Do You Know God

Do you know God? Do you know God? I'm not asking, do you know about God? I'm not asking if you can turn to Scriptures and describe how great God is. I'm not asking you if God sometimes answers your prayers. Do you know God? In the same sense that you can maybe look at someone next to you and say, I know this person, I know my wife, I know my husband, I know my friend. We have intimate conversations, and we know each other. We relate to each other.

Do you know God? It's sort of hard sometimes to really know somebody you can't see. I don't know about you, but I haven't had any burning bushes lately that have God come down and told me exactly what He wants. Can we really know God? I'm using the word in the sense that the Hebrew means.

When Adam knew Eve and she conceived, it didn't mean they were just passing and saying, hey, how are you doing? If you look at how that word is used in Hebrew, it means an intimate relationship, a oneness. It talks about people who know God, people who have an intimate relationship with God. If you're a teenager, don't leave me yet, because what you're thinking right now, okay, knowing God, okay, we're into all this stuff about, you know, you have to have God's spirit, and you have to pray, and pretty soon we're going to sort of slip into reading all these scriptures, and then you just sort of fade away from it.

Don't fade away yet, okay? Stay with me here for a little bit, because I'm asking this question to you just as much as anybody else. Do you know God? Don't be it. You know, you come to church, you don't shoplift, you don't use drugs, you must know God, right? Wrong! That doesn't mean you know God. It may mean you know about Him, it may mean you have a surface relationship with Him, but I tell you what, there are agnostics out there that have had their prayers answered by God.

There are people who don't obey God and have some kind of surface relationship with God, but do they really know God? Do they have a meaningful, personal, intimate relationship with their Creator? There's lots of religion, right? And what we tend to do as human beings is we tend to replace or try to solve a problem. You and I have inside of us an incredible need to know God.

Every human being carries it around. Every human being is born with it. We are born with a little hole inside of us that only God can fill. We try to fill it with sex, we try to fill it with drugs, we try to fill it with drinking, we try to fill it with work, we try to fill it with a whole other way, but it's there. And only God can fill that. You're born with it. It's there when you come out, because we're not a finished creation, you see? We're the only thing that God created on the earth that's not finished. And so we have this need to somehow know God.

And what we do in trying to know God, we form religion. The biggest religion on the face of the earth right now is the Islamic religion, the Muslims. Now, if you ever read the Quran, you would find out that they believe you should not feel, you should not kill, you should not commit adultery. They also believe you should be kind, that you should take care of the poor.

You know they worship the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. But ask any of your friends that are Christians at school, and they will tell you all the... No. The Muslims are not followers of God because they deny Jesus Christ. Well, that's okay. The Buddhists, they have a religion, and they believe in loving your neighbor as yourself.

One of their primary tenets is to love your neighbor as yourself. And yet we would say, and I think any Christian you talk to is a Catholic, a Protestant, you know, any of the different Protestant denominations, and they would say, well, that's a religion, but they don't really know God because they worship a lot of gods.

In fact, if you get to the Hindus, it's literally in the tens of thousands of gods and goddesses.

So, okay, let's see. To really know God, we have to be a Christian. I think all of us would agree with that. Okay, we have the Bible, so we sort of get this down a little bit. We've answered part of the question. We have to be a Christian. So, all we have to do is believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and now we know God. Now, that statement, that simple statement, by the way, is the number one belief in Christianity. That's the number one tenet of all Christian churches. If you believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, then you know God. You know, Jesus said something about that. Let's turn to Matthew 7. Get out your Bibles. When you give sermons where you know there's going to be a lot of young people in the audience, the rule of thumb is, don't have too many scriptures. Well, get out your Bibles, folks, because we're breaking the rule today. Because I think you've sat here for a lot of years, not many of you, and you have listened, and you have a lot of knowledge, and you have a lot of pieces of the puzzle, but I don't know if you really know God. I don't know if you've even asked the question, and today you're going to have to ask yourself that question. So, get out your Bibles, because we're going to go through it today. Matthew 7. So, all we have to do is know Jesus, love Jesus, believe in Him, and now we really know God.

