Many churches teach that God loves to help you. And this is true. But God cannot be reduced to a tool to meet your needs. God is good whether or not you get what you want from Him. If you don’t see this, you will wrongfully feel that God has abandoned you when in truth, He has chosen for you what is truly the best.
Below is an amazing message about God’s attributes from Pastor Joshua Mayo.
God Is I AM: When God Speaks For Himself See Sermon Here or read text below! (June 8, 2025)
We’re not the Creator. We’re the created. Which means—we don’t know anything apart from relationship. We learn through contrast or comparison, through limitation and connection. So when we talk about God, we usually describe what He does or what He is like, not who He is.
God is uniquely other. God is completely unlike anything or anyone that you’ve ever known. You’ve met some people who think that they’re God, but they’re not. Since he is uncreated and eternal, he doesn’t belong to the created order; he doesn’t fit into our categories. How many of you know that God will not fit into our box? God does not fit into our box, our categories, our limitations, or even our expectations. God exists beyond them.
To quote God talking about himself, here’s what he says. You’ve heard the verse before: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts.” Now, think about this for a second. You’ve heard this verse probably before, but think about this for a moment. “My thoughts,” God says, “are not your thoughts. (Hey, the way you think about things, that’s not how I work!)
Then he says, “Neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher, more elevated than your thoughts.” So God doesn’t think or even work the way that we naturally work or think. His instinct is not our instinct.
God Was Not Made in Our Image: We are but an Imperfect Reflection of His.
For God was not made; And God was not made in our image. We are made in his image. There are moments where we reflect his nature because of who he is in our lives, but God is not a reflection of us. And so, when we try to understand who God is, we borrow statements from scripture like “God is like a rock,” or when we try to understand God, we might say “God is like a good shepherd.”
We try to understand God by putting handles on who he is—the revelation of God. Or we might say, “God is like a father, he’s a father.” God actually accommodates himself down to our level in this way. He gives us handles so we can understand him on our own terms and with things that we can compare and contrast and understand in a human way.
But I want you to think about this for a second, because most of the time when you or I describe God, when we’re trying to understand God, we do it in relationship to ourselves. Think about this for a second. When you reflect upon it, if you can only relate to God in a way that you understand, that somehow connects to who you are, it’s a pretty egocentric way to relate to God. If you only know God through his connections to you, it very much limits and diminishes who God really is.
But here’s the truth: God is not simply defined by how he relates to us, for God is self-existent. God is eternal, he’s unchanging, he’s complete in and of himself. So even if we never existed, God still would. He’s still good. That kind of reality actually doesn’t just go deep; it actually disorients. It pushes us as creation into mystery.
And the problem with mystery is that mystery doesn’t feel safe because mystery can’t be handled. It’s kind of like feeling like walking on air. How does one go about doing that? How does that work? What does that feel like?
Mystery doesn’t feel safe. Why? Because mystery cannot be controlled. You can’t control mystery to somehow get power over it. But mystery, wonder, and awe is a foundation of worship. We worship God in part because he is completely unlike ourselves. He’s completely other, and that response of awe and majesty and “Oh, what is this? Who is this?” requires us to worship.
Scripture Is Not Just a How To Manual: It’s a Revelation!
Think of it this way: Scripture is not a textbook; it’s revelation. See, the Bible isn’t just some simple theology textbook, but it’s God’s self-disclosure. It’s a way of God saying to you and to me, “I want you to see—this is God speaking—I want you to see who I am through how I rescue, how I lead you, and how I love you.” But sometimes—and this is the exciting part—sometimes God pulls back the curtain and says, “This is who I am before I ever act, before you ever ask. This is me.”
Not Every Truth Is Meant To Be Applied: Some Truth Is Meant To Be Adored. It’s Not All About How To Make This Work For Me.
As a society, we’re obsessed with personal relevance. We will think thoughts like, “How did the message help me? What is the takeaway? How does this fit into my week?” But not every truth is meant to be applied; some truth is meant to be adored.
And that’s what I think is so special about what God is going to walk us through this summer in this series, because this series is not about application; it’s about adoration. I want us to pull away from simply saying, “How does this work for me?” and rather make it about him.
God Is Not Measured By His Usefulness to Us
God is not useful; he is worthy. Yes, yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking: God does do useful things for us, but that is not who God is. God is more than what he does for you or me. God is so much more than what he does for you.
