Rush Hour
RushHour helps RushChurch members stay connected to each other, informs them about current RushChurch happenings, and also includes bible study/theology talk. We will speak about RushChurch specifics but also on current events, tough questions on faith, church and the Bible
Rush Hour
God's Character - Part 1: Exodus 34:6-7
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We catch up on what’s been happening at Rush Church, from Kids Jam wins and silly moments to what’s coming up for students and families. Then we start a new series on the character of God, reading Exodus 34:6-7 and wrestling with how God holds mercy and justice together.
• Kids Jam recap, worship and lessons, missions challenge, and the bearded dragon kiss
• Dirty soda breakdown and how shared traditions build community
• Fall updates, tailgates, Youth Group, church picnic plans, and upcoming signups
• Vacation stories, including a scary riptide moment and why lakes feel safer
• How we describe God based on experience, including negative projections
• Why Exodus 34:6-7 becomes the Bible’s go-to summary of God’s character
• The golden calf failure, Moses interceding, and God revealing compassion and faithfulness
• The grace and justice tension and how it points to Jesus as grace and truth
• Which trait hits home most: mercy, faithfulness, or slow to anger
Check the bulletin. Make sure to check our website, rushchurch.com.
And we're also looking for volunteers.
www.rushchurch.com
Welcome Back And Catching Up
SPEAKER_00Welcome everybody. We're back with another episode of Rush Hour. It's been a while. It's been a few weeks, but we've been busy, and I got Britney and Ashley back here for another episode, and we are excited to record again. I am. Maybe they're not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The gang's all back together.
SPEAKER_00The gang is back together. Last time we did this, well, I did a short little update episode by myself. That was really strange. Just talking to myself. And then me and Brittany did one. Actually, you haven't been on a podcast in like a month.
SPEAKER_01Oh. So I was on vacation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, tell us all about your life.
SPEAKER_01Ugh.
SPEAKER_00Every day of the last month, what happened?
SPEAKER_03Day one.
SPEAKER_00Day one.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So I was just kidding.
SPEAKER_00So we do want to know about what's been going on, what you guys have been up to.
Kids Jam Recap And Lizard Bet
SPEAKER_00I don't know. What what has Rush Church been up to? We've been, we just finished Kids Jam last week. We had a great time with that. Probably one of the better, you know, this is VBS style event. We call it Kids Jam now. Probably one of the better ones we've had all around. Yeah. I think. We had 103 kids one night, averaged about 95, I think, uh, throughout the week with kids coming and going.
SPEAKER_01But we saw 140 different kids.
SPEAKER_00There we go. That's the number I wanted to know. That was that was 140 unique persons. That's crazy. Coming through the door. Got to be involved with the worship. Kids love to worship. They did. And we got we had lessons, we had crafts, we had fun games, challenges. Ashley kissed the lizard.
SPEAKER_03I still haven't seen video of this.
SPEAKER_01You know, I'm not even sure video exists, actually. Oh. Yeah. How did we not get that on video? I don't know. I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00I think Wes has to have it, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01Well, but he was he was doing it on he was doing it live so people could see it on the screen. He doesn't have it. I don't think it was actually being recorded, but it did happen. There was over 100 people in that room can testify that that happened.
SPEAKER_00Twice.
SPEAKER_01Yes, twice because they didn't believe me the first time.
SPEAKER_00I made her kiss it a second time. The first one I don't think she actually kissed him on the back. I did. I don't know. The second one kind of nudged it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, the first time he stuck his tongue out before I got to his mouth. And I was like, no.
SPEAKER_00For those that are confused, at Kids Dam, the goal, the challenge was for kids to raise money for our missions that was the for here that weekend. Yeah. They raised a certain amount of money and got to a certain goal. Then Ashley, who hates reptiles, would have to take my bearded dragon from my office. His name is Barnabas Beardface. He lives here at the church. And she would have to kiss him. And she did. She kissed Barnabas and he's recovered. He's fine. No, just kidding. But that was pretty exciting. I like that part of Kids Jam. Anything else staying out from Kids Jam? Brittany, you missed it, didn't you?
SPEAKER_03I did.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she's sad. Brittany, don't talk about it to Brittany. She's sad.
