God is _______.

Thank you very much. Vocal quartet. There are times when special music goes where you just go, you know, let's just let that ring. Let's not have the sermon. Let's just call it. Thank you for a beautiful, beautiful special music. It was such a wonderful, wonderful message. Well, brethren, I'd like you to begin today by having you do a short writing exercise. If you have a notepad or a scratch piece of paper or a computer that you're typing on or your phone or whatever, I'd like you to jot something down here real quick. I'm going to give you a one-sentence starter, and I'd like you personally to fill in the blank. So I'm going to give you a one-sentence starter, and I'd like you to fill in the blank. And chances are good. Just before we even get there, chances are really good. You're going to be able to come up with a whole lot of things to fill in this blank. But what I want you to do is I want you to focus on your gut instinct, the first thing that comes to the forefront of your mind to write down, your first inclination. So here's a sentence starter if you're ready. I'm going to give you about 30 seconds to think about it. God is blank.

God is blank. Let's start my timer here.

About another 10 seconds. Wrap up your thought process here. Alright, can I have a real quick show of hands? How many of you completed that sentence with the word love? Okay. Majority. And partially that's because of the way that I set the prompt up, obviously. When we look at the Scripture in 1 John 4, verse 8, that's how it's written. God is blank. God is love. Right? And while that is absolutely true, we recognize Scripture's replete with descriptions of the characteristic of God throughout. We know that, yes, absolutely, He is love. And He is a lot of other things, too. We see God described from cover to cover descriptions of His character are found in the laws that He gave to His people, in the Holy Day plan that He's provided for us, and the Holy Days that make it up. We see God's characteristics in the way that He interacted with His people. We see it in the character of Jesus Christ while He was here on this earth.

We see it in the lessons that Christ taught to His followers. And as it talks about in Romans 1, verse 20, we can see God's core attributes and characteristics in the creation around us.

God is everywhere, and His character is described in so many different ways. But there are, as we look at that within Scripture, there are certain themes that tend to crop up again and again and again and again. There are certain characteristics that, if you will, rise to the top, so to speak, and tend to make up what we might determine and what we might describe as God's core attributes. Now, there are many more than the ones that we're going to take a look at today, but they rise to the top so many different times throughout Scripture that you can see several of these over and over and over again. Let's start today as we kind of build this by turning over to Genesis 1 and verse 26. Genesis 1 and verse 26. And we'll see passage that we've read a number of different times. This is something that is a fairly common passage. But I want to make a point here today as we go forward with this that I think is extremely important, and I think one that we have to be very, very careful as members in the church to not go down this road. Genesis 1 verse 26 says, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Verse 27, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. And I think sometimes when we look at that passage, we tend to think of it from a physical standpoint that we as humans are similar shape-wise, form-wise to God. And while that is likely true, it's also really important to realize that from a characteristics standpoint, God made man in his image as well. In the characteristics that we are to be putting on as time goes on. Man was to be created in the image of God, not vice versa. God was not to be made in the image of man. And it seems today as we take a look around religious circles and to a degree in the church, people want to do the reverse of this. Instead, they want to create God in their image. And that paints a picture of a God that agrees with them who believes what they believe, who teaches what they teach, regardless of whether God actually said what they say that he said or not. And this isn't a new phenomenon. Interestingly, Aristotle wrote in the fourth century BC, men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form, but with regard to their mode of life. It's been going on for millennia. And as a result, God's attributes are made and remade. They're added to and taken away from, depending on the dominant culture that is professing him to the world at that time. By way of example, just to provide you with an example, during the time of Rome, when Christianity was the primary religion of Rome, God was remade to agree with Constantine and his interpretations of what he felt God desired of him. Falsely, of course, we'll recognize, I mean, come on, you know, that was not what God really was like. But because of this, Christianity became warped, and it changed significantly as a result. So much so that true followers of the way were strongly persecuted as a result of this change that was made based on Roman cultural standards. Because they didn't look like the Romans, they didn't act like the Roman Christians. They were different because they actually followed God.

We take a look at, even today in America, Jesus Christ takes on Republican overtones as a result of the dominant Christian culture. I mean, it does. You want to talk about the American Jesus. The American Jesus is pro-Constitution, pro-Second Amendment, pro-war, pro-deportation of immigrants, and a whole slew of other political platforms.

In America today, ask yourself this. Would we, if we found something as a whole in America today that God conflicted with our governing documents and our founding documents, would we change God or would we change our founding documents? We would change God to match our founding documents. And that's just reality. And I don't want to get into the politics. I really don't. I just want to point out that this concept of making God in our own image, according to what we believe, continues even today. Even today. Malachi 3, verse 6, if you jot it down, in Hebrews 13, verse 8, tells us that God is unchanging. He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His core attributes do not shift. They don't shift and blow with the times. They don't drift in and out of history based on political platforms and movements. They remain the same. And as a result, his expectations of us have not drifted with history. The things that were preached in the Sermon on the Mount are as valid today as they were then, whether we happen to agree with them or not, collectively or individually. The reality is we bend to God. He does not bend to us.

