Jimmy Evans – Seeing God As He Really Is – The Gift Of Grace

now this message is called seeing God as he really is and that this is a very special message because hopefully through this message you'll see God more clearly than maybe you've seen him before now one of the one of the truths that I have brought consistently in this message is this truth you cannot get closer to God than your concept of him will allow you can't if you do not believe that God loves you we're gonna read the scripture from Hebrews 4 that says come boldly before the throne of grace if you don't believe that God loves you you're not going to approach him you're gonna stand to the distance if you believe that God is an impersonal austere God you're simply not going to seek God that you believe that doesn't care about you a god that you believe is mad at you an impersonal god you're just not going to seek that God the same as you would a god that's gracious and merciful and loving and so you cannot get closer to God than your concept of him will out in the purpose of this message is to take all of the filters out to take everything away that would keep you from understanding who God really is and to give you a personal revelation of who God is there's a scripture in the Bible that God reveals himself for who he really is and we look in-depth at that Scripture let me just begin by saying the Bible tells us God is good and so you know some people doubt that but God is good Psalm 80 65 for you Lord are good and ready to forgive and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you Psalm 31 oh how great is your goodness which you have laid up for those who fear you which you have prepared for those who trust in you in the presence of the sons of men Psalm 33 5 he loves righteousness and justice the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord with us what the Bible says the Bible says that all through Old Testament New Testament but the Bible also tells us that we're not good that God is good but we're not good we're not inherently good the rich young ruler came to Jesus one day and he called him good and Jesus said I don't mean let me correct you there don't go around telling all people good only God is good now Jesus is God and Jesus is good but what he was saying to the rich young ruler is don't go around calling people good listen to me are there good people there are good people in comparison to other people but compared to God or evil this is what Jesus said in Matthew 7:11 if you then being evil now know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask you I'm thinking about the disciples and Jesus said if you being evil and there's turnaround going you're evil compared to God the best person on earth is evil in comparison to God Romans 3:12 they have all turned aside they have together become unprofitable there is no one who does good no not one good in comparison to other people but in comparison to God we are evil people we are born into a fallen sinful state and our only chance of goodness is God because goodness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit according to Galatians 5 the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control so the only chance we have at truly being good is to allow the Lord to fill us and so you say well why is this important is because our concept of God has developed more by our parents than anybody and their fallen and compared to God their evil notices listen to statement the best parent on earth is evil compared to God right based on what we just read here right if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your heavenly Father so if you had the best parents on earth and your concept of God is more based on that anything else they gave you an evil representation of godlessness in Genesis 1:27 and 28 God made man in His image first he put his image on Adam and Eve then he commanded them to multiply that's a very important sequence there that Adam and Eve were to be image bearers to their children that's what parents are we are image bearers of God to our children and anything that your parents do right you naturally attribute to God and anything that your parents do wrong you also naturally attribute that to God several weeks ago when I was talking about on Father's Day I talked about the book called faith of our fathers Paul vets who documents that all famous atheist hate their fathers the reason that they don't want God to exist as they wish their fathers didn't and so our parents are image bearers to us unfortunately when Adam and Eve fell they then portrayed a distorted image to their children and by Genesis 6 the world was completely corrupted in violent because of the image that they bore to their children and so we as parents were then and by the way we need to forgive our parents should be very compassionate or a parents because all of us are in the same boat we want to do the best we can we want to be the best parents that we can but the number one responsibility of a parent is to lead your child into an understanding of God but the most important thing that a parent does is lead your child into a personal relationship with God so that God can reveal himself really really is and so this this is in no way a contempt toward parents it's just the reality and so in my case when I was growing up my dad was very impersonal he had absolutely no relationship with me whatsoever didn't talk didn't ever come to a ballgame did not involve himself in my life in any way he worked all the time was tired when he got home he was a good provider and a moral man but just completely and personal it was the hardest thing in the world for me to believe that God knew me and cared about me it was the number one barrier in my relationship with God and I blessed my father he became a Christian a great man he's in heaven I can't wait the same but it's just simply truthful so the only chance we have at understanding God is a direct revelation okay we need a direct population so we're going to get it in Exodus 33 this is God is at a crossroads in its relationship with Israel in the chapter before Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days