Welcome everyone to this episode of the Methodist Voice podcast.
This podcast is finishing off a Sunday morning sermon series we've just finished at a new
appointment I've taken for the Global Methodist Church in Hobbs, New Mexico.
The series has been outlining what I believe is the playbook for what John Wesley referred
to as primitive Christianity or original New Testament Christianity before it began to
become corrupted with political power and wealth and status amongst the religious leadership
of the church.
The primary information we draw from for that playbook is the New Testament of course, but
the secondary playbook we draw from is the writings of the early church fathers located
in the first 300 years of the church, that's the primitive church, as well as our own Methodist
founding fathers.
Of course, all of the articles from that series can be found on thefoundarypress.org.
The sermons can be found on the YouTube channel of First Methodist Hobbs, New Mexico, which
I will link in the notes below.
But so far we have been showing that in order to be a New Testament church, which at the
very heart of things is what Methodism is about, we have to become focused on three
primary things.
Building a house of worship, learning to take delight in God together, building a house
of prayer, and building a house of learning.
So building a house of learning is the last topic of this series.
We're going to cover that in today's podcast before we transition to our next subject coming
up this Sunday, which is called the big picture of the Bible.
So let's get into it today.
Today we're going to be talking about the knowledge of God.
Building a house of learning means that we are stewards and we are cultivating the knowledge
of God together.
And so the essence of eternal life, the essence of being born again and joined to the body
of Christ is coming to the knowledge of God.
The main point of eternal life is that people would be enraptured or take delight in the
knowledge of God.
Here's what it says in John 17, three, this is eternal life that they may know.
And that word means in an experiential way.
And so when the information, the correct information is received by the human heart, there is an
encounter with God that occurs.
This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you
have sent.
This is eternal life.
Jesus says in John 17, three, so our inheritance and destiny in Christ is to go far beyond
superficial Christian religion.
Another phrase I use for that all the time, which you hear me say is American churchy
entity, a superficial shallow version of the Christian faith.
But our inheritance is to go far beyond that to experience intimacy with God's heart that
energizes our heart with God's power.
Here's what it says in Ephesians three, 16 through 19.
I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his
spirit in your inner being.
That is a rich sentence.
But think about that.
I pray that out of his glorious riches, the knowledge of God, he may strengthen you, make
you stronger with power through his spirit in your inner being.
God wants to strengthen and fortify and release supernatural power in the mind and heart of
believers, verse 17.
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the
Lord's holy people to grasp, to understand, to comprehend how wide and long and high and
deep is the love of Christ.
And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, it's an experience.
It's not just information.
It's information that leads to an experience.
And then continuing on that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now, as Methodists, we use the word grace a lot, provenient grace, saving grace, justifying
grace, all these different descriptors we have for the word grace.
We use that word so much that I think we lose touch on the meaning of the word or what we're
actually talking about.
So I want to read to you a definition of grace.
And this is an old piece by a guy named Robert Girdlestone.
It is from 1871 and it's from his book Synonyms of the Old Testament.
So here's what he says about the word grace.
We have to be on our guard against the supposition that grace is an abstract quality.
It is an active personal principle, showing itself in our dealings with those by whom
we are surrounded.
In the great proportion of passages in which the word grace is found in the New Testament,
it signifies the unmerited or undeserved operation of God in the heart of man, affected through
the agency of the Holy Spirit.
We have gradually come to speak of grace as an inherent quality in man, just as we talk
of gifts.
Whereas it is in reality the communication of divine goodness by the inworking of the
spirit and through the medium of him who is full of grace and truths.
So at the end of the day, when we talk about God's grace, we're talking about God's ability
or God's power that is supernatural in nature.
It does not come from us.
It comes from outside of us, from an uncreated, all-powerful being who releases something
on the inside of us to do what we otherwise could not do.
And that is designed to make an impact on the world around us.
And so you've heard the word charismatic.
The root word of charismatic is charis, which is the word grace for the word grace.
It's supernatural ability that God releases in the mind and hearts of people to affect
change in the world around them, mainly the people around them.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are for the people to help them take steps forward in their face.
