WEBVTT 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:08.952 I am so excited about this morning, i'm going to ask you to stand with me and turn to the book of Exodus, exodus chapter 20. 00:00:08.952 --> 00:00:12.682 Let's just stand and honor God as we read His word this morning. 00:00:12.682 --> 00:00:18.333 Exodus 20, the first six verses in the English Standard Version. 00:00:18.333 --> 00:00:31.103 And God spoke all these words saying I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 00:00:31.103 --> 00:00:34.789 You shall have no other gods before me. 00:00:34.789 --> 00:00:50.365 You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. 00:00:50.365 --> 00:01:13.587 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 00:01:13.587 --> 00:01:46.305 Father, this morning, by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, we ask you to grant us an enlarged view of our great God, open our hearts by divine light, through Holy Scripture and the operation of your spirit, to see your greatness, your grandeur, your glory, your holiness, your power, your sovereignty, your might, oh God, we realize this morning that we don't need things this morning. 00:01:46.305 --> 00:01:47.929 We need God. 00:01:47.929 --> 00:02:01.484 We need you to reveal yourself to us through your Son Jesus and in Holy Scripture, so that our hearts are bowed before you and we are caught up in your glory. 00:02:01.484 --> 00:02:08.961 We ask this at the beginning of this series in Jesus' name, and everyone said amen. 00:02:09.002 --> 00:02:27.409 You may be seated, i think, in some ways, what I'm going to do this morning, begin this morning, is a series that is the most important I've ever done in the years that I've been in teaching ministry. 00:02:27.409 --> 00:02:38.307 It's called A God Worth Knowing, and I want to take several weeks here at Trinity to do something that had occurred to me maybe many of you have never experienced. 00:02:38.307 --> 00:02:55.747 This series will focus entirely on one thing discovering and for some of us, perhaps rediscovering the true person of God as he is revealed in Holy Scripture. 00:02:55.747 --> 00:03:28.133 Probably a lot of us in this room this morning have never sat through a series of messages devoted entirely to the subject of God Himself Not what God might do for us or what He requires us to do for Him, but a series focused totally on one thing studying and glorifying the nature and attributes of our wonderful God. 00:03:28.133 --> 00:03:29.996 And we're not doing this. 00:03:29.996 --> 00:03:39.344 I want to say at the outset, we're not doing this sort of dispassionately, like a student studies a biology textbook. 00:03:39.344 --> 00:03:44.438 We are doing it because we have a vested interest in knowing our God. 00:03:44.438 --> 00:03:52.759 We want to actually learn what our God is like so that, as a result, we might know Him personally. 00:03:53.981 --> 00:04:02.056 How many remember in John 17, when the This was praying to his father, the great high priestly prayer of John 17. 00:04:02.056 --> 00:04:04.712 And he made this statement in prayer. 00:04:04.712 --> 00:04:22.456 He is praying to the father and in this prayer he is asking the father to glorify him, which he says he is actually done, by giving him eternal life or giving him authority to give eternal life to all those whom the father has given him. 00:04:22.456 --> 00:04:27.396 And then Jesus defines eternal life in John 17.3. 00:04:27.396 --> 00:04:40.911 He says this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 00:04:40.911 --> 00:04:46.555 Notice how Jesus defines eternal life in John 17.3. 00:04:46.555 --> 00:04:52.084 He doesn't define it quantitatively like we so often do Like. 00:04:52.084 --> 00:05:00.314 If you ask most people who are even in the church what is eternal life, they will probably say it is life without end, and it certainly is. 00:05:00.314 --> 00:05:05.475 But that's not what Jesus or how Jesus defines eternal life. 00:05:05.475 --> 00:05:06.456 In this text. 00:05:06.456 --> 00:05:11.435 He defines it not quantitatively but qualitatively. 00:05:11.435 --> 00:05:20.408 This is eternal life that they may know, you, the true and only God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 00:05:20.408 --> 00:05:33.610 Now, again, we know that eternal life, if you possess it this morning and it is the possession of a Christian only it's not something you're given by your first birth, it is the result of a second birth. 00:05:33.610 --> 00:05:44.718 We know that that is life without end, quantitative life, and those of us that are saved this morning have the privilege of knowing that we have eternal life. 00:05:44.718 --> 00:05:48.235 It will never end and we will be with our glorious Lord forever. 00:05:48.235 --> 00:05:49.447 Are you excited about that? 00:05:49.468 --> 00:06:04.997 What Jesus says, eternal life is a quality of life, not just a quantity of life, and that quality begins the moment a man or a woman is regenerated or born again. 