and Aaron his brother and the children of Israel they thought he had died or something so they fashioned a golden camp and they began to worship a golden calf and become very immoral they were party and when Moses came down Mount Sinai with the ten commandments and saw them partying he threw the commandments at him and then God said to Moses I'll honor my work I'm gonna go ahead and take them into the Promised Land but my intimate presence will not be with them because if it was I would consume them right away so so God is frustrated with them they're frustrated with God and we're gonna look at four stages of Moses revelation of God Moses is going to get a direct revelation of who God is because he's struggling this is stage one sing god through the eyes of the past that we're gonna see now Moses is still looking at God through the old eyes Exodus 33 the Lord said to Moses depart and go up from here you and the people whom you've brought out of the land of Egypt to the land of which I swore to Abraham Isaac and Jacob saying to your descendants I will give it and I will send my angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite and the amorite the hittite the perizzite the hivite and the jebusite go up to a land flowing with milk and honey for I will no not go up in your omits lest I could consume you on the way for you or a stiff-necked people and when the people heard this bad news they mourned that no one put on his ornaments for the Lord had said to Moses say to the children of Israel you were a stiff-necked people I could come up in your midst in one moment and consume you now therefore take off your ornaments that I may know what to do with you now God in Moses and the children of Israel and God have not gotten along since the day they met when God came to Moses and called him to be the deliverer of Israel Moses said no he resisted he said and ultimately his brother Aaron had to go with him to speak for him even though Aaron did not speak for him and Aaron was the one who fashioned the golden cat but God got frustrated God got angry with Moses because he wouldn't circumcise his son and Moses and God have got this back and forth going on there's a frustration between them the children of Israel have accused God since the day they left Egypt are bringing them into the wilderness to kill them every time there's not water every time there's not food every time there's some kind of an enemy or a challenge they say you didn't want to kill us in Egypt you brought us out here to kill us they're constantly mistrusting God won't let me talk for just a minute Moses why would Moses have such a struggle and understanding God Lois who is Moses father well some Jewish man because Moses was Jewish you remember in Exodus 1 a pharaoh arose who did know Joseph and he became threatened by the Jews and he commanded that all the male children the male infants being born of the Jews be drowned in the Nile River in Moses mother when he was born three months after he was born she put him in a little Reed's with pitch on it and put it in the little boat put it in the Nile River and floated it down the Nile River and who got it out Pharaoh's daughter and she took Moses into Pharaoh's home to be raised so as far as we know Moses father figure was the most one of the most evil men in the history of the world he tried to kill him when he was born and he tried to kill him again when he's 40 years old the gods of Egypt were impersonal gods of vengeance that were to be feared and that you had to sacrifice to save your life there there was no concept on the earth of a personal loving God and remember the Jews didn't have a Bible there was just oral tradition at that point they knew about Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph they didn't know about God they had they didn't have a comprehension of who God was so a loving God hears their cries in Egypt sends the deliverer to get them out and the entire time that he's trying to get them out he said they're accusing him of being evil accusing him of trying to kill him and so there's just this back-and-forth and God said you're a stiff-necked people a lot of the resistance that we have toward what God is doing in our lives is simply we just don't understand his heart Moses had done more miracles and seen more miracles than any man alive but he didn't know God he has seen his power vidiseo sorry so here's stage 2 of Moses revelation of God he's asking for new eyes Exodus 33 Moses said please show me your glory then God said I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion and so Moses said show me your glory glorious what you're famous for and glory is the essence of your character and so Moses realizes there's something I'm not seeing right here so Lord would you please show me who you are and God is going to cause all of his goodness now to pass for Moses this is stage 3 a divine revelation of the goodness of God and this is the passage that I believe is the passage in scripture that gives a better picture of God than anywhere else in scripture because this is not a man telling us about God this is God telling us about God God is going to let all of his goodness pass before Moses and he's going to proclaim his name he's going to tell Moses who he is Exodus 34 5 the Lord descended in the cloud had stood with Moses there and proclaimed the name of the Lord and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and by no means clearing the guilty visiting the iniquity of the father's upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation there are seven things God reveals himself to Moses and there are seven things that he reveals about himself that this is Who I am if you want to understand me if you want to understand my glory this is who I am so let's go through the seven and talk about it number one mercy I'm merciful isn't it interesting because last week I was talking about the glory of grace and how grace is the preeminent virtue that God wants to be known for because of all the reasons I've talked about last week he comes to Moses and the first thing he says is I'm merciful the word merciful means undeserved