Knowing God: Why Knowing God Is So Important - John 17:3, Jeremiah 9:23-24,

Introduction to new series "Knowing God."

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Thanks, team. Morning, everyone. So thankful you guys are here this morning. Labor Day weekend. Hopefully you guys are gonna get some time with your family, some downtime tomorrow. Some of you laughed about that because you know you're not, but hopefully some of you will. But we're glad you're here this morning. And uh my name is Nick, and I'm one of uh the leaders here and have uh the privilege of getting to preach this morning. Uh love getting to do that and share. And uh, to be completely honest with you, um, I'm pretty excited, pretty fired up about where we're going. We're starting a new series today. Uh I can't remember being this excited since uh the last series. And uh so uh just to be real honest, like uh we started, we just wrapped up the book of John, working our way through the entire uh gospel of John, and uh it was an incredible um opportunity just to learn uh from the Lord uh through that. And so you may be brand new to church, you may uh maybe it's been a while since you've been in church. I I don't know your story. Uh maybe you've been in church a long time. Uh here we sometimes will teach through books of the Bible, and sometimes we'll teach through specific themes or topics as God leads us. Uh, so we don't really take an approach to one or the other. We just really want to hear from God and then respond. And so right now we're actually getting ready to start a new series that will not be taking us through a book of the Bible, but will be taking us through something that's incredibly important, I believe, and that is the attributes of God and specifically what it means to know this God of the Bible. And we talk about God every single week here at Point Community Church. It's our desire to really make Him central to all we say and all we do. Um, in fact, I would even go as far as to say our goal of preaching here at Point is not just to produce people who are good or people who can do the right things, but to produce worshipers, to really call people to worship God. Um I heard really a guy who's an incredible communicator, uh good preacher, uh, and they asked him, Nick, what's your goal of preaching? And he said, Well, the goal of preaching for me is when I get done, I want them to do what I've asked them to do. And uh that sounds really good, right? Because hopefully he's asking them what to do with the God, what God's Word is asking them to do. It's not really him, it's it's God. But I would I would say that when we see God rightly, we will obey him. When we begin to worship him, when we begin to see a lofty view of him, and when we see him correctly, and I'm gonna speak to this again in a minute, that we will actually obey him out of an act of love and worship to him, okay? Out of a response. And so that my my belief is that preaching is about producing worship in the hearts of those who hear. And uh I'll go ahead and tell you this morning, this is gonna be a little bit different than a normal sermon. In fact, I'm not even not even sure I'm gonna call this a sermon. Uh, this is an introduction to this series on knowing God. Um it was about four and a half years ago uh that I first read a book that I had heard about almost well, most of my ministry life called Knowing God. Uh some of you maybe have read this book before. If you haven't, I highly recommend it. Uh, some of our leaders have been reading it. And about four and a half years ago, I read it for the first time, and it was just so life-giving to me. And uh, because we're so creative around here, and we thought about the series, we're like, well, let's just copy Packer. That's a good name. And so here we are. We're very creative. Uming God. But I would say that this has shaped uh my own heart to worship God rightly in so many different ways. And uh, it's not that this man just knows a lot of information, but he walks with God. And it's very clear in his writing. And so I encourage you to do that. I'm also gonna be referring to some other books, and in fact, the the A B team in the back, they were giving me a hard time. At least one of those members, I won't call him out. Because in the pre-service, which we do for the people who serve in ministry teams, uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna quote a lot of books today as I've been preparing to study and preparing to teach this. Um, I've been reading some books, and and so there I'm gonna give you more quotes than the norm. But I want to start this morning on the word of God itself. Because the word is the starting point. And if we want to know God, look no further than the word he's given us. It is supernatural, it is revelation to us about who God is, and this entire series is gonna be centered on the word of God, not my opinion, uh, not even second or third hand information, but let's look at the word itself because God has a lot to say. And so I'm gonna read four verses to you this morning as we get started. I'm gonna read them slowly. I'm gonna ask you to think about them and just know that uh we could do a sermon on each of these, actually, lots of sermons on each of these, but I want them to be sort of the groundwork, the established foundation for what we're gonna teach on this morning and in the coming weeks ahead. Okay? So here we are. John 17, verse 3. We just got out of John, and we're gonna go back and quote it. I think you're probably gonna hear a lot of John verses along the way because it's fresh in our minds and hearts. But here's what John 17, verse 3 says. They're on the screen above, you don't have to turn it to them. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ. Think about that for a second. That's profound. He's saying that eternal life is knowing God, specifically in the one you have sent, Jesus Christ. The second verse comes from Jeremiah 9, 23 through 24, about 10 years ago. God really landed this verse on my heart in a very particular way that has served me well the last 10 years of my life. And I want to read it to you. Here's what he says, Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. This is what the Lord says. The wise man must not boast in his wisdom, the strong man must not boast in his strength, the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth. But the one who boasts should boast in this that he understands and knows me. That I am Yahweh, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things. This is the Lord's declaration. The third verse. Now, this verse is going to take us for a little twist, but I want you to hear the words here because it's very important. This is from Romans chapter 1. And I would I would dare say, if you haven't read Romans 1 lately, I encourage you to go read it. Because I think what you'll find in Romans chapter 1 is a great depiction of what's going on in our world today. In fact, as I read it, it's eerily a reminder of exactly what we see in our culture around us today. But in Romans chapter 1, 21, the really the core of the problem with humanity is here. For they knew God, or though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Something about that makes the hair of my neck stand up because I just feel like this human race that we're a part of has such an arrogance in our knowledge, such a sense of we know this, we got it, we know what we need. Again, I can't go into great depth there, but just as a foundation, reminding ourselves this morning that though we know about God, or though people know about God, doesn't necessarily mean that they actually know God or actually worship Him as God. The final one is this. This is an encouragement, encouragement after that one, okay? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory as the waters cover the sea. That's not a maybe. That's not a this could possibly potentially happen. This is a promise. For the knowledge of the Lord will fill the entire earth like the waters that cover the sea. Man. That makes me excited. So I want you to do something with me before we really jump in. As we think about those verses, I want you to close your eyes for just a second, okay? Just for a second. Something we don't do often in our gatherings, at least not in this way. I want you to close your eyes and just for a second, I want you to picture God. I want you to think about God. I want you to think when you hear the word God, the name God, what comes to mind? What do you think about it? I'm gonna ask you to open your eyes. Now, in this room, I'm not gonna ask you to answer out loud, but chances are there's some similarities in some of the things that you picture when you close your eyes and you think about God, and there's probably some differences. Uh in the pre-service, uh, was asking that question because it's a little smaller group, and we could ask, hey, what do you what did you picture? What did you see? I heard things like uh a white beard, um, a throne, uh, some of those kind of things. A big hand, somebody said. But the truth is that we all have images that come to mind, and that image, that picture of God, those ideas about God, are shaped through human experience. So the life that we've been living to this point, we have had people teach about God, or we've had people explain to us who they believe God is. We've come up with our own explanations of God or thoughts about God, our own experiences, good and bad, have shaped how we think about God. And our perspective or our picture of God, I just want to say this from the get-go this morning. Maybe this is uh humbling for some, maybe it's even offensive, I don't know. But our pictures of God are incomplete. They're insufficient, they're imperfect. Our best attempts to try to picture God, to think about God, to reason who God is, to understand, comprehend God are incomplete. They're insufficient. Because in our humanness, this is what's so amazing, and why I'm so excited about this teaching series, even as we go through it this fall, is because we are limited finite beings. And God is not. God is infinite. He is so much greater, he is so much more massive and expansive and more beautiful and more awesome than we can even begin to understand and comprehend. Now, not all of you are convinced of that yet. But the reason we're doing this series is because for many of us, we have grown distracted, we've grown disinterested, bored, you could even use that word. Not realizing that the God of the universe, who wants a personal relationship with each one of us, is so incredibly awesome and amazing. And He wants us to be known. Wants us to know Him. So, as I said, we all have these pictures, and this is really significant because have you ever thought about the fact that the Ten Commandments, there's the the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. Commandment number one. Anyone know what number two is? No graven images, no idols. Now, it would make sense uh in one part, if you know the culture and the context of the day that those people were given these ten commandments, that Moses went up on the mountain and received them from God, because all the people groups that were around God's people, uh, they had idols. They had graven images, they had uh these gods, little g gods, made out of stone or made out of wood, made out of metal, and they would make these statues. Uh, we've talked about it, we we've gone to Indonesia several times, and you go there, uh, you see these statues. But in that culture, it would make sense, like God's saying, hey, don't make statues. Don't make wood, uh, metal, uh, you know, precious metals, whatever it is, don't make statues and worship those, because uh, that's that's wrong. That's not God. But actually, it's even deeper than that. It's not just that he