(Sunday School) Attributes of God Part 1

That's right. He came from Alaska.

So all right, well, guys, we're going to get started on our on

our on this new series. We are going to get into the

attributes of God, which there's some there's a couple of really

great books out there on the attributes of God.

That one from AW Tozer and another one from AW Pink.

Why they both have the initials AWI don't know, but but anyway,

this this idea, this this concept of of the attributes of

God. I think AW Pink in one of his

specifically in one of the chapters of his book, he he

gives this explanation that I thought works well for the whole

concept of the attributes of God.

And he says, he says. Perhaps the title of the chapter

is not sufficiently explicit to indicate its theme.

This is partly because so few are accustomed to meditate upon

the personal perfections of God. Comparatively few who

occasionally read the Bible are aware of the awe inspiring and

worship provoking grandeur of the divine character.

That God is great in wisdom, wondrous in power, yet full of

mercy is assumed by many as common knowledge.

But to entertain anything approaching on an adequate

conception of His being, nature and attributes as revealed in

the Scripture is something which very few people in these

degenerate times have done. God is solitary in His

Excellency and then He. He cited Exodus 1511 that says

who is like unto thee, O Lord among the gods, who is like the

glorious and holiness fearful and praises doing wonders.

So our goal here in in this series is not to obtain a

comprehensive understanding of all that that God is.

That would be a great goal right, But but we know we'll

never get there. But more appropriately to to

gain perspective of God by understanding those those

traits, those those attributes. So attributes that what that

that word specifically means according to the dictionary, he

says a quality character or characteristic ascribed to

someone or something. So as we go through this study,

one of the interesting things that that we'll see as we go

through this and, and hear from the different guys that are

going to teach it over the next several weeks or actually over

the next two months, is, is that some of God's attributes are

communicable, right? We hear that every once in a

while, communicable, communicable meaning that humans

can possess or experience them or that they can be reflected

in, in people to a certain extent.

And some of those are, are like gracious or, or merciful or

loving, right? We can, we can, we can embody

those to some extent as as humans.

And then some of these attributes are non communicable,

meaning that humans cannot possess them, right.

And, and again, we'll look at some of these different ones and

we'll see that, you know, we can't be omniscient, meaning all

knowing we, we can't be immutable or perfect.

I think that's, that's kind of kind of small, but I think you

get here's. So when you look at the, those

books, AW Tozers and AW Pinks, they both have these, these long

lists. In fact, AW Tozer did 2 volumes

of the attributes of God. And, and so it's not, it's not

like a specific list exactly that we find, you know, in

Scripture. It's things that we we read

about in Scripture that these guys have have made these lists

of have identified certain characteristics.

And so in our study, we're not going to cover all of them.

We're going to cover some of them.

And and so here's some that I just grabbed off of some of

these lists. And you can see here we could

kind of look at at whether these are communicable or non

communicable, for example, communicable, communicable of

again, meaning something that that we can we can do.

Can we be wise? Yeah, not always.

Right. I wasn't looking at you,

Richard. Can we be infinite?

No. Can we be merciful?

Yeah. Can we be the cornerstone?

No. Can we be a shepherd?

Yeah, sometimes. Right.

So holiness. How about holiness?

Yeah. So.

So what we'll find with some of these, it's going to be kind of

interesting. Is that sometimes there there's

like, can we be holy like God? No, we can't.

Are we called to be holy like God?

Yes, we are. And so to an extent we can be

right to not not to the same level that God is, but we can be

holy compared to where we used to be.

So, so, so some of these are like a certain way we look at

it, we go, well, that's not, you know, we're, we'll never get,

we're never going to be holy. And yet at the same time we can

be. So some of them we'll see are

communicable and non, non communicable at the same time.

So we'll kind of just discuss some of that as we as we go

along and we'll see that maybe on some of them, there's kind of

varying levels of, of whether that's, you know, that's the

case or not. And so some of these attributes,

as we get looking at them, especially since we're not going

to go through all of them, some of these will seem very closely

related and, and similar. Often times we're going to use

the same verses to, to explain them, right.

But just like interlocking pieces of a, of a, of a puzzle

here, like we have up here on the screen, sometimes putting

two or three closely related pieces together helps us to

understand the context of, of, of another, otherwise not fully

understood or even misunderstood piece.

So sometimes as we look at like this first week, when we look at

this, we might not be able to necessarily wrap our, our heads

around the, the infiniteness of God.

