As I mentioned, the email, as Mike has just brought up, this is not because of low giving. Quite the opposite is actually the case. It's just a resumption of something that came to an end. temporarily during the COVID time and we're finally kind of getting back going again. And just reminding you that, as I mentioned in the email, offering of our goods has been part of our, a part of worship going all the way back to the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 26. then bringing the tithe, bringing it before the Lord. And then that practice is continued in the New Covenant. I gave a couple verses in the email, 1 Corinthians 16, 2 Corinthians 9. And so we're just encouraging people as an act of worship. to give. And so, you know, one thing just to be thinking about in that part of the worship service as it's going around is, you know, the giving of our funds is a sort of a token of the whole of ourselves. And this is something we always strove to say even when we had suspended this practice for a time. Just remembering that, like, what we're doing in that aspect of the service, that part of the service, we're remembering that our whole selves are being offered to the Lord. So just think about that, you know, when the offertory is being played and the plates are going around. This is the moment you remember, God, I offer my whole self to you. This little, you know, token of the funds that you've given to me, it's a picture of the whole being yours, right? All my funds are yours, all that I am, all my thoughts, all my energy, all my strength, all my time, it's all yours. And I'm laying it on the altar this morning just like I did when I first became a Christian. That's a really good thing for us to do every week, don't you think? Right? So that's another reason for why this is an important thing. Any questions about that? For many of you, it would be an old, familiar thing from many years prior. Okay, well, let's now turn to a Sunday School lesson that when I was planning this course, I was really looking forward to. I've been really, really looking forward to this one. I think you know that one of the things that really gets me excited about the Bible is the connections. The fact that the Bible is written by one God, using many people, and as a result of it being one unified book, the whole Bible, there are these fascinating connections that run through the whole Maybe some of you have seen the picture in my office. It's like got all these arcs and The arcs all of them correspond to a connection between one text and another and the end result of the pictures is saying like whoa the Bible is massive massively intertextual massively interwoven and I'll never forget once being a professor at Wheaton, and this young person came in during my office hours, and he was asking about how to do this assignment, and part of my assignment was, as you're studying this passage, I want you to think about the connections. And he's like, I just don't know how to find those connections. I was like, well, you got your Bible with you, open your Bible. And actually, I was opening my Bible and I was going through it, I was showing him, like, yeah, and then this passage connects to this one and this one, and he's like, wait a second, your Bible has a list of the connections in it? I'm like, yeah, your Bible does too. I'm just teaching him about the cross-reference system that most Bibles have. So you can do this too. Like I said at the beginning of this course, this is not one of those don't try this at home classes. This is try this at home. So before we get into the connections with Exodus 34, 6, and 7, let's just reread it. This great character description of God in the Bible. As I mentioned to you before, I believe this is one of the 10 most important passages in the entire Bible. Moses has prayed, Lord, show me your glory. God says, I'm going to cause my glory to pass before you and I will proclaim my name to you. So we have Exodus 34, six. The Lord passed before him, before Moses, and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, remember Yahweh, the divine name, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 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 and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. And just to review from last time, we talked about there are two things about God being balanced here, his grace, and his justice, right? He's the gracious and compassionate God, but then it says he by no means will clear the guilty, right? And so both are true. And we see how both are true in the book of Exodus. That was the focus last time. Once we unpacked what these words meant, we then looked at the book of Exodus and we're like, wow, God is the God of great steadfast love. The whole reason why the Exodus happened, remember Exodus 2? He remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What's the reason that they even made it to Sinai after all their complaining in the wilderness? Well, if you were there on Good Friday, you remember. His mercy. They were complaining, and yet God stood in their place, received the judgment in their place. So there's his justice, right? And yet, out from the rod striking the rock, waters of life come forth. God gives grace in the wilderness. And then, there was the golden calf. And we're thinking to ourselves, oh no. Moses has broken the tablets. The covenant has already been broken. All bets are off. And yet what happens? God is merciful. And yes, he did