SERMON DISCUSSION

This LifeGroup will focus it’s discussion on the Spring Semester sermon series God Is... During this series we will have a deeper understanding on the Character of God. There is nothing more important than a right understanding of God. Every day we have fears, concerns, and demands that distract our lives and compete for our attention. Before long, we begin to filter God’s character and nature through our experiences, creating a god in our image. God Is... is about undoing this —stripping away the false picture that we have painted and restoring a proper view of who God is based on what he has revealed to us in Scripture.

WEEK 1 - The Mystery of God

WEEK 2 - The Holiness of God

WEEK 3 - The Faithfulness of God

WEEK 4 - The Wrath of God

WEEK 5 – The Sovereignty of God

WEEK 6 - The Mercy of God

WEEK 7 - The Jealous God

WEEK 8 - The Beauty of God

WEEK 9 - The Love of God

WEEK 1 - GOD IS...MYSTERY: THE MYSTERY OF GOD

WEEK 1 - GOD IS...MYSTERY: THE MYSTERY OF GOD

God is never boring. Frustrating, confusing, enlightening, shocking, and even funny, but He is never boring. If we think that God is boring, then we are obviously worshipping a God of our own making and not the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the universe and of our own lives.

God is incomprehensible, but the mystery of God is revealed in Christ. There are some things we will always wonder about and question because God’s thoughts are higher that our thoughts, and His ways are higher than our ways.

One of the most dangerous tendencies we have is deify man and humanize God. We give Him human characteristics and reduce Him to someone we can completely understand. In the beginning, man was made in the image of God, but we’ve been making God in our image ever since. We reduce the mysterious God down to the logical constraints of our left brain and, in that process, all mystery is lost.

One of the first things we learn about God is that we just can’t figure Him out. There is an element to His transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient character that remains a mystery to us. With God, dirt can become medicine that heals and love can become the weapon we can wield. In mystery of God, we discover life in death and abundance in sacrifice.

Let’s take God out from our microscopes and analytical boxes and let Him display all of His power, majesty, and glory to us. When we revel in His mystery, worship happens, and life becomes much more exciting.

Please Read the following passages:

Job 11:7 - “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”

Job 38: 31- 36 (As you are reading this, can you identify the mystery in this passage?) - “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? 32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth? 34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? 35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? 36 Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding?

Psalm 46:10 – “He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;”

1 Corinthians 8:2 – “Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.”

Quote by William Jennings Bryan: “I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again, a red heart thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which, in turn, is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can explain to me the mystery of the watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• A low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils and a high view of God is the solutions to ten thousand problems. • There are more than 400 names for God in Scriptures and each one reveals a different dimension of His personality. • We want a Twitter God we can reduce to 140 characters; a God we can put in nice, neat categories; a God we can understand; a God we can measure; a God we can comprehend; even a God we can control. But God doesn’t fit 140 characters. • God is mysterious. The more we know, the more we know how much we don’t know. The more we know, the greater the mystery. And that should make us fall in love with Him even more!

1 Corinthians 2:1-10 (Have someone read out loud the following.) “And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. 6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” the things God has prepared for those who love him—10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.”

Put it in perspective: Paul was highly trained, educated, and skilled man. In other places in Scripture, we find him contending for the gospel against the brightest philosophical minds of Athens on the Aeropagus, sharing the story of Christ with political leaders of the Empire, and clearly stirring up theological debates between members of the Sandhedrin. However, Paul recognized that there was a point at which he must come to the end of his brilliance and knowledge. In the letter to the church at Corinth, he admits God cannot be contained by the hundred trillion synaptic connection tat crisscross our cerebral cortex.

GROUPS DISCUSSION:

1. Paul constrasts human wisdom with the mystery of God. How should human wisdom be used?

2. Paul also speaks about the role of the Holy Spirit in helping us grasp the mysteries of God. Why do you think it is important to know that the Spirit “searches everything, even the depths of God?” What do you think this has to do with our relationship with God?

Deuteronomy 29:29 – “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” (What if there was a file for circumstances for which there is no logical explanation? There are some things that remain a mystery to us as we live within the space-time dimensions of earthly history.)

3. What questions would you put in a Deuteronomy 29:29 file?

4. What life circumstances would you put in a Deuteronomy 29:29 file?

5. When God’s actions don’t seem to correspond with what you think you know of the character and promises of God, what do you do?

Romans 16:25-27 – “Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from[a] faith— 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.” (Romans is the closest we find to a systematic theology in the New testament. In this letter to the church in Rome, Paul outlines in bold detail in the content, implications and applications of his faith. He closes with this idea that ultimately, Jesus Christ is the mystery of God revealed.)

6. What are some things we learn about God’s character and ways through the Person of Jesus Christ?

7. In looking at the life of Christ, where do we see the mystery of God in full display? In other words, where do we see truth in the tension of opposites, the foolish confounding the wise, or unconventional approaches to faith and action?

8. How does it make you feel to know that there will always be certain dimensions of God’s personality and ways that remain a mystery to us?

9. Paul closes out the book of Romans on a note of worship. That’s where good theology should always lead us. How does know that God is mystery lead you to worship differently?

BOTTOMLINE Ephesians 2:4-5 explains the mystery of the gospel: “God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” We may find the mystery of God to be confusing and frustrating when we encounter questions and circumstances that don’t make sense. And yet our greatest blessings and the greatest story God has written is found in the mystery of the gospel.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY • The mystery of God is embedded in His creation and revealed in Christ. • God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways. That’s what makes Him God. • The mystery of God should lead us to worship.

WEEK 2 GOD IS...HOLY: THE HOLINESS Of GOD

WEEK 2 GOD IS...HOLY: THE HOLINESS Of GOD

The attribute of God’s holiness gets to the core of the question, Who is God? When God called Moses to liberate the Israelites from Pharoah’s oppression, Moses needed to explain to the Israelites what his mission was and Who sent him. He needed an explanation, some way to translate the voice and the authority behind the mysterious burning bush.

In Exodus 3:14, God introduced Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM.” He went on to say, “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.” While that description lacked detail and didn’t exactly solve Moses’ dilemma to convince all of Israel with an impressive authority. “I AM” actually explained it all. “I AM” is the all-emcompassing attribute that includes everything else about God. It’s like God is say, I AM the reason, I AM the author of this story and the main character. “I AM” packs in every other attribute we could possibly think to ascribe to God and thousands we cannot yet comprehend. “I AM,” in all its mysteriousness and vagueness, tells us one thing – He is distinct from anything we know. He is wholly...other.

