The Knowledge Of God

All right, so this morning, for an opening text, and you might have to be patient with me this morning. My voice is coming and going. For an opening text this morning, let's turn to Second Peter, chapter one.

Second Peter, chapter one, starting in verse one, Simon, Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious, like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied, be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord, according as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us unto glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Besides this, giving all diligence to add to your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge, to knowledge, temperance, to temperance, patience, to patience, godliness and to godliness, brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness, charity for these things be in you and abound. They make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacks these things is blind and he cannot see afar off.

And he has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you shall never fail.

For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So what really, really stood out to me and since 2006, when I'd gone to a Bible school, every time I read this passage, it stands out to me. The knowledge of God.

These promises are given to us by the knowledge of God. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God. All things that pertain to life and godliness.

Verse three. Through the knowledge of him that has called you unto glory and virtue. Exceeding great and precious promises.

If we know who God is knowing God, knowing God is more than knowing of God. I know of of a man of of a man named Donald Trump. But that doesn't mean that I that I know him like my wife, right? I know her and knowing of God is very different than knowing God.

And I think when we understand who God is, it makes a very big difference, very big difference in our life. The way that we view God will determine will determine how we live. People view God in different ways.

One man will think of God, many people as a being who has a big stick. He is waiting for you to mess up. And when you do, he will punish you.

These people, this person or these people are always trying to do better, but are never sure that they've done enough. Enough good for God. They are very uncertain of what will happen to them in the judgment to come.

Another another type of people will view God more like a Santa Claus, always willing to give. They have an air of confidence. They're a they are happy go lucky as long as long as things go their way.

They are not concerned about holy living, nor are they worried about judgment to come. What they will face, what they will face when they die. These ones.

These ones feel like God is God is a Santa Claus. Another feels kind of like what James was describing. Another feels like God is distant.

Maybe God is out there, but he's not very much concerned with us. God is unjust. How can God be there or how can God be just with the with the tragedies that we see in the world? How can there be a loving God if we see death and destruction? We see we see sadness.

We see innocent children hungering to death. How can there be a just God over all of this? They see God in a certain way, and it affects it affects how they live. So what would you say? I would like your participation.

We don't have a whiteboard, but we'll just call it out. What would you say? Who is God? Maybe you can share. How would you say the the names of God, who who is who is God? He's the creator.

There's many names for God. Who is God? God is faithful. That's right.

Counselor. He's a healer. Yeah, he's almighty.

Yeah. He's merciful. Yeah, there's there's many more characters of God.

What is he like? Omnipotent. Yeah. Holy.

Yeah. God is jealous. It's interesting.

We see that some some characters, some characters, they they they seem to overlap or they seem to contradict. So if if we have if we have people, then then they're they're characters. Sometimes you say that that person is has a mercy character or another one would be would be more concerned about being righteousness.

And he likes structure. He likes order. And sometimes he would over he would overlook mercy.

He would come across maybe some harsh. Right. So you have some people with a certain character, other people with a different character, and they balance out.

But it's not that way with God. God has revealed himself. God has revealed himself through the scriptures from one revelation to another.

And I found it very interesting. It seems as though that he starts in the scripture from the beginning and he sets the he sets the foundation or it sets sets. Yeah, kind of the foundation of who God is.

And progressively he reveals more of himself. And so further along, we get to Jesus Christ. I'd like to bring you through some of these just to see who is God, who is God and what is he like? By no means at all.

Will we will we cover all of God's character? But I think we're just going to touch on about on about six or seven of them. So. So one thing to keep in mind is when we think about the character of God, it is good to know that God is absolute.

God is absolute, meaning whatever character that he says that he is, he is completely that character. When God says that he is love, that means that he is altogether love and that that word can be defined by who God is. We see what love is because we know who God is.

Also, one character of God does not hinder, does not hinder others. God is absolute. That means that he is infinite, infinite, infinite means without measure, too vast to measure, not able to measure.

He is infinite. For an example, when we say that God is eternal, that does not mean that he has existed or will exist for a very long time. It means that the furthest stretch of your imagination for length of years, say, say a mind boggling number, say, say a trillion years.

