Names of God: Adonai (S09, E03)

Greetings, and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason,

and I am the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In the podcast today, we are continuing to go through an eight-episode series on the names of God.

In the teaching today, we are going to be learning about the title of God, Adonai.

Thanks for joining us as we dive into the discussion on how Adonai translates

certain attributes about God.

This is the second Sunday of the Lenten season,

and my, if you were with me on Ash Wednesday, you know that the emphasis for me this year

is upon a verse in Ephesians chapter 3, where Paul gets on his knees for the

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

people in Ephesus, for the church in Ephesus,

and he cries out that God would supernaturally put on their hearts knowledge that is really too.

Far beyond our grasp and beyond our reach.

It's something that we can't fathom on our own.

And Paul describes it in four dimensions, not just three dimensions that we're

used to, but he says how high and long, wide and deep God's love for us is.

And it's just something too unfathomable for our finite human minds that God

has to do the work of imparting that into us.

And that's the emphasis for me this Lenten season.

And as I told the Sunday school class that I was with today, I can see it everywhere.

I see this theme resonate in teachings that aren't really calling this part out.

I see this in scripture passages where God is coming alongside the Israelites and he is helping them to,

see how their sandals don't get worn out, how they're in the desert for 40 years

and they never run out of food and God is always providing water for them.

Like this is the kind of supernatural strength that God has for us.

And my prayer is for this to be etched into my heart and your heart as well.

And it's not something that we can do. It's something that we have to rely upon God for.

And so this week, as one of those areas where I could see God at work,

I ran into a quote by a Christian artist and songwriter by the name of Paul,

Leboque or something like that.

And he is one of his most famous songs that he has written is,

Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord.

And in an interview I saw, he was talking about leading people in worship.

And as he leads people in worship, he is really intent on like the form of it.

Like there are certain biblical things that you can do to worship God.

But as he got further and further into it, he was like, that's not enough.

And so this is what he said. For years, I've taught at these worship conferences

on biblical worship and biblical expressions of worship.

It occurred to me that often we're teaching the externals.

In Psalm 95, it says, come, let's sing for joy.

Let's shout out loud. Let's kneel in worship. Let's clap our hands. That's all neat.

But I began to realize you can teach externals, but unless something is happening

from the inside out, It's really just a form.

It's like cloud without rain.

It's just something that's there. You're clapping your hands or you're coming

up for communion or you're singing songs, but nothing is going on inside your

heart. Nothing is stirring in there.

It's just form. It's just pretense. It's just a show.

As I go through this Lenten journey, Paul's song, Open the Eyes of My Heart,

Lord, is a song that I've been singing almost every day.

And so I want to sing it with you. We're going to put the lyrics on the screen,

and we're just going to sing this one stanza, but I'd like to sing it through twice.

And we're going to sing an acapella. There's going to be no music.

And I hope that this can be a prayer for you.

So I just encourage you to look at those words that are on the screen before we start singing.

And if you really believe them, if you really want God to impart this on your

heart, then I encourage you to sing it with me now. Now I'm not the greatest

singer, so just follow along.

Open the eyes of my heart lord open the,

You, I want to see you,

open the eyes of my heart, Lord, open the eyes of my heart, I want to see you,

Lord, I want to see you, Lord, I want to see you, Lord.

And as we go through the series that God has laid before me, the names of God.

I think he is opening my eyes through these names to be able to see him better.

I think he is using this series in this Lenten time to help me,

and hopefully you, to understand better who God is.

Remember, biblical names have meaning.

They're just not names picked out of a baby book.

These names were meant on purpose. And they're a descriptor of what's really

going on in that person. Thank you.

And so we've gone over two names thus far. The first one is the name Elohim,

and Elohim is a name that means the strong one.

And I like to add the word fearful in there because in the scripture that we

read about this, it said, fear the Lord. And that's kind of a key theme throughout scripture.

God is just so strong that when we are around him, it's like we're being around

somebody who we acknowledge that can pick us up and snap us like a twig.

Like that's the kind of strength. And so if that person shakes your hand,

you're kind of worried if that person's going to crush the bones in your hand.

Like that's the kind of strength that God has. He is fearfully strong.

And so we can cry out to him as Elohim, the fearfully strong one.

And then last week we talked about the personal name of God,

which is Yahweh. And this is designated in our Bibles as with Lord in all capital letters.

So if you look and there's Lord with all capital letters, it's translating this word Yahweh.