As we've developed this series of Bible studies, you know, what we've tried to do with this series of studies and the sermons that have accompanied them is we have tried and worked, I hope, successfully, but we have tried to build a cohesive study plan that builds on itself and that circles back. We call this an educational curriculum today. We call it spiraling back on the curriculum, meaning that when you give the new topic, you spiral back and circle back and you pick up a little bit of the last topic so that it all kind of cohesively builds on itself. And I hope that we've been able to do that successfully. We started all of this out with examining what a disciple is, contextually what it is a disciple does, and how a disciple interacts with their rabbi. We talked about how disciples, or as they were referred to in Hebrew, Talmudim, yielded themselves to their rabbi's interpretation of the law and did everything that they could in order to imitate their rabbi—his speech, his actions, his mannerisms, his way of thinking. We reflected on the idea that in order to do this, it requires an incredible amount of humility, submission, and teachability on the part of that disciple, especially, especially when their own opinion is different than the opinion of their rabbi. It required that disciple to put to death their pride, to take up their cross each day, identifying the parts of themselves that needed to be changed so that they could take on their rabbi's characteristics—again, not change their rabbi to fit them and their personal beliefs. Which means, of course, that they needed to know their rabbi well enough to know who he was. So who is our rabbi? Not to basic identification standpoint. I mean, the answer is simple, right? But who is he really? What is he like? What are his demonstrated characteristics? What does he stand for? And what does he expect from us? Title for today's message is, God is blank. God is blank. And today, what we'd like to do is take a look at some of these core attributes of God. We've identified one already from 1 John 4, verse 8. The remainder that we're going to look at are found and alluded to in Exodus 34, verses 5-7. So if you turn over there with me, please. Exodus 34, verses 5-7.

Exodus 34, verses 5-7. We see a situation later on where God is interacting with Moses. He's giving Moses his law again. He presents to him the law, reaffirms the covenant. This is after everything had gone down and Moses broke the first set of tablets. As a result of this particular interaction, Moses was face-shown, shined brightly, such that he put a veil on because it scared the Israelites to death to interact with him. You know, that he put a veil on when he went out to kind of interact with the people so that they wouldn't have to be scared of that. But we'll pick up the account in verse 5 of Exodus 34 with the Lord making a proclamation. And I don't want to make light of this, but we don't see this very often in our culture today. This proclamation, we don't see this very often today. But in old days, I mean, in the times of medieval times, and frankly, even like, you know, we had this big royal wedding apparently yesterday, right? Huge news! Big royal wedding yesterday. And when you're dealing with royals and heredity and titles and lands and all these things, you know, you see this in movies all the time where somebody goes in and says, ladies and gentlemen, Lord such and such of the realm, defender of this, owner of that, you know, you have the proclamation that is thrown out. In fact, I was looking it up trying to find a physical, legitimate example of this today. Queen Elizabeth. Here is Queen Elizabeth's official title.

Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, Queen of England and her other realms and territories, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the faith. When she is introduced in an official capacity, somebody, ladies and gentlemen, Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, Queen of England, of her other realms and territories, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the faith. Now, again, I'm not trying to make light of this, but this is what God is doing with Moses. He's proclaiming who he is to Moses in this chapter. He's announcing to him who he is. Exodus 34 and verse 5 says, Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed. Here's the proclamation. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abounding in goodness and in truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generations. We see Moses' response. Verse 8, He made haste, and He bowed His head toward the earth, and He worshipped. So we see a proclamation here of who God is and some of His characteristics. And in this particular passage, there's a number of them that are identified. He's merciful. He's gracious. He's patient. He abounds in goodness and truth. He's just. He's faithful. And so today, with the time that we have left, I'd like to dig into five of these core attributes, five of these core attributes or characteristics, as we see described in Scripture. And I'm just going to let you know up front, there's going to be a bit of a survey course on these. We'll have time to dig into them more in depth today during the Bible study. So it is going to be a little bit of a survey course as we go through these just to ensure that we get through in the time that we need to. So the five characteristics that we're going to take a look at today, number one, is love. God is love. Many of you already identified that, but God is love. The second characteristic we'll look at is God is merciful. God is merciful.

Number three, God is good.

God is good. Number four, God is just.

And lastly, number five, God is faithful. So God is love, merciful, good, just, and faithful. So let's start today with love. Let's go ahead and turn over to the book of 1 John to get us started. Book of 1 John today, we'll pick it up in 1 John 4 and verse 7. Again, as we examine characteristics here of God, 1 John 4 and verse 7.

And we'll see again this particular characteristic listed. 1 John 4 verse 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Apostle John makes a statement here in the book of 1 John that the very essence and character of God is love. And not only that, he says, if we do not love, we don't know God.

