God is Patient, Faithful, and Just
AI Transcript
Apart from Jesus, who is the person in in all of the Bible? Who is the person if you can spend an entire day with? Like from coffee shop to coffee shop to your favorite restaurants or breweries or going on a hike or whatever your thing is that that makes up a special day with the special person? If you got an entire day with anyone in the Bible, an actual human, so not
God and like we said, apart from Jesus, who would it be? Let's hear it.
Barnabas, David, John, Esther, Love It, Esther, who else? Moses.
Anyone else?
David, nice. Paul. Eve, that's the Eve. That's what I'm talking about. Or Mary like the mother of Jesus? Like first thing I'd ask her is Mary, did you know?
For me, this one's tough cause I cause I love the Apostle Paul. I got a huge copy of of Rembrandt's Paul sitting right above my desk. I I I have a word that's only used one time in all of the New Testament by Paul tatted on my wrist. I literally just spent four years, way too long, writing a dissertation on one verse in one of Paul's letters. I I say all this because I don't want to upset Paul.
He's my dude. But my honest answer, Moses. Moses. Now of course, as someone who who is a pastor, a shepherd of God's people, and also lives with a speech impediment, Moses is my guy.
Often when when I feel like maybe ministry is not my thing after I hit a w wall or two, I turn to Exodus four. When Moses approaches God and says, Lord, thanks for revealing yourself to me and all but I'm not your guy. I don't talk too good. God's word to Moses is comfort to my insecure soul when he says Who made your mouth? I got you.
But more than that, think about what Moses experienced. Man, I'd want to ask Moses, what was it like when you heard God calling your name from that bush that was on fire? Or tell me about watching, what was it like watching the ten plagues go down in Egypt where you were once prince? Or Moses, what was the atmosphere in the home of a Jew on the night of Passover?
Course I'd want to know how big was that wall of water as they passed through the Red Sea on dry ground? Or how did bread falling from heaven, breakfast being served from the sky ever get old?
I mean you can go on and on. It'd be real tough to get through all of this in a day. I mean you got the hiking pole turned to a snake, water shooting from a rock, God descending upon Mount Sinai, being led by fire, clouds, having your face light up after your morning quiet time. Watching people healed as the bronze serpent was lifted up in the wilderness.
I'd want to know how fired up he was when he saw the golden calf for the first time as he came down that mountain. I may even hit some trauma triggers asking about how what it was like seeing the promised land, but not being able to enter in because of your own disobedience. Or what was it like as a leader to see the entire generation you led wander and die in the wilderness?
What was it like to take a man's life and spend forty years isolated? I mean we can go on and on, and certainly you'd need more than one day, but but here's something I'd make sure to ask him. Maybe after handing him a cigar, I'd say, yo Mo
What was the most powerful encounter you experienced with God? And though I could totally be wrong here, I believe he would tell me about the time he prayed that bold prayer. Lord, please show me your glory. And then God answered him.
Now, God didn't just give Moses a warm, fuzzy feeling that lasted a minute. No, when God showed Moses his glory, God revealed to Moses himself. If you were to pray that prayer, Lord, show me your glory. And God were to answer you, like really answer you, what would you want him to answer with?
Would you want to see something you've never seen before so that your faith could grow in strength? Would you want him to to give you something that you feel like you need? Maybe it's health for yourself, for someone you love, peace in your mind, wealth in your bank accounts, reconciliation with an estranged loved one, salvation for a family member.
Well what he gives to Moses is as Moses is hiding in the cleft of a rock is what Moses needed more than anything, whether he knew it or not, and that was God himself. And my hope is that glory revealed to Moses, namely some of God's attributes. And remember, God doesn't have attributes, he
Is, yes, he is his attributes. And then this morning we're gonna see a God who is patient, a God who is faithful, and a God who is just. My hope is that as we encounter these attributes, that we would encounter God and realize that that God likewise is what we need most.
