Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Know God | May 3rd, 2026

Thank you, and thank you, worship team, for leading us.

I felt the presence of God here today.

Every week it's here.

It's like he doesn't move.

Sometimes we do, but uh he doesn't move, and um, I'm just so grateful for a church that's responsive to him.

It's great.

So shake the noodles off.

Get the fuzzies out.

You've heard all the noodles and the fuzzies.

I love your vocabulary, you know.

It's so good.

You provide me with new words.

I'll bring them home.

If someone's feeling a little fuzzy today, just shake them up.

Uh we've got a new series today called uh Called.

And uh really it's related to uh the the spirit of service, but also uh just the recognition and the reminder of why we're here at uh in our own role here on this earth is that we're called and we're called for a purpose, and we're called and we're created by design to complete a purpose on the on the earth.

And so uh part of that you you get little hints of that when you start serving.

Sometimes when you serve, it opens that doorway as well in yourself to actually connecting you to your purpose, connecting you to your calling.

And sometimes it's not necessarily the work you do, but the work, the people you're doing the work with.

How many of you know that uh relationships and connections are often done in in partnership with of uh projects?

As soon as you work together, you start sharing together and start learning about one another.

And it's just such a beautiful piece, uh piece to be connected.

Um for today, just shifting gears.

Uh I just felt in the service today uh just a shift because I'm the type of speaker who likes to kind of approach the world from a very optimistic place.

How many uh optimistic people have we got out there?

Like you just like see the world, you're seeing, you see the cheese, not the holes in the cheese.

It's like you've you've got that.

And sometimes how many of you in the room, you're annoyed with those types of people because we know who you are.

You know, it's just uh it's a beautiful place to be, you know, you're around people, we need one another.

And some when I approach a message and I approach a service sermon, I often approach it with this like high-intense, like faith-driven, positive, like God's got you, He's not letting you go.

Amen.

I could preach right now.

It's like you're not alone, you're you you've got purpose on the other side of whatever you're going through right now.

And I felt like the Lord was like kind of pulling me back from that.

And I'm like, it's like a stallion that was ready to go.

And I felt like the reins were being pulled in.

I'm like, well, what's the problem here?

Like I almost rejected the devil in the process.

Like, are you holding me back from sharing this great message?

And uh the Lord just kind of put in me this other piece that was like a little bit different from my wheelhouse.

And and I kind of questioned, I was like, what's what's going on here?

Because I'm not used to this.

It actually took me a long time to put together a message that I thought should come pretty quick, like not instant, but quickly, quicker.

But um we've had back-to-back services that have been like wall-to-wall people.

We've had people standing at the back, sitting on the floor, we've had baptisms.

Hey, that was wonderful last week.

We've had Easter services, we've had great opportunities to connect with people.

We've had people in expansion rooms and overflow rooms at the church.

We're we're just seeing God do deliverance and healing in people, we're seeing depression lift off of people and people walking in chaos coming to order in their life and having direction.

And I'm just like, yes, Lord.

Yes, that's so it's see.

There I go again.

I just see it at the other side.

But in the middle of it all, in the middle of it all, sometimes life can feel like there's opposition.

How many of you have ever been walk walking in your life and you've got like clear, calm waters, and then just like a boulder hits the water?

Now I'm speaking to the other half of the congregation.

And the boulder hits the water, and there's like, yeah, that's my people right there.

I know those people.

And it feels like you're like in massive opposition, and it feels like you're just swimming, but you're swimming upstream.

And some of the stuff I I I go through, and some of the stuff I'm sure you all go through, is related to crisis.

And you realize that at times in your life, life is actually difficult, and oftentimes men try to mask it.

Everything's okay, it's all good.

How are you doing?

Excellent, God is good, too blessed to be stressed, you know, whatever it is.

And really, it's uh it's like life is difficult.

I hear your story, I'm like, you are not doing well, man.

Things are in trouble in your little paradise that you're living in.

But life is hard this week.

