Systematic Theology (part 11)

Bethlehem Bible Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Today we are going to be looking at, in your handout it says the biblical presentation of the

00:05

Trinity, and essentially we were looking at eight attributes that were there in each of the persons of the

00:14

Trinity. So we looked at one attribute, for example, eternality, and in the Father, in the Son, and in the

00:19

Spirit. So just looking at different texts and then reflecting upon it. Our goal here was really to not just have an academic understanding of a triune

00:30

God, but rather to worship a God who is three persons, and each person fully and equally

00:38

God. And that was where we were going. And today we will finish this and then hopefully we'll wrap this up so we can have a broader perspective on how to look at each of these texts when we put them together.

00:51

One of my challenges with this class, and especially in the theology proper, has been we're going so slowly that you can sometimes miss why we are looking at all of these verses.

01:01

So hopefully we'll finish these individual verses and then take some time to look at what have we understood about God, about the

01:09

God we must worship through this time we've spent. And then next week hopefully we will actually do a more formal engagement on God, the triune

01:20

God, and His attributes. So without much ado, let me just begin with the attribute we left off with last time.

01:28

And that was the attribute of truth. And the definition we used for truth was

01:34

God is consistent with Himself, and thus everything He does is true.

01:41

So there's two dimensions to it. One is that in His nature He is true, and the other one is that what

01:48

He does, His actions, His revelation, are all true as well. So there were two elements to this, and this has been one of those, this is probably the one attribute

01:57

I've been struggling a lot with in terms of communicating. And as we look at the text maybe we will spend a little time making sure we get some of the juice out of this truth about God being true.

02:09

So last time we looked at John 7, 28, and this was about God the

02:17

Father as being true. So let me just read that.

02:23

Jesus proclaimed as He taught in the temple, you know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord.

02:33

And then He says this, He who sent me is true, and Him you do not know.

02:41

I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent me. Now maybe

02:48

I'll ask a question. Some of you may have a better handle on this than I did when

02:54

I got to this text. So when you see something like this, He who sent me is true, what do you understand from this text?

03:07

What does this mean? What significance does this sentence, short sentence, have about God, about our understanding of Him?

03:18

That's excellent. And I think, you know, both in Himself and for us to understand we need a measure, and that's true for holiness, it is true for goodness, all of these attributes, because God possesses them and exemplifies them in His essence, they become the standard, and we, and this is basically the two halves you're going to see, we are made in God's image, so we have an understanding of truth, and we have

03:44

God as the basis or the standard upon which we can evaluate what is true or not. Now it's much easier for us to look at it from an example, how we approach truth.

03:53

Truth is such an abstract concept, we're going to see one of the verses, Pilate says, what is truth? I don't care,

03:59

I just need to do my job, do I acquit you or not? And when we think of truth, it's probably helpful for us to just get, especially as we consider the true nature of God, maybe

04:13

I'll just remind you what Pastor Bob Bowman said, is that truth is what corresponds with reality.

04:18

So just keep that in the back of your mind as I talk about this. Some of you, when you came to faith in the

04:27

Lord, you probably struggled, like I did, with regards to what is, who is the true

04:35

God, or what is the true religion, who must I worship? So when you think of it in terms of religion, false religion and true religion, as an unbeliever,

04:45

I come before all of these things and I don't know, I want to know which one is true so that I can commit myself to it, but I have no basis of figuring out which one is true.

04:54

So I'll just throw two out for example, let me put Hinduism, looks very attractive as an unbeliever,

05:01

I'm coming to this, I'm using my own basis to evaluate whatever I'm seeing, it seems to tickle my senses and I'm very happy with it, and maybe this could be true, but there is only so much

05:14

I can comprehend, I'm not God. I don't know in its essence whether this system embodies truth as it corresponds to reality, or is it just a figment of someone's imagination that just came up and it just happens to be likable by me.

05:33

And then when you come to the nature of God, and so those of you who have bowed your knee to Christ, you understand that however you came to know the

05:42

Lord, especially if you came through a struggle between understanding who is the true

05:48

God, when you came to know Jesus Christ, when you came to know the God of the

05:53

Bible, you comprehended that this person, God embodies all that is true.

