Sermon Tone Analysis

The Attributes of God Part 5

Bible Text: Exodus 34:6

Exodus 34:6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

Introduction:

Once again we have been studying the attributes of God.

This is our 5th message in this series and Lord willing we will have one more next month.

As a recap, what we have covered so far:

I.

The Aseity of God - He is Infinite - From Everlasting to Everlasting

II.

The Self-Sufficiency of God - He has no needs

III.

The Immutability of God - (Meaning) He Never changes

IV.

The Omnipresence of God - He is Always Everywhere

V.

The Omniscience of God - He is All-knowing

VI.

The Omnipotence of God - He is All-powerful

VII.

The Wisdom of God - He Is Full of Perfect, Unchanging Wisdom

VIII.

The Faithfulness of God

IX.

The Goodness of God - God is Good

X. God is Just

XI.

God is Merciful

XII.

God is Gracious

Exodus 34:6 “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,”

This is the statement God made to Moses of Himself.

This statement is repeated over and over again throughout the Word of God.

Here are just a few:

Numbers 14:18

18 The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, …

Psalm 86:15

15 But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, Longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.

Psalm 103:8

8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

Psalm 145:8

8 The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; Slow to anger, and of great mercy.

Joel 2:13

13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, And turn unto the Lord your God: For he is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness, {and He relents over disaster.}

Jonah 4:2

2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country?

Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, {and relenting from disaster.}

Nehemiah 9:17

17 … but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, …

2 Chronicles 30:9

9 For if ye turn again unto the Lord, … the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.

Time and time again this same self-revelation of God is repeated.

That He is a God of grace and mercy.

And as we ended our last study with the attribute that God is merciful, so we start with in this message that God is Gracious.

The two are so intimately linked together.

In fact, in our opening passage here, the Hebrew words (el rahum) God is compassionate or merciful, and (el han-nun) God is gracious, and (a-rek) God is longsuffering, and (he-sed) God is good - all contribute together as to the meaning of grace in the Old Testament.

By His grace He is merciful toward us, by His grace He is favorable toward us, by His grace He is longsuffering toward us, and by His grace He is good toward us.

Mercy is not giving us what we do deserve… wrath, punishment, judgement.

Grace is giving to us what we don’t deserve… His mercy, and goodness, and favor.

If by mercy the debt that I owed to the Lord was canceled, the slate wiped clean; then by grace I am afforded all the riches of His glory that I was not owed.

repeat

And mercy being the greatest act of grace.

Friend, we are rich in the Lord.

I owed a debt so large I could not pay.

We grumble and complain about the national debt that our leaders have got this country in.

over 23 trillion dollars.

That’s 23 followed by 12 zeros.

To put that in perspective, if you were to pay that back with $100 bills it would take an area 328 feet long and 164 feet wide, let’s just call it the size of a football field so you can visualize.

A football field is 300 feet long and 150 feet wide.

You would have to stack $100 bills side by side touching each other over the whole field some 165 feet high to have that kind of money.

Friend, it is no joke the debt that this country owes, it can not be paid back in a hundred lifetimes.

But what greater debt that you and I owed to the Lord.

What infinitely larger of a sum that we owed to Him.

It could not be paid back.

But I want to show you what the Lord done.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18 and beginning with verse 23.

Matthew 18:23–24

23 Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.

24 And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.

Now, I want you to understand this.

a days wage in this time was about 1 denarii.

One talent was 6,000 denarii.

To pay back 10,000 talents the man would have to be able to work 60 million days.

That’s 164,383 years.

Friend, the point Jesus is making here is that this man could never pay back this debt.

Let’s read on:

Matthew 18:25–27

25 But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

26 The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

27 Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

Now, I understand if we read on in this parable, Jesus had another point He was making on our own forgiveness, but at this point in the parable we see a heavenly truth.

Friend, that debt that you and I owed to the Lord, or still owe if you are not a child of God, not born again, that debt that we owed, we could never pay.

And in God’s grace He extended mercy rather than judgment and forgave all that surmountable debt, and you owe nothing, nothing, not one thing.

Simply because God is a God of grace and compassion.

One of the Hebrew words that make up the notion of grace and we already talked about, found in our opening verse is the word “hesed” It is found some 245 times throughout the Old Testament, 127 of those in the Psalms.

And 150 of those times, do you know how the word is rendered in the English?

It is the word mercy, or mercies, or merciful.

That is how closely related that mercy and grace are.

You will never find one without the other, neither could you.

Because wherever mercy is shown, it was extended by grace and wherever grace is shown it was an act of mercy.