All right, good morning, church family. Happy Lord's Day. Let us begin our worship service this morning by singing together the song, Bless the Lord, O My Soul. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name.

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning. It's time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be seen when the evening comes. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name.

You're rich in love and You're slow to anger. Your name is great and Your heart is kind. For all Your goodness, I will keep on singing. 10,000 reasons for my heart to find. Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name.

And on that day when my strength is failing, the end draws near and my time has come. Still my soul will sing Your praise unending. 10,000 years and then forevermore, forevermore. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name.

Sing bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name. Yes, I will worship Your holy name. Lord, I'll worship Your holy name. OK. A few announcements. The reason why we're a little thinned out today is because our band is on retreat.

So please pray for them. Not so much so now for the retreat because it's probably about past now, but that there might be fruitfulness in their hearts as they consider and think through all that they've learned. Three announcements, and they're all sign-ups. So the first announcement is monthly evangelism outing.

It's on Saturday, March 5th. So you can sign up for that on that link. Second announcement is a season fellowship lunch. So anyone 50 years and older can sign up for that. And then the third announcement are spiritual development courses. There are two sign-ups for that one. So one is personal devotion.

So Elder Phil will be leading that one. And then family worship and devotion will be led by Elder Joe. So that's going to be on March 20th at 2 PM, part of the spiritual development courses. So please sign up for those as they're there for you. And after the praise set is done, we are going to be having baby introductions.

And so you can kind of get ready for that in the next transition. Well, as you know, there's a lot going on right now. If you turn on the news, you see what's going on in Ukraine. And the SBC is taking funds to help with displaced families that are there.

I know we're not ready for that today, but next week we will be taking some special offering, if you just kind of make it out to Ukraine. And as always, all our offering, you can do it digitally. And then there's an offering basket back there. But let's pray. Let's pray for them.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you use the resources that we would freely give to you to accomplish your purposes and your kingdom. And Lord, I pray that we would recognize and remember today that all that we have is yours. And all that we desire, it's your desires. And Father, where we don't find that alignment, would you allow us to use these times of offering to pray but to align ourselves with you.

God, to desire what you want. And Father, we do pray for Ukraine and what's going on there. We pray for our brothers and sisters who are stationed and situated. Lord, bring them courage. And Father, whatever we give to help them, I pray that it would be effective unto your kingdom.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Would you please all stand with us as we continue to worship? Who else could rescue me from my failing? Who else would offer his only Son? And who else invites me to call him Father? Only a holy God, only my holy God. Come and behold him, the one, the only.

Come and sing holy, forever a holy God. Come and worship the holy God. Come and behold him, the one, the only. Come and sing holy, forever a holy God. Come and worship the holy God. Come and worship the holy God. Amen. You may be seated. OK, so we'll be having our babies come up with their parents.

- Hello, everyone. The Lexington kids are the Ezra-- Ezra-- --Ezra chain. He will be four months old next week. And we picked his name Ezra because we love the verse. In Ezra, chapter 7, verse 10, where it says, Ezra set his heart to study the law of the Lord, to teach it, to practice it.

And that's our prayer that Ezra would become just like the book-- Ezra from the book of the Bible, when we do that. His middle name is the Korean name, given to him by our grandparents, his grandparents. It's Habi, which means "height." So our prayer again is that we would try to give him the gospel through his life.

- Thank you, Jonas. And I'm just going to go ahead and get it. And I think it's just in time. I'm not going to do anything. And we already got a picture of his name, or his name. So we had some more representatives to My wife is kind of in the top.

She's going to go with the name Judson, which is her favorite missionary. And Jinsung, we wanted something to match our daughter's middle name, which is Joy. I think it also means joy, but different. I think it means to receive joy. Our friend Bob thought of that. He's really good at Chinese.

So-- So yeah, our hope is that our son will grow up to be this man of faith, and be able to share the gospel, and to find his greatest joy in Christ, and Christ alone. And yeah, that's our prayer for him, is that he would come to know Christ.

And yeah, that's all. Good morning, church family. I'm Andy. This is my wife, Christine. This is our middle child, Noel. And this is our almost eight-month-old baby boy, Micah Ethan Lin. And Micah, mainly because we like the name, but Micah means who is like God. Ethan means strong, enduring, persevering.

And his Chinese name is Han Xing, which is also like enduring, persevering heart. And so that's kind of our prayer for him, that he may come to know our Lord, have genuine faith, run this race that God has blessed him with, with endurance, with enduring faith. And yeah, thank you.

Hi, I'm Princeton. This is my wife, Jessica. We're actually introducing both of our kids today. Our eldest is Everly Sherwin-Soroha, who is three years old. Why don't you come closer? Her name actually came from my wife, who is a labor and delivery nurse. She took care of a patient during her pregnancy and really liked the name Everly.

But her middle name is actually a dedication for both of our mothers. And my second one is my six-month-old boy, Zane Phillips-Soroha. We picked the name Zane because in Hebrew, it means God is gracious. And it's just a reminder for us and for him as he grows up that to be thankful for God forgiving our sins and that he will continue to bless us despite our own shortcomings.

So thank you. Hi, Church family. My name is Lawrence. This is my wife, Siji. We just wanted to introduce Michaela Joy Wu. She's our third daughter. We also have Naomi and Kara. We chose Michaela because it means resembles God. And our hope and prayer is that she will not only know Christ, but also resemble Christ more and more each day.

