes relating to time and space. I think these may be some good attributes to just reflect upon through the week.

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We will cover this in the next couple of weeks, some of them in more detail than others. But if you turn your handout around, you should see a table, and that's my goal this morning for us to walk through this.

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This is actually taken from a book by Wainhouse. It's Charts and Tables of Theology.

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And I think this is kind of helpful. If you look at the top of this, the definition, he begins by talking about the plurality in the

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Godhead, let us make man in our own image. So there's a hint of a trinity in the beginning in Genesis 1.

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And then you have Matthew 28 listed there in the singular name you baptize.

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And this includes the three persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, what we're going to do is just the first half of the table.

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The persons are same in essence. And each attribute that uniquely belongs to God and God alone is seen in each of these persons of the trinity.

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So we have eight attributes here that are described for the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, my goal here is not, as I mentioned last time, to do an academic study of why we believe the trinity is true.

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I am assuming all of us here believe God is three persons in one. And we are here to worship each person of the trinity as we understand a specific attribute of him.

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So if you just glance through the list of attributes on the left side, you have eternality, power, or almighty, omniscience.

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And all these things kind of stretch our minds to understand who God is because he is so different than us.

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But I don't want to do this in the sense that the Greek philosophers and other philosophers do, where we look at eternality and say, okay, what is this concept that is so alien to us?

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So let's just kind of dwell on this. How do

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I say it? For example, you have the Gnostics. The Gnostics would say, okay, we have the material world. That's kind of not that important.

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We need the spiritual world. So everything, we kind of do a bifurcation, and we just want to focus on this.

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And some of the Greek philosophers would say, these things are not important. It's the ideal, the idea that is important.

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And I think even Plato said, it's the philosopher king. It's the guys who have this knowledge stretched out who are the great guys, the guys who just get this mundane stuff, you're in the cave.

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So the way I want us to look at this text is to see how our God is so transcendent, far more transcendent than any other philosophers of this age.

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And yet this God relates to us, and we made in his image and yet finite, have analogous approaches.

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So the way in which we relate to this world is intended for us to point to God.

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So the way we live our lives will direct in steps. And my goal is to just use some of these scriptures to just walk through that.

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So that when we worship God, we worship him as he is truly transcendent. And yet he is also very close, very personal with each of us.

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And so let's begin with the first attribute, which is eternality. So I have another handout, maybe next week

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I'll give you some of the definitions. But let's wake up with the definition of eternal.

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Can someone throw out some ideas of what is eternal?

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No beginning, no end. And that's the simplest and clearest definition of eternity.

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Every single thing that exists other than God has a beginning. You and I have a beginning, and our physical bodies will have an end.

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But God has neither beginning in eternity past. And he is the one who is unbounded by time or events.

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Some of the other definitions are without beginning of existence. Anything that begins to exist is contingent.

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Someone has made it, so it depends on someone else. God is eternal and therefore independent, does not need anyone else to exist.

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And okay, let's look at the first verse. If someone can read Psalm 90, if you can read from verse one to three.

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We're going to take a few moments in this verse as we look at the eternality of the

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Father. Who can read Psalm 90? Thank you, Martin. Thank you. The part of the verse that talks about the eternal nature is from everlasting, that is from eternity past, to everlasting, that is to eternity future, you are

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God. God exists, he rules, he is sovereign. From all of time, and before time, into all of time in the future.

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Now, looking at this verse, maybe let's just get some input.

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What comes to your mind as you think of this small section of the verse, from everlasting to everlasting, you are

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God? That is part of it. Actually, one of the aspects of the eternal nature of God is that he is an unchanging

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God. He is God at the very beginning and he is God at the very end. And he doesn't gain knowledge, he doesn't change, he is also immutable.

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We will see that separately, but that is very true. When you put those two things together, he is God at the beginning and God at the very end.

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Good point. Any other thoughts? And I think if you just think about this, there's plenty of verses that talk about the eternal nature of God.

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But just this one verse, just all the ideas that we have of eternity, the places where our mind goes up and then ends and says, this is beyond me, everything just fills out in that one of four words that we have here, from everlasting to everlasting.

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But now let's bring that down and apply it to the significance.

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You know, in what sense? You know, we're not like some yogis in the mountains saying, okay, you know, my mind is just meditating in some yogic way.