06:03

So in his essence, he is truth in contrast to everything else.

06:10

So if you think of Hinduism, you can think of Krishna, you can think of Allah, the

06:16

God of Islam, you can think of any other competitors, if you will, for truth, who don't really have truth in them and they don't have the essence of trueness.

06:31

Let me put this in another way. Think of ourselves, humans, men and women.

06:38

We are made to conform to the nature of man as God made us, right?

06:45

So we have Adam and Eve and they were created, they were made with certain attributes and qualities and they corresponded to what they were meant to be.

06:58

And after the fall, you have corruption and men and women, we no longer are true to what we were created for.

07:10

We are fallen and we need a restoration to be brought back to that true state of what we are and who we need to be.

07:18

So now when you go back and look at the definition of what is truth, God is consistent with himself and hopefully it starts to make some sense.

07:25

You know, here is the true God, the only God, and his essence, his character is truth.

07:33

And then when he communicates to us, what he communicates is in keeping with his character so he does not give us falsehood, he does not do things that are false and everything that he does is true.

07:47

So with that, maybe we can just think of God the Father. So when Jesus says, he who sent me is true, hopefully you can get some of the sense of how to think of truth in relationship to God.

08:00

Does that make sense? Any questions or thoughts? Nice philosophy lesson early in the morning.

08:08

But I think when we now move, it's important, I think these are some of those things that just need to blow our minds as we just reflect upon this

08:16

God of heaven and earth who is true, who comes down to us and reveals himself.

08:23

So that's Father. Now let's look at a few verses for the Son. We started this but I don't think we looked at this closely.

08:29

So let's, I'll have a couple of people read a few verses. If someone can read

08:35

John 18, verse 37 to 38. Can I have a hand for that? A mark.

08:42

If I have someone else read John 14, 6. Thank you,

08:48

Haley. And then one more person, Revelation 3, 7.

08:54

Thank you. Alright, so we'll start with John 18, verse 37 to 38. So here you see truth used three times.

09:02

And essentially now we come to this aspect of Jesus being the truth. And within these three verses, we will put some meat around this truth that Jesus is the truth.

09:14

So he says here, I came to bear witness to the truth. In fact, in the previous verse, he who sent me is true fits a specific context.

09:23

I didn't talk about this. So what is the context of John 7? Here the people are questioning.

09:29

Here you are coming and doing all these things. How do we know that you are the right person? That you are who you claim to be.

09:36

And then Jesus says, I did not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true.

09:42

And essentially what Jesus is referring to is that God the Father had promised the Messiah. God the

09:48

Father has sent the Messiah. And God the Father is the one that you can trust.

09:53

That's essentially what Jesus is talking about when he talks about the truth of God the Father.

09:59

And here Jesus says, I bear witness to the truth, to what is true.

10:05

Now the problem with the situation as Jesus is being tried is not that Jesus is bearing falsehood.

10:14

Because he is bearing witness to the truth. But it's only everyone who is of the truth who listens to his voice.

10:23

So here it's an issue of epistemology. How do you know what you know? And here are people who are depraved, who reject the truth, who are not of the truth.

10:32

And Jesus constantly brings that distinction. You are not of God the

10:38

Father. You are of your father, the devil. And there is an inability of people to recognize the truth unless the

10:45

Father draws them. And then we have Pilate's classic response. What is truth?

10:50

And just hands it out. And the interesting thing is in the rest of the verse, he goes on to say, I find no guilt in him.

10:57

I may not be interested in bowing down to the God of heaven and earth.

11:03

But I can clearly see that you have no guilt in you. And that's what

11:08

Pilate stops short of when he considers truth. And then we have John 14 verse 16 and 17.

11:16

Thank you Haley. I switched the verse on you, didn't I? I'm sorry.

11:21

Let's go back to the verse I originally gave you. That's verse 6. All right. Thank you. Actually, it's the verse she originally did.

11:28

That will be our verse for the Holy Spirit. But let's just reflect upon Jesus Christ as being the truth.

11:36

Now, we talked initially about how God the Father is true in his essence.

11:41

Everything he communicates and everything he does is true. And then when we talk about Jesus as the witness to the truth,

11:47

I gave you this example of, you know, an unbeliever looking at various religious systems, right?