Her middle name is Joy. We chose it because we want her joy to come from the Lord and be a source of strength. For her, like it says in Nehemiah 8:10, "For the joy of the Lord is your strength." We also chose it because we want it to be reminded as believers our joy isn't based on our circumstances, nor how we feel, but it should rest on the unchanging promises and character of God.

And our prayer is that as parents, our joy would also come from-- would not come from getting rest or comfort, but that it would come from God and that we would be faithful to teach Michaela and our other girls about who God is. We're just thinking that God has given us this incredible responsibility to entrust her and this next generation with the gospel, and we pray that we would store this responsibility well.

Thank you. Hi, Church family. I'm Everest. This is my wife, Katerina, and this is our son, Caden Isaac Liu. We chose to adopt him from Korea, so he's been with us since the end of October. He is now two and a half years old. And so we named him Caden Isaac.

Mainly the Isaac part is that we hold him with open hands just as Abraham did with Isaac, and our--is that he would live a holy life and seek a holiness more than happiness, that he would be saved, but more than that, that he would be a great force for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thank you. Hey, guys. My name is John. This is my wife, Sarah, and this is our son, Jude Daniel Kim. We named him Jude after the book of Jude. We pray that he would not only be saved, but contend for the faith. And his middle name--my mom really wanted me to name him Daniel, but we didn't really want to, so we just stuck it to the middle name.

She actually never called him Jude. She just keeps calling him Daniel. But our prayer is that we would be faithful stewards and that he would depend on the God who keeps him. Thank you. Hi, my name is David, and this is my wife, Fionn. This is our son, Evan.

We named our son Evan. Basically, my wife liked the name. She said that I could make some other suggestions, but she rejected them all. So we went with Evan. Our prayer request is that for us, as first-time parents, just that we can be good examples of Christ to him and then one day soon, hopefully, that he too will come to know the Lord and call him Lord and Savior.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Alex, and this is my wife, Melissa. We're introducing our second daughter, Violet. We mainly picked the name because Melissa's favorite color is purple, but we also wanted something a little unique and different. We just pray that--yeah, I mean, for her and for her sister Faith as they grow, that as parents we can just be good shepherds of the gift that God has given us as well as that they will come to know the Lord at an early age, hopefully, and that we can just really love on them.

Fun fact, I guess Melissa started having contractions here at church, and she was born at 7 p.m. that night. Hi, my name is Caleb. This is my wife, Christine. We have a 2-year-old named Chloe, and here we're introducing Aiden who was born on New Year's Eve, which is pretty awesome because we got that tax credit.

But yeah, his full name is Aiden Ren-An Chang. We like Aiden--we chose Aiden just because we liked it, and we didn't want anything that started with the letter C. But unfortunately for him. But the middle name was chosen by my parents, which is a little more well thought out.

So the first character, Ren, is part of a poem that spans multiple generations, and so all the kids and all the sons in his generation has that Ren character. And then An, just together, Ren-An means peaceful man. But in terms of prayer, we just hope that he'll come to know the Lord and follow him.

Hi, church family. My name is Matt. This is my wife, Hannah, and this is our third son, Marcus. Fittingly, I come from three brothers, so God ordained us to have three sons as well. We chose Marcus just to refer to the Gospel of Mark because our first son's name is Tobias, which means the goodness of God, and our second son is Adam, to man through the Gospel of Mark.

So it's kind of a stretch, but we hope our kids to be able to share the Gospel and show the goodness of God that was given to us through Jesus Christ. So thank you. Hello, church family. My name is Alvin. This is my wife, Jennifer. This is our daughter, Emma Joy Yeh.

So we didn't have a particular reason for Emma. We just thought it sounded cute. But in terms of her middle name, Joy, our prayer for her is that, like some of the other parents have said, we pray that she would find her joy in Christ, that she would be saved at an early age.

And I think our biggest prayer request is, as we transitioned into having two kids, our first is Jordan, that we wouldn't get caught up in the nuances of parenthood, but that we would really desire to minister to our children to be the first line of defense for being a good witness to them so that they can know what genuine Christianity is.

Yeah, thank you. Let's pray for them. Heavenly Father, we thank you for each of these gifts. Lord, you are the giver of life, the sustainer of life. And so, Father, we pray that you would give them eternal life, help them, Lord, to come to know you, let these parents be strengthened in your gospel of grace.

Father, teach them to walk with you day by day. Thank you so much, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, let's give them a final round of applause as they go off. I wasn't sure if we were going to make it through that. Is anyone else sweating?

I was, like, stressed. Good job, good job, parents. Okay, well, today we're going to be kind of anchoring on a text in Exodus, but the sermon title is going to be "God Worthy of Worship." And the reason why I wanted to go into a text -- I mean, a few months ago I wanted to preach on the fear of God and how important it is to experience that.

I've been dwelling on it a lot lately, and I've been wanting to share with you guys the idea of, like, what it is that our worship is. Because there's just too much of it where -- I don't know if it's been trained or something, you know, where I know a lot about God, and I could give a lot of the reasonings and the answers.

But the more I walk this walk, the more I realize there can be a greater and bigger and wider divide between that and what I actually worship in my life. And I know when I'm worshiping well because I feel close to the Lord. Like, I know very intimately who he is, where things that I know about God start to come in alignment with my sight.

