God is Knowable Jeremiah 31:31–34
INTRODUCTION No one greater than God could ever occupy our thoughts. Contemplate Him long enough and you will be humbled. Investigate him and your mind will be enlarged. Meditate on him and your soul will be nourished. Dwell on Him and you will find comfort in the midst of any trial.
When you begin to study the attributes of God, you realize that he is the most perfect being conceivable. His attributes are in fact perfections. He is not simply holy, but perfect in holiness. He is not merely love, but perfect in love. He is not simply wise, but perfect in wisdom. He alone is the most perfect being imaginable. Jeremiah the prophet once said, “There is none like you, O Lord” (Jeremiah 10:6). Or consider what David wrote in Psalm 145:3, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”
How often do you think about God? And I mean more than a passing thought, but rather a lingering upon what you know to be true of Him. What comes to your mind when you think about God? Perhaps, you think of Him seldom. Perhaps you think of Him seldom because you have little knowledge of Him. But I believe that knowing God, and thinking rightly about Him, is at the very center of our identity. Failure to know God, and study God, has a real consequence. Listen to how the theologian David Wells puts it:
“It is one of the defining marks of our time that God is now weightless….He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable….Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God’s existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgment no more awe- inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers’ sweet fog of flattery and lies. That is weightlessness. It is a condition we have assigned him after having nudged him out to the periphery of our secularized life.… Weightlessness tells us nothing about God but everything about ourselves, about our condition, about our psychological disposition to exclude God from our reality.” (God in the Wasteland, 88-90)
Everyone is a theologian We desperately need to devote ourselves to a lifetime of study - the study of who God is. You’ve heard me say this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again and again. Everyone is a theologian. I’m a theologian. You’re a theologian. Your neighbor who sleeps in most Sundays is a theologian. Even the atheist who can’t stand Christians is a theologian. Not matter what you think, thoughts about God are inescapable. Everyone has some conception of who God is - good or bad. Everyone has opinions about who God is. The question is, “Are your thoughts and opinions about God correct or incorrect? Are you a good theologian or are you a bad theologian?”
I plan to take the next 12 weeks (with a few breaks in between) to study with you the attributes of God. Attributes such as His holiness, his love, his power. And my hope is that this series of messages will whet your appetite for a lifetime of study concerning who God is. And understand this, there is a danger that one might make knowledge as an end unto itself. We should not come wanting nothing more than to “know the answers.” That will only lead us to a place of arrogance and cold understanding. Instead, we should pursue the knowledge of God in order that we might respond with our hearts, and that our lives would be conformed to what we observe.
It’s possible some of you don’t feel the need to study his attributes. So let me tell you who this study is for: • The person who is ignorant of God’s character. That’s not meant to be a put down of sorts, but my guess is that some in here simply not capable of articulating the attributes of God. And therefore, you are not able to meditate on them. • The person whose love for God has grown cold. There is certainly a place in the Christian life for feelings and experience. But our affections can only be proper when they are built upon objective truth. And so if you find yourself in a place of where your love for God seems to have dwindled, the answer is not necessarily a mountain top experience. You need to give yourself to the study of his attributes. • The person who has yet to learn everything there is to know about God. Well, I guess that makes all of us, doesn’t it?
Thinking About God from the Top Down So how do we get started? I want this morning to serve as a bit of an introduction. And it’s important we lay some groundwork because we don’t simply want to attain knowledge about God, we want to then turn it into knowledge of God. And what I mean by that is this: We should strive to turn each attribute of God into a matter of meditation before God. So that our understanding of who He is drives us to our knees in prayer, and opening our mouths in praise. We want to contemplate his greatness, so that we might experience the depths of his riches.
That’s only going to happen if we learn to think from the top down, and not bottom up. Here’s what I mean by that. We all of have a tendency to think about God from the bottom up. We work from our experience to who God is. For example, love is a common emotion. And after all God is love. And we easily begin to define God’s love according to our own experience. But if we aren’t careful we end up creating a God according of our own limitations.
You see, God is the measure of all things. There is no entity called “loved” floating in the cosmos that is the measurement of God. Instead, love is to be understood in light of who God himself is. We need to work our way from the top down. We need to let God himself become the definition of what love, grace, mercy, and judgment is. And if we can do that, we just might be surprised as to what we will discover.
