The God Who Knows Me

Well, as I just shared as we prayed, uh, this year we've been in a series called Getting to Know God.

And this is a long study.

Uh, we're trying to get to know God better this year.

Like the cool thing about God is he's never far.

Like he's he's never far.

Sometimes we feel like God is far, but he's not.

I remember when my oldest was about two years old.

I brought him up here with me to the church one day.

I was the youth pastor at the time and I was working on some stuff.

It was a Saturday, it was just the two of us.

And there's something about our hallways here at the church.

Like we have big hallways, and young children, they see those and they're like, run.

You know what I mean?

It just speaks to them.

And so he takes off and he thinks he's far from me.

But his footsteps didn't cover much ground.

And so I waited until he was a good ways off, and then I decided to kind of pick up pace, and he turned thinking he had some distance, and I was right there.

Uh, and he may have fallen and hurt his head on the concrete, and you know, no one was around to see it.

But the life lesson he learned is that your dad is never that far away.

All right?

So remember that.

But no, like, even though we sometimes feel like God is far away, he's never far.

He's always with us.

The Bible says that he's behind us, he's ahead of us, he's beside us, he goes before us, he is he's wherever we are.

But sometimes we don't feel that closeness.

And we have to be careful because feelings are not the ultimate authority.

And sometimes we might feel like God is distant from us and he's not.

It's just our feelings, our emotions get all wrapped up and confused.

But at the same time, there is a recognition that I think our spirits have, that we have, that we could be closer to him.

Sometimes we yearn to have a deeper relationship with him, to know him better, to be more intimate with him.

And when you feel that, like ponder on that.

Stop and pause about that and say, Lord, are you are you calling me closer?

Are you trying to bring me closer, Lord?

What can I do to be closer to you?

Because there's no there's no end to the depth of God.

I guess one of the beautiful things about heaven lasting forever.

It will take forever to get to know God.

You will you will have been in heaven one day for 10,000 years and learned something new about God that you never knew before.

Because there's no end to the depth of him.

So in this life, and even in the life to come, day by day, we can know him better.

We can be closer to him, and that should be the greatest desire in our heart.

And I'll be the first to admit, sometimes it's not for me.

Sometimes I'm so distracted by all the things that are going on in life.

Where if I make an honest priority list, like I know what the priority list is, like, well, God, family, you know.

But if I was honest about my priority list in my mind, in terms of what is really what's rattling around in there, it's it's different than that.

That's why I love Sundays.

It's a chance for us to come together, regroup, and go, what is most important?

Oh, yeah, it's him.

He's most important.

And so this year we're trying to get to know him better.

And we're doing that by studying the life of a man in the Old Testament named Abraham.

Well, his name was Abram, it is changed to Abraham.

In fact, today is the day that his name is changed to Abraham in our study.

So from now on, I don't get to mess up anymore.

I don't get to say Abram half the time, Abraham the other half the time.

It's all Abraham from here on out.

So we're studying this man's life because he is a man who walks with God.

He's honestly one of the fathers of faith.

God calls him to follow him, he answers that call, but when he answers that call, he doesn't know God very well.

He believes, he knows of God, but he does not have an intimate relationship with God, and that changes throughout the course of his life.

We get to watch God slowly, gently for the most part, and occasionally, directly bring Abraham close.

And Abraham becomes someone who knows God so well.

He knows his nature, he knows his character, his faith grows, his ability to follow God grows, and Abraham's no different than us.

He's a man, he's a person, loved by God, known by God, called by God to follow God.

That is who all of us are.

That is who you are.

You are no different than Abraham.

You are God's creation, he sees you, he knows you, he loves you, he wants to walk with you, he's called you to follow him.

You can get to know God better, and we're using his story to help us with that.

Now, last Sunday, uh, like I mentioned, Fred did a great job walking us through this really interesting moment in the story where our attention shifted away from Abraham for a minute and to this woman named Hagar.

And Hagar is a woman that that Abram had a child with, trying to make God's will happen in his own way.

God promised Abram and Sarai.

He said, I'm gonna give you children.

And then a decade goes by, no children.

They're very old, no children.

And so they say, Hey, I got an idea, let's do it our way.

