Experiencing God Lesson 7

Week 4

  1. What spoke to you? 
    1. How have your daily devotions been going? 
    2. Memory verse
      • John 14:21 (ESV) — 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
      • What Reality does this speak too. 
      • How should a church apply this to the way operate. 
  2. Review the Seven Realties 
    1. God is always at work around you.
    2. God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.
    3. God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.
    4. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
    5. God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
    6. You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
    7. You come to know God by experience as you obey Him, and He accomplishes His work through you.
  3. The Names of God 
    1. Knowing God 
      • You will never be satisfied merely to know about God.
      • In the Bible, God took the initiative to reveal Himself to people by experience.
      • Frequently, when God revealed Himself to individuals, He disclosed a new name to them or described Himself in a fresh way.
      • What name could you use to describe the God you experienced? 
      • Page 72 
  4. How do you get to know God? 
    1. Through a Love Relationship that is real and personal. 
      • How do you come to know God personally and intimately? 
        1. You could not have known God as Comforter in sorrow unless you had experienced His comfort during a time of sorrow. 
      • What are some of the many ways we can worship God through His names. 
        1. Psalm 8:1 (NIV) — 1 LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.
        2. See page 74 for a list 
    2. What is the purpose of God’s commands?
      • The mine field example 
      • God takes the initiative to pursue a love relationship with you.
      • John 14:21 (NIV) — 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
      • Obedience is the outward expression of your love for God.
      • The purpose of God’s commands is to give life and give it in an abundant way. 
      • Knowing God comes only through experience as He reveals Himself.
      • This “knowing” grows more intimately as we experience God more and more.
  5. God Invites You to Join Him
    1. The Key to God’s Will 
      • When you see the Father at work around you, that is your invitation to adjust your life to Him and join Him in that work.
      • The Bible is the record of God’s activity in the world.
      • In it He reveals Himself (His nature), His purposes and plans, and His ways. 
      • Not a book about people but about God. 
    2. Where have you noticed at work? 
      •  _________________________
      • How you answer this will reveal what you believe about God. 
      • To help us answer this question let’s look to Jesus as an example 
    3. The Father at work (laying the groundwork) 
      • John 5:16 (NIV) — 16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
      • John 5:17 (NIV) — 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
      • John 5:18 (NLT) — 18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.
      • John 5:19 (NLT) — 19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.
      • John 5:20 (NLT) — 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished. 
    4. Theological Note: 
      • Jesus is fully equal with the Father in nature and authority.
      • Jesus is also perfectly aligned to the Father in mission and purpose.
      • Jesus accomplishes nothing independently but only mirrors what he observes the Father doing. 
    5. Jesus’ Example
      • The Father has been working right up until now.
      • Now the Father has Me working.
      • I do nothing on My own initiative.
      • I watch to see what the Father is doing.
      • The Father loves Me.
      • He shows Me everything He is doing.
      • I do what I see the Father doing.
  6. Realty 3: God Invites You
    1. Two Factors to Seeing God at Work? 
      • You must live in an intimate love relationship with God.
      • God must take the initiative to open your spiritual eyes so you can see what He is doing.
    2. How to recognize God at work. 
      • Pray and watch to see what God does next. 
      • Make the connection.
      • Find out what God is already doing by asking probing questions.
        1. Probing Questions 
      • Listen to their needs, hurts, habits, hang ups.