11:54

How do you approach Hinduism or Islam or Christianity and say, how do I find out what is true for myself?

12:00

How do I get to know the true God? And John 14, 6, Jesus is,

12:06

I am the way. If you need to get to worship the God of heaven and earth, you need to go through me.

12:12

And I am the truth. It is only in Christ that we have access to the true

12:20

God. And he is the source of life as well. There is any

12:28

Christian cult that takes away from the nature of who

12:33

Christ is as the source of truth and the source of life can never have access to God the

12:40

Father. But essentially here, our purpose is to look at the attribute of Jesus Christ as the truth and as the one who embodies truth.

12:52

And I think the best verse that captures all of this is in Revelation 3, 7. And again, here

12:58

Jesus described as the true one. And once again, when you think about the definition or the attribute of God, there is only one who is true, and that is

13:10

God himself. We see that in God the Father. We see this in God the Son. And for us to know truth, there is no other way except through Jesus Christ.

13:19

And then we'll come to the last, the third person of the Trinity, and this is the

13:25

Holy Spirit. So we have two verses, one Haley just read. We'll have her read that again. And then if someone can read 1

13:32

John 5, 6. Go ahead,

13:38

Corey. The Spirit is the truth. And once again, when we saw John 7,

13:44

John 8, we have Jesus in the body testifying to the truth about who he is and who

13:50

God is and how to approach him. And now we have the Spirit of God who has been given to us, and Haley will read that in a moment.

13:59

And he, by his character, his essence, is truth.

14:04

And he does something. One of the things he does in verse 6 is the one who testifies, bears witness to God, to the

14:14

Son, that this is the one true God. And truth is embodied in the character of the

14:20

Holy Spirit. So, Haley, if you can read that verse 16 and 17 again. Thank you.

14:29

So here, Jesus praying, telling his disciples of before he is to be crucified and ascended to heaven.

14:36

And he is going to send another helper, which he has sent with an axe, too.

14:43

And this helper will be with you forever. And I think, you know, as we think of our pre -salvation to coming to know

14:50

Jesus Christ and now living in the Spirit, we want to remember we were people who were alienated from truth.

14:58

We were a people who did not know truth. And, in fact, in verse 17, the world cannot receive it, neither sees him nor knows him.

15:05

It is of the devil. And here the Spirit's character, once again, is of truth.

15:14

And this Spirit of truth is the one who indwells us and lives with us.

15:21

And he opens our eyes to the word of truth, that we can know the

15:27

God of truth. And we can know true things about the God whom we worship. In fact, in 1

15:33

John 2, it also talks about Jesus as the true one. You know, the one who is in the sense of doing what is right.

15:47

You know, he is the perfect one. He has nothing that is flawed in him. And we get to know the Father, Son, and the

15:53

Spirit because of the Spirit of God, who has now illumined our eyes that we can know him. And our knowledge is renewed as we understand truths about the true

16:02

God. Let me stop there. As I said, this is one of those more abstract truths about God's attributes.

16:11

And we looked at it both in terms of his essence, who he is in his character, and in terms of what he does in terms of revealing himself and communicating the truth to us.

16:21

Any comments or thoughts on truth? And I have one question before we move on to the next.

16:29

So, worship. Knowing this God who is true as God the

16:36

Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, what thoughts of worship must this evoke in us?

16:45

Just remembering where we came from, where we are today, and the blessing that we have in this triune

16:52

God of truth. I'm thankful that I know him. What other things are you thankful for?

17:03

Because I would have been just stuck in the lies and deceit of my own making if the

17:09

God of truth hadn't opened my eyes to who he is. And many a time we take that for granted, don't we?

17:15

You know, I have the Bible, and I know what's true, but for the grace of God, I could be worshiping something else.

17:24

And now that I do, thanks be to God, praise be to God. Yes, Carol. That's excellent.

17:30

You know, both in terms of knowing who God is, in greater measure, day after day after day, instead of all the falsehood that is around us, and knowing how to live life.

17:42

When you think of living waters, you know, here is God who sustains us. You have a trial that comes in your life, you could go to this psychologist next door and waste your money and your life, or you can go to the

17:53

God of heaven and earth and draw from the living waters and be sustained by him because he is truth.

