Point Community Church
The teaching of Point Community Church in Austin, TX.
Point Community Church
Knowing God - God is All-Knowing
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It sounded like one. Well, good morning, everyone. It's great to see you guys. And for those of you that maybe this is your first time at Point, my name's Nick, and I'm one of the elders here, and had the privilege of getting to preach this morning. So very thankful for that. Grateful that you are here and hope you feel welcomed and encouraged. If you are a guest with us, invite you before you leave today. Actually, at the connection point at the back, we have a small gift to give you just to say thanks for being our guest. And you can also find out more information about how to get connected. And when you came in, you should have got a worship guide. It's just that little half sheet folded. If you did not get one once you lift your hands, our ushers can take care of that. And they can get hook you up with one of those right there. Yeah, cool. And then also, if you happen to be sitting on my left, your right end of a row, there's a little black pad. It's called the connect pad. And if you wouldn't mind just bending down real quick and grabbing that, picking that up if you're on uh the this end of the row. Uh and then basically that that's just the way we know who's with us, um, and and we can follow up with those that maybe that maybe you're new and help you get more connected here. We're not gonna uh spam you, we're not gonna stalk you or anything like that. We just kind of want to know, and then also for people who are regular tenders here, it just helps us know uh who's here. And if you're not here, then we can follow up with you as well and and uh check on you if you're you're struggling. So uh that being said, uh that was a great song to prepare us for us uh to teach from the Word of God today and talk about uh this issue of God's all-knowingness as we continue our series on attributes of God called knowing God. Um if you've been with us so far, we're only about four weeks in. And one of the things that we've heard, um, you know, of course, is that these are challenging. Uh these are intellectually uh stimulating, they're deep, uh, they're very challenging at times. Last week in particular, we talked about the sovereignty of God. Alex did a great job walking us through that from the scripture. Um I'll be honest, again, there's just mysteries in God we're never gonna resolve this side of heaven because our brains can't fully comprehend. And at the same time, and this has been so good for us to remember, is that while we can't fully comprehend God, we can still know Him. We can still have a personal relationship with God. And uh and so we encourage you, even as you wrestle through the mysteries of who he is, and even today, there's gonna be some things that I'm sure we're gonna talk about, and you're gonna be like, I just can't get there. I can't fully mentally get that in my brain and make that make sense. But yet, God is here, his presence is here, he is making himself known to us, and I want to encourage you in that. Another thing that happens as we talk about these attributes of God is that sometimes we can think, well, you know, let's just leave these kind of topics, these kind of subjects to like those who teach in seminaries and like the real heady intellectual Christians. But for the normal Christian, I'm not real sure this is helpful. Like maybe for the average Christian, uh, I'm not real sure we need to talk about this. I mean, it's a little bit kind of, again, can be a little bit tough to get our brains around what why why would you why would you stir up this nest in a sense of hornets in regards to even like some of the hard questions that you get pushed back on? I mean, I've talked to several people this week that are like, man, this sovereignty of God thing, I don't really know what to do with that. And I actually think that's a good thing because we should continue to see that God is beyond us in many, many ways. But I want you to know that on a very practical level, and we're gonna get very practical today, there are there are realities about these attributes of God that impact how we live every single day. Okay? Now, I don't want to spend a lot of time here, but I want to remind you like if you walked in today and you were struggling with fear, you're struggling with fear in your life. Fear of failure, fear of the unknown, uh, fear of not having enough money, uh, fear of relationships breaking down. If you came in today with a sense of fear on you, I want you to understand that the attributes of God, who God is in his person, actually impacts how you deal with that fear. Okay? And we've been talking through this even with our residents. Uh we here at point right now we have about four residents who we meet on Sunday evenings, and we're we're talking about how we deal with the fear of man, for example. And how do we, how does the fear of God, seeing God rightly and understanding him rightly, actually impact how we deal with fear in our lives? Because here's the thing what we worship, and I would say that whatever you fear most happening indicates what you really worship. Whatever we worship will drive our behavior. Um, there's a great teacher that this week, as I was preparing for this lesson, I thought this was so helpful. He says, our personalities will inevitably conform to our gods. We are made in the image of God, the creator God, the big G God, and when we worship an inferior version, an idol, a small g God, whatever it is, we become like whatever we worship. An idol is