All right, everybody, welcome to Valley Creek. We're so glad you're here with us today. We are in a series called Yahweh – the Lord your God. We're just taking some time to talk about who God is and what He is like. If you were here with us last week, we got about halfway through Part One of God is good. We pressed pause and we left you with some questions. 

We left you with some questions to think about during the week, like, do you really think that God is good? Do you believe that God is good? Is there evidence in your life that shows and supports that you live like God is good? Where do you question the goodness of God and what is that costing you in your life? I hope you took some time to think on those this week. Because, remember, the point is not just gathering in here, having a good hour and then just going back out into our lives. No, this is a training center, an equipping center. We want to be disciples, learners, students, followers; one who becomes like the One that we're following. If your faith doesn't work on Monday or Tuesday afternoon or Friday night, it doesn't work. Sometimes, we've got to take things, we've got to think about them and we've got to repent, change our mind, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. 

Change your mind, because the goodness of God is within reach of you. What I'd like to do is just set up Part One again to get everybody back on the same page and then we'll go to Part Two. You good with me on that? The Israelites, Moses, are moving with God from the past to the future, from Egypt to the Promised Land, and "Moses says to God, 'Now show me Your glory.' The Lord (Yahweh) said, 'I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord (Yahweh), in your presence.'" It's fascinating. Moses cries out to God, "Show me your glory." But, this is Moses. Moses already knows God. He's seen God in the burning bush. God has already told Moses His name. He's been following the pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. Moses goes into the Tent of Meetings, speaks to God face-to-face, the way a man would speak to his friend. Yet, he says, "God, show me Your glory." Like, "God, who are You really like? At the very core of your being, who are You? I want to know you more." 

See, people who know God want to know God more. People who really know God realize how much more of God there is to know. God says, "Okay." You think He would say, "I will cause all My power to pass in front of you," or, "I will cause all My might," or, "all My ability" or, "My wisdom," or, "My supernatural strength to pass in front of you." You think in this moment there would be thunder and fire and clouds and wind and all of these amazing, fantastic things. No, no, no. God just says, "Okay, I'll cause all My goodness to pass in front of you." In other words, God's goodness is His glory and His glory is His goodness. "Show me your glory," and God says, "Okay, I'm going to show you My goodness." See, the word glory is what you're famous for. It's your renown. 

It's what you're known for. It's what you're good at. If we think about the glory of Michael Jordan, the glory of Michael Jordan, what he's known for is that he can shoot a basketball. The glory of Tiger Woods, what he is good at or famous for is that he can hit a golf ball. The glory of Patrick Mahomes is he can throw a football. The glory of Elon Musk, what he's good at, is inventing things. Okay, the glory of God is that He is good. What God is famous for is that He is good. What He is good at is being good. He says that all of His goodness is contained in His name. When we declare His name, it brings the reality of God's goodness into our life. You see, one of the most often repeated verses all throughout the Bible is, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good." Not just that He does good, acts good, thinks good, is a do-gooder. No, no, He is good. At the very core of God's being, His glory is His goodness. He is good. 

That is the core part of the identity of God. This is why all throughout the Bible, you'll hear all these verses that talk about the goodness of God. "Taste and see that God is good." "Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore, He instructs sinners in their ways." "You are good and you do good," the Psalmist says. "He withholds no good thing from those who love Him." "Jesus went around doing good, healing all those who are under the power of the devil." He preached a message of "good news." "Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it." "Every good and perfect gift comes down from the father of heavenly lights." "What you intended for harm, my God intended for good." "I know that He will work together for the good, all things of those who love Him who have been called according to His purposes." He is good at the very core of His being. Identity determines behavior. Who you are determines what you do. 

