Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 14, 2021 | Exodus - Mask Up, Moses!

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March 14, 2021 | Exodus - Mask Up, Moses! · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, you early risers.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: We were sitting drinking hot tea at home this morning, and all this is you know you'd think on a day when you know you advance forward an hour, you have to get up early, you'd think it'd be a nice day when it's spring forward, but anyway, it's great to be here.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you, and it's great to sing that song about Egypt, isn't it?
0:28
SPEAKER_00: About how God led us out of Egypt, and then he took us and he tore apart the sea and he led us through the deep, and we've all had that experience.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: And uh we are in the second to last, the penultimate week of our Exodus series.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: I'll be sad to see it go, but uh uh we get to then have Palm Sunday, Christ and the Passover up here.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: We have Good Friday, we have Easter coming.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: So this is a highlight of the church year.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: But we still have uh this message and next week's message and three devotionals this week.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh and maybe a little late for you to join the Exodus Challenge, but if you're just starting, that's fantastic.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: You have a lot of work to do.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna finish this week.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: We have three more chapters and we're done.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Three daily devotionals will appear sooner or later on chapters 38 through 40 this week.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I've heard you.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: I've gotten your texts and calls.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Where's that devotional?
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So uh 38, 39, and 40.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna preach on chapter 34.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Next week on chapter 40.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking forward to that.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: All right, uh, title this morning, Mask Up Moses.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And I thought about that because you know that's that's in our chapter.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: And who hasn't been in a public place where you've been uh on a you know holding a drink, and uh uh and and so your mask was down, you were drinking, but then you put the cup down for a moment.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: And someone, this happened to me on the plane last week as I was walking on with my drink, and you put the drink down for a moment, and someone imperiously motions for you to get your mask up.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh and that's uh um that's it's comforting then to open the Bible to Exodus chapter 34 and realize that you're in really good company.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: You're in the company of Moses.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Because if you go into a store today, they'll either run away from you or tell you to get your mask up.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and uh they ran away from Moses.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Open your Bible.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: If you have one, there's one in the pew bottom in front of you, or you have a cell phone, to Exodus chapter 34 in the last uh uh seven, eight verses of Exodus chapter 34.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the most, it's just one of the most unique stories, you know, in the whole Bible.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, it wasn't that they were running away from Moses because they were worried about rays of virus, you know, um his nose or mouth might might be sending out COVID germs, obviously not, but because the skin of his face literally sent forth uh rays.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: This is uh verse uh 29, I think.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Rays as terrifying as the rays of God's glory had been shooting forth from Mount Sinai, atop of Mount Sinai, back in chapter 24.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: So let's take a look at this.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's jump right in.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: We have a full message today, because I get to talk to you about God.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I get to talk to you about God today is because in our text today, God talks about God.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: It's the only time in the Bible where he tells us, he lists for us's attributes, tells us what he's like.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Is there any, I mean, how can you preach this passage and not stop and talk about God and what God says about God?
3:55
SPEAKER_00: So, but we're gonna start with mask up Moses, and it goes right here.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Moses was there, he's up on the top of Mount Sinai with Yahweh 40 days and 40 nights for the second time.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: First time, remember, people down uh at the bottom of the mountain got tired, got freaked out, and put up a golden calf, assumed he wasn't coming back.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: They've learned their lesson.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: They are ready, they are waiting at the bottom of the mountain for him this time.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna do that again.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So he's up there with Yahweh and he didn't eat food or drink water.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Literally, he did not eat bread and he did not uh drink water up there.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: So it's miraculously he was preserved.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: He wrote on the tablets uh the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: So there's jokes about how God said, you know, I did it last time, but because you broke them, you're gonna have to do it this time.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how he did it.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he had a chisel, uh, but Moses this time uh wrote the words of the Ten Commandments.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, he wrote them on both sides of the tablet.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: So uh in ancient days, they wouldn't just waste the back of the tablet, wrote on both sides, and maybe one through five, six through ten on one tablet, and the same on the other, because one tablet was for Israel.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: One, they always had two copies of a treaty or a covenant, one tablet for God.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: But God was gonna keep them both in the Ark of the Covenant.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, as Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony, that's what it's called.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And I think that may be uh related to uh testimony, same as the word for witness.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: So maybe these tablets were witnesses of the covenant.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: You always have to have witnesses of the covenant.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: So God said, those two pieces of stone, those are gonna be witnesses.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And so those are called the testimony.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the tabernacle was called the tent of testimony, and the ark was called the ark of testimony.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: They're all witnesses to God, God's treaty with us.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, Moses didn't realize something.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: He didn't realize the skin of his face shone as a result of his speaking with the Lord.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we get to this is Bible trivia uh uh for the next couple minutes, and that is that this is the most, maybe the most interesting mistranslation in the Bible, uh, though it's actually not a mistranslation.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: What I mean is that literally, literally, uh the text says the skin of his face sent forth horns.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: That's the word, Karen, meaning it's horns.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And what happened is of course is that um when when Jerome, uh early church father, 400 AD, when he was sitting in the in the convent or monastery, there in the little old little town of Bethlehem, 400 AD, and it was translating the Hebrew uh Old Testament, Greek New Testament into Latin.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: He didn't stop and say, as he read the Hebrew, it sent forth horns.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: He didn't stop and say, I wonder if the horns stand for anything else.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if the horns are a metaphor.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: He didn't do that, he just translated it literally into Latin horns.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, uh, when you got to the Old King, first King James Bible, you get to Michelangelo in 1500 A.D.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Michelangelo, when he's carving out his mo one of his most famous statues, sculptures, uh, and his favorite, he used to say, he he carved Moses with two horns.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: He really did.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Sent forth horns, so it must have happened.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's why uh that's that's why hundred, you know, a hundred million people uh since then have walked into Rome and and parents and children have gone, are those two horns coming out of Moses' head?
7:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, and uh so um that's what it is literally.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: But but the truth is that it's clearly a figure of speech in the context for rays.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Just as when we picture the sun, we picture rays coming out as other spikes or their sword of horns or the Statue of Liberty.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: You have a guidebook, by the way, Statue of Liberty that guesses that what these seven spikes are, some of them say, well, it's for the seven continents, but they don't explain the spikes.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Some say it's to fight off the enemies.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And you go, so Statue of Liberty is gonna fight off America's enemies by what, butting them or something?
8:08
SPEAKER_00: It's just crazy.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: No, they're obviously they're as as the historian of the Statue of Liberty says, these are the these are the rays of the sun coming out.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what's going on, and yet it's just kind of a funny mistranslation.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: If you ever get over to Rome and see that famous statue, or if you just look up, just Michelangelo, Moses, and you'll see those little horns.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Those are actually rays.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Rays were coming out of his face.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Rays of what?
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Rays of divine glory.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: That is, he'd been in the presence of God, and what happened is the energy of the presence of God was so unique, you say, well, he's been up and seen God four times before, at least four times.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Some people think five or six.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: How come this time, you know, it it somehow caught and radiated out of his face?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna explain that.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be the answer, you know, uh, as we go back to the early part of chapter 34.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: But apparently what happened is it's a little bit like the energy, divine energy, the energy of God came into um Moses' skin.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, did you ever have, I was so excited when I was a kid and I got one of those watches that glowed at night, and you could read the time at night, which I don't even know if I could read time when I was that age.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: But or you have these toys because light, you know, uh goes into them when the light's on and reacts with a chemical.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: There's one of a couple chemicals they use, and as a result, when you turn off the lights, they go on.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: That's really uh uh if you're gonna have a chemical explanation for what happened, that's that's what happens.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: And so Moses' face just glowed, but it glowed so strongly and sent forth such rays of divine light, of divine glory, that people ran away.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: They were freaked out.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And they said basically, mask up, Moses, mask up, you know.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why he masked up.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So we read When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders came back to him, and Moses spoke to them.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but you know, he looked scary.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And after that, all the Israelites came near and he gave them all the commands that Yahweh had told him up there in Mount Sinai.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And when Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: It appears that uh Moses would when he would talk to God, or when he was giving God's word, he would leave the veil off so that they could connect that.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: But when he finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face, okay, so that so that it would hide it.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: But whenever Moses went in before Yahweh, but when it says went in, this is before the tabernacle was built.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: But during before the tabernacle was built, Moses had erected his own little tent of meeting outside the camp, probably on the side of Mount Sinai, where people weren't supposed to go.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And uh so and he would go in and he would talk with God.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And when he did that, he would take off the veil until he came out, and after he came out, he would tell the Israelites what commands he was receiving, then he put the veil back on.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: And the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Then Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went to speak with the Lord.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have time to get into it.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: There's a wonderful passage in 2 Corinthians 3.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Some of you who are Bible scholars will know this, where Paul says something we didn't know.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: He said that Moses, that the that the glory faded over the next 40 years.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Moses used the veil for the rest of his life, as far as we know.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: But the glory started fading after a while.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And Moses then, uh, his pride was such that he didn't want people to see that the glory was fading.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: And so after a while, he kept the veil on all the time.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: So they would think that he was just as radiant as he always was.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: And Paul makes this incredible point out of that.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, if if the glory, he says the glory that was on Moses' face represents the old covenant, the old law, the Mosaic law, which can't save you, you know.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And its glory has been fading over the last 1,500 years.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But the glory of Jesus Christ and the glory of the gospel never fades.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: He makes this interesting comparison.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: So, um, but I'm not going to get into that.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Whole sermons can be preached on that.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: But but that's, if those of you who know 2 Corinthians 3 want to look that up, that's what that's about.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: So the question is again, why?
