GOD IS ALL-KNOWING - Levi Ferguson | Midtown Church Elk Grove

Today, I'm gonna share four scenes of my life with you.

Two of them you're gonna get right now, two of them you're gonna have to select and identify later.

Scene number one.

In 2015, I moved from Georgia to California as I accepted a position as a youth pastor in the Sacramento area.

In 2017, I had a young man who was 18 years old, and his girlfriend, also 18 years old, both of them freshmen in college.

They were serving as small group leaders in the church where I was the youth pastor.

This young man broke up with his girlfriend and began to date a 14-year-old girl who was a student in our youth ministry.

As I became aware of this situation, I had a conversation with this young man, and I said, You can't help out a youth anymore.

Because of the way I handled that situation, the man who had taken over as the main pastor threatened to fire me.

See, this young man, his father and his deacon were, or his grandfather and his father were both deacons in the church.

Their family had been members of the church since the inception of the church almost 30 years earlier.

Because of the lack of support that I felt from the church and the way that they handled that situation, I chose to resign in January of 2018.

I'm in my last week at the church.

I'm in the office, and I receive a random email from an anti-tobacco program about a job that they're hiring for.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but I don't really hear too often about people who need a job who aren't looking for a job yet, and they get a random email about a job that they need.

But that's what happened to me.

So as I'm reading this email and interacting with this program, I accept an interview with this program.

On the day of the interview, I'm in the church office cleaning out the last bit of my stuff, and I'm sharing with our church secretary the information about this program as well as about the interview that day.

And while I'm explaining this program to her, she says to me, Oh, my husband used to oversee that program.

Her husband is a federal law enforcement agent, and she and her husband are parents of two of the students who were in the youth that I was leading.

I go to the interview.

As I'm having this interview, I share the name of this father with the guy who's interviewing me, and he says, Oh, I used to report to that guy.

And so this father serves as a reference for me for this job.

And I end up starting this position less than a week after I resigned from the church.

Wasn't on a job site, had a five-month severance package from the church, so I wasn't looking yet, and yet God showed up and gave me what I needed in the moment that I needed.

Scene number two, February 1st of this year, I came on staff at Midtown as the interim youth director.

Tuesday, February 9th, eight days later, I was informed by the anti-tobacco program that I had been working for since 2018, a program, by the way, that had been around almost 30 years.

That day they told me that the entire program was coming to an end on March 31st.

Share those two scenes of my life with you to let you know that God knows everything about you.

Before the world ever began, God knew everything you would ever need.

And before the world ever began, before he set the universe into motion, he had already provided what you would need so that at the moment you stepped into the moment of need, you already had it.

That leads us to three scenes from scripture.

Scene number one is a scene from the Psalms, and the title of this scene is God Knows All.

Psalm 139, verses 1 to 4, say this.

Psalms 139:1–4

You know when I sit down and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar, you discern my going out and my lying down.

You are familiar with all my ways.

Now look at verse 4.

Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely.

Before I ever say a word, you know it, God.

God knows everything you're going to do before you ever do it, before the world ever began, before God set the world into motion.

He knew everything that you would ever do.

He knew every sin you would commit.

He knew every mistake you would ever make.

He knew every failure you would ever experience.

He knew every success you would ever experience.

God knows every single detail of every single scene of your life.

And that reminds me of scene selection.

See, I don't know if y'all remember scene selection on DVDs and Blu-rays, but on DVDs and Blu-rays, you could pull up scene selection and see every single scene in the movie.

And if you caught a detail in an early scene in the movie, and then later on in another scene, you caught a connection to that detail, you could then pull up scene selection, go back to the scene that you watch, better understand the details of that scene, and better understand the connection between the two scenes.

God has every single scene of your life pulled up.

He can watch every single scene of your life simultaneously and eternally.

And what's crazy is he doesn't just know every single detail of every single scene of your life.

He knows every single detail of every single scene of every single person's life.

He knows every single detail of every single scene of every single person's life, past, present, and future.

And watch this.

He knows every single detail of every single scene of every single person's life who could possibly exist but never will.

So he knows all the details of all actual reality and all the details of all possible reality that'll never come into existence.

And if you really want to take it there and take it a little bit further, understand that he also knows every single detail of all impossible reality as well.

