That's right. He came from Alaska.
So all right, well, guys, we're going to get started on our on
our on this new series. We are going to get into the
attributes of God, which there's some there's a couple of really
great books out there on the attributes of God.
That one from AW Tozer and another one from AW Pink.
Why they both have the initials AWI don't know, but but anyway,
this this idea, this this concept of of the attributes of
God. I think AW Pink in one of his
specifically in one of the chapters of his book, he he
gives this explanation that I thought works well for the whole
concept of the attributes of God.
And he says, he says. Perhaps the title of the chapter
is not sufficiently explicit to indicate its theme.
This is partly because so few are accustomed to meditate upon
the personal perfections of God. Comparatively few who
occasionally read the Bible are aware of the awe inspiring and
worship provoking grandeur of the divine character.
That God is great in wisdom, wondrous in power, yet full of
mercy is assumed by many as common knowledge.
But to entertain anything approaching on an adequate
conception of His being, nature and attributes as revealed in
the Scripture is something which very few people in these
degenerate times have done. God is solitary in His
Excellency and then He. He cited Exodus 1511 that says
who is like unto thee, O Lord among the gods, who is like the
glorious and holiness fearful and praises doing wonders.
So our goal here in in this series is not to obtain a
comprehensive understanding of all that that God is.
That would be a great goal right, But but we know we'll
never get there. But more appropriately to to
gain perspective of God by understanding those those
traits, those those attributes. So attributes that what that
that word specifically means according to the dictionary, he
says a quality character or characteristic ascribed to
someone or something. So as we go through this study,
one of the interesting things that that we'll see as we go
through this and, and hear from the different guys that are
going to teach it over the next several weeks or actually over
the next two months, is, is that some of God's attributes are
communicable, right? We hear that every once in a
while, communicable, communicable meaning that humans
can possess or experience them or that they can be reflected
in, in people to a certain extent.
And some of those are, are like gracious or, or merciful or
loving, right? We can, we can, we can embody
those to some extent as as humans.
And then some of these attributes are non communicable,
meaning that humans cannot possess them, right.
And, and again, we'll look at some of these different ones and
we'll see that, you know, we can't be omniscient, meaning all
knowing we, we can't be immutable or perfect.
I think that's, that's kind of kind of small, but I think you
get here's. So when you look at the, those
books, AW Tozers and AW Pinks, they both have these, these long
lists. In fact, AW Tozer did 2 volumes
of the attributes of God. And, and so it's not, it's not
like a specific list exactly that we find, you know, in
Scripture. It's things that we we read
about in Scripture that these guys have have made these lists
of have identified certain characteristics.
And so in our study, we're not going to cover all of them.
We're going to cover some of them.
And and so here's some that I just grabbed off of some of
these lists. And you can see here we could
kind of look at at whether these are communicable or non
communicable, for example, communicable, communicable of
again, meaning something that that we can we can do.
Can we be wise? Yeah, not always.
Right. I wasn't looking at you,
Richard. Can we be infinite?
No. Can we be merciful?
Yeah. Can we be the cornerstone?
No. Can we be a shepherd?
Yeah, sometimes. Right.
So holiness. How about holiness?
Yeah. So.
So what we'll find with some of these, it's going to be kind of
interesting. Is that sometimes there there's
like, can we be holy like God? No, we can't.
Are we called to be holy like God?
Yes, we are. And so to an extent we can be
right to not not to the same level that God is, but we can be
holy compared to where we used to be.
So, so, so some of these are like a certain way we look at
it, we go, well, that's not, you know, we're, we'll never get,
we're never going to be holy. And yet at the same time we can
be. So some of them we'll see are
communicable and non, non communicable at the same time.
So we'll kind of just discuss some of that as we as we go
along and we'll see that maybe on some of them, there's kind of
varying levels of, of whether that's, you know, that's the
case or not. And so some of these attributes,
as we get looking at them, especially since we're not going
to go through all of them, some of these will seem very closely
related and, and similar. Often times we're going to use
the same verses to, to explain them, right.
But just like interlocking pieces of a, of a, of a puzzle
here, like we have up here on the screen, sometimes putting
two or three closely related pieces together helps us to
understand the context of, of, of another, otherwise not fully
understood or even misunderstood piece.
So sometimes as we look at like this first week, when we look at
this, we might not be able to necessarily wrap our, our heads
around the, the infiniteness of God.