send a plague, he sent justice upon especially those who perpetrated this crime of the calf, but he also spared the people and said he would still go with them. And so, as we'll see in the last couple weeks that we'll have, the construction will go on. and the tabernacle will be built, and Exodus 40, God will come and dwell with his people. When he dwells in Exodus 40, the glory cloud comes down and dwells in the tabernacle, we should be thinking to ourselves, compassionate and gracious, right? Like, wow, God, after all Israel's sin, all the way through the book of Exodus, he's still dwelling with them, right? What I wanna do today is now just sort of expand our purview and say, okay, God is gracious and he is just in the book of Exodus. Now let's see how that character description ripples outward into the rest of the Bible. And if you have your handout, I just have basically the scripture references on there that we'll be looking at. This was such an aha moment for me. When I was looking at these words here and starting to search for them and starting to realize that at every crucial turning point in Israel's story, these words appear. Pretty awesome stuff. So let's look. at Numbers chapter 14. Numbers chapter 14. Remember that after Sinai, well, after the events of Exodus, there's more laws that God gives at Sinai, that's the book of Leviticus, and then there's more things at the beginning of Numbers, and then, about midway through Numbers, they start again on their wandering, not their wandering really, it's their direct path up to the promised land, because after all, God has promised to them the promised land. And so they've gotten out of Egypt, they've stopped at Sinai for this covenant making, and then they're on their way to the promised land to get the promises that God had promised to them, the promised land, and yet, They refuse, they refuse the land, because the spies go in, they say, oh no, there's really big giants in the land and heavily fortified fortresses, and they say, we're not going. And so, God says, verse 11, Numbers 14, verse 11, how long will these people despise me? How long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them. And again, he says to Moses, as he had said back at Exodus 32, I'll make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. And then Moses prays. And he says, no, don't do it, then the nations will hear this. And then he says, verse 15, now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say it's because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them, that he has now killed them in the wilderness. And now please let the power of the Lord be great, as you have promised, saying, The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression. But he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation. Now look at this, verse 19. Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. So how is Moses using the glorious description of God in prayer? How is Moses using God's glorious self-description in prayer? Yeah. He's using God's words and reminding God of what he said, but I almost feel like that God is really using Moses And not the other way around. I don't think Moses would, maybe he would, but how many of us would pray this naturally? Especially when you see Moses outburst of anger, but I feel like it's the spirit of God working in him in each of these cases to play Moses like an instrument and say the right prayer and pray what God really wants to do. He's the one who loves Israel. Absolutely. Beautifully said. And if you just would want to elaborate briefly, like, I think you're right. He is using Moses. Like, how is he using Moses here? Like, what is he bringing out about, I guess, what, in what way is he using Moses to bring out who he is? Any thoughts on that? Yeah, his compassion. Yeah, and what's at stake here, right? Israel, again, has grievously sinned. And God says earlier, how long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs, right? There have been so many signs by this point. So many miracles. I mean, all the 10 plagues. all the water and manna and quail in the wilderness, the fire coming down on Sinai. I mean, I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out. And they're still now, they won't believe. And yet, what does God do when they sin? He doesn't destroy them, even now. Why? Because he is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. And so Moses, he brings out this aspect of who God is and then he claims that God would be that, yeah. And I'm just impressed with how patient of a teacher God is with his people. And even through this terrible situation of Israel sinning again, yet again he's deepening Moses' understanding and by that, ours of his name. What does it mean to be slow to anger and compassionate? And what is this God, who is this God that loves us as deeply as he does? I liked what you said, Mike, that was really neat how he was playing Moses. Yeah, like an instrument. I think essentially too, Moses is being used here to proclaim this, when we go back to what we just read, that God will by no means clear the guilty. He is proclaiming also that he is God of all and that this is a place men will have to come and reckon with him in who he is. And what he has offered them in life, if they deny it, they'll face judgment. I mean, it's a proclamation of who he is to the witnessing nations around that Moses is saying, these people will say this about you if you do this, if you destroy