Is It Just Me? | God Knows You | Pastor Alex Himaya

little bit of the technology Well, good morning church. So good to be with you today. I want us to pray together before we jump in. If you're able at your campus, would you just take a knee there at your seat? If not, just bow your heart before the Lord. And I want you in your own words to pray, uh, what I call a prayer of expectation and a prayer of anticipation. Would you, uh, tell the Lord that you expect him to do something today, to speak to you today and that you have every reason to anticipate his ministry in your heart and in your life today. And would you ask him to take the living word of God, the written word of God and, and by his spirit, apply it to your life, to your situation, to your heart and ask him to remove the veil that you may see him for who he is, receive him for who he is and that you may allow him to show you who you are today. We receive that. We bless you in Jesus name we pray and together we all say, uh, amen and amen. As we begin today, let me ask you this question. You don't need to show your hands, but have you ever heard somebody share their experience and your initial thought is that's not my experience or that's not the way I see it or the way that I feel about it. Let me ask you another question. What is it that you do in those moments? Because usually what we do is we keep our mouth closed, right? We don't, we don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to be exposed, but, but on the inside we're screaming, is it just me? And if you have ever wondered why it appears that you don't experience God and the way that somebody else, uh, does, and maybe that somebody else is somebody you look up to or somebody that you think is closer to God than you are and you wonder, is it just me or is everybody else experiencing something that I'm not?

Is it really true that God sees us and God hears us and God knows us? And here's the truth today. Listen, this can be your experience. You can be the very one who God speaks to and you can see God's hand moving in your life all around your life and, and through your life. And it's not a trick and it's not a strategy. It simply comes down to this. Do you know God? That word no, it is a loaded, uh, word that, that word no in the Bible means more than just learning some fact or taking in some information. In fact, the Bible word is not just informational, it's transformational. And I want us to begin today where we began each of the sermons in this series and that conversation in Exodus that God had with Moses at a burning bush where God showed up for him in a big time way. Moses saw him, he saw the burning bush and then he had, he was compelled to go tell others about his experience. And what was it that God told him to tell the other people? Well, let's, let's look at it. Exodus chapter three and verse seven. He says, I have certainly seen, say seen. We talked about the fact that God sees us. He's seen the oppression of his people in Egypt. I have heard, say heard. We talked about that last week, the cries of distress because of the harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware, say aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians. This word aware means to literally to know he's saying, I know you, I'm not just aware of your existence, but I'm very acquainted with you. I know you. And this word in the Hebrew language is the word yada.

Say yada. You ever heard somebody say yada, yada, yada, right? Anyone remember that Seinfeld episode, right? My mind goes there immediately, right? And did you watch Seinfeld? Anybody watch Seinfeld? That'll date you for sure, right? In fact, last summer, my 22-year-old boy found Seinfeld on Netflix, and he called me in the middle of the day and said, dad, I found this amazing show buried in the archives of Netflix. Have you ever heard of a guy named Jerry Seinfeld? And I'm like, I'm fully aware, son, right? But we used to watch it. That was when you had to schedule watching TV, right? You remember Thursday nights was Friends, Seinfeld, ER. That was date night, right? But you got to know them, right? Today, you can binge watch the whole thing. Back then, we grew up with the characters, and you got to know them. But that episode, the episode called Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, you know what I mean, right? When I say that, many of you raised your hands that you watched it, you're tracking with me. I don't even have to say what that was about. And I just say yadda, right? And you know what I'm talking about. But that Hebrew word yadda probably was the inspiration

for that episode, because what the Hebrew word yadda means is to know intimately. That's what it means, that I don't just know you from a distance, but I have up-close knowledge, personal knowledge. Genesis 4-1 uses that very same word to talk about how Adam knew, yadda'd, his wife Eve, and she got pregnant. You know what I'm saying, right? They got together, yadda, yadda, yadda, and Cain was born, right? But when God yadda's us, it's more than a surface relationship. It's deeper than even a marriage relationship, and it applies to your entire life and to you as a whole person. Look at how David explained this in Psalm 139. Oh Lord, you have examined my heart and yadda everything about me. You yadda when I sit down or stand up. You yadda my thoughts. Even when I'm far away, you see me when I travel, when I rest at home, you yadda everything I do. See, even in this passage, it's not just yadda, yadda, yadda, it's yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, right? And your knowledge, David says, encompasses my whole life, meaning what? That there is nothing outside God's knowledge, right? And on the one hand, that's very, very, very comforting, isn't it, to know that someone actually gets you,

