Our Knowable God
I want to begin this morning by giving you a couple pop quizzes. This first one is pretty easy.
1. How long did the Hundred Year War last? 116 years.
2. Which country makes Panama hats? Ecuador
3. What is a camel’s hair brush made of? Squirrel fur.
4. What color is a purple finch? Red.
5. Where are Chinese gooseberries from? New Zealand
6. How long did the Thirty Year War last? 30 years, of course!
Now, for the second quiz, I’m going to give you some clues, and I want you to try to figure out who I’m talking about. As soon as you think you know, go ahead and shout out his name… (see, I already gave you the first clue now you know it’s a man).
He was born on November 26, 1922
When he was in WWII, he wrote his son every day
One of his jobs was as a teacher
He begins every day by reading the paper, having a cup of coffee and eating an English muffin in an ice rink coffee shop
For the last 50 years, he has worked 365 days a year
His first work appeared in the Saturday Evening Post
He was given the nickname “Sparky” when he was one week old and is still called that today
Many years ago, a girl with red hair broke his heart by refusing his marriage proposal
Charlie was one of his teacher’s names
Because of his recent decision, many people around the world feel like the football has been pulled out from under them
Do you give up? With all this information, do you know who it is? That’s right, it’s Charles Schulz. After 50 years of writing the Peanuts cartoon strip, Charlie Brown will never smooch the red-haired girl or get his kite out of the tree again.
Now, let’s see how you do on the third quiz. This one has to do with how well you know Charles Schulz’s work.
Q. Who always pesters her brother to help her with her homework?
Lucy
Peppermint Patty
Marcie
Sally
Q. What breed of dog is Snoopy?
Terrier
Basset Hound
Collie
Beagle
Q. With whom is Sally in love?
Pigpen
Linus
Schroeder
Charlie Brown
Q. What is Lucy’s standard fee for psychiatric help?
5 cents
15 cents
25 cents
55 cents
How well do you know Charles Schulz? You can know a little bit about him by looking at his work but you can’t know who He really is. Actually, the only way to know him is if he decided to open up to you.
Likewise, the Bible teaches that God can be known. That’s astonishing, isn’t it? The God of the Universe has chosen to reveal Himself to us. He longs for us to know Him more fully, more accurately and more personally.
The Bible and Knowing God
Let’s consider five passages this morning that speak of the vital importance of knowing God.
Jeremiah 24:7: “I will give them a heart to know me…” Friends, you and I were made to know God. He has put within each of us a desire to know Him.
John 17:3: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God.” Our privilege and responsibility is to know God this is what being a believer is all about.
Ephesians 1:17: “…so that you may know Him better.” You and I can always know God better than we do right now. This should be our heart’s passion.
Psalm 9:10: “Those who know your name will trust in you.” Our knowledge of God should lead to greater faith and obedience.
2 Thessalonians 1:8: “Those who do not know God…” God will judge those who choose to not get to know Him.
Quotes From Others
I have benefited greatly from the writings of several authors on the subject of knowing God. Here are just a few quotes that help me see both the gravity and the joy of knowing Him.
Charles Spurgeon: “Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the deity”
A.W. Tozer: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us…and the most important fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like…The heaviest obligation upon the Christian church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of him…the gravest question before the church is always God himself.”
J.I. Packer: “What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God. What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight, and contentment, than anything else? Knowledge of God.”
A Warning
Before we move on, it’s important to heed a warning issued by J.I. Packer in his book called, Knowing God.
It is possible to know about God without knowing God intimately. This is the danger of sterile intellectualism. It’s easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that since we know a lot of things about God, that we must know Him well. Just because we’ve read the latest book, or attended the latest seminar, doesn’t mean that we know God.
While knowledge about God is good and absolutely essential, knowing God is more than knowing facts about Him. It’s like trying to get to know your wife by reading her resume. Or, as someone has said, it’s “like having a relationship with the Postmaster General on the basis of one’s ability to lick a stamp. Hardly a life-changing experience.”
Having established the importance of knowing God, and making the distinction between knowing facts about God and knowing Him intimately, I want to give you 4 ways that we can know God.
Our Imagination
1. The first way is by relying on our IMAGINATION. Each of us carries around a mental picture of who God is. That picture is a collage of a lifetime of experiences, impressions and assumptions. The process begins early in life as we observe our parents those seemingly all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present beings who rule the cosmos of our home for better or for worse. As children, we instinctively project our view of our parents onto our impression of God.
As we grow up, other information is added to our imagination of God. These include our experiences with churches all the sights and sounds and symbols and sermons. They significantly shape our image of God again, either for better or for worse. As we mature, we keep updating our Deity database, by accumulating inferences from our teachers, from movies, from music, from current events, and from our own observations about life.
Everyone has an image of God. Some of us view Him as a robo-cop God, a deity with a big stick who runs around policing the universe. Others envision a Mr. Goodwrench kind of God, who just fixes problems. Others imagine a Grandfatherly God, from whom seldom is heard a discouraging word.
