October 4, 2026 - The Names of God Sermon #1: Elohim — Baptist Bible Church, Sparta MI

Good morning.

Welcome to Baptist Bible Church.

Great to have you all here with us this morning.

Just a few things to keep in mind.

Coming up, we've got church camping already.

It's time to make your reservation.

That's because Labor Day weekend is a busy time of year and those spots get booked up pretty quickly.

So if you would like to come on out for church camping next year, Labor Day weekend, we'd love to have you join us.

It's a lot of fun.

And we have a great time up there.

So if you are interested, contact Mary Clare by October 11.

I think that's next Sunday already.

So you've got this Sunday or next Sunday or sometime in between.

Make sure to let Mary Claire know that you'd like her to book you a spot.

Or if you have more questions about it, you can contact her and she can fill you in.

Men's Breakfast and Bible study is starting back up again this fall.

Our first meeting will be October 17 at 8 30.

That's Saturday morning, 8 30.

Would love to have you join us.

We're going to be digging into the Word together, enjoying some breakfast together, some good fellowship.

And so come on out for that, men.

That's October 17.

And then our Koinonia groups.

I hope that you've been enjoying those times of fellowship with our church family this year.

If you've been on track with those, we've got two more meetings left to go, two more fellowship gatherings.

And so if you are a Koinonia host, make sure to get together with your group and get those planned out.

There should be two more between now and the end of the year that we're shooting for.

So make sure to keep that in front of you as we head into the fall here.

Let's pray and then we will get started.

Heavenly Father, thanks for today.

Thankful for this opportunity now, this morning, to gather together as a church family and to spend some time worshiping you.

Father, give us open ears, open hearts, direct our attention to you as we uh sing our songs this morning and lift up praises to you.

Father, we want to praise you, we want to worship you, and we ask, Father, that you receive that worship this morning with hearts that love you and desire to grow closer to you and desire to grow in obedience to you.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

I heard an old old story.

How saving came from glory, how we came the sun to the same I'm sorry, and I think all my sins for the sweet ball.

We punched me to the planting.

And the dog is used to meet us, and on my dog is to him, we plunge into the day, we need the dancing floor.

Alright, just a minute.

As we sing these verses, can you try and think about them as if you just recently become saved?

Can you try and do that?

Okay, let's go.

I heard about all mention he has built for me and glory, and I heard about the Straits of Gold be on the crystal seed, above the sleep, and the story, and some love is to himself me to victory cleansing for none.

This next song, the last verse, the last chorus.

Watch for my little holdout here, okay?

Nothing like a blood.

Nothing but the old Baptist hold.

Meet and greet.

Remind us of those blessings on a daily basis.

It's easy to uh become discouraged by the circumstances of life.

Things don't go our way.

It's so easy for us to lose sight of uh all of the good gifts and blessings that you've given us.

And so call bring those to mind, bring those to mind here right now as we come before you, Father, and fill us with a heart of gratitude, a spirit of thanksgiving.

Ultimately, Lord, we can lift up our voices and thank you and praise you because of your steadfast love, that unfailing and loyal love that is so faithful that in spite of our failings, in spite of our rebellion, our resistance to you and to your will, Father, you are so gracious.

You are so kind when we don't deserve it.

And so we come before you this morning with humble hearts, knowing we don't deserve the good gifts, the blessings that we have in you, knowing we don't deserve your steadfast love and faithfulness, which makes it so much better, so much sweeter.

Help us, Father, to reflect on that, to remember that, to meditate on that.

And may that produce produce in us a response of of love and gratitude and praise.

Father, we come before you this morning and we do have some requests.

We think of Hannah as she is serving faithfully out in Austria.

And we know that this process of seeking an apartment, finding a new place to live has been frustrating, it's been discouraging.

Lord, it's easy in in these moments to question what are you doing?

Why why are you seemingly withholding an apartment from Hannah?

We know that she needs a place to live.

And and uh Father, we just come before you this morning and uh we submit to you, we submit to your will and to your plan.

And Father, we simply ask that according to your timing and according to your will, Lord, that you would open up an apartment that's perfect for Hannah.

I pray that it would be in the perfect spot, the perfect price range.

Lord, we ask that you do these things, that you'd settle Hannah into a more permanent dwelling space.

Father, we ask that you do these things for your glory.

That you would receive the praise and the glory and the honor for doing that.

And Father, we trust that that you will do that according to your timing.

And we pray in the meantime that you would uh strengthen and encourage Hannah.

Fill her with a peace that transcends all understanding.

She's certainly going through a time of uncertainty and discouragement with the process.

And Lord, we ask that you'd fill her with your peace, that she'd hope in you and hold fast to you, cling to you, and trust in you throughout this process.

We also I want to praise you this morning for the progress that Tony and Lisa's granddaughter Eloyn has made so far, being born early in the NICU, but we're thankful to hear the reports of her getting stronger and progressing well and even able to be home now.

So we thank you for that, Lord.

We thank you for uh strengthening her little body, and we ask that you'd continue to nourish her and help her to grow, help those lungs to grow stronger day by day, and we pray for peace for mom and dad and for grandma and grandpa as they trust and hold fast to you throughout this as well.

We have several folks here this morning.

We also want to remember on a regular basis we think of Diane and Jim with their ongoing cancer battles.

We pray for peace for them and their families.

We pray for healing, we pray for strength, and we also think of Little Truth, and we're thankful for the progress that he has been making.

It's amazing to see him grow and learn new skills and abilities.

And Father, we ask that you would continue to uh work those amazing things out in his life, help him to continue to grow and progress and develop.

And we pray for strength and peace and hope for the family there as well.

We love you, Father.

We're so thankful for your love for us, we're so thankful for uh the multitude of blessings that we have in your son.

It's in his name we pray.

Let's think our best.

But the cheese has a pin like the morning sun, deep in the shadows within as I really wore in my soul, I wake this up, and as we fight, too, waiting for taste love, and the world is the coast and still as heartache and suffering we men, but the whole creation will be often our stable is coming.

The song is awesome.

It's mighty hand as hardly raised.

What did he lose he has meet?

What we have spread.

What we will be put in the squads.

All the happens.

Woody he has won.

Worthy he will be.

What if he has been?

Worthy he will be.

What if he has been?

What if he will be able to do that?

Did you know God wants you to know him?

And not like a like answers to a test, not facts about him.

He wants you to know him in a personal way.

Last week I got to go to the Iowa-Michigan game.

I don't normally go to football games, but a buddy of mine invited me from Iowa, huge Hawkeye fan, my old friend Charlie.

Charlie is a massive Hawkeye fan, the biggest Hawkeye homer I've ever met.

And he came with several Hawkeye friends from Iowa.

And he and I were standing next to each other at the game, and the game was about to start, and he said, Jonathan, I just want you to know if at any point today Iowa goes up by three scores, TARP's coming off.

And I was like, TARP?

What do you mean, TARP?

And he said, my sweatshirt.

I said, Oh, great.

I said, Well, I don't have to worry because the Iowa will be lucky to score three points this game, so I think I'm okay.

And as the game progresses, we get to the fourth quarter, and it's very tight.

It's a very close game.

And Charlie turns to me and says, Jonathan, I just want you to know if Iowa gets a pick six right here, tarp's coming off.

And I was like, you keep that tarp secured.

No tarps coming off today.

And of course, if you're a football fan and you know how the game ended, last second touchdown for Iowa to win.

I was not known for the forward pass, so I have no idea how they made that pass and that amazing catch in the end zone, but somehow they did.

And Charlie looked at me and he said, Tarp's coming off! And whipped that thing off and was flinging it around his head.

And if you don't know Charlie, Charlie's a short, portly fellow, so it was quite the sight to behold.

The only thing whiter than the Iowa Hawkeye jerseys that day was my friend Charlie at the end of the game.

And I don't know how he did this, but somehow the next day he sent me a picture.

I kid you not, I'm coming home from church.

I got a picture from Charlie, and it's actually a video recording.

He somehow got footage from somebody on the Iowa sidelines, zoomed in, and there he is, swinging his hoodie around.

And you know what?

I loved every obnoxious second of it.

Why?

Because I know Charlie.

