Fundamentals of our Faith Part 4
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Candy Drive (vols for Trunk or Treat)
Family Day 22nd
Intro:
Intro:
The other day we were at the house and Dorie had stepped outside with the baby and I was in a different room than the girls and something happened and the girls, not knowing mom had stepped outside began to call for her. They called and called and called. You know how kids get when they start calling for mom. And so, I decided, like any good father would, to imitate Dorie’s voice and answer them. So, in my highest pitch and with the most country accent I could muster I called back to them. And immediately they knew it wasn’t Dorie. And so I responded, yes it was Dorie. And we are having an argument back and forth in the house until they come into the room I was in and catch me red handed.
The reason that they ultimately knew that it wasn’t Dorie, aside from my terrible impersonation of her, was because they know Dorie
Like know her, know her.
They’ve spent most of their lives with her, they’ve heard her voice thousands of times
They weren’t fooled because they know what she sounds like and when they came in the room they could look at me and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I look nothing like Dorie
They know who isn’t Dorie because they know who Dorie is.
In the same way, God has, in His grace I will add, revealed Himself to us.
Right, we talked about that a few weeks ago
How He does that through general revelation and special revelation
But, in that revelation to us, we see the character of God, or the attributes of God
And the most obvious reason God would reveal Himself to us
Is so that, just like my kids know their mom, we would know the Lord
And in that knowledge we would love Him greater.
Now, there’s 2 sides to this
First, We will never fully understand God
3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.
5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
So, there’s this inability for the human mind to fully comprehend any one topic of God
Forget completely understanding God exhaustively,
Scripture says you aren’t going to fully understand His greatness, His understanding, wisdom, knowledge, judgments, path.
Like there’s nothing that you will understand of God fully
But, it doesn’t mean you can’t understand something of Him
And that you can’t understand Him truthfully
My wife and I have been on this big crumbl kick. If you don’t know what crumbl is, essentially its like gourmet cookies that are overpriced and 1,000 calories a pop. And each and every week they drop a new lineup of cookies. So every week there’s like 6 or 7 new cookies. And so we go on and we look at what they have and if we aren’t going to tally that week we make sure we do and we grab some of the ones that sound good. Now, my wife and I are also trying to get back in shape. Right, like new baby throws a wrench in all of that so we are back in the swing and so you cant just go about your day as you normally would and also throw 4-6 1,000 calorie cookies in there and expect to lose weight. So, we split the cookies up. She will take a few bites here and there, I’ll take a few more bites than she takes, the girls will sometimes eat some. And so you don’t get the whole thing, but you at least get a little something. And when something is that good, a little bit is better than nothing at all.
And we may love crumbl, and we do.
And we may think that it is great!
But Scripture says that God’s greatness is so great that no one can even fathom it.
Imagine how great that must be
And so, although we may not be able to fully understand the greatness of God, we can understand some of it, and some of it is far better than none
So that’s what we are going to do this morning.
Today I’m gonna begin to talk about the attributes of God
Who God is. His character. How He is revealed to us throughout Scripture.
pray
23 This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, 24 but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
So, Scripture tells us, the delight of the Lord is not found in our own wisdom, abilities, or possessions
But in our ability to know God
And it tells us this because it’s possible
And it’s possible because Scripture is revealing God to us on every page.
It is informing us, and showing us who God is.
When we look at the full scope of God’s Word we see the attributes of God
These attributes are broken up into 2 categories.
Incommunicable
Communicable
The easiest way to think about this is attributes that are transmittable and non-transmittable
So when we talk about the incommunicable attributes of God
we are talking about the attributes that are non-transmittable
The attributes that are only true of God and of nothing and no one else
When we talk about Communicable attributes we are talking about
Attributes that are transmittable
Attributes that we can acquire as well, although not perfectly like God, to some degree
Today, I want to focus on the Incommunicable attributes and next week we will circle back around and talk about the communicable
So, I want to just walk us through a list of these attributes giving a brief explanation of each one and then we will wrap up this morning talking about moving it from head to heart as we have been
So remember, these attributes are only true of God
The incommunicable attributes of God
#1 infinite
Meaning that God exists and acts beyond and outside of all limitations of time and space
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
So, He simultaneously is, was, and is to come. He exists outside of time.