SPEAKER_03I am very sad.
SPEAKER_01Well, Brittany did a lot of work prior to Kids Jam. She helped John make that guitar, which was a highlight. I mean, people could not stop talking about that guitar most of the week. So thank you for that. She did the stage design, which was awesome. And just kept me sane prior to the week starting. Most important job. Right. I feel like once the week starts, like we're ready. It's just go. It's all that pre-setup that always takes so much time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, it was a good time. We had a lot of people that volunteered, a lot of people that helped. A lot of iced coffee and lemonade and dirty sodas.
SPEAKER_01And dirty
Dirty Sodas And Tailgate Ideas
SPEAKER_01soda. Oh my word. That I've never had it. Literally, I've never what what?
SPEAKER_00She's obsessed.
SPEAKER_01I am. It's, I mean, I this is the first time I've ever had dirty soda.
SPEAKER_00Well, tell somebody what a dirty soda is before they think we're you start with a cup of ice.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And then you use Sprite. That's your base. Sprite's your base. And then you pick whatever flavored syrup you want. So I chose strawberry. One nine I did passion fruit was really good too. And then you add creamer. Not creamer. I'm sorry. You add whipped topping on top. So not the one that's like all fluffy. It's it's the in the can or the carton before it's actually whipped cream. So yeah, that stuff.
SPEAKER_03What I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_01It's like thicker. It's not the half and half. It's not milk. It's it's just it's like whipping cream. Yeah, whipping cream. That's heavy whipping cream.
SPEAKER_00Heavy whipping cream.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And so the creamy, the creaminess with the soda.
SPEAKER_00I can't believe you've never had a dirty soda.
SPEAKER_01I haven't.
SPEAKER_00Always brewing in Bellfountain has a whole list of dirty sodas. Timmy gets them all.
SPEAKER_01Now I'm gonna have to try.
SPEAKER_00There's like a root beer one that he loves to get. I forget what the flavor thing. But anyway, they're becoming popular. And there was a dirty soda truck at the WrestleMania 4th of July.
SPEAKER_01I think we should do that for one of our tailgates. I think the kids will love it.
SPEAKER_00That's brilliant. I'm gonna do that. That's a great idea. There we go. Hopefully you're gonna show up and make those.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I am.
Church Announcements And Upcoming Events
SPEAKER_01Because I'm no longer part of the boosters.
SPEAKER_00Tailgating. Yeah, we have four tailgates at Ben Logan for the football games. There's four home games this year, so looks excited about that. What else is coming up? I'm preaching in the next two weeks because John's gone. And yeah, he's on vacation, relaxing, not worried about us at all.
SPEAKER_01And that's why he texts us today.
SPEAKER_00That's why he texted us today. He's like, everything fine. Haven't heard anything.
SPEAKER_01What's going on?
SPEAKER_00That means everything's good.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, so just working on that. Excited about being able to share with the church what's uh some Bible stuff. But yeah, so that's what's going on. Youth group has started back on Sunday nights for seventh through twelfth grade, rush life. Our color war is coming up. Um in September. That's our kickoff for the fall. I think that's September 20th, Sunday night. We're going back. We did paint two years ago and we did powder last year.
SPEAKER_01Something about the messy. I think they just like the messy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we also have the church picnic coming up. That's a huge Sunday. That the Sunday, the 23rd in August. We've got one service starts at 10 a.m. It'll be an hour and a half service. It'll be followed by a picnic. But during service is not only promotion Sunday, but also student Sunday. And then also like a throwback to where the church came from, you know. And I heard we do have a special guest coming. We're not allowed to reveal it, but there'll be some awesome things going on that day.
SPEAKER_00And this is kind of a look back and then a look forward, almost kind of like a celebration. So it's a huge day. It'll be one service at 10 a.m. on the 23rd. So work that on your calendars if you're listening and you attend Rush Church. One service. Again, we just had a one service.
SPEAKER_01We did. We had a VBS one service or kids'. Missions.
SPEAKER_00Lunch and we had and the kids' dam stuff. And then so another combined service. Pack everybody in there.
SPEAKER_03I heard Mission Sunday went really well. That the food was delicious.