A trillion years old. It is no closer to to the full truth than one year would be for length. There is no measure that could encapsulate God or God's existence.

God is from eternity past to eternity future. God is right now in eternity past and he is in eternity future. And in fact, eternity dwells inside God.

God is infinite. God is absolute. And so are the characters.

So are the characters of God in the beginning. In the beginning, God has revealed himself as being the almighty. In Genesis one, one, it says in the beginning, God has created the heaven, the heaven and the earth.

In John 17, in John 17. John 17, one, it says. Oh, something messed up with my notes.

I'm going to have to turn there. It looks like I missed some of my references in John 17, one. It was Abraham and Sarah.

17, verse one. And then when Abraham was was 90 years old and nine, the Lord, the Lord appeared unto Abraham and said, I am the almighty God. Walk before me and be perfect.

He is God almighty. He is able. He is able to make all things from nothing.

God is able to to make Abraham Abraham have a child from Sarah when she was far too old for childbearing. God is able. He is almighty.

God is able to part the Red Sea to do something completely, completely different from what we figure the laws of nature are. He can make walls of water to stand up to save his people. Is God able to help you with what you face? God, he is absolutely powerful.

All power. All power is possessed by God. There is no other power than that which comes from God.

God possesses all power. God being absolutely infinitely powerful. He can perform any task that he wants to and not be afraid to become tired.

He has not used up any of his strength. It is no measure of effort for him to do the things that he does. When God created the heaven and the earth with all of its splendor and beauty and unimaginable intricacy, he has not gotten tired.

On the seventh day, when God rested, he chose to rest to leave us an example. All power is is from God. All power is contained in God.

God is almighty. Next. Next, God is Jehovah.

If you would turn to Exodus, Chapter six. I'm sorry about my cold. I thought I was over this.

My voice went away about a week ago. Exodus, Chapter six and verse one. One through eight.

Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now thou shalt see what I shall do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand shall he shall he let them go. And with a strong hand, he shall drive them out out of his land.

And God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord. That's Jehovah. I am the Lord.

I appeared unto Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. By the name of God almighty. But by the name of Jehovah was I not yet known unto them.

Verse four. And I, I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. And I also heard the groanings of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep kept in bondage.

And I have I have remembered my covenant. Wherefore, say, say, say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord and I will bring you out of out from under their burdens. Sorry, out from under the burden of the Egyptians.

And I will rid you out of their bondage. Out of their bondage, and I will redeem you and with a stretched out arm and with great judgment, I will take you to me for a people and I will bring you to and I will be to you a God. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, your God, which bringeth you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.

And I will bring you into land concerning which I did swear to give it, to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, and will give it to you for an inherit for a heritage. I am the Lord. This is Jehovah Jehovah.

Jehovah Jehovah means the self-existent one. Jehovah Jehovah is the only being who exists of himself. All other creatures, we and every other creature, in contrast, we exist because of God.

He is the eternal self-existent one, Jehovah. And to help clarify in Colossians one, it says for by him were all things created that are in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, whether they be thrones or dominions, principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him.

And he is before all things. And by him, all things consist. All things consist because of him, not only because of him, not only did he make everything, but he keeps everything going.

We talked I mentioned incredible intricacies. There are intricacies like meaning that that one things relies upon another. And if you didn't have one, you also wouldn't have the other.

There are incredible intricacies in the world. So so many would be it would be hard to mention. It would be hard to mention all of them.

Well, because we wouldn't know all of them. But but so many things that God has created, one one depends on another one. And if one if one would not be there, if it's just just creation, if the earth was just a few miles further away from the sun, we would all freeze.

But if it would be a few miles closer, then we would burn up. It would be too hot. If the earth was not on its axis as it as it would turn, then then we wouldn't have we wouldn't have the seasons like we do now.

If the earth wouldn't spin as fast as what it would do, the side that would face the sun would burn up and the other sides would freeze. If we didn't have the gravitational pull of the moon as the moon travels around once, well, it does once a month, but the earth spins as as it's going around. And if we didn't have that gravitational pull, then the then the sea would not have tide.

