Okay, we went through the notions of God. There's a lot of different ideas out there. Hopefully we're monotheistic. By the way, Thomas Cahill, I praised him many times. He was so impressed that the Jews came up with that idea. Boy, that was great. And then we talked about the knowability of God. Can you really know God? And the answer is yes and no. We're going to talk about the nature of God. Many times when you study theology proper, God, you really study this concept more than anything else, which is the attributes of God. I just want to put them all in front of you and in one sheet and you have that on one sheet so that you can look at them all. Some of them are and everybody divides it differently. In fact, I have a little overhead here of a really intriguing way of dividing it. You know, I get lost in that one. But anyway, somewhere in there is, you know. all the attributes of God. He's love, He's light, He's spirit. Because He's spirit, He's this. Because He's light, He's that. Because He's love, He's that. And you get the Trinity in there. And supposedly that one chart, if you understood it, you'd understand everything there is to know about God. And it's not bad, really, except I can't understand it. But anyway, if you divide up the nature of God, typically they take all the attributes of God and put it into categories. And at the bottom of your sheet, page four, some of the subdivisions, some call them majestic and moral, greatness and goodness, page three or four, page three probably, yeah, page three, right at the bottom. Greatness and goodness and personality is the way we're going to look at it, three categories. communicable and incommunicable. As you go to different theology books, you're going to see, well, we're going to say the communicable attributes of God, and then we're going to say the incommunicable. Some are the attributes of being, and some are the attributes of character. They divide it that way. Some would say the absolute attributes of God and the relative attributes of God, and some would say relative. How could any attribute of God be relative? But if you studied them, you'd realize what they mean. Or the imminent and the transitive or all kinds of different ways to break it up. And I'm not sure, that's just a man's attempt to somehow, we're Westerners, we can't look at the whole bunch, we want to break it up. So, typically, it's not uncommon to look at the goodness of God, sometimes called the moral qualities of God, and these three, holy, true, and love, are the attributes of goodness that relate to himself, righteous, faithful, and merciful are the moral attributes that relate to mankind or the world or whatever. Men just try to categorize it. We just try to do that. Greatness, attributes of greatness, sometimes called the attributes of majesty or the majestic qualities of God. In other words, things that are way beyond us. We can to an extent be righteous and faithful. All of these we can be. Probably not perfectly, but you could say you're a righteous man or whatever. But all of these are something you probably can't say you are. Self-existent, omnipresent, omnipotent, etc, etc. So these are majestic qualities or greatness qualities, attributes of greatness. Perfect, infinite, incomprehensible. And then personality. Sometimes they try to come up with attributes that prove that he's a person or he has a personality. He is living, he's intelligent, he's purposive, he's active. What does it take to be a personality? And so they try to do that. And I just want you to keep that all up in front of you while we're talking tonight, because as we go through them, you're going to kind of get lost after a while. All right. You have that on your sheet, page three for you. So I think you have to be careful to say, I have on here all the attributes of God. You can say God is holy, God is true, but he's also sovereign. We're sovereign. Well, maybe it's under omnipotent or whatever. He's jealous. He's exalted. He's exclusive. I mean, you could probably come up with a lot of other statements. God is, but a whole bunch of other words. So probably these are pretty much general. If you went to most theologies, they'd have pretty much these on them. But don't think that it's an exhaustive list, that there's not anything else that would be true of God. There may be some other things that are true of God. It's hard to categorize them. The next question. Are the lists made by man always the same? In other words, you pick up Schaeffer or Thiessen or Richman-Hughlam or Pink or Tozer, would they be the same? Obviously not. And so they would vary a little bit. It's man's attempt to look at God and say, this is what God is. As I read the Bible, this is what God is. And so we really appreciate that. But we recognize that it is incomplete. And it probably will be different for each of us. If you had to write a paper and you didn't have all the other books to use as your example, you'd probably come up with a different list and a different flow and it fit you and whatever. So just know that. Okay. And the list starts often subdivided. And so at the bottom, there are page three. The reason I put them down, because so often you'll be reading like Tozer, for example, the imminent attributes of God, you know, what's imminent attributes. You don't even know how to spell it, let alone the definition of it, you know. And everybody's trying to divide it and summarize it. And it's just man's attempt. Any questions on that? We're going to go, first of all, to the generic nature of God. When you think of the nature of God, just the generic idea. What is a God? And you helped me with that a little bit at the beginning. For