After some incredible wins in my own like personal life and and in my journey, and super achievements, and like the metrics are there, everything's going well.

Uh, I heard from many people, including those close to me, I heard groans and pain and crisis, and uh I felt the Lord saying, You're gonna have to lean into that.

I'm like, I don't want to.

I don't want to.

I was on a Zoom call this week, and you know, Zoom is so impersonal.

Um it's not my favorite, but it's necessary.

And before I even said anything, you know, the video pops up, and the Zoom picture comes up, and the other person on the other line is shows their face, and you're you know, you're in this moment.

And that she just stopped for a moment and she's really perceptive, and it wasn't like a counselor or anybody like that, it was just like someone I was doing a joint venture joint work with, and uh uh for the organization, and she looked at me and she said, Hey, are you okay?

And I just remember thinking, Oh my gosh, it shows through the camera.

Like, where's the happy filter that I can put on the camera?

You know, it actually showed.

I'm like, I'm in, I'm at my table, and everything looks good, and I must look terrible.

Like, what am I is it shows?

So I hadn't even said anything out loud.

Like the camera just popped up, and she was just strong enough, bold enough woman.

She just said it.

You you're not you don't look good.

And I'm like, oh great.

And I thought, how did they know?

How did she know?

I hadn't said anything out loud, but I was carrying something, and it was a weight, and it was pressure, and it was stuff that I don't really know how to explain, and that's why I didn't say anything.

I I couldn't explain it, I didn't really know it.

And you know, you can be surrounded by people winning on the outside and still carrying something really heavy on the inside, and in those moments, in those moments, the lies begin to show up, and they begin to show up like no one understands me.

I'm in this alone, no one gets what I'm going through.

I'm on my own.

I wish my wife knew what was going on.

She's not even here right now.

It's her fault.

That's the Adam and Eve thing, you know.

Go back to the beginning.

But the enemy will always come to you with a lie.

And his biggest attempt towards us in our pain is in that moment where he can get a foothold in your life, he'll put his a wedge in there and he'll attempt to isolate you.

He wants to isolate you.

And I I was just thinking about you in the room today.

I don't know all your stories.

I know some of you are just heroes of mine related to your resilience and your ability to like overcome the stuff that you're going through.

And for some of you, the biggest and the best decision you made was just simply getting up and coming to church today and rejecting that isolation pull.

I just want to give you a round of applause for being here.

Everyone should like, way to go.

Because it's easy, it's easy to step back into isolation.

It's easy to step back, but what if that that that lie that was being told to us, what if that's not true?

And what if there is someone who doesn't just see you but actually knows you?

Not the version that you post on social or the version that you put into the world or the mask that you wear, but the real you.

And here's what the scripture says the scripture says this God knows you.

God knows, He knows your weaknesses, and everyone should know this.

He knows your strengths, he knows your vulnerabilities, he knows your struggles, he knows your pain, he knows that secret place, and he's not distant from you.

And because God knows you, and just because God knows you doesn't mean that you know him.

And today's message really is about knowing God.

And the reality is that we think we can know God because God knows us, but the fact is, God knows everything about us, but we can keep and hold ourselves back from actually knowing him and how he feels about us because that's the truth, and that's what really matters, and that's what you can build your life on, and that's what will pull you through.

Whatever you may be facing.

It's possible to go through your whole life fully known by God, but still living far from Him.

And so today I'm not just here to remind you that God knows you, I'm here to ask you something deeper.

Do you actually know God?

Out in the lobby is a list of our values and our mission.

And the first on top is that we need to know God.

Each and every one of us.

It's not enough for you know to know the God of your parents, it's not enough for you to know the God of Christianity, the religion, the title.

You can't live connected to God that way.

Each one of us need to know God on our own individual basis.

You need to know that God knows your name and you need to know his voice.

Be known by God is wonderful.

I'm so grateful that God knows me.

It's actually very comforting.

But when I know God, it will transform my life when I come to know him.

