To Understand God

The more that I think about things, the more depressing it feels. American life has changed so very much and that just within my lifetime. Things that would have been unthinkable in the days of my youth are now commonplace. There has been tremendous change. But why is that a problem? Do I long for the better days of the 1950’s? Is that why I am bothered? No, not at all. There were plenty of problems in the fifties also. But the heart of my concern has to do with people’s awareness of God. It wasn’t that great back in the day, but it’s gotten worse.  And that’s not the case just for the world around us. It’s true for much of the Church as well. And that makes me think about something Jesus said about His Church. It’s a warning.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. Matthew 5:13

Ask your average American Christian if he knows God and he will, first, look at you funny and then answer, ‘Of course I do. I’m a Christian’. To most, being a Christian and knowing God are pretty much synonymous. But then, ask that same average Christian if he understands God, and he will, if he is honest, confess that he really doesn’t. In fact, he is oftentimes quite confused by God. There are those exceptions who quickly answer with another abrupt, ‘Of course, I understand God’. But their being quick to answer only shows that they don’t feel the weightiness of the question.

I think that it is fair to say that most church-goers these days really don’t understand God, at least not very well. There are too many times when they have no clue about what He is up to. As a result, many don’t even try to understand their lives by understanding God. And that is especially true when life gets hard. All of which explains why Jesus’ words about salt losing its flavor is a warning to take quite seriously.

Today, I’d like to take a look at this idea of understanding God. What does that mean? How do you do that? I think that understanding God is a key to actually being the salt of the earth. Listen to Jeremiah.

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 9:23,24

Through His prophet, Yahweh confronts His people. ‘Do you want to be able to brag about something? Well, choose wisely. Don’t go for second best. Choose to brag about having something that is of first importance. Brag that you understand Me.’ This morning we’re going to take a look at this so that you can take God up on His invitation.

Let’s start where we usually start, with a definition. This is where I remind you of the definition of wisdom that I have mentioned before. Wisdom includes understanding people and understanding yourself. But it starts elsewhere. Wisdom starts with understanding God. There is no wisdom without understanding Him.

Now, being a wise person is so critical. But why? The answer to that is all about what the lack of wisdom is. It isn’t ignorance. It isn’t even stupidity. The lack of wisdom, as the Bible explains it, is foolishness. There are two aspects of this foolishness that you need to see.

First, there is always a moral component to foolishness. It is refusing to submit to God. It is rejecting Him and His ways. Not a smart thing to do.

The other aspect follows from the first. Foolishness results in making all kinds of bad decisions about life. A fool is a screw up. He may not look like one according to the current cultural assumptions. But he is.

It’s actually worse than that, he is also someone who is being cursed by God. Remember, he is a rebel against God. And God always deals with such people. How can life work if you’re a fool? Choosing to be wise is a much better alternative.

I went through that to try to make clear to you why it’s important to work at understanding God. It is only those who are diligently working at understanding God who will be wise. And only those who are wise will live well.

So, what does it mean to work at understanding God? How does someone do that? There are three aspects to being a person: the mind, the will and the heart. And all three are involved in getting to understand God. We’re going to look at each.

The mind. If someone is going to grow in his understanding of God there are things that he will need to know. There is information about God that he will need to learn, information that his mind will need to grasp. And this gets us, of course, to Scripture.

I’m reading through the Psalms again. One Psalm that I read this past week was Psalm 19 in which I once again read these words.

…the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; Psalm 19:7

In the Bible, the simple are the naive. They are not rebellious like the fools, but they are not wise. There just is so much about life that they don’t understand. They can, however, become wise. That’s one reason why we were blessed with the testimony of the Lord, the Scriptures. It makes wise the simple. If someone wants to become wise, he will give heed to the Scriptures. He will listen to them, but he will also ask questions of them. He will do this because he really wants to get what they are teaching.

It’s great to be able to recite John 3.16.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

But being able to recite the verse doesn’t mean that your mind has grasped what God is saying in the verse. To really get it, you will have to ask some questions of the verse, questions like: What kind of people are included in the world that is being loved? How bad is it to perish? Is it important that Jesus is referred to as God’s ‘only Son’? What does it mean to believe? What exactly is eternal life? And then, once you’re done with all of that, you pull it all together by asking these two questions. What does this say about God? What does this say about me?

A mind needs to grapple with questions like that in order to grasp what’s going on in John 3.16.  A mind needs to grapple with questions like that in order to make some progress from being simple to becoming wise. It’s by doing that with your mind that you grow in your understanding of God.

To do this well, you will need to pray. Pray that you will be able to ask appropriate questions of whatever bit of Scripture that you’re looking at so that you will understand it more deeply and thus grow in your understanding of God. Pray that your mind will grasp the Scriptures. You will not succeed at this if you do not pray.

I recently added a verse to my daily Bible reading.

Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Your Law. Psalm 119.18

I offer that as a prayer before I start my daily readings. I commend it, or something like it, to you. You will not succeed to grasp with your mind what the Scriptures are teaching if you don’t ask for the grace to do that.

Now, as important as it is to use your mind, it isn’t enough. There are plenty of people whose minds are filled with knowledge from the Scriptures but who do not understand God. More than a mind filled with knowledge is needed.

And that brings us to the will. We all make choices every day. And we make those choices based on the information that we have. The will is dependent on the mind. The will makes its choices based on the knowledge that’s in the mind. However, a person might know something that Scripture calls for, but that doesn’t mean that he will do it. I am told that a famous philosopher decided against the Gospel because he knew that if he believed it that would mean that he would have to stop having sex with his girlfriend.

For a person to grow in his understanding of God, his will will need to submit to God, to submit to the information that the Bible provides, information that his mind knows. And for many Christians, that’s a problem.

