1. "The Bible is God's self-revelation. Here the Lord is proclaiming to Moses and through him to his people what they would not have known if God did not reveal the truth about Himself."

2. "It's because the Lord is one that He's able to ask for our comprehensive allegiance to Him. He wants all of us, all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, because He is one."

3. "God is uniquely, completely committed to both holiness and love. That's one of the things that's distinctive about the God of the Bible. It's possible to find other deities that seem to be presented by people that are committed to one of those or the other, but this combination to holiness and love is uniquely typical of the God of the Bible."

4. "God doesn't reveal His glory as the Lord, the Lord, exacting and precise, or the Lord, the Lord, tolerant and overlooking, or the Lord, the Lord, disappointed and frustrated. No, His highest priority and deepest delight and first reaction, His heart, is merciful and gracious."

5. "It's one thing to love each other when the circumstances are easy. How are you doing loving each other when the circumstances are more difficult, are more trying?"

6. "In this last week, have you looked over at somebody's burdens and put a hand and pressed down on them, made them harder? Or have you come alongside and tried to help bear them?"

7. "How can God's commitment to justice and holiness be combined with God's commitment to mercy and grace? How can those both be true? He says here that it is the case, but He doesn't tell us how."

8. "In Jesus we see how God's commitment to love and his commitment to justice are joined together. No sin will be done away with, merely ignored, no injustice will be allowed finally to stand. But God will persevere in showing mercy and grace to all of those who turn and repent and trust in Christ."

9. "Those whom the Father elects, the Son redeems, and the Spirit regenerates. And why does God do all of this? Because He loves us."

10. "Perhaps Satan's greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge, but the dark thoughts of God's heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward Him."

Observation Questions

1. In Exodus 34:6, what specific attributes does the Lord proclaim about Himself when He passes before Moses? List each characteristic mentioned in this verse.

2. According to Exodus 34:7, what does God say He does with "iniquity and transgression and sin"? What does He say about the guilty?

3. What is significant about the double naming "the Lord, the Lord" at the beginning of this proclamation, and how does the sermon describe its function in the text?

4. According to Deuteronomy 6:4, what foundational truth about God's nature is declared, and what response does this truth require from His people (Deuteronomy 6:5)?

5. In Exodus 34:7, how far does God say the consequences of iniquity extend through generations?

6. What had the people of Israel done in Exodus 32 while Moses was on the mountain receiving the commandments, and how does this context make God's self-revelation in chapter 34 more remarkable?

Interpretation Questions

1. The sermon describes Exodus 34:6-7 as possibly the most important verses about God in the Old Testament (alongside Genesis 1:1). Why would God's self-revelation of His character be considered so foundational for understanding the rest of Scripture?

2. How does the combination of God being "merciful and gracious" (v. 6) alongside His commitment to "by no means clear the guilty" (v. 7) create what the sermon calls "the riddle of the Old Testament"? Why is this tension significant?

3. The sermon emphasizes that God's "first reaction" and "deepest delight" is to be merciful and gracious rather than exacting or disappointed. How does the context of Israel's recent idolatry (Exodus 32) support this interpretation of God's heart?

4. What does the phrase "abounding in steadfast love" reveal about the nature and extent of God's love, especially in contrast to how humans typically love?

5. According to the sermon, how does Jesus Christ resolve the apparent tension between God's justice (not clearing the guilty) and God's mercy (forgiving iniquity)? Why is this resolution essential to the gospel?

Application Questions

1. The sermon suggests that "Satan's greatest victory" may not be the sins we commit but the "dark thoughts of God's heart" that drive us to sin and keep us distant from Him. What false views of God's character do you tend to believe, and how might meditating on Exodus 34:6-7 correct those views this week?

2. Since God's people are called to reflect His character, how can you practically demonstrate being "slow to anger" and "abounding in steadfast love" toward a specific person in your life who has disappointed or frustrated you?

3. Galatians 6:1-2 calls us to "bear one another's burdens." The sermon asked whether we have pressed down on someone's burdens or helped carry them. Identify one person whose burden you could help bear this week and describe one concrete way you could do so.

