Well, it is awesome to be with you, uh Church at the Grove, our family this morning. My name's Russ. If I hadn't met you, and I would love to get to meet you if I haven't, um, we're so excited that you're with us. Uh I have I share often you get to hear bits of my testimony on a regular basis, but I didn't I didn't grow up in church. Um, but I didn't grow up as an atheist. I I don't remember a day that I thought that there wasn't a God. I I I may have questioned things, I maybe have felt at times he wasn't there with me. I I didn't understand much about the Bible, the church, or theology, but I wasn't a skeptic. I I mean, I would have said, I believe in God. I believe that there is a God. I just didn't know what kind of steps I needed to take to actually know this God. How to pursue Him. And so I didn't know the difference. Here's the difference. I didn't know the difference between knowing about God and actually knowing God personally. I I might have acknowledged his existence, but I had yet to surrender my heart. And we begin a series today titled The God You Can Know, where over the next four weeks and leading up to Easter, uh, where we'll we'll talk about it even next week. We'll talk about how God is all-powerful. The following week we'll talk about the fact that God is all-loving. And then on Easter Sunday, we'll take those two things, the power of God and the love of God, and look at the most beautiful picture that is painted in all of history that tells us who God is and that he desperately wants to know us. And so today is a little bit of an introduction, or really it's about it's about this pursuit, inviting you, inviting all of us together to pursue God. You might be like me. You think you think this is a common belief when it comes to know how we view God, not just as children, but but people that we encounter every day. People are dealing with these issues, these issues. They're asking the question, who is God? Who is God in this crazy world where there's so many people, everybody has a voice. How do I really get down to the nitty-gritty, understand who God is? Who is God? And and for some people that's just a generic term. For some people, it's just this idea of this over-encompassing, all-encompassing term that takes all religious beliefs and puts them on the same playing field, and God just refers to anything and everything. For some, God is a big cosmic sheriff in the sky. And he is a killjoy. Man, if you're gonna have fun, certainly God's gonna show up. Not in a pleasant way, but that's many, many people have that perspective. God is the ultimate hall monitor of the universe, holding his clipboard, writing down every little wrong thing you've ever done. And his main personality trait in this sense is he's always disappointed. Anybody feel that way? Man, we we don't experience the joy. And some for some, God is a life coach. He's basically a motivational speaker with a beard. Believe in yourself, chase your dreams. You're amazing. And which, by the way, you are amazing because you created the image of God. But the problem with that is we we have a we have a God that is holy. We're gonna talk about that, and and there is such a thing as sin. And we have we we have to come to grips with that. We have to we have to be challenged in our choices and our lifestyle, hopefully, to direct us back to God. For some, God is the grandfather sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch. And you, when you pass by, he hands out candy. I mean, God, that's the kind of perspective we have. He loves you. He he's he's not really involved, he he's a bit old and senile, but but but he's there, he's that grandfather sitting in the rocker. And then for others, God is the means by which we further whatever our agenda is. And and maybe, maybe let me get a little, let me meddle a little bit. It might be your political agenda. For some people, God conveniently agrees with everything about your or our specific political party. And the creator of the universe, he has the same opinions that I do about taxes, immigration, foreign policy, and and and really, God, if you could just get it together, you know, and and get that agenda worked out with what I'm telling you, everything will be better. It'll be hunky dory. And he, why is this so important? A.W. Tozier, in his book, The Pursuit of God, which would be a great book to read over the next month, he says this. He says, whatever comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. What goes through your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about who you are, and it's so true. And here's the ultimate reality: we will become like what we worship. We will become like what we worship. And for people that don't have the a true biblical understanding that as we're gonna talk about over the next few weeks, it's it's we we sometimes can buy into this idea that everybody has different gods and they're just as valid as our God, which leads to this reality that you could you can you can kill someone, you can set off a bomb, and you can do it in the name of your God. Or we can look at what has now become so prominent that we don't even sometimes recognize it, but the prosperity gospel. Hey, uh drive a nice car, God wants to bless you financially, and and there, you know, it's it's this idea of a uh you know preacher getting on a private jet and and with one of his celebrity friends, and and you know, man, that is a that that is the essence of God's blessing. Or let's go out and I'm just you know what, I just decided that I'm gonna call out things that I normally wouldn't call out. But there's a church in in Kansas called the Westboro Baptist Church, and when I buried one of my students who gave his life in a rack 10, 12, 15 years ago, they were across the street from his funeral holding signs up, telling people that he was hated by God. We can look at other, we want to sometimes we're afraid to just call things out, and in a sense, we want to acknowledge or or or uh you know put our stamp of approval on the fact that, hey, just everybody's pursuing God in their own way, even