Attributes of God - 1 - The Burden

Attributes of God - The Burden of the Message

Hello brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray that your spirits are hungry for the truth this evening. This will be an introduction to a multi-part sermon series on the attributes of God. Before we get started I would like to give you a fair warning, these messages will not be easy ones to preach, nor easy ones to receive. They are however vitally important and relevant to the current state and health of the Church.

Unlike many of today’s seeker sensitive sermons, this series is not designed to make you feel good about yourself or incite euphoria. It is not designed to fill churches with false converts, but rather designed to remind people of the Holiness of the true and living God. Tens of thousands of churches, theologians, and seminaries around the world have fallen victim to a new Gospel and a new Jesus. My hope for this sermon series is to draw people back to the attributes of God, that we might remember just who it is that we have been created to praise and worship.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that you would open our hearts and minds that we might know you more deeply and see you more clearly. Strip us from false doctrine and guide us in truth.

Lord I pray that you would hide me behind the cross, for there is nothing good in me apart from you. I seek only to glorify your Holy name and to be an instrument of your will. Blessed be your Holy name Father. Amen.

Good morning Church, I am speaking to you today in hopes to direct your attention to the current state of the Church. I am especially speaking to those in ministry leadership. Though there are sound Biblical churches scattered throughout the world today, the Church as a whole has become very sick. Many that call themselves Christians today will certainly be among those that Christ rejects, saying “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness”1 (Mt. 7:23).

False converts have flooded into our buildings of worship to hear words that tickle their ears by Pastors that have no business behind a pulpit.

So called Christian leaders that spend more time focusing on how to deliver a message than they do on the very message that they deliver.

Leaders that have neutered the Word of Truth in hopes to grow in numbers rather than teaching the hard and sometimes painful truths of Scripture that would set and keep their congregations on the narrow path to salvation.

Ministers so diluted by bad theology that they believe they can trick people of the world into Christianity if they can only look more like the world and sound more like the world.

Tattoo’s, teeshirts, and tattered jeans have replaced suites and ties. Loud music, smoke machines, and flashing lights have replaced sound theological hymns. Fanciful analogies, personal stories, and even “woke” social justice propaganda have replaced expository preaching and teaching.

Think about this Church, a common belief today is that if you can get a person to raise their hand and recite a prayer accepting Jesus as Lord and savior, then wala! You have just lead someone to Christ and the church can now add you to their brag sheet as someone they have led to salvation. That is INSANE!!

Raising your hand and reciting words does not save you! Salvation comes from Christ, it is a free gift given to those that have been called into conformity with Christ by the Father foreordained and predestined before the foundations of the earth. If someones heart has not first been supernaturally changed, no amount of fanciful preaching, personal stories, or hypnotic music will save that person.

Most so called Christians today are repulsed by the true nature of God and instead have created a new god by cherry picking verses that they like from the new testament, rejecting the inerrancy or Scripture, and ignoring the Old Testament all together. This is the state of the Church.

Perhaps you are thinking that I am being judgmental, who cares how I dress when I preach the Word of God? What does it matter if I cover my skin with tattoos and piercings? Does God really care what I look like or does He just care about what is in my heart?

Do you not think that the way you present yourself before the Lord reflects what is in your heart? Who are you trying to impress? I lived in that world for many years! I have tattoos, I have had piercings, I knew exactly who I was dressed to impress and it was the world not God! God’s elect do not care about how cool you think you look. They do not come to be a part of the cool kids club, they come to feast of the Word of Truth! They come to fellowship with those that have been called to be conformed to the image of Christ!

Do you not take the time to present yourself with the utmost dignity when you go to a wedding? Do you not take the time and spend the money if necessary to dress yourself in respectable attire when you attend the funeral of a loved one? How much more significant is handling the Word of God? Have we lost sight of what we have been called to do?

In 1930 A. W. Pink wrote the following in his book Studies In Saving Faith:

“The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from Hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness”2.

Though surely this statement was true 90 years ago, I think it is safe to say that it is so much more true today.

The Church has lost sight of the attributes of God, we no longer know the very God that we profess to worship.

How many people spend time submerged in the Old Testament?

It is incredibly important, because in the Old Testament we get to see many of the attributes of God in action. We see God working in the world and through His people for a period spanning 4,000 years.

We see that God is both perfect love, and perfect wrath. We see that God is both perfect mercy, and perfect justice.

Many people have chosen to steer clear of the passages in the Old Testament that describe God’s wrath and justice. Some have chosen to steer clear of the Old Testament entirely. We have suppressed God’s wrath and justice and exalted his love and mercy. In doing so we have altered the character of God, began to conform and transform him into a God that we feel more comfortable with.

Many people think that God the Father is mean and scary and that Jesus has come as a friendly, more tolerant version of God with a nature that is somehow different than His Fathers. This is heresy!

I think everyone can agree that the Hebrews, for the most part, were very familiar with the attributes of God in the Old Testament. After all it was the only testament they had, and they were Jews, it was in these writings that their history and inheritance resided.

Let's take a look at the first 3 verses in the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 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”3.