Well, I can guarantee we won't be able to wrap our heads around

that fully, but we will be able to understand that more 2345

weeks later as we, as we start to build some of these other

pieces, it'll help us to kind of get in a place where we can,

where we can understand that a little bit, a little bit better.

And as we continue through this study, we, we hope that each of

these, these pieces that we add or that we, that we, that we

study adds to the totality of our picture of God as we see

that they are related to each other, but each and each of them

is distinct from each other. So the Bible, God's word, of

course, tells us what God is like and, and what he is not

like. And without the authority of the

Bible, any attempt to explain God's attributes again those

inherent qualities that he has, any attempt to do that, to

explain it would be no better than us just offering our

opinions. Which if it were, if we were

left up to our own understanding without Scripture, our opinions

would be very they would be often incorrect.

And in fact, they'd probably always be incorrect, especially

in understanding God. In fact, much of what we could

come up with to describe him would probably be simply

heretical because we would, we would try to explain him through

the framework of the way that we approach everything else in our

life. Right?

If, if, if I wanted to, to try to describe Aaron and her

characteristics, I'd do it based off of what I see, what I hear,

the, the way that I see the world.

She's a human like I'm a human. So I can relate to her that way,

but if we did it without the God's word to try to explain

God, we'd be all over the place and, and, and miss that.

So Scripture is, is key to to us being able to understand this.

One of the, one of the attributes that we'll look at

next month is that God is, is holy, right?

He's set apart. We are in the same category.

We're not in the same class as as God is.

And so Jason will have that one here coming up next month and,

and he'll walk through what that means.

But besides the, the perfectual nature of His Holiness, he is

simply different than we are. He is simply set apart from us.

And, and of course, we can't, we can't obtain or experience all

of those same attributes. So although we'll never be able

to fully understand him, we do want to study him.

Romans 1, 19. That's not Romans 119.

There we go. Romans 1/19/20 says for what can

be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it

to them. For his invisible attributes,

namely His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly

perceived ever since the creation of the of the world in

the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

So that says what can be known, right?

What can be known about God suggests then that there are

some, that there are many things about God that can't be known.

And of course Scripture backs that up in Isaiah 55 verse 9

Isaiah 55:9

says for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my

ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

And I'll tell you what, there's just something I think in my own

walk, in my personal walk with, with Jesus, this concept helped

me immensely because I'm a, you know, my background as a police

officer was a guy who tried to figure things out, right?

I was always looking for facts to make the case.

And when, when you do that with God, there's lots of facts out.

There's lots of information to get into making the case for

him. And yet faith is, is, is

something that that takes exactly that faith, right?

Not, not something that we can, we can prove.

And so when I got to this idea, when I finally got to this place

where I was like, I'm not even meant to know all of this, There

was a piece that I, I finally got to experience that way

because I got to go and say it says this and I, I trust the

Bible, I trust God's word and it says this.

And so I'm going to rest in that, even if I can't fully

explain that, right. And, and and as as I've grown in

my faith, sometimes I get to a place where I can kind of

explain some of those things, right.

I I learned more and more and I I can't explain.

And yet not everything is, is that way.

So what is your best explanation of Infinity?

Anybody got any, anything. Yeah.

Like Buzz Lightyear, Right. What's what's what's, what's an

explanation of Infinity never ending.

That's what you said, too. All right.

What else? Without beginning, without end,

we're going to run out of these very quickly because we all have

the same ideas. What's what's another one?

Yes. Infinity plus Infinity, right.

That's the that's kids have this.

They they think about Infinity sometimes it's it's it's funny.

I used to have this conversation with these two all the time.

What were you going to say? Yeah, OK, so that's math.

Math mathematicians have to think about Infinity.

Like, honestly, if you're going to be like a, you know, some

scientist, you know, like John, right, that does math, like this

long of math, then, then I guarantee they, they contemplate

that because mathematics automatically leads to like how

big of a, of a, you know, problem can, can we have and,

and that sort of thing. You know, I might talk about

that here again in a little bit. But so as I was prepping for

this and I was looking on, you know, on the Internet and

looking for resources of how people have explained Infinity,

Like what are the common ways that people do?

They would get those same answers that I just got right

forever without end, without beginning, You know, all of

these these kind of things, about 1/2 a dozen different

words or phrases and this symbol.

