Knowing and Serving God - Eric Troyer

Well, good morning. It's good to be with each one

of you here this morning.

It's good to see all of you.

Hopefully you all have had good Christmas and looking forward

to the new year.

It's good to begether.

Good to be together and worship together this morning. And

I've appreciated what we've heard so far, and especially the

discussion in Sunday School on prayer and sorry Scott, that

were such a quiet.

Bunch this morning, but.

I did appreciate what was shared there and goes along

with some of what I have to talk about here

this morning. This morning, I want to look at a

verse from the Old Testament. This verse is found in

First Chronicles twenty eight. The title of the message this

morning is Knowing and Serving God. And while you're turning

there to First Chronicles twenty eight, I'll just give a

little bit of context to what's going on here. First

Chronicles twenty eight. David, in the first part of the

chapter here has gathered the people together and he's addressing them.

And in this address, he's telling the people how that

he wanted to build a temple for the ark of God.

He wanted to make a permanent place for the arc,

but God told him, Actually, David, that's not going to happen,

and it's not going to happen because you're a man

of war and you've shed lots of blood and for

that reason, I'm not going to allow you to do that.

And he said, however, I'm going to let your son

Solomon build the temple for me.

He can do that. I'll allow him to do that.

And so this brings us to verse nine. I'm going

to read verses nine to ten of First Chronicles twenty eight,

and we're just going to be primarily looking at verse nine.

Here.

There's a lot packed into this verse, and I'm probably

not even going to scratch the surface, but we're going

to try to glean some things from this verse here.

So First Chronicles twenty eight, Verse nine says, and thou, Solomon,

my son, know thou the God of thy father, and

serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind.

For the Lord.

Searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts.

If thou'll seek him, he will be found of thee.

But if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever.

Take heed now, for the Lord has chosen thee to

build an house for the sanctuary.

Be strong and do it. So.

The first thing I want to look at from these

verses here this morning is knowing God. I want to

look at what it means to know God and how

we can know God. The Hebrew word use for know

here means to know by observing and reflecting, to watch

and then to think about what you have observed. It

also means to know by experiencing. And you may have

heard the phrase experience is the best teacher. I use

that phrase sometimes experience is the best teacher. We learn

by experiencing. So sometimes in our everyday lives, we might ask, hey,

do you know this man?

Or do you know this lady? Do you know so

and so?

And we might say, yeah, I know them, I know

them quite well. Actually maybe I used to work with them,

or I grew up with them. Or sometimes you might

say I know the name. I would recognize them if

I see you that see them, but I don't know

them very well. So how do we get to know someone?

Some practical things that I thought of, One is it's

helpful to know the person's name that you're getting to know.

It's good to know who you're talking to. The second

thing is you exchange words, you exchange information, ideas, preferences.

These are all things that help us get to know

one another and are part of the process. The third

thing is it takes Timeationships are not just built overnight.

They are often built over many years. And the more

time that we spend with a person, the better we

get to know them. And an illustration of this that

I thought of is a couple that has started dating.

They want to get to know each other better, and

it's it's interesting to watch that progress. Often, you know,

they they start spending time together, and as time goes on,

they start spending more and more time together, and and

they get to know each other in a in a

deeper way, and they're they're they're trying to get to

know each other to see if if they are compatible,

if they can if they can live together.

In harmony.

And I know it was like that for my wife

and I when we were dating. Eventually got to the

point where we were communic pretty much every day and

we just we enjoyed getting to know each other and

visiting with each other. I don't know how many of

you were here last Sunday, it seems like the church

isn't real full this morning.

And that's okay.

But when Steve was here, toward the end of his message,

he talked about when Paul was in Athens. As Paul

was there at Athens, he came across this altar and

on the altar was written to the Unknown God. And

I want to ask you this morning, do you know

your God?

Do you know him? Or is he some obscure unknown

being to you? How important is it to know God?

John seventeen. This is where Jesus is praying to his father.

John seventeen, verse three says, and this is life eternal,

that they might know the only true God in Jesus Christ,

whom thou hast sent. So I think it is very

important to know who God is and to know God

in a personal way.

It is the way to eternal life.

So you might be wondering how do I get to

know God. I was several weeks ago, was at a

Bible bookstore and I was buying some books and there

was a particular Bible that I was looking for and

I wasn't finding it. So I asked the man that

was there in charge of the store if he had

this Bible, and he said, well, I don't think.

So, but I'll go check.

And so he he went and checked, and he came

back pretty soon and he said no, he said, I

don't have it.

And he proceeded to tell me that.