Fish, swim; birds, fly; cows, moo; dogs, bark. We'll leave cats off for today. A good God says and does good things. A good God can only say and do good things. Why? Because who you are determines what you do. Which means everything He does and everything He says and all of His ways and all of His commands and everything He gives and everything He withholds and every time He rebukes and every time He corrects, it is good. It has to be because He is good. Yet, we struggle with this because we look at the evil in the world and we think if there's evil in the world, how could God be good? We forget; we've got to go all the way back to creation. When God made everything, He saw that it was very good, right?

Satan was Lucifer, a very good angel of light made in the goodness of God, but He rebelled against God. He had a free will and He chose evil. The works of darkness are not attributed to God. They're attributed to the kingdom of darkness. Or how about Adam and Eve? When God made Adam and Eve in the Garden, they were very good. Until in their free will, they rebelled against God and released evil into the world. In fact, God is not responsible for the evil in the world. If anyone is, it's us. When we get angry about the darkness and the brokenness out there, it's not God. He was good and He gave us a free will, which was good. We rebelled against Him and chose death, darkness, and destruction. Because He is good, His redemptive work is transforming all of that. You see, if He is good, then His will is good. 

He has good will towards man, which means everything that's submitted and surrendered to God's will is good. Everything that rebels against it, even if we think it's not a big deal, by nature, is evil. It has to be, because if He is good, then His will is good. Everything that aligns with it, therefore, becomes good. Everything that rebels against His good will, therefore, is bad, it's evil, it's broken. This is why at the end of almost every single service around here, we have this life-giving liturgy. We just declare together that God is good; Jesus has forgiven me; I am loved, and everything is possible. These are the four core truths of the universe. There is nothing deeper than this. There is nothing more profound than this. I know this is incredibly simple, and yet you will spend all of eternity discovering this, pursuing it, and not even scratching the surface of it. 

Because God is good, He sent Jesus to forgive you. "He who do not withhold His own son, will He not then in Him give us all things?" Now, we know we're loved, and when we're loved, there's no fear, and we never have to be afraid of anything. When I know I'm loved, I actually start to believe that everything is possible, and I live a life of hope. You can take every problem you have in your life and track it back through this. It's unbelief in one of these areas. Every problem, try me on it. The next time you have a problem, stop and ask yourself, what is it? Do I not believe this is possible? Have I forgot that I'm loved? Do I not believe that I'm forgiven? Or do I question God's goodness? Hopelessness is unbelief in the goodness of God. That's all it is. If hope is the expectation of the goodness of God, then hopelessness is the unbelief in the goodness of God. "God is good" is the deepest truth in the universe, because God's glory is His goodness. At the very core of who He is, He is good, and you will spend all of eternity discovering, pursuing, and exploring the goodness of God and not even scratch the surface of it. 

That's how deep it is. How different would your life be if you actually believed those? You see, we kind of ended last week by saying this, don't try to understand God by looking through your situations and your circumstances. Try to understand your situations and circumstances by looking through God. If you try to interpret or understand God by looking through situations, circumstances, people, even individual Bible verses or stories in the Bible that you don't understand, you're always going to have a distorted view of the goodness of God. But, if you try to understand situations and circumstances and people and Bible verses you don't understand and stories that make no sense through the goodness of God, all of a sudden it changes everything. Greatest hermeneutic, which just means interpretation of Scripture for you, is starting with the premise that God is good. 

Even if I don't understand this Bible verse or it feels contradictory or this story feels like, "Wow, could God really do that?" Instead of questioning His goodness, start with, "He is good, and maybe it's just me who doesn't understand His goodness in that passage." This is "God is good, but…," this is "God is good, therefore…" God is good. He is good to you, and He's in a good mood. That was Part One. Shall we continue? Part Two. "Moses cries out, 'God, show me your glory.' God says, 'My glory is my goodness. I will pass by and show you all of My goodness and I will proclaim My name in your presence.'" He takes Moses, He puts him in a cleft in the rock. Now, it's a lot, just track with me. 