And Sarai said, I have this servant named Hagar, sleep with Hagar, have a child through her, that'll be our child, she'll be like a surrogate, and then we'll be able to fulfill God's will.

And they do that, and it creates a huge mess.

And that's not what God intended.

And Hagar was poorly treated, she ran off.

But God found her, he saw her, he spoke to her, and he brought her back.

And so last week, Fred talked about the idea of a God who sees us.

God sees you, and that's a really powerful idea.

Today, we're gonna take that a step further.

God not only sees you, but he knows you.

He really knows you.

He knows you better than you know yourself.

In fact, he knows the you that you haven't even become yet, which is an interesting idea.

We're gonna we're gonna look at that today.

But we're gonna start by jumping into Genesis chapter 17, we're gonna read verses 1 through 8.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

It says, When Abram was 99 years old, and remember, at this point in time, he has a son named Ishmael.

He's tried to make this happen in his own way, he has a child, but the Lord appeared to him and said, I am El Shaddai, God Almighty.

Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life.

I will make a covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.

At this Abram fell face down on the ground.

Then God said to him, This is my covenant with you.

I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.

What's more, I'm changing your name.

It will no longer be Abram.

Instead, you will be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations.

I will make you extremely fruitful, your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them.

I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you from generation to generation.

This is the everlasting covenant.

I will always be your God, and the God of your descendants after you, and I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner to you and your descendants.

It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.

So God reiterates his promise.

I'm gonna give you and your wife a child, and I'm changing your name from Abram to Abraham.

This is deeply meaningful.

We're gonna explore it here in just a second.

But first, let's back up.

We're actually gonna back up a couple of times this morning before we jump into the real uh nuts and bolts of this.

And so let's start by talking about this idea of name change.

Because we have name changes that happen in our culture, but usually in very different ways than this, for very different purposes than this.

Think about why people or organizations go through a name change in our modern day and age.

Usually it's for marketing purposes, right?

It's like a rebrand.

It's like celebrities.

You ever notice how celebrities have such cool names?

They're pretty much all lies.

You know, like Tom Cruise, it's a great name.

It's not his name.

His name is Thomas Mappether.

He's Tom Cruise.

It's like Bruno Mars, that's a cool name.

Like Bruno Mars.

His name's Peter Hernandez.

Okay?

It's not true.

Like if you're an 80s person, I love the 80s, good time.

That's when I arrived.

Uh Sting?

His parents didn't name him Sting.

Who would do that?

His name's Gordon Sumner.

Change his name to Sting.

John Travolta?

That actually is his name.

Sometimes it just works out.

Sometimes, sometimes you get lucky.

You get a good name, you know, a memorable name.

But but usually, like in culture, when someone changes their name, they're trying to market themselves.

They're trying to like, it's it's a it's a ploy, it's some tactic that's just designed to get attention.

Or if if a company changes their name, it's a rebrand effort.

Sometimes they're got they've got some negative publicity trying to get behind, they're trying to change their identity.

Sometimes we we even fall for name changes.

Sometimes name changes can be so subtle and we don't even realize it until it hits us.

In fact, that happened to me this week.

I think I was probably mindful of this because of the message and just what was going on in my brain.

But I went to lunch this week with a good friend of mine named James, shout out to James, and we're we're at Taco Mac.

I almost look, I'm just gonna be honest.

I schedule almost every lunch meeting I have at Taco Mac right across the street.

And here's why.

I'm really bad at calendars.

And this has happened to many of you.

If if you ever text me, if we're supposed to have lunch at Taco Mac, and you text me, I'm here, I got us a table, and I go two minutes away, it's because I forgot, and uh, but I'm right here.

And so I've been in meetings that I'm like, oh, hey, I gotta go to Taco Mac.

And I go and I have lunch, and it's great.

So I do that as sort of a strategy to uh work around my inability to remember when things are.

Um, so I was at Taco Mac, but this time I remembered, I actually got there first.

And I'm having lunch with James, and you know, our waiter comes up and they're like, hey, what do you want?

If you go to Taco Mac, you know, it's not a complicated menu.

I was like, Wings, I'm going wings.

And he goes, Well, do you want bone in or boneless?

And I was like, Ooh, boneless wings.

Like, I'm feeling kind of fancy today.

Let's go boneless.

So I get my boneless wings, we're talking, we're eating, I'm eating these wings.