And the tide, the it would it would it would become stagnant. If the moon was too close, the gravitational pull would be too strong and the ocean water would tidal wave over the over the continents. And then we would all die that way over and over and further and further and further it goes.

If if we didn't have water, if we didn't have water, everything would die. If water didn't have some of the amazing characteristics that it does. Just for example, freezing expands water.

It does that very different in almost every other chemical. So so because water freezes and expands, that means that all the all the life and vegetation in the ocean doesn't freeze to death. And because if it would sink, if if if water would act like the other chemicals and would contract when it freezes, it would fall to the bottom of the body of water and then it would freeze its way up going solid.

All everything underneath of it would die. And that would lower the temperature of the earth. And then all the earth would freeze and we would all die.

Just one thing. If if water didn't have its capillary effect, that means that you put a small tube into into water. The water travels up it.

You put a smaller tube. It travels a little bit further. That's what the trees use.

They have no pump to get the water to the top of the top of the leaves. If that didn't work, all vegetation would die. If that didn't work, the capillary action, if you pour water here, you'd put a you'd put a wet cloth in there.

Water would just stay on the bottom. But right now it soaks up. If water didn't have its if water didn't have the principle of of dissolving, you would all die.

You would not be able to you would not be able to take in your food and dissolve it. It wouldn't work. Water wouldn't be able to wash off soap from your hand.

You'd put soap there and it wouldn't go away when water would come. It has dissolving action. So this is just one very small thing of all the intricacies of all the universe that God keeps in his mind and he does not forget.

Everything exists, not because God only put it in order. Everything exists because God now presently is keeping everything in his order. We exist.

We breathe. We'll read a verse about that. Mm hmm.

We breathe in Daniel five. Twenty three, it says, and the God in whose hand your breath is. You just breathe in oxygen.

You breathe in oxygen. It went into your bloodstream. God allows that to happen.

Why ever would it do that? Because of God's care for every single living person, organism, everything in this room and in the universe. God keeps moving. I'll tell you a story.

There is a story of of a brave young African boy. He was the son of a chief. And so this this boy got captured.

His dad got killed in a tribal war. And then as he comes back, he sees the whole village is massacred. He runs away.

He runs away. He gets to a mission. And at the mission, this boy, he gets converted.

He gets converted. And then he wants to know everything he can about God. And so he he says he changed his name to Samuel Morris.

I don't know what it was before, but Samuel Morris was a previous missionary that wasn't there at that time. But but yeah, he he wanted to be called Samuel Morris. And so he he says, well, I want to go and learn everything I can about God.

And I want to come back and I want to tell my people. And so he gets on the boat. And then as he gets on this boat and he goes for New York City and he is going to go to, I forget what Bible College on the boat, they faced a terrible storm.

They faced a terrible storm. The boat was taking on water. And then he was forced to man the pump, man, this pump.

And he'll last for about four hours until he is utterly exhausted. And so he he goes on this part or he he gets to this pump and he has to pump if he does not pump. He is not going to make it to what he believes God is calling him to do.

So he pumps and pumps and pumps. And Samuel Morris pumped from that boat for 20 hours straight. And for 20 hours straight, he did not stop pumping.

He didn't take a break. He didn't go get a snack. He didn't take a nap for a while and come back to it.

He pumped straight for 20 hours, overcame the storm. They repaired the boat. They got to New York after he got to New York.

He went to I think it was Indiana and he attended a Bible College. At the Bible College, since he was an African and he made it to North America, he succumbed to a native disease here. And he died.

He died. He wasn't able to perform what he believed God's will was for him. But he was so influential in the Bible school that others took on the challenge, took on the challenge and went back to his people in Africa to share the gospel.

But the the reason I share this story is because he manned the pump. If he would stop, if he would stop, they would sink. But there is another pump.

There is another pump that cannot stop. If it stops, you die. It's your heart.

God man's this pump. If you would say it that way, just think of it that way. Try to try to make your heart beat faster.

You can kind of. My heart is beating faster. It's beating kind of fast.

