Do I Know You?

Bible Trivia

Who was the shepherd prophet?

Amos

What was the name of Moses’ wife?

Zipporah

What tribe of Israel was Paul from?

Tribe of Benjamin (So Paul wasn’t Jewish)

Which 3 Bible Characters had no parents?

Adam, Eve, Joshua - son of Nun

Know the Lord

Knowledge is necessary. Biblical knowledge is needed. Knowing about God is truly important!

Recap: Hosea and Gomer - still a better love story than Twilight.

What does restoration look like?

This restoration… you shall know the Lord.

Hosea 2:19–20 ESV

And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

Biblical “knowledge”

“Yd’” Yada. (Like yada, yada, yada: I know, I know, I know). It is to “know” cognitively, and experientially, to understand, it goes deep. It is head, heart and body.

Like… as in .. this gets intimate. What does it mean when we say “He got to know her in the Biblical sense?” If you didn’t know before, know you do. Sex, to be clear. “Carnal knowledge.” That’s in the range of meaning.

And it isn’t what the word means every time it shows up… but look at the living metaphor God is using throughout Hosea. Israel is the wife, God is the husband, the wife keeps betraying her husband sexually, God keeps restoring her to the marriage. This is intimate language.

And when God uses a metaphor, especially as often as he uses the family as a metaphor for His love for His beloved… God doesn’t grab easy metaphors; He creates them.

Family, Husband and Wife, isn’t a convenient metaphor God grabs to explain how He is. It is created in His image: male and female He created them.

I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

This isn’t just trivia knowledge. It is deep, it is relational, it is passionate, it is intimate.

He wants His people to “know” him. .

This thread of “knowledge” winds all the way through what God says through Hosea. His people, Israel, his bride… doesn’t know Him.

Not Knowing God

A root of much sin. Maybe even all sin?

This is part of the root of Israel’s issue. They don’t know God. If they did, they wouldn’t pursue all these other idols and sin of every kind.

Hosea 4:6 ESV

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Destroyed for lack of “knowledge.”

Hosea 5:4 ESV

Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord.

It’s tragic, really… ignorance. They don’t know. They don’t know God, how much He loves, how much He desires to love his people, to know and be known… they don’t know His holiness, His peace, His grace, His mercy, His power. They don’t know.

They don’t know His forgiveness. Their deeds don’t really prevent them from returning, God makes that clear enough in his language of redemption, of cleansing, of forgiving and restoring. But they “know not the Lord.” And they don’t know the radical grace and mercy of God.

So often we forget that too.

And so… what do we do when we don’t know something? We find out.

Discovery

And so Hosea, who does seem to know God, calls his people back.

Hosea 6:1–3 ESV

“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

That first one is a different word for “know”. To “search for”, to “ask for”. It is more cognitive, less intimate. Let’s start to seek, start to know… then that presses on, it leads to the deeper greater knowledge, the yada.

You know what gets in the way of getting to know someone? Thinking you already know them.

I Already Know Him

Hosea 8:2–3 ESV

To me they cry, “My God, we—Israel—know you.” Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him.

They claim knowledge… but they don’t. And this is where we get the phrase “reap the whirlwind.”

Hosea 8:7 ESV

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it.

Empty words. It has no cost (it seems).

This is an epidemic in our culture (if not in every age). Man makes god in their own image. Designer custom gods. Soap box coming.

I believe this or that. I like a God who would never do this or that.

I like to think God is like a summer morning.

I don’t like this part of the Bible. I don’t like Paul. I don’t like Lamentations. I really do prefer to tiptoe past the parts about judgment and condemnation and punishment.

Here’s the problem with that: God is who He actually is. And we seek to discover Him as He actually is. And making stuff up ISN’T HELPFUL!

The Alien God

Take it out of the “God” space for a minute, because there is so much baggage in that word. A space alien has appeared above the planet. He is demonstrably powerful. He demonstrates this by destroying governments from the sky, Independence Day, laser blasts. Other leaders he kills more quietly. Some nations he gives advanced technologies and they suddenly have food and flying cars and no more sick people.