00:06:04.997 --> 00:06:10.398 They immediately are brought into personal knowledge of God. 00:06:10.398 --> 00:06:23.634 I remember as a young believer in Miami, florida, in 1971, i didn't even know the Bible yet, but I knew that I knew God And I walked around and I would say that to people. 00:06:23.634 --> 00:06:26.173 I don't know how it happened, but I know God. 00:06:26.173 --> 00:06:28.091 Now that sounds brash. 00:06:28.091 --> 00:06:36.733 You know, there are people I remember talking to rabbis in Miami Beach Jewish rabbis who said what kind of upstart are you to tell us you know God? 00:06:36.733 --> 00:06:42.208 And I would say to them when I was debating them but I do, i know Him. 00:06:42.208 --> 00:06:56.329 And that's what happens When a man or woman is born of God, they receive a quality of life, an inner intuitive ability to know God. 00:06:56.329 --> 00:07:00.795 And that knowledge isn't complete when you're first saved. 00:07:00.795 --> 00:07:01.386 How many know? 00:07:01.386 --> 00:07:07.185 it starts, and God intends, as you walk with Him, for that knowledge to continually grow. 00:07:08.785 --> 00:07:38.036 Scripture is replete with exhortations by the apostles for Christians to grow, according to Colossians 1, where Paul, in his prayer, says in the prayer that we might increase in the knowledge of God, and then Peter, at the end of his second letter, closes the letter out and says to believers grow in grace, in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. 00:07:38.036 --> 00:07:51.053 But the question we want to ask this morning, to launch this series with, is this, and I want to say it at the beginning How do we navigate on the road to knowledge of God? 00:07:51.053 --> 00:07:59.076 What do we need in order to journey into a growing and deeper knowledge of God? 00:07:59.076 --> 00:08:03.653 Well, that's exactly what this series is about. 00:08:03.653 --> 00:08:20.350 I want to show you that, if you are going to properly navigate into this journey and navigate on the journey into the knowledge of God, you must start by, first of all, making sure you have carefully checked the road map. 00:08:20.350 --> 00:08:25.812 Now get me clear on this, because it's so important. 00:08:25.812 --> 00:08:39.638 God intends for each of us to personally know Him and experience Him, but our first responsibility is always to make sure first that we have the right information about Him. 00:08:39.638 --> 00:08:45.591 I want to yell it from the rooftop There's stuff being said about God in the church that isn't true. 00:08:49.485 --> 00:08:56.746 In other words, the road map helps us make sure that the God we are pursuing is the biblical God. 00:08:56.746 --> 00:09:04.333 Now, this is called theology and it's wonderful. 00:09:04.333 --> 00:09:12.157 It's what Scripture teaches about God, who He is, what He does and what His plan is. 00:09:12.157 --> 00:09:20.332 And there are some people and I hear it often they say well, i'm simple, i'm not into theology, i just want to experience God directly. 00:09:20.332 --> 00:09:24.313 I don't want to worry about having a lot of information about God. 00:09:24.313 --> 00:09:48.647 There's a problem with that, and it's this It ignores something fundamental that Scripture teaches, and it is that it has to be understood at the beginning, and it is the fact that no one can know God apart from the fact that He has revealed Himself to us and, brothers and sisters, that revelation is contained in Scripture. 00:09:48.647 --> 00:09:55.826 Now don't get me wrong. 00:09:55.826 --> 00:10:03.894 Along with Scripture, god allows us to experience Him and the Spirit of God working with Scripture reveals God. 00:10:03.894 --> 00:10:15.774 But before we rush off into pursuing knowledge of God, make sure that you've checked the road map and you know fundamental things about the God you are pursuing. 00:10:19.085 --> 00:10:47.828 Ji Packer, in his classic book Knowing God, talks about the importance of this in the journey of knowing God and he uses the example of taking a native from the Amazon region of South America who's never been out of the jungle and dropping him in London and giving him no explanation and telling him nothing about London and then saying be blessed, go experience London. 00:10:47.828 --> 00:10:53.456 And he said to do that would be unkind because you've not prepared him. 00:10:53.456 --> 00:10:57.254 You must give him some explanation of what London is like. 00:10:57.254 --> 00:11:03.149 Can you imagine this native walking around and looking at the skyscrapers and the buildings and wondering what is this? 00:11:03.149 --> 00:11:35.572 In the same way, if you and I do not have some basic biblical understanding of what God is like, what he expects, what it is like to actually know him, you will be lost and subject to your own subjective whims and ideas of what God is like, but I feel stupid for reminding you of this, because let me ask you, if you're a Christian this morning, why wouldn't you want to learn everything there is to learn about God? 00:11:35.692 --> 00:11:44.975 anyway, i remember when I was first dating Shelly, i wanted to learn everything about her. 00:11:44.975 --> 00:11:50.956 I wanted to know her personally by hanging out with her, but I also wanted to learn her ways. 00:11:50.956 --> 00:12:07.333 I wanted to know what she liked, what she doesn't like, what made her mad which I found out quickly what made her happy, and that was part of our growing relationship. 