SPEAKER_01I love this mission that we supported. It was the acts through through Bowling Green, and I guess they have one at Toledo too. Campus ministry. Yeah, the campus ministry. Yeah. So I talked with Luke and Don a lot, and they're excited to have us come up and partner with them. I think we're gonna do some Rush 1-8 stuff with them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that'd be wonderful.
SPEAKER_00I was supposed to go up there and help them last fall, their Halloween thing where they give out free food that night. Yeah. And my house flooded instead. So I didn't get a chance to make it up there. But hopefully this time we get to start doing some more stuff with those guys. They seem like a really great organization and somebody cool to work with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I was glad that they got to come down. And Don was great. The kids loved him. He was crazy.
SPEAKER_03He did green the sanctuary when he spoke too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that's good. That's the missions that we supported. That's upcoming. Also, student stuff, TCTC signups are gonna start soon. Our big trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee this January. Go to Tennessee Christian Teen Convention. So be on the lookout for that. Sign-ups will begin soon. For that, I gotta get the bus ready, gotta get the hotel rooms. That's next week. So all that good stuff. Anything announcement-wise for the church that we forgot to talk about. I don't think the have anything else. Um, Russell Mania.
SPEAKER_01I got Russell Mania starting up.
SPEAKER_00That's like a little over a month away.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, September 16th is our first Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's Wednesday night for uh ages four years old through sixth grade. Yep. And we're also looking for volunteers. So if you're willing to it's like a mini kids' jam, it's like an hour and a half on a Wednesday night. It's a very similar setup. Food, games, lesson, yep, worship, craft, and then we're done.
SPEAKER_00Lizard kissing.
SPEAKER_01Nope.
unknownNope.
SPEAKER_00All right. So Russell Mania is coming back. Be on the go for that. Lots of stuff going on. Check the bulletin. Make sure to check our website, rushchurch.com. Brittany does a good job keeping that up to date. It's up to date.
SPEAKER_01My hope so.
SPEAKER_00Hope so. Said that now.
SPEAKER_01She's been on a week vacation. That's true.
Vacation Stories And Camp Life
SPEAKER_00You guys have been out and about on vacation. I went to girls' camp. Helped out. Erica runs a girls' camp for sixth through tenth grade, I think, is what the grades are for that. Down at the same camp we do, a paintball camp at How's Mill, Cushion Assemblies. And so I went down to help her out with a few things, but for the most part, I was working on sermons and working on some upcoming things and laying in a hammock in the trees. So I cook with a mini vacation. Like a half a vacation.
SPEAKER_03That sounds nice.
SPEAKER_00It was great. I love that place. It's a good place to be. Alright. Do you have any jokes?
SPEAKER_01I do. I have one joke. One that's better laying on.
SPEAKER_00When you were gone, I did the jokes. They weren't that good.
SPEAKER_01No. They're hard, aren't they? Aren't they hard to find good jokes?
SPEAKER_00I did the Fourth of July themed jokes, though.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. All right. What is the difference between black-eyed peas and chickpeas?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. My mind instantly goes to something like I don't know. This is a black-eyed peas joke.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so the difference between black-eyed peas and chickpeas is one can sing as a song and the other can hummus. You know, like hummus a song that one can sing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I like fully got it. The first.
SPEAKER_00That's your joke for the day.
SPEAKER_01That's my joke for the day.
SPEAKER_00Somebody's gonna be like, I don't get it. Black-eyed peas, they don't sing. I don't anyway. Hummus. Um, hummus.
SPEAKER_01Hummus.
SPEAKER_00I don't like hummus.
SPEAKER_01We know that. We know we've heard that.
SPEAKER_03Every time I'm surprised.
SPEAKER_00Every time somebody's like, every time I say that, somebody in the room goes, huh?
SPEAKER_01And everybody's like, I bet you you would like mine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We've told this story before on here. Not going back through that again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, we all surprised every time.
SPEAKER_00Did you guys enjoy your vacation time? Anything exciting happen? Fun stories?
Riptide Scare And Lake Adventures
SPEAKER_01I almost drowned on mine. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00That was tell the people what happened.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00So I grew up It was almost just me and Britney on Russia.
SPEAKER_01I know forever. Brittany was almost the new kids pastor. Oh, okay. That escalated quickly.
