Daniel 9: The Great and Awesome God

Your heart and your spirit start to well up with joy and love until it all overflows in a flood of worship and praise saying Who is like the LORD our God? (Ps 113:5).

Who is like the LORD majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds? (Ex 15:11).

You alone are worthy to receive glory, honor, power and praise (Revelation 4:11).

This is why the Bible commands us to grow in the knowledge of the glory of God (2 Cor 4:6, Col 1:10).

Not so that we can be a bunch of egg heads that just know a lot of theology.

Theology without doxology is dead.

Theology without worship, adoration, and praise is nothing but vanity and benefits nothing.

The reason we study theology and the reason we take theology seriously is because we want to be a church that is white-hot for the glory of God.

We want to be a church that praises God for all that He’s worth.

So who is God? And how do we know Him?

This is the foundation your entire Christian life.

And here is where I ultimately want to get to today. Here is what I want you taking home.

All the glory of God is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I want you to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).

You might think this is a funny place to start in a chapter that is all about repentance.

That’s what Daniel 9 is. Its a master class on confession and repentance. On turning from sin to worship God.

And we will get to confession and repentance in another sermon.

But true repentance always starts with the glory of God.

Because sin, ultimately, is not just a bunch of bad things we do. Sin, at its root, is a worship problem.

Your sin is worship.

Our sins are the things we do that say something is more important, more glorious, more desirable, more worth living for than the glory of God.

So if you ever want to have repentance that lasts, the answer doesn’t start with a bunch of spiritual disciplines and things you need to do.

Are we so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are we know being perfect by the flesh? (Gal. 3:3).

True repentance starts with the glory of God.

We worshiped our way into this. We need to worship our way out.

And that starts with seeing God and His glory.

Worship is not just something that we do. It is a response to who God is and what He has done in Jesus Christ.

After all, is it not the kindness of God that leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4)?

But how do we see the glory of that kindness if we don’t know who God is and what makes Him so kind in the first place.

If you feel like you’ve been on the treadmill of sin and repentance, help is on the way.

The answer to sin doesn’t start with “try harder.”

It starts with beholding the glory of God and singing with the angels Its beholding the glory, Holy, Holy Holy, is the Lord God Almighty! (Is. 6:3).

We are going to have three points today.

First God is Great and Awesome.

Two: God is Righteous Judge.

And Three: God is Gracious Savior.

Let’s start with point number 1...

I. God is Great and Awesome

Daniel 9:1-2 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.

At this point, Persia is now in power. Babylon has been overthrown, but Israel is still in exile.

God had sent them into exile for breaking His covenant and sinning against Him, and Daniel knows that all of that is about to come to an end because Jeremiah prophesied that they would be in exile for 70 years.

But reading Jeremiah, Daniel was cut to the heart because He knew God was right to judge them for their sin.

He knew they deserved this and they deserved much worst.

And so Daniel turned to God in prayer.

Daniel 9:3-5 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.”

Foreshadowing Christ, Daniel intercedes on behalf of his people, just as Christ our Great High Priest intercedes for us.

And notice where Daniel starts. He doesn’t start with all our sins. He starts with who God is. O Lord, the great and awesome God.

And I want to camp out there. What are we saying when we say O Lord, the great and awesome God?

Let’s look at those two things individually and then put them together.

Great

When we say God is great, we are saying God is high and mighty.

That He is important. Exceedingly great and glorious.

That He is absolute and perfect in greatness and exceeds higher than all of our thoughts, words, and actions, all of our life could ever hope to love, adore, and treasure.

The fullness of His glory is so great that even with our very best as finite creatures our worship will always fall short.

When we say God is great, we are saying God is the greatest. He is all in all. He is our highest joy and greatest treasure.

Awesome

What about awesome?

To say that God is awesome is to say that God is awe-inspiring.

Its the same word that can be used for fear as in God is terrifying and dreadful. That in His presence we are absolutely undone.

But it can also mean fear as in revere or honor.

That God is most honored. To be feared.

So when we say that God is awesome, we are saying that God is worthy of all our worship.

All of our lives should be lived in the fear of the Lord. That everything we do, think, or say should be to honor and glorify Him.

Holy

When you put both of these together, what you are really saying when you say God is great and awesome is that God is the Only God....