Verse 21. This is part of the theme of Sermon on the Mount. The most important teachings of Jesus brought down into about a three or four chapter section of the Scripture, where he explains the crux of His message. And he says in verse 21, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, so enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name, and that I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. He knows what Jesus Christ says right here. He says when he returns, there's going to be a lot of people that come to him and say, we really believed in you, we followed you, we knew the Bible, we went to church, we did good things, we even fed the poor. Now, these are all important things. We should be doing those things. And you hear servants in your Bible studies, and everybody tells you, you should do these things. But is that enough? According to Jesus Christ, that is not enough, because they didn't know Him. And what's even more frightening, and I find that verse the most frightening verse in the Bible. That bothers me. I don't know you, he says. We don't have a relationship, but I was religious, but we don't have a relationship. Christ says, I don't know you.

Do you know Jesus Christ? I don't mean do you know about Him. You can probably, there is not, there isn't anyone in here over the age of eight that couldn't sit down and give a very good doctrinal statement about who Jesus Christ is. But that's not what I'm talking about.

Do you know Him? Can you know Him? Okay, can I know Him as a teenager? Here's the problem that sometimes young people have, and understanding can they know God.

You and I can't go to God and initiate a relationship. You and I can't go to God and say, hey God, I showed up today. Let's sit down and have coffee. Right? Let's sit down and let's talk. God has to do something on His end first, and that takes what is called His Holy Spirit. He has to do something with our minds so we can have a relationship, and here's where the problem comes. Many young people say, I do not have God's Spirit, therefore I cannot know God.

The disciples, the twelve disciples, when they were with Jesus, when He walked the earth, none of them had God's Holy Spirit. In fact, all of them were in the same state that you are as a young person, unbaptized in the church today. I mean, I'm talking about Peter, John, James. Those men, when they walked with Jesus on the earth, were not baptized and did not have God's Spirit in them. They were in the same state you are today. I want you to notice something Jesus said to them in John 14. John 14, verse 15. Jesus says, If you love me, keep my commandments, verse 16. I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper that He may abide with you forever. He's talking about the power of God, the mind of God, the love of God, the Holy Spirit. They didn't have it yet. Now, these were men, by the way, that were going around at times God was healing people. There were a few times they cast out demons. They were doing great works in the name of God. They even had a relationship with God, right? And a real personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And this is what I want you to understand. It is possible to have a surface relationship with God and not really know Him. These men had a relationship with God and with Christ, and they didn't have God's Spirit. But notice what it says in verse 17. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. Now, whenever the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit in a personal sense, it's talking about a relationship we have with the Father through His Spirit. He says He told them, you know Him. If they had the power to have an intimate relationship with God while God's Spirit was still working with them, then so do you.

God's Spirit wasn't in them, but it was with them. God's Spirit can be with you. So, before we take the next step, before you tune out and say, well, there's no use in me listening because this is impossible for me, I can't really know God because I'm not baptized. No, because here we see a group of men who did not have God's Spirit, who had a personal relationship with Him because His Spirit was with them, and that means God was working with their minds, and that means you can have God working with your minds, too. And I like to talk about teenagers. I talk about little children.

The Bible's full of people that God dealt with as little children, kings that were 12 years old, that followed Him, young people, men and women, teenagers, that followed Him. People don't really like a lot of the people in the Bible. You need to look at Esther. You know, when the book of Esther starts, she's a teenager. These are young men and women that God works with, and God develops even though they did not yet, in some cases, have His Spirit yet. So can you know God? Yes. How do you know God? Do you want more than a superficial relationship? If all you want is religion, you can do that here. You can come here and you can keep the Sabbath.

You can come here and you cannot steal and you cannot cheat at school, and you can do certain things. And you could know about God, but you have an incredible opportunity to know God.

I mean, be able to, in a very real sense, communicate—and I use a human term, face-to-face with the Creator of the universe, in an intimate level—with anything you want to say, anything you want to deal with. The Creator of the universe will pop it over with you.

How do you know if you can know God? I want to go through some traits of people who know God.