Israel. Yeah, excellent. So a key thing that's at stake here that Moses brings out is God's reputation among the nations. And he's saying, God, show yourself glorious among the nations. as the compassionate God, the God who does not destroy his people, but actually shows his power. by relenting. And yeah, I think there's a greater demonstration of power here in God's grace. Even just thinking about when Jesus says, how many times should I forgive my neighbor? Or Peter says to Jesus, how many times should I forgive my neighbor? And Jesus says, 70 times seven. God's done that, right? And right here in the exodus, in the wandering, in the wilderness. So are you seeing the decisive way in which God's character, it's the turning point of this passage. What's going to happen to Israel in the face of their sin all depends on what kind of God God is. Is he the capricious God, like the gods of the nations? Is he like us when we get really angry? No, he's not like that. He is the compassionate and gracious God. And I just wanna point out as well, you were mentioning, Mike, we don't naturally pray like this, the way Moses says. Clearly the Spirit of God is at work in Moses here. The Spirit of God is at work in you all as well. And I encourage you to invoke this aspect of who God is in your prayers. Like this is a great example of how we pray God's word back to him, right? Like God, you said you are the compassionate and gracious God. Therefore, whatever it is we're asking you, have mercy on my family member who doesn't know you, et cetera. There's other examples we could give of God's patience at work in history. This is one of the... Really special little passages tucked away in 2 Kings. I'll just read this briefly. Remember how in the book of Kings, after Solomon, there's two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom, called Israel, and then the Southern Kingdom, called Judah. Northern Kingdom is much more wicked than the Southern Kingdom, and yet, even though they don't have a single good king in the Northern Kingdom, Does God immediately blast them? No, he doesn't. He lets them continue for another 200 years. Why? Well, 2 Kings 13, 22. Now, Hazael, king of Syria, oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. That's one of the kings of Israel. But check this out. The Lord was gracious. There's that word. Gracious to them and had compassion on them. and he turned toward them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And it doesn't use the word steadfast love, you know, chesed here, but anytime you see this concept, you know, remembering his covenant, it's there, the idea's there, to a thousand generations, right? And he would not destroy them. Why would he not destroy them? "'cause he's gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, "'abounding in steadfast love. "'Nor would he cast them from his presence until now.'" Now, do you notice here in this passage, it's not quite the same level of quotation that was in Numbers 14, right? Numbers 14 was like Moses saying, as you said, right, and it's a clear quote, right? What's going on here, how is he evoking the character description here? I hope you hear it. How is he evoking the character description in this passage? Yeah, the second Kings one. Second Kings 13, 22 through 23. Yeah, yeah, it's clearly like remembering what he's been taught, good. And I'm actually, I'm also asking kind of like about the mechanics of how the words evoke the other words, right? And it's by these key words being put together, gracious, compassionate, right? Along with the theme, of the passage, which is God not destroying his people even though they deserve it, right? So whenever you have that intersection of both common themes and shared language, that's what we call an illusion. And if it's a little bit fainter than an illusion, we sometimes call it an echo. We could hear echoes of the passage. This, I would say, is definitely on the level of an illusion. It's not a quote. He's not like quoting the exact words in the exact order, which is what Moses did in Numbers 14. But it's an illusion. It's a recollection with these key words. Yeah. Yeah, so an illusion, or sorry, a quotation is when the exact words are very closely imitated. And usually there's a quotation formula. So like Paul likes to say, as it is written, right? That usually invokes some quotation of scripture. You don't need that part for it to be a quotation, just a very close language overlap. An illusion is when another passage is being recalled, but not exactly in all the same words. Maybe the words are in different order, whatever, but they're still being evoked there. And we know it because not only are there shared words, but also shared theme, right? And then an echo is when, it's basically like a lower volume illusion. It's the same thing, but maybe not as easily seen. That's right, there needs to be a previous text that's being alluded to, yeah. All right, so what are we seeing? What's the story of Israel? The story of Israel is them sinning a lot and yet not being destroyed. Why are they not being destroyed? Slow to anger, right? God's character is constantly being worked out in the history of Israel. The climactic outworking of God's grace and mercy in Israel is in the exile. And God knew he was gonna need to do this way at the beginning. And so you have passages like Deuteronomy 4. So if you turn back there, we're actually, when we turn back to Deuteronomy 4, we'll realize that we're actually hearing