To know him, I know about him, no, not just about his nature, but I know his heart, it will transform my life.

So the question here, and here's one of the scriptures.

Uh, it's one of the most powerful scriptures and most beautiful scriptures I think I know in this in the Bible.

You can take this as your scripture.

If you don't have one, this is yours.

Okay?

It's out of Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14 to 16, it says this.

Hebrews 4:14–16

Therefore, which is such a great way to start something, hey, you're not empty.

Therefore, I'm giving you something.

Since we have a great high priest who is ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith that we profess.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses.

But we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet he did not sin.

Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

What a great verse.

You should like repeat that every morning, noon, and night.

Get meditate on the word and get that in your soul.

I'm gonna teach about it today, and hopefully that will just resonate with you.

And as the more you read it, the more truth it becomes.

But there's one thing like Jesus gets us, Jesus understands us, Jesus knows us, and God knows what you're going through, and you can shelter it and you can mask it to everyone else in the room, but you cannot do that to God because He knows you.

So don't buy the line that no one understands, because God understands, and God knows.

There's one who sees you, gets you, understands.

He's walked through everything you've ever walked through, and whatever you're going through, he's gone through.

There is nothing that you're going through that God can't sympathize with or understand.

He's a God who knows.

Now, this is a theological piece, it's a doctrine.

Uh, it's what we look at today because all of your living has to come from your believing.

Everything you do in life has to come based on what you believe.

And so before you make it practical, something that you practice, it actually has to be theological to you.

And and this uh idea that's being referenced in this portion of scripture is is what we call the incarnation.

Would you just say that incarnation?

It sounds like a very, very religious term, and it but really in its purest form, the incarnation is the reality that the that God came through Jesus, fully man and fully God.

He understands you fully as a man or a woman, and he understands you, he understands God the same, like he was fully God and fully man.

And the power of the name of Jesus is is uh is important because in the Old Testament before Jesus there was a uh a partial view or understanding of who God was.

We saw in the Old Testament it was like a shadow of what was to come.

So we understood God because of the law, we understood God because of the stor the scripture, we understood God because of the prophets and what they had written.

We understood him because of his physical temple and the practice in that temple.

But when Jesus came, it became less about the partiality of who he is, and more about the tangibility of who he is.

I could touch him, get close to him, talk to him, experience him, watch him from afar, question him.

I love the story of those who came to Jesus in the middle of the night and was like, I have a question.

And Jesus is like, go for it.

How do you get born again?

You gotta enter into your mother's womb, or what are you talking about?

And Jesus is like, no, no, no.

It goes through like you can feel the spirit, Lynn, like he just, well, how do you touch the spirit?

No one can see it, but you feel the effects of it, and I don't like Jesus just was like not afraid of the question, not afraid of your concern and your criticism.

He was real to us now, he became real to us now, and now by his spirit, we get free access to him fully.

Much different than the God of the Old Testament, who was behind a curtain, but Jesus broke the curtain veil, and now his presence is available to each and every one of us so that we can fully know him.

Not only does he fully know us, but we can fully know him.

It's that the power of the incarnation, fully God, fully man, is so important.

So, why did Jesus have to come as a man?

He came as a man so he could represent us properly to the Father.

He needed to have man's nature in order to represent us properly.

Uh, the scripture says the first Adam introduced sin and a curse to humanity, but Paul calls Jesus the second Adam.

And the second Adam brought righteousness to humanity.

He became a new genesis, started with Jesus.

It brought us the gift of righteousness, but he represents us properly because he is that second Adam, the man, the first of humanity, the firstborn of all creation.

Number two, he came in the form that he was sacrificing for.

Jesus had to sacrifice.

And so in the Old Testament, there was a uh a judgment, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

It was like there was he had to come in the likeness of what he was sacrificing for.

You and I both deserve death, and so Jesus needed to come in our likeness.

He the penalty of sin was death.

It costs a life.

And Jesus came as a man to give his life.