Well, I can guarantee we won't be able to wrap our heads around
that fully, but we will be able to understand that more 2345
weeks later as we, as we start to build some of these other
pieces, it'll help us to kind of get in a place where we can,
where we can understand that a little bit, a little bit better.
And as we continue through this study, we, we hope that each of
these, these pieces that we add or that we, that we, that we
study adds to the totality of our picture of God as we see
that they are related to each other, but each and each of them
is distinct from each other. So the Bible, God's word, of
course, tells us what God is like and, and what he is not
like. And without the authority of the
Bible, any attempt to explain God's attributes again those
inherent qualities that he has, any attempt to do that, to
explain it would be no better than us just offering our
opinions. Which if it were, if we were
left up to our own understanding without Scripture, our opinions
would be very they would be often incorrect.
And in fact, they'd probably always be incorrect, especially
in understanding God. In fact, much of what we could
come up with to describe him would probably be simply
heretical because we would, we would try to explain him through
the framework of the way that we approach everything else in our
life. Right?
If, if, if I wanted to, to try to describe Aaron and her
characteristics, I'd do it based off of what I see, what I hear,
the, the way that I see the world.
She's a human like I'm a human. So I can relate to her that way,
but if we did it without the God's word to try to explain
God, we'd be all over the place and, and, and miss that.
So Scripture is, is key to to us being able to understand this.
One of the, one of the attributes that we'll look at
next month is that God is, is holy, right?
He's set apart. We are in the same category.
We're not in the same class as as God is.
And so Jason will have that one here coming up next month and,
and he'll walk through what that means.
But besides the, the perfectual nature of His Holiness, he is
simply different than we are. He is simply set apart from us.
And, and of course, we can't, we can't obtain or experience all
of those same attributes. So although we'll never be able
to fully understand him, we do want to study him.
Romans 1, 19. That's not Romans 119.
There we go. Romans 1/19/20 says for what can
be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it
to them. For his invisible attributes,
namely His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly
perceived ever since the creation of the of the world in
the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
So that says what can be known, right?
What can be known about God suggests then that there are
some, that there are many things about God that can't be known.
And of course Scripture backs that up in Isaiah 55 verse 9
says for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my
ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
And I'll tell you what, there's just something I think in my own
walk, in my personal walk with, with Jesus, this concept helped
me immensely because I'm a, you know, my background as a police
officer was a guy who tried to figure things out, right?
I was always looking for facts to make the case.
And when, when you do that with God, there's lots of facts out.
There's lots of information to get into making the case for
him. And yet faith is, is, is
something that that takes exactly that faith, right?
Not, not something that we can, we can prove.
And so when I got to this idea, when I finally got to this place
where I was like, I'm not even meant to know all of this, There
was a piece that I, I finally got to experience that way
because I got to go and say it says this and I, I trust the
Bible, I trust God's word and it says this.
And so I'm going to rest in that, even if I can't fully
explain that, right. And, and and as as I've grown in
my faith, sometimes I get to a place where I can kind of
explain some of those things, right.
I I learned more and more and I I can't explain.
And yet not everything is, is that way.
So what is your best explanation of Infinity?
Anybody got any, anything. Yeah.
Like Buzz Lightyear, Right. What's what's what's, what's an
explanation of Infinity never ending.
That's what you said, too. All right.
What else? Without beginning, without end,
we're going to run out of these very quickly because we all have
the same ideas. What's what's another one?
Yes. Infinity plus Infinity, right.
That's the that's kids have this.
They they think about Infinity sometimes it's it's it's funny.
I used to have this conversation with these two all the time.
What were you going to say? Yeah, OK, so that's math.
Math mathematicians have to think about Infinity.
Like, honestly, if you're going to be like a, you know, some
scientist, you know, like John, right, that does math, like this
long of math, then, then I guarantee they, they contemplate
that because mathematics automatically leads to like how
big of a, of a, you know, problem can, can we have and,
and that sort of thing. You know, I might talk about
that here again in a little bit. But so as I was prepping for
this and I was looking on, you know, on the Internet and
looking for resources of how people have explained Infinity,
Like what are the common ways that people do?
They would get those same answers that I just got right
forever without end, without beginning, You know, all of
these these kind of things, about 1/2 a dozen different
words or phrases and this symbol.
