Systematic Theology (part 19)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Our loving and heavenly father we come to you this morning this Lord's Day Glad that we can be here to worship you

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We pray father that as we open the word that you would reveal yourself to us your attributes your goodness your love

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That our hearts may overflow with the knowledge of the Holy in Christ's name.

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We pray amen So last week we looked at Knowledge and Wisdom as we looked at the communicable attributes of God how

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God knows all things He's omniscient. We looked at how God is all -wise and the definition we had for wisdom was

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God always knows and chooses the best goals and the best means to them and Wisdom is both moral and intellectual.

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It's not just choosing Things that are based on the best facts, but also for the best ends

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When it comes to goodness now last week we looked at several examples of God's wisdom in the pages of Scripture and I was curious if someone had other examples floating through your mind through the week if anyone wanted to Share what you had.

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I know one person who's not here now did have something afterward and I I So if someone has something you want to share, we'll start with that.

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If not, I will move on Anything about the wisdom of God that jumped out from the pages of Scripture this week as you are reflecting upon God and his and his character and the way he acts

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Feel free to share All right. So let's now turn that a little bit today

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We are going to be doing this for the new attributes, but let's first apply it for wisdom in wisdom we looked at many examples one of which was

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Joseph how God ordained the things in the life of Joseph painful events, but those were

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Intended by God for good in the broader picture both in Joseph's lives in the lives of Israel and really the lives of the whole world as Israel becomes a chosen instrument in God's hand to minister to the world now

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Since wisdom is a communicable attribute, which means that just as well

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God is all wise we have the ability to Reflect God or image

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God as his image bearers in this aspect of wisdom. Can you think of? The mandate to be wise in our choosing maybe you know things in your life where you can say

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You know, here is how I'm called to be wise in the choices. I make I'll read the definition again. So you have this this is

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From God's perspective. He is he always knows and chooses the best goals and the best means to them and so from a human perspective you know, we're not glorified yet, but do we

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Know and choose the best goals or the Most appropriate means are to achieve those goals in terms of wisdom

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Can you think of some examples practical examples in Christian life where we are faced with choices?

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And we want to be wise in Making those choices in our lives. How can we image the wisdom of God in our

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Christian living? certainly

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So in the raising of our children, there's a lot of choices we have to make I Feel free to give

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Examples on how we how you choose and why you choose them because I think that'll just give us some data with which we choose because of who

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God is and his word rather than Something else so we are wise rather than foolish

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Okay, one aspect of wisdom is not to just Precipitate into an action just because we need to act but rather sometimes to wait and maybe wait for the

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Lord to lead and guide or reveal or Just wait till our minds can settle upon the biblical principles that must undergird us before we act excellent

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Steven Excellent. There is a scripture, but I don't remember the verses and if someone remembers the verse

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Go ahead bill Excellent and I think the Bible does commend the means to wisdom in terms of reflecting upon God's Word someone the righteous and the wicked and how do we make those choices that someone actually says, you know,

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Bill do you have it memorized? Okay someone I Just to be accurate.

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Let me just read that So it says blessed is a man who walks not in the council of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners

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Nor sits in the sea seat of scoffers. These are choices that everybody has right before us and If you would choose along this path

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That would be unwise it'd be foolish But the one who is blessed was to his delight is in the law of the

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Lord and on his law He meditates day and night. I was thinking, you know to be wise and redeeming the time.

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I think there's verse that talks about how we spend our time and I think that's that's that's just as applicable and in various Aspects of our life like for example children

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To raise them actually, let me step back What Bill said just triggered a

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Verse in my mind, which I do remember Where does wisdom begin as far as we are concerned

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Amen, so it is fearing God review giving reverence to God to honor him and to have a

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Godly fear knowing that he is sovereign He is Lord of our lives and all the things that I do in my life.

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So I'm accountable to him is the beginning of our Wisdom, how do we act we want to be act in submission to God's will to his revealed purposes in our lives

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So that's why we want to begin and so when we come now to children We want to communicate that fear and reverence to our children as they grow

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And so that's why we use the terms like shepherding the children's heart. It's not just laws that we make for them to keep or not keep but we want to Guide them and lead them in the way of righteousness along Psalm 1

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And and go ahead Yeah, just the let me just read that he is like a tree that Planted by the streams of water that yields its fruit in its season

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It's leaf does not wither and all that he does he prospers the wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away and You know when when we make choices we make those choices, you know going back to the definition choosing the best goals and the best means to them the goals that we

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When we have to make for our children or for ourselves are we want the best for them we want them to flourish and to grow and for us not to squander our time our resources our families we want to have them all flourish in the providence of God and and the means to do that is through a fear and a reverence for God himself, so Maybe one more thing and they'll move to the new attribute.