That He is infinitely glorious and absolutely worthy of all our worship.

But I want to simplify it even more for you. Because we can really boil down all the greatness and awesomeness of God into just a single word.

And that is Holy.

God is holy.

Look at Psalm 99:3, 5.

Psalm 99:3, 5 Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he!...Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!

Hebrew poetry uses parallelism where lines correspond and extrapolate on one another.

And in this Psalm, God’s great and awesome name is directly tied to God’s holiness and His holiness makes God worthy of all of our worship.

We usually think of holiness as moral purity or goodness. As the opposite or antithesis of sin.

And that’s certainly one aspect of God’s holiness, but holiness is more than just something God does. Its something God is.

MacArthur says that God’s holiness is his inherent and absolute greatness (MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 183).

God is completely other.

He is absolutely perfect in all of His perfections. Perfect in love, mercy, righteousness, justice, and grace.

He is so beyond us and outside of us that there is nothing like Him.

You might say He is infinite in majesty.

There is no one like Him and because there is no one like Him, He is majestically unique.

And even with earthly things, the more rare something is, the more glorious it is. How much more so with God?

If you could say only one thing it would be that God is holy. And if He is infinitely Holy, infinitely rare, how worthy is He of all of our life?

That is what we mean when we talk about God’s glory.

God’s glory is the beauty of all of His perfections. All of His holiness.

Its His eternal and supreme majesty and splendor.

Sun Illustration

Words fail to communicate the greatness and glory of God. That’s why we need to see God’s glory with the eyes of faith.

Let me try to give you an imperfect, blurry picture.

How glorious is our Holy God?

I was reminded of this this week.

I was driving with Owen into the sunset.

And the Sun was at the perfect spot where you couldn’t see a thing. I mean everything was black. You had to look right in front of the hood.

And Owen was in the back covering both His eyes saying, “Dad its bright!”

And a verse popped in my mind. 1 Timothy 6:16 God dwells in unapproachable light.

If the glory of the Sun blinds your eyes when you stare into it, how much more the glorious light of God in whom there is no darkness at all? (1 John 1:5).

Just think of it. The sun is only a shadowy picture of the glory and holiness of God!

His glory is almost unimaginable. And that’s the point. It is.

Application

So let’s make a turn, and talk about what that means for us.

God’s holiness, His glory, His greatness and awesomeness means God is worthy of all your life.

All your life belongs to Him.

Think of it this one. One of the ways in which God is Holy is that He is perfect in Aseity.

Now that’s a fancy theological word that basically means that God in His holiness is perfectly self-sufficient and independent of all things.

That He does not need anything or dependent on anything outside Himself for His own blessedness or existence.

Now you might say, well that sounds cool, but what does that have to do with me?

Who God is always has something to do with who we are.

And God’s Aseity, His independent, sufficient, self-existence, says that God is the foundational being for life itself.

As Jesus says He has life in Himself (John 5:26).

He is the source of life. The Fountain of life. In Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

He is the only One that exists in, of, and for Himself.

Everything else exists for Him, including us.

He is Creator. We are creatures.

By definition a creature owes its very existence, all of its life, to the One who created it.

Job 12:10 In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

God is the giver of life. And as the Giver of life, all of our life belongs to Him…is owed to Him…exists for Him.

Well what do we exist for? The glory of His Name.

As Paul says in Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. So what does that mean? To him be glory forever.

God is great and awesome. He is infinitely glorious.

God is Holy.

And that means God is worthy of all of your life.

That in everything we should make every effort to give all God the glory and obey Him.

That’s exactly what it says in Deuteronomy 10 where those same two words, great and awesome, are used over and over and over again to proclaim the glory of God and what that means for our lives today.

Deuteronomy 10:12-21 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it....

The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe. [That’s important and is going to come up later. That means you cannot bribe God with your works. There is nothing you can do to put God in your debt to where God owes you forgiveness or anything else. Deuteronomy continues]...You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God.

God is great and awesome.

He is glorious and worthy of all of our praise.

Your very existence comes from Him which means your life belongs to God.

The question for you is does it?

Does your life really belong to God? Do you fear him? Do you love Him? Do you serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul?

Is He your praise? Is He your God?

