Good morning church. How are we doing? It’s great to be with you this morning. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the Book of Exodus. We are continuing our series and what it means to know God. And if we know God, we love God. And we’ve been talking about some big concepts, some big ideas about theology and doctrine. And Pastor John has started us off really well in this series, and I have been tasked today with talking about the attributes of God. So we’re going to be in the book of Exodus, and we’re to have a couple of passages that we’re going to see from there, but we’re also going to just shine a light on the whole scripture, on all the scripture that we have, which is why it’s important. If you’ve got notes, you’ll be using them today. I encourage you to do so, but will mainly be in the book of Exodus this morning. But I want to start by just giving us a base point, because there are some things in life that are really hard to describe. Are there not? When I moved to Memphis, I tried what I discovered for the first time to be basically a new food group for me, and that is Memphis Barbecue. I tasted it and just that the taste of it. I couldn’t compare to anything else. And so calling back to my family in Kentucky, explaining to them this Memphis barbecue, no words would do it service, right? But even for me, for maybe something a little bit more serious, when I got to hold my first child after she was born, and to describe the emotions and, just the sudden change in reality was very difficult. And even for me to come up with words to fully describe what I was experiencing in that moment would be very difficult. Some of you, if you’ve seen the Grand Canyon, you might experience the same thing to try to describe something as large and as beautiful and as vast as the Grand Canyon is not easy. Well, we’re at a talk this morning about the God who created all of those things, but the God who gave us Memphis barbecue and the beautiful, nature of childbirth. And then even the Grand Canyon, the God who put all of the stars in the sky and put them each in their place and named them all. We’re going to try to describe that God using human words. So you can already tell it’s not easy to do so. But we have been given what we need to understand God however much he wants us to understand him, because this is the baseline fact that we’re in start with this this morning is that God is incomprehensible. He is incomprehensible because you and me, we’re humans. We’re finite. We’re unable to comprehend God, but yet he graciously makes him, makes himself known to us. Even though God is incomprehensible, God still graciously makes himself known to us. In all of the scriptures we are shown who God is. We look to creation. We see who God is. And the greatest revelation that God has given us is when he became human himself. And we receive the Son of God to be born on this earth, that we, if we say it, Jesus would even said, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen my father. So God has revealed himself to us. But that doesn’t make our task any less easier. But because of that, we can know God. God is knowable. Just because he’s incomprehensible doesn’t mean we can’t know God. It just means our brains struggle to understand the infinite. But I’ve got a quote for us this morning that’s going to help us. It’s by, said by a guy named A.W. Tozer who wrote a book called Knowledge of the Holy. And this is one of my favorite quotes because it’s incredibly humbling and incredibly important. He says this. What comes into your mind? What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about you, meaning who you think God is or what you think God is, is the most important determining thing in your life. Because whoever God is to you, that’s going to control how you live. If you in your mind think God is an angry, wrathful God, that you’re going to live your life scared if you believe God is all love, accepting of all things, of all lifestyles, then you’re going to accept everything. But God is so much greater, so much more complex, and so much more beautiful than that. But who you think God is is going to determine your entire life. Which is why we’ve had this whole series that talk about theology and doctrine, because we need the right systems to understand who God is, and without him we can fall into heresy and idolatry. So hear me out this morning. It is of the utmost importance that we know God rightly, because we will become whatever we love the most, whatever we love the most, whatever we adore the most. We are designed to become whatever we love the most. And so whoever that God is to you, you’re going to become like them. And so this is why it’s so crucial that we have these systems in place. We gotta have something to work from. So when I started to learn how to play drums, I simply would listen to a song and I would try to repeat everything that I heard. Unfortunately, I never really learned how to read music, despite the fact I spent three years playing clarinet in middle school, I still didn’t learn how to read music, but I would listen and I would try to repeat it as best as I could. And that’s how I learned how to play drums. And so even today, like, my skill and ability is lacking because I don’t have that