Years ago, in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer wrote:  “What you think about when you think about God is the most important thing about you.”

     What DO you think about when you think about God?  And where did you get those ideas?  This is important.  We all have ideas about God – but the important thing to ask is: are they the RIGHT ideas?  Where did we get them? 

     A few years back, I watched Al Mohler and Marianne Williamson on a news talk show.  Marianne Williamson, who is a “New Age” religious practitioner, said something about how the “god” she knows wouldn’t judge people, or tell them they were sinners, or send people to hell.  And the host asked Al Mohler what his response to that was.  Mohler, who is the President of our Southern Baptist Seminary inLouisville, gave a very insightful response.  He said something to the effect of: “Marianne, where are you getting these ideas about God?  They do not come from His word.  You are just talking about a god of your own imagination.” 

     In the same way, many people today talk about “god”, and have ideas about “god” – but just because a person has ideas about God does not mean that they are right.  Where can we find the truth about God?  We can find it in His word!  II Timothy 3:16 says “All scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished for all good works.”  God inspired the Bible, that verse tells us. Men did not write the Bible from ideas they “dreamed up” about God; GOD “breathed” the words of the Bible to us through men, to reveal the truth about Himself to us.  The Bible is the source of right “doctrine”, or “teaching” about the way we are to live – and about God Himself.  If we want to have right thoughts and ideas about God, we need to get them from His word. 

     And so this morning we are going to begin a new series, “Our Great God.”  Over the next several weeks, we will look together at the word of God and discover what it teaches us about God.  “What we think about God is the most important thing about us”!  So we need to turn to His word and see what He has taught us about Himself there, and make sure that the ideas we have about God, line up with what He has told us in His word.  We will see that the Bible teaches us that God is a Triune God, and an Eternal God, and a Holy God, and a Loving God – and more besides.  But today we want to just introduce this idea of the importance of knowing God, and knowing Him rightly.  WHY is it important that we begin the New Year with a study on the attributes of God?  Why not a study on exercise, or money, or some other discipline?  Because there is nothing we need more than we need a true knowledge of God.  Let’s turn to Jeremiah 9:23-24, where God makes this point very clear:

 “Thus says the LORD, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; ²⁴ but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the LORD.”

I.  Knowing God involves a personal relationship with Him.

     Jeremiah 9:23 begins, “Thus says the LORD …”.  In many of your Bibles, that word, “LORD” is in all capital letters.  Whenever you see “LORD” in all caps like that, it means that in the original Hebrew, it is not the word, “Adonai”, or “Lord”, but rather the name of God, “Yahweh” — “I am who I am” — that God gave Moses.  So God was saying, this is not just any god who is speaking here, this is YHWH.  This is not Baal, or Ashteroth, or Molech, or any of the other gods the people were familiar with; this is that one, specific God, YHWH, who saved His people by bringing them out of the land of Egypt and through the Red Sea – He saved them – and when He did, He gave them this personal name by which they would know Him.  Knowing God for Israel involved a real, personal relationship with the One who had saved them. 

     It was the same way in Jeremiah’s day as well.  Jeremiah was known as a “weeping prophet”, and he had good reason for it.  In the first part of this chapter, he says: “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears.”  WHY was he so distressed?  Because he lived in day of moral and spiritual decline.  He said in :2 that he wanted to leave this people, because they were adulterous and treacherous.  Verse 3 says they were liars, and “’They proceed from evil to evil – and they do not know Me’, declares the Lord.”

     God said that the people of Jeremiah’s day did not know Him.  This is important for us to understand, because those people were very “religious”.  In :25 here, God says: “I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised.”  That is a very revealing phrase.  God said that the people of Israel were, in a sense, “circumcised” – they had participated in the religious ritual.  But in another sense, He said, they were “uncircumcised” – that is, in their hearts.  In fact, He goes on to say that very thing in :26, “the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”  They had participated in the religious ritual: circumcision was the “sign of the covenant” with God for the people of Israel, similar to what baptism is for us today.  But taking part in the ritual did not mean that they had a real personal relationship with God in their heart.  In fact, the very next chapter, Jeremiah 10, tells how the people were worshipping idols, instead of the One, True, Living God.  They showed, both by their theology, and by the way that they lived, that despite having been circumcised, they did not really know God.  They didn’t know Him in their hearts, and show by the way they lived that they had a personal relationship with Him.

