Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we are all about sound doctrine for everyday people. This is Costahin. I am your host, and I am joined by my friend, the man, the myth, the legend, Johnny Artavanis. He is a contributor for the gospel, the founder, the host of Dial In, an incredible podcast and a great social media platform, putting out incredible resources. And he also leads student life as the dean of student life at the Masters University. And then as if he didn't have enough jobs and hats, he also uh does some directing of Hume Lake, and he is a husband to the amazing Katie and a father to Lily Bean, as I like to call her, their sweet baby girl, Johnny Artavanis. Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Costy. I'm I'm glad to be on. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00Well, brother, I love you for a lot of reasons. And one of the reasons that I love talking with you and doing ministry with you is your understanding of the Word of God. And so I want you to talk to us today about his attributes. It's something that we've not really dove into a great deal on the podcast. We're only a year in, so plenty of opportunity here to talk about this. And the attributes of God are key. The more we know God and understand God, I think it enhances our worship of God. And so walk us through five attributes, your five that come to mind or five of your favorites that you want to bless us with today. And then let's dialogue a little bit and take us deeper into understanding God.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I would love to walk through some of these attributes. I remember reading in J.I. Packer's book when I was younger, knowing God, that this is our greatest purpose in life as a Christian is to know God. And so it does serve as the fuel for our love for him. And I'll kind of walk through some of these different attributes and you kind of interject where needed. The first one I'd love to focus on is the love of God. In scripture, there are three times where it says God is blank, God is something. Number one, God is spirit in John 4. Number two, it says God is light in 1 John 1, God is light, and in him, there is no darkness at all. And the third time it says God is something is in 1 John 4, where it says, God is love. And so what this means is that love is not something God possesses, it's what God is. And it's not to minimize God to that, but I remember hearing R.C. Sproul say one time that love is so close to the essence of who God is that it scripture says he is love. And in Exodus 34, it says this love is abounding. And I always like to think through that. And the language that God specifically employs in the scripture is that his love is abounding, which means it's not being rationed off. He doesn't have a certain amount of it, it's overflowing and he's not a hoarder of his love. And one thing regarding God, uh, just before we kind of talk about a few features of the love of God, is that if you miss the love of God, you miss this. You miss God. You you can't understand God if you don't understand his profound love. Now, five brief features regarding the love of God. Number one would be that God's love is eternal, as God Himself has no beginning, neither does his love for us. I love Jeremiah 31, 3 that says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. In Ephesians 1, it says that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. And one of the things that uh that frees us from this false idea that our obedience to God is the cause for his love for us, is to be reminded that God loved us before he ever said, let there be light. And I always want to think through that. And so um it and then that also means that my commitment to God is not the cause of his love for me, but contrastly, God's love for me eternally is the cause of my commitment to him. And anytime I'm tempted to think that I am the producer of God's love for me, I must be reminded of the words of Jeremiah 31, that God's love for me had no beginning. And consequently, I'm so thankful it'll have no end. So, number one, God's love is eternal. Secondly, God's love is undeserved. Obviously, if God's love is without beginning, we can know with great certainty that it is offered to us without regard to our human performance. God's love is undeserved and it's uninfluenced by anything that I could ever do. And I'm so thankful for that reality. Number three, God's love is declared, meaning that the love of God is not some sort of an idea that people have sat around in a circle and via their own reflection have come up with this idea that God loves us. But God's love is a declared reality, meaning it's not ambiguous, it's not obscure. God is the one who says, I have loved you. Isaiah 54, 10, it says, Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you. John 15, 12, Jesus says, I have loved you. John 13, 34, I have loved you. Um, I think sometimes it might sound too good to be true that God loves us, but then we're drawn to Jesus' own words as he declares his love. But God's love for us is not just declared. Number four, it's demonstrated, meaning that God's love is not just something he says, it's something he displays. And he displays it. I think it's Ian Murray Costi who says that the cross of Calvary was the pulpit of God's love for his people. And so Romans 5:8, a verse maybe so familiar to us that we are tempted to no longer bask in the wonder of it, that God demonstrates his own love in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so, if we're ever tempted to doubt the love of God, Spurgeon, I think, says, look to the Savior who hangs naked on a tree. And uh, God's love is demonstrated. And finally, and fifthly, God's love is personal. I want to highlight this because I think it's so important for us to contemplate and consider a biblical reality. Sometimes, in light of memorizing verses like God so loved the world, or God demonstrated his own love for us, we're tempted to think that God's love for his children is merely on a macro level. But the Bible teaches and the Bible affirms that God's love for me is a personal reality that is experienced through the Holy Spirit. Romans 5, 5 says that God's love has been poured out into your heart through the Spirit of God. And so just like a father loves his children individually, God as Father loves us individually, and his infinite love is not divided amongst his children, his infinite love is offered infinitely to each and every one of his children. I think it's Augustine who says he loves each one of us as if there were only one of us. Uh, and this is a precious reality for me that God loves me personally, he knows me personally, and he loves me. So those would be five features regarding the love of God.