One man giving his life for many.

He thirdly, he came as a human because of his role as a mediator.

He was a mediator.

He came in his divine nature so that he could be a sympathetic mediator on our behalf.

I'm so grateful that he mediates for me at the right hand of the Father.

And he sits at the right hand of the Father, not to nudge the Father and go, Yeah, you should judge a little more harshly here.

He doesn't do that.

He mediates because he can go to the Father and say, Hey, dad, I've been in their shoes.

I know what they're going through.

I experience what they experienced.

I know what they're going through.

And he says, and I know what it's like to be human, and I want to remind you that I've already paid the price for everything that they've done into her.

And that's the power of the gospel.

That's why when we sing about the name of Jesus, it's such a beautiful name.

Because he knows you and sacrificed himself for you and now sits at the right hand of the Father and sympathizes and mediates for you.

You've got the best advocate in your corner.

Fully God and fully man.

And so we question Jesus.

Well, it's God.

Jesus is like, that's someone who how does he s how can he sympathize with me?

But the reality is, he came out of poverty.

Born in a barn.

How many of you were born in a barn?

No one.

He went from Egypt to Nazareth to escape persecution.

He knows what it's like to have life change.

He knows what it's it is to experience temptation and deal with personal struggle.

He understood miracles, like he went and performed miracles, but so he understood people.

In their personal pain.

He understood what it was meant when he went to the Pharisees and he went and shared, even when he was really young at 12 years of age, he went and talked to the Pharisees about the father's house, and he was completely misunderstood.

How many of you have been misunderstood?

He knows what that's like.

From rejection of family and friends, he knows what it's like to experience family drama.

How many of you have experienced don't raise your hand, you may be sitting with your family.

The death of Lazarus, a personal friend, to experience personal pain.

He understands.

He understands what it's like to be carried on as the king and made to be the one who's going to save the Jewish people.

And he knew what it meant to actually carry success and the dangers of personal success.

Judas and Peter, he understood personal betrayal.

They left him.

When he was arrested, he understood what it meant to experience personal persecution, criticism, and then torture, pain, suffering, even death.

And then also through his ascension to experience what it, that the fact that death and the crisis of death is not permanent.

The enemy will lie to you.

The enemy will say to you that no one understands you, but you must know that there is a friend and there is one who sticks closer, the scripture says, than a brother.

In your corner.

So if God knows you, what is your response towards Him?

And my response to Him is Lord, I want to know you.

You know me.

You know me.

You know everything about me.

More than I even know about myself.

You know everything.

What it's like to be a human, what it's like to be misunderstood, what it's like to be betrayed, what it's like to experience personal loss and pain and suffering.

What it's like to be criticized, what it's like to carry a heavy load.

And yet you have not left me.

You're available to me, but I can choose not to leave, not you're not going to leave me, but I can choose to leave you, or I can choose to come close to you.

So if God knows you, our response to Him is to get close to Him.

So we go to our Scripture, Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

And the first point there is the Bible says to hold fast.

Would you say hold fast?

Hold fast to your confession.

Since we have such a great high priest, hold fast your confession.

Jesus is our high priest.

And I want to say this today.

You only need one priest, and his name is Jesus, and you can confess to him your sin.

You can confess to him the error in your life, and he will forgive you of your sin.

The scripture says he is faithful and he is just, he is open and willing to forgive you of all unrighteousness.

There is nothing you can hide from him.

So he already knows, so we offer as our high priest.

We can just submit our life to him.

And we hold fast.

So he says, hold fast to your confession.

And when life is difficult and you're feeling like you're like pushing upstream, there's a challenge here to let go and let loose.

And the scripture says, instead, I want you to hold fast.

This is a sailor term.

It's related to people who were on open water.

And a lot of people like they just sailors say, you know, you're either when you're on the water, either a storm's coming or you're in a storm or you're going into a storm.

How many of you know that that's life?

It's not if you're going to experience challenge, it's when you're going to experience, or if you're in it right now.