Otherwise there was, there wasn't really a lot of
explanation. Because like you, when you say
forever without end, I mean, what, what better thing can you
do to say it than that, right? Because our brains just simply
don't function in a way to be able to, to really truly
contemplate that. There have been arguments from
philosophers for for generations, for for centuries
over the idea of of Infinity. So excuse me to this is the way
my brain works to understand. If I can't fully understand
Infinity, then what does it mean to be the opposite?
Which is finite, right? What is what is that?
Well, finite defined is having definite or definable limits,
right? So the the other one is having a
limited nature or existence or completely determinable in
theory or in fact by counting measurement or thought.
And so it's funny that that this symbol is one of the things it's
kind of hard to see there, but you guys all get the idea of the
figure out. It's, it's often used as the
symbol of this is a symbol of Infinity, and yet it's only
infinite in its linear line. But sideways, there's clear
boundaries, right? So we can't even Draw Something
to, to get the idea of that. And, and that's actually part of
what we do with God too. We think, oh, I've got them
figured out this way, right? We, we've got them figured out
with how big he is or how whatever, but we can't figure
out the time of God. We certainly can't figure out
how much God can love, right? We don't.
We can't figure out how he could forgive so and so who did
whatever it was or or how he could forgive me for all these
terrible things that I have done.
And yet we read that he does right?
We we read that his that his grace and his mercy and his love
and all of these things are are without end.
So finite is, is something that is that has boundaries, right?
That that we can, we can describe, we can put in our box,
we can, we can determine in theory, right.
So even if you look at some of these scientific theories that
that are, you know, for, for, again, for those mathematicians,
those, you know, the, what was the movie of the kid at, at the
school, you know, how do you like them apples, that movie
Goodwill Hunting? Yeah, That even those kind of,
you know, the guys that do those, all those huge equations
and, and that sort of thing, they, they can, they can
understand theories. Like I get the idea of how this
would work, but they don't necessarily have the, the, the
equation figured out. They just know that it could
work in a certain way. And so that's very, very small
still compared to our, our full understanding.
So infinite, this is one of the definitions was infinite is
limitless or endless in space, extent or size impossible to
measure or calculate. And some synonyms are boundless,
unlimited without end, interminable, cosmic,
immeasurable, fathomless, right. So again, there's not a whole
lot to to be able to because you even some of those words we
can't really wrap our head around.
So as we, as we continue to delve into this study for these
next several weeks, we can look at at each of these, these
upcoming attributes through the lens of God's infinite nature,
right? So when we get to love or when
we get to mercy, then then we, we can look at it and go, we, we
look at through this lens of infinite that love doesn't end
or, or those different things never, never end when we study
his goodness, right? That goodness only continues to
get gooder right, right. And and and it's it's kind of a
word. His no gooder, his mercy goes on
forever. His his love has no end to it
because God's good qualities have no limit.
So another aspect of this is that God is self existing right?
Some of his some of his attributes will will kind of
delineate from from this being infinite like we're going to
we're going to really have to understand that this this self
existing nature of God. The word for it is called
assayety. That's the the like the
theological word. And that means that he is
without a creator. Colossians 117 says, and he is
before all things and in him all things hold together right.
So again, just the idea of how big God is that if, if
everything that has ever existed was infinitely big and God is
bigger than that holding it together.
It's like what George says, infinite Infinity plus Infinity,
right? Doctor Adrian Rogers said, he
said the name Jehovah is used some 6800 times in the Bible.
It's the personal covenant name of Israel's God.
In the King James Version of the Bible it's translated Lord God.
Not only does it speak of God's strength, but also it speaks of
the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God.
The root of the of this name means self existing, one who
never came into being and one who always will be.
And when Moses asked God, who shall I tell Pharaoh has sent
me, God said I am that I am right?
That's a self existent explanation and that self
existence speaks to the eternality of God.
That means that Infinity ago God had was was, you know, he had
already been around for Infinity.
Infinities. It's impossible for us to be
able to comprehend, right? In fact, I think that the
infinite characteristic of God might be the single hardest
thing for most people to get around in their position and in
their opinion of God, because we as human beings insist on
putting things in a a theoretical box, something that
fits our mental aptitude and and capacity, but that is simply
impossible. One explanation I read said in
our in our limitedness, grasping the nature of our limitless God
is like holding on to water as it rages down a river.
