Yes, so we just finished singing to God be the glory and when you think about the refrain there what you see is you see us ascribing glory to God. There are many things that that hymn sings about in who God is and what He has done. And when we get to the refrain, the refrain is us proclaiming praises to God and encouraging one another to be about the business of praising God. And so, that's what, I just enjoy that so much in that hymn when we get to that spot. It's both praise to God and encouragement to one another to be about that business of praising God. So let me pray real quick. Heavenly Father, I ask that you'd superintend over the class that we have today. I pray God that you would be merciful and kind and that your spirit would guide my speech, that you would guide this class. Heavenly Father, everything that we do is dependent on you and your spirit. It's not our strength. It's not our power, but it's by your Spirit, God, that we can overcome, that we can accomplish, and that we can do your good will. And so I pray, Heavenly Father, that your Spirit would guide us, that you would be glorified today in the things that we say and do and think. Help us, God, to be about the business of comprehending your transcendence. Please guard my speech. Help us, Heavenly Father, to think rightly. rightly about who you are. Amen. Okay, so, greetings. Raise your hand, be bold, raise your hand if you read chapters 15 and 16. That was the assignment this week. Okay, that's some. Alright, now that you've had a chance to think about it, I want to ask the question again, be bold. If you read chapters 15 and 16 this week, raise your hand. Alright, that's three and a half. Alright. So, just to make sure that we're all talking about the same thing, when I say chapters 15 and 16, chapter 15 was from the book of Lamentations. Lamentations 3, 33. Chapter 16 was from Exodus 34. The Lord, the Lord, strong and mighty. Ah, no. Merciful and gentle. Yes, just to make sure we're thinking about this. We are at this point more than halfway through the quarter, in case anybody's keeping track. There's a lot of this book that we have gone through. If you haven't had a chance to read the book, put it on your nightstand, put it in your car, put it wherever you need to so that you remind yourself to open it up and be about the business of studying. So that you come to the class with thoughts in mind about what it is that You've read. So just thinking back through the book, including these two chapters, how at this point has this book impacted your life? Has this class impacted your life? Yes. It's made me more at ease admitting my own sins, feeling like I don't have to excuse them. It's my favorite advocate thing. Yeah, fantastic. being able to be at ease with Christ as we confess our sins. Mission accomplished. Yeah. Anybody else? I would agree. I mean, it's just, it's just kind of eye-opening to see, to really focus on the gentleness and loneliness of Christ, you know, and how his heart's desire is mercy and compassion. And this recent chapter, you know, that it was really amazing that we have to provoke to anger, you know, it takes a lot to raise his ire against us, you know, and provoke him to anger. And it says, you know, we never hear that we provoke him to love or mercy because that's what he wants to do, you know, he's quick, ready to burst forth with that. I found that really great. It is a sweet thing to think about. There's an aspect of that that we share. For you guys who have kids, if you think about your children, most of the time, your inclination is similar to God. We still have our fallen nature, and we're broken in that sense. But there's an inclination where we prefer to give them something that's a blessing rather than have to give them discipline. It's much more enjoyable to give a gift than it is to give whatever you and your family do for discipline and correction. It's frustrating sometimes. But there is an aspect of that too where our assumption because of our fallenness is that God is more stern. God frowns more than he smiles. And that's one of the, I think, the chief ends of the author's intent in this book, is to help us to see that our God is a gentle and loving Heavenly Father who inclines towards us and has a heart towards us. And His inclination towards us is not a stern inclination. We tend to, and the author points it out in these two chapters, ever since the fall, we have a part of us that believes the lie that God doesn't really want what's good for us. That was the, what did Satan say to Eve in the garden, at the tree? Anybody remember? Memory test. Did God really say, and there's another aspect to it too, He doesn't really want you to be like God. He doesn't really want you to have what's best. And that lie, when Eve believed it, there's an aspect of that, I think, that we inherit in the sin nature too, that goes, does God really, does God really? and questions who God is and his character in ways that scripture corrects. And the author here in this book is taking great pains to help us to see that it's not just in one place. It's not just where Jesus says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. but we've seen it last week, Steve taught about it from the perspective of the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit also, and it shouldn't surprise us, are in concert with what we see Jesus saying. Henry, would it be trouble for you to close that door? Thank you. And that God in the Trinity is united in this gentle and lowliness that the author talks about, or I like to think of