And so I'm going to begin by asking this question of us, because I'm going to kind of preach a sermon. I haven't preached a sermon like this before, where I'm kind of mashing up three different things. And I wanted to do that because a lot of what I'm going to be asking you to do is to use this kind of as a launching pad to continue to seek the Lord in your own life.

So we're going to start with this question, "Where is your heart today?" And to engage in that question, and not just let it float by, but to peer into your heart right now and to ask, "Where is it? Where is my heart?" And other ways you can kind of look at it, "What are you distracted by?" What's been consuming your faculties, your thoughts, your anxieties, your fears?

What's been affecting your emotions? What's been causing you to be frustrated? What do you have your eyes looking upon? Ultimately, if we were to wrap all this up into one common theme or thing, is to ask this question of us, "Where is our worship?" What have you been worshiping?

It seems a little overly generic, and I was a little hesitant, again, to go into this topic, but I kept coming back to it because I've been studying the attributes of God recently. And what I've been noticing in my own life as I was studying is, man, I was blown away as I'm thinking about some of these common truths that I already know.

And why is it that these common truths that I already know from time to time, moment to moment, become stale? And what's the difference? And what am I trying to reclaim? When we come to Sunday worship, what is it that we're trying to accomplish? And to come to this place and to say, "Okay, here's where my heart really is." And from that position of wherever your heart is, how do we get to this place where an active, genuine, honest, real worship of God, where we love Him with all our hearts?

What we know about worship is that it involves sight. We need to see. We need to see God in order to worship God. We need to have a relationship with Him, walk with Him. This is what we mean when we say, "Abide in Him." There needs to be an intimacy between me and God in order for there to be genuine worship.

I can't get away from that. I can't get away from this fact that when I just know a bunch of things about God and I'm trying to coach myself of truth, it's not that that's a wrong thing to do. That's a good fight. But where worship becomes realized is when I simply see Him for who He is.

If we come to church and try to generate some worship in our hearts to muster up spiritual willpower to say, "Believe this. Trust in God. Love Him. He's worthy of it." But do you feel that disconnect sometimes? This is the biggest problem, I think, in our day. We're missing worship in our lives when we're not seeing God correctly and when we're not seeing Him holistically.

We have a low view of God. We might have some church-generated view of God. Or we might have someone telling you who God is. But when we look inside our lives and when we see passing, fleeting convictions in our lives, it's because perhaps there's just too much where we're not walking with Him.

It's been a struggle for me to worship God rightly, to keep my eyes fixed on Him. There's just so much going on. And it's not just out there. I'm counseling people. I'm talking to people. Peering into people's lives. I'm seeing the brokenness. And beyond even outside there and what's going on with people, I look into my own heart.

I see the things that I'm wrestling with. And I see such disconnect sometimes. It's tempting to fix my eyes on things that are around. And especially right now with all the crazy stuff. It's just crazy. I was trying to think of a more, you know, like a smarter word than crazy.

But that's the best word I could think of. I look around. It's just crazy. And then we see the crazy, and then we become crazy. We're just moving along with what's going on. And thinking about it, I'm thinking, "What is this?" It's not just what's going on with Russia and Ukraine.

There's all these different things going on in our lives. We just move along with these circumstances. We move along with the things that are external to us. And too many times what I'm worried about in myself and in our church is that we turn to God, yes, and that's good.

We turn to God and we have the proper theology. And we say, "In God alone there is hope. In God alone there's peace and comfort. And it's going to be good there." But we turn to him as a last resort. And I think we do that too often. We move along with the crazy.

We move along with everything that's going on. And then when our backs are against the wall and we realize there's nothing that we can do, we come to God and say, "God, I trust in you." And I wonder why. Like when the scriptures say that we are not to be tossed to and fro, I wonder why I'm tossed.

Why are we tossed? Why was there such great anxiety in our hearts? Because of the crazy stuff. And those places, I think, are places where we can start to look and see that perhaps our worship has been there. Because when it's not lining up, the unsettling feeling in us is coming from what we have been worshiping.

And so then to fight it is going to be what? Not to come to our last ropes and say, "Oh, I should worship God." But to start there. And that's what I wanted to concentrate on today. Our anxieties reveal deep-seated things about our worship. When we think of a future that doesn't resemble what we would want it to be, for me, I actually don't care.

I don't care about my future so much. I just don't. I've come to this place where whatever happens, happens. For me, a lot of it comes to my kids. I look at my kids and I see what's going on and I'm like, "What's going to happen?" And so there's a lot of anxieties.

And it begins to again show me what I've been worshiping. Comfort and security, earthly happiness. And it splays and it shows that I've been having a low view of God. It means that I've been able to say all the right things. I can teach the right stuff. I can say the right things to my kids.

And even to you, I can say the right things. But my heart shows me the truth. My heart shows me what I've been worshiping. These things have become addendums in our lives. We wrestle with things and then we come to this conclusion of, "Oh, but God is in control." And it's not leading us many times as what we're forced into.

We need to reclaim a high view of God so we can see everything else rightly and not misplace our worship. Here's a quote from A.W. Tozer. And I'm going to read our main passage for today and then let me pray for us. So, from Tozer, he says, "To this I reply, that because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological.

Some knowledge of what kind of God it is that operates the universe is indispensable to a sound philosophy of life and a sane outlook on the world scene." Exodus 3, verse 13. This is our main passage for today. You could turn there. It's also going to be up here.