SPEAKER_00Man, I love that. The the last one as a feature that God's love is personal. I think that's often missed. I'm glad you mentioned that one, especially. Like you said, mass scale love is easy to understand. God loves people, God loves you, God loves all. And it it even the you can often seem in the plural. Um, but what are the things that should change in people's minds? Or what are the feelings that they should feel or the sense that they should get today if they understand that God loves them personally?
SPEAKER_01Oh well, I think uh a number of things. Well, Jonathan Edwards says that the love of God is the most suitable entertainment for the soul of man that offers supreme satisfaction to the child of God. Jesus says to be rooted and grounded in the love of God personally, because it offers us supreme satisfaction that we were hardwired to crave. And so if we're not being satisfied by the love of God and we're not rooted in the love of God, we'll seek to be satisfied and seek to be rooted in the world. So practically, to be rooted in the love of God means we must remind ourselves of it, but we also must further explore the reality of it in scripture. And so the feelings that come into play is number one, a sense of gratitude and awe, um, and a response of devotion, going, man, Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ uh who lives in me. Uh, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and who gave himself for me. And so Paul's response is if God loves me and if he gave himself up for me, my only response is to love him and to give myself for him.
SPEAKER_00Man, I love that. What do you got next?
SPEAKER_01I want to talk about the holiness of God. Now, there's a lot of different things you could talk about with holiness, and then obviously our time is limited, but I want to start with the backstory of 2 Chronicles 26. King Uzziah had become king of Judah at 16 years old, and it says in 2 Chronicles 26 that he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done, and he continued to seek God in the days of Zachariah, who had understanding through the vision of God. And it says, as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him. This is 2 Chronicles 26, and I want to notice the conditional clause attached here. As long as he sought the Lord, God would prosper him. And initially, God did bless this king immensely. It says in 2 Chronicles 26 that he built towers, he had a massive army of 307,000 men ready for battle, he boosted the economy, but then there's this big butt uh a number of verses later, and it says that when he became strong, he stopped considering the holiness of God, and he waltz into the temple and he starts to demand certain things from God. And I love this, and it says in 2 Kings 15, 5, it kind of sums up Uzziah's reign as king. It says that when he became big in his own eyes, the Lord struck the king, and he was a leper to the day of his death, and he lived in a separate house while his son ruled over the land, and he watched from a reclusive window until he died. What happens with Uzziah is tragic. So he's a king that's initially blessed by God. He has everything going for him. And the question is, what went wrong? Well, what went wrong is that Uzziah became way too comfortable with God. He became too cavalier, too casual, nonchalant, numb, the type of an idea that God's my homeboy. I fist bump God, his strength, his teaching, his biblical wisdom, his influence had gone to his head. So he presumes and assumes that God will continue to prosper him, even though he's rejected God's voice and he had waltzed into the temple and says, I'm gonna offer the sacrifices now. God's holiness in Uzziah, life would have been theologically affirmed, but practically denied. And so this is the backstory in Isaiah 6, where we come to the story in Isaiah 6 where it says, In the year of King Uzziah's death, Isaiah is going to have the most lofty and exalted vision of the holiness of God anywhere in all of scripture other than the cross. And he's going to see the Lord high and lifted up. And it comes at a point in time where people had begun to view God because of the king had as just like one of them. And it's so important to understand the holiness of God because we're tempted to view God like He's just bigger and better than us. And that's what the Puritans talk about is that God's holiness is not just that he's quantitatively bigger, he's qualitatively other. He's totally other than us. And when we speak of God's holiness, we need to understand that more than any other attribute in the Bible, God is defined by his own holiness. He has a holy temple, he has a holy book, he has a holy mountain, he has a holy spirit. And no one in scripture that beholds God's holiness ever yawns at it. They they never are indifferent to his holiness. And so when we're considering it, I like to ask the