When You Believe in God but Don’t Really Know Him

Series Introduction

Your long time friends, how well do you really know them? What are they hiding? Look at the person next to you. How much do you want to know about them? Your coworkers, what are they like at home? Your pastor? A colleague once advised me against using too many personal illustration in my sermons. She compared it to someone collecting a scrap book about the pastor. Those obsessive fan clubs.

Your long time friends, how well do you really know them? What are they hiding? Look at the person next to you. How much do you want to know about them? Your coworkers, what are they like at home? Your pastor? A colleague once advised me against using too many personal illustration in my sermons. She compared it to someone collecting a scrap book about the pastor. Those obsessive fanclubs.

Getting to know someone can be interesting, enriching, it can be uncomfortable and just plain weird. The deepest relationships we have are the ones where you know the good and bad.

How well do we know God? That's the question were asking these next six weeks in the sermons, the reading and our small groups. We're testing that claim, "I believe in God."Like our human relationships we can enjoy the pleasant parts of the relationship but shrink away when we encounter when we come face to face with those divine attributes that make us uncomfortable.

Before we start asking that question this morning, I want us to take an opposite perspective, how well does God know us? How much do we want God to know us?

High school reunion, God knows us even if we don't know him. God has taken an interest even were too busy to think about him. God is pursuing us even if we're not pursuing him.

Chapter Introduction

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God knows us whether we know it or not.

God knows about us what others do not.

“...when I sit and when I rise;” v. 2

“...you are familiar with all my ways.” v.3

“Before a word is on my tongue...” v.4

God knows what is happening. There is nothing I can do that God doesn’t know about - even the boring details of my life, such as sitting down and getting up. This is not the Bible’s way of saying “God knows everything.” Like Santa Clause. This is God’s way of saying, I care about you so much: I care about every detail of your life. Nothing about you is too boring for me. God knows what is happening. God knows what’s going to happen. You have to have all of the details before you can know someone as deeply as God knows us.

When I was in college a lot of students liked to hang out at the nearby Krispy Kreme. (Why don’t they have more Krispy Kremes in Maryland?). Not only love the doughnuts, but it was a great place to study. I had this routine - 1-2 a week I would take my books, throw them on a table, walk up to the counter and order a coffee and a bag of doughnut holes (a silly name - how do you eat a hole?), and sit and study.

One time I was sitting there in my favorite spot, I was working on a research paper. I had arranged my books all over the table - it looked like a small city. The Krispy Kreme was packed, so a girl walked over, asked if she could sit at my table, to which I said yes. We had a very awkward interaction during that time. I remember glancing over my book, and it looked like she kept reaching across the table for something - so I watched. I few seconds later I noticed that the reason she was reaching across the table, was because she was helping herself to my doughnut holes. I was shocked, and pretty introverted, so I wasn’t really sure what to say. I just pulled the basket a little closer to me and kept on eating them. It was my shy way of saying, please don’t eat these. These are mine. She reached over and took another one, so I pulled the basket a little closer and started eating them faster. I emptied the basket, and she picked up her bag and walked away. I was glad to see her go. I finished studying, and I picked up my books and started putting them in my bag, and there underneath my notebook was a full basket of doughnut holes.

“I hope I don’t run into her on campus.”

I made a judgment, an assessment, I assumed a certain amount of knowledge based on an incomplete knowledge of what was actually happened. We do that to people, don’t we? Make a judgment based on what really is an incomplete knowledge of people. God’s omnipresence means that God is in the situation, knows all the facts. God makes an honest and accurate assessment of His people.

God is in the situation, knows all the facts.

God knows us so well that he knows our habits (familiar with all my ways). You spend enough time with someone and you get to more than their likes and dislikes: you get to know there habits, their routines. God knows us so intimately that He knows our habits and routines. Even the bad ones.

God knows our thoughts - you have to know someone really well to say, “I know what you’re thinking.” How can you really know that? (skit: casual conversation between 2 youth - each youth had another person behind them representing their true thoughts.

Do you really want to know what people are thinking?

And because God is familiar with all of our habits, our details, our thoughts, God knows us.

God is everywhere with us.