And because I know Charlie as one of my best friends, I delight in knowing him.

It brings me great joy to know my friend Charlie, even when he's being obnoxious.

I love it because we're friends and we have a close personal, personal friend relationship.

I hope this morning that you can say, I know somebody like that.

I have somebody in my life who's a friend who I enjoy and delight and enjoy spending time with.

Because that is a reflection of the kind of relationship God wants with you.

And I think it's so easy for us as Christians today to think we know God and to think we have a relationship with God.

But all we really have with God is a knowledge of the facts about Him.

And don't get me wrong, knowing the facts about God are very important.

That's going to be kind of the whole purpose of the series that we're starting.

But I don't want to get lost in all of this.

That we're not here today to grow in a knowledge so that we can take a test when we get to heaven and get all the answers right.

We want to know who God is so that we can delight in knowing him.

Do you know God like that today?

Do you know him like that?

Do you want to grow in your delight in knowing God?

I think another great danger today is that there are many people who would claim to know God, but the reality is that they know a God, but the God they think they know is really only a figment of their imagination.

And I would say I think there's a lot of people who would say, Yeah, I know God, yeah, I have a relationship with God, I know Jesus.

But rather than rooting their knowledge of who God is in Scripture, in his revealed word, they root it in how they feel or what they think.

And so they have in their minds an idea and an imagination of who God is, but that God is actually not, if I can get it, this God of the Bible.

Does God always agree with you?

Can I ask that?

Does God always agree with you this morning?

Isn't that kind of funny?

If God always agrees with you, chances are you're not worshiping the God of the Bible.

You're really just worshiping yourself.

Like, when's the last time God humbled you to the point where you said, I'm dead wrong on this?

I'm dead wrong.

I need to change.

I need to change my mind.

I need to change my opinion.

I need to change how I act.

I need to change how I live.

I need to humble myself and repent.

When's the last time God did that to you?

If you're worshiping the God of the Bible, that should happen on a regular basis.

As you come to know who God is, that should happen.

So, so do you know God?

That's the question.

Not facts, not something that's just made up in your own mind.

Do you really know who God is this morning?

And the purpose of our next sermon series is to explore that and to grow in that.

And the way we're gonna do that, of course, all of God's word is his self-revelation of himself to us.

So how we're gonna do that, we I could just say, well, we're gonna start in verse one and get go through the whole we'll go through the whole Bible.

We could do that.

We're we're making our way towards that.

But uh, instead of instead of doing it that way, what I want to do over the next sermon series is to explore the names and titles of God.

The reason why is because you can learn a lot about someone by the names and titles that they give.

For example, if you were here this morning, let's say you're a visitor and I introduce myself and I say, Hi, I'm Pastor Jonathan, you'd learn something about me, wouldn't you?

You would say, Oh, this is the this guy is the pastor.

He's the pastor of this church.

And then let's say we were out in the foyer and you hear somebody say, Dad, and I turn around and I embrace one of my sons, you'd say, Oh, okay, this guy is a dad.

He's a father.

You learn that through the title that's given me.

If, say, we were out in the foyer and say we were talking, and say we were getting together, and somebody said, Boy, you know what, for our next get together, it would be really nice if the grill master could grill some burgers.

And I said, You know what?

I'd be happy to do that.

You learn something about me because of my title.

You'd learn that.

As we get together and as we spend the next several weeks studying this topic, this theme, the names of God, the idea is that God reveals things about himself.

He reveals his character, he reveals who he is through the titles and names that he gives in Scripture.

So as we look at these different names and titles, we're going to be examining what about God?

What can we learn about who God is through how he reveals himself here?

And how can we as believers change what we think and how we understand who God is?

Is there a way in which we need to do that?

And then how can I grow in delighting in who God is?

And I hope that as we go through the series, those are the two things that are kept in front of you Sunday to Sunday.

How does this change who I understand who God is, and how can I grow in delighting this God of the Bible?

So we're gonna start it off this morning with our very first name, Elohim.

Elohim.

And then we'll dig into the text.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity now to open up your word.

I pray that you would give us open hearts and open minds.

I pray that we would be receptive to receiving what you have for us this morning.

