Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.
You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word
about important issues facing your life that can guide you
according to the Bible. All right, so I want to welcome
everybody for being here physically with me.
For those who are listening online, always appreciate folks
who are tuning into the podcast. I do hope that you'll listen to
some of the other episodes that we've recorded in our various
podcasts. We're trying to organize those
in a way that'd be a little easier to reference sometimes
when you go online. We're working on some of that as
well, but I encourage you to to check out The Walking and Prayer
podcast as well as what we're doing here in core training on
Wednesday nights. Last time we discussed the
existence of God and even I realized I was talking over my
head at times. And so I appreciate, I
appreciate anybody who came back to hear this again.
But so you work through that this session.
I'm going to assume that we believe he exists.
Is that OK? All right, so we believe God
exists, but I want to talk about something that's really
important for us. Some of this will be more
familiar than some of the things I said last time, but also
there'll be some things that you're maybe not have heard as
well tonight as we talk about some of the attributes of God.
But one of the things we recognize is that God has
already done some incredible things and we and we should
thank him for that. He's going to continue to do
incredible things and we want to thank him for that.
But we also at times, and this is something I don't know why
it's a little more difficult sometimes for some people, We
also want to praise him for who he is.
And tonight I want to talk about who God is really and some of
the some of the really interesting characteristics and
attributes of God, because God has to reveal himself to us
about him so that we'll know him and he reveals to us about
himself and who he is. He also, and what he's when he
reveals to us, also reveals what we can expect from him.
And so these attributes also help us to understand this is
what God's going to do. This is how God's going to act.
This is what God's nature is. And so these are really
important to understand, but also they challenge us because
they'll also help us to understand what he expects from
us. So not only what can we expect
from God, but what does God expect from us?
And, and so this is a whole lot more than just descriptions.
And so these attributes or characteristics or qualities
that express the nature of something or someone, if an
entity doesn't have attributes, it would be very difficult to
conceptualize who and what they are.
So these are descriptors about God.
Some of them will be more familiar to you than others, and
some of you may have never thought of it that way before.
That's pretty typical when I, I, I talk through some of these
things. So let's talk about some of the
attributes of God, these characteristics who constitute
who God really is. So these are not acts.
These are not things that God does.
These are not acts that he commits.
These are characteristics about his nature.
And this is going to be very important as we continue to work
through this because next week I thought I would do something
light and fluffy, warm and fuzzy.
Next week, I'm going to explain the Trinity to you in about an
hour and a half. So next week we're going to dive
back into some pretty interesting things, but we need
to understand some of these characteristics and attributes
of God to help us understand the Trinity as well.
So, so each, each session, each episode here builds and helps
the other. So recognize that.
So come back next week. So I can just explain to you
very simply what the Trinity is. So, but, but the, what we're
talking about tonight are, are in, in, in errant permanent
dimensions of his very nature. And these become really
important. They're inseparable from his
being you. You can't have God without what
we're talking about. This is what God is and who God
is. And so he's not God without
these. And these are qualities for the
entire Godhead. So you can talk about God the
Son, God the Father or God the Spirit and they're going to
share these issues for the most part.
There are a couple of exceptions and you'll see what I mean in a
minute when it comes to God the Son in the Incarnate state.
But what we see here is that we're going to be, we're going
to begin this as we talk about, because if we, we might try to
shape God, we've got to be careful because this builds on
last time, this world, our culture, many of us even perhaps
want to try to shape God into what we think God is supposed to
be. That happens in our world all
the time. Well, that's not my God, you
know, and, and it's like, I get to decide who my God is.
I get to decide somehow that's, that's who God is.
And that's who God's not without some kind of objective standard
for that. And So what we're going to be
looking at are objective standards.
So I, I don't get to shape God into the being I want him to be.
We have to go to the word of God and allow it to shape who God
really is for us and our understanding.
And so to be honest with you, that alone is a reason to defend
the inerrancy and infallibility of God's word.
We, we need this word in order to even understand who God is.
And so one of the reasons we've backtracked a little bit to go
all the way back to the doctrine of God is because I, I really
did recognize. Hey, some great questions from
some of you before and after some of these sessions and on
Sundays. But then I also was thinking
ahead to some personal evangelism conversations I want
to have. And in our world today, if we
don't understand this, we're going to have a hard time to
have a good beginning point. We need to be able to help
people understand not only that there is a God, but this is the
God we mean. This is what what the Bible
means by God. Because you can say God so loved
the world and they might say which God.
And so we need to be able to categorize God in a biblical
way. So it's difficult to categorize
God absolutely. Categorizing God is not a really
an easy task for us. And it will always be impossible
to fully categorize God. You can't box him up neatly and
say here's God and this is all there is to God and this is
completely God and God completely.
It's going to be impossible to do that because God transcends
much of what we know about Him. We don't know everything about
God, believe it or not. And so there are certain ways to
try to classify many of these characteristics of God.
So we're going to hit 2 primary categories tonight, and you may
or may not know these two words. One is the communicable
attributes, and those should be written on your handouts.
But these are qualities of God that He shares or communicates
with us, and you're going to find some kind of counterpart to
that in creation. In other words, man can share in
some of these same qualities, right?
So there are certain qualities of God that we as believers
should have as part of our life and our desire to be like Jesus.
And we'll talk about some of those.
But then they're also the incommunicable attributes of
God. And these are unique qualities
that only God possesses, and he does not communicate or share
these with us. There is no counterpart for this
found in the creation itself. Only God possesses these things.
This is part of what makes God, God.
And so we're going to look at these two categories primarily
and then a few other details along the way as well.
So let's begin with the incommunicable.
How is God different than us? Very important lesson.
I've said this to you before that I'm teaching a doctoral
seminar next week at Southeastern.
And one of the things I always try to teach students at
seminary is I want you to understand who God is.
I want you to understand who you are, and I want you to
understand the difference between the two.
And so how is God different from us?
