Sermon Central
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Knowing God Part 2 Series
Contributed by Paul Wallace on Aug 6, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: How can we know an invisible God by experience?
Knowing God Part II
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God
Two weeks ago I spoke to you about Knowing God. The word of God says that eternal life is not just life extended after death, but knowing God. And knowing God is more than knowing about him or doing things for him, it is a personal experiential relationship. When we are born again our spiritual senses are made alive to God’s presence which makes knowing him through experience possible. After all, how can you know a God who is a spirit, when our primary ways of knowing things by experience is through our bodies five physical senses -touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing. The world we live in values only the experiences we can have through our physical senses, and not the spiritual world. We must realize Spirit preceded matter. The invisible God created all that we see out of nothing.
God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, "Lord, we don’t
need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life
out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did in the
’beginning !!."
"Oh, is that so? Tell me..." replies God.
"Well, " says the scientist, "we can take dirt and form it into the
likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man."
"Well, that’s interesting . Show Me. "
So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil.
"Oh no, no, no..." interrupts GOD "Get your own dirt."
The second thing we must realize is that spiritual things are more important that physical things and physical experiences. God has created us for relationship with him, and nothing this physical world offers can satisfy that part of us. The writer of Eccl. said “God has put eternity in our hearts”. Many people on earth keep trying to satisfy the God shaped hole in their souls with physical things. They think a new car, Lover, House, Better job, more money, fame, beauty, popularity, etc will satisfy this hunger, but it never does, because it can’t. The hunger is for a relationship or walk with God on the spiritual side. .
The Third thing is that there is a spirit world that interacts with our physical world. Frank Peretti’s books show this better than any other although they are fiction. Piercing the Darkness and This Present Darkness. Some understand it is a spiritual hunger and pursue spiritual thing, but they are the wrong spiritual things. Such as Meditation, Yoga, Psychics, Fortune tellers, Wicca, New Age Philosophy, Scientology, etc. The Spirit world is powerful and deceptive, and so God gave us a rock solid guide to direct us through it - the Bible.
Transition So what does the Bible tell us about knowing God in a personal way. Let’s Look at the WORD.
ONE POINT IN THIS MESSAGE: GOD COMMUNICATES WITH HIS PEOPLE.
This is the one and only point of this message. Remember this one thing - God Communicates with his people. You must believe it to receive it. The Word of God from Genesis to Revelation is communicating with his people. Although his exact message may be for the people of that day we can gain principles from it. However, maybe more importantly, God is showing us how to receive communication with Him, by recording how saints of old did it.
I was saved at around 9 years of age. I went to church all my life. I was filled with the Spirit at Bible college. I got a degree in Pastoral Ministries, but was not aware that God really wanted to communicate to his people, except reading the bible. A friend of mine gave me a book “the third wave of the Holy Spirit” by C. Peter Wagner that opened my spiritual eyes to this dynamic. I then became friends with an Assemblies of God pastor named Ken Pagano, and God opened my eyes to a whole new world of faith. I begin to read book I could get my hands on about hearing from God. Books by Loren Cunningham, Jack Deere, Cindy Jacobs, Charles Kraft, John Dawson, and John Wimber.
Around 1992 or 94 I went to a Wesleyan Youth Convention in Cincinnati and heard Marilyn Hontz. She is Wesleyan pastor’s wife from Central Wesleyan in Holland Michigan. As she shared my heart leaped with joy, because she was the first Wesleyan I had heard speak on this wonderful adventure of Hearing God.
