In the sermon 'Why Study God's Attributes?', Greg Dowdall explores the importance of understanding the attributes of God as revealed in Scripture and through the Holy Spirit. He emphasizes that knowing about God is different from truly knowing Him, which requires the Holy Spirit's guidance. Dowdall highlights examples from the Bible, such as God's interaction with Adam, Noah, and Moses, to demonstrate how God reveals Himself to humanity. He discusses the significance of faith in bridging the gap between human understanding and divine revelation, and how faith is crucial for accepting the redemption offered through Jesus Christ. The sermon underscores the completeness of Christ's work and encourages believers to pursue a deeper relationship with God, characterized by holiness and love, through studying His attributes and applying them in their lives.

This morning Doug is still taking some caution. He is feeling better, but he asked me to speak again this morning and yeah, amen. You would think that with six days of preparation, I would be in more confidence than I had with six hours, but for some reason this morning, I need to calm my spirits and ask for God's guidance. So if you would join me in prayer, that the handling of His word would be done as He would see fit. Heavenly Father, just come this morning with a humble heart, all bringing humble hearts to you that we may even be blessed with the presence of your word.

The revelation of your self to us may be sought this morning through your scriptures. Father, where our understanding fails, may our faith fill the gap. May we trust that the work to be done in our lives is inspired, that the redemption necessary for it to be received is complete. Father, we lift it up this morning to you that it may be received as holy, as pure, that the sinful man delivering it would be cast to the side. It would be your words spoken upon hearts that you've prepared.

Father, reveal our sin to us. That we may bask in your glory ever so more. We may bask in your holiness ever so more. We may rest in the work of Christ. In Jesus' name, Amen.

My goal was to pick up on what we left off of last week. Last week we touched on what it meant to study the attributes of God. And as I thought this week we left, the last scripture that was read last week was Luke 10 verse 20 and as a quick reminder and as a review of last week the context of chapter 10 of Luke is Jesus sending out 72 disciples to do the work of Christ. They went out and they healed, they cast out demons, and they came back rejoicing with excitement. And they came to Jesus and they said, "'Lord, look at all these things we've done.

"'Ease in the demons. "'Fall at the sound of your name.'" It's a paraphrase, forgive me. And Jesus' response is this, but don't rejoice just because evil spirits obey you. Rejoice because your names are registered as citizens of heaven. And I pondered that this week.

I thought about what does it take, what is necessary for our names to be registered as citizens of heaven. If you continue with the context of this, Jesus has not died yet. Jesus is not paid for the sins of these men, but yet their names are already written as citizens of heaven. And this ever so more goes to support the fact that God's work was planned before the beginning of time. That you were given a purpose before the beginning of time.

That the deeds that you would do in His name were orchestrated perfectly, that your failures would be used perfectly. So oftentimes we focus on our failures and we consider ourselves unworthy. There's two parts of that. Part number one is that's good, that we see the difference between ourself and the holiness of God. But the second part is that we must not forget that the work of Christ is complete in the forgiveness of your sins and that you are received as perfect and holy in God's sight because Christ was seen as impure and disgusting during the time of crucifixion when the wrath of God was poured out on him.

So this week I was going through the book, just kind of reviewing some things, Behold Your God, and it goes through a lot of the attributes of God. And I was thinking about what it really means to study the attributes of God. It's kind of like, well first of all we know that in Genesis that we were made in his image and his likeness not to be God but to reflect him to be a mirror of him and if you think about waking up in the morning how many of you speaking of myself mainly wake up in the morning expecting to see something, and you look and you thought, whoa, that was not what I expected to see. It was an image that we did not have of ourself. It was a unrefined image.

It was an accurate image. It was a perfect image. Much of this illustration can be used when we look at God. We seek the attributes of God through the Bible. We find the attributes of God are perfect, Holy, pure.

And then we look at ourself, we find that we are anything but that. There is a difference between knowing the attributes of God and knowing God. We can know the dates and the times of the prophets and we can know the scripture in our head, but if we don't know it in our heart, we're missing something. Let me give you an example. There's somebody famous who has some kind of some distant connections to this church.