4. The sermon notes that it's easy to love others when circumstances are easy, but asks how we love when things are difficult. In what current relationship or situation is loving others "trying" for you, and what would it look like to love "earnestly" (1 Peter 4:8) in that context?

5. If God's grace is truly "marvelous, matchless, and freely bestowed on all who believe," how should this affect the way you approach God in prayer, respond to your own failures, and share the gospel with others who don't yet know Christ?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 33:12-23 — This passage records Moses' request to see God's glory, which sets up the Lord's self-revelation in chapter 34 and shows Moses' intimate relationship with God.

2. Deuteronomy 6:1-9 — Here Moses teaches Israel about God's oneness and the comprehensive allegiance He requires, directly connected to the sermon's emphasis on the one true God.

3. Psalm 103:1-14 — David reflects on the same attributes of God proclaimed in Exodus 34, celebrating His mercy, grace, slowness to anger, and steadfast love toward His people.

4. Isaiah 54:1-10 — God promises everlasting love and compassion to His people, demonstrating the faithfulness He declared to Moses and showing how His covenant love endures.

5. Romans 3:21-26 — Paul explains how God can be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus, resolving the "riddle" of how God's justice and mercy coexist.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Setting the Context: Moses' Encounter with God at Sinai

II. Who is God? The One True God Revealed

III. What is God Like? His Character of Holiness and Love

IV. How Can Justice and Mercy Coexist? The Riddle Resolved in Christ

V. The Trinity: Three Persons Working in Redemption

Detailed Sermon Outline

Amen. Open your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Exodus, the book of Exodus.

While you're turning or scrolling there, let me just remind you the first 19 chapters are about the journey of the people from Egypt in slavery to Mount Sinai where Moses would receive God's commandments. Chapters 20 to 31 are those commandments that Moses is receiving. While He's up on the mountain for God's people. Chapter 32 is the terrible story of the people's impatience in waiting for Moses. He'd been up on Mount Sinai for several weeks by that point and that gave way then to idolatry as they made and worshiped around a golden statue of an animal.

Well, God told Moses what was happening and Moses goes down from the mountain. And God deals with the idolatry of the people. In the aftermath there in Exodus 33 at the end of chapter 33 in verses 18 and 19, Moses asks to see God's greatness and God shows Moses His goodness.

In chapter 34, God calls Moses back up the mountain and we read in Exodus 344 about Moses going up early in the morning. And then the Lord speaks to Moses. He shows Moses His glory. And that brings us to our text for tonight, Exodus 34:6-7.

You see that? It says, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed. And friends, this is just like we were thinking about last Sunday. The Bible is God's self-revelation. Here the Lord is proclaiming to Moses and through him to his people what they would not have known if God did not reveal the truth about Himself.

If He hadn't proclaimed like He does here. So the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord. This double naming of Himself is seen nowhere else like this in the Old Testament. It seems to be an intensifying, a kind of calling card of how important what He's about to say is. And if you look at that statement of faith we just that we confessed about God, you'll notice that we confess a lot of the same kinds of things that we see here in this passage.

You see, Article 2 that we just confessed begins really telling us, answering the question, who is God? We believe that there is one and only one living and true God, an intelligent, infinite Spirit whose name is Jehovah, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth. Friends, all of these things are things that God has revealed about Himself in His Word in various places. God has shown Himself as one. There's the famous passage in Deuteronomy 6, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

And it's because the Lord is one that He's able to ask for our comprehensive allegiance to Him. He wants all of us, all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, because He is one. He says in the first commandment, you, shall have no other no other gods before Me. He is, as we confess, the only one. He's the only God.

Like He'll say again in Isaiah 46, I am God and there is no other. Or 1 Timothy 2:5, There is one God. He alone is the living and true God.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul reminds the Thessalonians of the multiplicity of idols they used to worship.

And how they had turned from that to worshiping the one living and true God. This God Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John 4 is Spirit, and His name is Jehovah. Let me just take a little moment on that because people are sometimes confused by this. What is this word Jehovah? Well, back in Exodus 3, we don't need to turn there now.

