Wednesday, September 28, 2022 PM

Well, let me open us in prayer and ask the Lord's blessing on our time this evening Gracious Heavenly Father we come before you and we are just so humbled to be in your presence

We thank you for this time of fellowship with our brothers and sisters to be able to sit down and share a meal

Talk about the week so far how ask how we can pray for one another and encourage one another Now as we open your word, we just ask for wisdom and understanding

Father grant us that help us to come before you with Clean hearts that we might receive this blessing from you.

We ask these things in Jesus name Amen Don't be scared it's a big book, but I'm just looking at a little section in it tonight.

So First of all rejoice and be glad because God is going to grow you in patience and forbearance

Tonight as you have to listen to me So I thank you for just your patience as we work through this together

I will try and be on time as much as I can When Michael asked several of us a couple weeks ago if we wouldn't mind filling in for him while he's working in tag

I got to thinking like what am I gonna talk about if I've got a little bit of time to volunteer here and The first thing that came into my mind was well, what about a study on holiness?

I had done a little bit of a study on holiness a few years ago before Holly and I took over the first great first through third grade

Sunday school class On Kevin de Young's book a hole in our holiness and it kind of came out of Stuff that's been going on at Christian Heritage Academy where I work the first few chapels this year have been kind of heavy in a way

Because I think our administration is realizing that a lot of kids particularly in the upper grades are dealing with some difficult issues from anxiety to depression suicidal thoughts pornography things like that And they want to present this

Clean facade on the outside that they're good Christian kids But I thought what is the remedy for that and it is

I think part of it is Looking on the holiness of God. And so I thought well, maybe that can be something that I can talk about But as I started to think about it, the

Lord just kind of said no, I think it's bigger than that Kyle. I thought well Also, I don't want to burn through all my potential material in one go

So maybe I need to think through something that we can stretch just in case so that's when

I kind of landed on or the Lord led me to Looking at the attributes of God and so tonight really

I just wanted it to be kind of an introduction Into this study and Lord willing whenever you know,

I might have a chance to get back up here. We'll just continue In this I'm probably the least qualified person to teach on this in my personal opinion

But thankfully it's not about me Lord Equips those that he's called to teach so I want to open with a question here

What does it mean when we ask the question? What does it mean to be like God and if you have your

Bibles? I may be jumping around in Scripture a little bit. We'll look at a couple of passages here to try to answer that question

What does it mean to be like God? Let's start in Genesis Chapter 3

You might know where I'm going with this but play along Genesis chapter 3 verse 1

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman has

God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden and The woman said to the serpent we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden

But of the tree but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God has said you shall not eat of it nor shall you touch it lest you die

Then the woman said to the serpent you will not surely die For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil

So what do we see in this short passage about God? We see that our desire to be like God led ultimately to our separation and Ultimately that desire

God forbids from us Where what are some other examples if we look at at the picture of Adam and Eve?

What are some other examples we see in Scripture? With of this desire

Guy in the New Testament who wanted to pay money in order to be able to miracles. Okay, good example

Thing that always pops into my mind is if you just look a few chapters later we get to the Tower of Babel Okay, and they build the tower and God looks down from heaven at this tower that they've built and They are aspiring to be like God to be equal with God you look in Isaiah chapter 14

Scholars are a little bit, you know here and there on who exactly it's referring to but Lucifer The name is there in some translations.

It may also be talking about the king of Babylon But his desire to ascend to the throne in heaven

And even King Nebuchadnezzar himself He's walking on the the roof of his palace and saying look at all that I have done

And God brings him low So I think it's safe to say that this is not what it means when

God says to be like God turn to Ephesians chapter 5 Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1

Paul's writing and he says therefore Be imitators of God as dear children a short verse

But here we see the desire to be like God leads to what it leads to an intimate fellowship

With God and God is commanding it of us It's an imperative.

He's saying be imitators How do we know that there's intimate fellowship there?

He uses the phrase Dear children as a loving father would of his children which indeed we are for the

Christian for the child of God for the redeemed We should be imitators of God if you want to be like someone if you want to imitate someone

You have to get to know them And if you want that imitation to be deep and go to the point where it is said that he's just like his dad

Then you have to go beyond just knowing facts about a person one of my favorite pictures and as I was kind of thinking about This the

Lord brought it into my mind because I haven't seen it in such a long time Holly took it years ago I looked at the date on it, and it was 2012.

