What does God say about Himself?

intro

God does have a word for us today, but let me ask a question first, How would you describe yourself?

It’s important how you describe yourself, it provides insight to

who you are, how you think, what’s important, your character

that’s why single people should read the bios on dating apps carefully because people are describing themselves and revealing who they are

if they say, “I can get kind of crazy sometimes” . . . leave them alone

And our text is very important verse, because God describes himself, who gives his own bio

not what momma said, daddy said, deacon said, preacher said, but God himself said

Exodus 34:5–7 KJV 1900

5 And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

What does God say about himself? (repeat, thank you ushers)

Background

in chapter 32 of Exodus the people had sinned greatly by worshipping the golden calf despite all that God had done for them, but because Moses interceded on their behalf, God did not destroy them

but in the beginning of 33, God tells Moses that He will not go personally with the children of Israel, but will send an angel with them because they are so hardheaded that he might destroy them on the journey

again Moses intercedes and says “Lord, don’t send an angel, we need You, yourself to go with us”

and because Moses has found favor in his sight, God agrees to go with them

Moses decides to keep on asking for things, maybe since God is passing out all of these “yes’s”

Moses ask God to show him His glory

Moses despite all that he already seen: the burning bush that wouldn’t burn up, 10 plagues, crossing of the read sea, water from a rock, he has communed with God on the mountain

yet he understood that there was much more to God, he had only scratched the surface

and he asks, “God, show me your glory”

God said, “you can’t handle my glory”

you can’t handle all that I am, my power, majesty, honor, glory, wisdom, might, holiness

I can’t let you see my face, it would kill you

but I will pass closely by, cover you with my hand as I pass by, and after I pass by, remove my hand and allow you to see my back

and as the Lord passed by, covering Moses with his hand, he declared these words! Again, let me read the first part

Exodus 34:6 KJV 1900

6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

When it says the Lord in all caps, it means the Lord’s personal name, today we say, Yaweh

Yaweh – maybe correct pronunciation, vowel sounds got lost over the passage of time because the Jews had held his name in such high regard, awe, and respect, that they feared writing his name out in full

The Jews called it the name of excellence, great name, the only name, the glorious and terrible name, the mysterious name, the most proper name, the separated name, the ineffable name (too wondrous to describe)

So the Lord starts off by saying, Yaweh, Yaweh God!

and since Yaweh is built from the phrase, “I Am”

in essence, God is saying, I am God

I am the only one who is God

I am the excellent one who is God

the great one who is God

the Glorious one who is God

the mysterious one who is God

the holy one who is God

the ineffable one who is God, I am too wondrous to fully describe

I am the beginning and the end

I am absolute reality, there is no reality outside me

I am utterly independent, I sustain myself

I am my own advisor

I am constant: the same yesterday, today and forever

I am he that cannot be improved upon

I am not becoming anything, I am that I am

I am the standard of truth, I am always right

I am the one who can do what he pleases

I am God!!!!

And even though I am all that, I . . . show . . . mercy

Show mercy

When you deserve destruction, I give you another chance

I should make you pay for every wrong that you have done but I don’t

I should give up on you but I stay with you

I am compassionate . . . I am merciful

And because God is merciful, we need to remember to say “Lord, have mercy!”

have mercy on me

have mercy on my soul

have mercy on my situation

have mercy on my circumstance

have mercy on my child

have mercy on my family, church, city

Lord, have mercy!

That will get you somewhere - Jesus even told a parable about how the man that everyone looked down on, had a better prayer than the church leader because he said, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner”

And God also calls himself gracious,

someone is gracious when they give you a blessing that you haven’t earned, give you something good you don’t deserve; idea is that of stooping in kindness to help an inferior

God says I like to give blessings to people, who haven’t earned it

it’s the bonus check, you haven’t worked for

it’s the allowance a parent will give to a child, in addition to already supplying all their needs

graciousness is like that grandparent

with my grandmother I would just walk through the door and whatever I wanted was mine

what do you want to eat for dinner, what do you want for dessert, what do you want to watch on TV

are you comfortable . . . . here’s a fresh blanket, let’s go to the store and buy you something

all I did was walk through the door, hadn’t paid any bills, hadn’t cleaned nor fixed anything, it was all based on the fact that I was her grandson, that I was the baby boy born in the family . . . she was gracious

and if you have been born again, you are God’s baby boy/baby girl!