He is not limited by it
27 “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!
He cannot solely dwell on earth or event the highest of heavens according to Scripture.
He cannot be contained
He exists outside of space
He is infinite
#2 Eternal
For God to be infinite means He exists outside of time and space
For God to be eternal means He has no beginning or end.
He is eternal past and future, He has always been and will always be
15 For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
#3 Self-existent (Aseity)
This is the idea that God depends on nothing for His existence beyond Himself. He lacks nothing and is not in need of anything ever.
So, when we talked about creation as seen in Genesis, we talked about how God did not create out of a lacking of but rather out of an abundance of Himself
So, it’s not as if God needed creation or us for that matter
but rather, out of an abundance of Himself He creates.
26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
#4 Self-sufficient
So, a little different from self-existence, this is the idea that God is able to act or bring about His will without any help.
In other words, where self existence would say that God does not lack, self-sufficiency would say God does not depend
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
#5 Immutable - unchanging
God never changes. He stays the same in nature, will, and character.
He doesn’t change and He can’t change
25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. 27 But you remain the same, and your years will never end.
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
#6 Omniscient
God knows all or is all knowing
He contains perfect knowledge, not partial, of all things past, present, and future
1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
16 Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge?
#7 Omnipotent
He is all powerful
He is able to do anything He decides to do with or without use of a source outside of Himself
2 “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
27 “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
#8 Omnipresent
God is in all places, at all times, in the totality of His character
3 The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
23 “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord, “and not a God far away? 24 Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord.
#9 Sovereign
God is completely and supremely over all
There is nothing or no one that can and has escaped His control and plan
He is never caught off guard
35 All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”
24 The Lord Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.
These are the incommunicable attributes of God
The attributes that only He possesses and perfectly possesses
He is limitless, grand, enough, sufficient, eternal, unchanging, all knowing, all powerful, ever present, and in complete control.
And you and I are not
So, now the question is, how does these truth of God character, how do the incommunicable attributes of God help us love God greater?
How do we now move from head to heart?
First, the Bible has given us knowledge of God so that we can know Him
The attributes of God are giving us insight into the God we are called to worship
Imagine if we knew nothing of God and we simply must guess at what He is like
The certainty of His character aids in the stability of our faith.
Who God is and what He has done shapes and forms the believer in every way.
So, this is knowledge of God that should move us to relationship with God
When our eyes are opened to the truth of God, it should change everything about us
Second, it should show us, most explicitly, that He and He alone is worthy of our worship
It should be very difficult to go through a list like this and not want to just worship king Jesus
This knowledge should show us that there is no one like Him
And lastly, these attributes teach us how to worship Him rightly.
As we spend next week talking through the communicable attributes, so those that we can participate in, we should be learning how to live and adore and worship the Lord rightly.
My girls don’t just know their mom, they don’t just want her, and they don’t just need her.
They love her!
And they love her because #1 she is their mom and birthed them
#2 they know how she is and who she is
She has spent their entire lives proving to them that she deserves to be loved
And lastly, they love her because she loves them
In the same way, when we realize all that we have and are is because of the Lord
When we understand all of the things that He has done for us
And when we understand how unloveable we truly are and yet He loves us still
How could we not worship Him?
How could this not move us to love Him deeper?
In other words...
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD TEACH US WHO WE WORSHIP, WHY WE WORSHIP, AND HOW TO WORSHIP
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD TEACH US WHO WE WORSHIP, WHY WE WORSHIP, AND HOW TO WORSHIP
So that is my prayer for us
That God, through the power of His Holy Spirit, would grant us eyes to see the greatness of His nature so that we may respond and live the lives He predestined us to live
That we worship in spirit and truth
That we surrender fully to King of kings and Lord of Lords
That we search Him and find Him
That we never give up in our pursuit to know Him and be like Him
And that we may dwell with the Lord forever and ever amen
pray