Now, let me tell you something about knowing God. There is no human being that has a perfect relationship with God, not because there's something wrong on His end, but because there's something wrong on our end. There are times when we can be so close to God, we can walk on water. The problem is, two days later, we're so far away, we can sin.

No human being has a perfect relationship with God. But, the closer a person is to God, the more profound certain traits become in that person's life.

The more—or, the closer a person is to God, the more profound certain traits are in that person. That doesn't mean they're that way all the time, because none of us are perfect. The farther away we are from God, the more profound certain traits are. It's just the way it is. In other words, make it simple. If you're out stealing all the time, you know you're not close to God, right? The closer a person is to God, the less they're apt to steal. The farther away they are from God, the more apt they are to steal. Okay, that makes it simple.

But remember, just not stealing is improved, that a person has a personal relationship with God. We could not steal for a lot of reasons. Now, we're afraid that we'll get caught. We're afraid that someone will be disappointed in us. We're afraid God will punish us. It's not that we say we have a relationship with God. Well, is that really why we should do it?

Here's some of the traits of people who really know God. First one.

And this passage has a very interesting message for us, not only in the terms of the type of people that are close to God, but it also gives us an admonishment of how we should interact with those people. Now, when I was a teenager, there were certain people that I recognized as people who had a relationship with God. Not everybody in the church I went to had a relationship with God, but not everyone had a deep relationship with God. And those who did, I was so fascinated with because I thought, you know, I would like that. I want that. And there were people that I recognized. Turn to Philippians. Philippians 3.

I was discussing this sermon, whether I should give it or not, with a number of people.

And they said, well, you know, this is too complicated. You probably shouldn't give a sermon like this. This is pretty complicated for young people. And I don't think so. It's too complicated if we don't want it. It's too complicated if you don't want it. If you want it, it's not too complicated. Because God's Spirit is working with you. In other words, if you want it, God will help you understand it. If it's too complicated, it's not because you can't understand it.

Or what we're doing now is shortchanging God. God can't make you understand this.

So, unless we're going to shortchange God, we have to get into the delusion you can. I can only tell you from experience, but I did. I did it 14, 15, 16. So, I can just tell you that. There's others here that can tell you the same thing. Now, I didn't understand it to the level I do now, but I understood it. Philippians 3, verse 7. Now, the Apostle Paul here, he's writing a letter to the church at Philippi, and he's telling them back before his religion was real intense. And I mean real intense. Paul would have got up every morning, and probably the first thing he would have done every morning was he would have gone to a pitcher of water beside his bed, and he would have washed his right hand. I think I have this right. Then his left hand, and then his right hand again, so that he could be pure. It was like a baptism. Every morning, you went through a ceremonial washing, so that you could be pure. You could be before God. The Apostle Paul sacrificed at the temple. He took his lambs, and he went and took a lamb, a bottle lamb, and right to the high priest in there, or the priest at wrong duty at the time. The Apostle Paul kept the Sabbath. Now, don't you understand this? He kept the Sabbath all his life. The Apostle Paul never worshiped the night, the Apostle Paul never committed adultery.

The Apostle Paul was a good man. But the Apostle Paul, when he found out how to really know God, it was a shock. And this is the first point about those, the first trait of those who really know God. Those who really know God have a different approach to life. I see people all the time come to a knowledge of God, and come to a surface relationship with God, and never change their approach to life. Paul looked at his old religion, which, by the way, was the worship of the true God. Paul worshiped the true God. He worshiped the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. So, I mean, he was now some kind of pagan, worshiping rocks and stones.

The man had a real good religion, but he didn't know God. It was a surface relationship. So he says, verse 7, "...but what things were gained to me have I accounted lost for Christ?" He said, all those things were real important to me at the time. And he says, now that I'm actually beginning to understand who God is, I'm actually beginning to know God. I'm beginning to know His Son. He says, I look at all the old religion, which was worship of the true God. He can worship the true God, and still be very surface. He says, now I'm beginning to know... He says, you know, it really wasn't that important, verse 8. "...but indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ." The word rubbish there... I mean, if you translate that literally, I'd agree, you'd be dumb. Now, is he saying then that, boy, I was a bad man because I didn't commit adultery? No. He's saying, compared to... I actually know God now. All my religion didn't count. Really, you might just throw it out. He goes on, he says, verse 9, and being found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but now which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. Notice, that I may know Him. I actually know God. You think that's a presumptuous thing, but I can tell you something, and there's people here who can tell you sometimes, there's been times in my life I've known God. Now, I wish I could say it was all the time, but I just don't quite cut it all the time.