And here's what blows my mind.

God knows exactly what would have happened had you not chewed that gum up, taken it out of your mouth, and stuck it under the desk in third grade.

He knows exactly what would have happened had you not dated that person.

He knows exactly what would have happened had you dated that person.

He knows what would have happened had you married that person.

He knows exactly what would have happened had you not married that person.

He knows exactly what would have happened had you not made the greatest mistake of your life.

He knows exactly what would have happened had you made the greatest mistake of your life that you didn't.

He knows every single detail of all things, both actual and possible and impossible, simultaneously and eternally.

God knows all things.

But watch this.

God doesn't think he knows.

God doesn't have to think his way through things the way that we do.

He doesn't have to use reason or logic to work his way to conclusions.

He doesn't have to work his way through anything, think his way through anything.

He knows all things simultaneously and eternally.

God doesn't think, he just knows.

And studying this topic, it made me reflect on Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

See, in Genesis chapter 3, we're told that Adam and Eve, they eat this forbidden fruit.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And the Bible tells us that when they eat this forbidden fruit, they come into the knowledge of good and what?

So they go from a place of knowing just good to now knowing good and evil.

And so you have to understand that in that moment, as they became aware of what good is and what evil is, there were things that Adam and Eve knew that they didn't want to know.

They didn't want to know evil no more.

And so that made me ask this theoretical question.

It made me ponder about something, something that I have to do that God doesn't have to do.

It made me ask this theoretical question: well, if God knows all things and He does, are there things that God knows that He doesn't want to know?

For example, God knows every single detail of the most heinous of crimes ever committed.

God knows every single detail of the most evil things done to children.

God knows all things.

Are there things that God knows that he doesn't want to know?

Now, whether or not it's true that there are things that God knows that he doesn't want to know, there is one thing biblically that we can be certain that God does want to know, and that's you.

And that leads us to scene number two.

God wants to know you.

There's one major problem.

The Bible tells us that God loves us.

The Bible tells us that he wants to know us biblically.

We know for certain that he wants to know us.

But there's a major problem, and that major problem is called sin.

Sin separates us from God.

Even though he wants to know us, sin prevents us from being able to know him.

But the Bible tells us something critically important.

It tells us that God loves us so much and that he wants to know us so much that before the world ever even began, before he kicked the universe into motion, he did everything he needed to do to remove every obstacle that would prevent you from coming to know him.

And so Revelation 13, 8 says, in reference to Jesus, the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

In John 1, John the Baptist looking at Jesus, he says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And in Romans 5, we're told that at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for us.

And then it goes on in verse 8 to say, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this way.

God shows us what his love is like for us in this way.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Before you were ever born, before you were ever a thought in your mama's mind, or your mama was a thought in her mama's mind, Christ died for our sins.

Before the universe began, before the world began, before you ever spoke a word, God did what needed to be done to remove every possible obstacle to keep you from knowing God.

So the question is not, does God want to know us?

The real question is, do we want to know Him?

And that leads us to this scene from the streets.

Again, titled God Wants to Know You in Matthew 7, verses 21 to 23, Jesus is out in the streets.

Matthew 7:21–23

He's having a discussion.

And this is what he says in this discussion.

He says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter.

And Jesus tells us in another place what that is, what that will of God is.

He says in John 6, that it is the will of God that you believe in me.

And when Jesus says, it's the will of God that you believe in me, he's not simply saying that we have to mentally acknowledge as fact that Jesus is who he says he is.

He's not simply saying that we have to mentally acknowledge as truth that Jesus died for our sins and that three days later he rose from the grave.

What Jesus is actually saying is that we have to move from a place from simply acknowledging those things to be true to coming before God and saying, God, I know who you are.

I know that you know everything about me.

I know that you know everything in my heart, all the sin, all the failure, all the mistakes.

And God, because of who you are, because you want to know me, because you love me the way that you do, I want to give you my heart and everything in it.

I want to surrender my life to you.

I want to have real faith in you.

So when Jesus says it's the will of God that you believe in me, that's what he's talking about.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

But many will say to me on that day, Jesus says, Did we not prophesy in your name?

Did we not cast out demons in your name?

Did we not perform many miracles in your name?