You can inadvertently make your heart beat faster, possibly slower, but try by your effort to make it go. You can't try by your effort to make it stop. You can't inadvertently or indirectly.

You can if you do something drastic, but you don't have control over your heart. You don't have control over your lungs. You can kind of breathe more and hold your breath and stuff, but you can't make your lungs take on oxygen and put it into your blood.

That just happens. You can't send your brain signals all throughout your body to do what you do or feel what you feel or to think what you think that you can kind of to. But these things are given to you by God.

These intricacies are handled by God every day. God, God is the one that keeps your your heart, your heart going. This pump, it has to operate every day shortly after the time that you were conceived until you die.

And it cannot rest. This pump cannot stop. And God is in control of it.

And not only for you, but there's eight point three billion people in the world right now. It would take it would only take God to stop allowing your heart to pump for your life to end here on Earth. It would only take God to stop caring about you.

It would only take that. Think of it. Think of God operating this pump.

This pump, it just squeezes. There's there's valves that that flow the blood. It would only take God to stop caring about you for there.

The pump will stop. Your life will end. If God would stop caring about you, not only would your heart stop, you would cease to exist.

If God would stop caring about you. It is God that makes us alive. It is God that keeps us alive.

In the God in whose hand your breath is, have you not glorified? It is by his great power that everything exists. And yet he himself, he exists by himself. There is no being that keeps God alive.

We exist because of God. And it's not only your heart. We talked about your lungs, but there are other essential parts of your of your body.

And not only for humans, the birds, the fish, the bugs, the bacteria, the galaxies, the black holes that are millions of light years away. God keeps everything going by his power, by his wisdom. He never forgets.

God is eternal. He is the self existent one, and he is the only being that exists of himself and everything else exists because of him. God, God is also just.

The next one we want to talk about is God's justice in Deuteronomy 32, verse four. It says he is the rock. His work is perfect for all his ways are judgment.

God of truth without iniquity, just and right is he. He is just. He is just.

Justice means in the broadest sense, justice is the treatment of individuals fairly, the constant and perpetual will to render each one his due. That is just a society where justice has been achieved, would be one in which individuals receive what they deserve. Justice is the same as righteousness, doing what is right, what is appropriate.

If you worked for one week and you had a just boss, he would give you what you deserved. If you committed a crime and the judge was just, you would see or you would receive the right penalty for what you have done. So we see some of this.

We see this clearly in the beginning with with Adam and Eve. I'll read here a couple of verses. And the Lord had commanded them, saying of every tree of the garden, thou mayest eat freely.

But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it for the day that you eat of it. You will surely die. God had commanded them to eat from all the other trees and he had commanded them to leave this one alone.

Eat from all the rest of them. They're all for you. Just this one leave alone.

And that there were he had even explained what the consequences were if they were to disobey. We are reminded of those consequences all the time. We no longer have access to the tree of life.

They didn't. And we don't either. But there's coming a day that tree of life is in heaven now.

Thorns and weeds grow everywhere. We're reminded of what those consequences were. Pain, pain and childbirth.

Any of you moms know that there is pain in childbirth? I often wonder what it would be like before. But but this is what we have. We have entropy, entropy, the tendency to decline, backwards evolution.

It is it is it is from the curse. It is it is the moral decline. It is it is what it says to.

It takes effort to give order. And all you have to do is back off. And then and then chaos, chaos reigns.

And we have death. We have spiritual. They experience spiritual death immediately and physical death eventually.

This this was just they had disobeyed God and he told them what the consequences were and they chose to do it. God had given them everything that they needed. There was no need to eat from that tree except to test and to see if God was true and if he really loved them, if he really wanted their best for them.

That's that's what they that's what they doubted. And they chose to do what God told them not to do. But we see the strict consequences.

We see that God is just. He means exactly what he says, what he says it will not go. It will not go otherwise.

In in Genesis chapter six, the judgment of the world. The judgment, the judgment of the world at that time during the time of Noah and God saw the wickedness of man, that it was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thought, every imagination of the thoughts of their heart were only evil continually. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth.

