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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Reality Check

02 To Know God

03 Pride Versus Humility

04 The Role of the Bible

05 How to Study the Bible

I'm Cameron DeBasia and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Continuing now on our Growing in a Relationship with God lesson series.

This week we're on lesson 2 and the title is To Know God.

Pastor Howard, last week you kicked us off with the talking points on lesson 1 of the series and it was about the concept of a relationship with God.

And the importance, vital importance of a committed relationship.

That's right, a good relationship, committed relationship.

Well now we're transitioning to, alright, so if we know we need to have relationship, who is this God with whom we are to relate, right?

And that's to know God and that's what we're looking at this week.

All right, well you put the talking points together so why don't I pray and then you can walk us through those talking points, we'll dive in.

Father in heaven, we are so thankful that we can have a relationship with you and that you desire that relationship with us to walk with us and and to reveal yourself to us and you've given us the capacity of understanding you.

I pray Lord as we now study this week about more of who you are what you're like that your Holy Spirit would give us understanding in these things.

May you bless our classes that will be studying this across the world, that it would strengthen us in our personal walk with you, and that we would bear fruit to your glory that would be for the salvation of souls, we ask and pray it in Jesus' name.

Well, our lesson introduction is actually lifted directly from Sabbath afternoon this week, where it says, having a clear understanding of God's character is foundational to having a strong relationship with him.

That is why this week we will look carefully at what the Bible says about the character of God.

And that's really this in simple terms the whole lesson is about different attributes or facets of the character of God.

And the challenge that I ran into as I just introduced this, as I started reading it and I went through the lesson is that there's so much you could, like what are you studying this week?

So I mean we're gonna cover his sovereignty, his power, his love, his mercy, his communion with us.

Well I'm trying to preface that there's 100 different ways you could go with this lesson and you're not gonna get to the end and be like, hey good, now I understand the fully the character of God.

So I would encourage teachers to calm down about trying to describe God.

There's so much you could do in this lesson that I would encourage you to, I don't know how to say, reinterpret the lesson or draw out those aspects that you want to highlight, but don't think you're going to be able to put your arms around everything that's connected to the character of God in 1 lesson.

But distill it down to maybe maybe say 3 points.

Well, that's what we've done here, Pastor Howard.

Talking point number 1, God wants to be known and to be loved.

This comes primarily from Sunday but the first thing we need to know about God is that he he could be hidden but he's chosen to make himself known, he's put himself in a position to have a relationship and we'll dive into that more.

Talking point number 2, God reveals himself in his works, his word, and in his son and that was gonna be the largest block of the lesson, at least coming from the most part, Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but honestly the largest part is coming to talking point number 3, where I lifted this quote from the Spirit of Prophecy where we see that to know God is to love him.

That with this knowledge of God, as we start to understand his power, of his greatness, of his love, all of this holiness, that the knowledge of God draws out the prerequisite desire to have that relationship with God.

So this is all, again, prelude to the overarching theme of a relationship with God, but a knowledge of God leads to a relationship with God.

In fact, our memory verse says, and this is life eternal that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." So, okay, God wants to be known and to be loved.

Now, when we talk about God, we're talking about something that is so infinite, so big, so distinct from our limited, created, finite perspective that it's even hard to put language or process this, but the Bible writers seem to deal with this too.

I put it in the notes that God's greatness in glory is beyond our comprehension, So we're standing at the edge of something we cannot possibly imagine.

The other day I did a staff worship in the office and I was talking about the difference between, between, you know, good, between 1001 million and 1000000001 trillion, because somebody is about to become the world's first trillionaire.

We just kind of roll off these terms but when you think about it in terms of time like if I'm not mistaken 1000000 seconds is like 16 minutes or something like that 1000000000 seconds is 30 years but 1000000000000 seconds is like 31, 000 years.

It's just so big, and when we talk about, we just blithely say things like, you know, God's big.

Like, it's just too big to comprehend, and Bible writers seem to recognize.

Well, I was just going to say also that even this verse, God wants to be known and to be loved, 1 of the challenges is even when we discuss it we interpret it by oftentimes by a carnal understanding.

So for example, we talked about this last week.

You can read that God wants to be known and to be loved and he's got this forlorn, I just wish people would love me, and the reason he wants to be known and loved is because that is the essence, Like this is eternal life that they may know you.

This is what transforms us and helps us to become the people that He created us to be and everything else is to know Him.

So for us, you know, our tendency is I want people to like me and so we can put that on God and we say, well, God wants to be liked too, but it's not for the same reason.

So even when we talk about the nature of it, it's just different.

Well, I'm thinking of Job 11, for example, verse 7 through 9.

Can you search out the deep things of God?

Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?

Their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea, you know, and there are many passages in the scriptures, I think you're looking 1 up real quick.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So the Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God is not just farther away, but he's bigger, broader, deeper, higher.

We can't, with our finite minds, comprehend him.

Because of this great disparity, why is it that we know anything about him at all if he didn't choose to be known.

Like he could have, well I put it this way in the notes, God could have chosen not to communicate with his creation or he could have chosen not to communicate at all, to create at all.

He, and I don't understand God, but apparently there was a time when we weren't, and he decided that there needed to be a time where we were.

And so he created not just us, but the angels, the heavens, everything.

And so God choosing to create is some evidence of his character.

And then furthermore, to communicate with us.

He didn't just make Adam and then leave like a deist would think.

No, he came down in the cool of the day, was walking and talking with them.

We wanted to warn them about things and teach them about things, introduce them to new things.

And like Seth, he created the context for relationship in his universe.

And the fact that It's not like we all, like God, God's not a part of the creation.

We all just discovered ourselves in this place.

So the fact that God created at all and then communicates with us, especially after we rebelled against him, gives us insight about who he is.

Well, it's interesting also the communication.

There's so much that could be said, but the communication aspect.

I've heard complaints about the Bible that 1 of the challenges people have with the Bible is just complicated and in places seems contradictory and this and that.

Like it should be super simple to read and yet at the same time you're talking about this is the mind of God.

Like you're meeting with the mind of the infinite God and you're expecting it to be like Dick and Jane or I don't know if anybody remembers that but you know some primary reader.

No it's going to be that's 1 of the evidences.

Yeah and you think about God trying to communicate but he's communicating through fallen humanity but he's communicating these immense concepts and then the Holy Spirit has to help us understand.

All of that speaks to the levels of potential, I don't want to say complexity, God helps us to understand but you're not gonna, we're not gonna sit in this talking points and be done with it and say, okay we got that 1.

Series

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

02 To Know God

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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