And the challenge is this is you have to be ready to hold fast.

And so what the sailors would do is when they were approaching something of challenge, they would grab onto the pulleys and grab onto those ropes and hold down to everything.

They would sturdy themselves and stabilize the whole ship because they knew that if they buckled down, they would get through.

And the Bible says you need to hold fast, but what do you hold fast to?

You hold fast to your confession.

And your confession is what you believe about Jesus, not what we feel about our circumstances.

Do you know that facts aren't true?

God's truth is truth.

The circumstances, even though whatever they may look like, yeah, that's a hungry lion in that pit.

Yeah, that's a hot fire there.

And you go through scripture, and the facts are that when Daniel was thrown into the lion's hand, the lion should have eaten them.

But in reality, what happened?

God shut their mouths and made them like little pearly little kittens.

The fire that this that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego went into should have burned them up.

It burned up the people that were dragging them into the fire.

But instead, it broke away and it burned up the chains that were holding the men.

And in the middle of the fire, there was someone likened unto God, standing with them in the fire.

That's gonna be like this week, 30 degrees today.

It's gonna be hot outside.

Our confession is what we hold on to.

Our faith is what we hold on to.

Our truth, the truth in who He is is what we hold on to.

So when life is coming at you and you feel like you've got opposition or you're in the middle of crisis, you don't isolate and pull back.

You step in and you hold down.

Hold fast to your confession.

Hold fast to what you believe.

We don't need more information about God.

We need God with us.

Calling him into the middle of the storm.

Where he can quiet it and where he can bring peace in the middle of it all.

And then he says this in Hebrews, it says, after holding fast to the confession of your faith, it says in verse 16, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence.

And this is where we get close.

What do you say get close?

So we not only hold fast, we actually get close.

How much like I'm so glad Pastor Ed and Lisa are sitting over here, and Ed and Lisa are close.

If Ed was here and Lisa was over here, how many of you know that would signal a problem?

But when you're close, that's where relationship happens.

Proximity happens in relationship.

Relationship happens in proximity.

In closeness.

Crisis always gives you an opportunity to get close to God.

The Bible says, like it's one of the hardest things is that in your grief, the Bible says that God is close to the brokenhearted.

And we take opportunity, even in crisis, to get close to God.

That's where our security is found.

When you rest in Jesus, when you rest in him, and you get close to him, you find that confidence.

So uh when I look at the in scripture at Moses, he he found ways to get close to God.

He said, He even said to God, he said, could you just let your glory go by me?

Could you just like, even if it's like, even if I have to turn my back, it's just I want you close.

Jesus went out into uh lonely places so that he could just get out of distraction from other people, so he could actually just get close with the Father.

Find ways to actually get close, to boldly move in and get close.

That this boldly business is like a hard thing for us as Canadians as we get older.

It's like when you're little, like how many of you have had little kids?

You shut the door, you close the door, you're in the bathroom, you're in bed, and they come, kick the door open, barge in, and they're like, Dad, I need you.

It's like no one gave you permission to come in here, but the kid just is standing there and you're like, whatever.

I need help with the peanut butter.

It's like, well, could you wait?

Like, and I'm sure that the kids don't just stand outside the door and go, I wonder if this is an issue too big for my dad or not.

I wonder if I should, this is gonna be difficult for him, uh, way high, small.

They don't ask that.

They just push their way in.

I have a lock on the door.

I used to have a lock on the door, until the kids would just grab the door handle and pull it until it broke, and then I was like, it's done.

I'm tired of fixing the door.

These kids just like push their way in.

That's a boldness to come into the house.

Come to the father.

Dad, I need help.

Peanut butter.

How many of you have bigger business than peanut butter out there?

Push your way in.

Get into the house of God.

The fact is that God never will close the door.

He'll never lock the door on you.

God's always got an open door for you, but you need to boldly come in and not stand outside and wonder and ruminate and question and think about it and weigh it or try and figure it out yourself.