Let's look at just a few. These are not exhaustive lists.
I'm sure we could come up with any with even more.
But first of all, let's look at some of these incommunicable
attributes. So Isaiah 55 helps us.
He says, Isaiah says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
So I can't completely do everything God does.
I can't think exactly the same way God thinks.
There are attributes of God that transcend me and you.
They're greater than us. And now, just to be honest with
you, that's one of the struggles of our culture because our
culture doesn't necessarily want to God bigger than themselves.
They want a God that they can manage.
They want a God that they can cancel.
They want a God that they can box.
They want a God that they can conform.
They want a God that that meets their their needs and, and and
fits their bill. They don't necessarily want a
God that transcends them and is greater and is uncontrollable.
That's too scary sometimes. Because that might actually mean
that he's sovereign, that it might actually mean I'm
accountable. That might actually mean I sin.
That might actually mean I'm wrong.
And heaven forbid that anybody's wrong today in our world, right?
So there's no perfect way to separate these.
They tend to flow together. But I want us really tonight, if
nothing else, to celebrate God. That's part of what I wanted
tonight to be to celebrate our Lord and to praise Him for these
things. And some of these you could list
and, and some may be those which you've never considered.
So the first one I want us to look at is this idea of, of a
sayity or independence. This word actually comes from
Latin and it simply means from oneself.
Don't make that too hard. Basically a sayity means that he
has two aspects that they can be negative and positive.
In other words, there's absolute independence and there's self
existence. I think I put the quote from WN
Clark on here for you, maybe on your handout, but just listen to
this. In it's negative meaning, which
emerged first in the history of thought, it affirms that God is
uncaused. There is no cause for God.
He's uncaused, depending on no other being for the source of
his existence. In its positive meaning, it
affirms that God is completely self-sufficient, having within
himself the sufficient reason for his own existence.
God depends on nothing other than himself for his existence.
So in other words, God is self existent.
No one brought God into existence.
No one sustains God in his existence.
He is self-sufficient and self existent all by himself.
He doesn't. He didn't need it.
God didn't need a creator. God doesn't need a sustainer
God. God never had a a beginning.
God never had a 'cause he was always there and so no one
brought him here. So God's being in existence come
holy from himself. It's self generated and it
depends upon no external source at all.
He needs nothing and frankly, he needs no one.
And because of that quality of God, it makes salvation even
more amazing to me because God doesn't need us.
God doesn't need us for anything, but God desires us.
And so it's really is a fascinating aspect of Grace that
we've talked about before. And so because he is self
reliant, he doesn't need any other influence.
He's free from any constraint. He's entirely independent as
scripture shows. And as one writer in history
said, he is the uncaused cause of all that exists, right?
And so this independence sets him completely apart from every
other created thing, whether it's human, angelic, any other
creature. He, he is immune.
He is sovereign. Frankly, he simply is.
And when we get to the names of God toward the end, that'll be
reflected in one of those holy names.
He exists and he is. Exodus 314.
God said to Moses, I am who I why I should do that better.
I am who I am. Is that better?
Some of you who are older see Charlton Heston on his face.
Others see cartoons. So I am who I am and he said say
this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you.
And so this very foundational statement reveals God.
He's self defining, he's self-sustaining.
We don't get to be that. And so his identity is not
contingent upon anything else. He simply exists.
The psalmist would write about this in more than one place.
Let me read one. In Psalm 90, verse two, he says
before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had
formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting,
you are God, right? So here the eternal nature of
God is celebrated. He has always existed, even
before any idea of creation took place.
Or at the very end of the book in Revelation 4.
Worthy are you our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and
power. For you created all things, and
by your will they existed and were created.
Or you can go to the middle of the book and Daniel, all the
inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he
does according to his will, and he can do whatever he wants
among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have
you done? So there's no questioning God,
there's no challenging God, there's there's no stopping God.
Paul wrote in Romans 9 for he says to Moses, I will have mercy
on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have
compassion. So then it depends not on human
will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
Or again, the psalmist said very simply in Psalm 115, our God is
in the heavens. He does all that he pleases.
It's a great verse, Psalm 115, verse three, He does all that he
would pleases. He can do anything he wants
because he's God. So he has this idea of
independence. He is independent, but we are
not. No matter what we think, no
matter what we wish, no matter what this world tries to carve
out for us culturally to think we're independent or we can be
independent, we are not. We are absolutely dependent upon
God. You couldn't have a breath, you
couldn't have a heartbeat, you couldn't have life without God.
And so we are dependent upon the One, we are dependent upon the
one who is not dependent, He's independent.
And so we see that idea. Secondly, you see the idea of
affinity. And we got to break this out a
little bit. There'll be some familiar terms
of subcategories here for you. But the idea of Infinity God is
infinite. He is not only absolutely
independent, He's infinite. He's not only self-sustaining,
He has no 'cause he has no creator, but He also exists this
forever. He is free from limitation, He
is unbound, He is unlimited. And some say would even argue
that this really isn't just just an attribute or characteristic
of God, but this is the way God possesses all the attributes.
It's because he's infinite that he can be everything else that
he is, but he is holy, He is true, He is just, He is good,
He's powerful and He's knowledgeable, but he's all
those things to an unlimited degree.
There is no limit to what God can do or not.
And so one of the things that we read is Job.
We'll see Job more than once in this session.
Job 11 Can you find out the deep things of God?
Can you found out find out the limit of the Almighty?
It is higher than heaven. What can you do deeper than
Sheol? What can you know it measure it
measures is longer than the earth and broader than the sea
or job chapter 5 he says who does great things and
unsearchable marvelous things without number.
There's no limit to this. He's infinite.
He goes on forever. Psalm 147 Great is our Lord and
abundant in power. His understanding is beyond
measure or Psalm 145, verse 3 and we've written songs about
this and we'll sing this. Great is the Lord and greatly to
be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.