     And of course these words are very applicable to us today.  SO many people today will tell you: “I know God; I have been baptized.”  It is almost hard to find someone in Southwest Louisiana who has NOT been baptized at some time or another!  And yet, so many of those very same people are just like the people of God in Jeremiah’s day – they show by the way they live, that they really do not know Him in their heart.  They’ve been through the ritual – but they don’t really know God.

     Knowing God is not just a matter being through a ritual: whether it is circumcision, or baptism, or walking down an aisle, or repeating the exact words of a prayer.  And it is not just knowing some “facts” about God, either. 

     How many of you here know Bobby Jindal, our Governor?  Most of us would say that we know who he IS – that is, we know some “facts” about him: He has an Indian background, he is a Republican, he has a wife and some children; he spoke at our church a couple of years ago.  But that is different than really “knowing” him, isn’t it?  You can know a lot of things “about” someone, and not really KNOW them.  We need to realize that the same thing is true about God, too. 

     Knowing God means more than just knowing some facts about Him.  That’s the problem with a lot of religious people today: they wrongly believe that because they can spout off some facts about God, that they KNOW Him – and they don’t!  Really knowing Him means that, like Israel, that you have been redeemed by Him, saved by Him.  And that happens when you realize that you are lost, because you are a sinner, and that you have no hope of salvation except through what Jesus did for you, dying for your sins on the cross.  When you turn from your sins, and put your trust in what Jesus did, then He forgives, and saves you, and sends His Spirit into your heart and then – and only then – you can begin to really KNOW Him – when you have a personal salvation experience with Him through Jesus Christ. 

     Listen: don’t think that you “know God” just because you have been baptized!  God said that the people of Israel participated in their religious ritual – but they did not know Him.  The same thing can be true of you, too!  And knowing God is more than just “getting baptized” and having some good feelings or correct ideas about God.  It begins when you have a personal salvation experience with Him through Jesus Christ.  And it continues as you walk with Him, and learn to know Him better every day of your life.      

II.  Knowing God involves objective truths.

     Now, as we have said, knowing God is more than merely knowing some facts about Him – but like knowing any person, knowing Him DOES involve knowing some correct things about Him.  We see some of those things in this verse, where God said: “I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth.”  One of the things that God was communicating to us here is that He is not just whoever you think He is, or whoever anyone imagines Him to be.  He is a real, personal God, and like any person, He is characterized by some very specific personal qualities.

     It is the same with any real person.  Any real person has certain personal characteristics by which they are known.  If you know them, then you know these things are true about them.  If you don’t know these things about the person, then you make it obvious that you don’t know them.  Let’s say, for example, that you were talking with someone in town, and they mentioned that they knew my son, Michael.  You might say, “Oh, you know Bro. Shawn’s son, Michael?”  But if they began to describe him as someone who was 6’5” tall, with dark hair, who loved sports and who was a great athlete, you would begin to look at them sideways.  Michael is not 6’5”; he just passed up his mother in height; which means he is a little over 5’2”!  And he does not have dark hair, he has long, very blonde hair.  And he is NOT a great athlete; he likes to read, and is a good student, and likes Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.  If someone said they knew Michael, and didn’t know those things about him, you would instantly know that they did NOT really know him.  Michael is a real, specific person, who is characterized by specific qualities that make him who he is.

     And what we need to realize is that God is the same way.  God is not just whoever we imagine Him up to be.  Somehow people have gotten this idea that one person’s belief about God is just as good as anyone else’s belief about God, but this is absolutely wrong!  To say that whatever anyone believes about God is right, is tantamount to saying that God doesn’t exist at all!  If God is real – which He is – then there are certain, specific things which are true about Him, and there are other certain, specific things which are NOT true about Him — and people who know Him will know the difference! 

     We see some of those things right here in this text.  As we have seen, God calls Himself by the name “Yahweh” in this text.  He is this one, very specific God.  And YHWH has certain characteristics and attributes.  He tells us some of them in this verse; He says: “I am YHWH who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things.”  God tells us here that these are some of specific traits about Him which form a part of His very nature.  Just like any real being, there are things which are true about God, which people who know Him, will know.  And people who do NOT know these things about Him, or who say contradictory things about Him, demonstrate by their ignorance about what He is like, that they really do not know Him. 