χαρακτήρ (khar-ak-tare’) - “exact imprint”

Where we get the English word character from.This is the only occurrence of this word in the entire New TestamentAccording to Strong’s ConcordanceA χαρακτήρ was originally a tool (used for engraving) and then came to mean "a die" ("mould"). Finally it stood for a stamp or impress used on a coin or seal. Properly, an engraving; (figuratively) an exact impression (likeness) which also reflects inner character.

I am not standing here today to tell you that there is no new or good news in Jesus Christ, absolutely not! It is through faith alone, by grace alone, and in Christ alone that we are saved! But I am here to say that the new and greater covenant that God established with the Church through Jesus Christ was established for the Church and not for the world. And it was established for the glory of God, not for the glory of men.

We need to open our eyes to see the sickness that is propagating throughout our places of worship, throughout our institutions of education, throughout our homes, and throughout our very hearts and minds. We claim to desire to know the heart of God, yet how often do we open His Word? How many of us wake up in the morning and pick up our devices and check social media? How many of us watch mind numbing video after video? Many, if not all of them, displeasing in the eyes of God. We gorge ourselves on the desires of our flesh occasionally adding Christianity as a side dish and then we profess to be followers of Christ. How many of us pick up our crosses DAILY? How many of us even know what that means?

God has not called us into a lukewarm relationship. He has not called the Church to be like the world, just a little bit different. He has called us to be RADICALLY different! Set apart! We are to be hated by the world not loved! Does the world hate you Christian? Does it? Or does it even know that you exist? What do we think that Christ meant when He said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”4 (Lk 9:23)? What do we think Jesus meant when He said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple”5 (Lk 14:26)? Jesus was not preaching anything resembling the Christianity we see in most churches today.

We must remember that the spirit of a Christian, struggles with the flesh. The two are in constant battle. As Paul said in his epistle to the Romans, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members, another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members”6 (Rm 7:21-23). It is for this reason that we must submerge ourselves in Scripture and prayer daily and we must encourage our Christian brothers and sisters to do the same.

By now you may be thinking, where is the love in this man’s heart? There is so much hatred spewing forth from his lips. Brothers and Sisters this is not hatred but rather passion.

If my five year old daughter was to run out into a busy street I would scream, NO!, I would run into the street, grab ahold of her, wrapping my arms around her body placing my own body in danger to ensure that she was safe and I would rush her to safety. And if you were to see the way that her body was flung into my arms and how much force was used to hold her body close to mine. You might say, “look how much hatred that man has, how wild he is acting!”. But I tell you that you would be dead wrong, that is love that you are witnessing, not hate. It is the love of a father that would give his very life for his children without ever stopping to consider the consequences to his own flesh.

That is where we are Church, we are dancing around in the middle of a busy street and those that we love are being decimated by vehicle after vehicle of false teaching and heartfelt hearsay!

We live in a world that is filled with sin and sinners. We live amongst hater of God, that, rather than turning from their sin, they seek to justify it. As Christians we have been called to be the light and salt of the earth. We therefore must do all things in love. That also means that we must speak the truth in love, even when the truth hurts. If you tell a fallen world that they are living in sin they will hate you and call you all sorts of names. They will say that you are being judgmental. They will demand that you rethink your theology, reconsider the deeper meaning of things, neuter the Word of Truth to make it palatable to the flesh.

Remember that Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man”7 (Lk 6:17).

If we do not know who our God is we will not know where he stands on the most controversial topics and we will fall into believing the lies proselytized by the sons and daughters of Satan. If we allow our human philosophy and eisegesis to trump sound Scriptural theology and exegesis because it makes us more acceptable in the eyes of the world than we are failing as Christians and failing to put the love of God and authority of Scripture above everything else.

I believe the church is in need of another great awakening, we need to turn away from this new modern and progressive movement and back toward the reformation and the Word of Truth. This is a burden that the Lord put on my heart many years ago and the weight of this burden only continues to grow heavier as time passes.

Although the church is sick, we must not forget that God is sovereign and there is hope in Christ Jesus! He has come to save the lost and lead his sheep into right relationship with him. God is good, and he is always good! He gave us undeniable proof of his goodness when He sent his Son as a propitiatory sacrifice to die on the cross for our sins. His will will be done, he will not lose a single one of his sheep. Mercy will be poured out upon his sons and daughters and justice will be served to the evil and unrighteous.

I hope that you will join me as we walk through the attributes of God as they are laid out in Scripture. As we re-discover the character and nature of our triune and Holy God.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, blessed be your Holy name! Your thoughts are above our thoughts, and your ways are above our ways.Helps us to walk according to your will. Open our eyes, our hearts, and our minds to the truth found in your Holy Word. Give us discernment to know what is according to the Spirit and what is according to the flesh. Give us courage to be light amidst this dark world and give us peace and strength amidst persecution. Blessed be your Holy name Father, Blessed be your Holy name! Amen.

The Lord bless you and keep you,

The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you,

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace

8 (Nm 6:24-26)

References

Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), (Crossway Publishing, Wheaton, IL, 2001), Matthew 7:23Arthur W. Pink, Studies in Saving Faith, 1930Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), Hebrews 1:1-3Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), Luke 9:23Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), Luke 14:26Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), Romans 7:21-23Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), Luke 6:17Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), Numbers 6:24-26

NOTES:

Make sure there is love in your voice and not hate.

J. C. Ryle - Christian Leaders of the 18th Century

Wiliam Perkins (a Puritan)

Jerry Bridges