[0:00] Okay, well, we're not going to look at this text enormously, because we're going to rush through the Bible later. But if you do turn to John's Gospel, in chapter 1, because my church is made up mainly of new Christians or non-Christians, because usually this takes ages. We've given up, actually. We just put it on a screen.
[0:30] So I'm glad people seem to know where John is, so that's good. And this is what it says. No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only who is at the Father's side has made him known.
[0:50] No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only who is at the Father's side has made him known. If I pray, oh God and our Father, we need you. We need you to speak to us. We need you to do something incredible in us.
[1:05] And Lord our God, I pray that you would just, by your Spirit, work in our lives, so that we might understand who you are and how you are known.
[1:17] I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I find, I'm not that old. I'm only 44. My young people's leader told me recently, when I was a boy, saw me and said, when did you become older than me?
[1:33] So I don't know how I look so old. My wife, which is even worse, my wife looks about 20. So people look at me always in a very suspicious way when we go away. But I've been around enough as a Christian to realise that there are fads.
[1:48] And one of the big fads at the moment is everybody uses the word, it's gospel-centred, or you've got to be intentionally gospel-purposed in how you make coffee. That's a sort of a phrase.
[1:59] Or the word grace seems to be used. Everything is about grace. And if you understand grace, then you understand everything. And then the other issue you hear about is social work.
[2:10] And poor people, how you help the poor and how you help social issues. Now, I think we all have a tendency to fall into that trap. But what I want us to see is ultimately the most important doctrine, the most important doctrine of all, is the doctrine of the Trinity.
[2:30] It is far, far more important than any of the other doctrines. In fact, all doctrine comes from who's God and how can I know him?
[2:44] And how does he relate? And once you get that, then you can understand how you behave towards the poor. It's only God's grace.
[2:54] It's the God of grace is far more important than grace in and of itself. It's far more important than you know that you can know God for yourself.
[3:07] You don't have to hide behind theological terms. You don't have to, in any way, sense that you're not good enough. That the one truth which will make sense of every other truth is the fact that it is possible for you to have the Father made known to you by the Son who comes in the power of the Spirit.
[3:32] That's the whole foundation of all truth. And Lloyd-Jones, my hero, even though I'm not sure he would have been proud, but his daughter occasionally comes to our church.
[3:46] But this is what Lloyd-Jones says about this great doctrine. The three persons in the Blessed Trinity, Holy Trinity, are interested in us. They're engaged together in our salvation.
[4:00] Now you see what I meant when I saw this staggering verse. It's a verse on the Trinity. That is what it says. The three persons, eternal in their glory and holiness, their might, the three persons in the Blessed Holy Trinity, are interested in you if you're a Christian.
[4:18] They're interested in your salvation and working out your salvation. The world talks about honours and it is interested in honours, privileges, getting admission to clubs, positions, being introduced to great people.
[4:31] Here is a fact. The three persons in the Trinity are interested in you and have done something about your salvation.
[4:42] What if every Christian realized that? He says that after stating the same as I've just said. There is nothing more important. It's not a case of even, you can even use the word God.
[4:54] One of my friends often picks me up on this whenever I say, well, God, and he says, what God are you talking about? There are lots of gods. You can make the God of the Bible a God of your imagination, a solitary, lonely, egotistical, egocentric being.
[5:13] But the God of the Bible is nothing like that. The God of the Bible wants to make himself known to you. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God.
[5:26] Who is filled with the Spirit beyond measure, who is God. And he says, oh, that's a bit heavy. No, no. And he's interested in you. And he wants to come to know you.
[5:38] And he wants to work out your salvation. And he wants you to work out what he is working out in your salvation. And he wants you to get over whatever problems you have in your life.
[5:50] If you're struggling with sexual temptation. If you're struggling with you don't know where your life is going. If you're struggling with church life. The only answer of where you start is, how can I know the God who made heaven and earth?
[6:03] The God and Father who is the source of all things. And what I'm going to try and do, and pathetically, and you can laugh, at the end of this, I want you to read your Bible and come to know the three persons of the Trinity who are one.
