In this lesson, Greg Ho begins explaining the attributes of God by first discussing the importance of studying God’s attributes and then by examining three of God’s attributes: holiness, righteousness, and sovereignty.
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well uh as you take ours take your seats uh we will get started um it’s great to see some familiar faces literally Josh Factor um all right thanks for coming to the third I guess the third lesson of fundamentals of the faith and you know I know uh the purpose of this course this fundamentals of the faith course is to really get ourselves as a church on the same page as it comes to the fundamental truths of Christianity and you know we used to do this on an ongoing basis we used to teach this class sort of like as a sidecar to the regular Sunday school um Dwayne actually taught it for many years and uh before that other people taught it and then kind of stopped for a little bit with a pandemic and everything but we decided to start it up again and maybe take the whole church through it at least once just to see whether or not we’re on the same page because there’s a there’s some new people there’s some new believers and although these are fundamentals of the faith we never fully graduate from these fundamentals right we can get deeper and deeper into these fundamentals and we can understand them better so this is profitable even if you’ve been around for a while and I know when I was studying for this um you know I learned a lot despite being around for a long time okay so last time you guys learned how to study the Bible right I guess the pastor um took us through sort of what is the Bible and how to study it and that’s a good place to start because the Bible is our only source of truth right it’s the only sort of truth and the only way we could know anything at all so without the Bible it’s impossible to really make any progress on any of this other stuff but now having sort of mastered the principles of Bible interpretation as much as we could have mastered it in a week we are ready to Embark upon the main topic of this lesson in the last next two weeks which is God himself and so while we begin let’s start out with the word of Prayer father we are so grateful for this time these next two weeks or so to look at what the Bible says about you your character your attributes Who You Are and how you have described yourself and these wondrous Mysteries that you have presented for us in your word help us to be absorbed by them help us to be mesmerized by them and help us to help help us to be driven to worship by meditation and contemplation of these great truths of scripture in Christ’s name you pray amen all right so um the title of this lesson today is God his character and attributes and um there’s 11 attributes we’ll try to look at in this next two weeks and that means we have about 10 minutes each so each of them could be a servant of itself and in fact I know Mark and Dave and and the the rest of the men on Tuesday nights have been going through a whole book devoted to the character attributes of God um and uh if you are interested in that or if you’re interested in anything we talk about today uh you you and I guess if you’re a man and you want more depth to that please go to a market he’ll tell you all about the men’s uh study and if you’re a woman I don’t have anything for you I’m sorry um you’re just gonna have to talk to to the ladies Bible study leaders Cheryl and Jane and all those people okay so even if you’re not a man the Iron Man recordings are still available for you to get deeper and deeper but this is really meant to be sort of a survey of landscape and of course you know Mark and Company can help me out um as we meditate on them okay so today for each attribute we want to discuss sort of let’s see if I have my slides up I don’t actually know what slides I have okay so yeah so for each of the attributes this a little small we’re going to try to discuss three things of each of these attributes first of all you know what does the Bible say about it okay this is not really the slide here oh let me I’ll show that later um so what does the Bible say about it how do we live in light of this attribute and then I thought we would consider sort of what would be the effect of having a low view of the attribute because of course for every of these attributes that we’re going to talk about we have some conception in our mind about what that is and if we have a high view of that it’s going to affect our lives and if you have a low view of that it’s also going to affect your lives so that’s what we’re going to talk about and we’re going to try to stick to our strict schedule because last time I think the pastor went over by a week and then I messed up the entire schedule for the summer and then Pastor Dave had a hard time trying to figure it all out again so for his sake we will we will try not to go over okay so before we get into it let’s discuss for a few minutes sort of why it’s important to study the attributes of God why is it important to know the attributes of God so I open up to you guys tell me in your own words or in your own mind you know why study the attributes of God yes Layla naturally but shrinking and putting things back into perspective yeah okay humbles you right so so it humbles us and and gives us the the right sort of god-centered worldview any okay Dwayne back there yeah that’s a great point so you know if you don’t know who God is um how do you know you’re worshiping the right God how do you know you’re worshiping the right God and you know the the heartbreaking thing is that um I think if you look out in sort of so-called Christendom