Go in.

The Bible says we get close to God.

Boldly approach the throne.

Boldly go into his presence.

There's nothing holding you back.

He already knows you.

In fact, he knows you and he loves you.

He wants you there.

There's the power of that gospel that nothing can hold us back.

There's no place where we can go where God doesn't want to pull us in.

His hand is outstretched, saying, Come on.

Get in here.

What took you so long?

Let's go.

What's up?

I think of God in ways.

So you get into the throne room of God, you hold firm to the confession of your faith, and then you boldly get close to God.

So that number three in this verse here, you can receive mercy.

What do you say receive mercy?

Receive mercy so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

How many of you have ever been in a time of need?

Yeah.

So go in and get it.

Go in and pursue God.

Go in and get it for yourself.

There's mercy.

The Bible says mercy isn't just a one-day, one-time opportunity.

It is mercies are new every morning.

Every morning God is trying to say, Don't worry, I got fresh mercy for you today.

I needed fresh mercy this morning.

And it's available to me.

There was this uh, I'm gonna invite the team to come up.

There was this uh experiment uh I I read about just the other day, and it was such an amazing experiment.

I've been thinking about it recently, and it was called the the Scar Experiment.

And what they did is they found 10 volunteers to come out and to become the subjects of this experiment, this social uh experiment, and they sat them down, and as they sat them down, they they had a makeup artist come in front of them and it start to draw on this like this very vivid scar on their face.

And then the after it was finally completed, you know, with all of the all of the uh you know all of the parts you know that the the artists are capable of doing today, like just so vivid.

And they they gave the uh subject a mirror, and the the subject looked at the scar and saw the scar, and and then um the the scenario was that they were supposed to go out into the world and record the reactions that they would get because of the scar.

And when they went out, uh before they went out, they just wanted to the makeup artist was just gonna touch it up one last time, but instead of touching it up, they actually removed it from the person.

So there was no no more scar on their face, and then they said, Okay, now get out there and just record your responses, and after a while they came back and they sat down with each person, and they came back in reports like, I've never felt so humiliated in my life.

Everyone was looking at me, people were criticizing me, treating me like a second-class person.

I was embarrassed after a while.

I just wanted to quit, and the reality is in our life, sometimes what we're going through on the inside projects on what's actually on the outside, and the mercy of God fully takes care, it's God's favor, an unmerited favor.

You don't deserve it, but God actually cleans you 100%, He forgives you 100%, and yet we carry these internal ideals of ourselves, and the mercy of God is there to actually change their perspective on yourself.

And the scripture says, you go boldly into his throne room to receive mercy that you might and to find that grace in that moment.

And so sometimes we go through life and we need grace, and this grace is a powerful word, it means empowerment.

That in your weakness he becomes strong, in your poverty, he becomes your richness, in your chaos, he becomes your order.

He actually brings you, brings you strength, gives you grace for your day.

And for us today, as soon as you come to Jesus, your sins are washed away, you're made clean.

By his mercy, you've been made clean.

Now we can receive the empowerment to be able to walk with that truth of that identity of who God has created us to be.

God's purpose for us is bigger than we understand.

God knows about our failures, God knows about our crisis, God knows about your sin, and yet still chooses to love you, and still chooses to heal you, and still chooses to forgive you.

And not only that, he chooses to empower you to continue in the life that he's called you to live.

So don't pull back, don't resist his mercy, instead hold fast to your confession, draw close to him and receive his mercy for you and for your life.

Hold on to that today.

Would you stand with me?

It's one of the reasons why we worship.

Because worship brings us close, it brings proximity.

It's not about a physical presence in the room, it's about our heart.

And so we say, Lord, I want my heart to get in proximity with your heart.

Would you open my heart up today?

I'm just gonna invite the team just to lead us in worship for a moment.

And let's just draw close.

Let's hold fast to our confession.

Let's receive mercy and grace this morning.

In Jesus' name.