He said, we've been having a hard time keeping all

our bibles on the shelf. He said, ever since the

assassination of Charlie Kirk, bibles have just been selling and

they're having problems keeping them in stock. And he said

people are coming in, people who have never owned a Bible,

people who don't know God, people who have never been

to church are coming in. They're buying bibles. And he

told me of a person that had never been to

church before that was planning to start attending church. And

it got me to thinking, what was the motivating factor

behind these people's actions. Why were they suddenly interested in.

Buying a Bible or going to church?

And I don't know all those reasons, but I think

possibly one of them could be these people realized that

they did not know God. They realized that they should

get to know God. And I can't think of any

better ways to get to know God than through reading

the Bible, through prayer, through studying the Bible, meditation, and

attending church services. These are always that we can get

to know God. How well do you know God? Do

you spend time with God each day? And I must

confess to my shame that there are some days that

I spend very little time with God. And that's not

a fact that I'm proud of, but it's the truth.

I know.

Sometimes our lives get busy and things happen that are.

Out of our contry.

I'm not making excuses, but it takes discipline to spend

time with God every day. And as we heard in

Sunday School prayer, take time to pray. I think that

is an important part of getting to know God. Take

time to stop and observe on who God is and

reflect on what God is doing for you and for

those around you. The second part that I want to

look at here is serving God. David here tells Solomon

to serve him with a perfect heart and.

With a willing mind.

Now, I want to just take a few minutes here

to look at what it means to serve or to

be a servant. Just some background on servants in the

Bible times, there was two different kinds of servants At

least that I know of, or that I found in

the Bible, and those were bond servants and hired servants.

Bond servants were individuals that often owed a debt. Maybe

they had a debt that they could not pay. Maybe

they stole something and were caught and were required to

repay that, and if they couldn't pay, they would be

sold as a servant. And they did not receive compensation

for their labors, and they were obligated to serve their

master for a certain length of time. Hired servants were

servants that were hired, they were paid, they were not

necessarily bound to their master for any certain length of time,

and they had more freedom.

To come and go as they pleased.

And servants were very common in.

The Bible times. And I don't know for sure.

I suppose there may still be places today where servants

are common, but they're not common here in this land

now in.

Our setting.

But as I said, throughout much of the Bible, there

were servants from from Genesis even through into the New Testament.

There were a couple of places where Paul addressed servants.

The Jewish servants were thought to have been treated better

than servants of surrounding nations. And I think this was

largely due to laws that God had given to Moses

concerning treatment of these servants. And in the old law

there was what was called the year of Jubilee, and

you're probably familiar with that, but what it meant for

a bond servant or slave was that they would be

required to serve their master for six years, and in

the seventh year they could be set free. And these

servants were not necessarily required to go free if they

did not wish to, they were welcome to.

The law allowed for that.

In fact, I think it says somewhere to not in

the law it said not to send them away empty handed,

to actually give them some things to help them get

started again in their life. But if this servant did

not wish to leave, if they were comfortable with their life,

and they may have had a family while they were

were in slavery, they could decide to stay with their master.

And if they.

Decided to do this, the master was to take that

slave to the or to the door post, and they

were to take an all which is a sharp tool

that was used to mark things.

Mark like wood or leather, is also used to punch holes.

And they were to take this sharp object and take

that servant over to the door and thrust that all

through their ear.

It says, all the way to the door.

And this would leave a mark, would leave a hole.

And this was a sign that that servant would serve

this master until death. He was committed to his master forever.

So what does it mean to serve God or to

be a bond servant of God? The apostle Paul referred

to himself as a bond servant of Christ Jesus. And

as I mentioned before, we don't have servants today as

we know them in the Bible. But I think there

are some spear ritual applications that we can draw from

being a bond servant of God. I believe that a

bond servant of God means a life living a life

of complete devotion. It means surrendering our wills and desires

to accomplish the will and goals of our master. It

is realizing that we are subject to a higher authority.

We acknowledge our indebtedness to God for his salvation, his redemption,

and forgiveness.

It is a life of commitment.

In Romans six, I'm going to read some verses from there,

I think Paul does a good job of he could

say summarizing what it means to be a servant of God.

I'm going to read verses sixteen through the end of

the Chapter of Romans six says, know ye not that

to whom ye yielded yourself servants to obey his servants.

Ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death,

or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that

ye were the servants of sin. But ye have obeyed

from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants

of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men, because

of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have

yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity,

even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free

from righteousness. What fruit had ye in those things, whereof

ye are now ashamed for the end one of those

things is death. But now being made free from sin

and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto

holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of

sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal

life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So here, I think

if we break this down into the simplest form we

can to understand this. Paul is simply saying that whoever

or whatever you obey or yield yourself to, you are

a servant of that. If you yield yourself to sin,

you're a servant to sin. If you yield and obey God,

you are a servant of God.