And that distinction actually changes everything for us, because worship that begins with usefulness will always come back to you. Worship that begins with “Did this work for me?” will always center around you, and that’s not what worship is. If we only worship God because he is useful to us, what happens when we believe that God is no longer useful? When we believe that God is no longer helpful to my needs, or God doesn’t seem like he’s good, this is often why people actually leave the faith. Side note: it’s faith in him, not faith simply in what he can do. But this is why people often leave the faith—because we’ve reduced God to a tool, and when they view that that tool is no longer useful, we throw the tool away because it’s no longer serving a purpose in our estimation. We discard it.
This is also why some people stop reading the Bible, or why you or I often times in our life—and we’ve all been there—why we’ve had trouble reading the scripture consistently, because we’ve reduced it down to a tool. Let me prove it to you: Ever think to yourself: “Well, I didn’t really get anything out of it for a while, so I just…” or “It just doesn’t make sense to me…,” We think scripture is only good if it’s immediately helpful. We’ve reduced it to a tool. But God and his word are not tools. God is not useful; he is worthy. He’s worthy.
We Worship God Not Because We Like the Music Playlist. But Because God is Worthy:
And this is also one another reason why a lot of us struggle with worshiping God. Think about it for a second: worshiping God is not a natural act. I mean, it’s what we are created for, but it’s not natural, since our fallen nature wants to worship ourselves instead of worship him. Worshiping self is more natural than worshiping God in our fallen state, and we struggle with worshiping God. All of us do—maybe you did today in service—and I get it. Why? Because oftentimes we don’t see the utility in it, like, “What did that do for me? I guess it felt peaceful, I guess, but what did it do for me?” Because for a lot of us, we struggle because we didn’t see how it was helpful or relevant. “Did it really make my life any better today or easier?”
And so we might think thoughts like—”Why should I worship when I don’t even like these songs, or I don’t know these songs?” Or, I love this one: “I’m just not a singer. So I don’t worship because I’m not a singer, or it’s just too loud.” Someone recently said, “You know, the worship’s too loud here.” And I said, “Yeah, I agree.” And I’m thinking, but thank God it’s not about us and our desires and our preferences; it’s really just about him.
So the question is, are we making it simply about us? Or this idea of, “Man, I don’t worship because it’s not my style, Pastor. I really like the word that you’re delivering every week, but I kind of slip in a little bit late, I kind of miss the worship, I kind of skip the worship because I’m here for the word, but you know, it’s just whatever.” But what we’re proving with our heart is we’re actually making worship about our style, about our preference. We think worship is more of a playlist that we get to select, where we can go next, next, next—don’t like that song, not my genre, not my style. We think worship is about my personality instead of making God worthy.
And so, if you treat worship like your playlist and you show up late because your heart is just like, “I don’t get anything out of it,” you’re showing that you are the one you’re trying to satisfy with worship. But worship is not about you; it’s not about me. We worship because he’s worthy. Worship is us surrendering to the mystery of God, who won’t be used. Worship is us acknowledging the wonder and awe that we don’t understand, which actually leads us to him.
How many of you have noticed that when there are seasons you don’t understand what’s going on, you just don’t get what’s going on, there’s more awe, there’s more mystery, there’s more wonder, and actually—you can respond with worship more easily. It forces you to lean in. But let’s be honest: we don’t like not being at the point. Even in worship, we’ll ask things like, “Well, what did I feel?” or “What did God say to me?” or “What did I get out of it?” Often, we’d rather have a three-step solution than sit in silent awe. We’d rather have inspiration than be undone.
But to quote Isaiah, who had a vision entering into God’s presence, he simply said, “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes—my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” Check this out: ask yourself this hard question—because this is certainly hard for me. Do we settle for helpfulness when God’s holiness is available? Do we settle for what God can do for us instead of being undone by God’s presence so he can remake us into his image?
When we behold God’s self-sufficiency, his unchanging, self-existent nature, we actually start to begin to realize that all of this is not about us. And that realization is not just humbling; it’s a healthy undoing. Godly wonder, that awe of God, that mystery, should lead us into worship of God.
And so, these messages…this summer, I want to be anti-helpful, I want to be anti-relevance, and I want to be about not God in relationship to us, but simply God for God’s sake—worthy for he is worthy’s sake. I want it to be about him. For these messages are not about application; they’re about adoration.