00:12:07.333 --> 00:12:08.368 I learned her ways. 00:12:08.368 --> 00:12:10.315 I learned what pleased her, what didn't please her. 00:12:10.315 --> 00:12:16.193 I wanted to please her, so I found it necessary to study her, and I still am. 00:12:16.193 --> 00:12:35.499 So let me say at the outset that one of the burdens in this series is that we would together personally pursue the roadmap so that we may personally know him intimately and personally. 00:12:36.304 --> 00:12:41.115 Now there's a danger, though, in studying the roadmap to find out what God is like. 00:12:41.115 --> 00:13:06.918 It's the other side of the coin, because there are people in the church who are very diligent to study their Bibles and take notes and make sure their theology is sound, and they got all their ducks in a row, but they can often forget something that I want to remind you of, and it is that you can know a great deal about God without having great knowledge of God. 00:13:06.918 --> 00:13:26.052 It is possible to study this book like a textbook and memorize all kinds of facts about God without really knowing him, and I have met people whose heads are full of Bible knowledge but they have no love, whose heads are full of theology but they live ungodly lifestyles. 00:13:26.052 --> 00:13:33.501 Now don't react to that as people do, and say well, put your Bible down, you just need to experience God. 00:13:33.501 --> 00:13:35.221 That shouldn't be our conclusion. 00:13:35.221 --> 00:13:48.379 What we should conclude is not that we don't need our Bibles, but we need our Bibles to know what God is like, and then we need to plunge into the deep waters of experiencing God personally. 00:13:49.335 --> 00:13:59.557 There may be some of you listening to my voice this morning and, man, you are lost in this message because you don't know anything about knowing God, and it is because you're not a Christian. 00:13:59.557 --> 00:14:07.966 You've never experienced being born again, you've never been regenerated and never came into a personal knowledge of God. 00:14:07.966 --> 00:14:25.087 There are people here who spent years in the church thinking they were saved because they went to church and did church things, who one day the Spirit of God revealed they were unregenerated and they had to come to a place of repentance, faith and receiving the gift of eternal life. 00:14:25.087 --> 00:14:34.125 If you're here this morning, the greatest gift I could give you is this series makes you aware of the fact that you are a stranger to the knowledge of God. 00:14:34.125 --> 00:14:45.544 But those of us who know God, that are hungry to study Scripture, to find out what God is like, need to remind ourselves that we study theology for a specific reason. 00:14:45.544 --> 00:14:59.866 Scripture again, in knowing God, says, quote we need to ask ourselves what is the ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? 00:14:59.866 --> 00:15:05.807 What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God once I have it? 00:15:05.807 --> 00:15:07.297 He then warns. 00:15:07.297 --> 00:15:17.081 The fact we have to face is this if we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. 00:15:17.081 --> 00:15:21.226 It will make us proud and conceited. 00:15:21.226 --> 00:15:23.979 So what's the answer? 00:15:23.979 --> 00:15:39.519 It's not to put our Bibles aside, but it is to ransack our Bibles from cover to cover to learn all we can about our great God so that we may press in to know Him personally and accurately. 00:15:41.654 --> 00:15:46.667 When I was reading one of my favorite Psalms I stay in it often Psalm 119. 00:15:46.667 --> 00:15:48.933 How many of you have ever read Psalm 119? 00:15:48.933 --> 00:15:52.864 176 statements about the Word of God. 00:15:52.864 --> 00:16:00.495 And you can read in this Psalm that the Psalmist has this tremendous thirst for knowledge of God. 00:16:00.495 --> 00:16:05.267 But he doesn't seek knowledge for knowledge sake. 00:16:05.267 --> 00:16:12.107 He seeks the knowledge of God's Word that he might have practical ability to live a godly life. 00:16:12.107 --> 00:16:19.048 He says things like thy Word, i have hidden my heart that I might not sin against you. 00:16:19.048 --> 00:16:21.022 It's not just theoretical knowledge. 00:16:21.022 --> 00:16:26.605 He wants the knowledge of God to lead him to a life that pleases God. 00:16:26.605 --> 00:16:44.187 You might say it this way the Psalmist was interested in truth and theology, not as ends in themselves, but as a means to the end of life and godliness. 00:16:44.187 --> 00:17:00.261 So as we start this journey together as a church over the next several weeks, is it in your heart to pursue the knowledge of God, so that knowledge may indelibly imprint itself in your life and change the way you live? 00:17:00.261 --> 00:17:15.279 But there is even a more fundamental reason that we need to know our Bibles clearly when it comes to knowledge of God, and it brings us to our text this morning. 