Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Divine Peace: How God’s Omniscience Calms Your Fears

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Discover the awe-inspiring truth of God's omniscience! This powerful message explores how the all-knowing nature of God impacts our daily lives and faith. Delve into the infinite wisdom and intimate knowledge of our Creator and how it transforms our understanding of life and purpose.🔍 Key topics covered:Understanding God's omniscienceThe difference between human knowledge and divine wisdomHow God's all-knowing nature provides comfort and securityThe personal implications of being fully known by GodFinding freedom in God's complete understanding of usDive deep into Psalm 139 and uncover the beautiful truth that God knows you intimately - your actions, your heart, and even your darkest moments. Experience the transformative power of realizing that the God who knows all things knows and loves you personally.Whether you're a long-time believer or someone exploring faith, this message offers profound insights into the nature of God and His relationship with us. Don't miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of God's omniscience and its impact on your life!Watch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

Hey folks, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. Today is an exciting day because my book Consider the Lilies, Finding Perfect Peace in the Character of God is officially out. It's released and available wherever books are sold. I do want to thank all of those who have already ordered the book and I do pray that this book encourages you and comforts you and even challenges you to fix your faith on the changeless character of the God we call Father. We live in an anxious and chaotic world, and there are 14 chapters in the book, and seven of those chapters are focused on various attributes of God or elements of His character that prompt and compel us to trust God even in the midst of great pain, difficulty, and unknown.

And one of those attributes is the attribute of God's omniscience. That is something, it's a attribute of God that brought King David much comfort in the midst of his great worry and anxiety and despair. Well, without further ado, let's dial in. God is not just aware of our existence. He has, like a great archaeologist, observed every hidden nook and cranny of our heart. He knows us deeply, personally, exhaustively. And this is, I think, a paradigm shifting reality. He knows you as if there were no other people

on planet earth. All right, we're back in the Dial-In Podcast studio. I'm Hank Bowen, sitting here with Johnny Artivanis. Johnny, how are you doing right now? I'm doing really good. Why don't we review for one moment where we left off last episode was considering kind of the main idea that the characteristics of God are key in understanding the response to an anxious heart.

Yeah, the character God is the antidote to anxiety. And we looked at that with Job. When Job is really anxious, God doesn't respond to Job and say, let me tell you why this is happening. He responds to Job by saying, let me tell you who I am. This is a paradigm shifting reality that to the anxious, whether that be Elijah, Moses, David, Job, or to Jesus's anxious followers on the Sermon on the Mount. God doesn't explain their circumstances. He details and proclaims his character.

Now, part of the conversation today is that's great in theory, but what does that look like? And what are those different attributes or characteristics of God that provide us with any level of comfort and peace about the characteristics of God that provide us with any level of comfort and peace about the character of God. And that's why in the book, seven of the 14 chapters are highlighting different character, you know, characteristics of God that provide us with trust. Now, one of the things I do detail in the book is that we can never look at one attribute of God, um, in a way that's demarcated from another attribute of God, meaning that they're not pieces of a pie.

God has all of his attributes all of the time in full measure. He's not this percent this, this percent this. So God's love and his sovereignty always need to be wedded and tethered together. But in this episode, I'd love to talk about God's omniscience, if you know what that is. That's fantastic. Why don't you tell us all what omniscience means? God's omniscience is it comes from a compound Latin word, omnis, which means all, scantia, meaning knowledge. Of course. Obviously. Obviously. And it means that God is all-knowing. And maybe

we're familiar with that idea that God is all-knowing, but God's omniscience from a scriptural perspective means that everything God knows, he knows perfectly, and everything he knows perfectly, he knows exhaustively. He knows no thing and no person knows, he knows perfectly and everything he knows perfectly. He knows exhaustively. He knows no thing and no person better than he knows another thing or another person. He knows everything. Now this is helpful, I think, for someone that is anxious because in our anxiety, sometimes it's detaching and it's isolating.

