If You Knew the Gift of god... - Part 1 — Phil Beach Jr.

Okay, let's just bow our hearts for a moment in prayer and then we will look to the Lord for this. Father, we thank You so much for Your presence. We thank You, Lord, that You are here in our midst. We thank You, Father, for Your wonderful Son and for all that He is, all that He has become for You and to You, and all that He has become for us and to us.

We thank You for the precious Holy Spirit who is faithful to witness and testify to the glory that belongs to the Son, the glory that belongs to the eternal God, and we welcome the triune God here. We welcome You, Lord, and we pray, God, that today You would take Your Word and that You would open up the eyes of our heart, that You would create in us by Your Word a greater capacity to be focused on the one and most important supreme passion that we could be preoccupied with.

And we commit this to You, Father, in Jesus' name, Amen. We already read in John chapter 4, but we'll read again. John chapter 4, verse number 4, Jesus had to go through Samaria, a divine imperative. He had to go through Samaria.

Jesus’ Divine Appointment at the Well

Jesus' steps were always governed by His Father. He was always led by His Father. And because of this, He was compelled to go through Samaria. And we know that it was because He was destined to meet a woman at the well of Jacob.

And in verse number 10, Jesus is responding to this woman who made a comment to Him. And this is what He said to her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that said to you, give me to drink, you would have asked of Him and He would have given you living water.

And so, we notice here that in verse number 10, Jesus made two very important statements. Number one, if you knew the gift of God, and number two, if you knew who it was that was speaking to you. Those are the two important issues of all the dealings of God in our lives.

From the very beginning of time all the way up to the present time, everything that is happening and everything that we receive and everything that comes to us is governed by how we answer these questions.

If we knew the gift of God and who it is that speaks to us. Who it is that is in our midst. The history of mankind from Genesis on through to Revelation has been the history of God giving a self-revelation and then the subsequent response of the heart of man to that revelation.

The history of mankind, God giving a self-revelation of Himself and then the response of that revelation in man's heart. He has given this revelation in many different ways. We know that He has given this revelation and created things.

The heavens declare the glory of God. The Scripture says, all the things that have been created by God's hand, all things were created by Him and for Him are intended to reveal something of the nature and character of God Himself.

So, in creation God has given a revelation of Himself. Secondly, God has given a revelation of Himself in creating man himself. Man reveals something of the character and nature of God. Though our image has been marred through sin and though blindness has captured our hearts and we are dead to God before the new birth, dead to God, dead to a union with Him, dead to partaking of His life and partaking of knowing Him, yet the very constitution of man, spirit, soul in particular and body is a foreshadow or a picture of God's thought for man in eternity conformed to the image of the heavenly man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the creation of man is a revelation of God Himself. And so we see that through the created universe and the creation of man, God is ever-seeking, ever-seeking to awaken our hearts to these two all-important truths in John 4, verse 10.

If you knew the gift of God and if you knew the One in your midst, in particular here, who was speaking to this woman, God Himself in the person of His Son. If we knew the gift of God, morning by morning when we awoke and saw the sun rise, we would be crying out to God, Oh God, give me this gift.

If we knew the gift of God, day by day we would be going through our day and whatever it is that we were experiencing, we would be crying out in our heart, Oh God, Oh God, I want to know You. I want to know this gift.

I want to know You. I recognize that You are Sovereign God and You're working in and through my circumstances. You're present. You are here. You're present. And I know, Lord, that You can give me living water.

The Living Water That Truly Satisfies

And now let's just notice what Jesus said about the living water and then we're going to move on. John chapter 4, verse number 11, the woman said, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

From where are you going to get that living water? So, she obviously was not understanding, was she? She was not understanding what Jesus was saying. And she represents so often the condition of our own heart.

We're not understanding what the Lord is after. We're not understanding the gift of God. We know about it theologically. We've acknowledged it doctrinally. But we have not yet apprehended in a manner that satisfies God's heart the immensity and the magnitude of the gift of God that is available, nor have we understood or comprehended or come to grips with the One who is in our midst, the One who is in our bedrooms every night when we're there sleeping, the One who is with us in our cars when we're going to work or to school, the One who is at our desk when we're on the computer.