Are you really living for what God made your for?

So that was one of my goals. One of my goals was to make you see God as Great and Awesome because that is where all of the Christian life starts.

If we don’t understand that all of our life belongs to Him, and that we were created to obey His every word and glorify His Name, then we will never understand the atrocity and wickedness of our sin and the justice and righteousness of God’s wrath and judgment.

And that’s point number 2...

II. God is Righteous Judge

Daniel 9:4-5, 7 O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules…To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame.

Here’s what’s going on in Daniel.

They’re in exile. They’re under the judgment of God. He’s the One that ripped them out of the Promise Land and sent them to Babylon.

And in Daniel’s confession, Daniel acknowledges that God was right to do so.

God keeps covenant and steadfast love. It was the people who sinned, acted wickedly, and rebelled.

It was their sin that provoked God to judgment.

God judged Israel because that’s who God is.

To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness.

That means everything God is and everything God does is always in perfect conformity to His own nature and self.

In other words, God always does what is always right as defined by His own perfect goodness.

That’s what righteousness is: perfect conformity to a perfect moral standard.

And as the Sovereign Creator, God himself is the perfect standard of everything that is good; He is the absolute good (MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 181.

And everything He is and everything He does perfectly aligns with that glorious goodness.

Now ultimately here is what we are saying.

God is right to judge sinners.

That’s what you need to remember.

And that’s really an unpopular thing to say today. We don’t like a God that judges. We like a God that loves.

A God who judges seems so angry. Cruel. Mean.

But here’s the thing. All those thoughts, all those sentiments, really just reveal a low view of God.

An inglorious God.

As Reformed Christians, one of our rallying cries is Soli Deo Gloria. To the glory of God alone.

We, of all people, need to have a high view of God.

Our faith needs to be one that exalts God as so glorious, so awesome, so holy, that if He were to not judge sin, He would deny Himself, and would, therefore, not be God.

He would not be righteous, holy, loving, just, perfect, or good.

He would not be the Creator to whom all of our life is owed if our sin, wickedness, and rebellion against Him was not repugnant and could just be swept under the rug.

All of us really want a God who judges sin, even people that hate Him, because all of us really know that God who does not judge anyone’s sin is not glorious at all.

For us to say that God is righteous is to confess, ourselves, that God will perfectly judge all men, women, and children according to the perfect standard of His perfect Holy Law that reflects and reveals His perfect Holy character.

And if you’re tracking, there’s a big problem with that.

Romans 3:23 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

That means every one of us.

Who has given God a life of perfect worship and obedience?

Who has perfectly kept every one of God’s commands down to the smallest jot and tittle?

The Bible says even if we break only one single tiny law we are guilty of all of it (James 2:10).

One white lie. One lustful glance.

One time you wanted want somebody else had, or hated your brother.

One time you disobeyed your parents, and every kid in here just went uh-oh. I did that this morning.

And some of you parents are probably saying you’re doing it right now!

Any one of those sins let alone the ones we commit in the secrets of our heart, not just deserves but demands God’s righteous judgment.

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul who sins shall die. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

And here’s the problem...

Romans 3 None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one...There is no fear of God before their eyes (Romans 3:10-18).

Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about all morning?

Every sin says God is not great and awesome. He is not glorious. He is not holy.

And that is why Romans 6:23 The wages of sin is death.

The way the Bible talks about this death, that talks about this righteous judgment of God is by using the word perish.

It is the opposite of eternal life (John 3:16, 10:28).

In Hebrew or Greek it can mean to be lost. Broken. Utterly destroyed. To be undone or ruined. To suffer destruction with no way of escape.

And that doesn’t mean you’ll just cease to exist. No.

Everyone who dies in their sin will perish.

They will suffer the fullness of God’s wrath; eternal, conscious, torment in Hell.

They will be lost. Broken. Utterly undone and destroyed with not possibility or chance to escape.

And that is what all of us deserve.

Now That’s the bad news.

All of us are sinners. All of us have sinned against God, given the glory due to His Name to another, and deserve to perish.

And as a righteous judge, God would be perfectly good to do so.

But there is good news.

Romans 6:23 does not end with the wages of sin is death. Curse and judgment is not the last word.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

Our great and awesome isn’t just a Righteous Judge, He is also a Gracious and Merciful Savior.

