Beloved,
Can you believe we are already nine sermons into our series on knowing God?
These introductory sermons have helped us think through what the knowledge of God is, why it matters, and how fallen creatures like us can obtain it. Now we are properly situated to begin grappling with the identity and attributes of God, beginning this Sunday with God’s holiness.
Being “properly situated” assumes that we understand the logic of these nine sermons in their relation to one another. Earlier this week, however, Tessa graciously pointed out to me that while that logic might be clear in my own head, I haven’t spelled it out in any great detail from the pulpit. As always, she is right! So I thought it would be fitting to spell out that logic before we proceed further.
We began where all good persuasion does – the why question. Why should I spend the better part of a year preaching on the character of God? Why should you care to listen? In our first sermon titled “Our Forgotten God” (Hos. 4-6) we saw the twofold reality that our greatest problem is always ignorance of God and our greatest need is always the knowledge of God. The next two sermons titled “Our Praiseworthy God” (Jer. 9) and “Our Soul-Satisfying God” (Ps. 42-43) sought to flesh out from different angles why the knowledge of God ought to be our chief pursuit. My goal was to grip our affections with the vital necessity of a vibrant, intimate, expanding knowledge of God.
The last six sermons have focused on the how question. Given our covenant-breaking corruption, how is it that we can know God in truth? In the fourth sermon titled “Our Restoring God” (Jer. 31) we saw how God has cut a new covenant in His sovereign grace in order to restore us to the knowledge of Himself. But that raises an even more foundational question, how can finite creatures like us know God at all? We wrestled with that question in the fifth sermon titled “Our Incomprehensible God” (Ex. 33) where we learned that in order for us to know anything of God, He must come down (condescend) to us and accommodate His infinite glory to our finite capacity (remember Calvin’s analogy of the nurse lisping to the infant in her arms?). We never have a comprehensive knowledge of God, but we are able to apprehend Him as He graciously reveals Himself. That, however, raises another question. How has God seen fit to reveal Himself? We looked at the knowledge of God via general revelation in our sixth sermon titled “Our Creator God” (Ps. 19), seeing that God’s glory is everywhere manifested in the created order. We then turned in our seventh sermon titled “Our Speaking God” (2 Pet. 1) to look at special revelation as it has been preserved for us in the Scriptures. We saw that while God clearly reveals the knowledge of His glory in creation, in our sin we reject that knowledge and worship the creation. It is only through faith in God’s special revelation in Scripture that we can be delivered from our idolatry, come to know God in truth, and learn to read the world rightly (developing what is often called a natural theology). The reality, however, is that not everyone who claims to believe the Scriptures knows God. Why is that? Because Christ, as the apex of all of God’s revelation (God coming down to us in human flesh) is the light of all revelation, and we cannot know God through the word or the world without receiving and resting upon Him in the gospel. That was the focus of our eighth sermon titled “Our Incarnate God” (Jn. 1). Sadly, however, it is all too possible to give assent to the Scriptures and assent to an orthodox view of Christ and the gospel, and yet remain entirely ignorant of God. How could that be? That brings us to our ninth and final introductory sermon titled “Our Illuminating God” (2 Cor. 4). If we would understand the Scriptures rightly with the result that we are seeing the glory of the knowledge of God in Christ, the Spirit must sovereignly illuminate our dark hearts in regeneration and sanctification through the Christ-magnifying word He inspired.
Whew.
In summary, we need the Spirit of Christ to open our hearts to the word of Christ that we might see the glory of God in Christ (and thereby in creation), having our souls saved, satisfied, sanctified, and secured in the gracious knowledge of our incomprehensible God.
Is the logic clear to you? Is it convincing? Is it producing within you a hunger to know the Triune God more? And has it left you with a clear path as to how to do that?
I pray it has. And I pray that God would see fit to give us increasing light in His Son, through His word, and by His Spirit so that we would be increasing in the knowledge of His glory.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick