Getting To Know God - Part 1 - Who Are You, Lord? Series

Getting To Know God – Part 1

Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …

John 14:23-24

“Jesus said, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.

“He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching. These words you hear are not My own; they belong to the Father who sent Me.”

And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …

1 Corinthians 10:13 (ISV)

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. But when you are tempted, He will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

Please open your Bibles to Exodus 3:1-15

It seems to me that recently we have been talking a lot about living lives that are pleasing to the Lord. Now, we know that lives that are pleasing to the Lord are lives that exhibit love-driven-obedience.

The Lord God could certainly make us be obedient out of sheer force if He wanted to do so, but, that is not His nature.

We see this in the hierarchy of the two great commandments

(Matthew 22:37-40)

We see this in our current memory Scripture (John 14:23-24)

And we see this in our very first memory Scripture (John 3:16-18)

The Lord loves us. He loves us so much that He sent His One and Only Son for our salvation!

Here’s the thing; we can search through to find all the verses that pertain to obedience and try to follow them out of duty but that would NOT be satisfactory to the Lord. The Lord desires love-driven-obedience and we cannot love someone we don’t know.

Just imagine that you want to get married and you are told that there is only one person you can marry; there is no other choice. You are told that this marriage will be great but you are not given much information beside the fact that this person is the best person you will ever find and that there is no other.

You are also told that there are the things you are to do and attitudes you need to have so that when you do get married and meet this person you both will be pleased to spend the rest of your lives together.

Isn’t that similar to what happens to new believers sometimes?

- They are told that all humans are born into a condition called sin and that that sin separates us from God, now and in eternity.

- They are told that God the Father sent the Son of God to be the perfect Sacrifice for our sin so that we could be reconciled with God.

- They are told that God’s grace calls us to salvation and that if we place our faith and trust in Him, if we believe in Him, we will be forgiven of our sin and we will become a son or daughter of God.

- Then they are told to live a life pleasing to God and to love Him.

- And then we will spend eternity in Heaven in His presence.

The question is; who is this God? Can I really know Him?

In both of these scenarios a person would have many questions, the first of which might very well be, “What is his name?”

Well, someone very important in the Bible had the same question.

(Prayer for help before reading …)

Read: Exodus 3:1-15

Read verses 1-4 and then go back to verse 2 to explain:

- LORD

o There was a time in ancient Jewish history, about 300 - 400 years before Christ, when a human tradition was established that the name of the LORD was too holy to write or say so the literal name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was rendered YHWH. Those reading the Scriptures would then say “the Adonai” meaning the Lord in place of God’s name.

o This used to be translated as Jehovah but most Jewish scholars believe that Yahweh is more accurate.

o It is interesting to insert the name Yahweh when reading the Bible and coming across “the LORD” as Yahweh.

o One of the desires of Yahweh was that His name would be great among the nations of the earth as it says in Psalm 86:9, “All the nations You have made will come and worship before You, Yahweh; they will bring glory to Your name.”

o This tradition was meant to show respect but in actuality it erased Yahweh from the vocabulary of Israel and reduced His great name to Lord.

o By the way, in the Old Testament there are many pagan gods referred to as Baal. Guess what Baal means? Lord.