Study God to Know God. Know God to Worship God.

“Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3).

We become theologians when we understand there is a God (“the LORD, He is God”) and that this God created us (“He who has made us”) and we did not earn or deserve His grace (“and not we ourselves”) and therefore we are dependent upon Him for every need (“we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”)

There’s a good dose of theology there: sovereignty, majesty, Creator, grace, mercy, faithfulness, etc. – all packed into one verse.

The psalmist says we are to “know” this God. This means we are to recognize these facts about God as certainty. The implication is we know by experience and are assured as a result.

Our worship is to be intelligent; it is to be well-informed. Worship is fueled by an intellectual understanding of God.

We study that He is above us. We also study that He created us. We realized He made all things for himself and that He made all things out of nothing and that He made all things without any assistance.

We also study that we need Him like a sheep needs a shepherd (Psalm 23; 28; 74; 77; 78-80; 95; Isaiah 44; Jeremiah 10; Zechariah 10-11; Luke 15; John 10). Sheep cannot survive without a shepherd. Sheep will not lie down on their own. They can’t; they don’t know where or even why they need to lie down. In fact, shepherds say that sheep will not lie down anywhere unless 4 things happen:

1. They must be free from all fear.

2. They must be free from all other friction with other sheep.

3. They must be free from the torment of flies or other parasites

4. They must be free from hunger.

So, if they are free from fear, friction with other sheep, flies and famine, then they will lie down and eat in “green pastures.”

The same is true for “still waters.” If the river is too loud, it frightens the sheep and they won’t drink from it. They will stand at some great distance from the water and dehydrate. In fact, even if sheep aren’t led to clean water, they will drink anything that is around them. It is a common hazard to avoid in shepherding to not allow your sheep to drink from mud holes or dirty waterholes, because that is where many of the parasites that infect animals live. They must be led to clean waters. Sheep are animals that cannot survive without a shepherd.

We are to study to know God. Paul made this His motivation for living – “⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; ¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil 3:8-10).