We don't have that understanding of who and what God is if we don't turn around and love others. There's other places in Scripture that talk about how this is the characteristic of the people of God, a litmus test, if you will, by which they're known. That you are my disciples if you have love for another. In this passage and the others, the Greek word is agapeo. And as a result of that, he says, let us love one another, for love, the very act of agapeo, is of God. And that word defines a love that is unconditional. It's translated in some places as charity. It's translated as outgoing love and concern, which are not predicated on conditions. That's the definition of the Greek usage of the word. Barkley discusses this concept in his commentary on the book of 1 John and how this characteristic of agapeo explains a number of questions about God.

On pages 98 to 99 of the letters of John and Jude, he writes the following, in this passage there occurs what is probably the greatest single statement about God in the entire Bible, that God is love. And it's amazing how many doors that single statement unlocks, and how many questions it answers. He says, first, it is the explanation of creation. Sometimes we're bound to wonder why God created this world, the disobedience and the lack of response in men as a continual grief to Him. Why should He create a world which was to bring Him nothing but trouble?

The answer is that creation was essential to His very nature. If God is love, He cannot exist in lonely isolation. Love must have someone to love and someone to love Him. We know from the Bible that God desired a family, that His love created mankind and gave them an incredible opportunity to then be a part of that family. He goes on to say it's the explanation of free will, because unless love is a free response, it's not love. Had God only been law, He could have created a world in which men moved like automatons, having no moral choice than a machine. But if God had made men like that, there would have been no possibility of a personal relationship between Him and them. Love is of necessity, the free response of the heart, and therefore God had to endow men with free will. We recognize that God in His love gave us the ability to choose, because it couldn't be a hostage situation. This couldn't be a situation where the family of God was made up of people that had no choice in the matter or had no other option. People had to choose to be a part of this, to choose to be a part of the family of God and to love God. He says it's the explanation of providence. Had God been simply mined in order and law, He might, so to speak, have created the universe, wound it up, set it, and left it. Set it going and left it, walked away. There are articles and machines which were urged to buy because we can fit them and forget them. Their most attractive quality is that they can be left to run themselves.

But because God is love, His creating act is followed by constant care. You look at parents, we care for the things that we love. We don't birth our children and walk away.

You know, there are animals in the animal kingdom that do that. The babies are on their own, you know, three weeks, four weeks, a couple months after birth. Okay, off you go. People aren't like that. We care for our young. We care for our young as we go forward. We help to develop them. We provide them with care, with nurturing. And God loves His creation such that He does the same. He says it's the explanation of redemption. If God had only been law and justice, He would have simply left men to the consequence of their sin. The moral law would operate, the soul that sinned would die, and the justice would inexorably hand out its punishments. But the very fact that God is love meant that He had to seek and save that which was lost. He had to find a remedy for sin.

It says Christ was slain from the foundation of the world, that plan was in place, enabling our redemption and buying us back from our sin. And finally, He says it is the explanation for the life beyond. If God were simply Creator, men might live their brief span and die forever. The life which ended early would only be another flower to which the frost of death had withered too soon. But the fact that God is love makes it certain that the chances and changes of life have not the last word, that His love will readjust the balance of this life. We know that God gives the gift of eternal life to those whom He loves. God's love, His outgoing concern for His creation, has enabled our existence, has given us our ability to choose, has provided the care and the concern that God provides for us, the grace and redemption that's available to us, and the promise that we have of the kingdom of God. All of these things are not present without the love of God. Let's go on a little further in 1 John 4 and verse 9. 1 John 4 and verse 9 says, In this the love of God was manifested towards us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Now, this word propitiation is used in a handful of scriptures. One of them is 1 John 2 verse 2, where it states that Christ wasn't just the propitiation for our sins, but was the propitiation for the sins of the world. Again, similar to 1 John 3 verse 16. God desires this relationship in the family of God with His entire creation, whether it happens in this life or whether it happens in the next. He desires that of His creation. Go on in verse 11, 1 John 4. Verse 11 says, Beloved, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. Verse 12 says, No one has seen God at any time, but if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. God's love, for us, requires a response on our behalf. It requires us to look at the love that has been given to us, and as a result of that, we must choose to love one another. Through that love that we show one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

Let's take a look at the second characteristic, mercy. God is merciful. There are a number of scriptures that we see throughout the Old and the New Testament periods that discuss the mercy of God, and as a result of these traits, as you look at this, they all flow from His love.

Mercy is defined as withholding a just punishment according to the dictionary. We've done something, we've been caught dead to rights. Anybody ever get caught with your hand in the cookie jar? And you know, oh, you know you're in trouble. Mom's got you. And it's not that you could even try to pretend that you didn't. Your hand is still in the jar! And Mom goes, I see you!

Right? We've done something, we've been caught dead to rights. There's a judgment made, it's a just judgment. There's a punishment or a consequence that comes from a result.

Mercy is holding that punishment back at times and providing us with ongoing love and blessings. Israel was on the receiving end of God's mercy regularly. Let's turn over to Psalm 106. We're not going to read the entire thing, but we're going to go ahead and skim through Psalm 106 here, as this is one of those places in Scripture that kind of illustrates the various things that Israel did over the years, and some of the different things that they did that were against God. And there's a very important point in here in Psalm 106. And again, we're going to skip through this just a little bit, looking at some of these things. Starting in verse 1, says, Praise the Lord, O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can declare all of his praise? Blessed are those who keep justice and he who does righteousness at all times. Now, it goes on, and as it goes on in here, it says, We have sinned with our fathers. We've committed iniquity. We've done wickedly. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand your wonders. They did not remember the multitude of your mercies, but rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea. Nevertheless, he saved them for his names' sake. It talks about that, how he saved them. It says, They soon forgot his works. They didn't wait for his counsel. They lusted exceedingly in the wilderness. They tested God in the desert, and he gave them their requests. He sent leanness into their souls. It says, They envied Moses in the camp. They made a calf in a horror of verse 19, worshiped the molded image.

Skimming down just a little bit further, they despised the pleasant land, the promised land. They didn't believe his word. They complained in their tents and didn't heed the voice of the Lord.

They joined themselves to Baal of Peor, eight sacrifices made to the dead. Thus, they provoked him to anger with their deeds, and the plague broke out among them. It talks about Phineas' intervention in that. They angered him also with the waters of strife at Maribah, so that it went ill with Moses on account of them, because they rebelled against his spirit, so that he spoke rashly with his lips. It keeps going. It goes on through this process. And then it comes to verse 44. Psalm 106, verse 44. It says, Nevertheless, in other words, all of these things, taking these things into account, nevertheless, he regarded their affliction. When he heard their cry and for their sake, he remembered his covenant, and he relented according to the multitude of his mercies.

It says he also made them to be pitied by all those who carried them away captive.

You know, when you look at all of these things that are in this passage, Israel didn't deserve mercy. They didn't deserve mercy. They deserved punishment. They deserved the just recompense for their ongoing rebellion. They deserve, frankly, what we too deserve as a result of our sin, which is death. That is what we earn. That is what we deserve. Yet God was merciful with them and is also merciful with us. Let's go to Ephesians 2. Let's go to Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 4.

Ephesians 2 verses 4 through 7.

Ephesians 2 verses 4 through 7 says, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he has loved us. Again, mercy comes from love. It springs from love. Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. It says, By grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Then the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. God's mercy towards us pours out of his great love for us. In that incredible love for mankind and for his creation, he gave his only begotten son to be our propitiation, to enable us to become children, to become spirit beings in the kingdom of God. Do any of us deserve this opportunity? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's a gift. It is a gift from God. You know, there's an incredible story out of World War II that illustrates this characteristic of mercy in action. I have a file on my computer where I keep things that I think could be of good sermon topic usage. Sometimes they're in there for quite a while, such as this one. I saved this on March 10, 2013.

Only a few years later did I finally get back to it. But in this particular section, there is a story out of a book called A Higher Call for a Higher Calling, and it's written by two gentlemen.

And I'll just give you the story here real quickly. I don't want to read through this whole thing, but I'll give you the—this is from a CNN article that discussed the story itself after the book had come out. It says, The pilot glanced inside of his—or outside, I'm sorry—his cockpit, and he froze. He blinked hard, and he looked again, hoping it was just a mirage, but his co-pilot stared at the same horrible vision. This is a nightmare, the co-pilot said. He's going to destroy us, the pilot agreed. The two men were looking at a gray German Messerschmitt fighter hovering just three feet off of their wingtip. And for those of you that know your World War II planes, Messerschmitts were an incredible, incredible airplane. I mean, they were capable of doing an unbelievable amount of damage. But it was hovering three feet off of their wingtip. It was five days before Christmas in 1943. The fighter had closed in on their crippled American B-17 bomber for the kill. The B-17 pilot, Charles Brown, was a 21-year-old West Virginia farm boy on his very first combat mission. His bomber had been shot to pieces by swarming fighters, and his plane was alone in the skies above Germany. Half of his crew was wounded. His tail gunner was dead. His blood frozen in icicles over the machine guns. But when Brown and his co-pilot, Spencer Pinky Luke, looked at the fighter pilot again, something odd happened. The German didn't pull the trigger.

He nodded at Brown instead. And what happened next was one of the most remarkable acts of chivalry recorded during World War II. Years later, Brown would track down his would-be executioner for a reunion that reduced both men to tears. I'll find the next section here that talks just a little bit about this. Let me see. I should have highlighted it. I didn't. Revenge, not honor, is what drove 2nd Lt. Franz Stigler to jump into his fighter that chilly December day in 1943. Stigler was not just any fighter pilot.

He was an ace. One more kill, and he would have won the Knight's Cross, Germany's highest award for valor in air combat. Yet, Stigler was driven by something deeper than glory. His older brother, August, was a fellow Luftwaffe pilot who had been killed earlier in the war. American pilots had killed Stigler's comrades and were bombing his country's cities. Stigler was standing near his fighter on a German airbase when he heard a bomber's engine.