Jesus said that if you knew these things, then you would be crying out, Oh God, give me, give me living water. In every situation, in every circumstance that we find ourselves in, we would be crying out, Lord, give me living water.

Irrespective of what was happening to us, that would be the central, deepest, theme cry of our heart. Give me living water. In this disappointment, I don't deny the disappointment. I don't pretend it's not there.

I don't minimize it. But I'm not going to be swallowed up in the disappointment. I'm going to get beyond it and say, Lord, give me this living water. Lord, give me thyself. Give me, Lord, who you are through this.

Even if it's a blessing. If it's a blessing, Lord, I'm not going to be swallowed up in it. Everything that's happening in our lives is peripheral. We have to go beyond the peripheral. We have to touch what God is after.

And Jesus was working toward awakening this woman to this truth. Are you greater, verse 12, than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank there himself? And Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks or whoever is drinking of this water shall thirst again.

The insufficiency. Listen, everyone, listen. Verse number 13. The insufficiency of anything other than God himself to truly satisfy the human need. If anyone is drinking of this water, specifically, He was referring to the water that was in that well.

The literal water. But Jesus is always speaking on a higher plane. He's using the water in Jacob's well to represent anything and everything that we are looking to to try and find satisfaction. To try and find the ability to quench the deepest thirst of our heart and our life.

Jesus captures it all. He who drinks of this water, that which is temporal, that which is in this world, shall thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

And so Jesus is telling us here that there's two types of water. The one type is a water that does not satisfy. Doesn't matter how much we drink. Doesn't matter how much we pursue it. It doesn't satisfy.

It causes thirst again and again and again, though temporarily quenches our thirst. Then there's the water that Jesus offers to drink. And this water, Jesus said, if you drink it, listen closely, you'll never thirst again.

Again, there is a completion that occurs when the depths of our spirit drinks of the water that Jesus Himself offers. A completion unto a lifelong pursuit. It is a completion on the one hand in that we no longer are looking to be satisfied.

It is a completion in that we are no longer looking to quench the deepest thirst of our life in something or someone anymore. He that drinks this water shall never thirst again. It's as simple as that.

You'll never thirst again. You'll never look for something or someone to satisfy that deepest thirst in your life. But from within shall spring up wells of living water. And so the thirst that we have once we drink the living water is a thirst, listen closely, for God alone.

It is a thirst for God that only He can satisfy. So it is a completion. We cease from looking to find the deepest thirst in our life quenched anywhere. Person, place, or thing. So that side of it is a completion.

Never thirst again. But then once that has been done, then we enter into a whole new realm where we are occupied as long as we keep our eyes on Him with an insatiable hunger to keep knowing and to keep drinking of this living water, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Knowing God as the Highest Good

So up here we look on the whiteboard. What is the highest good for man? Please remember, take these down. Write them down on your heart, young people, please. One day, one day, you will see more and more the significance of these statements.

What is the highest good for man? What is the highest good now for us today? And what is the highest good to be realized in our present trial, test, or affliction? Notice each of these three questions.

Highest good has been highlighted with blue. Highest good, highlighted with blue. Highest good, highlighted with blue. The reason why is because the answer to these three questions is the same. The same.

The highest good for man, in general. The highest good for us today, right now, right here, right in this home, irrespective of what you're going through. And then, specifically, the highest good to be realized in our present trial, test, or affliction.

And a test is not only negative, but it could be positive. You may be experiencing a very outward life of pleasure and comfort. Everything is going well, but that's a test. Just like the test of affliction, or difficulties, or hard times.

And so, the answer to all of these questions is the same, and it's found in John chapter 17, verse 3. What is the highest good? John 17, verse 3. And this is light eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.

Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3, verse number 10. This is Paul, echoing the very words that Jesus spoke in John chapter 17, verse 3. And by the way, this is a couple decades after Paul had already become a follower of Jesus Christ.

So, this was not Paul longing for initial salvation. This was Paul, who having had drunk the living water, was forever satisfied. He never looked anywhere else. But once he became satisfied in finding the living water, he entered into a lifelong passion and pursuit of wanting to know now this God that he had met in the face of Jesus Christ.