example, it says in Exodus chapter 20, I think it's verse 5, you shall have no other gods before you. How many gods are there? There's one true Jehovah God, self-existent creator God. You know, if we put a whole bunch of definitions behind it, there is really only one God who is really God and creator and all the things that a God really is. But in another sense, there's a lot of gods, right? In some ways. Go with me to Joshua 24. Joshua 24. We are memorizing that in our morning series from Joshua. And in verse 15, It says this, and if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. If you read through that whole section, he's saying at the end of the conquest of the land and the settlement of the land kind of thing, he says, all right, guys, God was really good to us. Everything went well. Hopefully you have learned a lot. Now, I just want to challenge you. You've got to make a choice. Who are you going to serve? What gods are going to be your gods? Now, as you read through this, I think you come up with a generic definition of God. A God is, and some of you already said, a God is one who has thunderboats of wrath flashing down. God is whatever. What is a God? Verse 14, Now therefore, fear the Lord. Serve him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served. A God is one who you fear. Right? A God is one whom you serve. If you don't fear him, he's probably not God. If you don't serve him, he's probably not God. Verse 24, we will serve his voice and we will obey. A God is one who you obey. If you went back to chapter 23, I think I can make a case. He is one who you talk of, think about, you bow down to or worship, et cetera, et cetera. So a god is one who is greater than you, is worshipped by you, who is the master of your life, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the options given there are the gods that your fathers had on the other side of the river, which could be in Egypt, but it could also be back in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans. I'm not sure what he's referring to there, which were idols in Ur of the Chaldeans. In Egypt, it was deified man. Or the gods that the Amorites have in the land here. which were a bunch of pagan deities that were immoral, intoxicated and everything else bad, which gods are going to choose? In other words, he recognized you could have other things besides a real true creator God. It couldn't be those that you bow down to, those that you serve, those that you worship, those that you respond to and obey, those that you whatever. He said, you got to make a choice. So we have to understand The generic definition of a God. A God is one you fear, serve, obey, worship, etc., etc. Any other words that you'd like to add to that? Because you probably could add some. He says, no other gods before. You remember the message I preached once about kids? There's some people, their gods are their kids, aren't they? They obey them. They serve them. They worship them. You know, when you go through the definition of a God, their kids are their gods. Some people, it's a car. or a motorcycle or whatever. In fact, covetousness is called idolatry, because you might be a person who, who do you, or what is it that you serve, obey, worship, live for, respond to? It's greedy things and covetous items or whatever. So it can be a lot of them. That's a generic definition. Where would it end though? Where should it end? Os Guinness wrote a book entitled No God But God. I like that one. No God But God. And Colossians 1 verse 18 says that in all things, he may have the preeminence. At the end of the day, there's only supposed to be one God in my life, really. And it's not my car. It's not my wife. It's not my kids. It's not my occupation. It's not greed. It's not whatever. It's the true God of the scriptures. Here's a definition. came out of a book entitled God and Religion in a Postmodern World. According to the generic idea or definition of God, the word God refers to a personal, purposive being, perfect in goodness and supreme in power, who created the world, who acts providentially in it, is sometimes experienced by human beings, especially as a source of moral norms and religious experiences, and the ultimate ground of meaning and hope, and therefore is the only one who alone deserves to be worshipped. You understand what a God is, I hope. But a lot of people don't. No other gods. Be careful. That's not just people who have little idols sitting on shelves. That can be you and me. Our neighbors have gods. All right. We have to be real careful. We need one who, when we're all done, he's created us. He's master of us. And therefore, he alone is worthy of worship. That's the generic definition. Let's go to the attributes of goodness. And as I said, often these are divided into two things. His moral qualities or his attributes of goodness. These are the qualities that are moral qualities seen in relationship to himself. And these are the ones related to as he interacts with people. He's righteous in regards to us and et cetera, et cetera. So let's just go through them. But I have a question for you. Under Holy, what is the primary attribute of God? A lot of people have argued that for a long, long time. Is there a primary attribute? What is the primary attribute? And love is sometimes promoted as the primary. God is love. That's what it says. What else do you have to say? He's also holy. He's sovereign. And as you look at this list, which is the primary one from which all of the things flow out? If you took it away, everything would collapse. You will find in your readings that people will spend a lot of time on that. Now, I'll just warn you a couple of things. focuses