17:59

You know, he made you, you can approach him for who he is, and he alone is able to rescue and save.

18:07

And this doesn't end here on this side of eternity. You want to be thinking for all of eternity in heaven and earth, we get to revel in the

18:16

God of truth as we get to know him more and more. Excellent, excellent thoughts. Anyone else, any comments before we move on?

18:24

All right, so the last attribute is benevolence. Now, let me just make this comment before we get into the text.

18:34

You know, all of the attributes before, especially the last two ones, holiness, truth, and then combined with them, if you had omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, eternality, all of those will suddenly become terrifying if God was not benevolent.

18:51

Can you just picture this? If that one attribute was the other way around, he was a malevolent God or a capricious

18:56

God, everything else and knowing that you are a sinful creature would just horrify you.

19:03

You will not have a moment's peace. But our God is not just all of these, but he's also a benevolent

19:10

God. So what's the definition of benevolent? S. Lewis Johnson again says this, God deals kindly with all of his creatures.

19:19

And then he picks three attributes in particular. We could add more if we wanted to. But he uses grace, which is unmerited favor of God, mercy, where man is in need of divine help, and longsuffering

19:33

God bears with evil men. So benevolence in another definition, in an academic definition, would be a disposition to do good with goodwill, kindness, charitableness, and a love of mankind, accompanied with a desire to promote their happiness.

19:53

It's one of God's moral attributes. So with that, this is the last of the attributes we've been looking at.

20:00

So let's look at each of the persons of the Trinity in terms of how they are good, they are benevolent toward us as creatures.

20:09

So let me maybe just ask a question. Well, I think you're... Yeah, you know, other than Romans 2, 4, can you think of any other verse that talks about the benevolence of God the

20:21

Father? That God the Father is kind and loving and...

20:29

Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul. I'm glad that's not on my quiz this evening.

20:41

Where is that? Yeah, what verse is this?

20:51

Thank you. In fact, the verse I was thinking of is very close to this very text from Psalm 103.

21:00

If someone can turn... All of you could probably do that too. One of you can turn to Exodus 33.

21:07

Actually, yeah, Exodus 33, verse 19. And actually, the same person can read the other verses too.

21:14

Can someone read Exodus 33, verse 19? Go ahead, Mark. So here's

21:21

God speaking to Moses about his character. Let's read the rest of the verses.

21:28

If you can read Exodus 34, verses 5 to 7, and this is when it actually happens.

21:34

Thank you. So here we have a list of several of the attributes of God that showcases benevolence to us.

21:41

What are some of the things that come to your mind? And maybe you can just reflect on it for a moment. And then we'll see more of God the

21:48

Father's attributes as we go through the other two persons of the Trinity. What are some of the attributes of benevolence that stand out from this text?

21:57

And maybe you want to share something on it. What are some of the attributes? Steadfast love. Some of those words you just need to just stop and think about.

22:07

Steadfast. It's not the kind of love that just comes and goes.

22:13

He places his love upon us, and it remains upon us, even though we are not a steadfast people.

22:19

We are a people that go up and down. But God's love, his covenant -keeping love, is settled in the way in which he loves us.

22:28

So excellent. So his steadfast love. And I think some days I wake up and I'm thinking, you know, what a wretch am

22:36

I? And then God's steadfast love is new every morning, isn't it? Okay, what other attributes?

22:42

Someone else. Yes. I love the way you said it.

22:48

Undeserving. You know, we are so different. And when I look at myself,

22:53

I don't feel like I should be given compassion. But a God, that is his character. He shows that.

22:59

Excellent. What else? Both toward unbelievers and even believers before we were saved.

23:10

And I just think of how God knew every omniscience, things that I've done. It's not like he was blind to it, and yet he was patient in his thrice holy nature.

23:22

It just blows our mind away. All right. And if there's any other thoughts we can take, if not, we'll move to the next person of the

23:30

Trinity. Actually, no. I have Romans 2, 3. You don't need to turn that. I'll just read that for you.

23:37

Here, let me read it. Do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

23:46

In fact, even in Exodus 34, you see his judgment not compromised by his benevolence.