It will change the way we speak about God Several months ago we were reading from 2 Peter at the breakfast table. And something struck me in the first chapter that I had never noticed before. Peter is talking about the transfiguration of Jesus. It was an experience like no other. Jesus took his inner circle of disciples, which included Peter along with James and John up to a mountain. And while praying, His appearance transformed in a glorified form. His face shone like the sun. His clothes became white as light. His true identity couldn’t have been more displayed. What’s more, God the Father spoke from heaven saying, “This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
And as Peter is recalling this, here’s what I noticed this time. He refers to God the Father as “the Majestic Glory.” The Majestic Glory. Peter, hearing the voice of God could find no other way to describe his presence, his transcendence, his weightiness - than to call him the Majestic Glory. Now, here’s what that made me realize: not only is it important how we think about God, but how we speak about God. It is all too common for us to speak casually about God, as if he is one of us. And while we can have an intimate relationship with God, He is wholly other. He is not like us. True, God is near to us and involved in our lives. But yet He is set apart from us in fundamental ways. “There is no one holy like the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:2). And this is the God we want to know.
God is Incomprehensible, Yet Knowable If I say, “God is knowable,” that statement is best understood in light of the fact that God is incomprehensible. What do I mean by that? Well, let me read you a few passages. • Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable (Psalm 145:3). • Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand? (Job 26:14). • For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8–9). • 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?” (Romans 11:33–34).
You will never know everything there is to know about God. Nor can we know everything about even one aspect of God’s character. Every attribute, whether it be his holiness, his power, or his wisdom - is beyond your ability to fully comprehend. Now, why is this the case? Well, first off you and I are finite beings. We have limitations. And yet, that is not true of God. He is without limits. The finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite. For example, as soon as we begin to think we have understood something of the mercy and grace of God we soon find out from the Scripture that his mercy and grace are even greater. This is one of the reasons why knowing God is so glorious - the depths of who he is will never leave us dissatisfied. His perfections are always far better than we can imagine.
Secondly, the fallen state of humanity has made it impossible to know God fully. Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans that that our tendency is to distort, pervert, and confuse the truth. We have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Third, there are some things that God has simply not chosen to reveal. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).
Perhaps a perfect example of God’s incomprehensibility is found in the story of Moses. Moses was in essence an intermediary between the people of Israel and God. He would go into the tent and speak with God and a pillar of cloud representing the presence of God would descend on the tent. One day, Moses gets us the courage to ask God if he can see his glory (Exodus 33:18). Well, there was a big problem with that. God said, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (33:20). He is so infinite, so glorious, so majestic that no can look his straight on and live. And so God does something else. He takes Moses and tucks him behind a rock, and he tells him that when he passes by he will cover Moses with his hand. And so he does, and when the Lord passes him by, Moses could only see his back. Incomprehensible, but still knowable.
TRANS: Well that’s a very long introduction leading up to our main passage (I just broke a personal record). I’d like to turn your attention to Jeremiah 31 for the time we have left, we’re going to read verses 31-34. It’s a very famous prophecy that is then reiterated by the author of Hebrews in the New Testament. And I chose it this morning because it speaks to this idea of knowing God.
READ JEREMIAH 31:31–34….
1. What Does It Mean to Know God? This text talks about a new covenant. Now think of a covenant is a relationship based on a legal commitment. In fact, think of it in terms of a marriage. After all, God can say here, “I was their husband.” Every covenant has terms, and the terms of the old covenant God made with his people when he brought them out of Egypt were these: He appeared to them, but he always appeared to them in theophanies. A theophany is a visible manifestation of God. So when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Or when he led the people by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He gave them the Law through Moses. He dwelt among them in the tabernacle and later on in the temple in the midst of the people and said, “If you want to approach me, you have to approach me by coming to the temple.”
If you’ve read much of the Old Testament, particularly Exodus, you’re somewhat familiar with the Mosaic covenant. When God reveals Himself as a consuming fire on the mountain, He says to the people of God, "Stay back; don't come anywhere near the mountain lest you be consumed." So, the people of God said, "You know Moses, we're okay with you going for us. We're just going to sit back." That's what they did, and Moses went. It's the whole Old Testament sacrificial system. Year after year after year on the Day of Atonement, one priest goes into the presence of the Holy One. Everybody else, all the people of God, stand and wait as a man goes in to meet with God. He's got bells strapped into his garment, so that you can tell if he's still moving. If he gets struck down, he's got a rope that you can pull him out with.
But now he says, in verse 32 that the covenant is broken. And it’s not because of any imperfection in the covenant, but because of the imperfection of the people. God’s people could never hold up their end of the covenant terms. And so he says, “the days are coming.…when I will make a new covenant.” But how does God appear in this new covenant? Not through the Law of Moses, but through the person of Jesus. “And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory.”