00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:21.762 It is our proneness towards idolatry. 00:17:24.515 --> 00:17:37.281 What we read this morning, if you're not familiar with it, is God's Word at Mount Sinai to a million Jews who stood there entering covenant with God, and God thundered what is called in Hebrew the ten words. 00:17:37.281 --> 00:17:48.748 We call them the ten commandments, and the first one is critical because it deals with human proneness towards idolatry. 00:17:48.748 --> 00:17:52.602 God clearly says identifies himself. 00:17:52.602 --> 00:18:06.296 And if you know anything about the ten commandments, you know that it is written and framed in the context similar to other covenants, when kings, when ancient kings, entered into covenants with conquered people They had. 00:18:06.296 --> 00:18:17.807 These covenants took on a certain form And everybody who studies the Ten Commandments says the form of the Ten Commandments itself lends itself to covenant in the ancient world. 00:18:17.934 --> 00:18:25.469 But the first thing God says is the forbidding of any gods other than the true God. 00:18:25.469 --> 00:18:27.782 And God was so fastidious about this. 00:18:27.782 --> 00:18:34.202 He repeats it in the following verse and says you shouldn't even make an image of what you think God is like. 00:18:34.202 --> 00:18:53.086 Now this command is very important because God knew that Israel would eventually land in the end up in the land of Canaan, and in Canaan there were all kinds of gods and the danger was that they would seek after a god in their own liking. 00:18:53.086 --> 00:19:05.787 But we often lessen the severity of this commandment because we think of idolatry only as a guy sitting before a stump of a tree and worshiping a totem pole. 00:19:05.787 --> 00:19:07.138 That's certainly idolatry. 00:19:08.615 --> 00:19:26.338 But there's another aspect to idolatry that this command speaks to that I want you to hear this morning, and it is the tendency of fallen human beings to make something other than the true God ultimate. 00:19:26.338 --> 00:19:51.346 In his book Counterfeit Gods, pastor Tim Keller defines idols listen to this as anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. 00:19:51.346 --> 00:20:05.564 And in this context, this command not only speaks to the actual act of setting up false gods, which I doubt seriously anyone's doing. 00:20:05.564 --> 00:20:13.267 If you are intending, after the service, to go home and cut down a tree in your backyard and worship it, see me at the end of the service. 00:20:13.267 --> 00:20:14.178 I will dissuade you. 00:20:16.654 --> 00:20:22.047 But this command goes much deeper, because it deals when God forbids any image or likeness. 00:20:22.047 --> 00:20:26.465 It deals with something else we, as fallen human beings, have to address. 00:20:26.465 --> 00:20:39.884 It is this It is the tendency that we have to distort the image of the true God so that we remake Him after our own image and likeness. 00:20:39.884 --> 00:20:44.642 Have you noticed the tendency in your heart to do this? 00:20:44.642 --> 00:21:05.803 If you haven't, you ought to be a student of it, because it's part of our fallenness and our sinfulness that we want to remake God into an image so He's nice and manageable and tame just the way we like Him. 00:21:05.803 --> 00:21:11.143 For example, we don't really want to sovereign God who does what He pleases. 00:21:11.143 --> 00:21:14.740 We want a God who's manageable and lives to please us. 00:21:14.740 --> 00:21:26.865 We don't want a God that's mysterious and whose ways are past finding out, but one who's always there, at our beck and call to do what we think is best. 00:21:28.115 --> 00:21:34.788 We end up doing what Romans warns against, which is, in fact, the reason pagans become pagan. 00:21:34.788 --> 00:21:46.102 He says God's knowledge can be known through creation, but we suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and that means exactly what it says. 00:21:46.102 --> 00:21:51.227 It says the true knowledge of God is screaming out at pagans, but they suppress it. 00:21:51.227 --> 00:21:53.361 It's not that they can't know God. 00:21:53.361 --> 00:21:59.540 They won't know God, because to know God would inevitably mean you have to change. 00:21:59.540 --> 00:22:03.443 So instead of changing, i'm going to suppress it. 00:22:03.443 --> 00:22:05.019 I'm holding it back. 00:22:05.019 --> 00:22:16.881 It's screaming at me, but I don't want to acknowledge it, and we will cover that in Romans 1 in a few weeks when we talk about the wrath of God, as Romans, chapters 1 and 2. 00:22:16.881 --> 00:22:20.742 And the beginning of 3 show us the guilt of the entire world. 00:22:20.742 --> 00:22:22.386 And why are sinners guilty? 00:22:22.386 --> 00:22:30.704 because whether they are Jews with the law or Gentiles having the law written in their hearts, men and women suppress the truth. 00:22:30.704 --> 00:22:32.556 They don't want it to be true. 00:22:32.556 --> 00:22:47.851 That's why It's one of the reasons God gave us Scripture, so we might come to it with an open heart and mind, saying God, show me, what are you really like. 00:22:55.300 --> 00:22:59.801 Now let me jump forward and ask a question that will become very important as we navigate through this series. 