How can I know God personally?

Well, it's like we always say, like my relationship with God, it's not private, but it is certainly personal. I don't see him as being human, so you can't have a human relationship with him. There are people who believe that what shirt I put on this morning, that God cared what shirt I put on. That's nonsense. I do think God is so big and so vast that we'll never get to know him exhaustively. I felt like I heard a voice from heaven speak to my situation and tell me that everything was going to be OK. And I've lived a blessed life since then, since turning my life to God. You have to experience it for yourself. I think it's something hard to describe unless you're actually willing to go there.

Welcome to week seven of our series Explore God on the top seven questions people have about faith. My name's René, one of the pastors here. And I want to invite you to grab your message notes. And as you do, these will help you follow along this morning. I want to remind you that we're doing this with over 170 churches from all around the Bay Area, different denominations, different languages. Many of us pastors have really become friends as we've worked on this material together.

Now, next weekend, we are all going to wrap it up, all of these 170 churches on what we are calling Celebration Weekend. We're going to hear what God has been doing here and all around the Bay Area. And you know what? I would love to hear from you. If you have been meeting in a small group, if you have done an Acts of Kindness project, and especially if you've come to faith or had some questions about faith or come closer to faith in Jesus through this series, please email me your stories. Email me your pics at René—just email them. Write to me personally, René@tlc.org. It is going to be a great service. I'm going to share some of those next weekend. Don't miss this.

Well, in this series, we've looked at some of the top questions I said that people have about God, about life, about faith. We've looked at science. We've looked at archaeology. We've looked at history. And it's all been leading up to this essential question: How can I know God in a personal way? You know, one of my biggest concerns in this series is that for some of you, some of these answers to faith—about archaeology, about history, and so on—they've lodged up here, but maybe they haven't made that 18-inch journey from your head to your heart.

And so today, I want to talk about this personal relationship with God, because I believe that every single human being has this thirst, this longing for a relationship with the Lord who's going to give them unconditional, essential, eternal, never-ending, faithful love. And we can't fulfill that thirst in our souls any other way. And you hear people talk about this all the time, this ache in their souls, even if they can't put a name to it.

For example, Elvis Presley, one of the last things that he ever wrote in his life. It was a note that an aide found crumpled up the morning he died. And on it, he had scrawled, "I feel so alone sometimes. Help me, Lord." Surrounded by friends, or at least acolytes, surrounded by fame, surrounded by admirers, fans. And yet still, there was some kind of deep loneliness that he just couldn't fulfill. What about Alfred Hitchcock, another 20th century celebrity—Scott's Valley's most famous resident ever, I think it's safe to say. And of course, the greatest film director of his generation. One of his final words, he said, "I am lost in a sea of alone." Or Albert Einstein, certainly the most recognizable face of the 20th century, yet even he said, "It is strange to be known so universally, and yet to be so alone."

All three of those people and many more like them had fame, had success, had admiration, yet they still felt a loneliness that couldn't be cured by any of those things. So what is the cure for this deep down loneliness in the human heart that every single human being feels? It really is universal. Take another 20th century luminary, George Harrison, ex-Beetle. He famously sang, "I really want to know you, Lord. What do you really want to see, Lord? But it takes so long, my Lord." And as evidence, it wasn't just like back in the 20th century or in '60s, flower power. A recent poll by the Barna Research Group when asked what they desire for their future, 75% of US adults today, currently, said a close relationship with God. People long for this. I think it's absolutely a universal need. We thirst for water. We hunger for food. And we ache for this relationship with God.

Well, the good news is this. The Bible is primarily a love story, a love story of how much God loves the world and loves you and is yearning for a personal relationship with you. I could literally show you hundreds of verses. But just look at these. God is love. Not God does love. Not God does loving things. God is love in 1 John 4:16. Or God so loved the world, famously, in John 3:16. Or this, God says, I love you in Isaiah 43. Don't be afraid. I'm with you. Now, the context for this is he's speaking to the nation of Israel at a time when, for centuries, they've been denying God, running from God, as fast as they could. Yet he still says to them, I love you.