If you your Bibles, and I hope you do, why don't you turn it to Exodus 34? Exodus 34 is where we will be this morning.
quick context so we don't need
To spend too much time here. We were in a different place in Exodus 34 when we looked at God is jealous just a couple weeks back. And if you remember, this is a scene where Israel, the people of God, commit adultery on their honeymoon. God just delivered them from slavery in Egypt. As God is meeting with Moses on the mountain, the people of God think He's taking way too long. So they take matters into their own.
own hands and they go ahead and make another god. So they think they create the golden calf and worship it. Well God is done with them.
He's finished. He's gonna start new with Moses and Moses alone, which would have been completely just. But Moses instead, as a good leader, intercedes for the people of God. And he finds favor with God. Well, he wants some more of that favor. And so he asks God in Exodus 33 18 please show me your glory.
God says, Moses, nobody, nobody, not even you, can see my face and live. But I'll tell you what, I'll hide you in a rock, I'll cover your face, and as I pass by, you can see my backside. And as I pass before you, he says, I will proclaim my name the Lord. That's our context as we come to Exodus 34, starting in verse 5.
The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed The Lord, 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 and
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. This is the word of God. Thanks be to God, Amen. Well, like Mark said early on in this series, the the name of God is a big deal.
Here in Exodus 34, Moses hears the name the Lord, the Lord, or Yahweh, Yahweh, and then his name is followed by a sermon. This isn't just information about God. This is God. What does Moses hear? A God merciful and gracious. Slow to anger.
Now we could probably look at maybe seven attributes of God here. I'm gonna condense them and lock in on three, which nicely gives us a three-point sermon. So first, God is patient. Or like he's revealed here, slow to anger.
Some theologians like to call it God's long suffering or his forbearance. What this attribute of God means is that God, unlike us, is not impulsive. He's not irritable. He's not even quick to execute righteous judgment. Rather, he endures. God is long suffering.
Instead of giving people what they deserve right when they deserve it, he's patient. God is thick.
anger. But he's also quick. He's quick to be merciful and gracious. Friends, this is why God is patient, because he's also merciful and gracious.
Remember, God is not made up of parts. Some some patience here, a little justice here, of course lots of love and mercy up here, no. Rather, all that is in God, these attributes are God. So this means that his patience is not a patience that's opposed to his justice, and we'll get to justice soon, but this means his patience is just and
And he's patient because he's also gracious and merciful to sinners. Sinners like me. Sinners like you.
Man, I've been a Christian now for almost 20 years, and I've often looked around and seen the brokenness of this world, and looked inside and see the brokenness of my own life, and prayed that prayer we see in Revelation come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Twenty years later, he still hasn't come. This prayer has been prayed.
Prayed by saints for two thousand years with the promise from Jesus Himself. I'm coming back soon. Soon. Well what is going on? The apostle Peter in 2 Peter 3 says this. Do not overlook this one fact, beloved.
That with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. Hm, I guess God who created time and lives outside sees things a bit differently. He continues, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient. Patient toward you and
Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. If you're a Christian in here this morning, if you've been saved from your sin, if you've received the mercy and grace of God from the gospel, it is because God is patient. God is patient. Can I get an amen?
But my prayer for us as a church is that his patience would not end with us. That it would give us a passion for the lost, for our neighbors, and for the nations. Will we be a church that just puts our own Christian spin on the American dream? Live our lives to be cozy and comfortable? Or would we be a church?
Where God's patience becomes our fuel for the dying world around us. Like Lucas Farlan reminded us last week, let's be a church that says one more.
One more neighbor who hasn't heard the gospel, one more co worker who does it know Christ, one more friend who's honestly to hell. One more. Like Charles Spurgeon said, if sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies. Amen? Well let's move to our next attribute. God is faithful.
Look with me at verse six. Verse six. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. God is faithful.
This word that comes before his faithfulness, the steadfast love. It's this Hebrew word chesed. We won't talk much about it here because Mark addressed this in his sermon, God is Love. But chesed is is speaking of his covenantal love.