There are times when you know what God wants. You know God is directing. You know God is forgiving. You actually experience God. Now, you know, what we're striving to do as Christians is, what, do that all the time. Now, maybe you do. If you do, please tell me how.

But he says, you know, he looked at all that religion, he says, just to know God, he says, now I know Him. He says, verse 10, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and a fellowship. You have a relationship. What we're friends, that's in the friends that, you know, to be friends with God still means, you know, He is God and you are not. That's a real important thing. We have fellowship of His suffering being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Paul says that now that he begins to know God, we say, well, that's Paul. I can't know God, and that's what you have to understand. There isn't a person in this room, you are called here today on this Sabbath day as an invitation not to keep the Sabbath. You're here to know God, because there's lots of people who keep the Sabbath and don't know God. There's lots of people that have spent their whole lives striving to keep the Ten Commandments and never get past the surface relationship with God. Do we know God? Do we have an intimate, personal relationship? That's why God gave us the Sabbath. God didn't give you and I the Sabbath so that somehow, you know, maybe He could make one day a week bad for us or make one day a week so we couldn't get to do what we wanted to do. God made the Sabbath so that we could learn how to have a personal relationship with Him. That's why we're here. If we're just here to keep the Sabbath so that we can say, look, I'm a good person, I kept the Sabbath, we've missed the point. We've missed the point entirely. We're here to learn how to know God. So the fact that you're here by invitation means you have the capability of doing it. Everybody in this room has the capability to have a relationship with God. I want to notice what Paul says here in verse 12, because this tells us something about this different approach to life that happens.

Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold for me. Brother, and I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press forward for the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, let us, as many are mature, have this mind. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind. Okay, what that means? Notice what he said. He put behind him the old religion, and now he pressed forward.

Paul was a driven man. Read the life of Paul. Paul was a driven man towards the kingdom of God.

The closer we are to God, the more driven we are towards the kingdom. The farther we are from God, the more we are worried about the past. The more we're worried about how our parents didn't raise us right. The more we're worried about the psychologists, if everybody was close to God, there would be no psychologists, because we would all be moving forward. The more, the closer we are to God, the more driven we are for His kingdom. You know, he says, press forward. Some of you are going to play basketball tomorrow, and you're going to be in a press, right? You know what it's like to be pressed. He says, press, force this, go! The farther we are from God, the more concerned we are with how other people hurt us, more concerned with pitying ourselves. My mom used to break us of that, but every time one of us got to where we just whined all the time, she'd call the whole family in and have a pity party. And they all would pretend to whine and cry, and once he'd just leave the house. I mean, they're just staying around and knowing that.

But see, the closer we are to God, this is the change and the approach that happens.

We move forward. The farther we are from God, the more we're concerned, always with the past, the more we're concerned with how other people treat us, the more we're concerned with, you know, and so we're concerned with something that happened 20 years ago. No. My wife said something mean to very hurt my feelings years ago, and so I'm still carrying it around. Or I had a friend that's stabbing the back five years ago, and I'm carrying it around.

Those who are close to God... Now, that doesn't mean if you're close to God, you don't fall back into that sometimes, right? But you will find, as a Christian, when your attitude is predominantly negative and predominantly dealing with the past, you are not close to God.

The closer you are to God, the more you press forward.

Press forward the kingdom of God. Now, young people... Now, you know, I don't quite get that. I'm not quite pressing forward to the kingdom of God. I'm, you know, worried about a few other things right now. Notice verse 17.