the thing or person that comes first in our lives, and we will be either be deformed by our idols or transformed by the true God who made us. So when we let things in our lives that are not God control us, drive us, and maybe again fear is an indicator of what we are letting control us, drive us, it will deform our lives. But when we look to God, we will be transformed into who He made us to be. Isn't that awesome? So as a Christian, we don't just come and slap a band-aid on, hey, you're having some marriage issues. All right, well, here, do these three things and it'll get better. Or, hey, you're struggling with your finances. All right, let me tell you what, do these three things and it'll fix all the problems. Because there is no amount of money in your bank account that's going to resolve the issues in your heart. Does that make sense? So sometimes behaviors, uh we want to fix those behaviors, and believe me, God has lots to say about our behaviors. And he can give us wisdom. But if we don't get our eyes off of ourself or off of the temporary things and on the eternal God, true God, we'll never resolve the issues that we really have in our hearts. And so we want to call us to look upward, to see God rightly. In fact, uh the same teacher that I mentioned a while ago, he went on to say, if we aren't careful, we become trained Christians. People who have learned to do the things that people expect outwardly, while maintaining those outward traditions, we may be God-starved inwardly. You hear what he's saying? He's saying that on the outside we might actually look like a Christian, but inwardly you don't even know God. We don't even have a real personal relationship with God because anybody can conform their behaviors. You don't have to be a Christian to have religious conformity, right? You can look moral, you can look good, you can look upright, you can do the right things as a husband or a dad, and you can sustain that to some degree, especially with enough pressure. But can you truly change yourself? No, only God can truly transform us, can truly change us. In fact, the Bible even reminds us that the Christians in Ephesus, it was one of the ancient cities. You guys know the city? The book of Ephesians was written to the church at Ephesus, and it says in that, in Revelation chapter 2, that they lived awesome. They like looked awesome in their outstanding uh Christian character, but they lost their first what? Love. So on the exterior, they looked like good Christians, but interior they were rotten. Their love was not there. I want to be a people. I want to be a person. I want to be a husband, a dad, a pastor, a leader of the church. I want to be one who my heart is passionate about Jesus. And that determines how I live and how I act and how I love others and serve others around me. So we have to lift our eyes to God and see God rightly. I want us to start out in uh Psalm 139 this morning. It's a very popular, familiar Psalm, Psalm 139. And I want to uh call us to look at it, just the first six verses to get started. We're gonna come back to it several times over the message, uh, that talk about this idea of God knowing everything. We're gonna talk about God's omniscience. Okay? So here's what it says Psalm 139, verse 1. It's on the screen above me. There's also some Bibles under your chairs if you want one. Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up. You understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest. You are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord. You have encircled me. You have placed your hand on me. This extraordinary knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty, and I am unable to reach it. So if you feel like today that you can't fully comprehend God, welcome to the club, right? Because the psalmist David writes that very thing. I can't even fully comprehend or grasp the awesomeness of this God that we serve. So, we're, as I said, we're going to talk about God's omniscience today. And the first thing I want to say to us that's very simple, very, very, you know, short, brief, to the point, is God knows everything. I grew up in a Christian home. Not everybody did in this room, but I grew up in a Christian home, and one of the things I was taught from really young, God knows everything. Uh, it was especially used whenever I was uh you know struggling, my parents thought that I was lying about something. They would use that, right? God knows everything. It's a good one to use because it worked for me. Um, but God knows everything. So many of you have heard that before, and just because it's a simple little statement doesn't mean that it's not profound. Just because it's a short little statement doesn't mean that it's not incredibly meaningful and deep and profound. So, in light of what we just read from Psalm 39, aren't we uh able to see even in that psalm that the Bible teaches us that God knows everything? That God knows all things. Uh, this word omniscience really is the word omni, all, and science, uh the word that was used for all things that can be known. So God knows all things that can be known. And I want us just to think about this just for a second before we move on to some practical implications because this is absolutely amazing. And I don't want you to miss this, okay? I don't want you to miss this this morning. God instantly and eternally knows everything perfectly. He instantly and eternally knows everything perfectly. I'm gonna say some things today that, like, if you sit and thought about that, it's like I can't go there. Just can't can't fully get there. Right? Here, in fact, um uh Grudom writes