[6:19] And I want you to read. And I want you to read like you've never read before. I'd like you to sit down and not do a quiet time where you read a chapter. Read Genesis in a night. It's pretty short.
[6:30] In our church that's what we do. And a lot of our people they can't read. So I read it onto a tape and they listen. But I want you to read the Bible so that you will know that the three persons of the Trinity are interested in you.
[6:45] I want you to devour the Bible for it to be sweet like honey to your soul. I want you to read it like it's a love letter from, if you're a lad, the most beautiful girl you've ever fancied ever in church, who's also a Christian and very godly.
[7:01] I want you to read it because that is what the Bible is. The Bible speaks of itself as the Spirit taking the things of Jesus, who reveals the Father, and giving them to you.
[7:14] That's what the Bible is. It's not you sitting and studying and reading a textbook. It's you reading the Spirit-inspired word. Of course it's inerrant. Of course that it's without any word which is wrong.
[7:28] Of course it is God's word. But it's far more than that. It is actually God wanting to take the things of Jesus and give them to you. So I'm going to try and unlock a couple of passages.
[7:41] You know, when I was driving, I changed my mind about six times on which to choose. And when I rang one of my friends and said, oh, I'm going to speak on this, he said, no, you can't. You've got to use this passage. But I'm going to try and unlock some critical passages.
[7:54] But really at the end of this, even if you say, I didn't get much out of what Steve said, then just that first bit, you sit down and you read Genesis and read it as if your life depends on it because it does.
[8:07] And we'll see that in the last session. Your life depends on it. So let's go to Exodus chapter three.
[8:20] And now we'll read the passage. Somebody really does need to give me a watch. Are you going to be up really late? I have spoken once for two and a half hours. So that's going to encourage somebody's going to give me a watch.
[8:32] Aren't they, please? After me saying that. Somebody's going to get a watch. I'm by again, I think. You just stop. At midnight the lights will be out.
[8:43] I still can talk. That's right. Preaching anyway. Right. Read this. And what I do is I'm not going to diss Sunday school.
[8:57] He says as he's about to sort of say something. But sadly, I think we read these passages and we don't actually see what's going on. So we're going to read them really carefully and slowly. And I think it's the most extraordinary thing that I had never seen until, well, maybe eight or nine years ago.
[9:15] It's right in the middle. The most important thing. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the far side of the desert.
[9:25] And he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within the bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up.
[9:39] So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight. Why does the bush not burn up? When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush.
[9:53] Moses, Moses. And Moses said, here I am. Do not come any closer. God said, take off your sandals for the place where you're standing is holy ground.
[10:05] Then he said to him, I am the God of your father. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
[10:23] What's the extraordinary thing that I hadn't seen in that? Well, I'd always read it as the story of the burning bush. Because everybody tells the story of the burning bush. I actually heard a sermon on, was it a burning bush? I'm not lying now.
[10:34] It's quite a famous sermon. Was the bush burning? Was the bush not burning? Look at the text. And surely your conclusion to that is, who cares? Because the whole thing about this story is not the burning bush, even though we'll see what the significance of the fire is in a minute.
[10:52] Well, a few minutes. The significance is there's someone in there. There's someone in the bush. Look at it again. And I genuinely, I'd read it lots of times.
[11:05] And I'd never seen it. Why? Because we're sinful. Our eyes are blinded when we read the Bible not to see Jesus. We're just, you know, Jesus despairs in the Gospels of that.
[11:16] But look what it says. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him. And who does it? Who speaks from within the bush? The Lord called out to him and said, I am the same God that I was to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[11:36] Here is somebody in the bush. Angel means sent one. The sent one of God is in the burning bush. And he's saying he's God. He's sent from God.
[11:49] He's the angel of God. And yet he says, I'm God. You see, that's how God relates to people. You want to know what God's doing in your life.
[11:59] You need to go to the one that God has sent to mediate. That's the most important thing. I know that's what we say to non-Christians. I hope that's what you say to non-Christians. You say that to non-Christians?
[12:10] They say they want to come to know God. And we tell them, well, you've got to come to Jesus. And they've got to believe in Jesus. Or you read, I don't know, John 3.16. Or you read, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Or, you know, usually there's loads of diagrams and schemes.
