How Much Do You Know God? — Paul Washer

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I come before you in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, and I worship you and I thank you very, very much for every kindness you have shown me and my race. Thank you for your tender mercies, for your faithfulness, and I thank you for the means through which it was all brought to us, the person and cross of your dear Son.

Father, you know what I am. Through and through, there is no hiding from you and Lord, terror would disintegrate me if it were not for your son. And my confidence. In him and Lord, I do not have that confidence because I am a confident man.

He has forced me to have such confidence in him by his greatness, by his unfailing love. That he can even make the weakest of your saints to be strong in your presence, who is this son of yours, I boast in him, I rejoice in him, I magnify him.

In his name, amen. Let's go for just a moment to Malachi chapter one. I always have a great danger whenever I'm in a conference like this, when I only have a few times to speak. You see, there's a terrible thing about preaching.

Knowing God as the Foundation of Missions

A terrible thing, a sad thing, and that, you know, from the very outset, you are bound to fail, you must fail in preaching. Because the subject, I mean, the dust of this book is gold and the person of this book, it will take an eternity of eternities just to begin to know his name.

And the preacher feeble of soil and dirt and clay is called upon to preach this Christ. Or to preach some aspect of the salvation that we have in him, it's an impossibility and it makes a young man old quickly, but it's a marvelous pursuit.

To spend your life. As we will spend all of eternity searching out the glories of God in the face of Jesus Christ, says a side note, I remember once preaching and after preaching, I fell into just. A terrible depression.

Just the utter failure. Of everything that I had said about him. And I remember in my foolishness, walking down this gravel road and crying out to God, oh, God, oh, God. Grant me one thing that in that glorified state that you have promised me when I cross over to the other side, if you would just let me once stand again on a preacher's block and preach him as he ought to be preached.

And then I thought to myself, even then. In the greatest glorified state that I could ever know, I will never preach him as he ought to be preached. I will never know him. In the fullness of knowing him and you see, you think I'm rambling and possibly I am, this is not the text, but it needs to be said, this is what propels missions.

It is this this God that has made himself known and yet cannot be known any more than the fire night can engulf the infinite. That when I was born again, I began a journey, I entered into eternal life and eternal life is to know him and Jesus Christ eternity, even in the most splendid world will eventually make a man insane.

In the most wonderful, perfect utopia, sooner or later, enough will be enough and men will be bored out of their brains. So how is it that we can spend an eternity in heaven and go on from glory to glory?

Only this, what makes heaven heaven is the infinite wonders of the glories of God in the person of Jesus Christ. And you say, yes, I can't wait for that day when I cross over to the other side and I able to begin that journey.

Are you so foolish in Scripture that you don't even understand the first step of what being a Christian is all about? That journey began the moment you were converted. And when will you gain a zeal for missions, when you begin to pursue him, when will you grow and your desire for the gospel to be made known as you know him?

If it's any other reason, it's based on idolatry and it's fodder. You should never pursue something as trite. As missions, you must pursue him and missions will follow. The pursuit of him, I want us to go to Malachi for just a moment, don't know how long we'll stay there.

Malachi’s Rebuke of Defiled Worship

Chapter one, verse six. A son honors his father and a servant, his master, then if I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where is my respect, says the Lord of hosts to you, oh, priest who despised my name.

But you say, how have we despised your name? You are presenting defiled food upon my altar. But you say, how have we defiled you and that you say the table of the Lord is to be despised? But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil?

And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you or would he receive you kindly, says the Lord of hosts? But now will you not entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us with such an offering on your part?

Will he receive any of you kindly, says the Lord of hosts? Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the gates that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my altar, for I am not pleased with you, says the Lord of hosts, nor will I accept an offering from you for from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name will be great among the nations and in every place incense is going to be offered to my name and a grain offering that is pure for my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

Even just a few years ago, even just a few years ago, I would have preached this text to you in a quite different manner. A few years ago, when I did not know myself as well as I know myself now. I would have preached this in a different manner.

