Two Sides of a Coin - Knowing God

(Dear Readers, On Halloween weekend/end of October of 1993, the Los Osos Christian Fellowship in Los Osos, CA flew me out for the weekend (from Fort Wayne, IN) to get to know me and have me preach in their Sunday morning service in their quest to determine if I was to be their new pastor or not. I chose to preach on knowing God from the book of Jeremiah. I’ve had to re-type this as I only have it on paper and I couldn’t figure out how to scan it correctly. I’ve tried hard to not edit it unless necessary for clarity. And I’ve inserted a number of the Scripture passages that were not typed out in my original notes. I’ve sensed I was supposed to post this on K.S. May the Lord’s purposes be accomplished through it).

About 18 years ago, I made a decision that was probably one of the most seemingly foolish decisions in the eyes of my relatives and friends that I have ever made. I had been a Christian for at least six years prior to that, and had gone to my parents' church faithfully from as far back as I can remember. I had served in a number of ways in my church (primarily with children and the youth group) during those six years, and I had also been involved with Young Life while in High School , and with several different Christian organizations mildly while attending the University of TN. For the two summers leading to my big decision, I had worked as a counselor at a Christian recreational camp in the heart of the Cherokee National Forest . And thus in the eyes of most of the people who knew me, I was a very committed and fruitful Christian. But the truth is at nineteen and a half years of age I was miserable. While on the outside I may have I looked Iike I had it all together, on the inside I was falling apart. And my grades, my relationships with the opposite sex, and my Iack of significant spiritual impact in the lives of my non Christian friends all served to remind me that I was going nowhere fast.

Fortunately, God had not given up on me, and He had raised up a mentor who looked beyond my externals to what was really going on inside. Steve had been the youth leader at my church when I was in High School . And although he had moved to San Jose, CA soon after my graduation, he managed to stay in touch with me over the next two painful years. Steve had been greatly helped by a Christian organization called the Navigators during his two year stay in San Jose, and he began to encourage me to consider moving out there. My initial response was ' 'No way Jose". But I finally came to a point at the end of the summer of 1975 where I was desperate for help and ready to make that seemingly foolish decision. I wrote Steve, and within a few weeks I boarded a jet for the first time in my life, and headed for San Jose. I guess its not every day that a 19 yr . old leaves a large seemingly close knit extended family, and all of his friends, and goes to a place where he has no job, no car , no place to live, no friends other than Steve, and $80.00 to his name. But desperate times cause people to do desperate things. And Steve had something in his walk with God that I knew I could not afford to be without any Ionger.

As it turned out , that first year in San Jose was a year of tremendous spiritual growth for me. God used all the pain and waywardness I had experienced prior to CA to create an almost insatiable hunger for the things of the Lord. But the real turning point for me was the discovery one day in my quiet time of a book, and especially a couple of verses in that book, that God has used ever since to draw me to Himself, and renew my devotion to Him. The book is Jeremiah, and the passage is chapter 9 vs. 23, 24. Jeremiah 9:23, 24 I 'd like you to turn there please. God said through the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Judah, ”Thus says the Lord, “let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things, declares the Lord.”

I had spent most of my 19+ years in an evangelical church, but it wasn’t until I read this verse that it finally began to sink in that the one thing that delights the heart of God above all else is that I know Him as the active, loving, just and righteous God that He is. The living God of the universe is greatly delighted when His children make their highest priority in life to know Him.

Well it wasn’t long after I discovered this truth that someone introduced mee to what has become a classic book written by the British/American theologian J.I. Packer – entitled “Knowing God”. If I was not convinced from my reading of Jeremiah that God’s utmost concern for me is that I strive to know Him intimately, Packer’s book settled the question once and for all. Few books in my lifetime have had the impact on my life and on the church in America that "Knowing God" had and continues to have.