And so that's what we're talking about when we talk about the word grace.
We're talking about the power of God and the correct understanding of the information is
an important pathway over which that grace travels.
So being a learning community, building a house of learning means we are building highways
over which the power of God can travel into the hearts and minds of believers.
It is God who reveals God to the human spirit.
And the point is to awaken love on the inside of us.
It says in John 17 26, Jesus is praying, I will declare it my father's name, that the
love with which you loved me may be in them, the same love that Jesus and God share with
one another.
He wants deposited in our hearts.
When you think about love, you know, you think about, you know, again, not an abstract church
riddled idea of love at its root, love is desire.
It's desire for someone.
And that desire leads to great pleasure and delight that we take in that person.
And so we talk about love, we're talking about strong desires for someone that causes great
delight and pleasure.
So it takes God's power to produce that kind of lovingness.
It is only God's power that awakens desire in our heart.
And there's nothing more pleasurable or exhilarating than loving God by the power of God.
It's the highest pleasure there is to have in this life.
The Father's love is supernaturally poured into our hearts by the person, the work, the
ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Our desire for God is God's gift to us.
Our desire for God is an expression of his desire for us.
And so the central issue of spiritual warfare is around the knowledge of God.
The church is powerful when we grow in the knowledge of God.
And Satan assaults the knowledge of God by blinding people's eyes to it.
Second Corinthians 4, 4.
This is this, whose minds the God of this age, which is Satan, referred to in scripture
as the God of this age, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, lest the light of
the glory of Christ should shine on them.
We do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus.
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Now in scripture, a lot of times the word strongholds is used and the lack of knowledge
is precisely what constitutes strongholds.
We're talking about strongholds of ignorance, strongholds of blindness, strongholds of false
doctrines.
So many people don't have a vision that the knowledge of God is actually within their
reach.
And so this is one of Paul's prayers for the New Testament church.
He prays in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 17 through 19.
Again, that the father of glory may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what
is the hope of his calling, which is our destiny.
God wants our destiny to be revealed to us so that we can begin reaching for it.
Continuing on with the scripture, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according
to the working of his mighty power.
So it all works together.
The knowledge of God being received by faith in Jesus Christ, the person and work of Jesus
Christ is the highway over which the power or the grace of God awakens things on the
inside of us that produce great desire and pleasure and yearning for more.
It produces a hunger for even more and a searching for even more.
And it becomes this great spectacular adventure that we go on to really lay hold of our destiny.
Ultimately, our eternal destiny is what we're talking about.
And so here's the scripture we read from last Sunday from Proverbs chapter 2 verses 1 through
5.
We're going to discuss that just a little bit more to wind up this topic.
And we're going to talk about five conditions for cultivating the knowledge of God.
And so here's what it says in Proverbs 2 1 through 5, my son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you, populate your mind and heart with the information of
scriptures what that's talking about.
Verse 2, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding.
In other words, we don't just have the information, we are growing in a correct interpretation
in a more robust understanding of the information.
Verse 3, indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, if you pray
and ask for God's help or ability, he will give you power to unlock the hidden meaning
of the text.
That's for and if you look for it as silver and search for it as hidden treasure, then
you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
And so let's talk about five conditions for cultivating the knowledge of God.
These conditions need to be met in order for the power of God to unlock the meaning in
our minds and hearts.
The number one condition is an intention to obey.
The Holy Spirit is the only one who can reveal Jesus to us.
If he is quenched and grieved, like it talks about in Ephesians 4.30, 1st Thessalonians
5.19, we will not receive his revelation.
We can't offend the Holy Spirit and still expect him to make Jesus known to our heart
in a deep and experiential way.
Our spiritual immaturity is very different from purposely resisting the Holy Spirit
and refusing to obey him in areas where we know better.
And so are there areas of deliberate disobedience in your life?
Deliberate sin blocks spiritual progress and hinders your walk with the Lord.
So make a consistent resolution to confess and resist sinful areas.
Please talk to God about it.
Don't hide from it.
Talk to God about it.