The God I AM
Take Exodus 3: Moses is tending sheep in the wilderness, and he sees this burning bush, but it’s not burning up. I’m fully convinced that Moses would have never saw the burning bush had he had an iPhone in his hand—too many notifications, too many distractions. But thank God he didn’t. He notices this bush that’s burning but it’s not burning up. He’s like, “I should turn aside and see this sight.” So he turns aside, starts to walk towards it, and God speaks. A voice comes from that bush, if you will. The Lord says, “Moses, Moses, take off your sandals, for this is holy ground.” Then God says to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I have seen the misery of my people, and I have come down to rescue them. So now go, Moses, I am sending you.”
And it’s at this point that Moses is talking to the Lord in a bush, and he’s like, “Hi, what’s up, good to know you, first interaction, this is interesting, never talked to a bush before.” And immediately Moses notices his inadequacy and he says, “Who am I to do this?” And isn’t that usually our first question, “Who am I to do this?” And God says—what does God say? He says, “I will be with you.”
Now, what I want you to understand is, when God has a task, when God has a mission, when God has a purpose for you, so often we look to our gifts, our adequacies, our skills to be able to accomplish what God has asked us to do. But if it’s truly something that God has asked you to do, yes, he’s going to equip you for it, but ultimately it will rely upon him being with you, not your self-sufficiency. He says, “Hey, hey, hey, son, hey, daughter, I am with you.”
And then Moses, like many of us, asks the following question: “That’s great, but who are you? Again, honored to meet you in the desert like this, in the wilderness like this, what is your name, God?” What is striking to me is not Moses’s question, but rather God’s answer. When God speaks for himself, you know the answer, right? God speaks back to Moses and he says, “I am who I am. Tell them, tell the Israelites, I AM has sent me to you.”
Have you ever thought about what God didn’t say in that moment? God didn’t say to Moses, “I’m like your dad, but nicer.” Nor did he say, “Hey Moses, I’m like the best version of you.” No, he simply said, “I am.” God starts with himself because that’s where everything begins, because before God ever acts for us, he exists apart from us.
God’s Nature Does Not Depend On Us. God Was Good before He Ever Gave You Anything.
Exodus 3 and a couple other passages reveal something about God’s nature even without us, and I want to help you see them today. Number one, if you’re writing notes:
God is not defined by you. Exodus 3:14—God is not defined by you. God doesn’t explain himself in relationship to Pharaoh or Israel’s suffering, the pain they’re going through, or even Moses’s fear or inadequacy. God just is. God is self-sufficient, God is self-existent, God is eternal, God is uncreated, God is unchanging, God is for God. God did not evolve, God doesn’t grow, God doesn’t need. Before there was you, there was I AM. And you can’t edit God down; you can’t reduce him to some supporting role in your life. For when you think about it, ultimately this is not your story or mine—this is his.
Next thought is that after you realize, one, God is not defined by you, then what is he defined by? God defines God. Do you remember Job? Job 38—this was the dude that had a no good, very bad, rotten kind of day, all in one day. I mean, hide your kids, hide your wife—just how my mind works when I preach—I mean, he had a really bad day. In the book of Job in the Old Testament, it’s the whole story of how there’s this cosmic test going on, if you will, and in a very brief period, Job loses his health, his wealth, his children, his house—I mean, he loses everything, loses his cattle, his property, everything turns upside down for him. And when you have a bad day or when something goes wrong, what is the first response typically of us in those moments? “God, why?” Right? “God, why?”
And so Job wanted answers. He’s going through the worst of worst days, he’s lost absolutely everything, everything has been taken from him, and Job wants answers from God. How does God respond? God gives Job a storm. In Job 38:4—God responds from that storm: “Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Translation: “Hey Job, this is not about you. This whole thing, what you’re going through, what you’re stuck in right now, I know it’s hard, I know it’s painful, but Job, Job, Job, you don’t understand, this is not about you. It’s so much bigger than that.”
We want God to be the answer to all of our problems. We say, “God is good,” and what we mean is that God gave us a new job. But what you have to understand is God was good before he ever gave you anything. When Jesus says it, he says, “No one is essentially good by nature except for God alone. God is good.” Check this out: God was love before anyone could receive it. God was just before any injustice ever occurred. It’s his nature. See, we are not the reference point; God is.
