Knowing God

Introduction

Back in September, I sat down and began to set out a preaching schedule and themes for the next few months. I knew we were going to do Jonah and I looked at the dates for Advent.

Advent, a time to reflect on the beginning of Emmanuel, God dwelling with us, and I noticed that there would be three weeks between the ending of the book of Jonah and advent.

God reminded me, that it may be time to once again review of what this body of believers holds to be true.

Now if you have been attending our gatherings for longer than a few years, you are in for a refresher course.

Like the those who are certified in CPR, every other year, they are being asked to go back to a class to refresh their knowledge on how to Do CPR.

Refreshing gives us a new perspective on life. A recharging. A reminder.

You see in the busyness of life, the coming out of Covid, the challenges we face as more people are coming to hear God Word and grown in their knowledge of God,

We all need a bit of refreshing.

For those of you who have just starting coming in the past two years. What is a refresher for us, is new to you.

Let me give you a bit of a teaser,

Over the next three weeks we are going to look briefly at our mission and purpose statement as well as our process of discipleship.

The mission and purpose statements of our church are

Our mission is to intentionally reach families in our community for Christ and integrate them into the NVEFC family.

Our purpose is to glorify God while uniting as a family, training to spiritual maturity, serving in His Church and sharing Christ with others.

First off, why have a purpose statement at all. Is not scripture enough to guide us through what we are to do as believers? Is not the great commission enough for us as a rally cry?

“As you go into all the world preach Christ and make disciples of all nations”

The purpose statement and mission statement are a clearly defined way in which we,

as a local body will accomplish the tasks God has asked every believer and every church to do.

It’s what marks us from others. Not in a competition to see who is better

rather it’s a style or method that defines and marks us.

What brought you hear today?

What brought you to this fellowship of people who are seeking to know God Better?

You may have heard this before, but it is worth repeating.

A past season of ministry in my life landed me in an environment where I was the coordinator for our child’s school’s track meet. My boys liked to run and I liked to help.

It was my responsibility to seek out students who would excel in the world of athletics.

In that adventure, Two students came to mind. Both were runners. Both excelled in their respective races. Both ran and won all their races, but there was a distinct difference between the two.

The first had a very awkward way of running. If you were a running coach and this lad came to your university and tried out for the team you would cringe. You see his arms were always flailing about as he ran, and it wasn’t a smooth process. But it worked. He won. His style was different, but the results were the same. He won races.

The second was a gal that came to our school who had recently moved from a city in South Africa. When she came, she only signed up for a couple of races thinking she wasn’t very good. Back in her home where she grew up running was a common skill and compared to her other students, she was average.

So, in her mind, she will sign up for the smallest number of races to “get it over with.” She hadn’t seen success in her life before ,and wanted this part of the school process to end. For her running reminded her of her inadequacies.

You see she was in grade 7 and had just arrived at the school just in time to sign up for the races. No one knew her, Her teacher, her classmates, and I had never seen her run.

Then came the track meet. If my memory serves me correctly it was the 400-meter race. Once around the track. The gun went off and by the time she had crossed the finish line, the next person was still 200 meters behind.

We wondered why she hadn’t signed up for all the running races and then we found out that she didn’t think she could run based upon her running skills back home.

Needless to say, that year, our school cleaned up in the races for the girls and the boys at the next level of meets. But what surprised me the most at the end of the races, as I was congratulating her on her personal accomplishments was this.

She said, “I could have run faster if I ran in my bare feet.” You made me wear shoes.

You see both runners ran races both racers had a different approach for their running,

As a coach, both could improve, and as we look at our purpose and mission statements we use them to focus our results on the calling of the church, specifically our church as we learn together on What God is calling us to do here.

One of the ways in which we are striving to fulfill our purpose statement is in the area of discipleship.

If you are coming investigating what we are all about, please continue to come.

Continue to come and hear the message of God, but for most of us, we have decided to become a disciple of Christ.

Let me make this abundantly clear.

We are disciples of Christ. Not disciples of Pastor Paris, Not Pastor Josh, Not the leadership, Not the fellow followers.

We need to be a disciple of Christ.

As a follower of Christ, we understand it to be one who is Seeking to know God while being transformed into the image of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit in the context of Community.

We have simplified this to three phrases,

Knowing

Growing

Giving

This Sunday we will focus on the first.