I thought that was a pretty good explanation, right, that if you
try, if you're standing in the in the river and you try to grab
it and hold it back like you can, you can physically touch it
and and it can it can impact you and it can move you, but you
know you but you're not able to to stop it.
Psalm 147 five says great is our Lord and abundant in power.
His understanding is beyond measure.
So it Infinity itself is impossible to comprehend.
Here's this is an here's that nerdy math thing like Cole was
talking. If we decided to write the
number Infinity, right, if we were just going to write it out
with digits, with numerical digits and we just began
writing, you know, ones and, and twos and threes or whatever
digit it is continuously for the entirety of our lives.
If every second we're, or every, you know, 10th of a second,
we're right in a digit and just on a whiteboard continuously
going, you know, every second of every day for the rest of our
lives when we die, we would have written 0% of Infinity like
that. I don't know if that connected
with you, but as I read that, I just was like, my gosh, we are
small, right? We are, we are small and God is
huge. When these guys, when my kids
were young, I remember trying to explain this and you know, it
would be like, well, what's the, what's the biggest number you
can think of Infinity. And you say, well, what's about
Infinity plus one? Oh, well, Infinity +2.
Well, where do you stop with that?
Because George says Infinity plus Infinity.
But what if it's Infinity plus Infinity plus one?
That's bigger, Huh? Right.
Like we can, we can always, we can always go bigger.
Nearly 400 years before Jesus was born, Aristotle worried
about this. This is one of the things that
he he, you know, bothered himself with and other, you
know, puzzles concerning infinite divisibility.
And he was this thing that I that I read said he was also
worried about the infinitely big the universe he thought couldn't
be infinitely big. If it were follow me on this is
going to get the universe couldn't be infinitely big.
If it were, then half of it would also be infinite.
So what makes the whole infinite bigger than half of it?
Apparently nothing. They're both infinite, so they
must be the same size, he said, but they can't be the same size
since 1 is half of the size of the other.
Like this whole concept is it's it's huge.
It, it's like a, a tangled ball of, of string or something and
trying to make make sense of that.
There's a lot of people limitlessness is kind of a, a
more of a spiritual, you know, people who are, who are not
religious, they're not believers, but they call
themselves spiritual, right? And, and that sort of thing,
They will, they grasp onto this idea of Infinity or or
limitlessness, but without they try to do it without God, Right.
And so I read something that said the concept of Infinity and
spirituality is multifaceted, representing endless
possibilities, unity, and the interconnectedness of all
things. It encourages individuals to
embrace the eternal nature of the universe and the divine,
promoting a state of infinite love, compassion, gratitude, and
wisdom. Infinity symbolizes balance,
harmony, and the potential for personal growth and spiritual
connections. Other than the word divine.
They've completely tried to address this without God.
It's all about humans, right? It's all about just this idea of
energy and, and things like that.
And and of course, they're, you know, without the idea of, of an
all powerful, omniscient, self existent, eternal God, this is
just going to end up running people in circles.
It'll run us in circles still, but at least we can go, I'm
going to stop running in circles because God exists and that's
all I need, right. But if you, if you, if you can't
get to that place of, of understanding God, you're going
to run yourself in, you know, ragged trying to chase something
down right here. Psalm.
Oh, this is that's the wrong Psalm.
There we go. Psalm 91 through 4 tells us that
God exists outside of our frame of reference and outside of, I
mean really outside of space and time.
It says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all
generations before the mountains were brought forth or at or ever
you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to
everlasting. You are God, that's present
tense from eternity past you, you are present.
You return man to dust and say return O children of man for
1000 years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past or
as a a watch in the night. Now prior to creation, you know
prior to creation and like the sun and the moon and the earth
and those those things that we use for the element of of
measured time. God was there right before days
existed with the rotation of the earth and the and the moon and
all that God existed before measured time first Peter 120
says he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was
made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.
So so in this passage he's talking about Jesus and and
that's really so foreknown. He, he was already well known by
God well before the foundation of the world because he's always
been there, right? God was always aware of himself
well before what we recognize as the foundation of the world.
That's the beginning of the beginning.
God was already there and and absolutely in control forever.
God is transcendent, meaning that he exists above and
independent from his creation. Now.
God's Infinity forces us, though, to a place of humility.
Like what I was saying earlier when I was when I was reading
some of these quotes earlier this week as I was studying, all
I could think of was how small I am right.