it as love and mercy, and in fact we're going to see that talked about today as we peel that open. Let's, as we, I'm sorry, anybody else, were there any sections of this book that have particularly impacted you so far as you've been reading it? I know that some people, if you're like me sometimes, you get the book and you read the first couple of pages and you get into summer vacation mode and you forget to pick it back up again. I want to encourage you to repent from that and get back into the book. Otherwise, let's press on. If anybody wants to come back. Oh, Maria, yes? I just want to say that I'm doing this in a more personal way. What way do you mean by more personal? Yeah, so God has more of a personality, more love towards us, more approachable. I think there's more than one passage where God invites us to draw near. And I think it's reflect, that concept is kind of also reflected in what you're talking about, Maria. And I'm experiencing this freshly with my grandchildren right now. where I sit down and I want my grandchildren to come over and I'll read them a book. Or I want them to come over and tell me a story. Or I want to, you know, just hang out with them and stuff like that. And I think there's an aspect of that also that's reflected in us. This is part of God's image in us that's still not, that's right, as it were, where we want to enjoy those who are God's, who are made in God's image. Thank you for sharing that. Joel doesn't want to own up to it, but it's Joel's favorite book of the Bible. All right. I would say no. It's not the book that I go to when I want encouragement. It's not necessarily the book I go to when I want inspiration and stuff like that. But we need to recognize at the same time, it is God's Word. And as Paul wrote to Timothy, it's all good. It's all inspired and breathed out by God. How many of you guys have done a deep study of the Book of Lamentations? Yes? All right, good. In college? Okay. All right. Just to echo some of the things that the author points out is that the Book of Lamentations, since you have it open, how many chapters are in the Book of Lamentations? five, and the chapter and verse markings are not inspired, but they, for the most part, follow the thread or thoughts that are going on when the author wrote. And in the chapter markings, In the Book of Lamentations, it's poetical, and there are two chapters that are short, there's a center chapter that's long, and then two chapters that are short again. And the center chapter forms kind of a focus where the book goes and where the book drives. And it's interesting that the central verse is the one that we're going to be looking at today in chapter three. In the Book of Lamentations, folks believe that Jeremiah wrote this book. And it goes on and on about the difficulty of being under the judgment, the wrath, the discipline of God. Let's look at chapter 3. I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. Surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation. He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. That's just a sample of a lot of that Book of Lamentation. And Jeremiah is echoing difficulty of what Israel has gone through as they have rebelled against God, God has said, enough. Enough. And the prophesied wrath that God would bring on the people of Israel has happened. And Jeremiah is in the middle of experiencing this. And he is like, ah, this is hard. This is really hard. And I just picture Jeremiah groaning. in between every one of these verses, right? He is like a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding, and just in deep anguish and suffering. Look at verse 17. My soul is bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is. So I say my endurance has perished. So has my hope from the Lord. That is a low mark right there in the book of Lamentations in chapter 3. Because look what he says. He goes from my endurance is perished so is my hope from the Lord to but in verse 21. But this I call to mind." So he is going, ah, like this. And then he kind of like pulls himself back together a little bit and he goes, but this I call to mind. I'm still in the midst of suffering. I'm still in the middle of this pain and agony. The nation is, terrible things have happened. Terrible things have happened. But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness." Why can Jeremiah, assuming he's the author, why can he say the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases? His mercies never come to an end in the middle of such agony and suffering? Yes. Yes. Yeah, that's a really good answer. Put your finger here or your bookmark or a piece of paper and turn to Exodus 34. These two chapters hold together really tightly, and so it's worthwhile looking at both of these kind of at the same time. Exodus 34, Moses, back in chapter 33, Moses said, God, please forgive the nation of Israel. I know they made a golden calf, and I know that they've already rebelled against you 40 days after you gave your command, and they agreed to it. But if you don't go with us, we don't want to go to the promised land. And furthermore, God, would you show me your glory? And God says, I know you, Moses, because you asked this thing, I will do it. Wow! Wow! What an amazing privilege! What a gift! And what it is that a gift that God and His Holy Spirit has Moses write this down for us. In Exodus 34, the Lord said to Moses, cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, because he broke the first two. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite to that mountain." So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning, and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him. And he took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And here's where it happens. Ready? The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord! The Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped." And then he has a prayer. He said, God, declares his glory. This is, Moses says, show me your glory. God declares his glory and what he is declaring to Moses is his goodness. He says, I will make my goodness pass before you. This is the encapsulation of the glory and the goodness of who God is. Merciful. Isn't that what Israel needed at this point? Now, with your finger here, flip back to Lamentations 3, because in Lamentations 3, what does Jeremiah declare about God in Lamentations 3, 20-something? And his mercies never come to an end. It's because of what God declared about himself in Exodus 34 that Jeremiah can confidently say, God's mercies never cease. Isn't it cool how God's word holds together in these little places that sometimes we don't see and make these connections, but God knows and he put them there for us to follow the breadcrumbs. No surprise here, by the way, because God wrote all the scriptures. I just want to enjoy that for a minute with you guys. God's good. His word is true. He wrote it all. Period. Period. This concept of the mercies of God, the loving kindness of God, is found throughout scripture. What God declared to Moses at that time, the people of Israel understood that this was a truth they could hold to themselves. This was a special revelation of who God was, is, they can take that to the bank, because God doesn't change, and that is a truth about who God is. Yes? I just wanted to add two things that I observed that I think amplify that. The first, in this, you know, New King James translation, it's through the Lord's mercies we are not sued. I like that image of like fire burning something, but we're And that's important in the Book of Lamentations, because I can imagine Jeremiah feeling like they're on the cusp of being consumed, but God will maintain his remnant. And then the second one, it just seems so important to me that he says, I will declare the name of the Lord, and what the name of the Lord is, is merciful and long-suffering. Yeah. That's more core than just, here's something about Yeah, you would think that the first things would be the really important things? Yeah. Joel? Yeah, in fact, it's cool to look up, if you want to do some interesting Hebrew word studies, it's interesting to take that word hesed and look it up throughout scripture because it's in one place the most. One book of the Bible has the most incidence of showing up the word hesed. Oh, you know? Yes? No. Yes, Psalms. Maybe it's in the book of Psalms the most because of law of averages. But the book of Psalms is about praising God and who he is. And so if you're going to praise God and who he is, you would come back to what God has already declared about himself, his loving kindness. In fact, there's one song that says it over and over and over again, which is a little bit like cheating, but the Lord's loving kindness, indeed, the Lord's loving kindness, the Lord's loving kindness, the Lord's loving kindness, has it, has it, has it, has it, has it, yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's an important attribute of who God is. Yeah. Anyway, back to the Book of Lamentations. Sorry. That was a fun little trail to follow. But let's look back into what it says, because the author has some even more cool stuff to see here in the chapter 3. I'll pick up... Let's go read it again, because it's worthwhile listening. 22. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope in him. Jeremiah just said, I don't have any more hope. But he's calling God's attributes to his mind, so now he has hope. The Lord is good. to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust. There may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults, for the Lord will not cast off forever. But though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. For he does not afflict from his heart, or grieve the children of men, to crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High, to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve." I want to keep reading, but I need to come back to verse 33. Because this is the verse that the author takes us to in chapter whatever it is, the first chapter we study. And that is, "...for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men." And in some ways you've got to go, wait, what? Lamentations is all about how God is afflicting the people of Israel, righteously afflicting the people of Israel. And now the author here says he doesn't afflict from his heart. The ASV says, for he doth not afflict willingly. BBE says, for he has no pleasure in troubling and causing grief. I'm not going to read you the brief. King James says, for he doth not afflict willingly, right? The LSV, for he hath not afflicted with his heart. And when you see this picture, what the author points out and what he pulls from Puritan writers and says is, afflicting is not the thing that God does naturally. It is his strange work. When you first read that, it's like, that's kind of a provoking way of saying that. But what the author is saying, and it was already said, and it's worthwhile saying again, is that it is not normal for God to afflict. He does it, his justice at times requires it, but it's not what he would do if he had no input. What God