Okay, so this is the series entitled Getting to Know You, God. This is lesson three in this
this kind of short series that we're doing. And the title of this particular
lesson is The God Who Knows.
I mentioned this before but in his book One Holy
Hunger, great book, Mike Cope, talks about several
myths or misconceptions that people have about God.
And that's what we're doing in this series, you know, Getting to Know You God. Getting to know Him better.
And in this series we've tried to better understand
God and have, you know, we've reviewed a couple of the myths that
actually hinder our deeper knowledge of and our relationship with God.
If we have a wrong idea of who He is
then it's hard for us to have a real relationship because we have, you know, we have a
mistaken idea of who God is. So we've seen that
God, for example, is Spirit and He only uses human and
material images to help us relate to Him. You know, He is not a he, he's not a she, he's not an it.
But in order to communicate with us, you know, using human
language, human ideas, there's got to be God, He did this and He did that. You
see what I'm saying. So He uses those images, those words, to
help us understand Him. But we also understand that He's not really a male. He's not
female. He's not an object.
And then last week we studied the idea that God's greatness should not be a cause for
fear, for panic, but rather an incentive to
imitate Him. We see God, we see His greatness we see the
qualities that He has. This should inspire us to to be like Him.
Not to run away from Him, not to be afraid of Him. And I
said also in that lesson that imitating God's holiness
is the best way to get to know Him. In other words, if you want to get to know
God, the best way to do that is to attempt to imitate Him.
And I also said that imitating His holiness required us to do two
things. Number one, it required us to
go where He is at. And I know that sounded strange. Wait a minute, to go where He
is at? Well, I mean He is not, He's not human. He's a spirit. How can
we go where He's at? And we talked about that. I said, well,
when you pray He's there.
So go to Him in prayer because that's where He is. When you serve
others in the name of Christ, He is there. So serve others in the
name of Christ because that's where He is. When you worship Him,
He's there. So go to worship if you want, and go where God is, and so on and so forth.
We gave several, you know, several examples of that. If you want to
know God, you have to go where He's at. And then the other way was to
act in the way that He acts. And that's with purity.
God is holy. God is pure. And all the attempts that we make
at living a pure lifestyle, all the attempts that we make to divest
ourselves of sin and bad habits and, you know, to
scrape away the barnacles of the world that kind of stick to us as
we live in this world. All those attempts to do that, are
attempts to imitate God's holiness. And if we do this,
we get to know Him better. That's the exercise that is required to get to know God better.
And actually, this is the reward of spiritual life. What do you think our
final reward is? A lot of religions, you know, the
final reward is just a better version of this earth.
That's the final reward, "paradise". Paradise is a better version of this
world. In Islam, the Muslims,
72 virgins, you know. You don't have just one wife, one virgin, you've got 72 of them.
It's just a better version of this world.
But Christianity doesn't teach that our reward is a better version of this world.
Christianity teaches that our reward is that we get
to know God perfectly.
Jesus said, "this eternal life, that you shall know God,
and His Son Jesus Christ". That's the reward. That's where we're going to.
We go to heaven, what's going to happen there? We are going to know God.
I'll give you a small example of that. Just yesterday I was
in our little sunroom, in the back of our house. I was just sitting there reading.
And, you know, if you remember yesterday it was kind of cloudy. It was kind of gray and a cloudy day. And I was
was just sitting there, you know, the blinds were open and it was just gray and cloudy. And if you sit in a
sun room it's all windows, right, so you're really aware of the day. And then all of
a sudden, as I was reading, the clouds broke open and the
sun began to shine. You know that feeling, right? And and I was reading and
I can just feel the warmth of the sun and I looked up and all of a sudden the sky was starting to be
blue and there was more light.
And in biblical terms it lifted my countenance. You know what I'm saying you
go, oh wow. You know, it kind of lifts you.
Here's my thought, if simply the appearance of a material object
called the Sun, that's providing more light, is able to lift your
spirit, can you imagine what it will be like when we're in the presence of
the light itself? The source of light.
If the sunshine can lift your spirits and cheer you, can you imagine what
it will be like to be in the presence of the one who is the source of light?
So that's what we're going to. That's where we are going.
So getting to know God.
Every attempt at holiness and purity, is an attempt to draw
closer to that light. And it is the reward unto itself.
Unfortunately many people
they do those exercises, you know, like I'm going to be better, I'm going to do this, I'm going to give up
this bad habit, blah blah blah, because that'll make me saved.
And they wonder why is it that I'm doing all of this stuff, but I don't,
I don't feel saved, I just feel burdened. Well, you're doing it for the wrong reason.
Divesting oneself of worldly habits and straining to or
striving, rather, to live holy and pure lives - the object of that is simply
to get to know God better. And that, in itself, is a reward.
And that reward, you know, once you get that reward you don't want to go back to the
world. Right? You couldn't pay me to go back to the world.