though it's a Hindu that's sacrificing a goat to some God named Shiva, or or or whatever it is, the peace activist that's risking his or her neck to stop another uh war because she believes that God has led her or he led them to do that. And what about the celebrity at the Grammys or at the Oscars that stands on the stage receiving an award that that actually literally mocks the creator of the universe, but stands up and says, What do they say? I want to thank God. And so, how do we how do we define who God is? All these people are responding according to their beliefs, but what we believe about God matters. Can I say that again? What we believe about God matters. And so my desire is when we finish this series, we as a church, you as individuals, you as families, have a more in-depth picture of who God is and what it means to begin a lifelong journey of discovering who he is, his character, and who he is as a person in his triune existence, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And it will be deeply personal. And there won't be any doubts. There'll be hope and joy, and there'll be an anchor that anchors your life regardless of the storms. That you would become more intimately acquainted with the God of the universe through his son Jesus Christ. Simply put, we will move from knowing about God to knowing God more deeply, more personally, and more up close than ever. Anybody with me on this journey? Y'all want to travel this journey over the next few weeks? So my question is whether you are familiar or unfamiliar, what do these names and attributes and these characteristics mean to you? And how can you pursue God to lead to a deeper faith, a more intimate faith, and and how to encounter him daily, weekly, how to encounter him personally in your own walk, how to encounter him collectively as a body of Christ? Because the God, God reveals himself, he reveals himself. I am holding the revelation of God in my hand. Why did people go to their death making sure that we would have God's revelation at this point in history? And it's because of this. God reveals himself so we can know him. He doesn't reveal himself for religion, he reveals himself for relationship so we can know him. So would you just pray with me? Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the fact you have revealed yourself. And thank you for this word. Father, we we believe it. God, when we open this book, you open your mouth and you speak. God, may we have ears to hear, hearts to surrender, hands and feet to serve and to love. Transform us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So that's wow, what a thought that we could know the God of the universe and the study of scripture that we're going to look at today, and we're going to be in Genesis chapter 15. It reveals that God can be known because he reveals himself in Scripture. And it's the greatest endeavor, it's the greatest pursuit that we could ever take on in life, exploring the depths of who God is with the purpose of knowing him personally. It's the apex of our human experience. If you want to study something that will challenge you, change you, transform you, there's nothing greater than to study the person of God that is revealed through Scripture in His triune existence, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And then there's this story in Genesis chapter 15. Um to set it up. God's created the world. First, man and woman have been created. They rebel against God. As a result, they are separated from God. They are cut off from God. They are cut away from God. And so they once enjoyed God's presence. They walked with him in the cool of the garden, what we read in the accounts of creation, but now they're banished from his presence. Death and sin entered the world, and the perfect creation was no longer perfect. But God didn't leave it that way. He began to institute, he began to work out his master plan of reconciliation. And part of this plan, God speaks and calls a man named Abram. And here's what he says to Abram leave. Get up, get out, leave the safety and comfort of your home, take your family, leave your people group, leave this place that is comfort, comfort to you, a place of safety. You leave. Get out. And he begins this journey of walking with God. And you can see is it's a beautiful journey because you think that, oh, this particular set of circumstances, man, Abraham's gonna get it, but he doesn't quite get it. And there has to be another revelation of God. And God continues to reveal himself to Abraham. One day his name will be changed to from Abram to Abraham. And part of this plan is he calls Abram to leave his family, go on this journey. In the early stages of the relationship, God has given promises to Abram. Genesis 12, Genesis 14, Genesis 15, he repeats this covenant promise. He reminds Abram, I've got a plan, I've got a plan. But just like us, I think Abram constantly wanted more and more assurance. Probably because God is other than us. He's transcendent from us. We are created in his image, which causes, that's what C.S. Lewis talked about. This He's given us this hunger and a desire. Maybe some people call it a hole in our heart, something's missing that would cause us to reach out. And so what we see in this story in Genesis chapter 15 is that God is a covenant establishing and a covenant-keeping God. He is a covenant establishing and a covenant-keeping God. And we're even going to celebrate communion. That is a covenant ceremony reminding us of how God has revealed himself. So let's just read Genesis 15, 1 through 8. We'll read farther than that, but let's start there. It says, after these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward will be very great. So what's God doing? He's revealing himself. But Abram said, Lord God, what can you give me since I am childless? And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And basically, this is a servant thinking Abram has been promised, God had promised them a child. They have been able to bear a child. So he's beginning to plan ahead that his servant would inherit his life or his