Living Outloud: Knowing God for Real

We open 1 Chronicles 28:9–10 and find a clear call to know God intimately, worship with a whole heart and a willing mind, and take His assignment seriously. We push back on the OT vs NT caricature and show how the Spirit and Scripture lead us into a steady, practical faith.

• why God’s unchanging character makes 1 Chronicles 28 timely now
• knowing God intimately through Scripture and the Holy Spirit
• worship with a whole heart and a willing mind
• comfort and conviction in God seeing the heart
• seek and you will find as a real promise
• refusing the myth of “angry OT God vs kind NT God”
• living as God’s temple with strength and intention

Meet us back here next time and we’ll keep talking about this.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Why Chronicles Matters
• 1:23 The “Copy And Paste” Passage
• 3:16 God Does Not Change
• 5:21 Rejecting OT vs NT Myths
• 6:41 Read The Whole Bible, Start Here
• 7:46 Know God Intimately
• 11:31 Learning The Easy Way
• 14:31 The Holy Spirit As Guide
• 15:37 Whole Heart And Willing Mind
• 19:56 Comfort And Conviction: God Sees The Heart

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Living Out Loud, our weekly episode where Kelsey and I talk about what we read earlier in the week and just drill down a little deeper. Kelsey's here.

SPEAKER_01: 0:35

Hello.

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

That's her. And I'm Mike. So what I really love about reading in the Old Testament is every once in a while there's just a nugget that's like jumping out at you, being like, wow, wow, wow, look at this. This is like something to know about God. And I don't know, just a lot of people don't preach through First Chronicles or something. You know, so like this is the part of one of the parts of the Old Testament that just doesn't get cracked open all that often.

SPEAKER_01: 0:59

Definitely the last time I read through First Chronicles was when we were in college getting a Bible minor, and I was forced to read it, and I'm pretty sure even then I didn't actually read it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08

We're reading stuff that's like, I didn't know that was in here. And uh so that's so that's cool. So the verse like that for me here, and we were talking a little before we started recording, we're like, hey, we let's just record, uh, is first Chronicles 28, 9 through 10. Let me just read it here so we can all get on the same page. It says this, and I'm reading in the NLT today, and Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and with a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him, but if you forsake him, he'll reject you forever. So take this seriously. The Lord has chosen you to build a temple as his sanctuary. Has chosen you to build a temple as his sanctuary. Be strong and do the work. This is one of those great verses that just like, hey, this is something to know about God. Because every time we read the Bible, we should ask ourselves, okay, what do I learn about God? Because that's why we have the Bible and why we should read it. Yeah. This is the like number one way he's like, I want you to know more about the God who made you and loves you. Can you just read this? It's like, okay, great. So um, so this is this is just real rich. And we're gonna walk through this phrase by phrase.

SPEAKER_01: 2:25

All of scripture is telling you who God is, but occasionally there's these passages, these verses that make it like really clear. Like you can hang your hat on who God is.

SPEAKER_00: 2:35

Almost copy and paste this into your life, which is something you don't often get to do in the Old Testament because so much of it is just stories about things that happened with people long ago in a different covenant era where God and his people had a different kind of relationship than we have with him now. Um and so you don't always get to copy and paste what you read in the Old Testament and say, this applies to me. But in this case, yes, it's David talking to his son Solomon about building a physical temple for the Lord, but man, this is almost just word for word what you can absorb.

SPEAKER_01: 3:08

I think this is one of those that we get to copy and paste because God doesn't change.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:12

Right? That's a foundational doctrine of our faith, is the immutability of God, the fact that he does not change. And so the God who spoke through David to Solomon is the same God that speaks to you, Michael today is the same God that was fully man and fully God on the cross through the the man of Jesus Christ. Like it he's the same God. And so whenever there's a truth about who he is and a truth about his character, we can take that as a apply it to my life here and now today truth about who he is because he does not change. Oh, and there are even though the covenants and the relationship with his people change, he is not changing.

