I thought Judy was the most beautiful girl I'd
ever seen. I was 21 years old and single. Had
just gone to the church where she was a member
as a youth intern for a year. She had every quality
I thought I could ever want in a girl. A few
weeks after I arrived, however, she left for
a few months in India. to visit a relative who
was serving as a missionary there, and to get
some experience, for she too was a college student.
It wasn't long after she went to India that I
got a letter one day from Judy. Oh, she told
me about the things that she had been doing,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but it was the
end of the letter that attracted my attention,
for she signed it, love. Judy. I went for months
on that one four letter word love. Strange, she
never wrote me again. But I could hardly wait
to see her when she arrived back in Spokane,
Washington after being gone for those months.
I soon realized after she returned that I had
misunderstood what she meant by the word love.
We both had the same word in mind, but she had
one thing in the meaning and I had something
entirely different in the meaning. It's easy
to be misunderstood, isn't it? Have you ever
been misunderstood? Have you ever said something
using the best words that you knew how to use
only to find that in the end the other person
didn't get the message you were trying to communicate?
Or have you ever done something that you thought
was appropriate, even a very nice thing, only
to realize after you've done it that the other
person misread what you were doing and why? Misunderstanding
is a problem in the human race. And sometimes
it creates a lot of pain. Often misunderstanding
occurs because of a lack of knowledge. If I had
known Judy a little better, I might have realized
that she wrote to everybody signing her letters,
Love, Judy. The possibility of misunderstanding
in fact is in direct proportion to the lack of
knowledge we have of another person. The more
that we know about another, the less the likelihood
that there will be a misunderstanding. Maybe
that's why God is so often misunderstood. Because,
you see, knowing God diminishes the possibility
that we will misunderstand Him. Not that we will
ever fully know God, of course, because He is
beyond our ability to know, but there is some
limited sense in which we can and ought to know
God. And Jeremiah tells us that if we're going
to boast, let it not be in our riches, our might,
or our wisdom, but of the fact that we discern
God. and have an intimate knowledge of Him."
Misunderstanding God was graphically illustrated
in a letter that was written to dear Abby a few
weeks ago. A letter which she printed in her
January 15th, 1991 column. It was written to
dear Abby from a bereaved mother. And she writes,
Dear Abby, I am troubled with something. A reader
wrote, quote, what right do we mortals have to
demand an explanation from God? Close quote.
Abby, that writer has never known the gut -wrenching
pain of losing a child. In 1988, my beautiful
22 -year -old daughter was killed by a drunk
driver. At first I screamed, He not only killed
her, He killed me too, only I can't die. I then
got on my knees and begged God, You can do anything.
You can perform miracles. You can bring my daughter
back to life. Please God, let me trade places
with her. Please let me lie in that coffin. Let
her get out to live. Her life. She's only 22,
God. She has never been married or experienced
the miracle of being a mother. I am old. I have
lived. I've had my chance at life, but she hasn't.
Please, please, let me trade places with her.
You can do it. You can make it so that all the
people who thought she died won't be surprised
that it's me in the coffin and not her. Please,
God. Let her have a chance to live. She didn't
deserve to die. And as you can see, Abby, I'm
still here. And not because I want to be either.
Mostly because I didn't have the guts to pull
the trigger or take the pills to get me out of
this terrible pain and loss that I live with
every minute of my life. God didn't see fit to
bargain with me. God doesn't plea bargain like
men do. The drunk who killed my precious daughter
and me too spent less than six months behind
bars. Today he walks in the sun while my little
girl is in a dark grave with no sun. And though
I also walk in the sun, my heart and soul are
in that dark grave with her. God didn't answer
my prayers and I resent being told that I have
no right to question God. If there is a God and
if I ever get to meet Him face to face, you can
bet your life that I will have plenty of whys
for Him to answer. I want to know why my little
girl died and that drunk was allowed to go on
living. I love her more than my life and I miss
her so. I am mad that I am having to live in
a world where she no longer lives and I want
to know why. Why shouldn't I have the right to
ask God? Are we supposedly created in His image?
If so, surely He has a heart and soul that are
capable of hurting just as I hurt. Why would
He not expect me to question if He has anything
to do with miracles? I don't fear the Lord, and
I don't fear hell either. I know what hell is
like. I've already been there since the day my
precious daughter was killed." Signed a bereaved
mother. Here we have an illustration of a lady
who is crying out against God and we understand
her hurt, her sense of desperation. But she is
one who has misunderstood God because she doesn't
really know God. Knowing God is your highest
privilege and your greatest necessity. Somebody
says, I don't want to learn about theology. Listen.