00:22:59.801 --> 00:23:02.026 What happens to us? 00:23:02.026 --> 00:23:08.285 What should we expect will happen to us when we encounter the knowledge of God? 00:23:08.285 --> 00:23:10.632 What should we expect? 00:23:10.632 --> 00:23:24.353 I believe the Bible teaches that three things will be true for every man and woman who, hungry for God, presses in to learn of God's ways through Scripture. 00:23:24.353 --> 00:23:28.567 Number one, they will experience the fear of God. 00:23:28.567 --> 00:23:32.519 Number two, they will experience the love of God. 00:23:32.519 --> 00:23:48.589 And number three, they will develop an insatiable hunger, an immense hunger for God The fear of God, the love of God, the hunger for God. 00:23:48.589 --> 00:23:49.952 Let's start with the fear of God. 00:23:49.952 --> 00:23:57.640 When men and women come to know the true and living God, they will learn to fear Him. 00:23:57.779 --> 00:24:05.448 Now, this is important to say because there's many in the church that believe that God has changed from the Old to New Covenant. 00:24:05.448 --> 00:24:08.394 In the Old Testament He used to get angry a lot. 00:24:08.394 --> 00:24:11.047 He had a little bit of a temperament. 00:24:11.047 --> 00:24:17.029 I mean, i've had people think we've really changed God's at Calvary. 00:24:17.029 --> 00:24:28.106 God was angry in the Old Testament but Christ came and placated Him, so we shouldn't be afraid anymore And God doesn't get angry anymore. 00:24:28.106 --> 00:24:31.173 I'd like you to know that is a damnable lie. 00:24:33.019 --> 00:24:41.183 There are two aspects of God's being that we in the church always need to hold intention together or we find ourselves in error. 00:24:41.183 --> 00:24:45.573 One is called transcendence, the other is called imminence. 00:24:45.573 --> 00:24:51.369 Transcendence means God is other, he is above, he is separate. 00:24:51.369 --> 00:24:54.821 Imminence means He's near, he's close. 00:24:54.821 --> 00:24:58.167 He knows the number of hairs on my head. 00:24:58.167 --> 00:25:11.319 Now, how can they both be true, they are, but the fear of God is developed as we meditate on this quality of God called transcendence. 00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:24.212 And in a word for saints I don't want to make this heady Transcendence means God is other, he is above, he is greater, he is separate, he is unlike anybody else. 00:25:24.212 --> 00:25:32.951 You know, he's not just our big buddy who gives us parking spaces and pays our bills. 00:25:32.951 --> 00:25:54.840 He's the awesome, all-powerful, all-knowing, sovereign God of the universe, the creator of the ends of the earth and whose hands are the depths of the earth, who immediately and instantaneously has personal knowledge of every human being on the planet, including the numbers of hairs on every head. 00:25:54.840 --> 00:26:05.540 He is separate And we teach people in the church don't be afraid of God, don't be afraid of God. 00:26:05.740 --> 00:26:06.742 I'd like to counter that. 00:26:06.742 --> 00:26:08.826 Be very afraid. 00:26:08.826 --> 00:26:24.791 You know, when God thundered His words from Mount Sinai, a million Jews were petrified and they shook and they said to Moses we don't want to hear God, you go and listen to God and bring us His word. 00:26:24.791 --> 00:26:26.199 And you know what God said about that. 00:26:26.199 --> 00:26:28.704 We would have said don't be afraid, come near. 00:26:28.704 --> 00:26:35.144 But the people were told God said to Moses I know that the people tremble when I speak. 00:26:35.144 --> 00:26:41.035 Oh, that there was a heart in them to fear me always. 00:26:42.019 --> 00:26:47.232 Brothers and sisters, the church desperately needs a baptism of the fear of God. 00:26:47.232 --> 00:27:04.982 I don't mean a cringing fear, and we'll deal with that in a minute that keeps us at length, but a fear of God which comes as a result of a proper understanding of His nature and character so that we walk before Him. 00:27:04.982 --> 00:27:07.307 There's far too much flippancy in the church. 00:27:07.307 --> 00:27:15.893 God is awesome and He is transcendent, and when we meet Him, fear is the result of a healthy respect, a reverence. 00:27:15.972 --> 00:27:31.114 We are talking folks about God, but the second thing we experience is the love of God. 00:27:31.114 --> 00:27:38.969 Now, this goes along with what I've been saying for weeks, that to walk in the gospel you have to know two things You're far worse than you ever imagined. 00:27:38.969 --> 00:27:46.131 You're far more loved than you ever imagined, and with the fear of God we need to understand the love of God. 00:27:46.131 --> 00:28:08.365 And the next thing is when you realize the great gulf between a holy God and sinful creatures, you will know that it is only the love of God, manifested in the death of Jesus, that could ever bridge that gulf. 00:28:08.365 --> 00:28:50.931 And when you know personally that at one time in your life you are an object of God's holy wrath and you know what God and Christ did for you, so that now the love of God is poured out in your hearts through the Holy Spirit, when you know that you will be changed by that love, how much you appreciate God's love depends on how much you fear Him. 00:28:52.940 --> 00:28:58.829 That's why in the church there's often this syrupy kind of emotional idea of God's love. 00:28:58.829 --> 00:29:01.515 That is sickening. 