And we'll revisit it. "Then Moses said to God, 'Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is his name?' What shall I say to them?' And God said to Moses, 'I am who I am.' And he said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you.'" Let me pray for us.

Heavenly Father, we confess to you that our eyes, with good things, with bad things, intentioned or not, are so quick to roam and to be diverted away from you. And Father, I pray that we would be a church this morning united in our desire to see you and to have you captivate our full attention.

Father, that we might worship you and you alone, that we might love you with all our hearts. God, we're in great need for you this morning. Father, help us, teach us, mold us, and grow us. And Father, teach us to obey and to move along with what you want of us.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So we're going to be going through three attributes of God today. The first one is going to be God's independence. And with every attribute, there's going to be a second part to that, which is that we are not. We're going to look at incommunicable attributes of God.

These belong to God. So we see, as image bearers, we see like little imprints of it in our lives. There's some facets of it. But this one belongs to God and God alone. God is independent. We are not independent. Only God is independent. So looking at this passage again, when God says of himself, "I am who I am," this is a statement piece.

He's saying, "This is my name." He's saying, "Hey, when they ask who, who is it that's sending you, say, 'I am.'" And if you've grown up in the church, you just believe it. He is the great I am. We sing those things. But the statement itself is loaded. And this statement actually drips with this idea of God's independence.

This is a statement where it's just, "Whoa," you know, like, "I am." It almost feels incomplete because this statement belongs only to God. For us, we need to complete it with something because we're dependent creatures. For him, he just says it. It's just a fact. I am who I am.

It's the end of statement. This is the reality. There's nothing more that needs to be said at that point. God is independent. He is independent of all other things. He is independent of everyone, everyone else. Every other thing is dependent upon the only true independent one. He is not in need of anyone.

He is not in need of anything. You see the power when you believe this. Because the danger is we know this. There's nothing new that will be preached today. So if you're looking for something new, it's not going to come. We know he's independent. We know he is dependent on no one.

We know that we are dependent upon him. But knowing is not believing. You see? If we actually lived in this reality, think about what would happen to us. If we actually believed that God is not dependent on anyone, and therefore, everything, everyone, everything that we see in this world happening is dependent upon him.

We believe that. We believe that. But our hearts betray us. We don't believe that. And here's the scary thing. We can't sit here and force ourselves to believe that. Because the only way to have that apprehended in our heart is when we walk with God. Relationship with him. Abiding in him.

It's not something that needs to be told to me because we know it. It's something that happens when I see him day by day by day by day. I just, I know this is who God is. Acts 17.24 says, "The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things." That statement right in the middle, "as though he needed anything," it's a scoffing statement.

It's a ridiculous statement. As if God needed something. Oh my goodness. And then the part after that is the necessary repercussion of it. That is that he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. Again, we believe this. He doesn't need anything. Everybody needs him. God only is independent.

But the way we live betrays us. The way we live shows you actually what you currently believe. There are things, we talk about independence. We talk about financial independence. We talk about relational independence. I talk with a lot of college students who are saying, "I'm independent." And outside I'm like, "Yeah, good job.

Grow on your independence." Inside I'm like, "No, you're not." It's a fallacy. It's foolishness to think we're actually independent. Are any of us independent? Is there such thing as independence? Is there anything, you or me, that any of us can do? Anything. That was the end of the statement.

Anything. Is there anything that we can do? Can we accomplish anything? Whatever we plan on, can we do it? We wake up in the morning and pride ourselves on our efficiency and productivity. We have our to-do lists. We have our schedules and our itineraries. We say we're going to go do this and that.

Can any single one of us accomplish any of it? Anything. The smallest detail, the smallest thing. Can any of us do it? The answer to that is obviously no. We are fully dependent on the only independent God to accomplish anything. We believe it. I'm going to sound like a broken record today.

We believe that here. But how we live, where our fears are, our anxieties, our frustrations, our emotions, show our worship and therefore show our faith and our belief. We're down to the smallest minutia we're dependent. Like, I breathe. But I know that's of God. Ever since I was born 35 years ago, my heart has beat.

I know every single beat was dependent upon him. I know that. But I don't live like that. Proverbs 16.9 says, "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." James 4.13 says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.'" Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Come on, we know this. We know this. We know we're a vapor. We know it's just like this. But how have you been living? Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." But as it is, and I want to bring some highlight to this verse 16 here, "You boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil." Highlight that. Because at any moment, if we've been realizing and recognizing now that I've been living thinking I am independent, this arrogance is not flaw and it's not something we need to just fix. It is evil. Do you see the passage? That this boasting is evil, the thought that I can actually do, that I am actually able, that I can accomplish what I set my mind upon, that there is evil here.

Because he says, "Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills.'" Now there's the good. There's the faith. And there's not just faith of some Christian religion, but reality. Only if God wills, whatever He wills is whatever will come to pass, down to the smallest minutia and the smallest detail.

Every breath that I take is sustained by God. Every beat of my heart is Him pumping it. Every plan that I make, every thing that I do, it's dependent upon the only independent God. He alone is independent. Do we believe this? Do we worship a God like this? Do we pray to a God like this?

Or do we create Him to be an addendum, an afterthought in our lives, the place when everything else fails, when my strength fails, when all that I plan and purpose fails, fine. Okay, God, I trust in You. Or is that our purpose? And we purpose ourselves and condition ourselves and discipline ourselves and to walk with God day by day, understanding this is who He is.

This is not something we just learn. This is true to Him. This can't just sound like theology to us. It needs to be our truth. God sustains all things. Look at John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and apart from Him. Nothing came into being that has come into being. Now this passage is talking about origin. He's saying everyone and everything has origin. God alone does not have origin. But as we think about this fact that all things come through Him, let's look at Colossians 1.16.

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. This passage is saying that all things were created through Him, for Him, in Him, and it's being held together.

1 Corinthians 8.5. For even if there are so-called gods, and I love the cheekiness of some of this stuff, so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us, we can circle that one, yet for us, we're different. We see differently.

We know the one true God, yet for us, but one God, the Father from whom are all things, and we exist for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. This is what we believe. This is how we live. Not as an addendum, but this is who we are.

This is God. This is central. And so everything that God is is central to my life. It's not me anymore. It's God. A.W. Tozer says, "Man is a created being, a derived and contingent self, who of himself possesses nothing but is dependent each moment for his existence upon the one who created him after his own likeness.

The fact of God is necessary to the fact of man." In redeeming a high view of God, as we walk with God, we can't just be taught things about God. We need to look up and see, oh, this is who He is. And so it's not me trying to follow a list of rules and regulations that I set upon my own life.

It's not me trying to guiltily stop sinning or all this kind of stuff. It's about looking up at God. That's why we sing this song. Christianity is not about that. It's about come and behold Him. It's -- what else happens? When you realize and recognize God is independent and God alone.

I am dependent upon Him. Everything that I see around here, whatever country or nation, is dependent upon Him. It's powerful if you believe that. And so when you look up at the sky and say, this is who you are, you know what that is? That's worship. That's sanctification. That's change.

That's you coming down the mountain shining. That's you being changed by who God is. Not being taught these things that you actually do not believe. We need to reclaim this high view of God that our desire is to see Him for who He is. It's quite elementary if you think about it this way.

Second attribute, God is infinite. God is infinite. And so necessarily that means that we are finite. We are not infinite. Exodus chapter 3, 13 again. What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. When people ask, say I am. The I am, the great I am has sent you.

Wayne Grudem says, before God created the universe, there was no time, at least not in the sense of a succession of moments one after another. Therefore, when God created the universe, He also created time. When God began to create the universe, time began, and there began to be a succession of moments and events one after another.

But before there was a universe and before there was time, God always existed without beginning or without being influenced by time. And time, therefore, does not have existence in itself, but like the rest of creation, depends on God's eternal beings and power to keep it existing. Now there's this idea of always, that God always existed.

We don't know what to do with that word. There are many words that we use that we don't know what to do with it. Infinite is one of those words. We don't know. So we use it for our own purposes. And because we're finite beings trying to comprehend infinity, we'll use it to say something more like a very large sum or much, much, much.

Right? So we'll say there are infinite possibilities out there. Or that word always, a marriage counselor. If you've ever sat across a marriage counselor, and you guys are going, one of the common things that come out, don't use superlatives. Because why? Husband says, she always says this. She always does that.

And then the counselor looks at them and says, really? Always? You know? And it forces you to stop. I did the same thing with one of my kids yesterday. He had that face, you know, the face like I've been wronged. I said, what? He goes like, you know, always does this.

Oh, I just gave away his identity. But anyway, you always do this. Right? Not always. No, not always. Many times. Sometimes. But we have a hard time grappling these words of infinity. When it says in scripture that God is infinite or eternal. That there is no tagline to him.

Even in the name, I am. In the language, it's actually there is no time associated with it. It could be as well as anything else. It could be I was who I was. I will be who I will be. I am. It's all the same thing. No time associated with it.

When we think of infinity, we think of a long terms of time. And this is not who God is. He can't be bound. Another way to think of infinity is boundless, measureless, or unable to -- oh, man, what was the word? Limitless. Unable to be limited. So infinity means that we have no way to quantify.

So think about that. Think about what that means. It's hard for us because we have origin to think back before the foundations of the world. Right? Because God simply existed. And so in our minds, what do we try to do? We try to go back in time as far as we possibly can.

And then there's creation. And then we try to imagine what it would be to keep going back in time. But there is no time. God just was. When we think about eternity future, when we're in the new kingdom, when we're going to be forever, how do we think about it?

We think about it, wow, what would it be like to be in the kingdom forever? And we get really excited, right? I'm so excited. I'm even more excited now after all the things that have been happening. We think about it and we say, wow, what would it be like to 100 years?

100 years to be with God face to face. And then we think about what would it be like a thousand years or a million years because we're trying to grapple with this idea of infinity. And that would help me to understand and to be joyful and excited for this thing that's to come.

And so we say a thousand years, a million years, what would it be like to be there a billion years? This is incomprehensible. No, no, it's not incomprehensible. We can quantify a billion years. Pretty math people. You do a billion to the billionth power. What is that? I don't know what that is.

But a billion years to the billionth power. That many years I'm going to be with God. And you haven't even begun to scratch the surface of infinity. Right? We're at zero still. See, when we think about God's infinitude, it's a completely different plane of existence. And there's repercussions for this on our lives.

When we see God for who he is, I think this is why, like, worship just happens. How can we have a low view of God? When I think of an infinite God who just time is in his hands, he's not bound by it. Doesn't that change me? That's scary.