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So I think this is triggered I'd hadn't planned to talk about this, but you know when you talk about raising children

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For example, there can be multiple choices that may all be Valid so, you know

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You could home school or you could send them to a Christian school I could send them to a public school or just some other private school and the wisdom that we want in These matters is to understand the biblical principles that undergird.

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What is it that I Need to provide for my children given the circumstances that the

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Lord has placed me in and to be a wise Parent and a and an under shepherd of this these little souls that God is entrusted to us that they would flourish and we want to Make those choices consciously with a fear and reverence of the

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Lord with a desire to See him honored in their lives that they would bow their knees ultimately to them and I was just talking to Pauline a little earlier this morning and Both of us had some choices.

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We had to make this week, you know, I Don't know about you when it comes to life

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I would rather the Lord took all the choices and he just gave me one door I could just walk down that this is the only door you have to go through I say well

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Lord You're wise if you open this door for me. I know that this door is Flourishing I will trust in you and I'll walk down this step.

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But sometimes the Lord chooses to Grow us in this aspect of exercising wisdom

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Searching the word as we meditate upon it and we wait upon the Lord grow in faith and trust and and And in the knowledge of God himself because he transforms us just as trials transformers these choices that we make

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I think this is not probably a Christian guy but I think secular guide made a comment about how the choices not just reveal your character, but also shape your character because sanctification the

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Bible constantly talks about is how we The Lord puts these trials in our lives first Peter that the dross may come out there are fiery trials that we pass through so that we would the pure gold of our

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Faith in the Lord would shine forth that it would bring glory to God Through these transformations of these choices

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All right. I think that was a long comment any other thoughts on wisdom as we reflect

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God's wisdom in our own lives. Okay with that then let's go to the next attribute

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These there are two attributes here, which I want to maybe bring them together and then we will work separately

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They are truth or truthfulness of God and Faithfulness that God is faithful.

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Let me give you the definitions for both We'll start with one and then we'll get to the other truthfulness

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God always represents things as they really are and God is truth

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All of God's knowledge and words are true and the final standard of truth we're going to go to Jeremiah 10 and we're going to read that but Before we do that,

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I want to give you a little bit of a broader way of looking at both this truth and faith Faithfulness of God and then and that will help us as we look at these texts to understand

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What does it mean that God is true and God is? truthful and faithful to his people and How are we as his people to be?

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Reflecting this attribute in our own lives Well, well as you're turning to Jeremiah 10

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Maybe I'll ask a question How many of you? Can just look back maybe this past month or this year and say, you know,

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I have been true To To myself to the

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Lord in what I believe in the way I've acted I have been true to Who I am either as a person or as a person in Christ The foil against which to look at this is, you know, one of the things that Jesus had the most

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Of his words against where those There were the Pharisees because they claimed one thing, you know that we are represented representative

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Thank you representatives of God we uphold this holy law But their lives were basically what

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Jesus calls whitewashed tombs. They were hypocrites They really didn't live up to the standard that they profess

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So maybe that will give you a little bit of a foil to think about this how are we true to who we are in the

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Lord and How does our speech Communicate that truth and how does our

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Actions Demonstrate that trueness to who we are and our lives reflecting it

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Maybe just if someone wants to comment on it Feel free to if not, it's a good thing to think about as we look at God's character.