in on love. Where do you think that would end up? If you really believe, at the end of the day, all I have to know is God is love. So the ones who kind of focus in on love eventually tend to kind of be looser on standards and morals and righteousness and that kind of stuff, tend to. Although, some great men have focused in on. G. Campbell Morgan, one of the great preachers of all time, who truly was a great expositor of God and his attributes. If you got to the end of the day, he just really focused in on the love of God. And that's not bad. We sing songs about the love of God. It's kind of a neat attribute. It really is a very impressive attribute. But typically, they end up a little bit looser on standards. You know, we've got to love everybody, so God loves everybody, so we've got to love them and whatever. Holiness is what most in our circles would kind of see as the primary. I just want to throw that out. Be careful where you go. So let's think about this holy thing. If you were to see God today, I could give you 10 seconds with God, 5 seconds with God, half a second with God. And you, I said, he's in the room over there. You walked over there. You had five seconds with God and you came back. What do you think you'd be saying to me? To us? You'd be dead or speechless. Dead people are usually speechless. So you're both right. No man has seen God and lived. OK. Well, we have the record of a few people, or beings at least, who had the privilege of seeing God in some way. Isaiah 6 is one of the classic ones. The year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting on a throne, a train of His robe filled the temple, etc, etc. And what did He say? He said, holy, holy, holy. Or the angels or the seraphim were saying that around the presence of God. Revelation, I think it's four, verse eight, as well as some other passages. And most of the time you have the impression that those who saw God walked away and said, wow, holy. Now, our problem is how do we define holy? If you've heard me enough, you know where I'm going on this one. How do we define holy? We define it as equal with righteousness, often. Lack of sin. A holy person is a righteous person, which is true, by the way. But they're different words. This one starts with R, that one starts with H. You know, one has four letters, one has a whole bunch of letters. So, you know, if they're the same thing, we don't need two of them, right? We only need one of them. So what does holy mean? Somebody's got to have heard me enough on this one. What is it? Unique. Set apart. Distinct. If we had 100 chairs in here, I don't know how many we got. And we had one right here. This one would be the holy chair. It'd be set apart, distinct. It's not with the rest. If all of them were brown and this one were green, they would really be holy. So at the bottom of the parable, the word just simply means to be set apart, distinct, one of a kind, none like it. And when you think about God, here's the phrase that's used so often. He's unique. He's distinct. He's one of a kind. He's holy. In other words, if you had the opportunity to really see God, you'd walk out of there and say, There's none like him. There's nothing in all of this universe that's like him. I really can't explain him to you because there's none like him. In fact, I'll just give you some verses that would tell you that. Exodus 8.10, Deuteronomy 33. You don't have to rate these all down, but let me just list them for you. Jeremiah 10.6, Psalm 86.8, 2 Samuel 7.21, 1 Chronicles 17.20. I went too fast. I just want to give you the impression there are several times where God's people said there's none like him. He's not like my neighbor. He's not like the president. He's not like anything I've ever known. There is none like him. Now, when you fully understand it, the reason there is none like him results in the reality that he is set apart from sin and set apart to righteousness. OK. And you've never met anybody like that. Trust me. All right. Totally separated from sin and totally separated too. Right. You've never met anybody like that. All right, that is sure. So it always ends up with moral purity as a concept. So holiness, we think of as moral purity, and that's kind of where it ends up. But you have to start with a concept of it. And so God is absolutely distinct, unique, set apart. He's one of a kind. He's set apart from evil and set apart to righteousness in a morally pure way. So what did Satan want to do in Isaiah 14, 14? He said, I will be like him. And God said, there's none like me. So what's the problem there? This one isn't going to work, Satan. I'm sorry. In other words, he was saying, I want to be like God. That's quite a statement. That means I want to be equal to, like the one of whom there is no one like him. And he said to Eve and Adam, especially Eve, he said, if you eat of this tree, you will be like him, like God. That was a big lie because there's none like him. And if you understand that, you realize that holiness means to be that, to be totally unique, different, set apart, not like everybody else. So, 1 Peter 1 15 says, Be ye holy, for I am holy. If you define holiness as moral purity, lack of sin, There is a sense in which that's what he's asking you to be. I want you to be morally pure like I am morally pure. But you say, how could I possibly do that? But here's what you can do. You can be different. Can't you? You can be set apart. And at work, you're different than all the rest. Hopefully there's another Christian. So maybe there's two of you that are different than all the rest or 10 of you. But he says, you can be set apart, unique, distinct, et cetera, et cetera. Using that definition of holiness, I think, and the references that are found in Isaiah and Revelation and some other places, I think those who had a privilege of seeing God just walked away and said, there's none like him. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen a spectacular house and you just walk away and say, there's nothing like that one. That was something. Or a car and like, well, there's nothing like that one. or whatever it is. God, there's something about God that would just, there's nothing like God. He's absolutely distinct, unique, one of a kind, morally pure, et cetera, et cetera. Let me just go through all these attributes. You know anybody who is true and truthful? Okay. You know any people that are true, truthful? Yeah, the guy who sold me carpet is. Well, not really. I think there's a sense in which you could say he's a trustworthy, true person. I know we're not perfect, but there's none like God when it comes to truth. Anybody you know who's true and trustworthy and truthful, I mean, God is a whole other ballgame away. There's none like him when it comes to truth. How about love? You know anybody who loves people? I think I do. But there's none like God when it comes to love. Whoever you know who loves people, loves whatever, they may be way up here on your line, and then there's God. There's none like Him. How about righteous? Know any people who are righteous? The Bible calls a couple people righteous. I think you and I know some people that we would say are righteous people. But when it comes to righteousness, there's none like our God. Nothing to compare. He's just in a whole other realm. Faithful? Know anybody who is faithful? All of these things, some of them are not in our realm. Some of us are intelligent and purposive and whatever, but there's none like God. You don't know anybody who loves like God loves. You don't know anybody who's righteous like God is righteous. You don't know anybody who's intelligent like God is intelligent. You don't know anybody who's powerful like God is powerful. You don't know anybody. And so that's what is the first attribute in the attributes of greatness and usually considered a foundation for everything else. Out of that flows everything else. I don't know that you can make a foolproof case for that. Now, if that's true, what impact does that have in your life? You have a God who would so awe you and overwhelm you and wow you, that you would immediately say, I better do whatever he tells me to do. In fact, I'll ask him, what do you want me to do? Isaiah said, here am I, send me. Paul said, what do you want me to do? I think that'd be one impact in your life if you really catch the holiness of God. What else? By the way, what happened to Isaiah? What did you say? What was the first words out of his lips? Woe is me. Once you got in his presence, you'd feel not too righteous anymore. You'd feel really scummy. All right. It's kind of like going, do you ever go to these fancy men's stores or women's stores? Probably the same thing. You know, I think I'm dressed really nice. You walk in, you look at your shoes and go, wow, are they bad? My pants aren't straight. My tie looks sold. You know, I look great until I walk into this store and then I feel like I'm dirty and bad and whatever. So that's why I don't go to those stores. But anyway, in the presence of God, all of a sudden that would happen. You would immediately sense, I need to be righteous and faithful and true and I have to serve him and whatever. Here's some things I think you could write down. Because he is holy, it demands that we worship him. It demands that we become holy, 1 Peter 1, 15 and 16. It reveals the sinfulness of our heart, Isaiah 6, 5. And you could probably list some other ones. Think about it. And you realize the holiness of God is not just some nice theological truth that we study, but it's very, very important. Now, we're not going to spend as much time on each of these attributes, obviously. Let's go to true, which is also truthful. In John 17 3, it says, I am the true God. What does that mean? Give me an example of something or some person that is the true Michael Jordan, the true, you know, whatever, right? When you say that, I mean, it's not the fake. It's not the substitute. This is the true car of all cars. This is the true basketball player. This is the true whatever. He is the true God. He conforms exactly. to the highest possible definition you could ever have of God. Every other God of every other religion somehow falls short in some ways, but He is the true God. He meets and exceeds the highest standards and definitions of a God. So He is a true God. And He's also a truthful God. Psalm 31, verse 5 says, the God of truth. John 3, 33 says, God is true. John 17, 17, thy word is truth, right? So He is true. He's all that He is the true God, not some fake, not some second rate. He is the true God and he is truthful. And so those two kind of go together. So what impact does that have in your life? If you know he's true, nothing fake about him, nothing. He's 99% pure, but there's a little bit off and he's truthful. What does that do for you? By the way, how would you like a God who is not true and not truthful? Wouldn't that be great? God who lies to you? pulls the wool over your eyes. Read the writings of the Greeks. And so their gods are always deceiving them. They're always misleading them, tricking them. You got to be smarter than the gods to beat the gods. You know, it's like, I don't want to be like that. I want a God who says to me, bam, and I can go to the bank on it. I don't figure out, did he, did he trick me on that one? I bet you did. I bet you just wants me to jump off that cliff. And