At the very least, it makes me go, wow. We have ways of measuring huge distances, numbers, and forces, but not God's infinity. We can measure the diameter of huge planets and stars, but we can't quantify. We cannot measure. He is boundless. You can't measure how long he's been around.

In Psalm 90, verse 1, it says, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn man back into dust and save eternal children of men.

For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by or as a watch in the night." So we just pass by it. Yes, God is from everlasting to everlasting. Yes, he is infinite. But think of the repercussions of that, that we walk with a God who is eternal.

In 2 Peter 3, 8, "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, like one day." In Revelation 1, 8, he says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." When we have a high view of God, when we know him rightly, this draws us into worship.

We understand that this is the God who we walk with, we talk to, we pray to. God exists outside of our understanding of time. Time has no effect on God. Time has no effect on his memory, his emotions. They don't change, they don't wane, they don't contract with time.

His purposes aren't affected by time. His promises are not affected by it. He knows everything instantaneously as clear as we see today. Do you see the repercussions of this in your life? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. God sees as vividly what I ate for lunch last Wednesday as I can see right now.

Like, as right now. He sees that vividly. He is not constrained by time. He is able right now at this moment to see vividly when he created the heavens and the earth. Vividly he can see right now a billion years into eternity. He sees that, he sees what it's like for me to have lived a billion years face to face with him.

All the joy that it brings, all the hope, the peace, the comfort, the gladness. All of that, he sees it vividly right now. I mean it makes sense, right? That God is able to look down upon us and say like, "Hey, it's a fleeting time you're living in." No matter how crazy the things are going on around, he can look down upon us and say, "It's okay.

You can trust in me." For him, he has to use our language to say, "Look what I have in store for you." But in his reality, he vividly sees it right now what he has in store for us. So when we struggle with the things of this world, imagine what it would be for God to look upon his children who are going after these things and he's saying, "Look!" And it is infinity to say that with no constraint of time, in my moment of sin, he is able to vividly see his son being nailed to the cross.

There's no constraint of time on this God. He sees it all beginning to end, infinity to infinity. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He knows what is best and we get to walk with him. We get to pray to him as our father. Trusting in him is not a last ditch effort.

It is not the last thing we turn to. It is not an addendum. It is, "Where else can we turn to?" He's all we have. For us, we're limited in so many ways, in time, energy, and resources. He alone isn't. Third attribute, God is immutable. He doesn't change. Again, necessarily that means we are mutable.

We change and we change constantly. Everything keeps changing. So in Exodus 3, verse 13, again, God said to Moses, "I am who I am." I want to emphasize this thing. "I am who I am." He simply says, "I am." No one else can claim that. We're going to look at a quote a little bit later, but this idea, everything else is becoming.

Only God can say, "He is." He is the only true being. Everyone else is changing. Everything else is mutating. Everything else is warping. I hate change. I'm a person who hates change. Everything I see constantly changes. With my kids, constantly changing. I look back at my pictures a year ago, I'm like, "What happened?" I leave my kids at home in the morning.

House is nice. I come home, whoa, change. I see change everywhere. The chairs you're sitting on. Some of the pastors kind of make fun of me sometimes saying I'm very anal. I try to hide it. I guess I am. I like control. I like things being a certain way.

These chairs, it bothers me every Friday when we put the chairs back for Sunday. Do you know why? It's always different. I'm always up. Did you notice that? The ones who sit on the edges? I'm like, "Oh, why am I sitting here?" It kind of bothers me right now.

I don't know why, but this pad I'm standing on is one inch this way. I'm leaning forward a little bit more because of that. Things keep changing. Everything changes. I hate it. These plants, did you know they're fake? Maybe I shouldn't be exposing all of these things. They're fake.

You think those things don't change. I see a layer of dust on somebody's sleeves. Everything changes. Everything is prone to change. Every single little thing. From the moment I started preaching, I've changed. I'm 20 minutes older. I'm 20 minutes closer to my death. I'm 20 minutes less energy filled.

All of us change. Everything changes. We already know this. But do you believe that? Do we stake our hope on that? We look into the future and try to create a world that hopefully is static for us. That dream and that hope and that aspiration is static. We look at it and we go, "I want that." In the midst of a changing world, we try to place our hopes on things that are constantly changing.

When we say that God alone is immutable, that's huge. Only God doesn't change. He has never changed. He will never change. He is the same. Psalm 144. "Man is like a mere breath. His days are like a passing shadow." That's us. James 4.14. We read that before. You don't know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Why do we keep placing our hopes on things that are going to change? If you're like me, I've been waking up every morning early to see what happened in Ukraine. To see, did they make it?

Have any of you been doing that? Are they alive? Is it okay? There's a part of me that's like, "Oh, this is good." There's parts of me that go, "Oh, this is bad." Then there's another part of me as I'm thinking about these things that goes, "Wait a second." If these things change, then we're going to turn around and face a world that's changing.

If they're alive today, then they're going to die tomorrow. In fact, that's the inevitable conclusion to all of us. We all die. It's a good morning to all of us. We all die. We try to sustain our lives. We put our dreams and hopes and aspirations upon these things that we've created.

As the thing that like, "If I had this, these things are the things that make me happy." But we know. Come on, we know. It changes. It's not what it is. It will die. Moth, rust, whatever. We look inside and peer inside and we know the things that we say is going to bring us happiness.

We're able to theologically condition ourselves to say, "But I don't, right? I don't believe that this is the way to happiness. I don't believe that this is the way to life." God alone. But we keep coming to him as a conclusion at the end of all our wrestling. And that's good.

