Who Is God? - Exodus 34:6 - The Heart of Jesus

Sometimes we end up not being exactly who we thought we were or who we wish we were and that don't happen in our life until we get bumped a little bit, right? When something happens in our life and maybe we get a little bit off kilter, maybe we get a little bit tired, maybe we're a great person, great dad until we step on the Legos, right?

In the middle of the night. We're a great and generous person until one day we end up, you know, kind of maybe trying to actually do something for a homeless person and they wanted cash instead of a meal that we gave them or whatever, right? Like when something happens and we get bumped, this is the point, what is actually on the inside ends up coming out. What is on the inside will come out. It's kind of the idea of an aspirational value versus an actual value.

Anybody who's ever started a business or any kind of leadership team, we understand this. We put a bunch of stuff on paper about who we are, but sometimes those things are pretty aspirational. It's actually when you get bumped and get kind of put in a grinder that what's in there actually comes out. The illustration that I've used before is like a big pitcher of water like this, which I'm sure at our campuses you guys were thinking, man, he seems like he's really thirsty this week. But the idea here is that I could kind of act like I'm going to knock it over. What we understand is that right now at a moment of resting, this is just going to kind of sit there, right?

But if I begin to kind of wobble, if this table begins to wobble, it starts to shake. What is eventually going to happen is that what is inside comes outside. Now, here's the point that we're going to make this weekend, all right? You can't go and bump God to figure out what's going to come out of him. But if you were to bump him, what is most natural is what's going to come out. And if you were to bump God, what comes out of him may be a little bit different than maybe what we think would come out of him. Because what would come out of him would be something more akin to goodness, kindness, mercy, grace. These are the things that would come out of God, steadfast love, faithfulness, a God that is slow to anger. And this might be a God. This might be a version of God or vision of God that maybe you haven't considered or maybe you haven't thought about very well.

All right. I know if you're part of our part of our series, you've been in this you've been in this series, you've been walking through this with us. If I said to you, hey, man, what are the words that come to your mind to describe God? If you've been a part of this series, you're going to do something like this.

You're going to be like, hey, man, you fooled me once. OK, so what comes to my mind is not annoyed, frustrated, exacting. You know, what has come to my mind is not rigid. What's going to come to my mind is grace and mercy and all that. And that's good.

That means we're getting somewhere with this. But a lot of times in our most natural thoughts about God, what we think is, man, he's standing there with his thumb over our head and he's just ready to squash us. Because what is actually in him that would come out is wrath and it's rigid and it's annoyance and it's frustrated. But what we're going to see today from Exodus chapter 34 is really what comes out of God. What is most natural to him is the exact opposite of that.

Here's the big idea at all of our locations if you're taking notes today. All right. God is most naturally, most naturally merciful, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. You know, one of the greatest things that we're going to see today in our text is that God is not like us. What is most natural to us is not what is most natural to him. What is most natural to him actually is what is most unnatural to us. Many times we spend a lifetime trying to get what we want to be true of us on the outside, how we react. Man, the way that we think about things, how quick we are to anger, mercy, grace, forgiveness. We are so reluctant to forgive. We want those things to be very natural to us.

Guess what? They are natural to God. That's because of his heart.

It's because of who he is. And we're going to see that today in Exodus chapter 34. Actually, if you have a copy of scripture, I want to invite you to take it out and turn with me to Exodus chapter 34. Guys, as you're turning to Exodus 34 today, let me make a brief aside and let me tell you that one of the greatest things that we do all year as a church is happening here in about three weeks. OK, Kids Week is upon us. Hundreds of kids are going to descend across all of our campuses locations. And this, if your heart is to beat, is to move the needle for the Kingdom of God, then something like Kids Week is an absolute dream come true.

All right. I want you guys to hear at all of our locations, there will be hundreds of kids that come to our Kids Week. This very, you know, in the coming three weeks, in the last part of June, there are going to be hundreds of kids that hear about Jesus Christ one time a year. They get to hear about this God that we're going to talk about.