SPEAKER_00: 3:50

And this is so important to know because there are so-called Bible teachers out there who will say that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. That like when Jesus came, he's all about love, but the old testament God is all about wrath.

SPEAKER_01: 4:04

If you hear that, reject that teacher and do not listen to it again.

SPEAKER_00: 4:07

Because it's throw up in my mouth when I hear stuff like that. Because it reinforces this idea that we can just disregard the Old Testament because when Jesus came, it didn't matter anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

And Jesus himself is like, no, what that's I've not come to abolish anything that was written previously.

SPEAKER_00: 4:24

I'm here to fulfill all of this and teach you how God wants to have a relationship with you. My goodness. So we can certainly look at Oh my me, don't reject the Old Testament. Exactly. If you feel like, oh well, this Old Testament God is just wrath, He just punishes, He's just angry all the time. Two things. A, read the Old Testament, maybe just read it and see if you still think that after reading all of it. Uh and B, you know what? He was angry a lot with his people, Israel, because they didn't follow him, they rejected him, they went off and followed their own desires, followed their heart. And maybe this should be a warning for us today to not do the same thing.

SPEAKER_01: 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:05

Because he is the same. And he didn't get soft just because he sent his son in in with skin on, you know, like he didn't soften up on sin just because Jesus came. Uh all right. And three, and three, add one.

SPEAKER_01: 5:19

Add one is that the old testament covers thousands and thousands and thousands of years of Israel's history, of man's history with God. And so there's just more instances of people rejecting him and him punishing them than the New Testament that covers what? Like 70 years of history. And the majority of that is focused on Jesus Christ coming and and the wrath of God in the New Testament is placed on Jesus for our sakes. So, like the wrath of God is still there in the New Testament, it but it's only telling 70 years of world history. Um I mean, not including Revelation that looks to this. And there's wrath there too. Right. So so there's just the difference between the two testaments is is also an issue of scale.

SPEAKER_00: 6:13

Yeah. Great. So So we should read and study the Old Testament, is what that's what we've kind of landed on.

SPEAKER_01: 6:19

That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00: 6:19

So hey, let's look at the Chronicles. First Chronicles, 20 years.

SPEAKER_01: 6:23

Of course, if you're listening to this podcast, you're kind of getting all of these stories and all of these books because we are committed to reading the entirety of scripture. And when we get to the end, we'll start over and keep going. We're gonna do something else with it. If you are listening to this, obviously you're in the camp that is listening to and engaging with the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_00: 6:40

So And if this is your first time, welcome. Keep listening. We're gonna keep going through uh first and now second Chronicles coming up. Uh, but before we do that, let's drill down on this first Chronicles 28, 9 through 10. I already read it.

SPEAKER_01: 6:52

Which we believe you can apply it to your life today.

SPEAKER_00: 6:54

And here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna walk through every phrase. Uh and Solomon, my son. Okay, we we don't need to walk through that phrase. That's David talking to Solomon. Learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Okay, this is not just for Solomon. No, this is for anyone who wants to please God. Because this is like our primary purpose as humans, like, is to know God. And God has honestly made it very easy and obvious. We're just dense. Like God said, I like all of creation declares the glory of God. Like, you should just take a walk in the woods and learn something about God, but we don't get it. Now, He's also given us the primary tool for us to learn more about Him, and that's the Bible. That's why we read it on this podcast so often and talk about it so often as we do, because it helps us know who God is. When we first started dating, like we just talked all the time. And I know other like couples, even before they really start dating, but you know they're interested, they just like, hey, where were you? I was just talking to her. We were up till 2 a.m. just talking. I'm like, okay, yeah, so you're you're basically dating now. Okay, great. And like for a while, that's just what you do. You just stay up late and you just talk because you would want to get to know them. And I know when we first started dating, I was like, I want to know everything from like your earliest memory to what happened this morning at breakfast. Like everything in between, and just the things that you like, the things you don't like, what was, you know, what were the hard times in your life and and what are you most proud of?