then when I get there, he's gonna say, ah, and the gods, The gods of the Greeks are like that. I mean, it's terrible. So what does it do for you? Gives you great confidence, doesn't it? You can go to bed at night as long as you know what he said, because you know it's truthful. All right. Anything else? By the way, his words are true. That's what it says, are reliable. Everything he says, I can trust. What else? John 4, 23 says we're to worship him in spirit and in truth. You know, you're not. It gives you a basis for worship that is real. A lot of people worship gods. It's just not true worship because it's not a true God. And if you took the time to read Romans 2.2 or Psalm 54, it would talk to you about the God who is true and truthful and his wrath is just. And so when he punishes or judges or throws out his wrath, it'll be absolutely true and truthful. I mean, he's not going to miss anything. And sometimes in our court system, no matter how good the judges and lawyers are, sometimes they don't always get it right. So he is a God of true and truth. All right. Let's go on. Love. What is love? Is it a noun or a verb? It can be both, right? But we have to remember it can be both. It's not an attitude. It's an action. It's something that really happens. And who does God love, by the way? The world. For God so loved the world. John 3.16. God commended this love towards us and that way we have sinners Christ died for us. He loves us He loves everyone. All right He says in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 7 and 8 Israel, you know, I just want you to know I didn't choose you because you were more in number than the rest of them that I'd choose you because I loved you and you find quite a few places in the New Testament God says, you know, I Just really love you Can you imagine God really loved Israel? Those scoundrels, they're always doing it wrong. And God just kept saying, you know, I really love you. So he loves Israel. He loves the lost. Remember Jonah, the message of Jonah? He went to Nineveh. Why? At the end, he says, no, Jonah, did you love this tree that you didn't make? And it slowly, immediately died. Is it not right for me to love these people? Is it not right for me to love this city who I created and made? He loves lost people. He loves Israel. He loves us. He loves the world. He loves on and on it goes. His love is... I don't know what I have on your sheet there. I think... Anon. What is it? What's the first reference? Deuteronomy 7, 7. I did not choose you because you are more in number, but because I just loved you. It is unselfish. He just unselfishly loved Israel and unselfishly loves us. 1 John 4, 7-10 would say the same thing. What's the next one? Jonah? No, no, no. Romans 5? 8? But God commences love towards us in that while we are yet, we are unlovable. Alright? We're yet sinners. Alright? It was an unconditional love. He loved the unlovable, whatever way you want to put it. Jeremiah 13, verse 3 says, I love you with an everlasting love. It's unending. You don't need to remember those un things, Just remember 31.3, I think. He loved all the ones that he loved unselfishly, unconditionally, without merit, unending, etc., etc. I mean, every positive word you could do, you could write about him. So what manifestations do we have of his love? How do you know that he loves the world? How do you know that he loves you? What is demonstrate that to you? He sent Christ to die for us. God demonstrated love towards us, and that's why we got sent as Christ to die for us. All right? What else? Did I give any references? Matthew 5, did I have? Exactly. Just watch what he does. Just drive through the countryside in the summer and watch. You know, there's a righteous farmer and an unrighteous farmer. And guess what? It really doesn't much matter who gets the rain, you know. The impartiality in which he blesses people in our world tells us he loves us. John 3, 16, he gave his son. Hebrews 12, 5, Whom the Lord loves he... You ever get chastened? Boy, don't you hate it? He must hate me now. He's taking me to the witch. No, it's a proof that he loves you. What impact does this have? We love him because he loves us. It should say, OK, you love me so much. You're holy, so I should be holy. You're truthful, I should be truthful. You love... I don't love you, and I don't love what you love. All right. Here's a question for you. Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? Here's the case. One of our young men went to UNI. One of his professors is a Unitarian. He went to seminary with me. Can you believe that? And I just found out about this. He went to seminary with me at Grace Seminary, graduated from Grace Seminary, and he became a professor at UNI. He's a Unitarian. He doesn't believe there is a God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, so he's teaching one of our young men who's going to UNI. And he says to him, the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. And the reason is, the God of the Old Testament commanded Joshua, etc., utterly destroy, kill, etc., etc. The God of the New Testament said, turn the other cheek, love one another. So therefore, we must conclude that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. Right? All right. Revelation, yeah. Obviously, the answer is no. The God of the Old Testament was holy, true, and love. You know what? The God of the New Testament is holy, He's true, and He's love. And you can find a lot of references in the Old Testament, by the way, to God loving. Loving, loving, loving. Okay? Okay. The next three are righteous, faithful, and merciful. I got a lot of things down there. What do I have down there? Let me see your