[12:22] But in the end, they all say the only way to God is Jesus. But the only way that there has ever been God known is through Jesus Christ. And as you read the Bible, all the Bible is doing is showing you how God is made known through Jesus.
[12:41] And here's Moses. His life is a, well, it's at the back end of nowhere. He associated himself with God's people for the sake of Christ. He knew about Christ. Hebrews tells us that. For the sake of Christ.
[12:51] And look where that led him. Have you ever done that? You've trusted Christ and you've ended up in the back of nowhere. Maybe that's what it's like in your school life. Maybe that's what it's like in your college life. For the sake of Christ, you chose rather to be associated with the people of God.
[13:08] And then you go to college and it's at the back end of nowhere. What is God doing with your life? After all, you chose Christ. That's what it says in Hebrews 11. He chose Christ.
[13:19] And you think, well, I chose Christ and his people. And where are his people? Here I am in a desert in the middle of nowhere. And if God wants to come to know you, and there's only one way that God makes himself known.
[13:32] And it's through Jesus Christ. And any other voice that tells you that is the devil. It's demonic. Even the Anglican prayer book, I was quoting that earlier, says you must not listen to anyone who says different to that.
[13:46] That's a great line. It's in the articles. You must not listen. The critical thing you need to realize is it's not some God in the Old Testament. You read it and you say, well, where's Jesus?
[13:57] Where is he? Is he sort of pictures? Is he there in shadows or types? Is God known some other way? And then he turns up in the Gospels. And that's all the way through the whole of the Bible.
[14:10] God is making himself known through his sent one, the angel, who is from God and is God.
[14:22] And that's the way it's always been. He reveals himself with lots of different names. Jesus has got lots of names. His favorite name, maybe, is the name that nobody knows but himself.
[14:33] I'd say it's that in Revelation. That's quite a cool name for Jesus, isn't it? David Meredith. I don't know whether you've heard of David Meredith. He's a sort of preacher in the Free Church of Scotland.
[14:45] When we interviewed him on our video, he said this incredibly funny line. He said, the Bible doesn't tell us much about God. Have you ever thought that? The Bible. And, you know, I thought, oh, it's a heretic and a Presbyterian at the same time.
[15:00] They usually go together. And he said, God is infinite. The Bible just tells us what we need to know. Don't think that even if you've read and memorized the whole Bible, you would know everything there is to know about God.
[15:18] God's infinite. You're just scratching the surface. The secret things belong to God. God is infinite. You'll spend eternity. I don't know, in a billion, billion years' time, if there will be such a thing.
[15:31] When time is no more, you will still be wowed by the triune God. You will still be overwhelmed with him. But he makes himself known to you, in part, through Jesus.
[15:48] So how is he the God of Abraham? Well, if you turn back in your Bible to Genesis chapter 48, you'll start to see. It's a summary of what's going on. I promise there will be a lot more application tomorrow.
[16:02] I'm just trying to sort of set up some ground rules. He says this, That's what we should think.
[16:37] I wonder, we all dream of children. You're at that age, aren't you, where you start and think, I wonder what my family would be like. What's your ambition for your family? Well, he says, his ambition is that they would know the ones sent from the father.
[16:51] And through knowing him, they would know the father. That's all he's concerned about, about his boys. Is that that is the key thing about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[17:05] And you see it running through Genesis. That is how God functions. He consistently makes himself known. No one's ever seen the father. And yet, when you read Genesis, the Lord keeps appearing all the time.
[17:20] If you notice that, the Lord appeared. Don't read that and think, oh, I'll brush over that. That doesn't fit in with the way I see the Bible. The Lord appears. The father has never appeared. Nobody has ever seen the spirit.
[17:32] He works. We know that in John 3, doesn't he? He comes. He goes. He's like the wind. You can't touch him. You can't feel him. You just see his dramatic, powerful effects of the breath of God.
[17:42] And yet, when the Lord appears, well, he is introducing him to the father. He is mediating. He is sent from his father in saving.
