Beyond The Basics 3: The Attributes And Nature Of God (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Our Father, we rejoice that we are able to gather together inside of a building in a free country to come and worship

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You freely, without fear. Father, I pray that You would bless our time as we look at what

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You have revealed about Yourself and that we would hold tightly onto these things, that we would see the practicality of knowing

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You, the God that we love. In Christ's name we pray, Amen. All right, last week we talked about a few of the attributes of God and, you know,

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I just wanted to say, just for some insight into what may happen this morning, I'm extremely tired, so buckle in.

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All right, we talked about, let's see, which attributes last week? Immutability, which means

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God does not change, in fact, He cannot change. We talked about His sovereignty, the importance of that, and, you know,

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I would argue that if you don't understand the sovereignty of God rightly, you don't understand life rightly.

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Thirdly, we talked about God's justice and how it's not fairness. You know, I had a friend who used to say, he was an unbeliever, and he worked with me in the jail, and he used to tell the inmates, if you want fair, go to Pomona.

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That doesn't make any sense to you guys because you're not familiar with the Los Angeles County Fair. So, you know, here we might say, if you want fair, go to the big

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E, because life isn't fair. Even unbelievers understand that.

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But God always does what is right, and we should be thankful He doesn't do what we consider fair, where everybody gets what they deserve because we'd all be in a lot of trouble.

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Okay, the fourth one on page six of the notes, which would actually be the second page of your notes, or actually the first page on the back side of your notes, page six, and you're wondering what happened to the first four pages, well, if you want them, you can have them, you just have to ask me.

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We're going to talk about omniscience, omniscience. I had, I interact from time to time on the internet, and someone accused me of thinking that I could read their minds, and they said

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I was omnipotent. And I said, no, no, actually, I'm omniscient. I was just joking, you know, but omniscient, all -knowing, can anybody, you know, here we go, let's talk about what are the attributes of God that we can reflect, and what are the ones that we cannot reflect?

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This is one of those that we cannot reflect. This is, what's the technical term for that?

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If there is an attribute of God that we can reflect, or if we can't, does anybody know what that is? I just read it, and I can't remember.

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Okay, moving right along, it'll probably come to me like 30 minutes from now, so don't mind me if I just blurt it out.

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Omniscience, all -knowing, Spurgeon says omniscience is from the Latin omnis, all, combined with scientia, knowledge, the combination meaning to know all, or to have perfect knowledge.

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Obviously, we can't, as human beings, cannot have perfect knowledge, why? We're finite.

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Think about this, if God is everywhere all at the same time, it makes it a little bit easier to be omniscient, doesn't it?

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If he is sovereign, he controls everything in the entire universe, makes it a little easier to know what's going on.

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He designed everything, he created everything, he purposed everything, he ordained everything.

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If everything is ordained from God, then God knows what is happening. Let's look at Psalm 139, verse 4, and for those of you who were at Joyce Macala's funeral,

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I preached this, and let me just give you some inside scoop, and by way, is

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Pastor Mike in here? It's good, because I don't want him to hear it. I have said on more than one occasion, and I'm here to publicly repent,

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I've said on more than one occasion, you can take a copy of Pastor Mike's notes, and you can read them, you can enjoy them, but you can't preach them, because there's just so much stuff, and it's just like, how does he make any,

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I mean, if you look at, I was telling Scott Walkton a couple of weeks ago, if I was supposed to preach, and I died like right before, you know, 15 minutes before the sermon, they could hand my notes to somebody, they could review them, and go,

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I could do this, this is no big deal, Mike's not so much. So I say that to Mike all the time, and so then the

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Joyce Macala thing came up, and on Wednesday afternoon, the funeral was going to be on Friday, I find out that Joyce wanted

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Psalm 139 preached at her funeral, and I'm going, I don't have a Psalm 139 sermon,

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I don't have time to put one together, so I go, well, she must have wanted that, because Mike preached it, so I go,

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Tracy, find his notes. So she finds his notes, and I spent, you know,

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I spent some time, because Mike doesn't really work with word very well,

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I spent some time unformatting things, cutting and pasting, reorganizing things, putting my own stuff in there, and I'm going, you know what,

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I mean, it was only 25 minutes, that's why I enjoyed it, but I thought it was a pretty good sermon. Psalm 139, just talking about God, and you know, there's nothing, let me just say this too, when you're at a funeral, you can spend a lot of time talking about the dead person, and people will feel better about it, you can spend a little time talking about the dead person, and you can spend most of your time addressing the people who are alive, who need salvation, and there were a number of unbelievers there, we need to confront them, even at times like that, with the truth claims of the

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Gospel. Psalm 139, verse 4, so anyway, to make a long story short, the point of all that was,

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I stole Mike's sermon, you know, so, what can I say? Psalm 139, verse 4, even before there is a word on my tongue, behold,

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O Lord, you know it all. How can that be? How can God know what

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I'm going to say before I say it? What if I change my mind? He knows that too.