Merciful, gracious, slow to anger, steadfast in love and faithfulness once a year. There's going to be kids that come upon all of our campuses. Their home life is an absolute chaos. They don't hear about Christ.

Nobody ever says anything to them that's worth anything. No wisdoms be important, but they get to come here and maybe they get to learn that church is a refuge and God is a refuge for them. And this should fire us up, man. We should have, listen, Christians do radically normal things. I'm going to call you to something. We're about halfway where we need to be with our volunteerism right now.

OK, from people jumping off the sideline and getting into the front line and getting onto the game here. And I'm telling you, Christians do radically normal stuff like take off work so that they can come here for a day or a week. OK, that's the radical, normal Christian life. And I want to call you to do that. Entire groups need to be thinking about serving together.

If you absolutely can't get off work. Great news. We're doing a we're doing a almost a vacation Bible school. We're doing a kids week. OK, we're doing kids week for fourth and fifth grade at night at the student center.

Can't get off work. Great. We have a night option for you to serve alongside. I'll be there.

My oldest daughter will be there as well serving. So, hey, I hope you guys will jump in with us there. All right. Exodus 34. Let's talk about the God that we're going to be teaching about then during kids week. Here we go.

Read this with me. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But who will by no means clear the guilty? Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. Now, one of the great things about Exodus 34, and I don't have time to go back and get into all the history about where Moses is and how the golden calf and all the frustrations and all that kind of stuff. But what we find in Exodus 34 is that Moses has asked the bold, audacious ask. I mean, one of the biggest questions in all the Bible of God that Moses kind of asked in Exodus 33, one of the biggest faith questions, he says, I want to see your glory. And that comes out of Exodus chapter 33. And this passage that I shared with you already is sort of the response that God hides him. He passes by him.

He gives him his name and he says, hey, this is who I am. Now, this passage, Exodus 34, guys, it is one of the most foundational passages in all of scripture. Okay. And I know, I know it feels like even the last couple of months, I've said that a few times, like this is the most important passage. Okay. I know that. But, but, you know, statistically, all right, this passage is quoted more than any other passage in the scripture.

What I would say is like this. The way that John 3 16 is pervasive in our culture, Exodus 34 six is pervasive in the Bible. It is it is all over the scripture. It's quoted. It's referenced. Here's my question for this weekend.

Why? Why this passage where God says this is who I am? I think one of the reasons why is because we most naturally think the opposite way about God. What we think about when God comes to our mind, what we begin to think about is a harsh taskmaster judge, someone who is waiting to squash us like the bugs we are because we can't get it right. And he's sitting there with his arms folded toward us and he's angry and we don't see the tenderness and the mercy and maybe and the grace and the steadfast love and the faithfulness and the slowness, the anger.

Maybe that's why the Bible picks up on this theme over and over and over to try to get us to see, hey, the way in your sin that you will think about God is not actually the right way. Do you know how I know that we gravitate toward maybe the wrong view? Because let's read this again. All right. And you guys, if you've been around church or maybe if you're just kind of around church culture, you're going to you're going to know what I mean here. Let's read this one more time together.

Then I got then I got a question for you. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness. Verse seven, keeping steadfast love for thousands. And probably y'all just just by the way, probably means thousands of generations because he's about to talk about third and fourth generation. OK, so by thousands forgiving, iniquity and transgression and sin. But who will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation?

Here's my question. Of all of that that I just read, what is the one part of that that gets picked up on so pervasively in our culture? People who don't even know the Bible know this verse. Why do they know it? Because of God's bounding mercy and love and all that.

Or how many times have we heard in our culture? Well, you know, sins of the father. Right. Sins of the third and fourth generation. Like God is God is going to God is going to get you for that. Right. There are even our culture, people that don't know the Bible, they know this passage, but they know it for the wrong reason.

How about that? We all know part of the verse that keeps us from getting the point of the verse. The point of the verse is the contrast between, man, what do we actually think about God in his heart and who he actually is? Now, he is not a God that lets things slide.

And we're going to get into that. That's obvious from this passage. But also, he is a God who when, listen, when you shake him, what would come out most naturally is grace, mercy, abounding and steadfast love, faithfulness and a slowness to anger.