SPEAKER_00Britney's like, I didn't know that was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01No, so literally, I grew up at the beach. I've I know the beach. Well, I got caught in a riptide when we were in outer banks, just what four weeks ago. And I knew what to do. I tried to swim parallel with the ocean. I physically could not. It was so rough that I could not get out of the riptide. And Carter was about halfway between the shore in the water, between the shore and me. And he started to come for me. And I told him, no, you cannot, because I could not let him get caught in it, also. And he kind of started panicking. And I tried to keep my cool and I did until I saw his face kind of turn white. And then I'm like, crap, I'm I'm really drowning. So that's when I started screaming for him to call for people at the shore to come help me. And Darren and Ad came running out and got me out. But at one point, I mean, I literally thought, okay, this is my time to go. This is it. But then at some point, a wave calmed down and I was able to feel the ground again. And I dug my toes into the sand. And even though water kept coming over me, I stood still. So I could take a breath every time a wave, you know, went back down, just till they could get to me. And once they got to me, then they were able to pull me out. But I mean, it was the scariest thing I'd ever been through.
SPEAKER_00Sounds pretty scary.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I got that through a text message. Oh, I almost drowned this. That's what it was. That's good to know. The story you telling it like sounds much more intense than like text. Oh man. So but the vacation was good besides almost drowning.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. It was very nice. A lot of sunsets, a lot of sunrises. I love sunrises.
SPEAKER_00I don't go in the ocean.
SPEAKER_01A lot of crabs on the ocean.
SPEAKER_00Crabs?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We actually did a fire on the beach. We've never done a fire before on the beach. And as long as you had a permit, you're allowed to in outer bank. So we actually did one on the 4th of July while we're watching fireworks. It was really cool.
SPEAKER_00That sounds wonderful. It's all right if you like that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01But I did say you like relaxing.
SPEAKER_00If you like relaxing beaches and fires.
SPEAKER_01I did say that I am done with the beach for a while. And I will start vacationing more in the mountains.
SPEAKER_00Mountains are where it's at. So I don't need any water. A lake is fine. You got some, you know, you can see the other side. You know, there's no sharks in a lake.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00There's no jellyfish. There's no waves. It's fine. Yeah. Just sometimes a catfish will nibble on you, but no big deal.
SPEAKER_03I'll survive a catfish.
SPEAKER_00How was your vacation? You went camping?
SPEAKER_03I did. I went camping with our entire family. So there's eight days that we're there.
SPEAKER_00That's a big camping trip.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Actually, we almost beat your VBS numbers. It was two nights. We were over 90 people at Denver. Wow. God dang.
SPEAKER_00We should combine the two next year.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Kids' jam at the camp outside with Brittany and her family.
SPEAKER_03But we had a really good time. We were just at the lake, so nothing dangerous.
SPEAKER_00See, lakes.
SPEAKER_03I did paddleboard for the first time. Really? Yeah. I didn't fall in. That was nice.
SPEAKER_00You know who's a paddleboard instructor?
SPEAKER_03No, who?
SPEAKER_00Ashley.
SPEAKER_03Me. Oh.
SPEAKER_01Oh, did I know that?
SPEAKER_00Yes, you did. She's full of talents. You know.
SPEAKER_01I love paddleboarding.
unknownAll right.
SPEAKER_01And kayaking. I don't like canoeing. Yeah.
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_00Canoeing is perfect for people that want to get married. Put them in a canoe. You want to know if you can put two people in a canoe and see what they do. See if they make it to their where they're supposed to go.
SPEAKER_01We should do a couple's outing to the canoe library.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So then we can all see what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00I don't think we should do that. This was like before you get married to see. Like by now it's too late. Doesn't matter if it's good or bad now.
SPEAKER_03No, it's like obviously I was mistaken.
SPEAKER_00So, but yeah, canoeing's not the something's canoeing's channel. But I we did kayaking at paintball camp this year. That was fun. Oh, that's fine. But yeah, all right. Cool, nice vacation stories. Yes. I'm glad you're alive and you're back with us. Thank you. Brittany, I'm glad you're here too. Thanks. Safe at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_03Even though I didn't have any near-death examples.