And what this means to me is if you have been running from God on and off your whole life, and if you've done some things in your past that you regret, God still loves you and still longs to have a relationship with you. And he longs for you to know that, to sense it, to feel it. In Ephesians 3, the Bible says, may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should—watch this—how wide and how long, how high and how deep his love is for you. God not only loves you, he wants you to begin to understand, to have your mind real and your heart be full with the fact that the God who created the entire universe loves you in ways that you can't even imagine.

And then Jesus, I've always found it interesting that when he is betrayed and denied three times by Simon Peter, who even curses and curses at him, calling down curses the third time, when the risen Jesus finds the person who did that to him, he says not, how could you do that to me? Or you are on probation, or you're fired. What he says is, do you love me? I mean, I could show you hundreds of other verses, but you can see how it's personal relationship that is at the heart of the gospel. It's a heart. Our faith, the Christian faith, is not primarily about rules or rituals or regulations. It is about relationship.

And so as we begin to wrap up this series, let's talk about how to enter into and enhance that relationship with God that we all crave deep down inside. Now here's why I want you to listen to this message. Maybe you've been a Christian basically your entire life, but you feel like your relationship with God has grown a little bit dull. Or maybe you're sort of entirely new to all this. I want to take you to three points the Bible makes about our relationship with God. It talks about our ache for God, our need for that love. It talks about the source of that love. And then it talks about how to develop a relationship with God who is love. And so I want to look at all three of these points. And I have been praying all week that the living God will draw you closer to him today. That you will leave closer to God than when you walked in.

So let's talk about this. Number one, the Bible talks about our need for love. Our need for love. Our deepest need is to know we are loved. It's a thirst inside of this. Many verses about this, Psalm 42:2 says, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." Our desire for God, it's like a thirst down deep inside that we try to satisfy in a lot of different ways. Achievements, pleasure, approval, fame. But what we long for is God. And we can feel so frustrated when we try to satisfy that thirst. You know, we know when we get thirsty for water, what we're thirsty for. We know when we get hungry for food, what we're hungry for. And this universal ache for a relationship with God, I feel like in the ancient days, the old days, people recognized what it was.

Now they might have had different spiritualities, different religions, but they recognized I'm aching to know God, like that old George Harrison song, right? But these days, our society has grown so secular that I'm afraid a lot of people don't even recognize it for what it is. And so they try all kinds of different ways to satisfy it and get depressed when, you know, they're trying to satisfy thirst by eating sand. That sand is there for a reason, but it's not there to satisfy that thirst. And that's what happens when we look for satisfaction. When we look for satisfaction for that ache for God and approval from human beings or in fame or in adulation or in achievement or success, it just makes us depressed because it wasn't made to meet that need.

One example of this I just can't get out of my head. Arthur Miller, the famous playwright, his most famous play was probably "Death of a Salesman." Your high school probably did that, right, at some point or another. But he wrote in his autobiography about what it was like to be married to Marilyn Monroe. What's it like to be Marilyn Monroe's husband? During the filming of what turned out to be her last movie, "The Misfits," he watched her just spiraling down and down and down. And he writes in his autobiography about how one night, as he put it, "I stood watching my wife as she slept. She was so troubled." And he said this, "I found myself imagining—imagining—what if she were to wake and I were able to look at her in the eyes and say, 'God loves you, darling?' And what if she were to believe it? How I wish I still had my religion and she hers?"

That is so sad and so poignant on so many levels. He knew that's what she needed. That's what she'd been looking for her whole life. He knew it, but somehow because of his sophistication or intellect or something, he couldn't bring himself to say it. So can I just play the role for you today that Arthur Miller longed to play for Marilyn? I want to look you in the eyes and say, 'God loves you.' God loves you more than you can imagine. God loves you infinitely, unconditionally, faithfully. God loves you more than you have ever loved anyone or anything. And when you realize that's true, if you were to believe it, that just changes everything.