would do without input would be to bless, to build a garden, to fill it with all the most wonderful things, to provide abundantly. I would say even to have new mercies every morning, to be faithful, to be long-suffering. God doesn't have to be provoked to do that. That's his natural work. His strange work is the work that his justice requires. That's what the author is pointing at when he draws us to Lamentations 333. It says, He does not afflict with his heart, nor does he grieve the sons of men. There's two parts to that, right? God would rather not, it appears based on what we're reading here, would rather not grieve the sons of men. When I think about this, I think about... Actually, let me stop. I want to just open it up. Thoughts, questions, input about what I've just asserted. And it's okay to challenge it, because, I mean, like I prayed at the beginning, this is the transcendent God, and there's some things here that are worth wrestling through about who God is in His character. Any questions or thoughts? I guess that takes you back to Genesis 1 or 2, when we're at the natural state that he created sin. It does seem to follow that that would be, he naturally wanted to bless us with a garden, and then all of a sudden, sin entered, and then just judgment. So that adds up to the whole. Cool. Any other, let's say, Genesis examples of God doing this as strange work? Genesis examples. Anybody? Can you think of some? Stretch your minds into what you remember from your Genesis stories. Pregnancy hurts. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh yeah, you're talking about the curse associated with the fall. Yes. Like pregnancy hurts, working is extremely hard. Yes. Yes, yeah, that's a perfect example, yes. The curse is a perfect example of God's strange work. His justice required that. Yes, Joel. context of lamentations, but there's an aspect of God loving. That's come from his heart. Yeah. So Hebrews 12 is interesting because it is a loving Father that's going to discipline us. Let's look at, real quick, jump over to John 15. I'm glad you went there. John 15, Jesus is in the upper room, he's talking to his disciples, and somebody like to read verses 1 and 2? You've been talking a lot. Just this time I want somebody who's afraid to put their hand up to read. Yes, go ahead. There's two kinds of pruning, right? That are going on there, right? And that speaks to, one of those kinds of pruning speaks to what's going on in Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12 says, set your sin aside, run without hindrance, expect to have discipline, because that's what a loving father does. And this talks about the second kind of pruning is for a fruitful vine so that they bear more fruit. Anybody here ever grow grapes? Oh, cool. So we understand this. Let me explain it to the rest of the class. In a summer, you can have this, at springtime, you'll have this scrawny little, looks like a stump almost, after you're done pruning it, right? By the end of the summer, the arbor will be filled with little twiggy branches, and there'll be grapes hanging off of them, if you've done it right. You'll pick the grapes, the leaves will fall off, and then the right thing to do, I think once it gets cold, is to take all those twiggy branches and prune them back till there's only three buds left. And the reason for that is if you leave all those twiggy branches, the roots spend all their time supporting these branches instead of producing fruit. And God knows for us, if we got, the picture for us then is, if God knows that we got too many things going on, too busy, too many distractions that we're trying to support, we can't be fruitful. and what he wants us to do. So he's going to prune those things back. So that we can be about the business of putting out fruit. Now the other aspect that John 15 says, for those that are not producing fruit, I will cut them off. Now that makes us scared. Because you're like, ooh, am I not a fruit producing person? Are you in Christ? If you are, then you are producing fruit. But there is an aspect of If we got our feet up and we're being lazy and we're not about the business, God will prune us hard to get us back into being fruitful. There will be a time, and you see this in the life of David, right? David decides, you know what? I'm going to take a census. I'm going to take a census. And his buds say, whoa, dude, you know you're not supposed to do that. He says, I don't care. I'm going to take a census. I want to count my people. And so he gets partway in and God says, OK, you should have done this. What kind of judgment do you want? And it's very interesting. David says, I'd rather fall into the hands of the Lord, but he's going to go out to the woodshed with God. And so there's an aspect of punishment there, but there's also an aspect of pruning to grow stronger. You know, for us who go to the gym, it's no fun. You ache afterwards, you get all sweaty and nasty, but then you do it because you see the goal that you're trying to get to. Another, you know, when we discipline ourselves, it's no fun. It's kind of a picture of what God's doing on our behalf. Thanks for asking. That was a really good question. Any other thoughts about God? Is God's Jesus talks about the Pharisees, how they weren't bearing good fruit, they were bearing bad fruit. So he says, a warning, bear fruit worthy of repentance. Behold, the axe is laid at the root of the tree, and is ready to cut it down and throw it into the fire. And Jesus gave us a warning as well, where he talks about a parable, where a gardener grew