"And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The Lord (Yahweh), the Lord (Yahweh), the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of their fathers to the third and fourth generation.'" This is God defining His goodness. He says, "I will show you My glory, which is My goodness. I will proclaim My name in your presence." In other words, this is God proclaiming His name, telling us exactly who He is and defining His character, His nature, and what His goodness actually looks like. See, we can say God is good all day long and all have a different definition of the word good. This is God defining His goodness for us. 

What's fascinating is this is probably one of the most often repeated phrases, statements, truths, all throughout Scripture. If you would commit this to memory, or you'd just be aware of it, as you're reading through the Bible, you'd be shocked how many times the Bible quotes the Bible on this one in particular verse. Why? Because it is who God is. It uses it over and over again, so we don't forget who He tells us He is. Will you walk with me through this? Okay, it's a little different. Just let's just break it down. Ready? "The Lord (Yahweh), the Lord (Yahweh)." We've said all throughout the series, the name of God brings with it all the reality of God. That God's name is His personhood, it's His presence, it's His power, it's His character, it's His nature. When we declare His name, it brings with it all the reality. When we say the Lord or Yahweh, it brings all the goodness of God into the moment. 

The reason it's, "the Lord, the Lord," is, in Hebrew, they would write it twice as a way of emphasizing it. It would be like you or I, if we were sending a text message and you put it in all caps or in bold, it's like, "THE LORD," not like "The Lord, the Lord." No, THE LORD. The compassionate God. Compassion is a feeling word. It's an emotion. It means God has heart for you. He sees your misery, He hears your cries and He is concerned of your suffering. I mean, one of the names of God is that you are the God who sees me. You remember the story of the leper? A guy with an incurable contagious disease. This disease has shut him off from his friends, from his family, from life itself. He hits his knees in front of Jesus and cries out, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." 

It says, "filled with compassion," Jesus' heart goes out to the man. He says, "I am willing," and touches him. He's a compassionate God, which means He sees your anxiety. He sees your depression. He cares about that marriage you feel trapped in. He sees the bullying. He knows the thoughts you think at night when you're all by yourself. He is concerned about the loneliness. Like, He sees your misery, He's concerned of your suffering. He sees your misery, He is filled with compassion, and so He has come. "He is the compassionate and gracious God." If compassion is a feeling word, grace is an action word. Grace is God acting in your life to do for you what you could never do for yourself. The problem for us is we have taken grace and we've brought it down to, we just think it's the forgiveness of sins. Yes, it includes forgiveness of sins, but it is undeserved favor and supernatural empowerment. 

Grace is God acting in your life, moving in your life, doing things in your life that you could never do for yourself. This is why it says, "The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus." It's God acting in your life to do what you could never do. I mean, do you remember the story when Paul has the thorn in the flesh? Some kind of problem in his life. We don't know exactly what it is, but he cries out to God, and God says, "Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in your weakness. When you are weak, I make you strong." Grace is God acting in your life and it is always sufficient for any and everything you face. No matter how weak you are, God's grace acts and moves in your life to make you strong. I mean, you remember the story of the prodigal son? 

The guy wishes his father dead, trashes his father, trashes his family, takes his inheritance, goes out into the world, trashes his inheritance, trashes his life, ends up in a pig pen and realizes, "Maybe, I can go back home." He puts together this sorry, sad little repentance speech. He makes one little move towards repentance. It says the father, "filled with compassion," saw his son coming a long way off, and ran to him, feeling and action; grabbed his son, says, "My son has come home." Hugs him, gives him a robe, a ring, sandals, and throws a party for him. Restores his identity, reconciles his relationship, redeems his purpose, does for the son what the son could never do for himself in a thousand lifetimes. That's grace. It's God acting in your life to do for you that which you cannot do for yourself. 