I would have pointed out the insufficiency of Israel, I would have pointed out their rebellion, their disobedience, their lackadaisical attitude toward God, and then I would have applied it to you. To the church.

To so many things that seem to be wrong with our zeal for missions, but that was then. Years have passed and the God who began a good work in me. I. Continued that work. But now when I look at the example of Israel in the light of the glory of God and the privilege.

That they had. I do not see a disobedience church in America. I see Paul Washer, I see me as I was preparing and thinking about what I was to say here this evening, there's so many things to say about missions, but there's so many things that have been said.

It's like a phrase I used to use a lot several years ago, what part of go don't you understand? I mean, how many missions conferences do we have to have before someone gets a clue that you either go down into the well as a missionary or you hold the rope for those who go down?

It's quite simple now. Leave and go do it. But now I look at this text and I see something quite amazing that missions is always the doing of God. It is always prospered by God's zeal for his own name, it is always carried out by God's power.

And he uses tiny, broken, sinful, weak individuals like myself. And like you, I could come in here tonight and I could demand that you be something that I'm not so that God might use you in missions. I could speak of great things and acts of piety and give you examples from a thousand different people in history.

But I have come to believe this. I myself have seen the power of God. I have seen multitudes converted. I have seen the miraculous. I have seen God do mighty things. But when I'm alone in the dark with him, I know what I am.

And it's not because I have reached some level of piety that has escaped my brothers, it is because God always works through broken, tiny, even sinful, even frivolous individuals like myself. If you are ever going to be of any use in missions, it is because God is going to take you and he's going to be faithful to break you.

Into a million pieces. And to grind you into a weakness that you did not even know existed, and the greater the depth. Of that weakness and that brokenness, the more you will see his power. I remember several years ago, a university that used to boast, a Christian university that used to boast of making champions for Christ.

I can't agree with such language anymore. As far as I'm concerned, God's only had one champion and that was his son, Jesus Christ. There are no great men and women of God. There are only tiny, broken, weak, feeble men of a great and a merciful God.

Honoring God as Father and Master

Now, let's look at our text. Verse six, a son honors his father and a servant, his master, that if I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where is my respect, says the Lord of hosts to you?

There is a there are many, many blessings from living in a democracy. And having the freedom of a democracy, but there are many things in Scripture that make it very hard for us to understand what it is like to live under a king, what it is like to pay homage to another, what it is like to give honor to whom honor is due.

We live in a country where we pride ourselves that no one is above us, that we tip our hat to no man. We've lost all respect for authority and institution and everything that truly matters. Even those things ordained by God, we are a people who do not know how to show respect to anyone.

We're much like this people here. He looks at them and he points out something that is found in society absolutely everywhere. There is an order of authority even in society. He says a son honors his father and a servant, his master.

Then if I am a father, where is my honor? Your greatest need for missions. Your greatest need for godliness is to know the Lord. Wise men are not supposed to boast in their wisdom and strong men are not supposed to boast in their strength.

Wealthy men in their riches, the one who both should boast in this, that he knows God. Your greatest need, the church's greatest need, the world's greatest need is to know God, not merely as an intellectual pursuit, but to know him.

To grow in their knowledge of him, because the more you do, the more you will be enabled to honor him, if your heart has truly been converted, the more you will be able to love him and to glorify him.

Let me give you an example. Oftentimes, preachers will stand up before a group of people and tell them what to do, but very rarely will a preacher tell them how to do it. A preacher will say something like this, all of you need to love God more than you do.

And the people walk out saying, of course, I should love God more than I do, and they go back to their home and they pray about loving God more than they do, they fall into condemnation because they know they do not love God as they ought.

But preacher, let me ask you a question. You've told them to love God more than they do. And just how are they supposed to do that? Are they to be like the man who picks himself up by his own bootstraps?

I mean, if you're going to tell me that I ought to honor and love God more than I honor and love God, how am I supposed to begin that journey? We could do what so many people do today. We could throw a conference and get everybody psyched up for a few weeks about God and missions and everything else.

And then after all, the strange fire is burned off. Nothing will be left but smoke. Missions is driven by a passion for God, a love for God, a desire to honor God. But how can we create that in ourselves?