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Why in the world, this time, does Moses' face glow?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Why, since this is the fifth or sixth or seventh time he's gone up and seen the glory of God, why does his face glow?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go back, and the answer is at the end of chapter 33 and early chapter 34, and it's one of the most important passages in the Old Testament.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: One of the favorite passages or favorite verses of the Hebrews of the Israelites, ever since the day that God spoke it.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at it.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: So, Exodus chapter 33, 18 and 19.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: This is the fourth of Moses' four intercessions in chapters 32 to 34.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Last week we preached on the first of them, the longest.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: His fourth request of God is show me your glory.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: You say he's seen it before.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but he is so, Moses is a little uh vulnerable.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: He, because God has said, I'm not sure I want to go on with you guys, I might kill you before you get to the promised land.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll just send another angel and he'll he'll wipe out the Canaanites, but I can't hang around you.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm scared that I'm gonna get so mad I'll wipe you out.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Moses said, Please, if you don't go with us, I don't want to go.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: So you have that whole thing, and so uh Moses and God says, Okay, okay, okay, I'll go with you.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I'll go with you.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: And then and Moses wants proof.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: So he goes, Well, show me your glory.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Just sort of uh, you know, so I can be confident.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'm gonna make very interesting answer.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say I'm gonna make my glory pass before you.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: He says, I will make my goodness pass before you.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: As if God is saying, you know what?
13:58
SPEAKER_00: You people down on earth make such a big deal out of the light thing and out of the out of the shining glory stuff.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: You guys are so big, you know, on Hollywood.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: No, he didn't say that, but you're so big about the stage and about limelight and all that stuff.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: The real thing that makes me glow, the real thing that sets me apart, what you really need to know, what you really need to want is my goodness.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: It's my goodness.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: My character is really at the heart of my holiness.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: It's not the fact that I have a kind of glory that radiates from me.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: So he says, I'll make my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And in the Old Testament, you know, names are a big deal.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: They're like your resume.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And so your name meant something.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: It represented you, your character, your, your, your, your, you know, the resume of your of your of the traits that make you who you are.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And so, by saying, I'll proclaim the name of Yahweh before you, what he's saying is, I'm going to explain the name of Yahweh, I'm going to exegete the name Yahweh before you.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you who I am.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's the only time he does this in the Bible.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: And then God added, You cannot see my face, for no human can see me and live.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Which he had told, which Moses himself knew because he had repeated that very same sentence before and after.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, but God's repeating it, you know, because God's going to show him more glory than he will have ever shown anybody before or since.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: He gets as close to killing Moses in this little scene as anybody will ever get close to his brilliant glory.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And then at the S chapter 33 ends, Yahweh says, Here's a place by me, and you can stand at the rock there, and it will happen like this.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: As my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock, sort of in the opening of a cave, and I'm going to cover you with my hand.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: It's getting weird, isn't it?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Because we know he's an invisible God, and he doesn't have a hand, and he doesn't have a face.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, is physical, but God is invisible and he doesn't have these physical traits, okay?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: But he says this because he wants to show Moses that he's giving Moses more than Moses even asked for on the glory thing, and he's showing him how close and personal he's gonna be.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: So he's using what we call anthropomorphisms.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna cover you with my hand until I have passed by, and then I'll remove my hand and you'll see my back.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: My Hebrew professor in seminary, Dr.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Walking goes, I have no idea what that means.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what the back of the invisible God means.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, but my face will not be seen.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Wow, this is you're talking about a strange passage.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: This is a strange passage, okay?
16:41
SPEAKER_00: But it's clearly gonna it's clearly communicating, you know what?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I I'm gonna be closer to you, my visible glory, than anybody's ever seen.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: So, and that he fulfills that.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh in the meantime, so we have four four verses where, you know, Moses carves out tablets and he chisels in the Ten Commandments, and and God's gonna remake the covenant, which is which Israel has broken with the golden calf, but then all of a sudden, this whole thing gets fulfilled.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh descended in the cloud, that's God.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Cloud, if there's a cloud, there's God.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: He stood with him there, that's Moses, and proclaimed his name Yahweh, as he promised he would, right?