It empowers you to say no to godliness and unworldly living and passions in this world and live a self-right, controlled, upright, godly life in this age. "He is the compassionate and gracious God. There are no other Elohims like Him. He's slow to anger." Now remember, this is God defining His goodness to us. Let's talk about that for a second. Slow to anger. We don't really know what to do with that when we talk about God, do we? Some of you, you're convinced God's always angry, and some of you think God never gets angry. Okay, but let's just let God tell us who God is. Slow to anger, which means He's patient and He's long-suffering. It means He can get angry, but you have to work really hard to get Him angry. See, we don't understand anger because the extent of the anger we understand is worldly, human, fleshly, sinful, reactive anger. When we think of anger, we think about it from a sin-fleshly perspective. 

We don't understand righteous anger. Think about the times that you get angry in your life. Where does anger come from? Anger comes when your will is violated. You have a will, you have a desire, you have an opinion, you want to control things, and someone violates your will and we respond with anger. You're driving down the road and someone cuts you off. Your will was just violated, and through words and actions, you respond. Or you're a parent and you tell your child what to do or what not to do, and they don't do it. Or they do do it. What happened? Your will was just violated. Now, you're angry. Or you're a student and your parent won't let you do what you want to do. Your will was violated, anger. You have a boss that says you have to stay late when you were planning on leaving early. Your will was violated, anger. What happens? We have human anger, so we respond with a fit of rage, brawling, slander, malice, gossip, hostility, harshness, vengeance, violence. 

Then, we assume that that's how God gets angry. But, if God is good, then all of his anger comes out of His goodness. It's actually good anger. God doesn't get angry every time His will is violated. There's eight billion people on the earth who most of the time don't do His will. Do you imagine if He got angry every time His will got violated the way we get angry every time our will was violated? There is no fit of rage with God. There's no just like, "Bam!" But, that's what we think, isn't it? God's anger is directed at anything that interferes with His love for you. Think of Jesus and when He turns over the tables in the temple. Jesus has been in the temple thousands of times before that. Why didn't He turn over the tables on all of those other times? Because He's slow to anger. 

But, on that day, He said, "Enough is enough, and My anger is now directed at things that are interfering with my love for people." How about Noah and the Ark? Do you know what it says? It says that every inclination and thought of human beings in that time was wicked. Yet, God asked Noah to build an ark that took decades to put together, decades of giving an opportunity for people to repent. Not a fit of rage, slow to anger. How about Jonah when he goes to Nineveh, this wicked and vile city, and God says, "Go preach for 40 days, 'Repent.'" For 40 days, no fit of anger, no fit of rage, no, 40 days. Guess what? They repented and he relented. Or how about when Peter's talking about the return of Jesus, and he says, "He's not slow in his promise. He wants no one to perish, giving an opportunity for everyone to repent." Yes, God gets angry, but His anger comes out of His goodness and it is directed at things that interfere with His love for you. 

How grateful should we be that God is slow to anger in our life? Think of how rebellious and sin – think of your sin patterns and how you do them over and over and over again. God never once in a fit of rage goes, "Bam!" Because He's good. His anger lasts for a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime and He "abounds in love." Abounds, overflows, a good measure, pressed down, running together, spilling over in love. How deep, how wide, how long, how high is the love of God? See, again, we don't understand love because what we think of as love is emotion and feeling. We think of mushy-gushy, ooey-gooey; but love in the Bible is good will. What it actually means, it's the word charity. It means to have good will. 

It means my will towards you is good and I will seek your good with everything I have; all my gifts and passions and talents and resources and time. The reason we don't understand love is because the people who have said they loved us and were supposed to love us may have had ooey-gooey feelings, but they didn't have good will towards us. Love is good will. Remember, I told you last week, that it's God's good and therefore He is love? Not that He is love and therefore He abounds in goodness. Love comes from goodness, a good will. He abounds in a good will towards you. "This is how we know what love is, that Jesus Christ laid down his life." "This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us." "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God." "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking. It seeks the good of others. It is slow to anger," right? 

