The Lord is a seeker – seeking and saving.
If the Lord is the One that seeks after us, how do we respond?
He is looking for us.
There are so many instances of God coming to us in the Bible, even when people go to Him, they go with the one God sent.
The Attributes of God
Download MP3: The Attributes of God
This is a sermon I was able to preach about “The Attributes of God” as the church is going over the foundational teachings of Christianity. Mainly I talked about how Jesus said and did everything so that we would know about the Father.
Here are my speaking notes, not necessarily what I said, but the notes I prepared and went off of.
Attributes of God
Exodus 33
Moses says “Teach me your ways, show me Your glory”
God answers in Exodus 34
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, 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 the fourth generation.”
(Exodus 34:5–7 ESV)
God is mighty, powerful, ruler over the whole universe.
God is beyond all comprehension. In Romans 11 Paul says:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
(Romans 11:33–36 ESV)
Rick Underhill’s Intro to John Study
According to John 1:18 Jesus was the only one qualified to make the Father known to us.
John 1:18
No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.
- Jesus is closest to the Father.
- Jesus is at the Father’s side.
- Jesus has His head on the bosom of the Father.
- Jesus is what the Father is like.
- Jesus’ life explained the Father to us.
John’s gospel contains a lot of what Jesus said and did when He was with other people. We will study some of these conversations seeking to find the answers to the following two questions.
In each of these conversations what did Jesus say or do?
What did the words or actions of Jesus explain to us about the Father?
When we complete this study at least two things should have happened.
We should have a very good profile of the Father.
We should know what His actions look like in various situations.Before we begin
Please understand that what we learn will not be a goal for us to imitate. However, the things we learn will show us much about the characteristics of a maturing Christian man who is living in a right relationship with the Father. These characteristics will be increasing in our lives but only as we learn to allow Him to express His life through us, just as Jesus allowed the Father to live through Him.
What DID Jesus say about this?
John 14:9
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
That was His reply when Phillip said “Show us the Father.”
Compare that with Moses saying “Show me Your glory.”
So I want to do a fast list of a few things that Jesus said and did that show us what the Father is like.
Cared about people over rules
Jesus Manifesto:
The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to principles of justice or complex theological doctrines, but from a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success; not wealth or health or anything else. Only love.
Sweet, Leonard; Viola, Frank (2010–06–01). Jesus Manifesto (p. 117). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
It is true that God gave Moses The Torah, the Law, the Way of life, but all of that was to point to Jesus. The Law was never meant to earn anyone holiness before God.
Jesus showed this continually by pushing people to look beyond the law and to look to God’s intent behind the law. Saying “I you look lustfully at a woman you’ve already committed adultery in your heart” doesn’t mean you need to gouge out your eyes, it means you have to re-orient and recalibrate the direction of your heart.
God really cares about people. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
(2 Peter 3:9 ESV)
Confidence in the Father that caused overwhelming joy, hope, and life to come out of Jesus
Again a quote from the Jesus Manifesto:
Jesus did not live by His own natural strength. Instead, He lived by the energy of His Father who indwelled Him. He spoke when His Father spoke through Him. He worked when His Father worked through Him. He made judgments when His Father judged within Him. Jesus only did what the Father did, and He did it by means of His Father’s indwelling life. Therein lies the root of Jesus’ amazing life.
Sweet, Leonard; Viola, Frank (2010–06–01). Jesus Manifesto (p. 126). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
God is utterly confident, complete, and in control. God doesn’t say “fear not, trust in me and nothing that you fear will happen to you” Instead God says “Fear not, the things that you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of.”
Unconditional love
You don’t have to read far into the book of Genesis to see that people are really messed up. Genesis 3 is where it begins, actually. If God loved people based on their accomplishments or merits, the Bible would be 5 chapters long. It would be Genesis 1 and 2, then Revelation 21 and 22.
I’m leaving room in there for one Psalm.
As you watch Jesus’ life, and as you watch people throughout the old testament relate to God, you can see out of his Exodus 33–34 mercy and compassion, and out of his love for mankind, and His confidence in who He is and what He is going to do, unconditional love is all His!
Jesus said that to do the will of God is to believe in the one that He sent. Not do good or do right, but believe in the one He sent, because the one that God sent is going to do all of the saving for all of us. Our self-righteousness isn’t going to save us. Only God’s righteousness can save us.