Brethren, join Paul says in following my example, and note those who so walk as you have us for a pattern. Paul says... He tells the church of Philippi, he says, look around. Find the people pressing forward. Find the people not locked in the past. Find the people who aren't having pity parties. Find the people who aren't discouraged and negative all the time. Now, everybody gets discouraged. I mean, right? I mean, I have days where my wife kicks me out of the house because I'm just not worth having around. But I'm talking about a viewpoint of life. You understand? We're not perfect, so none of us are team that's all the time. But what he says is find those people that their lifestyle is pressing towards the kingdom. He says, watch those people. Those are the people to model your life after. So, young people, that's what he says. Find those who live like that, not the people who will lock you in to the negatives of the past and march with those people. Pretty interesting comment, isn't it? That's a pretty strong statement. Join and follow my example and notice those who so walk after this pattern. You have us for a pattern, Paul says. Find those people and follow them. Now, he didn't even know what he means. Look, when you find people like that, watch how they live their lives. Watch that relationship with God. Don't look at them to be perfect. Nobody's perfect. If you're looking for the perfect person, you'll never find it. But he says, look at those people. And, you know, watch those people's lives. He's not talking about following like the mayor or something. He says, look at their lives. Watch their lives. And those are the people that you model after. I find that statement very strong to young people, because you know what young people are doing? That's what psychologists call it. You model. You look at the people around you, and you model your behavior. And the younger you are, the more profound it is to those around you that fit whatever model you want.

And what Paul says, find the right model, and look at that one.

So people who really, truly are close to God, one of the great traits is that they're always pressing towards the kingdom. They're pressing. That's their lifestyle. They may get down. They may get discouraged. They may fall down. They may sin. They may have all kinds of problems. But somehow, they always, because they're close to God, God picks them up, and God moves them forward. And they keep pressing on. The second trait is that those who are truly close to God, having need, and I trust the word need to communicate with them, it's an absolute driving need. When I'm not close to God, I don't pray and study. I mean, like I should. When I'm close to God, I can't stop it. Now, you think about any relationship you have. Can you imagine this?

The one guy, you know, that you wanted to notice you for the last two years, and you're going to have, now, you know, you're starting to talk with each other, and you're going to get to know each other. And the extent of your relationship is, one day a week, you get together for two hours, and then you go home and never even think about each other the rest of the week. How long would that relationship last? But isn't that what we try to do with God? We show up for two hours Saturday and say, I'm here, God, let's relate. And then we go home.

The closer you are to God, and this is interesting, too, because you start to find, if you look through these traits, if you analyze every time your life is in trouble, just think about it. When you're not praying and you don't feel a need to be close to God, and then you wonder why your life's all messed up. I find that many times in my life it's all messed up. I can tell you why. I'm not close to God.

It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. But I'm making my own decisions. And you know what? They don't work that well.

Every relationship takes work. This one does, too. But remember something that's neat about this relationship. It'll only fail on our part. It never fails on the other end.

God never doesn't want to talk to you. Now, I'm not saying He's not angry with us once in a while. I'm not saying He's not going to punish us once in a while. Sometimes He must be up, well, fortunately, God doesn't experience frustration like we do. And we can be very thankful He does not. So, yeah, sometimes God might be upset with you, but God never is going to break the relationship unless you do something. We have to break it. I mean, there are times when He doesn't listen to us because of our sins. And what that means is, you and I have to go after forgiveness. You see, there's always—the relationship can always be solved. He tells us how to do it.

So, there's a need. And the closer you are to God, the more need you have to have Him talk to you through this, and to talk to Him through prayer. The third trait—and this is very important because this is very sad. I know many converted people who have never experienced God as a father.

And the only way—there's a point in our relationship with God that certain things come so clear. If you could just hold on to it, the problem is we're physical, and we can't hold on to it. But there are points where you see it, and you know it, and God is your Father. And I've seen lots of people, converted people, who for whatever reason never grow past, or seem not to be able to go past God as the taskmaster, or God as the big grandfather that spoils you and lets you do whatever you want, or the God that lives way off someplace and really doesn't care and is not involved. But God says, our relationship with Him is Abba. It's Daddy. Abba, in the Greek word for Daddy—now, in children in English say Dada, trying to say Daddy. If you tried to say the Greek word for Daddy, and you were really little, and you couldn't pronounce it, it would come out Abba.