And he says here.

That by being set free from sin, we are then free.

And I know this might sound like a bit of

an oxymoron, but we are free to be a servant

of God serving God with a perfect heart.

What does that mean?

The New King James version, instead of the word perfect,

uses the word loyal. Some other translations use the word wholeheartedly,

serve God loyally. To serve God wholeheartedly, to be loyal

is to be committed. There are I'm sure a lot

of illustrations we could use to illustrate loyalty, but one,

this is probably not the best one, but the first

one that came to my mind was these drive through

coffee shops. And I don't go to many drives through

coffee shops anymore. I've spent my fair share of money

there in the past. But anyway, these coffee shops, not

all of them, but some of them will give you

either this little punch card or they'll take your phone

number and use some electronic form of this. By what

they're doing is every time you buy a drink, they

give you a stamp, and usually it's once you buy

ten drinks and you get ten stamps, you get a

free drink. And why are they doing this, Well, they're

trying to incentivize loyalty.

They're trying to get you to.

Only buy coffee at their coffee shop. And this is

important to them because every dollar that you spend at

their coffee shop, you're not spending at the next one

across the street. And so it's worth it to them.

If they can get you to be loyal to their

shop and their drinks, then they will reward you and

they give you a free drink every now and then,

and it's all designed to keep you coming back and

to be loyal.

Now I had to wonder, can you be loyal now?

Just in everyday life. Can you be loyal to more

than one person or more than one entity?

I think you can.

If you drive a Ford pickup, which I don't nothing

against Ford, But if you drive a Ford pickup, you can.

Be loyal to Ford. And while you're being loyal to Ford.

You can be loyal to your favorite coffee shop. And

while you're being loyal to your favorite coffee shop, you

can be loyal to your favorite clothing brand or whatever

you want to put in there. And the reason you

can be loyal to all these things is because they

aren't competing for the same thing. But how does this

work in the spiritual realm? How does this work? If

you only have two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Light and

the Kingdom of darkness, and each one is competing for

your soul?

The Bible is clear that there are only two kingdoms.

Matthew six twenty four says no man can serve two masters,

for either he will love the one and hate the other,

or vice versa. It is not possible to have a

split loyalty. When it comes to your soul. You must

choose one side or the other.

Where does your loyalty lie?

Will you be loyal to the Kingdom of light or

to the Kingdom of darkness?

Are you loyal to God?

Or is he just a friend that you hang out

with on the weekends or whenever it's convenient for you,

maybe just the holidays, I hope not. Joshua said, choose

you this day whom you will serve, And as for me,

in my house, we will serve the Lord. That's not

the complete verse there. There's a few other things in

between there.

But as for me in my house, we will serve

the Lord.

Serve the Lord with a loyal heart, serve him wholeheartedly.

Wholeheartedness is characterized by complete sincerity and commitment. And when

I think of wholeheartedness in this way, I think of again,

We'll take the couple that has been dating. Now they're

ready to get married, and this couple is coming together

in wholeheartedness, in sincerity and in commitment, and they are

promising to be faithful to each other until death. And

I realize that not everyone here has experienced that commitment,

not everyone here is married. But I would just encourage

each and everyone, to the best of your abilities and

to the best that you know how have that wholeheartedness

to God. Have that sincerity and that commitment, that devotion

in your life, in your relationship. Serve God with a

willing mind. A willing mind is favorably inclined. It has

a good attitude, it's prompt to act, and it's without reluctance.

An individual with a willing mind can accomplish incredible things.

That can learn to do so many things. Sometimes it

seems that people can do things that are almost humanly impossible.

That doesn't come without a willing mind. You have to

have a willing mind. You could use the example of

a well trained dog.

That is.

Obedient and he's willing to do whatever his master asks

of him. And a lot of times if you stop

and watch this situation play out, the dog is eager

to please. The dog has his focus on his master,

he's looking up at him, ready to go at his command,

and you can almost see, sometimes maybe not almost see,

you can see sometimes that that dog is just quivering

with excitement. It just cannot wait to go and do

what its master will ask it to do. And I

think this is a good example of how we should

be in serving God with a willing mind. In contrast

to a willing mind, an unwilling mind is like pushing

a rope.

It does not work.

Sometimes we say that person is just like a stick

in the mud. They just they're not going anywhere. You

can't can't do them to do. You can't get them

to do anything. They're unwilling. We must have a willing mind.

I think before we have a willing mind, though, we

must first have that loyalty and that sincerity, wholeheartedness and

a love towards God. I don't think the willingness can

come without that. The Lord searches all hearts. Searches here

has the idea of seeking after, of inquiring. God is

seeking after you. He's seeking after your heart. Maybe you

are someone who has not made a commitment to God yet,

or maybe your heart has grown hard and you feel

distant from God. But he is there and he's waiting.