musical language in the technicality, in that formal training to know how to play drums better. And it’s the same way we know God. Yes, we can know God without knowing all the technical terms. Praise God that we can. And yet our knowledge of God can be lacking and somewhat insufficient. If we don’t have doctrine, we don’t have it systematized in our mind, which is why this is helpful. So we’re going to walk through some big ideas today, and I need you to to jump in with me. My wife and I, we had a we had a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner, and I had me a big old steak and that steak, it takes some chewing to do. And that’s what we’re going to do this morning. We’re going to chew on some really big but very important ideas. So I need an amen from me if you’re ready. Are y’all ready? All right. So here’s the main point for this morning. We can know the God of the Bible because he has identified and described himself to us. And here’s some funny words through incommunicable and communicable attributes, I’m unpack with those words mean. Traditionally we’ve understood God in these attributes as we’ve as he’s described himself and revealed himself in two different categories Incommunicable and communicable Incommunicable means these things are only true about God and nothing else, nothing else in creation. No one else communicable means these are infinitely true about God, but in some way they trickle down and it’s true about us in a weaker way. So you might hear these words sometimes used when discussed about diseases or sicknesses. Right. So heart disease is non-communicable. It’s yours. It’s not something you can pass on directly by being near somebody. So heart disease cancer those types of things are non-communicable. But something like a virus like the flu is communicable. We can pass the flu along to other people that we’re around. And so think of it like that is helpful. Also, maybe a positive example might be how we can relate to our parents that there are some traits, some attributes that are passed down from father to son or daughter, from mother to son or daughter. So those things are passed down. And yet at the same time, there are some ways we’re nothing like our parents. And so if we think of them this way, this is how we can understand God. There are some things about God that is not true about anything else in in it, in creation. And then that it exist. But while there’s other things that can be true. So this is what we’re going to walk through. And we’re going to be in Exodus chapter three as we see God’s interaction with Moses is the incident of the burning bush. If you’re familiar with it, Moses encounters a burning bush, walks up to it. It’s a bush that’s on fire, but it’s not being consumed. And he begins talking to it. And it is God who has revealed himself to Moses in this beautiful, incredible moment. And what we get here is some of the most important revelation about God and God’s Word, because he gives us his personal name. So look with me here in Exodus chapter three. We’re in verse 13. We’re going to look at a couple verses here. Then Moses said to God, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they ask me, what is his name? What shall I tell them? What shall I say to them? So Moses has been asked by God to go back into Egypt and to tell the people of Israel, hey, God’s here, and God’s told me a word. But Moses is concerned because they’ve been in Egypt for over 400 years. They haven’t had a place of worship. They don’t have a Bible to read. So their knowledge and understanding of God is very, very, very limited. In fact, it’s only been passed down through oral traditions from parent to kids and their kids to their kids. So Moses is like, listen, what do I tell them? Who is sending me? And so God gives us a beautiful, complex, unbelievable answer that Moses couldn’t even have fully understood at this moment. Says in verse 14, Exodus 3:14, God responds. He said to Moses, I am who I am. I am who I am. And he goes on and he said, say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Now there’s so much to unpack here. This phrase, I am who I am. It’s it sounds similar to the Hebrew verb to be. So this is why it’s translated as I am. And this is where we get the the name Yahweh, because it sounds similar to that Hebrew verb. And the Jews were so cautious and so worried about saying God’s personal name that they would put Adonai, which is the Hebrew word for Lord, in its place. And so they would say Lord instead of say Yahweh, because they were nervous that if they said his name in any and any kind of improper way, that they were going to be smited for it. So they were super extra cautious. And so whenever you see in your Bible translations, in your English translations, you’ll see the word Lord in all caps. That’s where the name of Yahweh appears. And where the people of God would say Yahweh. Instead, they would say the word Lord instead. But God’s personal name is given here for a purpose. God was communicating to Moses that I am who I am. And there’s a lot to unpack here. But but first, before we jump into the specifics, there is no was or will be God, but he eternally is God. It’s not that God was, and one day he’ll no longer exist. It’s not that God somehow won’t