[17:54] And Abraham, because he's the father of all who believe, we need to see how our sent one works in Abraham's life. And understand. Consistently, you see this.
[18:06] This is how he always has worked. Let me give you a great verse just to sort of establish the point, which is found in Genesis. Do you know, I wrote it down, but on a separate piece of paper. But I will find it.
[18:16] It's Genesis chapter 19. It's well worth turning to. Genesis chapter 19. Of how God always works. And it's verse 24.
[18:30] The early church fathers, they're all obsessed with this verse. A little bit, maybe too much. In the early church, everybody is obsessed with the Trinity. You read just in Marta and the earliest of writings, you'll see it.
[18:44] And then later on, why? Because they realize their life depender. But look how God works through the universe, even in judgment. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens.
[19:03] Hold on, there's two lords in that verse. Does anybody see that? There's the Lord on earth. It's a good line with the Olders witnesses. Do you ever, you know, because they know all the New Testament ones.
[19:13] So it's good to choose the Old Testament. You get them to read that one and say, which one do you believe in? The Lord on earth or the Lord in heaven? Have another look. There's the Lord who reveals the Father. The word of the Lord he's called.
[19:25] And we've heard that phrase before from John chapter 1. He's the word of the Lord in verse 15. I am. Do not be afraid, Abraham. I am your shield and your great reward. He's called the sent one of God.
[19:37] We could go through his hundreds of names. Maybe as many as 500 names he has in the Bible. But here it's just the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heavens.
[19:52] It's not only that God mediates through saving sinners. He mediates in every way. So whenever you think of the Lord on earth, you can't help but think of the Lord in heaven.
[20:05] One of the church fathers put it like this. I think it's a very good way of putting it. Is that when I think of the one, I cannot help but think of the three. Whenever I think of the three, I cannot but think of the one.
[20:19] If you start to talk about God without thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ who is filled with the spirit and reveals the Father, then it will be a different God from the God of the Bible. It will be a God that you depersonalize.
[20:32] It will be a God who doesn't come and eat with you and drink with you and help you and teach you and mold you and pour his spirit into your life and give you holiness and unite him to your people.
[20:45] It will be a God you argue about and talk theology about and keep at arm's length from. Now it's good to talk about theology. I'm sure we'll see that as we go on.
[20:57] But do you know him? It's a real question. Do you know him? Abraham knew him. He appeared to Abraham. Do you know God the Father? Well, I can't. He's made himself known to his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[21:13] And constantly, even though Abraham, our example of faith, wanders away. And he was awful, wasn't he, Abraham? When you read the story of Adam, one sin and he's gone because his righteousness relies on his work.
[21:26] One, there's a lot of debate. Was it an apple? Was it a pomegranate? I think it was a pomegranate, but that's an argument. We'll leave that. You can argue over that for a discussion. I'm pretty sure it was a pomegranate. There we are.
[21:38] And then I can tell you why and you can say why I'm speaking nonsense. But he takes one bite and he's gone. Abraham, the minute, have you read that story? The minute that the Lord comes to him, what does he go and do?
[21:51] If you read it in chapter 12, immediately, he goes down to her. In chapter 12, he follows the Lord. The Lord reveals the Father, comes, speaks to him.
[22:01] And then immediately, he goes and he says, yeah, she's not my wife. She must have had fantastic skin care, by the way, because she's getting on a bit. And yet everybody fancies her. And he disowns her.
[22:13] And yet what happens? He repents. Because he knows the Lord who's going to take away sin and reveal the Father. Have you committed a sin like Abraham like that?
[22:26] An embarrassing sin. If you've read that story, it's embarrassing. Read it tonight. It's embarrassing. He does it twice, actually. It's a really cringy one. The man's a nightmare.
[22:37] And then he has a child by one of his staff. It's just awful. And then you read about your life, and you've sinned. And you think, where do I go?
[22:51] Horatius Bonner, who's got a terrible name. It is an awful name. But he writes brilliant books. And he wrote this book. I'm reading it at the moment. It's tiny paperback.