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I can make a confession It doesn't look that good when I look back at this past year

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You know, how true have I been to who I am I am in Christ I can just you know events flash through my mind where I have not been true to my identity and I Thank the

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Lord because it is his work that carries me through there have been times when you know, I Ought to have said something to be true and I maybe withheld my speech sinfully, so and And when it comes to faithfulness as well, you know

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I can think of a dog that is a more faithful than me when it comes to certain times in in my life and I look back and say, you know a

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Dog that does not have the image of God seems to reflect God's character a whole lot more than I do And what a shame that a believer who ought to be so much more zealous in my faithfulness to the

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Lord and to everyone around me I'm Feeble and frail and sinful in the way that I live and And the good news here is well, we'll talk about the good news after we look at God's character

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But as we look at God's character, I want you to think of three aspects to this. They're all kind of tied together in when we study

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Christian philosophy, we talk about three aspects of Wisdom or knowledge of wisdom one of them is being or metaphysics and I want you to think of who

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God is In and of himself when we're talking about Trinity, we talked about each person of the Trinity their essence who they are they're all equally

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God and so when I want you to first think of what we call metaphysics or the

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We also call it ontology or the study of being and this is talking about God in his essence as being true in his character

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And I think if if you want to contrast it with us You can think of us as the fallen man and the redeemed man

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You know our old nature and a new nature, you know, our nature in and of itself is corrupt as as as Everybody who is born into this world, but God gives us a new nature in Christ and that is actually reflective of God's own

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Character, but so the first element is God's being he is true The second element is we call epistemology.

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How do we know about this God? What is the means of knowing anything and when it comes to God We we already talked about God's knowledge being

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Omniscient, he knows all things Instantaneously, he doesn't actually gather this knowledge in time

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But for us as we know this knowledge of this true the truth about God God is the one who communicates truth to us so we can know it

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God is the one who made us in his image. So we have the ability to understand God's truth unlike the

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Non -human Living creatures. We have the ability to know it. We have a

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Faculty in us that is able to comprehend the true God and then the third element is we call ethics

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There's another word for this but it's about how do we live our lives on the basis of the standard of truth

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And so God does things that are always true He doesn't do things that are untrue or false and We can also reflect this in the way we live our lives.

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So just keep those three elements in mind as we read this When I read it on the computer it looks a lot smaller than it does on the pages of the

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Bible so let's actually I Would like to read all of it, but you know what let's just take the time and read it

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We'll We'll break this up into a couple and maybe I'll have two volunteers read this for us so if someone can read

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Verses 1 to 10 And then someone else can read verses 11 through the end

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Okay, we have mark verses 1 to 10 who would like to read the rest of Jeremiah 10

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Linton okay mark Thank you Linton just a couple of comments, and we'll move on so what do you think of course verse

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Jeremiah 10 10 is the Specific verse that talks about God being true.

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It says the Lord is the true God and But it is set in the context of something else that is revealed to us

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So now when you think of the first element of God in his nature being true What do you think is being communicated in Jeremiah 1?

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10 1 to 10 in what ways is God true? He's alive, okay excellent so because I the second half of verse 10 says he's the living

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God and the everlasting King and When you talk about God and I think this is essentially what the text is talking about there are people who worship all kinds of gods

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There are the Apartment verse 9 you have the customs of the people and their gods they worship these are dead gods

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They are not gods at all that people craft and make and worship Whereas the Lord God Yahweh he alone is the true

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God. He is the Genuine God so if you look at the panoply of gods that all the nations worship every other

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God is just Made up by the imagination of man or the crafts of man and then bow to these

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Objects that are being worshipped have no Oomph behind them, you know, they are just Idols and Whereas when you look at Yahweh, this is the genuine or the real

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God the true God and that's basically what's coming through From this particular text. So for us as believers even be like, okay, you know, we get it

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But it's actually good for us to reflect upon this, you know, here is what we place our confidence in This is the true

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God of heaven and earth the living God the everlasting King as verse 10 says Actually, there is a little bit more to this let's maybe pick that up too.

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So the second part of it we talked about was Who remembers what's the second? element

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Epistemology. Yes. So how do we know? The truth what what is the means by which we know this truth?

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so now look back at verses 1 to 10 and think of the knowledge of God In contrast with the knowledge of all these others false gods

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What is the means by which we know the true God? Excellent. So God communicates to his people.

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I think you know in verse 5 They cannot speak these are the false gods they cannot communicate truth because they are they have no existence

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They and they cannot do anything to demonstrate the truth of who they are and what they will do to the people so here are people who bow down to these false gods hoping that these gods would

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Take care of them provide for them. Whatever it is that they are looking for. These gods can either promise those things

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These these people have to impute those things to these idols and hope that they would somehow

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Satisfy what they are longing for but in contrast the God of heaven and earth the true God Promises things he speaks the truth.