My point is this. We think about God as vengeful, taskmaster, judge. We think about him with his thumb over our head. But in Exodus chapter 33, when Moses goes for the big, bold ask, God says, OK, I'm going to pass by you. I'm going to pass by you and I'm going to declare who I am to you. And you're going to see my glory.

And listen, this is the point. When Moses sees and understands and experiences the glory of God, the manifest presence of God, he doesn't just experience God's greatness. He experiences his goodness as well. God's glory isn't just about his greatness. It's about his goodness. It's not just about lightning flashing and thunder clapping. It's not just about creator, sovereign, righteous judge, which he is all those things.

OK, don't don't don't misunderstand what I'm saying. He is all those things. Gloriously, he is all of those things. But he's not just those things. When Moses says in Exodus 33, I want to see your glory, God says to him, I will show you my goodness.

Mercy, grace, slow to anger, abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness. He proves to be good toward us. You know, there's a famous theologian that had a famous quote, and I think the famous quote is really apt here. Here's what A.W.

Tozer said. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. What comes into your mind, church? What comes into your mind when you think about God? Do you see him as the righteous judge, sovereign, lightning flashing on the mountain? That's part of it.

That can never be a race. It needs to be there and celebrate and worship for that. But at the same time, do we also see that he is tender toward us, that his heart is not divided? You know, we talk about the heart of Christ and somebody you might say, well, in the Old Testament, are we talking about God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Spirit, all this?

I think the point of this passage, Exodus 33, should really show us the heart of God, Father, Son and Spirit is not divided. Okay, this is who he is in all of his fullness. You shake him and what is going to come out is goodness. There are five ways that God has described here. Actually, let me say that way more to the point that God describes himself here. Okay, there are five things that God says about himself.

And here's what he says. I'm not going to go through one through five and group a couple of them together. The first one is this. God says, I am merciful and gracious. So that's really the first two. Okay, mercy and grace. You know, I've explained to you this before and I'm going to go ahead and give you a definition again.

It'll be on the screen. Mercy is not receiving what is deserved. That's something that's being withheld. I deserve this sentence.

I deserve this punishment, right? And it's being withheld. It's the hand of God staying what is deserved. But grace is different. Grace is receiving what isn't deserved. Okay, grace is you didn't deserve this and there's nothing that you could have done to earn this. What you have done is not good enough for what I am giving you.

One commentator said it like this. He said, man, I'm a professor and it'd be like somebody turning in a paper that's a C paper. But what they asked me is they say, hey, man, bump my grade up, give me an A, have a little grace. That's not grace. Grace isn't you did some of the work and got a C and I'm going to bump you up a little bit. Grace is, hey, man, you have done nothing to deserve this. Grace is I'm going to step in, write the paper for you, then grade it myself and give you an A plus. That would be grace. Mercy, something is withheld.

Grace is that something is given. Let me talk very, very specifically here to many of us at our different locations this weekend. Listen, I know this because we're in a church in the south is growing. And here's what that means. That means there's a lot of people that are jumping in, which is awesome.

We're so excited for that. But I don't know. Some of us might be coming in to have all of this religious kind of background.

And here's what's going on. Something is off with your relationship with God. And you're not quite sure what it is.

It's like, man, I feel like I'm doing the thing. Like I go to church some and I'm trying to be good and all that. But for some reason, like there's not, I'm not as fired up as I see other people, you know.

I'm not feeling, you know what, maybe the problem, there could be a lot of problems, but you know what? Maybe one of the main problem is maybe you don't understand the concept of grace at its most basic level. That maybe what is going on, this happens all in the south, all right? Maybe what's going on is you're trying to barter with God a little bit.

And what you're saying is, God, I'll reluctantly give you my religion if you reluctantly give me your salvation. I mean, you see this all the time. Like people, I've heard people say like, man, I'm trying to get in the pearly gates, okay?

I ain't trying to win no awards, but I'm just trying to get there. I've heard people say kind of things like that. What are they doing? They're bartering with their life.