And yet as I evaluate the last 18 years or so since I discovered Jeremiah 9:23,24 and “Knowing God” by J.I Packer, I have to confess neither discovery solved my tendency towards waywardness. I wish I could tell you that since those discoveries in 1975,76 I have given myself totally, continually and wholeheartedly to seeking after and knowing my God. But the truth is, I have found the pursuit of God Himself, to be a very difficult one. And in my estimation the track record of the church in America is no better.  We as the church have an amazing capacity to articulate fairly sound theology with our lips but be light years away from embracing the same theology in our hearts and/or in our practice. The interesting thing is that the people of God in Jeremiah’s day were no different. I’d like for you to turn back to the book of Jeremiah because in my mind there is no greater mirror of the true state of the church in America than what this great book provides.

Jeremiah is one of the longest books in the Bible and it has a number of passages in it that give commentators fits. Perhaps because of that we have tended to neglect living in its pages. This is a tragedy because much can be gained by just getting a feel for the broad themes in the book. Even if some of the individual passages remain complex and difficult to understand.

Jeremiah had the unenviable task of warning the people of Judah that if they did not repent of their sin, Babylon would soon become their taskmaster. They did not repent, and Jeremiah’s ministry then became ministry to the people of Judah while in exile in Babylon. Judah though very religious, was guilty of many sins including social injustices, idolatry, and widespread moral corruption. But their greatest sin in my opinion was their waywardness in seeking to know their God. In fact their other sins were really just symptoms of this neglect of their highest calling.

This sin of not making intimacy with God their highest priority can be seen in a number of ways in the book of Jeremiah. For instance Judah was rebuked five time for not knowing their God. I find it very sobering that the first rebuke is not aimed towards the people, but rather towards the religious leaders. Look with me at chapter 2 vs. 8,9, “The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ And those who handle the law did not know Me; The rulers also transgressed against Me, And the prophets prophesied by Baal  And walked after things that did not profit. “Therefore I will contend with you,” declares the Lord, “And with your sons’ sons I will contend.”  I think it was very probable that the priests, and the Levites and the political leaders and the prophets all diligently performed their duties. Some were probably very zealous in their observance of the various sacrifices and offerings. They probably kept long hours in trying to lead and care for the people of Judah and Israel. But God says they lost Him in the midst of all their serving, and they really didn’t even miss Him. They should have been asking “where is the Lord? How can I experience Him more in my daily life? How can I practice His presence more throughout the day?”  But they weren’t. 

Well it is rare for the people of God to rise any higher than their leaders in terms of spiritual growth. And the people of Judah were no exceptions. Jeremiah 10:21 says, “For the shepherds have become stupid And have not sought the Lord; Therefore they have not prospered, And all their flock is scattered.” The shepherds’ refusal to seek the Lord had a very damaging effect on their flocks. Not that this was any excuse. In Jeremiah 4:22 God speaks very bluntly about the people of Judah’s lack of intimate knowledge of Him and what resulted in their lives, “For My people are foolish, They know Me not; They are stupid children  And have no understanding. They are shrewd to do evil, But to do good they do not know.”

God says you can have education and degrees and titles, and gifts and anointings, but if you do not know Him intimately, you are really foolish and like stupid children who have no understanding. This sin of neglecting to seek after intimacy with God and to know His ways is not confined to just certain socio-economic groups. Jeremiah shares his discovery in 5:4,5 where he says, “Then I said, “They are only the poor, They are foolish; For they do not know the way of the Lord Or the ordinance of their God. I will go to the great And will speak to them, For they know the way of the Lord And the ordinance of their God.” But they too, with one accord, have broken the yoke And burst the bonds.”

Anne and I have had the privilege of ministering in churches representing just about every socio-economic class and we have co-labored with leaders from the same as well as from a wide variety of doctrinal and theological persuasions, and I must confess that while we have been associated with people with great giftings and zeal for ministry and service, we have not known many who consistently made knowing God and His ways their highest priority.