Slow to anger. He keeps no record of wrongs. "Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." He abounds in love from His goodness towards you and He abounds in faithfulness. What's faithfulness? Faithfulness is that He never changes. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and this is why you can trust Him. You can only trust something to the level it's steady and stable. If He is faithful, He never changes. He is totally trustworthy. Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. What we do doesn't change Him. No matter how rebellious, or broken or lost we are, it doesn't change who God is. Who He is changes who we are. 

Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. "Maintaining love to thousands." Here it is again, love, love. It's like LOVE. Maintaining love to thousands of generations. God's love is generational. It goes on and on and on. This is why one of His names is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Like, His love cascades through every generation no matter who we are or what we do. Like, do you realize God loves your generation as much as He loved Paul's generation? He loves your generation as much as He loves David's generation. He loves your generation as much as Moses and Abraham and Adam and Eve's generation. Why? Because He maintains love to thousands of generations after generations after generations. God was good, God is good, and God will be good.

Jesus has forgiven you, Jesus will forgive you; is forgiving you, and Jesus will forgive you. You were loved, you are loved, and you will be loved. Everything was possible, everything is possible, and everything will always be possible. Why? Because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He "forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin." He says of Himself, "I'm a forgiving God." If He is slow to anger, He's quick to forgive. We don't have to beg or plead or coerce or do a dance or do some kind of special religious ceremony. He's a forgiving God. It says "wickedness, rebellion, and sin." Why? Because they are three different things. Wickedness is the word iniquity. It means bent or propensity. It means you have a heart to do evil. You desire evil and you delight in evil. That's wickedness, it's iniquity. The word rebellion is the word transgression. It's where we get the word trespass. 

Rebellion is, "I know what God has asked me to do, and I choose not to do it. I know what God has asked me not to do, and I choose to do it." It's very clear, "I know what I'm supposed to or not supposed to do, and I choose to do the opposite." It's like going up to a fence that has a big no trespassing sign on it and choosing to read it and jump right over the fence and keep going. That's rebellion. Sin is like an archer shooting at a target missing the mark. Sin just literally means you've missed the mark of what you were created for or what you should have done in that moment. The reason it says all three of these is because it's like God's way of saying, "I am a forgiving God. As far as the East is from the West, so far have your sins been removed from you. I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." He literally says, like, "Blessed is the man whose transgressions the Lord does not remember, whose sins are covered over with You, Lord. If You kept a record of wrongs, who could stand? But with You, there is forgiveness." 

He's a forgiving God. You with me on this? Now, we wish it stopped here. We could all call it a day, high-five each other, have a great lunch and say, "God is good, brother." But, we've got to let God tell us who God is. Yet, "He does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of their fathers to the third and fourth generation." You're like, "What does that mean?" Well, let's just start here. "He does not leave the guilty unpunished." Pause. That just simply means that God is just. It means that He will make wrong things right. We crave justice, don't we? We have a whole generation right now rising up and what they want more than anything is justice. We long for justice and justice is good. Justice is making wrong things right. If God didn't make wrong things right, He couldn't be good. If He wasn't good, He wouldn't have the ability to make wrong things right.

Because He is good, He has to be just; and because He is just, He is good. If I'm good and I don't make wrong things right, I'm no longer good by definition. I don't have the ability to make wrong things right. If I'm not good, I will just make wrong things more wrong. This is why it says that the throne, the foundation of the throne of God is righteousness and justice, goodness and justice. Because He's good, He is just; and because He's just, it means He is good. We long for justice. We look around at the evil and the darkness around us. We look at the things that have happened to us and we cry out. We're like, "God, bring justice, make this thing right," until justice needs to come our direction. Yet, even then, somewhere inside of us, we know wrong things need to be righted, even when we were the cause of them. This is why so many of us become so religious in our life. Because we're spending our lives trying to make the wrongs of our past right through our efforts and behaviors. 