And that’s point number 3...

III. God is Gracious Savior

Let’s go back to verse 4.

Daniel 9:4-5 O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.

I want you to notice something here. Daniel uses a turn or a contrast in His prayer that comes up over and over again.

And those contrasts highlight something very important about the glory of God.

The way Daniel uses them basically says all of Daniel’s hope, all of his confession and prayer for forgiveness and salvation don’t rest on him or Israel’s ability to keep God’s Law.

All of his hope rests solely on God’s glorious mercy and grace.

He says O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.

Now on its face you might think, well that sounds like God keeps covenant and love for those that obey Him. Isn’t that just works based salvation?

Let me reframe it for you. Those that love him and keep his commandments do not earn God’s covenant and steadfast love.

Rather those that love him and keep his commandments are true worshipers.

What this is saying is that those who truly worship God, those that are God’s people, are forever secure in God’s covenant and love.

The emphasis is not on our obedience. The emphasis is on God’s own steadfast love and faithfulness.

God is forever faithful to His people out of nothing more than His own love, mercy, and grace.

And then here’s the turn.

we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.

God you are always faithful, but we have not been faithful.

We’ve turned aside from your commandments and gone our own way.

Look at verse 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame (Daniel 9:7).

Do you see the contrasts?

God you are faithful. We are faithless.

You are righteous. We are sinful and have fallen short.

There’s no hope. They deserve God’s judgment. Our only hope is your mercy and grace.

And then verses 9 and 18.

Daniel 9:9, 18 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him...O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.

Do you see what Daniel does?

God we have no other hope. We have nowhere else to go.

We have broken your Law. We deserve every judgment.

Our only hope is your love, grace, and mercy.

Love

God’s love is His absolute benevolence and goodness towards Himself and all creatures.

In fact, God is so perfect in love that the Bible says God is love just as God is so perfect in holiness that God is light (1 Jn 4:8, 1:5).

Grace

God’s grace is His perfect favor and blessing. His absolute goodness poured out on people who do not deserve it.

It is unmerited meaning it cannot be earned by any works or good deeds.

It is a free gift of God’s goodness and love in action.

Mercy

And God’s mercy is His perfect compassion and pity for wretched and miserable sinners.

God sees us in our miserable state of sin and death, and instead of leaving us to like the man beaten and left for dead on the side of the road, He is the Good Samaritan that acts on our behalf and binds our wounds.

God is so merciful He is called the Father of mercies and His mercies never come to an end, they never run out. they are new every morning (2 Cor 1:3, Lam. 3:22).

And remember, God’s glory is that He doesn’t just have love, mercy, and grace, He is love, mercy, and grace.

He Himself is the sum total of all of His perfections (MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 178). He is the fullness of His perfections.

So God is perfect in love, perfect in grace, perfect in mercy, just as much as He is perfect in righteousness, justice, and wrath.

And when we see all of these together like a great and glorious jewel that is when we see the glory of God for all that He is!

I want to take you to one of my favorite passages in Scripture.

Show me your Glory

In Exodus 33, Moses asks God, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18).

That’s what we’ve been talking about.

Show me the weight, magnificence, and majesty of all that you are.

And God said to Moses that because of sin, no one could see his face. (Exodus 33:20).

Remember God is a holy and righteous Judge.

But God said And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33:21-23).

And then in Exodus 34:5-7 we read this...

Exodus 34:5-7 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

The Name of the Lord.

This is who God is. This is God’s answer to Moses’ prayer to see God’s glory.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.”

This is God’s glory.

He is the Lord the Lord. A great and awesome God.

He is Merciful. Gracious. Slow to Anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.

But who will by no means clear the guilty.

This is everything we’ve been talking about.

God is Great and Awesome. He is a Righteous Judge. And He is a Gracious Savior.

This is who God is, and we should worship Him for all He’s worth.

But worship is not something we will in ourselves. It is an involuntary response to seeing God in His awesome glory and majesty.

Well where do we see God’s glory? Where do we see God Great and Awesome, Righteous Judge, and Gracious Savior?

All the glory of God is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

John 1:14, 18 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth....No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Do you want to see the glory of God and worship Him for all that He’s worth?

