WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO KNOW GOD??
In episode 9, we looked at. Jeremiah 9:23-24 and Hosea 6:4-6 which say that God “delights in the knowledge of God. That means he loves being known by us.
“Knowing God” can come across as Christian jargon like “fellowship” or “community” or “discipleship." We nod our head at the idea like we know what it means but never really define it biblically. If knowing God is one of God’s core values, we better get really clear about it!
I want to show you in Scripture what it means to know God. We'll look at specific texts and I'll give you real life examples of what "knowing" someone means.
GOD DOESN’T JUST WANT US TO KNOW “ABOUT” HIM
Knowing about someone has to do with facts and truths so knowing “about” God would have to do with things like Bible verses and theological truths. We could talk about the attributes of God or what God is like. We could look at how God works or what God has done for us.
These are all biblical facts or truths and they're all super critical for sure don't get me wrong. In reality, you can't know God truly without actually knowing the truth about God in his word.
But you can know a lot about God and not actually ever come to know him. Let me give you an example. I know a lot about Led Zeppelin. They’re my favorite band in the world and the greatest rock-and-roll band ever no question about that. That I know is a fact and a truth.
So I can tell you how the band formed in 1968 when Jimmy Page was playing with the yardbirds. That band was breaking up but they owed the record company another tour in Scandinavia. So Jimmy Page recruited John Bonham and Robert Plant, they joined the yardbirds and the four guys who would make up Led Zeppelin toured Scandinavia for a couple months as The Yardbirds.
I could tell you like just about the different records that they put out, when they put them out I mean I can say a lot about Led Zeppelin but I don't know Led Zeppelin. I don't know Robert Plant or Jimmy Page or John Paul Jones or John Bonham. I don't know them at all. so you can know a lot of facts about God and not actually know him personally.
KNOWING GOD IS PERSONAL
When you get to know someone you start to get a sense of their inner person or their inner heart.
When you start getting to know a friend or someone you’re dating, you start finding out like what they're really like on the inside. You find out what makes them happy or what grieves them, or what kinds of hopes and dreams and goals they have.
When I first met Brenda my wife, I knew she was hot from across the room that was easy. And when I first started talking to her, she was fun to talk to, we had a good time and we laughed a lot it was was great. But when I started to get to know her, I found out that she's like really an introvert. She gets recharged by coming home at night and sitting down and doing a puzzle. She gets worn out being with lots of people. I didn't know that when I first was dating her I got to know that over time.
I found out over time that she's definitely like a rule follower and if there's a policy or a rule, she feels this compulsion to obey it. Brenda is a total justice person so anything outside the lines that's not fair or not right bothers her deep down in her soul and
I'm pretty much the exact opposite of all of those things. At times in our marriage, those differences between us have caused some conflicts and some things to work around. But I've really come to appreciate that the inner person of who she is because she is different than me and she provides some strengths in areas that I'm completely weak in.
Knowing God is just as personal. What is God like? God tells us. In Exodus 34:6-7, the Lord appears to Moses and he proclaims his name. He says, “The Lord! The Lord! Slow to anger and abounding and loving-kindness!” What is God like as a person? God says He’s slow to anger and abounds in loving-kindness.
What makes God happy? Well we looked at Hosea 6:4-6. God says he delights in the knowledge of God rather than sacrifice. He doesn’t want sacrifices while his people love and worship idols. He wants them to know him because that makes him happy.
What bums God out? Proverbs 6:16-19 says, “there are six things which the Lord hates yeah even 7 which are an abomination to him.” What are the things that God can't stand? Haughty eyes, a lying tongue hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies and one who spreads strife among brothers. God says, “I hate those things!”
What are God’s hopes in his dreams and his goals? What is God's plan for the future? You can check out Isaiah 2:2-4. Isaiah says, “Now it will come about in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as chief of the mountains and it will be raised above the hills.” And here's a picture of the end times. This is God's great goal for all of humanity. “And all the nations will stream to it and many peoples will come up and they'll say come let us go to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob so that he might teach us concerning his ways and that we might walk in his paths.” God's vision for the future and his ultimate goal is that all the nations would come up to the mountain of God and worship before him. God shares all of these sorts of inner person, heart level things with us in Scripture.
When you get to know someone you also connect emotionally with them and their interests. What matters to them matters to you.
When I married Brenda she wasn't a big sports fan and certainly not a Seattle sports fan like I am. I love the Mariners, I love the Sonics (God please bring back the Sonics), I love the Seahawks and I love the Sounders. When we first married, Brenda didn’t.
Over time, Brenda started to get into the Mariners and found herself becoming a Mariners fan. Same with the Seahawks. She wasn't a huge Seahawks fan but I totally am and over time she became a Seahawks fan as well. What mattered to me started to matter to her.