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: In fact, here he does it.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: He passed in front of him and he proclaimed, not once but twice, Yahweh, Yahweh, or your Bible.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: I say, the Lord, the Lord.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm very solemn, very solemn.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Earlier on, number of chapters before, when he had first seen Moses on top of the mountain, he said, Moses, Moses.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Now, for emphasis, Yahweh, Yahweh, and now we have this explosion.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 34, 6.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Mark it, circle it, underline it.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Became one of the most famous verses, still is one of the most famous verses for Jewish people.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: And here it comes.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 34, 6.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Theologians call these the five benevolent attributes of God.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: You can call them the five aspects of the goodness of God, the things that we love the most about God, that are so kind and gracious.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, Yahweh is a compassionate, gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love with the faithfulness.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: And I confess to you, I could not resist the temptation to stop and decide we're going to talk about each one of these five.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Because my goal is for you to know God better at the end of the service.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: My goal is to talk about these so much you'll be able to quote these as you walk out of the auditorium with your cell phone off.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, and you'll be able to share them with your friends, and you'll be able to use them in prayer this next week.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Or when you're interceding with God, you can cite one of these and say, you know, remember God, you told us you're patient.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: So would you cut my son some slack?
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Or cut me some slack, you know.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: So, and then he adds that these are sort of the uh uh whipped cream on top of uh maintaining grace to a thousand generations, repeating the grace he just used, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: But let's let's work our way through these.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, always the compassion and gracious God.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, there are two reasons why these are super, super, super, super important.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Number one, this is the only time in the Bible you know that God ever lists his own attributes, okay?
19:32
SPEAKER_00: But number two, they get repeated.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: I counted 15, but I think there's more like two dozen times in the Old Testament that these are picked up and repeated by Israel's saints.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Here's David and Psalm 86, but you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Precisely quoting it.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Here's Psalm 103.8, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: That's the first four out of the five.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Or Psalm 145.8, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Joel 213, Joel the prophet, don't tear your clothing and your grief, he says to the repenting Israelites, tear your hearts instead.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: He's eager to relent and not punishment.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: He'll take away the locust plague because he's that kind of a God, if you'll just repent and return.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Second Chronicles, at the end of the Old Testament, for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah, the very end of the Old Testament.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, you're a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: As you read through the Bible, as you read through the Bible, look for these words in combinations, and then think back.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: The first time they were given were they were given by the voice of God Himself on top of Mount Sinai as a description of what his godness is, his goodness.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you get to the New Testament, Romans chapter 2, verse 4, the Apostle Paul says, Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient, really gracious and compassionate and patient God is with you?
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Does this mean nothing to you?
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Can't you see that his kindness, that is his compassion, is intended to turn you from your sin?
21:25
SPEAKER_00: So even in the New Testament, it picks up on this.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So this is all I'm trying to do is say, this is such an important verse.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 34, 6.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Respect this verse, know this verse, love this verse.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: So my son Doug is over, speaking over at Fellowship Bible Church, and he was talking to me about it yesterday.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm my job in talking with all the all the singles and uh young adults to tomorrow is to talk about the difference between God's communicable and incommunicable attributes.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that means.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, incommunicable is like he's eternal.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: So We can't relate to it.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Communical, I said you're going to love the communicable ones.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, those are the ones to focus on because those are ones that we can relate to.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: His compassion, his grace, the fact that he's patient, long, slow to anger, the fact that he's loving, the fact that he's faithful.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: So let's work our way through the very first one of these is he's compassionate.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: The word in Hebrew is Raham means to have mercy and pity.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And when the ancient Hebrews heard that word, they thought of a mother, of a mother of a young child, because the word Raham is also, the noun of it means womb.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Means womb.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: So they had this picture of the way a mother, a young mother's womb reacts when she sees her helpless infant, you know, in trouble, when she sees her helpless infant crying and needing food.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a reaction, almost physical, visceral reaction of the young mother.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: And Raham is the is the reaction that God has as he looks down toward us and sees us as sort of helpless infants.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, I was over at my youngest son's house, and I was holding our two-week-old granddaughter there.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: Craig and Emily had a second daughter.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Iris.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm holding tiny little Iris.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And Iris' older sister, three-year-old yesterday, three-year-old Genevieve, uh asked her mother if uh and if she could hold her little sister.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And Emily said yes, but then she said, Genevieve, where is the one place that you can hold that we let you hold Iris?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: And Genevieve, uh Genevie said, on the couch?
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And why is that?