You know, I got a fork, I got a knife, dipping it in the sauce, and it hits me about halfway through my meal.

These are chicken nuggets.

Um I I'm a grown man eating chicken nuggets with a fork and a knife.

And expecting people to take me seriously.

That that hit me.

Like it you have to give credit to the amazing marketing.

I would never, as I'm a 43-year-old man, I would never look at a menu and be like, hmm, I will have the chicken nuggies, please.

Like, I would never do that.

But boneless buffalo wings, well, absolutely, sign me up for those.

And I I had that realization.

Wow, well done, smart name change, good rebranding effort, because as a grown man, I ordered chicken nuggets at a restaurant and I enjoy them.

So sometimes we fall for the name changes.

There's all kinds of situations like that.

When God changes someone's name, it's not a rebranding effort.

God isn't trying to rebrand Abram.

He's not being a PR manager saying, hey, I think there's some things we can do to kind of put you in a different light for all future generations to see.

It's much deeper than that.

But we have to even back up a little bit more because we have to understand the meaning and the power of the meaning of names in this culture.

We live in a society where we tend to disconnect the meaning of names from names all the time.

We do that in sports.

You know, so Elite Eight today, I'm a, as many of you know, if you've been here for a while, I'm a huge Duke fan.

And uh, which means, hey, look, if they lose, I'm gonna get 400 text messages today.

It happens every year.

The final four last year was a lot of fun.

Um so you know, they're the devils.

And in the first round this year, we played Sienna, who are the saints.

And I actually have a new friend who's a Sienna, he's a Sienna alum, and he we were texting each other, and he's like, man, I, you know, game today.

And I'm I'm a pastor who sincerely hoped that the devils would beat the saints.

And I felt weird about that.

Not weird enough to to change my allegiance.

And and the root of the Duke Blue Devils, it's a it's a French military thing.

You can look it up, it's a weird history.

It's not it's not religious in nature, but that's how I've coped.

But the reality is the devils beat the saints that day, and it was a good day for me.

We don't tend to care about names that much.

Like sports, it's like those, those are mascots.

Those aren't names that we connect to the the meaning of a program or an institution.

Those are just those are marketing tools, those are mascots.

Even our own names.

Let's just go show of hands.

How many of you know the meaning of your name?

Raise your hand, you know what it means.

I know that it should just be an easy 50-50 when you do a show of hands like this, but let's just double down on this.

How many of you don't know what your name means?

Yeah.

Those of you, let's keep going.

Those of you who had uh, you raise your hand first, you know what your name means.

How many of you think your parents knew what your name meant when they named you that?

Way fewer hands.

Yeah, most of us we choose names, our parents chose names because that was a popular name when you were born.

I was born in the in the early 80s.

My name's Justin.

Every fifth child was required to be named Justin from 1982 to 1987.

There's a lot of us in that generation, right?

And and like technically, my name means one of justice.

But it's not like when I see something go wrong as a kid, I was like, I got it, guys.

I have to do something.

I am Justin.

I am here to set things right.

Like, that's not.

Oh, we when we meet someone, when we introduce ourselves and they tell us their name, we just go, oh, that's your name.

We don't go, oh, your name.

Like, how many of you are named Emily?

Just a quick question.

Emily, any Emilies in the room?

No Emilies?

A few Emilies?

Your name means rival.

So if you've ever not liked an Emily, that's why.

Um That's what they are.

They're we don't meet someone named Emily and be like, oh, Emily.

Okay, well I'm watching you.

Like, that's not what we do.

We just go, it's a name.

So our names have meanings, but we live in a culture where we disconnect from those meanings.

We don't, we don't walk around with the burden of the meaning of our name.

Some of you are gonna go home and look up the meanings of your name.

Some of you are gonna be really disappointed today.

I just want you to know that.

Abram's time was different.

Your name was everything.

Your name had a deep meaning, and it defined you.

When people met you in Abram's time, we're talking ancient, ancient times.

Your name was your identity, it was your reputation.

So, for example, we'll go to a different story, and then we'll go back to Abram in a minute.

There's a man in the Bible named Jacob, and Jacob has a bunch of sons, and he ends up having his youngest son, whose name ends up being Benjamin.