Wait for him to help you develop the will to behave differently and realize that God
looks more at the sincerity of your motives to obey than at your actual attainment of
spiritual maturity.
So do you have a sincere, authentic intention to obey God in every area that you know?
That's a key and critical thing to consider.
Not that you've attained it, but do you have an authentic and sincere intention to obey?
Okay, point number two.
You have to make an adequate investment of time to fill your mind with God's Word and
then to work at understanding what it means.
Once you have the information, you have to then begin working at developing the understanding
of the information.
And that is going to require time and focus.
So we treasure God's commandments as we fill our minds with his Word.
We dialogue with Jesus as a person or we have conversation with him, prayer, meditation,
things like that.
It's impossible to grow in intimacy with Jesus without regular meditation on the scripture
because the scripture is the only thing that reveals Jesus to our minds and hearts.
Okay, point number three.
Do you have a teachable spirit?
Matthew 11 25.
Are you approaching the Word of God with a childlike spirit?
In other words, I believe it's true.
I believe it's right.
I believe it's real.
And I'm not going to let a jaded skepticism crowd out my mind and heart with unbelief.
And so think about kids, they're happily dependent on other people.
They're easily led and trusting and they're open to correction.
They're open to leadership.
And so these are the qualities that we need to bring to the Word of God whenever we approach
it.
Point number four.
We have to engage in persevering prayer for the knowledge of God.
And so that's one of the items of agenda we need to bring to our prayer life is asking
God to reveal God through developing our understanding of scripture.
We've got to actually pray for revelation.
Do you pray for revelation?
One of Paul's primary prayers is for the spirit of wisdom and revelation, which we read from
the book of Ephesians in the knowledge of God.
So Paul prayed for revelation and understanding for the church.
If we just added that prayer to our prayer list on a daily basis, God would probably
do some significant work in our minds and hearts.
Last point, point number five, determination.
We must pay any price in our quest to search for God as for hidden treasure.
If we can live without more of God, then we will go without more of God.
If we search for him like a covetous man searches for wealth, then we'll attain to the knowledge
of God.
Jesus is telling us in the scripture, this is the type of commitment that God is looking
for.
The Bible says that the eyes of the Lord search throughout the earth, searching for a man
whose heart is loyal to him, a man who is focused his heart on obeying and honoring
the living God.
So many attend higher education for eight to 10 years, laboring for wisdom and knowledge
and skill to excel in their occupation.
Excellence is considered normal to anyone who's looking for excellence.
And so it's no different with the knowledge of God.
You can't be lazy, half-hearted and lukewarm practicing American churchianity or superficial
Christian religion and expect to have an encounter with God that unleashes his power in your
mind and heart and awakens love, supernatural love, supernatural power and ability to make
an impact on the world around you that helps other people take steps forward in their faith.
It's just not going to work that way.
We have to have this type of five step dedication to see that what is promised in scripture
will be actualized or realized in our minds and hearts.
And if you want to know why the American church is weak and impotent and losing ground, it's
because they've neglected doing these things, practicing these disciplines in the life of
the body of Christ.
So this is going to wind up the series and this particular topic on the knowledge of
God building a house of learning.
This is why we are going to stay focused on these three things moving forward as a church.
I recommend that you stay focused on these things moving forward in your personal faith
and in your personal discipleship because if you want to see the results that they saw
in the New Testament, you have to do the things that they did.
That just makes sense.
And so that winds up this series.
We'll move on to our next topic next week.
I'm excited about it.
The big picture of scripture and really that's going to be projecting forward to the future.
What does God have planned?
Not just for human beings, not just for the church, but for the earth moving forward.
If we don't understand where we're going, it's going to be more difficult to be led
in the here and now.
And so we want to be better followers of Jesus Christ in order to do that.
We kind of need to know where we're going.
And so that's the topic we're going to cover starting in this next series.
I'm excited about it.
I hope you enjoyed this topic and I hope you join us for the next one as we take off into
that journey that awaits us.
So blessings to you.
Happy Fourth of July and we will see you soon.
Bye bye.