um there’s lots of people who would call themselves Christians who think they’re headed to heaven but they have no idea who God is and that’s not a you know at some point that becomes not a saving faith um anybody else yes Mark oh do Mark person then Glenn Glenn second Peter 1 says something really amazing it says that he’s given us everything we need for life of godliness through the true knowledge of him and uh it’s amazing to think about yeah that ever that ever somehow to an attribute of God yeah and so it’s really it’s not a theoretical study and that’s something that I think we need to understand before we set out on the study this is not a theoretical study the more you understand the attributes of God the better you live the better you live and glad you had something okay so we always have to be careful that we have him on top his attitude then we can see ourselves yes yes that goes back to humility and this is the slide that I was supposed to show before uh so here’s some here are some just sort of my own thoughts salvation um because you know worshiping the wrong God is idolatry right um worship because what is worship if you boil it down to what it really is and you strip away sort of the music and and so the glittering lights that we do that here but uh you get that worship is really meditation on the attributes of God it’s really just Adoration of God for his attributes and who he is and also uh living as Mark was saying this is critical for us to understand in terms of uh living the more you understand the attributes of God the better you live and of course this is the quote that um is repeated every single time somebody does a study on the attributes of God because it is a great quote from aw Tozer uh which is what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us and what what does that sort of mean what does that quote mean for somebody who’s heard this before and sort of broken it down does this make sense does this resonate okay okay so he’s our being he created us right so when everybody everybody in the world when you mention the word god they all have an image in their mind right or not maybe in a picture pictorial image but they have some type of conception of who God is and that pretty much dictates everything else about you dictates how you act how you behave um how much essentially how much peace you have um how much joy you have um and you know it takes whether or not you’re a real Christian so so that’s why that is uh let’s um it shapes everything you do so like I think your workbook I think if you have this uh open at lesson three you also have a quote from Spurgeon on the first page and maybe somebody can read that real fast revolunteers to read that Spurgeon quote yes all right like in the godhead’s deepest sea be lost in his immensity and you shall come forth it’s from a couch of rest refreshed and invigorated I know nothing which can Comfort the soul so calm the swelling Billows and sorrow and grief are pillows of sorrow and grief so speak peace to The Winds of trial as devout music upon the subject of the godhead okay so Spurgeon is saying that really understanding the godhead and the and the and sort of plunging yourself in it can come for your soul can Comfort your soul it can even relieve the Billows of sorrow and grief and us the wind of trial I’ll give you some other quotes MacArthur says knowing god is the highest pursuit of your life uh Steve Lawson says a high view of God leads to high living a low view of God leads to low living and us Spurgeon does another quote from Serge and to know God as he is is the essence of True Religion to understand his character his attributes and his works is the groundwork of all real Christian experience and on the second page of your workbook there is another quote by Tozer maybe somebody can read that for us then we’ll get into it on the top of uh second page anybody anybody read that volunteers Mark okay Believers scarcely and error doctors or failure to find Christian ethics okay thanks so basically what he’s saying is a wrong view of God leads to all errors and if you think about it um every religion in the world has a view about who God is but it’s slightly skewed it’s slightly messed up and you know for example the Muslim God lacks love and forgiveness the Hindu gods lacks Grace and love the Unitarian God lacks Justice and holiness the Mormon God lacks eternality and omnipresence so you have all of the Gods of the the false gods of the world and you can understand that they just have a slightly different view of the attributes of God um it’s no exaggeration then to say that knowing god is really the most important thing that we can do and before we just kind of dive into it I do want to point out that when we talk about knowing god we’re not just talking about a head knowledge of the facts about God right um there’s a difference between being able to pass a test on the attributes of God and really knowing it um you can know it up here but then you could not know it down here right and for those of you who have studied sort of biblical counseling or have counseled others you know that a lot of biblical counseling really boils down to understanding who God is the attributes of God and then actually living as if that’s true I’m actually starting to live as if God is merciful and loving and kind and just um so it lives you live it out in your life you live these attributes out all right so the consequences of not knowing god is catastrophic and knowing god rightly and correctly will lead to a life of joy that doesn’t make any sense to anybody else right Joy leads to not unnatural peace a peace throughout circumstances that wouldn’t make any sense to