was saying, don't bow to some piece of wood, though Isaiah and other passages in the Old Testament say this is silly. It's actually the fact that there is no image, there is no idol, there is no piece of stone or wood that we could compose into an image of God that would actually represent him rightly. Are you hearing that? Does that make sense? There is nothing because God is not definable by one particular image. I mean, the people of God, and I say it's people of God, the Israelite people, they had been rescued from slavery. They're brought out, they cross over the Red Sea, they get to the other side, God brings Moses up on the mountain, he gives them these Ten Commandments. While he's up there getting the Ten Commandments from God about not having any other gods and not making any graven images, what's going on down at the bottom of the hill? The people of God who he has rescued from slavery are down there taking their gold and putting it together and making a golden calf. At the same time, he's saying don't make graven images because he knows the heart of humanity is that we want to have God in a box. We want to have God in a definable way. And literally it says, this is what's crazy to me. For some reason, for a long time, I thought when they were making that calf that they were like trying to represent something else. But if you look at the word, it literally says, This is the God that brought us out of Egypt. Let's worship this God because now we've got a calf that represents his presence and his person. And what does Moses do when he comes off the mountain? He's angry. He is mad. And for good reason. God said, Don't do that. See, God is not definable, he's not containable, he's not, you can't put him into a representation. Even, I mentioned this knowing God book, even things like crosses can be a distraction to worshiping God. I know that sounds sacrilegious. I know it. But let me explain why. Because sometimes we can put our affections and our hope in a in this cross, but it's just a symbol. This is not God. Just like a crucifix, seeing Jesus on a crucifix. This is not God. It can symbolize what he has done. It can symbolize and represent the victory we have and the salvation we have, but it is not God. We don't bow down to it as God. Do you see what I'm saying? And we have to be very careful because we are not worshiping idols, things that we make with our hands to represent God. In fact, A.W. Tozer, who I'm going to be quoting fairly often throughout the series, he says this the essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of him. Well, I guess I'm an idolatry. Because there are many, many times I have thoughts about God that are not worthy of him. I entertain those things. And the truth is, is that idolatry is founded in that. Now, one note I do want to make here is because when you start a series like Knowing God, it can sound like we're getting ready to have like seminary 101 here, okay? It can sound like we're getting ready to turn church into a seminary classroom. Um, and I just want to say a couple things on the front end about that. First off, do you guys know what theology is? At its very basic definition, theology is the study of God. It's the study of God. Now, some people would say it's the study of God and the practices that go with the religion that surrounds it. I just say at its very base, theology is the study of God. And people would say, well, I'm not a theologian. I mean, we're going to leave that to the people who like to go to seminary, the intellectuals. Here's the problem. All of us are theologians because all of us are making assessments, having beliefs, understandings about who God is. In fact, R. C. Sproul writes it this way: no Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians, but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones. And I would say to all of us in this room, you have thoughts about God, you have insights about God, and you have even probably been on a journey of studying and discovering who God is. And so, in a sense, you are a theologian. And your theology has landed you in a particular position, view of God that is shaping your life. It's shaping who you are. I want to come back to that in just a minute. So we are all theologians, and I want to pray that through this series we actually get to be better theologians than we are right now, okay? Because what we believe about God will determine how we are doing in all of life. So, I want to answer four questions this morning. I'm going to try to move quickly through these, but this is to again set or establish kind of the intent of this series. And I believe on the back end, say something that will really be helpful for all of us, something that I desperately need to hear on a daily basis. In fact, moment by moment. The first question is this what do we mean by knowing God? What do we mean by knowing God? And maybe it would be helpful to answer that question by simply saying, we well, let's talk about what we don't mean, okay? In a very core sense, what we don't mean is just knowing about God. Okay? We don't want to just know about God. In fact, that's where Packer would really caution us is that you can go through an intellectual exercise and have more information, more content in your brain about God and yet still not know God. Some of you know that I had the privilege and blessing of getting to go to Bible college and to seminary. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for the challenge that was for me. I'm thankful for the classes that I walked into. I can tell you this: I was in classes where a professor stood up and taught about God as if he were any other subject like science or history or English. It was cold, it was disconnected, it felt like the Bible was just a textbook. And I was puzzled and unsettled by that, to be completely honest. This is why some people call seminary cemetery. Because you can go there and get a lot of information in your head and not actually know the God that we're studying. There were other classes I walked in the doors and I sat with professors, and it was very, very clear from the moment they opened their mouth that they weren't talking about a God who was distant or impersonal, one that they didn't have any experience with. They were speaking not just from a head knowledge of God, but from a true belief and understanding of God personally. And you know what? Guess which classes I learned the most about God in. The classes where there was a personal engagement with God. In fact, even the classes where we prayed and invited God to help us understand Him better versus just studying about Him. I pray that this will not turn into just an intellectual exercise for you. We are as a culture, we love knowledge, don't we? We love it. We love our websites, we love our books, we love our conferences, we love our podcasts. Man, we are all about knowledge. But knowledge alone is not what we need. Yes, we do need knowledge. Yes, we need understanding. So don't hear me saying that I think knowledge is all bad because God gave us an intellect. And last week we taught about loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. God gave us the capacity to think. John Piper wrote a great book, if you're looking for something, if you're a reader, called Think. And he's really challenging our people in our culture in our day and time to think about what they believe. We hope when you come to Point Community Church, you don't check your brain at the door. That you think, you use reason because God is a God who has given us that capacity. But to turn God into an intellectual exercise or study of God into an intellectual exercise would actually miss the point. God doesn't want us just to know about him, he wants us to know him. The Bible even speaks to this idea when it says that the word know in the New Testament is not just a head knowledge, but an experiential knowledge. God is personal, he engages us on a personal level. This is the beauty of our Christian faith, is that God is not distant in the process. He is very much there and engaging when we acknowledge him and invite him and pursue him in that way. Now, one one other thing I should say is that the goal of this study, or should I say, what we're not trying to accomplish, is just making better Christians. Now that probably goes, like, what are you talking about, Nick? Because the word Christian has become a junk drawer, catch-all term for anybody who's who's following kind of the religious way of Christianity. And our job is not to just become better Christians, better moral people, better versions of ourselves. That God actually wants us to love him, to obey him, to worship him, to understand that our primary identity is his child, his son and his daughter. And so, even though it might sound like a good goal to say we hope that through this knowing God that we become, you know, better in our behavior, just to just know more about how God works and what he wants us to do could be purely driven. By external behavior modification. What my prayer is is that God, as we know him, would so capture our hearts that, as we said, we would be stirred to live for him, to lay down our lives in response to the fact that he laid down his life for us. That we would be stirred to worship and obey him out of love, not just out of information. I don't know if you guys realize this or not, but one of the things that I've noticed as I've been in different parts of the world and even right here in our own city, I've met people from other religions, other faiths. And I would argue that many times other religious people, be it some of the Muslims that I've met, be it some of the Mormons that I've met, that they are more moral than we are. I've been embarrassed at times that I've watched a Mormon dad and said, I wish I was more like him. I wish I was as gentle and as kind with my words as he is, with my children. But this is not a contest to see who is the most moral, well-behaved person. This is about knowing the true and living God, not just being good people. When we really do know God, it will change our life, it will change our behavior, but we don't get that ahead of knowing God Himself personally. So when we have a personal relation with Him and we have a growing awareness of who He is, we will be changed. And so that's what we pray for. That's what we want is to know God. And I said this before, and I'm gonna say it again. If we really want to know God, His Word is a great place to start. To really know Him through His Word. These books are great, they're supplements to that, but it's His Word, again, that we can really begin to know Him. So I'm gonna come back to that point again. The second question is this Why is knowing God so important? So I've already started to make that case, but I want to be more clear. Because many people go, oh great, like this is like really not helpful. Um Nick, I don't know if you're like completely detached from my reality, but I have marriage issues. Um Nick, I don't know if you see this or not, but like my kids aren't obeying, and I'd like some like tips and tricks on how to get better at that. Why are we having a conversation about knowing God? Uh Nick, I don't have enough money in my bank account. I don't see how knowing God's gonna help that. Here's the facts. The issue of knowing God is actually the most important thing we can focus on. The implications of knowing God are incredibly practical. Tim Keller says this way How do you change your behavior? Change what you worship. The more we know God rightly, the more we engage with God rightly, the more we understand who He is, again, it will affect our marriage. It will affect our parenting. Now, I can't get into all the specific illustrations of that today, but let me just remind you, like in a very practical