Looking up, he saw a B-17 flying so low that it looked like it was going to land. As the bomber disappeared behind some trees, Stigler tossed his cigarette aside, saluted a ground crewman, and took off in pursuit.

As Stigler's fighter rose to meet the bomber, he decided to attack it from behind. He climbed behind the sputtering bomber, squinted into his gun sight, and placed his hand on the trigger. He was about to fire when he hesitated. Stigler was baffled. No one in the bomber had fired back at him. He looked closer at the tail gunner. He was still, his white fleece collar soaked with blood. Stigler craned his neck to examine the rest of the bomber.

Its skin had been peeled away in dozens of places by shells. Its guns had been knocked out. He could see men huddled inside the plane, tending the wounds of their other crewmen. Then he nudged his plane alongside the bomber's wings and locked eyes with the pilot, whose eyes were wide, with shock and with horror. Stigler pressed his hand over the rosary he kept in his flight jacket. He eased his finger off the trigger.

He couldn't shoot. It would be murder. Stigler wasn't just motivated by vengeance that day. He also lived by a code. He said he could trace his family's ancestry to knights in 16th century Europe, and he'd once studied to be a priest. The German pilot that spared his enemy, however, would risk death in Nazi Germany. If somebody reported him, he would be executed. So he says he could hear the voice of his commanding officer who once told him, you follow the rules of war for you, not your enemy.

You fight by rules to keep your humanity. He says, alone with the crippled bomber, Stigler changed his mission. He nodded at the American pilot, and he began flying in formation so that German anti-aircraft gunners on the ground would not shoot the bomber down. The Luftwaffe had B-17s of their own, it says, shot down and rebuilt for secret missions and trainings. Stigler escorted the bomber over the North Sea, took one last look at the American pilot, saluted him, peeled his fighter away, and returned to Germany. He remembers telling himself, good luck. You're in God's hands. So as time went on, as you might imagine, this story is what the story is.

At some point, these two gentlemen found each other, reunited, you know, imagined the amount of tears and everything else that went on. It says, he watched a German fighter peel away that December day. Second Lieutenant Charles Brown wasn't thinking of a philosophical connection between enemies. He was thinking of survival. He flew back to his base in England. He landed with barely any fuel left. After his bomber came to a stop, he leaned back in his chair. He put a hand over a pocket Bible that he kept in his flight jacket, and then he sat in silence.

Brown flew more missions before the war ended. Life moved on. He got married, had two daughters, supervised foreign aid for the U.S. State Department during the Vietnam War, and eventually retired to Florida. Later in life, though, the encounter with the German pilot began to nod him, started having nightmares, but in his dream there would be no act of mercy. He would awaken just before his bomber crashed.

Brown took on a new mission. He had to find this German pilot. Who was he and why did he save my life? So he wrote, you know, went through all these military archives, went to find all of these things, and wrote to a bunch of different groups of people that knew of people in this, and eventually word got to Stigler.

On January 18th, 1990, Brown received a letter. He opened it, and he read, Dear Charles, all of these years I wondered what happened to that B-17. Did she make it or not? It was Stigler. He'd left Germany after the war and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Now retired, Stigler told Brown he'd be in Florida come summer, and it would sure be nice to talk about our encounter. So they both met, and ultimately Stigler was invited to a family reunion of Brown's family. And as he stuck Stigler in a chair in the front of that group of people, he ran through all of the photos of the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren, not just of Brown, but of every crewman that was on that B-17 that day, and showed him what that single act of mercy, the repercussions and ripples of that single act of mercy over those years.

Stigler and Brown died within months of each other in 2008. Stigler was 92, Brown was 87. They'd started off as enemies, they became friends, and then became something more. And you can read about this particular story in a book called Higher Call. It's written by Franz Stigler. But this single act of mercy changed hundreds of lives and sent ripples and repercussions throughout history. This particular act, in the words of Stigler, preserved his humanity.

Could he have shot that bomber? Absolutely. It was war.

You might argue in the act of war he should have, from a country standpoint. But Stigler felt differently. You know, does this mean, though, that the only way that we can show mercy to somebody is when we've got someone in the crosshairs? Of course not. Of course not. We can show mercy daily through forgiveness, through charity, through kindness. There are plenty of ways that mercy can be shown. In this life, that doesn't require this kind of extreme. But it is important for us to recognize that one of attributes of God is mercy. And as a result, that's an expectation of us as well. The third point is God is good. God is good. And yet, at the same time, we live in a world where bad things happen frequently. At this present time, we know from Scripture, 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 4, says that it is Satan's world at this time. He is the God of this age.

People suffer. Individuals die, despite our prayers to the contrary. And as a result of these things, much of the world around us has concluded that God is therefore not powerful enough or able to save. He doesn't exist, or He's simply ambivalent to everyone's suffering in the world. That's the general conclusion that is drawn based on the existence of suffering. Is that true?