SPEAKER_00Did I almost die? I don't think I did. I think I would remember something like that. Alright.
Five Words That Describe God
SPEAKER_00So today I'm going to start a series. We're talking about the character of God. This is based off a series that I'm doing with my students on Sunday morning. It's also based off of a Bible project video series that they have out on the character of God. So if you want to follow along and watch the videos on BibleProject.com or the app, you can do that too. So just so you know where all this is coming from, thought we could discuss it together. I think it's a pretty cool series, and that's why I've been we're about over halfway done with it on Sunday mornings in my class. But I figured I'd just share it with other people because I think it's really good and I found it interesting. So if someone were to walk up to you on the street and now ask you to describe God's personality in, you know, some words, how would you describe God's personality? Like what words would you use to describe God, basically, is the question. Like, you know, obviously how would you describe God? Well, God is love. That'd be like an example of you know, somebody would say, Well, he's loving.
SPEAKER_03I would definitely start with good.
SPEAKER_00God is good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Definitely merciful. Is that how you say it?
SPEAKER_00Merciful, full of mercy. Yeah. Merciful. That's a word.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Isn't it funny when you say a word sometimes? You're like, is that how you say it? Is that an actual word? I do that a lot. Do I make that word? And sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. And I'm like, I made that up. Well, knowing that I would never know the difference, by the way. Anyone else? We have merciful, we have good. Good.
SPEAKER_01Artistic.
SPEAKER_00Artistic? Yeah. I mean, just looking at everything.
SPEAKER_03Creative design. Very creative.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_03No, I was gonna say something to describe like I I guess it would be intelligence. Like something to describe like I always look at our human body and how everything works together and how everything flows together. And just like also that same aspect on earth. Like I don't think we can comprehend. I guess intelligence would be the word.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. So we have all these different ways to describe God. I'd say like some people like, yes, what is God's personality or who is God or whatever his characteristics. A lot of people will go to these big, almost abstract, theological type descriptions, like omnipotent, holy, judge. We talked about the joy of judgment a couple episodes ago, if you can think back to that. All these different ways to describe God and who he is and what he does. And so some people will describe God in negative ways, though. Would you have you ever heard somebody describe God in a negative way? Like what do they think about him?
SPEAKER_03Well, if they don't think that judgment is they can take it as a negative.
SPEAKER_00Take it as a negative. He's too judging. I've heard people say God's too demanding, or he's distant, feels like he's not here. People describe God. Depends on, you know, where you've been in your relationship with him, like your background, where you're at now, I guess. People describe God in all different kinds of ways. And sometimes that's us, that's us projecting our views of who we think God is onto him. Especially the negative ones. Like if I feel like God's distant, I'm gonna describe him as distant. If I feel like God's too judgmental about things, I'm gonna describe him as a judge in a negative way. Even, you know, some of the ones we use to describe him, like creative. I see all of his beauty, and like I'm projecting my ideas of he's a creator God because of the things that I see. And so the authors of the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, they actually have a go-to official kind of way to describe God, a specific set of things that they describe him as. A repeated set of five words that they use whenever they wanted to summarize who God is at his very core. And so I thought that was a cool thing. And so it appears in the Psalms, it gets quoted by prophets like Joel and Jonah, and it shows up in Nehemiah, and it shows up in other parts of the Old Testament where people want to describe who God is, and they go back to these same five things. Like, where do they get these five things from? And these five things from Exodus 34, 6 through 7. It didn't originate with just how they perceived God or what they weren't projecting their their ideas of who God is or what they've seen. It was actually going back to this passage in Exodus where God tells Moses who he is. And these characteristics are God explaining to Moses himself who he is. It's not just us thinking, well, God's like this, or I've seen God do this, so he's like this. This is actually God's words to Moses. This is who I am. And so, and these are the these are the things that are used over the next parts of the Old Testament. The most quoted things about these are the most quoted verses used by the authors of the Bible to describe who God is. And it's because it's God talking about himself. So I'm just gonna read this to you real fast and then ask a few other questions and talk a little bit about it.