sheets there. Somebody get the sheets here. The Hebrew word, etzedek, means to be straight. Is that down there? Basically, the word righteous means to do what is right. R-I-G-H-T spells right. As you all can see, Jesus wants us all to live R-I-G-H-T. That's what I used to sing with my sisters. And so to be righteous means to do what's right. It's a little different than holy, although holy people do right things. And so we recognize he's righteous. How does this differ from holiness? Holiness is much bigger. Righteousness is one of the aspects of holiness or one of the things that comes out of it, but it's much, much bigger than righteousness. How can this fit with an evil world? Jeremiah 12, verse 1 through 13 says, the Jeremiah passage there, Jeremiah says, you know, God, I can't quite get this one straight. You say that you're righteous. And I look around me, and there's evil everywhere I look. That one doesn't, you know, I don't get that one. Thirteen verses, he struggles with that. And he's not the only person who's ever struggled with it. Psalm 73, you recognize the psalmist said, you know, I almost tripped. And I saw the evil were prospering, and us righteous people were not getting as prosperous, and I just couldn't figure it out. I almost stumbled, I almost tripped. And then in verse 70 he says, and then I went to the house of God. And I remembered their end. So it's very difficult at times for us to say, how can God be righteous? And then there's evil in the world. And a guy who's not really that righteous gets the promotion. And I'm pretty good and full of integrity at work. And, you know, he got the promotion before me. It doesn't seem fair. And the righteous don't seem to always win and whatever. And Romans 3, verse 25 talks about he is righteous and right or just and justifier. And so we understand that God is righteous. I just have a couple of quick things that I want to study on the righteousness of God. Here's what I concluded. From Psalm 19, the statutes of the Lord are right. You know, he's absolutely right in whatever he asked me to do. And there's nobody in this whole world who's been like that to me. And there's been some people that I think are pretty close. My dad seldom asked me to do things that were wrong. I don't ever remember it, but I think he's quite a human. But I have a God who, whatever he asked me to do, it's the right thing. He's always right. From Psalm 145, he says, the Lord is righteous in all of his ways. Whatever he does to me, it's right. Remember in Genesis 18, he says, shall not the judge of all the earth do what's right? Everything he has ever done to me was right. I don't know of any other person I could say that about. When he judges me, you know what he's going to do? He's going to do it right. I don't know if I like that or not, but that's going to be good. He's right. And you have a whole bunch of things. He is righteous. Tremendous impact when you think, I have a righteous God. And you think of all the other gods of the world, they're gods who aren't righteous. Just study them. They trick, they deceive, they lie, they steal, they're immoral, they do all bad things. My God always does what's right, always demands what's right, and always delivers what's right. Always. Can't get any better than that. How about faithful? We just quickly hit it. I know I got a lot of things down there for you. Just kind of jump over it. The nature of faithfulness, the Hebrew word is amen, aman. You ever say amen in church? Hopefully you say it more often. All right? Right on. All right? To be firm, reliable, dependable, steadfast, true. All right? If you study Deuteronomy 7, 9, it says he keeps his covenant. He's faithful. 1 Thessalonians 5, 24, it ends by saying, he will do it. And the impact is this, when it says he's faithful, it says, you can go to the bank on it. If he makes a promise to you, you can go to the bank on it. Just figure it's going to happen. If he tells you, he warns you about something, he says, now if you do that, here's what's going to happen. Go to the bank on it. It'll happen. It'll happen exactly. Boy, if we could only be like that, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't we be better parents if we could just say, You do that, this is going to happen and it really happens and whatever. He is absolutely faithful. And you can think of the impact in your life, a lot of different things, to know that he keeps his promises, that he really warns us correctly. He never misleads us on that, those kinds of things, etc., etc. By the way, the fact that he is faithful, there's a whole bunch of verses that you can think of. First Corinthians 10, 13, it talks about there's no temptation taken you, such as is coming to man by God is. faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able. He's faithful. Because he's faithful, I know I'll never face a temptation that's bigger than I can handle. First John 1.9, if I confess my sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us. He's faithful and just. Because he's faithful, I can go to the bank on the fact that my sins are forgiven, et cetera, et cetera. All right. So he's faithful. He's merciful. Which one impresses you? That's the one that really impressed the Jews. Read the Psalms. His mercy endures forever. His mercy endures forever. What's mercy? That's grace and that's kind of close. They're awful close. They're awful close. Sometimes you can't tell the difference. Other times you kind of can. It always has to do with misery. Just remember, mercy, misery. Always has to do with misery. And what does it have to do with misery? It always wants to help, relieve, move out of misery. You have mercy on