So it means Daddy. Those who are truly close to God, and if you've been close to God at some time in your life, you know exactly what it means. I mean, He is Daddy. He is your Father.

When you see people, if you're a young person and you really have a relationship with God, you don't quite understand it and get bits and pieces of it, and you say, well, I want to find people that really know God. Find people who know He's their Father.

And watch those things.

Those who are truly close to God experience God as a Father. And you know what? If you haven't experienced that, I don't know how to totally explain it. I really don't.

I can only tell you what's real. He is our Father. He created us. He fascinated with us. He cheers. We do something right. He, you know, proverbially flaps his head and says, oh, no, what am I going to do with the kid when we do something wrong? He's dead!

And His only intent is to make us what we can be. And I tell you what, step out of line and He'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Thank God He does.

He's dead.

A fourth thing. Those who really know God, have a driving desire to do His work.

Now, I find a lot of people have this. This is one of the things that's maybe the easiest to do. The more you start to know God, the more you want to share that with everybody else.

The more you, well, let's get, you know, let's do this. Let's tell everybody about this. Let's get everybody converted. Right? This is one of the easier things to do. When you really start to know God, you're driven to do the work. There's an interesting Scripture in Daniel 11. Daniel 11.

I'm not going to go through the context here. Daniel, this is a prophecy, and it's concerning evil people that would try to take over and destroy the people of God. In verse 32 is just the response of godly people to the evil people. I'm not going to get into the prophecy and all the meanings and so forth. I just want to show you the response of a certain type of person. Daniel 11. Those who do wickedly against the covenant, he shall corrupt with flattery. But the people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits.

The New American Standard says this. I like this translation. And with smooth words, it's talking about a person who's trying to corrupt the people of God. But with smooth words, he will turn to godlessness, those who act wickedly toward the covenant. But the people who know their God will display strength and take action. People who are close to God want to do the work of God.

Now, it's easy for us, by the way, to take action all the time, but it's not what God wants. We're doing our actions. And there's the real there's the real rub, but because most of the time what we're doing—well, I won't say most times—many times what we're doing is what we think God wants, and we're taking action, and God says, what are you wasting your energy on that for? I want you to do this. But the attitude is what's important here. Well, we see people who are withdrawn. We see people who do not have a desire to do. That's not condemning them, because I tell you what, I've had times in my life I didn't have the desire to do either. I'm just telling you, I can tell you why I didn't have the desire to do. I wasn't close to God. That's why. That's not putting people down. You're just measuring. We're not even measuring conversions. We're just making where we are in the relationships. You know, it's like you do that with your husband or wife, right? Or with your friends. You can have a fight with your friend and not talk to him or her for a week. It doesn't mean there's no friendship, doesn't mean there's no relationship, but there's a problem in the relationship. Same way with God. We're not always saying, well, there's all that person has no relationship with God. Like I said before, I know I've seen God answer the prayers of people who weren't even sure He existed. I think God answered the prayers of people that weren't converted at all. And He had some kind of surface relationship with Him. I mean, He's the Creator of all people. But that's not why you and I are here, just to be somehow what? Friend's relationship with God. We're here because we want to know Him. We're here because we want to talk to the Creator of the universe and know He listens to us. We're here because we want to go to Jesus Christ and say, hey, you know what it's like to be here. Fix this for me, because I can't do it. That's what we want. Deep inside every human being is an incredible need to have God as His dad. It's almost overwhelming in us. It's why we do so many things in our lives, because we channel all that into wrong directions, but it's never have the need fulfilled.

We need Jesus Christ as our brother. There's lots of people who have to know Him.

Another trait. Oh, by the way, you know, the book of Daniel here, we're reading the book of Daniel, and we're saying, oh yeah, but this is easy. He'll do great exploits. He's talking about Daniel and all these older people. Remember, the first chapter of Daniel, he's kidnapped as a teenager, taken to Babylon, and one of the first decisions he has to make is to stand up on whether he's trying to eat clean or unclean meats or not, knowing he could be punished for not eating them. So this is being written by a man who is a teenager, knew God, and made a stand that could have cost him his life. Don't say, oh well, this only applies to people. We have this, what, magic ages. 21. You can drink and you can know God.