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Whatever he says will come to pass in our lives and you mentioned faithfulness We're going to be looking at that in the second half and whatever he does will happen

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He is true to his word his word first communicates who he is and what he will do in our lives and his actions

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Follow through he is faithful. He's truthful in his actions as well as in his speech. Thank you

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All right. So with that let's have the rest of Jeremiah 10 Thank you

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Just a comment so verse 18 is where it switches From the

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Lord speaking to Jeremiah speaking and the context of Jeremiah. I think many of you know, this is

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The northern nation of Israel has already gone into captivity with us area and now we have the southern kingdom of Judah also facing the judgment of God as Babylon is going to come and take away these people but And we don't have too many children here.

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But did you notice the number of times stupid was used in this chapter? Verse 8 it talks about the stupidity

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Of idle and idolatry and then we saw a few times here where verse 14 every man is stupid and without knowledge talking again about these idolaters and We saw it again in verse 21 and these are shepherds these are the people who were supposed to lead

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Israel and they were leading Israel astray with these false gods and because they do not inquire of the

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Lord and And And so now we are looking at the second half where God's Communicating his truthfulness to his people and he also acts on the basis of this truthfulness.

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So Maybe I'll ask that as a question This was the sphere of the ethics or doing the right things

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How do you think God is Faithful or truthful in his actions on the basis of his character as being a true

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God and as a Basis of a God who is a communicator of truth From the second half of Jeremiah 10.

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How does God reveal himself as a God who is truthful in his actions? And that's excellent.

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So when we think of what Amelia earlier said, you know, he actually exists He lives and he's the one who does all these things.

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All these false gods are incapable of producing anything but God is the one who has actually created all things by his power because he is

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Full stop, right? He is he has existence. He is omnipotent and he is he is the one who has done these things

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So he has demonstrated his actions based on his Being that the fact that he is he exists what else?

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think ethical Maybe I'll give you a verse and we can respond to it.

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How about verse 18? I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land at this time

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Ethical, you know, if you said this to the world today, they'd be like what? Excellent so in keeping with this character as a holy

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God as a God who is true to his word and his word Had already promised the people of Israel, you know

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They had a conditional promise coming into this land, you know Worship me and stay true to me and I will bless you

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You will not your borders will be secure and all the things that will lead to the flourishing of you as a nation like someone and if you

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Forsake me and this is what I will do. So that was what God had promised and here is what

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God Executes on the basis of what he had promised to the nation of Israel and he does that not capriciously

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He does this on the basis of his character as a true God who is who's who does not change

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He is holy and his justice must be Accomplished as he had promised already any other thoughts on the character of God when it comes to who?

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His him being true him being a God who has revealed his truth God is and Then a

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God who acts on the basis of this truth, which means he is faithful. Actually that Carol you you

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Refer to this in the end of this chapter. It talks about how God will Restore his people as well.

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So any other thoughts on these three aspects? Before we take this to the next step

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Anything that comes out from the text maybe or outside, all right, so let's know maybe take a couple of examples.

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Can you think of examples in the Bible where God has

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Revealed himself as a True God a God who has spoken his truth and a God who has acted on the basis of his truth other than this text what are some of the examples in people's lives that you can think of God as being a true

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God a God who has communicated his truth and a God who has acted on the basis of his truth, which we are calling faithfulness

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Specifically faithfulness Old Testament New Testament. Yes, Gary Excellent, so when you think of Moses the whole

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Exodus events that came there God is the one who brought the people to Egypt he had promised that he will make them a nation and deliver them from here when they were in oppression

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He he called Moses. He spoke the truth to him about who he is in his character

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He talked about what he was going to accomplish through this Stutterer and then he did what he promised as he delivered the people and he showed his faithfulness

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Well going all the way back hit the truth that he promised to Abraham and he fulfilled that as he delivered the people out of Egypt excellent example

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Excellent, and I meant to ask say this earlier, but I forgot We did this section on Trinity before we picked the attributes mainly

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So we consciously think of each of the persons of the Trinity and how they are all They all are

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God in character in the way they Exhibit this and I'm glad you brought Jesus Christ as being true and faithful and I think the greatest promise that God ever gave is

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That he would redeem his people. So we go back to Genesis 3, you know The seed of the woman right there in the fall

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God promised that he would deliver throughout the Old Testament. You have these words of God that Promise that the

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Son would come and rescue his people and we see in the Gospels the life of Jesus Christ as He is the true and faithful one.