SPEAKER_01: 8:24

And I want to know what makes you happy and excited, and I want to know what makes you sad because I want to do more of what makes you happy and excited, and I want to do less and avoid the things that make you sad.

SPEAKER_00: 8:35

If there's something that you don't like, I'd like I would like to know that ahead of time and not find out by doing it and then realizing, oh, you don't like that. Like, oops. Like I would rather learn the easy way. The by studying the Bible and learning about God through the Bible is learning the easy way.

SPEAKER_01: 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:51

You can learn the hard way, but why would you want to do that?

SPEAKER_01: 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:56

You can learn the easy way by learning from all the examples in scripture and just seeing what God has said about himself.

SPEAKER_01: 9:01

And I love how it says, know the God of your ancestors intimately. And remember, this is this is being written under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00: 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:11

So what that says to me is that God wants you to know him intimately.

SPEAKER_00: 9:15

Yeah, copy paste into your life.

SPEAKER_01: 9:16

God wants you to know him and he wants you to know him intimately. He wants to have that relationship with you. That intimate relationship, that desire for intimacy didn't start with Jesus on the cross. It didn't start with God with skin on coming as Jesus Christ. It it has always been true. It has always been true that God wants to be known intimately by his people.

SPEAKER_00: 9:39

When we first started dating again, I I you you kept using a phrase that caught my attention, and it was like, oh, I love that. Like, oh, that's my favorite. You know, like you were very expressive in labeling things like that. And it could it could have been big significant things or something as mundane as like sleeping in a car. Oh, that's my favorite.

SPEAKER_01: 10:00

Oh, I do love Carnet.

SPEAKER_00: 10:02

You still do. Um, and so I started writing uh a list. I had a little black notebook. I think it was like for phone numbers and addresses. I don't know. It was a different time. What it was for is irrelevant. Mike, move on to something important. Uh but what I wrote down in that notebook was every time you said, like, oh, I love that, or that oh, that's my favorite, then I'd write that down. And it it was a list of probably like 50 to 75 things, I feel like, over time. And um and that's just I just wrote it down, and in writing it down, I would remember it. Sometimes I'd look at it as ideas for gifts, maybe like, oh, what can I do for Kelsey? Um, whether it's write a poem or buy her something, like um something in this list would be a good place to start.

SPEAKER_01: 10:47

And then when you proposed, you used that list to just build an entire day of all my favorite things. Yes. That ended with you proposing.

SPEAKER_00: 10:53

That was the proposal then of like Krem's many favorite things.

SPEAKER_01: 10:56

Yeah. So whole day of favorite things.

SPEAKER_00: 10:58

And this is what we do for someone that we love and we want to get to know more. Like we we try to remember these things.

SPEAKER_01: 11:03

We study, we take notes, we know what they love.

SPEAKER_00: 11:06

We know their favorite things. So the question is do you know what God loves the most? Do you know some of his favorite things? Do you know what makes God happy? Do you know what he likes? Do you know what pleases him? Get into the Bible more. Like just and or maybe make that a kind of a side quest as you keep listening to this podcast. Every time we read, just think like, what do I learn about God? What about what he likes here? You know, maybe you can fill up that list, dig in, discover it. You can know God intimately and primarily through the Bible. Get into it.

SPEAKER_01: 11:36

And secondarily through the Holy Spirit that we do have now, that they did not have then. Uh, we do have now because that's what Jesus promised when he left. He said, I'm going to leave and I'm gonna, and another is going to come and be your comforter and be your guide and be your uh your counselor. Like we have the Holy Spirit of God living and dwelling within us, and we can know him through that. We can know him by listening to the Holy Spirit and listening when he says go, listening when he says stop, listening when he says, I love that, I like that, noting that in our own spirits because he is speaking to us and through us, um, through the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00: 12:15

Great. We got to move on. Where there's more phrases.