00:29:01.515 --> 00:29:02.702 That's not the love of God. 00:29:02.702 --> 00:29:03.486 Listen to me. 00:29:03.486 --> 00:29:05.142 You were under wrath. 00:29:05.142 --> 00:29:07.647 You and I were children of wrath. 00:29:07.647 --> 00:29:09.652 Like the rest of mankind. 00:29:09.652 --> 00:29:16.152 God had every reason justifiably to send us to a Christless eternity. 00:29:16.152 --> 00:29:23.445 But the only reason you're not going is not because you're nice or smart or good looking or God couldn't live without you. 00:29:23.445 --> 00:29:28.030 It was God's grace alone that poured out His love in your life. 00:29:28.030 --> 00:29:35.384 And now you're the object of love, not because you're lovable, but because you're in Christ and God passionately loves His Son. 00:29:39.779 --> 00:29:42.508 I ask people why do you think God loves you? 00:29:42.508 --> 00:29:47.486 I don't know, because I tithe, because I pray, because I read. 00:29:47.486 --> 00:29:54.365 He doesn't love you because you do those things. 00:29:54.365 --> 00:29:57.224 Some of you don't do them and He loves you. 00:29:59.339 --> 00:30:05.265 People plug for Paul's exhortation You can't earn this love. 00:30:05.265 --> 00:30:13.044 You should do those things because love transforms you, but you can't earn this love, you and I, who are children of wrath. 00:30:13.044 --> 00:30:24.991 And the more we see God in His ultimate, infinite majesty and glory, the more we gaze in wonder. 00:30:24.991 --> 00:30:59.546 That's why the book of Ephesians So aptly describes this when Paul says we were dead in our trespasses and sins, in which we once walked, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind. 00:30:59.546 --> 00:31:00.260 And listen to this. 00:31:00.260 --> 00:31:06.872 And we're, by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 00:31:06.872 --> 00:31:09.163 Well, what made the difference? 00:31:09.640 --> 00:31:25.584 Listen to this glorious statement in verse 4, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. 00:31:25.584 --> 00:31:43.114 By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 00:31:43.114 --> 00:31:46.766 For by grace you have been saved through faith. 00:31:46.766 --> 00:31:55.205 God did not have to love you because you were so lovable. 00:31:55.205 --> 00:31:59.482 You were a child of wrath. 00:31:59.482 --> 00:32:07.851 So was I, but the love of God has been poured out in Christ as a gift. 00:32:09.079 --> 00:32:10.785 By the way, it works the other way too. 00:32:10.785 --> 00:32:20.967 The deeper we understand God's love for us in Christ Jesus, the more profound our reverence and awe of Him will be. 00:32:20.967 --> 00:32:22.084 It works both ways. 00:32:22.084 --> 00:32:26.714 The more we know God's holiness, the more we know the fear of God. 00:32:26.714 --> 00:32:31.910 We know we were objects of His wrath, but the more we know His love, the more we will fear Him. 00:32:31.910 --> 00:32:37.957 That's why David said if you, lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? 00:32:37.957 --> 00:32:43.887 but there is forgiveness with thee that you may be feared. 00:32:43.887 --> 00:33:02.551 And the third quality which is yours when you come to know the God of Scripture is the fear of God and the love of God produce a thirst for God. 00:33:03.980 --> 00:33:08.409 What comes to mind this morning when I use the word godly? 00:33:08.409 --> 00:33:13.269 What does it mean to be a godly man or woman? 00:33:13.269 --> 00:33:18.011 For many people in the church it has a moral connotation, and that's biblical. 00:33:18.011 --> 00:33:22.632 It does carry a moral aspect to it. 00:33:22.632 --> 00:33:28.112 But godliness is not first and foremost morality. 00:33:28.112 --> 00:33:31.386 There are people who have morality that aren't godly. 00:33:31.386 --> 00:33:40.093 Godly people are men and women who are centered in God, who are passionate about God. 00:33:40.093 --> 00:33:46.912 They are moral because they are God-centered and they have been changed by that God-centeredness. 00:33:48.160 --> 00:34:01.230 And when we combine the fear of God with the love of God, it creates in the hearts of the saints an immense appetite for God Himself. 00:34:01.230 --> 00:34:08.831 And there are so many statements in Scripture that describe this appetite. 00:34:08.831 --> 00:34:24.952 Listen to my favorite one from the 42nd Psalm as the deer pants for flowing streams, and the psalmist is alluding to the habits of deer, who are thirst-driven. 00:34:24.952 --> 00:34:29.670 They have to have a drink of cool water from a flowing river or they'll die. 00:34:29.670 --> 00:34:31.284 It's not a casual thing. 00:34:31.284 --> 00:34:34.347 I'm fine, it'd be nice to have a drink, but no need to. 00:34:34.347 --> 00:34:36.222 It's a desperation. 