question that is asked in Exodus 15: who is like the Lord, majestic in holiness? And the answer is no one. No one is like God. And when we consider God's holiness, it's not just his moral purity. God's holiness really is the hub of the wheel of all that is God, because God's justice is a holy justice, his love is a holy love, his sovereignty is a holy sovereignty. God's holiness denotes and describes how completely other than us God is. He is totally different, he's on another sphere altogether, and the holiness of God is the absolute center of who he is. We just talked about love, costy. And even to have a magnified understanding of God's love, he said, How can we feel God's love? You have to have a magnified understanding of God's holiness, that he hates sin, that he's totally sinless, he's totally other than us. And every single person, I mean, we could talk about if we have more time, who sees this holiness. Habakkuk 3, my knees knocked and quaked, my lips trembled. Isaiah, the most righteous man in the world, says, I am undone. Woe is me. And even the disciples, Peter says, Go away from me, God, I am an unholy man. Ultimately, we see holiness personified. In John 12, it says that that lofty, exalted vision that Isaiah has of the king on the throne. John 12, it says, These things Isaiah spoke of him. And the question is, who's him? These things Isaiah spoke of Jesus Christ, the one who is lofty and exalted on the throne. In John 12, it says is the one who verses later would come riding through on a donkey. He's other, not just in his moral purities, totally other in his humility and condescension to come and save us. And no greater picture of the holiness of God is revealed to us better than the life of Christ, who never sinned and who was totally other than us in every single way. And uh yeah, I'm so thankful for that reality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't want to talk, just keep going. That was incredible, man. I could listen to you talk about the holiness of God for hours. Uh that's beyond. I that that one takes the cake for me. I know you're gonna bring up a few more, and I love the sovereignty of God, I relish in it. I love the love of God, and I'm thankful for it undeserved. But the idea that God is holy other, it removes any ounce of casual familiarity, flippancy with worship, the idea that you know, Jesus is my homeboy, whatever, like God's cool. And when you pair that with the love of God, yes, he's personal, and that changes my life, and that gives me uh an anxiety-free moment every single day when the cares of the world are weighing down, and I realize, no, God loves me, he cares for me, he actually is noticing me right now. That's incredible. When you pair that with the right understanding of the holiness of God, that doesn't turn into a familiar casualness like when we take our spouse or somebody we love for granted. It pairs so beautifully with that, and that we are even more kind of a phrase we use around here sometimes, we're even more floored by the Lord, meaning we're floored by the way the Lord is, yeah, because the fact that He is so holy, other, and yet He would love me, yeah, transforms the way we think. So well said, brother, the holiness of God, so clear. What else you got?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, and just briefly on those two attributes, God's love and his holiness, an understanding of those changes the way that we receive and look at the Lord's Prayer when we can say, Our Father, because that's amazing, who art in heaven, how hallowed, holy, other is your name. And so that changes kind of our understanding of even how Jesus teaches us to pray. The third attribute I want to talk to you about, Costi, is God's sovereignty. Because when God declares his otherness, he declares his sovereignty. Isaiah 46, 9 and 10 is just a marquee passage in this regard. God says, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there are none like me. Now, what follows that is God's gonna display what makes him so different than every other so-called God, and from every other person that's been made by God. He says, I am God, there is no other, I am God, and there are none like me. And so, what's so unlike him? He says, I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, My purpose will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. What makes God God is that he is sovereign. Psalm 103, 19 says, the Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his sovereignty rules over all. Psalm 115.3 says that our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases. God's sovereignty means that he's the boss, and he not only has the power to rule the universe, he's not just a figurehead on the throne, he exercises that authority over every single thing under his domain. God's sovereignty is such a precious reality for us to think through because