God is Holy. There is tendency to associate that word with goodness and perfection or righteousness. But what it means at its core is that God is set apart. He utterly and wholly different from all His creation. There is none like Him. He is not simply a bigger, better version of us. He is in a category all to Himself.

We use a lot of words to describe God-just, merciful, gracious, omniscient, omnipotent, providential. But holiness is what we come to when we have used up all those words. Maybe that why the soundtrack of Heaven is a comic repeat of the refrain, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” There is absolutely more we can possibly say, But we dare not say less.

Read the following passages:

1 Peter 1:16 – “for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Revelation 4:8 – (What is the Eternal declaration God?) “Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”

Joshua 24:19 – “Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.”

Psalm 77:13 - “Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God?”

Quote by AW Tozer: “What comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• The image that comes to mind most often when we think about God should be one of Him seated on the throne because that’s where He is. • The character of God interrelated. If you don’t have a full comprehension of the holiness of God, you are not going to understand the love of God or the mercy of God. • Until we understand the depravity of the sin in our hearts, we can’t possibly appreciate the amazing grace and mercy that God is showing. • The word hallow literally means to keep a thing holy in your heart.

Isaiah 6:1-4 (Have someone read out loud the following.) In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

Put it in perspective: What comes to mind when you think about God? What framed pictures are hanging on the walls of your mind? You need to intentionally frame pictures of God in your mind. That picture may be a picture of Jesus standing at the door knocking, a visual image of Revelation 3:20 where He says, “Listen! I stand at the door and knock.” Or it may be an image of Jesus with a lambed draped around His neck. Some images we may have be pictures hanging on the walls in our homes growing up. The Bible is replete with images of God, and Isaiah 6 gives us a snapshot that is very different from a polite Jesus at the door knocking and the tranquil Shepherd in the field.

GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. What picture of Jesus is dominant in your mind?

2. As you read this description of God’s throne from Isaiah 6:1-4, how does it compare with the mental image you have of heaven?

Revelation 4:6-8 Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8 Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’who was, and is, and is to come.” (Isaiah’s 6:1-4 is strikingly similar to John’s vision of God’s throne as recorded in Revelation 4:6-8. We read that the worship of God is never-ending. Revelation tells us that the choirs of heaven sings praises, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, ’who was, and is, and is to come.” And then repeat that. And repeat it again. And again. For all eternity. Do you ever wonder what could possibly be pleasing to God about listening to a broken record. Or how long that can really be meaningful. Evidently there is something about the holiness of God that inspires and requires unbounded and unlimited worship.)

3. What do these passages teach you about worship?

4. How might we engage in continual worship through the way we live out our lives?

Let’s go back to the story of Isaiah in Isaiah 6:5-7 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

5. Read about Isaiah’s encounter in Isaiah 6:5-7. How do you think we can put ourselves in a position to have an encounter like this? Or is this out of our control?

6. What happens when humanity encounters the holiness of God?

Like Isaiah, we need a revelation of the holiness of God. We won’t see God seated on the throne as long as we are trying to stand on the throne of our own lives. We cannot get a revelation of God unless we are on our knees or flat on our faces. The only way we see God high and exalted is if we go low and humble. The more time we spend on our knees with our eyes closed, the clearer picture we will have of God seated on His throne.

We need a posture of humility and submission is order to see the holiness of God, and once we see His holiness, it will cause us to humble ourselves and submit even further. Maybe that’s why the heavenly creatures never stop declaring His holiness; with every bow to the throne, they see a new dimension of His holiness that causes them to bow down once again.

7. How would you define the words humility and submission?

8. What two or three practical actions you can take this week to put you in position to see the holiness of God?

9. What are some ways in which you made God into your own image?

10. What were the consequences?

ISAIAH 6:8 - Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (When the Great I Am speaks, I think the only appropriate response is, “Here I am. Send me.”)

11. There seems to be a connection between confession and calling in this passage. As Isaiah postures himself in humility, God positions Isaiah for his calling. How do you ensure that you posture yourself before God instead of positioning yourself before men?

Later in the Book of Isaiah, God declares, “As the heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your thoughts” Isaiah 55:9. One of our greatest dangers is to make God in our own image and then get confused about why we don’t understand His ways.

BOTTOMLINE When we comprehend God’s holiness, we learn that He is wholly other. He is wholly good, wholly worthy of praise, and wholly different from us.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• God is not simply a bigger, better version of us. He is set apart and wholly other. • When we encounter God’s holiness, it will lead to worship. • To get a revelation of God’s holiness, we must take on a posture of humility and submission. • We must focus on posturing ourselves before God than positioning ourselves before men.

The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) begins with an acknowledgement of God’s holiness. As you close your group study this week, pray this prayer together, make this a time of reflection.

Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. For Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

WEEK 3 GOD IS...Faithful: The Faithfulness of God

WEEK 3 GOD IS...FAITHFUL: THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

"’if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. ‘" - 2 Timothy 2:13

God's faithfulness is perfect and absolute. Time and time again we fail, we fall short, and we don't follow through, and as such we cannot even fathom God's faithfulness. We make the false assumption that God has been unfaithful when our prayers go unanswered or things do not turn out our way, but God remains faithful. He is faithful to Himself and to us, to promises claimed and unknown. On this side of Eternity we will never know how great and how vast his faithfulness has been.

Our relationship with God is built on a foundation of faithfulness. When we fall short of understanding his faithfulness, we fall short of comprehending every other gift that comes as a result of that faithfulness.

Please read the following passages:

Psalm 119:90 – “Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.”

Deuteronomy 31:6 – “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

1 Corinthians 1:9 – “God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Hebrews 13:5 – “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.””

2 Timothy 2:13 – “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. “

Hebrews 11:1-3 (Hebrews 11, is known as the Hall of Faith, as you read those passages, is it more about the faithfulness of those great men and women of God or about the faithfulness of God?) – “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Quote by John Piper: “No one who is predestined for sonship fails to be called. And no one who is called fails to be justified. And no one who is justified fails to be glorified. This is an unbreakable steel chain of divine covenant faithfulness.”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• The covenant of God is sealed by His faithfulness to us. Every promise of God is “yes and amen.” • When we don’t “hear” God or our prayers seem to go unanswered He is still faithful. • God’s faithfulness is unconditional. • All of Scripture declares God’s faithfulness to mankind.