Knowing God

You see even this statement follows a pattern of Head, Heart, Hands & Feet

Head, seeking to know God. We need to seek who He is and when we continue to understand and grow in our knowledge of God, and we begin to understand what God has done for us through Christ, this knowledge moves to our heart.

In our heart we become transformed into the image of Christ. When our head knowledge impacts our hearts, the truths of scripture move from knowing to believing, we become transformed into the image of Christ. This is a daily process. It’s renewable. It’s transformational.

When our heart is stirred with the truth from God, then the Spirit, which is within us, has one thing.

To move us from heart to hands and feet. It empowers us to do and to go.

It is the strength that we have to accomplish the many things for God.

All of this is done not in a vacuum, but in a community.

The vary nature of God is community. God dwells in community.

Knowing: Who is God

So this this morning, let’s explore the first of the three.

Knowing, Who is God

Have you every been asked by someone, “Who is God”?

Can we hold to the world’s belief that we can have many gods.

It’s alright for you to believe in your God, I’ll believe in mine.

This morning I want to take you through how our understanding of God will drive us to be disciples of Christ.

He is one God

He is one God.

Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

We can translate this verse to ourselves. Here o people, Here Canada. The Lord, Sovereign God. Who sustains us daily.

Who is the one who created us.

He is One.

Isaiah 46:9 ESV

9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,

The God we serve, the God that we are to bow down to is like no other.

If you are hearing for the first time that there is a God that is like no other. That is the truth we will learn today.

The God we will be speaking about today is the God who came in the form of Man, the one we call Jesus, the Christ, the redeemer. Who came to the world for us, to redeem us from the bondage of sin and to untie us from the sin and connect us with God.

The God that comes in the form of the Holy Spirit to

John 16:8 ESV

8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:

He will also come to

Acts 1:8 ESV

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The one God that gives us a clear picture of Knowledge, Image, and power.

He is a creating God

Not only is God one, but He is the Creating God.

Genesis 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

This is the starting point we see of God’s plan. It began with creation.

Many people have described God as needing something so he created us. God was not in need when He created, rather it was a statement of Fact.

Hebrews 11:3 ESV

3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

This is described as

ex nihilo: creating something out of nothing

Whatever you hold to in your understanding of the creation story, we must hold onto this truth.

God didn’t rearrange what was already there. He spoke it into existence.

But God, the creating God. Created what we see today out of nothing.

The powerful God, the one God, created this world and also sustains it

Colossians 1:16–17 ESV

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

He created Adam and Eve who fell into sin, and by that act we too have been separated by God and That God’s plan from the moment of Creation was to restore us to him.

It starts with God

You see,

God alone is the Creator, (Heb 1:3)

that there is purpose and order to his creation. ( Ps 19:1)

His creation is good (Gen 1:31, 1 Tim 4:4)

When we know He is one, and that He is the God of Creation, the final part about God is his attributes

I have an assignment for you.

If you sitting beside a spouse or a friend, if you sitting alone think of someone.

Are you ready. Think of the attributes of the person. All of them.

I’ll give you a moment.....

I see some of you are smiling, that’s a good thing.

let’s be honest did you only think of the good attributes. What about those others. The ones we hid, are embarrassed about, or even not aware of our own struggling attributes. Did they come across your mind while you were thinking of that person.

Our attributes come with flaws.

But God’s attributes, as we describe them and have come to know them are perfect.

All of them.

Have you every meet someone who is angry with God.

If you begin to hear their story and how they describe God, they have a misunderstanding of God’s attributes.

You see once you hear and believe that God’s attributes are perfect, it will change how you see and understand God.

Psalm 145:3 ESV

3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

Romans 11:33 ESV

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

We can and should never stop discovering God’s attributes. Throughout our lives, God’s attributes will become clearer as we see them working out in our lives.

If you think you have figured out clearly all of God’s Attributes, you should be reminded of Job’s friend as he attempted to know God more

Job 11:7–9 ESV

7 “Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? 8 It is higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? 9 Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.

We can never learn enough about God.

God is love

One of the greatest attributes of God is the love that he has. As my good friend Jim would say. God’s unconditional love.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God’s love is not based on our response, it is unchangeable immovable, unwavering.

That doesn’t mean that He is overlooks sin, His Holiness can’t be in the presence of sin yet at the same time he has love for one another.