sense, that who you are, who you are, is a created being by a loving, gracious, amazing creator. He knows how you work, he knows how you think, he knows what drives you, what motivates you, what stirs you, what compels you. He knows you better than you know yourself. What better way to learn how to live on this earth than to know the one who put you together in your mother's womb? Who actually knit you together as Psalm 139 tells us? I want to give us some personal implications about this because A.W. Tozer says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Do you believe that? Maybe not yet, but my hope is that you will start to see why this is the truth. But I would say that there's incredible personal danger when we ignore God and we don't look up to God, when we don't see him as the solution. Because many times what we try to do is we try to resolve earthly problems by simply earthly means. So we just want to fix what's going on here. We want to fix marriage relationship here. We want to fix parenting relationship here, we want to fix extended family here, we want to fix our single purity issues here, we want to fix our job stuff here. And I'm telling you, you're never gonna get those things resolved if you just keep your eyes here. But as we lift our eyes to God, we will see rightly, he will help us get the right perspective, an eternal perspective, a God perspective, and we'll begin to worship Him and not those things. And we won't look to those things any longer to satisfy the deepest needs of our heart. We'll look to Him, and then those things actually can work themselves out. It's amazing, it's incredible. And I'm I know some of you still don't believe me, and that's okay, but I'm just telling you, as you start to know God rightly, some of the things that you're wrestling with will start to come together. And I don't mean that all the trials will go away. I'm not saying all your suffering will end, but you'll be able to start to see it the way that God sees it. And understand that there's a God who is with you in it, who is much greater than we're giving him credit for. J.I. Packer says, disregard the study of God, and you send it yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction, no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul. I thought about the illustration this week of you guys uh seen the um movie. I think it was called Jungle the Jungle, but it's kind of the story of Tarzan or something like we brought him into the city. You guys remember that? Am I the only one who's ever watched that dumb movie? Okay. Kind of feeling alone out here. Dumb movie. They bring him from the jungle and they put him in a city, and he's like completely like lost, right? Maybe, maybe this will help. Anybody watch Elf? They bring him from the North Pole and they put him in New York, right? And he's completely like lost, right? He doesn't know, he's disoriented, he's like met, he's messed with, like he doesn't know how things work, and so that's why he's you know doing really strange things. And um, but bottom line is when we try to do this life without knowing God, our creator, God, it's like we're disoriented, we're just we don't get it, we don't understand how things fit together, we don't know how things work, but when we know God, we begin to see how it all works, it begins to fit together, it begins to come together. And I see that in my life over and over again. We're gonna be tempted on a regular basis to look here and to just try to resolve it here and try to come up with our own wisdom. And the Bible even says that in a man's heart, you know, he he believes that he's right, there's a way that's right to him, but in the end it leads to destruction. And that's what I see so many people doing. They're trying to fix all the problems here and not realizing that the God of the universe who made them, who has the solution, is waiting for them to turn to him and experience the wisdom that they need to gain that, to gain the perspective and the insight. Even the comfort. There's some corporate implications too, and I love the way that a couple of the guys who I've been reading have spoken to this, but it's also a very sad reality when he says, when the when the church is struggling, um, and it's off base, you can point to a lack of focus and an understanding of who God is. When churches, local churches and the big sea church, when we start to really struggle, it's because we've taken our eyes off of God. And the way to fix that is to put our eyes back on God. And so that's what we want to do as a community of believers here saying, let's lift our eyes to God. He can resolve it. It doesn't feel as practical, it doesn't feel as helpful, it doesn't feel as timely as we think, but believe me, it is way more helpful than you can imagine. And you're gonna see that in the coming weeks, I believe. A low view of God will produce a powerless and weak church that doesn't pray, that doesn't love, doesn't serve well, doesn't live in holiness, doesn't take the gospel serious, or even the mission to take the gospel to the nation serious. But the converse is true. When we fix our eyes on God, the church becomes unstoppable. Because it's not about what we can do, it's what God can do in us and through us. And we can love well and we can serve well, and we can forgive well, and we can minister to each other well, and we can have unity, and we can see the gospel go out to people in our city and all across the world when we fix our eyes on God. Tozer says this as well: so necessary to the church is a lofty concept of God that when the concept in any measure declines, the church, with her worship and her moral standards, declines along with it. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God. Oh, may we be a church that has a lofty, high opinion of God, that's increasing daily. And I would also remind us, it's so important that we know God because John 17, 3, which we read at the very beginning, says this. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the one, the only true God, and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ. Eternal life. Listen, guys, eternal life turns on nothing more and nothing less than the knowledge of the true God. Eternal life is not so much about everlasting life as personal knowledge of the everlasting one. Like, think about that for a second. I know we put so much emphasis on not going to hell. I mean, I hear people that say, I don't want to go to hell, I'm gonna go to heaven, so I'm gonna follow Jesus. Listen, heaven, what's gonna be so amazing, so beautiful, so awesome, the reason we should want to be in heaven one day is because that's where God is. And that it's not just the absence of sin and suffering, though. Can I get an amen? I don't want any more sin and suffering. I'm tired. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of seeing people die with cancer. I'm tired of people dealing with all kinds of physical illness. I'm tired of not having enough money. I'm tired of seeing people uh who are weak being exploited. I hate that stuff. God hates that stuff. Man, praise Jesus. A day is coming when all that stuff will come to an end. Like, praise God, there's a day coming where there'll be no more marriage crisis, where all the kids will obey. Amen. Praise God for that. But let me tell you what's even more beautiful than that. Being in the presence of God. It's actually way better than that. Because he's who we were made for. And our hearts are longing for him. Our hearts are longing for him. We don't even know it sometimes. We don't even recognize it. Because we chase after lesser loves. We don't see that that's actually us trying to find God. Trying to find what only God can give. God is eternal life. Jesus is the way to eternal life. So knowing God rightly enables us to begin living right here, right now, as it is in heaven. Think about that. Some people always talk about, well, the then and there. You know what? We'll just kind of ride this thing out, and when we get to heaven, then it'll all get fixed. Listen, God wants you to experience heaven breaking through here and now in your life. Sure, it's not going to be complete this side of heaven. Sure, there's still going to be struggles, difficulties. But when we begin to understand Christ, we begin to live as citizens of the kingdom now. Not just then and there. When we get to heaven, it's going to be beautiful to be with our God. So, what are we praying for as we go through this study? Um, I just want to share a couple of things that are in my heart as we go through this study. As I said, this doesn't really feel like a sermon today, but just to answer these questions. And as I mentioned even previously, as we've been building this case, I mean, I, along with our other leaders, we're praying that we will understand the importance of knowing God. We will understand how significant this is. We understand the practical nature of that, not just that it's some intellectual exercise, like I said. We want to know God personally, and I believe as we all know God personally, we will mature, not just individually, but collectively. We're praying that God would move us from just knowing about God to actually, again, experientially knowing God, and that would produce a love and obedience to Him. And I would summarize really that this is what I'm praying for: that God, would you expand our view of you? So that our hearts would be humbled and our lives would be transformed into greater reflections of our God as we increase in love and obedience to you. Man, I'm praying that God would help us grow like never before. I believe that that's what's coming. I believe that for those of you that join us in this journey, that this is gonna be the most incredible season of your Christian walk you've ever had. And I'm not saying that because of my preaching. Okay? I'm not even gonna preach all these. We're gonna have multiple voices preaching these things, and we're gonna do our very best to stand up here and to proclaim what God's word says about these particular attributes all through the whole fall. And by the way, we're gonna talk about attributes that you're gonna like and attributes that you're not gonna like. We're gonna talk about attributes that make give you warm fuzzies, like God is loving, he is just He is. I'm sorry, that doesn't make me feel warm fuzzy. Um loving, He is merciful, He is gracious. We're also gonna talk about the fact that God is wrathful towards sin. He's a judge, He's just. And that's actually a really good thing, by the way. It doesn't sound like it, but He is. It's good. And so we just need God to help us grow in our view of Him. So, how can you actually get the most out of this study? This one's gonna probably seem so obvious, but I need you to just hear me out. We need to humble ourselves. If we're actually going to experience more of God, know Him better, then we have to humble ourselves. I would tell you that the greatest barrier to you and to me actually knowing God is our pride. God, I got this. God, I already know. I mean, some of y'all have heard me say this before, but man, one of the worst habits I've passed on to my kids is saying I know after I say something to them. Hey, you know, try to tell them something that I don't think they know? I know. You ever had that happen? You have a friend that's like that? Have you tried to tell them something? I know. Man, we are prideful creatures, aren't we? We struggle to be teachable. That's why it's become one of my number one prayers on my list of my prayers for my kids. God, help them to be teachable. Unlike me. No, I want to be that way too. I want to be humble, I want to be teachable. But we have to be humble. Guys, you know this. That the Bible says plainly in James chapter 4, verse 6, that, but he gives greater