When You Really Want to Know God
This sermon explores what it means to truly know God, moving from seeking Him in His Word to recognizing Jesus as the Son of David and Lord of David, the One who loved us first.
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Good Morning. There is a difference between wanting to know about someone and wanting to know someone. I can know where my wife was born, the town she grew up in, her high school, all kinds of facts about her. But memorizing those things wouldn’t mean I know her, who she really is.
Knowing someone is more than knowing facts about them. It means knowing who they are deep down, what they love, what matters to them, what makes them laugh, what breaks their heart. That distinction really matters when it comes to knowing God.
I’m a pastor, so studying is supposed to be my thing. And there are times I catch myself thinking I’m doing enough simply by learning more and more about God, while forgetting what it is to be in love with Him. You can know a great deal about God and still miss Him entirely.
Our lesson from Proverbs says, “If you receive my words, treasure up my commandments with you, … incline your heart to understanding.” Not just the head, but the heart. It doesn’t simply tell us to know wisdom. It tells us to seek it, treasure it, incline our hearts toward it, search for it like hidden treasure.
Psalm 63 sounds the same note: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you.” David doesn’t say, “I’d like to acquire some additional information about God.” Not that finding out things about God is bad. Quite the opposite. But that’s not love. David says his soul thirsts for God. There is a hunger to know Him, not simply to know things about Him.
All of this comes together beautifully in our Gospel.
Jesus is in the temple, and a lawyer asks Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” We’ve heard this one before. It’s easy to hear the answer and think, “I know this.” Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus actually gives two commandments here, to love God and your neighbor. Both matter, but this morning I want to stay with the first, because love of neighbor that isn’t rooted in love of God eventually runs dry.
We know the answer and maybe that’s exactly the problem. Familiarity can be its own kind of blindness. The commandment is right there: love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And we can nod at it, file it away, and never let it touch us. Jesus isn’t giving us a category to check. He’s laying claim to the whole person, and that is a demanding commandment.
If we’re honest, we don’t love God with all of anything. We might love Him with some of our heart, some of our mind, some of our time, and the rest drifts. We come to church and can easily start to think about lunch. We pray and our mind wanders before we finish the first line.
God isn’t interested in being one compartment among many. He wants the whole person. Not the part we can spare.
And then Jesus asks a question of His own. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?” “The son of David.” That’s the correct answer, as far as it goes, since the Messiah was to be a descendant of David.
But Jesus won’t let them stop there. He quotes Psalm 110, which was written by David: “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’”
Then He asks, “If David calls Him Lord, how is He his son?” Nobody can answer, and nobody dares ask Him another question. Here’s the point, and it’s simpler than the theology sounds: Jesus is forcing the real question.
The question isn’t “What does the Bible say about the Messiah?” We could make a list of those things from reading the Old Testament. The question is:
“Who is He?”
The answer is David’s son. Yes. But He is also David’s Lord. The One we are commanded to love is not an idea. He is not a principle. He is not even merely a teacher telling us how to live. He is the Lord.
If Jesus is merely a teacher, we can admire Him from a safe distance. If He’s just a prophet, we should listen. But if He is David’s Lord, the Son of God in the flesh, then admiration isn’t enough, and neither is simple compliance. He is the One before whom we bow, the One we trust, and the One we love.
And now we can see how all these lessons fit together. Proverbs tells us to seek God, to treasure His Word, to incline our hearts toward Him. Psalm 63 tells us what that seeking can become: “My soul thirsts for you.” And Matthew tells us where the search leads. To Jesus.
Knowing Him begins to change what we love, and what we love begins to change how we live. We stop thinking of obedience merely as something we have to do because God told us to. We begin to see His goodness, His mercy, His love for us, and obedience becomes a response to the One we love.
Think about the difference between doing something because someone told you to and doing it because you love the person who asked. From the outside, the actions look identical. But the heart is completely different.
That’s what Jesus is after. He doesn’t want your compliance. He wants you. And the reason He can ask for that is because He gave Himself for you first.
Perhaps the best place to begin is with a very simple prayer: “Lord, I want to want You more. Teach me to seek You. Teach me to love You.”
The good news is that we aren’t chasing a God who is hiding from us. He has already made Himself known. He came to us in Jesus Christ, the Son of David and the Lord of David. And the One who commands us to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind is the One who loved us first.
So seek Him. Treasure His Word. Turn your heart toward Him. And as you come to know Him, may you discover what David discovered: “My soul thirsts for you.”
Because the goal isn’t simply to know more about God. The goal is to know God, and to discover in Jesus Christ that He has known us, loved us, and come for us all along.
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