Someone who's anxious might think, does God really understand my pain? Does he know what I'm going through? Does he understand the thoughts and worries that really understand my pain? Does he know what I'm going through? Does he understand the thoughts and worries that are in my mind? And the doctrine of God's omniscience is going to help us in this episode because it's going to show us exactly the level and the depth in which God knows us. Now, in the scripture, sometimes it's easier to talk about what God is not like so that we understand what he is like. And I think this will help us specifically as to talk about what God is not like so that we understand what he is like.

And I think this will help us specifically as we talk about God's omniscience. But for example, when I talk about explaining what God is not like, so we understand what he is like in the new Testament, it says, God cannot lie. Meaning so that you might understand the truthfulness of God. You need to understand that God cannot lie. There's not an ounce of deception in God. Now in the realm of God's omniscience, God's omniscience means that he never counts. He never discovers. He's never amazed. He's never surprised. He's never forgetting anything. He never learns. He never remembers because he never forgets. He's never reminded. He never misinterprets. He's never made more aware. He never receives counsel. In the book of Job, Job asked the question, can anyone teach God knowledge? What's

the answer? No, because God's omniscient. Isaiah asked the question, who has directed the spirit of the Lord and who has, as his counselor has informed him? What's the answer? Who can counsel God? No one, because God is omniscient. He knows everything. Now, again, I want to get to why this is important. You may be wondering, what does this have to do with my anxiety? Well, again, if you're anxious, you may lay awake at night wondering, who really gets what I'm going through? You know, you've walked through trials in your own life. I've walked through difficulty. Maybe some people are walking through insecurity. Does God really understand me?

Does he get me? I think, though, in order to talk about the intimacy of God's omniscience, we need to first talk about the immensity of God's omniscience, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. So there's two realities here you want to unpack. First, it's the lofty. We need to actually lift our gaze to the omniscient view of God's nature, God's nature as omniscient. And so maybe unpack his immensity for a minute.

Yeah, the immensity of God's omniscience. I think this is important because we need to understand everything God knows to a degree so that we can view as precious and intimate God's knowledge of us on a personal level. Under that banner of the immensity of God's knowledge, in the book I talk about God's knowledge of nature. And I think this is important. There are in the universe, according to I think space.com, one septillion stars. That's one with 24 zeros after it.

That's a lotillion stars. That's one with 24 zeros after it. That's a lot of stars. There's millions of galaxies and billions of stars in every single galaxy. And yet it says in Psalm 147, that God has placed each of those stars in the sky and he appoints and calls them by name. There are, you know, you have the stars there. There are 2 million baby bunnies born every single day in the UK alone. That took a wild turn. I was not expecting. Exactly. Well, I think it's interesting because you go, that's a random, it's a random animal, but in the book of Job, God is going to, and this is part of the, I think the major theme in Job, God responds to Job by detailing not only his sovereignty, but his omniscience.

Job, you're wondering why, and I'm going to tell you everything I know so that you can get an idea of who I am. And then God goes on to say, are you the one that helps the mother goat give birth on the mountain cliff? Are you the doula to the mother goats? I know when every single goat is born. I know when every single bunny is born. I know when the sparrow dies. Jesus says in Matthew 11, two sparrows are sold for a single penny. And I know and determine when each of them falls to the ground because God is placing. I used the stars and the animals because you have something that's big and shiny on the one hand, and then you have something small and fluffy on the other hand.

Significant falling stars, insignificant, a baby bunny, everything in between. That's a mirrorism in the scripture where you have, you know, night and day. It means everything in between big and shiny, small and fluffy, everything in between a sparrow that falls to the ground. God knows everything that is happening. Even when the lightning strikes, the lightning is the, it taps God on the shoulder. It says in Job and asked you, where should I strike? Because God is totally omniscient over everything in nature.

Not only is he omniscient over nature or knowledge over nature, but over nations, there are 17,313 people groups in the world. That's with a unique language, government, you know, political structure, culture. Yep. 17,000 people groups in the world. And God knows the happenings, the doings, the rulings in the existence of every single one of the people within those 17,000 people groups equally well. God is no more aware of Joe Biden than he is of Joe Schmo. He knows what's happening in the political climate of every single one of those nations. And we read the newspaper as it relates to the news in our world, in our country, but God knows what's happening in every other nation and every other people group, just as well as he knows what's happening in America.