And I'm not a small dude, but I'm but but when we in that in
that comparison to God, I'm so little and so powerless and so
weak. AW Tozer in in the idea that
God, that God's Infinity, forces us to this place of humility.
AW Tozer said to admit that there is one who lies beyond us,
who exists outside of all of our categories, who will not be
dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our
reason nor submit to our curious inquiries.
This requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us
possessed. So we save face by thinking God
down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him.
Isn't that, isn't that true? Isn't that what we do?
Because we can't get to the place of understanding God and
just trusting that he's as big as he is.
What we often do is we try to define him.
We try to, we try. I mean, we, we, we, we picture
him as a picture of, of Jesus with white robe and sandals and
beard and, and, and that 33 years and whatever it is, we try
to put limits on him because that's why he, that's the way we
face life is, is in that limited way.
And, and rather than just simply resting in his magnanimity, in
his vastness, in his limitlessness, what we do is we,
we, we, we, we just insist in our own, in our own selves in
trying to define him. Colossians three 12312 tells us
though, to put on humility, which really isn't too difficult
when we consider the vastness of God.
Here's what it says in Isaiah 40 of verse 12.
He says who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
right like think about that. The oceans, all of those giant
oceans are are small enough literally physically to fit in
his in the palm of of his spiritual hand, right.
Like that's, that's there's, there's something there about
understanding that that is, that is really just a wonderful.
Again, AI think it's a place of safety, a place of security to
know, because I think about if you don't know God, that would
be scary, wouldn't it? It'd be scary to think that
you're this small and that that the the world is spinning and
out of your control and that there's nothing you can do to
try to make it be anything. And so it would be scary, but
when we can trust in God, then we can actually take security in
that because we have, you know, this huge savior.
That's the wrong passage. I don't need that one yet.
Job 25. There's so much like this in in
Job, right? He says how much less man who is
a maggot and the son of man who is a worm.
Like that's pretty, you know, we're maggots and worms, like
the, the figurative nature of that is, is really meant to, to
remind us that we're, we're low crawlers, right?
We're, we're the, the, the lowest of, of the low.
Putting on humility involves cultivating an inward aptitude
or excuse me, attitude of, of meekness and and loneliness.
Like like that concept of the of the worms and and the maggots,
right, recognizing how small and and powerless and really truly
finite we are. James 414 says, yeah, you do not
know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life for you are a
mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Some some versions say of vapor, right.
And I love the simplicity of of these examples for us to
understand every every winter, maybe even this morning.
We all are, are fascinated like, like we were when we were, you
know, little kids about how the vapor of our breath on a cold
day is visible for just just a moment and then it evaporates
completely, right. Psalm 144, David says in Psalm
144, four man is like a breath. His days are like a fleeting
shadow, like a passing shadow. This one, this version says
yeah. Yeah, I think, I think the
important part of that is to understand that it's really
about on our own we're nothing, right?
Because you know, that's in that in that passage is Job 25,
right? There's there's this, there's
this conversation about who the heck do you think you are,
right? Like were you there when the
when the world was created? You're nothing but this without
me, right? And so does that make sense?
Like, yeah, yes, yes, it is. But let me just say that I'm OK
also with even with God, I'm still minuscule and finite.
Not to the point where I would call you a worm because I just I
think that that is also like AI think.
I think it's given to us in kind of like a how dare you kind of
thing. It's a little bit of a put down
because you're outside of your relationship, the relationship
with without God. You you are maggot for us as
believers, we can understand the same concept behind here about
you are still finite. You are absolutely dependent on
this giant God for for everything, right?
And through that you are you have power.
But so there's a got we got to understand that disconnect there
or where that you know how that comes together.
Does that answer that? So God's, God's go ahead, say
that again. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.
He, he. So that doesn't mean that we
existed, right? But God knew who we would be,
who who we would be in his creation.
He knew what creation was going to look like 3 days before
creation happened, right? Five weeks, 7000 bajillion
years, you're right, 7 eternities before creation.
He knew what that was going to look like, but it hadn't
happened yet. And and so we aren't we didn't
exist that far back, but he knew what we would be.
So when he when he knew us before he created us and as he
wove us together in our mother's womb, God is is omniscient and
all and all knowing. So he knows what that is going
to be, even though we don't yet exist.
So there's an important thing there of going, wait, did we
exist then? And we have to understand we did
not right? One we he knit us together.