anybody else and that’s what we want and that’s what we’ll get out of the study okay so here are some of the attributes of God that we’ll look at and there’s 11 of them this is definitely not exhaustive there’s and you know obviously there are other attributes that some people put in when they study it but this is the 11 we’ll be looking at um and let’s talk first about Holiness so holiness Holiness of God I would say is the most important attribute of God to understand first you have to understand the Holiness of God before you can really appreciate the other attributes and the Holiness of God is really the attribute that is most commonly used to describe God in scripture when God is described he’s described as holy before he’s described as anything else um and um you know I think one place to go to in order to really understand the Holiness of God is let’s start with Isaiah 6 Isaiah 6.
and if you have your Bibles you can turn there and uh if somebody can be so kind as to read to me Isaiah 6. from verses one two three yes years okay so this is one of my um this is one of the most sort of picturesque images in Scripture so you know the King uziah dies and Isaiah the prophet at that point has a vision of God and this vision is is majestic as as we just read it’s really what should come to your mind first as you think about the Holiness of God um look at what’s in this picture so you have God Seated on a throne and the train of his robe is filling the temple with Glory and you know back then uh the the length of the train of your robe has something to do with how powerful you are as a king right so the longer the train of your robe the more powerful you are as a king and the train of God’s robe is so long that it fills the entire Temple there’s no room for anything else in the temple except for his robe um because he is so incredibly powerful um and then not only that but there are angels and in fact this is uh the seraphim who are flying about God and um you know this is mysterious imagery but you have six wings two of the Wings are covering their face because the Holiness of God is too it would burn anybody up right it would burn you up to to be to to behold the Holiness of God um it is um too much to behold and then uh two two to cover their feet because you know the feet are anything that has to do with um anything that might be might be might be pure impure or dirty about you and then two wings are flying ready to sort of zip off to anywhere and Minister as God commands and you have these angels but what are they doing what is their main purpose think about it yeah so what did they say one Angel is saying to another Angel holy holy holy is the Lord God and the other Angel responds what the whole Earth is filled with his glory and this is just going back and forth that’s all the angels are doing right now they’re going back and forth worshiping God proclaiming not love love love right not Grace Grace Grace although that is true not truth truth truth although God is of course a god of Truth but they’re proclaiming holy holy holy um and this image should fill you with awe um and these angels I’ll tell you we’re not going to be that much different than them in heaven because much of what is going to happen is in heaven is going to be us beholding the Holiness of God and Giving Him worship for it and it’s going to be good we’re going to like it because there’s nothing better than the Holiness of God what does holiness mean what does the word holy mean some of you know what does the word holy actually mean awesome okay it can sure set apart that the word actually literally means to cut away or to separate right so you’re separated and that’s what the Lord literally means god is different than you he is separated from us um he’s not like us there is no shadow of sin or impurity or even ordinariness in any way everything about God is separate from us he is ultimately pure if you think about that you know things that are pure are valuable right if you’re if you have like a nugget of uh or like a maybe a diamond ring and that ring that diamond on that ring is pure and that if you ever shop for engagement ring that the price of that ring goes up exponentially as the Purity goes up um and that’s the truth for True for everything true for dogs uh purebred dogs or you know thousands of dollars that you could sell and and you know breed for for um for money um you know pure gold is obviously much more valuable than adulterated gold and you think about it and you think you realize that God is the most pure thing in the universe he’s the most pure and therefore the most beautiful thing in the universe and his Holiness his separateness his Purity is his defining characteristic in Revelation 4 8 which we won’t take a look at right now um we’ll see that uh in heaven this is what worship is um just proclaiming holy holy holy and uh in Exodus 15 11 which I think you read in your homework in uh right I think you’re reading your homework um Can somebody read Exodus 15 11 I think if you already have it in your workbook okay so who is like you and then the first thing that Exodus 15 11 mentions is holiness before any of the other characteristics Holiness is the most defining characteristic of God so let’s now move toward the um how it affects our lives if God is Holy what should that mean in your life what do you guys think if you live like you believe it what would it look like yes did somebody else say what you have something to say Okay so one the first thing to understand is that Holiness of God isn’t something that we could just behold as if it’s something that is not expected of us right we ought to be imitators of the Holiness of God what does