They're saying, hey, I'm going to do a little bit of the thing and I'm hoping that I'm going to get something back from you. And that's going to be my relationship with you and it misses the concept of grace. You know, a very famous preacher once told this story, Charles Spurgeon. He told the story of mercy and grace.

And here's what he said. He said there was once a farmer, you know, a long, long time ago, fairy tale type, you know, a long time ago. And he had, you know, a peasant farmer and he had this beautiful garden or whatever. And he grew the greatest carrot that has ever been.

Man, it was the most full, it was the biggest, it was the greatest carrot that's ever been. And he was so excited about the king and the way that he got to live in peace. And he was so grateful for his family and the fact that this king was a good king. You know, the Proverbs talks about that, that a good king is such a, you know, just such a blessing to the people that he, the immediate thought that came in his mind was, man, I want to bless my king because of what he has given me. He has given us himself. He has given us protection.

Man, he is, you know, he is with us. I want to give him this. And so he goes to the king and he says, King, this is the greatest carrot I've ever produced in my garden.

I've been gardening my whole life. And I want you to have it because I love you and I'm so grateful for you. And the king was overwhelmed. I mean, this is a king that owns everything. You're not giving him something that ain't his. Like he could go, he could just, I mean, it's all his, you know, in this kind of, you know, government system and all of that.

The king is so overwhelmed. He looks at the gardener on the way out the farmer and he says to the farmer, he says, hey, I have a plot of land in the field that is beyond your wildest imagination. And I want you to have it. I want you to have it and garden from it. I want the, I want it to be under your care because of how you have blessed me this day. And the farmer is just over, I mean, it's just, he's undone.

I mean, was not expecting this, tears, the whole thing. Well, there's a nobleman that hears everything that's going on. And the nobleman says, man, if my man, if my boy got that for a carrot, what's he going to get for my pride stallion from my herd?

I'm a horse breeder and a horse trader. And so he comes the next day and he comes to the king and he says, oh, great, you know, wonderful king or whatever. And he says, I love you so much. I have a gift for you. And I want you to have the pride of my herd of horses and I'm bringing you this beautiful stallion, this rocked up huge, you know, horse and beautiful, kingly horse. And to his absolute shock and amazement, the king, very discerning, looks at him and says, thank you. It takes the horse.

All right. And the guy's dumbstruck. Man, I just gave away the greatest, you know, possession that I have and the greatest sire in all of my herd. And the king explained to him later, he said, you know, that farmer gave me the carrot, but you were trying to give yourself this horse.

You understand what I'm getting at? You're trying to barter with something in order to get something from a king that you really don't love and that you don't feel like has given you the greatest gift already, which is himself. You're trying to gain something from him. I wonder how many of us today, it's a simple, man, something's wrong with my relationship with God.

It's as simple as this. You don't quite understand grace. You're trying to barter. What can I bring God that he'll give me just enough? What can I bring that he'll bless me? And you don't quite realize, man, in our sin and in our depravity, there is nothing to bring and everything to gain. And when we begin to understand that, man, it unlocks our heart to see God for who he is. Merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

And we begin to be overwhelmed by who he is and the fact that he would choose us at all. The next one is this. All right. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to group. I'm going to kind of group off all three of these together. Exodus 34 six, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

That's really three things. OK, so if I was going to break this down, mercy, grace, and then we get into the slowness to anger, steadfast love and to faithfulness. But I'm going to try to bring them together a little bit here. All right. The first I'm going to go through him pretty quick.

The first one says this, that God is slow to anger. Can we see? Remember what we're trying to do? All right. Remember what we're trying to do. Who is God? If I you can't bump God.

OK. But if you could bump him, what is most natural? Man, we're good at covering up what's most natural. We get a little bumped. We get a little tired. What's natural comes out.

What's on the inside will come out. If you could bump God, what would come out? Man, the third thing on this list is that if you bumped him, unlike us, he is slow to anger. I don't know about anybody else during this whole series, but I'm going to tell you, for me, this is the one.