Our one God is Triune

God is described as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

A teaching that can be confusing yet is not.

Our finite minds really struggle with this idea. We come up with ways to explain it, but I am drawn back to scripture as a picture of how this can be

Matthew 3:16–17 ESV

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

It’s a picture of the Voice of God, the voice that spoke creation into being, the God that Emmanuel, the one standing with us, who was just baptized, and the power of God that is given to us comes descending upon Him.

It is one of the reasons we hold baptisms. It a public display of our acceptance of God in our lives.

It identifying that we have entered into the waters of baptism and come out from Death to life.

May I encourage you, if you are a follower of Christ and have not taken the steps to be baptized, speak to me, Pastor Josh or an elder. We would love to walk you through the teaching on baptism and celebrate with you as you step out in obedience to our calling to make disciples and baptize them. to encourage them.

God’s plan

Finally when we come to begin to understand who God is we will begin to answer the question Why

God answers that questions of why by showing us His Plan.

You must know this, that God’s plan is intentional, purposeful and it is to bring glory and honor to Him.

He is Intentional

God is intentional in his plan

Ephesians 1:4 ESV

4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

He is intentional, nothing happens by chance.

Many of us from time to time suffer with self doubt. We look at ourselves and wonder if what we do is of any value.

This is a clear misunderstanding of God’s Word. He choose before He created the world that you would be holy and blameless before Him.

Let that sink in for a moment.

He chose you before the very creation of the World. Before He created you.

God, Almighty set in motion a plan for each one of you. Those times when feelings of doubt and despair come rolling into our thoughts, cling to this verse. IT was God’s intentional plan that you will stand before Him Blameless, not of your own doing, but that of Christ’s work on the cross.

It is Purposeful

God’s plan is purposeful.

The book, Gospel Truth writes

Even before the first sin spoiled the good world that he made, God knew what he was going to do. He had created human beings in his own image, so that the eternal son of God would be able to take humanity into himself and to enter into a world and become Incarnate as a human being like us. pg 45

Christ came to this world not because of the fall, but to restore the fall. To restore mankind to Him.

Titus 2:14 ESV

14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

You see the Gospel doesn’t begin with us,

but what God has done for us.

His plan was purposeful and direct. Once again unmovable and unchangeable.

The mystery of God’s sovereignty and free will comes into battle in our own minds as we struggle with the concept of free choice and God’s sovereign will.

An infinite God knows our “free” Choice and works out his will according to his purposes.

If you have ever have watched the movie trilogy of Back to the Future. A story of a person going back in time and affecting the time continuum. His changes in the past affects his present and future.

He goes about attempting to restore the future by the past and in the story-line it changes several times.

God is not like the movie

God is able to see past, present and future all at once.

Ephesians 3:11 ESV

11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord,

The purposefulness of God is to bring about Christ into the world for our salvation.

It is For God’s Glory

The final plan of God is to bring present and eternal Glory for himself.

He is a jealous God,

Exodus 34:14 ESV

14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

demanding our praise today and forever more

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The first part of our church’s mission statement reads

Our mission is to intentionally reach families in our community for Christ

Why?

This will bring glory and honor to God.

The Gospel we have to share with those we come in contact with is an outpouring of our understanding of who God is.

It’s the realization that it is God’s plan, that no one should die without the knowledge of God’s salvation, eternity is at stake.

It is this gospel when we sit at the bedside of our loved ones and share the gospel with them that they turn to see God’s Glory.

It is this gospel that we praise God with our worship every Sunday. We worship the One and Only triune God.

Knowing God

Knowing God. Do you know Him, Do you desire to know him more?

In Summary

As the worship team comes forward in a song of response, let me leave you with a question.

Do you know this God?

Are you sitting here this morning and you don’t know this God. I would love to sit down with you and I will walk you through what the Bible says about this great God.

If you know this God, and you call yourself a disciple of this God,

What are you doing to know Him more.

May I encourage you to spend time daily in His Word to get to know Him more than you have known before.

Maybe you want join a small group, a time to Study with other fellow followers as you learn together who is this God.

Maybe you want to be a part of an accountability prayer group. To hold you accountable as you get to know this God.

Talk with me during Coffee I would love to point out ways in which you can continue to grow in your

Knowing God.

Response to Worship

Let’s Close with a singing of today’s Benediction.

Benediction