that mean in your life if you if you ought to be holy as God is Holy what does that mean in your life in the fear of God he says we’re so far from perfect that’s like a constant right saying every day you know after God to search our hearts to cleanse us and it’s a helplessness because I you know I think of when you said Abraham be perfect or be holy Bible how do you respond to that yeah that’s not possible yeah and this is a what you brought up is a great example of how God’s aptitude groups work together because God is Not Just holy but he’s also gracious and without the gracious part and without the loving part his Holiness would be something to be feared but because God is loving and God is gracious we can strive to be holy and no will fall short but know that we’re accepted by God anyways um but yes how is my life portrayed in him the light in my life yeah so I think what you’ve been what you brought up Glenda and what Mark also brought up is this idea of personal Holiness right our personal Holiness Holiness we should be paying attention to that and remember Holiness being separate right you know at the end of the day we need to understand that there are things in this world that we need to separate from um there are things in this world that make us our thoughts make our our actions impure and you know I mean just think about what you may watch on TV what you may watch on Netflix what sites you go to these thoughts that come into your mind may make you impure how much social media you consume sometimes there’s a lot of sort of um negative I’ll just say negative things on social media that are not profitable um and make you as a person Unholy I think you know what I mean um so one thing that I think we need to understand is that Holiness isn’t something just that somebody can see from the outside right it’s not like oh as long as this person sort of uh doesn’t do x y z then they must be holy but Holiness is something that is also in your thought life it’s also even in the innermost parts of your being God is pure and holy into the innermost parts of his being and that means what we think even Philippians 4 8 says finally Brethren whatever is true whatever is Honorable whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is of good repute if there’s any Excellence anything worthy of Praise dwell on these things dwell on those things so make sure your thought life is Holy anybody else have any things that yep yes worship you know you know as we mentioned worship is really what we will be doing for all eternity in heaven and it’s been said you know if you don’t think that that’s going to be a enjoyable time um you might not want to go to heaven because that’s what we’ll be mostly doing there um but uh you know I think we have this idea sometimes that maybe Holiness is like kind of something that’s kind of a little bit of a bummer right like you know my I was trying to explain this to my kids um in the last few weeks and uh I asked them sort of what they thought about what they thought about Holiness and you know mostly they said it seems kind of like you don’t want us to have any fun it seems as if like all the fun things in the world are not that Holy um but um you know that’s just maybe we also have that thought maybe we also have that conception and we have to understand that that is really a deception of the devil Holiness ought to be something we earnestly desire is that something you earnestly desire is that something you earnestly desire do you want it more than anything else because you know did you know that in Holiness is found the greatest joy that’s where Holiness is it’s Joy Holiness is a fulfilling life to to live a holy life is to to live a joy-filled life a free life a life of Freedom From The Bondage of sin um a Life unstained by corruption and uh something you earnestly desire and you know what Holiness is enjoyable it’s more enjoyable than the sin that maybe comes into your mind when you think of what might be enjoyable yes ultimately it’s a command s yep and it’s not a chore right so it’s a command but it’s not a command that is sort of like go eat your asparagus you know I mean maybe you like like asparagus um but you know if you have this idea that Holiness is boring and I think you know maybe offline you need to meditate on that and you need to think about that and why do you think that maybe it’s because you know you’re worldly in some ways and you ought to realize that that’s a deception those things that you think are might might not might be more fun than Holiness are actually in actuality not right they’re not Holiness is the path to Joy it’s the path to a life well lived and um and we should all understand that and really understanding that is part of sanctification that’s what that means all right so what happens if you have a deficient view of Holiness what happens when somebody has a view of Holiness that isn’t up to par and maybe not in their heads but in their hearts what happens oh for anybody but sure for a believer okay like what like what what what made how made it appear in your life okay yeah uh I mean you’ll you’ll be likely to play with sin right and and playing with Sid and you feel like yeah this is probably fine yeah um not a big deal um yeah right but in the same way if we submit to the war and his Holiness Foundation that’s beyond you know we’re sowing seeds right yeah that they’re fruit and you know I love to think of it as you what am I submitting myself to um and I love that the fact that it says submit because that is an active thing to submit is something that you have to do um in a sort of conscious way um but the rewards of that are phenomenal um yeah yeah and now he’s