compassion that desires to help God doesn't just see what we are doing he knows why we're doing it and he wants to help God understand just see our lives and the things that we're doing right or wrong he understands the pain of our past he understands the devil's attacks against us he understands the corruption of the world around us he understands our sin nature and fallen in weak flesh and he understands our lack of understanding capacity to change on our own God hid God is merciful he's compassionate so when I was first started pastoring there was a there was a man in our church that was weird he was just a weird guy just a weird dude and he called himself a prophet and he was not a prophet yes he was PR Oh fi t he was and he would go to congregation members and say the Lord told me you're supposed to give me a thousand dollars profit so I asked him he just worked well he did a lot of other stuff too besides that he was just worried guy so he came to my office asking this I want to talk to him one day and so he came office and and so I've had a conversation ice to him but I just told him I know what you're doing I don't want you doing that anymore bla bla bla so as I'm talking to him and correcting him he's got this weird smile on his face just strange he silently you know because normally that you know people don't smile at you ain't him like that he's a big guy by the way and he's smiling at me and I looked at him and I said are you okay and he said pastor Jimmy you know you know that I have a problem with authority don't you I said yeah I do he said pastor Jimmy I had 11 stepfathers from the time I was born to the time I was 18 my mother married 11 times and he said a lot of them beat me and mistreated me and he said I learned this young boy not to trust men in authority now let me say this he was still weird after that but he didn't stop being weird but so here's the difference between Jimmy Evans before and after that conversation before that conversation I would every single time I saw that guy I thought to myself why are you so weird every time I saw him after that I thought to myself how could he be so normal you know I'm saying we don't know we don't know what people have been through God doesn't just look at you and what you're doing right or wrong he knows he he's compassionate I was over in Addison one day and I was driving down Beltline and yeah there's those medians for their panhandling out there asking for money and I keep money in my pocket to give away and I don't give it away to everybody I just try to be sensitive to what the Lord says and I was pulled up this median and there was the four or five people in the median asking for money one of them was a girl she had her back turned to me and I you know I'm just kind of not paying attention and she turned around and she was pregnant and it was not this was not my reaction I believe it was God's reaction my heart broke and so I took out a hundred dollars out of my wallet and I roll down my window and she walked over and I handed it out the window and when she grabbed it she yelled when she saw $100 oh she said started crying and she said I can go get a room and sleep she looked terrible just yeah I'm evil I'm an evil man compared to Jesus yep it was like I saw my daughter or my granddaughters out throwing that meeting the day our God is a merciful God he's there there was no concept of that no no concept if you grew up in a family they're just not sympathy that was just not mercy there was no compassion sometimes you can think gods liked it this is the first thing that God says about himself Moses said would you give me new eyes would you let me see your glory Gus says yes Moses I'm merciful the reason that you guys struggle with me so much is because you don't understand my heart I'm a loving God understands you and he cares this is Hebrews 4 seeing then that we have a high great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus son of God let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need I told you the word boldly there means Frank speech it means honesty you can say anything to him he knows that he cares he's merciful the second thing that God says about himself is gracious grace means free help on every level that is granted without marital performance an acronym for grace is God's riches at Christ's expense mercy is not giving you what you deserve based on compassion grace is giving you everything that you don't deserve based on grace and not merit so God is a God of grace and so mercy is God's emotional disposition toward us grace is what God is willing to do for us because of his compassion and mercy for us and so second corinthians 9:8 says and god is able to make all grace abound toward you that you always having all sufficiency in all things may have an abundance for every good work so God is able to make all grace abound to you what does that mean well let me talk about some different types of grace so we're all weak and we're all frail and we all have flesh and I'll talk about that more next week let me talk about different kinds of mental grace John 16:13 Jesus says this when the Holy Spirit comes he will lead you into all truth we all have weak minds that have difficulty comprehending things did you know that the Holy Spirit will help you understand anything he'll give you mental grace if there's something when Karen and I our marriage was on the verge of failing and I Karen I told Karen to leave and I went the living room and I said Holy Spirit teach me how to be a husband because I don't know he taught me how to be a husband he can teach you trigonometry he can teach you astrophysics he can teach you to cook some of you not me there's nothing he knows he knows everything physical grace if the same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead this is Romans 8:11 if the same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you he'll give life to your mortal body you know the way that that's written if he can resurrect Jesus do you think any of your problems are a trick for him that's why that's written physical grace emotional grapes love joint relations 5 22 and 23 