[23:03] If you can get it, it's great. But his hymns are phenomenal. Do you know the hymn, Not What My Hands Have Done? Which is a great, great hymn. But he says that he had a man in his church who was a Christian who was anxious about his soul. Really anxious.
[23:15] And the man said, do you know what? I'm going to double the amount of time that I spend with the Lord in the morning. So he doubled his quiet time. And he said, and that will give me peace. And he had no peace.
[23:28] He said, I'm going to give more money to the church. And he did. He gave more money. And he said, that will give me peace. But he got no peace. He said, I'm going to arrange a prayer meeting in my house.
[23:40] I go to the church prayer meeting, but there's not enough prayers. I'm going to gather people around. I'm going to learn this prayer. I'm going to pray it. I'm going to read it. And he said, he threw it on the table.
[23:51] And he memorized it. And he said, that will give me peace. And he said, a still, small voice came into his head and said, it will not give you peace. But Christ does.
[24:05] Christ does. It is knowing the ones sent from the Father and their faith in him that will give you peace in your life.
[24:17] It is knowing God through Jesus. Every day. I love that in Luke, isn't it? If any man shall follow me, he must take up his cross daily.
[24:30] It says, every day I crucify all ideas that I can live the Christian life. And I take all of my, as one man said, one of the Puritans, I take all my good works and I take all my bad works and I run from them both to Jesus.
[24:48] You see it in the life of Abraham. That's the God of Abraham. The God who comes from God. The God who is sent by God.
[24:59] Who else can save sinners? Everyone else is in hell. Anybody who came to God without Jesus is in hell. That's what the Bible teaches us. And I look at Abraham and he not only gets knocked over, he falls down.
[25:14] But he trusts in Christ. Trusts in the one sent from the Father. Trusts in the word of the Lord who is his shield and his great reward.
[25:25] And then we could, I'm not going to do Isaac and Jacob, but when they get there, I'd love to do the story of him fighting. That's the most amazing story of conversion, isn't it? Where he wrestles with the angel of the Lord. But we haven't got time for that. But at the end, it's not only what he loves, but it's what others love.
[25:41] Now what's happening in that passage? And then we'll move on to where it's all going. So Exodus chapter, if we go back to Exodus. Why does he say this behind the flames?
[25:52] The angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within the bush. Well, if you know anything about fire in the Bible, you know it speaks of judgment.
[26:07] In Genesis chapter 3. Do you all remember what happens? What happens in Genesis chapter 3? What happens when they get thrown out? What do the cherubim have? Swords of fire.
[26:19] Flaming swords. So you can't get to God. Or actually, if you read later, maybe we'll get to this in a minute. God can't get to you. I think that's probably what it's actually about. God throws them out of the garden.
[26:31] Because if he's hanging around, he's going to have to kill them. Because the soul that sins dies. So it's almost like they're protected from God's wrath being poured on by this fire that's there.
[26:43] But the problem is when we die, we pass through that fire. And there's God in all his holiness. And everybody looks at that and says, well, what is the other side?
[26:57] Burning judgment. But what's happening here? Here he is, the other side. The angel is the other side. And he turns around and says the most incredible phrase.
[27:08] You know Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? They're all right. They're over here with me. That's what he's saying. They're all right. They're not dead. They've passed through the flame.
[27:20] I'm their God. And Jesus says that. He is the God of the living and not the dead. I am the God of... He's actually... Moses is sitting there saying, what? Moses... Moses...
[27:30] Well, we all know that they're okay. But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? You're still their God right now. They've passed through the flame of death. And they're with you now. And they're safe with you.
[27:42] And you're still their God. Yeah, that's right. I'm their God right now. I am the God of the living, not the dead. They're here with me right now. It's okay, Moses. However much your life seems to be falling apart.
[27:55] Trust me. I get people through the fire of God's wrath. It's gonna be all right. That's incredibly comforting, isn't it? There are people you know and I know who've died.
[28:08] And they're more alive now than we are. They're all right. They're all right. Or they're waiting for their resurrection and the new creation. Impatiently.
[28:18] That's what it seems to be saying in Hebrews 11. They're all sort of, I want that body. And they... But they're all right. He is the God of the living and not the dead. Have you realized Moses and all these characters that you read in the Bible, they're not dead.