Anybody here take money to go back to the world, deny Christ? Forget all of that.
Go back to the world, where you were without a knowledge of God, without anything. Is there any
money that anyone here would receive in order to do that?
Well no. Why?
We've gotten a glimpse, we've gotten a taste of God.
We can't go back. All of us are like Peter, "Lord where shall we go?"
You have the words of eternal life. There's nowhere else to go.
For good or bad, we're in this thing.
And all of this, all of this because we want to
know God. All right, so this week we're going to look at another
misconception - the idea that God only is watching us in
order to zap us. In order to punish us.
When I first became a Christian,
The one quality of God's personality that really bothered me
was His omniscience. You know, the fact that He
is all knowing. He knows everything.
So, I was happy to know that He was all powerful. Could answer my prayers.
I was happy to know that He is all good, all wise. Because those things
could help me in my times of need and trouble. So I was happy about that. All-merciful?
Yes. Absolutely. However, the fact that He
knew everything about me - that made me feel kind of uncomfortable.
Remember, I'm saying this as a new Christian. I was feeling kind of weird about that.
He knew what I thought. Every thought, He knew what I thought.
He knew every little thing that I did. And He also knew why I did it.
To the outside world something I did might have seemed good, but
He knew the real motive on the inside. Whatever that was - pride or selfishness.
And He witnessed every word that I thought or I
spoke, and every thing that I ever did, good or bad.
Every. Single. Thing. And that made me so - well,
I didn't, I didn't like that. It was like someone was watching everything
I did in order to make it worse.
And then judged everything I did. I'll give you another example.
Are you driving down the street. You're just driving along. You know, and then all of a sudden behind
you a police car comes behind you, while you're driving.
And so you're driving along. What's the first thing you do? Well, you
look at the speed limit. That's the first thing you do. First time today I've looked at the speed limit signs.
Right? And so - and actually, you're driving along
and between looking at the speed limits and looking in your rearview at the cop,
you're not even paying attention to the road anymore. Why?
Because you think he's watching you. He may just be on his way home from work.
Or he may be on his way somewhere else. You know what I'm saying? But because he's
behind you, every little thing - I'll put my flasher. I come to a complete stop, don't I?
And then put my flasher. And then I make it - you know what I'm saying?
We act differently when we're being observed. So that was the
problem for me. I was being observed for everything.
So this idea of not being able to have anything secret and eventually
getting zapped for it. Can make people paranoid and drive them
to abandon God if they didn't realize how God sees us
as He gazes at our exposed life every day.
David the Psalmist, the king,
David explored this idea of nakedness before God in
Psalm 139. And he came to a comforting and encouraging
observation as he examined the one who was examining him.
And what's interesting about this particular Psalm,
is that David goes from being closed to God and running away from Him,
not liking the constant scrutiny. He goes from that
to being fully open and inviting God completely into his life.
So go to Psalm 139. And we're going to go over this Psalm
to examine that phenomenon
of God continually with us and how that,
how that affects a person. Psalm 139 verse 1 he says, "Lord,
you have searched me and known me."
So what David does at the very beginning, very first verse is he declares the
end of the matter in the very first verse.
Which was the style of writing of the day - to begin with the conclusion and then
follow this with explanations. Contrary to how we do things today. Today
we put in an introduction. We state what the problem is. We give
arguments or descriptions, blah blah blah. And then in the summary, we summarize
"so therefore", we summarize.
Well, this particular Psalm begins with the summary
statement and then goes on to explain the details. All right? So he
says that God has searched him. And known him.
Searched.
God does His searching through the Holy Spirit. That's how God has searched him, through
His spirit, Romans 8, 26-27. And he says God has
known him. Known him, not casually.
This penetrating look into our spirits by the all-wise Holy Spirit
produces not just a casual acquaintanceship or a general idea
of who we are, but rather a deep and intimate knowledge of us right
down to our very core.
He searches us. And He knows us.
So, in the following verses David explains the results of such
knowledge. And the results of such knowledge is that you cannot
hide from God.
You are naked before Him. So this is where he begins from.
He begins from the idea you cannot hide from God.
And because of that, you are afraid. So let's
look at verse 2. He says, "You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand
my thought from afar." So he said God is aware of us while we
rest. He is aware of what we're thinking.
Verse 3, "You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately
acquainted with all of my ways." So God knows what we do, you know, my
ways and where we go. And not only where we go
physically, you know. I'm going to New York, I'm going to Dallas. But He knows where we go up
here. Where do we go up here? Where does our mind
go? Where does the focus of our mind - where does that travel?
Verse 4, "Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold,
O Lord, You know it all. In other words, God even
knows what we're going to say before we even say it.
Verse 5 and 6,
"You have enclosed me behind and before and laid your hand upon me."