It was me in the front yard Mowing the lawn, which I've not done in a while now

You can if you know my boys and see their size. I let them take on that responsibility now

But I'm mowing the lawn and right next to me is a little five -year -old Hudson And he's got his

Fisher -Price bubble mower, and we're like right in stride with one another

The reason that this brings me joy Not just for the fact that I'm seeing you know hope for me not having to mow the yard

For much too longer But the reason it brings me joy is to see his interest in his father and reciprocally my interest in my son

We are at that moment spending time together in space

Together very close proximity. He's the one that's learning. I'm the one that's teaching.

He's imitating me He's not me. He's still Hudson, but he's becoming like me and that pleases me

So as we look at this word imitate I'm going to be a good CHA student here and define my terms first of all

So how do we define our terms we go to Webster, right? 1828 So the first definition in Webster's 1828 of imitate to follow in manners to copy inform color or quality

We imitate another in dress or manners we imitate a statue we imitate a painting a sound and action

When we make or do that which resembles it Listen to this next part

We should seek the best models to imitate and in morals and piety

It is our duty to imitate the example of our Savior But as we cannot always make an exact Similitude there's a

Webster word for you of the original Hence we come to definition number two to attempt or endeavor to copy or resemble as to imitate the colors of the rainbow or any of the beauties of nature thinking about a rainbow

Okay a Rainbow in reality in creation when we look outside After or during a rain and God blesses us with that it has an infinite literally infinite number of colors that you can

Somewhat pick out I've looked at some of the statistics And I think they've determined humans can maybe perceive upwards of 10 million colors with their eye

Now we try and replicate those colors on screens And yet we're still nowhere close to the possibilities that are there

That's like our imitation of God. He is infinite in his And he is infinite in his character in his attributes

As I was thinking about this those of you who may not know me very well I'm the director of technology at CHA so along with staying really busy

One of the things that I love to do when I get the chance is every once in a while There'll be some kind of keynote address introducing some new technology and over the years

I've always kind of been interested in I'm not a programmer, but interested in programming and the

Possibility of artificial intelligence now. I say interested not necessarily excited

Because I have seen a few sci -fi movies, and I know you know what the potential is there But you kind of go back to the grandfather of artificial intelligence

And his name is Alan Turing Turing proposed back in the middle of the 20th century

These things called thinking machines and one of the things that he came up with That we even use today and haven't necessarily figured out was something called the imitation game and what this is is

You have an interrogator, and then this interrogator is interrogating two entities they may be human

One of them may be a machine, but the idea of the imitation game is to have the interrogator

Try to guess who is who based on the questions. They are asking and of what nature are they?

So Turing said you know it's probably going to be 30 40 years before we see anything approaching this in 2018

I was watching a keynote it was a Google. I o conference in San Francisco and kind of low -key they started at first But introducing this product.

They've been working on called Google duplex and what this is is it allows?

Someone using the Google assistant which probably you all have heard of by now It's on your phones.

Maybe in your homes Using the Google assistant to do things with businesses if the businesses say they don't have an online booking page

But you'd like to make an appointment with them using the Google assistant to call the business and Impersonate an actual human to make the call

It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen, but it actually worked and on the one hand

I was amazed on the other hand. I was like what did I just see and you would see the reaction of people in the crowd and That trepidation.

I think came from a sense of There's some obfuscation

Going on here. There is Something is being presented that is not its true nature and the person on the other end of the line doesn't know it

Okay, a lot of times. That's what we Experience imitation as a spy might wear a mask they're imitating someone else

Even now in film and movie production, and this is a technology piece They don't really have to go to actual sets anymore

It's not just green screen and blue screen anymore now They have this thing called the LED volume where they project images and it's actually the set that the actors and actresses stand in and It really looks like they're in the middle of the desert or in the middle of the city

When they're really just in a room with a really big screen that goes around the room And so you look at those things and you're like who can

I trust? anymore Imitation, but here's the good thing

Our proper imitation of God brings us closer to the truth, and I think that we will see that so Before we jump into the attributes, let's ask the question

Is knowing God is imitating God? Really all that important.

I mean isn't isn't loving others more important Isn't you know giving to the poor or whatever okay more important?

And I don't think that it is and I'll use a few quotes here to back me up the two a

W's First a W pink He says a spiritual and saving knowledge of God is the greatest need of every human creature a

W Tozer says What comes into our mind when we think of God is the most important thing about us?

Steve Lawson in his study on the attributes of God He says how we understand and how we know

God is the continental divide in the life of every man and every woman

What does he mean by that? What does he mean by it being a continental divide when you go to the continental divide?

Okay on one side the water runs this way and It flows into the little tributaries and the streams and the rivers and it all empties into This ocean and on the other side it goes the other way in the same manner but the two oceans are different and on one side you have a

Very man -centered view of everything of the spheres of life on the other side

When you know and understand God and view everything in that light It all is colored and flavored with that Rightly knowing who

God is helps us to rightly know ourselves Why? Because we are made in his image the

Imago Dei Rightly knowing who God is helps us to order some things.