That the God of all creation doesn't just save people from their sin, doesn't just save people from hell. He calls them into a covenant with him. A relationship, a covenant of love. This is scandalous. Like the pastor theologian Jack Miller used to say: cheer up. You're a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you're more loved than you ever dared hope.
Cheer up indeed. And though God's love puts sinners into a covenant with them, God's faithfulness, the Hebrew emet, keeps them there. God is faithful.
This means God is utterly reliable because he at his core, in his essence, is true. He's unchanging, he's covenant-keeping, and he is unable to deny himself. Like the Apostle Paul says, even if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny.
Himself. His faithfulness simply flows from who he eternally is. His faithfulness means he always keeps his word. Have you ever wanted like a quick word from God? Almost like a biblical fortune cookie. So you open up your Bible and close your eyes and you just pick a verse. I used to do that a lot when I first got saved.
God moves that way sometimes. But but if you were to open to the perfect center of your Bible, you would land on Psalm 117. There's 594 chapters before it, and five hundred and ninety-four chapters after it. And funny enough, theologians say Psalm 117 is not only a tiny summary of the entire Psalms, which it is, but also a summary of God. Here's what it says.
Praise the Lord, all nations. Extol him, all peoples, for great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.
Hasid and Emet at the center of our Bibles. This is God, His covenant love and His faithfulness. And friends, God is faithful means that His character can be trusted. God's faithfulness means that we can trust Him.
This is really good news. It means God will finish the work he started in you individually and in us as a church. It means God keeps his word. My question to you this morning is: do you know his word? Do you know his word?
Sometimes we we wonder why our faith is weak, but we can rattle off wild stats from our favorite sports team and have nothing to recite when life gets hard. We can quote our favorite movies when joking with friends and yet have no fighter verses in our arsenal, even though a real enemy, Satan, is trying to kill us.
We will literally scroll ourselves to death and not even open up our Bibles, which contain the words of life and death. God is faithful. Will we take him at his word? Well, last but not least, God's justice. God is just. Look with me at verse seven.
Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and then there it is. But who will by no means clear the guilty? Visiting the inequity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
Now it's verses like this that have caused many to walk away from Christianity. They will say things like, if there is a God of love, then there's no way He would punish people. For instance, a God of love would never send someone to hell for all eternity. Well, before we answer that, let's unpack what God's justice is.
God's justice as an attribute means that God is perfectly righteous in himself and in all of his ways. This means everything he does is just, is right. This means God gives his judgment according to truth. Ultimate truth. Herman Bobbing
Old theologian said God's justice belongs among his moral attributes, sitting right there alongside God's holiness and his goodness. This means that God's own being is the standard of righteousness in which He judges. Justice is the just consequence of missing God's standard.
Justice is getting what one deserves. And we all deep down long for justice, right? You look at some injustice going on in the world, or you look at some injustice done to you, and when we we cry out, How long, O Lord? The God of vengeance, how long?
We say yes and amen with MLK's I have a dream speech where he says no, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream, quoting Amos five, of course. We rejoice when we read in Luke four where Jesus quotes Isaiah The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring justice.
We long for justice for the world to be made right, for the wrongs to be paid in full, for everything sad to become untrue. Don't you long for justice? Well, as well as as is as long as it's not aimed at us, right?
Justice is getting what we deserve. So so going back to that false dichotomy, a god of love cannot punish people. Well, what if wrath is a part of love?
Th there is such thing as as as righteous anger. It's what you feel inside with things like child abuse, sex, trafficking, infidelity. This list is endless. Well wrath is how love responds to sin.
Matter of fact, did you know wrath is not an attribute of God at all? Again, wrath is how the attribute love responds to sin. Because love is also just and justice is getting what we deserve. Sometimes we assume that God owes us mercy. But by definition, mercy is never owed. Justice is owed.
So not only does a God of love punish sin, he wouldn't be a god of love if he didn't. We all want justice, but do we really? But we all want it for for other people, especially really, really, really evil people and those who sin against us, and even those on I-25 that make us mad.