about this in his systematic theology. He says, God fully knows himself and all things, actual and possible, in one simple and eternal act. Okay? He knows it all, actual and possible things, in one eternal act. God doesn't live in the same realm of time constraints that we do. Uh He never learns anything, He never discovers anything, He is never surprised by anything, He is never amazed by anything, He never has a new thought, He never forgets something. There are no hypotheticals with God. He knows every possibility. Are you still with me? It's crazy, isn't it? Think about that for a second. How we live and how awesome God is in light of that. It's just unbelievable. He's so different. He is not caught off guard. God instantly and effortlessly, I can't hear that word, um, all knows all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feelings, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones, dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven, earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, hell. Are you are you are you still tracking? I mean, he knows everything. Okay, how much more can I say, right? He knows every single thing. Psalm 147.4 even says, he counts the number of stars and he gives them all names. Now I was in Houston as a student pastor, and we took a group of boys from the inner city out to this camp. And I remember these boys had never been out of the city of Houston before. And if you've been in Houston, uh the light pollution keeps you from seeing stars. And I took these boys on this father-son camp out. We had some guys that stepped in and kind of to be dads for the weekend for them, and we're we're driving out and we're in the middle of nowhere. And as we get out of the city of Houston, these boys are looking out of the van and it's dark. And they're like, whoa, it is so dark. Like they've never been in a place that dark before. And we step out of the van and they look up and they see stars. Many for the first time are like seeing, like, whoa, there's actually stars in the sky, you know. And I said, Did you know that God knows the number of every one of those stars? And in fact, he named them all. He knows every one of them. God knows everything. He knows the temperature of every one of those stars. He not only knows that, he knows the number of gallons in the ocean. He knows the number of inches, of the tallest peak on the planet Earth. He knows the light year distance across the galaxy. God is completely knowledgeable of everything at one point, at all times, right now. He knows everything. Past, present, future. He is awesome. We have shrunk God down so much in our desire to understand him. We have shrunk him down with our thoughts. We have shrunk him down trying to reason away who he is, how he works. But God is far beyond us. And he knows everything. And here's the crazy part. While God's knowledge is expansive, it's also personal. While his knowledge is expansive, there is no math problem he could ever not solve, right? There's no situation or circumstance he is going to be caught off guard by or anything else. His knowledge is expansive, it's perfect, and it's expansive. And yet, God, God's knowledge is personal. Did you notice what Psalm 139 said to us? David says, You have searched and known me. You know when I sit down. You know when I stand up. God, you understand my thoughts. You observe my travels and my rest. Like, have you thought about that? God knows you. Like the God who created the heavens and the earth knows you. Personally. Profoundly. In fact, the Bible even tells us that He knit you together. He put you together in your mother's womb. He knows you that way. Before you were born, He knew you. Matthew 10 tells us in verse 30 that every hair on your head is numbered. God didn't have to work very hard for some of you in the room. Sorry. I'm getting there. He knows not just the number on top, he knows how many facial hairs you have, and many eyebrow hairs you have, and eyelashes you have. He knows everything about you, every detail of your life. God knows you personally. God knows right now what's going on in your life. He knows what pain and hardship you were enduring, what you walked in with today in your mind and in your heart. Maybe it was heaviness. Maybe it was excitement. I don't know. But God knows it. It is absolutely amazing that He, that this infinite God knows us as these little finite creatures. It's the paradox of Scripture in a sense that we see how insignificant we are and yet how significant we are. How small we are and yet how significant that the Creator God actually knows us. Psalm 8, David says, Who am I, God, that you actually care about me? Who am I that you even know who I am? What an awesome thought that he knows us personally. He knows your hurt. He knows every conversation you have had and will have. He knows every thought that you will have today. And he knows. He's aware. So the question is, what do we do with that? Like if that's him, if that's what the Bible tells us, and I could go to a lot more scriptures that speak to this issue, that God knows everything. We don't have time for that today. But if God does know everything and he knows you personally, the question is, how does this actually impact my life right now? How does this influence how I live? Because we said that what we worship, who we worship, will determine how we live. And this infinite God, who has infinite knowledge, He knows you. How does that impact your daily life? Well, I'm going to give you four things this morning. And I want to say this on the front end. This is specifically, most of these are specifically