I love this verse. The Bible says, "The beloved of the Lord rests secure in him. He rests between his shoulders." Now try to picture that. You know what I picture? I picture a small child literally at rest between her daddy's shoulders, kind of like, well, my granddaughter, Willa, right here on this picture. On the shoulders of her daddy, David. But look at her face. She's secure. She knows she's in this envelope of unconditional love for her mommy and daddy. She rests secure between her loving father's shoulders. And so is anyone who knows they are beloved of the Lord.

Listen, maybe your whole entire life you felt like an outsider. Maybe you've been abandoned. Maybe you've been burned, betrayed. And you wanted love. And even when you received love, it wasn't fully satisfying. That's an ache. That's the need for love. And what you need is the source of love, God. So several years ago, Laurie and I were returning home from a long vacation overseas to see some of my relatives in Europe. And we were expecting our first baby. And we landed in the United States for a customs check and, you know, have to go through security again and catch a connecting flight domestically to come home. It was a long, long journey. And Laurie just really wanted to transfer to the next plane to get home. She was very pregnant. She was tired. And she was just done.

But when we got to the customs line, it was super long. And it looked like we were going to miss our connecting flight home. And I tried to make light of it. I said, hey, good news, honey. We'll be able to—the airline will probably pay for us to have a hotel here in New York City. And she looked at me like, that is not even a little bit funny. And she was mad. She said to me this. She said, René, I want you to go to the front of the line. And I want you to tell the head customs guy that your wife is pregnant and upset and sick. And I want you to ask them to let your wife skip the line. I mean, Laurie's like, never like this. But she was just—and I said, what? That is ridiculous. And she gives me that mama bear look like, I am six months pregnant. Do not mess with me. And I said, yes, ma'am. And I hurried to the customs official.

And I said, look, I know this is out of the ordinary. But my wife is back there at the end of the line. And she's pregnant. And frankly, I'm afraid of her right now. So could you please bump us to the front of the line so we can make our connecting flight? And he goes, hmm, what's your job? I said, well, I'm a pastor. I never know how people are going to take that. I'm a pastor, right? And he said, right. He said, you have no idea how often people try that line on me. And I thought, really? And he goes, if you're really a pastor, recite John 3:16. Like no one but a pastor could possibly know this secret code. So he folds his arms. And he glares at me, tapping his foot. And I glanced back. And Laurie is glaring at me, tapping her foot. And I think, under this kind of pressure, I'm going to choke. I'm going to want to recite John 3:16. I'm going to end up spitting out the Gettysburg Address or something. What's going to happen?

So I took a deep breath. And I said, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. And he looks at me and says, wow, you must be a pastor. Move to the front of the line, reverend. No kidding. That is a true story. Now, everybody's going to try that at TSA, everyone in this room. But here's the thing about this verse. A lot of us actually, not just pastors, a lot of us do know this verse right by heart. Probably the first verse a lot of us memorized somehow. But it's so familiar we forget. It's kind of got that pledge of allegiance factor. Right now, I lay my leg as I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Pray the Lord my soul to keep. It's just like a bunch of words that you sort of put together. So what does it actually mean?

Well, it might seem obvious, but John 3:16 comes right after John 3:14 and 15. That's the kind of thing they teach you in seminary. But you really do learn about what this verse means when you check out the context. This is so cool. Check this out. Jesus says in John 3:14, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. Snake and that what in the world is that talking about and what does it have to do with Jesus? Well, it's referring to a strange story in Numbers 21 in the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures. The Israelites are in the desert, literally snake bit. They're dying from poisonous snake bites. There's no antidote. They are all doomed. And by the way, the snake bite is really a result of their rebellion wandering off away from God's direction.

