Systematic Theology (part 18)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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A loving and gracious father, we are thankful this morning that we can be gathered here as your children

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To worship you to exalt you and to hear from you we pray father that you would

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Instruct us this morning Through your word by your spirit in christ's name.

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We pray. Amen Does anyone have anything you want to uh open us with before we get into our

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Content for today I I as I was praying

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I was just thinking, you know I I just remember what uh, what kind of a slave

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I was to sin And uh today we are here worshiping our great god opened eyes

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Uplifted hearts praise be to god So last week, uh, we did a few different things, but we concluded by looking at some of the attributes of god and uh

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We looked at the two broad categories the incommunicable and Communicable we said some of the things about god we can know all of the things about god we can never fully and completely and exhaustively know because god is

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Perfect. He is absolute. He is infinite and we are finite but We do have a lot that is given to us that we can know about god and those are the things we focus on And um among the incommunicable attributes i'm just going to quickly list the past ones and we'll start with the new ones

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One of them was independence Good attribute to think on today Can someone remember what does the independence of god mean

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He does not need us. So the rest of creation, uh for anything Uh, even though we and the rest of creation do glorify him in our work

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So he's not dependent on he's not contingent on anything else. We need air oxygen people

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Uh, god doesn't need anything but out of his own free will he created us all Uh, the next one was unchangeableness or immutability

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We had a little bit of a discussion on this both of those contributors are not here this morning. But uh

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Do you remember why this is a somewhat of a difficult attribute to consider? Why is immutability of god?

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Um, maybe a little difficult and what are some of the reasons why we do Uh strongly recognize this attribute in our god janet

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Excellent. So, uh, we have some texts which uh seem to imply that god is changing in terms of his purpose his will his actions and then

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Janet you rightly responded to that question, which is you now look at the rest of scriptures to be able to interpret how you

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Uh recognize the nature and the settled will of god by properly interpreting those texts

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Stephen amen, and I think you know, this is very helpful in our relativistic culture that we have an absolute god a god who doesn't who's in his character

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In his nature settled and his actions that flow from it flow from that settled nature and he does not change his mind

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Corey, did you want to add anything to it? And I think you know, that's one of those ways that we ought to always guard our hearts when we think about the nature of god

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Even though we rely upon the scriptures to inform us and I think that's what janet was alluding to the bible constantly talks about He is god.

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He is eternal. He is unchanging But Because of our experiences the way we are built we can tend to put our characteristics upon god while we are

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Contemplating him when we are thinking about him and we need to be very careful to let the scriptures Define who god is because that's the revelation of god himself about himself to us.

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Thank you The next one we saw was eternity again, that's One of those things that is hard for us to comprehend because we pass through time but god is from everlasting to everlasting

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God he does not change. He sees all of time vividly Not as a succession of moments as we are capable of doing omnipresence

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Anyone want to take a quick gander at that? Maybe i'll ask the trick question.

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Uh is god, uh Distributed throughout all of space and uh and time

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No, why not? What does omnipresence then mean? That that's the right answer.

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Yes yeah, and I think the the to get to the root of the issue is we think of Material beings when we think of you know being i'm occupying this much space if I was twice as bigger

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I'll occupy twice as much space and if god is like infinitely bigger then you know He can occupy infinite space and that's not the way we want to conceive of the omnipresence of god because god is spirit he is not a material being like us to be you know, either stretched out or be so big as to just You know fill all the particles of this universe with this being but he does exist in all of time and space and we saw also how he

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Manifests his glory in unique ways and acts in unique places in unique circumstances, but he exists everywhere

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And then we saw unity where god is not just divided. He exercises all of his attributes together in harmony at the same time

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He is not He's not divided into parts in his functions as well

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We saw how god is spirit. We saw how god is invisible And with that we come now to our new attributes we'll pick four of them

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We'll go through them and then we'll pick The other attributes after this. These are a part of the communicable attributes of god.

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We're going to be looking at So I'd like four volunteers to take some scriptures. We'll look at each of these and then we'll move on Um, the first one is a first john 3 20, uh who'd like to read that steven

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Um second is roman 16 27 A mark, uh truth, uh, third, uh, jeremiah 10 10 to 11

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Uh linton and then the last one numbers 23 19 Larry Okay.