Otherwise there was, there wasn't really a lot of

explanation. Because like you, when you say

forever without end, I mean, what, what better thing can you

do to say it than that, right? Because our brains just simply

don't function in a way to be able to, to really truly

contemplate that. There have been arguments from

philosophers for for generations, for for centuries

over the idea of of Infinity. So excuse me to this is the way

my brain works to understand. If I can't fully understand

Infinity, then what does it mean to be the opposite?

Which is finite, right? What is what is that?

Well, finite defined is having definite or definable limits,

right? So the the other one is having a

limited nature or existence or completely determinable in

theory or in fact by counting measurement or thought.

And so it's funny that that this symbol is one of the things it's

kind of hard to see there, but you guys all get the idea of the

figure out. It's, it's often used as the

symbol of this is a symbol of Infinity, and yet it's only

infinite in its linear line. But sideways, there's clear

boundaries, right? So we can't even Draw Something

to, to get the idea of that. And, and that's actually part of

what we do with God too. We think, oh, I've got them

figured out this way, right? We, we've got them figured out

with how big he is or how whatever, but we can't figure

out the time of God. We certainly can't figure out

how much God can love, right? We don't.

We can't figure out how he could forgive so and so who did

whatever it was or or how he could forgive me for all these

terrible things that I have done.

And yet we read that he does right?

We we read that his that his grace and his mercy and his love

and all of these things are are without end.

So finite is, is something that is that has boundaries, right?

That that we can, we can describe, we can put in our box,

we can, we can determine in theory, right.

So even if you look at some of these scientific theories that

that are, you know, for, for, again, for those mathematicians,

those, you know, the, what was the movie of the kid at, at the

school, you know, how do you like them apples, that movie

Goodwill Hunting? Yeah, That even those kind of,

you know, the guys that do those, all those huge equations

and, and that sort of thing, they, they can, they can

understand theories. Like I get the idea of how this

would work, but they don't necessarily have the, the, the

equation figured out. They just know that it could

work in a certain way. And so that's very, very small

still compared to our, our full understanding.

So infinite, this is one of the definitions was infinite is

limitless or endless in space, extent or size impossible to

measure or calculate. And some synonyms are boundless,

unlimited without end, interminable, cosmic,

immeasurable, fathomless, right. So again, there's not a whole

lot to to be able to because you even some of those words we

can't really wrap our head around.

So as we, as we continue to delve into this study for these

next several weeks, we can look at at each of these, these

upcoming attributes through the lens of God's infinite nature,

right? So when we get to love or when

we get to mercy, then then we, we can look at it and go, we, we

look at through this lens of infinite that love doesn't end

or, or those different things never, never end when we study

his goodness, right? That goodness only continues to

get gooder right, right. And and and it's it's kind of a

word. His no gooder, his mercy goes on

forever. His his love has no end to it

because God's good qualities have no limit.

So another aspect of this is that God is self existing right?

Some of his some of his attributes will will kind of

delineate from from this being infinite like we're going to

we're going to really have to understand that this this self

existing nature of God. The word for it is called

assayety. That's the the like the

theological word. And that means that he is

without a creator. Colossians 117 says, and he is

before all things and in him all things hold together right.

So again, just the idea of how big God is that if, if

everything that has ever existed was infinitely big and God is

bigger than that holding it together.

It's like what George says, infinite Infinity plus Infinity,

right? Doctor Adrian Rogers said, he

said the name Jehovah is used some 6800 times in the Bible.

It's the personal covenant name of Israel's God.

In the King James Version of the Bible it's translated Lord God.

Not only does it speak of God's strength, but also it speaks of

the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God.

The root of the of this name means self existing, one who

never came into being and one who always will be.

And when Moses asked God, who shall I tell Pharaoh has sent

me, God said I am that I am right?

That's a self existent explanation and that self

existence speaks to the eternality of God.

That means that Infinity ago God had was was, you know, he had

already been around for Infinity.

Infinities. It's impossible for us to be

able to comprehend, right? In fact, I think that the

infinite characteristic of God might be the single hardest

thing for most people to get around in their position and in

their opinion of God, because we as human beings insist on

putting things in a a theoretical box, something that

fits our mental aptitude and and capacity, but that is simply

impossible. One explanation I read said in

our in our limitedness, grasping the nature of our limitless God

is like holding on to water as it rages down a river.