belongings, everything, even inherit the covenant that he has with God. And so Abram continued, Look, you have given me no offspring. So a slave born in my house will be my heir. Now the word of the Lord came to him. This one will not be your heir. This is what God's saying to Abram. Instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir. And so here's this covenant establishment here. He took him outside and said, Look at the sky, count the stars if you are able to count them. And then he said to him, Your offspring will be that numerous. Abram believed the Lord and he credited to him as righteousness. If you go to Romans, you can see where Paul quotes this verse referring to the fact that God is the one who takes the initiative and gives us the gift of eternal life and credits our faith as righteousness. And he also said to him, I am the Lord who brought you from the Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, I think I can identify with this. But he said, I mean, all this, I would, you would think, this, man, this is this is God revealing himself. Isn't this enough? He says, Lord God, how can I know? How can I know? How can I know that I will possess it? Have you ever been there? Have you just been crying out to the Lord before? God, just show me. How can I know? How can I know that you're gonna provide healing? How can I know that you're gonna provide financially? How can I know that you're with me? How can I know that you're gonna forgive me? That you're gonna accept me, love me unconditionally? And so at this point, Abram asked a question that I think all of us can identify with this story, and so much more because it's the human existence. I like that it shows that Abram is human like me. He's given the gift of righteousness. God has taken his faith and given him credit and giving him righteousness, right standing with God. He's given him the promises from God, but he shows that he's human just like you and me by asking an additional question. How can I know? God's not afraid of us coming to him, by the way. At any point, it does not reveal that you have shallow or little faith. It's just the fact that you are human like the rest of us. He goes on in verse 9. He says, He said to him, Bring me a three-year-old cow. Now, this is where it gets a little bit odd. Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, and a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half. Now, birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram, Abram drove them away. So this is a few thousand years before Jesus. The common form of a contractual agreement was what God proposed for Abraham to set up so that his question, how could I know, could be answered. Now, this to us, to me, is a strange ceremony. Take these animals, heifer, goat, I can't remember, pigeon, you cut them in half, half on this side. I really had a great illustration in mind this morning, but I felt like, man, it'll cause some trouble in the community. Because I passed by a lot of goats and cows and things, but just I didn't think it was the right thing. So he cuts them in half, lays half of them out. Now, can you imagine the scene, the setting? I mean, bloody, mess. And we think, how strange is this that God does this? But what God is doing is he is taking a practice that was normal in that culture to illustrate how he desperately wants to establish a covenant relationship with Abram. So this wasn't foreign at that point. This would have been the norm. Now, many of us have have gone into a room where we've bought a house or or purchased something. We had to sign paperwork, and it's the it, I mean, it's it's it's always so exciting. Um you get cramps from writing so much uh and signing so much. That's that's what we think about contractual agreements, but this is the norm. This would have been the culture, this would have been uh the acceptable means whereby a contract would be established. And here's something I just wrote in my notes. God always works in the context of the culture. God always works in the context of the culture, so he's taking something that is common in the culture to paint a picture of what it means to have a relationship between God and between Abram. And so God has Abram bring these animals for sacrifice, a heifer, a female goat, a ram, a turtle dove, and a pigeon. They're sacrificed, their blood was spilled. Abram cut them in half, laid them uh each half across from the other. And here's what would be the common thing. If you were entering into a contract, either for a uh a piece of property or or a building, or maybe even for a marriage or or some type of relationship, something that you're agreeing upon, and and you would, you, this is what the two parties would do. They would enter in this agreement, and what they would do is once they had been laid apart from one another by half, they would walk in between in this bloody mess. And as both of them walk in between each part of these animals in this bloody mess, what they are saying is this if you or if I break this contract and do not keep our word, may the same thing that has happened to these animals happen to us. You'll be cut off. There are consequences. May this happen to you. So I'm hoping to just give you a brief picture of something that is a significant part of that culture. In essence, you were saying, if I do not do everything I'm promising now, may I be cut off, may I be destroyed, may my flesh lay on the ground to feed the birds of the air and the beasts of the fields. This was a covenant ratification ceremony. It's the making of a contract. This is the normal part of the culture. Jeremiah refers to this all the way forward to the to the major prophet Jeremiah. He refers to this, uh Jeremiah. Jeremiah 34, 18, it says, And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and pass between its parts. There's a few other references that we could look at. Now, what happens next is not necessarily the normal part of the contractual agreement. Something happens here and it's supernatural. Verse 12, as the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him. And then the Lord said to Abram, Know this for certain, your offspring will be resident aliens for 400 years in a land that does not belong to them. And they will be enslaved and oppressed. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. But you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. When the sun had set, and here, listen to this, when the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. Underlying circle and right out in the margin, weird. Strange. Otherworldly. Just Megush here and you're listening. It's crazy. It's a crazy event. But it's not what the the basic ceremony wouldn't have been crazy, but what was crazy is the fact that a deep sleep fell on Abram and a dreadful great darkness came upon Adam. Abram. This is strange. It's hard to understand. Is Abram in a trance? What's going on? Is this what is this dreadful darkness that it speaks of? One of the things that I came across in a commentary described it as a darkness of the heart, a darkness that overwhelmed his heart and his mind. And we've all been around a fire, right? Whether it's at a house or outside at a fire pit or your burning brush, we can be overwhelmed with smoke and it and how it pushes. You ever walked around a fire thinking, man, I'm gonna get away from the smoke, but God just changes it and throws it right in the direction that you walk. And so when it was dark, it says that a smoking firepot and this flaming torch passed between the pieces that lay on the ground. So instead of Abram walking, there was a torch and a pot of fire. Miraculous. Otherworldly. So here's what I can imagine is typically the two parties would both walk through it. It would have been God that walked between and saying, God's saying, you know what? May this happen to me if I do not keep my covenant. And then Abram would have walked between the pieces of the animals, and he would, in essence, saying, May this or worse happen to me if I do not keep the covenant. But here's what I've learned. We, as human beings, we're just not great at keeping covenants. We always fall short. So why didn't Abram, why did not Abram make that journey? By the way, the language, the Hebrew language for the torch and for the uh for for the pot of fire, the same like it's the same language that's used to describe God as Moses goes to the top of Mount Sinai and God comes in his power. It's the same language used to describe the pillar of fire that would guide the Israelites through the wilderness. It's that same language. You know what it is? It's the presence of God. It is God in the midst of the situation. And what is he saying here? What is he saying? He's saying, I'm gonna walk in here on my behalf and make sure that I am responsible for my part of the covenant. Well, then it should have been Abram's turn to walk through in this covenant between the pieces of the dead animals, saying, Hey, it's my it's my turn, but what's the problem with that? What's the problem? Paul talks about it. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What are the chances that Abram in his humanity would be able to keep this covenant perfectly? Zip. How are you doing keeping the Ten Commandments or the law? I have found that I'm not so good at that. So here's what God's doing. He is foreshadowing what will come thousands of years later. Where not only will he be responsible for his end of the covenant, he will be responsible for Abram's end of the covenant. He knows that Abram will fail. I've got you, Abram. I'm responsible. So the torch is God, the pot is God, or vice versa. But the the big part, the essence of this, God is the one who assumes responsibility. This is the God who wants us to know Him. Up close and personal. And so this ceremony points forward. It points forward. It's this visibly double presentation of God's presence passed through the aisle, created by the divided animals. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel. Abram has come to hear to God to hear God's promise to bless him. Abram asks God a question. How do I know? How do I know? How can I know? And so God says, you can know because I am assuming your part of the covenant and my part of the covenant. He's saying I will assume my responsibility of the covenant. If I do not live up to my end of the covenant, I will accept the consequences. But Abram, not only will I assume my portion of the responsibility for the covenant, I will assume your portion of the responsibility of the covenant. If I fail on my part, I will accept the wrath that comes as a result. If you fail on your part of the covenant, I will accept the wrath that is due to you as a result. Abram, I've got you covered. I've got you covered. God saying, Abram, I'm gonna throw in. For both of us. Which is what happened. Three thousand years later, darkness came down again. If we read about it in Mark 15, at the sixth hour, darkness came over the whole land. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, where are you? My God, my God, how will I know? And Jesus experienced this great deep darkness. Isaiah says in Isaiah 53, Abram didn't know. Abram had no idea what was going on. He didn't had no idea that what it was going to cost God to make the promise that he did. And Isaiah says about the Messiah, for he was cut off from the land. He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people, he was stricken. His immortality did not become mortality. His immutability suffered mutation. The impossible became possible. God died, God was cut off. God was trampled in the dust. The darkness came down on him so that we could have light. God reveals himself so we can know him. If you're a note taker, just follow with me on a couple of things. God reveals himself so we can know him. We take that for granted sometimes. 