Now I say this because I think sometimes people, I heard one pastor say, yeah, God's omniscience isn't talked about a whole lot because yeah, I get it. God knows everything and he knows the whole world. How does that really comfort me? But I actually think it's in coming to terms with the breadth and expanse of what God knows, that it becomes intimately precious to us, that he's also extremely mindful of us on an intimate level. And that's Psalm 8. David is looking up at the stars and he's looking up at the expanse of the galaxies. And he's saying, when I consider the heavens, the moon, and the stars that you have made,

what is man that you are mindful of him? He's saying, God, when I look up and I see every single star in the sky, what is man that you are even aware that I exist? But the reality of scripture is that God doesn't just know you exist. He is deeply mindful and watchful and caring over you. And that's why I want to talk about the intimacy of God's omniscience. And David talks about this reality in Psalm 139. I remember memorizing it as a young boy, but the chapter itself, Psalm 139, is David's magnum opus, if you could say, on the omniscience of God. And I just have a few different points we can make as we make our way through, if that's fair. Absolutely. And you said maybe, you pointed

out in Psalm 139, we can unpack the different elements of his intimacy. Is that right? Yeah, well, the intimacy of God's omniscience and kind of highlighting what exactly does God know? Okay, if he knows all people and all planets, how well can he actually know me? And that's the question I wanna ask.

In Psalm 139, verse one, we get to the reality that fundamentally God knows you. to ask. In Psalm 139 verse 1, we get to the reality that fundamentally God knows you. It says in Psalm 139 verse 1, oh Lord, you have searched me and you have known me. That word for searched, as it relates to the individual, is the same word that is used for Joshua and Caleb when they spy out the promised land. And David is saying that God is not just aware of our existence. He has, like a great archaeologist or a spy, observed every hidden nook and cranny of our heart. He knows us deeply, personally, exhaustively.

And this is, I think, a paradigm-shifting reality. He knows you as if there were no other people on planet earth. Sometimes we get this idea that God's up there. There's 8 billion people on planet earth. I'm one of the, the 8 billion, but you're not a number to God. You're known by name and he spied out your heart like a deep researcher. Or it's like the imagery. I just imagined growing up in a small town outside Chicago. I knew every side street in that small town. And not only that, but then as we got to the downtown alley, I knew every alley you could bike through. I knew every alley that you'd have to hop off your bike and you'd actually have to walk it around the corner because it would get

too tight around the handlebars and my cousin would go and eat it. And so, but it's that knowledge. It's the reality of something, you know, like the back of your hand. That's how God knows every part of your being. Yeah. And this is staggering. It's humbling and it's precious that the God who determines and names the stars has spied you out and knows you deeply. Secondly, God knows your actions. It says in verse two, you know, when I sit and when I rise, you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down. It's just this idea when it says, you know, when I sit down and when I rise up, that's the merism. When we read in

Genesis one, that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's something on two opposite spectrums. And then it includes everything in between. David says, you know, when I sit and when I rise, because there's not an action in our day, there's never any thing you've ever done. No thing you've ever said. You've never gone to any place that is unknown by God. He is, he is, it says in verse three, searching out your path and you're lying down and he's acquainted with all of your ways. So God knows your actions, but sometimes because we think, okay, God knows what I'm doing. It's so much far beyond that because actually third here, God knows your heart. In verse four, it says, even before a word is on my tongue, behold the Lord, you know it all together. Now,

why does God know her heart? And how does this, how do we get that from this verse? Well, Jesus says that out of the mouth, the heart speaks, the tongue is the window into our soul. And David says, before a word is on my tongue, oh Lord, you know it all together. Now, how does God know what we're going to say before we ever say it? Because he's not listening to our words to understand what we, who we are. He's reading and observing our heart. It says in 1 Samuel 16, 7, that God sees not as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at our heart. We are known by God, and he knows everything about us,

which means we never need to fear being misunderstood by God. We don't need to fear being overlooked by God when we approach him in prayer because we're getting mixed in with the great throng of those who are approaching the throne of grace. And David here is finding encouragement in this because he's anxious and isolated, and he knows that even when his stammering tongue cannot communicate to God all that he is feeling and all that he is thinking through and all that he is anxious about, he resigns his inability to the omniscience of God and says, Lord, Lord, you know, you know. Even before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, oh Lord.