I thought that was a pretty good explanation, right, that if you

try, if you're standing in the in the river and you try to grab

it and hold it back like you can, you can physically touch it

and and it can it can impact you and it can move you, but you

know you but you're not able to to stop it.

Psalm 147 five says great is our Lord and abundant in power.

His understanding is beyond measure.

So it Infinity itself is impossible to comprehend.

Here's this is an here's that nerdy math thing like Cole was

talking. If we decided to write the

number Infinity, right, if we were just going to write it out

with digits, with numerical digits and we just began

writing, you know, ones and, and twos and threes or whatever

digit it is continuously for the entirety of our lives.

If every second we're, or every, you know, 10th of a second,

we're right in a digit and just on a whiteboard continuously

going, you know, every second of every day for the rest of our

lives when we die, we would have written 0% of Infinity like

that. I don't know if that connected

with you, but as I read that, I just was like, my gosh, we are

small, right? We are, we are small and God is

huge. When these guys, when my kids

were young, I remember trying to explain this and you know, it

would be like, well, what's the, what's the biggest number you

can think of Infinity. And you say, well, what's about

Infinity plus one? Oh, well, Infinity +2.

Well, where do you stop with that?

Because George says Infinity plus Infinity.

But what if it's Infinity plus Infinity plus one?

That's bigger, Huh? Right.

Like we can, we can always, we can always go bigger.

Nearly 400 years before Jesus was born, Aristotle worried

about this. This is one of the things that

he he, you know, bothered himself with and other, you

know, puzzles concerning infinite divisibility.

And he was this thing that I that I read said he was also

worried about the infinitely big the universe he thought couldn't

be infinitely big. If it were follow me on this is

going to get the universe couldn't be infinitely big.

If it were, then half of it would also be infinite.

So what makes the whole infinite bigger than half of it?

Apparently nothing. They're both infinite, so they

must be the same size, he said, but they can't be the same size

since 1 is half of the size of the other.

Like this whole concept is it's it's huge.

It, it's like a, a tangled ball of, of string or something and

trying to make make sense of that.

There's a lot of people limitlessness is kind of a, a

more of a spiritual, you know, people who are, who are not

religious, they're not believers, but they call

themselves spiritual, right? And, and that sort of thing,

They will, they grasp onto this idea of Infinity or or

limitlessness, but without they try to do it without God, Right.

And so I read something that said the concept of Infinity and

spirituality is multifaceted, representing endless

possibilities, unity, and the interconnectedness of all

things. It encourages individuals to

embrace the eternal nature of the universe and the divine,

promoting a state of infinite love, compassion, gratitude, and

wisdom. Infinity symbolizes balance,

harmony, and the potential for personal growth and spiritual

connections. Other than the word divine.

They've completely tried to address this without God.

It's all about humans, right? It's all about just this idea of

energy and, and things like that.

And and of course, they're, you know, without the idea of, of an

all powerful, omniscient, self existent, eternal God, this is

just going to end up running people in circles.

It'll run us in circles still, but at least we can go, I'm

going to stop running in circles because God exists and that's

all I need, right. But if you, if you, if you can't

get to that place of, of understanding God, you're going

to run yourself in, you know, ragged trying to chase something

down right here. Psalm.

Oh, this is that's the wrong Psalm.

There we go. Psalm 91 through 4 tells us that

God exists outside of our frame of reference and outside of, I

mean really outside of space and time.

It says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all

generations before the mountains were brought forth or at or ever

you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to

everlasting. You are God, that's present

tense from eternity past you, you are present.

You return man to dust and say return O children of man for

1000 years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past or

as a a watch in the night. Now prior to creation, you know

prior to creation and like the sun and the moon and the earth

and those those things that we use for the element of of

measured time. God was there right before days

existed with the rotation of the earth and the and the moon and

all that God existed before measured time first Peter 120

says he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was

made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.

So so in this passage he's talking about Jesus and and

that's really so foreknown. He, he was already well known by

God well before the foundation of the world because he's always

been there, right? God was always aware of himself

well before what we recognize as the foundation of the world.

That's the beginning of the beginning.

God was already there and and absolutely in control forever.

God is transcendent, meaning that he exists above and

independent from his creation. Now.

God's Infinity forces us, though, to a place of humility.

Like what I was saying earlier when I was when I was reading

some of these quotes earlier this week as I was studying, all

I could think of was how small I am right.