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We are looking at this personal God who exists at eternity past and who is with us and he extends to the future.

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And in the sandwich of verses one and three, let's look at those verses again, especially look at the title of Psalm 90 and the biblical hermeneutic.

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How do we understand the text? There is an author, a human author, inspired by the Holy Spirit who is writing these words.

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He's writing in a context and he is talking about a certain attribute of God as it relates to what he is talking about.

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So who is the author of Psalm 90? Moses. And as soon as you think of Moses, you need to be thinking, okay, the guy lived 120 years.

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He had 40 years in the beginning, you know, murderer escaped 40 years. You know, he was hiding in the wilderness.

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Well, not the second part of the wilderness, the first part. And then 80 years old, he comes back to lead the people of Israel.

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And the last 40 years is where he's actually leading the people and writing this

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Psalm. So that's the context. Here is this man, a leader who is leading the people of God. And what is it that he's talking about in the first verse?

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You have been our dwelling place. Let's just think about that for a moment. What does that mean?

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You have been our dwelling place. Where are the Israelites now? When he's writing.

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Sorry, not right now, they're in Israel. They're in the desert.

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They don't have any dwelling place as it were. They're in camps. They're moving from place to place.

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They have no place to call home right now. And when he says all generations, you know, just walk yourself back up to Abraham.

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And it's like, you know, this is the kind of generation and dwelling that they and last.

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Length of period they stayed anywhere was a slaves in Egypt. And here is Moses talking about God being the dwelling place of Israel.

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Now, you might be sitting. OK, what does this have to do with eternality? Let's let's look at the next verse before the mountains were brought forth.

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Or that's the first one. The second one or you had formed or you had ever formed the earth or the world.

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So when you think of dwelling place, you can just imagine where the Israelites are. You know, the camping sometimes in the plains.

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There's the mountains. They're constantly going from mountain to mountain as God speaks to Moses. And here you look at all these places of security.

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You look at the mountains. You say, OK, you know, I have a refuge in these places. And before those places of refuge came up.

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Before those places where you say, I don't have a home, but it would be so cool if I actually had a home in this place which was secure from attack and all those things.

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And then and then he expands it even more before you had even formed the earth and the world. So the entire land that is before us, everything that I see that I that could be a dwelling place for me.

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I now recognize that all these places that are so attractive for me as a wanderer in this wilderness.

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There is one person who is our ultimate dwelling place, and that is God. And that's where he ties eternity.

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He says before you have the mountains were brought forth. All these places are temporal.

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They come and they go. Whatever dwelling place I think of, you know, think of our homes. These things will come. A fire is all it takes to bring it down.

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And before the mountains came, before this whole earth was made from everlasting to everlasting, you are

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God. And now you can start to see how Moses is dwelling on the eternality of God, starting from the finiteness and the temporality and the lack of any security for man in and off his own.

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So you start with where you are. You look at all the things outside the mountains and the land and everything else that looks like they've been there forever.

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And then you look at the God who made all of these things. And then you say, you know what? You are my dwelling place.

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And who are you? You are this God who inhabits all of time and all of space. You are the one who was there before time began.

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And you will be there in when time is long done and gone. And you are a dwelling place.

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And you can just see the richness of how Christians can just get to revel in the eternity of God.

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This God, this great God who is beyond time is the God who actually is our rest and our hope.

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And this is focusing specifically on God the Father. Any thoughts or comments before we move to the next verse?

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All right. Let's pick the next one. I'll read John 1, 2. He, this is Jesus, was in the beginning with God.

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You know, John 1, 1, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. If someone can read

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Revelation 1, 8 and 17. And I think here it's referring to Jesus Christ and Alpha and Omega.

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I'm the A and the Z, the beginning and the end and everything else in between. And he says this in terms of time, who is like he is eternal.

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I am who was in time past. He is the one who always existed and who is to come. He is the one who will return.

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And he describes himself as the Almighty. And we'll see this in the next attribute of power. But in verse 17, you want to think again about who the author of Revelation is.

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And John as well. It's both. It's the Apostle John.

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And can you remember what was the title that John had? He had two titles,

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I think, that you might think of. What are the titles that come to mind when you think of Apostle John? Sunset Thunder.

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In one sense, he was this, you know, let's burn this village down because it doesn't bring fire from heaven because they didn't honor

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Christ. And that's who they started as. And who can you think of another title for the beloved?