Well, let me use a human analogy. I have been married for many years and I love my wife now more than I loved her at the first. Now, how is that? I love her more because I know more of her. I know more of her excellency, of her beauty, of her virtue.

And it brings forth in me, it calls out of me a greater love. In spite of the imperfections and the error and the quirks in her personality, I do love her more because I know her more. Now, apply the same relational principle to God.

You know that if you loved God more, if you had a greater desire to honor him, you would be given. More to missions and the proclamation of his glory throughout the world. So how can you increase that love for God, that desire to honor him only to the degree that you know him?

I am absolutely amazed. When I look at Christianity in America. America. If I go into a Christian bookstore, I will find a book on almost every unthinkable topic possible, but if I go to look for simply.

A book on the attributes of God, I'll be hard pressed to find it. Look at us, look at you, many of you are here, you desire to know missions, have you ever sat down over a period of days or months or years and cried out to know God?

Search the book of Psalms and the rest of Scripture to discover the attributes of God and then understanding something of his person in his works to be propelled by that power instead of your own into missions.

We want to do mission, so we read books about missions, we want to do missions, and so we have conferences about missions. Maybe we should have a conference about the beauty and the glory of the person of God, because once that is set or right in your hearts, everything else will fall in place.

Missions as the Proclamation of God’s Truth

This is so very important to understand. Getting first things first. I'm going to depart here for a moment, but one of the biggest problems in missions today is that it's our theological. It is missions, even evangelical missions looks more to me like a Peace Corps than it does a proclamation of truth, missions is not about sending missionaries, missions is about sending the truth of God through missionaries, and it is only those men and those women who have struggled violently to know him that can be propelled by that power.

Into the mission field years ago when I was in Peru, I had a young man call me from the United States and he said, Brother Washer, I want to come down there to Peru and work with you. I just want to give my life away.

And I said, well, tell me about your studies. Are you in the word, how many hours a day are you in the word? Well, that's not really my forte. I just want to give my life away. I said, well, tell me something about God.

Tell me something about truth. Well, Brother Washer, you're not understanding me. That's not really what I'm about. I just want to come and give my life away in Peru. I said, young man, there is no one in Peru who needs your life.

They need someone who can come here and tell them about God. In all your Bible study. In all the little books you read, in all the going to and fro and cassettes and CDs and downloads and whatever else the Internet can think up, how much time do you simply spend knowing God, the greatest of all pursuits?

These people could not honor him. And there was a two part reason, one, by and large, Israel was an unconverted, unregenerate nation. But in that they did not know God. They had such a feeble, pathetic view of God.

But if you are ever to honor God as a master, if you're ever to honor him as a father, you must know him. Do you realize you could just take the doctrine of the beauty of God? Maybe you've never even thought of that being a doctrine or an attribute.

You you could take. Just the attribute of God's beauty and spend an eternity of eternities investigating that thing and the small truths that you would begin to find just in the study of the beauty of God would propel your heart to serve him and to honor him.

In a greater way than all those little books, you study about how to do this and how to do that in 10 ways to be this and five ways to be that mission springs forth from a heart of a people that honors God.

But in order to be a people that honors God, you must be a people who know him. I'm not here to say something beautiful. I'm not here to say something eloquent. I'm not here to have you leave talking about power in the pulpit.

I'm here to ask you a question. How much do you know, God? And then let me let me really catch you. How much of your life, your Christian life has been given to the pursuit of knowing the attributes of God and the glories of God in the face of Jesus Christ?

Therein lies your problem. So many do's and don'ts and rules and regulations and doctrines, all precise and fine, and that is good. But. But if you've left off the greater thing, you can never have anything but strange fire, if you have any fire at all.

You must seek to know him, does anyone find you? At two in the morning. Crying out to God to know him, all you young men studying in seminaries and this and that and going to this retreat and that retreat and group hugs and getting together and singing Kumbaya and all the other things you do.

Does anyone ever find you alone at four in the morning beside yourself because you must know him? That's what makes a missionary. We have enough little boys standing in pulpits shouting about theology.