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Emily asked.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Because if I hold her on the floor, I might bonk her head.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: That's right, her mom said.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: So she clambered on the couch and she got to hold Genevieve.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Mothers are so protective of their tiny, helpless infant newborns.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Because there's something inside a mother that that cares in a special way.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the best picture I can think of, and it happens about 3,000 times each year in America, is that when a woman who is pregnant learns that she has cancer.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, if the woman's past her first trimester, then uh many uh many cancers can be treated then, after that time, with chemotherapy.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of cancers can't be treated by drugs or therapy that is safe for the baby that's inside her.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: And so the mother is usually uh she's she's usually advised to get an abortion and to start cancer treatment immediately.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: But very often, a mother, especially those who felt their baby move inside them, feel far more compassion or mercy for the baby than they do for themselves, and they say, I'm not taking a take anything that will possibly hurt or kill my baby.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do my best to hang on long enough to have the baby, and then I'll start treatment.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: I'll take my chances.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: So you have headlines like this every year.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: It's in a uh Daily Mail, London.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: It's an impossibly cruel dilemma.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: You need life-saving chemo, but it could damage your child in the womb.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: For these devoted mothers, there was only one answer.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: It lists a couple.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Joe Powell is one of them in the story of Joe Powell uh a year or two ago.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: They've been trying to have a baby for years, and she's 38.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: But one week after learning she's pregnant, she gets devastating news.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: She has not only does she have breast cancer, but it's already spread to her lymph nodes, and so she needs immediate uh, you know, surgery, mastectomy, chemo, radiation, and so forth.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And she says, No, I I refuse.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, whatever you can do for me after the first trimester, that's fine.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: So they do a little some small surgeries.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Seven weeks later, she starts chemo, but she still refuses drugs, you know, that might hurt the baby.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: And she hangs on, they induce the baby six weeks early, and then start treating her in earnest.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Praise God, both mother, both Joe, Joe, and her baby are fine.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: It didn't work out that well for a girl named Carla in Rome.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Carla, uh second baby.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Carla was diagnosed with a particularly bad cancer.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Abort, they said.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: We're not even sure we can save you, but you need to abort, and then we're gonna just flood you with all these drugs, and we'll throw everything at the cancer, stuff that the baby there's no way could survive.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we can't even guarantee, you just can't even guarantee you.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And she says, No treatment.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: No treatment.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: She says, for the sake of my baby, I'm gonna go without treatment and I'm gonna hang on as long as I can.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And she did hang on, she got sicker and she got sicker, and in her diary, she wrote these words every day I stay alive is another day for the child I have inside.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: After six months, she slips into a coma, and shortly afterwards she died.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: But the moment she slipped into a coma, they did an emergency C-section, and and they delivered a healthy baby, a tiny little baby, but a three month premature baby.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And that baby lives today because his mother had pity for her helpless child.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: And listen, if you have, and what she did is is what the Bible says, God feels for us.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Because if you and I, if you've been born again, if you've been birthed into the family of God, you are alive today.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Why?
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Because out of pity and compassion and maternal mercy, the Lord saw you in your helplessness, doomed to die, and himself died in your place to give you birth, right?
27:33
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible idea, this whole thing.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not just moms, okay.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna throw dads in here, because in Psalm 103, David says, as a father has compassion, same word, Raham, on his children.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: So, but it's just that the word Raham actually means womb as a noun for him.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: Now, as nice as all the sounds, we actually have two problems with this.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: I have two problems, the same two problems with all five of these words.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Number one, uh, problem is that we don't feel like we need pity.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you were young and you had a classmate that challenged you to a race, you know, and you went out and all the other kids on the playground were gonna watch you, and the kid, the other kid were gonna race.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And then the other kid says, Listen, I I feel pity for you.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: I feel sorry for you.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you get a head start?
28:19
SPEAKER_00: I'll wait here for like till you get halfway there before I start.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And you know how you felt at that moment.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: You were utterly mortified, you were embarrassed, you said, I don't want your pity.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, you'd rather lose than be pitied.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: It's the way, unfortunately, you know, I feel on the golf course all the time now.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'm playing with other people.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: I I know they pity me.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: I know they're going, please, Jim, hit a good shot occasionally, you know.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is, you know, we love to be admired for how skilled we are.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: We love to be uh admired for how capable we are.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to be pitied for how helpless we are.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: We like to be compliment complimented am I right on how good we look.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to have people say, wow, you've been sick for a long time, haven't you?
29:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and I and I see it now, more than ever, you know, now that I'm really old.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: I used to dive constantly on the basketball court or the volleyball court.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: It's just part of my this is something I did.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: I was rather competitive.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: But I've had to stop.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Because if I dive for a volleyball today, it doesn't matter whether I got the volleyball or not, the game stops.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Everyone gathers around, looks of concern and pity cross their face.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: Jim, are you okay?
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Are you sure?
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Can I help you up?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Did you break anything?
29:38
SPEAKER_00: My pride hates that.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: But pride refuses pity because it's humiliating.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Because you're seen as helpless or you're seen as needy.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Only humility can accept compassion and pity and say, Thanks.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: I needed that.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: That, by the way, is why some of the finest people that you know and I know are kept from accepting the love of God in Jesus Christ and free salvation, right?
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Because to accept that gift would be tantamount to admitting that they are helpless and they're not able to save themselves.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, if the first problem that we have with compassion is because we're too proud that we don't like to be pitied.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: The second is that we don't there are people in our lives like enemies that we don't think deserve it, that we don't we don't think they should reserve, that they that they deserve compassion.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: And and the a golden example of that in the Bible, am I right, is Jonah.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: Jonah, Jonah was called by God to go to Tarsh, to go to their major enemy, Nineveh, and to preach repentance.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Jonah went the opposite way.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Why did he go the opposite way?
30:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, he explains it at the end of the book.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Jonah goes and finally, after the whales or the uh fish spits him out, and whatever, and he goes to Nineveh and he preaches.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: They all repent.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: They repent so utterly and totally for 40 days or whatever.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: They even put sackcloth on their animals, on their cats, dogs, cows, and everybody.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're so repentant.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: And God feels pity, feels compassion on them because they've repented.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: And so he takes off the judgment that he had planned.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah is absolutely irate.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: And he prays to the Lord in Jonah 4, 2, and he says, Lord, this isn't, and this is what I said when I was still in my own country when you called me.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: I fled, that's why I fled the opposite direction to Tarshish, because I knew that you're a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: I knew Exodus 34 sick.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: I knew that they were gonna repent and let you, you know, and I wanted them to die.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: So there are people that we have, they're enemies, and we really don't want them to get mercy.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Don't you feel a little funny when you hear when you heard James Dobson years ago say that he'd gone down to Florida for this for this mass killer, you know, and then he witnessed to him and he'd become a Christian on death row?
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And you go, um, no, no, I don't, yeah, I don't, he doesn't, he doesn't deserve heaven, you know.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't want him getting pity.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: This he's been a horrible, awful creature.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And this is how we sometimes feel when somebody who's committed a terrible, terrible, terrible sin, and then you hear that they've repented and come to God.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the problem we have with pity, and of course, what that is again, is it's it's forgetting that you and I are just as helpless and just as needy.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And we need pity, but I gotta move on.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Second, second uh characteristic, God says, uh, you know, you want to see my glory, the glory of my goodness?
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Number number two, I'm not only compassionate, I'm gracious.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: And this is the word we probably think of more than any other about God, right?
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Hanan.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: That's why we name our daughters Hannah or Hananiah or whatever, to show favor, to show grace.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: And the difference between mercy and grace, oftentimes, you know, not stated correctly, is in the object of mercy and the object of grace.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: The object of mercy is always helpless.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: The object of grace is always undeserving.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Someone who's done something which shows they do not deserve this gift of salvation or this gift that you're giving them.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And we actually have a holiday every year that's totally our holiday of grace.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
33:07
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's Christmas! Of course it's Christmas.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Because even though we used to we play the song on our stores and so forth, you go, oh, you know, you better watch out, you better not pout, you better not cry.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Santa Claus is coming to town.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: He sees when you're sleeping, he sees when you're awake, he knows when you've been bad or good, he knows whether you've been naughty or nice, you know.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: You and if you've been naughty, and if you've been bad, and if you've been pouty this year, piece of coal in your stocking.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Piece of coal.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: My uh you know, I have a son who who who whose vivid memory as a child that he keeps reminding me of.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: I feel so guilty.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: I played a prank on him, you know, that day before Christmas, and he hadn't been all that nice, a boy, you know.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: And and and he said, I'm I love stockings the best.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: And I said, probably not this year, you won't.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: And uh he got he goes, why?
33:54
SPEAKER_00: I said, uh, coal, coal for you this year, just a piece of coal.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And and and he went to, I didn't know it.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: He said, Dan, I went to bed crying that night.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I was so sure you're telling me the truth.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: I felt so bad.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: But but not anymore.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh he deserves every bit of it.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: But you know what happens every Christmas?
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Boys, girls too, but mainly boys, who don't deserve a thing, who are undeserving, who've been naughty, who've been pouty, who've been bad, they get showered with gifts.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: What is that?
34:26
SPEAKER_00: That's grace.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: They're undeserving.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: They're not helpless, they're undeserving.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's what grace is about.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Grace is giving something, being generous, being generous, actually generous, toward the undeserving.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: And God looks down from heaven and he sees not one person on earth, am I right, who's deserving of salvation?
34:46
SPEAKER_00: Not one person, he says, no, not one.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 3.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: He looks down.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, at while we're still sinners, while we're still rebels, he what?