Exodus 34 Reading And First Reactions
SPEAKER_00But this is all about the character of God. This is the moment God tells Moses and tells humanity who he is, on with his own words. I gotta scroll down because I'm on my phone and I didn't bring my Bible. Exodus 34, 6 through 7 says this. Actually, I'll start in verse 5, because this is where it all starts. This is Moses up on the mountain with God. Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him, with Moses, and he called out his own name, Yahweh. The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, Yahweh the Lord, the God of compassion and mercy. I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin, but I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children, their grandchildren, the entire family is affected, even children in the third and fourth generation. So that's God's own words to Moses. And he is telling us who he is and what that means. And so I just want to spend the next couple weeks talking about these two verses and breaking them down and looking at how God describes himself. He says, I am, you know, I am compassionate, I have mercy, slow to anger, unfailing love, and faithfulness. And so that's Those are the things that God uses. And this is what the authors of the Bible go back to. And they quote this more
Golden Calf Breakdown And Moses Steps In
SPEAKER_00than any other verse inside the Bible itself. So to set up the scene, Israel has just been rescued from slavery out of where?
SPEAKER_01Egypt.
SPEAKER_00Egypt. They've been in Egypt for a long time. And they're on their way out in the wilderness. And Moses goes up on the mountain and he's getting stuff from God. And while he's up there, what happens? You guys remember?
SPEAKER_03While he's up there, the people down below are acting a fool.
SPEAKER_00They're acting a fool. They acting a fool up in here. That's what my translation says in my Bible. I don't know about yours, but yeah. So, yeah, acting a fool right there. And uh sorry B I V Brittany's international version of the Bible. I like that.
SPEAKER_03Like, isn't that the part when God looks over Moses' shoulder and he's like, yo, he's like, wait, what are those guys doing? You gotta get back down there right now.
SPEAKER_00God invites them into this relationship. He invites them into a covenant, like uh, you know, this this idea of a promise to his people, and you'll be my people, and I'll be your God. And God says, I will be your God and you'll be my people. And, you know, the idea is we're gonna show the whole world what it means to be human the way I designed it to be. He's trying to be like the world's gonna see how you guys live, and they're gonna see what I always wanted it to be. That was the plan. Didn't work out that way. He right after he gets done getting me in these are my people, they go they're at the bottom of the mountain, and what do they do? They're acting a full how. What do they make?
SPEAKER_01They're building the the calf thing, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the calf thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like the idol.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, made out of they're melting all their jewelry.
SPEAKER_00Golden calf. I'm looking for gold here. Sorry. Give you guys several opportunities. I didn't know you wanted to get a few. And there's like melted their jewelry. Yeah, the calf and built it. And I was like, okay, anyway. They Israel gets restless, they get anxious in Exodus 32 while God's up here on the mountain. They gather their gold, they melt it down, and they build a golden calf. Then they throw a wild party, acting a fool, apparently, and say, This is the god that brought us out of Egypt as they worship this golden statue thing. And so it doesn't take long for pe for things to go sideways for people to start acting crazy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like Moses wasn't gone that long.
SPEAKER_00They broke the covenant before you could even I don't know. Etched the word covenant, etched the word covenant into the rug. Yeah, they broke the covenant before it was even a thing. Etched and finished dusting off the rock or whatever, you know. It's crazy. Now, if you're reading this for the first time, you expect what happens next to be just terrible. Like if God just made a covenant with his people and he's like, we're gonna do this, and then he looks down and he's like, What is happening right now? Yeah, I can't even Well, we just we just went over this, and you guys have already messed this up. You expect God to be angry, you expect God to maybe destroy his people. Maybe justice demands a consequence. They can't just get away with this. In fact, God tells Moses, Let me alone so my anger can burn against them and consume them. He's like, I am not happy about this. This is he's got I'm just gonna wipe my hands with these people, and we'll get it. Moses, we'll get some new people, ones that don't act like this. And that's basically what God says to Moses up on the mountain. But Moses steps in, intercedes for the people, and reminds God of his promises to Abraham, and God relents. And so that's a cool, interesting story. We don't have time to get into that part of the story, but that's that's how it goes in scripture. God's like, that's it. Can't be having this. Moses like, ah, we have another chance. Hold on, we're gonna be okay. Remember, remember, you just told me who you are, and you're full of you know, mercy and compassion and your faithfulness and all these different things.