I don't know if we often think about this, that our disposition, our thoughts, and our personality are known by God. Fifth year, if you just continue to make your way down Psalm 139, God knows our needs. In verse five, it says, you hem me in behind and before of you, you have laid your hand upon me. This idea of hemming us in is this idea of enveloping us and that God's hand is upon us. That's not a firm hand. It's a hand of protection and a hand of guidance. It's a hand of provision. It says in Philippians 4.19 that our God will supply all of our needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. The idea that God's hand is upon us is this mindful, watchful hand.

And even as we think through our anxiety, we may be anxious about familial, financial, relational, futuristic needs. But David says, you know my needs because you have hemmed me in like a baby almost behind him before you have laid your hand upon me. David is reflecting upon the reality that the God who knows 17,313 people groups, names every single star, is not indifferent to our needs, but is mindful of them. And it's Augustine who says, God is more anxious to bestow his blessings on us than we are to receive them because he's, he's put his hand upon us going down. And I go into this into greater detail in the book, but

I just talk about the reality that God also knows us in the dark. Uh, David says, where can I go from your spirit? Verse seven, where can I flee from your presence? If I send to heaven, you're there. If I make my bed and shield, you're there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell on the other most parts of the sea, even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night. Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day for darkness is as light to you. And that's a key idea, I think, to David, because he's reflecting on the reality that God is omnipresent here, meaning that he is everywhere, but only to go to explain his omniscience. I mean, the reason God knows me in every place

is not because he follows me there, but because he is already there. And David's reflecting on the fact that when there are times or seasons or moments in my life that are shrouded in darkness, God knows us even in that realm. I wrote here about Hagar. Hagar in Genesis 16 was the one who was isolated, and she's fearing for her life and she calls God El Roy because he's the God who sees. And it's just this reality that there are times, and you can reflect on this as well, Hank, that when you feel like you just feel canopied in life, like no

one really gets what I'm going through, but that God knows it's in the dark. And David says, even when I am in a spot that's pitch black in life, God knows me. Yeah. Well, and it's such, to your point, I think you've hit on this in prior episodes, but it's such a balm to an anxious or depressed spirit because in those times, by definition, we have these emotions that are overwhelming. I think the, I'd never thought about it like that, but the darkness analogy is such an appropriate one because you do feel like you're in the dark. You feel like you're isolated. And yet these scriptural truths, these bedrock granite realities are in many ways, the only thing you can hold on

to when it feels like that darkness is enveloping. Yeah. I mean, you think through it and you're wondering, does anybody grasp my pain, right? And David just says, God does. And it says elsewhere that he holds our tears in a bottle. He's not just mindful of the tears that you've shed. It says in Isaiah and in the Psalms that God actually preserves those tears. He collects them and he numbers your tears because he's so mindful of any pain you've walked through. And I think it's hitting me for maybe a fresh way, and maybe this is supremely obvious to everyone else, but there's an element of in moments of deep, deep anxiety, pain, or depression,

there is a true reality there that human relationships will fail because we're all fallen people. And so that's not to recuse people of doing things that are wrong to others. But I think part of this reality, to your point, why omniscience is so important to beholding the characteristics of God is that only a God who's omnipresent, omniscient, and more broadly, only a relationship that is held by another party that's omnipresent, omniscient, is the one that's never going to fail you in the darkest times, in the scariest moments of your life. But sorry, I don't mean to interrupt.

Keep going. Yeah, you just, the believer never has to wonder what God knows. And he knows everything. It was Augustine who said, oh, Lord, I am a puzzle and a mystery to myself. And God responds through his word and says, you're not a puzzle or a mystery to me. I know you. And if you keep on going through the passage and we can go on and on in verse 13, we find the reality that God knows our frame. David says in Psalm 119, verse 13, for you formed my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I sometimes ask the question, do you