the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control he will give you his personality if you'll just ask for it we don't we don't have the emotional capacity to love and live and have the feelings we ought to feel within ourselves it's a gift from God as a gift of grace spiritual grace acts 1:8 you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you power he'll give you spiritual power to overcome the devil to understand God to live for God to do the works of God financial grace 2nd corinthians 9:8 the context of 2nd Corinthians is money Paul is taking an offering from the Corinthians and that's where he says God is able to make all grace abound toward you he'll give you financial grace but there is one condition of grace I told you this last week features to a for by grace you have been saved through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast for by grace you saying through faith faith does not mean believing faith means acting it doesn't matter what you believe if you don't act on it if you will step out and just simply begin believing that your God and your father is merciful and gracious and try to beg pride try to break his bank just keep asking Lord I need this grace I need this grace and he loves that he loves me in a daddy he loves me today more than any other father or mother loves being a parent our God identifies himself as a parent and he loves it number three long-suffering God is willing to suffer greatly for a very long period of time for us and not give up or get angry Hebrews 13:5 he himself has said I will never leave you nor forsake you on your worst day God is your best friend and what everybody else walks away he'll still be standing God says I will never leave you nor forsake you of what that when God says never he means never when people say never sometimes they change their mind God never changes his mind he's not frustrated with you the day you got saved he knew you were a long project he's not surprised he's not surprised number four abounding and goodness God is always good in every situation circumstance he has no bad days and no bad moods and if you were raised in a moody environment sometimes you think God schizo and sometimes he's good God's always good Jeremiah 29:11 I know the plans I have for you says the Lord they are plans for good and not disaster to give you a future and a hope every thought that God has toward you as good and God's not good when you're good God's good when you're bad it's not dependent on any man or anything else number 5 abounding in truth God never lies deceives deceives breaks promises or in any way miss represents himself and dealing with a person god no it only tells the truth he is the truth jesus said in Matthew 24:35 heaven and earth will pass away my word will never pass away he will never break a promise to you he will never in any way misrepresent himself to you number 6 he's forgiving God is always peace seeking and willing to forgive even the worst of circumstances and afterward to keep no record a wrong Peter came to Jesus and said Lord how many times do I forgive my brother seven probably one of the other disciples was on his nerves you know and he was up to 7 and Jesus says seventy times seven it means you always forgive Psalm 103 listen this one verse twelve as far as the east from east is from the west so far he has removed our transgressions from us as a father pities his children so the Lord pities those who fear Him he knows our frame he remembers that were dust he's a father he forgives just last one God has rules and there are consequences for us and those around us when we break them but even when we break God's rules He loves us and his discipline our lives is motivated by his love for our good by His love and for our good Hebrews twelve if you endure chastening God deals with you as sons for what son is there whom a father does not chase him but if you're without chastening of which we've all become partakers then you are illegitimate and not sons furthermore we had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect shall we not much more readily being subjection to the father of spirits and live so God does discipline but it's always motivated by love now for people who are unbelievers there's eternal justice and God will make sure in eternity that all sin and all evil is paid for but us as believers he's always forgiving so I mean let me review here God Moses says to God would you show me who you really are gustas certainly I'll call Saul oh my goodness to pass for you merciful gracious long-suffering abounding in goodness abounding in truth forgiving and just that you're done did you notice that abounding in truth and just are just two other seven but the other five are merciful gracious long-suffering abounding and goodness and forgiving if you saw God for who he really was it just simply would change everything there wouldn't be anything standing between you and him if you can only get as close to God as your concept of him would allow if that was your concept of God you would live in his lap you would never hesitate relating to God on that so I'm going to personalize this this is I've written this I've taken everything I just said written a letter to you from God and this is me writing this but I believe that it represents the heart of God see if you want to you can receive this as God's letter to you dear child I realize you've had a difficult time understanding Who I am because of mistakes your parents made as well as the negative influence to the fallen world around you has had has had on you so I want to tell you firsthand but I really am so you can understand me and relate with me intimately as your father and best friend first of all I am very compassionate towards you I don't just see what you're doing I know why you're doing it and that you can't change without my help I can also see what the devil is doing to attack you is he is trying to defeat you I see what others have done to you in your past and even now I wish you would understand that I don't stand back and judge you I want to be in your life helping you because I love you so much I also want you to know that