And uh I pray that as we examine this name that you have revealed yourself as, Elohim, help us to shape and fashion our understanding of who you are through your word.

And I ask, Father, that you would stir in our hearts this morning a love for you, a desire for you, an enjoyment in you as we come to know you better.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Open your Bibles with me to the book of Genesis.

Genesis chapter one, verse one.

Genesis chapter one, verse one.

The book of Genesis was written by Moses after the Exodus.

There are many who believe that Genesis was written as a polemic.

That's a style of literature.

Of course, Moses didn't sit down and say, I'm reading a polemic.

It's how we categorize it.

A polemic is a style of literature that seeks to dismantle a false worldview while teaching the correct version.

There's a lot of reasons why scholars would say that, and you can, as you study through the book of Genesis, you can pick out where false pagan worldviews are likely being confronted and replaced with how God tells the true story.

I remember as a young child learning the story of the big bad wolf and the three little pigs.

We all know the story, don't we?

A fairly common story.

I remember the day my world changed when I read the true story of the three little pigs.

You can go look this book up, it's a real book, and it's the story told by the big bad wolf.

And he sets the record straight.

And he communicates the true story of what actually happened.

And it's actually the three little pigs way exaggerated the details and framed the wolf.

The wolf is actually the good guy.

He's innocent in all of this, but you would never know that unless you read this alternate version.

As we read the book of Genesis, the idea is that the Israelites had been for 400 years in Egypt, surrounded by pagan cultures and pagan views on who God is and where we all came from, the origin of evil, how we're supposed to live in relation to God.

All of this, Israelites, of course, they handed down orally the story that would have been passed down from generation to generation, but they were surrounded in a culture of people that had very very different views about these fundamental things of origin.

And so it's as though God has Moses write the book of Genesis in order to inform, establish, here's the truth.

Here's how it really happened.

And in telling the true story of origin, we also come to know who God really is.

Who is this God?

And in Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, we read, in the beginning, God.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God.

In Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, God in the Hebrew there is Elohim.

Genesis 1:1

That is the term Elohim.

Elohim is the first and most common name for God in the Old Testament.

What many people don't realize is that Elohim is actually a plural noun.

Elo would be the singular word for God.

Elohim is the plural and therefore can be translated as gods.

Gods.

In fact, in the Bible we see a few examples of that.

Genesis 35, verse 2.

Genesis 35:2

So Jacob said to his household and to all who are with him, put away the foreign gods.

That's Elohim that are among you.

And purify yourselves and change your garments.

Interesting.

Elohim being used here to refer to the plural pagan foreign gods, deities.

Exodus chapter 20, verse 3.

Exodus 20:3

God himself says this.

You shall have no other gods, Elohim, before me.

That's in the context of the Ten Commandments.

So why would God reveal Himself as Elohim?

Why would God use this title, especially considering the fact that one of the fundamental facts about God is that there is only one true God.

In fact, God Himself in Deuteronomy 6.4 says, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, Elohim, the Lord is one, singular.

We don't worship multiple gods.

There is one true God, God.

So this does pose an interesting question for us this morning as we seek to understand how God reveals himself and why he chooses to utilize Elohim as a title.

There are, I think, a couple of good answers to this for us to think through.

The first is that the biblical authors utilized Elohim as a plural of majesty.

This is a noun form known as the plural of majesty.

In this case, the plural form acts as a multiplication agent.

It multiplies.

So I could come up before you this morning and I could pull out a medal that I have.

I used to run, I don't run anymore, but I used to run and I got up to the to the half marathon level.

And I would go out and I'd once a year I'd like to run a race and go run a half marathon race, and I would get a nice cool medal.

I've got them in my office, and you can go look at them if you'd like to.

One day I got in the mail a third place medal.

I thought, wow, third place?

I'm really fast.

So I went and looked up the records, found my name, and there, lo and behold, Jonathan Fuller, third place.

But then I noticed I was third in my age bracket and in my gender.

So in this specific age range for males, I was third place.

So that kind of makes it a little less impressive, right?

Not third overall, third in my specific bracket.

And then I tried to scroll down and to see how many people I beat.

And I noticed I couldn't scroll any further.

I was third of three.

