Mar. 20, 2022

Experiencing God. (BTS 20 Mar 22) — Pastor John Custer

Introduction - We, as western Christians living in modern times, have grown dependent on many rather indirect and artificial means to connect with the Lord Jesus.  There is no end to the media materials available to us through movies, television, radio, computers, and all related inputs to the five senses.  All of these materials only teach us about God.  This list would even include the Bible.  In all that I say today, please understand that I am not discrediting or diminishing the Bible’s importance.  The problem is that Western Christians may spend most of a lifetime devoting themselves to knowing about God, rather than simply knowing Him.   There is a huge difference!  By limiting their experience with God to reading and memorizing Scripture, there is a whole world of interaction they are missing which the Bible portrays as the real center of our existence.  It is very evident that people in Bible times did not even have Bibles.  In the Bible, the normal Christian life for almost everyone is seen as a life lived in close union with small groups of other Christians who passed around the teachings of the apostles and teachers with little more than a letter to back it up.  There were no copy machines, faxes, recorders, or the like to duplicate anything to read or listen to.  

2 Peter 1:3  Everything we could ever need for life and complete devotion to God has already been deposited in us by his divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing him who has called us by name and invited us to come to him through a glorious manifestation of his goodness. TPT

Knowing someone is vastly different than knowing about that person.  Imagine how unlikely you would be to marry someone you only knew about:  Let’s say you had reams of data detailing their height, weight, hair color, biographical data, facts about their origin, favorite color, hobbies, etc., Maybe you even had a picture, but had never met them, or talked with them.  No reasonable person would even consider marrying someone under those circumstances!  Let’s say you didn’t even have a good picture, and no audio recordings either!  Let’s say that all you ever did was to read about this person.  You had their entire life history printed out in massive volumes, detailing their kindergarten exploits, painfully walking you through each test in grade school, each swimming lesson, the prom, and every job they ever had, including every day on their job. You read and read, and memorized whole chapters of their life history, but never dined with them, rejoiced with them, cried with them, made decisions with them, served and did laborious things for them, bore children for them, healed their sicknesses, etc.  

It would be impossible to “know” someone in this distant, indirect way, yet this is exactly the way many Christians approach “knowing” God.  Peter continues with some how-to’s for us concerning how to go about knowing God: 

2 Peter 1:4-8 As a result of this, he has given you magnificent promises that are beyond all price, so that through the power of these tremendous promises you can experience partnership with the divine nature, by which you have escaped the corrupt desires that are of the world.   So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness, and to goodness add understanding, and to understanding add the strength of self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters, and to mercy toward others add unending love. Since these virtues are already planted deep within, and you possess them in abundant supply, they will keep you from being inactive or fruitless in your pursuit of knowing Jesus Christ more intimately.  TPT

Conclusion - The Bible is rich with instances of the importance of knowing God, not just knowing about Him.  Knowing Him is, without doubt, the highest form of individual growth a human can experience.  We’ll be learning about this important subject in the weeks ahead.