And this is what of the last seven weeks in this series that is the quickest to bring tears to my eyes. Because I begin to realize his great patience with me. That he is so slow to anger. Paul Paul said this. I mean, a former persecutor of the church turned into saint.

We just gloss right over that. That this is the type of God that can take even that heinous sin of our past. Threats, murdering.

I mean, all and bring all. And what is what is Paul? How does Paul sum that up in 1 Timothy? He says, God has great patience with me. He has great patience. You know, my quote, and this is why it brings tears to my eyes quickly, is like young professional. How quick, how slow to anger are we with our co-workers?

Right. You think about you think about somebody who's in the classroom, maybe a teacher or coach. How slow to anger are we with those that we have been put in charge of? I mean, certainly for me, you think about parents. How quick to anger are we with our kids?

Can we not see here? This is what is so mind blowing to me that when I think about my own life and I think about how quick to anger I can be or at least how I can lack patience with maybe those around me or maybe my kids at times or whatever. And I realize, what is God doing in the very moment that I'm not doing it? You understand?

I mean, think about it. God demonstrates His great patience in the moment that we are showing none. When we're showing none is when He is showing His great patience towards us.

Guys, you bump Him, that's what comes out. You know, the second thing that we see here is that He's abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Those aren't the same thing, but for the sake of time I'm going to treat them together here. Man, this idea of a love and a faithfulness, I think the idea here is that it goes on and on and on. It is a loyal love.

It is a love that is there and is unending. You know, we have a team right now in the hot jungle of Peru right now, okay? And this is so exciting for me because I just think about, man, the last couple of years and COVID and people, you know, man, the planes got grounded, you know.

We didn't have our teams going out. It's one of the things I love about this church. I'm fired up about our direction for missions. There's nothing greater, I think, to getting people into long-term habits of giving, praying, and going to the nations than short-term trips.

And so to see the planes get back to going again, I'm really excited about this for our church. And so I've been thinking about them. They're in the high jungle of Peru right now, and I've been there. Man, I've been there multiple times with our teams.

Man, we have a team that is there now, Caleb and Morgan, raised up from this church, college ministry all the way. Now they're there reaching an indigenous people group in the high jungle, but I've been there. And one of the shocking things about where you go, where they are, where our team is right now, is that so much of the time when you're driving around, you'll look up, and you're in the mountains, but it's a total jungle, okay? It's a green jungle, but it's a mountain. And right out of the top of those mountains, you'll be driving, and you'll just see one after another after another, massive cascading waterfalls. And they're not halfway down the mountain. I mean, they're at the very top, and they're cascading down. And what that shows you is somewhere up on that river, there are springs that are feeding, and they're cascading, and they're feeding the river, and it's cascading out, and it's gushing.

And they've been doing it for a thousand years. This is a good word picture for us, loyal love. Man, there is a spring bubbling. This is what's in God's heart. There is a steadfast love. There is a faithfulness that is bubbling and overflowing.

Been doing it since time began. Even before that, a thousand years, these waterfalls are going. It's just a picture of what God is like in His heart. Man, that is gushing, and His love overflows for us.

This is what God is like, five things. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful picture for us. We're going to stand in awe of this and remember this and worship today. Actually, our one application here in just a few minutes is just going to be worship, and sit, and think about, and remember, and communion, and all that kind of stuff. But we're not quite there yet, okay? Because I've got to make sure that we understand that verse 6 and 7 go together.

Now, this is what we've got to get into here, and I want to make the point. You get into the five things I just mentioned, grace, mercy, slow to anger, steadfast love, faithfulness. Somebody might, and there could have been people in this day that might have said, well, okay, God is those things. He would never hold us accountable for sin, right? Like, you know, where's His justice? Where's His righteousness in all of this? And that's why verse 7 goes right together with it. Look what it says, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. The last piece of this, before we get into applying any of this, that we've got to see is, man, do not get it twisted. That we do see that what is most natural to God is mercy and grace, but at the same time, He will hold accountable everyone for everything they have ever done. We have a choice. Will God have poured out His wrath on me over my sin, or will He pour His wrath out on another? And we're going to get into that.