going to be targeted at those of us who believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior. Okay? Now, there's some of you in the room who I'm glad you're here today, but you've never put your trust in Jesus. You're still, the jury's out for you. You're still questioning, you're still wrestling, you're still thinking about that, still considering, do I really want to follow Jesus? Can I really believe in this Bible thing? Is this all true? And some of this is going to just sound weird because the Bible tells us that until we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, we we can't even really come to a place where we're willing to trust these things. The Holy Spirit has to do that work in our hearts and our minds. But what I'm telling you today is that we have a way we live in light of God's omniscience as his children. The first thing is this God's omniscience, his all-knowingness, it influences how we deal with our sin. It influences how we deal with our sin. Now, God's omniscience, he reminds us, it reminds us when we think about it that we can't hide our sin. In fact, Jeremiah 23, 24 says, Can a man hide himself in secret places where I cannot see him? It's a rhetorical question from God. Can somebody hide? I mean, those of you that know the Bible, if you go all the way back to the book of Genesis, God shows up in the garden after Adam and Eve have eaten from the forbidden tree, and he says, Where are you? Is he saying that because he doesn't know where they are? No. God knows where they are, he knows exactly what's going on. He's actually, you know, driving into this fact that they are hiding because they now feel shame. They feel guilt. They feel fear. And they've never felt those things before. And they're hiding from God. But God knows where they are. It's silly to do that, right? But God knows. Hebrews 4.13 says it this way: No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Now, as I read these scripture passages to you, if you're like me at all, and and maybe you're different from me, but there's a part of this that kind of freaks me out. It's a little bit weird and unsettling and discomforting. Can I be honest? Like, God knows everything. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him who was given account. And so it's part of like, whoa, like, wow, God knows everything. He sees it all. He sees those thoughts and he understands them and he knows the words and he saw what I was doing when I thought nobody else was looking. He sees all that. But then there's the other side of that, which is it brings incredible comfort. And we're going to talk more about that in a second. God also knows everything. In fact, we really like that idea when we have enemies. Or we have people who say things bad about us, things that are untrue because we're like, God knows. But God knows everything. It's not hidden from him. They're exposed before him. And by the way, it's important that I do say this. Not this is this is key because even as we were talking this week, uh, everything's uncovered, covered, and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. And 2 Corinthians 5 also talks about that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, okay? And one of the things that I've heard Christian leaders do to try to get other people to conform their behavior, maybe more parents with their kids, say, hey, one day you're going to give an account for that. I want you to know that if you're in Christ Jesus, that you are forgiven, that your sin has been washed away. So when you get to heaven one day as a child of God, you will not stand in front of God and say, okay, let me walk through every sin that I've committed. The Bible tells us that there's two different judgments, if you will. One is the separation of the sheep and the goats, and you want to be a sheep. Okay? Not just because that song's really cute. If you taught your kids that, I want to be a sheep. Does anybody know that song? Am I the only one? Okay. I'm the dork. Okay. So we want to be a sheep because that means you've been uh you're a child of God, you've been you've been washed uh by the forgiveness that's in Christ. His sacrifice on the cross has been applied to you, right? So now you're righteous in Christ. So you're not going to give an account before God for your sins. I know some people like to bring this stuff up and say, Well, you better behave yourself because you're going to have to give an account for God, right? If you're a Christ's follower, if you're a child of God, you're not going to do that. You are going to stand before God and say, If after the sheep and goats have been divided, what have you done with what I've given you? There's going to be a reward ceremony. Now, again, I don't have a uh that's a whole other sermon for a different day, but God's going to reward his children for what they've done in this life to honor him, to serve him, to do what he's asked us to do. It's going to be awesome. Everything is already uncovered and laid bare before God. And one day everything will be uncovered and laid bare before others. But here's the truth we can we can know that in the here and now, when you sin, when you blow it, when you rebel against God, he already knows. And the Bible says that we are called to confess our sin. Now, I've been in church a long time. We are really, really, really, really good at concealing our sin. We're not very good at confessing our sin. In fact, we even have ways of confessing our sin where we're really concealing it. Like we've learned ways to say certain things so we don't have to really say the real thing that's going on. Or we like to