He's unmeasurable. He's unsearchable, He's
unlimited. God does not possess his
attributes in some limited way. He is infinite and it's hard for
our brain to even understand. So a couple of sub points to
help us to break this down a little bit about God.
And these are some words that you might think of and you might
know. So one of them is omnipresence.
Another word for that is immensity.
The different theologians use different words.
He's omnipresent and, and this is you got to what you see this,
this is God's Infinity in relationship to space.
So we're going to see his Infinity in relationship to
several different things. And one of the things this is
his relationship to space. God is everywhere
simultaneously. I mean, that's hard to think
through too, isn't it? It's hard to understand and it's
hard to to measure. We can't do that, obviously.
So, so God's God is present in the totality of his being at
every single point in space. There is no space where God is
not. In fact, let me tell you a pet
peeve. This is a little pet little
soapbox. You ready?
Let me here, here, let me. OK, so a little little soapbox
of mine. Sometimes in contemporary music
that we sing or even in old hymns.
So don't get mad at the style. Stop it.
It's not a style thing because that's some, some old hymns are
guilty of this. Some new songs are guilty of
this tour. We invite God to come into our
presence. We invite God to join us in this
place. My friends, let me tell you a
secret. He was there before you ever
showed up. You don't need to invite God
into your room. You don't need to invite God
into your worship service. You don't need to invite God
into your church. He's here.
He's been here. He's here before we came.
He'll be here after we're gone. You need to invite yourself into
His presence because He's already there.
And so don't do that. Stop praying that way.
Stop singing that way. Stop it so there isn't one part
of him in one place and another part of him in a different place
either. He's not divided up and spread
out real thinly. That's not how this works.
He's all in everywhere simultaneously.
It's hard to. It's beyond us.
He transcends space. Why?
Because you got to think about this.
Space is part of the creation. See, space is all part of the
creation. And, and he's above creation.
He, he's above us and he's above all the created order.
So he just transcends all this. He, you know, and some of our
language today, we would say he's from a different dimension
or something like that. But there's, and there's some
truth to that. Jeremiah says this, I am IA God
at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away can a man
hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him, declares
the Lord. Do I not feel heaven and earth,
declares the Lord or the psalmist in Psalm 139 says this,
And you might know this passage. Where shall I go from your
spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you're there.
If I make my bed and show, you're there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell on the
innermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light
about me be night, Even in the darkness, is not dark to you.
The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with
you. There's nowhere you can hide,
nowhere you can run, know where you can escape.
So you might as well just give up.
Surrender to Him, give him your life, ask Him to save you.
Start serving him now. Get in the next.
Discover England. I'm kid.
That'd be good. We'd love to have you.
So we see that part of Him, His omnipresence, a second one, is
eternal. We've got to talk more about his
eternity because this is God's Infinity in relationship to
time. So we also got to talk about, we
don't want to talk about space, we want to talk about time.
So his eternal, his eternalness is the is his relationship, his
Infinity in relationship to time.
It's eternal. He exists endlessly outside of
time. The time is also a part of the
creation. You've heard me talk about this
a little bit before, which also explains predestination,
election, and foreknowledge. Because time is a part of the
creation, he transcends all of that.
He's not trapped in the timeline like we are.
So all of the time is immediately before him.
All of time is immediately before him, yet he lives in no
time at all. How's that one?
He doesn't exist in time. He exists beyond time, and yet
all of time lays before him. He's everlasting.
So in Revelation chapter 1 where he says I am the Alpha and the
what? The what?
Yeah, he's the alpha and the Omega says the Lord who is and
who was and who is to come the Almighty.
See, that represents it all. That represents the whole
alphabet. It represents everything.
He's an eternal being, and He occupies both the beginning and
he occupies the end all at the same time.
Isaiah once again wrote this. For thus says the one who is
high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I
dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is
of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the
lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite or the psalmist in
Psalm 45 verse 6, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
The scepter of your Kingdom is a scepter of uprightness.
Where again Paul writes, we've looked at Romans one a lot in
these episodes. For his invisible attributes,
namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly
perceived ever since the creation of the world and the
things that have been made so they are without excuse.
Or First Timothy, chapter 1 To the king of the ages, immortal,
invisible, the only God be, honor and glory, forever and
ever, Amen. So He always is, He always will
be, He always was. And so this eternal factor is a
part of this. So we see his omnipresence, his
relationship, the relationship of, of affinity to space,
eternality, his, his relation, His Infinity in relationship to
time. But we also see in other words,
you might know His omnipotence, He's omnipotence, omnipotence.
And this is God's Infinity in relation to power.
See He's infinite in all of these categories and, and
categories that we can't even think of.
He would be infinite in them as well.
God Almighty, you notice we call Him that.
And I don't know if you ever think about that word.
Almighty, God Almighty, not some mighty, not partly at mighty,
not a little bit mighty, not sometimes mighty, but all, all
mighty every time. Mighty never, not mighty, always
mighty. Let's see, he's always that he
can't not be that see part of what you got to understand about
these attributes. He can't not be these things.
See he can't he can't rid himself of these things because
he would then not be God. Job again and Job 42 two says I
know that you can do all things that no purpose of yours can be
thwarted or the psalmist in Psalm 62 verse 11.
Once God has spoken twice. Have I heard this that power
belongs to God or Ephesians chapter one for above all rule
and authority and power and dominion and above every name
that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.
No one can out power Him, no one is stronger than Him.
So omnipotence tells us how much and which powers God has and His
sovereignty. The idea of His sovereignty
would clarify for us how He uses that power.
So He's omnipotent and He's sovereign.
So not only does He have all the power, but He knows how to use
it. So part of the issue, and I want
to be, I want to be careful. I say this 'cause I don't want
this to sound boorish or rude or brash, but if I'm sharing with
somebody and they don't believe in God or they deny God's level
of who he really is, I, I, I, I, I try to share with them the
truth, obviously, but then I also have to recognize that even
if they don't believe it, it's still true.