God doesn’t love people based on their performance of his hoops. It’s about knowledge. It’s about relationship. It’s about friendship.
(Matthew 7:21–23 ESV)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
but Jesus says elsewhere what God’s will for us is
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
(John 6:28–29 ESV)
One Plague More
Exodus 11:1
The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. (Exodus 11:1, ESV)
There have been a lot of movies made about the Exodus, and they all like to focus on the 10 plagues brought upon Egypt. As I was reading through here this morning, this verse stuck out.
After everything that happens, I try to read it like I don’t know what is coming next. After each plague I think “Now, surely, Pharaoh will release the Hebrews, right‽” and then Pharaoh double crosses them. For a while you wonder if God is just enabling Pharaoh to continue in his sins, if the mercy is just too much. There is real irony here because God’s mercy brings about more suffering than if He would have just wiped out the Egyptians from the beginning. But that wouldn’t have sent the right message. The Hebrews are going to leave Egypt to follow a god that is merciful, compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love and boy will they see His patience and love as He gives the Egyptians one chance after another after another after another after another after another after another after another!
So after all of that, I think this might be the most terrifying sentence in the whole book.
One plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely.
There is one more plague coming, and it is going to be so severe that Pharaoh won’t let you leave, but he will drive you away completely! This next thing that is going to happen will be so profound, so powerful, so consummate, that Pharaoh will not change his mind like he did 9 times already. You will not be allowed to leave, but driven from this land.
It’s also interesting to note, that after the proclamation of the first nine plagues, Moses tells Pharaoh such and such will happen unless you let my people go. This time it’s done. Here comes the final plague, and we’re not asking anything of you, Pharaoh. The time for entreaty is over. The God of the Hebrews is done negotiating and yielding.
Don't talk bad about the building or the customs!
There is a section in Acts 6 that shows how sometimes the things people argue about aren’t really the things they are thinking about.
Acts 6:11
Then they secretly instigated men who said,“We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”
Acts 6:13-14
and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, 14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.”
I can count three times these guys change their story. As you pick apart their words, it gets a little more revealing every time.
- Their story is that Stephen is against Moses and God. The Law is a big deal and it came from God to Moses, so those two are the sore spots in Judaism. You can talk ideas all day long, but don’t talk against them specifically
- Their story is that Stephen is against the holy place and the law. Ok, now we are getting more specific, and seeing that it isn’t really God or Moses that Stephen is talking about, but the holy place and the law. The building is a building. It represented a lot to the Jewish people, but at the same time the building they were in was far beyond God’s design and had a ton of improvements from an evil Gentile ruler. Kind of like hanging a “Brought to you by Jack Daniels and Victoria Secret” backlit electric sign on your church. Sure, it was intended to be a holy place, but it was funded and built up by evil.
- (This one is really the best.) Their story is that Jesus of Nazareth (whom they killed and claimed His body was stolen) is going to destroy the temple and change the customs of Moses. If their story that Jesus’ body was not really back from the dead but rather was stolen, then how is this possible? And have you seen the temple?! A man can’t tear that thing down anyway! I think it is so interesting that they bring that as an accusation because it’s either preposterous to think something is possible or there is some genuine fear.
All in all, the truth comes out that God isn’t really the point of this at all, but their building and their customs.
Jesus Didn't Do It
John 14:10
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
This is hitting me more and more: Jesus never acted on His own, but only in response and in obedience and in union and sync with the Father. So often we talk about and think that Jesus was some kind of super hero with all kinds of power. He had no power exceptional to man. He was a man that lived in union and in obedience to God. SO God was pleased to do stuff through Him.
So often so much of what we do, even in our religious life, is motivated and moved by ourselves. What if we were propelled and motivated, not just into doing good deeds or living right, but into knowing the Father? What if that became the obsession and the focus of our lives, to the point that little else became a worthwile venture for us?
I’ll tell you what would happen. Everything that we do would take on new meaning, new joy, and a new appreciation.
When Jesus made wine, it was the best freaking wine those people had tasted.
When Jesus feasted and dined with people, all of the self-righteous people looked on and said He was a drunk and a partier.
When He was friends with somebody, onlookers were amazed at how deeply He loved them.
When He taught philosophy of life, people marveled and said that they had never heard anyone teach such amazing things before.
I think this is the normal Christian life that God offers us. We just need to get our focus off of second and third tier junk and refocus on the Author and Origin of that Life!