That I may know Him. And so, brothers and sisters, the highest good in our life is to know God. It is to discover, by revelation, a feature, an aspect, a quality, a quality of God. A quality, a characteristic of God Himself that goes beyond doctrine.

Though doctrine's important, it goes beyond mental consent into the realm of participation, experience. For the sake of argument, it could be said, let's just say that our President is a very compassionate and loving man.

For the sake of argument. And let's say we've been taught that. And then we suddenly see a car come and out of it, the President walks. And he comes into our room and he sits down. And he starts to talk with us.

And we start to tell him our struggles and the things that we're going through. And all of a sudden, we see in the eyes of our President, tears rolling down his eyes. He comes and he embraces each one of us.

And he prays with us. And he draws from the resources that he has. And he begins to assist us in the struggle of what we're going through. Okay. So after that experience, we went through a transition.

We went from knowing, because we were taught, that our President is a compassionate, loving man, to experiencing it. And so that's the pursuit. That's the journey of the Christian. We go from knowing and learning about God because we study His Word, because we hear testimonies of His Word, we hear the Word taught and preached, which is all very good and very important and very vital, and is never to be minimized.

But God's passion is to take us on a journey of transition from having learned about God to experiencing the realities of all of those things that we've learned about Him. And as we experience them, we are then transformed and changed.

And our nature becomes more and more conformed to the image and likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, the answer to these questions, the highest good is found in knowing God Himself. Because God is God, He is totally just in making the object of all that is good Himself.

Now, no one else could do that, but God can, because He is God. And so God gathers up all that can be defined as good into Himself and into the revelation of Himself through His Son and says, the highest possible good is for you to know My Son in ever-increasing measure, to participate with Him in fellowship, and then to be conformed and transformed into His image and likeness.

Purpose Must Remain Centered on God

Now, it is very dangerous when we are trying to discover the purpose of God and disconnect that from God Himself. Very, very dangerous. Because then we become vulnerable to ideas and concepts and theologies that are disconnected from God Himself.

Consequently, we have in Scripture an incredible revelation. When we learn the answer to these questions, the highest good is God Himself. He is the object of all that is good. He is what is good. As we discover God, listen, as we grow in our capacity to know God, to know Him personally, and we'll learn that that comes through His Word.

God gives us a self-revelation in His Word of who He is. That's the foundation that we build on. We don't come to know God by subjective experiences, simply. Every subjective experience must have as its basis the objective truth of who God is in His Word.

So everything subjective is contingent upon the objective, and the objective is the Word of God, what God says about Himself. If our subjective experience doesn't line up with the Word, then we have to disregard it.

So as we gather all that God's Word says about Himself, not add to it, not take from it, gather up all that God's Word says about Himself, that's the objective truth, combine that together with God as our Father, committed to, like we see with Jesus, talking to the woman, walking together with us in real life, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of His grace, awakening us with a growing capacity to participate in an experiential way, in real life, the realities and truths that we learned about God objectively from His Word.

We getting it? Very important, very important. When we understand the purpose of our life in this connection, then nothing is insignificant. Nothing is unimportant. I don't care what it is. Men and women who have been deeply taught of God, hear God in the simplest things, like being unwilling to share your pancakes, or the extra piece of bacon, or a feud over who's going to sit where, in what spot.

How does that relate to the eternal God and the truths of God? It relates supremely. Supremely. That's an opportunity to take the objective truth that we have learned from God's Word, beloved, and experience it in an actual, real-life situation, a revelation and a participation in who God is.

The God who prefers, teaches you to prefer your brother over yourself. Every situation. You know of a story of a man who learned how to participate in the theology of God by discovering how selfish his heart was.

Experiencing Truth in Everyday Life

He found out his friend was borrowing his shoe polish without permission. Now, this man was a servant of God, has since gone on to be with the Lord, used of God in a tremendous way. But he had come to realize that the arena, listen, the arena in which God takes the objective truth that we learn in our Bible studies, during times when we're being taught the Word of God, listening to sermons, reading good books, all important and vital, during times when we're in family devotions and we're learning about God's Word, the arena that God chooses to take these objective truths and use them, or take these objective truths and work them into our lives so that experientially we experience them and enter into the good of them by participating in the reality of them in a practical way, the arena is life itself.