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So, uh before we actually, uh read the text Let me just give you a definition for the first attribute we're going to be looking at which is

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The knowledge of god or the omniscience of god. So omniscient god alone is knowledge god has

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Uh given us and we can grow in the knowledge as we imitate god in his attribute of knowing

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And so let's first look at god's attribute And then we'll look at some of this text and a few additional texts and then we will look at how we are

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Uh image bearers of god when it comes to knowledge So the definition goes this way god fully knows himself

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And all things actual and possible past present and future In one simple eternal act we kind of touched upon this when we talked about the trinitarian knowledge when we talked about omniscience

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God fully knows himself And he's the sum of all beings. So he knows infinitely everything about himself he knows all things that are actual and possible in all of time and Eternity and he knows this in one eternal act, which means he does not

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Add to his knowledge by the events that surround us, but he knows this all He knew this in eternity past and he knows this in eternity future.

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He does not gain his knowledge All right. So with that let's read uh, first john 3 20 god is greater than our heart and knows all things

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Thank you. Actually for reading verse 19 I was trying to quickly turn there because I knew there was a little bit more than just that verse to be read

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God is greater than our heart and knows all things when we talked about the knowledge of god we

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Reflected upon many things that god can know and and then we actually focused on this type of knowledge

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Which is actually a much more um Hidden knowledge to most of us as human beings you and I cannot know the content of someone else's heart and These are the type of things that are inscrutable to man that god fully and clearly knows and and in this particular case

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It is for good. He knows uh, even your heart when you are when you sin and repent and confess and he also knows the wicked who can

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Try to cover up their hearts by their deeds and god can see into that He knows the heart, but let's step back a bit when you look at the pages of scripture

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Can you think of some examples of god's knowledge? The kind of knowledge that god

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Alone can know what are some of the things that come to your mind when you think of the knowledge of god

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He knows the future. So can what kind of texts? come to mind Revelation.

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Okay. So right now we already have it written what's going to happen He he knows it and he has actually declared it.

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He's decreed it. That's excellent That's right Maybe would you like to comment on that a little bit more because I think that's

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And and once again that has the dual dimension I think if you think of psalm 139 even before uh, it's on my lips, you know

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He knows it because it's as i'm formulating it, you know, god already knows what's coming out

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And um on the even

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And and and the thing is, you know, we are such a complex Messed up creatures, you know half the time.

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I cannot know what's driving my motivation I'm just i'm doing something because I want to and then in the night

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I look back and reflect and say What was it that really? Impelled me to do this, you know,

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I might have some good motives. I have some selfish motives I have all these other things that you know Draw me toward this particular action that I did and I either thank god for his grace that enabled me to do it or I confess for the sin that Resulted in these actions, but my god knows all those things and I think when you go back to jeremiah the heart is deceptive

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Deceitful above all things and uh truly, you know, it's not just a heart that can deceive deceive others

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You can actually be self -deceived in terms of how I can make up these reasons for why I think i'm doing some things but my god actually knows he uh

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He can discern the thoughts and intents of my heart as we read in hebrews 4 So we have elisha

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With the king I think of syria at that point where uh, there are these secret war council

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Plans and then the king of israel hears about it because god not only knows he actually communicates or reveals that knowledge to his prophet

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Who communicates it to the king and guards and protects his people? Um, so we get a little bit of a sense of that knowledge of god being transferred down as well steven

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Oh, that's that's that i'm so glad I wasn't thinking of that one. Um, We always look at those things if you murder, you know, you have a penalty for it in our society

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Those are the things we can judge on the basis of because we can see this Understand what has happened. We gain that knowledge and we can judge what god is

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He knows what's going on inside, you know, am I angry am I? Lustful, you know all those things god knows and discerns and he will judge those as well.

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Um, excellent. Thank you Um and something even more mundane, you know when jesus talks about not worrying

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Um, you know, he knows every sparrow he knows the number of hairs on my head Which are getting lesser every day but uh, you know the fact that the the

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In almost in the triviality of that sense, you know, do I really even care how much hair I had but god knows even that and um, and then when you look at the like job 38 39, you know, god just kind of gives a little bit of a grander scheme of data that This is his universe.

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He has made all these things and he knows all the little details of all his creatures everywhere and he is

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Omniscient and I think that's where we just kind of get bowled over thinking, you know, my god knows all things

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Um, and how about knowing the future? I think you know mark you kind of talked about revelation, but in a more a personal sense

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Does god know? What's going to happen this afternoon what's going to happen in our in your

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Work, I just interviewed this last week. Does he know whether they're going to say yes or no? Of course he does uh what kind of uh

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Maybe something else From more personally in terms of his knowledge of you and what lies ahead in time

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Isn't that a source of comfort to know that god knows today tomorrow the day after? And as we look at some of the other attributes because he's a good god

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We know that that knowledge is not just uh, you know stored away in some repository, but he actually acts on the basis of his goodness

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All right. So, uh, let's now turn things a little bit toward ourselves in what ways are we?