But they still sent me a medal, so that still is great.

But now if you were to ask, now Randy isn't here this morning.

I've I've been to Randy's house, and Randy has a whole wall in his garage.

Maybe his family knows.

Does he still have that wall of metals still up in his house?

Oh yeah.

And it's a wall.

Because Randy's run a lot of races and he is he hangs up all of his medals.

So if I were to come up and have my one medal, you'd say, oh, that's you know pretty impressive.

But if I were to be standing next to Randy with and he were to wear his like hundreds of medals, that would be really impressive, wouldn't it?

You see, the plural multiplies the impressiveness of the subject.

It's not just a medal, it's medals.

This seems to be the way in which the biblical authors, it seems to be the means or the way in which they are utilizing this term to refer to the singular God.

He's one God, but he's Elohim.

Why?

Because he is so much greater, he is so much better, he is so much more supreme than anything or anyone else.

And so, in order to convey that, in order to communicate that, and even in his name alone, he's not just El, he's Elohim.

And so they utilize the name Elohim.

Elohim communicates the greatness of God.

It communicates that God's greatness is indeed immeasurable.

It is immeasurable.

The plural here, the plural form magnifies the status of the subject.

The second reason I believe, though, that God reveals himself as Elohim relates to the fact that this would have been a generic title.

We've already noticed it being used to refer to false deities, just gods in general.

Elohim would have been the common title for any God in the Old Testament.

I believe the reason why God apprehends this title for himself is in order to communicate that God was not just the God of the Hebrews.

In those days it was common to think of deities as regional.

So you have the God of the Philistines, you got to have the gods of the Syrians, the gods of the Egyptians, and everybody worshipped their own deities while acknowledging the existence of everybody else's deities.

There was no claim.

This was a foreign concept to claim that your God is the only God.

In those days, it was common to think of these are my deities in my region and my country.

And in fact, if your nation would go in and conquer another nation, it was common for the conquering nation to actually take the deities, the carved images and idols of the conquered nation and bring them back.

And what was being communicated, what was being conveyed, is that our gods are stronger than your gods.

Our gods are more powerful than your gods.

That's why we won.

That's why we conquered you.

In fact, it's interesting when you notice Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar, goes in, conquers Israel, what does he do?

He takes all the stuff out of the temple.

Why does he do that?

Because of this worldview.

Our gods are stronger than your gods.

Ha ha ha.

So why does God utilize Elohim?

He utilizes the title in order to communicate.

I'm not just the God of the Hebrews.

I'm the God of the universe.

I'm God over all things, all creation.

I am God to all people.

In fact, I am the one true living God.

By apprehending Elohim for himself, the generic title, he's saying, nobody else gets to claim that.

Nobody else gets that.

It's me alone.

I'm alone am God, and therefore can be known and worshipped by all people.

Genesis chapter 1 reveals to us that Elohim, this Elohim, is the God of creation.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

This Elohim is the God of creation.

This Elohim created all things.

And there are three things I want us to observe about Elohim and the creation account.

Three things that help us to shape and understand our knowledge of who God is, and I hope then increase our delight in him.

The first thing I want us to notice is the power of Elohim.

Elohim is all powerful.

Look in Genesis chapter 1, verse 3.

Genesis 1:3

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

Verse 6, and God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.

Verse 11, and God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth.

And it was so.

Verse 14, and God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.

We notice time and time again the repeated phrase in the creation accounts.

And what is the repeated phrase?

God said, Let there be.

And it was.

Any science lovers, the law of the conservation of matter.

Brooke, what is it?

Neither create nor destroy matter.

That's it.

That's it.

So when I go out and I have a fire in the backyard and I burn up some wood and it is like, it's poof, it's gone, right?

Have I destroyed the matter?

No, it simply has been reorganized into a different substance, right?

Smoke.

Ultimately, nothing can be made out of nothing, and nothing can be destroyed into nothing.

Except in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

This is in the Latin known as ex nichilo.

Out of nothing.

Out of nothing, God created.

Do you sense the power of Elohim in the text here?

He simply speaks, and with the power that he contains, things come into existence that never were before.

God's power transcends the natural laws of the universe because God himself sets those natural laws.