The only way is Christ.

He said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

In Christ, we see God as merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

In Christ we see God as righteous judge who by no means clears the guilty, but still forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.

If you want to see the glory of God, look to the cross.

On the cross, Christ revealed God’s holiness.

His greatness and awesomeness.

Every Creature owes all of their life and worship to Him.

The soul that sins shall die.

On the cross, Christ revealed God’s righteousness, judgment and wrath.

Isaiah 53:5-6 He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Every sin for those that put their faith in Christ was laid on Him, and God poured out the wrath and judgment we deserved on the Holy Son of God.

And on the cross, Christ revealed God’s grace, love, and mercy.

While we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

God forgave all of our sins without minimizing any aspect of his glorious righteousness.

He is the just [the One who punishes sin] and justifier [the One who forgives it] for the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26).

Christ is the Rock God hides us in so that we may see His glory and have eternal life.

Just like Daniel. Our only hope is God’s love, mercy, and grace.

And that’s why the only way for you to be saved is through faith in Christ.

If you come to God relying on your works or hoping that He will forgive you or understand outside Christ, you trample the glory of God revealed in Christ.

John Owen says “There is more glory given to God in coming to Christ by faith than in keeping the whole law,” because only in Christ is all the glory of God revealed.

All of His righteousness, holiness, goodness, love, mercy, and grace.

Come to Christ. Put your faith in Him. And you will be saved and finally, for the first time in your life, give God the glory due to His Name.

Glory and Repentance

But this is a passage about repentance. Why have we spent so much time talking about the glory of God?

You might be sitting there say, I feel like I’m enslaved to my sin.

All of that talk about freedom in Christ feels like its for every other Christian. But not me.

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to stop.

How do you have true repentance and why will it always be impossible for you without beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?

Because here’s what always happens.

We think of repentance as something that we “do.”

That sin is bad so the answer is to try to will ourselves to holiness or just change our behavior.

So what do we do?

We get on the treadmill and try to white knuckle our own holiness.

We try to force ourselves to love God more and do everything we can to complete in the flesh what God began in us by the power of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:3).

Now I’m not saying there isn’t a place for discipline or resisting sin and temptation, but repentance, first and foremost is worship problem.

We worshiped our way into sin and so the only answer is to worship our way back out.

But here again, worship is not something we do. Something that we will in ourselves.

Worship is an involuntary response.

When you see something amazing, you don’t have to force yourself to go “Wow!” It just happens.

And so worship, true biblical worship, is the involuntary, overwhelming wow to who God is and what God’s done in Jesus Christ.

I want to help you get of the treadmill.

The endless cycle of sin, feeling bad, trying harder, only to fail again.

We need to reframe the entire way we think about repentance.

The first step of repentance is not try harder, the first step is to behold the glory of God.

Do you want to be free from your slavery to sin?

Then set your eyes on Christ and see the glory of God made manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of the Son.

Hebrews 12:1-2 Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

When we see the glory of all that God is in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, will well up in our hearts and overflow in life of worship and repentance.

Repentance might even be our greatest form of worship because it above everything else says, from the heart, God you are better, more glorious, more satisfying than all my sin. All my life is yours.

Do you want to be free from your sin? Do you want to live a life of repentance?

Then you must behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Keep your eyes on him.

Find all of your life, all your joy, and all your satisfaction in Him.

Behold the great and awesome God, Righteous Judge, and Gracious Savior in Christ and the Holy Spirit will transform your taste and hunger for sin into a hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Get off the treadmill and find your life in Christ.

How? The Word of God!

Strive to understand all the glory of Christ God has revealed in Scripture, and then meditate on it.

Obsess over it. Delight yourself in Him, and set your mind on things above.

The soul that treasures Christ will not have any taste for sin.

Conclusion

All the glory of God is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Before Christ, no creature had the slightest idea of the true depth of God’s holiness, love, righteousness, grace, and mercy.

But in Christ God has revealed all of His perfect and glorious goodness as the Great and Awesome God, Righteous Judge, and Gracious Savior.

And what is just absolutely so amazing, is that God is so infinitely glorious that that glory is barely comprehensible.

The Lord, The Lord, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Ephesians 1:3-8 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.

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