confess our sin by saying, Well, this person did this to me and caused me to do this. Like our confession is still like us pointing our finger to other people. I know y'all never do that in your marriage, right? Never do that when somebody does something wrong to you. I've seen that in my life. Well, you know, Jadie did this and it caused me to do this. But the bottom line is that we can confess our sin to a God who already knows. Do you know what confess means? It means to say the same thing about our sin that God says about it. And what does God say about our sin? It's offensive, it separates, it breaks down fellowship, it is ugly, it is rebellious, and it costs Jesus his life. Because he chose to go to the cross to pay the price for that sin so that it could be forgiven. Listen, Proverbs 28, 13, it says there we have several things we can do with sin. It says, the one who conceals his sin will not prosper. Are you hearing that today? I'm not saying this as a try-to-guilt trip, but I'm telling you, if you're holding on to unconfessed sin today, you will not prosper. When you come clean, when you come and agree with God about your sin that he already knows about anyway, and then you turn away from that sin, you can find freedom and joy and peace. You will prosper. You will see blessings come. He says, But whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy. That's the Old Testament passage. The New Testament passage that I like to go to is 1 John chapter 1, where it says in verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. So if we say we don't actually have sin, in fact, verse 10, just a couple verses down, he says, When you say you don't have sin, you're calling God a liar. Anybody want to call God a liar? Like, no. God sees it, he knows it. So he's saying in verse 9, he says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Man, God is good. If we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive and cleanse. Acknowledging our sin. Some people think that you can become a Christian without acknowledging that you're a sinner. You can't. You have to say, I need Jesus to save me. You don't just say, I want heaven. You have to say, I have rebelled against a God who created me, who made me, and who's perfect. I'm a sinner and I need saving. I need Jesus to forgive me. It's the only hope you have. It's the only hope I have. No one stands before God in their own righteousness and gets into the kingdom of God. In their own good works, in their own attempts. So God is fully aware. Listen, God is fully aware of our rebellion, our idolatry, and all the secret sins in our lives. There's no need to hide from him anymore because he already knows it anyway. And we when we conceal our sin, one of the things that a lot of us can do, and I've talked about this before because I'm master at it in my own life, is we can we can try to cover our sin up with good works, with good things. It's like, I did this, so I'm gonna do this, and see if like that would make up for it. Listen, we can't. God doesn't play that game. It's not a scale system of good works and bad works. We have sin. But here's the deal: the second thing that God's all-knowingness helps us with is it reveals how God relates with us. It reveals, it shows us how God relates to us. While we are sinners, absolutely 100% sinners, we rebel and reject God as our leader, as our Lord, God still pursues people. He still loves us. Romans 5.8. I come to this one fairly often. Romans 5.8 says, but God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That's awesome. God knows all of our sin, all of our myths, all of our issues, all of our junk, and yet he still chooses to die for us. What incredible love. We're actually going to talk about some of these attributes of God that are stirred even in that verse, but God knows that we're sinners, and yet he dies for us. Before God, we are totally transparent. We are fully intimate. There is no character flaw or struggle that he does not know. We've already made this point. There is no false accusation or unfair attack on your character that he is not aware of or accepts. But even in spite of these things, even though he knows us, he loves us. 1 John 3.20, some of you guys have been in this boat. It says, even if our conscience condemns us, God is greater than our conscience and he knows all things. If you're a child of God, God knows you fully and accepts you unconditionally. And that's a good thing today, right? To know that we are loved, not based on our performance, how are we doing at being a good Christian, but because, again, of his knowledge of us, where he acted on our behalf to save us through the person and work of Jesus. And those are us that have put our trust in him, we are now loved unconditionally. Brought into the kingdom of God, into his family. Now, these last two things are a little bit interesting, and this next one I'm gonna acknowledge now, it's a little bit challenging. Because if you've been tracking to this point and you're thinking God knows everything, and if you were here last week and you said God's sovereign over everything, then one of the questions that has to be in your heart, if you're thinking about this, is what about suffering? What about the hardship of this life? Like, let's be honest. This is where these are moments for the Christian faith that are trying, that are, that are, that are difficult. And one thing I would say to you, and I don't say this in jest, and I don't say this to be harsh or rude or anything else, but if we were to take God out of the conversation, if we were to say, like, let's just go through life and take God out of the