The Spirit of Truth

Series: Behold our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: John 14:15-17

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If you only had 3 hours to spend with the people you cared about most, what would you do? Would you talk about how much they mean to you? Would you reminisce about the time you spent together? Would you say all the things that you couldn’t bear to leave unsaid? You would probably do all those things and more, but One thing is certain, if you knew you only had 3 more hours to spend with the people you loved most, you wouldn’t waste your time. You would do all that you could to make that time count.

As we read through the gospel of John and come to the 14th chapter, we understand that Jesus’ time with the disciples is almost at its end. In just a few short hours he will be arrested and His trial will begin. That trial will stretch on through the night. In the early morning hours, he will stand before Pilate. By 9 am He will be presented to the people and condemned. By noon, He will be nailed to the cross, bow His head and give up His life.

By the time we get to John chapter 14, Jesus has about 15 hours to live, but He will only spend about 3 of those hours with the 12. So, what does Jesus talk about in these final hours? For starters, He wants to comfort them. He wants them to know that God’s plan is right on track. They don’t need to abandon the gospel; they don’t need to seek salvation in any other way. They have put their hope in Him and nothing needs to change that.

But there is something else that dominates his final hours with the 12. He wants them to know that He is going to be leaving them but this is actually a good thing because when He leaves Someone else is going to come.

John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

John 16:7I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Transition…

For the disciples, the coming of the Holy Spirit was good news. He would continue the work that God the Father and Christ the Son had begun. He would comfort them in the absence of Jesus. He would be a helper for them as they carried out the Great Commission but at the same time His coming would have an impact on the whole world.

The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit is the Cinderella Story of Christian Doctrine. He is the person of the Trinity that we seldom talk about, but this morning we are going to focus our attention on Him almost exclusively. I don’t have 3 hours like Jesus, but in the next 40 minutes or so I want us to answer 3 questions about the Holy Spirit: Who He is, What does He do and Why does His presence matter to us.

Sermon Focus…

I. Who is the Holy Spirit

The word for “spirit” in the OT is the Hebrew term “ruahk.” In the NT the word for spirit is “pnuema.” Both of these terms are used in other places to refer to wind or breath, as well as life, motion and activity. This has caused some, like the Jews, to think of the Holy Spirit as the impersonal force or power of God. Muslims teach that the Spirit of God is an angel sent to do God’s bidding. But the Bible is quite clear that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, nor an angel; but rather He is the third person of our Triune God.

The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person by drawing out attention to the personal attributes that are ascribed to Him. The Holy Spirit grieves (Eph 4:30), He intercedes for us (Rom 8:26-27), He speaks (Mk 13:11), He creates (Gen 1:2) and He can be blasphemed (Mk 3:28-29). The Holy Spirit possesses wisdom and understanding (1 Cor 2:10-12, Isa 40:8, Psa 139:23), He acts according to His own will (1 Cor 12:11), and He is the One who sets apart men to special tasks of ministry (Acts 13:2, 4).

These are not the actions of a force or a power. The Holy Spirit is an intelligent, emotive, interactive, powerful, independent and personal being.

In the passage we read earlier from John 14:16, we see Jesus refer to the Holy Spirit as a HE.

V. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

The Holy Spirit is more than an impersonal force; He is a personal being. But He is also more than just a person, He is a divine person. In Hebrews 9:14, He is called the eternal Spirit. In Acts 5, when Ananias and Saphira lied to the Holy Spirit they are said to have lied to God. He shares in the immensity of God, the omnipotence of God, the foreknowledge of God, the omniscience of God and the Sovereignty of God.

The Spirit is God, like the Father and the Son. He stands alongside them as an object of worship. He is called the Holy Spirit because by His very nature He possesses the attribute of divine holiness. The Holy Spirit is God, but He is not the Father nor the Son. He is His own divine person equal in glory and majesty to the Father and the Son.

This is orthodox Christian teaching. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the trinity, but we don’t often think about the Spirit in this way. Within the Godhead, the Holy Spirit is probably the most neglected, the least cherished, the most misunderstood. Modern charismaticism has a lot to do with our misunderstanding of the Spirit. But one of the reasons that we focus more on the Father and Jesus, than the Spirit, is that this is the Spirit’s work.

John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Whether we realize it or not, the Holy Spirit draws our attention away from Himself and He directs our focus to Christ, He magnifies the Work and Word of Jesus. His task is not to highlight our subjective spiritual experiences, but to amplify our love for Jesus.

But there is something else in this passage that we need to consider. In verse 13 Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes…” and we need to be careful that we don’t misunderstand what this means. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit hasn’t been in the world up to this point, but that He was coming into the world with far greater energy and far wider influence than before.

After Christ’s ascension into Heaven, the Holy Spirit came down into the world and was poured out upon men in such a way that it would seem as if He was coming for the first time. But the OT makes clear that He has been active in the world from the very beginning. Let’s look at the Presence and Work of the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture.

II. What the Holy Spirit Does (OT)

We first read of the Holy Spirit during the creation account. In Gen 1:2, we learn that He was hovering over the dark and disordered waters, ready to bring order and life to the new creation.

The primary function of the Holy Spirit in the OT is as the Spirit of prophecy. He revealed the Word of God to holy men who then proclaimed that word to the people and wrote it down for our instruction. That familiar phrase, “Thus saith the Lord…” is evidence of the Spirit’s work of revealing God’s message to God’s people.

After the Exodus, we learn that the Holy Spirit was poured out on certain men in order to equip them with the skill to create the artistic pieces that God wanted to fill the temple. You may remember that the instructions for the temple were incredibly detailed. Everything is to be done just so, and everything is to look a certain way. The curtains are to have a certain type of thread and a certain color of thread. The tables are to be a certain size and made of a certain wood and then covered over with gold. The lamp stands are to be made a certain way and then all of the elements are to be covered over with detailed artwork and design elements.

To pull off this massive work of construction and this incredibly detailed work of decorating; God gave His Holy Spirit to men.

Exodus 31:1-6The LORD said to Moses,  2 "See, I have called by name Bezalel…3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship,  4 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze,  5 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.  6 And behold, I have appointed (others), of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you:

Later in Exodus 35:30,

Exodus 35:30 Then Moses said to the people of Israel, "See, the LORD has called by name Bezalel…of the tribe of Judah;  31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship,  32 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze,  33 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft.  34 And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan.  35 He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver- by any sort of workman or skilled designer. 

God filled these men with the Holy Spirit to be artists and craftsmen. God gave them the artistic ability and skill that would allow them to make the things inside the temple beautiful and glorious (Exodus 28:40). Not only did God give these men artistic gifts that would be used to build the temple but he also made these gifts evident to His people so that they would rejoice together in the Lord’s goodness.

The Holy Spirit is also present in the OT in the lives of those in leadership. The Judges: Balaam, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson and Azariah, were filled with the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord anointed the kings and empowered David to be victorious in battle.

In Proverbs the Spirit brings wisdom and guides us in understanding. The Prophets were filled with the Spirit to the point that they were known as ”Men of the Spirit.” Their entire work as prophets was inspired by the Spirit of God. But the OT prophets help us anticipate that the Holy Spirit’s work is actually going to increase in the age to come

Joel 2:28“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

III. What the Holy Spirit does (NT)

The first thing we notice of the Holy Spirit’s in the NT is how He is at work in the life of Jesus. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. As His public ministry began, it was said that He would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism. The Spirit led Him into the wilderness, and when He returned to Galilee it was in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The first time we hear Jesus preach in the gospel of Luke He quotes from Isaiah saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” Jesus prayed in the Spirit, He was led by the Spirit, He taught on the Spirit, and He promised to pour out the Holy Spirit onto those who came to believe in Him.

The “pouring out” of the Holy Spirit is an expression that refers to the gospel age when the Spirit’s primary work is to bring people to saving faith in Christ, to grow them in that faith, and sustain them in that faith until the end comes.

IV. Why this matters for us today

let’s look more specifically at the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I have divided His work into eight categories and as we work thorough these will come to understand how vital the Holy Spirit is to our Christian life.

1. The Spirit convicts us

John 16:7… But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Notice first, that the Holy Spirit brings: conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment. For believers, we understand that the Holy Spirit has worked in us to convince us of our sins before God, of the righteousness of Christ that we need, and of the certainty that judgment will come.

This progression is the way we understand how God works in our heart and mind to draw us to saving faith in Christ. But there is more to this text. The Holy Spirit also brings this conviction of sin to the unbelieving world. The Spirit exposes sin. He puts a giant spotlight on it and causes the world to see the ugliness that they want to deny.

The world wants to brag about its own supposed goodness but the Spirit draws attention to Jesus’ righteousness, which was enough to cause the Father to welcome Him into Heaven. Judgment is coming and the world wants to act as though nothing is wrong, but the Spirit bears witness to the justice of God that will be poured out on Satan and all those who are his children. The Spirit Convicts.

2. The Spirit converts us

John 3:3 Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

In this conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus is talking about the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that causes us to be born again. This is the Holy Spirit’s work. He removes our blindness so that we can see our need of Christ. He breathes life into our souls and brings us out of our deadness to sin. He removes our heart of stone and gives us a living heart of flesh.

The Holy Spirit does this work in every believer and there is no genuine saving faith in Christ apart from this converting work of the Holy Spirit.

3. The Spirit applies to us all that Christ accomplished.

The whole of Romans 8 is about how the Spirit has set us free from sin and death. In Christ, the Spirit is at work in our life to help us live and enjoy the peace and comfort of Christ. Everything that Christ accomplished for us is applied to us by the Spirit, even the promise of resurrection.

V. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

The Spirit bears witness in our hearts that we are children of God and fellow heirs with Christ (Rom 8:16-17), He groans within us and causes us to long for the day when Christ will return to set all of creation free from the curse of sin and death (Rom 8:23), He helps us in our weaknesses and intercedes/prays for us with groanings too deep for words, and He will sustain us in the faith making us more than conquerors until the day our Lord appears.

4. The Spirit dwells with us forever

John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Now, we know that in the OT the Holy Spirit was active in the hearts and lives of God’s people, but not in the same way as in the NT. For instance, King Saul was anointed with the Holy Spirit but because of his sin the Bible says that the Holy Spirit departed from Him. That’s why when King David confessed his sin he prayed in Ps 51,

11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

But Jesus wants us to know that a change has come in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. When He comes on those who love and obey Jesus, He will not leave. He will not be taken away from us, but will be with us and will remain with us, forever. He will continue to convict us, to lead us to repentance, and to restore us to faithfulness…until Christ comes (Phil 1:6).

5. The Spirit teaches us

John 14:25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

This instruction had special significance for the Apostles but it is important for us as well. The Spirit of God reveals to us the things of God, the things that pertain to salvation and the Christian life.

1 Cor 2:11…No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

6. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us

This should be no surprise to us, after all He is called the Holy Spirit and he works in us so that we will bear the fruits and become more like Jesus.

Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

7. The Spirit equips us

He fills us with courage, not fear. He fills us with wisdom, faith and joy. He grants us gifts that we are to use for the building up of the body of Christ. He empowers our service to God and to one another.

8. The Spirit seals us for the eternal inheritance that we will receive when Christ returns in glory (Eph 1:13-14). Like those overpriced embossing seals that we buy so that we can stamp an impression on our books, the Holy Spirit has placed His seal upon us declaring that we belong to God and our place in His kingdom secure.

Conclusion…

The whole of our Christian life is initiated, empowered, and sustained by the Spirit of God working with the Word of God to bring us into the presence of God. Without the Holy Spirit there would be no Bible (2 Tim 3:16). Without the Holy Spirit there would be no Gospel Witness, the Spirit works in us to accomplish the great commission. Without the Holy Spirit there would be no believers because our dead hearts would never come to life on their own. Without the Holy Spirit there would be no Church.

The whole of our Christian life is dependent upon the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity.

Let’s ask God to give us more of the Spirit’s presence and power in our lives. Let’s ask the Spirit to shift our sanctification into overdrive. Let’s ask the Spirit to pour out His power in our church and in our lives. Let’s ask the Spirit to convert our loved ones. Let’s ask the Spirit to make the church more loving, more faithful, more compassionate, more like Jesus.

Jesus Christ: Son of God, Savior

Series: Behold our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:16

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Jesus was a very common name among Jewish males in the first century. The historical evidence found in documents and inscriptions (2500+) has caused scholars to estimate that Jesus was the 4th most popular name behind Simon, Joseph, and Judah. If you grew up in first-century Palestine, odds are you would have known a boy named Jesus.

But why was that name so popular? Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Joshua and Joshua is the combination of two words that when put together mean, “Yahweh Saves.” So the little boys, named Jesus, who were running around the 1st century synagogues in Israel were a reminder and a hope that the God who saved Israel in the past would one day save them again, for good. But the question is, “How would God save His people?” and that’s where Jesus of Nazareth enters the discussion.

Jesus of Nazareth was so-named not simply because His God would save but because He had come as God in the flesh to accomplish salvation. But what does that even mean, “God in the Flesh?” This strange and mysterious teaching of Jesus coming as God in the flesh is known as the Incarnation, an act whereby the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, without ceasing to be what He is, took upon Himself human nature.[1]

That which is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated and eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descending into his own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him.[2]

As if the Incarnation were not miracle enough, there is also something else that confronts us as we study Jesus of Nazareth and it is the fact that He was crucified, buried in a borrowed tomb and then rose again on the third day. He was dead and God resurrected Him from death.

The two grand-miracles of the Christian faith are the Incarnation of Christ and the Resurrection of Christ. Jesus the infinitely holy and pure Son of God humbled Himself and became a man in order to save mankind from sin. Then in His humility, He gave up His life to atone for our sin and after being dead for 3 days He was raised from the dead and He lives today. What a staggering thought! What a mystery!

Why do I call it a mystery; because that is how Paul referred to it. Listen to how Paul refers to the string of truths that make up the Christian gospel.

1 Timothy 3:16 Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

The faith that we confess contains amazing truths, truths that have been revealed to us by God in His Word and in the person of Jesus. But these truths are not simply meant to be cataloged and placed up on the shelf, we are meant to pry into these truths with hungry hearts that we might behold the glory of God and in beholding God’s glory that we might be transformed.

Transition…

Our goal this morning is to savor the beauty of Christ as we gaze at the mystery of His incarnation and His Resurrection to learn what we can about our King. To do this, I want us to ask a series of questions and let the Scriptures fill in the gaps for us.