be God in the future, but he’s not now. It’s God is eternally present. God. He always has been. He always will be. This is when the New Testament will say that God is the Alpha and Omega. It’s the two ends of the the Greek alphabet, that he is the beginning and the end. The one who was, who is, and who is to come. God is always God. That’s where we start. So when he says to Moses, I am who I am, he’s it’s kind of like a flex. I’m God, and I’ve always been and I always will be God. So in your notes you’re going to have we’ve got six things that I’m going to unpack for us. There are tons of things we could say, but we don’t have time for all of that. So I’m going to fine tune it to six specific attributes that God reveals to us about himself. Y’all ready? Here’s the first one. God is personal. God is not some spiritual force out in the middle of nowhere. God is not some thing. He is a person. And John unpacked this last week that we worship a God who is one God in three persons. God is personal. That means we can pray to God and he will respond to us through His Word and through our lives. God is so personal that he was willing to descend from heaven and become a man to walk among us. He is a personal God. We can get to know God. One of the shortest verses in the Bible is Jesus wept because he is a person. God is a person. He reveals that with his name. The second thing is that God is self-existent. You might sometimes find in in commentaries or even in your Bibles. If you’ve got a study Bible, the word is aseity. All it means is that God is self-existent. There is nothing outside of God that helps him exist. God has always been. He was, always will be. Meaning he’s created everything. He doesn’t have a beginning or an end. He doesn’t depend on anybody to exist. This is why the Bible begins. It says in the beginning, God, God’s always been. He doesn’t rely on other things to make him exist. And we’re to unpack this a little bit later. But God is the, in one sense, the most simple thing to exist. He’s the most fundamental foundational because he alone is God. Third thing, God is self sufficient. I sometimes wish my kids had this ability, but God is self-sufficient. He doesn’t need anything. Newsflash God doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need you. God doesn’t need anything. God doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t get hungry. He doesn’t get impatient. God doesn’t need other things around him to help him be God or to function. God is self sufficient, meaning he doesn’t need anything from anyone. Praise God for that. Fourth, he’s omni present. You may have heard this before. This is only true of God, that God is present everywhere. Psalm 139 kind of gives us this picture here, that there’s nowhere we can go to escape the presence of God. God is not limited by time and space like you and I are. In fact, God created time. He created space. He exists outside of that. That’s how big God is. And then he chose to become a man to dwell among us. Which is why Jesus coming to earth is even more amazing. Because God exists everywhere all the time now. Yes he can. He can reveal himself specifically in unique ways. But it’s also true that God is everywhere. He cannot be boxed in. Fifth, God is immutable. This word means God doesn’t change. Psalm 102 27 two. Saying, and your years have no end. The God who existed in eternity past is the God who will always exist forever, and he never changes. And we hear this sometimes from people that will make the statement that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament. God in the Old Testament was judgmental, angry, wrathful. The God New Testament. He’s all love. He’s all good vibes. But that’s not what we get. In fact, God is just as wrathful in the New Testament as he is as an Old Testament. God is just as loving in Genesis one one that he is today. He does not change and praise God in a world that is always changing, that we have a God that never changes. Sixth, this is kind of tied to all the rest of him that God is eternal. Just think to yourself, there was a time when you did not exist. Then your mom and dad brought you into this world by God’s power, and you existed. But can you imagine just never having not existed? God has always been before the earth, before the universe, before the stars, before all the things. God was there. Perfect. And I can say this about God that he was content. He was perfectly in a communal relationship, father, son, spirit in a loving, caring relationship between the three. They didn’t need anything and yet he still created God didn’t create us because he needed us. God didn’t create the universe because he needed something to do. God was perfectly content, exactly where he could be. But the only reason why he created us was out of love. We’ll unpack that in just a second, but I’ll go here to Acts chapter 17. You can turn there. You can see the words on the screen, because I believe there’s something so interesting about what this passage brings to light for us. This is the apostle Paul walking through the the Greek city of Athens, and he’s walking in this place of worship, and he’s noticing all of these idols, all of these statues, all of these things that have been built and created for worship. And of course, the