it means that God is never panicked, even if you might feel panicked, he's never hurried, he's never rushed, but God is like a grand composer orchestrating everything according to the counsel of his will for his glory, and the Bible also teaches for our good. Now, and one thing I want to talk about a few different elements of God's sovereignty briefly, but God's sovereignty is also necessary for any of the other attributes of God to have any value to us, which means that if God were loving but not sovereign, God's love would not be as precious to us. If God were wise but unable to execute his wisdom, what good would his wisdom be to us? If he was good but not sovereign, how would he be able to implement the realities that he seeks to bring about? And so God's sovereignty is crucial. And I want to talk about just a few different things in which God exercises his sovereignty. Number one would be nature. It says in Psalm 147 that he has placed all the stars in the sky, he knows them by name. I love that because I lived in the mountains for five years and I can look up at all the stars and go, man, look at all these. And they're not just a bunch of um stars that are just there. They've been placed by God. And even in Job 38, God's response to Job is to ask Job questions that make Job think. And I think this is good for my own heart, and it's good for all of our hearts because it's in the Bible. He says, Job, were you there when I laid the foundation of the world? Tell me if you have understanding. Are you the one that tells the waves to stop and say, Thus far you shall come and no further? Are you the one that gives the horse his courage so that he loves battle? When God talks about his sovereignty, he talks about nature because it's something that no one else can tame, but it's something that God has in complete control. So God's sovereignty is exercised over nature. God's sovereignty is also exercised over nations. I love in Daniel, there's the world's report where it says, and this year, you know, King Nebuchadnezzar became king, and it says that the Lord gave Israel into his hand. I love that because you can just look at things from the world's perspective. But what Daniel wants you to know, and kind of those opening chapters, we're going to see how Daniel lives with conviction in a world of compromise. But one of the things that was girding Daniel's mind from the opening verses of the book is that God was the one that was doing this. God gave them into the hand of their enemies. Proverbs 21 says that the king's heart is like channels of water. Every single thing that's happening, you might look at culturally what's happening, politically, what's happening. Aren't you thankful that God's not caught off guard? I am. So God is sovereign over nature and nations. He's sovereign over evil. He doesn't do evil, but he's sovereign over it. In Genesis 50, 20, Joseph is going to look at his brothers and say, What you meant for evil, God meant for good. Well, that's interesting what you said. He says God meant it for good, which means that God is not taking bad situations and turning them into good situations. God had a purpose and meant it for good. And he allows human instruments, human instruments to affect his good purpose. But I think I did always read it that way, going, God is taking bad situations. And I think we say these types of things in the church, God's going to somehow turn this into good. God is meaning it for good because he's behind even human, uh, fallible instruments to accomplish his purpose. And so I think that is so precious to me. Uh lastly, God. Or fourthly, I just want to say God is sovereign over time, which means that in Psalm 90, the only Psalm written by Moses, it says that you turn men back into the dust. Some live for 70, 80 years, but the exact amount of breath that we live is determined by God. And that is a wonderful reality for me. Psalm 139 says that he knits us together in our mother's womb. He gives us breath, and he is the one that says, No longer do you have breath. Every single second is under the sovereign rule of God. And that's why Jesus says in Matthew 6, who of you by being worried can add a single second to your life? No one, because God is sovereign over it. And lastly, God is sovereign over salvation. He chose us Ephesians 1 in him before the foundation of the world. John says that whoever the Father chooses and calls comes to him. And God's sovereignty, Jesse Randolph did an episode on this with you. I think God's sovereignty is not the catalyst for our passivity in evangelism, it is the fuel for it because we know that we have a mission given to us by God that is guaranteed to be successful. So God is sovereign over nature, nations, evil, time, and salvation. And Spurgeon says, this is the pillow you can rest your head on at night. That God is sovereign. And I'm thankful for that.