That's not a reality in their life. Most of us have already got more truth than we'll ever be able to live out. Do you seek him? He said this people. A son honors his father and a servant, his master, then if I am a father, where is my honor, if I am a master, where is my respect, says the Lord of hosts to your priest who despise my name.

But you say, how have we despised your name, isn't it amazing? That the one despising the name of the Lord never realizes he's doing it when he does it until a prophetic word comes either through simply the reading of the scripture, through a sermon, through something in your prayer life, through a book you read and all of a sudden you realize I have despised his name.

And how let's look at the next verse, he says, you are presenting defiled food upon my altar, but you say, how have we defiled you in in that you say the table of the Lord is to be despised? Verse eight.

But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you or would he receive you kindly, says the Lord of hosts.

Your heart is given a rhythm only for him. You are given breath. Only for him, he's not simply to have your best. He's to have it all, whether you eat or you drink or the most menial task, whatever you do is to be done for his glory and in the context of his joy and in the fellowship of his person.

You were made for him. I provide by God's grace a house for my wife, provide food for her. Her. And her children, they have clothes, they know that I will work very hard, do whatever I have to do to care for my own.

But even in the context of all that I can provide and all that I can do, even in the context of being a faithful husband and a faithful father, you know as well as I do. My wife can still still feel despised if there is no relationship, there is no communion.

As a matter of fact, all my activity and all my provisions and houses and lands and curtains and pots and pans and all the other things women need, they come to see it as fodder. They hate it. If that one important thing is lacking, an intimate, ongoing, real relationship with their husband.

That he pursues, that he loves, that he cherishes, that he delights in, that he wants, that he cannot live without her. But. In all our activity of preaching and missions and study, but is there. A restlessness in your heart, is there ever a sleepless night if I don't have more of you, I will die if I don't know you in a greater way.

Whom do I have but the old God? Isn't it amazing that Moses had somewhat of a large ministry? I don't think that there will be any of us that probably has a ministry the size of Moses. And yet, young man, young woman thinking about being a missionary, realize this.

That after all that God used him for, after all the mighty works that were done through Moses, he soon came to understand that it was not enough, even with a great and powerful and worldwide ministry, even knowing that hundreds of thousands had been redeemed through his surrender to the Lord, it was not enough for him.

And he said this, show me. Your glory. I must have you. Any man. Who can be content with ministry. Has denied the reason for which he was called into the ministry. If any man can be content with mere study and preaching and ministry and missions and all these other things, then it seems to me there's a great deal of idolatry in their life.

Augustine was right. We were made for him and we will be restless until we rest in him. There is an intimate communion and fellowship and a walking with God. And that must be our main pursuit, study your own life, study it for a moment, think about your own life.

Isn't it much easier for you to sit up with the boys, even when those boys are 60, to sit up with the boys around the table and talk theology all night? Isn't it, for the most part, easier to do that than it is to tarry in the presence of the Lord alone in prayer all night?

Say it is. Isn't it easier to read a good book, even when it's John Owen saying something in 37 ,000 pages that he could have said in two? Isn't it easier on the flesh to stay up all night working through one paragraph than it is to stay up all night with him?

That in itself is evidence that we are not fully and completely redeemed, that there is still a part of us. Still something left in us that awaits a redeeming work. A glorification, and isn't that a horrid thing to say about ourselves?

I mean, if we were to commit a crime, I would have to say that being able to delight in almost anything other than just tearing in the presence of God is the worst crime. I have two little boys and they are boys, one is seven and one is four, and we live out.

The Ongoing Struggle and the Pursuit of God’s Presence

On a. Seven acres of copperheads and rattlesnakes. And my boys are the two dangerous, most dangerous creatures out there. The other day, some construction men were working out there and my little boy ran up to the back of my the back of my blazer and he pulled out his BB gun and started waving it around.

All the construction workers thought it was a twenty two and they were just diving behind the building trying to keep themselves alive. My boy came back two nights ago with a stick, God had given him an epiphany.