conversation and say he can't exist because he can't be these things, listen, you still would be suffering and you still would have no answers to your suffering. Does that make sense? I think that's really important because a lot of times people say, Well, I can't believe in God because I'm suffering. Okay, well, then what else are you going to believe in? And I'm telling you right now, the Bible gives us the most clear and helpful explanation for suffering and ultimately the best resolution for suffering. And this is really, really key because every one of us in this room have suffered and will suffer. In fact, some of you walked in the door and you're suffering right now, in some form. Psalm 139, going back to the Psalm we started out with today, in verse 15 and 16, it says, My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless. All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. Think about that. They were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. The Christian life is a life of faith. It's believing in what we cannot see. It's recognizing that we have a limited understanding on this life, that we have a limited perspective, that we are truly again finite. So I can't figure out why all suffering is happening. God knows our hearts. He knows our hurts. And here's what's crazy: He's with us in it. If you're a child of God, he is with you in it. One of the things that I love about Psalm 139 is he reminds you that you can never escape his presence. You can never escape God's presence, that he is always with us. And we're reminded even in the New Testament in Hebrews, where he says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So while you may be suffering and struggling with the answers to that suffering, here's one thing you can absolutely know: God has not abandoned you in your suffering. God is with you in your suffering. Job, probably one of the best books in the Bible on suffering, because it's a story of a man who was like righteous and good, and yet he suffers. Now, let's be honest, the human heart says, Well, if I do the right thing, I should never suffer. But here's a guy who was actually doing the right thing and was considered a really good guy. And he suffers. Another sermon for a different day. But he says this in verse 8 of chapter 23. If I go east, he's not there. If I go west, I cannot perceive him. When he is at work in the north, I cannot see him. When he turns south, I cannot find him. You hear what Job's saying? I don't know where God is. I'm suffering and I'm not sure where he is right now. Anybody ever felt that way? You ever felt like I don't know what's going on, which ends up good. I'm a Christ follower. I believe in Jesus, but I don't see you, God. What in the world is going on here? But notice what Job says that many times I do not say. He goes on to say, yet he knows the way I've taken, and when he has tested me, I will emerge as pure gold. Man, I wish I could say that. But Job says, I understand that he knows even though I don't know. Even though I can't see him, he is there. And he knows me, and he knows what's going on in my life. Many of us in this room, I mean, we feel like, oh, I have to know all the answers. I cannot trust in a God I just can't figure out. But the problem is, is we don't need a God we can figure out. We need a God who's bigger than what we can figure out, who's bigger than our problems, more powerful, more awesome. Many of us in the room don't wrestle with God's power, the thought that God's more powerful than we are, right? We'd say God's all-powerful, but when it comes to his knowledge, his wisdom, we're like, well, I don't know if God really knows. If he's really, we're gonna, we're actually gonna do a whole sermon on wisdom. I don't know what to do with that one. So we challenge God's wisdom, but it's challenging his wisdom is like, or his knowledge is like like challenging God to an arm wrestling contest. It's it's foolish, right? You're not gonna win. Because God is God. And so we don't know, and we need a God that is bigger than our comprehension. Yes, this is hard truth. Yes, it is complicated, yes, it produces some moments where we're just like, ah. But God knows what he's doing. Um St. August Augustine or Augustine, um, he was uh walking down a beach one day, and you guys were here. If you were here a few weeks ago, we talked about the Trinity. And the Trinity is like crazy mind-blowing. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all equally God, three persons, that whole thing, right? Mystery. Um, and he was walking down the beach and he was thinking about the Trinity, because that's what everybody thinks about when they're walking down the beach. Uh brilliant thinker, brilliant guy, right? And as he's walking down the beach, he sees this little boy, and this little boy is playing in the sand, and then he's running over to the ocean, and then he's coming back to, and Augustine's like, What are you doing? And he's got this little seashell, and he runs over the ocean and he puts some some seawater in it, some ocean water in it, and he goes over to this little hole and he dumps it in the in the hole. And Augustine's like, what are you doing? And he said, I'm trying to put all the ocean in that hole. And Augustine says, That's what I'm trying to do with God. I'm trying to take something that's way bigger and way more incredible than it can comprehend, and try to put it into this nice neat little box. And it just doesn't work. And God gave him that picture to help him, even when he was wrestling through the mysteries of the Trinity. Guys, God is so much bigger and more awesome than we