Knowing God - Part 1 1. Why did Jesus come to earth? (This could be answered several ways) Answer: That we might know God. 1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true... 2. What is the "eternal life" that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 3. What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight and contentment, than any thing else? Knowledge of God. Jeremiah 9:23 Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24 But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me... 4. What does God desire to see in man? Knowledge of Himself Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. The real purpose behind all true religion is to be able to know God. Only when we know God will we live in a manner that is pleasing to Him. God calls us to know Him, but we are trying to know the unknowable! 1. God is the great "I AM" Exodus 3:13-14, John 8:58, He has no beginning or end 2. Heb. 13:8 He is infinite while we are finite Ps 139:7f This alone makes it impossible for us to understand fully the depths of God. Romans 11:33-36 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him? 36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Psalms 145:3 Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. Isaiah 55:8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than you ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Job 26:7-14 He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing. 8 He binds up the water in His thick clouds, Yet the clouds are not broken under it. 9 He covers the face of His throne, And spreads His cloud over it. 10 He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, At the boundary of light and darkness. 11 The pillars of heaven tremble, And are astonished at His rebuke. 12 He stirs up the sea with His power, And by His understanding He breaks up the storm. 13 By His Spirit He adorned the heavens; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, And how small a whisper we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?" Still we are to know God and improve in our knowledge. Because our God is so great, we never fully understand Him, but always growing in knowledge. It is a continual process, you never reach the point that you are satisfied with your knowledge of Him if you are coming to know Him properly. There is a sense in which we are satisfied with our knowledge of Him at times and there is another sense in which the more we learn of Him the more we desire to know Him more. Psalms 42:1-2 As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? Knowing God in 2 Peter 2 Peter 1:2-3 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 2 Peter 1:3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 2 Peter 1:8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 2:20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 2 Peter 3:18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. God wants us to find Him and has shown us the way if we only will. Luke 15:20 And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. God is the Father looking for His child to come to Him. Once we do come to Him, God disciplines us and works with us to bring us even closer to Him. Heb. 12:5-11 Jer. 29:10-14 - (already promised they would return but they would have to turn to Him) Coming to God involves more than keeping certain requirements and going through certain motions. We must be close to him personally. We need the "Weightier matters of the Law" Matt. 23:23 In the Temple: Matthew 23:23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. In the home of a Pharisee Luke 11:42 But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. The weightier matters take the heart, not just the intellect. A lawyer can understand many teachings and apply them: (Not forsake, organization of church, Instrumental Music, etc.) Anyone can boast of keeping these laws, of the mind, external actions. Yet, mercy, love, justice come from within, from what we are inside. When we compare ourselves to Christ in these areas, instead of becoming lifted up and boasting that we doing things right, it knocks us down in humility, "God, be merciful a sinner." It is not the offerings, sacrifice, fasting. Pharisees had all of these, but having a humble heart coming to God and depending entirely on Him. Micah 6:6-8 With what shall I come before the Lord, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? We can study the Word and memorize the Word, but that alone does not make us know God. Knowledge puffs up (1 Cor 8:1), not just any knowledge (2 Pt 3:18), but knowledge without close relationship to God. Pharisees knew scriptures, they "searched the scriptures" Yet Jesus said "You do not know HIM" They knew the law but not the Lawgiver John 7:28, 8:54-55, 15:20-21, 16:1-3 Their problem was identified in 5:38-42, they had no Love for God. Result: they never tried to get to know Him. Without knowing God, Christianity becomes an intellectual exercise of knowing the Book but not its Author. Knowing God is the whole point of knowing the Book. Reason for all the problems in the church in Corinth: 1 Cor 15:34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. Today, it is not unusual to hear of fussing and squabbling over preacher's pay, buildings, names of congregation, lack of unity, articles concerning behavior in business meetings. All is a result of lack of knowing God and having His Son living within me and His Spirit strengthening me so I can overcome in this wicked world. When we come to know God, we become what we should be. We understand what it means to be holy as He is holy. Bible gives at least our analogies to describe how we know God. 1. Like a son knows his father. 2. Like a subject knows his king. 3. Like a wife knows her husband. 4. Like a sheep knows the shepherd. All four ways point to a relation in which the knower looks up to the one known, and the latter takes responsibility for the welfare of the former. This is part of the biblical concept of knowing God, that those who know Him are loved and cared for by Him. We know him only because He allows and wants us to know Him. Knowing God is a Personal Involvement A. It Affects Our Actions - 1 John 2:3-4, 3:6, 4:6, 7, 8 (Active Love - 3:18) B. It Affects Our Emotions Knowing God is an emotional relationship just as with knowing any other that we love. Church - Christ relationship described as a marriage. Marriage has many emotions along with actions. The believer rejoices when God is honored, feels distress when God is blasphemed. Barnabas: Acts 11:23 Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad... Psalms 119:136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law. Christians feels shame and grief when he is convicted of having failed his Lord Luke 22:62 And Peter went out, and wept bitterly. Lack of either actions or emotions indicates that one does not know God as he should. Knowing God is a Matter of Grace Our entire relationship is dependent on grace of God. We do not make friends with God but He makes friends with us. Galatians 4:8-9 But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. 9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? Gal. 4:8-9 "or rather be known by God" Shows Paul knows that grace was the reason for them to be able to know God. They knew God because God first took knowledge of them. What matters first is not that I know God but that God knows me. All my knowledge of Him depends on His initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. Ephesians 2:3-5 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). Titus 3:3-5 For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, He knows those who are His. He is a caring King who loves and cares for His subjects. A loving Husband, Father. A Shepherd who knows His sheep. There is great comfort in this knowledge. I can know his love is based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself. There is a great cause for humility in the thought that He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow-men do not see and sees more corruption than I see myself. 2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: "The Lord knows those who are His," and, "Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity." He knows us and wants us to know Him. Jer 24:7 And I will give them a heart to know me for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart". Let us press on to know God Hosea 6:3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain to the earth. Two Ways to Live Job 21:7-14 Why do the wicked live and become old, Yes, become mighty in power? 8 Their descendants are established with them in their sight, And their offspring before their eyes. 9 Their houses are safe from fear, Neither is the rod of God upon them. 10 Their bull breeds without failure; Their cow calves without miscarriage. 11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, And their children dance. 12 They sing to the tambourine and harp, And rejoice to the sound of the flute. 13 They spend their days in wealth, And in a moment go down to the grave. 14 Yet they say to God, 'Depart from us, For we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways. Proverbs 2:1-5 My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, 2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; 3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, 4 If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, And find the knowledge of God. Wayne Wells wayneliz@twave.net http://users.twave.net/ncc