Next thought: God is who he was before you needed him. That’s incredibly comforting when you think about it. God is who he was—it’s his essence, it’s his nature. Jesus says this in John 17:5 and 24. This is a verse that’s pretty mind-blowing if you think about it. Jesus is having this prayer moment where he’s speaking to the Father, and he says, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had before the world began.”
We’re talking about things that happened before “in the beginning,” before the world began. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory, the glory that you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” Before the world began, there was glory. And Jesus prays here not first for us, but rather for glory—the glory that he had previously with the Father before the world ever began.
Side note: this is blasphemy if you’re not God. He’s making a divine claim. You’re wondering why they wanted him killed—he’s putting himself equal to God: “I was there before the beginning.” This is a divinity claim, and he’s saying, “I want the glory that I had with the Father before the world began.” Check this out: before there was sin, there was glory; before there was pain, there was praise; before there was “in the beginning,” there was the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit in perfect, joyous communion.
The gospel doesn’t start with you—it starts with God, a God who is not lonely without you, a God who is not needy, a God who is not reactive, but rather he’s overflowing. Check this out: creation wasn’t a response to God’s lack; it was the outpouring of God’s fullness. It was the overflow of God’s love, for God is love.
We don’t even understand what love is outside of our relationship with God. Everything else is a counterfeit love. God is love, so creation is the byproduct of God’s overflowing love. He needed something for his love to fill. Salvation wasn’t God’s plan B; it was in God’s heart before time began. Let me prove that to you with scripture: 2 Timothy 1:9—”He has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” Before the beginning of time, you were on his mind. Come on, before he hung the stars, he already understood your life. The gospel starts not with you, but with a God who is holy and entirely other.
So what do we do with a God who doesn’t revolve around us? That’s the right question. That’s right there—the good question. What do we do with a God who doesn’t revolve around us? We worship. We worship. We don’t attempt to define him or confine him. We don’t market him like God needs better PR—he doesn’t. He alone establishes his own name. We don’t somehow force him into some three-step sermon as if I could have the words to somehow describe God’s goodness. A thousand lifetimes, I wouldn’t get close. What do we do? We bow, because one of the most faithful things we could ever do is actually allow God to speak for himself. And when he does, what does he say? He says, “I am who I am. I am who I am.”
See, friends, God is not a mirror; he is the light. He’s not an echo of your feelings; he’s the voice that speaks even before you feel. You don’t find God looking in yourself—you might find a false god there, but you don’t find God there. You find him by looking up—by looking up to the burning bush, the whirlwind, the mountain, the cross, Spirit of the living God—and you hear him speak: “I am.” Not “I am what you need,” though he is;
Not “I am what you feel,” just “I am.” And friends, that is enough. He is enough. Even when you don’t feel him, he’s worthy. Even when your needs aren’t met, he’s faithful. Even when life doesn’t feel good, he’s still good.
So we don’t just need to somehow apply God to different areas of our life; we don’t just apply God to our life. Rather, we worship God with our whole life—that our whole life might be a hallelujah, that our whole life might sing, might be overwhelmed by a mystery, an awe, a wonder that says, “How great is God,” that might join an eternal song that is for all eternity been saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” Folks, you’re not on the first event line; you are just coming into that eternal song. We’re just joining our voice to a song that’s been sung for millennia upon millennia, all eternity. We don’t just apply God to our life; we worship him with our life, for worship is not a response to what God does. Worship is a response to who God is—God. And that, my friends, is everything.
So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to respond to him. We’re going to respond to the wonder and the awe of who he simply is. We’re not going to respond to a song, but rather we’re going to take a moment, we’re going to just create some space for the next five or six minutes. See, you came to church to meet with God, and that’s what we’re going to do. So I want to invite you, over the next five or six minutes, you might simply raise your hands and respond with a hallelujah. You might get on your knees, make your chair into an altar, say, “God, I want to surrender right now.”
You might want to go to the communion tables and take communion or stand before the cross and reflect. You might want to come—I love to invite you—you come to the altars and you meet with God and you just sit in wonder and majesty, and it’s not really about what you have to say, but you just respond to him with your presence, with wonder and awe. You respond through worship: “See God, it’s not about me; it’s simply about you.” So I would invite you, even right now, for us to take a moment and respond to a living God, who’s worthy. He’s worthy. He’s worthy. He’s worthy. Come on, in your own way, whether you stand, whether you come to the front, respond to him right now.
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