And how this nickname got introduced

to our faith is at the burning bush when God says to Moses, I am.

And the literal meaning of Yahweh

is he is who he is, or he will be who he will be, meaning he exists.

He is the one that is self-existent.

He doesn't rely on anyone or anything else.

And what he says, we can trust because he's not worried about a schedule conflict

coming up because he doesn't rely on other people.

He is eternally self-existent.

And when we get into trouble, when we have fears or doubts about the promises

of God, Yahweh is an amazing name to remind us of his promises.

And what he says will come to fruition. He is a trustworthy God.

Today, we're going to take a look at the word Adonai.

And this is a word that's more like a title, kind of like Elohim.

It's a title and can be used for more than just God, but it has a very specific meaning.

It is used of people who have control over other people. It is used to designate

sovereignty over others or authority with others.

And so our God is not only the strong one, the fearfully strong one.

He's not only existent, he just is, but he is also someone who is sovereign.

And this is really good news because of how good he is.

And so we're going to be in Daniel chapter 9.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

But before we get into scripture, let me pray.

Father, I pray that you will open the eyes of our hearts to receive your grace,

to receive your mercy, to receive the knowledge that is too wonderful for us to be even able to say,

and too hard for us to be able to really comprehend.

So I pray, Father, that you will implant that in our hearts.

Everyone in this sanctuary, everyone a part of this worship service,

everyone a part of this congregation, everyone that is associated with us.

I pray, Father, for your blessing to be upon us, teaching us and drawing us

into a closer relationship with you.

Jesus, I pray for this in your name.

Speak today and give us ears to hear. Amen.

Daniel chapter 9, starting in verse 1.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

It was the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede, the son of Ahasuerus,

who became king of the Babylonians.

During the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from reading the word of the Lord.

And the Lord there is in all caps, so this is the personal name Yahweh.

So it says, I, Daniel, learned from reading the word of the eternally existent

one, as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet.

That Jerusalem must lie desolate for 70 years.

So I turned to the Lord God, and this is the phrase, Adonai Elohim,

the fearfully existent sovereign one,

and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting.

I also wore rough burlap and sprinkled myself with ashes.

So what's going on here is this. At the end of chapter 6 of Daniel,

Daniel is a part of the Babylonian Empire and he has been for decades,

probably close to 70 years at this point.

And he is reading through scripture. He is taking the book of Jeremiah,

which is in our Bibles today, and he's reading through it.

And in Jeremiah 25, there are two verses that really stand out to him, it seems.

Those two verses are one that talks about how the Jerusalem will lie desolate

for a period of seven decades.

Seventy years, Jerusalem will lie in ruins.

And the other thing is that he reads is that God will punish the Babylonians.

He will bring upon them the justice that they deserve for sacking Jerusalem

and for all of the other depraved things that they are doing.

And so Jeremiah is talking about this and Daniel is reading it.

And he knows how long he's been in Babylon.

And he knows that just in the previous year that Babylon was judged because in 539, I believe it was.

Somewhere around 539 BC, Babylon is overtaken by the Medes and the Persians.

All right, in a single night, which is what the writing on the wall signified,

in a single night, the Medes and Persians came into Babylon and they ransacked the town.

They knocked out the Babylonian empire and they became the rulers of the city of Babylon.

So Jeremiah looks and he sees that God has judged the Babylonians,

and he is coming and he is believing and trusting in that, that it was from

God and that God ordained it.

And he was coming with the idea that, okay, so this other promise of God has

to be fulfilled. The 70 years of exile has to be fulfilled.

And so he decides to do something about it and he decides to pray about it,

that God would bring about the promises that he put in the book of Jeremiah.

And so this is the background to the prayer that we're going to be reading through.

Daniel is trusting in God. He has already come through on one promise and that

promise is judging Babylon and ridding it of its rulers and its corrupt leaders.

And now he's like, all right, it's been 70 years.

It's about time for you to act and restore Jerusalem.

And so he begins his prayer for this in this way.

In verse four, it says, I prayed to Yahweh, my Elohim,

and confessed, O Adonai, you are a great and awesome God.

Now that's a different, that's not Elohim, that's a different name of God right there.

So you are a great and awesome God. You will always fulfill your covenant and

keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands.

But we have sinned and done wrong.

We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations.

We have refused to listen to your servants, the prophets, who spoke on your

authority to our kings and princes and ancestors, to all the people of the land.