God was not pleased with sinful mankind. He would destroy them. God has judged.

God had judged the people of the earth so severely that it altered the face of the world. God's judgment was so intense, was so severe as we see it, but it was just. That it it cracked apart the world.

If you would take a if you would take a globe or if you take a world map and you would see the shapes of the of the of the world, you would make those into puzzle pieces. You could put those together to form a super continent. One continent with all these pieces.

When God judged the world, it was so incredibly severe that it changed the world from thereafter. Every man, woman and child who were not in the ark were destroyed. The the animals, the vegetation was also, for the most part, destroyed.

Climate was also altered. The north and the south poles are now frigidly cold. And and then they found they found vegetation at the one of them north or south.

They drilled for exploration. They drilled down and they they hit a tree and for 200 feet, they were still drilling that tree. But there is no vegetation there now.

They found a mammoth that that got frozen solid instantly. He was eating. He was chewing.

They found food in his mouth and the flash frozen. When when the when the water had dropped down, that that that changed the climate of the world just right then. But we see the intense, the judgment for sin.

God judged the world. And it was it was incredible. It was I don't think that we comprehend how severe that judgment was.

Second Corinthians 510 says we must all stand. Sorry, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that every one of us may receive the things done in this body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. In Romans 14, I'm going to turn their Romans 14, 11 and 12.

As it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess. So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. God will judge sin.

God is just and God is all knowing and God will not overlook any sin. Every sin that you have committed must be paid for. Every one without looking, overlooking any of them.

Every sin. God will bring all deeds into judgment and nothing will be overlooked. And what is the just punishment for sin? What is it? We saw the the the terrible, awful, dreadful things that God had that God had done for judgment, for sin.

When we saw the when we saw the the flood. So what will it be? What will it be? What is just for us when we stand before God? Hell is the just punishment for sin. Hell is just.

Hell is the right place. Hell. Hell is the lake of fire.

Hell is separation from the presence of God. Hell is the place prepared for the devil and his angels where the worm does not die and the fire is is not quenched. Eternal darkness.

Hell is terrible beyond comprehension. The words that we see that describe that place. And we see by the punishment.

The punishment that is just how big is the crime? How big is the crime? We see that God is just. He is not overly cruel. He is right.

He is righteous. But when we sin against him, when we sin against God, almighty, majestic, high and holy God. That inhabits eternity.

When we sin against God. Hell is the just judgment for that. Is this the picture that you have of God? Is this what you see God to be? God is almighty.

God is self-existent. God has a law to obey. God will judge for sin.

This is not a wrong picture, but this this picture is incomplete. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our redeemer.

Jesus is the redeemer. He is just. And the justifier of the ungodly.

In Galatians 313, it says Christ has redeemed us, redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith in him. Turn, if you would, to Isaiah 53 in Isaiah 53, verse three. He was despised and rejected.

He was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And we hit his.

Sorry. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not.

Surely he is born our grief. He has carried our sorrow. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray and have turned everyone to his own, turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted. And yet he opened not his mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before the shears is dumb.

So we opened not his mouth. He is just and the justifier of the ungodly. He is he is our redeemer.

Redeemer means to be redeemed, means to buy back. He paid in full the penalty of our sin. The judgment that we rightly deserve he took upon himself.

And I wish that weight would fall down on us. I wish that I wish that weight would be understood by us. Why would he do it? Why would he why would he take our sin? Why would he take our sin, the crime that we have committed? Why would he take our penalty, what we rightly deserve? Why would he take and put it on him? Why would he why would he do that? I what what was it? It was it was the last time when I shared this at Pilgrim.

It was the night before or a couple of nights before then me and my one boy had talked and I don't know which one. But but then we had the discussion. And why would he do it? And then the thought came to me, if there was this this wretched, vile, homeless person, like full of addictions and stuck in his vices.

Would I would I give my son in the judgment for him? No, no, I wouldn't. Absolutely not. I don't think it'll accomplish anything anyway.

But that's what Jesus Christ did for us when we when he he made us and he made all things good for us. And he gave us everything that we needed. And he gave us the the ability to choose.