SPEAKER_01: 12:18

There's so many more.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind.

SPEAKER_01: 12:22

Hmm. I remember in college I was in a a worship session, just like a, I don't know, we were in the basement of some building, um, and there was just a group of maybe 15, 20 of us um worshiping. And at that in that moment, I was just kind of half-heartedly singing and my hands were down, and I I was maybe just swaying a little bit. And I really felt a prick from the Holy Spirit. Um, speaking of the Holy Spirit teaching you about himself. Um, and I felt I I had this realization that in so many other areas of my life, every other area of my life, I was very demonstrative, I was very emotive, very excitable.

SPEAKER_00: 13:03

Like I said, you're like, I love this. This is my favorite. Like that's very Kelsey.

SPEAKER_01: 13:07

Yeah, very, very much me. And it's always I've always been that way. And yet as as he pricked me in that moment in that worship set, I felt him convict me that why are you so excited about other things in your life? But when it comes to worshiping me, you're just kind of holding back and how hum. And that changed me forever. I now I I I strive to be one of the loudest voices in church, not so that I'm heard, but because I want my worship to God to be the biggest moment of my week. I I put my hands up not because I want to be seen, but because I want to give him all of me. I want to be wholehearted in my worship.

SPEAKER_00: 13:50

Um that's worshiping and serving him with your whole heart.

SPEAKER_01: 13:53

Yeah. And I recognize that some people are not that way in their personalities, but for me, for my personality to be as big and outgoing and as large of a personality as I am in the room, to hold that back when worshiping God was wrong for me. And so for me, worshiping with my whole heart and a willing mind was was putting my whole self into it and not holding anything back.

SPEAKER_00: 14:18

That's really good. For me, a willing mind brings to mind the fact that personally, I'm not super into music. Like I it doesn't like I like music, I'll sing, and I know it's important to sing because worship is not about me or how I feel. But because of that, I think I really need to lean into uh the willing mind part of this. And we actually looked it up in every translation we could find, and it says willing mind. Like this is not just an NLT making something easy to understand. This is like Yeah, it's when it says willing mind, it means willing mind. And for me, that comes with the recognition that we don't always feel like singing. Or some of the words that your worship leader's leading you through on Sunday just don't I don't I don't feel that. Like that's kind of hard to swallow. It's saying all these things, great things about God, and or all these things about how I feel, and I don't feel that way, or I don't believe that about God right now because it's been a rough week. Like we if we're being honest, we feel those things. We don't always feel like singing. And so that's where I think we can come in with the willing mind with the willing mind. Willing of like, okay, I'm willing, God, for you to change my heart into what you want it to be and what it needs to be. I I don't have it in me honestly right now, but I'm willing for you to to change me and I'm I'm willing to I'm willing to sing, I'm willing to to worship not out of my feelings or my emotions, but because I do love you and I I I'm willing for you to to work in me. So uh a whole heart and a willing mind, you know, worshiping our service.

SPEAKER_01: 15:49

I have to think that too sometimes. Like I think even this past week, I was I I'm struggling with some like hip and back pain right now. And so in church, I I didn't want to stand up. I didn't want to sing because I was just very focused on my pain. But my mind was willing to worship him, even though I didn't feel it. I didn't really want to be there. But I was convicted that like, no, worship anyway, worship still, and my mind was willing even though my emotions weren't there. And that matters.

SPEAKER_00: 16:19

Next in the verse, for the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. We don't need to talk a whole lot about this, except to say this could either be good news or bad news. Like he sees every heart and he knows every plan and thought. And if that's a comfort to you, then great, lean into that. Like trust that he sees your heart. He knows your plans, he knows your motivations, he knows your heart. I was talking to a a friend who was asking me, I was like, hey, I in my prayer, I I said something that I thought just came out wrong, and so I apologized to God in that prayer. And I just like, do you like, do you think that is okay? Or like, do you think he's mad? And I'm like, look, and I I actually ended up going back to this, I sent him this verse because I had read it in the podcast. I was like, oh, here's my paper from my friend. So I sent it to him with with the understandings like, look, he knows your thought, he knows your plan, he knows your heart. Like, you don't have to think he's up to get you on a word technicality or a misstep.