Jim Tomey, some of you will know, He's a famous baseball player who played in the major leagues for quite a quite some time. He had a great aunt who attended this church faithfully and so By default I came to know who jim tommy was before he was a major league player before he was a First known as a first base power first base playing power hitter before he was in the Hall of Fame. But as time grew by, my interest of him, I began to know his character. He was a player that in the midst of lots of controversy with steroids and things, he was still a power hitter who was viewed as, for lack of better terms, clean, pure. He was a good example.

I at one time knew his statistics. I knew a lot about him, but I still didn't know this man, Jim Tomey. Because you see what it would take for me to know him further would be for him to reach out to me and reveal himself to me. He would take him showing me things, intricate things about himself, like what keeps him awake at night? And what are his goals when his baseball career comes to an end?

What are his values as a family man? You see, we see that same example in God. We can come to study the attributes of God, but unless we have the Holy Spirit to minister to us, we will miss really, truly knowing God. There is a peace that comes when we study the attributes of God. The peace comes from knowing that from the beginning of time, from day one of Adam, God has chosen to make himself known.

He's not hidden himself. He has chosen to make himself known. For example, Adam and Eve, the intention was for them to be in communion with God in the Garden of Eden, to live together in peace and harmony. God chose Adam Amongst all the other things that he created, he gave boundaries. He gave boundaries to the fish and said, you are to live in the sea.

He gave boundaries to the birds and said, you are to live by the air. He gave boundaries to the trees and the plant life and said, you're to live with roots in the ground. And he gave man responsibility to take care of it. It was God's intention to live in communion with Adam, to bless Adam with responsibility of his own creation. God reveals himself as not only creator from Genesis, he reveals himself as father.

And as Adam sins in the Garden of Eden and that communion is broken, he sends him out. But he reveals himself in another way. I touched on it last week. He reveals himself as a God of grace, because he said that when you eat of this tree, this fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, surely you will die. But this man, Adam, made of dirt, God showed grace towards.

Now he lived with a consequence. He lived with having to be cast out of the garden, but He was given grace. He was provided for. He was given clothing. He was given, as we talked about last week, his wife to live with.

He was given his new responsibilities. He was told what his burden would be And what to expect from his burden. You see God from day one, his creator and father, but he was God of grace. We can learn as we study the attributes of God, he reveals himself through prophets of the old time. It says that Noah walked with God.

We know that Noah had an intimate relationship with God because God chose Noah to do a faithful thing, to build an ark at a time when rain had never been talked of, never been spoken of. We talked of rain last week, we talked about the immensity of one inch of rain, yet 40 days of rain. We know what rain is, But we can't imagine 40 days of rain We can't imagine the earth being covered Noah was faithful God revealed himself as faithful to Noah by providing himself, by providing Noah with safety and security. Moses, God revealed himself to Moses through the commandments. Moses proved himself faithful when he chose to leave Pharaoh, and God revealed himself by giving us commandments.

Now there were other prophets, other examples all throughout the Old Testament that God chooses to reveal Himself to us. That those may have known the statistic of God, but if all you have is the statistic of God, then all you have is an idol. If all you have is religion towards God, all you have is an idol. If all you have is religion towards God, all you have is an idol. We ought to pray daily as we seek the attributes of God, as We seek scripture that the Holy Spirit would speak to us that we may know God and that he would reveal himself to us.

Probably one of the overarching themes that we get from the Old Testament as we study God's attributes is God's holiness and our sinfulness. Much of the illustration of the mirror resides here. We study who God is in the Old Testament. God is a good God who reveals himself. He is a faithful God.

He is a just God. He is a saving God. We are unfaithful. We cannot save ourselves. We are limited in knowledge in ways that he is infinite We can rejoice for many reasons that he's made himself known Well, I want to take a minute to study this part of being holy.

From Adam, from the beginning of Adam's sin, we became a people unworthy of being in his presence and God is holy and set apart. We see that example. In fact, we're set apart from all frames of reference to which he is not bound and we are bound. He is set apart from time. He is infinite.

We are bound by the constraints of our perception of what life is without Christ. He is set apart from power because he is omnipotent. We are bound by the constraints of what our fleshly body can do. He is set apart from knowledge. He's omniscient.

He's all-knowing. We are bound by the constraints of which we can only squeeze information into our head, let alone understand it. He is set apart from boundaries. He is everywhere at once. We are one place at once.

