Exodus 34:5-7

Good morning, Saylorville! If you’ve brought a copy of Scripture with you this morning, you can find Exodus chapter 34. Exodus chapter 34. Uh… just a minute here… first of all… What? You don’t do selfies?

The other day I was at a wedding, one of our pastors, Curt DeGraaff, married off one of his grandkids and the family’s back here. Welcome family! Give them a round of applause. They’re all here. And I sat in the back at one of the tables with someone that I had just performed their wedding ceremony just a few months ago, and I noticed when their social media pictures came out that I… I wasn’t in any of them! [LAUGHTER] True story! I wasn’t bitter or anything like that. But as it turned out, we’re sitting there at the table, and she showed me pictures of me at the ceremony that did not go online! — and my face was all contorted. I looked like I just knocked down a fifth of Jack Dan… not that I ever have! It was not a good picture. Let’s put that– I’m thankful she didn’t put it online! We don’t put those pictures online, not of ourselves anyway, not when we want to put ourselves in a good light, rather.

So a few days before that, a dear friend of mine, and we have a real great relationship. We’ve been talking for well over a year. He’s a brilliant man. He’s an archaeologist. In fact, he just returned from a prestigious museum in London, having done some studies there and digging around pyramids in Egypt before that. In fact, he brought back to me… they don’t give these out… it was an original leaf of the Geneva Bible from the 15th… it predates the King James Bible! — and he presented it to me! It was just as a gift. It was very kind of him! And so then a few days later, ’cause we’ve been talking about the Gospel and so many things, he texted me, and he basically laid out his vision, his picture, if you please, of God. And he said that as he looks at the God, especially the God of the Old Testament, he’s got to be different than the one in the New. In fact, he is, “I see him as, amoral and cantankerous.” Well, as you can imagine, I couldn’t wait for the next meeting we had together, which was just the other day, and I took it right where you are right now. I took him to the 34th chapter of Exodus to show him God’s own personal selfie, God’s own self-description.

And if you look at it, this is a self-description to Moses. And when He does so, it’s a beautiful description! And it’s really not something you would have been anticipating in the moment, because this scene here in Exodus 34 comes right on the heels of 33. Moses has already come down from mountain with those two tablets, seen the Israelites carousing, destroyed the tablets, had it out with God over the whole thing, and then God sent him back up the mountain… chisel out a couple more tablets. And in that time Moses got, I wouldn’t say chummy, but he said to God, he said, ‘God, show me Your glory.’ And God said to Moses, ‘I can’t do that. If I show you My glory, you won’t be able to live to talk about it, because nobody can do that and live. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll stick you in the cleft of a rock. I’ll give you My trailing back parts. I’ll let you see the back parts of Me (whatever that means) in all of My glory and My holiness as it trails by you. That’s what you’ll get a chance to see.’ And now Moses is making his way up to the mountain. And I think, as I understand these… waiting for this moment, and what happens is… this is where we pick it up.

And before we read it, let me ask you this question. If you could take a character selfie of yourself, if that was possible, what would it look like? When you think of God, what comes to your mind? I mean, remember, Tozer said,

“The first thing that comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.” AW Tozer

… and that is true. So remember, here is Moses. He’s in the cleft of right… he’s ready to get this amazing display of glory and power and majesty and trailing just the resplendence of God! And this is what he gets. Pick it up in verse five.

Exodus 34:5-7

5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, (This God, speaking to Moses about Himself) “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

7 [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.”

This is amazing to me! I’m expecting God to say as He proclaims His name, as He proclaims His character, as He proclaims His glory, ‘I am the great and awesome God! I am the omnipotent One, the omniscient One, the omnipresent One, the glorious One!’ — but He doesn’t do that. Instead, He says, ‘I’m the merciful One. I’m the gracious One. I’m the patient One. I’m the love that never dies, love One. I’m the faithful One.’ And what God did in how He displayed, and portrayed, and pictured Himself to Moses would become the repeated confession of the saints throughout the Old Testament, almost 20 times! The saints that would follow this moment and for a thousand years + would be quoting this about God. Let me give you a quick sampling. Here’s how Nehemiah described God a thousand years later, nearly.