That's good that we conclude these ways. I don't think it's enough. That can't be at the back. That needs to be at the front. Because this is the God that we walk with. Because we see him. It's not like I have to be like, convince myself of things. I just know this is God.

Trust, faith, strength, courage, fullness. It's reliant on this. Me walking with God and seeing him for who he is. It's not trying to convince myself of facts. I need to walk with him and see him. And that's what it is to abide. God stays the same. He never changes.

No amount of time will change him. No experience changes him. Nothing external to him changes him. I just look at my own life. Everything changes me. I could come home in a certain mood and my kids can be happy and it changes my mood. And they're complaining and that changes my mood.

You haven't seen the real me. You see a smiley man up here. I change. Like crazy. Change, change, change. When we think of Adam, Noah, Abraham, David. To the exile times. To the Ezra's and Nehemiah's. We think of the time of Jesus and the Pharisees and the Roman centurions.

We think of all these times in history. All the way up to modern history. And all we see is wow that's a long period of time. But when you look back and think of a God who doesn't change. It's pretty incredible. It's for us. What I do when I read the Old Testament.

I have to fight this all the time. I kind of clump it all together and be like those were the old days. And then I go these were the Jesus days. And then these were like the reality old days. Which is like history past. I kind of tend to do that.

But when we look at the Old Testament. We have to see the span of time that goes. From Adam to Noah to David. We have to see this. Because what you see in scripture is change, change, change, change, change. Ruler, ruler, ruler. Nation down, nation down. Movement always. And the only thread that's connecting everything that doesn't change is God.

And it's really cool. And that is the same God during the time of Adam. How he dealt with Adam. How he dealt with Noah and David. And the political powers of those days. And the nations and the kings of those days. And all the Christians that were walking around those days.

That to the time of Jesus. That to the first 500 years of this. What do you call it? 500 years after Jesus dies. And then 1,000 years and 1,500 years. The last 2,000 years he's been the same. And the last 20 years into the 2,000 he's been the same.

That he's been the same when I was born. He will be the same the day that I die. He was the same yesterday. He is the same today. He is the same tomorrow. He just doesn't change. He doesn't shift. He doesn't move. He doesn't quake. He doesn't quiver. There is nothing in him that will ever change.

Is that not worthy of our worship? And isn't it a ridiculous thing? That we put our hope on things that keep changing? And even more so when we look inside of ourselves and try to find truth here. And let this inform me. All this ridiculous. God is God. And he is external to us.

Because as we shift, he never shifts. And only in him. Do we truly begin to see the understanding of what is Christ in me. And what is the truth in me. And what is the truth in me. And only in him do we see the understanding of what is Christ in me.

What is the Holy Spirit dwelling in a temple like me. From the tabernacle to the temple. It was supposed to go from temporary to permanent structure. But the temple gets knocked down. Man. We are just so weak. We are so feeble. But God doesn't change. God doesn't change. Psalm 102 26.

Even they will perish but you endure. And all of them will wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them. And they will be changed. I love that. Like clothing you will change them and they will be changed. God does not need to change. We need to change.

But you are the same and your years will not come to an end. God doesn't grow older. His life force and energy never changes. He cannot mature. He cannot be better. He doesn't develop. He always was. He always will be. Herman Bavink, a Dutch theologian says, "The doctrine of God's immutability is of the highest significance for religion.

The contrast between being and becoming marks the difference between the creator and the creature. Every creature is continually becoming. It is changeable, constantly striving, seeks rest and satisfaction and finds this rest in God, in Him alone. For only He, only Him, only Him, He is pure. Being and no becoming.

Hence in Scripture God is often called the rock. A way to think about that is an ocean of things that keep changing. In our lives when we see what's going on out there and every morning we're looking to see the changes and we're seeing the changes that are going on in our own families, in our own lives, in our own bodies, all these different changes that are going on.

We look upon those things and we see, "Man, we're so prone to just get taken by those things." Because perhaps we haven't been walking with God as closely as we should. Have you been walking with God? Where have you been placing your worship? And rather than trying to rectify a problem, will you seek Him and pursue Him with all your heart?

He's the answer to everything. I'm going to have to skip some stuff. We go to Isaiah chapter 40 verse 6. "A voice says, 'Call out.' Then He answered, 'What shall I call out? All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows upon it.

Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades. But the word of our God stands forever.'" And in Psalm 119.89 it says, "Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven." And jumping to 151, "You are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are truth. Of old I have known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever." For us, of old, whether it's the foundation of the earth, or whether it's the beginning of my life, or whether it's when I became a Christian, we can talk about that.

But the idea is, long before, who you were there is the same as who you are now. You stayed the same, I changed a ton. If you're a little bit on the older side, then you start to meet up with old friends. And then many times, you look and you go, "Wow, we've really aged." Right?

The older you get, the more, "Whoa, it is." At a certain point, you're like, "Okay, we can't stop this." But what we do know is that all through that period of time, God never changed. If you didn't realize, I've been reading through Tozer. I have another Tozer one. This is a long one, but it's so good.

This is a bad thing in sermons. You're not supposed to do these long ones, but I'm going to do it. So good. "What peace it brings to the Christian's heart to realize that our Heavenly Father never differs from Himself. In coming to Him at any time, we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood.