He is set apart from evil because He is all good and we are bound by sin. These characteristics by themselves without the working of the Holy Spirit, with only having a one-way knowledge of God, essentially make God appear unsearchable. And on the surface, this is rightfully so, because How can an infinite God truly be found by men who are limited in so many ways? We are limited by simple things, gravity, oxygen, food, nutrients, companionship. We are bound by all these things.

How can we search for a God who is all of the above? The God who is infinite, a God who is omnipotent, a God who is all-knowing, a God who has no boundaries, and a God who is all good. Alone by ourselves, we cannot find him. He must reveal himself to us. The good news that we can rejoice of is that all throughout history, he has chosen to make himself known to us.

Can I get an amen? Romans 1 20 says, for from the creation of the world his invisible attributes both his eternal power and deity are discerned clearly, being understood in the things created so that they are without excuse. God has chosen to reveal I want to go to Ephesians 1, 1 through 14. Knowing who God is is not enough. We must be in a communion of fellowship with God.

The intimacy of God is not in creation. It's not understanding his statistics. It's an understanding and receiving his redemption. God is a redeeming God. It has been his quality from the very start.

Ephesians 1. How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, because we belong to Christ. Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his holy and his only family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ and this gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his dearly loved son.

He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his son. And our sins are forgiven. He's showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. God's plan has now been revealed to us. It is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure.

And this is his plan. At the right time, he will bring everything under the authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because of Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for He chose us from the beginning. And all things happened just as He decided long ago. God's purpose was that we who were the first to trust in Christ praise our glorious God.

And now you also have the truth, the good news that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own son by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us everything he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. This is just one more reason for us to praise our glorious God. Verse 10, no verse 9, God's plan has been revealed.

It's a plan centered on Christ. In the Old Testament, God revealed himself initially by walking with Adam, secondarily by proclaiming himself and his goodness and his attributes through his prophets, but today he reveals himself through Christ. He chose you from the beginning. It was decided long ago. And the purpose was that we should praise our glorious God.

If God is holy, if he's all those things, The obvious question is how, how can we come to peace with the fact that God has done this great thing for us? As I open in prayer, and it's often something that I struggle with, is the understanding, the lack of understanding for God, of God and about God. What fills that gap is faith. How can man be made right with God? How is man considered righteous?

I want to go through Hebrews chapter 11. You don't have to follow. It's a long, long chapter and I'm going to read it to its near entirety. But I invite you to just close your eyes and meditate on the scripture of these great examples of faith. Hebrews 11.

What is faith? It's the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It's the evidence of things we cannot see. God gave his approval to people in days of old because of their faith. By faith, we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command.

That what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying. It was by faith that Noah built an ark to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God who warned him about something that had never happened before.

By his faith, he condemned the rest of the world and was made right in God's sight. It was by faith that Abraham obeyed God when he called him to leave his home to go to another land that God would give him as an inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigner living in a tent. So did Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the same promise.

Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to the city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. It was by faith that Sarah, together with Abraham, was able to have a child, even though they were too old. It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. It was by faith that Isaac blessed his two sons, Jacob and Esau. It was by faith that Jacob, when he was old and dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons and bowed in worship as he leaned on his staff.

It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, confidently spoke of God's bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt. He was so sure of it that he commanded them to carry his bones with them when they left. It was by faith that Moses' parents hid him for three months. They saw that God had given them an unusual child and they were not afraid of what the king might do. It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be treated as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He chose to share the oppression of God's people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of the Messiah than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the great reward that God would give him. It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt. He was not afraid of the king. Moses kept right on going because he kept his eye on the one who was invisible.

It was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover and to sprinkle blood on the doorposts so that the angel of death would not kill their firstborn sons. It was by faith that the people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as they were on dry ground, but the Egyptians were all drowned. It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho seven days and walls came crashing down It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute did not die with all the others in the city who refused to obey God How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets. By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them.

They shut the mouths of lions Quenched the flames of fire and escaped death by edge of the sword Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. Women received their loved ones back again from the death. But others trusted God and were tortured, preferring to die rather than turn from God and be free. They placed their hope in the resurrection to a better life.

Some were mocked and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in dungeons. Some died by stoning and some were sawed in half. Others were killed with the sword. Some went about in skins of sheep and goats, hungry and oppressed and mistreated.

They were too good for this world. They wandered over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. All of these people we have mentioned received God's approval because of their faith. Yet none of them had received what God had promised. For God had far better things in mind for us, that we would also benefit from them.