Listen to the words of George Verwer. There is
an unfortunate tendency, some of us have, to
look down upon theologians. I have heard some
young people say, I don't need theology. How
ridiculous. They don't need to study about God.
There's no greater study that can take our minds
and our spirits than the study of God. What does
this knowledge of God do for us? We saw last
week that it transforms our relationship to God
in the first place. For one who knows God has
great energy for God, has great thoughts for
God, has great boldness for God and great contentment
in God. All of those thoughts coming from the
book of J .I. Packard, Knowing God. We also saw
that knowing God results in our lives and their
values being transformed. No longer do we live
for riches, for might, for wisdom, but we live
rather and put as the highest value in our life
knowing Him and understanding Him that He is
the Lord. Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. But today I'd
like to suggest a third thought and that is that
this knowledge of God that we're talking about
also transforms your response to God's dealings
in your life. For as you learn of God and His
sovereignty, His faithfulness, His mercy, His
justice, and so on, the circumstances that once
frightened you or angered you, the situations
that once mystified you or wounded you, can then
be accepted. as part of a larger scheme, the
breadth of which you and I cannot now fully appreciate
or see. That's why Joseph was able to respond
the way that he did to his own brothers who sold
him. For when he had the opportunity to get even,
you remember he said to them, you intended it
for evil, but God intended it for good. Joseph
had come to know God. And those circumstances
in his life over which he could have remained
angry and bitter were accepted by him because
he saw the broader scheme of what God is like.
God meant it for good. Or consider the apostle
Paul who writes to the Philippians from a jail
cell in Rome. being chained to a guard on each
side of him. And instead of wondering what God
was up to and questioning the Almighty, he said,
the things that have fallen out to me have accomplished
the furtherance of the gospel. The loss of a
loved one the unexpected reversal of fortune,
the news of a life -threatening illness, the
collapse of a relationship, the betrayal of someone
you trusted. These and many other life situations
become tolerable and even embraced. to the one
who knows God. Because knowing God transforms
our response to God's dealings in our lives.
I wish that bereaved mother might come to know
God. It wouldn't bring her daughter back, but
it would help her to deal with the great loss
that she has It would help her to surrender her
loved one to God and to accept her admittedly
sorrowful circumstances as having meaning and
purpose in God's sovereign and providential plan
for her life. Knowing God doesn't mean there's
no pain. Don't misunderstand. The emotions that
accompany life's circumstances can run the gamut.
Even for those who know God, there are deep human
feelings that are very, very real. But those
feelings you see are contained and they are channeled
by a spiritual grasp of God so that those feelings
become healthy and God -honoring expressions
of the human heart. The lady who sang this morning
before the message gave me a little card almost
four years ago now upon the death of my mother.
On the card are printed some simple words by
a lady named Glenna Oldham. They're entitled
Our Sovereign God and Ms. Oldham writes these
words, has come upon me. There is no greater
blindness than the blindness that comes to the
human spirit because one does not know God. An
intimate knowledge of God does not come quickly
or easily or cheaply. There's no shortcut for
it. You can't buy a pound of God to get familiar
with so that you can then consider if you want
to know the rest of Him. You can't pick up a
second -hand understanding of the Almighty. Knowing
God is time -consuming, it requires discipline,
and it demands that everything is first on the
altar. Knowing God requires of me in the first
place that I acknowledge that I poorly understand
Him now. That I admit that I know Him very little
and greatly need to know Him more. And secondly,
that I then determine to seek Him with all of
my heart. That is required. We seek Him in the
Word and through prayer. Why is it necessary
to know God this way? Why can't we take a course
on God in small church or in a Bible school or
seminary? Why can't we simply take a course and
pass it and say, now I know God? Well, the answer
to that is that God is not merely a subject to
study. He is not merely a theory to examine.
He is not an idea to explore. But God is a being.
He is a being. He is a personal being. who is
capable of being known only through personal
communion. And so if we would know God, it means
that we must practice communion with Him regularly.
Just as we practice getting to know our friends
or our loved ones by spending time with them.
On a merely human level, the process can be complicated,
can't it? Because we can only know another person
to the degree that that person desires to be
known by us and is willing to reveal himself
so that we might know him. So it can be complicated.
But the fact is that on the divine level, God
is willing that we might know him. And God has
already revealed Himself to us so that we might,
through His Word and through the person of Jesus
Christ, the Almighty desires to be known. Now
remember that to know a person is more than merely
knowing some facts about his history. To know
a person means to Understand how that person
thinks. How that person reacts or responds or
behaves under specific circumstances. And that's
how we need to know God. J .I. Packer again helps
us when he says the Bible puts flesh on these
bare bones of ideas. by using pictures and analogies
and telling us that we know God in the manner
of a son knowing his father, a wife knowing her
husband, a subject knowing his king, and a sheep
knowing its shepherd. Those four analogies are
throughout the Word of God telling us that we
know Him. in the same way that those analogies
work. And it's interesting as Packer points out
that each of those analogies involves the one
who is knowing the other, looking up to the other.