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And I think the Gospel of John just reiterates that. You know, here is this one who was loved by God.

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And in fact, first, John 1 1 would say that which we have handled, that which we have touched, that which we have seen, that which we have gazed upon.

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He was here was one who was very intimate with Jesus when he was here in the body. John 1 1 says in the beginning was the word.

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John 1 14 says that word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen beheld his glory.

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These are this is a man who has seen Jesus face to face, who was loved by Jesus and who was very close with Jesus.

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And what happens to him in Revelation 1 17 when he sees Jesus? The eternal one,

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I fell at his feet as though dead. And then it says he laid his right hand on me and said,

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Fear not, I am the first and the last. Again, from verse 8 and verse 17, you see the eternal nature of the

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Son of God. And again, from John 1 1 and 2 and how that relates to us as we look at him.

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You know, when and I think sometimes as believers.

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It's easy for us, you know, unlike the philosophers, easy for us to look at the imminence and the close presence of God that we, you know, he becomes too much of a buddy in the sense that we disconnect the glory and immensity and the amazing nature of who

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God is. And that's what happens to John when he has Jesus before him. And the attribute that we see here that he focuses on is the eternal nature of Christ.

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So here is Christ, the eternal one standing before him. And John falls down as dead.

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Any thoughts on this? Let's move to the last one, and then we'll summarize eternality.

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If someone can read Hebrews 9, if you can read from verse 13 to 15. Mark again, don't be shy.

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OK, go ahead, Mark. So in this text, obviously, the focus is on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

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What kind of sacrifice did Jesus provide for us? And it is in the context of the new covenant in relationship to the old.

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So here is the blood of bulls and goats. What kind of temporary covering did they provide in terms of atonement and the purification of the flesh and then the blood of Christ, talking about purifying our conscience from the dead works.

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But then I want us to focus on something else that comes out here. And if you look in verse 14, it says the blood of Christ.

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How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God?

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So, you know, why this attribute of eternal? He could have just said through the spirit. Now, the spirit of God inspires this specific attribute that just as the father is eternal, just as the son is eternal.

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So also is the spirit eternal. And then to continue on the context, you know, just instead of just saying,

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OK, he's eternal. If you keep going down to verse 15, he talks about this work of Christ actually provides for us.

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Let me just read that. Those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.

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And for us to just reflect upon the eternal nature of the spirit and his role in terms of our salvation,

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I think you just need to go back to Ephesians 1. You remember the great three parts, God the father, what does he do?

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Just some of the things you don't have to say all of them. What does what does

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God the father do for us in Ephesians 1, 3 and on? He calls, he adopts.

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So there are he pray distance. So there are things that he does. What does the son do? He makes atonement for us and he provides redemption for us.

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So he's the one who is the sacrifice. And then what does the spirit do? In the end,

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I think it's verse 13 of Ephesians 1. He seals us here.

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And if you think about the role of the Holy Spirit in each of our lives, Christ wants for all on the cross accomplishes redemption.

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But is the spirit of God who brings what conviction into our lives?

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He's the one who applies and he is the one who seals, who ensures he's the

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Bible says he's a guarantee. He's the one who makes sure that you'll reach the other end.

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I mean, I don't know. Some days I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking, I'm so glad my salvation doesn't rest on me.

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But it is the eternal spirit who guarantees our eternal inheritance. And first Peter 1, 1 to 5 again talks about this aspect of the spirit of God that actually make sure that we will receive our inherited what

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God has promised for us. So let's now just step back for a moment. So we just looked at some attributes.

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So God, the father, just thinking of him in eternity before all of creation, God, the son eternal in terms of not just this man,

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Jesus, but the God, Jesus, who is terrifying in even for John to observe.

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And then the eternal spirit who assures us that we will reach our promised destination. So when you think of the

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Trinity, we want to say Trinity is each person of the Trinity. Our God is eternal and he is the ultimate being who's independent of everything else that we see and fully and truly deserving of our worship.

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And let me just step back. I have a few thoughts, but do some thoughts come into your mind in terms of how you, in your relationship to this great

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God, um, both benefit from his eternality and ought to adore and worship him in his eternality.

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Excellent. You know, each baby that is born begins its existence when it is conceived.

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And, uh, but while the body will perish, the Lord will give us a new body when he, when he comes back.