Lamentations 3:1-24 (Have someone read out loud the following.) I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; 2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; 3 surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. 4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; 5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; 6 he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. 7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; 8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; 9 he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked. 10 He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; 11 he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; 12 he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. 13 He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; 14 I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. 15 He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. 16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; 17 my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; 18 so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” 19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Put it in perspective: Scholars attribute the authorship to the prophet Jeremiah and it was at a time when the city of Jerusalem was taken captive. For years, God had said to Isaiah to come out and repent and to leave their wicked ways and stop living in sin and leave the life they were living in selfish pursuit. It was said over and over and they wouldn’t leave this life and they fell and city fell and after 15-20 years of assault on the city, finally, in 586 B.C., Jerusalem falls. The city crumbled and the temple was torn down. This was not just a dark day, this was a day of desolation, a day of destruction and desperation.

This is one of the darkest pits in all of Scripture. The circumstances are devastating. Lamentations was not actually the original name that was given to this book, but it was the Greek scholars who came along later after the exile and didn’t know Hebrew as well and gave it the name Lamentations. The original name was taken from the first word of the first, the second and the fourth chapter, the very first word, that’s what this book was called, the word ‘how.”

GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. What do you think of when you hear the word “faithfulness”?

2. Can you think of someone in your life who proved faithful? How did that make you feel?

3. Can you think of a time in your life when you experienced the faithfulness of God? When was it?

Hebrews 6:18 “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.” The faithfulness of God is true and has been proven many times. In the Holy Scriptures, we can see that God is faithful and His Word is true. God cannot lie, nor can He break an unconditional promise that He says He will fulfill. Every covenant He made is kept. Every promise or foretelling has or will come true. Testimony after testimony of God’s faithfulness is certainly found throughout the Bible and is still given in testimonies by people today. In fact, accounts of covenants between God and His people can be found approximately 277 times in the Bible. Deuteronomy 7:9 says “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments."

4. What are some passages of Scripture that come to your mind where God has made promises or covenants?

5. Why do you believe it is so hard for people to fully trust God as His word when it is impossible for God to lie?

Psalm 37:3 says, “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.” In the King James, it says “...so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed”. In the Hebrew, this literally translates as feed off of God’s faithfulness. We are called to feed off of his faithfulness in times of trouble. We feed off of fear, feed off of avoidance, feed off of food. All of us feed off of tough situations in different ways, but God’s Word says this – feed off my faithfulness. When you do, something happens. When you feed off of His faithfulness, you focus more on Him and it gives you an outlook of hope of what God alone can do.

6. What do you feed off of in troubling times?

7. What does it mean to feed off God’s faithfulness?

8. If faith is essential to our lives, what can we do to grow in our understanding of God and His faithfulness so that we can trust him?

All of us understand a little bit of how an automobile engine functions. Pistons, fan belts, water pumps, and thousands of moving parts all whirl around within a small space, making power for us to drive our car. Each piece in the motor has a different part to play in helping the engine function as it should. If one piece gets even a fraction of an inch out of line, the engine malfunctions. At the same time, oil and coolant circulate to keep the engine running smoothly. The parts all work together harmoniously as part of the whole engine.

That is the way God’s attributes function too. If you took away love, God’s character would not be complete. God’s love works with all other attributes, like His justice, to produce the right kind of results. We can compare God’s faithfulness to the oil in the engine that keeps the internal parts running smoothly. God’s faithfulness means that each attribute in His character is working at full capacity at all times. When does God’s love fail? Never, because He is faithful. When is God less than holy? Never, because His character is pure and He is always faithful to who He is and what He says. Therefore, you can count on Him to keep His promises and carry out His purposes. In fact, God’s faithfulness is at the core of God’s nature. He is always all-knowing, all- powerful, ever-present, holy, righteous, merciful, and loving because He is faithful to His own character.

BOTTOMLINE Our relationship with God is built on a foundation of faithfulness. When we fall short of understanding his faithfulness, we fall short of comprehending every other gift and attributes that comes as a result of that faithfulness. Our God is a faithful God and there is no other that can do all He can and has done.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• God's faithfulness is perfect and absolute. We cannot even fathom God's faithfulness. • In the Bible we can see that God is faithful and His Word is true. God cannot lie, nor can He break an unconditional promise that He says He will fulfill. • We can take God at His word and feed off His faithfulness. • God’s faithfulness is at the core of His nature.

WEEK 4 GOD IS...WRATH: The Wrath of God

WEEK 4 GOD IS...WRATH: THE WRATH OF GOD

Most of us want an apathetic God who would never act or react to the things he saw in this world. We want his mercy and love, but we don’t want to consider his ability and rightful position to judge. CS Lewis said “Turn God’s wrath into mere enlightened disapproval, and you also turn his love into mere humanitarianism. The ‘consuming fire’ and the ‘perfect beauty’ both vanish.”

God’s wrath is directly linked with his love for us. His wrath drives us to the cross where we can find mercy and hope. Jesus took the punishment that was not his. He satisfied the wrath that was placed on us for our sins. It is one of the greatest love stories ever told, and we find it here in God’s wrath.

We love ‘God is love’ and we love ‘God is mercy,’ those things we are good with. But God is wrath – that’s not one we want to talk about. That’s not one we are supposed to talk about. But there are 20 different Hebrew words used about 580 times in the Old Testament that deal with God’s wrath. Then we get to the New Testament and we find that John the Baptist proclaims it and Jesus teaches it and Revelation gives us a horrific picture in graphic detail of the wrath that is come.

God is wrath. So if we want to worship God and if we want to worship the God of this Book, then we have to take all of who He is. And even though there are verses we don’t like or verses that make us squirm or verses we don’t understand, we have to do something with them. Our tendency is to fix God. When we see what we think might be a blemish on his character or something that isn’t quite right, we will try to cover it up or try to make it look a little bit better. We try to make God look acceptable. But the problem is God Himself doesn’t shy away from this stuff. God Himself recognizes and acknowledges wrath.

Quote by Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard: “Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commandingly, convincingly preaches some soft sweet something that is supposed to be Christianity. “

Quote by Pastor John Piper: “The wisdom of God devised a way for the love of God to deliver sinners from the wrath of God while not compromising the righteousness of God.”

Please read the following passages:

Deuteronomy 9:7 – “Remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the LORD your God in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the LORD.”

2 Chronicles 29:8 - “Therefore, the anger of the LORD has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes.”

Psalm 89:46 (ESV) – “How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? “

Nahum 1:2 – “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and vents his wrath against his enemies.”

Romans 2:8 – “But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.”

Revelation 19:15 – “Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”[a] He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• It seems that in his wrath, God’s heart is to save. • God’s holiness, God’s sovereignty, God’s love, and the other attributes that are part of his eternal being are always in play. And God’s wrath is a function of those attributes when faced with our sin. • A wrath-less god does not make him more attractive. It makes him morally indifferent. • If you have a softening view of wrath, then sin becomes less an offense to God and, instead, a kind of moral failure against an independent, impersonal code. • If the church loses its grip on God’s wrath, salvation can degenerate pretty quickly and reduced to terms primarily about therapeutic well-being and self-actualizing.