that God understands you, because all of us, at one point, and probably multiple points in our lives, we feel awkward, and we feel like we don't really fit in, and God says, no, no, no, I know you. I know all about you, right? So on the one hand, it's comforting. On the other hand, it can be a little scary. Wait, wait, wait, God knows me. He knows everything about me. He knows what I did last night. He knows what I was thinking and worried about at 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning. He knows what I want to do, because we want to hide that part of our lives, don't we? And for many of us, there are parts of our lives that we want to keep hidden, not just from others, but from God, right? And we want to go in this little room and shut the door behind us and put a sign on the door that says, keep out. But hear me, that type of thinking is filled with shame. That type of thinking is covered with guilt, and there is no freedom in it. Instead, when you realize God already knows, and he loves you any way, that's where true freedom begins. And look at what David says about that type of knowledge a few verses later in verse six. He says, such knowledge is to, say it,

wonderful for me. Knowing that God knows everything about us, according to David, is overwhelming. That word wonderful or full of wonder, it means beyond our ability to know. What God knows is not just what we know or can know, it's beyond what we can know, right? Not just beyond what we do know. And listen, it's not about knowledge of stuff. God has all of that. For instance, many of you have all kinds of knowledge, right, and it would be amazing to know all the knowledge just in one of our worship centers today. Some of you know a lot about math, but you're good at calculus and trigonometry, and you can do equations in your head. Some of you know science, and some of you know history. You got a head full of facts. You can rattle off dates and names and all kinds of information. Some of you know specific things for your job, right? You're expected to know your company's computer system or things about the market or the products, right? Stuff the rest of us don't know. Some of you are really good at trivia. I don't know if you've ever been to a trivia night. When we took our kids to college this past fall, we went to this little pub to get a hamburger, and lo and behold, that night was trivia night. And every table competed against every other table.

I will have you know, we not just won, we killed everybody in that whole pub, right? Like you would be proud. Out of your past but but here was the fact the subjects one of the four of us at our table knew each of the subjects Not one of us knew any more than one of the subjects, but collectively we were a genius That night and some of you are like that right, you know sports and movies You're the type of person. We all want to talk to a community group because you you know a little bit about Everything but here's what I want you to hear today. God knows all of that He knows all math all science all history He knows all computers all markets all medicine, right? He knows about sports and entertainment and all trivia he knows it all and His ability to know goes way beyond our ability to know and the best thing is this he knows you He knows what you like and what you don't like. He knows your pet peeves He knows when you're gonna flip out in traffic or when you're gonna be chill, right? He knows your best talents and your worst behaviors, but but listen, even though he knows the worst about you. He still loves you Romans 5 8 says it this way that while we were sinners Christ died for us meaning what while we were still enemies for God He loved us now. Look though. It's one thing to say God loves you Because in our hearts if we're honest we think well he has to He made me right he sort of obligated to love me and after all The Bible says God is love and if he is love then he has to love me But but I don't want to just tell you today that God knows you and loves you I want to tell you today that God knows you and likes you and He likes what he sees in you and of course he sees the bad but he sees the good too In fact, he doesn't just see the good he put it there and sometimes we just want someone to like us Don't we we want someone who wants to be around us? That's not going to Reject us and if in the Hebrew mindset that the word no is about intimate knowledge Then the definition we've been working with for about 20 years around here of