We see his power in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

But notice secondly this morning, we notice his authority.

He is all supreme.

In one sense, the creator has the authority.

We see that in the book of Romans.

Paul says, What right does the pot have to talk back to the potter?

The creator is the one who has the authority over the created objects.

But notice this goes even a step further in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

If you read in verse 5, we read, God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

And there was evening and there was morning the first day.

Skip down to verse 8.

And God called the expanse heaven.

And there was evening and there was morning the second day.

Verse 10, God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together.

He called seas.

And God saw that it was good.

Another repetition that's taking place in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Something else, a repeated phrase that happens over and over again.

And God called.

And God called.

We notice here God not only creating all things, but then naming them, giving them names.

When we buy vehicles in our house, I don't know about you, but when we buy vehicles, we like to name them.

We give them names.

We name them Douglas.

My old trusty Rusty Douglas, right?

You remember Douglas, right?

A lot of good memories in Douglas.

Amanda, you've been in Douglas for many youth trips over the years.

Always faithful, right?

Never a breakdown.

Trusty Douglas.

What did you say?

No, not sketchy.

We love Douglas.

You know why I named Douglas?

Because it's mine.

I don't go around naming your vehicles, do I?

No, they're not mine.

I could give you some names if you wanted them, but the idea is I know my vehicle.

I can feel, you know, the name that comes to me as I drive it.

But it's mine, so I have the authority to name it.

I named my sons.

I gave them names because they're mine.

So they get the name that I give them.

You see, this is a means by which, again, the author, Moses is conveying, he's communicating to us here the authority of God.

Not only is he the creator, but he names what he creates, establishing his supremacy, establishing his authority over all of creation.

There's one final phrase we need to notice here in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Look with me in verse 4.

And God saw that the light was good.

Verse 10.

God saw that it was good.

Verse 12, God saw that it was good.

Good on to verse 31.

And God saw everything that he had made.

And behold, it was very good.

The third thing we notice about Elohim in Genesis chapter 1, he's all good.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

He's all good.

Not only does he have all power and all authority, Elohim utilizes his power and his authority to do what is good, to create what is good.

C.S.

Lewis wrote an article, an essay once called God and the Dock.

And the dock in this essay is a reference to if you were in a courtroom, the defendant, the person on trial, would be placed in the dock, that like wooden box they have to go to.

They're in the dock, or they're up for trial, they're in the dock.

And the idea is that in our modern age, man has put God in the dock.

Man has put God on trial.

And so when we examine something, we'd say, well, this, because this happened, God did this, and that shows us that maybe God isn't very good.

Or we'd say, I don't know why God did this.

Maybe I begin to question his wisdom.

Or maybe I begin to wonder, because this happened, maybe I wonder, does God have all the power and authority that he actually claims to have?

What's happening is people, a very common modern uh way to describe this is the deconstruction of God.

It's very common today for people to do this.

To say, I don't know.

I'm gonna, I'm actually the authority in this situation, so therefore I get to judge and determine whether what God said here is right, or whether it's good, or whether it's acceptable.

I have the right, I have the authority to ultimately judge God.

I've put God in the dock.

And it's common today to look at the God of the Bible and to say, I don't think that this God is actually very good.

Because I disagree with what he says here, and I don't like what he says there.

And I think his opinion on this doesn't fit very well with our with our modern idea on things.

And what are we doing?

We're putting God in the dock.

We're judging him, and we've got it exactly backwards.

We're in the dock.

We're in the dock.

We've got it backwards.

It's common, it's so common today to do this with the goodness of God.

To question if God is really actually good.

By the way, you know that was the enemy's original tactic, his original strategy was to plant a seed of doubt about the goodness of God.

Why is God withholding that fruit from you?

It's gonna bring you something good.

Eating that fruit will bring you some blessing, some benefit, some advantage.

You see, God is actually withholding something.

God isn't as good as he claims to be.

How often does the enemy do that with us today?

Boy, obedience to God means you're gonna miss out on some good things.

Some things that will make you happy, some things that will satisfy you.

It's the enemy whispering, planting those seeds of doubt.

We notice here in the text the truth, reality.