Genesis 3 (Have someone read out loud the following.) “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring[a] and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food, until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.”

Put it in perspective: The occasion of the first human sin, there is no mention of the wrath of God. But God promises judgment in chapter 2 if they eat the forbidden fruit Genesis 2:16-17 – “And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” The judgment begins to be carried out in chapter 3 and it is carried out further. This is a narrative telling of the wrath of God. And there are many passages of that order. And it is really important early on to establish, then, that the judgments that fall on the human race are not simply the automatic but entirely impersonal consequences of bad behavior. If you do bad things, bad stuff happens to you in some sort of mechanistic way — karma or something of that order. But rather, that there is personal offense against the personal God who made us, and his reaction against us is to bring judgment, and that is a function of his judicial wrath.

GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. What experiences have you had dealing with the wrath of God? What thoughts come to your mind when you hear the statement, “the wrath of God”?

2. In Genesis 3, what is the wrath of God in response to?

3. As we read the narrative in Genesis do you see where God responds with grace?

The wrath, we read about in Genesis 3 is not bad temper. It is not as though he is losing it. But it is a function of his holiness, and if he were entirely unwrathful in that understanding of wrath, then there would be no judgment and no consequence for sin of any sort. And that doesn’t make God out to be more attractive or more holy. It makes him out to be morally indifferent.

4. How can God respond with wrath and be loving? Is this a contradiction?

5. What is it that motivates God’s wrath against sin?

Romans 3:5 – “But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.)” As a reaction to sin, God’s wrath is an expression of his justice, and Paul indignantly rejects the suggestion “that God is unjust bringing his wrath on us.”

6. How can God act justly and judge sin?

7. What are some things we expect God to be angry about?

It is common to think of the Old Testament God as mean, harsh, and wrath-filled, and the God of the New Testament as kind, patient, and loving. Neither of these portraits are representative of Scripture’s teaching on the wrath of God. “God must act justly and judge sin, otherwise God would not be God.”

8. What would an apathetic God look like?

Romans 5:9 – “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” Salvation consists, in part, it is not the whole part, but it consists, in part, in being saved from the righteous wrath of God. And that is where propitiation lies. So now we are into an array of terms connected with the atonement. We see, again and again, how different biblical themes bring us back to the cross. In this case the wrath of God brings us to the cross in that it is one of the ways the Bible speaks of God’s formidable holiness arrayed against our sinfulness and rebellion.

Somehow that righteous wrath must be turned aside or we are utterly undone. We are lost. We face judgment. And that is why the cross is understood in the New Testament not only to cancel sin, but to propitiate God. God becomes both the author and the object of propitiation. He plans things such that Christ bears our sin and guilt and cancels it. But at the same time by cancelling our sin Christ satisfies God’s sense of justice, and his wrath is turned aside. He becomes propitious toward us, favorable toward us, by the plan and decree and purposes of God in redemption.

9. Why does God’s wrath require blood sacrifice?

10. As we look at the New Testament and where we are today how should we view God’s wrath?

11. Since Christians need no longer stand under the wrath of God, what is the benefit of meditating on this attribute of God?

BOTTOMLINE As we read, I Thessalonians 5:9-10 – “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.” We can understand, God’s righteous wrath made a way of rescue for us. God’s anger is directed against anything that threatens what he loves. His wrath is inseparable from his love, his goodness, and his holiness, it activates grace for our good, and it is a reflection of his glory.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• In His wrath, God’s heart is to save. • God’s love and wrath are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other because his love awakens wrath and wrath is an expression of his love and it activates his grace on our behalf. • God did not destine us for wrath! We are destined for salvation. God does not desire that we live under wrath, but wrath is the way that God’s love gets expressed if we stand outside of Christ. . • God’s righteous wrath made a way of rescue for us.

WEEK 5 GOD IS...SOVEREIGN: THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

WEEK 5 GOD IS...SOVEREIGN: THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

Some of us want a democratic God, but that is not what we get. God is sovereign and His is kingdom is just that – it is a kingdom with a King who is absolutely sovereign. And we have one option: complete submission of our lives to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

On one hand, it seems natural and easy to submit to His lordship. He loves us, cares for us, listens to us and redeems us. We know that He is good, faithful, and merciful. Who would not want to submit the King of kings?

But how does God’s sovereignty interact with man’s free will? If God is sovereign, then why do bad things happen to good people? If God knows all and sees all, then why do we pray? When faced with these questions, we may find that it is more difficult to submit to His lordship and more natural to ask His actions to submit to our ideals of goodness and truth.

When we come to the end of every possible answer we can conceive we are left with a choice. Do we believe that God is who He says He is? And do we believe that God is above everything and working through all things for our good and for His glory.

God is not offended or threatened by our questions about His sovereignty. The real question, however, is how we will respond when we recognize we will never have perspective adequate enough to take into full account the bigness of God. So feel free to question. But recognize that ultimately, our response to God’s sovereignty is not to question, but to worship.

Quote by C.S. Lewis: “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”

Please read the following passages:

Matthew 10:29-31 – 29 “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Proverbs 16:9 – “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• God is great not only because nothing is too big for Him, but also because nothing is too small for Him. He cares about every detail. • Maybe sometimes we don’t see who God is or don’t understand His sovereignty because we get up so close that we can’t see the entire painting, • Until we believe in the existence of a very real, very active Enemy, we will make the mistake of blaming the bad things that happen on God instead of the one who is seeking to kill, steal and destroy...Satan. • C.S. Lewis said that God cast His vote for us when Christ died at Calavary, Satan cast his vote against us. And we cast the deciding vote.

Psalm 139:1-24 (Have a few people read out loud the following.) “1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Put it in perspective: Psalm 139 is divided into four paragraphs of six verses each. In verses 1–6, David affirms God’s intimate knowledge of him. In verses 7–12, he affirms God’s ubiquitous presence with him. In verses 13–18, he affirms God’s sovereign creation of him. And in verses 19–24, David responds to God’s love with open-hearted consecration. It is important to bear in mind that, as David composes this psalm, his life is at risk. He has taken a stand for God, but powerful and villainous people are opposing him for it. Their hatred of God leads them to hate David and threaten his very life, as may be surmised from verses 19–22. He does not yet know what will become of him, but his response is to flee by faith to God. There, in God’s presence, David takes stock of his life. “What do I have going for me? What can I count on right now?” And he finds assurance in the truths that God knows him searchingly, that God is with him universally, and that God created him sovereignly. Rather than feel threatened by such a God, David draws strength from his loving care and is renewed within to fight on.

GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. Generally speaking, what are some of the small details of life that we might be concerned about?

2. With the recognition that God cares about those details, how can you practically involve God in your thoughts, conversations and actions related to those details?

We often fail to express our gratitude to God for His sustaining presence in our lives because we don’t stop to recognize how intimately He is involved. For instance, when was the last time you thanked God that the sun appeared this morning? Or that you continued to breathe through the night.

3. Because God is concerned about details that may escape our notice, take a moment to consider how He is active in your life. What are ways we can be more aware of and thankful for His involvement in our life?

In Proverbs 16:9, the writer of Proverbs addresses the tension between our free will and God’s sovereignty

4. What does this passage tell us about the tension between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man?

5. When the sovereignty of God clashes with the free will of man, which one wins?

Here’s the problem with the sovereignty of God: children who can’t swim fall into pools and drown. Innocent people are hit by drunk drivers. Children who can’t defend themselves are abused. There are tens of thousands who will die of starvation today because they can find any food to eat. The question is this – how do you juxtapose that with Scripture? Does it take away from those sovereign moments where God’s invisible hand is clearly evident, be can we ignore the pain and suffering and tragedy that happens in life.

Why doesn’t God keep the sparrow from falling? Why doesn’t He keep the child from drowning? Why doesn’t He cure all cancer and stop all accidents or end all starvation? If He is omnipotent, and the word sovereign means all-powerful and all-knowing and that there is nothing not subject to His authority, then why do bad things happen? This is where so many of us get stuck spiritually. Why doesn’t an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present God step in and save the day?

Ultimately we must embrace the idea that God’s sovereignty and our free will work together in supernatural tension and cooperation to bring about His purposes for our good and His glory?

6. How do you respond to moments in life when you feel that your free will might conflict with God’s sovereignty?

We live in a fallen world where bad situations are going to happen. God often responds in one of three ways. There are countless times when He prevents bad things from happening to us. Other times, He intervenes in the moment and rescues us from, protects us from, and overturns adversity. Sometimes, His response is redemption – stepping in after those bad things happen and using them for our good and His glory.

7. Identify a time when God’s response to a bad circumstance in your life was intervention and a time when His response was redemption?

Job went head-to-head with God over challenges that God allowed in his life and he presented God with some hard questions. God responded to God with some questions of His own in chapters 38-40.

Job 38:3-4, 12, 24 31-35

“Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.”

“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,”

“What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?”

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth? “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?”

8. How does God’s response to Job’s challenge your understanding of His character?

BOTTOMLINE God is all-knowing, ever-present, and full of divine power. While His sovereignty is not something we can always understand or explain, it ensures that His purposes will be fulfilled for our good and for His glory.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• The kingdom of God is not a democracy. It is a kingdom with a good King. • God is great not only because nothing is too big for Him, but also because nothing is too small for Him. • In God’s story, His sovereignty and our free will work together in supernatural tension and cooperation to fulfill His purposes. • When we come to the end of our understanding, we can either question God’s sovereignty or we can celebrate it.

WEEK 6 GOD IS...MERCY: THE MERCY OF GOD

WEEK 6 GOD IS...MERCY: THE MERCY OF GOD

Soon after God created humankind, we disobeyed His commands and separated ourselves from Him, incurring a debt we could not repay and earning for ourselves a most grievous punishment.

But God didn’t demand that we repay the debt. He satisfied it Himself. When Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, hung on the a Roman Cross, He bore the judgment that was due to the world. The power of the cross and its demonstration of mercy lie not in ridding God of His justice or wrath. Those are very much alive and a part of who God is. Rather, Jesus took upon Himself our punishment and pain in the greatest act of love and mercy the world would ever know.

Have you ever laid in a hammock on a beautiful summer day? At first it takes some time getting used to, trying to position yourself just right so you don’t flip out of the hammock and land hard on your backside. But once you position yourself just right in the hammock you are able rest peacefully.

The mercy of God is like a hammock. A hammock where you rest all of your body weight in the wonderful grace of God. The problem is that we often lean only partially into it and flip ourselves out. But when we get into that hammock and rest in the mercy of God, there is nothing like it.

God wants to show us His mercy. What we have to do is learn to rest in it, not by human striving or even by our own good works; it is simply by the grace of God that we are saved, and in that we can find spiritual rest unlike any other rest we can experience.

Lamentations 3:22-23 promises that “His mercies never end. They are new every morning.” One of the greatest, most generous promises in all of Scripture.

Quote by Thomas Watson: “God is more willing to pardon than to punish. Mercy does more multiply in Him than sin in us. Mercy is His nature."

Quote by Charles Spurgeon: “God in his infinite mercy has devised a way by which justice can be satisfied, and yet mercy can be triumphant. Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, took upon himself the form of man, and offered unto Divine Justice that which was accepted as an equivalent for the punishment due to all his people."

Please read the following passages:

Micah 6:6-8– “With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. ”

Hebrews 4:14-16 – “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Exodus 20:5-6 – “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. ”

Ephesians 2:4-5 – ”But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ”

Psalm 51:1-2 - “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• God always wants to show mercy. • If you don’t go to the throne of grace you’ll end up at the judgment throne. But God invites us to approach the throne of grace so that we might obtain mercy and receive grace. • God’s attribute of mercy exceeds His attributes of justice by 500 fold. • There is no end to His mercy. He never runs out of mercy. His mercies are new every morning.

John 8:3-11 (Have someone read out loud the following.)

Put it in perspective: Jesus gives us a tangible picture of the mercy of the Father. In John’s Gospel, Jesus never utters the word mercy, but He gives us one of the most poignant and potent pictures of mercy.

The Pharisees responded to Jesus by dropping their rocks and walking away. Jesus responded to the woman that she was not condemned so she should “go and snot sin.” The mercy of God demands a response from us, We can either walk away in dejected bitterness or we can strive to look more like Christ

GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. What are some practical examples God’s mercy and grace in your life?

2. Which character do you feel most people identify with in this story: the woman or the Pharisees? Why?

3. How do you think this woman must have felt in that moment?

4. Consider what you know about Jesus. What do you think He was scribbling in the sand?

Death was the rightful punishment for adultery according to Old Testament law. Furthermore, God hates adultery because it tears relationships apart and rips the fabric of God’s image as displayed through the marriage relationship. Yet Jesus shows mercy.