God introduces himself to Moses and he shares with him his name, I am who I am, Yahweh. The Jewish teachers so respected the reverence, so revered rather God's name that what they did is they took the consonants that Y-H-W-H of Yahweh but they put vowel points for different vowels, the vowels of the word Adonai which just means Lord.

And it was a reminder to say when it reads Yahweh in the text out of reverence, not even to speak the name, but instead to say Lord Adonai. And so when that got translated into other translations like English, sometimes they just took those four consonants and they stuck in the other vowels and that's how we get our word Jehovah. But it's just an older way to try to translate what more straightforwardly is translated by this name Yahweh that we see in Exodus chapter 3. This is the Lord. We see here that He is the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth.

We know He's the Maker. We see in Genesis 1 He makes all that there is. And this Creator God rules in that He gives commands and commandments. We read in Leviticus 18, you, shall follow My rules. When Nebuchadnezzar goes crazy as a punishment.

We read, He was to be thinking He was a donkey out in the fields until He knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom He will. Well back to Exodus 34. In Exodus 34:6-7 we see the truth about who this God is. It lets us know something not merely about God's unique being, but His unique role as ruler of all.

Since He's the one who rules, He will be the judge of all. We read here at the end of verse 7, who will by no means clear the guilty. God has not said that about Himself before in Scripture. This is the first time He's used this language about Himself. And He continues on visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

Very similar to what He says in the second commandment in Exodus 20. Either there He's referring to the fact that generational sin has implications for the people underneath the sin in the next generation. Or he's referring to something special about the covenant with Israel since they were making a nation. It could be either one. I'll talk to you about that more later if you want to talk about that particularly.

But whenever we do those last words, that phrase who will by no means clear the guilty clearly shows that God is committed to the good. This God is a God who's committed to that which is right. He is committed to justice. So we see clearly that he is a just ruler. But Moses tells us more about his character and that's really what the middle of our statement of faith is about.

It's the second question, what is God like? And you see that second set of statements in our article, inexpressibly glorious in holiness, worthy of all possible honor, confidence and love. So here our statement of faith captures this arresting combination of the characteristics of the true God. God is uniquely, completely committed to both holiness and love. Friends, that's one of the things that's distinctive about the God of the Bible.

He's committed to both holiness and love. It's possible to find other deities that seem to be presented by people that are committed to one of those or the other, but this combination to holiness and love is uniquely typical of the God of the Bible.

Back in Exodus 34:6, look at what we read. He says about Himself, He is merciful. The Lord had told Moses that the previous day in 33:19, and now the next morning up on the mountain, He says it even more directly here in verse 6. Again, this is the first time the Lord has directly said this about Himself. This is what God so poetically repeats about Himself in Isaiah when He uses that famous phrase, A bruised reed He will not break, a smoking wick He will not put out.

He is gracious and He says He is merciful in verse 6 and gracious, very similar to what He said the previous day. But this is the place in really all of the Bible where this is emphasized and said this clearly for the first time. If you want to pick two verses in the Old Testament, maybe other than Genesis 1:1 that are the most important verses about God in the Old Testament, it's these two. This is where he reveals himself most fundamentally to Moses. He is merciful and gracious.

I know a lot of us have recently read Dane Ortlund's book, Gentle and Lowly, and in that he has one of his short chapters that reflects specifically on these verses. And he notes that God doesn't reveal His glory as the Lord, the Lord, exacting and precise, or the Lord and Lord tolerant and overlooking, or the Lord, the Lord disappointed and frustrated. No, His highest priority and deepest delight and first reaction, His heart, is merciful and gracious. I think Dane gets that right. I think that's what the Lord is saying here.

We see in verse 6 he goes on, Slow to anger, First time he said that about himself in Scripture. Abounding in steadfast love. Abounding in steadfast love. It means that in the midst of demonstrating just how steadfast his love is, he tells Moses this is what he's doing. The people had just been terribly idolatrous.