exalted in glory um you see a deficient view of Holiness when you know that there uh maybe 10 years ago there used to be a fad for like pastors who cuss um that used to be uh so it used to be a thing um pastors who sort of are cool and sort of in the world and um and uh you know what comes out of your mouth is what reflects reflection of your heart um a lack of reverence and worship you know a lot of times uh when you see popular cultural depictions of worship um it’s basically like a a mosh pit um you know I’m not trying to make any comments on what kind of worship is better than others at this point in time but um there are types of worship where your heart isn’t on the Holiness of God you’re not meditating on the Holiness of God it’s something else it’s a rock concert it’s a emotional event so and also even it’s a lack of heart and worship on the other side too you know the Holiness of God you have to understand as we talked about God is the purest thing in the universe and therefore the most awesome to behold and you think about the vision that Isaiah had and how he fell on his face and he said you know I’m a man of unclean lips from the people of unclean lips and this is a prophet of God and you know he he’s not he’s not um he’s not the worst sinner he’s better than us but you know he falls on his face and you know are you enthralled by God the same way when you worship you know not even just in Psalm but just in in any way of your life when you worship are you enthralled by God in that way um do you behold the holies of God and say that is beautiful that is beautiful so if you see any of these things in your life you may have a low view of God’s holiness all right so moving on closely connected to holiness is God’s attribute of of righteousness and justice so the next one is God’s attribute of righteousness and justice and I have some of the verses we’ll go over there if you want to get your fingers ready so you know this is sort of what we actually associate with Holiness it’s sort of righteousness and sort of Justice I think it’s more useful to think of Holiness as just being separate from sort of the corruption of the world but righteousness is what what is the I mean this was a definition of this on the homework because somebody tell me the difference between righteousness and justice what is the what are the sort of uh nuanced differences between these two things right okay is okay yeah I think I think uh I think you’re on the right track I think I think the book explains this slightly differently um does anybody have the the definition the book has or that you went through in your workbook okay so so righteousness as Glenda was saying is it’s basically God acting acting according to his nature which is Holiness and his acts are all righteous everything he does is righteous there is no sin there is no impurity there’s no there’s no shadow of darkness in any of his actions and then Justice is what okay good so it’s how he basically applies his righteousness standard to you and how he applies his standard of righteousness to to the world okay so both God is both righteous and he’s also perfectly just I mean as Glenda was saying he doesn’t ever give you more Justice than you deserve nor does he ever give you less Justice than you deserve he always gives the right amount of Justice which is a lot so yeah that doesn’t really necessarily help you at all um okay so that’s so important to understand that the source of God’s righteousness is not some sort of higher law that God that he has to adhere to right it’s not as if there’s a law above God and that’s the law that God has to apply you know God himself is the law and um okay so what can we understand this to mean think of let’s just meditate it on for on it for a few minutes so like oftentimes God God does something maybe and you may disagree that’s the right thing to do um so you know I think about maybe Moses not being able to enter the promised land I was going through this with my kids at one point and Moses does all these great works for God right he does um you know he Parts the Red Sea and he does all he leads all these Israel out people are complaining against him and they want to kill him and he he rises above all of that and then one day God tells Moses hey you know let’s talk to that rock and let you know let water come out and Moses in a fit of anger strikes The Rock instead of talking to it and then because of that God says you’re never going to enter the promised land that the promised land that you so long to see that you led the people through the Wilderness for 40 years you’re not you’re not going to be you’re not going to be willing to that that’s the consequence for striking the rock instead of speaking to it and when I read that to my kids they were like why would they do why would God do that that’s like a that’s like such a trivial little thing right like I mean I mean you know we do things out of anger all the time sometimes you know like you know sometimes to think about this one little thing that Moses did and that disqualifies him from his dream is that is that right is that right I mean from a human perspective it seems like it’s too much right it seems to like it’s going too far but God’s righteousness means this if we disagree that this is righteous then what this means is that you are wrong you are wrong God is righteous and your standard for righteousness is too low that’s what it means it means our standard for righteousness is too low and on the same vein some may think that it is unjust to send people to hell even seemingly good people um think about people who I’ve never been in trouble with the law even people upheld their standards of