“Faith-Full Living: If We Really Knew God”
Phil. 3:1-16
As a 6th grader our son Kevin was incapacitated by a constant headache for almost a year. During that time someone would occasionally say, to me or Barb, something like, “It must be tough taking care of him and still keeping up with work and ministry.” I always appreciated that heartfelt expression of empathic concern; yet there were times when my heart wanted to cry out for help and say, “If you only knew.” Sometimes we have information, or have had an experience, which makes us more familiar with the subject at hand and we wish we could somehow communicate it accurately and thoroughly. Such, I believe, was Paul’s dilemma when communicating about God. Knowing God was the chief aim of his life. I believe Paul was stating that IF WE REALLY KNEW GOD, WE’D BE RADICALLY DIFFERENT PEOPLE.
There is nothing more important, therefore, than to truly and fully know God. Former Chaplain of the United States Senate, Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie wrote: “With it, life is sublime; without it, there is constant stress. It is the secret of true greatness, the source of lasting happiness, the supply of wisdom beyond our understanding, the storehouse of strength to endure tough times, and the springboard to success in reaching what really counts. It is our ultimate goal, our greatest privilege, and our most urgent need...Our nation is in trouble because of the lack of this sublime quality. Lack of it accounts for the growth of moral and ethical relativism and the demise of absolutes in our society. The fabric of our values is torn and frayed because of neglect of this privilege offered to us. It is the reason we were born and the mission of our lives.” OUR LIVES CAN BE RADICALLY TRANSFORMED WHEN WE UNDERSTAND THE DYNAMICS OF KNOWING GOD.
It has always been so. Centuries prior to Dr. Ogilvie’s analysis, the prophet Hosea wrote (4:1-3, 6): “The Lord has filed a lawsuit against you, saying: ‘There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land. You curse and lie and kill and commit adultery. There is violence everywhere, with one murder after another. That is why your land is not producing. It is filled with sadness, and all living things are becoming sick and dying. Even the animals, birds, and fish have begun to disappear...My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me.’” Let’s take a close look at the words of Paul from Philippians 3: 8 &10: “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord... I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection ...”
The good news is that WE CAN REALLY KNOW GOD. Throughout history the pagan world has been sadly mistaken. It has always been haunted by what it perceives as the inability to know God - that at best humankind can only grope after his mystery. Plato said, “It is hard to investigate and to find the framer and the father of the universe. And, if one did find him, it would be impossible to express him in terms which all could understand.” Aristotle spoke of God as the supreme cause, by all men dreamed of and by no man known. The pagan world has not doubted, by and large, that there are gods, but it has believed they are unknowable. Nothing is further from the truth. The apostle Paul has answered this philosophy adequately in Romans 1: 18-21: “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks.” God is knowable.
I think the issue for the church is that too many people know about God without really knowing Him. That is what is at the source of the decline in our churches and society. Understand that TO KNOW GOD IS TO HAVE INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM. The biblical word “to know” conveys deep intimacy; it is the word used when Genesis reports that Abraham knew his wife Sarah and she gave birth to a son. It means an intimacy of heart, soul, mind, body – and intertwining of whole beings. It is the same word used of the way God knows us – the godly knowledge of which the Psalmist speaks in Ps. 139: “Oh Lord you have searched me and known me.” God, through the prophet Jeremiah promised (31:33-34), “‘I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. ...For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will already know me’ says the Lord.” We can know God intimately. We are to be in a constant deep, growing relationship with Him. Paul wrote (3:12-14) that while he had not fully obtained this knowledge, this intimacy, he would strive for it until his dying day. But we can have intimate knowledge of God.
The danger is WE MAY KNOW HIM IN OUR HEADS BUT NOT OUR HEARTS. It’s the difference between knowing the definition of a kiss – “a caress with the lips; a gentle touch or contact” – and experiencing a loving kiss. Some of the most dangerous people are those who are steeped in the Bible or theology or the creeds or history while being short on their experience of intimacy with God. Certainly there is no shortage of materials to fill our mind about God – Bibles galore; sermons on radio, television, online, & CD; books by the hundreds – but there is a shortage of heart-felt experience of God. It’s easy to make an art form of discussing ideas about God while failing to have a hands-on experience with God. Paul reminds us that true knowledge of God does not come from facts or theory – though they are important – but in a living, vital relationship with Him. Remember Jesus’ words of caution, that some who ministered in His name and called out “Lord, Lord” would hear Jesus say, “I never knew you.” True knowledge of God comes not from how much we know about God but from intimately loving Him. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians (I Cor. 8:2-3), “Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. But the person who loves God is the one God knows and cares for.” We must know God in our hearts.