and know that our God is gracious!

and he will do for you . . . just because!

so you CAN ask for blessings, not because you have been good, but because He is gracious

you can expect when you shouldn’t be expecting

you can look for stuff, that shouldn’t be on the way

you can anticipated things, that you are not worthy of

because God has that grandmomma’s graciousness

Where do you think she got it from?

and when you put grace and mercy together, you’ve got something

you ask for mercy when you want to escape consequences you deserve

you ask for grace when you need something you haven’t earned

mercy stops that bad stuff, grace gives the good stuff

that’s why I like the song that says, you grace and mercy brought me through

I don’t know about you

but I needed some bad stuff blocked that I sho’ nuff deserved

and I needed some good stuff to flow my way that I didn’t earn

that’s how I am standing before you today, the grace and mercy of God

I needed, still need both!

stop trying to qualify for God’s favor and blessings

try to live right just because you are supposed to, but depend upon God’s mercy and grace to get what you’re asking for

Some of you are not receiving from God because you are counting on your righteous acts to get his attention (church, give money to church, stay out the streets, read my bible, try to treat everybody right) . . . but the Bible says that God is so holy that our righteousness is like filthy rags to him

and some of us are afraid to ask God for things because we know that we’ve messed up, made bad decisions, been hardheaded, been lazy, prioritized the wrong things . . .

Yet the book of Hebrews says we can go boldly before the throne of GRACE . . . His grace is where our boldness comes from . . .and I can ask for help in time of need from a God that describes himself and merciful and gracious

Longsuffering – it’s patience, but beyond patience, extreme patience; I show patience when patience should have run out a long time ago; slow to anger

it takes a lot to get him going

if ever God is angry with you, you sho’ have been acting up . . . for a long time

longsuffering means that God has not brought judgment on someone because he is trying to give them a chance to turn around

when we do evil and nothing happens

it’s not because he does not see it

it’s not because he is not offended by it

it’s not because everybody else is doing it

it’s not because it’s no big deal

it’s because he is longsuffering

I am so glad that God is longsuffering, and his patience goes beyond patience

commercial - if a perfect God can be patient with imperfect people, should not we be patient with each other?

next is, “Abundant in goodness” – over the top good to you

better than blessed good

better than you’ve been to yourself good

overflowing good

all the time good

sho’nuff good

however good I think he is, he is better than that

so good that I can’t count all my blessings! . . .I couldn’t name them all if I tried

he is abundant in goodness

and then, “Abundant in truth” – I am what is real,

what I say is real

I am the realest thing in your life

what I say is right is right, what I say is wrong, is wrong

I am the final say so

I am truer than you can imagine

I am the real . . . for real, for real

and his real-ness, his true-ness automatically leads to faithfulness

because what he says WILL come to pass

what he says he will do, he will do

because he is the truth

(some versions say faithfulness instead of truth)

he is abundantly faithful and trustworthy

God says that I am all of these things: merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth. . .

I will always be this way, I am that I am.

Verse 6 describes his character, and verse 7 shows what happens as a result of his character

Exodus 34:7 KJV 1900

7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

God is saying that I am merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth . . . . therefore I will . . .

keep mercy for thousands (thousand generations), forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin - every and all types of evil

but because he is abundant in truth, he cannot ignore sin, he must pass judgment on sin

visiting iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and fourth generation

uh, oh, that does not sound fair?

funny that we don’t mind God passing on blessings down through the generations, but the part of visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children disturbs some people, so let’s deal with that

first of all, we don’t live in isolation, what one does affects others

if I don’t pay the electric bill, then the whole family will live in the dark

but God is NOT saying the children are doomed because of sins commited by their Father

Ezekiel 18:19 NLT

19 “ ‘What?’ you ask. ‘Doesn’t the child pay for the parent’s sins?’ No! For if the child does what is just and right and keeps my decrees, that child will surely live.

so if you father acted crazy, but you decided to follow God, you don’t have to worry about the fallout from his living ruining your life