Jesus is the covenant keeper; He is the perfect prophet, priest and king. We relate to God, not based on our ability to keep the covenant; we relate to God based on Christ's accomplishment in keeping the covenant. He has kept the covenant for us, so that when we trust in Him, He robes us in His righteousness.
So now if you want to approach God, you don’t go to the temple or the tabernacle. You don’t come here. You approach God through Jesus Christ, and as a result, God says, “In the new covenant there will be a newer, richer, deeper, relationship you can have with me.” The way he puts it essentially is, “Now every one of my people, from the least to the greatest, will know me.” You see, a Christian is someone who knows God. The essence of being a Christian is to know God. What sets a nominal Christian apart from a real Christian is that real Christian knows God. Only a person who is born again, only a person who has had the Holy Spirit come and soften and illuminate the heart can know God, or even conceive of knowing God.
And what this means is we now have unlimited access to the presence of God. Every single person in this room who is a believer. Nobody today is going into a tent to meet with God. Through Christ there is unlimited access. The author of Hebrews says, "Approach His throne with confidence." Sinful men approaching the throne of a holy God with confidence. How is this possible? Only through Christ the flawless man; the flawless mediator, and through Him, we have a direct experience of the glory of God.
2. How Do We Go About Knowing Him? Without a personal relationship we cannot know Him. Think of any relationship you have, and unless there is a mutual relationship there is no relationship. There has to be a mutual sharing of truth and love. So look at what God says he does in the new covenant in verse 33, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” In other words there is communication. There’s truth. There’s information.
Secondly, he says, “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” It’s a relationship of intimacy. It’s only in an intimate relationship where one person can say, “I’m yours and you are mine.” I think there’a few implications for what it means for us to know him.
A. Knowing God Means You listen to Him. God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus, and he’s revealed himself in the pages of this book. And the pathway to a deeper understanding of Him - a deeper knowledge of Him - is through feasting on the word. Letting the words of Christ dwell in you richly. Could it be that God feels distant from you because in neglecting his Word you’ve put distance?
B. Knowing God Means You Speak to Him. Again, just thinking about our earthly relationships, they only work as we speak back. In the same way, we respond to the word through prayer. And I would submit to you that if you don’t know what to say, read the Bible first and pray second. Respond to what he’s given. And know this: If you belong to Him, he most certainly hears us. The author of Hebrews tells us we can boldly come before the throne.
C. Knowing God Means You Receive His Love. Look at verse 34. Do you see why they are able to know God? Do you see that grounding word in the last sentence? “For, I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sins no more.” If you don’t know God, it’s not because you haven worked hard enough or been moral enough. It’s because you haven’t received what he graciously offers - forgiveness! Do you see how this works? God is saying, “Look I’ll give you my son. I’ll give you my son because I love you. And there you can love me.” Unless you are a recipient of his love, you cannot know Him.
D. Knowing God Means You Express Love. Think about a marriage relationship, and imagine what kind of relationship it would be without telling each other how much they love them. Without words of gratitude. Without some sort of expression of intimacy. It wouldn’t be that intimate, would it? You’d lose something of the uniqueness. And so knowing God means we express our love through worship. Knowing Him should be our greatest delight. Praising Him. Telling others how wonderful He is. After all, he’s purchased us with the blood of his Son. He’s looked at us and said, “I’m yours and you are mine!”
This is where we begin on our journey through His attributes. You can know Him. The Majestic Glory has made himself know in the person of His Son. You can know Him! So here’s what I want you to do when you leave the auditorium this morning: • Don’t waste your thoughts. Think about his perfections as much as possible. Re-train your mind so that your thoughts are always given to Him. Make Him your first thought in the morning. Make Him your last thought before you go to bed. When you have those brief moments where everything is quiet, think about Him. Carve out time, even when you don’t have it, to ponder Him. I’m convinced that the more you think about Him, the more you’ll be enamored with Him, and the more you’ll say, “I love Him.” • Read the Bible with God in mind. That may sound obvious, but here’s what I mean: Every time you read the Bible, ask yourself the question, “What does this passage teach me about the character of God?” Fail to ask this question and you will miss the fact that on every page his
glory is revealed in one attribute or another. Everything God says, does, or decrees is a reflection of his majesty. Look for His attributes and you will read the Bible in a whole new way.
CONCLUSION I want to leave you with a thought and an exhortation this morning. The thought is this: God desires to be known (Psalm 19).
And here’s the exhortation: Make it your singular aim in life to know Him. And if you do so, you won’t be disappointed.