And I'm not a small dude, but I'm but but when we in that in

that comparison to God, I'm so little and so powerless and so

weak. AW Tozer in in the idea that

God, that God's Infinity, forces us to this place of humility.

AW Tozer said to admit that there is one who lies beyond us,

who exists outside of all of our categories, who will not be

dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our

reason nor submit to our curious inquiries.

This requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us

possessed. So we save face by thinking God

down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him.

Isn't that, isn't that true? Isn't that what we do?

Because we can't get to the place of understanding God and

just trusting that he's as big as he is.

What we often do is we try to define him.

We try to, we try. I mean, we, we, we, we picture

him as a picture of, of Jesus with white robe and sandals and

beard and, and, and that 33 years and whatever it is, we try

to put limits on him because that's why he, that's the way we

face life is, is in that limited way.

And, and rather than just simply resting in his magnanimity, in

his vastness, in his limitlessness, what we do is we,

we, we, we, we just insist in our own, in our own selves in

trying to define him. Colossians three 12312 tells us

though, to put on humility, which really isn't too difficult

when we consider the vastness of God.

Here's what it says in Isaiah 40 of verse 12.

He says who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

right like think about that. The oceans, all of those giant

oceans are are small enough literally physically to fit in

his in the palm of of his spiritual hand, right.

Like that's, that's there's, there's something there about

understanding that that is, that is really just a wonderful.

Again, AI think it's a place of safety, a place of security to

know, because I think about if you don't know God, that would

be scary, wouldn't it? It'd be scary to think that

you're this small and that that the the world is spinning and

out of your control and that there's nothing you can do to

try to make it be anything. And so it would be scary, but

when we can trust in God, then we can actually take security in

that because we have, you know, this huge savior.

That's the wrong passage. I don't need that one yet.

Job 25. There's so much like this in in

Job, right? He says how much less man who is

a maggot and the son of man who is a worm.

Like that's pretty, you know, we're maggots and worms, like

the, the figurative nature of that is, is really meant to, to

remind us that we're, we're low crawlers, right?

We're, we're the, the, the lowest of, of the low.

Putting on humility involves cultivating an inward aptitude

or excuse me, attitude of, of meekness and and loneliness.

Like like that concept of the of the worms and and the maggots,

right, recognizing how small and and powerless and really truly

finite we are. James 414 says, yeah, you do not

know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life for you are a

mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Some some versions say of vapor, right.

And I love the simplicity of of these examples for us to

understand every every winter, maybe even this morning.

We all are, are fascinated like, like we were when we were, you

know, little kids about how the vapor of our breath on a cold

day is visible for just just a moment and then it evaporates

completely, right. Psalm 144, David says in Psalm

144, four man is like a breath. His days are like a fleeting

shadow, like a passing shadow. This one, this version says

yeah. Yeah, I think, I think the

important part of that is to understand that it's really

about on our own we're nothing, right?

Because you know, that's in that in that passage is Job 25,

right? There's there's this, there's

this conversation about who the heck do you think you are,

right? Like were you there when the

when the world was created? You're nothing but this without

me, right? And so does that make sense?

Like, yeah, yes, yes, it is. But let me just say that I'm OK

also with even with God, I'm still minuscule and finite.

Not to the point where I would call you a worm because I just I

think that that is also like AI think.

I think it's given to us in kind of like a how dare you kind of

thing. It's a little bit of a put down

because you're outside of your relationship, the relationship

with without God. You you are maggot for us as

believers, we can understand the same concept behind here about

you are still finite. You are absolutely dependent on

this giant God for for everything, right?

And through that you are you have power.

But so there's a got we got to understand that disconnect there

or where that you know how that comes together.

Does that answer that? So God's, God's go ahead, say

that again. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.

He, he. So that doesn't mean that we

existed, right? But God knew who we would be,

who who we would be in his creation.

He knew what creation was going to look like 3 days before

creation happened, right? Five weeks, 7000 bajillion

years, you're right, 7 eternities before creation.

He knew what that was going to look like, but it hadn't

happened yet. And and so we aren't we didn't

exist that far back, but he knew what we would be.

So when he when he knew us before he created us and as he

wove us together in our mother's womb, God is is omniscient and

all and all knowing. So he knows what that is going

to be, even though we don't yet exist.

So there's an important thing there of going, wait, did we

exist then? And we have to understand we did

not right? One we he knit us together.