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He is faithful to the Father. He is he is faithful to Fulfill what God has promised and then we can now enjoy the fruit of what he has done.

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Excellent for those of you who couldn't hear Janet was saying that you know, God was faithful to Israel even when they were

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Unfaithful to him so these people would sin and God and his justice would bring judgment upon them and yet he would leave the remnant from Whom he would rebuild this nation and I and actually when

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I think of what's happening today that we have a country called Israel after everything that happened with the destruction of the temple at the end of the new after the

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New Testament and we just think about it and say well The New Testament was written both before and after the destruction of the temple and I think we just want to Reflect on God's truthfulness and that's excellent

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So when we again when we talk about God speaking and doing speaking the truth, you know He promised to David that one of your descendants would rule forever

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Referring to Jesus Christ and he would let's go back to that wisdom thing, you know

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God always knows and chooses the best goals In this particular example, we are talking about Jesus Christ being the

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Redeemer of the Son of David and The best means to them it's

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God knew exactly all the sins that would be committed between David and Jesus Christ and God is sovereign over them in terms of bringing those means

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To work together for his intended end There was someone else. Yes, Charlie Excellent and actually that was one thing

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I wanted us to go back to Why is God? Communicating his truth and acting on the basis of his truth.

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It all goes back to the fact that he is true It is on the basis of his character that he acts.

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So When we think of our own actions, we need to always have the touchstone the standard as God's character

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Itself because we are in and I think he in Jeremiah 10 we saw this We don't have that in ourselves to come up with a true standard by which to act.

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We just come up with stupid falsehoods but the example that you gave was So here we have the

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Ark of the Covenant God gave clear instructions how it must be carried because of the representation of God and his holiness that it must not be touched and David and his zeal forgets to Bring those poles have the priests carry them in the certain way that God had instructed in order that this would not be touched

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Put them in a you know poles were so Old -fashioned, you know, come on, you know who needs we need we have the latest

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BMWs here on which we can carry our Ark, you know So you have the cart you put the things in the cart and then you walk up it stumbles

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The Ark is about to fall as though with a possibly a good intent tries to steady it so it wouldn't fall down Fails to recognize that when the unholy touches the holy

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There is a consequence for it that God had already spoken about and God true to his character strikes him dead and David is

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Confused How can this be here? We are trying to honor you But it must be done in accordance with who

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God is and what he has instructed and so God I think ultimately Demonstrates his character for the good of his people and I think you connected that nicely with us today

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Let's maybe just dwell on that a little bit and then we'll apply this So in our lives today as Christians This week that you have gone through Does the fact of God being a true

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God? That God has spoken his truth to you to the pages of Scripture and the fact that God Acts in accordance with his character and his promises

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Does that Make any difference at all what difference has it made this week in your life?

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Because of the truthfulness of God and the faithfulness of God And and I think you know when we look at the if I just carry continue your sentence bill in our unfaithfulness we can go back to first John 1 and say

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Let's go to first John 1 I know that I'm frail and I hate to misquote the word so If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

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This is believers and the truth is not in us. Hmm truth But if he confess our sins, he is faithful and just he's faithful To his word he is just in taking care of the sin problem

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To forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness So here we have the promise of God that acts in our life

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So if we want to think of a general term in which God in his truth and his truthfulness has acted faithfully to us

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We can just say okay. Everybody here knows we sinned Everybody here knows that we received the forgiveness of God when we approached him because he is faithful and he is truthful

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So that's a broad covering of everything that we are not that God has done on our behalf now

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Thank you bill. That was a and Let's let's maybe turn it into the positive in the few minutes.

