Adult Sunday School: Our Great God · Pastor Adam Wood · November 23, 2025

Transcript:
I have to say, last week when we started, we began our introduction of our new series in Sunday School that we're calling Our Great God. I told you last week that the, you know, one of my favorite things to study and talk about is the person of God Himself. Sometimes we get bogged down in doctrinal things and, you know, doctrinal truths, and all of that is important. If it's in the Word of God, it's important. But as we saw last week, the Word of God is first and foremost about God Himself. There's a little bit of a ring. Pull that down just a hair. Because I'm ahead of the speaker here. So that's what we're doing here. We're going to go into the first attribute of God today. The first one just I picked. There's no way to tell which one should go first. But as I've studied it, it's just so rich. And I really hope that as we study these things, you have an opportunity to really meditate on these things. Even as I read the Scripture and try to explain it and help us understand it, that you would also take the time to meditate upon these things and see what the Lord says in the Bible. The Lord did not give us the Bible in such a way that it is formatted as a book of doctrine, of systematic or elemental theology. That's not the way He did it. He did it through narrative. He did it through His commands. He did it in other ways. So the intention is not to know facts about God. That is not the purpose. If we come away from the Bible thinking that all that is required is to know things about We have missed it entirely. The purpose is to know God personally, to know the one which is eternal life. And so that's what we're going to try to do. So let's pray. And then I'd like to introduce you to the first attribute of God that we're going to look at this morning. Our Father, we thank You so much for the opportunity to meet together Your people. I pray, please incline our hearts to Your Word and to Your will, but especially, Lord, to Yourself. Lord, give us a heart that is so polar opposite than what is natural to us. Lord, that aversion to You, like when Adam and Eve hid from You in the Garden of Eden for fear of You because their conscience was defiled. Lord, give us, I pray, a heart that would run to You. And as we think upon these scriptures and these truths, Lord, they're profound. Help us to see them even more deeply than the things I have prepared, but not just myself, but also each and every person here. Help us to engage our heart and our mind on what is the highest thought that a man can think, to think upon the true and the living God. And so, Lord, we look to You, guide our study, not just this morning, but also the study as we move forward and look at the different attributes. Lord, please reveal Yourself to us personally. Help us to understand and illuminate our mind on these things that we might truly stand in awe of who You are. We pray also for the kids downstairs who are right now, Lord, they're hearing the truths of scripture. They're being reminded of those things. The memories are being built. Please bless them. And Abbey, as she teaches them, give them understanding and grace. Lord, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, the first attribute we're going to look at, we're going to begin, I don't think we'll finish if history is any guide anyway, is God's self-existence, God's self-existence. As Sam pointed it out, the technical and theological term for that is called the a-see-atee, a-see-atee. A, if you're writing it down, it's a-se-i-t-y, a-see-atee of God. And here's just a simple definition. I know you all know what self-existent means, but I'll just give you a definition to go through the paces here. Self-existence is the existence of a being, person, et cetera, by virtue of intrinsic nature, independent, independently of any other cause. Now what's so interesting and ironic is that when I looked that up, because I'm a word person and I looked it up because I wanted to see what the dictionary said about the term self-existence, is that the definition applies to a single person in existence. So they could have just put God and just left it at that, and that would have been right because it can't apply to anything or anyone, anything else whatsoever. The existence of a being. Which one? There's only one that this applies to, so I thought that was kind of ironic. So I want to introduce this to you in the most obvious passage that would touch on this, which is Exodus chapter 3. So let's go there and look at these verses, Exodus chapter 3. This is when the Lord introduces Himself to Moses. Exodus chapter 3. Now just as a side note, if you look at verse 2 of this chapter, it says this, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked and behold the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. Now this same angel of the Lord that is appearing to Moses is going to speak to Moses. So don't get confused. When you see the word angel, it's not always referring to a ministering spirit like we read in Hebrews. Sometimes God Himself is referred to as the angel of the Lord, and so when you read that in the Old Testament, you need to put that in your mind. Here God is called the angel of the Lord, but we know that it is He identifies Himself as Jehovah, as the one true and the living God. And so just keep that in mind as we go. So Moses stops to look at the bush that is burning but is not consumed, and verse number 4 says, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here am I. And he said, draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And from verse 7 on, the Lord describes what He knows about the plight of the children of Israel in Egypt. Verse 10, come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, certainly I will be with thee, and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt. Ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers had sent me unto you, and they shall say unto me, what is his name? What shall I say unto them? Now pause here a second. Verse number 13 is telling us Moses poses a question to the Lord and says, essentially, who do I tell them you are? Who are you? That's essentially what he's asking. Now he's asking for a name, but a name is a label to identify the identity of a person. So Moses is asking God, and this is key to understanding what we're going to see in just a minute. Moses is essentially asking God, who are you? Who do I tell them you are? And in that context and in answer to that question, the Lord says, verse 14, and God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I am, had sent me unto you. Now what's interesting is the Lord doesn't give his name, you know, Jehovah, the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, the reference to God's name. He doesn't tell him that. Now they're related, the words are related in Hebrew, but it's not directly, he doesn't tell him directly, my name is the Lord, like he says in other places. When the Lord answers the question concerning his identity, he does so by saying, I am. I am. Now that's hard to understand. That's profound. There's a lot of depth to that. Now you think about the term I am, and basically what you have her...