Intimacy makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it? In fact, let me remind you of my definition of intimacy. It is intimacy is knowing and being known with no fear of Rejection in other words God knows you and he won't reject you He knows all about you and he likes you he would choose to talk to you at the party If you texted him, he takes you right back If you wanted to hang out with him, he'd be down with that He loves you and he likes you and God knows you and he knows the stuff that makes you you in fact He's the one who put those things there. It was his Decision look at this verse in Jeremiah chapter 1 I knew you before I Formed you in your mother's womb before you were born. I set you apart. He not only knows what makes you different He made it He's declaring I'm the one who formed you and knit you together and the way that he Wanted and that's what he told this guy Jeremiah who clearly felt lonely in fact When I read Jeremiah, I'm like he needs a counselor right and this guy always seemed down and always seemed depressed He could have played sadness in the movie inside out, right? He had that personality, but but there's no wonder people are after him all the time, right? I think he was just tired of being shot at all the time And when Jeremiah was at his lowest when he thought no one gets him God shows up and says this amazing verse to him in chapter 29 verse 11 for I yada The plans I have for you says the Lord They are plans for good and not for disaster to give you a future and to give you a hope say amen God knows you he knows your past. He knows your present. He knows your future. He knows what's best for you He knows what's just ahead and he is determined to make it the best and over in the New Testament It's not just Old Testament that this truth, you know shows up in it shows up in the New Testament as well In fact, if you got your Bible turn to John 4 and let's go to this story, right? Because he knows you right and he wants what's best for you and in this story in John 4 Jesus is gonna leave Judea around Jerusalem

He's gonna go back home to Galilee what where he is from and there are multiple routes that you could take But the most frequently route taken for Jewish people is to go all the way around Samaria up to Galilee But John tells us that Jesus said I have to go through Samaria in other words He knew there was a reason to to go through Samaria. And he enters this town called Sychar, and he sends his disciples on into town to get some food. Now let's look at it together. In John chapter four and verse six. Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well at noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus said to her, please give me a drink. Now there's a lot to unpack in just these two verses, and we'll come back to it in a moment, but before we go any further, I want you to see a couple of things. Number one, I want you to see it's noontime. The middle of the day, the hottest part of the day, which is not the traditional time of day to go to the well and get water, especially if you are a woman. And that's the other thing I want you to see is that this is a woman, and it's not just a woman, it's a Samaritan woman. And that's huge in that day. In fact, look at verse eight. The woman was surprised, and she said to Jesus, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. These two do not get along.

Why are you asking me for a drink? There's a huge, huge feud between Jewish people and Samaritan people in that day, like the Hatfields and McCoys. And most of you didn't get that because you're too young to know that reference, right? But it's like OU and Texas, right? Or the Red Sox and the Yankees, or the difference between iPhone users and Android users. It's how coffee snobs feel when the rest of us get in the Starbucks line. And here's the deal with Jewish people. Just to give you a quote that would summarize how they felt about one another. A religious rabbi, a Jewish rabbi named Eliezer is quoted as saying this. Eating Samaritan bread is the same thing as eating pork. In other words, it wasn't kosher. It is unclean and it will make you unclean. But notice in this passage, Jesus sends his boy into a Samaritan town and tells them to go get him some Samaritan bread. But not only is this woman a Samaritan, she is a Samaritan woman, which is even worse in that day. At least according to the Jewish word of the day and the tradition of the day, they had all of these rumors about Samaritan women. And let's just say these rumors were about, they're ridiculous actually when you hear them, but they're about how unclean these women are.

And she had heard that, that that's how the Jewish people viewed Samaritan women. And so she says, Jesus, I'm a Samaritan woman. You know what that means, Jesus. You know what that means. Because she had heard and she knew what they thought. And so she's looking at him saying, you know what that means, yada, yada, yada, right? And Jesus responds and look at what he says to her in verse 10. If you only knew. Look at your neighbor and say, if you only knew. If you only knew the gift, what a beautiful word, that God has for you and who it is that you are speaking to, you would ask me and I would give you living water. In other words, if you knew what I know, then everything would change for you and you would finally understand. And look, church, most problems that we deal with in our lives come down to perception, right? How we see things, how we think about things, what it is that we know about things. And we can only, all of us can only see and understand through a very limited scope. But God sees the whole field, right? He sees the beginning of your lives and the end of your lives. He sees the start and the finish of your current situation. We get stuck in this 2D vision