But when Benjamin is born, his wife, who he loves very much, she dies.

She dies right after childbirth.

And in Genesis 35, it says, Leaving Bethel, Jacob and his clan moved toward Ephraith.

But Rachel went into labor while they were still some distance away.

Her labor pains were intense.

After a very hard delivery, the midwife finally exclaimed, Don't be afraid, you have another son.

Rachel was about to die, but with her last breath she named the baby Ben-Oni, which means son of my sorrow.

The baby's father, however, called him Benjamin, which means son of my right hand.

You know, in a moment of pain and anguish, Rachel names him son of my sorrow.

And Jacob, as a father, recognizes in that moment, no, that can't be his identity.

That cannot be what he's known by.

So he changes it, son of my right hand, because he doesn't want his son to carry that weight for the rest of his life.

That's how intense names were in biblical times.

Abram was given a unique name when he was born.

And I taught on this before.

We talked about this actually not that long ago, but it's it's so interesting to explore this today.

Abram's name meant exalted father.

Exalted father.

That's what Abram means.

And he had no children.

And so every time he met someone, again, different culture than ours.

We meet people, oh, that's your name.

What does it mean?

That would be the weirdest question if someone asked you, what does your name mean?

Like, what do you ask me that for?

I don't know.

What does your name mean?

Like it's such a strange question.

In their time, very different, right?

Abram, oh, your name is Abram.

What does that mean?

It means exalted father.

How many children do you have?

I have none.

It's like, oh, that's a it's a shame.

It's a mark of shame for Abram, his whole life.

He is the exalted father of no one.

That's tough.

And so imagine what it must be like for Abram when he has Ishmael, even though he had Ishmael in the wrong way.

And we talked about this a few weeks ago.

We want to do, we don't want to do God's way.

Not just, we don't just want God's will to happen, we want it to be God's will, God's way.

And at the same time, we all find ourselves in places all of us have before where we try to do what we think is right, we just go about it the wrong way.

And that's what Abram did.

He tried to make God's will happen his way, and it creates a huge mess, but at the same time, we can look at him and say, well, for the first time in his life, he has a name that makes sense.

Now when he says, I'm Abram, I'm the exalted father, they can say, Oh, who are your kids?

Oh, let me let me tell you about Ishmael.

He has a name that at least matches his life.

And he waited a long time for that.

He's an old man at this point.

Finally, he has a son.

Finally, his name connects to his life, and he can let that shame go.

And so God comes along and says, Hey, Abram, I'm going to renew my covenant with you.

Sometimes, when we mess up, God knows that we need him to remind us that he hasn't abandoned us, that we didn't blow it completely, that he's still with us, and he will renew the promises that he's made to us.

And he says, I'm renewing my covenant with you.

I'm changing your name, by the way.

You will no longer be called Abram.

You will now be called Abraham.

Abraham means father of nations.

So you got a feel for Abram here, or Abraham, because he just got a name that made sense.

And now he has to go to people and they say, What's your name?

Abraham?

Oh, wow, father of nations.

You got a lot of kids.

I got one.

And he's right back to a name that doesn't make sense.

But God's doing something much deeper here than playing a prank on Abraham.

God is changing his identity.

God is letting him know that, and this is for all of us, that while we do have a say, we do have free will, we have the ability to choose how we go about life, we still have a destiny that we are not in complete control of.

We have a God who is still taking us somewhere.

And if we'll follow him through all of our mistakes, all of our failures, he will make us greater than we are.

So he's taken this man Abram who loves his son and said, Yeah, that's fine.

But there's more.

And you're going to become the father of nations, and so we're changing your name.

This is something, by the way, that God does in the Bible fairly often: changes people's names.

In fact, I mentioned Jacob just a minute ago.

Jacob had a name change moment in Genesis chapter 32.

Genesis 32 · chapter mention

Jacob was born as the youngest twin.

His oldest brother was named Esau.

You may have heard that story before if you've been in church much, or if you haven't, it's an interesting story.

Well, when Jacob and Esau were born, Jacob was born holding on to his brother's heel.

It was almost like he was trying to pull him back in the womb, saying, No, I want to be first.

And so he was given the name Jacob, which means supplanter or like usurper.

It has a deceptive meaning.

And he actually kind of lived out that meaning.