And then you get a phone call. “Hey, this is the Supreme Ruler. Let’s chat.”

It is in your best interest to get to know the actual YHWH. As He actually is. And drop your pet theories about how you wish He was.

Hosea 13:4 ESV

But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior.

There is no one else. There is no other God. There certainly is no other Savior. That was true in Hosea’s time, when they thought of “Savior” they thought back to deliverance out of Egypt, out of slavery. They barely had a glimpse of everything God had in mind, Hosea himself as a “shadow”, a “type” of Yeshua, Jesus, the Savior from slavery of our souls.

I love the way A.W. Tozer puts it:

because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological. Some knowledge of what kind of God it is that operates the universe is indispensable to a sound philosophy of life and a sane outlook on the world scene.

It would be crazy not to discover who this God is.

And the great miracle, the radical and amazingly beautiful thing is: God wants to be known. Wants to be discovered. Tells us about Himself. Invites us to discover, to “know” in all the ways.

Hosea 14:9 ESV

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

So… how do we do this?

Getting to Know You

I began to get to know Karen… not all that long ago. We started dating in 2018.

It starts with all the basics. Knowing things about her is important. Could I truly know her at any depth if I didn’t know anything about her? If I am constantly feeding her meat, forgetting that she is a vegetarian.

At first, well I don’t know about you, I have to learn the things. The facts. The details. And that never stops, I just build on top of that.

How old are your kids? Oh, new information, that’s great.

I’ll learn your history, your stories. As we build trust, maybe some of the harder things.

I start to understand. How you think. How you feel. That never stops, I build on that.

As I come to know your mind and preferences, I can even start anticipating how you feel.

She’s had a long day, I better not run the dishwasher until after she’s drawn her boiling hot bath.

And because I love her, my heart start to love the things that she loves.

Let’s watch Twilight tonight!

(Okay, I’m not there yet).

We began that process when we were dating. But it’s over now, because now we’re married!

No, of course not! That’s a recipe for failure.

To be honest, we aren’t great at this. Life creeps up, it’s hard to make time and energy for “date night.” It takes intentionality, it takes emotional capital, it is an investment. And we don’t always do it well. We don’t always trust and we aren’t always trustworthy. Our marriage is pretty young, we get it wrong more often than we get it right.

But if I assume “I already know her...” we’re done. And I’m wrong.

She is changing and growing… and she will continue to grow for an eternity - because she is a glorious immortal being created, saved and being sanctified by God.

Getting to know another human: we know what that looks like.

Time. Attention. Open heart and open ears. Conversations - easy and hard. Trusting and building trust one drop at a time. Date nights, including one another, serving together, supporting one another.

How do we “Know” the Lord

aka Dating God.

Knowing about Him is important. It is a profound part of what we do here every Sabbath morning. We are learning more about Him.

But we can’t do that in a distant way. God not the “object” of our study. He is the subject, we are the object of His attention and affection.

We do that here, too. Singing together, talking together, spending time in His presence… and with others who love Him, too.

He has pursued us, he brought us to the table, we engage and respond because He has first loved us. We discover Him as He has made and makes Himself known to us. We share who we are… not because He doesn’t already know, but because in that process we actually discover who we are. In the light of His revelation we get self-revelation. And then we share that with Him so that we know that He knows… and that continues to shape us.

Oh, He knows my secret shame? And He loves me anyway?

So “YES” to Bible Study.

“YES” to prayer, both devoted times of prayer and constant prayer throughout the day.

“Yes” to silence and solitude, quieting everything else to spend time in His presence, listening to the still quiet voice.

This is what it boils down to. The Creator of the Universe knows you… and wants you to know Him. He has written His name across the heavens, He has travelled to the depths to rescue you. He has given you His Words and written them on your heart. He has given you His own Spirit, His own self to dwell in your spirit.

Hosea 6:3 “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.””

And when we discover, Let us say “Oh...”

Romans 11:33–36 ESV

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.