Paul goes on to teach us that WE KNOW GOD THROUGH AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS. Paul wrote about his life prior to Christ (4-7): “If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Then he wrote about his present life (verses 8-10): “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him … I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection...” Paul understood what Jesus meant when He said: “I and the Father are one....He who has seen me has seen the Father...I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!” Anyone who says there are other ways to truly know God does not know God. We truly, know God intimately only through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
So why is all of this important anyway? If we really knew God, if we truly knew of His love for us, His work on our behalf, His work in us, His plan for the world and His desire to use us to accomplish that plan, our lives would be different. IF WE REALLY KNEW GOD WE WOULD HAVE at least six dynamics present in our lives: first of all, we would have GREAT ENERGY FOR GOD. Daniel was, in many ways, the Paul of the Old Testament. Daniel dealt with the anti-God forces at work in the nations around him. In 11:32, speaking of one of the opposing kings, Daniel wrote, “With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.” The RSV translates it, “...shall be strong and take action.” God’s people will not stand passively by. So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walked into the fiery furnace; so Daniel slept in the lion’s den. Think about a man deeply in love with his fiancee or wife. If she comes under attack, would he not vigorously defend her? When he meets people who do not know her, would he not speak of her in glowing terms? Being in relationship with God fills us with great energy and enthusiasm. The Greek basis our word ‘enthusiasm’, in fact, is the phrase ‘en theos’, or ‘in God. Being ‘in God’ makes for enthusiasm and energy. So Paul wrote (10): “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection...” Give me the life giving, life-sustaining, energizing power by which Christ was raised from the dead! If we truly knew God we would never stand passively by. Rather, we become sensitive to any situation in which God’s honor is being jeopardized. We would not stand for the establishment of social trends which go counter to the Word of God. We would not sit idly by and watch the church fall into compromise and lethargy, or to be influenced by those who refuse to give when they do not get their way, or to be damaged by lack of personal commitment and loyalty. If we really knew God we would be energized to pray unceasingly for the church of Christ and her leaders. Missionary Jim Elliot, who became a martyr, said “Lord, make me a crisis man. Let me not be a mile-post on a single road, but make me a fork that men must turn one way or another in facing Christ in me.” If we really knew God we would have great energy for him and be crisis people.
Second, if we really knew God we would have GREAT THOUGHTS OF GOD. Daniel dared to pray in the face of an anti-prayer ordinance because he had great thoughts of God. He knew God was King of kings, Lord of Lords, Mighty God of mighty gods; he believed with all his heart and soul that God was sovereign, in charge of the affairs of humankind. In Ephesians Paul prayed that we may come to know the immeasurable greatness of God’s power at work within us! The resurrection power of God at work within us! For with God nothing will be impossible.” Who would ever have thought that a manger would cradle a king – that there could be peace without war, or victory through a cross? God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours. God can do more in a moment than we can in a millennium. Read any biography of a great saint and you will discover that their encounters with Christ spurred them on to attempt the impossible. Their thoughts of Christ constantly pressed them beyond their human thoughts and capabilities. As someone said long ago, our task is to attempt something so great, that without God’s help, it is sure to fail. How well do you know God? How great are your thoughts of Him?
Thirdly, if we really knew God we would have GREAT DESIRE TO BE WITH GOD. We make time to build our relationship with God. The quality of our lives is only as rich as the quality of our source of life. Consider Jesus. He drank in and fed on the will of God, His Father. That’s why He is the Vine and we are the branches. We only pour out the radiance and image of God when we tap into Jesus. If I truly love Barb, I will schedule time to be with her, to love her, to listen to her, to let her influence my life. It should be no less with God – we must schedule the time to drink and feed on Him. Henri Nouwen said that “Solitude is the furnace of transformation.” (1)
Fourthly, if we really knew God we would have GREAT HASTE IN OBEYING GOD. Obedience is the conduit through which we come to know God more intimately and love Him more deeply. When we obey we learn; it quickens our sensitivity to Him and our capacity to understand Him.(2) Oswald Chambers stated it poignantly: “Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when…five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam.” If we really knew God we would be quick to obey Him
Then, too, we would have GREAT COMMITMENT TO GOD. Here’s a question to ponder: Is there anything you will not leave for Jesus? Asian Access, a Christian mission agency in South Asia, reports that because the area is predominantly Hindu, believers must be aware there could be a price to pay for a commitment to Jesus Christ. So they have a series of questions that church planters must ask new believers who are considering baptism. (1) Are you willing to leave home and lose the blessing of your father? (2) Are you willing to lose your job? (3) Are you willing to go to the village and those who persecute you, forgive them, and share the love of Christ with them? (4) Are you willing to give an offering to the Lord? (5) Are you willing to be beaten rather than deny your faith? (6) Are you willing to go to prison? (7) Are you willing to die for Jesus? (3) What would your answers be? Understand that if the new convert answers yes to all of these questions, they are then asked to sign on the bottom of the paper that of their own free will they have decided to follow Jesus. But here’s the risk: if a new convert is caught by the government, it will be three years behind bars – and the one who did the evangelizing faces six years behind bars. Would you sign on the dotted line? Would you evangelize? How does the hymn movingly put it? “You can have all this world, Give me Jesus.” Again, in Pau’s words, “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him … I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection...”
The sixth dynamic of really knowing God is a GREAT BURDEN FOR SHARING JESUS. If we really know God we know His heart and His desire that people be saved. D. L. Moody was walking down a Chicago street and went up to a perfect stranger and asked, “Sir, are you a Christian?” The man replied, “You mind your own business!” Said Moody, “This is my business.” (4) We must make evangelism our business. If we really know God we will live out the slogan of a Kansas City church: “Wake, up, sing up, preach up, pray up and pay up, but never give up or let up or back up or shut up until the cause of Christ in this church and in the world is built up.”
So how well do you know God? More importantly, how well do you want to know Him? Do you want you life to be radically transformed? As God said (Jer. 9:23-24): “Let not the wise man gloat in his wisdom, or the mighty man in his might, or the rich man in his riches. Let them boast in this alone: that they truly know me...” And this is how we know Him: (Jer. 29:13-14): “‘If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you,’ says the Lord.” Let us seek the Lord.
(1) Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart¸ quoted in A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God, Upper Room Books, Nashville, TN, © 2006 by Norman Shawchuck and Reuben P. Job, p. 90
(2) Albert Edward Day, The Captivating Presence, quoted in A Guide to Prayer, The Upper Room, Nashville, TN, © 1983, p.67
(3) Leadership Journal, ‘Toolkit’, Spring 2012, p. 60
(4) Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, edited by Michael P. Green, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI 49516, © 1989 by Michael P. Green, #414