God is all good.

What he creates is good, what he does is good, what he commands.

All of it flows out of the nature of who he is.

He's good, he's perfectly good.

So we can rest in that as believers.

We can rest in the goodness of God no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what our hearts are telling us, we can go back to who God really is and say, God, I know you're good.

So even though I'm walking through this valley, even though I'm going through this turmoil, even though these things are happening in my life, God, I'm trusting, I know you're good.

You're all good.

God, my heart's telling me that that I need to do this, I need to live my life this way, that I and I know your word says that's wrong, but God, I'm just so unhappy right now.

And the only way I see forward out of this is to disregard what this says and to live my life my way.

And you're wrestling with your heart, and you need to go back and you need to say, God, I'm gonna walk by faith and believe that you're good, and believe that obedience will lead to goodness in my life, even though it's hard to see.

You see how understanding and knowing and holding fast to who God is shapes every facet of your life.

And it's why it's so dangerous to get it mixed up and twisted up in here.

When we start thinking, well, God just wants me to be happy, right?

Nobody said amen.

Okay, good.

We say, hold on a second.

Let's see who God really is.

And let's live in the light of that truth, his truth.

Don't believe the lie of the enemy.

God deserves your worship this morning, your unyielding praise, submission and obedience, your trust.

Because he is your creator.

He's the God of the universe, he's all-powerful, he's supreme, greater and better than all things, all-powerful, and uses that power and that authority to do what is good.

Praise him for it.

Father, we thank you for today, thankful for this chance we've had to open up your word, dig into the text, and understand this very first name, this very first title that you choose to use in your word.

Elohim.

We come before you this morning recognizing your greatness.

We recognize your supremacy this morning.

We acknowledge your power and your authority.

And we thank you, Father, that you are also all good.

And therefore exercise your power, your authority, your supremacy to do what is good.

Help us to hold fast to these truths and to delight in you and in knowing you as you have revealed yourself to us this morning through your word.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Alright, at this time we're gonna transition into our communion service.

And so I'd ask the guys to come forward to help with the passing out of the elements.

If you're here this morning and you have personally placed your faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, I'd invite you to join us in our communion service today.

Partake of the elements with us.

We recognize this morning that the bread and the cup are symbols.

They're pictures of the body and the blood of Christ, and Jesus calls on us to remember.

Remember Him.

And so these images, they're powerful images.

They're meant to help us as we reflect on and take time to reflect on who Jesus is and ultimately what he did.

He gave his life for you this morning.

He gave up his body on the cross.

He poured out his blood at Calvary to atone for your sin.

And the offer is available if you will place your faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.

Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And so I'd invite you this morning, if you have placed your faith in Jesus for forgiveness, take time as the guys pass out the bread and the cup this morning, take time to remember Jesus.

Remember his sacrifice at the cross, remember what he did for you, and allow that remembrance to produce in you a spirit of thanksgiving, worship, and praise.

Draw close to the Lord this morning as you reflect on his sacrifice for your sins.

So I'm going to go ahead and ask, Brother Andy, would you say thanks for the broken body of Christ?

That's right.

Um to give us the everlasting life that we have.

And thank you again.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Thank you so much.

Remember this as we go forward.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

That you came to earth willingly and offered up your body and your blood as a sacrifice for our sin.

We're thankful that the sacrifice that you offered up was greater and superior to the Old Testament animal sacrifices in the sense that your sacrifice was a one-time sacrifice.

We read in the book of Hebrews that offering up your sacrifice for sin, you sat down at the right hand of the Father.

The work finished.

We're thankful that your one-time sacrifice completely covers our sin, completely removes our guilt, completely purifies us, and completely makes us right with God.

And so we thank you, Jesus, for that sacrifice this morning.

We thank you for your love for us.

We're thankful that you saved us.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

This time we'll close our service with a final song.

And as we do that, the guys will pass out two baskets.

One of those baskets is to collect your little cup, and then the other basket is to connect a benevolent offering.

The funds for that benevolent offering are used to help those in our church family who may have a need, or those in our community that we want to reach out and help as well as we can.

So we'll go ahead and have Phil come on up and close us in that final song.