SPEAKER_01: 17:16

In human interactions, I've heard it say, like, your your intentions don't matter. It's your actions that speak. Like, it doesn't matter what you intended, how someone took it is what really matters. And that that's probably true in human interactions. Praise God, it's not true with him. Yeah. Like, you don't have to say everything right. You don't have to get him to understand you and what you really mean to say, because he already knows what you really need to say. Your words don't have to be perfect. Your intentions actually are what he sees. Your plans and your heart behind something is actually what he sees.

SPEAKER_00: 17:50

So if this is a comfort, great, be comforted. If this makes you uncomfortable, like he sees you, he knows your heart, he knows your plans, he knows your thoughts, and that's like, ooh, I feel a little bit exposed. I don't want him knowing that. Well, then that's definitely some sort of issue that uh frankly he he wants to root out because it's not healthy for you to be feeling like you are trying to hide something from him. Um but here's some good news. If you seek him, you will find him. This is really quite. I'm just quoting Jesus right now. Oh, maybe Jesus was quoting first chronicles. Oh what? Maybe. Uh yeah, I mean, when we when we read, if you seek him, you'll find him. We often think of what Jesus says like uh knock and the door will be opened, seek and you'll find, ask and what how's it go? You'll receive. Okay, great. Um and that is very true because Jesus was trying to communicate the heart of the Father, but that shouldn't have been news. That that's something that David knew of God and expressed, and we have preserved back in First Chronicles. And let that be a comfort. Like if you want to know God, if you're seeking to know him more, seeking to please him, you'll find him. The flip side of that, David says, is if you forsake him, he'll reject you forever. This is a little bit more prickly. Uh and we probably don't have time to fully do it justice in a couple minutes here on the podcast. But I guess if I can simplify this, it would it would be this. Do you want to forsake him? Like, do you want to avoid God and reject him? Then he's not then I guess do that. I don't like I don't I I hope you don't. Um But this sort of verse often is this sort of concept is kind of a a fearful thing for people to be like, I don't want God to reject me. I don't want God to forsake me. Like I don't want to accidentally do something where God rejects me. I was like, oh okay. Well then this verse shouldn't be fearful for you. Like don't let Satan point to this verse or things verses like this and get you to fear that God is gonna reject you because you sinned, because you messed up again, because you're not as good as you could be. That's all Satan accusation stuff. Let that fall flat. That's not the heart of God. David is talking to Solomon here. David saw what happened to Saul, w the previous king, when he forsook, forsaked, forsaken God, and God rejects Saul, rejected Saul. And David is like, look, Solomon, I've seen this happen. Don't just stay faithful. Just don't, don't forsake God. I can't promise that he is going to establish your line as a king if you don't live for him. Okay. So he says in verse 10, take this seriously. Just and I would say to you, my friend, take this seriously. This is a relationship with God. It's a great pleasure. It's a great privilege. Let's just take it seriously. We're going to talk more about what it means to be a temple in the upcoming episodes. Um, because as David says here, the Lord has chosen you to build a temple as his sanctuary, be strong and do the work. We'll talk about more about that because there's a whole lot of great parallels of the fact that we are the temple. We are God's presence among us. He he lives in us now, and that's how he dwells with his people nowadays. For that reason, take this seriously. Let's just sign off with that. Let's take this seriously. Let's get into the Bible because we have a great tool and a great privilege to learn more about God. Seek him. We'll find him. Seek to know him intimately through the tools that he's given us to do so. Let's write lists, do our homework, take this seriously. Meet us back here next time and we'll keep talking about this. We'll see you then. Thanks for joining us.