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God's outside time, you know, that is such a great truth, because, you know, we think, you know, that God somehow, there are, you know, many views, but that God somehow knows ahead of time, because he looks down the corridors of time, but what is time?

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Time is a created thing, it's a creation, Daniel.

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Okay, God encompasses time, except he's still outside of the paper too.

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So, here's, and I think you might agree with this, here's how I like to phrase it, you know, we think in our humanness sometimes, or some theologians will say, you know, that God is able to look into the future and see what's happened, and the truth is, like what

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Brian's saying, is that time is like a giant parade, and God is, as it were, in the blimp above the parade, and can see the beginning from the end.

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In other words, he's not, he's not going, gee, I wish I could see that band down there, or that float, or that, he sees it all.

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He's got it all under control, it is not a progression to him, it is an event, it just happens simultaneously, as it were.

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He knows everything. Point B, God's omniscience is his knowledge of all things, including actual and possible, past, present, and future.

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That's foreknowledge. He does know the future. He knows perfectly everything that happened in the past, he knows everything in the present.

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God is all -knowing, and his knowledge is in no way restricted by temporal considerations. What does that mean?

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Well, it just means exactly what I've been saying, he knows everything, past, present, and future. God's omniscience means that nothing anyone does escapes the knowledge of God, and that one day we will be called to give an account at the bar of God for, and God will deal with us according to what we've done.

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You know, it was interesting, I don't know how many of you saw the, I don't know, the forum, it wasn't a debate, but the forum that Senator Obama and Senator McCain did with Rick Warren, and he says to the candidates, he says, now what would you tell the

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American people if you knew there would be no ramifications? And I thought that was an interesting question, first of all, because it's absurd, as soon as you tell the people, then there are going to be ramifications.

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But secondly, I just thought, you know, sometimes I think we think, well, what would

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I do if I knew I could get away with it, and God would never find out? Is there a place that somehow

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I can sin and God doesn't know about it? Is there some thought I can think that maybe is okay because God's not going to find out?

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No. He knows it all, everything, even before we do it.

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Fifth, let's move on, holiness. You know, we typically think of holiness as being just purity, but it's far more than that.

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It means that God is separate, He's different from everything else. We've heard

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Isaiah 6 on many occasions, so let's look at 1 Samuel 2, 2, and hopefully someone will whip me there so I can get a drink of water while we're reading that.

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1 Samuel 2, 2. Brian. I mean, to whom would we compare

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God? Who can we compare God to? Who does He, who would we hold up and say, you know, this person, this thing is pretty close to God?

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There's no one like Him. This struck me when

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I read this, one does not define God. How do you define God? Well, He's transcendent,

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He's above everything, and yet He's imminent. He's involved in everything. He is holy and separate, and yet He's involved.

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How do we define Him? Tozer says, page 7, each one of us is born into a tainted world, and we learn impurity from our cradles.

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We nurse it with our mother's milk. We breathe it in the very air. Our education deepens it, and our experience confirms it.

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Evil impurities everywhere. Everything is dirty, even our whitest white is dingy gray.

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No amount of bleach, put whatever you want in the wash, it's still coming out dingy gray.

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This kind of world gets into our pores, into our nerves, until we have lost the ability to conceive of the holy.

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Our very thoughts of God are unworthy of Him. He is so holy that we can't even conjure up an adequate picture of His holiness.

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Now, let's go down to point D, because this is good. I mean, we could say this of all of His attributes.

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God is not now any holier than He ever was. He's also not any more omniscient than He ever was, or more sovereign than He ever was.

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He doesn't get more anything. He was always the zenith of holiness, always the zenith of omniscience, always the highest possible imaginable of all of His attributes.

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In fact, we could say His holiness is reflected in His other attributes.

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He is unlike anyone in His knowledge. He is unlike anyone in His power.