1 John 5, 10 says, and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one, that is his son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. We are invited to grow in our pursuit of knowing God. 2 Peter says this, chapter 3, verse 18, but grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. And you know what? We most of us Christians, we've got it down real good to be able to say, I'm saved. I'm saved. But we don't have a plan from between right here and between the finish line of how to live our life in the same, in the same power, in the same grace through the gospel. What is the most important priority in our lives? It's to know God. Paul says this in Philippians. My goal. My goal is to what? My goal is to. You're gonna wake up and I'll keep preaching. My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. Not that I have already reached the goal or am I already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I can also have been taken hold by Jesus Christ, because I have been taken hold by Jesus Christ. So we're not only we're invited to grow in the pursuit of knowing God, we're invited to mature, mature and grow up through our pursuit of God. Do mature, the mature of knowing God personally, it transformed our character. John again in 1 John 2, I want you to listen to the language, the specific three categories. He says, I'm writing to you, fathers, fathers, circle, start, because you have come to know the one who is from the beginning. I'm writing to you, young men, young men. So he says, I'm writing to you fathers. Then he says, I'm writing to you, young men, and I would say, mothers and women, because you have conquered the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you've come to know the Father. I have written to you fathers, because you have come to know the one who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong. God's word remains in you and you have conquered the evil one. And according to these path, according to what John is saying, there's these categories. A child, children. He says, I write to you, children, because your sins have been forgiven. Do you know people who've been in the faith for a long time and they say, Yeah, my sins are forgiven, but they never move out of the children category into the young adult category. I mean, they're saved, that's great. But how do you know God? How do you know God in the depths of who He is? Young adults. It says he's working against the evil one, probably won some victories, built up some spiritual muscles. Now that he's gained a certain level of maturity, but then there's another level, and it's fathers, parents, another level of maturity. There's a great gap between a child and a young adult, but man, there's a big gap between a young adult and a parent or a father. And so what is it? Which one of those categories are you in spiritually? And let me tell you, Jesus is enough. I'm not trying to pile guilt. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But I would love to challenge you, inspire you, direct you, exhort you to pursue God at a deeper level. Organize your life around that. If you're new to faith, young in the faith, or if you've been around a long time, are you sometimes we ask the question, how can I know? How can I know? And so we're about to come to the table to take communion. And Jesus said that this bread, these wafers, the unleavened bread, it represents his body. And his body was cut, his body was beaten, his body was bloody, but his body was broken so we could have a covenant relationship with our Father, not just to squeak in to heaven, but so we can have the confidence to journey and to walk with the Lord. And we drink the juice that represents the blood that was spilled, that messy covenant. Well, I can tell you that the covenant through Jesus, that was a messy, messy experience from the time that he was arrested to the time of his crucifixion and as he gave his last breath. Ugly, messy, but at the same time beautiful. And so when we come to the table, we are saying, yes, yes, I remember, I know this covenant. And this is a covenant where Jesus has not only taken responsibility for God's part of the covenant, He takes responsibility for your part of the covenant. So my desire with these next few weeks is we'll know God deeper, more intimately. There's nothing like starting this series off with coming to the table and partaking. The way we do that here at Church to Grow, we practice open communion, which means we don't require you to be a member of our church or a church or denomination, but we do ask you not to come unless you know that you have a relationship with Jesus, that you put your faith in Jesus. And if you might be sitting here this morning and say, you know what? I'm ready, I'm in. I believe in Jesus. I believe. And this might be your first communion as a true believer. And so we we we invite those of you that know the Lord, we ask you to consider what Paul says, which we examine ourselves. And so we have three tables. We'll have um uh the sections in front of these tables can come uh to the to these tables here, but we also ask that some of you, if you don't mind, walk. Is it the side doors? All right, walk out the side doors in the back. Come to that table, and as you come back in, you come through the center door. I may not know the traffic for communion, but I do know the God that we remember. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for truth. Thank you for the reconciliation, the peace, the hope. God, I my heart is heavy for people that are in this room going through darkness, going through trouble, going through maybe something that is so defining to their life, Lord. But in the midst of this darkness, I pray that your presence will be more real, more personal, more intimate, and that Father, you would reveal yourself. I pray for this person that came in this morning, not as an atheist or a skeptic, but really just not someone who's been born again, not someone who's who's experienced uh what it means to walk in forgiveness. And so may this be a morning that they reach out and ask you to save them. Father, would you work as we celebrate and remember the covenant you established through your broken body and your spilled blood? God, thank you. Thank you, thank you. God, may this be a month that we pursue you like never before. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Everybody sit together. Listen, I'm gonna ask you.