You can read about a tragedy in the news and it's easy to scroll by them and not be super moved about it. Most of that isn’t because we don’t care. It’s just that we don’t know those people. I have no personal connection with any of them so it just doesn't move me the same way that it moves me when one of my kids is hurting.
We just sent our son off to college. He's away from home for the first time. He's only an hour away but man it feels like it's forever away. It’s a brand new experience for him and it's stressful he's thinking about things as a young man that he's never had to think about and it's hard. So when he calls home and he's struggling man it breaks my heart and I'm lonely for him and I miss him. When he's hurting or when he's stressed out down at school I'm hurting and I'm stressed out as well. Why? Because I know him. I'm emotionally connected with him in his interests so
Knowing God means you start connecting emotionally with God and his interests. So God says, “I love loyal love and I love that you would know me.” All right God, I love that stuff too. God you say you hate lying well guess what I hate lying too. I'm connected with God's interests and God's desires and I'm connected with that emotionally. I don't just know those things factually.
in Acts 11:23 Barnabas rejoiced that the gospel was changing lives in Antioch. Why was Barnabas so pumped about that? Because that pumps the Lord up! That's one of God's goals is to bring the good news of the gospel to all nations and when that starts happening Barnabas, who knows God and is emotionally connected with God, digs it as well.
In Psalm 119:136 the psalmist says, “I wept because the law was not being kept. Why does he care so much? it's not his law. It’s because he's emotionally connected with God and God's interests and one of God's interests is that God would be glorified in all things. 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether we eat or drink we do all things for God's glory.” When that's not going down it’s against God it's against his desire his purpose and plan. That bums out the psalmist not because it's his law because he's connected with God.
When you get to know someone you share your own heart and interests with them.
I could just sit back and listen to you share all about you and let you be vulnerable and be honest and just walk away with that information. If I were mean, I could even use that information against you. But if we're gonna be in a real relationship, I would share those things back with you. In Scripture that looks like casting our cares on the Lord and casting our anxieties on the Lord because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We would ask God for the things that we need. Lord here's what's going on in my life and here's what I need could you please help? We would declare our love for God in worship. God I love you above all things and I'm thankful to you for the great things that you're doing.
We’re not sharing our heart back with the Lord to inform him as if he doesn't know. The Lord isn’t in heaven going, “I just I wonder what’s up with Olson down there?” We’re not sharing any of that to earn anything from him. Like if I pray enough he’ll bless me. I'm sharing my heart back so that I would be in a legit relationship with God.
This is what it means to know a real person and it’s what it means to know God. It’s not just factual, it's personal. We connect emotionally with God and his interests. Then we share our own heart back as well.
KNOWING GOD IS PERSONAL AND FACTUAL
Knowing God is not an emotional or imaginational free-for-all.
Many people say, “I feel like God is like this” or “I think God is like that” or, this is my favorite line, “the God I believe in is like blah blah blah.” When someone says these things and they’re not coming from Scripture, they're just making that stuff up. I call it “folk religion.” It’s the religion folk make up in their head.
What’s worse, if you're just making stuff up about what you want to believe about God apart from what scripture tells us it's called idolatry. All of us are bent toward it. All of us are bent toward shaping God in our own image. Romans chapter 1 verse 23 says we've all exchanged the truth of God for a lie and instead created images or idols. And the first image or idol we form in Romans 1:23 is in the form of man. So what we end up with is just a bigger, better, smarter version of ourselves.
We must know God as he says he is.
The truth is if we're gonna come to know God deeply we must know God factually and truthfully. God gets to speak for himself about God. God gets to tell us what God is like. We don't get to tell him what God is like. Thankfully and mercifully God has revealed what he's like. He's revealed his heart and what matters to him. He's revealed what pleases him and what grieves him. He's revealed his plan and his purpose for our lives and he's revealed all of that in Scripture. “All Scripture is god-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). We have an inspired, for-sure version of what God is like and it comes from God himself.
So if we're gonna know God deeply, we have to know him personally and truthfully as he says in his word.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
One of God's great core values for us is that we would know him deeply in his word. He loves being known. It's his great purpose for your life that you would come to know God deeply in his word. So let me ask you this question: do you love knowing God? I don't mean do you love being a Christian. I don't mean do you love your church. I don't mean do you love the idea that you're gonna go to heaven in the last day. I don't mean are you trying hard to obey the Lord. I mean do you love coming to know the inner person of God through Scripture? Do you love learning about what makes him happy, what bums him out, what his goals and plans are? And do you love sharing yourself back with him in relationship? Before you obey God, before you serve him, is it the great purpose and goal of your life to know God deeply in his word?