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He is unlike anyone in His sovereignty. He is unlike anyone in His justice. Omnipotence, God is all -powerful.

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Is there anything God can't do? He can't learn.

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He can't sin. He can't lie. But what can

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He do? What's that?

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Anything He wants, everything else. All the things that He has purposed to do.

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Let's look at Isaiah 46 .10. And who has that?

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I do. Okay, Isaiah 46 .10. Declaring the end.

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In fact, let me just back up to verse 9. Remember the form of things long past, for I am

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God and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like me. His holiness.

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Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, my purpose will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.

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When he's talking in this way, what he's really doing is setting himself apart from what? His creation?

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In this context, what is he specifically talking about? What is

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God different than? His creation and, if we backed up just a little bit, verse 5, to whom would you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we would be alike?

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Those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh silver on the scale hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a god.

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Over and over again during Isaiah, what does he tell the people? He says, listen, all your neighbors and you have this proclivity to worship creation, to actually create gods and then fall down on the ground and worship them.

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Foolishness. I alone have been able to tell you the end from the beginning.

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To tell you things that haven't happened yet as if they have happened. I'm able to bring about whatever

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I want because I am omnipotent. I am all -powerful. Spurgeon says, when

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God says, I will, his resolution is supported by omnipotence, his power. You say,

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I will, but you cannot do what you have promised. What does James say about saying,

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I will do thus and such? If the Lord wills. You say, yes,

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I will. But afterwards you have meekly to say, I pray thee, take this will for the deed.

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For I find that I have overshot the mark. Have you ever over promised? You ever said something and then not been able to do it?

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I see that hand. Pritchard says this on page eight.

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If you prefer a simpler definition of the omnipotence of God, just think of these three words.

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God is able. It's what it means. He is able to do everything he needs or wants to do.

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If God has purpose to do something, who can stop his hand? Who can do it? No one.

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Number seven, I'm my presence. He's everywhere all at once. Psalm 139, 7 to 12.

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One of the things while we're going through this, one of the things that's really great about the Psalms is over and over again, really maybe the most concentrated presentation of the attributes of God in all of Scripture in the

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Psalms. Psalm 139 verses 7 to 12. Anyone want to read that?

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Oh, Brian. What's David's or the psalmist?

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Well, it is David, but what's his message here in 7 to 12? God is everywhere.

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He says, listen, no matter where I go, how far I go, how high, how low, how far into the horizon, which is what he's talking about when he's talking about, as I skip pages and I'm going, well, that doesn't make any sense.

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Oh, yeah. What he says that he goes to the remotest part of the sea.

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That's what he's talking about. He's going, listen, if I go that way, if I go that way, if I go that way, wherever I am, he says, does it matter if it's dark or light?

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No. God is there and he is because of that. If we were to go through, if I were to preach

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Psalm 139, we would find there's great comfort in that because God is there for his children all the time.

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And in fact, we will go through that. Look at point D. Even there, the comforting. Let's go back to point

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C. David's not done for this part of the horizon. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, in other words, if he traveled as far as he could point

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D, even there, the comforting, protecting hand of God is present. He says his hand will lead me.

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His hand will lay hold of me, protect me. God is present. Verses 11 and 12 without regarded day or night.

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So it's no matter how high, how far, how low, how dark, how light,

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God is everywhere. Look at that from the daily bread. Mysteriously numbered A as if it starts over again.

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Got to get a new typist. I'm terrible. Daily bread. In 1791,

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John Wesley lay on his deathbed at age 88. Those who gathered around him realized how well he had learned the lesson of praising

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God in every circumstance. Despite Wesley's extreme weakness, he began singing the hymn.

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I'll praise my maker while I've breath. That's how you want to go out from beginning to end, finishing the race, loving

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God, understanding that everywhere you are in the best of conditions, worst of conditions.

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God is there with you. The love of God, number eight. You know, we say that God's love is unconditional.

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Is that true? Is God's love unconditional? I think that's a good answer.

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It depends on which love I'm talking about. I sound like a journalist asking gotcha questions. Once God sets his affection, his love on someone, does he change his mind?

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For which I can only say we should all be grateful. It is not emotional.

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We should really, I mean, I talked about it last week a little bit, you know, the difference between Allah and the

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God of the Bible. First of all, Allah does not exist. But secondly, that's a little bit of a difference.