a big tree, but it wasn't bearing any fruit. So he says, chop it down. It's not going to leave anything. gardener says well wait please let me fertilize it for a little bit more wait a little bit more time and we'll see if it bears fruits very well but so god gives us time to bear fruit but for a certain extent you can see that you're not really with god so you will be chopped down Yeah, and you see that even in the Old Testament with the people of Israel, the patience and long-suffering of God with, first of all, the Israelites in the wilderness, and second of all, after they get into the Promised Land, you see God's patience where he sends prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet before he's like, I told you, I warned you, and this is going to happen now. I'm done, and now it's judgment time. Yeah, there's another aspect that's in the story that we read, the historical revelation of what went on during that time, where God says, I repent that I made man. And to think about God had made man for his glory and to be blessed by him and man rebels and runs off in his own direction and goes in, you know, in conflict with God and God says this is not, I repent that I made man. Nuke and pave. So, now, that being said, oh, did you want to add? I was just going to say another aspect of that is that his, you know, we're told his long-suffering, that he should perish. That whole time while Noah's building this ark for like a hundred million years, Noah's a preacher. He's declared that the judgment of God is coming and asking people to repent. So, that aspect of long-suffering. And there's a couple of aspects here that we should hold on for ourselves. I mean, it's important for us to explore into the land of who God is, to make sure that we rightly understand who God has revealed himself to be. But what's that mean for us? How do I now live my life based on what I've just seen and known about who God is? I wrote down that it helps us to remember our assurance of God's mercy in the midst of suffering. It also lets us know that God does not afflict us willingly. He will, but it's not what he would want to do, if I can say it like that. And there's an aspect of holy fear as we start to say what God won't do. We need to be careful about that. or how, because God is, right? And there's a sense of God doesn't change, and he doesn't react to what's going on because God just is, and he's already sovereign, and he's declared the end from the beginning, and we need to hold that truth in line with, but there's this aspect that God gives us that we need to kind of also reflect back into our understanding, our theology of who God is. That afflicting is not his normal, natural thing. Yeah, Joel, you want to add? That's okay, and when I made that comment earlier, I just wanted to smear it around a little bit. I don't want to muzzle anybody, okay? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And there's a sweetness to know that God will deal justly. When somebody spray paints my car, I know that God will deal justly or fill in the blank. I can rest in God's justice. That's also a comfort. I don't have to be my advocate. I also don't have to go out and be my own avenger. Yes. goes back again to Hosea, which, you know, I mean, it's again, you know, he talks about my heart recoils with him and churns with him, my compassion grows warm and tender. He's like, how can I, how can I give you up? You know, it's like just his, his heart, you know, they, for I'm God and not a man, the only one in your midst, I will not come, come to you in wrath. So, you know, that's, again, just a good reminder of who he is, his long suffering and He deals justly with sin and punishment, but his harsh desire is that forgiveness, why he sent his son. There is a tendency that sometimes we have to think, I feel this way and I act this way, therefore God must also. And God says multiple times there in Hosea and other places as well, I'm not man. You're made in my image, but you're not God, and I'm not man. And I'm going to love beyond your understanding. I'm going to be merciful in ways that you can't comprehend. To a level that's going to rock your world, let's go back to Exodus 34. Because that's a direct link to this. It's a direct link to this, and let's spend the last minutes that we have looking at the glory of God as proclaimed in Exodus 34. Yes? I just want to make sure you cover the thing about Mark 6, the echoing of this at some point, because that was, that like blew my mind. Bring it, bring us back to that. you know, he passes by boats, right? And then in Mark 6, Jesus does all this stuff on the mountain. He comes down, walks in the water to the boat, then he passes, he was going to pass them by. I never made that connection. Yeah, you know, that's really neat if that's that connection. I just want to make sure the author is not reading into that. I don't have confidence that I agree with all that the author pieced together right there about Jesus passing by. He might be right. I don't want to stand and put a stake in the ground, but I also didn't want to foot stomp that a lot. And the author, you know, he makes some very interesting points. What he does is he draws parallels between events that happen in Israel's time leading up to the time when Moses meets the Lord on Mount Sinai. And he says, look, all these things happen, and they also happen in Mark, chapter 6. And he says, God is passing by and Jesus is passing by the disciples as they're struggling to row. And those two are parallel pictures. And I go, they might be, but I