23:53

And in verse 4 of Romans 2, or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

24:09

And that's one of the beauty of God's attributes. None of these attributes just kind of stand out on their own. God is a unity in the way in which he exercises all of his attributes and his benevolence and his holiness and his justice.

24:20

All work in concert to deliver God's will, to accomplish his will.

24:26

And his kindness is meant for our repentance, for those of us who have believed.

24:34

And it will store up wrath for those who do not. And God will be a God of justice as well.

24:40

He will not shove things under the carpet. And those who are hard of heart will, what

24:48

Paul says here, presume and then not repent and then find out that the wrath of God is a terrible thing.

24:57

All right, so that's God the Father. Now let's look at, oh, actually there's one more for God the Father I have, and I'll just read that too.

25:03

It's from Titus 3 .4. Actually, no, can someone read Titus 3 .4?

25:11

Someone who hasn't read so far? Go ahead. Titus 3 .4 to 7.

25:18

And when we think of the loving kindness and the benevolence of God, I think, you know, there's so many ways that he exemplifies it, and it's supremely manifested in his sending of his

25:29

Son. Amen. And the entire Bible is a testimony to that.

25:35

Here we are, people undeserving. And I think in this text, if you look closely, the but God, it begins with but and then

25:44

God our Savior. In fact, when you look at the first verse, you almost think, oh, it's talking about Jesus.

25:51

And then you realize, wait a minute, this is actually talking about God the Father who sends the Spirit and Jesus Christ who is also our

25:57

Savior in verse 6, and that we may become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

26:04

And but God, he is rich in mercy indeed. And I think that's the culmination.

26:10

In John 3 .16, we would remember God provides his Son because of his love. All right, so let's look at another, the benevolence of Jesus Christ.

26:20

There's tons of verses, but the one that they have here we will use, which is Ephesians 5, 25 to 27.

26:28

If someone can read that, I thought. Thank you,

26:37

Marie. And the crux here is Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in the

26:46

Gospel of John. We get to talk about the nature of love, you know, and and through the rest of the

26:53

New Testament. What is what is love? How does it exemplify itself?

27:00

Maybe I'll ask that. What what what is the biblical definition of love?

27:06

You can use this way. I mean, the world likes to think, you know, love means I have a preference for something or an affection for something, and I want something that I think will satisfy me.

27:17

I mean, that's what normally humans think of love. That's exactly right. So I care for the well -being of another.

27:26

And in this particular case, to the extent of even sacrificing my life or giving my life on your behalf.

27:32

And that's what Jesus did. He was our substitute. He loved the church. So, again, limited atonement.

27:39

You know, here is the people that he chose, that he died for. People who are unloving, but God.

27:47

And he gave himself up. You know, we we talk about people dying for friends.

27:54

But here is someone who dies while we were yet sinners, while we were his enemies. Jesus dies for us.

28:00

And I think when we think of that, I just have to ask this. What kind of comfort does that give you today as a believer that Jesus, his benevolence toward us extends thus far extended thus far at your salvation?

28:14

What comfort does that give you today? If he loved me so much when

28:19

I wasn't even seeking him, when I was such a horrid sinner, hating God. How much more does he love me?

28:28

That's theologically incorrect. Scratch that off the tape. He loves me the same. But from a human subjective perspective, you know,

28:36

I can just I'm covered in the blood of Christ and God sees me as perfect. And he never stops interceding for me.

28:44

I mean, his love is just, you know, should be one of those things that just we need to revel in as we worship

28:50

Jesus Christ as our benevolent God. OK, let's go to the last one. And before we read, actually,

28:57

I'd like someone to read Nehemiah 920. If who can

29:03

I have reading that? Thank you, Gary. But before that, if someone can read

29:08

Galatians 5, verse 22 and 23, Galatians 5, 22 and 23.

29:15

Thank you. Thank you. And and I just want you to see the role of the

29:21

Father, the Son and the Spirit when it comes to benevolence. You know, we remember God, the father is the one who chooses us in eternity past.

29:29

The son is the one who chooses us in love. He predestines us and the son is the one in love, gives himself up for us.

29:39

And the spirit of God here, we actually find and we'll see a little bit more in the

29:44

Nehemiah passage. But he's the one who actually enables us to have the benevolent character of God in our own lives.