It helps us to order our worship of him It helps us to love others

It helps us in our calling in our vocations in our understanding of how we should relate to authority

Any other ideas or thoughts of our right understanding of God helps us to do what?

practically to love others

That's exactly the point to be like him Yes the pre -fall

Experience if you have a low view of God, what do you end up with high view of yourself?

What else what's some fallout from that you don't have a right relationship with man

Exactly, right Can we really know God How much can we know him?

Is this all just a futile exercise if we just focus on well, he's God I'm not why bother

No, because number one he commands it of us. We would not know God and this is an important point

We would not know God without his willful act. This is God's willful act of revealing himself

To us his revelation and that happens in several ways turn to Romans chapter 1 verse 19

Kind of in the middle of the sentence, but we'll get back to some of a little bit more of it in a minute Because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them.

Okay God has shown it to them revealed it to them in nature. They are without excuse

Go to Matthew chapter 11 verse 27

Matthew chapter 11 verse 27 all things have been delivered to me by my father and no one knows the

Son Except the Father Nor does anyone know the Father except the

Son and the one to whom the Son's Son wills to reveal him

We know God Because he's been bodily revealed in the person of Jesus Christ It's also when we look back at Romans.

Hopefully book kept your finger there go back to Romans chapter 1 verse 18

Right before what we just read The necessity to interpret natural revelation

Through the lens of his special revelation in Scripture in his word in the Bible For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness

Jump ahead to verse 21 Because although they knew

God they did not glorify him as God nor were they thankful but became futile in their thoughts

And their foolish hearts were darkened verse 25 They exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the

Creator who was blessed forever Amen, we can never fully know or understand

God That's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing to say that God is

Incomprehensible that means he that's not that he cannot be understood at all That's that means he cannot be fully understood.

It's a little bit older definition in psalm 145 psalm 145 verse 3

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable psalm 147 verse 5

Great is our Lord and mighty in power his understanding is infinite psalm 139 verse 6

Give you time to get there Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

This is David speaking It is high. I cannot attain it and then going down to verse 17

How precious also are your thoughts to me? Oh God, how great is the sum of them?

Even when we look ahead to what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 11 There we see

The unsearchableness of God Romans chapter 11 verse 33. Oh The depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out

So our application to us here This is the this is the great thing that we have to look forward to We will have a never -ending delight and joy in Eternity in growing in our knowledge of God and here's where I'll read just a brief excerpt from Grudem's systematic theology

That he writes regarding this he says the doctrine of God's Incomprehensibility has much positive application for our own lives

It means that we will never be able to know too much about God But we will never run out of things to learn about him

And we will thus never tire in delighting in the discovery of more and more of his excellence and of the greatness of his works

Even in the age to come when we're freed from the presence of sin We will never be able to fully understand

God or any one thing about him We can know the truth about who

God really is Because we know that scripture is true When scripture reveals something about God we know that what it says about God is true

Knowledge can be true, but it doesn't necessarily have to be exhaustive Okay, and that relates back to the previous point

God commands us not to merely know facts about him and I said this earlier about truly knowing a person

But to know him personally Look in Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 23 and verse 24

Thus says the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom let not the mighty man glory in his might

Nor let the rich man glory in his riches But let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me that I am the

Lord exercising loving kindness Judgment and righteousness in the earth

For in these I delight Let's give a quick preview before we run out of time here of God's Attributes when we are talking about God's attributes.

Here's what we're talking about. We're referring to his character His nature his personage his perfections his essence his very being

They define in our finite capacity to define who

God is So I'm going to list off and and as I make this list It doesn't necessarily mean

Lord willing if we're able to go through more of this study that This is necessarily the order that these things should proceed in I think they do need to be rightly ordered, but this isn't necessarily the right way to order them

But I'll start with God's self -existence and I really do think that that's the first one for us to talk about God's self -existence his spirituality his sovereignty his holiness the three omnis his omniscience his omnipresence his omnipotence

God's immutability kind of a big word, but means unchangeableness

God's truthfulness We'll look at God's wisdom. We'll look at God's goodness his grace his love his foreknowledge and Then two that go together his righteousness and his wrath

Some others that you might include in that list Eternity unity peace mercy justice jealousy freedom beauty.