don't want to spend a lot of ink on that. Yeah, so no, I'm not going to talk any more about that. Unless you wanted to say something. Sorry, I didn't want to talk to anyone. There's enough already in Exodus 34, I think, that I would spend ink on that. But I love this book in that sense, and I don't want to be too hard on the author either, that he feels and sees that that's a cool thing for him. I hope that was gracious. Exodus 34 is... There's a few times in the book of Exodus where you get these pinnacle moments In fact, I think of the Ten Commandments in Exodus. I think of God declaring His name of I Am to Moses at the burning bush. I think of God saying how He's going to deal with Pharaoh in Egypt, passing through the Red Sea. This is like right up there with all those gigantic things. Maybe even more so. There is rich and holy truth here in these verses. And as the author says, what we see God telling us here is sweet. If we wanted to say, tell me about the glory of God, right? The concepts maybe that come into our mind would be, well, he flooded the whole earth. He remade the whole surface of the earth after raining for a while, and he saved some people. Or we might say, he made everything. He spoke, boom, and he made everything. You might say that God parted the Red Sea, and he destroyed the Egyptians. He rescued Israel time and time again from their enemies. But when God is asked by Moses, show me your glory, look back at chapter 33. where Moses asks. Moses asks in verse 17, this very thing you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name. We could spend a lot of time talking about that, but we don't have time. Moses said, please, show me your glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you. That's not a mistaken word change. Moses says, show me your glory. And you picture, he's already seen on Mount Sinai lightnings and rumbling and mounts to the top of Mount Sinai on fire with God's glory. He's seen, he came up on a mountain, he saw God writing on these two stone tablets. that he picked up and carried down the mountain. He saw and was in the presence of God. And now he says, show me your glory. And God's answer to him is, I will make my goodness pass before you. This is the goodness of who God is. And that is his glory. Look back at 34. Let's slow down. The Lord passes before him and proclaims. Isn't it interesting that Moses could not see all of God's glory, but he can have it proclaimed, his goodness. And even in that, God was reflecting his goodness, his mercy, because he hid it in the rock. He proclaims, the Lord, the Lord, which by the way is Yahweh Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious. The author talks about how these Hebrew words reflect, excuse me, sorry, these Hebrew words represent pictures of who God is. The author talks about how the Hebrew word talks about short-nosed versus long-nosed. Anyway, the idea is God's compassionate. He leans towards us and his anger takes a long time How many of you guys reflect this glory of God when you get cut off in traffic or people do stupid stuff around you? That was a convicting statement, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I just wanted to go there because it's easy and I know that there are times when people do things that get in our way and upset us and we are not reflecting this. Just, if you don't have any other meditation from today, just meditate on God is slow to anger and I want to be like God. God is slow to anger and I want to be like God. Can I tell you a story? This past week, I'm meditating on this. This past week, I work software by the way, and they told us that they were going to cut, that they were going to have code freeze at 4 o'clock. at 336. I'm trying to validate something works right and I get a message saying code's froze. And I went, what? Everybody in the office heard me. What? No. I looked at my watch. It is not 4 o'clock yet. What? I stormed out of it, and I went down the hallway. Our TTO lead sees me storming. She's, what's going on? I said, the code is frozen. We have not finished our work yet, and the code is frozen. I was like that. It was embarrassing. And I walked almost to the lead developer's office. I stopped. I'd already spun off the TTO lead, so she walked right past me into his office, and I'm like, ah. And then one of the other guys said, Doug, we got another sprinter. And I just walked back going, slow to anger, slow to anger, slow to anger. And I had to apologize. I'm like, guys, that was stupid of me. I'm sorry. I don't reflect what I should have been reflecting at that point. That was not slow to anger. But that's who we are, right? Somebody steps on our path, gets on our way, then they gotta know who the Jets are, right? Ricardo, you were gonna say something, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, it's similar. We were talking about this last week in terms of how when David gets angry and is not getting angry over something that's directed at him personally, it's because of his squadron. Yeah. And so we were talking about traffic. So all week long, you know, as much as I used to, a lot of me can get pretty congested, and I found myself not in compliance, and I'm thinking about the class, like, oh yes, right, I'm not supposed to go in that direction. So, yeah, so what we're talking about in class is sticking with, it didn't help me to be better, but it helped me to be fucking quicker and to stop. Yeah, me too. Me too. It says here, I mean, that's a lot of slow to anger, right? But let's back up. It says, Merciful and gracious. So