grace. Therefore, he says God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. If we want to know God, we've got to humble ourselves and acknowledge we don't know everything about him. That our view is limited, that our perspective is skewed, that we need to grow. And we can acknowledge that. And that doesn't change our value, by the way. Not knowing stuff doesn't make you less of a valuable person to God or to a less valuable human being. God's value, he's given you, was in the fact he created you. And the fact that Jesus died on the cross for you, declaring your value. So it's okay to say, I don't know. We struggle with that. Just like we struggle to say, please forgive me for whatever we've done when we wrong people. But we can humble ourselves. And if you want to grow, we've got to, got you, got to say, God, I humbly come to you and say, Teach me. Help me, help me to grow. And I believe that if you will do that, you will grow. You will see God in new ways. Listen, one of the challenges is that whenever we don't know something about God, we fill in the gaps with our own thoughts. Right? So there's things that God does or life things that happen, and we we like say, okay, well, I'm gonna, this is this is who God is. This is how God works. Not only is it arrogant, it's incredibly, incredibly dangerous. Tim Keller says it this way if your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself. Ouch. Right? But that's the truth because for many of us, we've decided already and determined who God is. And again, we all need to grow in this. If your God is in a box, it's time that you humble yourself and let him out. At least in your mind, because he's not in a box anyway. But know this that the more you study God, the more humble you will become. The more you will realize how little we are. I mean, just think about this. The beauty of God enabling these little finite creatures we are. I mean, you you guys, we've talked about this before. You get an airplane, you go up in the sky, you look down, you see the city below, and you're like, we are so tiny. I can't imagine what it's like for those who go into outer space and you know they see the whole earth from this, the window of a spaceship. And like, there's the earth. And that's like still close. You guys ever watch the videos where they just zoom out and zoom out and zoom out and zoom out, and all of a sudden you're like, whoa, there's the earth. It's that little bitty speck over there. Here we are on it, and we make ourselves the center of it. We are so small, we are so finite. And yet, God, who created all of that expanse, says, You're valuable, and I love you. It's incredible. We're humbled, but then we are reminded as well of how good God is. In fact, Charles Spurgeon says, No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than the thoughts of God. Let me tell you, when you know you're actually studying God rightly, is when your humility is increasing daily. That you're increasingly able to say, Man, I'm a wretch. And it's only God's grace that has saved me. That's when you know you're getting a right view of God. The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I realize how undeserving I am of the cross. And how incredible his beautiful mercy and kindness and grace is towards me. The second thing I encourage you to do in this study is not just to humble yourself, but to commit yourself, to commit, commit personally, to be a person of prayer, not just to talk to God at mealtime and when you are leaving your house, your kids, or before bed at night, um, but to personally pray, to dialogue with God, to engage God. God wants to commune with you. I personally am growing in prayer right now. I've seen my intensity of prayer, my frequency of prayer increase, and I can start to sense God speaking to me more. I'm starting to get a grander perspective. I've got a long way to go, a lot of learning to do. But how awesome is it that the God of the universe wants to speak to us and allows us to speak to him. So I encourage you to pray and talk to him because there's going to be some things that we say that you're going to struggle with. Talk to God about it. And then listen to his word. Be in the word. This word is amazing. It's a miracle, it's a spiritual uh gift to us. And so as you read the word, let the word shape you. We have a reading plan we put in our in your worship guide. You can read that every week. It's not the only plan. You can read, in fact, tomorrow, anybody who wants to join me, I'm restarting a read through the Bible in a year plan. Um, I would love for more of you to join me. It's great to have conversation with people as we read through it. But the bottom line is we get in the word, you start to see who God really is. You start to understand how our ideas about Him are off, or even be challenged by things at times that just don't make sense to us. And remember again our limitations. But I also encourage you, really take time this year to reflect, to sit, to meditate, to reflect. I'm not talking about sitting in, hmm, like that, okay? I'm saying like listen to God. I'm talking about listening to the Lord and thinking about what his word says. I also want to encourage you to commit in your family to talk with your kids, to talk with your friends, to talk with the people around you who are believers and work these things out with them. Share with them what you're struggling with, share with them how it's a challenge for you. Uh we actually have a tool that's going to be released every week. I think uh we had a slide up earlier, but we want to encourage you that we're going to be sending out a weekly just discussion starter. You can use it with your kids, you can use it with your spouse, you can use it with whoever's in your house, and you can just talk a little bit about these particular attributes as we go through them. Thankful for that tool. It'll be a great way for you