So we were we were something other than than a being at that
point. We we didn't exist in a previous
life or in in heaven or anything like that.
When he created us is when he created us.
But his knowledge goes back eternity.
So he knows what tomorrow brings.
He knows if the bears are going to score any touchdowns today,
right? He knows all of that stuff.
And, and, and but it just had, you know, these things haven't
been manifest yet. Let me I'm going to.
So he called. So when we, when we see this, I
got to rush through a little bit of this, but because I want to
ask a couple of questions. So when we see this, the size of
God, it does force us to be humble.
It forces us to, to consider our own loneliness.
And I don't mean that in like a feel down on yourself kind of
way. We just, we need to just, we
need to be wonderfully happy and comfortable in knowing that we
are God's tiny little children, right?
But there, there's something, there's something wonderful
about that. And yet it should also spark
something in us to humble us to, to, to, to help us to have a
contrite heart to come with a lowliness like like this says
that God, great big giant God doesn't owe us anything, right?
We can't put, we can enforce our will on him.
We can't push him in in a certain direction.
And God, and and that's good. It's good for us to be humble.
God cares for the humble. In Psalm 3418, it says the Lord
is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed
in spirit. In Psalm 25, he guides the
humble in what is right and teaches them his way.
In Psalm 34, the humble will hear and be glad.
See, these are good things right when we understand how small we
are. In James 46, God opposes the
proud but shows favor to the humble.
And see, here's why this idea of God's infiniteness is really
important to us because although we didn't exist in eternity
past, this is one of those places where that list earlier
of the communicable versus the non communicable and how we were
like, well, some of them you can, you could kind of achieve
some, but not not fully to the same level as God, right?
Here's the thing. God's promise of eternity to us
makes us look at Infinity moving forward, not Infinity past
necessarily, right? Not for us, for God, for God
existed in the eternity past, but but this is an important
thing for us to understand. So although we would all we we
would have all understood at the beginning of this lesson that
that God's attributes of being infinite is we would have
probably said that's a non communicable attribute.
It's not really entirely true. John 316 right?
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whoever would believe in him should not perish but have
eternal life, right? So if that's you, then then
being infinite moving forward, at least in our existence, that
way we get to experience some of that.
Now, that doesn't mean that we're going to be infinitely big
to the same degree that God is, but we do get to experience some
level of Infinity moving forward, right?
Because heaven isn't, you know, like 176 days and then it's
over. Like that's not the end of the
prize. It is an eternity in the
presence of God. We get to have an infinite, an
infinite future with God. And so this concept is not
something that we would just want to write off this idea of
Infinity and go, well, it's too big for me.
Well, it is too big for me, but it's that Infinity of my
eternity with God that I desire. That's why I want to know him
better. That's why I trust him is
because that's where all my hope is is in eternity.
That's, that's that's what I mean.
That's what I'm here for, right? Is, is to worship him, to be
with him, to glorify him for the rest of, of, of eternity.
And so we get to experience that in John 10 verses 28 through 30,
says I give them eternal life and they will never perish and
no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no
one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
I and the Father are one like that is is such an amazing
promise to us, right? And so thinking back to that
idea of writing out that digital number, right?
If we wrote 1 digit every every half second of every day for the
rest of our life. If we think about God writing
out or or displaying to us his goodness and love and wisdom and
holiness every moment of every day of his life for eternity,
right, Go ahead. Yeah, that's a yeah.
Yep, yes, we're we will always be infinitely smaller than him,
right. And yet we we also get to that
was a good example. There is a there is an aspect of
it that we have that infinite nature, kind of like that
design, the the figure eight thing.
There's limits in certain directions because we don't get
to have those same characteristics of God.
Yeah, yeah. He exists around that, that
thing that's infinite. He exists.
He, he encompasses all of that exponentially, right.
So we've got just a couple minutes.
Let me just ask a couple of of these.
Let's let's from a from an overall standpoint of the
attributes of God, how and why is it helpful to study the
attributes of God? What do you guys think, Kevin?
That looked like a hand raise. Oh, OK, Debbie,
direction for our own life. Yeah yes, because if I'm, let's
say I'm super generous, right? If, if I, if I start patting
myself on the back about my own generosity, I could get to a
place where I think I'm the most generous that anybody ever could
be, right? If I forget how big God is and
that he was way, way, way more generous, right?