when that person honks at you from behind you to speed up or flashes their lights to get out of the way or cuts the code, the right place for us to be is merciful and gracious. What's that look like, Maria? What does that look like in our lives? Anybody got any success stories they want to share? What? Henry, what? Oh no, come on, we've been talking about that a lot. That's too easy. Bill's got his hand almost up, but I think he's just touching his hair. how to exercise at a lot of work, and at home, but I think at work especially. I mean, you have to reply by an email, right? It's so easy to get spun up and, you know, send that, like you're almost jamming on that, right? Just send it, write it, and walk away, take a left. Yeah, I made it sound really simple, but I think it's a good practice, right? I appreciate that you said not that you always do that, but I already know that you don't always do that. I mean, just because of who you are. You're a people. Yeah. Yeah. Take a laugh. That's a good idea to just step away for a minute. I appreciate you sharing that, by the way. I had somebody write a text message, similar kind of thing, to me this past week. And in my mind, I started thinking of all the things I could have responded with. And it was one of those, I can't think of one good thing I can say to respond to this email. I couldn't. And the most compassionate thing I could come up with was not to respond. But I think that It's worthwhile praying and asking God for wisdom how to respond. Proverbs says, seek for wisdom. Seek for wisdom and ask for it. And when I'm saying that, I'm looking at you, but really I'm talking to myself right now. There should be a way that I can answer that email. without endorsing the stupid ideas and um... I'm sorry, I'm reflecting my character right now. And um... but to challenge the idea, but to challenge it in a way that is supportive at the same time and encouraging is a hard, sometimes a very hard thing to do. But that's the way God is towards us. I think that sometimes Jesus does, Jesus lets Pharisees have it between the eyes. But I don't think I'm skillful enough or wise enough to default to that. I just want to keep going here because it says here, does anybody know what it means to be abounding in steadfast love? What does it mean to be abounding in steadfast love? Sure, yeah if you want to say. I mean you stood up, I figured you have something to say. yes yet Yeah. I think of a clown car. Clown car. You know what the clown car at the circus looks like? There's usually a point in the circus where clowns are out doing silly clown things and a car comes out and it's one of those smart car type size cars, right? There's a car, there's room in there for a sandwich and a person and that's it. And the first clown gets out of the car and then 20 other clowns get out of the car. How do you keep getting more clowns coming out of this car? But that's a picture of abounding in loving kindness. It just keeps coming. It's like a fire hose. It just keeps coming. I like that picture more. Yeah, you're allowed to. Yeah, and it has the word bound in the middle of that word. Yeah. Yeah. It's a one giant leap. Yeah. But you get the idea. It just keeps going. God's love is infinite. You know, in fact, John says God is love. An aspect of him, his character, so strong that you could define God as love and other things as well, right? But that's an amazing character of God. And he says that and reflects it here to Moses. Abounding. I like to think of it as you put the cup down in the sink and you turn the sink on and it fills up and you don't turn it on and it just keeps overflowing and overflowing and overflowing, abounding. And maybe if you wanted to think about God's love, it's more like having a swimming pool or an ocean. and you keep trying to fill the ocean up and it just keeps abounding and abounding and abounding. That starts to give a picture of what's going on because God being infinite and this attribute of God being infinite, the ocean is too small to figure out God's love. No. Oh no. Fannie Mae actually. No. Fannie Crosby. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I probably should have. What's the matter with me? In bounding, not just in steadfast love, but also in faithfulness. God's not going to give up. He's going to remain faithful. He's going to be faithful to himself. And he's made certain promises to Abraham. He's made promises to David. And those promises have been reflected to us and we get grafted into those promises. And he will remain faithful to his promises. And again and again you see in the Old Testament prophets and people talking to God, or God even talking about himself and saying, I'm going to be kind to you because I remember my promise I made to Abraham. Because he's abounding in faithfulness. And then he says, keeping steadfast love for thousands. And some translations say thousands of generations. We need to understand that the author points out that that doesn't mean that it stops at the 1,001th generation, because, wow, that would be a shame, wouldn't it? You're the generation 1,001. You don't get faithfulness or loving-kindness anymore. But the point there is, in Old Testament times, and in Scripture, there's a word, myriad, that represents 1,000. And that's just a lot. It's a whole lot. And then when you try to count the angels, it's myriads and myriads. It's that same kind of concept. God's going to be involved in lots of generations. But He will execute justice. He will. And that's that last piece there, which is also part of His glory. God's not just going to be always, always, always, always. but his justice will demand. But when you see the way, and the author points this out, when you see God describe himself, the ways that you see God describe himself is he is a God who is loving, he is a God who is faithful, he is a God who is merciful, he is a God that we can come to and approach, and he welcomes us. He wants to make sure that we are right and we are clothed in Christ as he welcomes us. Because if we're not clothed in Christ, we're not welcome in the wedding. Right? He will judge. He will judge rightly. His justice, his holiness, is not going to be compromised. Yes, Maria? 