But God tells Moses time for a miracle. And He tells Moses to make a brass symbol of the snake and put it up on a pole. And here's the miracle. He lifts it up and everyone who merely looks on it in faith is told, all you have to do is look on it in faith and you will be healed. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to earn it. No matter what you did to get to this point, you'll just be healed by God's grace. Amazing. And that, by the way, is a possible origin of the caduceus, the symbol for doctors, right? The serpent on a pole, the signification of the healing profession. But I love this. What an artistic, poetic way to heal people because He turns the very symbol of death and destruction into a symbol of hope and healing. He just completely turns the catastrophe on its head.

So can you see the parallels for you and me? We're dying of a poison in our soul. And Jesus is sacrificed on a cross, lifted up for all to see. And if we just look on Him in faith, we're healed. It's so poetic, right? Again, the very symbol of death and despair is turned into a symbol of healing and hope instead. So now that you know the background, look again at the well-known words of this verse. For God so loved, not God so judged. In fact, the next verse, verse 17, makes it clear that He didn't send His Son into the world to condemn the world. God loved—this is what motivated God—not anger. He deeply, expensively loved the world. Every child, every man, every woman, every law breaker, every law enforcer, me, you, that He gave, not He demanded, not He expected, He gave. It's a gift.

His one and only Son, not His one and only principles. He didn't give principles. He gave a person, not His one and only command. He didn't give a command. He gave a person to love that everyone who believes in Him, not whoever works hardest, not whoever prays the most, not whoever understands theologically the most, just believes, shall not perish. We're all perishing without Him in every way. But with Him, we have eternal life, not just in heaven one day, but abundant life starting right now. It's just that simple. You just enter into the relationship, and you're healed.

I mean, think about on that story again with the snakes in the desert. The Israelites didn't know exactly how the poison was going to be counteracted when they looked up at the serpent on the bronze pole. It just was. And you don't have to know exactly how this works either. I love this quote from A.W. Tozer. We're saved by His death, but how are we saved by His death? We're alive by His resurrection, but how are we alive by His resurrection? At some point, it's just a miracle unfathomable. And we simply stand and gaze at the cross and whisper, thank you. And what happens is it just changes you when you realize this gift of love that you're entering into this relationship.

Again, as Tozer goes on to say, what can the world do to a man or a woman who is grounded in the love of God, who swims in the ocean of His love as a fish swims in the sea? What can sin do? What can the world do? What can accident do when you realize how much you're loved by God? So the Bible says we all have a need for love that can be satisfied only by the source of love. So the final question is, how do I connect with the love of God for me? What are the channels to receive His love for me? How do I enter into it? How do I experience it? How do I grow it and know it?

Well, think of how you grow in love with any human being, right? When you love somebody, first of all, you notice what they do, right? You notice what they do. You don't take it for granted. One of the best things to bring back a sense of love and respect in marriage is to notice the good things that your spouse does that you can overlook, just noticing the little chores, seeing the cup of coffee made for you, just noticing enhances your love. And you see their love for you. So do you notice what God does? All the little gifts of grace He gives you every day, the friendships, the sunrises, the sunsets.

As Elizabeth Barrett Browning, great poet, wrote, "Earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God. But only He who sees takes off His shoes." So stop and notice the flowers and the birds and the babies and the leaves and the friends and the water droplets and the blades of grass and the music and the rise and fall of your own breath and the beat of your own heart because it's all a gift of grace. And you find that this is how you grow in your sense that God loves you. And when you really love somebody, you listen to what they say. You listen to them when they're saying, I love you. You know God's saying, I love you to you every day, especially in His word, the Bible.

Bible reading, we talked about this last week, it's not a chore you do for God to bless you or some kind of a lucky rabbit's foot to get good luck. It's a way for you to hear the love story. So develop a habit, you know, leave your Bible open, read it, memorize verses. You say, I don't even know where to start. We have free daily devotional booklets that we get every month for you. They're called Our Daily Bread at the Info Desk. And we also have very inexpensive devotionals at our bookstore also. You get into God's word every day. That's a way to receive—it's a channel to God's love for you. You notice them, and you listen to them, and you thank them for what they do and for who you are. This is a way not just you express love. This is a way that you sense God's love for you.