If you know his story, he deceives his brother very often.

He's a trickster.

He tricks his father into getting a blessing that wasn't his.

He's a super deceptive person.

That was his name.

That was his identity from birth.

Oh, deceiver, supplanter.

He's just trying to live up to his name.

And so that's his name his whole life.

He's lived up to it.

But in Genesis 32, he has a moment that changes everything.

It says, This left Jacob all alone in the camp.

And a man came and wrestled with him until dawn began to break.

Strange story.

When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of its socket.

Then the man said, Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.

But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

What is your name?

The man asked.

He replied, Jacob.

Your name will no longer be Jacob, the man told him.

From now on you'll be called Israel, because you have fought with God and men and have won.

Israel means to wrestle with God.

Please tell me your name, Jacob said.

Why do you want to know my name?

The man replied, and then he blessed Jacob there.

Never tells him his name.

I think I know his name.

So it well, many would say that this is an example of Jesus in the Old Testament.

You know, when this is this is God.

He's wrestling with God.

And it's interesting because he won't let go.

And God says, let go, let go.

And he's like, never, not until you bless me.

In fact, I heard a pastor talk about this story a little quick aside.

I Jacob's my least favorite character in the Bible.

I think he's the worst.

He's a terrible husband.

He's a terrible son.

He's a terrible brother.

He's a terrible father.

He's like a really bad father.

And I'm like, why in the world did this guy become the namesake of Israel?

He's the worst.

And I heard a pastor say once the thing about Jacob that's so interesting is that despite all of his flaws, he would rather have died holding on to God than have lived knowing he let go of him.

That's pretty powerful.

And so I guess Jacob's okay.

But he has his name changed.

And now he's not supplanter and deceiver and usurper.

Now he is one who wrestles with God.

It's a better name.

That's a new identity.

When God changes your name, he doesn't just change your outward perspective or perception rather in the minds of other people.

He's changing who you are.

We see him do this in other places.

We see Jesus do this actually with one of his disciples, Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say the Son of Man is?

Well, they replied, Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.

And then he asked them, But who do you say I am?

Simon, Peter, at this point in time, his name is just Simon, answered, You're the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus replied, You are blessed, Simon, son of John.

Because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you.

You did not learn this from any human being.

Now I say that you are Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it, and I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.

When you get the right answer in Jesus' group, you get like big time rewards, man.

There had to be another disciple that was about to say that.

Like it was on their mind, and they're like hesitant, and then Peter beats them to it, and they hear that, and they're like, no, I was gonna say that.

You know?

Maybe that's it.

I don't know.

But Jesus doesn't just say, hey, Simon, good answer.

You're right.

He says, you know what?

This is a significant moment.

Because you've learned something from the Father, you've heard from God, and so I'm changing who you are from this moment on.

You are Peter, you are the rock that I'm gonna build this church on.

And there's a lot of debate about what that actually means.

Some would say that Peter himself, who really did become the leader of the early church, was like the foundational building block that the rest of the church is kind of built on, and there's there's a place for that.

Um it's the confession that Peter made here to say that that Jesus that the confession that Jesus is the Messiah, that is the actual rock, that's the foundation that everything is built on.

That's it's a powerful thought.

But no matter what, something significant happens here in Simon's life, and he's never the same person after this.

So much so that he has a new name.

Sometimes Jesus doesn't change someone's name, but he still changes their identity.

There's a man named Zacchaeus, and he is selfish.

He steals money from people, he's he's a criminal, really.

I mean, he's just he's the worst.

And Jesus invites himself to have dinner at Zacchaeus' house, and everyone's upset because they see Zacchaeus as a as this notorious sinner.

And they talk about, I can't believe Jesus went to have dinner with Zacchaeus.

But that one dinner changed Zacchaeus's life, and he went from being this incredibly selfish, greedy person who took from others to the most generous person anyone had known.

As far as we know, he still had the same name, but he wasn't the same person.

Because we have a God who can change who you are.

He can change your identity.

He's not just the God who sees you, he's the God who knows you.

And he knows you in a way that you can't even know yourself.

I want to take a few minutes and just explore this idea.

Because this concept of God changing Abram to Abraham, it is God saying, I will not let you settle for who you think you are.

Because I know who you're meant to be.