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We have remaining as Image bearers who can reflect this communicable attribute of God in his truth truthfulness and his faithfulness

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As fallen creatures we were incapable of doing this rightly in a way that pleases

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God But as redeemed people in Christ, we now have the Spirit of God who is truth. The Spirit is truth he now enables us to do things that we were incapable of and so we have the ability to You know this

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This mirror. I mean if you want to think of image this mirror that is marred and broken with a fall But yet retaining part of its image

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Bearing capability now, you know shining through the work of Jesus Christ is able to In in greater measure day and today be transformed in into the image of his son so that we could showcase the the truth truthfulness and faithfulness of God to a dark and Stupid world in terms of who

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God is and how we can be transformed by his faithfulness. So in what ways

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Can you think of? Where you are being transformed in this specific character or attribute of God in Bearing his image and I think if you just go a little bit earlier in that verse it says do not be conformed

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To this world because we just saw in Jeremiah 10 The whole pattern is here are the people making these false idols putting their hopes and falsehood and God says no

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I am the true God. I am the living God and we as believers have had our minds

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Illumined by the Spirit, but now we can continue to grow in that illumination we can grow in the knowledge of who

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God is we can grow in knowing how we can be faithful to God because You can think of Unbelievers who are faithful to their false gods with a great degree of zeal and Completely miss the boat and here we have the privilege of knowing our

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God and Have the means to act in the truth that God has given us.

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Thank you, Steven. Any other thoughts? The reason

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I'm I was hoping we'll go a little bit further but I'm glad we are spending this time is because it's it's important for us, especially in the world and the culture we live in to Reflect upon truth that God is truth that his ways are true that what he has said are

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Unshakeable that we can actually hold on to them So we talked earlier about wisdom and making those choices, you know, sometimes you may have to make this choice

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It's never easy, you know, this isn't the word and this is not in the word more often than not It's like it's got 20 things here that are good 15 things that are bad and you know 200 things that are good and you know another 300 things that are bad and then you have to kind of figure out, you know which one do you need to choose and You know not flip a coin but but but end of the day when you know

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God's Word and You know his character and you know that what he has promised he will fulfill

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We have a great degree of assurance in making those choices and moving forward because we know that God will

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Do what he does best which is being faithful to his people So how let's talk a little bit about faithfulness.

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How are we to be faithful? To God and to others maybe think of it in contrast not in terms of our glorified state but in terms of being those being sanctified to those who were maybe even just a year ago being sanctified but in a earlier state of sanctification

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Faithfulness, how are we how I how do you reflect or image the faithfulness of God in your?

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life both toward God and to your fellow man and the way we live it out and And you know, there is another attribute

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We'll look at this next week with a few others and the attribute that you probably want to be thinking of is love before You know,

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I was a believer. I didn't love God I didn't care for the things of God or I loved myself and I didn't care about the needs of others and here as a

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Believer who's been transformed I grow in the knowledge of the love of God toward me And so my love for him grows as I recognize who what

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Christ has done for me And so when I make those choices that would either honor him or dishonor him.

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It's not a question of okay you know here is just a list of things I need to do it is because I I Love him more as I see his hand in my life more as I see his

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Character revealed in the words so much more and and when I look at my brother or sister in this world,

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I Recognize that I have a life that is purchased I'm I'm a

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Slave of righteousness and I need to be faithful in the way that I act toward my brother or sister in Christ Or even those in the world

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So here is the truth of who God is what he has done for me that transforms the way I think and the way

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I live My life, I don't do it perfectly But I keep doing it in greater measure Year after year and I can see the hand of God who is faithful in transforming me through this process

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Amen, amen. I Think all of you could hear that the the

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Thing we always have to remember we when we started we talked about this God exercises all of his attributes

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Simultaneously, he doesn't compromise one on the basis of the other and forbearance or patience is one of them and and therefore he acts according to the counsel of his will perfectly and he is not

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Frustrated by any of the events that happen around us because he knows what he is doing and he will accomplish it

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And so in our lives, I think when we just think about God and his faithfulness you know,

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I make a lot of bad choices and Thanks be to God that God Sovereignly Watches over and brings all those bad choices to his intended good in my life

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So I don't need to be this I've never make a decision because I know it's never perfect I choose on the basis of God's revealed word and by his spirit

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Indwelling in me and when I make those choices that don't bring my intended good

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God still brings out his intended good because he is faithful even in my foolishness

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So with that, let me just read the definitions and then we'll close so truthfulness God always represents things as they are all of God's knowledge and word are true and the final standard of truth and His faithfulness

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God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he has promised and I think of patience

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And forbearance God's kindness in withholding punishment to those who sin over a period of time in his own counsel

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Alright, let's pray God our Heavenly Father we thank you for Revealing yourself to us as the only true

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God as a God who acts faithfully to his people in keeping with your word

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Help us a father to grow in appreciation of who you are and may our lives reflect your truth and your faithfulness