of what's going on right now in our lives, but he has bigger than 4D vision of all of it, why? Because he can see backwards and forwards, left and right, up and down, and all around. And he not only sees it, he can understand it and grasp all of it. We have this little viewfinder and we're so, so, so, so limited. And the Samaritan woman responds to Jesus in a very literal way. Look at what she says. But sir, you don't have a rope or a bucket. She said, this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? In other words, she thinks she knows what this conversation is about. But she's actually, as we'll see in a moment, missed the whole point of what Jesus is saying. And we do the exact same thing, don't we? We get stuck in our own way. We've experienced something this way, and therefore we think all of life is this way. My ex treated me that way. There must be something about me. My old boss said this once about me, it must be true. An unloving adult or parent one time said, yada, yada, yada, and therefore I should wear this badge of shame for the rest of my life. But Jesus wants this woman to know the truth. He wants her to grasp it and to really get it and to know herself the way that he knows her.

So he begins with a theological statement. You can write that in the margin of this sentence, a theological statement. You'll see it in a moment. Jesus replied, 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. What on earth is Jesus talking about? He's talking about the Holy Spirit. Just a few chapters later in chapter seven, what Jesus says is those who drink this water from within them and their inmost being will flow a river of living water. And John goes on to add that Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus is offering this woman the Holy Spirit. He's offering her real life and living water and she thinks he's just talking about her meeting a physical need, but he needs her to know that she has a need that is deeper than the need she sees. Look at verse 15. She said, please, sir, give me this water and then I will never be thirsty again. I won't have to come here to get water. And Jesus says, go get your husband. This is Jesus evangelism strategy. It's kind of crazy actually, but because look at what she says, I don't have a husband. The woman replied, Jesus said, you're right. You don't have a husband for you've had five husbands and you aren't even married to the one you are living with now. Jesus reads her whole history to her in one sentence. He lays it all out and he knows her and he knows stuff that others may not know. He knows every part of her that she knows and probably even regrets. And by the way, in the last year, I've read some commentary on this messianic Jewish commentary that presented something I've never ever heard or thought of from a Jewish perspective. And what these writers said is the context of this passage actually communicates that

this woman was not divorced five times. She was widowed five times. And that the man she's living with now is an uncle and is not even a love interest. The point is, we don't know for sure, but we certainly read it one way, didn't we? It was left vague altogether for us on purpose. But what we certainly know is this woman has a whole lot of shame in and on her life. And whether that's from shacking up with five different men or from being widowed that many times in that culture, it didn't matter. They both led to shame. And what Jesus does is know her and not just know her, but release her from all of that shame. This past January, we went to this well. When the group of us went to Israel, we went to the well, it's known as Jacob's Well. It is a very, very deep well. It's actually the very first time that I've gotten to go to this place. And one of the things I do on the trip is I ask the people that are going, how many of you would like to share a devotion at one of these places? And if they say yes, then I give them the context and the content and the page of information and I say, study this and get ready for this. And people get ready. And so I don't do all of the devotions, just the ones I want to at this stage in the game. And so I give out some devotions and people raise their hand. And this last year, a lady named Brenda Black said, I want to do it. And she was given this assignment. And it was amazing because we went to that moment and it became a God moment. And not just for the group, but for her. And I've asked her to come today and just to share a little bit about that day, if she would, would you put your hands together and welcome Brenda Black. Well, just like Jesus was waiting there for the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well, he was also waiting there for me.

