Knowing God (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

Pastor John Stasse , SYPC am, 21^st February 2010

Knowing God (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

Every generation has its set of values and priorities, yet as we look around our own we see it is not really that different to what God declares of Jeremiah’s day.

Some in our day place ‘wisdom’ (whether in terms of education, culture, scientism, mysticism, etc) at the top of the list. Others place ‘power’ there (personal or collective). To them it means everything, they spend their whole life pursuing and exercising it. Still others give their allegiance to ‘wealth’, the accumulation of things. And increasingly we see that for others it is more the doing of things – ie, experiences. They live for thrills, for travelling, trying new things, being at the cutting edge, etc. Though this could also be placed under the general heading of ‘power’ and even that of ‘wealth’.

But God points out, and calm reason inevitably concurs, that there is no true boasting in these things. The mind becomes forgetful or can’t keep up with new learning, culture rapidly changes, science is exposed for its bankruptcy in giving answers on how then to live; influence evaporates with the raising generation; inflation or the deceit of others erodes the wealth; experiences become like old photo albums relegated to memories as the body increasingly becomes unable to rise to the challenge of new opportunities. Temporary at best, always illusory, never satisfying, ever craving for more and more in an ad infinitum exhaustion (without or seemingly without limit).

The only true authentic basis for boasting is to be found in understanding and knowing God, and therefore by those who put Him first, and in so far as they engage in all these other things they do so from the position of and illustrative of this relationship with God.

In our monthly Discipleship Seminars this year, which we have entitled ‘Behold Your God’, we are going to consider various attributes of God has revealed concerning Himself, doing so with the aid of Packer’s ‘Knowing God’ to lead us into the Scriptures. But in so doing, to quote Packer, ‘Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance not simply with the doctrine of God’s attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are. As He is the subject of our study, and our helper in it, so He must Himself be the end of it. We must seek, in studying God, to be led to God.’

This is the import of Jeremiah 9:24. By the phrase “understand and know” it speaks of the believer’s relationship with God, a relationship which must be cherished as well as enjoyed, enlarged as well as guarded. We see here:

Throughout Scripture, “knowledge” implies an intimate relationship, not just awareness (Amos 3:2, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth”), and is even used for sexual intercourse (Gen 4:1,17; Matt 1:25; John 10:14,15).

It expresses a relationship marked by genuine and warm intimacy. The knowledge of God emphasized here is not a superficial knowledge, or a mere surface awareness of the facts about God, but a genuine, personal sharing of life with Him, based on repentance from sin and personal faith in Him.

What then God is saying is that believers do not merely know about Him and able to articulate truths concerning Him which they in turn can communicate to others, but that they actually know Him and can speak of God to others in terms of relationship realities not merely factual statements.

This is what we are able to glory in, this is our glory. But do we really stop think about what that means? When was the last time you were overwhelmed by the incredible nature of that proposition that we “understand and know God”.

Think of the vast contrast between us, the very real, deep and wide gulf that exists between us. He is infinite, we are finite. He is holy and pure, the very definition of it, but in and of ourselves we are unholy and impure….

A W Pink observes ‘He is solitary in majesty, unique in His excellency, peerless in His perfection. He sustains all, but is Himself independent of all. He gives to all, but is aided by none.’

Yet what is being declared here is that mere mortals, mere creatures can “understand and know” God, that God permits, indeed invites and assures of it.

If it had pleased Him God may have continued alone for all eternity without making known His glory to His creatures. He could have been the really ‘unknown God’ and unknowable God, leaving us to just get on with life and trying to make sense of it without reference to His Being or activity.

He was perfectly blessed within Himself before the first creature was called into being. It was purely the fruit of His will without any compulsion of need. And even now, what are we that He should reveal Himself to us? Indeed as Psalm 8 asks in ceaseless wonder “What is man that You are mindful of Him?”

Yet God created mankind with a view of a genuine relationship based on a real even if limited understanding and knowing Him. He did not do this with the angels, nor with any other created being. Only of man did He say “Let us create man in our image”. Not only that He pursued us even in our sinful state to bring us out of spiritual darkness that we might be reconciled to Him and enjoy the privilege of a living and developing relationship with Him, the nature of which He communicates through the most perfect expression of openness in the loving relationships of Groom and Bride, of Husband and wife, and of Father and child.

And yet we read of the new covenant through the work of the Messiah in Jer 31:34 “they all shall know Me”. Jesus tells us that all who believe in Him “have everlasting life” (John 5:24) and then in John 17:3 spells out the very nature and essence of eternal life saying, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (see also 1 John 5:).

When Paul writes in Ephesians 5:1, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,” he assumes two things. First, that those who he is addressing are true, regenerate children of God, and second, that these believers have a true understanding of the God of the Bible.

This is the reality of the Christian experience and life. We understand and know God – not fully to be sure, but certainly really. The Christian’s greatest privilege is not forgiveness nor that we are going to heaven, it is that we partake of this indescribable and privileged reality of all believers, and one that defines the very essence of heaven. But we are not called to wait till then, it is a present reality.

What God particularly declares in Jer 9:24 is that this is what we should glory in this reality. It is not a knowledge that leads to frustration but to joy, enthusiasm. We will express this to God, but also with one another, and indeed before all.

If such a glorious God can be known, and is indeed known by some, it is incumbent on us all to know Him, and more so every day. But how?

