The God We Can Know Personally

Jeremiah 9:23-24, "Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD."

John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Gals. 4:8-9, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” 

Philippians 3:10, "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death..."

What is the goal of the Christian life? What is our reason for being? Why should anyone want to be a Christian? Someone would say that it's for the sake of inner comfort and peace (no, but this is abundantly supplied). Someone else would say that it's for the sake of the power to cope with the demands, the petty hassles, the frustrations, or even the tragedies of life (no, but this is abundantly supplied). Someone else answers, "To miss Hell and go to Heaven when we die." (no, but this is a part of the salvation package). Another person suggests that it is for the sake of having a purpose, a reason for living (no, but this is abundantly supplied). Another says it's for the sake of the forgiveness of sins (no, although of course this too is essential and is abundantly supplied). None of these fringe benefits, which seem to have moved from the fringes into the center of things in the testimonies of too many modern Christians, is the central thing. What is it? Knowing God! This is life eternal to know the living God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Three little boys were secretly overheard by one of the Dads as they engaged in one of those, “my-Dad-is-bigger-and-better-than-your-Dad” type of conversations.

One little boy said, “My Dad knows the famous golfer, Jack Nicklaus!”

The second shouted, “Hey, that’s nothing, my Dad knows the President of the United States!”

The father of the third little fellow heard his son say, “Hey, that’s nothing, my Dad KNOWS GOD!”

The thought that it is possible to know God is mind-boggling! The testimony that one knows God personally and intimately through the Lord Jesus Christ is the miracle of all miracles!

What does it mean to know God? How does one come to know God? How well can God be known? Let's turn to God's revelation of Himself in His Word and find not just information but intimate involvement with God, our Heavenly Father.

1. The Explanation of Knowing God

What does the Scripture mean by the term “knowing God”? The Bible reveals that there are two aspects inherent in the expression “knowing God.” One involves personal intimacy. And the second involves public ministry. 

The New Covenant God made with his people through Jesus the Christ, states in Jeremiah 31:34, “And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” 

Turning back to Jeremiah 9:24, we read: “but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” Jer 22:16, “He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? declares the LORD.” 

If we were able to ask Jeremiah, "What do you mean by "knowing the Lord”?", he might well answer impatiently, 'Have you not been listening? I have told you twice already'. For indeed, as we have seen, in 9:23-24 and 22:16, Jeremiah has given us his definition of what it means to 'know God', and in both cases it involves public ministry. It means to value what God delights in: 'kindness, justice and righteousness". It means to do what is right and just and to defend the poor and needy: 'is that not what it means to know me?'”

Chris Wright says, “I find this a remarkable statement, referring to Jer. 22:16, and an infinitely challenging one. For amid all our spiritualizing, pious, devotional, even mystical, verbosity over what 'knowing God' is all about, here is a stark four-word question (in Hebrew) that stands like a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of a tossing sea of words. We come wondering how to steer a course towards truly knowing God, and here we find a biblical, prophetic, inspired, luminous, definition of what knowing God is. Its simplicity and clarity defies all confusion. Doing righteousness and justice; defending the poor and needy - that is to know God. Where does this leave our limp evangelical pietism, or our suspicion of all forms of social engagement, or the rationalizations by which we excuse ourselves from the ideological and practical battlefields of economics and politics?

Putting these points together, and looking at Jeremiah's vision of the new covenant, what we see is not merely of a collection of individuals who all have personal access to God in worship. Rather he envisages a whole community that is collectively committed to knowing God through the practice of the covenant values that God delights in - social compassion and justice. It is a vision not merely of a new spirituality, but of a new society.

2. The Experience of Knowing God

A. Knowing God is a Matter of Special Grace

1. Everyone knows God in one way, but not everyone knows God in a personal way! - (Read Romans 1:18-21)

The voice of God in creation and in conscience is not sufficient to save us, but this knowledge does take away all excuses from all peoples in all times and places!

1 Corinthians 2:14, "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

2. Knowing God Personally and Savingly Requires a Special Revelation of God to our hearts, by His Spirit, from His Word!
3. God’s knowing us implies personal affection and powerful communication – Galatians 4:9, “…But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God ...” Concerning knowing God, Paul raises the question: Why would someone who knows the true God, and has been set free, place themselves under bondage? This is what the Galatians are doing! Then Paul inserts an important point when he says “or rather are known by God”; it is really more important that God knows us (in the sense of an intimate, accepting relationship) than it is that we know God. Remember the terrible words of judgment in Matt. 7:21-23: I never knew you.

The communication of the Word of God by the Spirit of God is effectual because as Jesus said in John 10:27, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

Romans 8:29, "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." When God says He knows His people, He’s not referring to specific information that He has about them, but instead to specific intentions and special affections for them. The Old Testament word for knowing God is the same one used for describing sexual intimacy - Genesis 4:1, "Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain,…" To foreknow is to forelove - to be affectionate toward.

(4) God’s knowing us requires redeeming, communicating, regenerating action on His part. Matthew 11:27, "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him."

In Gals. 4:9, where Paul says, “we are known by God,” and that it "pleased the Father to reveal His Son in him", he is declaring that the grace-work of God had come in His loving, redeeming, choosing, calling, communicating, persevering way, and brought him and all who come to Him into a lasting, love relationship with the Father. Without this work of special grace, we would never know God.

B. Knowing God is a Matter of Seeking His Face

1. One can know a great deal about God without a real intimate knowledge of Him. Knowledge to a Westerner is about getting information and using our minds. However, in the biblical conception, knowledge is not essentially or even primarily rooted in the intellect and mental activity. Rather, it is more experiential and is embedded in the emotions, so that it may encompass such qualities as contact, intimacy, concern, relatedness and mutuality.