There are five dogs that live on the other farm that chase him almost daily. But the other day he walked out with that stick. And when the first dog came in him by instinct, he swung and smacked that dog right upside his head.

And when that dog took off running, my son looked at that stick and he had an epiphany. This stick changes absolutely everything. I have two wild boys. They will shoot their BB guns through a window. They will ruin the aluminum siding with their slingshots.

But when I walk home. When I come down that path in the evening. Those boys can be invested in the most captivating thing for them, but when they see dad. And they get that look on their face and they begun to run down that path, all their little crimes throughout the day that has so bothered their mother.

Become so insignificant. Because of a heart that they have of wanting their father. I submit to you that David was not the most clean among God's people, he was not the most orderly or tidy with regard to the law of God, he did not dot every eye, nor did he cross every tee, but no one had a heart like him.

You may be as clean and precise and civilized and respectable in your reformed Christian life and not at all be pleasing to God. Now, I am not putting forth antinomianism. I am not saying that we should live like wild men without law.

But what I am saying that in all our doing, the greatest thing is a passion. And. For God. And it is not something that can simply be read and digested. It must be birthed in the heart of a young man and a young woman as they seek passionately after him, the more they know him.

You say, well, I've studied the omniscience of God on your knees, crying out for it to become a reality. I can hear Dr. Piper preach a sermon and it just warm my heart. I can hear one of his disciples preach the exact same thing word for word, and I know there is no reality in it.

No, him enough to honor him. Is your heart so given or would you? Trade the seeking after God for a good book. Would you trade the seeking after God for a TV or a radio program or this or that? Are you like the doctor's relationship with my wife?

He knows so much more about my wife than I do, but I know my wife. These men. They could not give themselves to the work of God. They could not do anything but despise him because their heart was not right.

And it was not right. Because they did not know him, he goes on and he says. In verse 10, oh, that there were one of you, one among you who would shut the gates that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my altar, I am not pleased with you, says the Lord of hosts, nor will I accept an offering from you.

It is not necessarily a bad thing. When a church. As we say in America, when a church dies. When they shut the doors to a building. When they have shut the doors to their building, it is just evidence that they died a long time ago, if ever they were alive, religious activity, even the work of missions is nothing in itself.

I have found. That my flesh has a unique ability to turn almost everything into an idol, I can love knowledge more than God. I can love correct thinking more than God. I can love missions more than God.

I can love evangelism and preaching about evangelism more than I enjoy going across the street to witness to my neighbor. The question comes down to this. In all our activity, is God in it? Is God center?

Is a personal, intimate relationship with him the thing that is driving us? I want to go back to something, one of the ways in which I knew that I was going to marry my wife. Is that I just wanted to be with her.

I just wanted to be with her, I knew that my heart was a right. Because I wanted to be with her, I wanted to talk to her. I wanted her to talk to me. We could walk honestly down a path in Peru and not have to say anything for hours.

I just wanted her. She was Peruvian, I always kid her, she wasn't she wasn't wealthy, she didn't have a lot of money. I always tell everybody that my wife's from the jungle and she actually didn't wear shoes until she married me.

She gets so mad, she says, you were born a hillbilly in a town of a thousand and I was born in the city of Lima of ten million. So who's the one who wore shoes? But I did not want anything from her except her.

Do you remember when that governed your life as a new believer? Or did it ever govern your life? When the only thing you thought about was him, that was it. You had no great aspirations of being used, no desire for greater ministry.

You just wanted him. Remember when you got into the word and it wasn't because you had a sermon to prepare or you needed to learn some things or there were some doctrinal problems or you knew that to progress as a useful servant, you had to continue on in the things of the word of God.

Do you remember when you just got into the word because you wanted to hear something from God? Do you wanted to know something about him? Do you remember when you just prayed because of him? Most of you, I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I would dare say that most of your prayer life is nothing more than intercession, maybe the least of all praying.

Intercession, interceding. What about communion? What about just walking? And talking and thinking about him, what about private praise and worship? What about waking up at night and you can't sleep and you know that that's a sign?