And so even though the world might deny God this power, it
doesn't mean God doesn't have this power.
And, and it makes me worry about them.
It, it makes me fear for them because I I've read the book and
I know that that power will also bring judgment and wrath someday
against those who deny it. We also see his immutability.
You may not know that word as well.
Maybe. Oh, wait, no, let me do
omniscience. I'm so sorry.
I was skipping ahead. I was so excited about
immutability. Let's do omniscience because
this is God's Infinity in relation to knowledge.
Not only is he everywhere all at once, not only not only does he
transcend time, not only does he have all power, but he also
knows everything. It's a little scary sometimes
when I think about what God knows.
Again Job says in Job 21, will any teach God knowledge, seeing
that he judges those who are on high or the writer of Hebrews
Who is that? It's an ongoing conversation
with some of us who wrote Hebrews, Hebrews 413 and no
creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and
exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
There's your verse Jeremiah wrote before I formed you.
You know this first before I formed you in the womb.
What I knew you. If we don't believe in sanctity
of life, we don't understand God will.
Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
And before you were born, I consecrated you.
I appointed you a prophet to the nation's.
He knows our lives, good, bad and ugly.
He knows our lives. He knows our thoughts.
He knows everything about us. He knows us better than we know
ourselves. He knows all things.
He knows what's going to happen now and now and next and
tomorrow and next week. And in that we ought to not only
think about how we should live, but we also ought to have hope
in that, that God already knows, and he's got a completely under
control. He's in full authority.
He knows and he already know. He knows what next year's going
to hold. Nothing surprises him.
That's just nothing catches him off guard.
And if we trust in him, we trust the one with all knowledge, all
power and present everywhere. What a comfort.
So we see as Infinity important. He's he's, he's everywhere, He's
all things. And then we get to immutability.
Just because I like saying the word, he's immutable and and
that's a word you may know or you may not.
It just means he's unchanging, He's unchangeable.
This is really significant. God is always the same.
This is eternal constancy. He's consistent.
There is no reason for God to change.
This is one of the reasons why he doesn't change.
There's no reason for God to change.
He's already perfect. There's no reason for God to
change. And he, he knows all things in
his omniscience, therefore nothing would cause change.
So he there's no reason to change.
Nothing's going to force him to change.
He has all power in his omnipotence.
Nothing could make him change. So he's perfect as is, and he
should be trusted, he should be believed in, he should be clung
to. Can you say that North Carolina
clung to? Is that right from Oklahoma?
Listen to Malachi 36 For I the Lord, do not change.
Therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
Or James One says every good gift and every perfect gift is
from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom
there is no variation. And I like this next little
part. Or even a shadow due to change,
not even a hint of change, not even not even a smidgen of
transition. He's perfectly the same.
Again, the author of Hebrews, Paul.
Paul wrote Hebrews, Hebrews 13, Jesus Christ, you know this one
is the same when and and all the time.
See, we see this constancy. He is dependable.
I can count on him. He's reliable, always there,
always ready, always listening, always watching, but there
because he is. He just is.
Now let's move for a moment and talk about some communicable
attributes of God. In other words, these are things
that are, are, or should be imitated in our lives.
There are certain things that that God, characteristics of God
that are shareable, that are things that we ourselves can
imitate, that we ourselves can incorporate into our Christian
life as a disciple, right? So these are qualities of God
that he shares or communicates, that's communicable, He
communicates with us and for which at least a partial
counterpart can be found in US and in the creation.
So the worst thing, you might not think of this one, you might
think of some others, but this one is spirituality.
This might get a little different for you.
What's God made of? What is God made out of?
Is he pure energy? Is he pure thought?
Is he flesh and blood? So of course we know what John
424 says. God is spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth, right?
So we need to be careful that we don't think of God as having
size, don't think of God as having dimension.
He, he's not limited by physicalities that way.
It's very creative thought process.
We're as created beings. We have, we have very little
perspective to think of these kinds of things.
We, we have nothing to compare that to.
So it's hard for us to not think about whether God's a big
grandpa sitting on a throne someplace.
You know, he's Santa Claus without the, without the red
suit. You know what I'm saying?
Who is God the Father, right? What is God the Father?
So he's not like anything else. God's being his essential mode
of existence. Who he is is different than
everything else that he created. So our spirit is not exactly
like his spirit. So we're different.
So, so creation can reflect his character, but he's not
creation. And so we said we would
recognize that our spirits created.
His was never created. So it's not the same spirit.
So when I say we can share this quality, it doesn't mean we
share it exactly, but we also recognize that we have a spirit.
So we might say that God is pure being.
Now, again, that may sound weird to us.
We don't think like that. But again, you got to go to the
names we're going to talk about later.
Think of the name Yahweh. Think of I am who I am.
He's just pure being. That's who he is.
All right, Wayne Grudem, who wrote a a significant systematic
theology that's used in many seminaries, wrote this.
God's spirituality means that God exists as a being that is
not made of any matter, has no parts or dimensions, is unable
to be perceived by our bodily senses, and is more excellent
than any other kind of existence.
And why? Because that's the perfect way
to be, and he's perfect. So spirituality is a
communicable attribute because God has given us spirits by
which we can worship Him and we can be united.
Our spirit can be united with His Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
right? First Corinthians says this, but
he who is joined to the Lord becomes 1 spirit with him.
So we are spiritually joined. We use that word like that and
it sounds easier for us to grasp for some perhaps, but the Holy
Spirit joins with us at the moment of salvation and and
bears witness to us that we have been adopted as children of God
as part of God's family. Romans 8 says this.
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are
children of God and so we we pass in spirit also immediately.
This is significant for some of you and someone who might be
listening for even prayer requests today.
When we die, we we pass in spirit immediately into the
Lord's presence, right? There's no soul sleep.
I don't have to go somewhere else for a while.