We don't want what our sin deserves. And yet we have all sinned and fallen short of a God who is just, a God who is righteous, a God who is holy, holy, holy. God's wrath is the way his just and righteous love respond to our sin. Full s full stop.
When when you understand our grim plight, do you see how radical the gospel is? How good the good news is. That though justice is owed to you, sin has to be punished. God extends mercy to you.
I teach my kids one of the things that grace is. Grace is multifaceted, but one of the things grace is is God's riches at Christ's expense. God's riches at Christ's expense. Your sin, my sin could not have just been looked over, forgiven. Justice needed to be paid.
For forgiveness to be given. The penalty of sin is death. That could not have been overlooked, slid under the table. Here's how the Apostle Paul says what happens in the cross of Jesus Christ in Jeruthal Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. But now
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith, and then check this out. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, his patience, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier.
Of the one who has faith in Jesus. Through the cross and what Jesus did for us, God is not only just friends, he's the justifier. He's our justifier. Anyone who has placed their faith in him. Is Jesus your only hope in life?
And in debt. God is patient, He's faithful, and He's just. And so the question we have to ask after experiencing God and the way He revealed Himself to Moses, in the way He still reveals Himself to us, is how then shall we live?
In light of God's patience, his faithfulness, his justice, how then shall we live? Two quick points of application and we're done. First, worship. If you're still in Exodus thirty four, look with me at our final verse. Verse eight.
And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. When you experience the glory of God, namely God Himself, you respond accordingly. You live a life in awe of this marvelous God.
You live a life blown away by the gospel of grace. He saved me. You live a life realizing you are no longer your own, but that you belong to Him. This is at the heart of worship of God word life. And second, imitation.
We're told, we're commanded to imitate God as his beloved children. Now we don't imitate God in our own strength and by our own power. This is why we always say, preach the gospel to yourself. Preach the gospel to yourself. The point of doing this is so that the gospel can actually transform your life.
But the g the the gospel gives us more than just eternal life someday, friends. The gospel is for life today. For instance, as God has been patient with us, we we look to the gospel. We see his patience, his forbearance, his long suffering, and then we live our lives patient with others.
Like let me get real practical. Tomorrow Holly and I will jump on a plane in the morning and head for California to hopefully get reconciliation with some dear friends of ours. It's been two hard years.
We need the gospel. There's going to be so many moments where I am not going to want to be patient. And so I must remember the gospel that God was patient with me. Why? For reconciliation. And so I must remember that. And certainly by the power of the Spirit, we can do that with others. We also covet your prayers.
Or as God has been faithful to us, again, seen most clearly in the gospel, his His faithfulness took him all the way to Calvary's cross. And his faithfulness isn't finished. It will hold us till the end. He says, Nobody can snatch you out of my hand. Jesus has a tight grip.
And so we pledge our allegiance to King Jesus. And we, by the power of the gospel and the Holy Spirit, strive to live faithful to him. I didn't say without sin or perfectly, we still live in this body of death. But but we live in such a way where we long, we long to hear the words well done. Well done. Good and good.
Faithful servant, enter into glory. And of course God is just, and as God is just, we as his people long to be a people of justice.
And I don't mean throw up a hashtag or make a post when some real justice issue is going on out there. I know this makes us feel good, but but virtual signaling has no real sacrifice. There's no costly love. There's no call to action. But the prophet Micah says, do justice.
Do justice. Jesus says, When you love the least of these, you did it to me. And again, we see God's justice in the gospel. Christ came to right all wrongs, to make everything sad come untrue. And so empowered by him, filled with his spirit, we get busy now in his already not yet kingdom.
Advocating for justice for the least of these. Whether that's in local government or local schools or the foster care system or loving on widows or single moms or vulnerable families, caring about people with disabilities, you should definitely be at theology on the ground this evening. And yes, this is a guilt trip.
From from prison ministry to safe families, leaning into elderly care and refugees, the list is endless. You can't do everything. But if you study church history, this is where the church gets busy. Members, members doing the work of ministry. God is patient. God is faithful.
God is just imagine, imagine if we really encountered this God. Let me pray.