And I'm gonna make sure that you become who you're meant to be.

So I'm changing your name so that you know that something big is still going to happen in your life.

Like it's it's a big deal.

God is changing an identity because he knows something about Abraham that Abraham doesn't know about himself.

God knows you.

He knows your past.

For some of us, we're like, I know.

I wish he didn't.

And I've said this before, I've probably said this too many times, but it's one of my favorite thoughts.

I love the fact that God knows us completely and loves us.

We usually love people because we don't know them that well.

That's the truth.

I love that guy.

Then you learn something.

I don't love that guy as much as I did.

God loves us and he's not ignorant about anything, he knows everything in your past.

And he loves you.

God knows you, he knows your past.

We see this story in John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

It says Jesus is uh in Samaria, which is kind of a place he's not supposed to be.

It's not a place that the Jewish people really went.

And he's having a conversation at a well with a woman, a woman whose name we don't know.

And he's talking about water, but he's not really talking about water.

This is how Jesus is a lot.

Like what he's talking about is what he's talking about, but not.

He's talking about the spirit and the deepest parts of God.

And so he says to this woman, anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.

But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again.

It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.

Please, sir, the woman said, Give me this water.

Then I'll never be thirsty again, and I won't have to come here to get water.

Go and get your husband, Jesus told her.

Jesus said, You're right.

You don't have a husband.

For you've had five husbands, and you're not even married to the man you're living with now.

You certainly spoke the truth.

Ooh.

Now, depending on the look in his eyes and the tone that he took, this could be a moment of extreme judgment.

Where Jesus is making this woman feel small.

But that is not what's happening.

It's just not.

Because after this moment, Jesus reveals to her who he is.

She actually becomes the very first person to ever hear Jesus say, I'm the Messiah.

And she becomes basically like the first missionary.

She runs into her town, and this is what she says in verse 39.

Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, He told me everything I ever did.

You gotta meet this guy.

He knows everything.

He knows everything about me.

I think Jesus looked at her and told her all the things about her, all the things that filled her with shame.

And I think she looked at him in the eye and saw a love that she had never experienced once in her life, and she knew that even though, yes, those things were true, in his eyes, that is not who she was.

But make no make no mistake, Jesus knows you.

God know he knows your past.

I mean, you can't hide it.

You can't that's someone with the past.

Uh maybe a record.

I don't know, I'm just joking.

There was no amen there, so we're good.

Um, like look, we all have a past.

We try to hide it, or at the very least, we're true, we we have to be wise about who we share what with, but you don't have to hide anything with God.

Think about that.

Think about the beauty of that.

You don't have to hide anything, you don't have to obscure, you don't have to spin, you don't have to make up anything, or you just be like, yep, this is me.

And he loves you.

He knows everything about you, he knows your past.

He knows who you are right now.

There's a story in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

It says Philip went to look for Nathaniel and told him, We found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about.

His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.

This is early in Jesus' ministry.

Philip's talking to his friend Nathaniel about the Messiah.

Like, you gotta come meet him.

It's him.

Nathanael says, Nazareth?

Can anything good come from Nazareth?

Come and see for yourself, Philip replied.

As they approached, Jesus said, Now here's a genuine son of Israel, a man of complete integrity.

How do you know about me, Nathaniel asked?

And Jesus replied, I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.

Then Nathaniel exclaimed, Rabbi, you are the son of God, the king of Israel.

You're like, Whoa, what happened?

And we don't know.

But it's pretty clear that something significant had just taken place for Nathaniel under a fig tree.

And it was something private.

And there have been a lot of depictions of it.

In fact, the chosen, if you watch that show, did a really cool depiction of that, trying to kind of paint that picture.

But the idea would be that perhaps Nathaniel was having a time of deep prayer.

He's sitting under a fig tree, that was very common in their day.

He's in a private place, he's crying out to God, something's going on in his life, and here's Jesus, and Jesus says, Ah, this is a true man of Israel, this is a true follower of God.

And Nathaniel's like, You don't even know me.

He goes, Yeah, I saw you under the fig tree.

And it must have been something so personal and profound and private that Nathaniel's eyes get wide open and he says, You're the Messiah.

I mean, Jesus knows you right now.

He knows exactly what you're going through.