morality even people who have lived lives of self-sacrifice um maybe even you know nuns and Priests Mother Teresa or Buddhist monks who dedicate their lives to the service of the poor and you think it’s inappropriate to send these people to hell maybe we should let them go with a slap on the wrist or Purgatory or which is a man-made invention to resolve exactly this tension and you think maybe that’s not just to send people to hell what do you think it’s just yeah because if you are we’re not even talking about it that’s right that’s right yes yeah fairness is that everybody goes to hell yeah yeah you don’t want to talk about what’s fair yeah that’s right and and when you when your standard of Justice disagrees with God’s standard of Justice You’re the one who’s wrong right this is I mean this is what it means when you look at the righteousness of justice of God God’s righteousness and Justice are perfect and they’re far above our standards of righteousness and justice far above and uh you know he comes from a place of perfect Holiness and Purity his judgment is not clouded by sin or impurity but yours is so what about us how does a high view of God’s righteousness and justice affect our lives how ought did to affect our lives when we have a high view of God’s righteousness and justice what do you think yes when I see that safety I know that it’s just this judge Justice and his writing just saving me you know I should have and he took his son to die for me yeah so he has to look above us and see who he is yeah amazing and you know you think about what you just said like we are undeserving of Heaven um but yet God met that standard of righteousness on our behalf and that ought to drive you to your knees in worship then also drive you to your knees and thankfulness a high view of God’s righteousness will lead you to thankfulness and praise it also humbles us because it really helps us to understand how far short we fall right and you know like it cures you of all of your self-righteousness right because you look at somebody else and you say hold on April like you said you say I see you you say yeah this person how could they do this how could they be so unrighteous according to my standard but when you understand God’s standard of righteousness you realize not only do they fall short of that standard you also fall short of that standard and you really don’t have anything to say about this right um April had something to say Athena I’m sorry I messed up inequities that other person that you may not develop the same amount of ingest and Justice yes Justice which is a legal term yep Psalm 130 says right you were to regard already yep that’s right he just forgive a little love but he believed yeah that should drive you to to love of God and so if your heart is cold towards God which you know sometimes for all of us in our Christian Life it might be times when your heart is a little bit colder than others um one thing that you can do is to meditate on the righteousness of God and how far you how far you fell short of that and how God saved you from the consequences of that um okay a deficient view of God’s righteousness leads to self-righteousness it leads to uh cheapened view of Grace a tendency to minimize sin Theology of you know of sort of hell where hell doesn’t exist and that’s where really a lot of um these sort of Cults where you know there is no hell come from because they have a they have a minimized view of God’s righteousness of holiness and a neglect a personal sensification all right let’s uh for interest of time we’re going to move on to sovereignty and let’s try to take these two a little faster unfortunately so sovereignty is basically you know the fact that God is Sovereign is basically saying God is King God is completely authoritative in everything that happens in the universe he is the highest Authority um that’s the idea behind God’s sovereignty um he’s a chief Supreme in power and God does whatever he pleases he’s a king of king and the Lord of lords he’s not subserving he doesn’t have to ask permission from anybody um unlike the god of other religions the god of Mormonism had other gods who who pre-ascended through the ranks the god of the Hindus have have the sort of hierarchy um but the god of the Bible has no peer there’s no there’s nobody on the organizational chart uh where he is at the top he doesn’t have to appeal to anyone he doesn’t have to ask anybody’s permission including your permission right that’s something that we sometimes would want God to ask our permission to do things but that’s not the case he has no creator he has no mentor to answer to and he does whatever he wishes and he has the power to accomplish whatever he pleases and uh can uh this is from the homework so if somebody has Isaiah 46 9-10 can you read that oh sorry or not I can try to read it okay remember the former things won’t pass for I am God and there is no other I am God and there is no one like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which has not been done saying my purpose will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure right that’s a great verse about God’s sovereignty probably the probably the best verse he does whatever he wants whatever he pleases and because God is Sovereign just like subjects in a kingdom the whole Universal base is command everything from the most trivial to you know how short or tall a blade of grass in some random lawn growth to the most profound um who’s your king who’s your president um who’s the next conquering Nation all of this is subject to God and this is the critical thing to about to understand about God’s sovereignty God’s sovereignty is right a lot of times you come to