00:34:36.222 --> 00:34:43.809 As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, oh God. 00:34:43.809 --> 00:34:48.266 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 00:34:48.266 --> 00:35:01.255 There is one constant, consistent trait that characterizes saints of all ages. 00:35:01.255 --> 00:35:05.048 It is without doubt their appetite for God alone. 00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:10.951 Let me ask you this morning take your pulse for a second. 00:35:10.951 --> 00:35:13.304 Does that really describe you? 00:35:13.304 --> 00:35:22.510 Are you a man or a woman who thirsts for God, himself driven by desperation? 00:35:22.510 --> 00:35:26.184 Or are you religious? 00:35:26.184 --> 00:35:29.626 A service once in a while, bucking the plate? 00:35:29.626 --> 00:35:32.103 I'm good with God, not my God thing. 00:35:32.103 --> 00:35:40.090 But the rest of the week, god's far from my thoughts, seeking Him in His book, praying, fasting, worshiping. 00:35:40.090 --> 00:35:45.065 You know, i'm fine, i can handle an hour on Sunday, but I'm good for the week. 00:35:45.065 --> 00:35:54.860 Or are you driven Like David was, who says One thing have I desired of the Lord? 00:35:54.860 --> 00:35:56.914 that will I seek. 00:35:56.914 --> 00:36:07.835 After that, i may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. 00:36:10.130 --> 00:36:12.661 I'm going to say something so doctrinally controversial. 00:36:12.661 --> 00:36:24.418 I think that many of us will be bored with heaven If I I should take a picture with my iPhone of your faces right now. 00:36:24.418 --> 00:36:29.739 I have a problem with the doctrine that I'm bored with God on earth. 00:36:29.739 --> 00:36:38.458 But I'm going to be zapped away one day and I'm suddenly going to take up as a full-time, everlasting vocation that which I found boring on earth. 00:36:38.458 --> 00:36:44.902 I don't know if I have Scripture to justify this doctrine, but I believe it in my heart. 00:36:45.851 --> 00:36:53.695 Maybe it's why Paul says there's a crown of righteousness waiting for all those who love His appearing. 00:36:53.695 --> 00:37:03.849 And you would only love His appearing because you've loved, you've grown in love for God to such a degree that you can't wait till you get to see Him. 00:37:03.849 --> 00:37:16.114 You know, before I became the pastor here, i traveled almost three weekends a month regularly for years, and I thank God for cell phones and email. 00:37:16.114 --> 00:37:29.375 I could email my wife and kids and I could call them, and I did, but there was nothing compared to the moment when I stepped off the plane and there was my wife and kids. 00:37:29.375 --> 00:37:29.996 How many know? 00:37:29.996 --> 00:37:43.253 there's nothing compared to presence, when the ones you love are actually under your arms and you can touch them and kiss them, and that's the Christian life. 00:37:43.273 --> 00:37:45.500 That's why we have a doctrine called the Second Coming. 00:37:45.500 --> 00:37:51.195 Those of you who are busy with charts trying to figure out when He's coming, just put your charts away. 00:37:51.195 --> 00:37:52.418 Most of them are wrong anyway. 00:37:52.418 --> 00:38:05.478 The real issue about the Second Coming is not figuring it out, but growing and becoming like the virgin in the song of Solomon who said I am love sick. 00:38:05.478 --> 00:38:08.344 I have to have Jesus return. 00:38:08.344 --> 00:38:14.420 I appreciate the Holy Spirit, the down payment that I have in this life, but I'm so hungry for Jesus. 00:38:14.420 --> 00:38:15.829 I want to see Him. 00:38:15.829 --> 00:38:41.922 And when we contemplate in Scripture the awesomeness of God in His infinite majesty and His power and His holiness, as well as the mercy that was poured out for us at Calvary, our hearts become captivated And we begin to long to know Him. 00:38:41.922 --> 00:38:50.485 We become, ponce de Leon, christians like the Apostle Paul. 00:38:51.708 --> 00:39:11.282 When I was a young believer, they told me that Philippians was written near the end of Paul's life, and that bothered me, because I was a young believer and I read Philippians 3, where Paul cries out and says oh, and I love the o's of Scripture. 00:39:11.282 --> 00:39:17.621 It's not like oh, but it's like oh that I may know Him. 00:39:17.621 --> 00:39:27.876 And I remember as a young believer I'm not making this up I was saved a couple years and I took our Bible class in our church and they told me Philippians was written near the end of his life. 00:39:27.876 --> 00:39:33.074 And I was confused because I read Paul at the end of his life saying, oh, that I may know Him. 00:39:33.074 --> 00:39:34.900 And I remember thinking, don't you know Him yet? 00:39:34.900 --> 00:39:39.637 And I tried to find a reason for such a statement. 00:39:39.637 --> 00:39:49.333 I thought maybe Paul was having a bad week when he wrote that, maybe he was backslidden, maybe he I don't know Don't you know Him yet? 00:39:49.333 --> 00:39:56.233 Because in our church you started knowing Him and then you went on to more profitable things like ministry. 