to get connected with these attributes during the week and continue to think about them. Also encourage you in communion with other believers. Like, be here on Sundays. Not because church attendance is how you get God's approval. That's silly. Church attendance isn't how you get God's approval, or it's not how you get into heaven. It's a way we grow, it's a way we challenge each other. It's a way through preaching and teaching and singing songs that are theologically sound and helpful. Like they remind us who God is and they grow us. And so I encourage you to be here on Sundays. I encourage you to connect to a life group. If you need help connecting to a life group, I can help you at the back of the room. After we're done today, we've got multiple groups that meet across the city. In those conversations, you're going to be talking about the same things we talk about in here on Sundays. It's an opportunity to really challenge one another, encourage one another, because you don't want to get isolated in your study of God. You have an enemy who wants to feed you lies and tell you things that are not true. Scriptures get twisted, things start to mess in your head, and you get confused. I encourage you to be in community as you. Study as you think about God, as you consider who He is. So be in that, in life groups, in D groups, whatever it might be, but find other people and connect and commit. Now I want to close our time together this morning before we take communion and worship and pray together. I have to take an opportunity this morning in this whole conversation to just remind us of the person and work of Jesus. Not as a tag on to these four questions, but really to reiterate the point that I'm trying to make, which is that this is not an impersonal or cold intellectual exercise, but it's a personal one, okay? Because here's the truth. What's so beautiful about this idea of knowing God, what's so compelling of even why we would want to know this God, is that we actually have a God who has initiated a relationship with us. We actually have a God who knows us. And I'm in awe of that because, as I said, us in our finiteness, our smallness, we struggle sometimes to see ourselves that way, but also we can struggle to think God doesn't care, that he's distant, that he's far off, that he's trying to hide himself from us. And the truth is, God has revealed himself to us and he loves us and he wants us to know him. But we get in our own way because, again, our pride, our sinfulness, our chasing after lesser things. And I love the fact that God continues to pursue us, and even this morning, he's pursuing you. I want to read this quote from the Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis. I think it's really helpful as I even prepare my own heart for this study ahead. He says this in the end, that face, which is the delight or terror of the universe, must be turned upon each of us, either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not. How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of him is of no importance except insofar as to relate it how he thinks of us. To please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in, as an artist delights in his work or a father in his son. It seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain, but so it is. You understand what he's saying? I know it's a lot. The thought that God loves us, that he is pursuing us, that he knows us, compels us to want to know him, drives us. Listen, some of you came in today and you're like, man, I just came in again needing help with my marriage. I just came in needing some encouragement for the struggle that I'm facing right now financially. There is a God who is big enough to handle all that. There is a God who can carry your burdens in a way that you can't. There is a God who is most incredibly awesome, loving, and gracious, and will meet you and minister to you right where you are. And if you will call on him, he will help you with all these temporal problems that you have that he finds very important. But what's to reiterate the point that your greatest need has already been met in the person and work of Jesus Christ. That your greatest need is not simply peace relationally or financially, but your greatest need is to be with the God who made you forever. And he made a way through Jesus Christ. And if you put your trust in him today, if you call on him and you turn away from all those lesser loves, you pursue him, you will find life. And you'll begin to experience tastes of heaven here and now. You can do that in Christ. Let's pray. God, thank you so much that you are awesome. Far better than we can even begin to imagine. Far more incredible than we can even begin to comprehend. And I pray, God, that over the coming weeks, months even, as we talk about who you are, I pray, God, that our view of you would expand, that our hearts would be humbled, and that, God, that we would worship you rightly. I honestly believe that if we see you rightly, it will produce worship. And so I pray that whatever's distracting us from seeing you rightly, our pride, the enemy's work in the world to make us think that there's something that's more satisfying, more beautiful, more significant than you. I pray that you would help us by your grace, help us by your spirit to know truth, to turn our eyes to you. Um, God, I pray over every person in this room this morning. Uh, I don't know if every person in this room actually has a personal relationship with you. I don't know if every person in this room has actually surrendered their life to you, but I pray that even in this moment, by your spirit, you would call them to yourself. Just like you did me. Thank you that you initiated a relationship with me when I didn't deserve it. In fact, I was your enemy. And I pray that even today you would do that in this place. Help us to know you, God. We praise in your name. Amen.