That reminds me of a man who was talking to God one day. He decided to ask God a question, “How long is a million years to you? God answered, “Like a second.”
The man thought for awhile and then asked another question, “How much is a million dollars to you?” God answered, “Like a penny.”
The man, excited now, asked his final question, “Then, can I have a penny?” To which God replied, “In a second.”
What is your view of God? What is He like to you? What does He require of you? What does He desire for you? That’s why we’re spending the next 10 weeks in this series called, Getting to Know God because what you think about God may be the most important thing about you.
It’s possible for us to think we know Charles Schulz because we heard an interview once or have read his comics for years. But, most of us have never met him and therefore don’t really know him.
In the same way, you and I have accumulated an imagination of God one that can be based on hearsay, or inference, or perceptions. Our knowledge of Him may only be second-hand. And our personal picture of God may be factual or faulty. When we rely on imagination alone, we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we really know God, when we don’t.
God’s Invitation
2. There are better methods for getting to know God. One is when, instead of relying on human imagination, we rely on God’s INVITATION. Let me explain.
Suppose I set as one of my life’s goals the desire to get to know Charles Schulz. Where would I start? His plate is full, he’s busy and now he’s fighting cancer. He probably has layers of security people around him. How in the world could I even hope to spend some time with him? I’d probably not even try because it would be too difficult and even presumptuous to think that he’d want to spend some time with me.
There’s really only one way I could get to know Charles Schulz. It would be by his invitation. He would have to take the initiative.
Friends, the same is true for God. We can’t begin to get to know Him unless He extends an invitation. Over the years, we have accumulated inferences and images of what God is like. And we may not want to disturb our carefully constructed conclusions; lest a change in how we think compels us to change the way we live.
God understands our reluctance. So He makes the first move. As Isaiah 1:2 says, “Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the Lord has spoken.” He extends an invitation to us He wants us to listen to Him and respond to His initiative. It is not we who makes friends with Him, but He who makes friends with us. To know God is to enter a relationship, which He Himself initiates. Have you accepted God’s gracious invitation to get to know Him more fully, more accurately, and more personally?
God’s Revelation
3. After accepting God’s invitation, then phase 3 of knowing Him kicks in. That’s when we rely on God’s REVELATION. Let me illustrate.
Suppose you accepted an invitation to spend some time with Charles Schulz. Imagine that you arrive to find him alone by his pool, wearing a Snoopy swimsuit. He invites you to sit down. He could tell you anything he wanted to because you are there at his invitation. He could choose to keep the conversation on the surface, or he could choose to tell you all about the little red-haired girl who broke his heart over 50 years ago. He could tell you about his alter ego, Charlie Brown. He could take his mask off and share with you things that concern him, dreams that he has hoped for, and experiences that bring him joy.
Whatever He would say would be up to him. You can’t read his mind. What you would know about him would depend totally upon his self-disclosure. In other words, you could only receive what he chose to reveal.
In a similar way, what we can know about God comes by way of His revelation. God is so far above and beyond us that we are totally dependent on His self-disclosure. If he doesn’t choose to reveal himself, we could never know about the things that concern Him, the things He hopes for, and the things that bring Him joy. Thankfully, God has revealed Himself.
He has done it in at least 3 ways:
One way God reveals Himself is through creation. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
But, this natural revelation of God is limited. We can know the power of God by observing His creation, but we can’t know His love.
-For this we need the Bible. God has supernaturally revealed Himself through the Scriptures. 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” If you want to get to know God, you do it by getting to know this book. If you want to hear from God, then read this book. The Bible is bursting with direct statements from God about God and it reveals His mind, His heart, and His will for us.
Friends, you cannot possibly know God apart from knowing Him through His words. The more you know about the Bible, the more you will know about its Author.
-God’s primary vehicle for self-disclosure is through Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches in Hebrews 1:3 that “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being…” Jesus reveals who God the father is. As Jesus said in John 8:19, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” Once we get to know Jesus, we get to know the Father.
God is knowable. We can get to know Him through imagination, which can be helpful but it can also be harmful. We really get to know God by His personal invitation and through His special revelation.
Our Investigation
4. That leads to a final way to know God by personal INVESTIGATION.
Everyone has an equal ability to know God. You don’t need a seminary degree. All you need is a desire to know Him.
A couple days ago I had the opportunity to share the gospel with someone. This person mentioned to me that she really wants to figure God out and get to know Him for the first time. I told her that as long as she is eager to get to know Him, she would find Him. I then shared Jeremiah 29:13 with her: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” I then gave her a Bible and encouraged her to read it every day.
Friends, if you are serious about getting to know God, you will get to know Him. He promised us. I urge you to read and study this book like you never have before when you read it, ask God to reveal Himself to you through it. If you’re not in a TLC group, or haven’t been attending a Sunday School class, may I encourage you to do so?