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Image bearers in terms of knowledge. So we call the knowledge of god as a communicable attribute obviously, we don't mean this in terms of omniscience god and god alone is

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Omniscient he knows all things In all times past present future in one singular act

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We are by we are different than that, but yet we gain knowledge What are some of the ways in which we are image bearers in the knowledge of god?

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Or how has god made us so that we can reflect this attribute of god Excellent, and I think that's why we want to start because as human beings we are actually we we

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We may share some of the knowledge that uh other creatures have here on earth um

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So, you know a dog sees some food he knows that that's edible and he can go and Eat from it.

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Enjoy the taste and be nourished by it. We look at food and especially with this weekend. I'm sure people are looking for some

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Outdoor stuff but uh, and and our mind tells us what it is We have the knowledge of what that tastes like so we we share those types of knowledge but there is a there is a distinction in the way humans are made where we actually have a comprehension and a knowledge of things that Other creatures that are not made in the image of god do not have

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Excellent, and I think you know when we look at how god knows all things and and he actually

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Creates all things i'm just repeating what you said we have that ability in us to Put that knowledge to use or to come up with new things that don't exist at this point

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Because as god our master architect has created this world He has made us in such a way that we can actually fashion things out of this

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Out of our minds and create things and bring to existence things that May just be conceptual

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I saw a few more hands. Yes, and there is a unique position that mankind has that god so loves the world or the

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Humanity and his elect that he would actually choose to die for us and that just shows the

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Value god places upon and again as we saw god is independent. It doesn't mean it doesn't mean that god needs us but he chooses to love us and He has endowed us with his

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Image so that we can reflect and glorify him so much more and actually when you were talking

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I was just thinking of this You remember when jesus was a man he grew in Four different attributes one of which is knowledge.

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He was Gaining this knowledge as a human being although as eternal god He knows all of these things in in his divine nature as a human being he grows in this knowledge and I think that's again another reminder of our

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You know, something's just happen automatically Any child that's growing is I know the babies are the ones that absorb the most information.

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This whole world is Radically new and full of curiosities And then as we grow we intentionally acquire knowledge about the world around us and we ought to be a people that are careful

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In terms of what kinds of knowledge we would focus our attention on and be intentional about filling our minds with the

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With the knowledge that god has given us And I think you know, this is just a reflective question

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You know if we just look back in this last year maybe and say What are the new things

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I have learned? How much of these things that I have learned?

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Are good as opposed to not good things I maybe ought not to have learned. I mean in revelation two, you know jesus actually condemns those churches that They had people who were learning these deep things of satan and you know

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There are things we ought not to learn but how much of the things we've learned in this past year are good as opposed to not good and then

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In terms of even those good things how much of those things have been our knowledge of god himself, you know

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The greatest of all things that we can know and enjoy And we will know and enjoy for eternity

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I think it may be something for us to reflect upon, you know We have our god who's omniscient who knows all things.

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He knows our hearts He knows what we know and we get to reflect this knowledge of god in the way in which we are built

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And actually I just wanted to comment on what mark said it's a Weighty privilege that we actually can know god

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We have this Sense that all other creatures do not have

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And we have a responsibility to know and enjoy god forever and we want to be intentional about what we fill our minds with In terms of who god is

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All right, so that's knowledge any other thought? Oh, yes Amen, actually we have beauty as a separate attribute.

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We'll be looking at maybe next week, but um, but it is it is so true you know when

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I think of the type of knowledge the type of The diversity of all that god has made around us god himself is beautiful and we get to appreciate his beauty

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As we understand him more but um, that's a yet another dimension of the way in which we are made

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To both appreciate and to create things that are beautiful Thank you All right.

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So let's go to the next one. Um, let me actually turn there. So who has roman 16 27? And actually if You i'm, sorry mark if you don't mind, can you read from verse 25 down?

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That's the doxology in the end of the book. Thank you And so the end of the verse just talks about this.