Remember I said it was bugging me at the beginning because God was
everywhere. I mean I couldn't have a moment to myself. That's how he describes it.
Your hand is on top of me. I feel your presence. It's a burden. It's a weight.
So God is above, and God is below, and God is
behind a person. The intensity of this type of presence is
too much for the writer here to grasp. More than he
can - more than he can handle. And so we go to verse
7 to 12. He says, "Where can I go from Your spirit? Or Where
can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take
wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there
Your hand will lead me and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say,
"Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,"
Even in the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the
day. Darkness and light are alike to You."
So now he tries to imagine a place or a condition where he could actually get away from God.
Even if he tried. And his conclusion is that
even the best hiding place - and the best hiding place, his conclusion, is the
darkness. Even his best hiding place, the darkness, cannot
conceal him because God is light and where He is, there is no darkness.
So the author now realizes
that he is, he's naked before God.
He can't run away. He can't hide. He cannot lie to Him.
And so in the verses, in these verses, instead of being uncomfortable or frightened
he begins to appreciate this special quality that God has. In other
words, he goes from wanting to hide and being afraid,
to the next level. And the next level is, well,
maybe this is not such a bad thing. That God is everywhere. That He knows me totally.
Maybe that's not such a bad thing. So let's read
verse 13 to 16. He says, "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my
mother's womb. I will give thanks to You for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret and
skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my
unformed substance; and in your book were written the days that were ordained
for me, when as yet there was not one of them." Many people
who defend, you know, pro-life and so on and so forth often use this very
passage here to demonstrate, you know - where does it say in the
Bible that life begins at conception?
Well, here.
Here, where God says I knew you from the moment you existed. I knew you. I knew
you when you were just substance. I knew you from the beginning. I knew
you in the womb where you were starting to be formed.
In those days, obviously, science had not discovered molecules and this and that, you know.
The language had not evolved or developed.
But in a poetic way, he's saying, I saw you as you were being conceived and
formed and developed and slowly, you know. Yeah.
So David realizes that it is this powerful knowledge that was at
work in creating him. And he recognizes that
everything that exists does so because of God's knowledge.
And, therefore, can rejoice in everything. I can rejoice in
seeing the sun, as I said the other day, lift my spirits.
That's not, that's not worship. That's not, you know, sun worship. That's not
Paganism. That's - I appreciate what God has done. And how it
affects me in a positive way. Because He created the sun. And He created the
sun with the knowledge that the sun would give men this joy.
Not to be worship but to be appreciated.
He also recognizes that God knew from the beginning what David's
life would be and where his life would end. And this
brings him comfort.
Because God is with you at birth.
And He is with you at death. So you're never alone.
The great fear that people have is - they don't want to die alone. That's why family
gathers and they want to be around the sick person. They want to be there.
And as I've mentioned before, sometimes someone steps out of the room, just to get a drink of water or
something like that. And they'll come back and they say, oh you missed it. Grandpa passed.
"Oh I wanted to be there. I didn't want him to be alone." Well, he wasn't alone.
Especially Christians, we're not alone. When we die
the Lord is with us. So he goes from
I want to hide, to well, I guess this isn't
so bad, to, I praise God because He knows
so much. So in verse 17 and 18
he says, "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How
vast is the sum of them. If I should count them they would
outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still
with you." I love that verse.
I love that verse. When I am awake,
I am still with you. What does that mean?
It means that when I am asleep I am still with you.
Imagine a God that is with you
while you sleep. And there
as you awake.
So David moves from appreciation to praise for this
great knowledge that made his life possible. And knows about his future
life, as well. So he's moved from
discomfort at having someone surround him
with knowledge.
To appreciation of that knowledge. To praise for such
great knowledge. And now to the final stage,
prayer and confidence, based on that knowledge.
So in verse 19 to 22, let's read that.
He says, "O that You would slay the wicked, O God; depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed
for they speak against you wickedly and your enemies. Take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise
up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred. They have
become my enemies." So he goes from praising God for
this knowledge to relying on this full knowledge
and rejecting the darkness that he once was hiding in. At the beginning he wanted to go and
hide in the darkness. Get away from God. Now at the very end he
rejects the darkness and says, no, I want to stay in the light. I want to stay in the
knowledge of God. So David, confident that God knows
him and how he feels, asks God to destroy his enemies.
The idea not expressed here is that the enemies don't know God.
And they refuse to acknowledge or be known by Him. Therefore they
deserved to be punished. So he's become an advocate
of God. An advocate of having God know all of us.
Verse 23 and 24. He says, "Search
me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my
anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way
in me, and lead me in the everlasting way."
And so the final stage, the final stage is he asks God to
completely know him. Full surrender. He starts with I want to
hide out and I want a piece of my life that you don't see, God. He starts there.
And he ends at, here I am Lord, know me completely.