So listen carefully to what I'm about to say. Sometimes people tell me, René, I am really struggling with my personal relationship with God. It's grown dull, or I'm struggling with the whole idea. And so here's my usual suggestion. And if you were to ask me that question, here's what I'd probably tell you. For the next week, don't pray except for one two-word prayer. Don't pray anything but these two words. You know what those two words are? Thank you. As you notice things that make you grateful, say to God, thank you. And for one week, don't then immediately go on to other prayers like, thank you. And now here's my list of complaints and worries. Just thank you. That's it for a week. I've had so many people tell me after a week, this has revolutionized my relationship with God. I was saying thank you, and I was hearing him start to say, you're welcome. I love you. It's a channel to receive God's love.

And when you love somebody, you serve them in love. Now how can you possibly serve Jesus? Well, Jesus said one day at the last judgment, people will ask him, Lord, when did we see you hungry? Feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And he'll say, truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers, you did for me. And to me, that is very motivating. Because how much would you like to just lavish adulation on Jesus sometimes for what he's done for you? Jesus says, well, you can when you serve others. What happens is it draws you closer to his love for you.

So I heard a pastor one time tell a true story about a woman in his church who was depressed. She felt her relationship with God had gone flat. And after an hour of seemingly unfruitful counseling, he looked at his watch and said, I'm sorry, but I got to go. I got to go to the hospital for a round of visitation. And then he had an idea. He said, why don't you come along with me? And so she did. And she watched as he visited a couple of people who were sick in the hospital and prayed with them and chatted with them just a little bit to encourage them, read them a Bible verse. And he said, the third time and the fourth time, the fifth time, he said, why don't you start? You pray with them. And you share a Bible verse and kind of have a little conversation with them. And she did.

And after the hour, she was getting back into her car. And she said, you know, it's strange. I feel so peaceful and somehow so close to God after this. And he said, well, there's the answer. Just come along and let's start off. Volunteer hospital visitation team. And I think this is how God is going to revitalize your relationship with him. And you know what she answered? Quote, you don't expect me to do this regularly, do you? I'm a busy woman. And she never did it again. What she was on the verge of realizing was that when we serve other people, not only are we serving Jesus Christ, but we are sensing his love for us.

And I know you've had that experience. This is what's serving with the Joyful Noise class here at our church during the 9 AM service. We always have a class for developmentally challenged adults. It's like a little worship service. There's worship music. There's a little devotional. There's just something about that. There's something about serving our children as a kids volunteer. There's something about feeding the hungry. In some way, we encounter Jesus. And that motivates me in ways I can't express for, you know, my—every year, what I love the most, I think, that we do around here is our annual food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank because we're feeding the Lord Jesus. And it's a way to express our love to him. And a quick reminder on that, if you'll indulge me, are deadlines in a couple of weeks, the weekend before Thanksgiving. And here's where you can give directly, tlc.org/food. But when we feed the hungry, I never want this to be guilt-oriented. I want this to be motivated from a position of we're feeding Jesus, and we're getting closer to him.

And it's important, this is not as a reward, like, oh, you fed the poor, and so now I'm going to help you feel my love. It's not transactional. It's not a reward. It's relational. So how do you feel God's love? Well, the way that you get closer to anybody. But of course, you won't always feel bliss, right? When you're married, you don't always feel bliss. But you do have peace and security and kind of a sense of settledness from unconditional love. But there's one more important point to love, isn't there? I don't want to leave this out. I want to close with this. To sense somebody's love when you love somebody, you open your life to them. This is how you must do that. To receive love from them.