“Where can I go?...” v.7

“...you are familiar with all my ways.” v.3

Where can I flee? v.7

Psalm 139:7 NIV

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

This can be a comforting statement, knowing God is with us all the time and in all places. A parishioner of mine used to write for Guidepost, a magazine that is popular for all of the inspiring stories about God’s miraculous works. I used to read it growing up, and the stories were pretty amazing. God is with us when the car breaks down and we’re stranded, God is with us when we're being medevaced to a trauma center, when my child is receiving cancer treatments. Powerful, inspiring stories. This parishioner was an amazing writer with amazing stories to tell. He was a hospice volunteer, and he wrote a lot about his experiences with the dying and their families: stories about how they all experienced God in a supernatural way even in these hard situations. He stopped writing for Guidepost because they only wanted the inspiring stories: they didn’t want the stories of people struggling with their faith; feeling abandoned by God. He felt like those were just as important stories for people to read. Even in those cases, God was still present.

God was with us when the car broke down, when we're medevaced to trauma center, when my child is receiving cancer treatments. Powerful stories.

“Before a word is on my tongue...” v.4

Knowing God is always with us, wherever we go, can also be discomforting: God with us when we lose our temper. God is with us when we lie. God is with us when we talk about someone behind their back. God is with us when we don’t leave a tip or when we cut off someone on the highway.

God knows us before we can know Him.

Psalm 139:16 NIV

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:

How is this even possible? To know someone before their birth. We’ve had 4 children. She’s been the one carrying them around as they form in the womb. She’s been the one giving birth. I read a book - Husband Coached Childbirth - which explained the whole 9 months in great detail. Talk about second hand knowledge of something. Childbearing is a complete mystery to me and I’m okay with that. But here God is talking about something even more mysterious. God knows us even when we are in the womb.

There are times when I get a God question from parishioners, children. I’m okay with saying “I don’t know.” Sometimes it’s awkward, like “I should have been prepared for this.” But sometimes, I have to say “I don’t know.”

How does God know us before we are even born? I like what the Psalmist says in verse 6:

discomforting: God knows our secrets, our thoughts. (skit, what they’re really thinking)

Psalm 139:6 NIV

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

God’s knowledge of us is so complete, so intimate, that it is too much for us to understand, much less explain to others.

If you are wondering if you can know God, God built that bridge to you before you were born. God’s knowledge of you, God’s love towards you began before you were born: “such knowledge is too wonderful for me.”

Closing

In the book we’re reading -Christian Atheist, a Gallup poll reported that 94 percent of Americans claim to believe in God or a God. But all you have to do is look up or look in the mirror and see that that nowhere near 94 percent really know God. "Belief isn’t the same as personal knowledge.”

A recent Gallup poll reported that 94 percent of Americans claim to believe in God or a universal spirit. However, a quick glance at Scripture and our culture makes it plainly obvious that nowhere near 94 percent actually know God. I mean, really know him—intimately. Belief isn’t the same as personal knowledge. For many people, the very idea that you could know God on a relational level seems unlikely, unrealistic, unattainable.

The author goes on to describe the different levels of intimacy when it comes to knowing God.

Some of us know God by reputation, we go to church every so often (or all the time), we hear the Bible stories, or the god talk, but it’s only secondhand knowledge. Have you ever tried to explain how good something is, you get that blank stare, so you just have to say, “You really need to try this yourself.” Don’t just hear how great God is, taste and see that the Lord is good - .

For some of us, we just know God from our past with God. We’ve truly experienced God’s power on a mission trip. God, through His Word, once broke through our darkness goodness, and spoke to us. We experienced God - God was real. But that was a limited experience - it’s in the past. God is just a memory now.

And some of us know God intimately. The Good News is that God wants this for all of us. If we seek this kind of relationship, God will deliver. If we are hungry for God, God will satisfy that hunger.

And some of us know God intimately. Right here, right now. This is the kind of loving knowledge that God promises when we seek him (see ; ; ; ). When we are thirsty for God, God will satisfy that longing.

I’ve been talking about God’s knowledge of us. It shows us that God is not just interested in learning about us: God wants a thorough, relationship with us: God is interested in everything about us. God wants an authentic relationship - we have enough relationships where we only allow people to see in us what we allow them to see. God wants a relationship that involves all of us.

Good news, - God wants to know us! And not just know about us. Not just were already halfway there. God already knows us. The hairs on our head. The mundane details of our lives. Our needs. Our pain. Our sins. Our thoughts. God is already reaching out, God is waiting for a reply.

Good news, -we are already halfway there. God already knows us. The hairs on our head. The mundane details of our lives. Our needs. Our pain. Our sins. Our thoughts. God is already reaching out, God is waiting for a reply.

Psalms 90–150: The Lord Reigns Questions

(1) How conscious are you of the all-seeing eye of God upon you when not engaged in private devotions or public worship?

(2) If this happened more would it encourage you or make you ashamed and afraid?

(3) How can we cultivate ‘The practice of the presence of God’?