Let me say this a different way. Sin is a really big deal. Sin is a really big deal. In American Christianity, we don't think sin is a really big deal. Let's just say it how it is. A lot of us, this doesn't even connect with us because we're like, "Yeah, I'm not guilty. It doesn't; I'm good. I mean, have you seen the people in this world? I'm way better than them." We don't think sin is a big deal. We forget that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That the wages of sin is death. On the day you eat of this tree, you will surely die. That there is no one who is righteous. No one who does what is good. We have a very low view of sin. It's why we engage in it and we play with it and we hang around it. We just don't think it's a really big deal. We have a low view of sin. 

Now, see if you can track with me on this. We have a low view of grace because we have a low view of sin. We have a low view of sin because we have a low view of law. We have a low view of the law because we have a low view of God. If I have a low view of grace, I'm not really overwhelmed by the grace of God in my life. It's because I have a low view of sin, I don't think it's really that big of a deal. If I have a low view of sin, it's because I have a very low view of the law, of God's standards, of His requirements. If I have a low view of the law, it's because I have a low view of God. I don't really care what His expectations or His kingdom or His nature is like. But, if I have a high view of God, I can't help but have a high view of the law. If I have a high view of the law, I will have a very high view of sin. I will catch the gravity of it. If I have a high view of sin, I will have a very high view of grace. You know you have a high view of grace when your life overflows with gratitude, generosity, worship, servanthood, wanting to be a part of the things of God. 

If there's no generosity or gratitude or worship or mission in your life, you have a low view of grace. Now, track back what that means. It means I have a low view of God. I think sometimes we sit there, and it's like, yeah, is it that we think God is this good, but He's really this good? We think sin is really this bad, but it's really this bad? It's like, no, God is this good and sin is this bad, and He's just, and He has to make things right. I know some of you are sitting here, you're like, "But God doesn't punish His children." Really? Hebrews says God disciplines those He loves. God disciplines those He calls sons for their good, it literally uses the word good, for their good, that they might be partakers in His holiness, His goodness, His life, and experience a harvest of righteousness, of goodness. Hear me, I love my children so much that I will discipline them.

I know this is not like normal parenting in today's day and age. Talk to my kids, they will be disciplined. Why? Because I refuse to just let them walk down the path of death. I love them and I want to, for their good, help them become holy and righteous. This is why Proverbs says, "Discipline your children for in that there is hope. Do not be a willing party to their death." God is not going to be a willing party to your death. I hate to break it to you. He's going to discipline you and bring consequences in your life out of His goodness, and we should be so grateful that He does. God's playing the long game. We're always thinking God's worried about the here and now and the situation and circumstance of today. God lives outside of time, people. He plays the long game every time. The here and now is not as important as the then and the there. He's forming and shaping you for all eternity. Here's the reality. 

You know the way that most of us get punished from our sins is, sin has enough consequence of its own. God doesn't even have to do anything. The way is He just turns you over. He's like, "You want to go do that? Okay." If you have an affair and blow up your marriage, that's consequence enough. You get addicted to pornography and you lose your mind. You no longer have a soft heart. You no longer can have emotional relationships with anybody. That's consequence enough. You live with somebody who's a fit of rage, all the rah, rah, and you blow up all of the relationships, and that's consequence enough. You live with the love of money and let that thing rule over you, that's consequence enough. God says, "If that's what you want, I'm going to let you go." Then it's a consequence to draw us back to Him. "He punishes the children and their children for the sin of their fathers to the third and fourth generation." You're like, "What does that mean? I'm going to get punished for my dad's sin and my kids are going to get punished for my sin?"

No, Moses actually goes on later to say, "Each person will die for their own sin." What does this mean? What this means is, sin has consequences. It cascades, it has a ripple effect. If you have an affair in your marriage, who pays the highest price of that? Your children and their children. It's not God taking it out on them. That's you setting it in motion and it cascades and it flows. If you have an addiction, who pays the highest price of that? Your children and the children after them. If you live with pride and narcissism and the love of money, you engage in sexual immorality and idolatry. Who's paying the price for that? Your children. Some of you know this cause you've spent your entire adult life trying to unwind what's been set in motion by those that have come before you. You didn't choose it, you didn't want it, but it got cascaded into your life. 