5. What limits the extent of God’s mercy?

6. As we reflect on Micah 6:6-8, what three responses does the Lord require of us? What do you think makes such a simple command so difficult?

7. What do the traits of justice, mercy and humility have in common?

8. Are there situations that we face where we can demonstrate mercy in a very tangible way? Showing someone mercy like it has been shown to you.

Mercy is not just a blessing God bestows on others or a characteristic He requires of us. As we have already read, His mercies are new every morning. Jesus invites us to come into His presence. As the perfect high priest He is in the unique position of understanding us and granting us forgiveness. Hebrews 4:14-16 gives us this picture.

We often think of mercy and grace as synonyms, but there is a wonderful distinction between the two. Mercy is God holding back what we deserve, while grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve. We receive God’s mercy when He protects us from death and hell through the cross. God’s grace extends to us when He adopts us as sons and daughters into His family. When God shows mercy to us, the right response is to show mercy to others.

9. Identify moments of mercy and grace from the Scriptures and from your own life?

10. Mercy comes after confession. Why do you think God requires confession in order for us to receive mercy?

BOTTOMLINE God’s mercy is a rescue from a just and deserved outcome. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we see God displaying His mercy to His people in shocking and perplexing ways. Our response is to show mercy to other people.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• Jesus took our punishment and our pain in the greatest act of love and mercy the world would ever know. • God’s love is like a hammock we can rest all of the weight of our sin in it. • God’s mercies are new every morning.. • God’s desire is that we love mercy more than we make sacrifice. • Mercy is God holding back what we deserve. Grace is God giving us a blessing that we don’t deserve.

WEEK 7 GOD IS...JEALOUS: THE JEALOUS GOD

WEEK 7 GOD IS...JEALOUS: THE JEALOUS GOD

On Mount Sinai, God clearly and concisely revealed a shocking and seemingly base dimension of His character: “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God “ (Exodus 20:5). He repeated it for good measure 14 chapters later: “For the Lord the, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 24:14).

Jealousy typically has a negative connotation, so let us make a distinction. God is certainly not jealous of anything. He can’t be; He is God. But God is jealous for something, and there is a different between jealous of and jealous for. God is jealous for everything He created because it rightfully belongs to Him. Specifically, God is jealous for us. He is jealous for our lover, our time, our devotion, and ultimately, our hearts. Why is God jealous for us? Because He infinitely loves us. His jealousy is an expression His love.

When we begin to understand who God is-how long and high and wide and deep and good and majestic He is-we realize that God is worthy of all honor and all glory and all praise. We begin to recognize is incomparability, and we see that when Scripture teaches us that God is jealous, it’s not unjust as ours so often is. He desires complete devotion and total dedication because He is worthy, because He is the reason we exist. And so, all we are and all we have we owe to Him.

God desires our recognition for His holiness, requiring of us our first and full affection. God’s jealousy demands our faithfulness.

Our God is jealous for us.

Quote by John Piper: “God's jealousy is a great threat to those who play the harlot and sell their heart to the world and make a cuckold out of God. But his jealousy is a great comfort to those who keep their covenant vows and become strangers and exiles in the world.”

Please read the following passages:

Deuteronomy 4:23-24– “Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”

Joshua 24:19 – “Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.”

Psalm 78:58 – “They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols..”

Psalm 79:5 – “How long, LORD? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire?”

2 Corinthians 11:2 - “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• God’s jealousy is an expression of His love. • There is a difference between jealous of and jealous for. God is jealous for everything He created because it is His, It belongs to Him. • If we could grasp the idea that God is jealous is for us, our name, our lives, our hearts, and nothing else will substitute, it would change everything. • If your deepest feelings are reserved for something besides God, then that is probably an idol that provokes God’s jealousy. Ezekiel 8:1-16 (Have someone read out loud the following.) “In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign Lord came on me there. 2 I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. “He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood. 4 And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain. 5 Then he said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of jealousy. 6 And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable.” 7 Then he brought me to the entrance to the court. I looked, and I saw a hole in the wall. 8 He said to me, “Son of man, now dig into the wall.” So I dug into the wall and saw a doorway there. 9 And he said to me, “Go in and see the wicked and detestable things they are doing here.” 10 So I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and unclean animals and all the idols of Israel. 11 In front of them stood seventy elders of Israel, and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan was standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising. 12 He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’” 13 Again, he said, “You will see them doing things that are even more detestable.” 14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz.” 15 He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see things that are even more detestable than this.” 16 He then brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord, and there at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men. With their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east. 17 He said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the people of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually arouse my anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose! 18 Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them.”

Put it in perspective: God is jealous. He clearly states that rather unsettling fact throughout Scripture. What is it that provokes His jealousy? Anything that displaces God is an idol, and God opposes idols in our lives. There is evidence of that in Ezekiel 8. Most scholars believe that the idol reference here in Ezekiel 8, is the Canaanite goddess of fertility. It was their sex god. Sexual pleasure was their god. It was more important than God Himself. It seems silly when we read a story like this and wonder how people could whittle wood, call it a god, and then pray to it and worship it. It seems so foreign and ancient, doesn’t it?

The reality is that we are simply more sophisticated sinners. Idolatry is still practiced today; we just don’t make our idols out of wood.

GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. In what ways do you think we are simply more sophisticated sinners?

2. Where do we find the equivalent of the Canaanite goddess of fertility in our culture today?

3. What other idols are prevalent in our culture today?

All of us have hidden rooms where we practice secret sins or harbor sinful thought. For some of us, they are literal rooms like our bedroom, bathroom, or family room. For others, they are figurative rooms in our hearts and minds. When no one is looking what are you doing in your hidden room? Many of us have hidden rooms that are in essence idol factories

4. Looking at Ezekiel 8:7-13, who were the people engaged in idolatrous practices in the hidden room?

5. When God points out a hidden room in our lives, what should be our response?

6. Do you think hidden rooms can be completely abolished in our lives or do we just have to lock the door, ignore them, and never go in again? Explain.

In Ezekiel 8:14-15, we discover yet another idol, Tammuz, the Babylonian goddess of spring Instead, of worship the God who created everything, they decided to give credit and mourn an idol.

We must steward our emotions. There are moments we need to mourn because we offended a jealous God. But sometimes we mourn for things less than worthy. We allow our day to be ruined by a person or conversation or action that we have esteemed higher than God’s opinion. When that happens, we may have stumbled on a personal idol.