Sermon Focus…

I. Who is this that has been manifested in the flesh? John 1:1-4; 14

John 1:1-4 , In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 He was in the beginning with God.  3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

This divine Word is still a mystery to us until we read verse 14…

John 1:14  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

It was not God the Father who became flesh but one who was with God in the beginning, and who was God. The one who became flesh was not part of the created order; for He is the One who made everything that has been made. In Him is contained the life and light of mankind. The Word that became flesh is the Son of God, begotten not made, who came into the world to bear witness to the truth and to reveal the grace of God more profoundly than any before Him.

Paul tells us of Jesus in Colossians 1…

Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him.  17 And he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together.

Christ Jesus existed long before He filled that manger in Bethlehem. He was with God in the beginning and throughout Biblical History, He has been present for us to see.

In Genesis, he is revealed as the seed who would crush the head of the deceiver. Also in Genesis, he is the angel of the Lord. In Daniel and the Revelation, he is referred to as the Ancient of Days.

He is the bright and morning star, the Arm of the Lord, the Son of God and Son of man, the creator of all things, the sustainer of all things, the true bread, the living water, the light of the world, the only begotten son of the father, the captain of our salvation, the lamb of God, the man of sorrows…He is Emmanuel.

He is called faithful and true, the last Adam, the author, and finisher of our faith, the good shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. He is also King of kings and Lord of lords. All of these titles are given to Jesus and they set him apart as the unique and anointed Son of God who comes from the Father to bring redemption to His people.

The whole Bible bears testimony to the uniqueness of Jesus, the pre-existence of Jesus, and the divinity of Jesus. The New Testament authors understood that he was God in the flesh, but perhaps it needs to be heard from the Jesus himself. As He prayed in the Garden on the night He was betrayed Jesus said this…

John 17:4 Father, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.  5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Jesus Christ shared in the glory of God before the world came into being. “Who is this that has been manifested in the flesh?” Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. He is God in flesh.

II. How did He come to us?

We can answer this question in two ways: Historically and Theologically. The coming of Christ in history is revealed in the story of the virgin birth and the delivery that took place in a cattle stall in Bethlehem. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit of God to virgin mother who had never known a man. He was born into a poor family, sure to suffer in life is almost too much for us to comprehend.

I’m always moved by Thomas Watson’s description…

He came not in the majesty of a king, attended with his royal-guard, but he came poor; not like the heir of Heaven, but like one of an inferior descent. The place he was born in was poor; not the royal city of Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, a poor obscure place. He was born in an inn, and a manger was his cradle, the cobwebs his curtains, the beasts his companions; he descended of poor parents.

That the ancient of Days should be born.
that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle....
that he who rules the stars should nurse the breast;
that a virgin should conceive;
that Christ should be made of a woman, and of that woman which He himself made,
that the branch should bear the vine,
that the mother should be younger than the child she bore,
and the child in the womb bigger than the mother;
that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God.

He stripped himself of the robes of his glory, and covered himself with the rags of our humanity.[3]

This is definitely not the way you would expect the story to go for the Son of God coming into the world; but this will be one of the great themes of the Gospel. God has come to rescue the poor by becoming poor. He has come to heal the broken, the lame, the blind, and the outcast by being broken and cast out in our place. Jesus makes clear that God has a heart for the lowly and desires to make sinners into sons.

But what about the theological side of the question? Within the early church and early Christian literature, Christ stands out as both human and divine, the Son of God but also the son of man. He was universally regarded as having sinless character but at the same time He was regarded as a proper object of worship.

But over time difficulty arose. How could Jesus of Nazareth be both God and man? How could He possess a divine nature (eternal Logos) and a human nature (born of Mary). In time, these difficult questions led to a series of Christological controversies and the church found herself in a position of needing to articulate a clear and unified doctrine of Christ. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD the church produced a statement that remains a standard to this day.

Here is an echo of that statement in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith:

“Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without converting one into the other or mixing them together to produce a different or blended nature. This person is truly God and truly man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and humanity.”[4]

This remains a mystery to us. We cannot fully conceive it but we can and do try to formulate it in words that convey our understanding of what we read in God’s Word. By the way, listen to what we read of Christ in the book of Philippians.

Phil 2:6…though he was in the form of God, (he) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Christ came into the world in an act of humility wherein the heir of Heaven became a human baby wrapped in rags. His ultimate mission was an act of incomprehensible humility wherein the Son of God obeyed the Father and laid down His life on the cross.

Let’s talk more about this mission…

III. Why did Christ come?

1. In Mark 10:45 Jesus tells us that “The Son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

2. In Hebrews 7:25 we read that He came to save those who draw near to God.

3. In I John 3:4-10 tells us that the “reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”

4. In John 18:37 Jesus declares, “For this purpose, I was born and for this purpose, I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth.”

All of these passages and more tell us why Christ came into the world. He came to stand in the gap between man and God. He came to call us back from the cliffs overlooking Hell. He came to turn the world upside down in order to find his lost treasure and bring it back home to God. He came to serve as our priest and to offer the final sacrifice that would ransom us from our sinful shame.

We cannot save ourselves. All of our attempts at self-salvation will fall short, but to trust in Christ by faith is to be freed from sin and saved from its curse. This is good news and this is why Christ came.

Jesus came to save sinners.

1 Timothy 1:15-17The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners...

If you think that your sin is too great for God’s forgiveness, think again. His grace is greater than all our sin. He came to save the worst sinners. He came to rescue those who are weak, to heal those who are sick, to redeem those who are so far from God that they never imagined a savior could reach them.

He didn’t come for perfect people, He came for wretched sinners and this is great news because we all qualify. Why did Christ come? To save His people from their sin.

IV. What does the coming of Christ mean for us?

Col 1:19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

You see, whether we realize it or not we have been at war with our creator. It is a war that we were born into and as soon as we had a choice in the matter we took up arms against Him. Every sinful thought and deed has been an act of combat, but we have been fighting a war we cannot hope to win. But rather than simply destroying His enemies God has offered us peace.

Christ took our flesh upon him so that he might take our sins upon him. In order for man to have peace with God a man must pay the price. Christ maintained his deity because only a perfect Son could fulfill the righteous requirements of God. Only one who is fully God and truly man could bring peace between God and man.

Jesus Christ came to put an end to the battle once and for all but instead of putting us to death for our part in the war, He chose to die in our place. Christ walked out onto the battlefield and instead of condemning his enemies He laid down His own life to make peace. But His death was not the end.

Three days later, God raised Him from the dead. The resurrection shows that Jesus not only defeated death but He has overthrown it.

By His Resurrection He has overcome death, so that He might make us share in the righteousness He won for us by His death…and His resurrection is a guarantee of our (own) glorious resurrection (to come).[5]

V. One last question, “So, who is Jesus Christ?” Over the last 2,000 years the church has sought to craft statements, which accurately affirm what we believe the Bible to teach concerning the person, position, and accomplishment of Christ. The guys over at Ligonier (R.C. Sproul and others) have put together a statement that they hope will serve to answer the question, “Who is Jesus Christ?” for our generation.

We confess the mystery and wonder

of God made flesh

and rejoice in our great salvation

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

With the Father and the Holy Spirit,

the Son created all things,

sustains all things,

and makes all things new.

Truly God,

He became truly man,

two natures in one person.

He was born of the Virgin Mary

and lived among us.

Crucified, dead, and buried,

He rose on the third day,

ascended to heaven,

and will come again

in glory and judgment.

For us,

He kept the Law,

atoned for sin,

and satisfied God’s wrath.

He took our filthy rags

and gave us

His righteous robe.

He is our Prophet, Priest, and King,

building His church,

interceding for us,

and reigning over all things.

Jesus Christ is Lord;

we praise His holy Name forever.

Amen.[6]

Conclusion…

We know who came – The eternal Son of God

We know how He came – He humbled Himself and took on human nature

We know why He came – To save sinners

We know what His coming means to us – Peace with God

We know who He is – He is Jesus Christ our Lord

If you are a believer then this news should fill you with joy. The gospel is not a pleasant fiction but a joy-filled reality. Jesus came and lived on this earth and did the amazing things the Bible tells us about. He really lived, He truly died and then He miraculously rose from death. He went from the cradle to the cross and from the cross to His throne and one day He will come again to dwell among His people.

If you are not a believer then my hope is that this sermon would fill you with longing to experience the peace of Christ for yourself. The coming of Christ into the world shows us something that we couldn’t fully see in any other way, it shows us that God loves us even though we are sinners.

I John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

Come to Christ and live.

Invitation to the Lord’s Supper.

But don’t take my word for it, hear the invitation of Jesus when He said:

Matt 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

And in…

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

We have come to feast upon God’s provision and to remember the price that was paid and the love that was displayed for us by Christ on the cross.

If you have put your faith and hope in Christ alone I invite you to take the bread and the cup and join us as we celebrate Jesus’ victory this morning. The bread is a reminder of His body that was broken for us. The wine (purple cups) or juice (clear cups) is a reminder of His blood that was poured out to wash away our sin.

If you are not a believer in Christ I would ask that you let these things pass by you. But please understand that what we are doing is we are declaring that Jesus Christ is the Son of God as well as our Savior and Lord. We are declaring that our Jesus’ sacrifice is the only thing that can cleanse us of sin and make us right with God.

Bread, the body of Jesus broken for you...

Wine, the blood of Jesus poured out for the forgiveness of sin...

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[1] Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker, pg. 555)

[2] C.S.Lewis God in the Dock: The Grand Miracle pg. 80-81

[3] Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Banner of Truth) pgs. 196-198.

[4] 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith

[5] Answer to Question 45 from the Heidelberg Catechism

[6] http://christologystatement.com

Our Blessed Three in One

Series: Behold Our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Matthew 3:13-17

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The Swiss theologian Karl Barth was asked by a student during a seminar in the United States, “Dr. Barth, what is the most profound thing you have ever learned in your study of theology?” After a brief pause Barth replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” The room filled with muffled laughter at this simplistic answer, but the giggles soon died to silence when the class realized Barth was serious.

The study of Biblical theology should lead us to two vitally important conclusions:

1. That in the simplest Biblical truth their lives a depth and beauty that can capture our minds for a lifetime.

2. That in all our complex theological pursuits, we never really rise above the level of a child in our understanding of the depth and wealth of God’s true nature.[1]

John Calvin said that God is so beyond us that He has to speak to us in a form of Divine baby-talk just so we can understand the words that come from His mouth. There are aspects of God’s being and character that we cannot truly begin to grasp and today’s topic ranks right up at the top of that list.

Seven weeks ago we began a study on the doctrine of God (Theology Proper) where we have sought to gain a better understanding of the God we worship, the God who created us, the God who loves us and redeemed us from our sin, the God who revealed Himself to us in His Word. We have looked at the being of God, the Character of God, the Works of God; but if we were to end our study without looking at this next subject we would have to conclude that we don’t really understand God at all.

The final aspect of our study is going to center on the fact that God has always existed as one God and yet at the same time He exists as three distinct persons. The theological term that describes this is Trinity and this doctrine is one of the most unique and important in all of Christian theology. In fact, Christianity rests on this mysterious doctrine of the three-in-oneness of God and because it is so mysterious, there are many who think we should just get on without it and leave it to the theologians to sort out.

But here’s the thing, if we are going to truly know, love, and worship God, then we are going to have to seek to understand this. We need to know what He is like? We are going to have to try to make sense of what we read about Him in the Scriptures. We are going to need to try and understand why His three-in-oneness is important for us.

Transition…

So this morning I want us to work through these three questions: 1. Where is the doctrine of the Trinity found in the Bible? 2. What does the doctrine of the Trinity teach us? 3. Why does this matter?

Sermon Focus…

I. Where is the doctrine of the Trinity found in the Bible?

Trinity is a theological term that means “tri-unity” or “three-in-one-ness.” It is a term that was originally used by the early church father Tertullian and while the word Trinity is never found in the Bible the term is used to try and summarize the Biblical teaching that God is three persons and yet one God. The word Trinity is used as a way to try and hold together two ideas about God that we find in Scripture: His Unity and His diversity.

Over the years, Christians have tried to simplify this doctrine by using mathematical equations or some form of metaphor, but many of those just create more problems. So instead, I want to look at this doctrine of the Trinity in five assertions: (1) God is one; (2) God is three; (3) the three persons are each fully God; (4) each of the persons is distinct from the others; and (5) the three persons are related eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will look at each of these assertions in turn.[2]

God is One -

The Bible is abundantly clear that there is only one God.

Deut 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

In the Ten Commandments, we read this,

Exod 20:2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

This is very important for us to understand.  There is only one God. There is only one being that is worthy of our worship. There are not many gods as other religious groups might claim. Our God is one and yet at the same time we have to recognize that our God has revealed himself to exist in some form of a plurality and we can see evidence of this all the way back in the language of the creation account in Genesis 1.

Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Then after Adam and Eve sinned we read this in Gen 3:22, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.”

Now, what is going on here? As we read these passage we understand that in some way God is engaged in a dialogue with another person and it’s not an angel that He is talking to because man wasn’t made in the image of an angel. Man was made in the image of God. The best explanation is that God was in counsel with Himself and within the Godhead more than one person exists. There is a divine plurality.

Within this paradigm, we see that there is a unity of purpose, a unity of essence but a diversity of persons, but at this point in Scripture, it is not yet clear how we should understand this diversity. At this point, we have no idea how many persons and we don’t have enough to develop a Trinitarian theology. That takes shape most clearly in the NT where each person of the Godhead is revealed more fully and affirmed as full deity.

So we start off with an understanding that God is One, united in essence and purpose. But now let’s look at the fact that God is Three -

In the New Testament, it is a settled doctrine that three persons exist within the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. This became clear to the NT authors because in their lifetime they saw the Son and the Holy Spirit come into the world and they recognized them as full deity.

Jesus was introduced to the NT through a long genealogy that opened the book of Matthew. He is the focal point of the long list of names but that list includes both men and women and it stretched all the way back to Abraham. The list is structured in three sections: from Abraham to David, then David to Exile in Babylon, then Exile to Jesus who was born of Mary.

Matthew then tells us the story of how Mary came to be pregnant with Jesus. He wasn’t conceived in a normal fashion; He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. We have never read anything quite like this in the Bible. We have seen prophecies about a great king who was to be born of a virgin but this is a little more than we might have expected.

