Can I Know God Personally?
Explore God • Sermon • Submitted
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· 18 viewsThe entire reason Jesus came to earth was so that everyone who trusts in him can know God.
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Introduction:
Introduction:
Today is the last session of our Explore God series and we want to answer the question “Can I know God personally?” This isn’t a theoretical questions. It’s a practical question.
Can I know God personally?
Theologians and philosophers have a fancy word they use when they talk about knowing something. It is the word epistemology, “the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope.” Google definition.
Today is the last session of our Explore God series and we want to answer the question “Can I know God personally?” This isn’t a theoretical questions. It’s a practical question.
We could go around the room and have each of us give an answer, add up the “Yes, No, or I don’t know” votes and come to a conclusion. That wouldn’t satisfy any of us.
I am going to give my answer that question as “Yes” but in doing so I’m going to answer four questions.
1. What does it mean to know God?
2. Why do we want to know God?
The reasons to know God.
3. What prevents us from knowing God?
The obstacles to knowing God.
4. How can we know God?
4. How can we know God?
The steps to know God.
If you don’t know something and you want to know it, where do you start?
It depends upon what you want to know. If you want to know a person, you have to go to that person.
Why do we want to know someone? We are attracted to the person. That person has something we want. We think we can benefit from knowing that person. He or she can teach us, help us, guide us, assist us, make us a better person.
What does it mean to know God?
What does it mean to know God?
1. Knowing God means we have a relationship with Him. ,
1. Knowing God means we have a relationship with Him. ,
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
We are born of God. We are part of God’s family.
Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.
2. Knowing God changes us. ,
2. Knowing God changes us. ,
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
Knowing God means knowing what He is like.
2. Knowing God means knowing what He is like.
3. Not everyone knows God.
3. Not everyone knows God.
They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
Knowing God means having a relationship with him.
Why do we want to know God?
Why do we want to know God?
1. We sense there is more to life than what we see.
1. We sense there is more to life than what we see.
Ecclessiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
more to life than what we see around us. Eternity in our hearts.
Go has placed eternity in our hearts.
2. We don’t want to make a mistake.
2. We don’t want to make a mistake.
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
There are lots of views of God and heaven. We’d like to know which is right. We don’t want to miss out.
We don’t want to miss out on heaven. There are lots of views of God and heaven. We’d like to know which is right!
What ifWe don’t want to make mistake about eternity. Lot’s of views. We’d like to know which is right!
What prevents us from knowing God?
What prevents us from knowing God?
1. God is different from us.
1. God is different from us.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever.”
Pride - I don’t need God.
2. Pride , , ,
2. Pride , , ,
I don’t need God.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
Shame - God doesn’t want me.
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Nicodemus is the picture of pride.
Nicodemus is the picture of pride.
He and the pharisees were afraid of what others would think of him going to this young Rabbi!
b. He was “the” teacher of Israel.
He knew a lot. But it wasn’t enough.
c. He needed life he didn’t have, life from above.
He needed to believe and accept the love of God as offered by Jesus.
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
a. He came to Jesus at night.
a. He came to Jesus at night.
He and the pharisees were afraid of what others would think of him going to this young Rabbi!
b. He was “the” teacher of Israel.
b. He was “the” teacher of Israel.
He knew a lot. But it wasn’t enough.
c. He needed life he didn’t have, life from above.
c. He needed life he didn’t have, life from above.
He needed to believe and accept the love of God as offered by Jesus.
3. Shame
3. Shame
God doesn’t want me.
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
The woman at the well is a sketch of shame. John 4:1-26
The woman at the well is a sketch of shame. John 4:1-26
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
a. She came to Jesus in the heat of the day. John 4:6-7
a. She came to Jesus in the heat of the day. John 4:6-7
She was a social outcast and didn’t come at the normal time, early in the day before the heat.
b. She was a troubled woman. John 4:16-18
b. She was a troubled woman. John 4:16-18
She was ashamed of her broken life and marriages.
c. She needed life she didn’t have, from the living water of God. , 25-26
c. She needed life she didn’t have, from the living water of God. , 25-26
She was spiritually dead and needed the water of life.
4. Spiritual blindness ,
4. Spiritual blindness ,
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
If you just can’t see it, ask yourself why? What is preventing you from seeing what others see? None of us can see our blind spots. We need someone else to point them out to us.
How can we know God personally?
How can we know God personally?
- See God for who He is.
- See God for who He is.
We come to God on His terms.
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
- See ourselves for who we are.
- See ourselves for who we are.
We see ourselves as God sees us.
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
- See what God has done for us.
- See what God has done for us.
David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.” Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
- Believe and accept what He’s done for us.
- Believe and accept what He’s done for us.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”