Look at me, God, look at what I did.

And I will say to them, away from me, you evildoers, I never knew you.

That statement is always shocking to me, striking to me.

Because what does Jesus mean when he says, I never knew you?

Because we're told elsewhere that Jesus knows everything about us.

We're told elsewhere that Jesus knows everything in the human heart.

So what does he mean when he says, I never knew you?

See, when Jesus spoke these words, he was in a very religious society, a very religious culture, the leaders, the religious leaders of his day called the Pharisees.

They created all these religious rules, all these religious expectations, all these religious traditions that they put on top of the word of God and they placed the weight of these things on the people and expected them to follow them and taught them to believe that if I do this, then I'm good with God.

If I do that, I'm good with God.

The Pharisees and the people of Jesus' day, they wrapped themselves in the robes of religiosity, thinking that if they covered what was on the inside, they would feel better about themselves and it would make them right with God.

And that reminds me of Genesis chapter 3 again.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

If you go back to Genesis chapter 3, you read that as Adam and Eve, as they ate that forbidden fruit, it says that their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And when the Bible says that they knew they were naked, it doesn't just simply mean that they didn't have any clothes on.

It means that as their eyes were opened and they came into the knowledge of good and evil, they now saw themselves for who they really were.

They saw themselves in their sin, in their failure, in their mistake.

And the Bible then tells us that they felt ashamed.

And the Bible goes on to tell us that they tried to run away from God.

They tried to hide from God.

And in fact, they took fig leaves and sewed them together and tried to cover themselves.

They tried to cover what they were feeling on the inside, the weight of their failure, the weight of their sin, the weight of their mistakes.

They tried to cover it up, the weight of the shame, they tried to cover and hide.

We do the exact same thing today.

We think if we do this, it makes us right with God.

We think if we do that, if we cover up the things that's going on on the inside, that we'll feel better about ourselves.

But Jesus is calling us to give us every give him everything in our hearts, the sin, the shame, the mistakes, the failures.

In fact, he knew about those things before the world ever began.

He doesn't want you to hide those things.

He wants you to bring them to him and stop pretending.

See, God can't save the person you pretend to be.

He can only save you.

God can't say, bless the person you pretend to be.

He can only bless you.

And so we have to come to a place where we say, God, this is what's in my heart, and I know that you knew that.

And God, I'm willing to give it to you.

I'm willing to surrender my life to you, God.

I know that you knew everything about me before the world began.

I want to give it to you.

I don't want to hide it, Lord.

I know that you love me, anyways.

I know that you want to know me anyway.

So, God, I give you my heart.

He wants our heart and everything in it.

He doesn't want us to run, to hide, to cover anything.

When I was 16, I was arrested for the first time for underage possession of a firearm.

That night I was so drunk and so high that after a robbery gone wrong, I sat in the backseat of a car with a loaded gun in my hand and a beer bottle between my legs.

I fell asleep.

And as I did that beer bottle, it fell over into the floorboard.

And when it did, it woke me up, and I leaned over to pick it up, and boom, gun goes off.

Accidentally shot myself in the leg.

But before the world began, God knew that that night I would sin in that way.

Before the world began, God knew that that night I would fail in that way.

God knew before the world began that I would make that biggest mistake of my life.

And so the world before the world began, God had already provided a way of protection for me so that as that bullet passed through my leg up here at a strange angle and came out down here, it completely missed the main artery of my leg so that I didn't bleed out and die that night like I should have.

But not only that, it passed through my knee joint without causing any damage to my knee joint, so that I'm able to walk here in front of you on this stage just fine today.

And I'm able to preach to you a testimony about the goodness of God.

Because I should be too ashamed to tell you that story.

Why would you say that in front of all those people, Levi?

Because God is good and he used it for good?

See, because before the world ever began, God knew that he was going to use that moment, one of my greatest failures, to put me into a position where I was going to have conversation after conversation after conversation about a girl with a message called the gospel.

And the gospel is this Jesus died for your sins to pay a debt that you owe that you couldn't pay yourself.

Three days later, he rose from the grave, defeated sin, defeated hell, defeated death.

And in conversation with that girl, what she told me was that if he has that kind of power, he can change your life.

But before the world began, God knew I wasn't gonna be ready yet.