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Uh, it says the only wise god when you think of wise wisdom in its

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Culmination in its fullness god and god alone is fully and completely wise and then in this

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Doxology when you go back and look at it from the aspect of wisdom You get to see what god has done, but before we do that, let me just give you the definition of wisdom

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God always knows and chooses the best goals and the best means to them

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Wisdom is a moral and an intellectual quality. It has both elements of goodness as well as the intellectual capacity of what is right, uh the content

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Let me repeat that god always knows and chooses the best goals and the best means to these goals

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Once again going back to our definition of knowledge we need to be careful even in this definition of wisdom

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It's not as if god has you know, all these options before him and he looks and contemplates and says, okay option a b c and d

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I'm going to pick option b because that's you know, i've evaluated these and they look one Better over the other god in an eternal act knows all things and chooses wisely what he would do

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But for us to comprehend how these acts of wisdom come out This definition kind of helps us think through the best goals and the best means and now when you come back to roman 16 the application

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What is what do you think paul is talking about here in the end of roman 16 when he's when he concludes with the only wise god

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Excellent, so you have us you have a beautiful picture of god's other gospel and how god works

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And then he looks back and he's like overwhelmed. It's like wow. God is wise. He has done all these things steven

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Excellent. I'm glad you brought that because I want us to just think about the kind of questions when we think about salvation

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You know when when you talk to unbelievers, I remember myself asking this question many years ago. It's like Why would jesus come in the middle of Time and space, you know if jesus like right after adam sin

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Jesus had accomplished it then everybody had like this idea of you know What salvation should be you know, that seems like a wiser plan in terms of time, you know

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It's not like something in the coming in the middle and here you have The wisdom and and obviously without having a knowledge of god's word and his purposes the way in which he

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Actually before I answer how would you respond to someone who says that? Oh, come on jesus. He is not

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He's not the most ancient means of salvation, you know, he was there were civilizations and people that were before him that Hadn't that jesus hadn't even come and died for so Your way of salvation may not be the

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Best way because there may be other salvations that precede jesus christ. So how would you respond to something like that?

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Excellent, and I think um, so you you you said, you know, right at the fall with adam and eve

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There is a promise the seed of the woman who shall come and then you have these pointers all the way to the culmination and I think in this particular verse, uh, the the the

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The verse goes this way, uh the preaching of jesus christ according to the revelation that is the unveiling

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Of what of the mystery because there was something that was given right there at the fall in the garden

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The seed of the woman that was the mystery that was there and it's been kept secret for all these long ages

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But has now been disclosed and throughout and through the prophetic writings These were the old testament works that have been given has been made known to all the nations

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Amen. Amen. I love the way you you've been responding to this because what the question that I post

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Is really a question of unbelief, right? It comes from the position of you know, i'm here as this all supreme and all wise

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Uh 40 year old man and god needs to give me an account for why what he did

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Doesn't match up with my great wisdom and my great insight and god comes back and says

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My ways are not your ways, uh Your ways are foolish in comparison to what

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I have and when we understand what god has said It just becomes so much more richer. We'll talk a little bit more amen first grader in calculus

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I I should get judith on to that. Oh, that's right and that was so beautifully put and for us as biblical christians looking back at the

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Work of god the purposes of god as they get unfolded through time And through the scriptures as we see what god has done our hearts leap forth as we recognize what has happened so a simple question maybe just building on what pastor bob said would be

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So the premise of the unbeliever is that if jesus Was right there after adam's fall then all the people would just gladly bow and worship jesus and that just fails to understand the nature of man and understanding of sin and what it is that god has so Preciously delivered to us his own son on our behalf.

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And so when we look back we see Adam, we see Noah, um, we we see the redemption that is prefigured there.

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We see moses We see the law that reflects upon the righteousness of god so what we have there is an

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Unveiling of both the character and attributes of god and the redemption of god that is there throughout this time

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So even before jesus came there was hope for mankind in the way God was dealing with his people and that was meant to be a light to all the nations and now with with christ coming it now goes out into all the world as the salvation is

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Um accomplished, you know on the cross and we now look back as they were looking forward to the promise and I think as andrew said

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Ultimately, it's all about faith and trust in god. We everyone has been made by god even this person who questions this

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Actions of god, you know, how could god do this? he is accountable to god as his creator and needs to come there with a

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Humble mind of saying, you know, he is my god. He does whatever he pleases and he is wise

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I am not and that's basically the Point of where faith comes in and you trust in your savior

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How many of us do you think could have come up with this plan ourselves? No mind can conceive these wisdom of god and the way he operates

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And I think you know, that's as believers we need to be thinking of when we think of the wisdom of god Many of us are familiar with the way in which our parents

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Would lead and guide us as we are growing, you know, they don't throw us in the calculus class in first grade for a reason you know, they need to they know what it is that their child needs how to Fashion those paths that will be for their good and for their benefit and as the supreme