SPEAKER_00Amen. I have one follow-up question on that. Often the question is asked yes and amen to everything you just said. So what does that mean about for my free will? Do I even have free will if I decided to go to the grocery store today? Did God sovereignly predestine that to happen? If he's sovereign over everything, what what choice do I have in anything then? Then it doesn't seem like he's really you know fair, and uh, you know, I'm just a puppet and he's the puppet master. People say that, and I know that not everyone means it that way to come off disrespectful or irreverent, but they genuinely are wrestling through it. What do you say to the person that asks, okay, then what what is my free will?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a great question. Every single thing God gives us via command, he works through us by grace and our own Holy Spirit-fueled sweat. So, for instance, let's just take the total example of God's sovereignty and salvation. Ezekiel 36 says, I will give you a new heart, I will sprinkle it clean, I'm gonna be the one that takes your dead heart of stone and turns it into a heart of flesh. Before that, in Ezekiel 16, he had says, Make yourself a new heart. And so we see both uh both and and Spurgeon says, I don't try to reconcile friends. What we see in scripture is super clear. God is ultimately sovereign in our sanctification, for instance, but Philippians 2 says we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, not period, comma, for it is God who works in and through you. What we have to do is harmonize two equally biblical realities. God is sovereign and we are ultimately responsible for proclaiming that message of God's salvation and even for our own holiness. You know, let's say hypothetically I struggle with lust and I go, man, God, if you're sovereign, this is a struggle that you would take away from me. But then we're neglecting that Jesus says, Hey, if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out. Romans 13, 14, make no provision for the flesh. Why would you die? And so both of those things are we, I forget who it was, Costi, but one Puritan says, we don't explain the mystery, we confess the mystery that God is totally sovereign and we are responsible. And uh, one of those things, those those things will become clear when we meet him face to face. And I'm so glad and thankful to live in the middle of both of those equally true realities.
unknownMan.
SPEAKER_00Well said, beyond well said. Last one more or two more. Oh, yeah, go.
SPEAKER_01Well, one thing just regarding God's sovereignty, uh, too, is God's sovereignty is never exercised as a deep personal figure. And I mentioned this in regards to his, you know, God's love. Even when you look at Lazarus, Jesus weeps and he knows he's about to raise him. And so I'm I'm so thankful that God's sovereignty is something he exercises, but he also lisps with us, and he is a high priest who sympathizes with us. And I never want to divorce God's sovereignty from his sympathy because he doesn't execute it as a distant monarch, he executes his sovereignty as our friend and father, and I never want to forget that. Uh, the next attribute I have would be the assayity of God, and this is maybe a new one for some people, but ah means from and say means self. And this is one of the most fundamental differences between the creator and the creature. God and God alone is the only single person that has life within himself, and every single person, you, me, uh, and you know, anybody else for that matter, is dependent upon someone to live. But unlike everyone else, God is not dependent, his existence isn't contingent or derived. Uh, three features regarding God's as a sayity, and I love these, these are precious to me. Yahweh and God is self-existent, meaning that I think it was Spur uh uh spruhl who says that there are just three realities for everything in existence, or you know, if you were going to consider it. Number one, it would be something that is self-created. Number two, something that is eternal. Number three, something that was created by something that is eternal. He says logic kind of for us would get rid of the reality that something is self-created. Nothing can create itself. So you only have options two and three left: something that is eternal and something that is created by something eternal. And this is who God is. He is an eternal being who is self-existent and creates all things for his glory. He owes his being to no one outside of himself. Number two, yeah, God is self-sufficient, meaning that you and I are dependent each and every day on food and water uh to live. But the God of the Bible is not one who needs us or anything outside of himself at all. And so this is going to be a happy moment for us to realize this, is because this means God's not insecure, which means that in our own minds, sometimes we have this natural egotism to entertain the thought