A fifth thing. Those who really know God have a zeal to obey Him.

They want to obey Him. Matthew chapter 7. This is real important, folks, because there's a great misconception about faith.

If I believe in Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, that is all that is required. Oh, Jesus talked about this. Because what do we do with the fact there are people who believe Buddha—well, no, Buddhism is too complicated, Hinduism is too complicated. There are people who believe that some statue represents a God that they believe in and have died for that. There are people who have faith in all kinds of things. I mean complete faith, a dedicated faith. I was talking about the Muslims. There are some Muslims who never meet more dedicated people than some of the Muslims. They have faith. They have gone to their death. They have been tortured to death for their faith. Let's read this and I'm going to make a comment. Verse 24, Matthew 7, verse 24. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them—this is Jesus Christ talking. And this is right after—we already read verses 21 through 23 where He says, many people say to me, Lord, Lord, I did not know you. I didn't have a personal relationship with you. Yeah, you did great things in my name. You said before you took care of the sick. Those things you were supposed to do, but you didn't know me. See, what happens is we sort of pay God off. If I do enough good things, then I got my religion and can basically do with my life what I want. It doesn't work that way. Name any other relationship that works that way. Maybe your dog. You can't with cats. Cats are too independent.

Only your dog would let you do whatever you want and still, you know, try to have a relationship with you. Or a fish. What kind of relationship do you have with a fish? See, relationships do not work this way.

He says, therefore, whoever hears these things of mine and does them, I will like him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. This is real important. And the rain descended, and the flood came, and the wind blew, and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for what sounded on the rock. Now, everyone who hears these things of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, and the flood came, and the wind blew, and beat on the house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

You see, I can believe in the sand. I can have so much belief that the sand will hold, that I can spend my entire fortune, my entire life, all my energy, the lives of my wife and children. I can take all my friends and get them involved, and I can build my house on sand. But you know what? Faith is only as good as the object you put it in. Don't believe that?

Let's look at faith like a rope. You're a thousand feet in the air, and you're gonna jump. And you believe that rope can hold you, but tie it to a paper mache rock.

See, belief is only as good as what you put it in. And if you put your belief in sand, it's not real. There's the great fallacy of faith, folks. The great fallacy of just believe in Jesus, and that's all there is. Just believe. There are people who take it so far as as long as you believe in some kind of higher being, you're okay. Just believe, no. To have the belief that builds on that belief, you must know who you believe in. Who do you believe in? That's the question. See, a lot of times we talk about faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, and we forget. If you don't know who you believe in, how do you really, really, really know you can trust me? Those who believe and are close to God, those who really have this kind of personal relationship that I'm talking about strive to obey Him. Now, sometimes they fail, and I tell you what we fail miserably, and young people understand. Us adults fail miserably.

And people who are close to God fail miserably, and God picks us off because He's dead, and He moves us on anyway. It's like a little kid keeps falling down hitting a tent on a coffee table, you know, and he keeps putting another patch on there and saying, man, that's got to hurt that stupid kid. And he shoved his bottle. We fall down, and we get up, and he says, that hurts, kid. When will you learn? And he passes up and he puts it on again. We did it with you when you were little. We're doing it with you now. And that's what he does with us. That's what he wants to do with you. But we strive to obey God. Those who know Him. I wasn't going to turn to Scripture, but let's just take a minute and turn to Titus. I'm almost... and I'll skip some things later. Titus 1. I had a short sermon. I don't understand what happened. I'm only going to go 45 minutes.

Titus. Titus 1.15. He's talking... we're breaking into the middle of the thought, but he says, "...to the pure, all things are pure. To those who are defiled, and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But even their mind and conscience are defiled." But notice what it is. They profess to know God, but in the works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work. It is possible to profess to know God and not know Him. And I only tell you that because that's important, because there's a myriad of religions' beliefs out there, all of them claiming to know God.

But, you know, to know God and to get drunk every other night for 30 years, the person doesn't know God. Changes take place in people who know God. That doesn't mean we're perfect. It doesn't mean we backslide. It doesn't mean we don't fall on our faces sometimes. But the movement, remember, is pressing on. Pressing on.