How many husbands know that they are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, that they are to give themselves sacrificially for the benefit of their wives - but don’t do it? They know what to do, but they choose not to do it. How many wives know that they are to submit to their husbands in everything as to the Lord, but they don’t do it? And, again, it’s not that they don’t know what to do. They choose not to do it. If someone is going to grow in his understanding of God, it will take choosing to do what he knows from the Scriptures. It will take an act of the will to submit to God.

Last week, in our Gospel Reading, we heard about the rich, young ruler. He came to Jesus, asking the right question.

Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Mark 10:17

After a probing conversation, Jesus answered his question.

And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Mark 10:21

This young man learned what he needed to. His mind was filled with enough information. But, what did he do?

Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Mark 10:22

If someone is going to grow in his understanding of God, he will need to submit to the truths of Scripture that he encounters. And that is not easy. Sin always interferes and messes things up. It is our love of cherished sin within - something that afflicts us all - that results in our refusing to submit to what we know.

The only solution is to pray to the Father for grace to defeat sin’s malignant efforts. And what the Spirit will do in response is, first of all, show you where you are refusing to submit. And that needs to be first because these areas of rebellion - what else could we call them? - are usually hidden from us. All too often, we don’t see them. It is an act of grace for the Spirit to tap you on the shoulder and point out your sin. Grace starts there. Then, after further prayer - repentance and faith - the Spirit gives the ability for the will to submit to what the mind knows. Progress.

I’ve mentioned before that I include in my daily prayers a request that the Spirit would point out my sins. I use the last two verses of Psalm 139. Are you doing something like that?

The mind. The will. And that leaves the heart. That’s where one’s affections, one’s desires, reside. What do you want? What do you really want? The answer to that question is found in your heart.

It is important to see that knowing the truth with the mind and then choosing to do the truth with the will is not enough. You also need to desire the truth with the heart.

A kid hears his mom remind him to clean his room. His mind registers the information. Time for a choice. His will chooses to obey. Has he acted wisely? Has he done what is good? You really don’t know. There isn’t enough information. It all depends on why he chose to obey. It could be that he just wants to avoid the consequences of disobedience. After all, Dad will be home soon. Or he figures that he can use his obedience as a bargaining chip when it comes to something he wants to do. ‘Mom, you should really let me do this. After all, I’ve been pretty good. I’ve kept my room clean.’ But none of that is good. What is needed is for him to love his mother’s command and submit to her for that reason. In this, he needs to imitate the Psalmist.

Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Psalm 119:97

There are, sadly, many whose minds are well-informed when it comes to the Scriptures. They work hard to submit to what they know. But they do not love what God calls for. Their hearts are far from Him. Their desires are elsewhere. And how can anyone like that grow in his understanding of God?

What is needed is a whole-hearted desire for God which will show as a whole-hearted obedience to His Word. From another Psalm:

Whom have I in heaven but You?

And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Psalm 73:25–26

Now, that’s a bit of Scripture worthy of some pointed questions.

So, what’s needed is a whole-hearted desire for God. But what do you do if you don’t have that, especially when it comes to some cherished but sinful area of life that the Spirit is pointing at? How can you change your heart? Well, you can’t. Only the Spirit can change a heart. And we’re back to prayer for grace, the grace of change, of deep change.

So, how does He do that? He has lots of options. Here’s one. There are those times when the Spirit brings about change by putting you into a situation that is painful. It really hurts. And He does that for a good reason. That’s when you are confronted with a choice. Is the goal of that situation, change that results in a heart that desires God, change that results in a growing understanding of God - is that goal worth the pain?

Now, I have an assumption here. And the assumption is this. Whatever is going on in our lives is intended by the Spirit for our good. I could quote Romans 8.28 here and stress the ‘all things’. That ‘all things’ includes a bonus from the boss, a very plain and uneventful day as well as some painful situation. The Spirit is behind them all working for good, things like understanding God. So, again, the question that confronts you when you are in a painful situation: Is the goal of that situation, change that results in a heart that desires God, change that results in a growing understanding of God - is the goal worth the pain?

If the answer is, ‘Yes’, then there will be more prayer. There will be prayer for the grace to keep at it, to continue faithful, to continue hopeful, to continue joyous through the pain until you get to the promised goal of good which ultimately leads to growth in understanding God.

The mind, the will, the heart. When someone, by the grace of God, has his mind filled with some truth of Scripture, is made willing to submit to that truth and is granted a heart that loves that truth - that’s when God acts to grant some more growth in understanding Him.

Let’s pull this together. God invites you to understand Him, to understand Him well enough so that you can brag about it. (Isn’t that what it says? More questions to ask this text.) I’ve talked to you about how growth in understanding God happens. I’ve talked to you about that in terms of the mind, the will and the heart.

So, now a question. Why should you care about this? Doing what I’ve laid out won’t be easy. Why not just coast? Here’s a verse that fits here.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God… John 17:3

The point of the Gospel, the point of your gaining eternal life, is not to have your sins forgiven. It’s not to be able to make it into heaven. It’s not even to have a powerful friend with you as you walk through life. The point of the Gospel is to know God, to understand the kind of God that He is. And it is as you grow in your understanding of God that everything else falls into place. You understand the blessings that are yours. You understand the hardships that are yours. You grow in understanding who Jesus is and why He bothered to come. You grow in your understanding of what it means that you have a real Father who cares deeply about you. And you grow in understanding who the Spirit is and what exactly is His role in your life. And as you grow in your understanding of these things, your worship also grows. Your worship becomes more personal. After all, you are getting to know the God whom you worship.

So, not working at growing in your understanding of God makes no sense. In fact, such a person is not simple. He is a fool. But for all those who work at this by prayer and dependence on grace, there is the sure promise of wisdom: understanding God, understanding other people, understanding yourself.