Not only that, when I choose to think sin is no big deal and engage it in my life, I am training and teaching my children to engage in that very same sin. If I have idolatry or sexual immorality or in life just a pride in the love of money, I'm teaching my kids, this is how to live life. When God's saying this, what He is saying is, "If that's how your children live, I'll have to deal with it in their life as well." Do you love your children? Not mushy-gushy, ooey. Good will. Some of you, this is all you need to hear in this entire series. Your kids don't need you to take them to practice or pay for their tuition. Your kids need you to deal with the generational sins that you're allowing and engaging in, in your life. Break it in Jesus name. "To the third and fourth generation." Consequence goes to three and four, but love goes to thousands. Mercy triumphs over judgement. It's like on the cross, the mercy of God and the judgement of God work together. 

The primary way he punishes the guilty is through the cross of Jesus. It's the cross of Jesus that all who call in the name of the Lord shall be saved. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. That, in Him, we would become the righteousness of God. Christ died once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God. Repent, and turn to God, that your sins may be washed away and times of refreshing may come. Hear me, believers have no fear of judgement. We have no fear of justice. Why? Because on the cross, God's mercy and His judgement work together, and Jesus was punished on our behalf so we could be included in Christ and live in the goodness of God. Come on, you have no fear of Judgment Day. I can't wait for Jesus to come back. Why? Because I'm in Christ and what's going to happen? His goodness and His justice are going to work together. 

His goodness is going to make all things right. If you don't like that and you don't believe in that, then you can never pray "Your kingdom come, Your will be done." What are we praying? God, Your goodness come and make this right in Jesus' name through the finished work of Jesus. Slow to anger. The cross was not a fit of rage. At the right time it says, God sent His son and He said, "Enough of sin, death and the grave. I'm going to deal with this once and for all, for all who want it." This is God. We will say things like this, "How does a good God send anyone to hell?" It's the wrong question. How does anyone reject a good God and choose to go to hell? God doesn't send anyone to hell. He's a good God. He's given you a free will. 

If your will is, "I don't want You and I don't want to be with You and I don't want to be formed into Your image and likeness and I have no interest in living in Your kingdom," then He's not sending you to hell. He's letting you choose what you want. A life without Him and His kingdom and His character. Remember this? Yeah. Don't interpret all of that through the goodness of God. He's given you a free will. If He violated it and made you like Him and made you be shaped into His image and made you live into His kingdom, He wouldn't be good. He wouldn't be good. He's so good, He lets you choose to walk away from Him. Some of you, that's what you just need to hear in this. This life is but a breath, it's a vapor. You get, you don't know how many days on this earth to make a choice to say, "I want to surrender my will to His will because I do want to be with Him."

This is your God. Behold your God in a way that He defines Himself to us. You can see it in the Garden when Adam and Eve sinned. You can see it in the life of Jesus. This is your God. "He passed in front of Moses proclaiming," how many times does the goodness of God pass through your life and get proclaimed in your life and you don't see it and hear it? How many times? Moses had eyes to see and ears to hear. How many times does God's goodness move right through your life? Is declared right into – like, this moment, right now, is God's goodness. He's literally passing through. Can you see Him? He's literally proclaiming. Can you hear Him? He's literally saying, "In Me, there is nothing to fear because I am good, and everything I do is good, and it all flows out of My goodness." 

"Even in the worst of things, I'm working them together for the good of those who want Me in their life." After that, "Moses bowed down to the ground at once and worshiped…" Here's the honest question for you. Anywhere in this series, have you been humbled, broken, overwhelmed by the awe and wonder of God? If you've just come to church like every other week for the last two months, and there's been no, "I am. He is. Yahweh," that would be something to cry out to the Lord for and say, "God, I must be missing something because nothing in me is moving." When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. 