So two more times, that's three times in less than a year, I was arrested.

At the age of 17, I sat in Gwinnett County holding cell and I fell face down on a cold metal bench.

I cried out to God and I said, God, I don't want to live like this anymore.

I said, God, I can't change.

You know I can't change.

I tried.

I said, God, take my life and do what you want with it.

Make me who you want me to be.

Even though I was in a jail cell at that moment, I was more free than I'd ever been before in my life.

And so God used that moment to radically transform the direction of my life.

He used that moment to radically change me as a person so that eventually I became a youth pastor, which is exactly what leads me here today.

But at the age of 16, at the age of 17, I would have told you that I believed that Jesus died for my sins.

I would have told you.

I believe that he rose from the grave on the third day, but I had never given him my heart.

I had never surrendered my life to him.

I had never had real faith in him.

I had never come before him with everything in my heart and given it to him.

But some of you, you need to wrestle with God like that.

See, we come up in here and we think, man, I'm a good Christian.

I go to church.

I read my Bible.

I do my daily devos.

I pray every day.

I help out at church.

I even helped out at youth camp.

Amazing.

All that stuff is good.

But what I really want is your heart.

Yeah, but God, I I give money to the church.

I give 10% to the church.

I tithe.

I even dress my best when I go to church.

No.

You're not hearing me.

I don't want your performance.

I don't want the person you pretend to be.

I want the real you.

I want your heart.

But God, if if people really knew the real me, if people really knew what was in my heart, the sin, the mistakes, the failure, the pain from other people, what other people have done for me to me.

God, nobody would ever accept me for who I am if they really knew what was in my heart.

If they really knew the real me, all my sins and failures and mistakes and all the pain that I've got.

Nobody could ever love me, not even you.

I knew everything you'd ever do.

Before you were born, before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you.

And I loved you.

I knew every mistake you'd ever make.

And I love you anyway.

That's why, before you were ever born, Jesus died for you.

Surrender to me.

Give me your heart.

Brothers and sisters, God wants your heart.

Everything in your heart he wants.

He doesn't want you to run and try to hide it, try to cover it.

He wants everything in your heart, and he's calling you to give him your heart today.

Don't run anymore.

Don't hide anymore.

Don't try to cover it.

Give him your heart and who you really are.

He wants to know you.

And that leads us to scene number three.

This is a scene from the seas.

And the title of this scene is God Knew.

Now, God knew before the world began exactly what you would need right now in this moment.

God knew back then before the world ever began the exact message you would need to hear right now in this moment.

God knew back then before the world ever began the exact word that you would need to hear right now in this moment.

God knew back then before the world ever began exactly what you would need right now in your moment of greatest failure.

God knew back then before the world ever began exactly what you would need right now in this moment of your greatest sin, in this moment of your greatest mistake, in this moment of your deepest doubt, your darkest depression, God knew then exactly what you would need right now.

In Matthew 14, verses 22 to 33, Jesus and his disciples are getting ready to go to the next town that they're going to be visiting.

Matthew 14:22–33

And so Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him.

As they go ahead of him, they get on a boat, they're out on the seas.

Jesus is up on the mountain and he's praying by himself.

As the disciples are out on the seas, the winds are blowing, they're rocking the boat.

And even though these are experienced fishermen, familiar with water, familiar with seas and familiar with boats, they're afraid.

As Jesus decides to come meet them, he's walking on the water.

As the disciples see Jesus, they're already afraid, but they're even more afraid, and so they cry out.

And Jesus says, Yo, chill, it's just me.

And Peter's like, Oh, for real?

It's just you, Jesus?

Well, is it really just you?

Then command me to come to you out on the waves.

And Peter Jesus says, Come on.

And so Peter, he takes a step of faith and he steps off of the boat and onto the waves.

And I don't know if you realize this, but following Jesus is a life of faith.

And when we live a life of faith, it calls us to step out of the boat of safety and take a little risk to get out onto the waves.

And so Peter, he's out on the waves and he's walking towards Jesus.

And as he's walking towards Jesus, he begins to feel the winds blowing around him.

He's rocked by those winds.

He's rocked by the storms.

He's distracted by the storm around him.

And as he's distracted by the storm around him, he feels the impact of the storm within him, and he begins to sink beneath the waves.