somebody, what it means is you see something in their life that is causing pain or suffering or hurt or frustration or whatever it is, something not too good, a misery in their life. And so you have mercy on the sick, you have mercy on the whatever. It goes on and on and on it goes. And so God extends his mercy to us when we are living in pain and suffering and whatever. But he also extends mercy to us because of our sin. And so it covers it all. Always has to do with misery. He's a merciful God. He is one who wants to relieve my misery. My physical misery. The other day I was up at the hospital. Anybody go see Don? Man, that guy was in misery. Very few times I've ever seen anybody. I just felt so sorry for him. He just was miserable. He still is. And you know, he just didn't know what to say. It just, he was in pain and agony and every move and every cough and everything was just, he'd just break out in sweats and he was just in misery. Like, you know what I had? And hopefully we all have his mercy. I just wanted to do something to help him. I would have got him a glass of water, but he couldn't drink. I would have put a, You know, done anything for him, couldn't do anything for him. That's what mercy is. And it wants to relieve my misery. God is a God who wants to do that. And hopefully we understand that's a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's the basis for my salvation. We're saved by grace, but also by mercy, not by works of righteousness. But according to his mercy, he saved us. It's the basis for my service. It's the basis for comfort in the days of suffering, et cetera, et cetera. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Because of his mercy, I'm supposed to serve him. Because of his mercy, I can be saved, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So those are the goodness attributes of God, the moral attributes. Let's just hit a couple of these real quickly. And we could we could give the concept as well as the impact. And we're just going to rip right through these and not try to cover them all. Self-existent means anybody here self-existent? If you are, you're one of a kind. What does it mean? Not created. All right. No beginning. And it also means you can sustain yourself. Anybody here can sustain yourself without any help? If God just walked away, you could keep breathing and eating and people walked away. You could just self-sustain. It means self-existent. You can exist. You can come into existence and you can maintain your existence without anything whatsoever. And you will not make it. Because you know what you will need? You will need to walk out into creation and eat something. Try to self-exist without creation, without people, without God. He is self-existent. And there are some verses that prove that. He's the fountain of life. He's the source of our existence, et cetera, et cetera. The impact I have, Colossians 3, 4, our life is hid with him. And, you know, I'm hiding in a self-existent one. You know, that's kind of a neat thing. He's eternal. We thought about that. You understand what that is, so we'll just understand the concept. You can't measure his existence by time, Psalm 90, et cetera, et cetera. What is the impact of that in your life? Been there, done that. All right. That's good. And he's going to be there, right? Forever and ever and ever. So I'll never wake up. Can you imagine a God who you wake up and he died? My God died. Now what do I do? Read the Greeks. It's like, he's eternal. He's always there. Always will be there. He's unchangeable. I don't think I needed to find that one. He doesn't grow. He doesn't develop. He doesn't evolve. He doesn't change his mind. He doesn't change his will. He doesn't change his purpose. He doesn't change anything. You know anybody like that? Who doesn't change? He doesn't get old and he doesn't get young. He doesn't get smarter. He doesn't get dumber. He doesn't get more healthy or less healthy. I mean, whatever it is, he doesn't do that. I don't know anybody like that. He's unchangeable. And it's kind of nice with no there's no shadow of turning James's with him, which means every day you wake up, you have the same God. Nothing's changed, didn't change the rules, didn't change the definitions of words, didn't change how you get saved and change what you got to do, didn't change anything. And that's a kind of a neat thing. We're just Omni-present. He's everywhere at the same time. What's so good about that? It kind of scares you in one sense. You can't hide from him. Jonah tried that. He was there. Wherever he went, God was there. Couldn't get away from him. What's the other side of it? He's always there. So that's kind of a neat thing. So it can kind of scare you to pieces, but it can kind of be nice. You'll never wake up and he's not there. He's everywhere present. How about omniscient? All-knowing. What's the good part about that? That's scary. You ever think about, if anybody ever knew that I did this, I wouldn't be doing it? And they think, oh, God knows. So why do I do it? Somehow, I don't think God really knows, I guess. It should scare us in some ways. It should comfort us in other ways. He's all-knowing. And Psalm 139 is one of those. He's all-powerful, omnipotent. These are the omnis. He's all-powerful. Of course, we understand that He's the El Shaddai, the Almighty God. etc. etc. and we could do a lot with that. By the way, that tells you one of my favorite verses, Jude 24, "...now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only true God who alone is wise." Because he's omnipotent, he's all-powerful, you know what? He can keep me from falling. I don't know how he does that. I tell you, he's pretty