So we were we were something other than than a being at that

point. We we didn't exist in a previous

life or in in heaven or anything like that.

When he created us is when he created us.

But his knowledge goes back eternity.

So he knows what tomorrow brings.

He knows if the bears are going to score any touchdowns today,

right? He knows all of that stuff.

And, and, and but it just had, you know, these things haven't

been manifest yet. Let me I'm going to.

So he called. So when we, when we see this, I

got to rush through a little bit of this, but because I want to

ask a couple of questions. So when we see this, the size of

God, it does force us to be humble.

It forces us to, to consider our own loneliness.

And I don't mean that in like a feel down on yourself kind of

way. We just, we need to just, we

need to be wonderfully happy and comfortable in knowing that we

are God's tiny little children, right?

But there, there's something, there's something wonderful

about that. And yet it should also spark

something in us to humble us to, to, to, to help us to have a

contrite heart to come with a lowliness like like this says

that God, great big giant God doesn't owe us anything, right?

We can't put, we can enforce our will on him.

We can't push him in in a certain direction.

And God, and and that's good. It's good for us to be humble.

God cares for the humble. In Psalm 3418, it says the Lord

is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed

in spirit. In Psalm 25, he guides the

humble in what is right and teaches them his way.

In Psalm 34, the humble will hear and be glad.

See, these are good things right when we understand how small we

are. In James 46, God opposes the

proud but shows favor to the humble.

And see, here's why this idea of God's infiniteness is really

important to us because although we didn't exist in eternity

past, this is one of those places where that list earlier

of the communicable versus the non communicable and how we were

like, well, some of them you can, you could kind of achieve

some, but not not fully to the same level as God, right?

Here's the thing. God's promise of eternity to us

makes us look at Infinity moving forward, not Infinity past

necessarily, right? Not for us, for God, for God

existed in the eternity past, but but this is an important

thing for us to understand. So although we would all we we

would have all understood at the beginning of this lesson that

that God's attributes of being infinite is we would have

probably said that's a non communicable attribute.

It's not really entirely true. John 316 right?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whoever would believe in him should not perish but have

eternal life, right? So if that's you, then then

being infinite moving forward, at least in our existence, that

way we get to experience some of that.

Now, that doesn't mean that we're going to be infinitely big

to the same degree that God is, but we do get to experience some

level of Infinity moving forward, right?

Because heaven isn't, you know, like 176 days and then it's

over. Like that's not the end of the

prize. It is an eternity in the

presence of God. We get to have an infinite, an

infinite future with God. And so this concept is not

something that we would just want to write off this idea of

Infinity and go, well, it's too big for me.

Well, it is too big for me, but it's that Infinity of my

eternity with God that I desire. That's why I want to know him

better. That's why I trust him is

because that's where all my hope is is in eternity.

That's, that's that's what I mean.

That's what I'm here for, right? Is, is to worship him, to be

with him, to glorify him for the rest of, of, of eternity.

And so we get to experience that in John 10 verses 28 through 30,

John 10:28–30

says I give them eternal life and they will never perish and

no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no

one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

I and the Father are one like that is is such an amazing

promise to us, right? And so thinking back to that

idea of writing out that digital number, right?

If we wrote 1 digit every every half second of every day for the

rest of our life. If we think about God writing

out or or displaying to us his goodness and love and wisdom and

holiness every moment of every day of his life for eternity,

right, Go ahead. Yeah, that's a yeah.

Yep, yes, we're we will always be infinitely smaller than him,

right. And yet we we also get to that

was a good example. There is a there is an aspect of

it that we have that infinite nature, kind of like that

design, the the figure eight thing.

There's limits in certain directions because we don't get

to have those same characteristics of God.

Yeah, yeah. He exists around that, that

thing that's infinite. He exists.

He, he encompasses all of that exponentially, right.

So we've got just a couple minutes.

Let me just ask a couple of of these.

Let's let's from a from an overall standpoint of the

attributes of God, how and why is it helpful to study the

attributes of God? What do you guys think, Kevin?

That looked like a hand raise. Oh, OK, Debbie,

direction for our own life. Yeah yes, because if I'm, let's

say I'm super generous, right? If, if I, if I start patting

myself on the back about my own generosity, I could get to a

place where I think I'm the most generous that anybody ever could

be, right? If I forget how big God is and

that he was way, way, way more generous, right?