Nehemiah 9:17b, “But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.”

This is how David about 500 years later, give or take, said, described God in the 86 Psalm:

Psalm 86:15, “But you, O Lord, are a God (sound familiar?) merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

He repeats himself in the 103rd Psalm when he says this:

Psalm 103:8, “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” This was their confession of God!

And even… Remember this? Many of you remember the story of Jonah. I remember how Jonah was told by God, ‘Go to the Ninevites, go to that great city and cry out against it!’ And Jonah says, “Uhh… Let me pray about it… No…” and takes off! — goes the opposite direction! And we study… we study the culture, we see ‘The Ninevites… Are you kidding me?!’ They were the most diabolical people that ever lived on the face of the earth! They have a direct relationship to some of the wickedness that takes place in some of those Middle Eastern places now. But let me tell you something. They cut people’s heads off! They stack them in front of cities to let them know, ‘If you defy us, this is what you get!’ They flayed people! That is, they skinned them alive! They’d bury them up to their heads and run over them… this is all well known… with their chariots! Jonah knew this. That’s why he ran! Amen? Fooled you! —’Cause that ain’t why he ran. I did trick you! I did trick you., Sorry! But the truth of matter is, at the end of Jonah when he goes back and preaches and the whole city repents! — he goes and pouts waiting for them to go down. And when God meets up with him, this is the dialogue that they have in chapter four.

Jonah 4:2, “And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that You are (look at it) a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…”

Exactly as God gave His self-portrayal to Moses! He was saying, ‘I know what your custom is, God. You take wicked people and You change them, and I don’t want these people saved!‘

Are there people in your life you’d rather not see them saved? ‘Get ’em, God!’

So His self-portrait is mercy, and grace, and patience, and love and faithfulness. By the way, if God had talked about His holiness and His omniscience, His omnipresence, and omnipotence, these are not communicable. We call them in theology “incommunicable attributes.” Those are things that God doesn’t give to you and me. You can’t be everywhere at the same time. You can’t know everything. You can’t be perfectly holy until you are someday, if indeed you will be someday. Get it? But… God also has communicable attributes. We don’t use that word a lot, but we do when there’s a disease going on like COVID. It’s a communicable disease. It spreads! A communicable attribute is one that transfers. It’s one that spreads. It’s one that in this case, it’s an attribute that you and I can have! — you and I can display! We can be pictured like God! — which is pretty cool! So Real Counsel is rooted or pictured, if you please, in the Word of God and… wait for it! — the character of God.

So here for the balance of our time and from these two little verses here; God’s portrait, my pursuit.

Now there’s five ways in which God… let’s call them five little selfies, okay, and here’s the first one. He’s merciful. Some of your Bible say compassionate. That’s the meaning of the word. In fact, the Hebrew word is, I like the word compassionate because it’s tender. And the Hebrew word is directly connected to the womb of a woman, and specifically the womb of a woman who’s just given birth to a child. So it was used also of God’s emotions that He has. God is an emotive God. He feels, and it was used of God’s emotion when He would see His people suffering, and then He would respond to that. So, you put those two thoughts together. Here’s how Isaiah put it. You probably have seen this verse before. Isaiah 49:

Isaiah 49:15, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no (there’s our word) compassion on the son of her (notice) her womb?” ‘Well they might, but I’m not gonna.‘

So when you think of a woman, you think of… when you think of love, you think of a woman and their newborn. They’re just… There’s something about it! And God says, ‘no comparison!’

Many of us on staff have in our phones Matthew 9:38. And actually we just have 9:38 on our phones, so when, so when it’s 9:38 in the morning it rings, because we think of Matthew 9:38 where Jesus says:

Matthew 9:38, “…pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

… and we pray for the mission fields. But I am more attached to Matthew 9:36 where Jesus… it says of Jesus, ‘Seeing the multitudes…’ He acted upon sight.

[Matthew 9:36, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.“]

Seeing the multitudes He had, what? [compassion]— And that word is a different word than the Hebrew word. That would be a Greek word. It basically means “to yearn from the gut.” Mercy.