If we had time and could just wade through the pages of Jeremiah together we would notice that ten times Judah was rebuked because they had forsaken their God. Four times because they had forgotten Him. Over 25 times they were rebuked because they did not take the time to listen to their God. Oh they participated in worship services, and sat under the teaching of the Mosaic law, and made their sacrifices and fasted and said their prayers, but they did not stop all of their activity just to sit at the feet of God and learn of Him and listen to what was on His heart for them in that day. When they were in a time of great need or crisis, they didn’t look to God as their portion and their Shepherd. But instead they looked to false gods and temporal solutions. And thus they were rebuked seven different times for committing spiritual adultery.

I submit to you that much of the church today is guilty of the same sin that the people of Judah were. Oh there is a lot of zeal in the church, and activism in the church, and in some pockets diligent Bible study, and in others zealous pursuit of signs and wonders; but this single minded devotion to seeking and knowing Jesus Christ that so characterized the Apostle Paul and others is not easily found.

Well how can we turn this thing around? How can I recover my first love for the Savior? How can I so order my life so that my driving passion above all else is to know God intimately and deeply?

Two very basic principles. The first one is this: Only those who seek after God with their whole heart will find Him. The only way to really get to know God is to seek Him with your whole heart. This is borne out in a number of passages. Turn with me first to Jeremiah 29:13. God says, “And you will seek Me and find Me,..... when you attend church faithfully…; You will seek Me and fine Me, when you belong to the church or denomination that has the correct doctrine of the Holy Spirit and His gifts; You will seek Me and find Me, when you worship correctly and for long periods of time. No, He says, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” Now regular fellowship with the body and genuine heart felt worship are definitely part of this search. But if the majority of my searching is in congregational/corporate settings, my searching is going to be inadequate. Now we’re going to come back to this passage a little later, but I want you to see what some of the other Biblical writers have to say about this principle. Turn with me to Proverbs 2:1-5. Proverbs 2:1-5. “My son, if you will receive my words And treasure my commandments within you, Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will discern the fear of the Lord And discover the knowledge of God.”

A good friend of mine used to say, “You will never get to know God on the backstroke.”  Intimate experiential knowledge of God is not something that just naturally happens to every Christian. It is not something that you acquire while you are going about acquiring everything else that strikes your fancy. It is something that you acquire as a result of earnest seeking and searching, refusing all the way to be distracted by anything else that would get in your way.  The Apostle Paul speaks of the cost involved in knowing God in Philippians 3:7-11, as he relates this principle in a more personal way. “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis fo faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” There is a four letter word in this passage that occurs three times and is the key to Paul’s “success” if you will in gaining intimacy with Jesus Christ. Do you know which word it is? LOSS! The way to gain intimacy with Jesus Christ is to give up or die to everything else in life that you count dear. The way to develop a passion for knowing Jesus Christ is to deny your rights to anything and everything that might possibly compete with this supreme goal in life. For you see, “Only those who seek God with their whole hearts will find Him." Unfortunately for many of us, we do not have a whole heart to see Him with.

For some of us our hearts are at least partially given to maintaining our social life. We don’t really believe that “a man of many friends comes to ruin” as Proverbs says. And we allow our friends and our relatives time after time to rob us of precious and regular fellowship with the Savior. One of the hard lessons we have had to learn in our pursuit of God is that He wants to be Lord and Master of our social calendar. And that developing the skill of saying “no” or “I will need to pray about this first” is a must if we are to maintain a passion for Him. I believe God wants all of us to have good friends, but we need to learn to trust Him with who they are to be, and when we can spend time with them.

Another area that the Lord has been working on Anne and I is this American pastime called reading and watching the news. This includes listening to and/or watching Rush Limbaugh. This is a deceptive one because ti seems like keeping up on the news is a very Christian thing to do. And to an extent it is. But, while this may be a right of every American, it is not a right of every Christian.

Primarily because of the rise and ascension of Bill & Hillary Clinton, a frightening number of Christians have become consumed with watching their every move and giving their own critique at every opportunity. My friends, Proverbs 21:1 says, “The King’s heart is like channels of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.” We don’t need to fear Bill & Hillary folks. We need to fear God!

