9.3.24

This week we will be starting a new sermon series in the attributes of God. So many of the struggles we face in life come because we don’t know the full extent of who our God really is. And this week we will begin by looking at the knowability of God. He is a God that reveals himself to be known. And we will be looking at a passage in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

As our culture passes further and further away from knowing the true God - and as those cultural shifts cause spiritual drift in us as his people - the core claims of Christianity make less and less sense. Without this foundational knowledge, Easter and Christmas make no sense. Without understanding who God is, the 10 commandments make no sense. Because Christianity was never intended to be pigeonholed as merely a moral standard for us to keep so that we could prove ourselves to God and he would be pleased with us. Nor was God intended to be the nostalgia of the good old days. But God is knowable. He wants us to know him. And to the degree we do, it changes everything.

This passage talks about a new covenant that God has made with his people. And a covenant is a relationship based on a legal commitment. He talks about being a husband to his people - a legal relationship. And as he contrasts this old relationship with this new one, we are instructed about what it means to know God.

Under the old covenant, God was known in merely external ways. God appeared to his people in awesome miraculous pictures: a burning bush…a cloud and pillar of fire. God spoke to his people through Moses as he gave them the 10 commandments. And God dwelt among his people through the tabernacle/temple.

But that covenant broke down. God’s people were unable to keep it. And they turned away from him.

And so he talks here about a new covenant that’s coming (that has now come). This new covenant is bolder, richer, fuller. It’s a relationship far more intimate than anybody under that old covenant could even imagine. God now appears to us, not in special effects, but in the flesh and blood person of Jesus. God speaks to us and gives us truth through the person of Jesus. And God now lives inside of each one of us, giving us the presence of Jesus right here, right now, all the time! God is offering a new revolutionized relationship with him that is more personal, more intimate, more real, more powerful than anything those under the old covenant could experience.

As you come to God today, don’t imagine a distant deity who needs to be placated with your better living. Rather, paint the true picture of a God who comes to you, intimately, personally. He wants you to know him and to spend time with him - in conversation - in contemplation - in just his nearness to you.