But before we get into that, what we've got to see is this phrasing here. How can we serve a God that both forgives, but He also doesn't clear? He forgives those who come to Him in repentance, but the Scripture said here that He visits the iniquity. He will not clear the guilty. Well, what does this mean?

It's very simple. When we come to Him in repentance, because of the gospel, because of what Christ has done, there is forgiveness that is available for us. But if we do not do this, then we will by no means be forgiven. That the sin in our life, we will be held accountable for it. I know that this is a famous passage.

People say this all the time. You know, the sins of the Father are passed down and all that kind of stuff. What people don't understand is that the passage is getting at when the sins of the Father are passed down to the kids, meaning that when children walk in the sins of their fathers, they will experience the punishment of their fathers too. It's not like, oh, my father sinned and I'm getting the punishment. The idea here is, no, no, it's not like I have a disease and you have the effects of it.

No, it's like I have the disease and you caught the disease for me, and now you're experiencing the effects of it. This is the God that we serve, and this is where, listen, it gets very deep. Because how can we have a God where you have these two glorious truths that come together? Number one, there is something about this God and his mercy, grace, and his steadfast love that allows him to be the type of God that if you bump him, what comes out is forgiveness, and what comes out is a heart that is leaping to forgive and to bring you in. And at the same time, he is a God who will not clear the guilty. Man, how do these two things begin to come together?

We need it to come together. If you look around the world, you know, I said this earlier, God ain't like us, right? What's most natural to him is the opposite for us.

But you know what else we need to understand today? Man, God is unlike any other God. God. God is like any other deity that's worshipped.

This is why he is so different. I want you to think about the deities that come to your mind. There are so-called gods in the world that will absolute delight in handing out punishment. I mean, this is what they want to do. The old timer would say they would climb a tree to get to punish somebody.

They'll stand on their head to get to slap somebody down, you know? There's that type of deity figure in the world. Of course, where we live, maybe in sort of the spiritual climate that we're in now, it's kind of the opposite. It's like, man, there's a God who is full of grace and mercy and all that, but he would never, ever, you know, actually hold somebody accountable for their sin. What I want you guys to see is that we need this deity, the true deity.

We need a God who holds these two glorious truths together. If there was a God who all he did was live to slap us down, we could never love him. And if there is a God who would never hold people accountable for sin, we would look around the world and we would see race-based shootings like the one in Buffalo, ten people murdered. We would see Uvalde and the school shootings. We would see church murders, California. Man, we would see things that break our heart, denomination, churches, sex abuse cases coming out, stonewalling.

We would see all those things, and then all of a sudden, we would look at a God and we would say, God, really? You're not a God that would do justice? If there's a God that lives to do nothing but slap us down, we could never love him. If there is a God who would never step in and intervene and pour out his wrath over sin, I don't know how we could trust him, right? I don't know how we could be drawn to actually say he is worthy of our worship. Thankfully, the God of the Bible, you have this unique deity, this God who says, Man, my heart gushes with mercy and grace, but at the same time, don't get it twisted. Verse 7, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. How do we have a God where both of those things are true? This ain't a God who would stand on his head to slap somebody down.

He'd stand on his head to forgive, and at the same time, he will not clear the guilty when they have not current to him in repentance. Man, what is the fullest picture of this? I hope you guys are seeing this. Don't you see Jesus in this? Don't you see the cross?

Don't you see where all this is going? Man, the mercy and the grace and the justice and righteousness. Man, where the mercy and grace of God shines and dazzles like a diamond in the sun, and yet his justice and his righteousness are vindicated, happens in the cross. And this is what the Bible does.

You know, this text is very connected. You know, Moses, I love this. Moses says, Show me your glory, and God says, My word is not the Bible. You better get your sunglasses on, okay?