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But, uh, that this is for both believers and unbelievers. And the question is, our souls are made to live forever.

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And I, I, this is a contingent thought on internality. So this is just Pradeep speaking. Don't take it for any more than it is.

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I believe that eternity past is timeless in the sense that I don't think there's a succession of time.

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And I think in eternity future, we, um, we will have eternal progression of days and months and years that just don't end, but that's just me.

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Bob, thank you. You know, um,

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I, I always think of, uh, time as a trade. We are just on it. We just can't get off of it. God is this, you know, being who is far beyond time observes everything can get himself.

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He interjects and, uh, supernaturally, uh, governs events in time, but is not, uh, bound by it.

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He is completely outside. And like you said, many of these concepts, you had to be careful because this is as far as our minds would go.

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And we need to be careful with scripture as well. What it says about eternity. Uh, and if you just put those things together in terms of eternity, uh, our soul being eternal, the fact that, you know, uh,

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John was redeemed falls down as dead before Jesus Christ, when he observes the eternal

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God and every soul will live in either dread of this eternal

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God or live in eternal joy in the presence of this beautiful and dwelling place and the inheritance of our

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God. And then that gives us the weight of our salvation. You know, many times I can just think of today, tomorrow and the next day in terms of, you know, my sinfulness and God's grace and his mercy that would cleanse me and make me follow after him.

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And that we get to do this for all time and to be enjoying him forever. I think that should give us a heart of love and gratitude that I think is worth dwelling upon.

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Any other thoughts on eternal? We'll, we'll, we'll cover this maybe later, but let's go to the next one, which is the power.

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So, uh, omnipotent, uh, there are, it's used 56 times in the Bible. And every single time there is only one person who's almighty and that's

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God and God alone. And, um, uh, what, what do you think of power? Actually, this is kind of fun.

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Eternality is a little, you know, early in the morning, a little difficult for us to grasp power. I think it's a little more analogous and analogous, uh, my

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Indian accents coming through. Um, so what do you think of power in the human sense and how it relates to God's power?

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Very limited. Yeah. So if you think of like brawn, for example, I'm the strongest kid in the class and there's going to be another kid who's stronger than me in the class above me.

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So there's always X, uh, limits to the extent of my power. You know, it could be King John ill and say,

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I know I'm, I can do whatever I want in my country, but you know, suddenly you could have stronger nations come and attack you.

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So there's limits to human power. He met. And if you think about any aspect of human power,

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I just use physical power. It's like these muscles or whatever it is that I am relying upon.

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I get them from God, my parents genes that God created, whereas God owes power, his power to no one else.

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Excellent. Charlie. Excellent. We begin with something, but we need to be sustained.

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And if not our power, please. We like to think that, you know, whatever we have, we can sustain it on our own, but we seldom realize that.

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But for the grace of God that goes away, whether it is grace to a believer or grace to all people in common.

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Amen. We think of powers and potentates and sovereigns, and they rely upon others to actually make that power execute.

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But God is sovereign in an office himself. He doesn't need any boats and he executes by decree.

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He is ruler with absolute power. There's no one who can. And I think maybe there's more we can say about this, you know.

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But for the sake of moving on, I think one of the attributes that believers,

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I mean, whether consciously or unconsciously, we always hit upon and hold on to is omnipotence.

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It is one of those attributes of God that just is, you know, he is able to, you can just fill in the blanks, to save, to rescue, to sustain, to wherever we are in life.

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You know, there is that, you know, as a child, we recognize our parents are able to help us, but very soon we realize they have limits.

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But when we have a relationship with God, the God of the universe, we realize that we are in the presence of true omnipotence.

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And behind most of our prayers, omnipotence is just running in the background. We have that comfort of knowing that our

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God is all powerful. All right, let's now look at these verses. So if someone can actually read quickly verses, 1

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Peter 1, 1 to 5. And we look at this aspect of God's power in one specific area.

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Someone who hasn't read, if you can. Oh, yeah, Dan, and then

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I'll have you read the next. Yes, please.

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Thank you. So verse 5 has this power of God guarding us. And I just wanted us to read that because in verse 2, and in verse 2, you have the

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Trinity there again, full knowledge of God, the father, sanctification of the spirit, obedience to the son.

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We have the three persons involved in guarding and protecting and enabling our salvation. And in verse 3 and 3 to 5, you have this focus on the father, talking about different attributes of him as it relates to us.