He could have forsaken them entirely. And yet he is abounding in steadfast love.

This is what typifies them. This is why we again and again read statements about God's love in the Bible. This is why we as God's people are to be especially marked by love. Do you remember what Peter said in 1 Peter 4:8? Keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Friends, it's one thing to love each other when the circumstances are easy. How are you doing loving each other when the circumstances are more difficult, are more trying?

Love one another earnestly. How about that advice and counsel Paul gives over in Galatians 6 when he's talking to them about those in their number who are struggling? And he says in Galatians 6:1, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

In this last week, have you looked over at somebody's burdens and put a hand and pressed down on them, made them harder? Or have you come alongside and tried to help bear them? That's what we're called to do, to bear them. Or as John says over in 1 John 3, when he's exhorting the brothers there, he says, no one who knows him keeps on sinning, but instead we should love one another. We know love.

This way, that He laid down His life for us. And His conclusion is that we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. Friends, that's what's to typify us, a self-giving love. As we study the character of God, as we see what God is like, we understand that God's people are to reflect that. Back to Exodus 34:6, there's still one more aspect of God's character that He reveals about Himself in this verse.

We see it at the end of verse 6, He says, and faithfulness. Again, first time God says that about Himself in Scripture. He's shown it before. He had shown it to Abram centuries earlier. But this is where He speaks this about Himself and He explains it in verse 7, Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

Again, it's the first time God has spoken this way about Himself, but He uses the whole rest of the Old Testament to demonstrate it. We think of David in Psalm 138, Great is the glory of the Lord for though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly. Or still later, His words to His people through Isaiah in Isaiah 54, With everlasting love I will have compassion on you.

So here's the crucial question for all of this. How can God God's commitment to justice and holiness be combined with God's commitment to mercy and grace? How can those both be true?

He says here that it is the case, but He doesn't tell us how. Is that like calling something curved and flat at the same time? I mean, how can it be that He's committed to holiness and justice but that he's also committed to mercy and grace.

Well, God here simply tells us that he is. And this is the tension, the friction, what I've called the riddle of the Old Testament. And that, of course, is where Jesus comes in. Because in Jesus we see how God's commitment to love and his commitment to justice are joined together. We see that no sin will be done away with, merely ignored, no injustice will be allowed finally to stand.

But God will persevere in showing mercy and grace to all of those who turn and repent and trust in Christ. Friend, if you've come with somebody else today and you want to know more what it means to know Jesus Christ, to know that kind of mercy and love from God in your own life, please talk to any one of us who are gathered here about this. Talk to the person you came with. We would love to help you understand more of what it means that you can know forgiveness of your sins and new life with God in Christ. Our third and final question about God, really, if this is who God is and what He's like really would be, well, what about Jesus?

And that's really where the Trinity comes in. And I've not left as much time for this because the rest of our statement of faith really unpacks this. We'll be hearing about this in the coming weeks. But if you just look there back at our statement of faith, we read, that in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, equal in every divine perfection, executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption. Friends, we can sum it up like this, those whom the Father elects, the Son redeems, and the Spirit regenerates.

And why does God do all of this?

Because He loves us.

He absolutely loves us. And the Father and the Son and the Spirit cooperate, work together in that same love.

A final suggestive thought for you, Dane Ortland again. He says, the fall in Genesis 3 not only sent us into condemnation and exile, The fall also entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God, thoughts that are only dug out over multiple exposures to the gospel over many years. Perhaps Satan's greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge, but the dark thoughts of God's heart that cause you to go there in the first place. And keep you cool toward Him.

Of course, friends, the wonderful truth is that God's grace is marvelous and matchless and freely bestowed on all who believe. Let's pray together.

Lord God, we thank youk for the way youy have loved us in Christ. Thank youk for not leaving us enslaved to our sins. Thank youk for not giving us only the Law. Thank youk for the way youy have given us freedom in Christ. Thank youk for your gentle, gracious, persistent, loving care.

Lord, we pray that yout would continue to pursue us with youh grace. Help us to rejoice in it even today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.