He's knocking on your heart's store. He wants to have

a meaningful relationship with you and with me, even though

we as humans are very far from perfect. Searches in

this verse also literally means to search. God searches our hearts,

and he knows everything about us, from our deepest, darkest

secrets to the number of hairs on our head. Nothing

is hidden from God. God knows if there is secret

sin in your life. God knows the struggle that you

may be facing right now. Maybe you are struggling in

a relationship. Maybe you have anxiety or depression, maybe you

have bitterness. Maybe there's an addiction that you haven't been

able to shake. God knows about it, and he is there,

and He is willing to help us through that if

we only will humble ourselves and allow him to work.

God knows what we need even before we ask him.

Don't procrastinate asking God for help with whatever you are facing.

You might say, well, I just don't know how to

even ask God to help me in this.

I don't even know how to pray for this.

Romans eight twenty six and twenty seven.

And I'll read this from the ESV.

So like some of the wording that it uses here

says likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for

we do not know what to pray for as we ought,

But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too

deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what

is the mind of the spirit. Because the Spirit intercedes

for the saints according to the will of God. So

as we can see in these verses, I don't think

we need to be shy or be scared about not

knowing how to pray or how to ask God to

help us. It says the Spirit will help us know

how to pray. The Spirit is interceding for us. And

just something that really stood out to me in these

verses is it says he who searches, and I think

that is talking about God. It's say, God, who searches

the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit.

And why does he know that? Well, for one, the

Spirit is God.

But also it says, because the Spirit intercedes for the

saints according to the will of God. The Spirit is

not going to intercede against the will of God. The

Spirit is only going to intercede according to what God

wants for our lives. Allow the Spirit to guide you

and to work in your life. God understands the imaginations

of the thoughts, and He understands those imaginations, whether they

are good or whether they are evil. Even when we

ourselves may not always understand the imagination of our thoughts,

God does, and he knows our motives and our intentions

Psalms one thirty nine, Verse two says, Thou knowest my

downsitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thoughts afar off.

God knows what we're thinking, or what we will be thinking,

before we even think it. We talked about the power

of a willing mind earlier and how that can accomplish

amazing things for good. However, I think we should also

realize that a mind willing toward evil can accomplish tremendous evil.

The wicked imaginations are not our friend. Jeremiah seventeen nine

and ten says the heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? I the Lord search the heart.

I try the reins, even to give every man according

to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

And in Genesis six we read there it's a story

of Noah.

I think we all know that story.

But we read there how God is looking down on

the world, and he's looking at man, and all there

is is wickedness. I guess except for Noah and his family.

But there's only wickedness. Every imagination of the thoughts of

man's heart.

Was only evil.

Continually, it's just ongoing.

There was no end to it.

And it says God regretted that he had made man,

and the wickedness grieved him to his heart. And we

know what happened in this story. God told Noah to

build the big boat, and he said, we're going to

put We're going to put animals in here. We're going

to save some animals, and you and your family are

going to go.

In and you'll be saved.

But he said, I'm going to destroy what remains. I'm

going to destroy the rest of humanity. And as Jeremiah said,

he gave to every man according to his ways and

according to the fruit of his doings. God brought judgment

on the wicked imaginations. Two Corinthians ten, verses three through

five says, though we walk in the flesh, we do

not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our

warfare are not carnal, but mighty. Through God, to the

pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high

thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and

bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Evil thoughts and imaginations have no place in the Christian's life.

And as it says here we need to cast them down,

and we need to bring our thoughts into the obedience

of Christ. The next part here David says, if you

seek him.

He will be found by you.

But if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

Isaiah fifty five, verses six and seven says, seek ye

the Lord, while he may be found.

Call you upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man

his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and

he will have mercy upon him and to our God,

for he will abundantly pardon. And so I encourage each

one to seek God, to seek the Lord while while

there is still time, and while he can still be found.

The day is coming.

When it will be too late to seek God. The

day is coming when your chance to seek him is

eternally over. There will be no more chances. Seek him

now while he may be found. And for some of

us we don't know, but that that window of time

is shorter than maybe the person beside us.

We do not know when we will be called home.

It also says here, if you forsake him, he will

cast you off forever.

God will not cast us off.

Without cause. There first has to be a forsaking. A

choice is made to disregard God and what he wants

for our lives. God gave us the freedom of choice.

In closing, I'd like to read a few verses from

Ecclesiastes twelve. Verses thirteen and fourteen says, let us hear

the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep

his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every

secret thing, whether

It be good or whether it be evil.