Greeks, they held a Greek mythology with Zeus and Athena. And what was interesting about the Greeks is they were really nervous that there was a God out there that they did not yet know about. They were concerned that if they didn’t worship every God that existed, that they might get smited. And so Paul encounters a situation where he sees something with inscribed that said to the unknown God. So Apostle Paul, being the wise, incredible man he is, he swoops in and he shares an incredible word. Look at this. Act 17, verse 23. He says, or the Scripture say, for as I passed along and observe the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown this I proclaim to you. And Paul is about to hit them with the true God. Verse 24, The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man. Already God has just destroyed their worldview. He says there is a God who created everything and everyone who lives in heaven, and he is over heaven, over earth. There is one God, not little gods. There is one God, and he’s over all. And he doesn’t live in temples made by man because this is what they did. The Greeks would see something like, oh, there’s the sun, we need a God for that sun. Oh, there’s the crops we need to make a god for the crops that we get a good crop yield this year. Oh, there is, there is this pleasure we get from from sex. So we need to build a temple. And a god is for that. Do you see what I mean? So you would build a building, make it, make an idol and put it in there. And Paul was saying, I worship a God who doesn’t need to be built. I worship of God, who’s always existed and isn’t in a building that needed to be made by hands. And look what he says in verse 25 here. Nor is he served by humans hands as though he needed anything. Because these idols, these fake gods, need everything from these Greek people. They need everything. They need the workers who were chiseling and putting together, who were overlaying with silver and overlaid with gold. They need these worse, these acts of worship where they’re cutting themselves or they’re going and spending a night with a prostitute, or they have all these different ways and forms of acts of worship that these God needs with God. But Paul says, listen, I have a God who doesn’t need anything. And since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. So here’s what Paul says. Because my God doesn’t need anything. You know what my God does? He gives. Think of that reality because God doesn’t need anything. He doesn’t expect us to give him everything as an act of like, subservience or like anything like that. God doesn’t need anything. Instead, because of that, God gives everything and notice if God doesn’t need anything, God doesn’t give us things because he wants something in return. God gives purely, solely motivated by grace and love. That should change our lives. If we get that and I’m going to, I’m going to bring it down to a really small point. God does not need you, but he wants you. When you get that in your mind and in your heart, it changes the way that you live. God doesn’t need you to worship him. God doesn’t need you to stand in here and to sing a song. Although he loves it. God doesn’t need you to tithe and give money to the church. God doesn’t need you here. But you know what he does. He wants you here and it’s better to be wanted than needed because God loves you. He has grace for you. God did not need any of us to exist. He didn’t need Valley View Church to be here. He didn’t need this earth, this universe to exist. And yet he created purely out of love and grace. It’s my first point for you this morning is we need to worship the Lord who lacks nothing. And we worship him. In light of that, we don’t get up and read our Bibles. We don’t pray. We don’t lift our hands and worship as if, oh, I’ve got to appease God today. I got to make God feel happy. Today. God is fully 100% happy and full of joy and full of life without a song sung to his name. And yet he calls us to sing. He calls us to read. He calls us to pray. Catch this. Not to make him happy, but to make us happy. The reason why God wants us to worship. The why God wants us to praise him, the why we need to read him, learn more about him is because when he’s most glorified us in us, we are most satisfied. In him we are filled up. The beautiful part about our God is that he doesn’t need anything from you, but he asks us. He invites us to worship him and we are satisfied because of it. Praise God that he doesn’t need anything from us, and yet he chooses to love us and give us grace. So now we’re into Exodus 34. Flip your Bibles over a little bit. Same book, same person encountering God. Story about Moses after they’ve gotten out of Egypt, after they’ve hidden in the wilderness. They’ve had several incidences that have happened. And Moses records this incredible story. He goes to God and says to God, I want to see your glory. Great question, great request. But God says, listen, you can’t see my face and live. If you saw my face, you would die. I’m too glorious. I’m too holy. I’m too beautiful. I’m too wonderful that if you saw me, you would die because you are sinful and I mean just sinful. That you are human. And so what God is like. I’ve got another, another way to do this. Moses, you go in the cleft of the rock and inside of this mountain, I’m going to put my hand over it so you can’t see me, and I’m going to pass by you. So you see my back. I’m going to give you a taste, a glimpse of my glory. And so what happens in response to this? God is he’s passing by Moses. He describes himself again. Y’all ready for this? God describes himself in Exodus 34, verse five, Exodus 34, verse five. Look at this. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord. There’s his personal name again, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. So we see God has to descend to get to where Moses is, and we see God’s full on display with his words of who he is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He goes on to verse seven, 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 iniquity is transgression. Sin of the fathers on the children and the children’s children. To the third and the fourth generation. So the Lord once again describes himself using his personal name, and then gives us. What I see is three attributes I could go on for several more weeks to just covering all the attributes of God that we can, that he’s revealed himself. But let me give us three in this part. Okay? First we see that the Lord is holy. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. He was and is and is to come. God is holy. It’s one of the most common use words about God in the Bible. He’s holy. The Hebrew word kadosh literally means separate or apart. God is so wonderful, beautiful, great that he is separated apart from us because he’s holy. Second, it says that God is love. Notice what I said there? Love is not God. God is love. God is the epitome, the originator, the definer of love. God is love. As it says in First John, the reason why God has mercy, the reason why God hates sin, the reason why God forgives, the reason why Christ came to this earth die on the cross is because God is love. God is love. Third, God is righteous. Another word might say is God is always right. Like I tell my kids all the time, although I’m not always right, but God is always right. Another word we might use is God is always just. We see in the past, as we just read, that God will not clear the iniquity of the guilty, that sin must be dealt with because God is always right. Meaning it’s not just that God does right, it’s that whatever God does that is always right. If it’s a little bit different, God is the definer of what right is. God determines what is right so that everything he does is right. That’s why we would say God is righteous. And so we see some things here that I want to unpack as we we kind of brought these three attributes up because how can God be both loving and just at the same time, how can God love sinners but also judge them for their sin at the same time? How is that possible? Because this is important. We have to understand this more that God cannot be reduced to his attributes. Meaning, we can’t just say God is just a loving God and that’s it. Love is God. Love is more fundamental than God. We can’t reduce God to something like that, but he is the very definition of his attributes. My wife, she is a fantastic cook. She makes a mean chili. She’s yet to enter in the chili contest. I really hope that she does this coming year. She might not, but she makes a mean chili and she has all these ingredients, all these spices, all these things that she puts together in the pot, and she makes it between the spices, the, the, the meat, the, the beans, the tomato, and of course, the noodles. Amen, Amen. Come on, come on. So all those things add up to make chili so I can break chili down to its ingredients. Chili is its meat. It’s spices. It’s all of these things. It’s it’s the ingredients make up what chili is. Humans can be the same way. You and I can be the same way. We are bone in flesh muscles. Some of us have hair like all those features. Ingredients make us human. But listen to me. God cannot be described that way. God is so perfect. He is the originator of all of those things. So we can’t say love is God, righteousness is God, wrath is God. No, no, God is love. God is just. God is wrath all at the same time. Equally, it’s mind blowing to think that. So all of these things must be equally true about God at the same time. As we draw to a close, I’m going to share with you the what I think is probably the most one of the most important passages we have in the New Testament. In Romans chapter three, because I’m going to show to you why this has to be true. How can God be both loving and righteous at the same time? Because if God is righteous, you know what we deserve death. But if God is loving, then he wouldn’t send us to our death. Watch what happens. Romans chapter three, verse 23. You may be familiar with this verse, for all have sinned fall short of the glory of God. Everybody, you, me, everyone who has been and will be is a sinner separated from God. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God in verse 25, and are justified by his grace as a gift. We can stand before the court of God, and he says, you are righteous, and it’s given to us as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That is the redemption that that Christ accomplished on the cross and in his resurrection, that that saves us from our sin. And now we can stand before a holy, righteous God. Look at verse 25, this gift, this redemption, whom God put forward as a propitiation, as a payment, as an offering by his blood to be received by faith. And notice what this says. I need you all to catch this. This was to show what? God’s righteousness. God loves us, but God is also righteous. Hold these two things right now, it says, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. So for Adam, Abraham, Moses, all the Old Testament, all the people that were sinning, what did God do with all that sin? Shouldn’t have you smited them right there? Here’s what God did. Just like he pulled out a credit card and you swipe that credit card. You put that payment on deferment and you pay for it at a later time. And every time Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David. They sinned. God swiped a credit card and said, listen, I’m gonna pay for that sin. Later. So God, by his grace, shows I love you enough that I’m going to pay for it. And so verse 26, last verse, it was to show his righteousness at the present time and catch this church so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. I know this is deep, understand, but this is the gospel that God displayed to us, that not only does sin need to be paid for, but he was willing to be the one to pay for it with his own son. Jesus. And this is what this comes to. The cross of Christ is a shining beacon that God is both love and just at the exact same time. That God had to deal with sin. He couldn’t just say, oh, sin doesn’t matter because then he’s not righteous and God wasn’t going to let us die in our sin because he loves us. So we had to do something. He not only paid for the sin, but he loved us enough to be the one who actually paid for it. Do you see that? For this morning here’s your second point: worship the Lord for who he truly is. Worship the Lord for who he truly is, not some version that we have in our head, not some version that we see in our culture, but the God of the Bible. That God has revealed himself through the word and through Jesus Christ. That is the God we are to worship, who is both love and just, who’s both kind and wrath, who’s both a consuming fire and full of grace and truth. And so let me give you four things. As we close, four things that you can take home. We talked about a lot. So I’m a boil this down to what we talked about. The four things already. Four things one, we should strive to know God as he reveals Himself in His Word and in Christ. We shouldn’t try to come up with our own version of God or box God, anyone. This is my God. This isn’t like Talladega Nights where we say, wow, I like my Jesus to be 6 pounds, seven ounces like that. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We can’t make Jesus who we want Jesus to be. No. Jesus is. God is. That’s the God we worship. Two we should first love God for who he is before what he does. Imagine if we loved our spouse just for what they do. Nice. If we love their kids just for what they do. Imagine if we loved our friends just for what they do and it’s conditional. If they don’t do what I want them to do, then I’m not going to love them. But what if we loved God for who he was first? Of course we should love God for all the many miraculous, beautiful, wonderful things that he does. But first, we need to love God for who he is, not just what he can give us, but for who he is. Truly. Third, we should not isolate or elevate one attribute over another. We can’t say God is all loving, but he doesn’t judge sin. That gives you in heresy. We can’t say God is wrathful and vengeful and he doesn’t really love people. That also leads to heresy. All the attributes are true of God all at the same time. And number four, which I think probably is the most important, we should get to know God more so Art, sorry, we should get to know God more so that we can enjoy him more. Did you hear me this morning? Your knowledge of God increases your love for him. Meaning, if I can put it this way, your love of God is limited to your knowledge of God. The more you know God, the more you can love him, the more you get in His Word and understand who he is, the more you’re going to love him. Yes, it’s true, we don’t need systems. We don’t need doctrine to love God. We don’t have to have all that worked out. That’s true. But the more you get to know him is, the more you will love him. So here’s your challenge this morning. Does your knowledge of God come from His Word or something else? Does your knowledge and personal knowledge of God, does it come from the Bible, come from Christ, or does it come from something else? Because it is so important that we know God rightly. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word. These are big, complex ideas and yet you chose to reveal yourself in ways that we can understand. And God, you didn’t need us but yet you want us. You didn’t need us to be here, but you put us here. And now our worship of you is not something that you need. It’s what you want for us. So I pray, father, that we would worship you for who you truly are and not some God that we make up in our head, but we worship you according to what your word says and who Christ is. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.