SPEAKER_03And so this scene always makes me giggle.
SPEAKER_00I don't, I just but it's like to us, it's kind of like, well, how dare they? And then I look at my own life and I'm like, How dare me? Like all the things that I do when I know I shouldn't be doing them.
SPEAKER_01I can just see Jesus doing that, like with the Father, like like when I screw up and I'm just like, God's like, no, and she's like, wait, I got her. Hold on, hold on. She's one of us. She might not be doing it right right now.
SPEAKER_03Handle it like Moses did. That's true. Thank goodness.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So in Exodus 33, Moses asks God a bold question. He says, Show me your glory, let me see who you really are. And God says, Okay, I'm gonna make all my goodness pass before you, and I'll proclaim my name in your presence. I mean, so God's like, you know, you don't want to see all my glory, you'll die, basically. But he ends up putting Moses in a place and kind of passes by like a shadow in in 33. And then you get to 34, where we just did that, we read from that. And instead, God walks past Moses and announces his own character and tells us who he is, the God of compassion and grace, and slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness. And so it starts with repetition. God says his own personal name a couple times here to Moses. This is my personal name, uh, this is who I am, is basically what this is. Then he gets into the five core traits of compassion and grace, slow to anger, abounding in loyal love and faithfulness. And those are the things that we see God tell Moses who he is, and those are the five things that we get to see repeated throughout the rest of scripture by the authors, and they go back to it more than any other verse, they go back to that one. And so at their worst moment, Israel has just completely crumbled already, right out the gate, tripped and fell. Like if you're running a race, oh, were you there at paintball camp when Carter ran the gauntlet and tripped right out of the gate? Oh my goodness, fell on his face. He's like, We got this, and then no, he fell. Immediately fell. That's what Israel's doing. They are at their lowest moment when you're worshiping statues and breaking promises that God just laid down. God's self-definition, right after this, God says who he is. So this happens, and then he passes by Moses and tells Moses who he is. And it's not, I'm powerful, I'm wrathful, I'm in control. It's not all these big things he could have said about himself, which are you know true to us to a certain extent. But he goes with, I'm compassionate, I'm gracious, I don't ain't, I don't anger quickly. I have loyal love and I'm full of faithfulness. That tells us something about who God is, I think, and what he's all about. Even in this moment of watching his covenant people that he just set up stumble and fall, and he's like, I could, and then he goes back to Moses. He's like, This is who I am, this is who I'm gonna be in this relationship, this is what this is my name, this is what I'm all about the rest of this ride that we're gonna go on together. And so, over the next couple episodes, I want to look at each of these. Maybe we'll do two at a time sometimes, but I want to look at these five things and say, How is God like this in the big story of the Bible? How is God like this in different areas of our lives? And so we'll look at those kind of things. And it just carries on through the rest of the story.
Grace And Justice Meet In Jesus
SPEAKER_00How can God be a hundred percent committed to grace and loyalty while also being a hundred percent committed to justice and cleaning up evil? Because in the rest of the verse, you know, it says, you know, I am, I will forgive the iniquities, I will forget about these, I'll take care of this. But then the next verse he's like, but I'm not gonna stand by and let things just slide. I'm gonna deal with it how it needs to be dealt with. And so, how does God do that? How is God full of grace and full of love, but also full of justice and doesn't tolerate evil? Because it seems like you'd have to just you pick one. It can't be both, but God is. If he just lets evil slide, then he's not good. But if he destroys everyone who does evil, none of us would survive. How does how do these two things play out together in the story of who God is and his people? So, and you see that throughout the rest of the Bible of God being compassionate, being gracious, and also not tolerating evil things. If you know the story of the Bible, you can see that play out again and again. So the tension hangs over the whole Old Testament, hundreds of years, all these different things of how God's gonna do this. And then you get to John chapter one in the New Testament, and John says, The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us full of grace and truth. Jesus is full of grace, he's full of truth. And that kind of harkens back to who God is in the old testament. He's faithful and he's full of grace and he's full of these things. And so and Jesus on the cross, Jesus embodies the full weight of God's justice against human evil while simultaneously offering the full weight of God's forgiving forgiveness and loyal love to all of his people at the same time. You know, he's got justice is carried out against uh uh the powers of darkness, but it's also the full weight of God's forgiveness and his loyalty to his
Which Trait You Need Most
SPEAKER_00people. So when you think about God in your quiet moments, or when you mess up and you do stumble and you do fall, which of these five traits do you are you glad that God is, or do you even struggle to believe some of these at times about who he is? Do you struggle to believe that he's slow to anger with you? Sometimes I feel like God's angry with me when I do things or disappointed, I guess. But like, do you worry that his love has an expiration date? Do you see if he's faithful when circumstances uh aren't how you thought they would gonna be going? And so God doesn't ask you to earn his character, he simply reveals it to us and then steps into our mess and invites us to trust him. And that's what we're gonna look at uh as we move forward in this series. What do you guys think? Good to talk about?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00Cool to look out, cool to look at these different things. Which one, which one of these characteristics is your favorite, do you think?