Is that true? You know, people differ in how they define goodness and how they define this concept of goodness. And I think it has a lot to do with perspective. I think it has a lot to do with perspective. So I'm going to just kind of walk you through a couple of these things. If self is the perspective. So if we are thinking from a self-centered and not like, you know, self-centered in that way, but just centered on our self-perspective. If we're thinking in a self-centered perspective, then a person can define the concept of goodness in terms of how someone or something impacts them. A person is therefore good, another person is therefore good, to the degree that I am made happier, or I am made more content by that person's actions. So goodness can be defined on how do I feel with regards to how this person interacts with me. I becomes the point of reference to define goodness, and the happiness and contentment of others is not as important. But good can also be defined temporarily. So we can say life is short, you know, people can define good as to whether or not someone pleases them today, right? We can define this on a short term. And if they do please me today, or they do something good today, well, then they're good.

But that doesn't consider tomorrow. It doesn't consider next year. It also doesn't allow for something that could bring short-term pleasure, but in the long run produces an incredible amount of pain and suffering. There are a number of things out there that provide short-term pleasures, that provide a lifetime of pain and suffering. It also doesn't allow for something good in the long term that results from suffering in the short term. So if we define goodness temporarily, we run into some issues. Others equate goodness with never causing offense, never hurting anyone's feelings, always being positive, always saying complementary things about other people. We have a concept in our country of political correctness that's not as big around the world in other places, but political correctness is sort of an institutionalized niceness. If we can define it as that, it's kind of an institutionalized niceness.

But sometimes that goodness at the expense of truth, at the expense of constructive criticism, can result in tolerance of behaviors or behavior that hurts or damages others. God's goodness is not constrained by these definitions. It's not temporal. It doesn't have anything to do with our time limits and our short-term feelings like, well, this should happen in this timeline. It's not self-centered. It has nothing to do with whether it's good, quote-unquote, for us. It's not without the potential of suffering, and it speaks the truth. Speaking out against sin, sometimes, sometimes, visiting the consequences of that sin upon us. God is good when the blessings flow, and God is good when we're in the midst of trials. His nature, his mercy, his goodness does not change based on those situations. Sometimes prayers are not answered.

Sometimes in this life we suffer. Sometimes healing doesn't come. And despite all of those things, God is still good. Let's go over to Romans 8, verse 28. Romans 8, verse 28.

Romans 8 and verse 28 is one of those passages that is oft quoted when bad things happen. Romans 8 and verse 28 says specifically that, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. So we see there is a condition there, to all who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. When we look at that statement, understanding the perspective of that statement is important. We can't define it by self, meaning that if bad things happen to us specifically, it can and it will still work out for good. We can't define it by temporal nature. We can't say, well, it didn't happen in my timeline, therefore it wasn't good. Even if it happens outside of our desired timeline, it can and it will still work out for good. It doesn't necessarily mean that we won't suffer or experience hardship, but it can and it still will work out for good. It doesn't mean that it's going to be nice for the sake of nice. Sometimes God's correction hurts, sometimes. But it will still work out for good. It's just not necessarily going to work out for good according to my timelines that I demand it to occur in. It doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to get out alive. It might work out for good in the next life, not this one. It may work out for good in my children or my children's children, and it doesn't necessarily mean that I won't suffer, but it will work out for good.

Let's go to James 1, verse 17. James 1, verse 17.

James 1, verse 17 says, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, which whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. When we take a look at God's goodness, God's plan of salvation is the vehicle by which his goodness is expressed to us. His plan for mankind that we've been called to be a part of is how he works his goodness in our life.

He provides an opportunity for all to be redeemed, for all to be bought back, either in this life or in the next, extending again his love, his mercy, and his goodness for eternity. God is good. God is good. And as a result of that, we have a responsibility as well. Let's turn over to Matthew 7, verse 12. Matthew 7, verse 12. We'll look at our responsibility in this.

One of those things that likely, as a child, you heard quoted to you by your parents—you know, my mom told me this more than once or twice.

Matthew 7, verse 12. She said it in a slightly different phrasing. You might be able to guess what that is based on what we're going to read here. It says, Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. What's that rule? What do we call that? Golden rule, right? And it's not he with the gold makes the rules. It's not the golden rule. It is do unto others as you would have done unto you. Right? So as a result of this, when we interact with other people, when we approach others, we have to ensure that we approach those interactions with other people with God's goodness in mind, reflecting that goodness in our interactions with others, really striving to do good with those as we interact with them. The fourth characteristic today is just. God is also just.

Psalm 89 and verse 14 states that righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne.