[28:35] I was in... I don't know how to confess this. I was on a spring harvest holiday. Don't stone me to death. I go because no one knows me. And I, you know, I go to one of the meetings and I went to the meeting.
[28:46] Look, you're all switched off. Please switch on. I didn't agree with everything. But there we are. It's a family thing. And I've sit in there. And this gets worse now before it gets better. But they read the story of the Transfiguration.
[28:58] And the person who was reading changed the names. And then we all had to shout out the answers. I didn't shout. I was just very... In a reformed and reverential way sat in my best Calvinistic pools, whatever that is.
[29:12] And they came to the names. And they said Jesus went with Andrew, Mary, and somebody else. And then everybody had to shout out the answer. And somebody shouted the wrong answer.
[29:23] They shouted this. They shouted Lazarus and Martha. They didn't realize. They didn't realize. And the person who was reading said, no, no.
[29:36] They hadn't died yet. And then suddenly, it's funny what you have when the penny dropped. That's the whole point of the story of the Transfiguration. Moses is not dead and neither is Elijah. That's the point.
[29:49] The whole point of the story of the Transfiguration is that Moses and Elijah are not dead. Peter, he wants to build him a house on earth. They're like, forget that. I'm going back with Jesus.
[30:00] But Moses and Elijah are as alive with their God, the Lord Jesus Christ and his Father in heaven right now. And all the Christians you know who have died are with him, which is far better.
[30:18] That's what the trying God's about, isn't he? That's his business, isn't it? That's what he loves to do. He's to rescue us.
[30:31] He is sent by the Father to rescue us from death and hell. And to bring us into a personal relationship with himself by his spirit.
[30:46] And that's what happens. Where does it all end? Well, if you jump, and you'll have to read the rest yourself. Where does the angel of the Lord take them? Well, he takes them to chapter 19, doesn't he? To Sinai.
[30:58] And you get these incredible verses in chapter 19. He says he carried them on eagles' wings and brought them to himself. And it is just incredible.
[31:09] But then what happens next in Exodus 19 is even more incredible. Not only the salvation. But if you look at verses 10 and 11, and you'll see how extraordinary this is.
[31:22] And the Lord said to Moses, this is the Lord, the angel of the Lord, who is the Lord, said to Moses, go to the people, consecrate them today and tomorrow. There he is talking. Make them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day.
[31:37] Because on that day, the Lord will come down. So hold on. The Lord's there. What's going on? You see, the whole point is, of the story of Exodus, is that they will be taken to the unseen Lord, who thunders from heaven.
[31:58] The Ten Commandments. The laws. Everything Jesus wants you to do is to realize that you have a Father in heaven.
[32:10] It's full of compassion. And together, the Father and the Son want to pour his Spirit, the Son's Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, into your life.
[32:22] And when you talk of Jesus, you can't help but being drawn to the Father. He does nothing of himself. Right, look at that.
[32:32] It is amazing, isn't it? And if you go through, there's lots of these three or four, three, we'll see another one tomorrow, passages, where they speak of the Lord coming to the Lord. But then, what does the Lord from heaven say?
[32:45] And I love this. About the angel. If you turn to Exodus 23 and verse 20, this is what the Lord, the unseen Lord says, the Father.
[32:58] See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I've prepared. Pay attention to him.
[33:10] Listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him. He will not forgive your rebellion since my name is in him.
[33:24] If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies. And I will oppose those who oppose you.
[33:36] You know that it's Jesus because he always speaks of his Father. But of course, the Father always says, this is my Son. Listen to him.
[33:49] So the triune God, what is there? There's this incredible love between them where they constantly speak one of the other and they constantly love each other.
[33:59] Never, ever think of God as a solitary being. Never, ever think of God as an egotist who's just into his own fame. When God came into this world, do you remember when you read the Gospels?
[34:14] All he ever is concerned about is his Father's glory, isn't he? When the Father talks, all he is ever concerned about is the Son's glory.
[34:25] They're constantly. Jesus doesn't come and go, everyone, here I am. I'm amazing. I'm fantastic. Everybody wash my feet. What does he do? He pours himself out.