34:56
SPEAKER_00: Romans 5.8.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: He died for us.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: While we're still rebels, or to paraphrase a worship song that I love, that I think we all love to sing, I I couldn't earn it, I don't deserve it.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: It's the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Or we would change, I've changed in this case, love to grace.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't earn it, I don't deserve it.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: It's the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless grace of God.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: There's a uh and it gets illustrated in small ways.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh it just flows down from God, and I think it infects people in our country who which has a Christian memory.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Even um uh um, and I want to tell a story about that.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Here's I couldn't earn it, I don't deserve it.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Still, you give yourself away.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: But um, it happened uh just a few weeks ago, a week or two ago, up in Indianapolis, up in Indianapolis, and the video has now gone viral just in the last week.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when student Anthony Moore uh came to middle school uh wearing a cap, which violated dress code, and he was in the classroom.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Teacher sent him to principal's office, and principal Jason Smith could tell, knowing Anthony, there had to be something wrong.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: So he kept talking to him and he kept asking him questions.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: It took him about 30 minutes, but he finally got the boy to open up that he was embarrassed by the terrible haircut that he'd gotten.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want anybody's buddies to see it.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm in middle school, that's a big deal, you know, in intermediate school.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: But rather, so the principal did something.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: He broke policy.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: He broke policy.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: In fact, these five words all break.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Grace breaks policy.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, the principal broke policy, he offered to repair the haircut himself, saying he had been cutting hair since he was a teenager.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Even showed Anthony a couple pictures of hair that he had cut.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: And the boy agreed.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: So Smith raced into home to get his cutters and so forth, came back as the boys in his office, he gave him a new haircut.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: And and the boy returned to class without his cap, now happy with how he looked.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, according to the policy, according to the rules, principal should never touch the child.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: He should say, Anthony, rules say no hat, no cap in school, go back to your class, either leave or take off your cap.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: But God's like that wise principle.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And that wise principle showed grace.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: Rather than crushing us, even though we have no right to it, God gives us undeserved generosity he offers to fix what's wrong.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, we have the same two problems, of course, with God's grace that we had with his mercy.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: For one thing, we don't like being told that we're not deserving.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's just the opposite.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: We think, have you ever noticed on Facebook if you post that you got an award or you got a raise or anything else, what are the three words that you get showered with from like 10,000 people on your Facebook page?
37:47
SPEAKER_00: You deserve it.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Right?
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Always, always.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: You deserve it.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: You deserve every good thing you can get.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: We are so, we've been told, and we've been told by advertisers for decades, from whether it's Buick's or Burgers, and both of them told us that, go ahead, you deserve it.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: You deserve a breakaway.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Go to McDonald's and and and in fact, we've grown up believing that you always get in the end what you deserve.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: That's karma, that you're always rewarded on the basis of what you do.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: That's why, in the sound of music, there stands, you know, Maria, love struck in the moonlight, and standing opposite her, this handsome man who, beyond all belief, has fallen in love with her.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: And Maria can't help it.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: Like all of us, she starts to sing.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what you and I would do.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: But but she sings our motto, she sings our theme.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: She sings, there you are, standing there, loving me, whether or not you should.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good, right?
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: So we have a natural resistance when we come to the Bible, discover God doesn't play by those rules.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: He refuses to open the door of heaven to those who prove that they deserve it.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: Instead, his rules are the opposite.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Anyone, just anyone can get into heaven, but everyone who gets into heaven didn't deserve to get in.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they only get in because of God's, the word is grace.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Right?
39:15
SPEAKER_00: Because of God's unmerited, undeserved favor.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: Church leader died, went directly to the pearly gates.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: Peter says it takes a thousand points to get in.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: Tell me something about yourself.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, until the age of 20, I never missed church, never missed Sunday school, got all the pens, helped with youth group, cut the grass of the church, and so forth.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow, said St.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Peter.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: One point.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: That gives you one point.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Tell me something else about yourself.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, he says, up until the age of 90, now that I'm I just died, you know, I attended, not only did I attend church every Sunday, I served on the board numerous times.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: I went on missions trips, you know, I I did all kinds of things.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: I I gave a tithe.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: I was a I I was a leader in the church.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Peter said, that's amazing.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: 90 years.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: That's another point.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: That's two points.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: What else?
40:06
SPEAKER_00: And the guy gets all frustrated.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: He says, Wow.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Man, at this rate, the only way I'm gonna get into heaven is by the grace of God.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: And Peter said, That's a thousand points.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: You gotta thousand and two.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, are you ready to go in?
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's and that's really the point.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: That's really the point.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: That you have to admit that you don't deserve it, that God's grace will get you there.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, four four quick quotes on grace, and I'm wow, I'm about done, I guess, with my sermon.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Philip Yancey.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, he's too small for you to see.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Jesus forgave a thief dangling on a cross, knowing full well the thief had converted out of plain fear.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: That thief would never study, that the thief would never study the Bible, never attend synagogue or church, never make amends to those he had wronged.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: He simply said, Jesus, remember me, and Jesus promised, today you'll be with me in paradise.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: It was another shocking reminder that grace does not depend on what we've done for God, but rather what God has done for us.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Another quote from Philliancy, grace like water, flows to the lowest part.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: My third favorite quote about grace is Jerry Bridges your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace, and your best days are never so good that you're beyond the need of God's grace.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: And finally, John Newton, through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: His grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: So the first two go together, they're twins.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: The last two go together, the middle one stands apart, and I think it was put in the middle because of the golden calf, because we're in a situation where God had gotten so upset that he was ready to get rid of Israel.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: And so, right in the middle, right in the heart, the diamond on the ring, because I'm slow to anger, Eric Apion, which literally means long of nose, because noses get red when you get angry, you know, and they radiate.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: But God's nose is so long it never burns down.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have a hair trigger, he waits and he waits and he waits.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Something that children can't do.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: When are we gonna get there?