Now, it won’t do to simply dismiss the biblical authors as barbaric people who did not understand how babies came to be, even then the people knew that this didn’t make natural sense. But a miracle by definition is a supernatural occurrence when God disorders the natural order of things.

So as Jesus enters into the world we know that He is unique and in some mysterious way we know that the Spirit of God is involved in His life. But when we turn the page and begin to read in Matthew 3 we see something take shape that had been a mystery up to that point.

Matthew 3:13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Now, before you dismiss this account as some spiritual experience rather than an actual experience let me point out that this same account can be read in Mark 1:9-11 and Luke 3:21-22. We see the same story in John’s gospel but there we read it as the testimony of what John the Baptist saw,

John 1:32 John bore witness saying: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

Now on this day John the Baptist was the one doing the baptizing, Jesus was the one in the water, there was a crowd of people present; some receiving baptism and some simply observing John’s ministry. But on this day there were two others present: God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

Each of the persons is distinct from the others -

Here in this one moment of time we have three members of the Trinity performing three distinct activities. God the Father is speaking from Heaven; God the Son is being baptized and receiving the loving support of His Father, and God the Holy Spirit is descending from heaven to rest upon and give strength to Jesus for the ministry that lies ahead.

J. C. Ryle commented on this passage in this way,

We may regard this as a public announcement that the work of Christ was the result of the eternal counsels of all the three persons of the blessed Trinity. It was the whole Trinity, which at the beginning of creation said, ‘Let us make man;’ it was the whole Trinity again, which at the beginning of the gospel seemed to say, ‘Let us save man.’

The three persons are each fully God -

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that they now have a public ministry to get on with and it is to, “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” One God but three distinct persons is the Trinitarian formula that flows through the rest of the New Testament.

Our Biblical understanding of the Spirit of God stretches back to the very beginning of the OT when we read of God’s Spirit taking part in creation. We also read about the Spirit of God coming to rest upon people. The Priest were said to be filled with the Spirit of God, the craftsmen who constructed the temple and carved the designs for the temple were filled with Spirit of God. When David was anointed as the next king of Israel we read that the Spirit of God rushed upon him and never left.

Some have suggested that these OT references to the Spirit of God are simply expressions of God’s power, but in the NT things become more clear. Jesus taught the disciples that He was going to leave them but it was going to be OK because God was going to send another to comfort them. In fact, Jesus called Him the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God, whom the Father would send to be with the disciples forever.

By the way, Jesus wasn’t lying. The Holy Spirit did come on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and the church recognized that the Holy Spirit was also fully God.

Acts 5:3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land...Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

The church understood that the Father was God, that Jesus was God and the Holy Spirit was also God. One unified God existing as three distinct persons.

These three persons are related eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

II. What does the doctrine of the Trinity teach us?

The Doctrine of the Trinity has been defined in many ways but each definition aims to make some things clear about God while also not denying other things about God. Throughout church history this doctrine has been very hotly debated and the earliest statements of Christian theology aimed to make the doctrine of the Trinity very clear.

The Apostle’s Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.[3]

Here in this early form of a Christian statement of faith we identify an unmistakably Trinitarian structure.

The church over the years has also used symbols to try and capture the essence of this doctrine. This symbol seeks to summarize the Trinitarian formula by highlighting seven statements: (1) There is only one God. (2) The Father is God. (3) The Son is God. (4) The Holy Spirit is God (5) The Father is not the Son (6) The Son is not the Holy Spirit (7) The Holy Spirit is not the Father.

Now why do we need all of this complex language and these Trinitarian formulas and these very precise symbols? Because, over the years there have been some really dangerous heresies that have come to light on this doctrine and some are still around today.

Modalism claims that there is one person who appears to us in three different forms (modes). For example, modalism says that God appeared as the Father in the OT. Then in the NT the same person is said to have appeared as the Son, and then after Pentecost the same person is said to be active in the church as the Spirit. IOW, God was the Father, then He became the Son, and finally He became the Spirit. But this heresy simply doesn’t line up with what we see in Scripture especially at Jesus’ baptism or what we here in Jesus’ teaching. Many Pentecostal groups adopt a form of this heresy.

Arianism is another heresy that denies the full deity of Jesus by teaching that Jesus is part of the created order.

Tritheism is a view held by Mormons and it also denies the doctrine of the Trinity by teaching that there are three separate beings and therefore we have three separate Gods.

None of these are consistent with what the Bible teaches. The Bible nowhere teaches that the Father became the Son and then the Son became the Spirit. The Bible nowhere teaches that Jesus is less than God in the flesh. The Bible nowhere teaches that we are to worship three separate Gods known as the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

But these unorthodox views have pushed the church to be very precise about what we do believe the Bible teaches on the Trinity. Listen to another early Christian theological statement and how precisely it was crafted.

The Athanasian Creed:

Now this is the catholic faith:

    That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
    neither blending their persons
    nor dividing their essence.
        For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
        the person of the Son is another,
        and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
        But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
        their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.[4]

Kevin DeYoung commenting on this statement wrote:

The two key words here are “essence” and “persons.” When you read “essence,” think “Godness.” All three persons of the Trinity share the same “Godness.” One is not more God than the other. None is more essentially divine than the rest. When you read “persons,” think “a particular individual distinct from the others.”[5]

We use these terms in this way because we are trying to find a way to express the relationship of three beings who are fully and equally God, but not three separate Gods. And we have to use all these words and all these symbols because our finite minds can’t accurately conceive the being of our infinite God. We are like newborns trying to baby-talk and babble our way through an explanation of her parent.

Conclusion…

III. Why Does the Trinity matter?

1. It matters because it is in the Bible.  We may not fully understand it, and the Lord knows we don’t, but He revealed this to us because He wants us to know Him. He wants us to know that He is Incomprehensible. He wants us to know that He is not like us and He is not like the pagan gods created in the imagination of man’s mind. He is our triune creator and redeemer and He wants us to know Him in this way.

2. It matters because we need to know the God we worship. We need to know that our God exists as three-in-one. This impacts our songs, it impacts our prayers, it impacts our preaching, it shapes our liturgy, and it reveals the true nature of the God who created us and redeemed us. We worship the Father and give Him the praise He is due. We worship the Son and glorify Him for His saving sacrifice. We worship in the Spirit and sing of how He caused us to be born again. We worship our blessed three-in-one.

3. It matters for evangelism.

“The two main rivals to a Christian worldview are Islam and Postmodernism. Islam emphasized unity – unity of language, culture and expression – but it allows for almost no diversity. Postmodernism emphasizes diversity – diversity of opinions, beliefs and background – but there is no overarching reality that holds it together.

But Christianity, with the Triune God at its core, allows for diversity and unity. Since God exists as three persons who share the same essence, then it is possible for creation to exhibit stunning variety and individuality while still being bound together in unity.

4. It matters for our relationships. Our God exists in a perfect state of eternal relationship with Himself. He is united in love, in purpose, in worth, in essence but within that relationship, there is a diversity of responsibility. All three persons of the Trinity are active within the works of God but they execute different roles. The Father planned creation, the Son executed creation and the Spirit gave life to all created things. The Father ordained redemption, the Son accomplished redemption and the Spirit applies that redemption in the hearts of God’s people.

There are no hurt feelings within the Godhead, no grandstanding, or pouting because One gets more attention than another. God is fully united in a relationship of love that flows into our hearts and is to be lived out in our lives. God made us to enjoy community where there is unity despite diversity. Our God who exists as a community saves us into community and the love that we show to one another is a love that is to change the world.

5. It matters for the sake of the gospel. It was love that motivated the Father to send Jesus (John 3:16). It was love that motivated Jesus to lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13). It is love that the Holy Spirit plants deep in our hearts that makes us cry out, “Abba! Father! (Gal 4:7)”

When you come to faith in Christ, you are not simply becoming Jesus’ friend, as awesome as that is, but you are being welcomed into Trinitarian love that exists from everlasting to everlasting.

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[1] R.C. Sproul, 100 Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. (Pg. 31)

[2] Frame, J. M. (2006). Salvation belongs to the Lord: an introduction to systematic theology (p. 30). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

[3] https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/apostles-creed

[4] Kevin DeYoung, The Good News We Almost Forgot. (pg. 50)

The Work of God in Redemption

Series: Behold our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Galatians 4:4-7

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Gal 4:1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

I became a believer in Christ on New Year’s Eve in 1998. On that night and in the months leading up to that night I had no interest in religion and zero interest in Christianity; but God had another plan. Two weeks prior to New Year’s Eve, one of my best friends who just happened to be my drug dealer had been born again. My friend’s name was Joel and he had gone away for a couple of weeks to stay with a friend and to his surprise one of the people living in his friend’s home was a faithful Christian who took every opportunity he could to share the gospel with my friend.

Joel came back home a new man and he came straight to my apartment where I and my other friends were just beginning to celebrate the New Year. On that night, Joel came with his Bible and he sat down beside me and he made it clear that I needed to stop doing drugs, turn from my sin, call out to God for forgiveness and trust in Jesus to save me. To this day I don’t know what passage Joel used to share the gospel with me but I know that on that night, right there in my living room, God did something in my heart and mind that changed me forever.

God changed me from a slave to a son. For the first time in my life I felt like I was going to be crushed under the weight of my sin. I didn’t know how Jesus could do it but I cried out to him to forgive me and save me. I repented and began to try and live my life for Him. I went to church and was baptized. I was given a new Bible and I began to read it. I was learning, I was growing, I was like a fish out of water but I was learning how to breath in a whole new way.

Everything in my day to day life was new but I was also learning that as a Christian I had become part of something that had been going on for thousands of years. As I read and studied the Bible I came to realize that I had been plunged into a story that had been unfolding since the beginning of time. I didn’t know how all of it fit together but I knew that my faith had a deep past filled with men and women and events that stretched back thousands of years. I wanted to know how it all fit together.

Then I read Ephesians 1:4 and it blew my mind.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will

When I read that for the first time I could hardly believe that before the world was, God knew me and chose me. He predestined me for adoption according to His will, and my adoption hinged on Jesus Christ. Jesus was not just another name in an endless story of religious faith, but rather He was the climax of that story. The promises God made to His people from the very beginning of time, found their culmination in the work of Jesus. He was/is the point of the whole book.

All the Scriptures, the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Writings, they all concern Christ. The whole of the Old Testament is drawing our attention to the main stage where God is showcasing the main event which is God’s plan to redeem His people from their slavery to sin through Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection 3 days later.

Transition…

There are two great works of God: creation and redemption. Redemption means deliverance (rescue) from evil by the payment of a price and this concept of redemption can be seen in hundreds of passages throughout the Bible. Redemption has a backstory that goes like this: when mankind rebelled against God two things resulted; our separation from God and our guilt before God. We were expelled from the Garden, cut off from the tree of life and the presence of God; but we also became guilty of treason and deserve death because of our crime.

Mankind is the problem, not the solution. In Genesis 3 we learn that because of sin God has put a boundary in place between us and Him. Since God is the one who put this boundary in place it only makes sense that He is the only One qualified to cross that boundary and make things right. Only God can restore the relationship corrupted by sin.  We cannot redeem ourselves.

And from that day in the Garden, God set out to accomplish a work of redemption that would remove the guilt of our sin and bring us back into fellowship with Him. This morning we are going to spend our time studying God’s Work as our Redeemer and we are going to look at this work in five stages: The Word of Redemption, the Pattern of Redemption, the Securing of Redemption, the Application of redemption, and the Enjoyment of redemption.

Sermon Focus…

I. The Word of Redemption (V. 4a)

4:4 But when the fullness of time had come…

In Galatians 4:1-3, Paul is trying to help us understand our own backstory by explaining two contrasting ways of identifying ourselves. He is showing the contrast between life as a slave and life as an heir. Slavery and sonship are the two categories of human identity that he wants us to understand. But these two categories are also a memory of Israel’s past.

There was a time when the people of God were slaves in Egypt and they longed to be set free. They longed for God to rescue them and so they cried out to God for help.

Exo 2:23…The people groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham…

Let the weight of this sink in for you. In Exodus 3:7f God says to His chosen covenant people “I have seen your affliction…I have heard your cries…I know what you are walking through and I am coming to rescue you.” The OT writers refer to this covenantal loving care from God as Hesed, His steadfast love.

Friends God sees, He hears, He knows and in the day of our trouble, in the day of our need, in the day of our affliction he remembers his covenant love and pours out strength to rescue us. Do you know what this means, God is for you. When He looks upon you today, Christian, He does not see your sin and your guilt, He sees the righteousness of His Son and He loves you.

(Illus. Imagine Israel in the midst of their slavery. They must have felt as though God did not care. They must have felt as though God did not remember them and that he did not hear their cries. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

During their time of bondage in Egypt God loved His people and in His love He raised up a man, a son, named Moses, who would deliver a message both to the children of Israel and the King of Egypt. Here is the message God gave to Moses.

Exo 6:6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord

This is the word that God sent to His people while in slavery. It is a word of promise that says the day is near at hand when I will step out of Heaven to come and free you from your bondage. God says, “I will deliver you. I will redeem you. I will make you to be my people. I will be your God.”

Now here in Galatians 4, Paul wants us to understand that we too have been in slavery.

3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come,

Our identity apart from Christ is that we are slaves to sin. When he says here that we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world he is talking about the role of the law in our lives. The law is not what saves us, it only points out that we need to be saved. The law doesn’t make us holy, it simply reveals that we are not holy. The law is like an x-ray machine that shows us that our bones are broken, but the x-ray machine can’t put us back together it can only show us the problem.

We need someone to come and save us, to rescue us, to put our bones back into the right place and that is what God promised to do. He promised that a time would come when He would arrive to redeem us from our slavery.

In the Sovereign and eternal plan of God there was a time, a date set by the Father, when He would act. There would come a time when His plan of redemption would shift into high-gear and when the fullness of that time had come He sent His Son.

II. The Pattern of Redemption (V. 4b)

V. 4b…God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law

For Israel, God sent Moses as a prophet who would speak for God and lead His people once they were freed from slavery. This would become a pattern for how God would redeem His people. In time He would send them prophets, He would give them priests and He would finally give them a king. But notice who it is that does the moving…God sent.

There are two sending’s in this passage: V. 4 God sent forth His Son, V. 6 God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son. The pattern of God’s work as redeemer is not that we must reach out to Him and convince Him to love us but that God is reaching out to us convincing us that He loves us. God is the One on the move bringing an end to the winter that has reigned in our hearts.