SPEAKER_01Personally, I definitely mercy. Like there, but there are many times where you know, sometimes you get stuck just struggling with that same sin. You try to kick it, you know, and it just it just keeps coming up and up and up. And I sometimes I used to struggle and sometimes still do, with is God really gonna give me mercy again? You know, it's just the same thing over and over again. But he is, he's filled with mercy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Brittany, which one do you like the most?
SPEAKER_03I know, I don't know that I like one more than the other.
SPEAKER_00I like I God's faithfulness is always one that kind of sticks with me. He's always faithful no matter what. It's the stability of knowing that it's not gonna change. Again, knowing like no matter what, God's faithful to who he is. Absolute reliability. You can always count on him. And that's that's something that you don't get even with you know your closest of friends or like your closest of loved ones. Sometimes people let you down, even when they don't mean to on purpose, they still do. But God is always faithful to the fullest extent all the time, fully reliable, and that's just something that only he can be. So I like that one a lot.
SPEAKER_03Slow to anger. That's something that I can like, even though as I've grown as an individual over years, like I do still have anger, obviously. I think everybody still has anger. But I notice that when I fail, how angry I am with myself, and then I'm trying to like during my prayer or repentance, or you know, I'm I'm trying to think like he does in that moment, like not only with trying to live out better in my life, but also how I'm treating myself in the situation. I mean, not like forgiving myself or anything like that, but just trying to go, okay. He's not talking to me like I'm talking to me. Right. Like I've gotta, I've gotta get that character. So that's just one that I deal with a lot.
SPEAKER_00I don't know that it's my favorite, but I don't favorite is probably the wrong word, just one that stands out to you, probably the most that you can relate to the most. I think everybody has one.
Compassion Next Time And Closing Prayer
SPEAKER_00Next week we're gonna talk about compassion. What does it mean for God to be compassionate? I like word studies. I love looking at a word in the original language, which would be Hebrew in this one, and what does that word embody? Because it's still a translation. Our English is just doing our best to tell us what that word meant back then. So looking at it, looking at that word compassion, where it came from, what does it mean? And finding that word in other parts of scripture and how the how it's used can tell us a lot about what it means for God to be compassionate, to have compassion. And so that'll be next time. If you guys are good with that, we'll look at that word.
SPEAKER_03Would it be funny if we said no?
SPEAKER_00I'd be like, No, that'd be would be funny. Ha! Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So funny. No, I want to go a different direction.
SPEAKER_00Just kidding.
SPEAKER_03Compassion sounds great.
SPEAKER_00It is great. I'll tell you why next time on Rush Hour.
unknownNice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let us pray and then we'll sign off. God, thank you so much for this time. Thank you for who you are. Thank you that you revealed to us the things that matter most to you, the things that you consider important, and thank you for having these words that we can read and look at see who you are really, and help us to put these into practice in our own lives. And we want to reflect who you are to the world around us, so we need to reflect these things. If we are saying that we're followers of yours. So be with us as we go out this week, be with everybody listening, as we have people going through difficult times, anxious times, whatever, whatever is on our hearts, you know all the things that are happening. So I ask you to show up and be present and give us opportunities to show others around us uh who you are. Thankful for Jesus. Thank you that he is grace and he is truth, and he is the perfect uh representation of who you are. And so in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. We'll see you guys next time on Rush Hour. Have a good week.