29:51

So all of the attributes here are fruit singular of the spirit, the

29:57

Holy Spirit that works in believers life. So we who've been saved out of darkness now exhibit the benevolence of God in the love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self -control.

30:09

And these are God's own character that just transferred to us as his children in his family.

30:16

And it is the spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity who actually gives them to us.

30:22

Now, let's read the Nehemiah 9, 20 to just talk about God, the

30:30

Holy Spirit's own attribute as goodness. And this Nehemiah 9, actually from verse 20 all the way to 25, just talks about the goodness of God in bringing the people of Israel, the

30:46

Hebrews out of Egypt into those 40 years and into the promised land. And very interestingly, you see here the third person, the

30:56

Holy Spirit, described as good, benevolent, that was there to instruct these people and then all the other provisions that they had.

31:06

So in the very end, in verse 25, we get to see that these people came and were satisfied in Canaan.

31:15

And it says they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness.

31:22

This is again referring back to God the Father who provided them the Holy Spirit who is good.

31:31

So we are here as people who have experienced the goodness and the benevolence of God in a multitude of ways.

31:38

If someone, I mean, you know, testimony time. Does anyone just want to just talk about God's goodness to you, maybe even this week, in terms of how you've experienced through the scriptures the goodness of God in your life that you are thankful for, that you want to say, you know,

31:56

Lord, I thank you. Is it sounding too charismatic?

32:07

I just, yeah, go ahead. There are many things we can be thankful for, things of this world.

32:17

I just got a part -time job. I'm very thankful to God for it. I didn't deserve it. He gave it to me.

32:23

Sins that He kept me from, I was tempted. And I know, but for the grace of God, I would have fallen.

32:33

And thanks be to God, He kept me from them. And when

32:38

I did sin, He was kind and He forgave me this week for sins that I know.

32:45

And I know many of you can just echo what I'm just saying. God is good. Any other thoughts before we do the wrap -up?

32:58

Okay, so when we began this whole, we said we're going to look at the triune

33:04

God, but we didn't want to start with an academic, you know, here are the definitions of Trinity, and let's look at the proof text to kind of prove that the

33:12

Trinity exists. We said instead, let's look at it from two ways. We first looked at, this is a long time back, so many of you may not remember, we looked at texts where each of the three persons of the

33:23

Trinity were listed in co -equal ways.

33:28

So that way we recognize that there's more than just one person in the divine Godhead. And I'll just quickly scan those for you just to refresh it.

33:36

And then we looked at, through this table, we looked at attributes that are in its perfection only possible in God.

33:48

And then we looked at those attributes in each of the persons of the Trinity. So that, in one sense, we looked at that there is three persons in the divine

33:55

Godhead. And then we looked at how each person is truly and fully God. So that was the goal of looking at all of these texts.

34:03

And while we were doing that, we were trying not to just make some academic statement, but rather, you know, this is the God of the

34:09

Bible that we are called to worship. And as we understand these texts, our theology forms around the three persons, how they are equally

34:18

God, and yet there is only one God. So with that overarching purpose in mind, let me just read a few verses, and then we'll take some questions, and then we'll wrap up.

34:30

So when we began, we looked at Genesis 1 .1. I like questions.

34:38

Can someone remember what is there in Genesis 1 that talks about the triune or plurality in the

34:44

Godhead? Okay, let us, talking about there may be more than one person.

34:51

What else? Excellent. In Genesis 1, we have God the Father and God the

34:56

Spirit explicitly drawn out. The Son is not as explicitly talking about speaking.

35:01

But then we go back to John 1, and then where we see, you know, the Word. And then we see all things were made through him, and then we draw the connection.

35:09

So there is this, there is a plurality at least in Genesis 1 where we get to see an opening of the eye.

35:16

And then we, yeah, there's more in John 1. And then in Ephesians 1, we looked at Ephesians 1 .3

35:24

-13. We see the three persons of the Trinity in this grand passage about how each person was involved in salvation.

35:32

And we saw that they are all functionally, each person of the

35:39

Trinity is involved in doing one aspect of our salvation or a primary role. None of them are excluded from what they do, but there's a primary role of what we call as an economy.