I didn’t understand this when I first believed but over the years I have come to understand that I can take no credit in my salvation. I was not pursuing God, I did not find God, I did not come to my senses; the truth is that from the very beginning God had planned to come for me. He sent His Son into the world to show us His love and He sent His Spirit into our hearts so that we could be made alive by His love.

This is the pattern of God’s Work in Redemption. He comes to us. Only the gospel teaches us to think this way. Every religion in the world, except for Biblical Christianity, teaches that in order to be right with God you must do something. Every religious notion in our hearts tells us that in order for God to love us we must make ourselves loveable by becoming moral people, by attending services, by doing good things. But the gospel says, God’s plan to redeem His chosen people from their slavery to sin is going to happen by God coming down to earth not by our climbing our way up to Heaven.

Jesus came because the Father sent Him and when He came he was like one of us. He was born of a woman and born under the law. This means that the way God is going to accomplish His purpose of redemption is not by starting at the top but by going all the way down to the bottom. Jesus became a helpless human child. He came in the world the same way you and I came into the world, as a baby born into this sinful world.

There is no one so low in their sin that Christ can’t save them. He humbled Himself all the way down to become a baby in a manger. He was born under the law so that He could identify with and redeem those who were under the law.

III. The Securing of Redemption (V. 5a)

V. 5a… to redeem those who were under the law

The key word here is redeem and it means that when Jesus came He secured deliverance for us by making the payment necessary to set us free. The law could not free us, it could not reign us in and make us fit for God, so what did God do? He came down and reigned us in all on His own. But in order for us to be set free a price had to be paid. Christ paid that price. He paid our ransom.

The cost of our ransom wasn’t cheap. It wasn’t a few pennies’ scraped up from the couch that paid our debt, it wasn’t silver or even gold; it was the precious blood of Christ that paid our ransom. In order for us to be redeemed Christ willingly died. That is the picture that Paul wants us to see. For the blood of Jesus to cover our sins it had to first be poured out in sacrifice. It cost Him.

Redemption, refers to the process of being delivered through payment, that payment is called a ransom. The ransom price was His blood poured out on the cross. He died in our place. He died to set us free from the guilt and power of sin. “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:23).”

He died to cover our debt, to pay the price required to buy us out of slavery. On the cross, Jesus secured redemption for all of His people, for every human being who would believe in Him and trust in Him for salvation.

In the OT, there was a system of sacrifices that were required for the people to come into the presence of God in worship. But as soon as they walked away they were in need of cleansing once more. Year after year the sacrificial lambs were offered up so that the sins of Israel would once again be washed away. But Christ offered up a better sacrifice.

Hebrews 9:11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come… 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

The sacrifice of bulls and goats was enough to let them get close once a year, but the sacrifice of Christ brings us into the presence of God forever. The blood of Christ has eternal value. The worth of Christ is greater than anything you and I can imagine. Thousands and thousands of lambs could shed their blood and it not be equal to one drop issued from Jesus side. His blood saves. His blood redeems and its value is infinite.

The blood of Christ is enough to change our identity from slaves of sin to Sons of God.

IV. The Application of Redemption (V. 5b)

V. 5b…so that we might receive adoption as sons.

The keyword here is adoption and it means to transfer rights as a member of the family. Christ secured our redemption through the payment of His own blood and now He has applied our redemption by adopting us into the family. This is Amazing Grace.

We were once enemies of God. We were once slaves to sin. We deserved death and judgment but God’s gracious plan was to save us at the immeasurable cost of His own Son and the result is that we now have a seat at God’s table.

God’s family is a rowdy bunch and we fit right in. All the saints that have gone before us were complete failures and sinners. Oh sure, they did some good things but they were all wretched sinners just like you and me. But God loves us despite us. God loves us and wants us in the family, so His work of redemption is not complete until we receive full adoption as sons and daughters.

He could have simply paid all our debts and let us go free, but He took it a step further and said, “I want you to come home with me.” Forgiveness would be like God paying our fine in court so that we could leave as free men, but adoption is when God comes alongside us, slips his arm around our shoulder and squeezes us in as His child. And the benefits of our adoption are incredible.

V. The Enjoyment of Redemption (V. 6-7)

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

If you are a Christian, then you have a new identity in the eyes of God. This passage tells us who we were apart from Christ, who we are now as born again believers in Christ; and this passage lets us know that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each responsible for the change that has taken place in us.

If you have put your trust in Jesus, it’s because God has done a work in you to redeem you from life as a slave and He has adopted you as His beloved child. Child of God is your new identity and the world can’t understand this, but you must. You are a child of God now and you can stand with confidence, with dignity, and with courage knowing that God, your Father, is for you. If God is for you then who can be against you?

As Christians, we know that God loved us. That He sent His Son for us. That Christ redeemed us by His blood and God adopted us into His family. We get to call Him, “Abba! Father!” And God has underwritten our inheritance in eternity. Our future is as secure as is the existence of God.

Conclusion…Access to the tree of life (Rev 22:1-5)

This story of redemption has been unfolding ever since the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve were sent out from God’s presence because of their sin. Even back then God told them that one day He would send a man, a son of Eve, who would come to crush the serpent’s head and bring back the peace that was lost because of sin. One day we would be able to come into the presence of God again and have access to him and to the tree of life.

Rev 22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

The story of God’s work in redemption began long ago but it is still unfolding today. If you are a Christian, then this is your story. You may not have fully understood it but you were a slave to your sin and because of His great love for you God determined that He would not allow you to remain in slavery. He sent His Son Jesus to live for you and to die for you. Jesus chose to die in your place to secure your redemption you and to make bring you into His family.

And He is still at work in your heart through the Holy Spirit who will not abandon us nor let us utterly fail. He will guide us all the way home and there is coming a day when we will be home forever. If you are His, He loves you like a son, like a daughter and His love never fails.

This is the Work of God in Redemption.

Does this story seem too good to be true? Are the circumstances of your life so difficult that you have assumed that God doesn’t care about you or know what you are going through.

Do you feel as though God has forgotten about your circumstances? Do you think God doesn’t care about you? Do you want God to send the Spirit of His Son into your heart so that you can know Him as your Father?

Luke 11:13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

The Work of God in Creation

Series: Behold our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Genesis 1:1

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Stories play a huge role in our lives, larger in fact that many of us know. Sure, we love to read stories, we love to see our favorite stories on the big screen, we love to tell stories, and some of us even like to make up our own stories. But stories serve a much more significant role in our lives than simply to entertain us, they have a much greater significance.

Dan Taylor had this to say about the role of stories within the human experience,

Human beings are story-shaped creatures. We are born into stories, raised in stories, and live and die in stories. Whenever we have to answer a big question — who am I, why am I here, what should I do, what happens to me when I die? — we tell a story.[1]

Do stories play a role in the Christian life? Absolutely! It is largely through stories, through Biblical narrative, that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. God didn’t give us an instruction manual or a step-by-step (Idiot’s) guide to understanding your deity. When God wanted to reveal His character to us, He plunged us into a story about the time when Moses asked to see God. When He wanted to show us His power of creation, He planted our feet along the banks of the Red Sea and told the story of how He made a road right through the middle of the water.

So much of what we have learned about God has come to us through these Biblical stories that He has given to us. You see stories are God’s idea. God is the master storyteller. He has given us a story, and the opening line of His story is this,

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth…Genesis 1:1.

Transition…

Not all stories are fictional. In fact, the greatest story ever told is the story of this world and this is our story. As the people of God, we have a story, a well-rehearsed narrative preserved and passed down from one generation to the next. This morning we are going to focus on God’s role in how this story began as we study the work of God in Creation.

Sermon Focus…

I. What – What did God make? All Things…

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth…

This morning we are going to enter into this story as we sit at the feet of Moses. Moses, our story-teller, lived sometime between 1500-1300 BC and he wrote the first five books of the Bible by the inspiration of God. His main audience at the time was the Hebrew people who were just freed from slavery in Egypt.

Picture in your minds that we are crammed into a large tent in the middle of the dessert and Moses is sitting in front of us teaching us about God. The first thing He wants us to understand is that the world we live in came to be by the creation by God. He wants us to understand that everything we see in the sky at night and everything we see during the day was created and put in place by God. He wants us to understand that all the animals that we see and all the plants that we see were created by God.

He wants us to understand that we were created by God. But he also wants us to understand that God himself has always been. God creates but He wasn’t created. God makes but He wasn’t made. God simply is and He has always been. There was a time when the universe did not exist but there has never been a time when God did not exist. God is not dependent upon anything, instead, everything is dependent upon God.

In the sequence of the creation story there was a point when the universe was not, and then all of a sudden the God who was already there created the Heavens and the Earth. Out of nothing God brought into existence everything. The answer to the great question of “How did life begin?” is that God who stands outside of time and space created all that is and sustains all that is by His mighty hand.

God created all things out of nothing (time, universe, planets, stars, galaxies, solar systems, plants, animal, see Job 38-40)

Ps 33:6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.

Heb 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth…gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

God created the Spiritual Universe (Realms and beings)

Neh 9:6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

God created Adam and Eve (Gen 2:18-25)

When Moses moves from chapter 1 to chapter 2 in the story of God, the focus shifts from cosmology and biology to romance… The narrative moves from the creation of the universe to the creation of the family and we learn that the purpose behind creation was to fashion a garden home as the backdrop for a love story.

Gen 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

God is still speaking and He says something that should grab our attention. 7 times in Ch 1 God declared His creation to be good, but here in Ch 2 He declares that something is not good. The man is alone and this is not good because God made man in His image. The animals are all identified according to their kinds but mankind was made in the image of God and God exists as One God in three persons.

Within the Godhead, there is relationship and love. In order for Adam to understand his true identity as made in God’s image he must experience something of the loving relationship that God enjoys within the trinity. Yes, Adam had God to relate to but the Father wanted to give Adam a helper that was uniquely fit for him.

So here’s what God did:

V. 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

According to v. 15, Adam has been placed within the garden of Eden and he has the responsibility to work the garden and to keep/guard it. On this day his task is to name the animals and since Adam is a genius, this task will not be a difficult one. But there is something that God wants Adam to learn from this task that has nothing to do with giving creative and fitting names to the animals. God wants Adam to understand that he is alone.

20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

As Adam observed the animals he noticed that something was missing. Over time he noticed that they were pairing off and mating. He noticed that there was a male and a female and it didn’t take him long to realize that he did not have that, he was on his own. God allowed Adam to sense his need. God allows Adam to come to the realization that He was alone but God has a plan to remedy Adam’s loneliness.

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

The language here is similar to what we have already seen but refined in a way. In verse 19 we read that, “out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast…” in verse 7 we read, “then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground…” Man was made out of the dust, the animals were made out of the ground, but the woman was made out of the man.

She is unique among all of creation. She is doubly refined, fashioned from Adam’s rib. Matthew Henry commented centuries ago, the woman was “not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.” There she stands, the first woman— pure, lovely, dear to God.[2]

And when God the Father saw what He has made and He was pleased. The work of God in Creation was setting the stage for the true drama of History to unfold. I’m referring to the drama of salvation; the story of love, loss, separation and redemption. We are going to look at the work of God in redemption next week, but for now let’s continue to study the work of God in creation.

II. Who – Who made you and all things?

The Father is understood to have decreed the creation of the universe, He was the One who initiated the work of creation. The Holy Spirit is the One who completed creation by giving life/breath to all creatures. But the Son is the person of our triune God who is said to have been the active agent in creation.

John 1:1, In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

He is not part of the created order but rather He is responsible for bringing the created order into being. We call Him the agent of creation, the instrument by which the Godhead brought the material and immaterial universe into existence.

“By Him all things were created”

All that God made, He made by means of His Son. Now, what does that mean for us today? There are plenty of people today who look at the world around them and think that matter is all there is. Humanism declares that the universe is self-existent and not created. The humanist looks to the material world (nature) and says: “From you are all things, in you are all things, and all things return to you.”

God’s Word says that there is something higher than the created world, someone who is responsible for it all. The world around us is amazing but it is not ultimate. It came into being by the power of Jesus Christ. The heavens and the earth were created by Him.

That sunset that makes you stand in silent awe…He made that. The starry night sky that you could stare at for hours…He made that too. The Hubble telescope images of the galaxies that fill our universe…He made those in His first art class. The ocean that houses an entire alien world that fascinates and frightens us…Christ made all of it.

The smell of freshly mown grass, the sight of a pasture covered in Texas bluebonnets, the bright blue Texas sky as far as you can see; this and every other image of natural beauty from snow-covered mountains to the bayous in Louisiana lined with Spanish moss covered cypress trees; for by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth.

There is even a world that you cannot see…He made that too. There is a visible world and an invisible world. From invisible natural laws to spiritual entities, all of these things came into being when He commanded them to do so. Angels were created by Him. Spiritual realms were created by Him. You can’t breathe under water or accidentally float off into space because Jesus built it that way.

The heavens and the earth were made by Him. The spiritual world that we cannot see was made by Him. As their creator, His authority extends even to the power structures within those visible and invisible worlds.

Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities…

No human king/queen, wicked or otherwise, has gained power on their own. No president, pope, prime minister, or tribal chief has come to power apart from the sovereign plan and purpose of God.

7 times in this Colossians 1:15-20 we see the word “all.” All creation, all things, all the fullness…the point is to show the totality of Christ’s rule over creation. But notice how Paul wraps up verse 16:

all things were created through him and for him.

He called creation into being and it exists in its present state to bring Him glory.

III. How – But how did God create? By His Word.

Genesis 1:3  And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Genesis 1:6   And God said, "Let there be an expanse1 in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."

Genesis 1:9  And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.

The same phrase is found in verse 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, and 29. 9 times in Genesis ch 1 we see that God speaks and His command is obeyed. Every day of creation was ushered in by the Word of God. Creation Sings the Father’s Song…

(Like Aslan in C.S. Lewis’ The Magicians Nephew or Tom Bombadil in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.)

God is so immensely powerful that His voice alone brings into being things that once did not exist. Can you even begin to wrap your mind around the reality that the only barrier between you and nothingness is the command of God?

But what was the state of that creation? Again, Genesis 1 tells us that what God made was good.

Genesis 1:4  And God saw that the light was good.

Genesis 1:10  God called the dry land Earth,1 and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:12  The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

The same is said in verses 18, 21, and 25. The Lord God saw what he had made and he declared that it was good. Then finally, in verse 31 after He had made man and woman, God looked upon all that He had made and said it was very good.