[34:37] He says, look, my father. I'm just doing the works of my father. The father goes, look at my son. That's my son. Did you see that incident with a South African swimmer in the Olympics? Or do you just watch the Yorkshire people winning?
[34:49] Did you see that with the South African man? And his son won in a medal. He beat. He was the big swimmer and he beat him. And the father was, and he goes, there is my lovely boy.
[35:01] And I know it's a pathetic image, but isn't that something of how the father loves the son? You see, if you want to be godlike, you're going to have to start serving.
[35:15] It's not about you. God the Father pours out his spirit on his son. He's not selfish. He's not egotistical. He's not into his own happiness.
[35:26] Such an idea, Baal is. But God in the Bible, he's not like that at all. He's constantly concerned about his son. And if I want to be like God, I have to constantly lay my life down for others.
[35:39] My joy is in seeing him glorified and others lifted up. That's the God of the Bible. He sends his son.
[35:52] The angel. The word of God. We could go through it. The great high priest of God. We could go through endless illustrations. He sends his son. He glorifies the Father.
[36:04] And serves you and me. That's our God. That's our God. And he's glorious. And that's the God of Abraham. And he'll get you through life.
[36:16] And he'll get you through death. And he'll bring you to the Father. That's our God. And through the Old Testament. I was going to fly through a couple of things in the law.
[36:27] The whole illustration of the priest wandering around. What is the priest? He is a walking, smelling, visual aid of the Triune God.
[36:37] The spirit. That's what the oil represents. Is poured on his head. And it smells. We made it. Not long ago in Mount. Just to try and get that image into the kid's head.
[36:48] That when they see priests. Because all the children in our church read the whole Bible. So you've got to help them with the visual aids a bit. So everybody reads the whole Bible in our church. Over a period of three years. But the whole point is.
[37:00] Here's this man walking around. And every time you look at him and say. That's a little bit of what? Jesus is like. What's Jesus like? The Father pours out his spirit on him.
[37:13] Without measure. Of course the priest. He had a bucket full of oil really. It's a couple of gallons. Was dumped on his head. Sort of all poured. But of course it illustrates. It's a mass illustrates our God.
[37:25] The illustration I haven't got time for the tabernacle. It's constantly showing. The three pieces of furniture. Are made before the tabernacle. Because the triune God was made before the universe.
[37:36] We don't need to do children's talks. The Bible has given us loads of them. Just to show off what our God is like. But right in the middle. Even the illustrations. There is the Lord who talks face to face with Moses.
[37:49] And there's the Lord whose face you cannot see. And there's the Lord whose presence has to go with Moses. Don't ever think that at the beginning of the Bible. That's your God.
[38:01] That's your God who wants to meet you personally. And you need to come to him again. I wonder. And I will close now. Because I had loads more to say.
[38:12] But I think it's enough to get you thinking. And maybe you could all go and read Genesis and Exodus. And really read Exodus. I got this theory. In our church this month. The whole church is reading Leviticus.
[38:25] So the whole church. And I had two hospital consultants. And said. Oh we're going to find it really hard. You know. And the kids aren't. Do you know. I wish I was in the Old Testament. On Sunday. I've been in lots of church services.
[38:35] Where I would love to just bring a bull. Put my hand on it. Think of Jesus. If I feel terrible about my sin. Have you ever done that? You know. I feel terrible. Bring the bull. Cut it open. We've got a load of kids who come in off the streets.
[38:47] I think that they sometimes would find that a bit better than my preaching. Slice it up. Watch the whole thing go up in smoke. And then they think that the Lord Jesus.
[38:57] My anointed priest. Comes with blood on his hands. That's what it says in Leviticus. And he comes. The anointed one. Sent from the father. With my death on his hands.
[39:09] My blood on his hands. Read it. It's children's stuff. It's visual aids. You've got to picture it. And see your God. But don't ever when you're reading the Bible.
[39:21] Think that he's some distant God. It's a million miles away from God. Some solitary God that you've got to somehow plead with.
[39:32] You try and get to. And he's not really listening. And he sent his son.