can begin to imagine. And just a thought here. I mean, we all have to go through suffering, right? We all have to endure it. We won't know the answer fully, this side of heaven. Sometimes we get clarity on it. Sometimes we can see how God uses it. We can see how God shapes our character through it. God's always at work in our lives. He knows again all the possibilities, and he knows the potential, and he knows how to use suffering to shape us and to guide us and to help us become who he's called us to be. And we typically think only right here and right now, and we think things like this suffering is gonna last forever. And God's like, no, it's not. This is gonna last forever. This pain, this heartache, this difficulty, this is gonna last forever. And God's like, no, it's not. It's light and momentary. It is, it is it is just a moment. Eternity is way, way longer than the suffering that you're enduring right now in this moment. Have you guys ever had to help someone? Um, and and in order to help them, you actually had to hurt them a little bit to help them? I mean, even at a practical level, if you're if you've ever had to help a little kid who skin his knee, and you know you gotta get the rocks and the junk and the dirt out of the skin knee. It's like, okay, this is gonna hurt. Now, some of you dads in here like that way too much, okay? You shouldn't. Okay, don't like that stuff. But you you pour the peroxide in to kind of wash the junk out, right? And they're like, ah, you know, you're killing me. Like, no, I'm not, I'm actually helping you. Well, it doesn't feel like help. I mean, we are like that, right? You you have to do that. But I'm just telling you, at a small, that's a small-scale illustration of the fact that God brings pain in our lives to get our attention. You talked about C.S. Lewis in one of his quotes about this issue is he says, you know, God speaks to us in these whispers and he speaks to us to his word, but he shouts to us in our pain. And God uses hardship and struggle and suffering. Again, I'm not telling you that I know the mind of God. I'm not telling you that I've got it all figured out. I don't. I don't know why God's allowed things in my life at times that were like, this just seems unfair. But I do know this. Who am I to think that I have the right perspective and God has the wrong one? Who am I the one that thinks that I've got it figured out and that I can see all things when I can't, but God can? If there was ever an injustice, an unfair act treated towards someone, it was Jesus Christ on the cross. He endured suffering like none other, unjustly, unfairly. A perfect, innocent man, and yet endured suffering. But why? So that all suffering one day could end. Praise God for that. So one thing you can say is while we may never figure out suffering, we can know this. God loves us, even in it. The cross says that. Can't say that God doesn't care. The final thing today that God's knowledge helps with. It shapes how we pray. God's knowledge shapes how we pray. Um Matthew chapter 6, it says this. I was thinking about this this week and it just really struck me. But Matthew chapter 6, verse 7 and 8, and then it goes on later on in the chapter 31. It says, um, when you pray, don't babble like idolaters, since they imagine they'll be heard for their many words. Don't be like them, because your father what? Knows the things you need before you ask him. And then in verse 31 it says, Don't worry, saying, What will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear, for the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you already need them. Now, some of you immediately are like, Well then why in the world are we praying? I mean, still, right? That's a logical question. God knows what we need before we ask him, so why are we praying? Well, we read the whole council of scripture. When you take one little verse and you pull it out, well, you can come up with a different conclusion. When you read the whole Bible, you understand the Bible calls us to pray. We're commanded to pray. We're told that we are to call on God, to cry out to God. We're called as his children to ask of him, to seek him. If he already knows, why pray? Well, because again, 1 Thessalonians 5 says even we should pray without ceasing. Doesn't mean we continuously pray all with every, but reoccurring, we are always coming back to prayer. We're always in communication with God. That increasingly, that's our goal in life, is to regularly be in continual conversation with God, speaking to him, hearing from him, responding to him. And when we pray, the beautiful thing is when we pray, God gives us what we really need. Now, some of us don't like that. Because we'd rather have like a genie in the sky with unlimited wishes, and he has to listen to us. But listen, I think the Bible, not think, I know the Bible clearly paints a picture that prayer is not about us conforming God to our image, but us being conformed into his image. That we don't say, God, get on my page, or else. Right? Do what I'm asking you to do, or else I'm walking away from this Christian thing. No, it's us learning to trust our Father's heart. That He knows. Can we come and ask for healing? Absolutely. Can we come and ask for God to help us with our finances and our relationships and all those things? Absolutely. We should pray, we should call on God. It is a mystery in how God works in all these things. But know this: that prayer is learning to submit to God. It's learning to come up under him and trust his heart. Prayer doesn't change God, but it does change us. We don't change God. He is unchanging, but he does change us