Creation was fashioned by the Word of God, it is sustained by the power of God and it is evidence of the goodness of God. In the beginning all that God had made was in perfect harmony; there was no brokenness, no sin, no death, no decay, no hurt, no pain, it was good.

IV. Why – Why did God make you and all things?

God did not create the world because He was lonely, or bored, or starving for attention. He did not need to create it, because there is no need or lack in God. Creation doesn’t in any way complete Him or add to His God-ness. The creation of the universe was a totally free act of God that reveals His power and declares His glory.

Rev 4:11 “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.”

The question is often asked why would God, who is self-sustaining and perfectly holy, create a world of beings like us? Here is how Jonathon Edwards answered that question.

“Why would such an infinitely good, perfect and eternal being create? The ultimate reason that God creates, is not to remedy some lack in Himself, but to extend that perfect internal communication of the triune God’s goodness and love…The universe is an explosion of God’s glory. Perfect goodness, beauty, and love radiate from God and draw creatures to ever increasingly share in the Godhead’s joy and delight. The ultimate end of creation then is union in love between God and loving creatures.”[3]

God created all things, and mankind at the pinnacle, to both show and share His glorious and eternal love.

Conclusion…

1. This should move us to worship Christ more sincerely.

Tim Keller once told a story of how a Sunday school teacher changed his life with a simple illustration. The teacher said, "Let's assume the distance between the earth and the sun (92 million miles) was reduced to the thickness of this sheet of paper. If that is the case, then the distance between the earth and the nearest star would be a stack of papers 70 feet high. And the diameter of the galaxy would be a stack of papers 310 miles high."

The teacher then added, "Our galaxy is just a speck of dust in the universe, yet, according to Colossians 1, Jesus holds the universe together by the word of his power." Finally, the teacher asked her students, "Now, is this the kind of person you ask into your life to be your assistant?"

Jesus deserves both our silent awe and our loudest praise. He deserves our deepest devotion and our most joy-filled delight. He is Lord over all and there should be no greater pursuit in our life than to worship Him.

2. This should give us great hope for what God can do in and through our lives.

One of the things that I think we need to understand is that we serve a God who can take nothing and make something amazing and glorious. Because that is true, God can take the brokenness of our lives and by his mercy and grace and power, can turn them into something that can bring joy and beauty in the world. God can take the chaos of our lives and shape us into something good.

He can mold us in such a way that we bring happiness into the lives of others. He can take our broken marriages and turn them into strong, happy relationships that display his glory to those around us in profound ways. Our creator God is still in the business of creating, He is in the business of making us a new-creation in Christ.

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself…

God invites sinners to come to Him through faith in Jesus. He takes the guilt of our sin and covers it in full. He supplies our need of goodness and righteousness by the perfect obedience of His Son. He gives us a new heart, a new purpose, a new start, a new life and a new hope. By the power of God, we can be made new, re-created, born again to eternal life.

The work of creation continues today through the gospel of Jesus Christ and in all those who call on the name of the Lord to be saved.

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[1] http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-life-shaping-power-of-story-god-s-and-ours

[2] Ortlund Jr., Raymond C. (2016-10-13). Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel (p. 26). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

[3] George Marsden’ Biography of Jonathon Edwards quoted in The Reason for God by Tim Keller on page 218.

The Justice and Wrath of God

Series: Behold our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Romans 1

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This is the 6th week of our study titled Behold Our God where each week it has been our goal to focus on some aspect of God’s character and nature so that we can grow in our knowledge of God and in our love for God. But some may think that our topic today will be detrimental to that growth because our topic for this morning is the justice and wrath of God and there is probably no Christian doctrine that is more offensive in our culture than that of divine judgment.

Tim Keller writes in his book The Reason for God about two commonly held views on this subject.

A graduate student from Germany is quoted saying, “I doubt the existence of a judgmental God who requires blood to pacify his wrath. Someone had to die before the Christian God would pardon us. Why can’t he just forgive?”

Another person responded saying “I have an even greater problem with the doctrine of Hell. The only God that is believable to me is a God of love.”

In the eyes of many Americans today the judgment of God, the wrath of God and the eternal punishment of sinners in Hell is unthinkable and it leads them to reject the God of the Bible.

Even within the church this doctrine of divine justice and wrath is avoided, ignored or denied altogether. Most pastors would rather not talk about it, much less preach on it. Of the books that have been written on the subject in recent years the most notable has been a book that boldly denies the traditional Christian teaching on Hell and this is not a new trend.

A. W. Pink was addressing the same sentiment all the way back in the 1930’s.

It is sad indeed to find so many professing Christians who appear to regard the wrath of God as something for which they need to make an apology, or who at least wish there were no such thing. While some would not go so far as to openly admit that they consider it a blemish on the divine character, yet they are far from regarding it with delight; they like not to think about it, and they rarely hear it mentioned without a secret resentment rising up in their hearts against it. Even with those who are more sober in their judgment, not a few seem to imagine that there is a severity about the divine wrath that makes it too terrifying to form a theme for profitable contemplation. Others harbor the delusion that God’s wrath is not consistent with His goodness, and so seek to banish it from their thoughts.[1]

Transition…

The subjects of God’s justice and wrath are among those we seldom talk about or even think about, but if we are going to know God and understand how He looks upon the world, then we are going to have to understand the role that His justice and wrath play in the big picture. And just so we’re clear the subject of God’s justice and wrath can be seen as early as Genesis and it doesn’t come to an end until Revelation 20. The whole book shows us that God’s justice and wrath is not only a reality but a just response to the sin of mankind.

The flood in Genesis 6 was a display of Divine justice and wrath. The sacrificial system was about justice and wrath. The burning of Sodom and Gomorrah was about God’s justice and wrath. The Israelite wars against the pagan nations were about God’s justice and wrath.

The wrath of God is not like all the other attributes of God; wrath is a secondary attribute. It is a response to something that has occurred in creation. If there were no sin or rebellion against God, then there would be no wrath for God to unleash. But now that sin has entered creation the wrath of God is being stored up in Heaven and one day it will be unleashed.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…

Sermon Focus…

I. God’s Wrath is an Extension of Divine Justice

II. God’s Wrath will be far worse than the metaphors used to describe it

III. God’s Wrath is accounted for in the case of those who believe

I. God’s Wrath is an Extension of Divine Justice

It is a common joke that in the OT God was like a cranky old man who wanted people to get off His lawn. The flood, the destruction of Sodom, the plagues in Egypt and the conquest of Canaan have caused many people to assume that the God of the OT had a real anger problem. Then when you turn to the NT we see a different picture of mercy, grace and love that has caused many to assume that either God had undergone a radical change between the old and new Testaments, or some have even suggested that we are dealing with two separate gods.

But this misconception is born out of a faulty understanding of the fact that God rules over creation as the rightful and righteous Judge of all the earth. In fact, the whole discussion of God’s wrath is couched in the fact that as the creator of all things, our Holy God stands as Judge over all that He has made. He made it and He can do with it whatever He wants.

In Genesis 2 it was God who set forth the rules for how Adam and Eve were to interact with His creation and in Genesis 3 it was God who judged Adam, Eve and the Serpent when then broke those rules. In Noah’s day it was God who judged the sinful intentions of the thoughts of man and it was God who rendered the verdict that they were all guilty and deserved death. We could look at every stage in Israel’s history and see evidence of God’s rightful role in establishing the rule of law for His people and his role as the just judge who renders to each man what he deserves.

But God’s role as judge is not just an OT concept it continues on into the NT and it actually intensifies. The NT gospels are filled with parables, stories and references to the seriousness of the human condition as the certainty of the universal day of judgment approaches. In fact, the first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the gospel of Mark make it clear that the time has come to stop playing religious games and to get right with God before the day of Judgment comes.

“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel (Mk 1:15).”

And from this point onward Jesus doesn’t in any way back off on His teaching about the judgment to come. No one speaks more clearly or more frequently about Hell than Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus mentions Hell 3 times as a way to motivate His audience to take their sin seriously. In Luke, Jesus tells a parable about a rich man and Lazarus and the setting for the entire story is the torment and anguish that the rich man is experiencing in Hades. In the Revelation, Hell plays a prominent role as the place where God’s divine judgment is poured out on all those who rejected Christ in life including Satan and the demons that rebelled with him.

From the OT to the NT, we see the consistent theme of God’s function as the judge of all the earth and the One who has the right and authority to carry out punishment against sin. By the way, in the NT it is revealed that the One appointed to judge the living and the dead is none other than Jesus Himself.

John 5:22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Jesus is the Divine Savior sent into the world to rescue us from our sin and He is the Divinely appointed Judge who will judge even the secret thoughts of men with perfect justice.

But what gives Jesus the right to judge?

1. All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Him (Matt 28:18) -  As our creator God owns us and has the authority to do with us whatever He chooses. He has the authority to make laws and to reward us according to whether or not we keep those laws. Christ has been given authority over all creation and that makes Him the rightful lawgiver and judge over all creation.

2. He is a righteous Judge (2 Pet 4:8) – “An unjust judge, one who has no interest in seeing right triumph over wrong, is by Biblical standards a monstrosity (Packer).” But Jesus is not a cold and uncaring judge. He is filled with love and compassion, He is motivated by righteousness, justice and fairness. He shows no partiality, He hates evil and loves what is good and will execute judgment in the perfection of holiness.

3. He is wise and knows all things – There will be no jury in Heaven, a jury will not be needed. He will examine the deeds of men. He will question us and when he is done there is no one who will be able to declare that His judgment was inaccurate.

4. He will right all wrongs. – Every injustice, every act of oppression, every heinous crime, every wicked act of violence, every violation of human dignity, freedom, and nature will be perfectly charged to the guilty and their sentence will be carried out in full.

When Christ carries out the final judgment upon the world we can be certain that we will be held accountable for our deeds and the true justice that our hearts long for will be carried out. Don’t miss the fact that the Biblical view of justice means that history is moving toward a goal and that goal is the triumph of good over evil. Judgment means that evil will one day be disposed of authoritatively, decisively and finally. It also means that those for whom Christ died will enjoy the reward purchased for us by Christ himself.

II. God’s Wrath will be far worse than the metaphors used to describe it

First of all, it is important that we define God’s wrath and how it is different from our wrath. The term itself is problematic for us because when we think of wrath, rage or fierce anger we have in mind a person who has completely lost control. Wrath brings to mind the idea of wholly irrational reaction that is out of place. But that is not the picture the Bible paints of God’s wrath. Like the other attributes of God, God’s just wrath is perfect. It is the perfectly right and necessary reaction to the sin committed by man.

God’s wrath is not unusually cruel; it is not immoral in any way. It is not over-the-top, or out of proportion to our crime. The fullness of God’s wrath is in exact proportion to what each person deserves.

“God will see that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires (Jonathon Edwards).”

But how do we reconcile this with the descriptions of God’s wrath that we see in the Bible? In the OT, God’s wrath (divine punishment) is described in this way:

Nahum 1:2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.

3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers.

5 The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.

6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.

7 The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.

8 But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

In the NT, the descriptions are perhaps even more graphic and fearsome. Hell, the place where God’s wrath is poured out is described as an unquenchable fire like a furnace, a place of smoke and deep darkness, a like that burns with fire and brimstone, a place prepared for the devil and his angels, a place where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die. It is a place of eternal, conscious torment.

Oddly enough, some people will read these descriptions and use them to soften the reality of hell because they assume that the reality can’t be as horrific as the illustration. But that is not the way to handle biblical metaphors and illustrations. The illustrative force of these descriptions is seen in that the illustrations always fall short of the reality. That’s the way Biblical symbols work.

“The function of symbols is to point beyond themselves to a higher or more intense state of actuality than the symbol itself can contain.” – RC Sproul[2]

When John describes heaven to us in the Revelation we have to understand that his description falls woefully short of the reality, because there are simply no words to describe the beauty of heaven. The Beauty of Heaven is to some degree indescribable so that words don’t do it justice. The same logic applies to hell. The reality of hell will not be less intense than the biblical illustrations, it will in fact be more horrific than our words can describe.

And to make matters more serious, One of the things we learn from Jesus’ teaching is that no one seems to be prepared for Hell. In the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, the rich man believed like everyone else that his wealth and success was a sign of God’s blessing. But to his great surprise he lifts up his eyes in Hades to see Lazarus enjoying the comforts of Heaven that he was expecting for himself while he experiences the conscious torment in Hell.

In Matthew 7, Jesus refers to a group of very religious people who can give evidence of their involvement in religious works; but in the end they are left to suffer God’s wrath for their sin.

(Illus…In May of 2007 a Gallup poll revealed that virtually all of the people who believed in the existence of Heaven also believed that Heaven would be their eternal destination. No one expects that they will end up in Hell, until it is too late.

I believe that one of the reasons that Jesus describes Hell in such horrifying ways is so that we would wake up and be motivated to pursue Heaven at all costs.

Hell is real! Hell is Eternal! Hell is a place from which there is no comfort or escape, but Hell can be avoided. Jesus has come to rescue us from the guilt and power of sin; He died on the cross to pay the price for our sin so that we don’t have to pay that price ourselves. He came to rescue us from the awful reality and divine justice of Hell.

“There is glad escape from eternal condemnation in the safety of the Savior who has taken the condemnation for sins upon Himself and conquered death and Hell – yes, for even you, if you want Him.” – Jared Wilson The Storytelling God pg. 102

III. The Justice of God toward all who believe

Why did Jesus die on the cross? Was it an act of divine love? Yes, the greatest ever displayed. But that is not all. It was also an act of divine justice. The most incredible display of God’s justice and wrath took place on a hill outside Jerusalem when the Son of God was nailed to a cross and gave up His life to accomplish the Father’s plan. The cross was a display of God’s justice and wrath.

(Illus. Let me try and paint the picture that Paul uses in the book of Romans to teach us about the legal transaction that results in our being saved from the wrath of God. Paul uses legal terminology throughout the book and he does this because he is writing to the church in Rome. The city of Rome is the legal capital of the empire and the citizens of that city would have high regard for legal rhetoric/language. So Paul engages them on their level and he builds the case as it stands against us.

In chapter one he calls us to step out into the courtroom of God where God the Father sits as judge and the law reads the charges against us.

The charge against us is rebellion. We are charged with being traitors who have turned against the God of the land. Though we knew Him as God, we did not worship Him accordingly; but we suppress the truth and worship and serve the creatures rather than the creator. We worship money, success, family, leisure, status, pleasure, power and freedom; and we deny the truth about God. Our charge is that we are sinners who deserve a sinner’s wages.