00:39:56.233 --> 00:40:08.878 But in time Paul's words rebuked my heart And I learned that Paul didn't have the problem. 00:40:08.878 --> 00:40:10.563 I did That. 00:40:10.664 --> 00:40:14.054 Knowing Him is not an experience at the beginning of your walk. 00:40:14.054 --> 00:40:18.291 And then you settle into Christendom and do your thing and find how to do it. 00:40:18.291 --> 00:40:23.125 That knowing Him was an increased appetite and revelation. 00:40:23.125 --> 00:40:31.360 And as your heart grows in knowledge of God, it makes you radically desirous of more of God. 00:40:31.360 --> 00:40:37.139 And the thing about this reality is it's not settled or you're not satisfied by a little experience. 00:40:37.139 --> 00:40:39.512 Once in a while There's something within you. 00:40:39.512 --> 00:40:51.811 It's the greatest hunger you've ever known, driving you to know God and pressing you on to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. 00:40:51.871 --> 00:41:06.797 We'll talk about that in one of our installments, i think for me, the thing that sums it up for Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, is what he says at the end of Romans 11. 00:41:06.797 --> 00:41:13.418 As we will see on Wednesday nights, romans is the Magna Carta of Christianity. 00:41:13.418 --> 00:41:36.327 It's the most systematic book Paul ever wrote in explaining the gospel And he covers all his bases, from the sinfulness of man to the justifying grace of God, to how God removes fallen people from Adam and places them in Christ, even how Israel fairs in all of this and why most of the nation of Israel became hardened to the gospel. 00:41:36.327 --> 00:41:37.572 He answers all those questions. 00:41:37.572 --> 00:41:42.010 You'd think at the end of that section he'd go Hallelujah, we figured it all out. 00:41:42.010 --> 00:41:43.773 But here's how he ends Romans 11. 00:41:44.173 --> 00:41:46.358 It's another oh, oh. 00:41:46.358 --> 00:41:52.052 The depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. 00:41:52.052 --> 00:42:13.840 How insurchable are His judgments and inscrutable are His ways for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been His counselor, or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid for from Him, and through Him and to Him are all things. 00:42:13.840 --> 00:42:16.923 To Him be glory forever. 00:42:16.923 --> 00:42:17.885 Amen. 00:42:17.885 --> 00:42:23.119 What a way to end the doctrinal section of Romans. 00:42:23.119 --> 00:42:25.344 What can we say? 00:42:25.344 --> 00:42:27.010 Who could figure God out? 00:42:27.010 --> 00:42:29.755 He's beyond knowing. 00:42:29.755 --> 00:42:32.340 Well, here's the reality. 00:42:32.340 --> 00:42:49.864 We've come to know Him in Jesus Christ, and if you are one of those saints that I just described, whose hearts are hungry to press in and know Him, then I invite you, starting next week, to come with me on a journey. 00:42:49.864 --> 00:42:52.072 We're not going to take this apart. 00:42:52.072 --> 00:42:53.396 We're not in a lecture. 00:42:53.476 --> 00:43:17.021 I realize this is a series of sermons, but I believe that as we, by the Spirit, behold Him I think that 2 Corinthians 3 sums it up best We all, with unveiled face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from glory to glory as we behold God. 00:43:17.021 --> 00:43:23.260 And, of course, we behold Him as Christians, as He's revealed in the ultimate way. 00:43:23.260 --> 00:43:36.052 He's revealed Himself to human beings through the person and work of His glorious Son, the second member of the Trinity, and the application of that work to the hearts and minds of believers by the Holy Spirit. 00:43:36.052 --> 00:43:45.019 I have asked for one thing over these next few weeks that every one of you in this church, myself included, would have a God encounter. 00:43:45.019 --> 00:43:52.137 That, as we learn about God, it would increase our desire for God and we would press in to God. 00:43:54.282 --> 00:44:07.731 I believe God uses two things the knowledge of His Word and His Holy Spirit working in our lives to give us both theological knowledge and understanding of Scripture, coupled with personal knowledge and the dealings of God. 00:44:07.731 --> 00:44:24.664 We learned that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives and often in the hardest times in our lives, when we're suffering the most and dealing with difficulties, it's actually the seedbed for greater understanding and revelation of God. 00:44:24.664 --> 00:44:38.722 I was studying the life of Abraham and I noticed something that Abraham comes to impasses in his life, to serious crisis, and he doesn't get out of those crises unless he gets a greater revelation of who God is. 00:44:38.722 --> 00:44:44.568 And right at the moment of crisis, god comes and reveals Himself in a greater way. 00:44:44.568 --> 00:44:53.402 And those of you who are always running from your sufferings and difficulties and rebuking the devil and thinking it's all the devil, don't be too quick. 00:44:53.402 --> 00:44:59.036 God may be allowing this very thing because He wants to reveal Himself to you in a greater way.