6. What things do you mourn or get upset over? What ruins your day?

7. If our hearts broke for the things that break the heart of God, what would we be mourning?

As the vision continues in Ezekiel 8:16-18, they bowed to the wrong God. They turned their backs on God and faced the wrong direction. In, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis says, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

8. Describe a moment when you settled for less than God’s blessing because you were “far too easily pleased.”

9. What are some practical actions we can take and disciplines we can employ to strive for and wait with joyful anticipation for the infinite jealousy of Christ?

BOTTOMLINE God is jealous for us, and that jealousy is an expression of His love. He is jealous for the glory that is due Him, and he is jealous for the affection of those He created. Only God is worthy of our worship, everything else is at best a distraction and worst an idol.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• God is not jealous of anything. He is jealous for something. • Jealousy is an expression of God’s love. • Anything that we reverence or worship above God is an idol. • All of us have hidden rooms in our lives, hearts and minds that we must allow the Holy Spirit to enter and redeem.

WEEK 8: GOD IS...BEAUTIFUL: THE BEAUTY OF GOD

WEEK 8: GOD IS...BEAUTIFUL: THE BEAUTY OF GOD

God’s beauty is displayed in the balance, tension, harmony, order, and design of all of His attributes. We were created to reflect God’s beauty by engaging in the creative process and cultivating the character of Christ within us and we were created to enjoy God’s beauty.

The beauty of God is not found in his appearance but His essence, not in how he looks but who he is. When you begin to weave together the tapestry of God’s character—his justice and mercy, his love and wrath, his sovereignty and long- suffering—a picture emerges, deep and rich, full of vibrancy. It’s as if you could see the oils layered on a painter’s canvas, each a different hue but together composing a color immensely richer than any simple shade. Reflecting on God is like standing on the edge of a cliff, frightened and overwhelmed yet never more fully alive.

The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is: What is man's chief end? The answer is: Man chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. We must not miss the last part of that—to enjoy Him forever. God is eminently enjoyable. To be in God's presence, is pleasurable. It is the height of happiness and joy.

Quote by Charles Spurgeon: “We must not enter the assemblies of the saints in order to see and be seen, or merely to hear the minister; we must repair to the gatherings of the righteous, intent upon the gracious object of learning more of the loving Father, more of the glorified Jesus, more of the mysterious Spirit, in order that we may the more lovingly admire, and the more reverently adore our glorious God. What a word is that, "the beauty of the Lord!" Think of it, dear reader! Better far— behold it by faith! What a sight will that be when every faithful follower of Jesus shall behold "the King in his beauty!" Oh, for that infinitely blessed vision!”

Please read the following passages:

Psalm 29:1-2 (NKJV) – “Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones, Give unto the Lord glory and strength. 2 Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11 – “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Psalm 73:25 (What or Who is the object of the Psalmist’s desire?) – “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”

1 Chronicles 16:29 (NKJV) – “Give to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him. Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• Your greatest desire should be a greater presence of God. • The Scriptures are full of messy stories that God makes beautiful. • Beauty is important to God because He is beautiful, and so what is beautiful must be of importance to His people as well. • As followers of Christ we are to be a refection of God’s beauty. • Christian artists should be encouraged to create beautiful art, and Christian people should be encouraged to appreciate the beautiful alongside the true and the good, for the Lord Himself is beautiful. • Beauty of God is reflect in a bloody cross.

Psalm 27:4 (Have someone read out loud the following.) One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (as this Scripture passage isbeing read, reflect on how God reveals his holy beauty by stooping out of love to bear the sin of his people, becoming our sin.) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Put it in perspective: David’s prayer life consisted both of asking and seeking. David was honest in his asking; his prayers were filled with desire (“one thing have I desired…”). His desire wasn’t haphazard and whimsical, but rather had a direction: namely God Himself (… of the Lord…). Like David, may our prayers be filled with desire, but a desire for God that leads us to ask of Him and seek Him. Prayer is never a passive thing for the Christian. To ask something of God is not to merely seek out an answer, but rather to seek out God Himself. Prayer is a pursuit of relationship with the God of the universe.

To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord - In Psalm 34, David calls us to “taste and see” that the Lord is good. Here David desires to gaze on God’s beauty; he saw God as beautiful and lovely and right. Oh that we would recover a sense of God’s beauty in worship, that we would think of Him as lovely and desirable.

1. In our culture today, how do we view beauty?

2. Why would David describe an aspect of God’s character as beautiful?

3. How can we recognize and enjoy God’s beauty?

1 Chronicles 16:29, is a passage that conjoins the holiness and glory of God with respect to the idea of beauty. We are called to come into the presence of God and to worship what is beautiful about Him—His glory and holiness.

4. What other things do we find that is beautiful about God? What things do we find that is desirable about God?

There are three dimensions of the Christian life that the Scriptures are concerned about—the good, the true, and the beautiful. Yet we tend to cut off the third from the other two. Some Christians reduce their concern for the things of God purely to the ethical realm, to a discussion of righteousness or of goodness with respect to our behavior. Others are so concerned about purity of doctrine that they’re preoccupied with truth at the expense of behavior or at the expense of the holy. Rarely, at least in many Protestant circles, do we find a focus on the beautiful.

This reflects a striking imbalance given that the Bible is concerned with goodness, truth, and beauty. God, Scripture tells us, is the ground or fountain of all goodness. All goodness finds its definition in His character. In the final analysis, God’s character is the measure of goodness. At the same time, the Scriptures speak about God as the author, source, and foundation of all truth. In the same way and in the same dimension, the Scriptures speak about the beauty of God. His Word tells us that all things beautiful find their source and foundation in the character of God Himself. So, God is ultimately the norm of the good, the norm of the true, and the norm of the beautiful.

5. How can we reclaim the beautiful back in the church?

6. Do you believe the arts have a place in reclaiming God’s beauty?

7. What’s an area right now where you can reflect God’s creativity in a situation you face?

How unbelievably incredibly is it that God took a thing of horror and pain and agony, God took the cross and turned it into the most beautiful thing for us? The biggest mess of all, a Savior bloodied and broken hanging on a cross and God turned that into a beautiful moment where we are restored to relationship with Him, where we see the beauty of the divine image restored in a fallen world.

If you’ve got mess in your life and you need to see the beauty of God, the first place you need to come to the cross. That’s where the beauty of God is most powerfully, potently rooted. And as we navigate the mess that we find in our lives and the chaos of our lives, let our prayer be that we can gaze upon the beauty of God. When we do that, maybe we will get a glimpse of Him in the land of the living.