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But secondly, Allah is very fickle. He does what he wants. But the

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God of the Bible sets, affixes, totally engages his love on someone and does not change his mind no matter what that person does.

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A .W. Pink, there are many today who talk about the love of God who are total strangers to the

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God of love. True or false? Is that right? What's an example?

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What could A .W. Pink, who's dead, possibly know about how people talk about the

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God of love today? That's right.

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And what he was saying is, you know, that this whole ecumenical kind of pan -Christian, actually pan -religion movement where we're going to put everything together in the same pan, where we're going to just combine everything.

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That was terrible, and that's what you get when I'm tired. I'm sorry. But they have elevated love.

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Even pagans will say, well, you know what, you can't, even pagans. Atheists, avowed atheists will say, you know what, the

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God of the Bible can't really exist because there's so much evil and sin in the world.

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And the truth is, if he were really a God of love, he wouldn't allow pain.

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He wouldn't allow suffering. What's wrong with that thinking? It excludes all the other attributes of God, forgets about his justice, his holiness, his righteousness.

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Let's just set all that aside and just say, you know, God is love. He has to love everybody unconditionally. He has to solve all the problems, or we don't like that God.

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It's a matter of us holding God to a certain standard, and when he doesn't meet it, saying, well, that God can't exist.

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Charlie? That's right.

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That's right. They believe that God should accommodate their comfort and their desires, and that really puts the creature over the creator.

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I mean, again, it is deciding what standard God should live up to. It's creating a

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God and then saying, you know what, that's the God I would worship, but no, you wouldn't, because you'll only worship, well, you will worship a

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God you will create on your own, but you won't worship the God who exists. Joni?

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Absolutely. I mean, and what does Hebrews say about how God treats his children? He disciplines them.

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Even thinking about Romans 8, you know, we often say that God works together all things together for good, to those who love him and call according to his purpose.

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And what's the rest of that verse? Because we think about it, if we really catalog, and we've talked about it, if we include all things, some of those things aren't going to be so great.

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You know, some of those things, serious diseases, death of a loved one, being fired from a job, whatever the circumstance is, you know, we read that, we go, he works all things together for good.

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Well, somehow I don't think that's so great. And then we go on and we read it. And it says what? That there is nothing, no created thing, that can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

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And so we can rest in that, not in our circumstances. He doesn't change his mind.

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He sets his affection, and there it is. Look at B, the love of God is uninfluenced.

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This is such a great thing to consider. All the gods, small g, throughout history, what did people do for those gods?

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Appease them. And what did appeasement mean? I mean, in some cultures they even did what?

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They marched those people into volcanoes. No, that was from a movie. But yeah, they'd sacrifice babies, molek.

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Horrible things have been done in the name of God, small g, and appeasing some god.

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You know, if we go to some of the ancient cultures, there were all kinds of sexual rights. All manner of evil has been done over the years as some kind of appeasement offering for God.

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But the God of the Bible, what can we do to influence his love?

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If we live, if I'm a Christian and I live a holy life, does God love me more?

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We think that way though sometimes, don't we? You know, if I could just stop sinning,

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God would really love me. It's just wrong thinking.

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That's just wrong thinking. God can't love you. I mean, think about your own kids. They may disappoint you.

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They may sin against you. They may completely devastate you. Do you stop loving them?

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How much more does the God of the universe, who sets his affections on someone, love them unconditionally?

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Let's look at Roman numeral 0 .3 there, 1 John 4 .19.

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We love him because he first loved us. That's important.

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Because if God's love were conditioned upon us loving him first, then what would that imply?

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What's that? Pat says it would never happen, and that's right. How would we love

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God on our own initiative? You know what, I've thought about it for a long time, and I think

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I'm just going to choose to love God. I mean,

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I think our thoughts a lot of times about God are too human to paraphrase Luther to Erasmus.

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We think that somehow we can influence him, that we can decide these things. What else would it imply though if we first loved

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God, and therefore he responded? I like that, that God is aloof, and man is ultimately responsible, which would mean that he's not immutable.

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He changed his mind. He's not sovereign, because he wouldn't, and his love wouldn't be unconditional, because it would be first us loving him and then him responding.

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Again, this is kind of how we think. You know, I'm not going to like so -and -so until they like me first.

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If God was like that, then we're in a world of hurts. God's love, point

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C, is eternal. God is eternal. God is love.