That's all he did. That's why that's why what James said, he marveled. Because God was able to make them have the ability to choose.

He puts everything in front of them. The one time he says, what more could I have done for my grapes that they would be that the vines would give good grapes? I gave them everything. I gave them the the fertile vineyard and they produce sour grapes.

This is what Jesus did. Or this is what God did in the beginning for us. He gave us everything, everything that we would choose and serve and love and obey him for all of eternity.

Yet he gave us the ability to choose and we choose to turn away from him. So in this in this judgment, we see that we see that we rightfully. It is right for us because we rejected the savior.

It is right for us. For all that we've done, the crimes that we've done, the sin against God, it is right for us to suffer the the pains of eternal separation from God. And yet God was not pleased with that.

God would send the one, the only one with the ability to set us free. The only one that lived a perfect life. And he would take our sin, the sin that I committed, the sins that you committed.

He took those sins from you and he put it on his dear son and he let his son suffer the pain, the the wrath of God, the punishment that we justly deserve. He let him bear it. Why? So we could go free.

So we could instead of receiving the judgment that we rightly deserve, we could have the blessing that Jesus Christ merits. Do you see the transition? Do you see the do you see the switch? Michael deserves hell. Jesus deserves eternal glory.

He switched them. Why? Because of his great love for us, his great love, vast, vast, unmeasurable. What's the word? Infinite.

His infinite love for us, his love that would drive us to take our penalty, his love that would drive us to take upon him when he was so weak. So innocent, the one who was innocent throughout his life to take our judgment and to put it on his son, his great love for us. Romans five, eight says, but God commanded his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, we looked just like that vile person that we see on the street, addicted to drugs.

And he's he's he's lying there in his filth. And he's just the most. Despicable person.

That's what we look like. Why did God love us then? He just did. He that first John four describes the love of God, he that love is not north, not God, because God is love.

God defines what love is vast and immeasurable. It is because of God's great love, his infinite love for us, that he would send his son to take the place of our judgment. God bought you back because he loves you.

God has set the definition of love. Sorry, God set the definition of love. And we know what love is if we know who God is.

Behold, what manner of love the father has has bestowed upon us. Behold, the manner of love the father has given unto us that we should be called the sons of God, that we would be called equal with Jesus Christ. How could it ever be for all of your life? You feel unworthy for nothing.

Did you merit anything of this? He has chosen you when you were filthy, vile and wretched. He has chosen you when you were sinning against God. Because of his great, great love for you, it seems so unfair.

And it is absolutely the furthest thing from justice that there could be. But he is just because he paid for our sin. He is just.

It's meted out. It's it's still it's perfect, and yet it's completely unjust. Fear not, little children.

Sorry, fear not, little flock. This is twelve verse thirty two. Fear not, little flock.

It is your father's good pleasure to give you his kingdom. Look what he says in John chapter 14 and verse two and three. It is incredible.

God's love for us. It fills me with love, joy and adoration. Many, many, many times when I see verses like this in John 14, that place that he's preparing for us.

Let's let's read it. John 14, verse two and three. In my father's house.

In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so. If I really didn't plan for you to have a place there, I would have told you if it were not so, I would have told you.

I go and prepare a place for you. I go to prepare a place for you. Elton, Pete, Helen, Neil.

Jesus gone to prepare a place for you. He is planning that you are going to be there. It is his good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

And look at verse three. This this tops it off for me. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will receive you unto myself that where I am there, ye may be also.

He wants you to be with him. He wants you to be there. We feel like we we fail so much and we come so short from the holiness of God so many times.

God wants you to be with him forever and ever and ever. He's prepared that place for you. You have a spot there.

So so who is God? How do you see God today? Do you see God is that that man with a with a big stick ready to hit you? Or do you see God as this loving father that has gone through all in mentionable pains. To redeem you, to pay for the penalty of your sin, that he could have fellowship with you. He wants to be with you.

Do you see God that way? Can you trust God? And then in closing, just one more verse from Second Peter, grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ to him, to him, be glory, both now and forever.