Then our accuser stands to present the evidence against us and makes his case before the judge. Satan points out all of our sins over the years. He points out the times we lied, the times we were angry and broke out in rage at our friends and family, He points out the times we gossiped about those we should have loved and the times we coveted their beauty, talents and possessions. Satan would go on to talk about the times we cheated others, the times we failed to care for the poor and less fortunate.

He would dredge up the lust that ruled our private thoughts and the times we sought satisfaction in the pleasures of the world. He would point out the times we shook our fist at the Heavens and blasphemed the name of God. He would point out the times we boasted in our morality and became prideful over our self-righteousness. He would point out the times we knowingly hurt and attacked those we loved and how we had broken every one of God’s laws.

Then fully pleased with himself, he would sit down with a grin across his face.

The focus then turns to us and we have no choice but to plead guilty of all charges. The law has not wavered in its honesty and the Accuser has presented his case with skill. And under the weight of the charges and in the sight of God we have no place to stand.  We are guilty as charged and to deny this would only bring more charges to our account. So we enter our plea of guilty.

The accuser then calls for the full penalty of the law and demands the judge to order a sentence of death and judgment for our crimes. For the wages of sin is death.

But before the gavel falls an expert witness comes to the stand. He raises his hand and strides into the courtroom and He is none other than Jesus himself. He is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he comes to judge...  12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.  13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.  The armies of Heaven follow behind him in pure white robes…On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

He comes forward and declares that His death paid the price for our sin. Jesus tells the court that upon the cross he shed his blood as a ransom price for the accused and he declares that our debt has been paid in full. Jesus presents his evidence and points out that his own blood satisfies the eternal debt against us. In point of fact he turns, faces the Judge and shows the scars in his hands as evidence that our sin was nailed to the cross and we bear it no more.

There is a hush in the courtroom until the accuser opens his mouth again. Like he did with Job he turns and asks the judge to simply let us go back into the world because he knows that even though our sins have been paid for we could never be righteous enough to earn our way back into God’s presence.

But once again he is interrupted and silenced by Jesus who walks over to us and clothes us with a robe of His righteousness.  And he quotes the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10).”

Then he explains to the court that in the same way that Adam’s sin was charged to all mankind, and in the same way that the sin of all believers was credited to Christ upon the cross; the righteousness of Jesus Christ the sinless son of God has been credited to all who by faith have entered into relationship with God.

With Satan cowering, Christ standing for our defense and the Holy Spirit standing by our side as our advocate, God the Father and Judge stands to deliver his verdict…Justified. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Conclusion…

Friends, this is the picture that Paul paints for us in the book of Romans of God’s justice toward those who believe. This is the drama of our salvation that plays out in God’s Word. God’s justice has been satisfied by the person and work of Jesus and we stand in Him by faith to receive the gifts of God’s grace and the absolute assurance that we have right-standing with God.

There is not one sin ever committed that will go unpunished. Either you will endure the just wrath of God, which you deserve, in Hell for eternity; or you will take shelter in Jesus Christ who endured the wrath of God on your behalf upon the cross. The Christ who will one day judge the world is the same Christ who died to save you from that judgment.

“Run from him now and you will meet Him as judge then…but if you will seek Him as Savior now you will find Him (Packer).”

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[1] Pink, Arthur W.. The Attributes of God (pp. 87-88). Unknown. Kindle Edition.

[2] RC Sproul Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (pgs 285-6)

The Love and Patience of God

Series: Behold our God

Speaker: Jeff Sulman

Scripture: Romans 2:4

The Mercy and Grace of God

Series: Behold Our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Exodus 34:6-7

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There is something mysteriously peaceful that occurs in us when we stand on the bank of a pond or lake to admire the calm surface of the water. The mystery comes because we don’t know what is beneath the surface but the peacefulness is visible. When the waters are undisturbed it almost looks like a mirror reflecting the sky above. With just a little bit of imagination looking into those still waters is almost like looking through some mystical portal into another world that looks much like our own but eerily upside-down.

But in one second all of that peace, calm, and imagination can be erased; all you need is to throw a stone into the water and the mystery will vanish. The glassy surface is broken up and disrupted by the impact of that one small stone. At the point of impact, you will see an initial splash and then concentric circles of waves will begin to expand out from that point. Within seconds those waves will have successfully distorted the entire surface of the water and along with it the peace and calm of the scene.

When God created the heavens and the earth, the water and the dry land, the plants, animals and humanity as well; the creation was in a state of perfect peace. And all that God had made reflected His glory in the way it was intended. But into that world of peace and beauty came an enemy bent on sabotage. He deceived our first parents, leading them into open rebellion and sin against God. Their act of disobedience was the stone that was cast into the pool and the reverberation of Adam and Eve’s rebellion has spread out to cover all of us right down to this very day.

The issue at stake in the Garden was not some arbitrary fruit; the issue at stake was the right to determine what is good and evil. The essence of sin is a longing for autonomy (self-rule) which is to “choose oneself as the source of determining what is right and wrong, rather than relying on God’s Word for direction.”[1]

Up to that point it was God who declared something good and it was God who declared something evil. But Satan offered Eve the opportunity to decide for herself what was good and what was evil. Ultimately sin is putting oneself in the position of God.

And we see this same thing on full display in our world today. We live in a culture where the foundation of our thinking is that we determine what is right and good for ourselves independent of any outside force or person. And we don’t just see this at work out in the culture, we see this in the church as well.

Every time we say, I know what the Bible says, but. Every time we determine in our minds that we know better than God how something should be. This is the foundation of sin, to grasp at the seat of power which only God can sit upon. We see it where “we prefer our own wisdom to God’s wisdom, our own desires to God’s will, and our own reputation to God’s honor.”[2]

Transition…

But the million-dollar question is, “What is God going to do about the disturbance that has entered His peaceful creation?” Over the past several weeks we have been learning about the nature of God. We learned that He is eternal, infinite, self-existent, unchanging, all-knowing, all-powerful and unbound by time, space or any other constraint. But how will this awesome God respond to rebellion? In Exodus 34, God has given us a clue that helps us answer this question.

Exodus 34:6 The Lord passed before him (Moses) and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…

This morning I want us to look at the first two attributes that God mentions as He declares Himself openly for the first time to Moses. He tells us in these verses that He is a merciful and gracious God who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. I want us to spend our time this morning seeking to understand more of what it means that our God is full of mercy and grace.

Sermon Focus…

Our journey this morning is going to start with a man named Abram. God wants to show us His grace and mercy, not by defining the terms, but by revealing that He has a plan to save sinful people from the judgment they deserve. This plan begins in Genesis 12 when God comes to Abram and promises that through him all the nations of the world will be blessed.

Look with me at Genesis 12:1-3. Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.  2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.  3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

This passage marks the beginning of God’s work to save His people from their sin and it begins with this one man. But why did God choose this man? Was there something awesome in Abram that made God want to choose him? Did God look into the future and see that Abram was going to become this amazing man and decide to choose him? Did God just roll the dice and hope for the best? Why did God choose Abram?

I. God’s chose Abram as a display of His sovereign Grace.

Some would say that Grace is a NT concept and that the OT paints a much different picture of God. That argument sounds good and is somewhat effective given that you haven’t read your Bible. But just a little digging into the text of Scripture here will reveal that God’s election of Abraham was based upon His sovereign grace.

According to Gen 11:31, Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the city of Haran. This is ancient Mesopotamia, a land that History shows us to have been inhabited by people who worshiped pagan gods.

In Abram’s day, this was a thriving commercial city where the inhabitants worshiped the moon-god, Sin. In fact, Haran was the chief city and center of worship for this god.[3]

This was a mountainous region and it was thought by the people of that day that in the mountains were the abode of the gods. This helps us to understand what was going on in Babel as we see the nations wanting to build a mountain-like tower in order to establish their own deity.

This land of Ur was the country of Abram. Its people were his kindred. Their way of life was his. Joshua 24:2 tells us that Abraham along with his father and brother served other gods. IOW, Abram was a pagan worshipper of false gods. He had no righteousness to speak of, yet into this situation, God extends his gracious call.

(Illus. The Forrest: Pluralism vs. the Gospel…Let me illustrate the point this way.

Pluralism believes that all roads lead to God. A pluralist might say that the world of religion is like a vast mountain. The one true God sits at the top of the mountain while the people of the world are huddled up in various places around the bottom of the mountain.

Each group has a different name for the god at the top and a different understanding of how to get to him. Each group teaches that the way to get through to the top depends on the unique path in front of them, but the pluralism insists that all of the different groups of people are working their way toward the one god who sits at the top.

Now, this sounds reasonable and in many ways, it is an accurate representation of how the religions of the world view their journey to god. Each world religion places the responsibility upon man to raise himself up out of the brokenness of the world. The religions of the world all teach that in order to be at peace with god, man is the one that must do all the striving. 

The problem with this idea is that the Bible paints a completely different picture. The Bible enters this illustration by stating that the God at the top of the mountain, rather than sitting and waiting to be discovered, He came down and revealed himself to mankind. But there’s more! He didn’t tell them a path to follow in order to find peace with Him; in an act of unthinkable grace He gave up His life to bring those people up to the top of the mountain with Him.

And rather than leaving all the peoples of the world to fail in their various attempts to climb the mountain, God sent His people to go into the world to declare the Good News of God’s grace.

This whole place began when God came and spoke to Abram and made a covenant with him promising that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. Abram was worshipping false gods when God, by His grace came and said, “I’m going to bless you, not because you deserve it, but because I have chosen you to be the father of my people.”

This same is true for you and me today, by the way. We bring nothing to the table that we can offer to God for salvation. The only thing that we contribute to salvation is our need to be saved. But the Bible shows us that our God is a God of mercy and grace who pursues us in order to overcome the separation that stands between us. He knows that we are wretched sinners who deserve nothing but His judgment; and yet, through the work of Christ He loves us, deals with our sin and brings us into His family.

Romans 5:8 God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace.

But what is this grace?

II. The Difference between Common Grace and Saving Grace

As we study the grace of God it is important to make a distinction between what we might call Common Grace and what we know as Saving Grace. Common grace is seen in the gifts that God gives to all men such as life, health, strength and even special skills. Nations, communities, families and individuals all benefit from the common grace of God. “God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike (Matt 5:45).” But common grace does not save men from their sin because it does not change the human heart.

Saving Grace, on the other hand, is a perfection of God’s character that is exercised only toward those that He has chosen to love from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4). The elect of God do not in any way deserve this grace but rather they deserve God’s judgment for their sin. And yet, God pours out His saving grace on His people and He does so freely and because He has chosen to do so. God is under no obligation to save any man from sin, but He gives saving grace to whom He wills.

“Divine grace is the sovereign and saving favor of God exercised in the bestowment of blessings upon those who have no merit in them and for which no compensation is demanded from them.  Nay, more; it is the favor of God shown to those who not only have no positive deserts of their own, but who are thoroughly ill-deserving and Hell deserving (AW Pink).”

God’s grace is God’s favor freely given to those who do not deserve it. It is the unmerited blessing of forgiveness that is received, not by our working, but by our believing. Saving grace does not come to us by works, we don’t earn it through church activities and attendance. It is freely bestowed on all who believe.

What is the difference between religion and the gospel of Grace?

When we think about religion we are often thinking about what a man must do to be accepted by God. The religions of the world all teach their own spin on the various ways man thinks he can earn forgiveness from God. Buddhism teaches the 8-fold path, Islam teaches the 5 pillars, Hinduism teaches an endless number of paths that will lead to enlightenment and all of these are supposedly ways that man can achieve peace with God. Then Jesus came along and He didn’t teach another way for man to earn peace with God, He taught that He himself was the way to peace with God.

The gospel is not a series of steps that you can follow in order to be saved. The good news is that even though we are all sinners who deserve God’s wrath Jesus died in our place taking upon Himself the wrath that we deserved. He didn’t die for you or me because we were worthy of his sacrifice; no one is worthy of His sacrifice. The only thing that we contribute to our salvation is our sin…we have nothing to boast about.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

3 Characteristics of Saving grace

1. Grace is eternal: it was planned before the world began

2 Timothy 1:9(God) who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,

2. Grace is free: it cannot be earned, deserved or purchased (Rom 3:24)

Romans 3:24 (We) are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

3. Grace is sovereign: God exercises it toward those whom He chooses and He is under no obligation to do so.

Exodus 33:19 (God says) I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

Saving Grace is a gift that all 3 persons of the godhead are involved in.

1. God the Father is the gracious One who planned from eternity past to lavish a people with His grace.  He is the fountain of all grace.

2. Christ the Son is the channel of Grace.  Apart from the work of Christ upon the cross to atone for sinners, the grace of God would never be extended to us, because we would be required to pay the penalty for our sin to satisfy the justice of God.

3. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Grace and He bestows/applies the gift of grace to our hearts in the new birth.

Yahweh is a God of amazing grace. He is also full of mercy.

III. The Mercy of God

“O give thanks to the Lord: for His is good for His mercy endures forever (Ps 136:1).”

As we think about the Mercy of God the first question for us to ask is “How does the mercy of God differ from His grace?”

Mercy Defined and Distinguished

God’s mercy and grace are really two sides of the same coin. Mercy is that attribute of God that is seen when God withholds the punishment our sin deserves while Grace is that attribute of God that is seen when God gives to us what we do not deserve. All men everywhere deserve judgment because all men everywhere, “Have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)” We have earned God’s wrath by our sin, but His mercy is seen when He withholds His wrath from us.

Mercy is God’s readiness to relieve the suffering of His creatures.  It is that goodness of God, which is extended toward sinners as a withholding of punishment due for sin.

Mercy Illustrated in the Garden

We see the mercy of God displayed as early as Genesis 3 and it is directed toward Adam and Eve. God created them male and female. He blessed them and placed them in the Garden and He gave them a command, “You may eat the fruit of every tree in the garden save one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall not eat of it for when you eat of it you will die.”

Later as the story unfolds we are introduced to a serpent, the devil himself, who comes to deceive and to destroy. Through the serpent’s deception, Adam and Eve disobey the command of God and they eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. What you expect to happen next is for God to arrive and carry out the sentence of death, but He does not. Instead, He announces the consequences of their sin and He shows them mercy.

God holds back their sentence of death and instead He substitutes the death of another in order to cover their shame and nakedness (Gen 3:21). The first act of Divine mercy that we see in the Bible is that God did not destroy Adam & Eve in the garden when they sinned against the command of God.