We see this play out in the kings of Judah

if father was evil, he was punished and calamity would be prophesied for his future descendants

then when we look at those descendants, we see that they were just as evil or more evil than their ancestor, and there were punished

but if a good king came along, God would put a temporary stay on the judgment/the punishment during the life of that king

thus in the end each generation was punished for their own sins

We really see it played out in Abraham

descendants have been blessed for thousands of gerations

but he does punish them for sin

but he always restores them

next if we look at the scripture verse as a whole, what we see is God is again demonstrating his mercy

he says keeping mercy for a thousand generations

but punishing for only 4 generations

thousands versus 4

in other words, God’s mercy far outweighs his punishments

God will let blessings pass far down the line, but he will limit the consequences of evil

I will bless you way more than I get you

i’ll give you another chance more often than I say, “That’s it, I’m done”

I will extend your time to turn around more often that I say, time is up

we see this in one of our favorite psalms

Psalm 30:5 NASB95

5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.

a moment of anger versus a lifetime of favor

What an awesome God we serve

and after God reveals himself, and after he shows his glory . . . look at the response of Moses

Exodus 34:8 KJV 1900

8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

What’s the response of Moses? – he quickly begins to worship!

he humbles himself, bow downs, and worships!

Who is God? – the one who deserves worship

he didn’t wait for the choir, or the praise team, or the next service . . . he made haste and worshipped!

it should be obvious that we need to humble ourselves before God and worship!

and be quick about it and make haste!

praise should come out quicker

do you offer slow praise? . . . . speed up your praise because we serve an awesome God

wake up in the morning, quickly . . . God I thank you

you find that your legs still work . . . . Praise his Holy Name

that car starts up one more time . . . Lord, I’m grateful

get to church . . . . see a fellow member, Hallelujah we’re both alive!

after just a few notes from the singer . . you ought to be saying, “Glory”!

most of us take at least 10 -20 minutes into a service before we praise

and then only if it’s a song we like, and the choir sings it well, and if somebody else praises first

but when you get a true knowledge of God, sometimes you’ll find yourself

clapping . . . when no music is going on

waving your hand . . . though you’re just driving your car

crying tears of thankfulness . . . though you’re just taking a shower

saying “glory”: and you’re not even in church

Exodus 34:9 KJV 1900

9 And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

I like this verse because Moses takes advantage of what he has heard

God is someone who you can call on to fulfill what he says about Himself (true faithful)

God has spoken and Moses uses what God has said, He utilizes God’s word

we need to utilize the word of God

don’t be just hearers, but doers of the word

Now Moses ask not only that God go with them, but that he go among them; he dares to ask that God be in their midst, in the middle of His people

He’s calling on God to fulfill what he said about himself:

merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth

Lord these people are stiffnecked, they are hard-headed, but be in our midst anyway . . . . but pardon our iniquity and sin . . and make us yours! you personal possession

because you said that you are merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth

Before this God would meet moses on the mountain, or on the outskirts of the camp, but now that Moses knows some more about God, he asks that God dwell smack dab in the middle of his people

and that’s where God should be - right in the middle of your life! the center of your life! the heart of your existence!

in the middle of your family, church!

and when you ask Him, he will say yes because he is merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth . . .

Exodus 40:33–34 KJV 1900

33 And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work. 34 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was in the middle of the camp, middle of his people, and God’s glory filled it

God was no longer meeting Moses at a a tent on the outside of the camp, but in the midst of his people

the rest of the Old Testament refers back to this verse again and again

if you pay attention to prayers, and a lot of the psalms, they are referring to what God said about himself

even Jonah refers to his, but he was mad because he knew God would likely forgive his enemies, the people of NIneveh, because God is merciful and gracious and longsuffering,

Take what you’ve learned about God

pray for mercy

ask for grace

thank him for being longsuffering

praise him because he is good

trust in him because he is the truth

invite him to go with you

to the house, to the job,

Lord, go with our church

be in the midst of worship service, Bible Study, praise team , practice, planning time, clean up day, men’s day .

This verse is the embodiment of Jesus and what he did by sacrificing himself on the cross

When Jesus came, lived, died, and rose again . . .

it showed God’s mercy and graciousness

and after Pentecost, God, the Holy Spirit, came to live in his people!

and Jesus promised to return . . . it’s been over 2,000

and he has been saving, forgiving for thousands of generations

but that does not mean that he is not coming back, that means that he is longsuffering!

and when he comes back, sin will be judged!