Don't ever separate your life from your Christianity because when you do, you begin to set yourself up for a gross fall. Don't ever do it. It doesn't matter what you're going through, how seemingly unspiritual it is, it is always the opportunity to participate in all that good truth that you've learned.

And when we fail to see in real life God's moments of opportunity to take what we know and use it into our lives so that in experience we participate with these truths, when we don't let that happen, then we begin, listen carefully, we begin down a road of spiritual decline and fall guilty to the very things that the prophets condemned Israel for.

Not only Israel, but the world. And what's the condition of condemnation? For when they what? Knew God. They knew about, they had the objective truth. This is true of the world in general and it's true of the nation of Israel as a people.

They knew God. They had the objective truth. Israel more than any other nation because not only did they have creation, not only did they have their own conscience, but they had given to them the Word of God, the revelation of God in His Word, which was a supreme gift to them.

No other nation had that gift. But the state of condemnation is you have the objective truth, but in real life situations, because I'm sure none of the Israelites rejected the truth when it was being told them in a setting like this.

This isn't when we reject truth, brothers and sisters. We don't reject it now. We all say, yes, amen, hallelujah. When do we reject it? Walking it out in real life situations. That's when we reject truth.

And so the state of judgment and condemnation is possessing objective truth, but resisting God's plea and opportunity to have that objective truth realized in our moment-by-moment experience. So, as we discover God in this two-fold manner, we suddenly become capacitated to discover God's purpose, His eternal purpose, the scheme of His heart from eternity past that He's working toward in time that will be realized in eternity future.

Seeking God Before Seeking Life’s Purpose

But not only, brothers and sisters, and this is so important, not only do we understand that general purpose of God, but we can understand the purpose of God for our lives. Not by becoming so preoccupied with what is God's purpose for me, but being occupied with knowing God, knowing God.

What does Matthew 6 .33 say? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. What does that mean? That captures, that is an inclusive statement that captures this whole aspect of God Himself, knowing God.

And we'll put here, for sake of understanding the two-fold, the two-fold ways of knowing God, the objective, and that is through His Word. And God has given us a revelation of Himself in His Word. That's why the Word is so important.

That's why we need to spend our time in the Word as often as we can and speak of the Word of God as often as we can. Because in it is the objective truth of who God is. It's not what you think, or what I think, or what he thinks, or what she thinks.

What has God revealed Himself to be in His Word? So knowing God, the highest good is knowing God objectively and then subjectively in our daily lives. Submitting to God and letting Him work into us what is true objectively, that is in Him.

Okay? As we are occupied with this process, out of that process grows a dawning, grows a realization and that realization is the purpose of God is realized. And isn't this true about life itself and getting to know one another?

If I really want to know Norman, purpose, I just need to get to know Norman. The more I get to know Norman, the more I will see purpose. Purpose is part of, it's not disconnected from, it's part of who a person is.

Purpose and person are the same. So the purpose of God is revealed by a self-revelation of God. And you'll see this to be true. In every single self-revelation of God, all of the titles of God in the Old Testament carried over to the New Testament that reveal aspects of His name or who He is.

In every single one of those revelations, you will discover an aspect of His purpose. So you can't discover purpose disconnected from God Himself. You can't discover purpose without discovering God. And so we know this to be true in Acts chapter 9.

You don't have to turn to it. We've read it before. Acts chapter 9. When Paul met the man in glory, what did Paul see? The person? But when he saw the person, what began to happen? He saw the purpose.

Paul could not disconnect from seeing Christ, the man in glory. He couldn't disconnect from that revelation, seeing the purpose of God. And so Paul perfectly exemplifies this truth that as he discovered the person, he discovered the purpose.

And the more he discovered the person, the more he discovered the purpose. And that's why as you go through the epistles of Paul, start with Thessalonians and end with 2 Timothy, you see a progression of revelation of the purpose of God.