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Therefore, as God himself had no beginning, his love had none. And as Ryder says here, and I forget who

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I'm quoting there, but it's really a mind -boggling concept, because we don't think like this.

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It's AW Pink. We don't think like that. God's love is sovereign.

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I mean, think about these points that Pink is making about the love of God. It's eternal.

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It's sovereign. He goes on to say it's infinite. And these are all good things, but it's just like, we don't think about the attributes of God deeply and often enough to really contemplate all the implications of them.

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It is sovereign. He says this is self -evident. God himself is sovereign, so why wouldn't his love be sovereign?

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He does as he pleases. Anyway, this is all, I like what he says down here towards the bottom of page 9.

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For a moment, assume the opposite. Suppose God's love were regulated by anything else than his will.

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In such a case, he would love by rule, and loving by rule, he would be under a law of love.

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And then so far from being free, he would himself be ruled by law. What he's saying is if there was something other than his sovereignty by which he loved, then there would be a series of rules, and God would no longer be sovereign.

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Point E, it is infinite. Everything about God is infinite. His essence fills the heavens and the earth.

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His wisdom is illimitable. Write that down. God's love is immutable.

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It doesn't change. Again, notice how all the attributes work together, how they commingle, as it were.

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Attribute number 9, mercy. Undeserved compassion toward those in need, very similar to grace.

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Pink says, though it may not be easy at the first consideration to perceive a real difference between the grace and mercy of God, it helps us thereto if we carefully ponder his dealings with the unfallen angels.

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How do you treat the unfallen angels? Do you do anything for them?

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The unfallen angels, the ones that are still, you know, have their wings and fly around and strum on harps and stuff like that.

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You ever wonder where all these ideas of angels come around? I don't know. You know, they're little tiny cute. Is that what a cherubim is?

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You know, a little tiny cute baby that has angel wings and flies around? Somewhat overweight.

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Because heaven must be filled with Twinkies or something. Who knows? I mean, these pictures are just absurd.

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But look what he says here. He has never exercised mercy toward them. Why? Why do the unfallen angels never get any mercy?

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They don't need any. They don't need any. Now he goes on to posit the election of them out of the whole angelic race.

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I mean, think about this. You know, it's kind of an inference from Scripture.

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But he talks about the elect angels, Paul does. Let's say that there was no election of angels.

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In other words, God didn't choose some. He didn't know who was going to fall.

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Then what? Well, then God doesn't know everything. Let's see.

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Third, making Christ their head. Well, we'll just skip that and read on. Romans 5.

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Fourth, because of the exalted position which has been assigned to them, they live in God's immediate presence to serve him constantly in his heavenly temple to receive honorable commissions from him.

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This is abundant grace toward them, but mercy it is not. Why is it grace?

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They did nothing to merit it. And so he gives them positions of authority and responsibility, and that is grace.

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But it's not mercy because they've done nothing to need mercy. They don't need redemption. In fact, can angels be redeemed?

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No. They either obey perfectly or suffer the consequences.

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Mercy. I wrote down here, this is me. I think personally, but God, the greatest two words in the

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Bible. Why would I say that? Who knows where that is?

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You should all know where that is. Ephesians 2. And what's remarkable about it is that he spent all of chapter 1 talking about our blessings in Christ, predestination, all these things.

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And then he goes on to explain why those truths are so marvelous. And in chapter 2, verse 1, he says,

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And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sins of disobedience.

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Among them we too, all, listen to that, all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh.

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Listen, Paul says, you, me, all of us did what we wanted. We went with the world.

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We were right in Satan's system. We were perfectly fine with it, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

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No hope, spiritually dead, doing whatever we wanted, pleasing ourselves, going along with the system of the devil.

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And then verse 4, But God, being rich in mercy, which is where we are, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

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Listen, but God, you don't deserve it. And that gives you a perfect picture of mercy and grace, undeserved compassion toward those in need.

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We needed it. Why? Because unlike the angels, we had sinned. Unlike the angels, we were going right along with the system of this world.

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We were deep in sin. And that's why I think the greatest two words in the

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Bible, because God interrupted the natural flow of our lives and brought us to spiritual life.

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10, 10th attribute of God, God is true.

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God is true. Listen to what John Gill says, God is truth itself. He is not only called the

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God of truth, but God, the truth. And so Christ asserts himself to be the truth.

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To be false, fallacious and insincere would be to act contrary to his nature, even to deny himself, which he cannot do.