Who I am, the essence of my existence in reality, the true
me. It's immediately with God,
consciously aware of where I am and who I'm with.
Ecclesiastes 12/7, which is often quoted at funerals or
graveside services in a different way and a paraphrased
way, says this. And the dust returns to the
earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
So our bodies wait for a while. Eventually we'll receive a new
body for eternity. Chancey was actually asking me
on Sunday. We were talking about the dry
bones in Ezekiel and I was kind of leading him on the chase a
little bit. But you know the dry bones story
in Ezekiel, You all know that story where the dry bones come
to life. You're about four
interpretations of that passage. 1 is that is actually fulfilled
in history, that that's actually just a, a prophetic utter
foretelling of, of the Jewish restoration after the Babylonian
exile. That's what some scholars would
say. Others would say that it's that
it's the resurrection that takes place at the end of time of
Jewish people in the Book of Revelation.
Others would say that it's, it's all Christians at the second
coming. The, the, the, the, the dead in
Christ shall rise first image. And then some say it's a
combination of those things. So you have 4 different versions
there. But all I know is at the end of
time. Here's what here's what we can
also say for certain at the end of time, those of us who have
trusted in Jesus are going to get a new body and and it's
going to last US forever. And I'm not going to have
crooked pinkies anymore. May not have them at all.
You know, do I have pinkies in heaven?
Another one that we receive is wisdom.
Some of us, some of you, I'm working on that one.
I should learn to say smarter things.
But wisdom again, Grudem says God's wisdom means that God
always chooses the best goals and the best means to those
goals. So, so this is beyond we don't
and we got to be careful. And I hope you know this wisdom
and knowledge are not the same thing, right?
You with me, Wisdom and knowledge are not the same
thing. I know a lot of unwise smart
people, right? So wisdom is beyond knowing
everything that's not not the other.
Now, certainly wise people are smart, I hope, but wisdom is the
is the ability to use that knowledge in the right ways.
And so remember, God is omniscient.
So God always knows, period. But God always knows what to
perfectly do with what he perfectly knows.
Did that make sense? He perfectly knows what to do
with what he perfectly knows, and that's everything.
So he has perfect wisdom. Ji Packer wrote this in his book
Knowing God. He says our intelligence and
cleverness must be harnessed to a right end.
Wisdom is the power to see and the inclination to choose the
best and the highest goal, together with the surest means
of attaining it. And then another theologian
named Berkoff defines wisdom this way.
He says that perfection of God whereby he applies his knowledge
to the attainment of his ends in a way that glorifies him the
most. So how can I bring God the
greatest glory? How can I use what I know to
fulfill his mission, to bring him great glory to redeem the
nation's, to make disciples? That's wisdom.
He always knows how to produce the best result.
It's interesting on Sunday morning when I preach about
prayer, I'm going to talk about that.
I'm going to talk about our dependency upon God, about
believing in anticipation that God hears and answers our
prayers. And, and it's, and it's this
idea that I've got to believe this.
I've got to believe these attributes of God.
You know all things, you see all things.
You already know all things. You can do all things.
Therefore I pray to you because you're higher than me.
I believe you can do something with this.
You can do something I can't do. And so I'm asking you to do
that, Job wrote Job 12. With with God our wisdom and
might. He has counsel and
understanding. Romans 11 says this.
O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how
unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
And one of the great blessings about is this.
We can ask for this wisdom. This is like a, I'd say, a daily
prayer of mine. It might be an hourly prayer of
mine because I need it so much. And that's James 15.
James 1/5 is a very familiar verse in my life because I so
desperately need it. And so sometimes I don't so
desperately don't believe I possess it.
But it says, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who
gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given
him again. Paul wrote in in Ephesians 5.
He says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as
wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the
Lord is. Man there about four sermons
right there. We should walk in a way that
helps us understand what He wants, especially out there,
especially in this time, especially in the chaos of
culture we often find ourselves in.
And then the psalmist wrote in Psalm 111, verse 10, The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of what right All those who
practice it have good understanding.
His praise endures forever. Why is the fear of the Lord the
beginning of wisdom? Well, one of the reasons is you
always got to remember, and I've said this to you 3462 times, I
count. And so you have to look that up.
That's true. And so I tell you over and over
again that fear is an act of worship.
Fear is an issue of relational authority.
I I pay homage to the things I fear.
I submit to the things I fear, which is why the Bible says I
should only fear God. And so if I fear anything else
more than that, it's idolatry. So my fear of the Lord means
that I am in a relational, authoritative position of
worship to him who I'm recognizing Him, I adore him, I
am, I am awed by him. I, I wonder at him, WOND.
And because of that, I have access to understanding His
wisdom and have that wisdom myself in a greater way.
If we fear dishonouring Him, if we fear displeasing God and His
discipline upon us, then we'll have the motivation to follow
His ways. We'll have the motivation to
live for Him. We'll have a motivation to live
according to His wisdom, thus making me wise.
So the person who's wise according to God's standards is
going to continually walk in that dependence.
They're going to continually walk in obedience.
They're going to have to continually walk in this desire
to exalt him and to worship him. So I we can, we can, we can
access and gain wisdom by engaging in discipleship like
we're talking about on Sundays, but we're never going to fully
share his wisdom. We don't get to be as smart as
God. There's a limit to what we can
gain and our wisdom at times will be frustrated because we
are often distracted by the circumstantial factors around
us. We we get caught up in the
creation and we lose sight sometimes and we get lost around
us, but God won't ever do that. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 28 says,
have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the
earth. He does not faint.
He, he will never grow weary. His understanding is
unsearchable. He doesn't get caught up in the
stuff around us like we do. We chase after this and that and
get distracted by that or frustrated by this.
A second thing we want to see here, or actually this should be
#3 I don't know how it's numbered on your paper.
It's just wrong on my notes, I hope.
But we need to see veracity. And So what this is, is God's
truthfulness means that he's the true God.