But Jesus knew then exactly what Peter would need now.

And so he's standing right in front of Peter as he's sinking beneath the waves.

His hand is out, and Peter says, Save me! Jesus takes his hand, he pulls him from beneath the waves of doubt that he's drowning in, and he sets him back into the safety of the boat.

And this is going to become an incredibly important lesson for Peter because not long from then he would make the greatest mistake of his life by denying Jesus three times.

And in that moment of his greatest failure, he needed to be reminded that Jesus would always be there to pull him from beneath the waves he's drowning in, if he would only focus his eyes back on him.

And Jesus is calling to us today, and he's saying, take your eyes off of the storm around you.

Take your eyes off of the storm within you.

Fix your eyes on me, the author and perfecter of your faith.

Fix your eyes on me, the one who created the storm.

Fix your eyes on me, the one who created the waves.

Fix your eyes on me, the one because of the joy that was set before me, was willing to endure the cross to save you.

See, brothers and sisters, Jesus knows everything about you.

Jesus knows everything you need, and Jesus is everything you need.

Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega.

Jesus is the first and the last.

And everything in between.

Jesus is Almighty.

Jesus is always with us.

Jesus is the author of life.

Jesus is the bread of life.

Jesus is better than life.

Jesus is the best to ever do it.

Jesus is our creator.

Jesus is our comforter.

Jesus is our chainbreaker.

Jesus is the deliverer.

Jesus is the doorway to heaven.

And Jesus is the dopest to ever do it.

Jesus is everlasting.

Jesus is eternal.

Jesus is everything we need.

Jesus is faithful.

Jesus is forever.

Jesus is our friend.

Jesus is good.

Jesus is God.

Jesus is the goat.

Jesus is the greatest of all time.

Jesus is the hallelujah that we raise.

Jesus is our hope.

Jesus is the highway to heaven and the one who keeps us from being hellbound.

Jesus is the great I am.

Jesus is the inventor of the impossible.

And Jesus is interested in you.

Jesus is justice.

Jesus justifies us.

Jesus is the judge.

Jesus is the killer of death.

Jesus is the keeper of life.

Jesus is the king of kings.

Jesus is the Lord of lords.

Jesus is love.

Jesus is life.

Jesus is our maker.

Jesus is our Messiah.

Jesus is our master Jesus is the newness of life.

Jesus is never ending.

Jesus is never gonna stop.

Jesus is omnipotent.

Jesus is omnipresent Jesus is omniscient.

Jesus is the orchestrator of the miraculous Jesus is our power.

Jesus is our provider Jesus is our peace Jesus is our promise.

Jesus is the question all of us should be asking Jesus is the quest all of us should be on.

Jesus is the quiet in the midst of the storm.

Jesus is the reason for every season and everything.

Jesus is the realest one you know and Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

Jesus is the solution to every problem Jesus is our savior Jesus is our sanity Jesus is trustworthy.

Jesus is our teacher Jesus is our truth but Jesus is the truth Jesus is understanding Jesus is unending Jesus is unstoppable.

Jesus is our vision for life Jesus is our victory Jesus is a very present help in a time of need Jesus is the word of God Jesus is worthy of all of our worship and Jesus is the way maker Jesus is the X factor.

Jesus is the x-ray by which we see within ourselves a desperate need for salvation.

And Jesus is the xylophone on which the Father plays the music of salvation.

Jesus is the yearning of all of our souls Jesus is yours and Jesus is the yes and the amen to every promise from God.

Jesus is the zen that we all seek Jesus is the zero point of all things and Jesus is the zenith over everything.

Brothers and sisters Jesus knows everything about you.

Jesus knows everything you need and Jesus is everything you need I don't know what scene of your life you're in right now but Jesus does.

See right now you might be drowning in the waves of addiction.

You might be being battered by the storms of a false identity.

You might be drowning beneath the waves of the deepest doubt the deepest depression the darkest grief you've ever experienced but this is what I know that Jesus is calling to us today and he's saying take your eyes off of the storm around you take your eyes off of the storm within you and fix your eyes on me.

And today he's here with his hand out and he's saying Come to me I will rescue you I'm ready to pull you from beneath the waves you're drowning