For they can't receive the prize at the end of the race until we finish the race. So I ask you in the midst of the race, where is your faith? Romans 1, 16 through 17. 16 through 17. Paul says this.

If you're unsure how you can be made holy, it's by the death of Christ and faith in Christ, faith that his blood was pure enough to cover the ugliness of your sin. Romans 1, 16, for I am not ashamed of the good news about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes, Jews first and also Gentiles. This good news tells us how God makes us right in His sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.

As the scriptures say, it is through faith that a righteous person has life. It's not coincidence that Paul quotes the Old Testament in saying that it is through faith that a righteous person has life. Where can we come across faith? Where do we get faith? How can we get our hands on some of this faith?

Romans 10, verse 17. Faith comes from listening and hearing the good news, the good news about Christ. Are you studying Christ? Are you studying the attributes of God? Are you studying the revelation of Christ so that your faith can be built?

Or Are you trying to physically overpower your conscience to convince yourself that God is real? That's not enough. Faith comes from hearing the good news of Christ. Search Christ, seek him so that the Holy Spirit may minister to you and reveal himself to you. Second Peter One.

One, Peter addresses where this faith comes from. It's not a conscious subjection of will. It's not that we can change our mind. Our mind will always revert back to sin. But faith is revealed to us here.

I am writing to all of you who share the same precious faith we have. Faith given to us by Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, who makes us right with God. Where does faith come from? Faith is given to us by Christ. It's revealed to us.

I'm just gonna read the next part of 2 Peter because he goes into exactly what we're talking about. Knowing Jesus better, knowing God better, knowing Christ better. As we know Jesus better, this is verse 3, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness. And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises.

He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature? What is this promise? This promise is that as we know Jesus better, As we know the qualities of God better, our heart will conform to His, and we will be ridden of sin. Is this evidence in your life? So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life.

Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians.

And finally, you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind, or at least very short-sighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them of their own life of sin. So dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you are really among those God has called and chosen.

Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away, and God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Pursue the qualities of God. Pursue Christ. Seek him that he may reveal himself to you. Seek him through faith.

When there are areas of gaps of void knowledge, seek him in faith. Seek him in fellowship. Seek him in studying the word of God. Make every effort to apply the benefits of seeking Him to your life. Work hard to prove that you are among those God has called and chosen in these ways.

God will open the wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are so limited. We We are so limited. We are so small.

We are but man-made of dirt. Yet you have chosen to reveal yourself, not in part, but in whole. Your plan was perfect in every way from start to finish. That your will is to commune with us like you did with Adam in the Garden of Eden. That our sins separated ourselves from you, yet you provided grace.

Father, through the times of old, Your prophets were chosen by you To carry your word to herald it forth among nations Who were despicable Father without you we find ourselves among those nations Father as you faithfully proved to be just Your grace to Adam still carried with it the punishment for sin. Father, your patience holding it back. Even though God, you gave Adam a consequence, you did not give him your wrath. Father, as you are faithful to give us consequences, Father, you have dealt your wrath upon your Son. That through that dealing, through that pouring of wrath, Father, our sins may be forgiven and we may be seen as holy and blameless in your sight.

We were once your enemy and Father now we're seated at your table. Jesus, thank you. Jesus, thank you. Father, create in us a pure heart, one that seeks pure things, One that seeks truth, truth in your word, truth in scripture, and truth in you as you've revealed about yourself through your Son in Christ. Father, let us not put our hope in our works.

Our works are filthy rags. May we not put our hope in religion, for that creates idols. Father, let us Father, let us be reminded that we are sick without you, and we need a doctor. Father, let us have a burning desire to empty ourselves of sin. And may that emptiness in our hearts be filled with the ministering of the Holy Spirit, with the knowledge of you, with an understanding of you, with the revelation of your holiness.

And the reality that the chasm created between us and you is far too deep for us to cross alone. It's filled with the blood of your son Christ. Father, may we stand in your presence this morning and sing hymns to rejoice and to celebrate what you've done. Rejoice, to celebrate what you've done. Father, that you've opened wide the gates of heaven to enter, enter the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Father, we praise you. We lift your name up for all that you've done. But most importantly, Father, for you reaching down to reveal yourself to us. We give you thanks in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.