this topic of God’s sovereignty and kind of resent it a little bit maybe um well why does he get to do whatever he pleases but the understanding of this Doctrine is that God’s sovereignty is actually the right thing for the universe because God is Holy and pure and perfectly righteous and perfectly just you want God to be Sovereign over the universe so what does this mean for us what does this mean for us if you believe that you have a high view of God’s sovereignty what does that imply in um how you think about life when disasters happen in our world like he said I do whatever I pray I please in Heaven and Earth in the sea and in all the places he said it and one of the small prophets if Calamity comes no question about it I send it so when we think about these words that we say when these things happen and anything happens to our life we say well God you’re in control you are suffering you know why you send this upon me so I shouldn’t be questioning because we have this word telling us I send it I do it so there should be no thought in our mind as Christians sometimes the enemy wants to think but why this happened to me so if I think white happened to me to me I’m selfish so don’t happen to be happening to somebody else but when we think about have that mindset God say I do it I said it so that should settle us yeah so again we come to the fact that you know sovereignty isn’t the only attribute of God if sovereignty was the only attribute of God that would be it attribute to be feared because God can do whatever he wants with you but God is also a god of love and if you’re in Christ he said in Romans 8 28 that he would work all things for your good and if you think about that how is that possible how could he work all things and that word all is really confounding like do you mean all things like what about like what what shirt does Mark wear to to church today like do you work that for my good and somehow the Bible says God works all things for good to those who love him who are called according to his purpose and you believe that you realize that the entire universe is orchestrated in your favor the entire universe there’s nothing in the universe that happens that’s not for your good and as as you were saying Glenda as you go through trials because in this life Jesus told us there are going to be trials as you go through these trials you realize that these trials are completely in control by God he’s completely in control of all of it he knows the end of this and he also knew the beginning he knew when it was going to start and knew what it’s going to end um and even if the things that are taking place inside are things you don’t understand uh God understands and more so he loves you and he is with you and that’s something that you know like there’s so many people struggling with anxiety today um just anxiety and and you know you don’t know what’s going to happen next um that’s the uncertainty that that sort of modern life has sort of thrown us into um But realize that even through all of this uncertainty God is completely Sovereign there’s nothing that’s surprising God um God is orchestrating all of it you had something Dan what should we look for I think in the next verse it tells us that we’ve been conform to the image of the Sun so that good that he’s causing is for us and he’ll bring us from this and again one of the things that we’re talking about in Holiness is does that sound like a good thing to be conform to the image of the sun sometimes we look at that we’re like I don’t know this sounds like a lot of fun but that is um the path to Joy so it is for our good good point um well I think one one example biblically to understand this is the the example of Joseph you know when Joseph was sold into slavery you probably was thinking I have no idea why this is happening why would you make why would you let this happen to me is something I did um do you do you forget about me and then he was falsely accused of sexual assault and thrown into prison for it and Joseph thought why is this happening to me right I mean is that is that how you would feel if these things are going on in your life and you’re falsely accused and thrown into prison you might think this why is this happening why is God allowing this um and then you know he thinks he’s going to get out because you know this whole dream thing and then he doesn’t get out for like another year and uh and all through those trials you know there’s no indication that God ever told him hey you know don’t worry about it I got this um but you see at the end that God purpose was for Joseph to be the singular person in the right place in the right time to save his entire family and the nation of Israel and God’s Redemptive plan and you think if Joseph didn’t do that if God didn’t bring Joseph through those things would he be the person he is the time that he needed to be um and that it I think that biblical story is the story of all of our lives in some way or another God brings us through these trials in a sovereign way God did not lose control in any of those points right um yes or forsake you on the other side of that coin is saying they wonder what and so standing on that promise because knowing that a part of sovereignty knowing he knows the future he knows the end from the beginning and so he would not give you that promise if you weren’t going to go through anything and in order for you to come out and be a testimony to somebody there has to be this trial in your life and you can speak of his faithfulness like he never left you he never forsake and he never pursued you yeah as Danny was saying a lot of times it’s growing you but even sometimes when you don’t understand why