The reason why so many Christians have such a superficial relationship with God is because they do not seek His face but His hand. Instead of coming to Him as Father, most believers approach Him as though He were the Chairman of Relief and Welfare.

2. Knowing God Intimately begins with a Sense of Personal Relationship ‑ Psalm 63:1a, "O God, thou art my God.” David said again in Psalm 118:28, "Thou art my God, and I will praise thee; thou art my God, and I will exalt thee."

To “know God” is to have a vital relationship with him, one characterized by faithfulness, and rooted in love, confidence, and profound, enduring regard. Trust and knowledge are integral and inseparable aspects of such a relationship.

3. Knowing God Prompts One to Forever go on Seeking Intimate Companionship with Him ‑ Psalm 63:1b,"early will I seek thee.

"Finders become Seekers – “early will I seek thee” - The word “early” carries three ideas, early, earnestly and eagerly. Hebs. 11:6, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

Psalms 34:10, "... But those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing."; Psalms 105:4, "Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore!"; Psalms 119:2, "Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart!" ; Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

4. Knowing God is a Matter of Individual Pace

What we love most intimately, we long for the most passionately. In Psalm 63, we learn that David sought God personally in the morning ‑ v 1; publicly in the daytime ‑ v 2; and privately in the nighttime ‑ v 6

Those who have once caught a glimpse of the glory long for more to be made manifested. ‑ Psalm 63:2

Moses had been in the presence of God for 80 days, and yet after having seen and experienced so much, his request to God was, "Show me thy glory”! Moses knew and was known by God, but the taste that he had been given only served to whet his appetite to know Him more dearly and clearly, so he cries out in Exodus 33:13, "Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight."

Paul, after having known Christ for thirty years declares that his heart's desire is in Philippians 3:10, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,…"

We know as much of God as we want to. All true Christians know God, and all know Him on different levels, all based upon their heart hunger for Him and not their intellectual hunt for theological facts. It's passionate lovers of God that long to know Him in an ever-increasing manner.

3. The Exploits of Those Who Know God

 A. Those Who Know God Have Great Energy for God - "but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action." (Daniel 11:32)

Hebrews 11:33 -35..."who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." 

One could sum these verses up by stating that those who know God have backbone or courage!

B. Those Who Know God Have Great Thoughts of God - Our God is Large and in Charge! He is Completely Righteous, Inexhaustibly Powerful, Absolutely Truth, Eternally Unchangeable, Gloriously Holy, Infallibly Wise, Infinitely Loving and Personally Joyful - and by grace I can say I KNOW HIM! Hallelujah!

C. Those Who Know God Show Great Boldness for God - Men who fear only God and who perceive that He rules over every detail of their lives do not quit because of the odds against them, nor the dangers around them, because they know the God above them has their times in His hands!

The disciples must have been shocked when the Lord commissioned them to make disciples of all the nations.  That assignment was nothing short of overwhelming.  It was a case of eleven men against the world, eleven relatively ignorant men of the most despised nation under the sun against all the power and wisdom of the world.

"Impossible!" they thought.  "Utterly impossible!" they reasoned.  "Unthinkable!" they felt. Yet in the assurance that He was with them, giving them all the authority and power needed, they marched into every part of the known world confronting demons, diseases, and moral and spiritual darkness, announcing Jesus is Lord!

D. Those who Know God have Great Contentment in God - Oswald Chambers, in commenting on the Hebrew men about to be cast into the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel: ‘These Hebrew children committed their case to God and graciously and peacefully and calmly and quietly washed their hands of the consequences.”

E. Those who Know God have Great Enjoyment in Their True Identity! - The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever! You can’t enjoy Him if you don’t know who you are in Him. The basis of our identity is of utmost importance.

If you had been granted an interview with John, the disciple, and asked him, "Who are you? What is your primary identity?” He wouldn’t have replied, "Why I am a handpicked disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ. I traveled in the elite circle with Peter and James. I'm an evangelist and pastor of one of the great churches of the New Testament - the church at Ephesus. I'm also the author of the books of John and Revelation, as well as having three personal letters published in the Bible. Listen to how he identified himself:

John 13:23, "Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. John 20:2 , Then she runs and comes to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them,; John 21:7 , Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter; John 21:20  Then Peter, turning about, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following;"

Pay close attention: "Define and declare yourself radically as one beloved of God. God's love for you and His choice of you constitutes your worth.

Adrian Rogers said, “To know God is to love Him; to love Him is to trust Him. To trust Him is to obey Him; to obey Him is to be blessed, and to be blessed is to be a blessing.”

It is not enough to casually know about God; we were created to know God intimately and to enjoy Him personally.

A modern translation says in Ephesians 1:17,  “I pray that the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, would impart to you the riches of the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of revelation to know him through your deepening intimacy with him.” 

Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit would provide revelation so that we know God more intimately as the Spirit of Christ becomes a living presence in us. He puts this knowing that comes by the Spirit even more graphically in Eph. 3:19. "May you be strong to grasp… the love of Christ and to know it, though it is beyond knowledge" (NEB).

He wants the believers to have a deep, spiritual, and experimental knowledge of God - a knowledge that cannot be gained by intellectual ability, but only by the gracious ministry of the Spirit.

Knowing God is the heart of the Christian life - not knowing of God, not knowing about God, but knowing God. We are not talking about a philosophical, intellectual, or even emotional knowledge of God. We are talking about a personal, experiential knowledge of God. And when you know God this way, your entire life will change.

I know that I know that my life is redeemed
I know I have found what some only have dreamed
I hold in my heart the pearl of great price
Dear God, hear my cry, I want to know Christ

I want to know Christ
I keep Him before me
I lift up my eyes
I drink in His glory
I press toward the goal
His goodness unfolds
March on, oh, my soul
I want to know
Yes, I want to know Christ.