in the process. You guys remember John 14, we talked through the book of John, and he says, when we ask anything in his name, it will be done. When we ask things that are in alignment with his will, guess what? They're going to get done. Now, again, maybe not in the way we want them done. But they will be done. Tim Keller says it this way: if we knew what God knows, we would ask for exactly what he gives. Problem is we don't know what God knows, so we don't ask for what he gives exactly. Now, sometimes we're in tune with him because we've been listening. We're learning to delight ourselves in him. We're learning to, rather than say, God, you better do this and make these demands of him, we actually come and we we plead, we cry out, but we say, God, your will be done. Jesus modeled that, didn't he? He even said, in his toughest time, he said, Not my will, but yours be done. So we learn to pray. We know God knows everything, but we still pray. Notice what the psalmist prays in Psalm 139. This is a prayer we should all pray on a regular basis. The very last two verses of Psalm 139, which we started in today, he says, Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my concerns, and see if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. Listen, the psalmist, he's not saying, you know, learn something about me. He's actually saying, the things you know about me, would you reveal those things to me, God, so that I can actually get back in line with your will. Lead me in your way, not my way. I want your will to be done, not my will to be done, because your will's better than my will. Your way is better than my way. What matters in our lives, guys, is not the fact that we know God, but it's the larger fact that he knows us. All of our knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. In knowing you. I know him because he first knew me, and he continues to know me, and he knows me as a friend, one who loves me. And there's no moment when his eye is off of me. There's never a moment when his attention is distracted from me, no moment, therefore, when his care falters. It's momentous knowledge, it's unspeakable comfort, the sort of comfort that energizes, not innervates. Knowing God that is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good, there is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can disillusion him about me in the way I am so disillusioned about myself and quench his determination. Nation to bless me. It's from J.I. Packers Knowing God. Because God knows everything, we can confess our sin quickly. We can acknowledge it. We don't have to keep hiding from it. We can turn away from it. We can confess it. We can agree with God. We can deal with it. Because God knows everything, we can truly know that He loves us because He saw the worst of us, has seen the worst of us, knows the worst of us, knows what we will continue to do, and yet He still chooses to love us. That's awesome. Because God knows everything, we can find peace in our suffering. Because what we really need in our suffering is not an explanation, but a revelation. We don't need to know all the details. We need to know that there's a God who's over all those details. And who's bigger than all those things. And we can find, we can pray with confidence that God will do what is best for us when we know that He knows everything anyway. Far better than we do. Listen, let me close out by saying this. God knows us all better than we know ourselves, and He still loves us passionately. He wants every one of us in this room to be with Him forever. It's an awesome thought. Because to be honest, if I'm really, really honest with myself, I can't understand how God would love me or like me or want to be around me at all when I think about the things that go through my mind, go through my heart that are offensive to him. But he's that awesome. Where you are today, in your walk with God, your journey with God, you have a God that knows you and loves you. Some of you have yet to bend your knee, to submit your life to him, to confess him as Lord. And my invitation to you is the invitation that's been in Scripture for thousands of years. Is that you would come to know the Lord as your Savior and your God, and you would experience the freedom and the joy of walking in the forgiveness that he offers. And if you are a child of God, like walk in the comfort, even though it's a little bit weird, walk in the comfort of knowing He knows you and He knows everything about you, and He knows everything that you're going to endure and everything that you're going to go through, and He'll be with you in it. Okay? Let's pray. God, I pray for every person that's here in this room, and maybe even those that might be listening via the podcast this week or weeks to come. God, help us to remember that you are not like us. That there is no one like our God. God, I pray that by your Spirit you would take this truth that for many could see as elementary or maybe just something they've already heard before. And I pray that, God, today you would drive this truth deep into our souls and to remind us how beautiful and awesome and wonderful it is that you know us. And that you not only know us, but you know all of humanity. And you know the whole story, and you know the past, present, and future, and you know how everything is going to work out, and we can trust you in all things. So I just pray that you would lead us in that today. Help us to worship you and not to reject you. Help us to trust you and not to look to ourselves. Help us to surrender to you and not try to control. We need your help, God. We pray us in your name. Amen.