Adonai, Sovereign One, you are in the right, but as you see,

our faces are covered with shame.

This is true of all of us, including the people of Judah and Jerusalem and all

Israel, scattered near and far wherever you have driven us because of our disloyalty to you.

Oh, Yahweh, we and our kings, princes, and ancestors are covered with shame,

because we have sinned against you.

But Adonai, our Elohim, the strong and sovereign one, you are merciful and forgiving,

even though we have rebelled against him.

And so Jeremiah starts to begin a prayer of repentance, a prayer that confesses

sins of himself and his people to God.

And it begins before this prayer when he says he comes with fasting and he comes

sitting in burlap and he comes throwing ashes on himself.

And this is a sign in that time and in that day of repentance,

of confession, of saying, hey, we've messed up, we've done something wrong,

and we need to be forgiven.

It's also a sign that people did when they were mourning or grieving.

This is the pattern, and I believe Daniel is doing both of these things in this

passage through these acts.

He is saying, I am grieving over our brokenness. I am grieving over our rebellion.

I am grieving over the sins that are heaped up so high.

And he's saying, I'm done with it. I'm turning and I'm repenting and I'm running after God.

And he uses these three names so often in these words.

It's the only time in the book of Daniel, the word Yahweh is used.

And so Daniel wants to be reminded that God's promises are true,

that he is and always will be.

In this prayer, he also says that God is the strong one and the sovereign one,

the one who can come to judge.

He is strong enough to judge. He is courageous enough to judge.

He is perfect enough to judge us righteously.

And he is the one who is sovereign, who has the authority.

And so he comes to God acknowledging these three things.

He continues in verse 10 in this prayer.

We have not obeyed Yahweh our Elohim, for we have not followed the instructions

he gave us through his servants, the prophets.

All Israel has disobeyed your instructions and turned away, refusing to listen to your voice.

So now the solemn curses and judgments written in the law of Moses,

the servant of the strong one, Elohim, have been poured down on us because of our sin.

You have kept your word and done to us and our rulers exactly as you warned.

Never has there been such a disaster as happened in Jerusalem.

Every curse written against us in the law of Moses has come true,

yet we have refused to seek mercy from Yahweh our Elohim.

By turning from our sins and recognizing his truth, therefore Yahweh has brought

upon us the disaster he prepared.

Yahweh our Elohim was right to do all these things for we did not obey him.

And so Daniel here is really showing his biblical fortitude.

He knows about Jeremiah and he's reading through those scrolls.

He knows about the books of Moses.

He knows that in the last chapter of Leviticus, God pronounces blessings on

Israel if they follow his statutes and adhere to the covenant that they agreed to.

And he pronounces curses upon the people of Israel if they walk away from God.

It's also repeated in Deuteronomy, which means repeated law.

So it makes sense that it would be repeated there.

But in two places in what the Jewish people call the Torah, this is repeated.

And Jeremiah or Daniel here is showcasing his knowledge of scripture.

And he's saying, as I look through scripture, as I survey the pages of scripture,

You are the one who is always there.

You are the one who is constantly present.

But not only that, you're sovereign over it all.

You have authority over everything. You know everything we do and everything in our hearts.

And you're the strong one who can do what needs to be done to bless us when

we obey and to correct us when we don't obey.

And he's laying this all at God saying, we are in the wrong, we are in the wrong.

This isn't an easy thing to do. If you allow God into your heart to renovate

it, to remodel it and to make it so that God has access to everything in there,

he's gonna bring up some stuff that you really don't want to be brought up.

Last week, I was convicted of more than one thing and I really believe that

it's because I'm asking God to reveal his truth to my heart.

I didn't get much sleep last Saturday night. I was so upset because my team lost to an arch rival.

It was so devastating to me. And you know what the crazy thing is?

I've put things in place so that I don't get that way.

I've put barriers and I've put walls up so I haven't even watched a game of

my team in probably a decade.

I haven't watched a single game live.

And so I thought I was putting up barriers. I thought I was putting up walls.

I thought I was repenting.

But when Jillian told me, Heath is going to have a good day tomorrow,

right before I went to bed, I couldn't sleep.

I don't want him to have a good day.

But it showed something to me that I'm just putting up barriers.

I'm putting up walls and I'm not really going after the things in my heart so

that God can be Lord and master over them.

And that's what Daniel's doing here. He's just laying it all before God.