This word just means truthful. God is truthful, and that all
His knowledge and words are both true, and they're also the final
statement of truth. So what God says is not only the
truth, it's the final definition and statement of truth.
Don't, don't. You're not going to hear that
out there. Out there.
You're going to hear you get to create your own out there.
You get to decide what's yours and what's yours and what's
yours and what's yours. And yours isn't mine, and mine
isn't yours. And we can all pick and choose.
It's a cafeteria plan out there. When we were younger and our
oldest son was young, we used to go to what was the name of those
cafeterias? Luby's, is that right?
Anybody remember Luby's Cafe? I mean, this is old now.
Only you Gray haired people can answer this question.
Luby's Luby's, right? And you get the Luby plate or
Libby plate or something. But anyway, you go and you know,
it's the old fashioned cafeteria.
You put your plate down and you go down the line and you can,
you can get all you want, but you got to pay for everything
you get. And of course, you know, I'm
going after something with gravy on it.
And our oldest son used to go and he'd get that baked fish,
that big brick of baked fish. And I thought to myself, you
know, there's like an 8 year old kid getting a brick of baked
fish. And I thought to myself, what a
dumb choice. We got fried chicken, you got
chicken fried steaks, you got all kinds of stuff up and you
get that brick of baked haddock or something.
He just loved it, man. I'm looking for the pumpkin pie,
you know what I'm saying? No wonder I have diabetes.
It's all Luby's fault. So God's truthfulness means that
he's true. And his absolute truthfulness,
which is what this is, his absolute reliability, his
absolute faithfulness, that's what this veracity means.
It it assures us that His promises are always true.
His promises will always be fulfilled, and his nature is
devoid of any deception. And our world today, that's
helpful. The God that's revealed in
Scripture is the true God. Everything else is a false God.
He's the only true God, Jeremiah 1010 says, But the Lord is the
true God. He is the living God and the
everlasting king. So, so God's never mistaken, God
never fibs. God never tells a little white
lie, Don't even know what those are.
It's a lie. It's still a lie.
Might be a little white lie, but it's a lie.
And because He does not change, He is immutable.
So these tie together, we can rely on Him.
He's reliable and faithful in His words.
He is the truth. He knows the truth and only
speaks the truth. And so there's a certainty,
there's a dependability. I don't know why anybody would
seek to build their life on anything else.
God will always do what He said. He always fulfill what He
promises. In fact, Numbers 23 says God is
not man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change
his mind. Has he said and will he not do
it? Or has he spoken and will he not
fulfill it? Our second Samuel Chapter 7 says
this. And now, O Lord God, you are
God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good
thing to your servant. Or Proverbs 30 verse 5.
Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take
refuge in Him. So His word is truth itself.
His word is the basis of reality.
It is absolute truth. There is absolute truth in this
world, and His truth sets the standard by which all else ought
to be judged. So the psalmist writes in Psalm
18, This God, his way is perfect.
The word of the Lord proves true.
He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
For who is God but the Lord? And who is a rock except our
God? So we should share in this
quality. We we should share in this one.
We should be truthful people and the knowledge of truth in our
lives ought to lead us to be the people of truth in our lives.
Again, the Proverbs chapter 12 say this lying lips are an
abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his
delight. Remember what Satan is called.
He's the father of what? See, That's his very nature and
we must not act like him. Well, they 4th 1 forth on your
sheet. Thank you.
I don't know what happened to that last one.
That's probably just my notes. The 4th 1 you know, And it's
love. God's love means that God
eternally gives of himself to others.
It's quite remarkable because this really separates him from a
lot of other false religions. Other religions have God figures
or deities, but they often do not love.
Well, a law would never lower himself to die on a cross for
us. He would never do that.
We are beneath Him. Our sin is not worthy of His
presence in that faith system. So love is self giving.
Love is self giving for the benefit of others.
His Holiness and justice are counterbalanced by the fact that
He is also love. Sometimes we overemphasize love
to the point of we forget His Holiness and justice.
But one of the most unique things about God is that he will
not act contrary to his own nature.
So other gods are not loving and they need to be bought off.
That's what happens in most faith systems.
Both faith systems are a works righteousness space to where I
have to somehow work my way up, earn my way, buy off the God so
that I can earn the God's pleasure and hopefully somehow
make it in and some holy scale version of good bad karma,
something that's not true Christianity, that's not the
gospel, it's not grace. So in agape God's love is is a
willful decision. I used this in a counselling
session today. God's agape love is a willful
decision to even love the unlovable and the unlovely.
He chooses to love us, period. And in his sovereignty He does.
And So what we recognize He has chosen to love us.
It's self sacrificing, it's extremely expensive, it's
extremely extravagant. First John 316, not John 316,
but first John 316 says by this we know love that He laid down
his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the
brothers. And of course, you know John
316. So we imitate this attribute by
first loving God and then in return we're able to love others
like Him. I shared a message from Matthew
22 a few weeks ago where we love God and love others this way,
but the only way we can do this is if we focus on him and we
focus on his love for us. So again, John writes in first
John four, he says, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought
to love one another. And then verse 19, we love
because he first loved who us. What a formula.
It's like the Lord's Prayer. We forgive, please forgive us.
How? As we forgive others, we were to
imitate Him. We are to be like Him.
And then fifthly, you see holiness because there it is the
counterbalance, isn't it? There is this other side to
where we recognize that He is separated from sin.
He's devoted to seeking His own honor and glory.
He is absolutely free. He's absolutely immune from
anything wicked, anything evil. In this He is absolutely unique.
He is different from us and His ways are not our ways because we
are what we are, sinners. The Hebrew word for holy one of
them means to be marked off. It means withdrawn from
commonary, common. I'm trying to combine 2 words.
Wow, that was Ozarkian. So it it means to be separated
from common. Ordinary use.
You're not going to use this thing for ordinary stuff.