It's it. So having that the perception

and the context is, is crucial. But like you said, at first

seeing what it is and knowing this is where I should go,

right? Because I want to be like God.

This is the attribute that God has.

This is what I want to, to be like.

What else? How, how and and why is it

helpful to study these? Yeah, I did.

Yeah. Did you guys hear that?

God doesn't need us. He, he, we need him, and he

gives that eternity to us freely.

What else? What?

How so? Yeah,

yeah, yeah, that's great.

Danny and I were having a conversation yesterday about

about grace and and mercy and we were talking about sort of the

human limit to how much grace you want to give, how much do

you want to forgive somebody? And that was where we went in

our conversation was but when we understand God's mercy, when we

understand his attributes of, of, of that, and it's so much up

here. It changed our opinion, didn't

it? It was hard.

It was hard, but, but we, but, but seeing that made us go, OK,

even when we're, we're, when we, when we think we're done, we're

done forgiving, we're done, you know, with demonstrating this

attribute in our own self and we see that God has done it so

much, much, much, much more. There we go.

OK, I need to, I need to align myself with that, even if it's

hard, even if it's not comfortable or something that I

want to do right? So, so we can, when we use that

as our model and, and our goal, it does, it helps us to

understand how much more God deserves our worship, right?

When we're thinking, when we're doing something amazing, we

think, When we want to pat ourselves on the back, we think

we've done something pretty amazing and we find out that His

was so much more than than than ours.

Then then we're reminded of how high He is and how much He

deserves our utmost worship. OK, let me jump down to this

one. Is it necessary for us to have

some concept of this dynamic of, of God being infinite to fully

appreciate God or to understand our need for Him?

Do you think, do you think we have to understand that he is

this big in order to fully understand our need for Him?

Absolutely. If if we thought we could put

him in a box, if we thought we could limit him, would he be

really as important to us? He wouldn't be.

And that's not a that's not a simple thing to say.

God would not be worthy of worship if he wasn't what he is.

Yeah, Yep. Right.

Yeah. The strongest.

Yeah. Yep.

Yep. Uh huh.

Yeah. It would be easy if, if we

thought God was this big, my, my problem is really big too.

What if it's just too big for him, right?

Wouldn't we, wouldn't we do that?

We would, we would over exaggerate the size of our, of

our problems because that's what we do anyways.

We always think our problems are so big.

It's, it's forgetting that that God is as big as he is that that

probably causes most of our stress when we think about the

size of our problems. But if we have this

understanding, if we can really to, to whatever extent possible,

wrap our heads around the Infinity of God, the capability

of God, that I think it helps us to genuinely understand our our

desperate need for him, that without that we would have to

rely on ourselves, right, If if God wasn't that.

Go ahead, Kevin. Yeah,

yeah, this is, this is something that we could study all of this

and we can grow immensely in our understanding of this concept of

God and we'll still be at 0%, right, Right.

That same mathematic. Yeah, that's huge, right?

Zero need for you. He has zero need for you.

And yet he was willing to sacrifice his son to to save

you, right? That's just, it's, it's if that

doesn't make you feel humble and you know, whatever, if it

doesn't make you realize your, your desperate need for somebody

that loves that much, right? I don't know, man, it's this it,

it really is wonderful when we are able to do that, to grasp

that kind of concept. And again, there's something

beautiful about the fact that we can't understand it, right?

That we can go, well, the biggest number I can imagine,

he's way bigger than that. I'm resting right there.

I'm going to rest in that, that he's this big and my problem is

miniscule for that. It's, it's like 8 minutes after

10. So let me just pray this out and

and then we'll go greet some new people.

Lord, God, thank you for this concept that you are so

infinitely bigger than our worst, wildest problem that

we've ever faced in our humanity.

Lord, we do focus on our problems and we and we, we see

them as huge obstacles that we can't, we can't get over.

But Lord, nothing that we face in front of us is as big as the

God behind us. And, and we know that and we

thank you for that. We thank you that you are so

huge and that you are so good to us and that your love is never

ending. And we thank you for the idea

that for the infinite hope that we have of eternity with you.

And Lord, I just ask that you would help as we get into our

sermon today, any new visitors to come to it.

That same kind of an understanding that they would be

in awe of you, that they would be inspired to know more about

you as they learn about your goodness from the preached word.

So Lord, we thought love and thank you in Jesus name, Amen.