Why? Why has God done this? The only explanation is that He is, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exod 34:6).”

Conclusion…

The mercy of God and the grace of God go hand in hand to display an aspect of God’s character to us. These attributes reveal God to be unique and unparalleled among the other religions of the world. These attributes are also to be seen in those who trust in Christ. We are called to share God’s mercy and grace with others; but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.  

In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-35) a man has come to Jesus asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In the exchange that followed they discussed the OT scriptures, which taught that God’s people were to love God with all their heart…but they were also to love their neighbor. The man replied, “But who exactly is my neighbor?”

Then Jesus told a story…

30 “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.

Jesus’ story featured a man who was traveling a dangerous road when the worst-case scenario unfolds. He is attacked, beaten, stripped naked and robbed, then left for dead on the side of the road. An innocent man has been brutally attacked and the question is, “Who will care enough to help him?” Surely God’s people will be generous! Surely a man of God will step up and help this dying man!

The first man to walk by was a priest, a servant of God who ministered in the temple. Surely this godly man will stop and care for the dying victim. But Jesus tells us that this priest, concerned only for himself, crosses to the other side of the road offering no help to the man in need. The second one to come by is a Levite who also shared in temple ministry but he too offers no help.

Two men have come by and seen the desperate situation and they have both refused to help, refused to love this man, refused to obey Leviticus 19 and refused to love their neighbor. How much do you have to hate someone to walk by them on the side of the road while they lay dying? How much of a coward do you have to be to avoid helping a dying man who is lying at your feet?

This is more than the lawyer bargained for when he asked his question. Jesus is not just expounding on the law of God and the requirements that are laid on God’s people, Jesus is also challenging the posture of the religious leaders of that day, a posture that this lawyer accepted for himself. This man wants to shrink the scope of responsibility that the law requires. He is looking for the minimum obedience required but Jesus refuses to soften God’s Word. Jesus has turned this conversation into a confrontation and He is now the one asking the questions.

The parable continues…

33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

Along comes an ordinary guy, not an expert in the law, not a religious leader, but a Samaritan and he alone shows compassion to the dying man. God is not concerned with our titles, our degrees, or our status: He is after humble obedience that proceeds from faith. He wants us to show love, mercy, and compassion to others because He has shown love mercy and compassion to us.

Loving one’s neighbor was not just a theological concept of debate for this man it was a command of God that he was willing to obey even at great risk and at great cost to himself. This Samaritan has done everything he could to be a neighbor to this dying man whom he had never met. He wasn’t interested in narrowing the scope of God’s commands; he was interested in loving his neighbor.

One final question, “Does this passage teach us what we must do to inherit eternal life?” Perhaps you came in here today with the honest question, “What must I do to be saved?” So does this passage answer that question? Yes! If we were able to love God perfectly (with our heart, soul, mind, and strength) and if we were able to love our neighbors perfectly then we would be righteous in God’s sight. But the problem is that no man can achieve either of these things on his own. No man by works of the law will be justified in God’s sight (Rom 3:20).

But Christ is full of mercy and grace and He has fulfilled the law on our behalf. Jesus, full of love and compassion, came to us while we lay dying on the side of the road. He came to bind up our wounds by tearing up his own rich garments. He came to anoint us with wine that cleanses and with oil that soothes. He placed us upon his back and he bore the burden of our sin. Then He paid our ransom price when he willingly endured the cross and died in our place. He has also promised that even though He has gone away He will return and settle our account once and for all.

On our own, we could never love God or man perfectly, but in Christ, we have been perfectly loved and in response, He calls us to share His love with others. This is the gospel message. This is the central truth of the Scriptures and it is true because our God is full of mercy and grace.

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[1] Bartholomew and Coheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story (Baker Acedemic, Grand Rapids, MI 2004) pp. 42-3.

[2] Tim Keller Counterfeit Gods  Pg. 154

[3][3] WyCliffe Bible Commentary pg. 16

The Being of God: Incommunicable Attributes

Series: Behold Our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Psalm 139

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Sermon Video

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There is something that almost all of us have in common and we don’t even realize it, nor do we remember when it happened. In the few moments after we were born a nurse cleaned us up, put us on a scale and recorded our weight. We were stretched out and measured from head to foot and then all of those measurements were written down. When we entered this world, everything about us was measured our whole existence at that point was quantified.

Since that point we have learned to share in that human desire to measure our world. We love to measure things. We measure how many calories are in the food we eat, how much time it will take to get from A to B, how much gas mileage our vehicles get; we measure everything. It gives us perspective and helps us to feel a sense of comfort. If we can measure something and quantify it then we have a reference point that helps us to understand that thing. Measuring our world gives us a sense of control.

There is a scene in the movie Hoosiers that bears out this point. Hoosiers is about a small town high school basketball team that is making a run for the state championship but when they arrive at the gym where the big game will be played, the team is beginning to feel overwhelmed. The gym is massive compared to the small town gyms they had been playing in all season. But the coach has a plan to help settle the boy’s nerves.

The coach pulls out a tape measure and has the boys measure the court and this exercise drives home the fact that the gymnasium may be larger but the court itself has the exact measurements as the gym back in Hickory. Jen Wilkin commented…

The scene is brilliant because it illustrates a universal truth: being able to take the measure of something is reassuring. It imparts to us a level of comfort and a sense of control.[1]

Transition…

Well, all of that comfort and control is about to be stripped away from us and that is a good thing. For all of our want to measure our lives and our environment, we are confronted with “the God of the Bible (who is) immeasurable, unquantifiable, uncontainable, unbound, utterly without limit. We cannot take the full measure of him…We cannot confine him…We cannot control him, and we can never stack up favorably beside him.”[2]

God cannot be measured but at the same time He measures us.

Read Psalm 139:1-18

Sermon Focus…

The God-ness of God is unsettling. We struggle to find words that accurately and faithfully describe Him, but that’s what we are trying to do. We try to describe God in two ways: by affirmation (eg. God is good) and by negation (eg. God has no body). The first description that we are going to look at this morning comes to us by way of negation. Mutable is an adjective that means to change, but God does not change so we describe Him as immutable and the Bible is filled with passages that affirm this aspect of God’s nature.

I. God Never Changes (Immutability)

If you’ve lived long enough then you can probably think back to a phase of your life that you aren’t so proud of. Maybe it was situated at some point in your teen years and had something to do with tight-rolled jeans and big bangs. Or maybe it involved wearing bell bottoms and going barefoot with flowers in your hair.

We can look back on those days now and laugh about it, but we are also thankful that the phase didn’t last because we changed. We grow, we mature, we learn, we make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. Wisdom comes to us along the way and as a result of countless mistakes. Change is a natural part of our human experience, but God doesn’t experience change the way we do. God is unchanging!

Here are 5 ways that God does not change:

A. His life does not change.[3]

Ps 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (This phrase occurs 6 times in the OT as a description of God’s being)

Mal 3:6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

Ps 102:25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, 27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.

B. His character does not change.

He doesn’t get cranky in the mornings or hangry in the afternoon. He is never less kind, less honest, more patient, or more gracious. His character is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Like we saw last week, God is always;

“… merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation (Exo 34:6-7).”

C. His truth does not change.

Ps 119:89 Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.

Is 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

As we read our Bibles throughout the years, our understanding may grow and hopefully our love for the Lord will grow with that; but the Word itself never changes. And that means that it is just as relevant and important today as it was 2000 years ago. It is the timeless and unchanging revelation of God to man.

D. His ways do not change. (the Gospel)

God’s holiness does not change and therefore his action toward sinful man does not change. Man has not and does not evolve from one moral state to another. We are sinners who have, do and will rebel against our unchanging Creator who continually shows us mercy day by day. He showers humanity with common grace day after day. He owes mercy to none, but still He shows grace day by day.

The consequences of our sin are born out in this life and God sends both sorrows and joys in order to cause us to let go of our idols and cling to Him instead. He has made a way for sinful man to be reconciled to Him through faith in Jesus. There is not another way for us to be saved. God has not changed His ways.

E. God’s Son does not change.

According to Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, today and forever.” He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him. He never changes and this is an incredible comfort for us who have more in life to regret than bad fashion choices. He never changes His mind when it comes to saving us and giving us eternal life, in fact, the purpose of God to save sinners through Christ was determined before the foundation of the world.

Before the arena of redemption was established (space, time and universe) our triune God had already determined to save His people. Before time began, God knew you along with everything else and He loved you enough to endure the cross to make you His blood-bought, adopted child.

God Never Changes…

II. God Knows Everything (Omniscience)

Ask any teacher at any level and they will tell you that in every classroom there exists a variety of different students. Each class comes equipped with a whiny one who never likes the subject and who always wants to do something other than what has been assigned that day. Then there’s the perfect one or what some refer to as the teacher’s pet; always the first to offer their help. But don’t forget about the lazy one, the loud one, the clean one, the picky one, the one that always brings candy, the one who never gets their work done on time but always has an excuse.

But what classroom would be complete without a know-it-all? This is the one who sits in the front and has their hand in the air before the teacher is finished asking the question. The one whose entire body extends (hands, feet, and fingers) in the direction of the teacher in the fear that he/she will miss the chance to answer the question. The one who will bark out the answer if the teacher forgets to tell the students to raise their hands. You know the one I’m talking about?

At some level, we all want to have the answers. We want to know all that we should know and all that we can know. We look up to really intelligent people especially those who have both knowledge and wisdom. But the most knowledgeable among us, the smartest person in the world offers only a faint shadow of the knowledge that God possesses. God knows everything.

When the Bible teaches us about the scope of God’s knowledge it shows us that God has perfect knowledge of the past, the present, and the future. Nothing is hidden from God. He knows everything that has occurred, everything that is occurring, everything that could occur and everything that will occur. God is never surprised.

God’s knowledge is such that He never learns. If you and I want to try and understand a subject or a concept we have to buy a book and read, or sign up for a class and attend. God’s knowledge is innate and intuitive; He needs no teacher.

The Apostle Paul began to ponder the knowledge of God, but he became overwhelmed and wrote this:

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable (incomprehensible) his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

God knows the working of the cosmos. He knows the movements of nations. He knows and effects the thoughts of kings. Not one sparrow falls without God knowing about it. He even knows the number of hairs on your head. This is where it gets personal. God knows all things but He also knows you and me. He knows us and David wrote about the extent of God’s knowledge of man in Psalm 139.

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

God knows our thoughts, He knows our plans, He knows what we will say before we say it, He knows the totality of our lives, He knew us before we were even conceived. He knows and is acquainted with the very depth of our sin and still, Jesus died in our place to save us from that sin. God’s knowledge does not make Him a know-it-all tyrant but a compassionate Redeemer.

Our Gracious God is Omniscient.

III. God is Everywhere (Omnipresence)

With the advent of modern computer technology, we have the ability to be in two places at once. We can be sitting at our computer in Dallas, TX while at the same time participating in a video chat with someone on the other side of the world. We can even bring together an entire group of people, each located in a different corner of the world but all represented on the screen in front of us like our own little version of Wonka Vision.

Maybe that doesn’t impress you. Well, did you know that there is a location in the Southwestern US where you can simultaneously be in four states at once. If you have the physical dexterity you can place one foot in Arizona, one in Utah, one hand in Colorado and one in New Mexico all at the same time. It’s called the Four Corners Monument and its actually just a small brass disc on the ground, but while it is a pretty cool thing to do it is also a testament to our spatial limitations. We can only truly be in one place at a time.

We are limited by space and time; God is not.

Ps 139:7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,”

12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

Space and time are aspects of creation that were created by God but do not bind God. He is outside of them. Also God is Spirit and does not have a body like men, which means that the laws that govern our physical bodies do not govern God. He is not hindered by anything; He has absolute freedom. In His divine immensity He can simultaneously be upholding the universe by His power, be ruling from the throne of Heaven, and be dwelling in the midst of His people.

Our God is Omnipresent.

IV. God is all Powerful (Omnipotence)

Power, even destructive power is a fascinating thing. The eruption of a volcano is so amazing that you almost don’t want to blink as you stare at the glowing power of the lava flow. Who can resist the magnificent flash of lightning on the edge of a storm? We see it light up the sky for only a brief moment but we ooh and aah every time we see it. Have you ever seen those old WWII era films of nuclear bomb testing? We know they are unimaginably destructive but when the mushroom cloud begins to form we can hardly take our eyes from the screen.

Just yesterday I saw a dear friend get married and this friend knows a thing or two about terrible power, he’s a storm chaser. He spends a significant part of his time each year tracking, chasing, recording and looking on in wonder as storm cells produce massive tornados across our region. I have no desire to be as close to a tornado as Zachary but I understand the awe and wonder that it strikes in my heart as I look on from a safe distance.

The power of these things fills us with awe, but all of them are mere child’s play compared to the power of God. God is omnipotent (all-powerful) which means that God is able to do anything that is consistent with His nature and purpose. As the Baptist Catechism states: Can God do all things? Yes, He can do all His Holy will.

Job declared at the end of His encounter with God:

Job 42:2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Psalm 115:3 says that our God is in the Heavens; He does all that He pleases.

There is no limit to God’s power. The omnipotence of God reveals nothing less than the God-ness of God, there is nothing that He cannot do. Our God is immutable, Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent.

What happens in your heart and mind when you ponder these attributes of God? What do these things teach us and how should we respond to these things? Once again Jen Wilkin helps us process what these things mean.

1. They describe how God is not like us.

They are true of him and no other. His immeasurability, incomprehensibility, self-existence, self-sufficiency, eternality, immutability, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and sovereignty should elicit from us, “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Ex. 15:11)

2. They know no limits.

Everything that is true about God’s nature and character is infinitely true. He is infinitely creative, infinitely sustaining, unlimited by time. God knows no limits on his presence, knowledge, power, and authority.

3. They show us our limits.

When we contemplate God’s limitlessness, we see our own limits more clearly. We are better able to recognize where we are attempting to play God in a relationship or circumstance. Humbled by comparison, we must reorient our hearts toward submission. [4]

Conclusion…

The God-ness of God is awesome and unsettling, but I think that is a good thing. It’s good because it lets us know that we aren’t the most important being in the universe…God is.

(Illus…In Luke 8:22-25 the disciples of Jesus were shaken up in the right way. They were finally in a boat again and back in their element. Not all of them, but a great number of them are fishermen by trade which means that they are somewhat out of their element studying theology, but perfectly at home in the boat. But this casual boat ride is about to get very uncomfortable.