that God needs our help. But when we realize God's self-sufficiency, we don't actually need to defend God. He doesn't need us for anything. I think it was Tozer who says God has a voluntary relationship to everything he has made because he has no necessary relationship to anything outside of himself. And so God is totally self-sufficient. And here, thirdly, in regards to God's saying, I love this is God is eternal, just like his love is eternal. We talked about it. God is eternal, he has no origin, God has no birthday, he has no aging, he has no wrinkles, no shakes, he's not any wiser today than he was a million years ago. He has no altered perspective, he has nothing new to bring, he is uncaused, uncreated, and unsustained. And I love Psalm 90. He says, when he's looking out, when I look at the mountains and I think about all those symbols of solidity before the mountains were born, or ever you bore the earth and the sea from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. And I think sometimes this slips off the tip of our tongue that God, yeah, he lives forever. But God also had reminded Moses of this years earlier at the burning bush, that I am the God of your fathers. And before Moses is sent off to a daunting task to confront the most powerful man in the world, he says, I want you to know something about me, Moses. I don't have a birthday, I didn't come around last year or 100 years ago. I am from everlasting to everlasting. And when we look at the world and we see just the turmoil within it, I am comforted that God is totally eternal. And only a God who has life in himself can bring life to those who are dead. Only a God who has no needs can be trusted for me to bring my needs to him. And only a God who has eternal life in himself can grant eternal life to those who desperately need it. This is an underdocumented, precious attribute of God. He's eternal, and uh we can trust in him because he is.
SPEAKER_00I love that. So say it again, his asseity. Man, are there any religions or false ideologies that that immediately debunks or removes from the question of with respect to apologetics and what a lot of the people in our audience will be dealing with, whether it's a friend who's you know a Mormon or or a different other approach to uh faith or religion and they're dialoguing, does God's a sayity help someone engage that individual? Well, he's not a created being.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's not a created being, and because he's not a created being, he's not ever something we could become. So at least I can speak to that in certain religions, like you think about um Hindus or or Buddhists that think they become somewhat like a god, or you could become fully enlightened. And even in in some Mormon spheres, you would think that you become almost like God. And so this is something about God that he shares with us and he grants us eternal life. And everyone that's not in heaven also receives eternal life, but they'll go to hell, the Bible says. But what makes God unlike us is his sayity, and this is something that he extends to us, but it's not something that we inherit. And this is something that, even in regards to God's holiness, there's a difference between uh inherent eternality and derived eternality. And there's a difference between inherent holiness and derived holiness. We derive our holiness from God because he possesses it inherently, and just like it's eternality, we are the moon that reflects the greater light. And so sometimes religions get that confused and would say something like we become like God in that way, which would be totally false.
SPEAKER_00Excellent, really well said. Last one, you got another one for us?
SPEAKER_01If you have time, God's jealousy. I'll go, I'll be brief. Um, just the next hour. Uh God's jealousy. Um, if we were looking at a list or a banner or a picture of the names of God, you would have El Shaddai, El Roy, the God who sees. There's one name of God that I love, and it's not typically communicated. In Exodus 34, we're going to see the last name that God gives to Moses. He's given his covenant commandments and he's going to show how important it is to keep those commandments. He says in verse 12 of Exodus 34, watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, but rather you are to tear down their altars and smash down their sacred pillars and cut down their ashereen, for you shall not worship any other god. Now, God is going to give the cause for this command. Don't worship anybody else. And think about all the reasons that God could have given. He could have said, Because you'll get uh sexual diseases and I hate impurity, or it won't satisfy you the way that I will, which would have been true. He could have said a number of true realities, but here's what he says. He says, Don't do this, don't worship any other God for Yahweh, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.
SPEAKER_00Come on.