This is special. This is that thing that you have
up in the China cabinet that you're not sure why you have in
the China cabinet, but it's been there for generations.
And you keep it in the China cabinet and heaven forbid
anybody take it out of the China cabinet and drift break in the
thing because it's belongs in the China cabinet.
And the first time you let the kids bring it out.
In this holiness, we also find absolute purity.
We find absolute goodness. He's untouched, He's unstained,
he's unblemished. Psalm 99 says this.
Let them praise your great and awesome name.
Holy is he? Are we here?
The great chorus of Revelation 4.
One day. One day, my friends, one day, if
you've trusted in him, you're going to hear it.
You can sing along, and it and it, the four living creatures,
each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and
within, and day and night. They never cease to say day and
night. They never stop.
They never shut up. They won't quit because they
know holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is
and is to come or to imitate that His perfection is our
standard for moral character doesn't mean we'll be perfect,
but it also ought to be our motivation for practice.
This is who I want to be. Jerry Bridger in his old book
The Pursuit of Holiness, actually writes this this point.
It says when a soldier goes off into the war, he goes off into
battle. His goal isn't that I got, I
hope I only get shot once today. The goal is that I don't get
shot at all. That's how we ought to treat
sin. I want to go into this.
I'm not going to sin today. I'm not going to send it today.
They said it's going to be a sinless day.
My goal is to not get shot at all.
So when holiness is present like this, we imitate him.
He, he's our standard. Leviticus 11 says, For I am the
Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your
God. You shall therefore be holy, for
I am holy. So when it's present in us,
there's there'll be no hindrance to hearing His will.
There'll be no hindrance to obeying His will.
There'll be no hindrance for God accomplishing His will through
us the closer we are to Him. So holiness in the lives of
God's people is a sign of His presence.
It also reflects God's nature. So actively obeying God is how
we pursue that discipleship. It's how you pursue holiness.
It's a reason why we're trying to teach you what we're trying
to teach you. First, John 2/1 my little
children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may
not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
So living this righteous life sets apart for, sets us apart
for God's holy purpose, makes us holy and in his perfection and
in His Holiness, we also recognize in that perfection
that He has to punish sin. I was in a conversation with a
young man not long ago when we were talking about this, and we
were talking about the fact of how come God has to punish sin
as a righteous judge. He has no choice.
If he can't not do that and be a righteous judge, He can't simply
ignore someone who breaks the law over and over and over
again. He wouldn't be a good judge
anymore. If that was on earth, you'd want
to impeach the judge. And yet sometimes we condemn the
greatest judge of all because of who he is and who he must be and
who he cannot not be. That's OK.
We recognize as the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12/29 For our
God is a consuming. What if I remember fire?
We often don't think of Him that way, or we don't want to.
Our world doesn't like that. But He'll refine in the balance
of love, this balance of love and holiness, grace and
judgement. He has to balance this out.
He's our shepherd, and He has to protect us and guide us.
He's also a rock upon whom we can always depend.
So we call upon His name. And I want to end with this
little section for a minute to help you.
Because a name meant more in the Bible than it does to many of
us, still does around the world. I've been honored in some
cultures at the birth of a child to be given the honor of naming
the child, which is an incredible honor in some
cultures. And you have to, you have to
think about that and pray about that.
And there has to be great symbolism in the name that you
give to that child. Why did you name them this?
In Western culture, personal names often are a little more
than labels. Often it's a competition to see
who can have the callous new baby name, right.
So they go through these cycles. You know, there for a while,
everybody was Celtic. Now we're now we're doing
grandma names again. I've been noticing that we got
grandma. You know, I have a granddaughter
named Elsie. We have grandma names now, Elsie
and Millie. Often they're little more than
labels to distinguish one person from another.
But in these days, they had much deeper meaning.
So in the Bible, a person's name was a description.
It was a. It was.
It was to describe the character of the person.
It was almost prophetic. The name represented the whole
person. So the change in a person's
character or status would also sometimes mean that they would
change their name. So you saw that Jacob became who
Israel, Abram becomes Abraham. So we see these name changes.
So if the names of humans were important, how much more are the
names of God? So the names of God are various,
and it gets quite complicated to be honest with you.
And I'm going to give you the quick version of this, and then
there could be an entire series of lessons just about the names
of God. So the Bible gives many names to
God, all of which reflects some true aspect of these attributes
they tied together because the names represent the person of
God. So calling upon the name of the
Lord was a means of entering into a personal walk with Him.
It was more than just a title. It was a relationship.
In fact, the phrase the name of God and the name of the Lord and
their variants were used in nearly 100 passages in the Old
Testament, more than 200 in the New Testament.
This is a frequent thing. Exodus 20 verse 7, the great 10
commandments. You shall not take the name of
the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Or Psalm 8 verse one. O Lord our Lord, how majestic is
your name in all the earth. Remember this, we sing this, You
have set your glory above the heavens.
Or in Matthew 6, in the Lord's Prayer, pray then like this, our
Father in heaven, holy is your name, hallowed is your name.
So we're praying people would speak about God in a way that is
honoring to him and that accurately reflects his
character when we pray that prayer.
All right, So to honor God's name is to honor him.
And the Old Testament used many different names and titles to
refer to God to emphasize certain aspects about him.
So in your Bibles, in most English translation and the
important word there was most, not all.
But in most English translations when you see the generic word
God with a capital G in the Old Testament, normally this is a
rendering of the general Hebrew name for God, Elohim.
Genesis 1 says in the beginning Elohim Barad he created and and
the LEL idea in English represented a strong and
powerful God. But that was not that was not
unique to the Hebrews. El appears in other cultures to
refer to gods, especially in the Semitic world.
But it, it, the root of that word means power.
It could also mean to make an oath or to swear upon something,
right? The Babylonians would use El,
the Phoenicians would use El Aramaic and Hebrew.
So, but we see El or Elohim, the God of Israel.