We do so the moment we believe, and yet we do so gradually. We have it, yet we know instinctively there is more of it to enter into.

We know this in terms of human relationships. A couple getting married have already come to know each other through the time of courtship end engagement, but they soon learn if they were unaware of it, that there is so much more to learn about each other and themselves in relations to one another. Every new situation of joy or challenge becomes a context of discovery.

So it is with our relationship with God. Peter Jeffrey describes that the knowledge of God we receive at conversion ‘is only the key that opens up the possibility of knowing God in His fullness.’ In becoming a Christian we understand something of His wisdom, His holiness and justice, but also His grace, mercy and love for these things are set before us in the Gospel, but when we believe we see how personal they have become, and yet we also know that we have but to scratch the surface of all that we can know in this present life of God of His Being and His ways – and what is this compared to what will be unfolded to us in glory! As John Blanchard wrote: No Christian is truly spiritual who does not revel as much in his ignorance of God as in is knowledge of Him.

And children I want you to understand that what we are speaking about here is not something you have to wait till you become an adult to possess and enjoy. Think of little Samuel in the OT. He does not stand as an isolated case. In Jesus, the moment you believe in Him, He calls you His friend, walks with you and pours out His love on you.

Nor do we have to wait till we get our lives together before we can hope that God will be like this to us. Instead it asks of all, Why delay, why even, as some, spend a whole lifetime without knowing Him when it can begin now, the moment you turn to Jesus in faith, trusting Him to be your saviour and Lord?

Yet the question remains, How do we enter and grow in such knowledge of God? If we ask ‘What is God like?’ The answer of the Bible is that He is not like anything at all. He is so gloriously unique that any attempt on our part to define God would inevitably result in idolatry, which Tozer defines as ‘to entertain thoughts about God which are unworthy of Him.’ The great danger in formulating our doctrine of God is to shape our thoughts in part or in whole more by sentimentality than truth. But where do we get the truth? The answer is that God is known as He is revealed to the heart by the Spirit of God through the Word. Yes, creation demonstrates a Creator so plainly that all are “without excuse”, but people cannot accurately perceive what that Creator is like let alone enjoy relationship-knowledge.

When you look at a watch you can see that there was a watchmaker who was gifted in detailed construction and persistent in application unto completion, releasing it to the market only when it was seen to be good. Such broad things can be said, but as to whether he or she, personality, manners, relationship skills, moral character we would be in the dark, How could we ever say ‘I know him?’

Is the infinite eternal God so much more within the grasp of human reason and deduction? Certainly not! The God of the Scripture can only be known as He makes Himself known. So we need to go to the Scriptures, and even then read them under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, and especially behold Him there in the eternal Son who became man, Jesus Christ.

But even then this knowledge of God is fragmentary. We need to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus” (1 Peter 3:18). Paul tells us in Col 1:10 that the principal prayer and aim of Christians should be that we “walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God”.

The more we know of God the more we hunger to know. Once a person knows God as Father and Saviour, they will want to go on to discover as much as possible about God. And the more we learn about God the more it humbles us yet at the same time thrills us and we will find ourselves love God even more.

Some may think that seeking a clearer understanding and knowledge of God by studying the Bible is dry and dull, but the believer sees that is far from the truth, that it is exciting and satisfying. ‘What can be more exciting than discovering biblical truths about God, and what can be more satisfying than to have our minds and hearts enlarged by the knowledge of God?’ (Peter Jeffrey)

Spurgeon, when only 20 years old said, ‘Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity… Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea, be lost in His immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest refreshed and invigorated.’

Such a study is therefore also immensely practical. As one said, ‘the outworking of our faith is conditioned by our concept of God.’

Daniel 11:32 tells us that “the people who know their God will display strength and take action.” That is, as one knows God so they will proportionately reflect real virtue and righteous behaviour.

Peter indicates that the knowledge of God is productive of “grace and peace”, and “all that pertains to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:2-3). The deeper and wider the knowledge of the Lord, the more these things are multiplied. Throughout this letter he also shows how this true knowledge of God protects against the errors and heresies that assail the church. No wonder he calls us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).

But we must be careful. Our concern in study what the Bible teaches about God is not to enlarge our acquaintance with its teaching on the attributes of God, but with the living God whose attributes they are. And in this pursuit we are greatly encouraged for this is God’s goal in us. Do we understand that this is what God wants to see in us? In Hosea 6:6 he declares that this is what He desires – “I desire mercy not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burn offerings.’

Do we realise how much we lack knowledge of God? We need to ask God to show us how impoverished in this understanding and knowledge we are.

Do we realize how impotent we are in coming to such knowledge of God? We need to pray that God by His Holy Spirit would shine in our hearts to give us “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Himself” (1 Cor 4:6). Our knowing another really depends more on them allowing us to know them than on our attempts to getting to know them. Our great joy is that God invites us to understand and know Him. Our great responsibility, the prime pursuit of our lives is to so know Him.

Lastly, do we realise how this ought to be the essence and sum of life and living? All around us the knowledge of God is despised and sadly even within the church is often neglected, treated as an ordinary thing. Yet this subject as Calvin rightly says ‘is justly entitled to the labour of a whole life; nay, were a hundred lives given us, this one thing would be sufficient to engage our attention.’ May God give us grace that this will never be an undervalued possession!