Let me hide you, because this is how this is going to go. But where do we see even a fuller picture of the glory of God? We see it in the face of Jesus Christ, right? Well, what does John 1 say? John 1 says this, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Remember, glory is not just greatness, though it is, but it's his goodness, glory as of the only Son from the Father, listen, filled with grace and truth. Where can God gush with grace and mercy and stand on his head to pull people into himself, and yet have everything that he ever said about sin and righteousness and holiness be true? Man, it all comes together when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lives an absolutely sinless life, but then says, Out of love for you, I will go to the cross, where his grace and mercy and justice and righteousness all collide.

One dazzles, one is vindicated. And this is what we have in the cross. Man, Jesus Christ went to the cross to die, to take the penalty of our sin. God could forgive us of our sin because his wrath was rightly poured out on Christ.

Now, what do we do, right? Because the Bible said he forgives some, and some he never clears. Would you repent of your sin?

Would you come to him in faith? That's what the Bible calls us to do, that we would come to him, even this very weekend. I know that next weekend, listen, if you're a part of Mercy Hill, you got to know, next weekend is Who's Your One. You got people you've been thinking about bringing, bring them next weekend, okay?

But this weekend, there's probably a lot of people here. And you're here and you say, man, what do I do? He forgives, and yet he doesn't clear the guilty. Have you repented of your sin and put your faith in Christ?

Or are you still trying to barter, reluctantly give some of your life, so that you can get some of God's salvation? Y'all, here's what we're going to do, man. We're going to go into a time at all of our locations where our elders and campus pastors are going to be, actually, they're closing the sermon this weekend, okay? They've got the conclusion, so I'm just going to try to set them up here. But here's what we're going to do.

This is the only application this weekend. Remember God's goodness. And that's an easy way for me to say mercy, grace, slow to anger, abounding and steadfast love, and faithfulness, right? Remember his goodness and worship him for it. God's glory manifests itself not just in his greatness, but in his goodness as well, in his forgiving and in his yet not clearing. There is not one sin. There is not one injustice. There is not one bit of brokenness that will not be righted. God's wrath will be poured out over all sin.

Either Jesus took it for people who put their faith in him and repent, or it will be poured out upon humanity for all time in a place called hell. You know, I've wanted to say this, I've waited for a sermon to do it. Guys, there's so much that we can say, and we'll continue to talk about these things. But don't you understand that this is the framework for how we view the world, in a world with Buffalo, in a world with Uvalde, in a world with sex abuse reports that come out and stonewalling denominations and all this. This is how we have to view it and see it. We've got to realize together, wait a minute, we serve a God who sees it all. We talked about a God whose heart breaks even though he knows he's going to fix everything. We see that with Christ. We see that with Lazarus.

Man, his heart breaks. But we also see his justified wrath over these things. And that either perpetrators and offenders, they will bear the brunt of that wrath for all time in a place called hell. Or even they, man, they turn and they repent. And even they experience the grace of God. And Jesus Christ has taken it for them. Don't we understand what Paul said? I am the chief of sinners.

He understood. But for God's great grace and great patience, I am the chief of sinners. Even the most heinous crime. And I'm not saying they shouldn't face just consequences in this world.

They absolutely should. But in terms of a relationship with God, there is nothing under the sun that falls out of the purview of his grace. And yet we have a God that says, man, I can forgive even that. But if not, one of the ways I can wipe away tears is you fully understanding my wrath will be poured out and every wrong will be righted. Now, you may not put yourself in that camp today. You may say, man, you're talking about big tragedies in the world or whatever.

OK, but this is what Paul said in First Timothy one. He said, man, even me. Man, can we not get there in our own heart and realize like, yeah, I don't I don't you know, I have no idea what's in everybody's past.

I mean, I don't know. But what I do know is, man, there are many of us that have dealt with pride. There's many people that have dealt with sexual sin.

There's many people that have dealt with a lack of patience or outbursts of anger or a million other things that should absolutely bar us. That the wrath of God should bear down upon us. And yet Christ has stood in for us while we should never be cleared and we should eternally be guilty. Man, we can be the ones who are counted as forgiven. Do you know why that is? Because you can't do it. But if you could bump him, what would come out is grace and mercy, slow to anger, steadfast love and faithfulness.