good at that. And I'm glad for that. Perfect! It's the perfect athlete. You ever hear that? He's the perfect running back. He's the perfect center for the battle. He's the perfect, what does that mean? He's got all the, he's a complete package. You know, he's got everything you need to be a running back. God is perfect. He lacks nothing. He's all he can be. He's all he should be. I mean, you could never have a God who is better than this one. He's infinite. Whatever these things are, he's all of them to the infinity. All right. Which means he's way out there. The Greek word means no number, by the way. Incomprehensible. You can't fully understand him. So those are considered the attributes of greatness. These are the majestic qualities. And these, to some extent, we develop and have. You can say he was a holy person. He's a righteous person. We understand it wasn't perfect, but they're somewhat what we can have. These are things that you do not have and cannot have because these are attributes of greatness. Personality would just hit them. Living, et cetera, et cetera. So, Tell me what's the advantage of having a living God? He can give life? What happens on Easter morning? What do we sing? I serve a risen Savior. What's so great about that? He's alive. We have a God who's living. He's alive. He lives and moves. And because of Him, we live and move and have our being. And so that's kind of neat. I kind of like that. He's intelligent. He really is. You can read the scripture. He's purposive. He has a purpose in life. He works all things according to the counsel of his own will. He has a plan and purpose in living. He's active. Jesus said, my father works and I work. And he is working in us, both the will and to do of his good pleasure. He's active. He's actually doing something. It's not a God up there watching it. He's not a deist who says, I got it started and I'm just going to see what happens. He's actually in there. He's free. He is at total liberty. to do anything that fits with his character and with his plan. He's self-conscious. Here's one, he's emotional. I like to just camp there. What does that mean? He gets angry. He gets jealous. He has a sense of humor. At least we're told that. He grieves, doesn't he? One of the main emotions that you see of God is love, hate, joy. Many times it causes him joy or grief. Think about that. You know, bitterness grieves the spirit. Read Genesis 6. Men were evil and it grieved God. It broke his heart. You know, you can tonight, God, God has emotions. He can be happy tonight with you. You can break his heart. You can break his heart. He cries. You ever break his heart? It's quite a thing when you think he's an emotional God. He is angry. He is happy. And every time you have a little kid and he's grown up and you know what it's like when they just bring joy to you. It's just so... Noah calls yesterday and he says, Hi. I love you. Bye. You love it. Joy. What if your kid does something which we all could do and probably all have done some. Breaks your dad's heart. Your mom cries. you can really break the heart of God. how much they spend time with God. Some people say, knowing God is a nice theological truth, but it really doesn't impact my life. They have not really come to know God. Here's what they said, Psalm 115, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name, give glory. Because of your mercy, because of your truth, just stack up all the attributes that they know. Why should the Gentiles say, so where's your God? Our God's in heaven. He does whatever he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths. They don't speak. They have eyes, but they do not see. They have ears, but they do not hear. They have noses, but they do not smell. They have hands, but they do not handle. Feet they have, but they do not walk, nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them. So is everyone who trusts in them. The gods of this world are the gods that men make. It may be a thing on a shelf. It may be a concept, a philosophy, whatever. Man made it. And every one of them is like that. They can't talk to you. They can't listen to you. They can't handle you. They can't help you. They can't be with you. They can't listen to you. And we have a God who has ears. Tonight you prayed and he heard it. He has feet. He can run to you. He has arms. He can carry you. He has a mouth. He can talk with you. He has everything you'd ever need. Can you imagine that the eternal God of this universe, the creator of this universe, is a God who does all of those things? One of the writers said it this way. The most intriguing verse of all scripture is this. And we always wonder what that's going to be. Revelation 320. That God says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. would hear my voice and open. I'll come in and sup with him. That God wants you to spend some time with him. That God is knocking at the door and just says, Open up, man. I'd like to spend a little time with you. And that's really quite amazing. And I trust that that's the God that you have. H.G. Wells, no friend of Christianity, pagan, said, The average Christian, if you ever really met God, would be scared to death. He might be right, but hopefully he's not. If we met God, we'd say, you know, I mean, he might wow me in a way that I've never been wowed. But I've spent time with him. I've talked with him. He's talked with me. I wouldn't be scared to death like that. He's somebody I've already come to know. I hope you know that God. So that's theology proper. We're going to go to the names and the number and the necessity of God next week and then jump right into Christ. And we can do that rapidly. Any comments?