"When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant and they were afraid to come near." He sees the goodness of God and the goodness of God reflects off of his face. He sees the goodness of God and he glows with the glory of God. He radiates God's goodness. You want to know the number one way you can know if you're seeing the goodness of God? It radiates off your face. Countenance, and you can't fake it. Other people see it and it either stresses them out or it draws them in. But you can't fake countenance. How can I not reflect the Lord's glory when I'm actually seeing it? In fact, you say that's Old Testament. Here's New Testament, "And we with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory," goodness, "are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory." Listen, Moses would see God and he would radiate with glory and then it would fade away until he'd come see Him again. 

We now have Jesus, the hope of glory living inside of us and we have ever increasing glory, so our faces don't get dimmer and dimmer. Our faces are supposed to get brighter and brighter and brighter with the glory and the goodness of the Lord. You know whose faces you can see it easiest on? Little children and praying grandmas. You want to see a face radiate with the glory of God, find someone in our church who's a disciple and today when they go pick up their 5-year-old, go just look at the 5-year-old's face. They just believe that God is good. "Jesus has forgiven me, I am loved, mommy, and everything is possible." See it, and then praying grandmas. Have you ever seen my mom? Have you ever seen Miss Erma? I met a praying grandma two weeks ago after service. She was beautiful, she radiated the glory of God because they believe God is good, and Jesus has forgiven me, and I am loved. 

Have you ever heard Miss Erma say, "I am loved and everything is possible." You know who you see it on the least? Students and young adults who are trying to live like the world. Middle-aged moms who are bitter and grumble and complain about their station in life. Middle-aged men who love money and are enslaved to their jobs. All three of those groups can be believers, but there ain't no glory on their face. Why? Because they're not looking at the goodness of God, they're looking at the badness of the world. What does your face radiate? Stress, anxiety, anger, a fit of rage, fear, worry, guilt? Look to the Lord. He's in you and He radiates out of you. 

Behold, the Lord your God, according to who He says He is. If this whole series was trying to think about God rightly, is this how you think about God? The Lord magnified, compassionate, He has a heart for me. Gracious, He acts in my life to do things I can't do. He's slow to anger and when He is angry, it's out of His goodness and directed at things that are hurting me. He abounds in love. He overflows with good will towards me. Faithfulness, He's totally trustworthy, especially when I am not. He maintains love to thousands, generation after generation. He always has and always will be. 

He forgives me of my wickedness, my rebellion and my sin, like, all of it. He is just and He will make things right and His mercy triumphs over His judgement. That is Yahweh, Yahweh – the Lord your God. May you bow down and worship Him. May there be some level of brokenness in your life. May you catch the gravity of sin and how it steals, kills, and destroys. No matter what version of sin, rebellion, or wickedness is in our life, we can go to Him because He is compassionate and gracious and will make it right. 

Here's what I'm finding myself at the end of this message, like my heart wants to plead with you, but that's not right. This is the Lord, according to the Lord. How will you choose to respond to who He says He is, and who He says He is like? May His goodness, and His glory radiate from your countenance. Close your eyes. 

It almost feels like a little bit of a holy moment that I don't even feel comfortable speaking. The goodness of the Lord is passing in front of you and being proclaimed over you. Today, He has chosen to reveal Himself to those with ears to hear, eyes to see, and a heart to receive. 

Holy Spirit, I pray that You would give us courage and faith, and wisdom and guidance on how to respond to Your goodness in our life. When we think of You and we speak of You, and we look at this world that you have made, and we become conscious of this breath that you have given us, may the only thing that we believe is that You are good. 

Therefore, You are good to me, and You are in a good mood. Behold, the Lord your God. In Jesus' name, with all His reality contained in that name, we agree. Amen.