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God is true. He is the source of all truth. And, you know, this is what makes it. I mean, what are some of the practical implications of God being the truth?

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Anybody have any thoughts about that? There's only one truth, Peggy says, and that's exactly right.

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There aren't many truths. In fact, this is kind of a little bit of an aside, but it lets you, it kind of opens your mind to how, as if you don't already know how the world thinks, again, on the

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Internet. And somebody says, he's an avowed atheist, and he says, well, in essence, anyone who says that they're a

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Christian is a Christian. And I said,

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OK. So someone could say they're a Christian, say that they think the Koran is more inspired than the

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Bible, and that they pray to the Hindu pantheon of gods, and you'll say, yep, that's a

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Christian. What's he going to say? He has to say, yes, that's absolutely correct.

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Because anyone can be, I said, well, then you know what? If you have any dictionaries on the shelf, kindly pick them up and burn them, because they have absolutely no meaning.

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In other words, I could say, I said, well, then, here's my pronouncement to you. I am the most liberal person on the face of the planet.

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It doesn't matter what my positions are. I say I'm a liberal. I am beyond liberal.

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I am the most liberal person you know. It doesn't work.

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You can't just say whatever you want, and it's this idea that there's only one truth, that is just absolutely abhorrent to the world.

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Well, they don't like that. Why were they so angry with Jesus? Because he was the truth.

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He told them the truth, and they loved the truth. No, they hate the truth.

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If you are, and I don't mean you, but if a person in this world is subsumed by their sin nature, they love their sin, they hate the truth, when you come and preach the truth to them, and I don't care whether you're

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Jesus in the flesh or whether you're Steve Cooley or whoever you are, you come and you present the truth claims of the gospel to someone who absolutely hates the truth, they're not naturally going to like it.

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It takes a supernatural act of God to transfer that mindset. God is truth, always has been the truth, cannot lie.

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It's one of his attributes. All truth comes from God. Any truth that exists outside of God, is there a truth that exists outside of God?

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Who can give me an example of a truth that exists outside of God? I'll wait.

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Now, if I was to say, are there any truths contained outside of scripture? Well, yeah, you know, somebody would pretty quickly give me some derivative from calculus, and I'd go, well, okay, you got me there.

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Right, Lewis? I mean, I don't know, the Bible might talk about calculus.

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He knows all this stuff. I don't really know that. Okay, number 11, eternality, or the 25 cent word, aseity, which is self -existence, self -existence.

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Let's look at, since I have no idea what it says, let's look at Psalm 90, verse 2.

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It's just kind of fun to surprise myself with the scriptural references. No snorting.

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Psalm 90, verse 2, who has that? Steve Nelson.

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Okay, so then that would say that at one point, God came into being, right?

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No, you should be shouting me down and pulling me out and burning me with torches and using pitchforks.

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No, God had no beginning, and he has no end. Packer writes, children sometimes ask, who made

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God? Where did God come from, right? The clearest answer is that God never needed to be made because he was always there.

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Again, why is that hard for us to understand? Everything has a start.

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That's right, except for the one who created all of time. I just saw some movement,

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I thought it was a hand raising. Sorry. We necessarily age and die because it is our present nature to do that.

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God necessarily continues forever unchanged because it is his eternal nature to do that.

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God's self -existence is a basic truth. When Paul went to Mars Hill, Acts 17, or also known as the

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Areopagus, what did he say to them? He said that the world's creator, it's right there on your page, is not served by human hands as if he needed anything because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

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He is the source of everything. He is totally self -existent. We mentioned this last week. In fact,

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Jesus claims self -existence. Where did he do that? Hint, it's on your paper. Before Abraham was,

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I am, which is John 8, 58. And it was much like, well,

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I won't even go there. How do we know that this was Jesus claiming to be God? Which I think is one of the strongest examples ever.

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John 8, 58, he says it's because they tried to stone him after that. Why? Because he made himself out to be God. His original audience listened and he said, before Abraham was,

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I am, and they said, that's quite interesting, a fascinating concept.

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We'll have to study that further. They knew exactly what he meant. They took up stones to kill him.

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Why? Because he made himself out to be God. Because they knew this was a reference to Exodus 3, 14.

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Moses goes, or is before God, and he's getting the charge from God. And he says, listen, this is the

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Cooley paraphrase. He says, listen, I'm going to go back to your people. Who should I tell them sent me?