When my son, who now preaches the Gospel, was in big trouble in facing a sentence for his crime, I made an appeal to my lawyer and I asked the lawyer to make an appeal to the judge. And I was stunned when my lawyer responded to me, ‘But your son doesn’t deserve mercy.’ Actually, what they said was, “Your son deserves to be punished.” And I was temporarily stunned, because this was my lawyer that said that! — And he did. And I said, “I know that. But I’m not asking for justice. I’m asking for mercy!” You don’t ask God for justice, especially when it pertains to your life! You ask him for mercy. Right?

Like the guy in the temple that Jesus talked about. Remember… there’re two men in the temple. There’s one who’s just expounding all of the great things he’s done and the other won’t even look up. He beats his chest and says, ‘Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ [Luke 18:13b] That’s how you come to know God!

It’s the same thing as that parable that Jesus gave in Matthew 18:21-33. Remember the parable, the unforgiving servant? There’s this servant. He owes 10,000 talents, which would be… the equivalent is just astronomical, and you could never repay that debt in a hundred lifetimes! — but he begs for mercy. He’s extended mercy, and then instead of going out in gratitude and clicking his heels over the mercy he’s received, he finds the guy who owes him three months wages and incarcerates him! You talk about a parable that has emotion built into it! Lack of mercy and ingratitude are ugly cousins to one another. And here’s the Real Counsel that comes out of this. God was compassionate to me. Therefore I will pursue compassion to others. Can you do that? Let’s move on.

Here’s the second selfie. He says, ‘I’m merciful and I’m gracious.’ [Exodus 34:6] Now there’s a word we like… grace. Amen? We like that word! — And this word means “favor,” like the New Testament word, but it literally carries the idea of “favor with delight.”

I did something for my wife here the other day, and her response was, “You didn’t have to do that for me,” and I told her, “That hurts, because I didn’t do it out of duty. I did it out of delight! I wanted to do this for you, honey!” Listen, when God extends divine favor, he never does it begrudgingly. He’s happy to extend it!

Remember when… remember the stories of Jacob and Esau, those fraternal twins in the Old Testament? Jacob is the… he’s the heel grabber. He’s the deceiver. He lives a life of deception. They, you know, they, they split up. He runs, and over the course of many years he gets married. He’s got wives, he’s got riches and it’s time to make his way back home, but he’s not going to get home unless he goes through his brother Esau who he deceived years earlier. And it’s high drama as he finally meets his brother having wrestled with God the night before. [Genesis 32:24-25] And he meets his brother, and Jacob kneels down before his brother. And if you read the text, and the Hebrew even brings this out where Esau is like incredulous! He, too, has become a very wealthy man. He’s incredulous that his brother, his twin brother, is kneeling down in front of him. And he in essence says, ‘What are you doing this for?’ And Jacob replies, “To find favor in your eyes, my Lord.” [Genesis 33:8b] That’s humility. And he does get favor. Grace. We call it undeserved favor. Right? — something we don’t deserve.

And here’s the point. God loves giving it out! He loves to give grace! He gives more grace, the Bible says. ‘He resists proud people, but gives delightfully grace to the humble.’ [1 Peter 5:5-6]  Amen?

So here’s… by the way, have you asked for grace? — because you’re not going to… there is a common grace that God gives to everyone, but the grace of salvation, you’ve got to ask for that. You’ve got to be like Jacob and humble yourself. And those of you who have experienced it, do you delight to extend it to others? That‘s a question for you. And here’s the Real Counsel: God delighted to be gracious to me. Therefore I will pursue being gracious to others.

The third selfie is He’s slow to anger. Some of your Bible say patience. It does mean patience, but the word patience compared to the word used here and even the New Testament counterpart is sort of a dumbed-down version. It’s not bad. It is true, but it doesn’t really convey what’s happening internally when somebody is being patient. The Hebrew word “slow to anger” literally… talk about pictures! — It literally means “long-nosed,” not Pinocchio. We’re not talking liars here! God is pictured as long-nosed, as sort of a figure of speech for somebody who is really putting up with a lot! And when you read the Old Testament, God was putting up with a lot! Second Peter 3:9 says:

2 Peter 3:9, ‘God is patient to us. He’s long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’

That word, “patience” literally means “long tempered.” That’s what it means. In fact, the exact same word is used in 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. In that chapter, you’ve got… I think it’s like 15 attributes of love. Interestingly, eight of them, eight of them are negative. ‘Love is not….’ Seven of them are positive. That’s powerful to me, because in heaven, you’ll never hear ‘love is not.’ There won’t be any inclination to be anything but loving! The other seven will be there. You know what the first of the seven positives is? “Love is patient.” The exact same word, long suffering.” Are you that way? — because God is!

