KNOWING GOD

Reading: Hosea 6:1-11, Psalm 133, I John 1:1-2:2, Mark 9:30-37
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on September 23rd 2012

A printable PDF file can be found here

I was reading the passage from Hosea. When I came to verse 6 “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me” I was reminded of a book by J.I. Packer titled ‘Knowing God' which had a great influence on my early Christian years.

Packer begins his book by asking us to imagine a house with a large balcony on its front, situated near a road. Along the road walk one group of people, whilst on the balcony sit another watching them go by. The two groups are described as ‘Balconeers’ and ‘Travelers’.

The Balconeers hear what the Travelers are saying and can even shout from the balcony and ask them questions. They sit together on the balcony and pass comments upon the way the travelers behave. They observe them from a distance. They remain on the balcony as onlookers and their problems are theoretical rather than practical.

The Travelers have to ask ‘Which way should we go?” and “How do we get there?” They face problems which call not just for understanding but for decision and action. The Balconeers and the Travelers may think over the same area, but their problems are different.

Along the road comes some person with evil on their mind. The Balconeers look on and wonder how such a person could be allowed on the road and how they should react. The Travelers have to encounter the evil face to face, master it and overcome it. Packer suggests that true Christian faith is the faith of the ‘Travelers’. As an example he considers the doctrine of the Trinity – the statement that we believe in ‘One God, Three persons.’

The Balconeer ponders; “Hmmm. How can one conceivably be three, and exactly what sorts of unity can three have and what precisely is the definition of personhood here being expressed?” The Traveler is asking, “Well if that’s the way God has revealed Godself, then how can I best live my life in a way that honors God?”

For one the problem is theoretical, for the other it is practical. One says “How can God be like that?’ the other asks, “If that is what God is like, how should I live?” As Christians we are called to be a pilgrim people, called to be Travelers not Balconeers. We need to not only know about God, but actually know God.

Which brings us again to Hosea’s words; “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”.

It is possible to know a lot about a person without ever knowing them. Pick a name out of the telephone directory and you can find their address. If you know somebody who lives near them, they may know where they work or who their family is or what they do with their time.

You could go on the Internet and put their name into a search engine and maybe find out more than you need to know ‘about’ them. But to get to ‘know them’ you would have to encounter them, get to be friends, spend time with them and talk with them and so discover what they were really like.

It is no different with our relationship to God. It is a relationship which has to grow, it takes communication. It takes time to familiarize ourselves with the Word of God in Scripture. It takes commitment to communication through prayer and worship and service. There are no shortcuts.  There is no quick fix. There exists no ‘Dummies Guide to God’, nor is ‘Everything You needed to know about God but were afraid to Ask’ available at Amazon.Com. Hosea declares:-

“I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”

Two things I’d like to draw out of Hosea’s words at the start of chapter 6.
1. The danger of presumption
2. The need to put our relationship with God, before all other things.

The danger of presumption

Hosea Chapter 6 begins with the people coming before God with what seems like a sincere confession of faith. The words are all there… “Let us return to the LORD... He will heal us… He will raise us up on the third day…He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth."

Though it sounds good, the words are the confession of people who knew about God, but didn’t actually know God. Their prayer is uttered in a spirit of complete presumption. “Well, we’ve let God down before, but God has always come through for us, so let’s just go through the motions again, and God will come around to seeing things our way.”

These people had a form of faith but it had no reality to it. There is no real desire for God in their hearts. They are just looking out for number One. Things weren’t going well… so “Hey, let’s ask God for help”. There is with them no real commitment, no real experience of grace. They are ‘Balconeers’, looking on and offering a theory as to how things could be fixed, not ‘Travelers’ wrestling with their situation and seeking to have their relationship with God restored.

The response of God comes in verse 4.  "What can I do with you? Your love is like morning mist, like a morning cloud that disappears.” Because their heart isn’t in it they do not experience the blessing of God, they receive the rebuke of God. “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices”.

Our opening hymn this morning contained the lines “As first light brings the sun's warm rays, Accept our sacrifice of praise”. Everything about our worship services is a sacrifice of praise, an offering to God...The Call to Worship, the Children’s Time, the Confession, the Hymns, the Anthem, the Offering, the Bible Readings, the Creeds, the Sermon… it’s all a part of a sacrifice of praise.

According to this bible verse, if we are offering up worship, and we are in any way being presumptuous regarding the love of God… if our hearts not in it… it’s not going to bring us God’s blessing. That if we presume we can just turn up on a Sunday and that somehow God is going to be impressed we better think again. If we think that it’s enough to know about God, without whole-heartedly seeking to truly know God, we better look again at what Scripture teaches.

If I think I can stand up here and preach a well-crafted grammatically correct sermon; but  I haven’t sought for God’s anointing or blessing then God’s judgment is going to be “What do you expect me to do with that?”

If the choir is up here singing an anthem, and every note is in tune, and the organ part raises the rafters and the solo satisfies the senses, but they are just giving a nice performance then they would be better keeping quiet. If their offering is not an expression of genuine worship, it may impress people, but it is an offence to God. “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices.”

Same with our testimony and prayers and times of dedication. I can think back in my own experience of people who have stood up in church and given a marvelous account of how God has saved them, and how much they are going to do for God and so and so on. About some of them, I just have to ask (and I do so with real regret) “Where are they now? What happened to that faith they were bragging about?”

Let us not give voice to the greatness of our commitment  if when the going gets get tough, we give up. Don’t say you are following Jesus Christ if when things don’t turn out as you had planned them in your play book, you throw in the towel. Because if we know God, we will know that’s not the way faith works.

This leads to the second thing I wanted to draw out of this passage from Hosea.

The need to put our relationship with God, before all other things.

But how do we do that… how do we move from knowing about God to knowing God?

We come to know God through Scripture Reading and Prayer. Rather than considering reading the bible for the knowledge that it may give or of prayer as a practice that benefits your personal health; think of them both as building a relationship. As Dr. Phil will tell you the important thing in a relationship is ‘Communication’. Reading the scriptures and times of prayer need to become a dialogue, not a monologue. “What is God saying to me? How am I going to act upon it?”

We come to know God through whole hearted worship offered in the presence of others. Worship throughout Scripture is a communal act. People tell me they can worship God just as easily on the golf course or taking a walk in the beauty of nature as they can by attending a service of worship. We forget so easily that worship isn’t about us… it’s about God and the Bible’s teaching is crystal clear that one of the key components of a healthy relationship with God is worshiping God in the presence of others.

We come to know God through service. We need to do something, to be involved with something that is nurturing the life of somebody else. We encounter the presence of God in the lives of others. ‘In as much as you did it for the least of one of my little ones,’ says Jesus, ‘you did it unto me’.

It’s about communication. Through prayer and Bible Reading we involve ourselves in a conversation. That conversation is enriched as we worship God in the presence of others. It is further enriched as we seek to reach out to others with the love of God.

It is not those who sit on the balcony and watch the world go by who find the way, the truth and the life that Jesus spoke of. It is those who are travelers, those who are committed to a journey that they will see through to the end, no matter what obstacles are in the way, or how much it costs.

Balconeers don’t follow, they watch. Only pilgrim people discover the joy, the peace, the hope, the healing, the resurrection and the light which Jesus promised to His followers. Such is a journey we are called to make together with His songs on our lips, His gospel in our hearts and His Holy Spirit as our strength.

So today I invite you not to become ‘Balconeers’, but ‘Travelers’, to be those who don’t just know about God, but know God. To put Christ first… and then let everything else follow on.

The path to knowing God? Hosea 6:6 “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”.

Adrian Pratt