And you almost go, he's awakened me. Yes, Brother Paul, God has awakened me many times to intercede for the nations. That's not what I'm talking about. He's awakened you just saying, come, my love. Walk with me.

Pass a midnight watch with me. Terry, with me, I find it interesting in the book of Mark, Jesus Christ. He ministers a great while all throughout the night. And then a great while before daylight, he gets up once again and he goes out to a solitary place to be alone with God so we can light so many fires.

We can do so many things in all our activity. But is God in it? Is it for him? Is it a heart burning for him? He goes on and he says in verse 10, verse 11, for from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name will be great among the nations and in every place incense is going to be offered to my name and a grain offering that is pure for my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of Hosts.

God’s Sovereignty and the Privilege of Missions

This this to me is one of it's one of my most favorite verses in all the Bible. It's the thing that sustains me in missions, this in Revelation five, look at what's going on here in most missions conferences, you you have a man standing there telling you that there are so many lost people all around the world and we're God's hands and feet.

And if we don't do what we're called to do, then God's hands are tied and there's nothing to be done and the nations will be lost and God will be lonely and heaven will not be heaven. All of that is blasphemy.

God will do his work. God is doing his work. God will be worshiped. God will be glorified. God will be rejoiced in. The question is, will you participate? Will you be a part of it? You're not the catalyst.

You're not the great mover. You're not the cause behind all this. You are invited into the privilege of this. Don't you realize we are the most privileged people on the face of the earth because we are brought into a relationship with him.

Number one privilege. That we are brought into a relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, a privilege that we do not speak enough of. And we are brought into the privilege of being instruments of the glory of God, God will do the work, he will get glory for himself.

Self. But he invites us to participate in that. I love what Newton was fond of talking about, and it was that that angels could sing that Christ died. But that we as believers could sing that he died for us, angels could rejoice in the gospel, we could preach it.

And proclaim it to men, devils and angels. You are so privileged, have you sold yourself, American Christian? Have you sold yourself for lesser things, have you given your money for things that cannot fill you?

That cannot quench your thirst. Isn't it amazing we are the the. Most prosperous, most protected people of God in the history of Christianity, and yet you go into all those silly little Christian bookstores of ours and 95 percent of the books are written dealing with the problem of how empty we are.

Why are we empty? For the same reason that he never was, he was persecuted, he was impoverished and he was in anguish, but our savior was never empty. And why was he never empty? Because he had food to eat that we know not of.

And it was to do the will of his father. Father. You are to be given to the will of God. Not just for missions, you see, sometimes we talk about missions in the same way that immature believers speak about the will of God.

They come to me and they go, Brother Paul, I'm searching the will of God in the word and I go there, therein lies your problem and say, well, what do you mean? I said, is your life the practice of your life given to renewing your mind in the word of God?

Well, no, I really struggle in that area. But when you need to know the will of God in a specific instance in your life, you go to the word and look for the answer. Is that not true? Yes, you're wrong.

You've put the cart before the horse. This is not a magical book through which you can throw it up in the air and turn to a certain page and discern the will of God. We discern the will of God because we have a lifestyle, Romans 12, one and two, a lifestyle of renewing our mind in the will of God.

And that renewing of the mind reveals to us the will of God, it is a life practice that results in the knowing of God's will. It's the same way with missions. Missions. Missions is not some independent thing that we decide to join up with, it's not a work that we suddenly feel called to do.

It must be an outflow of true spirituality, it must flow out of communion with God, it must flow out of a correct understanding of who God is and his works in the world and the glory that he's getting for himself.

It must flow out of knowing this, that everything outside of Jesus Christ is absolutely absurd and that all things were made for him. They were made through him. They were made by him. They were made in him.

I could tell you to run off to the mission field and you might just run off an empty husk driven by romantic passion for missions. And you'll need stronger medicine than that to keep you on the mission field.

What I encourage you to do. Is to run after him, pursue the very thing for which you were pursued for him to know him. To know him, who are you? I want to know. That will be my magnificent obsession. To know my God, and then from that.