One of the positive things that have come from my having been a regular working person in the secular world over these last couple of years is the new appreciation I have for how quickly a day goes by when you have a full time job to perform, a house and yard to keep up, kids to raise, a wife to lead and love, neighbors to relate to, cars to keep up, bills to pay, church meetings to attend, etc., etc.  My friends if you add to that an hour a day reading newspapers and news magazines, watching and/or listening to the news… well you are a better man than I if you can still find time and energy to see hard after God. Time is a very precious commodity, and one of the tell-tale sins of the intensity of our passion for God is how we spend it. A.W. Tozer said in his book “The Divine Conquest” – “God has not bowed to our nervous haste, nor embraced the methods of our machine age. The man who would know God must give time to Him.”

David and most other men and women of God that I have ever read about found that the way they spent their early morning hours was especially key in setting the tone for how they spent the rest of the day. For instance, in Psalm 63:1 David wrote, “O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee; My soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh years for Thee, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  Later in Psalm 143:8 he prayed, “Let me hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning; For I trust in Thee;  The principle  – Only those who seek hard after God will find Him – is an eternal principle fixed in the heavens. There are no exceptions to it.

Some of you right now are probably feeling a bit on the guilty and condemned side. It may very well be that when you read how totally devoted to seeking and knowing God David was that you just feel like throwing up your hands and giving up. I’ve felt that way a number of times. But you know what, so did David at times. And that brings me to my second principle. The first key principle in knowing God is that – Only those who seek God with their whole heart will find Him. That’s one side of the coin. But here is the second principle…or the other side of the coin. God is totally committed to helping us find Him and know Him intimately. God is totally committed to helping us find Him and know Him intimately. He is committed to continually draw us to Himself. He is committed to revealing more of Himself to us. God is the initator of our relationship. He is the sustainer of our relationship. And unless He constantly woos us and upholds us and perserves us, we don’t have a chance. Let’s go back to Jeremiah to see how this works. Jeremiah chapter 29. Remember our first principle came from vs. 13. Well let me explain what’s going on in this chapter.

The people of Judah are now living in exile in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar – as a result of their disobedience and unwillingness to repent of their sin. The temptation for them is to feel that God has abandoned them, that He is mad at them, and has washed His hands of them. To make matters worse there were some false prophets and diviners among them who did not understand how central to God’s ways is the refining fire of adverse circumstances. And thus they were telling them that they would soon be delivered and returned to their homeland. Jeremiah therefore wrote a letter from Jerusalem and sent it to them to help them understand first of all that God is the one who sent them there. Look at vs 4, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon,”

God was still in control, He knew exactly what He was doing, and He wanted them to know that His commitment to them had not changed. This is what is so crucial for us to understand. You see vs. 13 – our first principle is surrounded on both sides by promises of God’s commitment to His side of the relationship. Look with me at vs. 10-14, “For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you, ‘declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’ This principle can be found throughout the Scriptures and it really is the story of the Scriptures. The story of the Bible is that God has always been the One who has pursued His people and sustained His relationship with them. From the very beginning of time until now He has been a God of amazing faithfulness and abounding grace. Let’s quickly think through some other passages that reinforce this principle that God is the initiator and sustainer of our relationship. And that our hope must be in Him and His faithfulness, not in ours. I Corinthians 1:9 – “But God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” I Thessalonians 5:24 – “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”  II Timothy 2:13 – “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; For He cannot deny Himself.”

Why is it so important to put our confidence and hope in God’s faithfulness in this whole matter of seeking and knowing Him?  The reason my friends is that sooner or later you are going to discover like I have that your heart is apt to wander. Our hearts toward God have an amazing ability – even after we have seen His goodness and faithfulness and grace to grow strangely cold. David in Psalm 14 and Paul in Romans 3 want us to know that our fallen nature at its core does not want anything to do with God.  Look with me at Romans 3:10, 11 “as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEK FOR GOD;” A.W. Tozer put it this way, ”To know God is at once the easiest and the most difficult thing in the world. It is easy because the knowledge is not won by hard mental toil, but is something freely given. As sunlight falls on the open field, so the knowledge of the holy God is a free gift to men who are open to receive it. But this knowledge is difficult because there are conditions to be met and the obstinate nature of fallen man does not take kindly to them."