And then what you would see is you would see compounds put
together. Some of you know some of these
compounds, some of you have sung some of these compounds
throughout the Bible where you would have El Shaddai or which
means the the God Almighty or El Elroy, the God who sees me or El
Bethel where Jacob built his altar or or El Hai, the living
God and on and on. And there are many what we would
call the El variance. Are you following me with you?
The word, these compounds together that you might hear.
Now when the word Lord appears, all capitals normally most of
the time in the Old Testament, if it's not God but it's capital
Lord, it usually is a replacement for Yahweh.
Now this is complicated because Yahweh is also known.
Here's your here's your big word for the night.
It's also known as the Tetragrammaton, which just means
4 letters. Now I don't know why they don't
just say 4 letters. It takes up less space.
It's easier to say than Tetragrammaton, but you got to
understand in the original old Hebrew there were no vowel
signs. So what you have are just those
4 consonants. I'll get it.
In English it would be YHWH right?
And so the Yahweh is a form of the the Hebrew word haya or
hawa, which means to be I am that I am.
But I'll be honest with you, no one knew exactly how it was
originally pronounced because the vowel symbols are not there.
And so age-old Hebrew didn't do that.
And so because the name became too holy to even write with
vowels within Hebrew tradition, there was no way to 100% know
which vowels were correct. And so as the vowel sounds were
spoken orally, they were never recorded manually.
And but around the 3rd century, the Jewish people stopped saying
the name altogether because it was too holy to say Yahweh out
loud. It was so holy they wouldn't
even say it out. They not only wouldn't write it
in it's completion, they wouldn't say it out loud.
And so it became even more complicated and they were afraid
they would violate Exodus 20. So the earliest version probably
is from Clement of Alexandria, who does a Greek transliteration
now. Just follow me.
So he's taking Hebrew working, working with Greek right, in
Alexandria, Egypt. And what he does is he, he's the
probably the first one who puts the the closest equivalent to
the original together based upon what he had heard, what he had
seen in older documents, right. And so it's interesting how this
gets passed on through the years.
And So what we see finally is it the ideas he is, he exists, he
is present. He will be and continue to be
Yahweh. Then after the Babylonian exile,
there was a group who again, they ceased to pronounce it.
They weren't pronouncing it orally, but out of the great
reverence. But a group actually got
together later in in time and begin to work with this word and
the word Adonai. Stick with me for a minute.
So in your Bibles, if you see the word Lord, but it's not all
caps, just the L is capitalized. It's probably a version of
Adonai, which is a verb or a word that emphasizes the
lordship of God. And Adonai often became a
substitute for Yahweh because it wasn't the same holy name.
You could say Adonai out loud and you could write out Adonai,
but you couldn't say or write Yahweh.
And so finally, and then you'll see combinations like the Lord
God in your Bible in the Old Testament with different
capitalization formulas. And often that's a combination
of Adonai, Yahweh. But then around 50, the 1500s,
led by the Vatican, a group of medieval Jewish scribes were
brought in to put vowel symbols where they were all missing to
the best of their knowledge, to the best of their research.
And so that's where we get our modern day English Latinized
version or English version of Yahweh.
And so, and then what they did, this is also where they put
together the consonants from Yahweh, the vows from Odd and I
and guess what word they came up with Jehovah.
So Jehovah is actually a Latinized version of a
combination of parts of Yahweh and parts of Adonai.
And So what we see is, is then you have all these Jehovah
variants, right? Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who
provides, Jehovah Rothe, the God who heals, Jehovah, Jehovah
Nisi, God my banner, and Jehovah Shalom, the God of peace, and on
and on and on. But recognize that that word is
actually a word that was put together out of other words from
the Bible. Now this might result in some
kind of confusion and translation, but I promise you
it was done entirely in an effort to glorify and magnify
God's name. Not to take away anything, but
actually give us a better way to address God, a better way to
understand Him, and a better way to bring him great glory.
So my prayer is, is that as we look at who God is, we look at
His nature, we look at His attributes, some of which we get
to share, some of which we get to mimic.
We get to imitate us as followers of His and then others
that are beyond us, others that transcend us.
But give us hope. Give us something to rely upon.
Give us something to cling to. Give us something to recognize
that we're not alone. And we serve one who's greater.
We serve one who's the greatest and beyond.
So we need to thank Him for that and praise Him for letting us
know Him this well. Father, thank you for revealing
yourself to us. You didn't have to do that.
You don't need us. But in that nature of your
capacity to love so much, so perfectly, You desire us.
And Father, if there's someone here tonight who doesn't know
you, they don't acknowledge you. Or maybe right now, in their
heart of hearts, they recognize something's happening, that
you're speaking to them. They feel drawn to you, Lord.
Tonight. I pray, Father, that they'll
come and talk to me or Pastor Jordan afterwards.
Because maybe tonight's the night they need to meet you.
Maybe tonight's the night you need to save them.
For those of us who already know you, thank you for letting us.
We don't deserve it, but thank you.
Thank you for letting us be in your presence.
Thank you for letting us live. Thank you for letting us serve,
Father. You're so beyond.
And Father, sometimes when we think we're supposed to handle
all of this ourselves and we're supposed to be able to do all by
ourselves and we're supposed to be able to deal with our issues
all by ourselves, Father, for please forgive us.
We're created things and we get caught up in the creation.
So help us, Father, to look to you, our Creator, to recognize
that you stand above perfectly and that we can depend upon you.
Father, I pray this Sunday morning we will cry out to you
in prayer and worship and that you'll hear us.
I pray, Father, you'll bless us tonight as we go our separate
ways. Thank you for those listening
online and pray that you'll bless them and that anyone who
needs to will reach out to us so we might talk more about what it
means to know You. Because, Father, we know that
you know us in Christ's name, Amen.
God bless you all. Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening today.
And I also hope that you'll go to
ourwebsite@englewoodbaptist.com as well as our app and find many
other resources that will bless you and your families.
Thank you once again.