     Now, someone may say: “How do YOU know that some things are true about God?” Because GOD has told us Himself!  God says here: “Thus says the Lord”!  These verses begin and end with the authority of God:

— it begins “Thus says the LORD”

— it ends “I delight in these things’ declares the LORD.”

God Himself tells us here: this is who I am; this is what I am like.  We don’t have to GUESS who God is; we do not have to speculate about He is like; He has told us about Himself in His word.  We have in this book an authoritative, detailed description of who God is and what He is like, from the very mouth of God Himself.  If you know Him, then you will affirm that these things are true. 

     Now again, let me emphasize: knowing God is MORE than just knowing a list of objective facts about Him.  You can read every book on God, and take every class on knowing God – but if you have never really been “washed by the blood of the Lamb” then you can’t really know Him.  But at the same time, if you say that you have been saved by Him, but believe and teach things about God which are contrary to what His word reveals, then you demonstrate that you do not know God the way you think you do.  There are specific things which God has told us about Himself in His word – and over the next several weeks, we are going to look at some of those things, to make sure that our ideas about God line up with what He has told us about Himself in His word.    

III.  Knowing God is the most important blessing.

      In these penetrating words of Chapter 9:23-24, God said: “Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; ²⁴ but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me …”.  Here God makes it very clear that knowing Him is more important than any other blessing we might have in our lives.  He says wisdom is not as important as this; He says power is not as important as this; He says riches are not as important as this.  The true knowledge of God is the single most important thing you can possess.  Nothing else you can have or achieve compares with it.

     I don’t know what goals you have set before yourself for this new year: I have set several for myself, in virtually every area of my life.  I have set goals for my family, for building personal relationships, for my work here at church, for physical exercise – for virtually every area of my life.  And I hope that you have, too.  A new year can be a good time to evaluate yourself, and make some changes; it can be a valuable thing.  But can I encourage you in something: there is one goal for your life which should be more important than anything else; ONE which should be paramount: really knowing God.  God says, NOTHING is more important than that.  It is what you were made for; to know Him.  Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may KNOW THEE, the only true God.”  Paul wrote in Philippians 3 that he counted everything else in his life as LOSS that He might know Him.  That is just what God is saying in this passage in Jeremiah, too.  Nothing in your life compares with the importance of knowing God. 

     If that is so, then let me ask you: what are you going to do this year, in order that you may know God better?  If you have some goals for your physical body, then you need to plan to take some specific steps.  You can’t just say, “I am going to get in shape this year.”  You have to make some specific plans.  What are you going to DO to get in shape?  You need to say specifically: “I am going to stop drinking Cokes; I am going to get on this eating plan; I am going to run 3 days a week, and go to the gym 3 days a week …” or whatever.  You need to make some specific plans to reach your goal. 

     And the same thing needs to be true spiritually.  If knowing God is the most important thing in life – which it is – then you need to make some specific plans to get to know Him better.  A.W. Tozer wrote that there are no shortcuts to knowing God: “He who would know God must give time to Him.”  So if you want to get to know Him, you need to plan for times in prayer: set your alarm earlier so you can pray in the morning and spend time with Him.  And we have seen that God’s word is where you find the truth about Him – so you need to make specific plans to spend time every day in His word.  Where are you going to start reading; how much time are you going to spend?  Be specific.  And if you want to know God better, you must be holy.  We read here that God is a God of righteousness.  You cannot continue in the same sins and get to know God better.  What specific sins do you need to cleanse your life from, that you might know God? 

     I hope that you have specific plans and goals for every area of your life this new year.  But if you don’t make them for anything else, I hope you will do it for this; because there is nothing more important than really knowing God.    

What good will it do if you can run a marathon next December, but you don’t know God?

What good will it be if you lose 40 pounds this year but don’t know God?

What good will it be if you balance your budget this year but don’t know God?

What good will it do you if make top salesman for your company but don’t know God?

     Nothing else in your life compares to it; this is the most important thing; this is what you were made for!  You were made to know Him – NOT just “dream up” ideas about Him – but really KNOW Him.  And the way you can really know Him is by first of all truly experiencing Him in real salvation through Jesus Christ – and then by spending time with Him, walking with Him through the every day events of your life, and learning what He reveals about Himself in His word.  And that is exactly what we are going to be doing over the next several weeks, as we study “Our Great God”.