40 years as a Catholic and I've never heard one complimentary thing about God. He's always to be feared. Feared, feared, feared. God is to be feared. That's also true. Yes, absolutely true. But let's understand in light of, ah, let me stop myself. In four minutes, how do you reconcile what we're reading here about God's goodness with the fear of the Lord? Because I just asserted the fear of the Lord is good. How do you put those two things together? Because that's an important concept of theology for us to hold on to. Exercise your theological guess. But I forgot the name, sorry. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who are you pointing at? It was someone over there and I feel really bad. Oh, she's gone, sorry. She's got a really good point about how Noah, it's like this awful picture, but it only highlights God's mercy. And it's true indeed. And forgive me, this will also show my character, but I'm God and I see how evil these people are. whole entire family, and of course you see that Noah wasn't perfect either, but nonetheless he still saved the human race, and it's like, there's this picture of them in the ark, in safety, while judgment's all around them, yet God is still protecting them, and he's still at his plate. And of course you can go with covenants and everything like that, but I think that's like the place if you want to see God's judgment, the flood, everything happening there, yet God saved the ark, and Noah and his whole family being protected. That'd be the way I'd put it. Anybody else? That's not a bad idea. That's not bad. Yes, Joe. And I always consider the fact that if there was any other way, I would have done it. Sacrificing a son. And then I consider the righteousness of Christ and the enormity of that sacrifice and realize this is the holiness of God. This is what is required for me to be recognized as perfect. And that just naturally brings a fear that hurts. And I can't help but praise him for that, for his goodness. But at the same time, Let me ask a question. And this is going to be a question for you guys who would say that you had a good earthly father. That's not true probably for everybody in the room. But for you guys who had a good father, biological father, Would you say that you feared your dad? I see a no. You say yes. Oh yeah. It's a good healthy fear. It's a good healthy fear. It's not because you think your dad's going to be capricious. It's not because you think your dad's just going to be like, I'm out to get you. It's not like that at all. What's that? Yeah. Um, but, But there was a honor in his position. There was a, I recognize, he's in a position of dad, right? And it's the same sort of thing, you know, when you have a good police officer, you recognize that that person has authority. They have a measure of that, and so there's a respect, and I'm gonna say that respect is the concept of the fear that we have toward God, it's not a fear that God's going to be capricious or mean to us. It's a fear that recognizes, yes, His holiness, His justice, but we don't have to worry about those because we're clothed in Christ. It's a fear that recognizes the glory and wisdom and beauty of who God is. And that's why in the book of Proverbs it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's a fear that wants me to draw near to learn. It's not a fear that makes me, it's a fear that would make me not want to try to instruct God. Almost like what Peter did, right? Oh, you don't need to go to the cross. And he's like, get behind me. That was when Peter forgot the fear of the Lord. He got a little bit and he tried to instruct God. right? But the fear of the Lord keeps us remembering that God is God and we are not. But these other concepts can also then be held in concert with that to remember that God is loving and kind and wants us to draw near to him. But it's a drawing near, recognizing who he is, who he and everything that he's about and does. And these are concepts to try to hold all together and draw towards ourselves to really understand what scripture proclaims God to be. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the time that we've had to wrestle with the truth of who you are. Thank you that you were patient to put these things in English so that we can strive to understand. It's a glorious and wonderful and daunting task to come near to you to understand all of who you are. And I pray God that you would help us this week to strive to do that, that very thing. Dear Lord, thank you for explaining to us your goodness. Thank you for telling us, God, who you are, what your natural work is. And I pray that these concepts would have their appropriate impact, that your spirit would work with your word and unite into our minds so that we can understand you better and to draw near to you, God, to love you rightly and appropriately. It's in your name we ask, trusting that you want to answer this kind of prayer.