Jesus says in the Bible, here I am. I stand at the door and knock. And if anybody hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. In the 1800s, the artist Holman Hunt famously painted the scene in this verse. It's on display now at Oxford University. He called it the light of the world. And every single detail matters. You can see that Jesus is standing at a door that is overgrown with thorns and with weeds and there's spider webs that clearly hasn't been opened in a long time. And it represents the way into somebody's life, their heart. And Jesus has been standing there a long time, knocking and waiting patiently.

Now, when this was first put on display, somebody told Holman Hunt, well, you made a mistake. You forgot to paint a handle on the door. There's no way Jesus can get in. And he said, no, that was deliberate because there's only one handle and that's on the inside. We have to open the door to let Jesus into our lives. Jesus will never force his way in. He gives us freedom to choose. It's up to us, just like any healthy relationship. But if we open the door to him, he promises, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. Eating together in those days was a deep sign of friendship. And that's what Jesus offers. And once we open the door, he promises he'll never, ever leave us.

Now, I got to admit, I used to associate this verse with childhood because I first learned this verse in kindergarten Sunday school over at Calvary Church in Lascattice. And I was like, I've kind of moved on from that verse. That was for kindergartners. But you know what? It's not just for kindergartners, is it? I read how John Stott, John Stott is a Cambridge educated scholar. He was named by Time Magazine, one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. And this verse played a huge role for him when he was an adult. He said his life was changed one day by a simple sermon on this verse. And here's the way he describes it. And I wonder if you can relate today.

He says intellectually speaking, I'd believed in Jesus all my life. On the other side of the door, I'd regularly struggled to say my prayers kind of through the keyhole. And I'd even pushed pennies under the door in a vain attempt to pacify him. I had been baptized, yes, and confirmed as well. I went to church, read my Bible, had high ideals, and tried to be good and do good. But all the time without often realizing it, I was holding Christ at arm's length, keeping him outside. Why? Perhaps, he said, because I knew that to open the door might have momentous consequences. I'm profoundly grateful to him for enabling me to open the door because looking back now over more than 50 years, I realize that simple step has changed the entire direction, course, and quality of my life.

And so here's my simple question for you. Would you like to open your life to Jesus? Maybe you've been waiting for a moment to make that move. Well, maybe this is your moment. Maybe like John Stott, you've kind of believed your whole life, but you've kind of kept Jesus at arm's length. Or maybe you're not sure you've ever done that. This is a chance for you to settle the issue. Look at page two of your notes. I put there an example of a prayer of commitment at the very, very top. If you would like to invite Jesus in to say yes to his love—and this is a metaphor Jesus himself used—open the door to him. Why not pray a prayer something like this right now?

Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads in a word of prayer with me? And I want to give you permission to peek at these words. And you can pray this silently along with me as I pray it out loud. Lord, welcome into my life. Thank you for loving me so much. You made a way for me to live in your love always. I want to turn away from sin and toward you. I believe in Jesus, that he died for my sins, was resurrected, and lives forever as Lord and Savior. I receive Jesus as Lord of my life. And I want to grow in that love. Help me to love others as you love me. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen.

Today, did you open the door of your life to Jesus? I'd love to know about it. You can email us faith@tlc.org. That's a new email address because we really want to help equip people here to grow in their walk of faith. We have what we call new believers' Bibles for you. They have explanatory notes in them and a lot more resources for you. So if you made that commitment of faith, email us faith@tlc.org. And I want to say something. I'm fully aware that a little seven-week series could not possibly have resolved every question that you might have. But relationships aren't built on having every single possible shred of information about somebody. They're built on knowing them enough to trust them.

And I asked Elizabeth to sing a song about that before we take communion together. This song played a huge role for me personally. But long before Elizabeth was on staff, I heard her sing this and then would listen to it again and again on Apple Music because the song was there. And this song's lyrics moved me to give a part of my life to Jesus one day that I had been withholding. And so as Elizabeth sings, let the message of the song wash over you. And if you haven't yet, I invite you to invite Jesus in.