And the other promising to provide for the needs
of the one who desires to know him. And so it
is with God. Isn't it great to know that God
never misunderstands us? People misunderstand
us from time to time. Because they don't know
us, perhaps. But God never misunderstands you.
Because He knows you. He knows you better than
anyone. And so God is never surprised at you.
You never pull one on God. And God is never frustrated
by you. You'll never catch God wringing His hands
over you. And God is never confused by anything
you do. Because He knows you. He knows you. He
knows you. And yet He loves you more than anyone
in the world. That's one reason I love that Gaither
chorus that we have sung from time to time around
here That says I am loved I am loved I Can risk
loving you? For the one who knows me best what?
Loves me the most Isn't that great what comfort
there is annoying that the God who knows me through
and through is the God who loves me more than
anyone in the whole universe. He never misunderstands
me. But the fact is that I can and too often
do misunderstand Him because I don't know Him
like I should. The fears that you and I have,
our failures to trust, our reluctance to obey,
our complaints against Him, our propensity towards
self -direction and self -fulfillment, all of
these stem from a lack of knowledge of God. For
if we knew Him like we could and should, none
of those things would be a problem. To know Him
is to lose all things that mean nothing and to
gain something that means everything. Read about
it in Philippians chapter 3, where the apostle
adds up all of the benefits and advantages of
his life. He draws the line under them and his
summation of them all is manure. Dung. He says
that's what they're worth compared to the one
other thing on the side of the ledger, the other
side of the ledger, knowing Christ. To know Him
is to lose all things that mean nothing and to
gain something that means everything. I do feel
sad for that grieving mother. I feel sad that
she blames God for her daughter's death and expects
God someday to give an account to her for why?
Because she doesn't know God. And she misunderstands
Him and the depth of love that He has for her.
There may be somebody here who says, well, I'm
kind of like that too. I don't know God very
well. But the problem is I don't feel like I
can know God very well. I'm too unworthy. Listen.
God wants you to know Him. And the degree of
intimacy that you have with Him is limited only
by you. You. By your choices, determine the kind
of knowledge you have of God. How intimate with
God do you choose to be? There's a poem that
captures the words from Psalm 46. that we sang
earlier, be still and know that I am God. It
goes like this. I don't know the author. Be still
and know that I am God. Where you now tread,
I too have trod. I know your griefs. I have a
part. I know the anguish of your heart. Did I
not walk the toilsome road, a wanderer without
abode? Did I not stand in Pilate's hall? though
innocent, hear judgment fall? Did I not hang
on yonder tree at Golgotha to die for thee? Did
I not break the bars away on that first resurrection
day? Ah, yes, my friend, I've journeyed far to
break the might of death's cold bar. It was all
for you I paid the price. For you I made such
sacrifice. In me You'll find your source of power
to gird you in this trying hour. Let not your
heart then trouble to be. Believe in God, and
so in me. Where you now tread, I too have trod.
Be still, and know that I am God. Let's pray.
It may be that you have come to this worship
service today misunderstanding God. And your
feelings are not too far from that grieving mother's,
although the situation may be entirely different
for you. Do you understand that our misunderstanding
of God arises out of our lack of knowing Him.
And that our greatest necessity, our highest
privilege, is to know Him. And God invites you
to know Him. Yet you find yourself today struggling
and even fighting God. Be still and know that
He is God. And open your heart to Him. If you've
not received Him as your Savior and Lord, do
that today. If you've done that, open your heart
still further to Him now and ask Him to show
Himself to you in a new and deeper way that you
might truly know Him. Let's sing again that chorus,
standing together please. Be still and know that
I am God. While you're standing there with your
head bowed, will you talk to the Lord? Ask His
forgiveness for the complaints or the fears,
the fighting, the struggling, how He loves you.
Oh, He would embrace you. He would wrap His arms
around you today. and whisper in your ear how
much he loves you. If only you would let him
close enough. Let him. Right now. Let him take
you in his arms. That you might know him better.
Lord, we would trust you and not run. We would
yield to you and not fight. we would know you
and not any longer be blind. So teach us of yourself
and bring us to that point in each of our spiritual
journeys where we can acknowledge and will acknowledge
our need and seek you with all of our hearts
above everything else in the world and with nothing
between us. and all in the altar. In Jesus' name
I pray, Amen.