Now listen, God’s patience doesn’t negate His justice. In fact, if you look at the seventh verse here, it says He…

[Exodus 34:7b] “… who will by no means clear the guilty…”

Right? So you see, the justice sort of, sort of percolating there. It’s percolating with a long fuse. God’s patience… Listen to this. God’s patience doesn’t eclipse His justice. It only amplifies his love.

If you were at the Men’s Steak and Corn Feed a couple of weeks ago, Alan Schultz, our very own, gave a great testimony, and he asked the guys up front, he goes, “How many of you hit the snooze when the alarm goes off?” I bet a third or half of them… including me! I raised my hand. I don’t do it every time. I try to prevent my wife from doing it every time. I’m kidding! That’s not true! —but then he went on to say, “Some of you, you’ve been hitting the snooze button on God,” and if you keep hitting that snooze button, some of you who are lost and you’re dead in your trespasses and sins, you’ve heard the Gospel, you know you need to repent. You know you need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you keep hitting the snooze. Someday that button ain’t gonna work anymore! — because God’s patience doesn’t… patience doesn’t eclipse His justice, it only amplifies His love.

If… listen… If God’s fuse looks like this, some of yours looks like this, and that’s not a good picture! So here’s Real Counsel: God demonstrated patience with me. Therefore, I will pursue patience with others. Will you do that?

Fourth, the fourth selfie is steadfast love. He’s… again, we’re building most of this off of Exodus 34:6… “… abounding in steadfast love.” Remember, this is God’s own self-description, His own selfie. I mean, if we had screens, if we could have a screensaver of God, this would be the portrait we’d have of Him. God’s loving. Amen? We love that about God! God is love.

You know, like the guy who… I think it was  Spurgeon, one day went he to a farm and he saw a weather vane that said “God is love.” And Spurgeon said to the farmer, “Are you trying to tell us that God’s love is like the wind that’s kind of all over the place?” And the farmer said, “No. What that means is no matter which way the wind blows, God is love.” Good reply! And God IS love!

And this, this is the word “love.” This is the famous Hebrew word “hesed.”  It’s the word repeated throughout the Old Testament. It speaks of His loving, promise, covenant-keeping, unconditional love. Hesed love is not romantic. It’s not an infatuation kind of love. It’s faithful. It’s reliable kind of love. It’s the love that never dies… and aren’t you glad? It’s the love that Gomer did not have, but Hosea had for Gomer. Remember that prostitute wife of his who prostituted herself? — had kids from other men? [Hosea] And what does he…? He goes after her! He finds her in a slave market. He buys her out of it and makes her his own again, which is exactly what God does for us in Jesus Christ! We are bound in sin. He comes into the slave market… and redeems us! That’s love!

It’s the love of George Peterson, who was a man in my first pastorate. He was already a very old man. He was in his 80s, and his wife Edna already had advanced Alzheimer’s, and she didn’t know anyone, but she stayed close to her husband. He brought her to church. She did know the hymns. She could sing the hymns, but she couldn’t carry on a conversation. And so when it got so bad that he had to take her to a Memory place, this was the testimony of the nurses in that place. I went there and visited once. He was there with her every day. She never knew who he was. They’d been married for over 60 years. She didn’t know him, but she could get up and walk around. He took walks with her. He held her hand, he ate every meal with her, sat by the bed with her, read scripture to her, and did that for years before she went to heaven. That’s a love that never dies! Amen? That’s a love that never dies.