That his throne and his rule is built on righteousness and justice and judgment. Sorry. First Peter 1 verse 17 states that he judges without partiality, without partiality. He's not a respecter of persons. He can't be swayed as men can be. I don't know if any of you ever had this experience before. If you ever played a game with somebody where the rules change while you're playing it. You guys ever had that experience where you start to play the game and you realize like halfway through they're just changing the rules on you as you go? It's maddening. It's maddening. And the reason it's maddening is because you just you don't know how to play the game. You don't you can't figure out what you're supposed to do because 10 minutes ago this was fine and now it's not. Well, God's not like that. He doesn't change the rules of the game while you're still playing it. The rules are the rules. It's been the same rules since the very beginning. He's codified them for various cultures throughout time. Some cultures required a lot more codification than others. But as God has worked with various people down through the ages, the rules were the rules. And as a result of that, we see that one of the characteristics of God is justice. Fairness being just. One example of that fairness and justice is outlined in Leviticus 19. Let's go ahead and turn over there. Leviticus 19.

One of these principles of justice and fairness among a section in scripture that describes a lot of different interactions with others and how they should be. Leviticus 19, we'll pick it up in verse 33. Leviticus 19, verse 33 says, And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him.

The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you. You shall love him as yourself, for you are strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. You shall do no injustice in measurement. In measurement of length, weight, or volume, you shall have honest scales, honest weight, and honest ephah, and an honest hymn. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. So you couldn't have a situation where you had one set of measurements for the people of your land, and then you had another set of measurements for the foreigner. God expected justice for the stranger that dwelt among you. He expected fairness of the stranger that dwelt among you. He told them, when you have foreigners dwelling among you, do not mistreat them. Do not mistreat them.

Treat them like your own people. Don't use different weights to take advantage. Use the same weights and the measures that you would use with others. Now why? Why did he tell them that? Why did he tell them that? Because they were strangers in Egypt, and they had experienced it firsthand. God expected them to be just and to be fair. Zechariah 7. Zechariah 7 discusses this as well, though unfortunately in this particular example we can see that Israel refused to hear. Zechariah 7. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 9. Zechariah 7 and verse 9 says, Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, Execute true justice. No, he's not giving them the command to execute people. Execute true justice. Right? Execute true justice. Show mercy and compassion. Everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother. Okay, so God makes his expectations here pretty clear.

Execute true justice. Show mercy. Show compassion. Don't oppress the widow. Don't oppress the fatherless. Don't oppress the alien, the foreigner or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother. And we see, unfortunately, again in verse 11, that they refused to heed. They shrugged their shoulders and they stropped their ears so that they could not hear. Here we talked about what this looks like in our children today. This looks like, la la la la la, I can't hear you. That's essentially what we're talking about here. They stopped up their ears and basically said no. It says, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of Hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. And thus great wrath came from the Lord of Hosts. In God's judgment, he scattered the people. And it's important for us to recognize that God's justness and his execution of justice doesn't mean that he won't act. It does not mean that he won't act. In fact, it doesn't tie his hands. Quite the contrary. God's justice rounds out his character. It rounds out his character. He acts in righteousness and he upholds the standard. When you couple justice with love, mercy, and goodness, you have a fuller rounding out of God's character. There's a standard and an accountability that is provided. The bar doesn't change. It's set at where it's set. And the expectation is that we get as close as we can get to going over that bar in this life. Knowing that we won't clear that bar in this life, but as close as we can possibly get to it, growing constantly and improving. There's a diagram. If you can draw—I'll try to—well, this would be almost like if you ever played backseat drawing. We're going to try to draw a diagram here from my description, so I apologize. I would have loved to have had it something where it was larger for you to be able to see it. But if you would, draw a standard graph. X-axis, Y-axis. X and Y. Okay? X down here, Y up here. Okay? What I'd like you to write on the Y-axis is standard. Okay? Standard on the Y-axis. So the upper axis is standard. Along the X-axis, connectedness or relationship, whichever words you want to use. Okay? So standard, relationship, or connectedness. Okay? Inside of that, you're going to draw four boxes. Okay? Inside of that, you're going to draw four boxes. And in those four boxes—I'm going to walk you through what that looks like. The bottom two boxes. In other words, bottom two boxes, low standards. Okay? Low standards, lower on the Y-axis, and farther across on the X-axis. On one far side, lots of connectedness and very low standards equals a buddy-buddy relationship where nothing is upheld. Lots of relationship, no expectations, no standards, equals a buddy kind of relationship. On the opposite side of that, if you have no standards and you have no relationship, you can call that a loop.

A person who is a loop. Somebody who is just not connected at all. Now, in those two things, when you have an aloof relationship—in other words, low standards, no connectedness—is that the relationship that we have with God? No. Do we have a relationship with God where it's friendly, friendly, and no expectations? No. So we throw those two boxes essentially out. As we move up, now we're talking about high standards and we're talking about relatedness. In a relationship of high standards, if there's no connection and no relationship, what would we perceive that as? As people. We might call that authoritarian. We might call it dictatorship, right? There's a lot of expectation, but no relationship at all. Or very little relationship at all.

Is that the kind of relationship that we have with God? No. God has high standards and wants us to have a high level of relatedness and relationship. That is where spiritual growth is going to happen in an effective relationship with God. And so, when we take a look at those four boxes, when it comes down to it, how we perceive our relationship with God, because we know that God holds us the high standards. So the bottom two aren't even really even an option in this situation.