about something that happens way later. In fact, later than the passage we just read in 2 Kings. This is God, through Moses, saying this is how the story of Israel is going to end. So verse 25, Deuteronomy 4 verse 25, he says, when you father children and children's children and have grown old in the land, and then he says, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything and provoke the Lord's anger, he says the word if here, in Deuteronomy 30 verse one, he's gonna use the word when, because it's not really a matter of if, it's a matter of when, right? Then he says, I call heaven and earth to witness against you, that if you do all that, If you abandon God and you're all rich in the land and everything, then you will soon utterly perish from the land that you're going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but you will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples. What's he describing? Exile, right? The ultimate curse of the covenant. He will scatter you among the peoples, you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. In other words, you guys loved foreign idols so much, you get what you asked for. You get to go to those nations and serve in those nations, which means you're under the tyranny of their gods. But, verse 29, From there, you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. And then, check this out. For the Lord your God, for Yahweh, your God, is a merciful God. There's that key word that began the great character description. The Lord, the Lord, compassionate. It's the same word but different translation. Compassionate and gracious. Merciful and gracious. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. What should we always remember when we hear not forgetting the covenant? What's the key word that means not forgetting the covenant? That word that means God keeps his covenant no matter what. Even then, even after exile, even after you've so totally blown it and been so incredibly unfaithful, guess what? The great turning point of history, the great hinge where Israel's story's going like this and then it turns the other direction, what's gonna be the hinge? Right down here? Exodus 34, six through seven. God is a merciful and compassionate God who remembers covenant. Therefore, the story will go the other direction. He will not forget you. He will neither leave you nor forsake you. Once you start seeing that, like, okay, the end of exile will be because of Exodus 34, six and seven. Then you start to realize, oh my goodness, every single one of these key passages that talk about end of exile is invoking in some way, if not the words, the concepts of Exodus 34. Take a look with me at Lamentations 3. Lamentations is all about the fall of Jerusalem after, you know, when the Babylonians destroy it. And he's thinking about how awful this is. And his soul is bowed down, Lamentations 3.20. Then he says, verse 21, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. There's one of those key words. His mercies never come to an end. There's another one of those key words from Exodus 34. They are new every morning. Great is your what? Faithfulness. There's another one of those words from Exodus 34. Then look a little bit further down, verse 31. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he cause grief, he will have, whoop, there it is, compassion. According to what? The abundance of his steadfast love. That phrase is right there in Exodus 34. Abounding in steadfast love. for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men. You get the idea? The writer of Lamentations has Exodus 34, six through seven memorized, no doubt, and he is meditating on that character description of God while he's sitting in Babylon saying, utterly broken, his eyes are just filled with tears, probably can't even weep anymore, he's wept so much for the fall of Jerusalem. And he says, but this I call to mind and have hope. What does he call to mind? Exodus 34, six through seven. And he knows that exile won't be forever. And you know, this is not on your sheet, but Micah seven is just another one of these passages where at the end, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, there it is. Micah seven at the very end. Who is a God like you? Verse 18, Micah 7, 18. Pardoning iniquity, passing over transgression. Remember, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. That was one of the parts. He does not retain his anger forever because of what? He delights in chesed, steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us. Verse 20, you will show faithfulness, there's another one of those words, and steadfast love to Abraham as you've sworn to our fathers from the days of old. What ends exile? God being who he is. A couple more passages. Nehemiah 9, this great poem recounting the history of Israel. Check this out. This is so awesome. This is like their prayer. After they've come back from Babylon and they're struggling with how bad things are still. Yeah, they're back in the land, but they're basically still under the tyranny of the nations. And they're remembering how they got here. And he says, they say there in Nehemiah 9, 29, you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. This is before the exile. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but they sinned, and therefore you sent them out of the land, right? It says, verse 30, many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through your prophets. God's slow to anger. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, verse 31, Nehemiah 9, 31, check this out. Nevertheless, in your great mercies, and again, that's tying back that word compassion that goes, he's a compassionate God. In your great mercies, you did not make an end of them or forsake them, why? Because you are a gracious and merciful God. Because you are the God of Exodus 34, six through seven. Psalm 106, same thing. It's another poem recounting the story of Israel. What's gonna be the turning point that ends exile? God's character description. One more on the topic of Israel. God's compassion to Israel. The story of Israel is the story of Exodus 34, six through seven, born out in history. Even this sort of Psalm that talks about God's general dealings with his people, and it, you know, bless the Lord, O my soul, forget not all his benefits, this famous one, right? Who forgives all your iniquity, that's one of the phrases from our verses. And then, Exodus 30, sorry, Psalm 103, verse eight, Excuse me, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. This is a very strong quote, right? He will not always chide. So now he's riffing on this, right? He's got the theme. He's triggered that memory, right? And then he's riffing on it. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his chesed, his steadfast love towards those who fear him. What's that gonna mean? It means as far as the east is from the west, so far. Does he remove our transgressions from us? And here's that word, compassion. as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Do you get how he's taking God's words and then praying them back to God? And he's riffing on these words and saying, God, I know this is who you are, so please act according to this in my life. And that's number three on your handout there, God's mercy to individuals. We won't have time to look at this, because I really want to talk about the last point. But if this is true for Israel as a nation, think about what this means for us as an individual, how you would pray this as an individual. God, have mercy on me for my sins. Any questions on what we've said so far? Yeah, Paul. Okay, great, so like this compassion and steadfast love, does it continue to Israel today, right? And this is sort of the issue that some Christians would wanna say that the promises to Abraham must literally be fulfilled to the literal biological descendants of Abraham, in other words, the Jewish people, or God's not being God of his word. But when we look at how the New Testament interprets the promises to Abraham, it says that to be a child of Abraham is to have the faith of Abraham. Abraham's offspring are those both Jew and Gentile who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 4, and Galatians 3, verse 29. Let me just read this real quick. If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. So the church of Jesus Christ is the new Israel. And that's what I'm gonna talk about in a moment, is how... God's grace is found not just to Israel, but to the nations and is poured out on us today in Jesus Christ. So we are the heirs of this wonderful, wonderful aspect of who God is, a central identity of who is God. His story, like the history of not just Israel, but the story of the entire world is the story of God's character being worked out in history, the very character that we're focusing on here. So let's look at how this applies, not just to Israel, but to the nations. Jonah, chapter four. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah. Obadiah, Jonah, four. Why did Jonah not want to go to Nineveh? Lots of people have lots of reasons. They're like, oh, he was afraid. Oh, he didn't, you know, didn't feel like it, didn't want to go that far. Here's the real reason. God saw what the people of Nineveh did, how they repented, turned away from their evil. That's Jonah 3.10, and it says, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Chapter four, verse one, and it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, in other words, the other direction from Nineveh, for I knew that you were a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. He knows his Bible, doesn't he? Therefore, O Lord, take my life. It's better for me to die than to live. And we're meant to laugh, right? Like, this is like a very bad use of Exodus 34. He knows this is who God is, and he doesn't like it. Why does he not like it? Yes. because he didn't want his enemies to receive that kind of mercy from God. Exactly. God is so overflowing with mercy and grace that it's not just flowing to Israel, who definitely has been acting like his enemies all this time, but even to the Gentile enemies as well. And this is part of the irony of this whole book, right? Throughout the entire book of Jonah, the Gentiles are way more godly than the people of Israel. The Gentile sailors, they're praying to their gods and everything. And Jonah's like sleeping, and you know, he's not doing what he's supposed to do, right? And here are the Ninevites. All it takes is one little preaching of the word without any explicit gospel hope. You have 40 days, Nineveh will be overthrown. Just a couple words in Hebrew is this whole sermon, right? And what immediately happens, they repent. Right, God is merciful even to the nations. And that's exactly what we see in another allusion to Exodus 34, Psalm 147. We realize this is not just who, sorry, Psalm 145. This is not just who God is for Israel, it is who he is for all that he has made. So talking about one generation, commending your works to another, this is Psalm 145, they shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, that's verse six. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness. Sing aloud of your righteousness. Verse eight, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Whoa, there it is again. The Lord, now check this out, he's improvving on it in a new way. The Lord is good to all. His mercy is over all that he has made. All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord. All your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of man, not just Israel, For the children of mankind, Adam's descendants, will know your mighty deeds, the glorious splendor of your kingdom. In other words, Exodus 34, six and seven. Verse 13, there's a text critical issue, but if the text that's restored for you there at the end of verse 13, which there's good textual evidence for is there, it's yet another allusion. Your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words, kind in all his works. Again, evoking those words. So. Are you starting to get the idea of how important Exodus 34, 6-7 is for the whole Old Testament? Now I want to show you all too briefly how important it is in the New. What I've done on your handout is I, what I did is I took each of the words that appear in Exodus 34, 6-7, and I'm going to show you one instance, in some cases more than one, but one instance of how each one of these words appear at crucial junctures in the New Testament. And part of what's tough here is remember Old Testament, Hebrew, New Testament, Greek. So some of these words come into Greek in multiple different words. So the word chesed, it's hard for us to render in English. It was hard for them to render in Greek. And so sometimes it comes in as the word mercy. Other times it comes in as the word love. How does it change the Bible's most famous verse if you think of it with love equals chesed, right? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. In other words, God was so filled with steadfast, compassionate, covenant love that he gave his only begotten son. The reason why God sent his son into the world is because of who he is, because he's a God of steadfast love. So let's look at each of these words. We'll come back to steadfast love in a moment. But Jesus is the greatest of all outworkings of God's character. Titus 3, 5. Titus 3, 5. He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, chesed, that's the reason, covenant love, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 2.4, but God being rich in mercy, chesed, steadfast love, either one works. Being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace. That's one of those words, right? You're starting to see how there's like in this most famous verse, all these like key words from Exodus 34 cropping up. By grace you have been saved and raised us up together with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his Grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. All these words, grace, kindness, love, mercy, they're all renderings of words straight out of Exodus 34, six and seven. And yet, do you see how he's using that? He's saying that verse is telling you why Jesus came. Jesus came because, Exodus 34, six and seven is who God is. Seeing the people, Jesus felt compassion for them. Matthew 9, 36. In fact, that one word, compassion, if you just focus on that one word, you can go back in the archives. Spring 2020, I think, I did a Sunday school just on the word compassion, which is one of those words in Nexus 34, the first one, compassionate and gracious. And just how many times that word comes up as an end of exile word, a word that explains why God has come to save his people, save the world, He felt compassion, Jesus felt compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. Okay, so compassionate, yes. Gracious, yes. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Two of the key words. In other words, why did the word become flesh? X is 34, six through seven. Why is God so slow to anger? Why has he not judged the world yet? 2 Peter 3.9 tells us exactly why. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, some count slowness, but he is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but all should reach repentance. God is slow to anger, even in this present age. He is the God of abundant chesed, of abundant steadfast love, and this verse definitely is echoing that, using mercy in the sense of steadfast love. Zechariah's song, when the father of John the Baptist, when his tongue is loosed after John is born, he says, this is the salvation that God spoke of by his prophets, that we should be saved from our enemies. Why is God doing this? To show the chesed, the mercy promised to our fathers, the steadfast love, the covenant-keeping faithfulness, and to remember his holy covenant. This is how we know he's talking about covenant love, because of the very next line. The oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear. Why is Jesus coming? God is a covenant-keeping God, even though we're so sinful. Faithfulness. goes with justice in 1 John 1.9. I'm gonna catch two words at once here. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just. Doesn't that ring even more powerfully for you? When you think about this famous verse that you're used to hearing many, many Sundays during the declaration of pardon. He's, I think, recalling, this is more of an echo, right? It's a light, light allusion to Exodus 34. But it's there, right? He is both faithful and just. He's bringing both of those streams together of who God is. Compassion and justice being brought together. Why are we forgiven? Is it just because God is merciful? No, it's not just because he's merciful. It's also because he's just, because he appointed someone to pay the penalty, Jesus. That's why he's able to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then forgiveness. In Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, Forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. There again, two of these key words joined together. So I hope you can see how God's gracious character makes its way through the scriptures. Any questions on this, and especially how we see the climax of God's grace in Jesus? are you starting to see how the Bible is woven together, right? You'll have these seminal moments where there'll be like this critical word that is spoken. And you're supposed to like say, ooh, this is one of those important times. And then once you pay attention to that, you start seeing ding, ding, ding all across the Bible, God rings that bell. Again and again and again and again. Hey, don't forget who I am. Don't forget who I am. Compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, bounding and steadfast love. I keep steadfast love to thousands, right? And there's like whispers of that, echoes of that, running through the whole narrative, showing you like this is the engine on which history is running. Pretty incredible. Yeah, Mike? Where you ended, the faithful and just idea. He's faithful and just to forgive us because of Christ's sacrifice. Yeah. Would you say it's more than just that he's merciful and it's okay for him to forgive us because of Christ's sacrifice? Or would you say that he has bound himself to forgive us. He has made that a duty to himself. Great. So the question, if I understand it, is not just that he's kind of allowed to forgive us because Christ has paid this sacrifice, right? But in some sense, he's bound to do it because of what he says about who he is. And I think it's important here, we have to remember Always to remember that God is most free. He is the one who truly does decide the course of everything, right? And it's a free choice. God didn't have to forgive, sorry, God didn't have to create the world, and he didn't have to make the promise to forgive. But as soon as he made this promise that he was the God of bounding and steadfast love and faithfulness and that he would forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin, then once he commits himself covenantally to something, then we can say that God has freely Bound himself. Now does that mean he's bound himself to forgive everybody? No, I mean that's universalism, that's not what the Bible teaches, right? But he has bound himself to forgive his chosen ones, right? This is where we get the idea of what's called the covenant of redemption or the pactum salutis, this idea of God before the foundation of the world, covenanted with himself to save the elect, to save those whom he had appointed for salvation. And so he, once he makes that commitment to himself, which it's kind of hard to even say that because he made it an eternity past, right? But once he freely binds himself to that course, he must now, out of his integrity, keep that course. And because he's so, you know, great in faithfulness. Remember how we talked about that word meaning his integrity. He will not, you know, forsake even a single one of his elect, right? So yes and no is kind of the answer. Yeah, great question. My question for you all, just sort of application question is, is this character, character of God, is this who you believe God to be? Like in your heart of hearts, is this how you conceive of God? Or are there like trappings from the world about God just sort of being this, you know, kind of doting grandfather who isn't too strict about the rules, or perhaps this overly strict, I think this is what I encounter more often in pastoral ministry, is people really struggling to believe that grace is real, that he actually forgives us, that he actually is glad to forgive us, that it's his joy to be compassionate towards us, even in our weakness and sin. All right, well, let's thank the Lord for who he is. Great and compassionate God. We thank you that you are the consistent God, that you act in history precisely according to who you actually are in your being. You are the God who is who he is. And you in your grace and mercy have been pleased to show forth that graciousness and that mercy and that justice in all your dealings in history. Indeed, we can look at everything that you've done for Israel. Everything that you've done for the nations, everything that you've done in Jesus Christ, everything that you've done in our individual lives, and at every single point, we can say, you are the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, and all the other glorious aspects of your character that we've been learning about. Lord, we pray, help us to believe that you are who you say you are. Help us to pray. according to this great character description to call upon you to be who you are in our lives and in this remaining phase of history in which we find ourselves. And we pray that all history would bear out this glorious character of your compassion and justice and steadfast love. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Thanks, everybody.