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And then, and let me just comment on one. You know, there's his mercy causes us to be born again.

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And born again to what? To a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading in heaven, kept in heaven for you.

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And then, who you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

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You know, this is like that verse that reminds me, you know, there is a beautiful, well, not a beautiful, a very delicious feast and desert that is available at home.

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That's guarded. Nobody else is going to touch it. I just don't have the legs to get to my destination.

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You know, when we think of the inheritance that is there, undefiled, kept in heaven for us. And all that it needed was me to,

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I was reading this morning, the blessings and the cursings as the Israelites crossed over the, they were going to cross over into the

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Jordan. It's like, hmm, all I have to do is keep this law and I will have all these blessings.

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And here, what is the source by which believers are kept or made sure we reach our destination?

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And it says in verse five, you by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation.

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Again, you see the sovereignty and responsibility of man. You through faith, you trust in God, you take a hold of him, but you're taking a hold of omnipotence because it's

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God's power that actually guards you and ensures that you will reach the destination.

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I want us to take a few moments to think about this because this is just one of those mind blowing verses. When I think of power, actually, let's just think about God's power.

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What are some of the events or actions of God's power that quickly come to mind when you think of God is almighty?

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Creation, ex nihilo, from nothing, everything comes. I think that kind of takes the cake.

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But there's a lot of other things that we think of that he's the one who raises kings, lowers things down.

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He governs his universe. He upholds it by the word of his power. There's so much stuff that we think of when we think of omnipotence.

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And I think of this as like, ah, you know, he guards me by his power. Can I just think through this verse for a moment?

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What does it mean that we are guarded by almighty power of God for a salvation?

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Do you need guarding? We should start there. What does that look like in the life of a believer to be guarded by the power of God?

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Amen. Actually, I didn't think of that verse. That's an excellent verse. They're looking at all the different things that could come between us and God.

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The love of God transcends that. And he has a hold on us and he will never let us go. His power will make that happen.

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I was actually thinking from the more inner side. I was thinking of children.

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I'm a parent. I have children. Children should obey their parents. Parents should instruct them and make them, help them walk in the way they should go.

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I give a, I'm just gonna be, I'm making this up, okay, but it's not fully made up.

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I make a command and I don't have the power to make sure it happens.

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Now, and we need to be thoughtful of this because it's one thing to tell a dog, you know, sit.

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It's another thing to train up our child to understand and love God and to follow after him. And as you are ministering the word of God, it's setting an example and then failing and relying upon God's grace to nurture this child to get a glimpse of the greatness and glory of God that they would want to follow after God, even in their feebleness as they trust in him.

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And then they are sanctified day after day. We just take that to ourselves and then just multiply it.

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You know, I don't know how many Christians have lived until today from Adam till now. But just think about the way

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God sovereignly super intends the life of every single believers without making them robots.

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You know, it's like God could just make a decree. Pradeep, you shall not sin. I shall not sin. But God just showcases the grace and his, and the beauty of salvation in the life of fallen people so that we as broken vessels will showcase the glory of God that is powerfully working.

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That's actually the next verse. But that is the power of God. It's not just, you know, it's a lot easier to just say, you know, take this and go there.

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But here is God by his power guarding every single one of us from all the sin that can flow out from within, from all the temptations that can come from without, from all the attacks of the enemy that can happen, all the circumstances that are ordered by him in order that his power would guard us safely to my destination that he has intended for me.

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And I think, you know, just thinking about that, ought to just evoke praise. You know, he loves us and his power makes sure that he will accomplish his purpose in our lives.

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All right, let's go to the next verse. Any thoughts on this? All right, if someone can read the next verse again a little quickly from, actually

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Haley, 2 Corinthians 12, verse seven through 10. Again, in verse nine, you see this, my power is made perfect in weakness.

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And, you know, just take that verse by itself and may not make a lot of sense, but Paul explains it to us. And I think, you know, if we just connected what

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I just said, you know, even though I'm not sinless, on days when

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I'm, you know, walking faithfully, I tend to forget that, you know, I still need the cleansing each moment of the day.

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And here, Paul, this man used so mightily by God, recognized that in his frailty, it is very easy to forget that it is the power of God that is sustaining him and accrue to himself the glory that would be sinful to do.

