Knowing God Intimately # 6a
We’ve been on the subject called “Knowing God Intimately.” God wants us to spend time with Him so that we can get to know Him, not just knowing about Him, but having that close personal fellowship with Him. We’re going to pick up from where we left off last week.
I. Last week I said that every person has a void on the inside of them. People try to fill that void with drinking, drugs, hobbies, work, and many other things.
A. The only thing that is going to fill that void is fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. In order for us to fellowship with Him we must spend time in His presence.
a. (PSA 16:11) Says, “In thy presence is fullness of joy.”
b. That’s where you’ll find fulfillment in your life.
i. Other things are secondary, like having a family, or a great job.
ii. Your true fulfillment is going to come when you spend time in His presence.
B. Last week we ended with PSA 81:13-16 so let’s turn there.
1. The NIV words it a little better. The NIV says, “If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
a. God clearly states what will happen If we listen to Him. (Listening comes from fellowship)
i. Our enemies would be subdued, and God would supply us with the finest in life.
ii. God offers His very best.
iii. He offers His wisdom and His direction in our lives, but it only comes by listening. And we hear the best when we're in His presence.
C. In the N. T. we find many references where Jesus spent time alone to hear from His Father.
1. Jesus was always looking to His father for guidance, direction, and fellowship.
a. Jesus said in (JOHN 5:19) “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
b. The night before Jesus picked the 12 disciples; He went to the mountains to pray.
c. Look at LUK 6:12–13
i. Why did Jesus go to the mountains to pray?
ii. So He could have that close fellowship with the Father.
iii. So He could get the Father direction and guidance.
2. The time that you spend in private fellowship with the Lord is what is going to bring God’s power in your life for public benefit.
a. Jesus said in (Matthew 6:6) “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
b. Rewarding you openly is a result of what is done in secret. (Good or Bad)
II. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. When He returned, He came in the power of the Spirit.
A. He was led into a time of fasting and prayer before beginning His public ministry.
1. He was there so He could complete His preparation for ministry.
a. Mainly to spend time in God’s presence and to continue to walk with Him, always.
b. Then He returned in the power of the Spirit.
2. Only if all of us could learn this one truth. If Jesus needed to go into the presence of His Father to be renewed, find direction and to be empowered, how much more do we need to do this.
B. Lets turn over to EXO 34 In this chapter Moses had been fasting 40 days. He was given the 10 commandments and was on his way down from mountain Sinai.
1. Look at EXO 34:29–30
a. Moses was in the presence of God for 40 days, there was a dramatic outward effect – an unconscious effect.
b. (This will also happen to you.) [New birth on the inside, people change on the outside.]
i. But I’m not just talking about a change in the natural, I’m talking about being radiant with the glory of God. (It comes from being in His presence.) [You're going to glow in the dark]
2. Let's begin to have that time alone with the Lord.
a. As we do press on to know Him in a greater way, His ways will become our ways. We should be taking on His character, and become more and more in His likeness.
III. HOSEA 10:12 Notice he says. “Break up your fallow ground.”
A. There are 2 kinds of Christian lives: the fallow, and the plowed.
1. Fallow ground is uncultivated, unused, idle, dormant, and inactive.
a. It's possible that it was plowed at one time, but because it remained untended, because of the natural things, it hardened and became crusted until finally it needed to be broken up again in order to receive seed.
2. In the same way, the fallow life Christian is content with whatever fruit he may have produced in the past.
a. He is tolerant of those that are seeking God 1st. But he is unmotivated.
i. He always complains about how things are and how things should be, but does nothing to make thing better.
b. This is the person that has lost his passion for the presence of God in his life.
i. He looks back with satisfaction at the glory that once was in his life.
ii. Yet, he lost that something on the inside of him that causes him to go on and press on with the things of God.
B. The plowed life is the life that has remained prepared for the fresh activity of the Holy Spirit.
1. They are not content with inactivity, they want to continue going on in the things of God.
a. He sees that he is to be a habitation of seeds.
2. God's Word is seed. And with the HS cultivating our lives, that cultivation produces the proper environment for that seed to grow.
a. All of God's Words contain the power necessary to cause them to bear fruit in your life.
b. But they need the proper environment and cultivation to grow, which is brought by the HS.
3. When you plant a flower seed in the ground, the color of its bloom, the size of the pedal, everything about that flower is contained in that seed.
a. It's the same thing with God's Word.
i. The seed might be, “By Jesus stripes you are healed.” (1PE 2:24: MAT 8:17; ISA 53:5)
ii. Within that seed contains the full manifestation of that seed.
IV. Only the life that is plowed and cultivated with the HS and the presence of God will see the miraculous groweth of God's seed. (His Word that is full of His promises and commandments.)
A. Diligently seeking Him is the open door to breaking up the hardened, unusable ground in your life.
1. Listen to what the Moffatt’s translation says of our text, (HOSEA 10:12) “...Break up your fallow ground, by seeking knowledge of the eternal. ”
a. The way you break up that fallow, uncultivated, unproductive land is by getting to know the Father.
2. The word “Seeking” from the Moffatt's translation or from the KJV “Seek the Lord,” The Strong's concordance says it means “Specifically to worship or To seek in prayer and worship.”
a. If you want to break up that unproductive ground in your life, spend time in God's presence, communicating to Him and worshipping Him.
B. Turn with me to PSA 42:1–2
1. There is a longing and a yearning of your inner man to know God and His ways more intimately.
a. According to the Hebrew, the word “Panteth” means “To long for.”
i. He’s saying, “My soul longs for the Lord.”
b. The word “Soul” here usually means “mind,” but listen to what the Strong’s says that it can mean.
(It can mean) i. My Soul longs for the Lord, life, person, mind, heart, body, will, desire, and appetite.
2. (PSA 63:1–2 Says from the AMP) “Oh God, you are my God; earnestly will I seek you, my inner self thirsts for you, my flesh longs and is faint for you, in a dry and weary land, where no water is; (2) So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory.”
a. How far are you willing to go to quench the thirst that is within you?
(Hosea 10:12) b. Those who are willing to seek God till He comes and rains righteousness upon them will experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a new dimension.
c. The more deeply you yearn for God to pour Himself through you, the more deeply He will cultivate you.
i. Fruitfulness is always preceded by cultivation. Seek Him until you experience the rain.
ii. Then you'll truly be able to give testimony to what it says in (MATT 6:33) “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
3. God wants to use you. He wants to flow through you. And He wants to bless you, but it's going to take that commitment on our part to press in to know Him. That's when we'll begin to trust Him and rely on Him like never before.
WOLCC SUN AM. 3/22/92 and WOLCC SUN AM 11/19/95 This is taken from a message preached a few years ago called Knowing God Intimately # 2 and 3. Also this is from the book by Dennis Burke called Knowing God Intimately pg. 27-40