things are happening maybe you fall ill um maybe there are issues you’re battling against and you don’t feel very in control of them um you know God is you know you can here’s the thing God is Sovereign but God is also as as uh Ian and Mark were touching this week in men’s bible study God is also good and this is the thing that is the really profound truth that that I really only recently grasped is that you know God is good and we can trust that all his purposes for us are good and so his sovereignty is a good thing right because he means good for us and you know even though you might be going through stuff now God will ultimately bring that to a good purpose for you um yes the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which I rest my head at night so that just really comforts me yeah yes and exodus says and the Lord said unto him who made man’s mouth who makes him dumb or death C or blind and sometimes the Conformity that happens in those families where that is they have character traits that wouldn’t come any other way and so we can rest in knowing that if God allows us he’s doing a far deeper work our expectations of one Health that’s a normal desire to want that and pray that but then that’s a comforting word on his sovereignty that nothing escapes him he knows the hairs on our head he knows when a sparrow Falls and we need to surrender those to him as in the prayer that Jesus gave thy well he knows everything he’s in control of every every detail even in the case of maybe a baby that’s not born healthy things that we don’t understand things where we unders you know we would ask why would God allow this all right skip we’re going to move on but I got out of solventy like if I love God the way I’m supposed to all things will work out for the good the the good according to his purpose without him of nothing yeah exactly and you know that also means you know all of the other things in our lives too you know a lot of people are afraid of Satan and you realize God is Sovereign over Satan too Satan is God’s devil there’s no reason for a Believer to fear Satan because you know God is in control of Satan and God is on your side right um the other thing uh you know it’s a cliche but like people also say God has a purpose for everything even in the media but for for those who believe in the sovereignty of God that’s true and his purpose is for your good um so what are Comfort God is even Sovereign over your salvation and you know there’s no chance that you know God can make a mistake on your salvation right that you know sometimes you’re afraid that uh you know you might fill out a form or something and then uh you’ll take it to the DMV and the DMV will be like yeah that’s the wrong form like that’s not you know reject and um that’s happened to me before and the problem is moot because God um will not make a mistake he won’t um he won’t sort of you can’t do something that’s like too bad that he’s just like you know what that whole salvation thing um yeah we’re not going to do that anymore uh you would just behave too badly that’s not going to happen he’s completely Sovereign even over your own actions um and and just really fast because we’re out of time you know some wrong views some people view the world as a cosmic battle between God and Satan right and in fact this is how the cult the popular culture sort of like depicts Christianity is you know we’re sort of um you know on God’s side fighting and we’re sort of imagining ourselves as some sort of Army and then the other side is sort of Satan and and sort of even the TV shows sort of play him up as like the reasonable one right um well that’s not how it is at all is is the nature of the the universe the cosmic battle between and God and Satan um no there’s no battle I mean there might be there might be some conflicts here and there but that’s only because God allows it um but Satan is um completely in control by God so God is completely in control of Satan and anybody else who thinks that they are sovereign you know Satan’s greatest sin was to sort of reject the sovereignty of God and want to take that for himself and sometimes that’s what we do we reject what God’s purposes are and we try to make ourselves a sovereign and anybody with an anti-god agenda um whatever you know philosophies lgbtq whatever it is um these people will not ultimately succeed and God is Sovereign over even these things and you know um lastly just to end with this my kids asked me recently you know if God is Sovereign over everything then why do we pray it’s a good question actually um it’s a good question because you know if God is Sovereign over everything then why should we pray um isn’t God just going to work out whatever he wants anyways and the answer of that of that question is not to sort of downplay God’s sovereignty but to realize that God is even Sovereign over your prayers right so his sovereignty is so absolute and comprehensive that he is even Sovereign over you’re going to pray for this and then this is going to happen as an answer to your prayer and then God is going to get the glory and all of that was already in God’s Sovereign plan um yes and there we go pray and ask for things communication all right um this is we’re out of time for today and next week we’ll kind of try to finish out the other like seven points let’s pray father thank you a lot again for this time to study your attributes and we pray that it would affect our lives it wouldn’t be a theoretical study it wouldn’t be a study that’s just in our minds and stays there but it would drive us to love and drive us to worship and it would drive us to become more like yourself Jesus Christ I pray this in Christ’s name amen