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And he says, tell them what? I am. Which meant that God was self -sufficient.

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That he was before time began, and he'll be after time is over. Let's see.

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Okay, let's just do this, and then we'll save the Trinity for next week.

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Actually, two weeks from now. Practical responses to God's attributes.

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Practical responses to God's attributes. Take notes, because there will be a test.

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No, this is something, these are practical. These are not theoretical or high -minded or theological truths, you know, only to be pondered in monasteries high up in the

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Himalayas. How should we respond to the attributes of God?

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First of all, godly fear. We should think what? God is

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God, and I am not. He is worthy of my worship, and I need to focus on him.

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Secondly, obedience. We think rightly about the love of God. We think rightly about the mercy and the grace of God.

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Why would we want to disobey him? Our focus should be on obeying him, on following him.

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C, loyalty. Only one master, you can only serve, what? God or mammon, money, which really means you can only serve

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God, or if you try to serve something else, your life will become a big mess.

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Loyalty. Again, you know, the whole idea, well, you know what? I can be a

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Christian, love the Koran, and pray to Hindu gods.

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Focus. Christians have only one master. They need to serve him.

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Entire resignation. Job 121. What does Job say when everything gets taken away from him?

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He said, you know what? I'm going to curse God and die. Is that right?

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What did Job say? I mean, he started whining later on, but initially he said what?

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The Lord giveth and taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. But that's the right mindset.

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That's the way we ought to look at things. Deep thankfulness and joy. What about the attributes of God should make you thankful or joyful?

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Everything. I mean, when we consider who God is and who we are, it is an amazing thing that he would ever waste his time with us.

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And, of course, time being his creation. Well, never mind. Pastor Lewis. That's where you say stop, right there.

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That statement implies that God is evil. That's right.

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He said, when someone says, you know, there's so much evil, how can there be a God? Well, you know what?

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You just subjectively assigned the term evil to behavior. What's your standard for that?

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And the truth is, without God, there is no standard for evil. What's wrong with cannibalism?

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Well, it's just a choice that we make. You know, I mean, there is no right or wrong apart from the objective truth of God.

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Yeah, that's a good one. There is no light, and I don't know where all these shadows come from. Good.

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It's good. Adoring worship. Again, when we understand rightly who

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God is, all that he's done on our behalf, what he has promised to us, and the fact that he is true, he will keep his promises, why wouldn't we worship him?

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Why wouldn't we love him? Point G, no vengeance.

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Why? Why wouldn't we take vengeance on someone else? Obviously, we're not going to take vengeance on God. We may actually put no vengeance on others or those who sin against us.

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Why wouldn't we? Because God says, justice is mine,

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I will repay. God will work it out. No self -confidence. Because when we understand ourselves rightly, and we understand that nothing good in us exists or exists in us except for what

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God brings about in us, then why would we have any confidence in the flesh? Why would we put any stock in our own holiness on our own ability to obey?

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We wouldn't. We become more and more dependent upon God. Why? Humility.

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Humility. Again, when we think about God rightly, we have nothing to boast about.

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J, proper perspective. When God comes to Job and properly dresses him down, as it were, it puts everything in perspective when we think about all that God has done.

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I mean, even just his power in creating everything, and then we want to presume to tell

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God how things should be. I don't think you should do that. I don't think you should let these people suffer in Texas.

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I don't think you should allow people to die of malaria in Africa. I don't think you should. Excuse me.

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You're not thinking of God rightly if that's how you're thinking. Focusing on the attributes of God is one of the most practical things you can do because it makes you think about the world, your circumstances, everything around you rightly.

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If you have an illness, if you have some difficulty in your life, the best thing you can do is focus on God because that should be our focus all the time, but even more so when we're struggling with the issues of life.

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Let's close in prayer. Father, even during this brief time of really dashing through some of your attributes, we're just reminded again and again of how much you aren't like us, how other you really are, how foreign you are to us in many ways, how we could not know you apart from your grace in revealing yourself to us in Scripture and even in some sense experientially in opening our eyes to Christ and giving us a new heart and causing us to see the truth and causing us to see our own sin.

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Father, we rejoice in that. Lord, I would pray for every single one of us that we would this week, every day of our lives, think about your greatness, your goodness, your love, your mercy, your power, your knowledge, your love, everything.

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Father, that we would just take the time to praise you for your attributes, to remind ourselves of who you are that we might remember who we are.