The Samaritan woman didn't only come to the well with an empty jug. She also came to the well with the weight of her shame. And so did I. God is so strategic because he divinely made a way for me to go to Israel. You know, he knows us. He knows our heart's desires. He took me to that. region, that land of Samaria, and to Jacob's well, which was the first time that Battle Creek had ever been there, to meet with me and to set me free. And sure enough, standing at that well, man, I just see it. I could see where Jesus was sitting, waiting for that woman. And I knew that he was also sitting there waiting for me. I could hear his tone of love and acceptance connecting with my worth, just like he did hers, and calling me up into truth. The acronym for shame is self-hatred at my expense, or should have already mastered, should have already mastered everything. Later that evening at the dinner table, a very large dinner table, Pastor Alex turned and in front of everyone said, hey Brenda, tell us your story. Okay, I took a deep breath. I began to share, and when I was finished, Pastor Alex turned and looked at me, and it was as if the axe was laid to the root of my shame when he said, I don't hear any shame in that. I was set free. I left my shame at that well. So then it was time to come home. I came home. I took my fake wedding ring off because I was set free from the shame of divorce and abandonment. See, as a minister and as a Christian therapist who works really hard to set marriages free, I'd carried that feeling that this should have never happened to me. And I know many of you feel the same way. You know, naming our shame and making it clear, just releasing it, you know, let's go. It has to release, the enemy has to release the lie attached to that when you do that. John 8 32 says, it is his truth that sets us free. So before, before I came home, I was able to have a ring made in Israel, and it's engraved in Hebrew, I am his and you are mine. Isaiah 43 1 says, the Lord who formed you, who made you, he says, fear not for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name.

You are mine. He set her free 2000 years ago. He set me free three months ago and he can set you free too in Jesus name. She has a gift and she and watching that take place in that place where Jesus set a Samaritan woman free 2000 years ago. He still does it sometimes in that place in that very same well and he did 33 months ago and maybe that well is right here for you today. And what I want to point out is that Jesus saw her and knew her and he didn't just see her and know her. He saw her and knew her and loved her and he didn't just love her. He liked her. And what you may not realize is that in that day, because of the stigma on Samaritan people, they were not allowed or permitted to give testimony in court because they were not trustworthy. But here you have this woman given testimony to Jesus. And by the way, all through the gospels, there's only a handful of people who give testimony to Jesus while he is still alive. And John goes out of his way to include this woman's testimony as one of a handful of testimonies to who Jesus is during his lifetime. And she goes home to the town. Remember, she left the water jug there. The very thing she came for and with, she left it there, went back to the town and told all the people in the town, come, come, come. You have to come meet this guy. He told me everything I've ever done. Look at what this verse says. Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because of this woman's testimony. But because Jesus knew her, yada'd her, she wanted to yada him. She wanted to know him and she wanted others to know him also. Listen, here's the truth. We all already know that God knows everything. Anyone who knows anything about God. Knows that God knows everything. That's not the hard part. The hard part is to realize that God knows everything and still confess, and he loves me. But he doesn't just love you, he likes you. And even when you don't like yourself, he likes you. He likes you when you're at your worst. He likes you when you're down on yourself.

He likes you enough to spend time with you. And here's what happens, and this is the reason I talk about it all the time, about spending time with Jesus, I cannot spend time with Jesus for you. I can't read your Bible for you. I can't walk in intimacy with Jesus for you. But when you do, and when you spend time with him, what happens is not just informational, it's transformational. Because when you do it long enough, you start to like you too. You start to see the you that he sees. You start to know what he knows, and you start to realize why he made you the way that you are. And you start to accept that. And of course, you let him work on the stuff that gets in the way of that. You let him have all of your sin, and you let him remove all of your shame so that you can be completely the person that he wants you to be. Every week, I ask the Lord, how do we land this plane, Lord? And this was the answer this week. Say a blessing over my kids. So would you just bow your heads, hold your hands open, and receive a blessing from the Lord today? Bless you. May God bless you and know you. May he reveal himself to you. May he reveal to you who you are.

How he shaped you and formed you. How he made you different and good. May you know his plans for you. And may you know that his plans are good and not bad. May he reveal to you that you have the spirit of the living God, the very spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, living inside of you. And that that same spirit testifies to what God says. And Lord, may your kids go today in the power of the Holy Spirit and be whole. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Would you thank the Lord for meeting with us today? Come on.