He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to love and faith. He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one. Neither does He change His mind about anything. Today, this moment, He feels toward His creatures, toward babies, toward the sick, the fallen, the sinful, exactly as did when He sent His only begotten Son into the world to die for mankind.

God never changes moods or cools off in His affections or loses enthusiasm. His attitude toward sin is now the same as it was when He drove out the sinful man from the Eastward Garden. And His attitude toward the sinner, the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' God will not compromise, and He need not be coaxed.

He cannot be persuaded to alter His word nor talked into answering selfish prayer. In all our efforts to find God, to please Him, to commune with Him, we should remember that all change must be on our part." We need to reclaim a high view of God. Only when we see Him and when we're walking with Him will we not be tossed to and fro.

That only in that place will you be able to come to this conclusion, definitively, no matter what is happening out there, that I am secure. And it's not some random song that we use at the beginning of some random day to say that He is my shelter, my refuge, my strength.

It is our day-to-day, moment-to-moment, heartbeat-to-heartbeat reality that that is the truth. And we must walk with Him. In conclusion, Tozer, again, to repeat a quote from the beginning. I said this already. I said that because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological.

Let me ask you, do you believe that? Do you believe that all of your problems, every single one of your problems is theological? Do you believe that? That regardless of what is happening out there, what is going on in my heart and what is happening in my family, in my situations and circumstances, do you believe that the problem cannot be rectified by me trying to strategically think more, though these things fall in the line of wisdom I'm saying, that these things, the solutions ultimately fall in the fact that though nothing changes, I'm good.

Because I'm in God. Do you believe that? I worry for myself and I worry for our church. I worry because I'm afraid that we're going to just know a lot of things about God and we're going to forget what it is to intimately walk with Him, to be able to just simply look up at God and relationally know Him, to trust Him instinctively because who we see Him to be.

And I'm afraid with what's happening all around, that we're going to be not just tempted but to succumb to the temptation of being thrown this way and that way by everything that's going on. That even when we come to right theological conclusions, that our hearts are not going to that place where we believe that finally and ultimately that I'm good in God.

That our hope is not going to be fixed when we say that this invasion goes away, when things are a little bit better, that perhaps I'm not asking for much, I'm just saying that there's just at least no nuclear war, whatever conditions that is we're making, that we're able to solidly say today that though the world is on fire, I'm secure.

And I turn to my kids and I give them a message that I don't just say with my words but they see it in their father. That we believe this. We can't turn to this as a final conclusion. That finally when everything else is outside my power that I turn to the God who is sovereign.

There was nothing in my power. From the beginning we need to start there. We need to start at the point of walking with them day by day so that when the things come, we're ready. Otherwise we're going to be spiritual maintenance people who are constantly trying to just convince ourselves the truth and we will not be bold Christians who cut into the culture, who cut into what's happening.

That we will be people who will be able to actually believe these things so that we will be people of courage and boldness. That says I have already been crucified with Christ. I have already given my life. I have already known and understood and seen and felt the idea that all of these things that are here in this world, I've given it up.

They're mutating. They're changing. They are indefinite things. I don't want these things. I already want God that this is our natural thing so that when these things come, we are ready and we are ready to stand strong and we are united as a church in this. To be able to look into each other's lives and see the same purpose and the same goal.

And that we are not using each other as a standard to say, "Oh, it must be okay to buy this. Oh, it must be okay to go there." But instead to say, "We have the same heartbeat." It is not based upon the permissible things in our lives, but we have the same eyes on the same God.

Please, walking with God is not just for you. We need each other to live like this. Because when I see one of you living like that, it spurs me on. I need you. I need you to be living like that. We have to. We have to believe the things we believe.

Okay, we'll stop there today. Would you take a moment to bow your heads? Would you take a moment to pray to God? To surrender to Him? And ask Him for your heart's desires. God, I love you. That is what we believe with all of our hearts. Father, you are the only Holy One, the only one worthy of our worship.

And we recognize, Father, that today our worship has been threatened. And God, I pray that not just singularly, but together, all of us, every believer in this room as a church, would have a desire to reclaim a high view of you. Lord, that we would walk with you. And that they would not be truths we simply just try to digest from time to time.

But Lord, that it would be a daily living and walking with you. God, help us to remember that about you, that you are the powerful God. And we take a moment also to remember, Lord, that when you sent your Son, that Jesus, when you came into the world, even as God, the only independent, unchanging, one that has no bounds or limitations, that you came to the world and did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.

Father, you made yourself as us when you sent your Son, that Jesus, walking this earth, is able to understand and experience all that we are weak in. And Lord, we turn to you with more worship, more glory, recognizing what kind of God you are. There is none like you, Lord.

We freely give you worship because we see you. I may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and forevermore. Amen. ♪ God sent his Son ♪ ♪ They called him Jesus ♪ ♪ He came to the world ♪ ♪ He went forth there ♪ ♪ He lived and died ♪ ♪ To buy my heart and hand ♪ ♪ An empty grave is there to build ♪ ♪ A Savior there ♪ ♪ Because he lives ♪ ♪ I can face tomorrow ♪ ♪ Because he lives ♪ ♪ All fear is gone ♪ ♪ Because I know ♪ ♪ He holds the future ♪ ♪ And life is worth the living ♪ ♪ Just because he lives ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Jesus, I, my cross have taken ♪ ♪ All to leave and follow thee ♪ ♪ Destitute, despised, forsaken ♪