struggle with your identity? Well, God knew you when you were one of 15 possible name options while you were still in your mother's womb. And if he knew you in your embryonic form, he knows you today. He knows your constitution. As individuals, we are often broken and confused and bent and prone to insecurity. But the reality of scripture is that God is not only sovereign over your frame. He knows you and he's the one who knit you together for his glory. And this is, I think, an amazing reality. And I think one of the things that we see here in the text is in verse 16, um, or yeah, in verse 16, all of my days, uh, were written in your book before one of them came to be. And that's just the reality that God knows our days. He knows our birthday and he knows

our death day. And he knows when it's just been one of those days. He's mindful of every single day, which means we don't have to be worried about, you know, that's why Paul says, whether we live or we die, we are the Lord's, because God knows and is totally sovereign over the exact amount of days you will live is predetermined and known by God. And one of the things that I just add here is that God not only knows all of these different things, he also knows best, meaning that you can never separate God's omniscience from his wisdom because you could have all of the knowledge in the world and still be a biblical fool. Because wisdom is not just having all the answers.

It's knowing how to apply the answers to the situation at hand. So you can never divorce God's omniscience from his wisdom, which is his skill in applying his knowledge with his sovereignty and his love. Now, there's some different responses to this, but. I was going to say, so maybe that would maybe be a good place to transition. I feel like you've been building a what God's omniscience means for our lives, both on a mensity scale, but on an intimacy scale. So maybe unpack for us, I think, what is a response to the omniscience of God? What is a son or daughter in the Lord's response to his character? Well, I wrote down

four responses. The first of which would be doxology, which would be just worship. David, midway through expounding on God's omniscience, burst forth with praise. I was kind of panicking. You were going to make me sing there for just a second. He says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. He's just saying the reality that the God who knows everything in existence also deeply knows me is too wonderful for me. It's too lofty for me. I have to just praise God. I think one of the things, I love this quote in Knowing God, you know, the impact that that book has had on me. J.I. Packer says this, what matters supremely, therefore, is not in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it, the fact that he knows me.

I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind, and all my knowledge on him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he knew me first and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is no moment when his eye is off of me or his attention distracted from me and no moment. Therefore, when his care falters, there is tremendous relief and knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic based on every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me so that no discovery can now disillusion him from me in the way that I am often so disillusioned about myself and quench his determination to bless me.

And I love that reality that God's love for you and for me is in conjunction with his omniscience, meaning that he's never fooled by the postured version of who I am. He knows the worst about me and he loves me the most. It also provides us with a level of security. David says in verse 18, when I awake, I'm still with you, meaning that this is the true security blanket for the children of God. They can go to bed and say, good night, Lord Jesus. You know everything about what's going on in my life. And when I wake up, you're going to know everything about my tomorrow, and I'll

leave tomorrow in your hands because each day has enough trouble of his own. There's also this level of freedom. As in the case with Job, the understanding that God knows everything frees you to be a child of God and stop trying to be God. It sounds funny to say, hey, you're free to not be God, but it's in coming to grips with the character of God that you go, you are able to resign who you are as his child and go, I don't know all the answers.

I don't know why this is happening, but I do know who does. And it's my omniscient, wise, loving, sovereign God. And then the last thing I just wrote is that it provides us with a level of trust. Our lives are shrouded in darkness. There are times we walk in the dark and yet we know one day that our omniscient God is going to bring clarity out of the confusion and he's going to bring light into the darkness. And the answers we don't have, we will maybe one day understand in glory. But until that point, we can know that the God who knit us together in our mother's womb knows our hearts and he knows our days. He knows us. He knows our frame. And that is,

I think it's Spurgeon that says the security blanket for the child of God. Well, I think that's a good place maybe for us to pause this conversation. I know this has been a deep encouragement to me. I pray it's an encouragement for others who listen to it and find it. I think maybe just for a second, where we'll be going in episodes ahead is maybe going to consider maybe one other characteristic of God and unpack it more fully. I think looking at some other that maybe an attribute or two of the Lord and who he is, and then kind of look at the pathway forward would be kind of the next step, meaning that it's not just in reflecting upon these truths, we have a mission and sometimes we forget that.

And so we're gonna talk about even how our mission as a believer is a part of the conversation about the anxiety that we're plagued with. That's awesome, man. All right, well, appreciate you being with me. Thanks. Thanks, Hank.