I know that I can go on There's a few items to note regarding these attributes as they relate to God and the

Godhead number one All of these attributes that we will list and we will study together are fully present in the three persons of the

Godhead simultaneously It's their ministries that differ But they are all fully complete in all of the attributes each of them in the unity of the one

Godhead Number two all attributes have eternally existed in God eternally existed in God God is not in the business of self -improvement

Okay There is no such thing as a God of the Old Testament and a

God of the New Testament. There is only God Number three all attributes are inseparably interconnected to each other perfectly we can't think of it like God is a pie and all of his attributes are slices of that pie and one slice might be bigger and Because it's bigger we can kind of well, that's more important or we can play them off of one another

Think of it more like threads in a tapestry creating this beautiful majestic piece of art that we look upon and it's really they're

Inseparable from each other because when you try to take it away it pulls on another and then it just completely falls apart

That's what we're talking about when we talk about the inseparable interconnectedness of God's Attributes it's related to something that R .C.

Sproul says in terms of the simplicity of God and it sounds kind of heretical Until you hear him explain what this is

Sproul says Though love is an attribute of God an extremely important attribute of God God is a simple being not in the sense that he is simplistic, but we understand that God is not made up of Parts God and is his attributes so that to understand any single attribute of God You must understand that attribute as it relates and connects with all the other attributes of God The love of God is an eternal love

The love of God is a sovereign love. The love of God is an immutable love.

The love of God is a holy love a God who is stripped of his attributes of justice of holiness or Sovereignty all the rest is just as much an idol as something made out of wood or stone we imitate

God's attributes as He reveals them to be we don't get to decide

What God's love is? That's not our job. We submit to his authority.

We look to his being as love Love is not love

We hear it all the time in our culture today. No God is love How has he revealed his love to us?

Through his son Jesus Christ So in conclusion to our study here

Remember this phrase our theology determines our doxology okay, our doctrine flows from a right understanding of God an

Accurate knowledge of God will have practical effects on our Christian walk I'll go back to a

W pink in his preface of this Small book a really powerful book that Michael lent me

He says the foundation of all true knowledge of God must be a clear mental apprehension of his perfections as revealed in Holy Scripture an

Unknown God can neither be trusted served nor worshipped Something more than a theoretical knowledge of God is needed by us

God is only truly known in the soul as we yield ourselves to him Submit to his authority and regulate all the details of our lives by his holy precepts and commandments

We look at Hosea chapter 6 verse 3 Then shall we know if we follow on in the path of obedience to know the

Lord I Can't help but close With this and it's a longer section to read, but it's

Spurgeon So, how can you not read? the whole thing He preached a sermon when he was relatively young.

I think like 20 years old on the immutability of God But he opens it's really a good introduction for looking at the attributes of God.

So Bear with me. We'll run over time just a tad Spurgeon says

It has been said by someone that the proper study of mankind is man I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God's elect is

God The proper study of a Christian is the Godhead the highest science the loftiest speculation the mightiest philosophy which can ever engage the attention of a child of God is

The name the nature the person the work the doings and the existence of the great

God whom he calls his father There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the divinity

It is a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity

So deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity Other subjects we can compass and grapple with in them

We feel a kind of self -content in our and go our way with the thought behold.

I am wise But when we come to this master science Finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth that our eagle

I cannot see its height we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise

But he is like a wild asses Colt and with the solemn exclamation. I am but of yesterday and know nothing

No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than thoughts of God We shall be obliged to feel great

God how infinite art thou what worthless worms are we But while the subject humbles the mind it also expands it

He who often thinks of God will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe

He may be a naturalist boasting of his ability to dissect a beetle Anatomize a fly or arrange insects and animals in classes with well -nigh unutterable names

He may be a geologist With with the ability to discourse of the megatherium and the plesiosaurus and all kinds of extinct animals

He may imagine that his science whatever it is ennobles and it enlarges his mind

I Dare say that it does But after all the most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and Him crucified and the knowledge of the

Godhead in the glorious Trinity Nothing will so enlarge the intellect nothing

So magnify the whole soul of man as a devout earnest continued investigation of the great subject of the deity

This is important to us, especially in our world today and whilst humbling and expanding

This subject is imminently consolatory oh there is in contemplating

Christ a balm for every wound in Musing on the father there is a quietus for every grief

And in the influence of the Holy Ghost There is a balsam for every sore

Would you lose your sorrows would you drown your cares? Then go plunge yourself in the

Godhead's deepest sea Be lost in his immensity and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest refreshed and invigorated

I Know nothing which can so comfort the soul so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow so speak peace to the winds of trial as A devout musing upon the subject of the

Godhead this study Brings fear, but it's a holy fear

It brings excitement May God give us the grace as we look at his attributes

To in humble humility ask for blessing