We have broken your commandments. We haven't treated you with dignity and respect.

We haven't shown you that you are the sovereign one, the strong one,

the one who is eternally existent.

And we've just done our own things.

So he lays this all at God's feet, and then he starts asking for things.

In verse 15, we read, O Adonai, our Elohim, you brought lasting honor to your

name by rescuing your people from Egypt in a great display of power.

But we have sinned and are full of wickedness. in view of all your faithful mercies.

Adonai, please turn your furious anger away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy mountain.

All the neighboring nations mock Jerusalem and your people because of our sins

and the sins of our ancestors.

Oh, our Elohim strong one, hear your servant's prayer.

Listen as I plead for your own sake.

Like, Adonai, smile again on your desolate sanctuary.

Oh, my Elohim, lean down and listen to me.

Open your eyes and see our despair. See how your city, the city that bears your name, lies in ruins.

Make this plea, not because we deserve help, but because of your mercy.

Oh, Adonai, hear. Oh, Adonai, forgive.

O Adonai, listen and act for your own sake. Do not delay, O my strong one,

for your people and your city bear your name.

And so he appeals to the name of God.

He appeals to his name and he says, for your sake, restore Jerusalem.

Not because we deserve this.

Not because we've repented fully and we've done the hard work of working on our hearts.

But because of your goodness, because of your mercy, because of how great your name is.

When we understand this and comprehend this, I think it will lead us into a better

situation where we do confess our sins to God and hopefully where we let the

Holy Spirit into our hearts to do the remodeling,

so that we don't have sleepless nights over a silly game,

so that God can be in there and moving and active, and we can shine his light in this world.

This is the God we serve. This is the God we can know, and this is the God who

loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us.

And all he asks from us is to be willing to do some hard work on our own, to repent of our sins.

And that doesn't mean just confess. It means to turn away from our sin and our

brokenness and our rebellion.

The idol that I have in my heart, I need to get rid of that, of my favorite team,

because all I've done is put up barriers, but I haven't done the work that the

heart needs so that God rules and reigns.

And so we are going to transition to a time of communion. And communion is a

time where we remember the sacrifice of Jesus.

Where we are celebrating that he loved us so much that he would die for us.

That he would take the penalty that we owe in a nail in each hand and a nail through the feet.

And that he would be up there for hours, struggling, gasping for breath,

and then finally releasing his spirit and succumbing to death.

So as we prepare for that, I want to invite you to go into a time of confession.

And then I hope that that confession will turn to repentance.

Because nothing gets by our God. He knows every detail of our hearts.

He knows every detail of our lives.

And so we just need to come before him. And we need to confess.

But before we do, I'm going to ask Jillian to put up the song,

Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord.

And we're going to sing it one more time. And then we're going to go into a

silent time where I encourage you to just be in tune with the Spirit.

And what he brings up, I pray that you will confess.

And I pray that you will, this week, be encouraged and strengthened to repent.

So let's sing this one more time.

Father, thank you for your great love for us. Thank you for your mercy and your unfailing love.

Thank you that you love us so much that you would send your son to die for us,

to redeem us and to make us wholly well.

God, I pray for this time of communion, that it will be a time where we understand,

the height and depth, the width and breadth of your love for us.

Impart that to us, Father. And Father, as we continue to prepare our hearts

for the death and resurrection of Jesus this Lenten season, I pray, Father, that you will,

really work on our hearts,

challenging us and opening our eyes to see what we need to see,

so that we can truly tell you how priceless you are,

that it's not just a form that we're saying this of, but it's actually true

in our hearts that we think that you are priceless and we will never give you up.

Jesus, I pray for this in your name. Please pour out your spirit on this bread and on this juice.

And I ask you, Father, to make it be for us like the body and blood of Jesus,

so that we remember the cost of our brokenness and our rebellion.

You again for joining us in the discussion about the title of God,

Adonai, which is used all throughout the Old Testament.

Adonai shows God's sovereignty. God's sovereignty is seen throughout all of

Scripture, from the creation of this world to the raising of Jesus from the

dead, and on to the return of Jesus at his second coming.

All throughout Scripture, God is Adonai, the Sovereign One.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Next week, we continue the series on the different names and titles of God in the Bible.

Each of these descriptors show us something about who God is.

Join us next week as we look at the name El Roy, which was given to God by Hagar,

Abraham's Egyptian slave. Have a great week.