42:17
SPEAKER_00: When are we gonna get there?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: God is slow to anger, and that's why he's waited so long to return to the earth, right?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Peter said it.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't want to bring his wrath down on the earth.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: As many as possible, he wants to save.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: So that's why God isn't slow, he's just slow to anger.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Loving.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm moving quick now.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: The most famous, perhaps the most important word in the Old Testament.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: Hezed.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: It means loyal love.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: It means that there's some sort of relationship.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Marriage, perhaps?
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Or an understood relationship.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Friends, roommate, family.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: Hezed is what Jacob called for.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: He was dying.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: And he calls Joseph to him and he says, This is the hezid.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: This is the loyal love I want you to show me.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: I know I'll have no power to compel you to do this, but he says Genesis 47, I do not want to be buried in Egypt.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: And I know it'll be a super hassle.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: You'll have to get off work for a month, but I want you to carry my bones back up to Canaan and bury me in the family plot next to my wife.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: That's the hezid.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: And he dies.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: He has no power.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Dead people have no power to compel you, their children, grandchildren, to compel you to follow what they wanted you to do, either with their money or with a funeral or anything else.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: The reason if you do it, it's because of hazard.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: It's because of your loyalty and your love, and you do it not because they have any power, because you are now in a superior position and they are in a helpless position.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's what hazard is.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Hazit is what keeps marriages together when one of the partners has been unfaithful.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Hezed is what happens when a boy who should be kicked out of school gets his 12th or 14th chance.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: Hezed is a loyal love that stays true to a relationship in the family, some sort of relationship.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's God's love.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, I'm loyal.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: So if these first two, by the way, is what got Israel out of Egypt, compassion and grace.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: He saw there, he pitied Israel as they were crying out in anguish in Egypt, and he brought them out.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Then came the golden calf, and now, now he's showing his loyal love and his trueness and his faithfulness to Israel.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: By continuing with him, by saying, I'm going to stay with you despite what you've done, despite the fact that you've broken our marriage contract here, and I'm having to remake it.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I'll stay with you, I'll be faithful.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, is there any is there any trait we we need more than this one today?
44:54
SPEAKER_00: As the divorce rate rises as families are falling apart?
44:57
SPEAKER_00: It's as though God says, you know, presidents, come and go.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: State officials, city officials, come and go.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: Families, relationships, loved ones, friends, they come and go.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: But I will stay.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: I will always stay.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: I will stay true.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: I will stay faithful.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: Even when you are unfaithful, he says in 2 Timothy chapter 2, if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he can't deny himself.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: What a God we have, right?
45:28
SPEAKER_00: Let me wrap this thing up.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: Again, I want you to remember these.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, Yahweh, is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: And when the Lord Jesus, who was God Himself, came to earth, He, who said the word became flesh and tabernacled among us, we beheld his glory.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: The glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: We saw the glory of God's goodness in the face of Jesus Christ.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: No one more compassionate, no one more kind to the helpless, to the weak, to the woman.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: He never broke a bruised reed.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: No one more gracious, because even when we were sinners, he died for us.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: No one slower to anger, more abounding in love and faithfulness than our Lord Jesus Christ.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: He looks at us today and he says, I want you to remember my traits.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to memorize the five goodnesses of God.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to know these five.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: What are they again?
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's say them together.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: There's compassion.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: The second one was he is gracious.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: And the third, he's slow to anger.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Fourth one is love.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: And the fifth one is faithfulness.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Know those.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: Teach them to your children, grandchildren.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Second, quote them to God in your prayers.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: God will give you answers to prayers, as Moses found, if you'll quote his attributes back to him.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: Third, shine like Moses and Jesus with these five rays of divine light.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Shine in your life like Moses and like Jesus with these five rays of divine light.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: Join me in a closing prayer.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us a chance to think about you.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listing for us these five amazing traits that you have.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: We really would like to become little gods, little Jesuses on earth.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: We'd like to be super compassionate to those who are helpless and not crush them, not break helpless, weak, uh needy people.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: And we would love to be more gracious, Heavenly Father, to those who are undeserving, because we tend to get angry at them.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: To be slow to anger, Lord, help us to have long fuses this week, this month, this year.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: Lord, make us truly more loving to those who, even to those who have betrayed us at times.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: And faithful, Lord.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: Make us faithful people.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: God's people said, Thank you for your patience.