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And so God in his wisdom provides to Paul those circumstances that actually,

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I don't know if exploit is the right word, but that use those weaknesses in order that God's name will be glorified.

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And the right attitude in those things is always to say, you know, I recognize my frailty and I rejoice that God's power works in and through me and he gets the glory and not me.

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Okay, I kind of got on a sidetrack, but let's just come back to the main one in verse nine. My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.

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And then in verse 10, he talks about weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

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And then he says, when I am weak, then I am strong. And once again, you know, if you had to just compare the power of God talking about his creation, his sustaining, this is, he's talking about Jesus Christ speaking to Paul.

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The first verse we were talking about God, the father. And here the second person of the

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Trinity, God, the son, who is every moment making sure that this planet exists with its laws and doesn't collapse is the one who is watching over the weaknesses of each believer.

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He's the one who's ordaining the events that actually bring trials and insults and calamities into these people's lives in order that this person may experience the power of God in those moments.

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So he can say, when I am weak, then I am strong. Because if I was strong, I'm not relying upon God and his power and I'm just very content with where I stand.

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And the way, and I think the whole book is filled with, the whole Bible is filled with this necessity of suffering in our sanctification, because it is at those moments we see the power of God in a way that we cannot.

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I mean, I'm so glad I don't have a job right now because I get to see God in a way that I haven't seen all these times.

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It is like, you know, he is powerful. When I have my own resources, you know,

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I can say this, you know, it just doesn't reach your core as much. And when to the world that is watching outside, when they can see what is this that energizes this person, and it is not his ability because he's failing, he's falling, but there is a

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God behind him who enables him. And here is the power of Christ. Okay, let's just go to the last one and we'll wrap this up.

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If someone can read Romans 15, verses 17 through 19, please.

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Thank you. And again, here you have Paul, you know, writing about all that the Lord has accomplished through him and just feeding off of the previous verse, looking at the power of the spirit in verse 19.

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And, you know, we just need to again step back to recognize what this power of the spirit is all about. You just need to read the book of Acts to recognize here is the spirit of God that takes these cowardly men who are threatened with extinction.

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And in Acts 2 and on, you see the spirit of God just transforming them, breaking down those hearts of the people who were anti -Jesus to become followers of Jesus, including

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Pharisees. He's the one who actually takes over Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria as the gospel goes through.

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And then we read in Acts 13 through the end of the book of how Peter was more involved in the first half.

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And the second half, the same spirit of God that was working powerfully through Peter and the other apostles in the country from Jerusalem goes now through Paul to the rest of the

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Roman empire. And when we see, and if you think of the acts of the

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Holy Spirit, the power of God demonstrated, it wasn't just the supernatural signs that accompanied them, which

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Paul rightly refers to. There were things that were happening, healings and wonders that the people saw. They said, this is

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God intervening into time and space. But there were hearts that were opened up, hard hearts that were unwilling hearts that were given a vision of God by the power of the spirit, because he's the one who convicts, he's the one who regenerates these hearts.

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So here is Paul, once again, rejoicing in, he actually says boast, because there is one thing, only one thing we can rightly boast of, and that is upon the work of God and God alone.

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All right, let's just wrap this up. So when we worship God as almighty,

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God as trinity, we have got the father, we just looked at from first Peter, the one who guards us.

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We saw God, the son, we saw whose power is made perfect in our weakness. And we have got the

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Holy Spirit working in a very supernatural way in the time of Paul as the early apostle.

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And so much so in each of our lives, in the way in which he quickens our consciences, the way in which he brings the word to life within us, the way in which he empowers us to resist temptation, and the way in which he makes us a witness to the world that is around us.

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I mean, there's so much more. So here we have the triune God, his power just focused on this one aspect of salvation, but in everything else, he is deserving of worship.

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And again, where we began with when he talked about omnipotence. Our omnipotent triune

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God is able, is powerful. And like I said, you can fill in the blanks.

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And that's the God we worship. And when we come before him in prayer, and I said, this time is for us to just fill our minds with thoughts of God so that we would worship him, we would conceive of him, that we would burst forth with praise in a way that is truly honoring to him.

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Let us pray. Dear God, our heavenly father, we love you, Lord.

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We love you for your love is far more than what we can comprehend.

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Help us, oh father, to worship you. Even this morning, as we sing, as we hear your word, may we exalt you in our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.