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Creator our god knows all things and he does everything according to his counsel for his best uh for the for his glory, but for the

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Let me go back to the definition. What did it say for the best goals? He chooses the best goals and the means to these goals he accomplishes for his good purposes

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Now, let's maybe just switch a little bit I didn't intend to spend so much time, but i'm glad you did

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I hope you're getting the sense of the wisdom now outside of The broader theme of redemption and that was the focus of that text

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What other ways can you think of as god being wise? And again wise wisdom being the application of the knowledge that we have

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To achieve the best goals What other ways can you think of? Maybe some examples from the scriptures for the wisdom of god, maybe not listed out as wisdom

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Perfect the example of joseph I was actually looking for something around trials and I think you you gave me the best example there so the providential hand of god in the life of joseph and you know from a human perspective it'd be like joseph sold by his brothers into slavery and then you know first party first wife situation then the dungeon situation and then

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You know why all these 17? plus years of misery In this young man's life.

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His best years are ruined lord What is your purpose in all of these things?

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And our response would be how is god wise? in the way he directed

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Fashioned the events in joseph's life Just just give me some answers.

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What were some of the in hindsight? I mean obviously going through it Nobody else other than god alone knew it was a mystery to everybody else upon whom he was acting

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And when it was finished we could look back and say whoa Now I see what god was doing.

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What what was god accomplishing? What was the wisdom of god that was revealed? and I think uh, and You're right.

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The bible doesn't explicitly list that out in that context and narratives are challenging in that way you can look back and see the character flaws in the life of joseph in the early days and then you can get to see how the lord was working through him and then using him as a as a ruler for pharaoh in his stead

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And so just in the personal life of joseph you can get to see his elevation and what god had worked through through those trials and and he had a very unique place god had a

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Different path from being this desert nomad, you know with jacob and his father to becoming a ruler in the biggest kingdom in the land and uh joseph would have chosen a slightly different path, but god had his perfect path and and one of the things with wisdom is

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We all I mean, I know I like to make a a goal that goes one I I know this objective

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I want to get and I make a path for it. But when god Makes his plans. He weaves together so many different things that everything reaches its ultimate goal in the way

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He accomplishes things. So one of the things we can see is just the personal life of joseph. What happened?

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What else came out of this? Amen, and I think those two things are very crucial one of which being you know

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The redemption for his family that were in famine and lost god had a purpose in terms of Preserving them protecting them by having joseph come here first and be raised up to this point and then

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We never want to forget as a descendant of abraham god has a purpose for not just abraham's

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Family as you were like a clan, but he was going to make them a nation And if you look at the broader scheme of things god was actually bringing them here

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And in is in egypt for 400 years They would actually change from being a little family of 100 plus people

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Into this millions of people and god was actually working all those things out And then uh the picture that you have there of joseph showing the forgiveness

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And then the redemption that will come out of it, you know, that's what I mean when god's wise He brings all these strands together in such a way that humans can never ever fully comprehend and yet through the pages of revelation

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We get to exalt him for as we see his his wisdom exemplified

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A I'll just repeat that last phrase. There's a presumption on the part of skeptics that we know what the wise ends are but we

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We don't only god knows the truly wise ways and I think the previous comment you made is very important when we look at evil, which happens to be the thread that Many of us face and joseph did as well.

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God did not ordain it. He did not do commit these Actions of evil the brothers freely and willingly and out of their own nature chose those actions and god weaves even those

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Horrific actions in order to accomplish good. So even out of this evil comes out good for the people of god

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We are short on time, but i'll maybe just leave you with this comment and then we'll pick this up next week in what ways are we as image bearers

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As those who have a redeemed mind and being called to act with wisdom

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How like maybe just this afternoon, you know as you This morning as you worship as this afternoon as you this long weekend and the choices you make how are you called to act wisely

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Uh in what ways can you bring glory to god and Praise god for his wisdom that he gives us

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Thank you, uh, and we'll we'll pick these up next week and you and I want you to be reflecting on these, you know

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How can I reflect the knowledge and the wisdom of god in the day that god has given me?

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A loving and gracious father. We thank you lord for this morning lord. How wise how

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Omniscient you are we praise you help us to Worship you with all of our hearts unfettered as we gaze upon your infinite adventurous attributes

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Lord this morning we commit into your care for the worship and the communion We pray that you would be with each of us help us to hear from you and to be transformed by your spirit in christ's name