On February 13, we are launching a new 8-week study that will meet on Sunday mornings during our enrichment hour that we are calling Discovery Groups. This group will have a very specific focus it will help you understand the basics of the Christian life and will enable you to begin applying the truths of God’s Word on a daily basis and in the process, help you get to know God better.
You see, the question is not so much, “Do you know God?” but “How well do you know Him?” Even for those of us who have been believers for some time, the adventure of knowing God never ends. One of Paul’s prayers, in Ephesians 1:17, shows that our pursuit of knowing God is to be on the front burner, all the time: “I…keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.”
So, start where you are. Expose your mind to the Bible. Permit God to correct your mental image of who He is. Allow Him to cut away any perceptions that are improper. Accept His invitation to personally know Him, and let Him reveal Himself to you.
Bragging Rights
Have you ever noticed how much we like to brag? We like to brag about our degrees or our promotions, or our cars, or our kids, or about how many important people we know. It’s almost as if we have to validate our own existence by bragging about what we have, who we are, or who we know.
In Jeremiah’s day, the situation was very similar. Listen to what he writes in Jeremiah 9:23: “Let not the wise man boast of His wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man of his riches.” We are prone to boast about these three things wisdom, power and wealth. In Bible times as well as today, the important people included the scholar, the athlete, the politician, the warrior, and the financier. As we learned last week, Solomon was caught up in this pursuit as he searched for something that would really matter. And today we elevate people with different names we honor Einstein’s brilliance, Michael Jordan’s athletic prowess, Roosevelt’s leadership, Schwarzkopf’s military tactics, and the money of Bill Gates.
Let’s be honest. Most of us don’t qualify for any of these categories and most of us don’t know anyone even remotely famous. Verse 24 tells us that if we want to boast or brag, then we should tell others that we know God: “But let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.”
Getting Our Attention
Jim Bakker, the televangelist who built the huge PTL empire spent 5 years in prison for mail fraud and for bilking his followers out of millions of dollars. In his book called, I Was Wrong, he admits that his whole view of God was faulty. As he recounts his spiritual journey behind bars, he finally comes to the conclusion that God sent him to prison for a very specific purpose. He had become so concerned with building a name for himself that he somewhere along the way forgot all about God. According to Bakker, God sent him to prison so that he could get to know God for who He really is. It’s as simple as that.
If knowing God is that important, I wonder what He’ll have to do to get our attention? Our biggest problem is not that God isn’t speaking, it’s that we’re so busy we can’t -- or won’t -- slow down long enough to hear His voice. Psalm 46:10 urges us to “Be still and know that I am God.”
What then should we do? Hosea 6:3 challenges us to “…press on to acknowledge the Lord.” To press on means to move toward the goal with undiminished vigor. It means to set your focus on knowing our Knowable God and letting nothing get in your way. Do you have a passion and vigor for God this morning?
Tony Evans uses a great illustration: “I can’t fully explain what it means to know God. I can use the terms, but it’s like defining a kiss. Webster calls a kiss ‘a caress with the lips; a gentle touch or contact.’ But anyone who has kissed someone knows that a kiss is really much more than that. You can’t explain it, but Lord have mercy, it’s good when you get it! I can’t fully explain what getting to know God feels like, but I know that you will like it when it happens. (Our God is Awesome, p. 34)
Friends, you will never understand God until you begin to know Him personally. I can’t define it fully, but when you encounter God Almighty, your life will never be the same again. Which is why Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” He is good and He’s good all the time, but you’ll never know until you taste Him for yourself!
Final Exam
We started this morning with a couple quizzes. Let me give you another one. I’m going to list some character traits and you tell me who I’m talking about…
He is…
Holy
Our Creator
Omnipresent
Omniscient
Omnipotent
Faithful
Just
Sovereign
Unchanging
Loving
Do you know who He is? At some point, each of us is going to have to take another exam. This one will really count. There will just be one question on the sheet. Here it is: Do you know God through Jesus Christ?
I love the book of Job. With all its pain and agony, it’s full of faith and hope. At the end of the book, after God has recited a litany of His powerful acts. Job is literally speechless. Listen to what he says in 42:5: “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”
Some of you are in the same place this morning. You’ve heard about God, but now you really want to see Him.
Prayer of Commitment
I’d like you to stand this morning and we’re going to pray a prayer together. This prayer originally appeared in A.W. Tozer’s book called, “The Knowledge of the Holy.”
O majesty unspeakable, my soul desires to behold Thee. I cry to Thee from the dust. Yet when I inquire after Thy name it is secret. Thou art hidden in the light which no man can approach unto. What Thou art cannot be thought or uttered, for Thy glory is beyond comprehension.
Still, prophet and psalmist, apostle and saint have encouraged me to believe that I may in some measure know Thee. Therefore, I pray, whatever of Thyself Thou hast been pleased to disclose, help me to search out as treasure more precious than fine gold: for with Thee shall I live when the stars of the twilight are no more and the heavens have vanished away and only Thou remainest. Amen. (p. 18)