The sixth thing is, those who know God fear Him. And I don't mean a phobic fear. What I mean is, if you really know God and you get a glimpse of God, He's so great. It's a little bit frightening. It's a little bit frightening.

Those who really know God have a real awe of God, a real respect for God. You know, the greatest problem I think we have in the United States today, even though we're perfect to be a Christian nation, nobody fears God. We really don't... Ask any person, do you really think God will ever punish you? Well, of course not. God loves me. He's going to punish all these people, though. Not ever fear Him. The closer you are to God... I don't mean a phobic fear. I mean like a little child that fears Dad when he says, that's enough. I just loved it when they were little. All I do is lower my voice. What are you doing? I mean, you're like, whoa, we can't fool. A little ball, you know. But, you know, you walk over and you talk to them and they're okay. They're not living in a phobic fear. But they understand their consequences. And guess who is the enforcer of consequences?

The last point is that those who know God try to imitate Jesus Christ. Now, there's a whole sermon, right? How many sermons have you heard? Follow Christ. Follow Him. Imitate His life. In 1 John, there's whole passages about imitating Christ. The closer we are to God, the more we think about every day... Oh, yeah, no. Okay, how would Christ do this? What am I should do? How should I do this? We imitate Him. We want to walk like Him. We want to talk like Him. We want to be like Him. The farther you are from God, you don't even think about it. You get so far from God, you don't even think about it. We just do. We're mad, so we hit. Right? We want, so we're dishonest. We want to protect our image, so we lie. We just do. But, you know, the closer you are to God, there's like little bells that go up. Oh, I can't do that. That's not what Christ would do. And the closer you are to God, the more you want to imitate Christ. And you know what? Those disciples imitated Christ, and they did not have His Spirit in them. It was just wisdom. So if they can do it, so can you. We could talk about how to do this. That's all another sermon, so I didn't prepare a whole list of what to do. You know, the most important thing you can do is go to God and say, Help me be your child. Be a daddy to me. Help me to know you. Go ask Him. Only He can unlock that key. You can't. How do you crawl up into heaven and bring God down? We have to go to Him, and He has to. We have to go ask Him. He does. Go ask God. Go ask Jesus Christ to be your brother, and He will. You say, Well, how can you say that? Because you're here. You've been invited. If you've been invited, the opportunity is there.

You don't want to ask, then you won't. Let me tell you a story. Just to wrap it up.

This is a true story. Back many, many years ago now, there was a guy. His name was Zumbrotti. Zumbrotti was a tightrope walker. He would walk tightrope over anything. Big crowds would come and give him money and so forth. One time, he tightrope across Niagara Falls, but the wind was blowing. I mean, he's got that big pole that they have, and it's going way up and back and forth. He walked all the way across Niagara Falls. He got to the other side, and he was just exhausted and overwhelmed just to have survived. He just collapsed on the other end. All these people run up, and they start congratulating him. In the crowd, a guy walks up to him with a wheelbarrow. He congratulates and he talks to him, and he says, I believe you are so good at this. You could cross that tightrope with the wheelbarrow, pushing the wheelbarrow. Of course, he graciously said, no. I could barely do it with the pole. The wind's blowing out there. No way am I going to try to go across the Niagara Falls with the wheelbarrow. The man was persistent. He kept going. He kept trying. He kept telling him, I know you can do it. I believe you can do it. And finally, when Brian turned to him, he said, you really do believe that I can do that, can't you? And the bystander said, I know you can. I believe you can. He said, good. Get in the wheelbarrow. All relationships take risks, don't they? They involve risks.

None of us doubt that Jesus Christ can walk the tightrope of life, right? He's already done it. Here's the challenge. If you really, really want to know God and know Jesus Christ, you're going to have to get in the wheelbarrow. You're going to have to take the chance. You're going to have to believe enough to say, I want a mate, you find me one. I want to be successful. You teach me how. You want a relationship with God. You want a relationship with Jesus Christ. You're going to have to take the chance to do it.

You want it? Get in the wheelbarrow.