35:49

There is a function in which God the Father begins, God the Son accomplishes, and God the

35:55

Spirit seals. And then we saw again in Revelation 4 and 5 where we see the three persons.

36:02

I'll just read a couple of these things. I was in the Spirit, a throne in heaven, one seated on the throne with the appearance of Jasper, Carnelian.

36:13

And then in chapter 4 verse 5, before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.

36:22

And then in Revelation 5 -6, between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders,

36:29

I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

36:39

And then there's another passage that just exemplifies the three persons presented in a common sense.

36:48

And then we also have in the end of Revelation, Revelation 22, Jesus testifying, the

36:53

Spirit saying, come and then God who will add or take away from the share to the tree of life and the holy city.

37:03

So those were some of the texts that we looked at in terms of looking at the three persons. And then when we looked at the attributes, we looked at eternality.

37:12

We looked at how these attributes are just mind blowing in the sense we are not these.

37:17

And as we comprehend this attribute in and of itself, as it's seen in the Father, Son and the

37:23

Spirit, we just our hearts are drawn to worship because we see our God as an eternal God.

37:28

The verse we saw there was from everlasting to everlasting. You are God talking about God, the

37:33

Father. And that gives great comfort, especially in the context that the Israelites were going through as nomads.

37:39

It's not in the mountains that you're looking for help. You're looking for help in the eternal God. And Jesus is the

37:45

Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come. The spirit is the eternal spirit.

37:50

And because of that, we have an eternal inheritance. We have an eternal inheritance because of the spirit being eternal.

38:01

We saw the power of God in the Father, Son and the Spirit. We saw God's power keeps us in, keeps our salvation secure.

38:13

We buy God's power. We are being guarded for a faith through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed.

38:19

And then we saw Jesus power in our lives today. My Jesus speaking to Paul, my power is made perfect in weakness, especially in our weaknesses.

38:29

We get to see the power of Christ and then in the spirit in in Romans 15.

38:36

Paul talks about what happens in Acts. He says by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God, so that everyone heard the gospel.

38:46

And that same power of God is at work in us, not in the supernatural gifts, but rather in the power of salvation that the gospel goes out to the lost.

38:57

We saw omniscience. God the Father saying, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind in Jeremiah.

39:04

And the purpose of that whole thing was where is man's trust placed? Am I placing it in man or am

39:10

I trusting in God? And God knows where your heart's confidence is placed. And then interestingly, in Revelation two, we see the same things said by Jesus.

39:20

All the churches will know that I am he who searches the heart and mind. And I will give to each of you according to your words.

39:27

And he's a rewarder of those who trust in him. And he will judge those who don't. And then we saw the same thing for the spirit.

39:34

God reveals all these things through his spirit. The spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

39:40

And we just see some of those mysteries that happen in the divine Godhead in terms of how there is knowledge that is shared and revealed.

39:51

We saw omnipresence. The Father fills heaven and earth. Jesus is with us always, even to the end of the earth.

39:57

And where can you go from the spirit of God? You go down to the deepest depths or the greatest heights. The spirit of God is there.

40:04

We saw holiness. The Father saying, be holy because I, the

40:09

Lord, am holy. And we saw Jesus as the holy and righteous one. And the spirit of God is the

40:16

Holy Spirit. And then today we saw the attributes of truth.

40:24

And we saw the attributes of benevolence. And these are just a smattering of some of these attributes.

40:29

And our goal here is to just say, Lord, you are worthy of worship. We thank you for saving us and help us to grow in the knowledge of who you are and to trust you in all of our ways.

40:44

Does that make sense? Was it too fast? All right, so next week we will move on from this into new sections.

40:52

Any comments, thoughts before we pray? All right, let's pray.

41:02

Our loving God and heavenly Father, we come before you this morning thankful for your word, thankful that you sent your son to rescue us, thankful for your spirit who illumines our hearts and minds to these great truths of your word.

41:19

Lord, this morning as we worship you with the saints, I pray that you would be glorified, that you would reveal yourself more and that you would convict us of our sins, comfort us in our needs, and that you,

41:33

O Lord, would do your good and perfect work in each of us this morning. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.