SPEAKER_01He says, My name is El Kanah. And I love that. He says, When you think about me, Moses, I want you to think about my name. Put a stamp on this, write this on the tablet of your heart. My name is El Kanah. And when you think about me, I want you to think about this intensely. And I am jealous. And God's jealousy is different than human envy. God's jealousy is his constant aim to promote and protect his own glory and love and his commitment to operate with justice towards anybody that would stand in opposition to his supremacy. I like what James Montgomery Boyce says. He says, rightly understood, the idea of jealousy is central to any true concept of God. God's jealousy is his desire to maintain exclusive favor. And I would hate for anybody to ever just neglect this important attribute of God. Two things about which God is jealous. He's jealous for his own glory. God is not the mayor of a small kingdom, he is the king of the universe. And he is, if you read Isaiah, you just are struck, Kosti, by how many times he says, I'm God, there's no one like me. I am God, there's no one like me. I am God, there's no one like me. Uh, you may be heartless about the glory of God, but God is not. He's not at all. He's not cold or callous to the prospect of you living completely for his glory. God burns with red, hot passion for his own glory. And we need to remember that. He doesn't, it's not not that big of a deal to him if you live for his glory. And not only that, God is secondly and finally, God is jealous for our love. And James 4, 5, it says, or do you think the scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? A husband that loves his wife, wouldn't it be indifferent if the wife came and said, I will do all the duties of my wifehood. Uh, I will do everything you want me to do, but I just don't have allegiance of affections. If a husband responded indifferently to that, you would say, Well, the husband doesn't actually love his wife in the first place.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01But God doesn't want our half-hearted emotions. He wants our heart and he's jealous for our heart, which is part of the reason that when we sin, we need to think about this. Our sin isn't just violating a principle, it's grieving a person who loves us and is jealous for our love. And every single time you're tempted to sin, just this could be one of the many applications. You have to think through the reality that God is not unconcerned or uninterested in the level of love I have for him. In fact, he is jealous for it. And ultimately, God's jealousy was demonstrated in Jesus Christ. And it says the disciples remember zeal for his house would consume them. Jesus was jealous for the glory of God. And if you want to be like Christ, you need to be jealous for his glory as well.
SPEAKER_00That so that one might have been my favorite now since you went there. Elkanah. Beautiful, and such an overlooked attribute of God. So we got the love of God, the holiness of God, the sovereignty of God, the assay of God, and the jealousy of God for five attributes that you who are listening must know and dig deeper. Johnny, where would you recommend somebody start if they go, okay, I want to know more about the attributes of God? This got me going. Give me more. Where would you send them?
SPEAKER_01There's a number of books I would recommend. You know, uh Tozer has got the knowledge of the holy, which is kind of like a primer on the different attributes of God. Lig in your ministries has a lot. And I've talked about each of these attributes in greater detail on the Dial in podcast class two, which is just like a little bit of a longer format. But there's a lot of great resources out there. But um, I think Knowledge of the Holy, R.C. Sproul has been so pivotal for me and my understanding of the holiness of God and his love for me. And so I think that along with if if you want to gear up for it to read the Puritans who didn't just affirm these attributes, they were thrilled by them. And that's my prayer. I don't want to just confirm that these are true, I want to be thrilled by them. And so you can start by reading, but if you neglect praying through them, they will only produce a knowledge without the personal thrill. And so uh these things ultimately are revealed in scripture. So uh if you want to start somewhere, you need to explore the pages of scripture like David, who wakes up in the middle of the night and pants like a dog for the word of God. So that's what would be my recommendation.
SPEAKER_00Brother, thank you so much for unloading that wisdom on us today.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thanks for having me on. It was so fun to get to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00Love it. Well, thank you all for listening to the For the Gospel podcast for more about Johnny Artavanis and some of the resources that he's putting out. Go on to Instagram and search Dial In, or you can go to the For the Gospel page and you can just check our followers and search our followers and start typing in Dial In, and you will find that we follow Dial In and Johnny Artavanis there as well for more resources. Uh if you want to know more about our ministry, check out our team, or learn more about our contributors like Johnny Artivanus. Go to forthegospel.org. You can give and check out more about the resources that we are putting out there as well. And lastly, be sure to follow us on social media. We are on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all of it. For now, we will leave you with this. God's love, God's holiness, God's sovereignty, his assayity, and his jealousy are attributes about your God. You must know. We'll be back next Monday with another episode. For now, keep on living for the gospel.