So how can we maintain a warm sensitive heart toward God? How can we become like David who said in Psalm 27:8 that when God said, “Seek My face,.." David then responded, "my heart said to Thee, “Thy face O Lord, I shall seek.”?  Well look with me at Psalm 119:10, “With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments.”  Remember how we talked earlier about how it’s easy to feel hopeless when you see the strong statements David makes about his own commitment to seeking God? Well he does it again here in the first part of this verse, but notice how he concludes the verse or prayer. David in essence says, “With all my heart I have sought You, But Lord, I know my tendency to wander. I know my heart can easily grow cold. So Lord please don’t allow that to happen.” 

You know, I’ve read through Psalm 119 dozens of times, and I’ve always kind of thought of it as David’s testimony of what the word of God means to Him and how it has helped him grow in his relationship with God. But several weeks ago I was meditating on this Psalm in my quiet time, and it was the first time I really noticed how much of this psalm is made up of David crying out to God for God to do what only God can do. At least 75 times David cries out to God in this Psalm. Let’s look at a few of them. Psalm 119:17 “Deal bountifully with Your servant, That I may live and keep Your word,”   vs. 25 “My soul cleaves to the dust; Revive me according to Your word.”  Vs. 29 “Remove the false way from me, And graciously grant me Your law.”

One of my best friends in Fort Wayne called me Thursday night to wish me well on my trip here. And in the course of our conversation he asked me what I was going to preach on. I told him and he shared with me that since 1985 he has been asking the Lord to give him a new heart – a heart that would seek hard after God. Well to help you appreciate the rest of the story…Several weeks ago our pastor in Fort Wayne called the whole church to 40 days of prayer and fasting. Soon after he asked us to do this, Mark and I were talking and I asked Mark what he felt God wanted him to fast from or how. And Mark said "you will never believe me" and I said "try me." Well Mark felt the Lord wanted him to fast from sports as well as food here and there. Now Mark is not just a casual sports fan. In fact just in the last couple of months he and his wife (who is also a sports enthusiast) started renting limited cable so they could see more sports. And when Mark’s mother told him that she was going to give him a certain sum of money for his birthday he asked her to give him a subscription to Sports Illustrated instead. Mark feels strongly that Dallas is going to win the superbowl again and he wants to savor every minute of it. So just when sports is beginning to pipe into their home from all sides, God says, “Mark I want you to fast from watching, listening to, reading about and even talking about sports until Thanksgiving.” To make matters worse soon after Mark started this fast, he received in the mail a video that chronicles in living color the rise of the Dallas Cowboys to become super bowl champions last year. And his father sent he and Claudia in the mail two directors chairs with the Dallas Cowboys insignia on the back of the chairs. Well by the grace of God Mark has faithfully abstained from sports to date, and he has experienced already some renewed commitment to meet alone with the Lord every morning like he used to. Well he went on to tell me that last Sunday while we were all observing communion at church he as communing with the Lord and he felt the Lord say He was going to give Mark a new heart. Mark asked Him when and the Lord did not answer. Mark did not mention this to his wife. Two days later Mark and Claudia were praying together and Claudia was praying and right in the middle of her prayer she stopped and said, “I think the Lord wants me to tell you that you just received a new heart. Now you have to exercise it just like you are having to exercise your new knee (Mark tore his knee up in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament a few months ago). But He has given you a new heart.”  Well needless to say Mark was pumped. But what I want you to see here is that Mark had been asking for it since 1985. My brothers and sisters at least part of the reason we do not have the intimacy with Jesus that we could have is because we do not cry out for it.

Listen there has never been a better time to cry out to God for a new heart to see Him with than right now. Our God is a God of renewal as Jeremiah so wonderfully emphasizes in the latter part of the book. Listen to what He says He is going to do for His people in Jeremiah 24:7, “I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.” And finally in Jeremiah 32:38-40, “They shall be My people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.”

(I assume I ended in prayer and perhaps some ministry time, but my notes ended here)