my help is free you don't have to deserve any of it my son died on the cross to pay for all of yours so you can relate to me without merit or performance my throne is the throne of grace and all you have to do is believe in my love and ask for my help and it will be given to you generously in every area I will never desert you under any circumstances I will be with you forever and will never reject you I am good natured and never change I am never in a bad mood or have a bad day I'm the most consistent person you will ever know you can trust me I will always be good to you because I am overflowing with goodness that I want to share with you my plan for your life is good and that will never change I will never lie to you deceive you trick you withhold information from you or break a promise I will always relate to you based on the truth when you fail I will always forgive you and totally remove your sin from the record my grace is greater than all of your sins combined past present and future and my mercy toward you is renewed every day as your father I have rules that are there for the purpose of protecting you and causing you to grow as a person and as a believer if you violate my rules I will deal with you graciously even as I discipline you at times my correction is motivated by my love for you never interpret my correction is anger or rejection I love you too much to allow you to damage yourself or others without attempting to help you and get you to a better place I love you more than you can know in this life my desires to reveal my love to you personally every day child believe these words for they are true act upon them as you pray to me and believe me for the mercy and grace you need every day and I will reveal myself to you in a new way sign your loving father you'd be like that and I truly believe that represents the heart of God and so this is stage 4 the final stage with Moses and mode after this is over with immediately following God's revelation of who he is - Moses three things have changed with Moses the first is his worship has changed Exodus 34 8 as soon as this is over Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worship if you could see God for who he really was she would immediately begin to worship listen you wouldn't worship because it's the right thing to do you wouldn't worship to get brownie points with God or to perform for his favor you would worship because you would be in awe of him and you would love him our worship is totally based on who we believe God is if you don't know God you don't worship if you know God is a performing kind of a God you worship the four brownie points or for performance but when you really really truly see God for who he really is you just want to worship Him it's just the most natural thing the second thing but this by the way the first time that Moses has ever worshiped in this way his self-worth has changed the second thing Exodus 34 9 he said if I have now found grace in your sight up oh Lord let my let my lord I pray go among us even though we're a stiff-necked people and pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as your inheritance he is saying here even though God has said you're a stiff-necked people God says I want you to go with us I don't want you to stay back and I want you to receive us as your inheritance listen your self-worth will dramatically change when you see God for who he really is we're teaching the entire generation of young people that they evolved for monkeys how do you do how do you derive any self-worth when you came from an accident you're going to an accident and there's nothing in any way sacred about your life but when you see God for who he really is you'll see yourself reflected through his eyes and you'll understand you are something else you are made by the hand of God you're not just a blob of flesh you are the image of Almighty God and when you see God you'll see yourself and it'll change everything and number three his witness has changed sex to 34:29 it was so when Moses came down from Mount Sinai and the two tablets of the testimony were in moses hand when he came down from the mountain that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone when he talked to him most has already been up on the mountain and down from the mountain his face did not shine the first time he came down his face did not shine because he didn't know God now his face is shot he has seen God it's changed his witness when I first became a Christian I just say I was kind of ashamed of Jesus a little bit and when people would ask me if I was a Christian I say yeah but I I felt timid about that because I didn't know God and I didn't I didn't know how to respond at that point in time over the years has my concept of God developed and I began to see God very really is let me tell you how I feel about today I am so proud of God I'm just proud of it I want everybody to know about my god when if you don't know god you can't help but to show other people that you really don't know God and you don't want to talk about it or if you do it's just coming out of works or legalism or whatever but when you really know Jesus I want every person to know my god but as I'm so proud of him I tell pride as the sin in many ways but you can be proud of God hate is wrong between hate the devil pride is wrong but she sure be proud of God and I'm more proud of God than anything in my life because of it there's no one like our God there's no one like our God no one like our God so I want to pray but listen we I want to disassociate the people of our past moms and dads pastors authority figures whoever it might have been that skewed and put a filter upon the way we see God we're gonna this is that we're gonna forgive them we're going to disassociate it we're gonna ask God to give us a personal revelation of who he is

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Keywords: gateway, Gateway Church, gatewaypeople, Sermon, Jesus, God, Dallas, Texas, Jimmy Evans, The Gift Of Grace, The Glory of Grace, Grace, Glory

Id: S09VBu6ySkc

Length: 33min 33sec (2013 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 22 2019