Take me completely. I'm yours.
So the final and beautiful expression of his submission to God is seen here.
Before he looked for ways to hide. Places that could be kept secret.
But once he realizes that God's knowledge has always been there to
create and preserve and protect, he opens his heart and he
invites God to search, and to know, and to examine him deeply.
Now he wants God's knowledge to heal him of his anxieties,
and sinfulness, and his infidelities.
Wanting to hide in the darkness - what is that? Well, that's just wanting to hang onto our sinfulness.
Right? The light came into the world. And men did not come to the light. Why?
Jesus says, well, because the men love the darkness.
They love their sin.
And so that's the problem all the time. We love sin more than we love the Lord.
So his final plea is for God to take him by the hand.
Because now he is no longer afraid. Take him by the hand and lead him
to heaven. Full confidence.
I am not afraid that whatever you take away from me, Lord, whatever you purify me
of, whatever you purge out of my life will actually be good for me.
Because you know best for me. Lead me by the hand.
Wonderful, beautiful, comforting Psalm. So, you know, you read one of
these things and it makes you just ask, you know, you walk
away asking wow, where am I in the process of being known by God?
Because this process that David talks about
it's - all of us go through this. Are we still trying to hide things?
Living a double life; pretending that, you know, God may
not see or care about the secret things in our lives.
I mean hopefully we've moved away from this kind of immature stage of development and we've arrived
at the point in our lives where we can rejoice and praise and have confidence in God
because - because God knows
how we feel
and why we feel this way.
God is the perfect judge because He knows why we do things.
He knows things about why we do things that we don't even know.
We do stuff and we don't know why we do them. The source of it is way back there,
hidden under a rock somewhere in our past or in our subconscience. But He knows
why we do things. That's why He gets to judge and not us.
He knows what we need.
He knows when to act. I mean if it was up to us
we'd want action when? Now.
When do I want action on this thing? Now. When do I want to be healed of this thing?
Now. When do I want this good thing to start? Now.
For us it's always right away.
But God is the one who knows when to act. He's the one
to know how to solve our problems. He's the one who knows
who we really are. And here's the kicker - He knows who we
really are
and He still loves us.
People are guarded in relationships and usually the reason they're guarded
in relationships is because they're afraid that if people knew who they really were,
they wouldn't like them.
The great confidence we have with God is, He knows who we really are and He loves
us despite that. That's a great, great comfort.
So I pray that we can all see that where we need to be,
as we press on in Christian maturity, is that
point where we not only know that God knows us,
but we consciously invite God in.
And we invite Him in to examine us in
every way. I don't know if that's ever a prayer that we make.
Dear Father, please examine me fully.
Examine me completely, Lord.
Reveal to me who I really am.
Help me in that way.
We invite Him to heal us of our sins and our weaknesses. We always
want Him to heal us of our sore back or migraine headaches or cancer.
And of course, we pray for that. But do we also pray
that he heals us from our sins. That's a prayer.
Invite Him to discipline us like sons and daughters.
We ever pray that prayer? Lord, please discipline me. I'm out of control.
Help me get back into my right mind.
Invite Him to change us for the better.
To fill us with his love and His Son. To use us
in His service.
To help us to know Him in the way that He knows us.
Remember the end game - what I said at the very beginning of this lesson - the end game of
Christianity is that we get to a position where we are raised from the dead,
we're equipped with a glorified body, and that glorified body enables us to have
a relationship with God without reference to sin.
Right now the relationship we have with God is through the cross.
It's always in relationship to sin. We're the forgiven ones. We're the saved ones.
We're the ones that have His grace because we need grace, because we're still sinners.
But they'll come a time when we'll have a new body, a glorified body.
And we will have a relationship with God without reference to our sins anymore.
No more the cross.
So someone will say well then, what will be the substance of our relationship if it isn't in reference to
the cross or to sin? Well the substance of the relationship will be knowledge.
My relationship with God will be to know Him. And since there's no end to Him then
there is the eternity part.
There's the bliss.
If I felt lifted when the sun began to shine for a moment, imagine that
lifting sensation just continuing and continuing and continuing and continuing.
There's only one word for that - bliss.
That's what we're heading towards. And we get a taste of that
when we invite God in to examine us, and heal us, and discipline us, and so on and so forth.
So that we can live a holier life. That we can be like Him.
So this total submission to the scrutiny of God, is the final
stage of our development in Christian maturity. So wherever we are
in this process of being known by God, remember, that He wants to know
us so that He can take us by the hand in the same way and
lead us home. So we need to remember and ask
ourselves, are we ready to let him into our heart and every secret place?
He is always ready and He is always willing to enter in and to lead us.
Usually we're the ones that are, you know, closing the door. We're the ones trying to hide out in the dark.
All right. So there's our lesson number three on The God Who Knows. Thank you very much
for your attention.