A progression of the revelation of the purpose of God in Paul's writings that is in relation to the progression of knowing the person of God. And of course, we know that the writings of Paul that were done in prison capture the purest, clearest purpose of God that has ever been deposited in a New Testament writer.

And that was right during the end of Paul's life when his whole heart was governed by one desire, to know the person. So as Paul longed to know the purpose, he got the person. As Paul longed to know the person, he discovered the purpose.

Oh my Lord, how amazing is this revelation from God that leads us to one conclusion. All we need to know is Him. And as we are occupied with Him, our Father in Heaven will take care of purpose, will take care of everything else.

Trusting God Rather Than Demanding a Blueprint

Him. If you knew the gift of God and who it was that was in your midst, you wouldn't say, Oh God, what is your will for my life? Not that that's wrong, but he didn't say that. Oh God, what is your eternal purpose?

Oh God, reveal to me the secret counsels of your heart. No, you would say, Give me this gift. And the gift God is talking about is not the gift of knowing everything. Not the gift of having everything laid out before you.

That's what we would want, wouldn't we? Oh, we'd want a blueprint. If we could, we'd hire a spiritual architect. And we'd say, All right, name your price. Just map out on a piece of paper what in the world my life is supposed to look like.

If someone could produce that, he'd be an instant millionaire overnight. And you know who would give him the most business? Probably the church. We know this because what is the basis of a soothsayer or a palm reader?

Is it not this? Is it not this, people? Wanting to pay someone to what? Tell me what is going to happen in my life. What are the plans for my life? See, but Jesus didn't say, If you knew me and you knew the gift of God, you wouldn't be asking me for that.

He said, You would ask me for living water. Living water. So, to sum up what we have said, What time is it? 1 .30? Okay, yeah, we're going to sum it up now. And this will lead us eventually now to, as we look to the Lord, this will lead us eventually to all of the instances in the Old Testament and the New Testament where there is a self-revelation of God.

And each one of these instances will become the objective framework from which we derive unchanging truth of who God is, from which we derive the resources that enable us to go through real life and be transformed into His image.

But in addition to that, the self-revelation of God becomes the source from which we discover His purpose. And we will eventually, as we look to the Lord, go through every single place, all the main places where God reveals Himself and discover these things.

The Highest Good Is God Himself

But not today. Today, we sum up by saying the all-important question that Jesus is asking us is this, do you know the gift of God and do you know who it is in your midst all the time? And if you did, or to the measure that you do, you will be saying in all situations, give me, let me participate more and more in the reality of who you are.

Let me be conformed into your image more and more and more. And by that we discover that the highest good in general, the highest good now, and the highest good to be realized in any situation we find ourselves in, is always, always, always God Himself and knowing Him.

There is no greater good. There is no higher good. There's nothing better that we can experience other than God. And one of the chief lies of the devil is that there's something good for you that is not related to God.

That's a lie. And every one of us have been tempted to think that way. That's a lie from the devil. And as we recognize this, the highest good is knowing God, knowing Christ objectively, and then experiencing that daily as we submit to God and let Him work that in our lives.

And out of that revelation of knowing God, we discover purpose. The purpose of God, the general purpose of God, which He had in eternity past, that is realized in His Son, that He's summing up all things in Christ.

But not just that heavenly understanding, but God is very practical. We'll discover the purpose of our lives, the purpose of what He wants us to do in very practical ways, not by getting occupied with that, to the point where it's obsession, to the point where you lose focus, to the point where you're trying with all your might to work it out.

No, that is not biblically sound. That's more like what the nations do. There's a place to plan. There's a place to discover. There's a place to discuss. But ultimately, purpose is realized as we focus on knowing Him.

God has a way. Young people, and we're going to close with this. God has a way to take every single person who is supremely occupied with Him and show him exactly what pertains to his life down here on earth.

He has a way. Trust Him to do it. Trust Him to do it. As tempting as it is to try and take things into our own hands and figure things out beyond what is reasonable, we resist that by staying focused on Him.

And you watch and see how God will lead and open doors and make ways that would blow our minds as an example of how faithful He is to take care of everything. Okay? So, that's all for this lesson.