Depending on our relationship with God, we may perceive God in one of two ways. We may perceive Him as an authoritarian dictator that tells us what we can't and can't do, and we just don't believe that He would do that. Or based on the relationship that we have with God, we see Him for who and what He is. A loving, merciful, good, and just God who wants us to grow more in our relationship with Him and to uphold those high standards. But that's going to depend on us, and it's going to depend on our level of relationship with God and our connectedness to God. The last point is that God is faithful. God is faithful. Faithfulness or the willingness to kind of follow through on what's been promised to us is a result of His love for us, of His mercy, of His goodness, and His justice. You know, we know that God has promised the Kingdom of God. We know that He has designed a plan that enables us to be a part of that Kingdom.

Our faith is in that coming Kingdom. It's in that promise. Let's go ahead and turn to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11. And we'll take a look here at the faith chapter.

Hebrews 11. And we see that in this particular section of Scripture, it discusses the concept of faith. It defines it for us. It helps us to understand that we are the latest in a long line of people, the latest in a long list of people that have put their faith in God and in His promises. Hebrews 11 verse 1, we'll kind of skim through this to help build the point here. Hebrews 11 verse 1 says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Because we know God to be true, because we know Him to be faithful, because we know that He fulfilled His promises throughout history, we place our own faith in that faithfulness.

We place our own faith in that faithfulness. We place it in the fulfillment of that promise. Hebrews 11 verse 6 goes on and says, But without faith it is impossible to please Him.

For He who comes to God must believe that He is, and then here's the faithfulness part, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. We put our faith in the existence of God, and we put our faith in the existence of and the fulfillment of His promises in His faithfulness. The second part of that passage alludes to the faithfulness of God, that He rewards those who diligently seek Him, that He will fulfill that promise, and that His faithfulness will follow through. Verse 9, dig into the example here of Abraham, says, By faith He dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with Him of the same promise. For He waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

You know, Abraham had faith in God's faithfulness, that that city which had been promised, that kingdom of God, would come, that God would follow through on His promise. Why? Why did He have so much faith? Because God had been faithful to Abraham as time had gone on. Abraham had no reason to not believe Him. God said, I'm going to give you a kid when you're too old to have kids. Boom, kid. I'm going to bless you exceedingly if you just leave your country and trust me. Boom, blessings. Throughout Abraham's life, he saw it over and over and over and over again. So when God said, hey, I'm bringing a kingdom and I want you to be part of it, He said, okay, absolutely. You haven't failed me yet. I will put my faith in that promise because you have been faithful from the very beginning. He promised him multitudes. He got multitudes. He promised him blessings. There were blessings. He promised him a son. There was a son.

In all of those situations, God delivered. Numbers 23 and verse 19. Numbers 23 verse 19. Start to kind of wrap up here today. Numbers 23 and verse 19 says, God is not a man that He should lie nor a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do, or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? You know, this particular passage here, Balaam's talking to Baloch and he's saying, look, I say what I'm told to say. It's just the way it is. He says right after that, he says in verse 20, sorry, 20, behold, I've received a command to bless. He is blessed. I can't reverse it. What God says will happen. God will make it good. Basically tells Baloch, look, if God says it, it will be done. So when we read the promise that we see outlined in Philippians 1 and verse 6, rather than we could take it to the bank, Philippians 1 and verse 6, Philippians 1 and verse 6 reads as follows. That will pick it up in verse 3. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. Verse 6, being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Being confident, being assured that God who has begun a good work in all of us will perform that good work until the day of Christ's return, trusting in and having faith in God's faithfulness toward us. As a result of this characteristic of God, of God's faithfulness, the expectation is that we will be faithful as well. You know, we might not always understand. It might not always make sense to us what God is doing. I'm sure that I tell you there have been times in my life where I have asked that question, really? And you knuckle down and you submit and you say, okay, all right, I don't get it, but I don't have to get it. I just have to trust and I have to have faith that this is what you're doing. God has begun a good work in all of us and he will perform that good work until the day of his return. But we have to trust and we have to have faith in God's faithfulness towards us. There is an expectation on us.

Brother, these are just a sample of the characteristics of God that are recorded for us in Scripture, and there are so many more, even among what we would call core attributes. There are so many more. In fact, it'd make a really interesting study to go through and start looking at some of these different attributes as time goes on. But spending some time taking a look at these in the next little bit would be valuable because God's expectation of us as his disciple is to yield ourselves and be taking on these characteristics as time goes on. All of these, as we see in Galatians 5—and jot it down, we won't turn there—but all of these are characteristics of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5. It's love, joy, peace, patience, goodness—all of them. They're all there. If we appropriately yield ourselves to God in our life, his Holy Spirit, those things will be the result in our life as well.

Our God is a God of love, of mercy, of goodness, of justice, and of faithfulness. And as time goes on, we must work to become more and more like him with each passing day. As a disciple, it is essential that we know the characteristics of our rabbi and that we strive to clothe ourselves with them as time goes on.