Reading: Knowing God (Video Slides)

A Knowing God (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
by David Feddes

²³ 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, ²⁴ 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.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24 ESV)

Evidence or hearsay

A. W. Tozer: To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate, but he remains personally unknown to the individual. Others know of him only by hearsay. They have heard about Him from others, and have put belief in Him into the back of their minds along with various odds and ends that make up their total creed.

Personal experience

Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience. People can know God with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any other person or thing. (A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God)

What can all this mean except that we have in our hearts organs by means of which we can know God as certainly as we know material things through our familiar five senses? We possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know God and the spiritual world if we will obey the Spirit’s urge and begin to use them. These senses must be quickened to active life again by the operation of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. (A. W. Tozer)

But why do the very ransomed children of God themselves know so little of that habitual, conscious communion with God which Scripture offers? The answer is because of our chronic unbelief. Faith enables our spiritual sense to function. Where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things. (A. W. Tozer)

God and the spiritual world are real. We can reckon upon them with as much assurance as we reckon upon the familiar world around us. Spiritual things are there (or rather we should say here) inviting our attention and challenging our trust. Our trouble is that we have established bad thought habits. We habitually think of the visible world as real and doubt the reality of any other. Sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us. (A. W. Tozer)

“The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?’ Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.” (Jeremiah 2:8)

“My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good.” (Jer 4:22)

• What makes you come alive?
• What guides you?
• What makes you feel secure?
• What scares you?
• What are you ashamed of?
• What do you glory in?

But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit…

my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me,

the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

(Jeremiah 2:11,13)

“Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them… Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.” There is none like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is great in might. Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? (Jeremiah 10:2-7)

What are you ashamed of?

Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God. (Jer 3:24-25)

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:32

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. (Romans 1:16)

(J. I. Packer, Knowing God)

“I will make a new covenant… I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jer 31:31-34)

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (John 1:18)

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent… I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” (John 17:3,26)

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:30-31)

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Gal 6:14)

How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is demanding but simple. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God… Meditation is a lost art today, and Christian people suffer grievously from their ignorance of the practice. (J. I. Packer, Knowing God)

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God.

(J. I. Packer, Knowing God)

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:9)

Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)