It’s the love of John MacArthur, the late John MacArthur, who was when he was in his 50s and his popularity was soaring, he got word… this was before instant communication with cell phones… He got wind that his wife had been in a terrible car accident. The car flipped several times and ended up upside down, roof crushed, broke her neck, broke her shoulder, broke her hands, broke her face, was lacerated in several areas, was Life Flighted to the hospital. And he drove all the way to the hospital not knowing if she was dead or alive. And when he was asked, “What did you do during that time?” — he goes, “I just sang hymns,” trusting God in the moment for His love for his wife.

It’s the love that in 2011, when an F5, 200 mile-an-hour tornado went through the city of Joplin. Killed 161 people. Over 1,000 people were injured. Just annihilated the city. And the stories that came out of this. My favorite, if I can call it so, was of a young couple… no basement. That F5 was barreling down on them, and he took his wife, put her in the tub, spread himself spread eagle over the tub, grabbed the sides as that tornado ripped right through their home. She lived… Nothing left of the home. He would be impaled by all the debris and killed. When she shared afterwards in tears, she said, “He’s my hero.”

Here’s Real Counsel. My Hero, out of love, was impaled for me. THEREFORE, I will portray, I’ll picture, a life of love for Him. Isn’t this what Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 when he said in verse 14,

2 Corinthians 5:14, “The love of Christ compels me. If He died for all, I will live for Him.”

That’s what we do as a result, right?

And finally the fifth and final selfie that God gives to Moses, the communicable attribute that you and I can demonstrate is faithfulness. There it is in 34 verse 6, He says, He concludes His portrait with faithful. I’m faithful.

[Exodus 34:6, “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…”]

Faithfulness. The Hebrew word’s where we get our word, “Amen.” When you say ‘Amen,’ you’re saying “faithful.” So let it be. Let it be done. Agree. The word means “to be trustworthy,” and God, you can be sure, is a trustworthy God. He’s trustworthy in His promises. He’s trustworthy with your prayers. He’s trustworthy with His provisions, with His promises.

Remember when He took Abraham outside? [Genesis 15] This man was almost a hundred years old, He shows him the stars. He can’t count the stars. He said, ‘Abraham you can’t count the stars. You’re not going to be able to count your descendants. You’re gonna have so many descendants that will come from you!‘ — and Abraham believed. Amen! Same word, root word… Believed God, that is, he trusted God to be faithful and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.

And this is what Paul meant when he said to the Thessalonians:

[1 Thessalonians 5:24] “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” (He’ll surely do it.)

Now, when we say that God is faithful, it works both ways. It’s a double edged sword, so to speak, if you can call it that. Look at verse 7, because after all this beautiful description of God… It says:

Exodus 34:7a, “… keeping steadfast love for thousands (or thousands of generations) forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, (and, watch this) but Who will by no means clear (what? Not gonna clear) the guilty.”

God’s faithfulness works both ways, both in forgiving and punishing, because He has to. As Paul said to Timothy:

[2 Timothy 2:13b], “… He (God… listen to this) cannot deny Himself.”

Have you ever read that? Because God is faithful, He has to be faithful to His word. He’s faithful to save those who trust Jesus. He also has to be faithful to condemn those of you who refuse to do so. He’s faithful with your prayers. Not one God exalting prayer you ever make will go unanswered. And I can prove it to you. Psalm 65 verse 2 says:

Psalm 65:2, “O you who hear prayer…” (I love that line!)

Just the other day the elders were all together. A couple other guys, Kyle Pearson, who’s our Men’s Director, was giving a report on the Men’s Steak and Corn Feed, all the stats and all that came out of it, all the results, and he had a list, and as he started he goes, “I want you to know on there…” He said this. “God answered every one of my prayers.” Now, just, I mean, what would you think if you heard that like we did? You’d say, ‘Awesome! Every one answered!’ — because you’re assuming everyone answered in the affirmative… But that’s not what he meant. He went through his list of prayers and some of them were answered in the affirmative, but one of his prayers was absolutely, and clearly not answered! Was he lying? No… God answered his prayer. He just said “No.”

Some of us, we act like impetuous kids. We talk of answered prayer like a narcissistic kid who gets virtually everything he ever asks for. I mean, what parent would ever do that? None… if you don’t wanna be a fool and raise a fool. Right? No! In faithfulness you give your child what he needs and you withhold from your child what he doesn’t need. Right? God in His faithfulness does the same with your prayers. Your prayers are being answered. Sometimes He says “No.” And have you considered that God’s no’s… N-Os, God’s no’s as answers to your prayers and true to His faithfulness? — ’cause that’s what it is.