It's it. So having that the perception
and the context is, is crucial. But like you said, at first
seeing what it is and knowing this is where I should go,
right? Because I want to be like God.
This is the attribute that God has.
This is what I want to, to be like.
What else? How, how and and why is it
helpful to study these? Yeah, I did.
Yeah. Did you guys hear that?
God doesn't need us. He, he, we need him, and he
gives that eternity to us freely.
What else? What?
How so? Yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's great.
Danny and I were having a conversation yesterday about
about grace and and mercy and we were talking about sort of the
human limit to how much grace you want to give, how much do
you want to forgive somebody? And that was where we went in
our conversation was but when we understand God's mercy, when we
understand his attributes of, of, of that, and it's so much up
here. It changed our opinion, didn't
it? It was hard.
It was hard, but, but we, but, but seeing that made us go, OK,
even when we're, we're, when we, when we think we're done, we're
done forgiving, we're done, you know, with demonstrating this
attribute in our own self and we see that God has done it so
much, much, much, much more. There we go.
OK, I need to, I need to align myself with that, even if it's
hard, even if it's not comfortable or something that I
want to do right? So, so we can, when we use that
as our model and, and our goal, it does, it helps us to
understand how much more God deserves our worship, right?
When we're thinking, when we're doing something amazing, we
think, When we want to pat ourselves on the back, we think
we've done something pretty amazing and we find out that His
was so much more than than than ours.
Then then we're reminded of how high He is and how much He
deserves our utmost worship. OK, let me jump down to this
one. Is it necessary for us to have
some concept of this dynamic of, of God being infinite to fully
appreciate God or to understand our need for Him?
Do you think, do you think we have to understand that he is
this big in order to fully understand our need for Him?
Absolutely. If if we thought we could put
him in a box, if we thought we could limit him, would he be
really as important to us? He wouldn't be.
And that's not a that's not a simple thing to say.
God would not be worthy of worship if he wasn't what he is.
Yeah, Yep. Right.
Yeah. The strongest.
Yeah. Yep.
Uh huh.
Yeah. It would be easy if, if we
thought God was this big, my, my problem is really big too.
What if it's just too big for him, right?
Wouldn't we, wouldn't we do that?
We would, we would over exaggerate the size of our, of
our problems because that's what we do anyways.
We always think our problems are so big.
It's, it's forgetting that that God is as big as he is that that
probably causes most of our stress when we think about the
size of our problems. But if we have this
understanding, if we can really to, to whatever extent possible,
wrap our heads around the Infinity of God, the capability
of God, that I think it helps us to genuinely understand our our
desperate need for him, that without that we would have to
rely on ourselves, right, If if God wasn't that.
Go ahead, Kevin. Yeah,
yeah, this is, this is something that we could study all of this
and we can grow immensely in our understanding of this concept of
God and we'll still be at 0%, right, Right.
That same mathematic. Yeah, that's huge, right?
Zero need for you. He has zero need for you.
And yet he was willing to sacrifice his son to to save
you, right? That's just, it's, it's if that
doesn't make you feel humble and you know, whatever, if it
doesn't make you realize your, your desperate need for somebody
that loves that much, right? I don't know, man, it's this it,
it really is wonderful when we are able to do that, to grasp
that kind of concept. And again, there's something
beautiful about the fact that we can't understand it, right?
That we can go, well, the biggest number I can imagine,
he's way bigger than that. I'm resting right there.
I'm going to rest in that, that he's this big and my problem is
miniscule for that. It's, it's like 8 minutes after
10. So let me just pray this out and
and then we'll go greet some new people.
Lord, God, thank you for this concept that you are so
infinitely bigger than our worst, wildest problem that
we've ever faced in our humanity.
Lord, we do focus on our problems and we and we, we see
them as huge obstacles that we can't, we can't get over.
But Lord, nothing that we face in front of us is as big as the
God behind us. And, and we know that and we
thank you for that. We thank you that you are so
huge and that you are so good to us and that your love is never
ending. And we thank you for the idea
that for the infinite hope that we have of eternity with you.
And Lord, I just ask that you would help as we get into our
sermon today, any new visitors to come to it.
That same kind of an understanding that they would be
in awe of you, that they would be inspired to know more about
you as they learn about your goodness from the preached word.
So Lord, we thought love and thank you in Jesus name, Amen.