8. How are we created to reflect God’s beauty?

9. In the midst and chaos of our lives how can God make any beautiful out that?

BOTTOMLINE The beauty of the Lord means that, in his nature, the Lord possesses everything that is desirable. His character is one of perfection. Consequently believers are to desire him above all. If we delight ourselves in him he promises to give us the desire of our heart. This desire will be the Lord himself. Believers are commanded to reflect God's beauty in their conduct.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• God should be the greatest desire of our hearts. • As followers of Christ, let us acknowledge and appreciate the things that we find beautiful about God. • We are created to be a reflection of God’s beauty. • When we stand in the shadow cross we can see beauty powerfully and potently rooted.

WEEK 9 GOD IS...LOVE: THE LOVE OF GOD

WEEK 9 GOD IS...LOVE: THE LOVE OF GOD

God is love. If we could truly grasp the significance of those three words, it would radically alter the way we relate to God and significantly change the way we relate to others. His love is the answer and solution to every felt need we have. Scripture tells us that "God is love," and we have reduced that powerful statement to mean “God is nice.” But to say "God is love" is not to say "God is nice" at all. To truly love is to want what is best, not what is convenient or what is easy but what is the highest good.

Notice that the statement isn’t “God is loving” but “God is love.” God is the very definition of love. This means that any loving action we take is a reflection of God himself and that it is through our love that we show the world God.

But God’s love isn’t just a dictionary definition or static ideal. God’s love was given expression in Christ’s torturous death on the cross that served to bring reconciliation between God and creation. The cross was not easy, nice, comfortable, or convenient, but it was good. It was love.

The love of God that is probably the most popular and the least understood. Love is the thing that has been the most talked about, the most written about, the most sung about, the most questioned and most wrestled with. Most disappointments come from this idea of love. It is really hard to even find a story that doesn’t have a love scene running through it. Think about the movies and the books that capture our imaginations. It is hard to find one that doesn’t have a theme of love running through it.

God is love...he doesn’t just do loving things.

Quote by Phillip Yancey: “One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as “those evil people” or “those poor people who need our help.” Nor must we search for signs of “loveworthiness.” Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are. “

Please read the following passages:

John 3:16– “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 8:35-39 – “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Psalm 52:8 – “But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.”

Psalm 106:1 – “Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

1 John 3:16 - “ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

Think about these statements and discuss as a group.

• God’s love is based on self-sacrifice. It is a love that isn’t based on the worthiness of the one being loved. • God’s love goes beyond natural motivation for love. It is a love that is unconditional. • We cannot trade in a belief for ‘God is love’ to embrace a belief that ‘God is nice.’ ‘God is nice’ and ‘God is love’ are two very different things. • Love doesn’t so much define God as God defines love.

1 John 4:7-19 (Have someone read out loud the following.) 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Put it in perspective: When we understand that God is love, then we begin to understand his jealousy and his wrath and his mercy and his sovereignty in a whole new light. God is love. All of God’s attributes are simply reflections and unique expressions of his love.

When John wrote to the Church at Ephesus and he talked about God’s love, he began to talk about the unique relationship that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have with one another, the way they relate with one another and the way they love one another and the way they point to one another and honor one another and seek to serve one another. If we go back to this passage, we read God is love and God showed how much He loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love, not that we love God but that He loves us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. It was for love that God the Father and Jesus the Son work together in harmony to bring salvation and redemption and grace. God is love because God is inherently relational.

GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. What comes to mind when think about God’s love?

2. How can adequately understand the idea that God is love outside the context of the Trinity?

3. What proof do we have of God’s love for us? When did you first become aware of this love? What affect did it have on you?

It is really amazing that we worship a deity who loves. That is not normal in most religious, philosophical thought. We serve a God who loves. And the interesting thing is that the text does not just say God loves or that God does loving things. It says that He is love. He doesn’t simply love, He doesn’t just do loving things, He is love, therefore everything that He does is, by definition, loving, because He defines love.

4. What distinguishes God’s love from the love we see in our world?

5. Can God’s love ever be removed from His children, even when He appears distant? Why?

There are three words in ancient Greek writing that refer to love or that we translate into the word love. The first is the word ‘eros’ which is passionate love, sensual love, sexual love, physical love. This particular word is actually not found in the New Testament. Had Solomon been writing, it probably would have been!

The word ‘phileo’ is a friendship kind of love, a brotherly kind of love, and affection that we have for one another. And this word actually shows up a number of times in the New Testament. Very quickly, we see that the word ‘phileo’ brotherly love, friendship love is used to describe the love of the Father for the Son in John 20, and it is used to describe God’s love for an individual believer in John 16:27, and it is used to describe Jesus’ love for one of his disciples in John 20:2. God displays brotherly love, affection, friendship for his Son.

Then there is another type of love called ‘agape.’ Agape is unconditional love. It has nothing to do with affection or shared interests or shared experience. It is the grace of the person doing the loving that extends unconditional love to another. We find this word being used again to refer to the love of the Father for the Son in John 3:35. We see that this word is used to describe God’s love for an individual believer in John 14:21. And it describes Jesus’ love for one of his disciples in John 13:23. God loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the Holy Spirit works with them to reveal them to us. It is a friendship love. It is an unconditional love. God exists in community in and of Himself. He is inherently relational and it is in that that we can understand that God is love.

6. Know that God’s love is unconditional, does that affect how we should respond to God? Why?

7. How has God expressed His unconditional to you? What does His unconditional love look practically speaking?

As the vision continues in Ezekiel 8:16-18, they bowed to the wrong God. They turned their backs on God and faced the wrong direction. In, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis says, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

8. What is it that gives us the ability to love?

9. Throughout the passage in 1 John 4, what things should the love of God compel us to do?

10. For believers in Christ instead of fear of as we anticipate the day of judgment, what should His love produce in us?

BOTTOMLINE God is love and the cross is the ultimate expression of it. It is the place where we see all of his attributes combined to bring change to our lives. The cross is the place where love changed everything. Change doesn’t begin by making a decision to start coming to church. Change doesn’t begin by us setting some new goals or trying to break some old habits or establish new patterns of thinking. Change doesn’t begin by us making a decision to try really, really hard. Change begins at surrender at the cross. It is the place where God’s perfect love was poured out to broken people for the purpose of changing everything. God is love.

God’s love is rooted in the fact that He is inherently relational. And all of his attributes are tied to this idea that He is love and his perfect love has been poured out. And when that happens, it changes everything.

REMEMBER THESE KEY THOUGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S STUDY

• The love of God that is probably the most popular and the least understood. • All the other characteristics of God are reflections and unique expressions of his love. • God is love doesn’t mean God is nice. • God is inherently relational and it is in that that we can understand that God is love • God’s perfect love drives out all fear.