He knows exactly what you're feeling, whatever pain you're going through right now, he knows it.

And he loves you.

He doesn't just see you, he knows you.

He knows your heart.

He knows your struggles.

He knows those areas in life that have you tripped up.

He knows those things that stress you out and cause you concern and worry.

He knows exactly who you are.

He knows where you are right now, and he has compassion on that.

It's a beautiful thing.

But here's where it gets really crazy, and this is what we see in Abraham's story is that he doesn't just know where you've been and where you are, he knows who you're going to be.

He knows where you are going.

Worship team, you guys can make your way up as we uh we wrap up.

Judges chapter 6.

Judges 6 · chapter mention

Uh, this is a time in Israel where Israel is being oppressed by a nation called Midian.

There's a lot of it's in the book of Judges.

There's Amorites and Midianites, and they're always attacking Israel.

And at this point in time, the Midianites have the upper hand, and Gideon is this man from an unimportant family, and he's actually hiding.

We see this in Judges chapter 6.

Judges 6 · chapter mention

It says, The angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, the clan of Abbezer.

And Gideon, son of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press.

That is not where you threshed wheat.

You threshed wheat on a threshing floor out in the open.

Winepresses were built into the ground, so he's hiding underground, trying to thresh some wheat to eat, because he doesn't want to be seen by Midianites and be attacked.

This is a man who's hiding.

And the angel of the Lord says, Mighty hero.

The Lord is with you.

And if you go on reading, Gideon argues with this man that I am not a mighty hero.

Wrong guy.

That happens a lot in the Bible, by the way.

A lot of people are like, nope, you got the wrong person.

Well, Gideon is a mighty hero, he just doesn't know it yet.

You go on to read the story, Gideon becomes the entire leader of the people of Israel.

They said the angel of the Lord, God, he is he is speaking to Gideon not as who he is, but who he will be.

Now, you you may know your past, and you may know your present, but you do not know your future.

You do not know who you will be.

But God does.

Think about that.

God knows who you're going to become.

And when he speaks to you, when he interacts with you, he's not just talking to you as you are and as you have been.

He's talking to you, he's leading you, guiding you, investing in you as who you are becoming.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says, all who have given their lives to Jesus.

It says, anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.

The old life is gone and a new life has begun.

If you have given your life to Jesus, a new life has begun inside of you.

And man, is it frustrating sometimes?

Because there's two lives and they fight.

But there's a new you.

There's a new you that you haven't even become yet.

And it's better, wiser, more gentle.

It's a you that is more like him and less like the you that you once were.

And he knows, he knows the completion of that.

And when Jesus called Simon Peter, Peter was not a rock.

I mean, you read the rest of the gospels, and you wouldn't describe Peter as just this steadfast rock who's stable in all of his ways and just steady.

And man, you can depend on Peter.

No, no, Peter is, he wavers.

He's, I mean, he's the one that Jesus corrects the most.

Right after, by the way, right after Jesus calls him Peter, you're the rock, like the very next time he talks to him, he says, Get behind me, Satan.

Like that's Peter, who.

But by the end of Peter's life, the same, the same Peter who was terrified at the thought of being arrested when Jesus got arrested and denied that he even knew Jesus three times, that same Peter would be crucified and asked to be crucified upside down because he didn't see himself as worthy of being crucified in the same manner as his Savior.

He didn't run from a cross, he actually took upon himself a more painful version of the cross.

He was a different person.

It took him a long time to go from being Simon to being Peter, but Jesus knew who he was going to be, and so he named him that on the front end.

God didn't wait for Abraham to have another child before he changed his name.

He named him Abraham, Father of Nations, on the front end.

I'm telling you, God knows you, he knows who you are, he knows who you will be, and when he interacts with you, the love that he has for you, the gentleness that he has, that forgiveness that he has that sometimes we feel like is completely undeserved, and it is, we have to remember that while that may be true, he is not just interacting with who you are and who you've been, he's interacting with the version of you that he knows you will become when that new life inside of you reaches its completion.

He sees you and knows you for who you will one day be.

And that's really important to me.

And if you'll permit me, if we can go like three minutes late, 1120 is when we end, if you didn't know.

Um and it's 1120.

My bad.

It's important to me.

I don't always like, I don't like who I've been.