He’s faithful in His promises with our prayers and His provisions, the way He provides for us and the greatest needs.   Listen, I, in the hardest times of my life, God has used individuals, some of you, to comfort me, to convict me, to challenge me and to direct me. And I’m grateful to God for you and for your real counsel. But no one has helped me more than God, Himself, from the well of His Word.

And when my wife died and three days after, my head still spinning, my life unraveling, I read Psalm 71 in verse 20 where the Psalmist says to God:

Psalm 71:20, “You who have shown me great and severe trials will revive me again, and bring me up again from the depths of the earth.”

That was from God! And when my sons were living in rebellion and I’d written out a letter of resignation to this very church ready to submit it, I read Isaiah chapter one and verse two, where God says to the Israelites:

Isaiah 1:2, ‘I have raised children and they’ve rebelled against Me.’

Have you ever read that? And I looked up to God and I said, “Thanks for relating.” (congregation laughing) And when I was falsely accused for something I couldn’t even defend myself on, first Peter 2:15, God gave me where it says:

1 Peter 2:15, ‘By Your good works, You will put to silence, You will muzzle the mouths of foolish men.’

And when I was confronted by a guy at work when I was working at UPS, I thought I was getting really good at my job. And the guy next to me told me I was really lousy at my job… And that really ticked me off! —’cause I was making some real improvements… Not according to him! — But that morning, I had memorized Proverbs 12, verse 1.

Proverbs 12:1, ‘And he who resists rebuke is stupid.’ And I saw myself as the stupid one. Thank you God! That was His counsel… Best I ever got!

And then Romans 8:28. You know it.

Roman 8:28, “…all things work (what?) together (all the good, all the bad, all the sorrow, all the everything, all sin and the mucky muck and the garbage of life and the beauty of heaven. And it all comes together) for good to those who love God.‘

This is a divine panacea over the whole thing. Hallelujah! That’s the best counsel I ever got. And no matter what you’re enduring, God is the One who gives you the best counsel.

In 1862 when George Matheson, who was a theologian, brilliant man, author of books… was engaged to be married, had a debilitating eye disease and related it to his fiancee that he was going blind and would in time become blind, she said, ‘Then I’m done,’ and she left him. His sister stepped up to the plate and lived with him for 20 years. He would end up pastoring a church as large as this one… blind, with her helping him study Greek and Hebrew and all of that. It was an amazing thing! But 20 years later, his sister came to him one day and said she was in love and she would be married, and he would lose his eyes of the last 20 years. And so on the night before she got married… and he was not a poet, he did not write hymns… but he wrote one, and he did it in five minutes with a breaking heart. He went up into his room and he wrote these words to God. He said:

“O love that will not let me go.

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

that in thine ocean depths its flow

may richer, fuller be.

O joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

and feel the promise is not vain

that morn shall tearless be.”

What was he trusting? He was trusting the faithfulness of God. And the Real Counsel is, God has been faithful to me, and, THEREFORE, I will pursue a faithful life for Him.

2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding (as in a mirror) the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” We’re looking like Jesus, even by the Spirit of the Lord.

So here’s the deal. Put down the selfies and picture your Savior, and as you do so, you’ll take on an irresistible look. Some of you have never met the Savior. You’ve never trusted Him as your personal Lord and Savior. Jesus said: ‘The one who comes to Me, I will never cast out.’ It’s a promise from a faithful God. He is merciful. He is gracious. He is long suffering. He does love, and He is faithful. What a picture! Let’s bow in prayer.

Our Father, how grateful we are to You for the self-portrait that You have given us, one that we can have in our own lives. As we first and foremost come to a saving knowledge of Your Son, the Lord Jesus, You have been long suffering with those in this room who have never trusted Jesus. You know who you are. Stop hitting the snooze and believe on Jesus right now. And for those of us who do know You, Lord, focus us upon Yourself and on these attributes that we ourselves could possess, indeed picture and thus glorify You. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Let’s stand.