Now there’s a bit of an ironic twist to this story because if you are out on the water in a windstorm you would want men like this at the helm. Most of these men have spent their whole life not just on the water but on this lake. If anyone is going to know what to do it’s these guys, but they are wise enough to know when they are helpless. There is nothing they can do; they are powerless against this storm. This is a tense and frightening scene.

Now, we often think of nature as a force unto itself, but the Bible makes it clear that God is the force behind all of the creation. The wind and sea obey His command because He made them. He speaks and nature does His bidding. One of the lessons that the disciples have to learn is that Jesus is not just a man who is subject to weariness, he is also God who commands the wind and sea, and they obey His command.

Jesus wakes up and rebukes the storm and everything stops. Jesus calms the storm and brings peace with a word. The term rebuke here is the same word that Luke has used in other miracle stories. In 4:35 he wrote that Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and it obeyed His command. In Luke 4:39 he wrote that Jesus rebuked a fever and it too obeyed His command. And here in 8:24 Jesus rebuked the wind and seas and they obeyed His command. There is no hostile force in this universe that cannot be rebuked by Jesus. His authority over creation is ultimate.

Jesus got up and told the wind to stop and it stopped. He turned to the waves and told them to be calm and they got calm. It’s as if the wind and the waves know the sound of His voice…and they do. The Divine Power that brought the waters into existence in Genesis 1 called out to those waters again in Luke 8, and they recognized the One who is speaking to them and they obeyed. Jesus calmed the storm.

And the disciples can’t help but be a little afraid because of what they’ve seen Jesus do, and you can’t really blame them. Fear is the normal response to God being at work visibly in your life. But it’s not the type of fear that makes us run from God it’s the kind of fear that makes us run to Him. Besides, where else can we go? What good is it to run away from the One who commands the wind and the sea?

What these men learned on that day is the same thing that I hope we learn today, that we are not omnipotent. We are not God. We do not know all things. We do not possess God’s power. We do not have the ability to be in more than one place at a time. We are not God, but praise Jesus that our God is for us.

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[1] Wilkin, Jen. None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That's a Good Thing) (p. 18). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

[2] Wilkin, pg 18.

[3] The following list was adapted from J.I. Packer’s chapter titled God unchanging in the book Knowing God.

[4] https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-gods-incommunicable-attributes/

The Being of God

Series: Behold Our God

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Exodus 33:13-34:9

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Sermon Video

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“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most crucial fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like…Always the most revealing thing about us is our idea of God.”[1]

All humans have a deep inner sense that God exists. The reality of God is written on our hearts and it is written in the stars. The heavens declare the glory of God, what can be known about God is plain to us through the things that God has made, our conscience reveals the presence and justice of God; but one of the results of sin entering the world is that instead of embracing that inner sense of God we reject it. Rather than honoring God we reject Him and we worship and serve ourselves.

In some cases, man’s rejection of that inner sense of God becomes complete and the result is the denial of God altogether. “The fool has said in his heart there is no God (Psalm 14:1).” The Psalmist calls this person a fool in part because in order to arrive at his/her atheistic conclusion they must first deny one of the strongest universal impulses of humanity, which is that there is a God and in some way we are answerable to Him.

But there is a huge gap between that inner sense of God and actually knowing the one true God. The spirit of our own culture is NOT one that tends to promote great thoughts about God. Even in the church there is a tendency for us to have great thoughts about man but not great thoughts about God. And one of the results is that our concept of God is not shaped by the Bible but is shaped by our own human instincts. Like the Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai, we have a tendency to re-create God in our own image.

“I can believe in a God of love but not a God who judges people for their mistakes.”

“I can’t believe in a God who allows suffering to take place in the world.”

“If there is a God, surely He must allow more than one way for people to come to Him.”

But there is one true God and we can know Him, in fact He wants us to know Him. Jesus prayed to his Father, “This is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). God has revealed Himself to us in His Word, the Bible. He wants us to know who He is and what He is like. He wants us to understand why He does things and what it means for us. He wants us to know Him as He is and to love Him not based on what we feel but on what we know is true of our God.

We can’t know everything there is to know about God but we can know what He has revealed to us and that is the purpose of this study. We want to gather around the Word so that we can learn more about our God. We want to know what He is like and as we learn we want to let the knowledge of God shape our faith. We want to let the truth about Him sink into our minds, our hearts and lives as we Behold Our God.

Transition…

To kick off this series we are going to be in Exodus 34 where we see one of the most important passages in all the Bible. In this passage, we are going to see God reveal Himself to Moses in a way that He had never been revealed before. 

No one knew God the way Moses knew God. In Exo 33:11 we read that God would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. The first five books of the OT were written by Moses, which means that God revealed to him the history of creation and Moses wrote it down. God also appeared to Moses and spoke to him from the burning bush. Moses had a front row seat to the wonders that God performed in Egypt including the parting of the Red Sea. Moses spent more than a month with God on Mt. Sinai receiving God’s Word.

But after all of this Moses wanted to know more of God. He wanted to see God in a way he had never seen Him before.

33:18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

34 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3 No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. 5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Sermon Focus…

Now, before we get to this passage I want us to back up just a little bit and try to understand what Moses is asking for here. Based on what Moses already knows about God and what He has seen God do, it seems odd that he is asking to see God’s glory. So, let’s back up and get a little background on the nature of God that Moses has already come to know.

I. God was…

The Bible does not begin by giving us a basic introduction to God as the main character of the book. There is no philosophical explanation for His existence nor is there a theological description of his nature. Instead the Bible assumes the existence of God and operates from page one with the understanding that God existed before the beginning of all things. God exists on His own, independent of everything, outside of space and time, with a wisdom, power and authority that is unmatched. God is eternal!

Eternity is a perfect possession of life without any variation; it comprehends itself in all years, all ages, all periods of ages; it never begins; it endures...and eternity belongs to God…it is the duration of His essence (Charnock).[2]

When the Bible introduces us to God it does so by showing us what God did to bring the universe into existence, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1).” When little children begin to ask big questions they will often ask where things came from and as good parents we will try to answer them in a way that they can understand. The Baptist Catechism begins with this question:

Who made you? – Answer: God made me.

What else did God make? – Answer: God made all things.

And many of our children threw in this question next, “Who made God?” and that is when many of you simply say, “Maybe you should go ask your mother or pastor Justin.” But this is a great question and it is the natural one. Even at a young age, we understand the principle of cause and effect. If something exists, it is because someone made it. But when we trace the chain of cause and effect all the way back to the beginning we come to God and there the chain ends.

God creates but He wasn’t created. God makes but He wasn’t made. God simply is and He has always been. There was a time when the universe did not exist but there has never been a time when God did not exist.

He is the uncaused cause of all things. He is the unmade maker of the universe. He doesn’t exist within time and space, time and space exist because of Him. He is not dependent upon created things, instead, all created things are dependent upon Him. He is God and there is no other, He is God and there is none like Him. His power is so great that He can merely say a word and an entire universe springs into being.

He exists forever and he is always the same. He does not grow older. He does not gain new powers or lose the ones He has. He does not mature or develop. He does not get stronger, or weaker, or wiser as time goes by. (J.I. Packer, Knowing God pg. 77)

God is eternal in His essence and this poses a problem for us because we are finite. Our human reasoning is therefore bound to finite categories and limitations. What this means is that if we are to gain a true understanding of the eternal God, then He is going to have to reveal Himself to us. We aren’t capable of arriving at an accurate understanding of an infinite and holy God without His help. God must show us His glory!

That’s where the Bible comes in and that’s where Moses comes in. God had revealed His eternality to Moses but that is not all that God showed him. Moses learned that God was but he is also about to learn that God is.

II. God is…

Now let’s think back and remember that Moses is not just in the story but He is the one writing the story. God chose to reveal Himself to Moses and in the process, He revealed to Moses how He made the world. He revealed to Moses the history of creation and the promises that He made to Adam, to Noah, as well as to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Moses wrote the book of Genesis and that means that at some level Moses had to try and comprehend the eternal being of God. But that wasn’t the first time Moses had to wrestle with the being of God. Moses’ wrestling with the being of God began in Exodus 3 when Moses was tending his sheep and he saw a strange bush.

The bush was engulfed in fire but the fire did not consume the bush. The fire did not need fuel to burn, it burned all by itself. It was a pure and holy fire that was not dependent upon an energy source to give it life. The fire was like God, not dependent upon other energy sources but having its energy source in itself. The fire was self-sustaining, self-sufficient…like God.

There before that unearthly fire, God told Moses that he would go to Egypt and lead the Hebrew people of out slavery. God would be with Him but Moses was to go to the people of Israel and tell them that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had sent him to lead them to freedom. Moses responded by saying, “What if I get there and the people of Israel say to me ‘What is the name of this God?’ What should I tell them is Your name?”

God responded by saying, “I AM that I AM.” Then he said, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ I AM is the personal name of God and in the Hebrew, it is pronounced (‘ehyeh) but we pronounce it Yahweh. This is the most common name for God used in the Bible and it occurs over 6,000 times but when we see it in Scripture we see is as LORD. But how do we understand this name? What does this name mean and what does it tell us about God?

Well, we know already from the beginning of the book of Genesis that God is eternal in the sense that He has always been, but this name helps expand our understanding by showing us that not only has God always been but God will always be. For God there is no past or future, there is only present. Time begins and ends, but God is outside of time and has no beginning or end, therefore He simply is.

“God is what He always was and He is what He will always be…”

God was and out of nothing He brought everything into being. God is and His being is not dependent upon anything. God will always be, from everlasting to everlasting He is God. That is His essence. But there is so much more for us to learn about God.

III. God is Lord

All of the things we have talked about so far are already known to Moses. God had already shown these things to him, but he knows there is more to God than this and he pleads with God to show him more. Moses knows that God is glorious but He wants to see God’s glory with his own eyes.

Exo 33:18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”

Now, this request is fascinating to me especially coming from Moses and especially coming at this point. This is the second time God met with Moses on Mt. Sinai. The first time ended when Moses came down the mountain to find that the people had exchanged the glory of God for the work of their own hands.

But this request also came at the end of Moses spending 40 days with God in the fire…let me explain…

It had taken the people of Israel 3 months to reach the wilderness of Sinai after God delivered them from their slavery in Egypt and at the end of those 3 months, they had reached the foot of a mountain. After they arrived and had set up their camp, God spoke out of the mountain and called for Moses to come up to Him so that He could meet with God and receive the words of the covenant that God was making with the people. God was going to come down from Heaven and rest upon the mountain in a thick cloud and he would speak to Moses so that the people could hear Him and believe.

They needed to see and hear this because along they were already grumbling and complaining. They did not trust God to protect them at the Red Sea, they grumbled for food in the wilderness, but God was going to get their attention in a way that He never had.

On the morning of the 3rd day, they woke up to thunder and lightning and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp saw, heard and trembled. When the people looked they saw the mountain wrapped in fire and covered in smoke, and then God spoke out of the fire and called for Moses to come up and he went. God gave Moses the 10 commandments, He gave him the laws that would govern the people, He gave him instructions for the tabernacle and the sacrifices; all the words of the covenant were given in the 40 days that Moses spent in the fire with God.

But 40 days is a long time to be without a leader, so the people decided it was time to worship their Redeemer in their own way. They fashioned a calf out of gold and they said, “Behold, this is the god who brought us out of Egypt.” They bowed before the idol, they laid offerings before it, and they worshiped around it. God and Moses were both furious. Moses smashed the tablets when he came down and God spoke about destroying them all and starting over with Moses alone, but in the end, the people were spared and God showed them mercy.

Now, this is well-known Biblical history which means that many of us just accept it without asking some of the critical questions that we should, such as, “What kind of God would forgive His people after all the grumbling, rebellion, and idolatry? How could He forgive them after all that He had done for them?

Surely in His anger, He should simply consume them or at the very least cause He should refuse to bless them. My instinct is that God should simply wash His hands of these people because that is what I would do in such a situation. Think of all that God had done for them with the plagues, delivering them from slavery, making them rich as they left Egypt, and now they are bowing down to a golden cow!

They had seen God’s hand of power in Egypt, they had seen Him command the water, the wind, the weather, the insects and other creatures. They had seen God bring death to every household in Egypt in one single moment. They had seen God protect them against Pharoah’s army, they had seen Him part the sea for them and now they are content to worship a golden cow.

How could He still love them? How could He still care about them and want to bless them? How could He still want to be their God and want them to be His people? What kind of God is this? And I think that is the question on Moses’ mind. Nobody knows God the way Moses knows God but even here we see Moses say wait a minute, “I want to see the real you. I want to know what you are truly like. So he says to God…

Exo 33:18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory. V. 19 And God said, “I will…

God knows what Moses is asking for. Moses wants to actually see God. He doesn’t just want to hear God’s voice, He doesn’t just want to see the burning bush, He doesn’t just want to be engulfed in God’s consuming fire; He wants to see God’s true essence. He wants to behold God and when the time came this is what happened.

Ex 34:6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Conclusion…

Moses knew more of God than any other man on earth and yet He wanted more. At one-point God told Moses to leave Sinai and take the people into the Promised Land. God even said that He would bless them as they went. God said that He would even send an angel to go before them and drive out their enemies. God would make all this happen, but He wouldn’t go up with the people Himself.

And Moses said no! He didn’t just want God’s blessings, he wanted God. He didn’t want the fame and power of leading a nation of people, he wanted God. Moses knew great things about God and he had seen God do amazing things with his own eyes; but the deep longing of his heart was to see God himself and to be in His presence.

The Israelites were content with God’s blessings. They would be happy if God would simply give them something to eat. They had no problems erecting an idol and calling that their god. They weren’t interested in knowing God they just wanted His stuff.

Are we like Moses wanting to see more of God’s glory or are we like Israel content to create God in our own image? When confronted with the truth about the God of the Bible will we reject Him for the god of our own making or will we like Moses bow down to the ground and worship Him.

God wants us to know Him and has even made it possible for us to know Him forever. In an unfathomable act of mercy, God gave His Son to die for us so that our sin could be forgiven and we could be brought into an eternal relationship with God as sons, daughters and friends.

I want to know more about this God. I want to know Him and I pray that you do as well.

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[1] –A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: HarperCollins, 1961), 1.

[2] Beeke and Jones A Puritan Theology  (pg. 62)