There's a lot of stories in my past that I ugh.

And there's people from my past that if they walked through this store, I would be like, I'm sorry.

I'd have to say that.

In fact, I did that one time to a guy who came here, and he was a manager at a sprint store before it became T-Mobile, and I had a really bad moment in that sprint store.

I was real mad at sprint, and he was the guy with the sprint shirt on, and it was a bad moment, and he walked through the doors, and he's like, You look familiar.

And I knew exactly who he was, and I was like, I was a huge jerk to you at sprint.

I'm the pastor of the church here.

Uh that was not my best moment, and it's funny.

I mean, I I have a way I just make everything into a joke, but I was really ashamed.

There's a lot of stuff in my past, and that's like a that's a light one.

There's a lot of things in my past I'm not proud of.

And there's things about me right now I don't like.

There's a lot of stuff about me and how I think and process and things that stress me out.

I'm like, ah, uh, that's not good.

I'm so glad that God doesn't just relate to me based on who I've been and who I am.

Can anyone else relate with that?

Like, I'm so glad.

I'm so glad that God sees a me that I'm not yet.

I'm so glad that God can love the version of me that I'm not yet.

That makes me really excited about the future.

God knows who you're gonna be.

And this is what's really crazy, and I promise we'll land the plane after this.

One day, he's gonna give you a new name.

I don't know if you know this or not.

Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

Jesus gives us this little hint, this little picture.

And shout out to Ben Sykes, who taught on this once here at his hands.

It was really incredible, and I've thought about it ever since.

Genesis 2, 17.

He says, I will give to each one a white stone.

He's talking about in heaven.

And there's a lot of significance to a white stone, we don't have time to go into it all, but there's this would have been meaningful to the people at the time.

I'll give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who received it.

One day, when you have become the person that you are not yet, one day when you're in eternity and this life is over, and this world has been made new, God is going to give you a name that will not be the name your parents gave you.

And some of you who are gonna go look up the meaning of your name will be glad about that.

No, I'm teasing.

But he's gonna give you a name that only you and he will understand.

How cool is that?

It'll be like God saying, This is who you've always been, this is who you've always been becoming, and this is who you are for all eternity, and I know it, and you know it, and no one knows it but us, but this is you.

That's crazy, and I cannot wait to learn my name.

Anyone with me?

Like, I can't wait to learn my name one day.

He is the God who knows us, he knows us.

Past, present, and future, and he sees it all as one and the same, and he loves us.

That is a really powerful thought.

I don't have some great practical thing to take away from that other than just be in awe of God and know that you're deeply known and understood and loved, and that's pretty great.

I'm gonna bask in that all week long.

But let's finish by taking Lord's Supper together as we reflect on this.

And if you're new, we do this every week, and there's tables with bread and juice at the back, and you can go grab them if you missed it on your way in.

We're gonna pray for this bread.

This represents the body of Jesus, the juice represents his blood.

Pray with me.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this bread.

This is a sign of your covenant with us.

This new covenant that we we enter into when we follow you, when we put our faith in you.

And Lord, it's not just a moment where we recognize something that you've done, it's also where our lives begin to change and we begin to become this version of us that we can never become without you.

We can never become who we're meant to be without your spirit at work within us, making us a new creation day by day, until one day it reaches such a culmination point that you even give us a new name.

One day this white piece of bread will be traded in for a white stone.

And we'll come into the fullness of our identity in you.

But until that day, Lord, we just bow at your feet and we thank you for who you are, and we recognize the sacrifice that you made for us and all that you've done so that we could have this life and this expectation of more.

You're the God who knows us and you know what we need, and we need you, Jesus.

And we pray this in your name.

Let's take the bread.

Now the juice.

You love us so much.

You held nothing back from us.

You never do.

This life that we have, this journey that we're on that's gonna end up with us becoming someone that we could never have been without you, Lord.

It starts here.

You paved the way.

You paid the price, Lord.

You've paved the way, you've made it all.

You've done you've done what we could not do.

And as we take this in, Lord, we thank you.

We receive your sacrifice, we put our trust and our faith in you, and we just we just ask, Lord, be patient with us as you are, as we keep growing and becoming who we are.

Help us see it, help us know you, and help us know ourselves better because of you.

And we pray this in your name.

Amen.