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"Knowing God"
The Apostle Paul, in the third chapter of Philippians prays a prayer—the ultimate prayer. This is his prayer:

That I might know Him, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, being made comparable unto His death that, perchance, I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.

Paul's prayer is that he really wants to get to know God. There's a big difference between believing in God and knowing God. I can't remember a time when I didn't believe in God. I mean it was drilled into my head from when I was a little boy. If you had asked me about God, I would have told you that I believe in Him. If you had asked me about Jesus, I would have told you: I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe that when he was hanging spread- eagle on the Roman cross, all the punishment that I should have received for the sins in my life were lain on Him. All those punishments. I would have told you all of those things. But I really didn't know God.

I remember when I realized I didn't know God. I was a boy in high school and I remember so well. There was this kid named Roger. He was gay and everybody made fun of him. We ridiculed him. You know what high school kids can do to a kid like Roger. We made his life hell. They mocked him. When he would go into the shower after gym, we would wait until he came out and then we would whip our towels at him and sting him. I wasn't there the day they pushed him into the corner of the shower and five guys urinated all over him. That night he went to the attic in the middle of the night and hung himself. And I knew I wasn't a Christian because if I had been a Christian I would have stood up for my friend Roger. Even if they ridiculed me for doing it, I would have been his friend. I knew that I didn't know Jesus.

Where do you meet Jesus? Well, first of all I contend you meet Jesus in suffering people. If you look deeply into the eyes of suffering people, you will have this eerie awareness that the same Jesus that died on the cross is staring back at you. Mother Teresa learned that, and I'm learning that.

I was walking down the street in Philadelphia and a bum came towards me. I mean a dirty, filthy guy. He was covered with soot from head to toe. You couldn't believe how messed up he was. He had this huge beard and there was rotted food stuck in the beard. As he approached me, he held out a cup of McDonald's coffee and said, "Hey mister, want some of my coffee?"

I looked at his dirty, filthy personhood and said, "Thanks, but that's okay," and I walked by him. The minute I passed him, I knew I was doing the wrong thing, so I turned around and said, "Excuse me. I would like some of your coffee." I took some of the coffee and sipped it and gave it back to him. I said, "You're being generous. How come you're being so generous today?"

And this bum looked at me and he said, "Because the coffee was especially delicious today and I think that when God gives you something good, you ought to share it with people."

I didn't know how to handle that, so I said, "Can I give you anything?" I thought that he would hit me for five dollars.

He said, "No." Then he said, "Yeah, yeah. I've changed my mind, there is something you can give me. You can give me a hug."

As I looked at him, I was hoping for the five dollars! He put his arms around me and I put my arms around him. And as I in my establishment dress and he in his filthy garb hugged each other on the street, I had the strange awareness that I wasn't hugging a bum, I was hugging Jesus. I found Jesus in that suffering man.

Whenever you meet a suffering person, you will find that Jesus is there waiting to be loved in that individual. That's why Jesus said, "In as much as ye do it unto the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do it unto me." You cannot reach out to a person in need, you cannot embrace somebody who's hurting, you cannot minister to somebody who is in desperate straits without having that eerie and wonderful awareness that Jesus is coming back at you right through that person. If there is anything that Mother Teresa would have taught us, that's what she would have taught us.

There is another place you can meet God. It's one of the most precious places. Listen carefully: it's in silence. You know, I use to pray stupid prayers. I still do. The Bible says that when we finish praying, we have not prayed as we ought to pray because our prayers are childish. When I was a nine year old boy I wanted to be a cowboy and I said to my father, "I want to be a cowboy." I'm glad that when I was eighteen, he didn't say, "What's this talk about a university? I bought you a ranch in Texas with fifty head of cattle. You said you wanted to be a cowboy!" My response would have been, "That was the request of an immature child." We are all immature children. And when we pray our prayers must seem very immature to God. But here's the good news. The same Bible that says we do not know how to pray as we ought, says, "the Spirit Himself maketh intercession. The Spirit Herself maketh intercession for the saints with groanings that cannot be uttered." What does that mean? It means that when I finish praying, the Holy Spirit turns to the Father and says, "Father, I know that was a stupid prayer by Tony. Here's what he should have said..." It is comforting to know that when you don't know how to pray, the Holy Spirit prays to the Father on your behalf. And therefore, more and more, I say less and less in prayer time. Instead I'm silent. I'm still before God.

In Isaiah, the thirtieth chapter, the fifteenth verse, it says this: "In stillness you will find your salvation." I lie in bed in the morning and in the stillness I wait patiently for the Lord, as the scriptures says. I wait for Him to reach out from Calvary to invade me, to enter into the depths of my being. And as I lie there in submission, I let Him cleanse me. Like a sponge, I let Him absorb from my personhood the dark side of my humanity. And there is a dark side to my humanity. Just as there is to yours. The line dividing light from darkness runs right down the middle of each of us. There is a dark side to me. There is a dark side to you. And in the stillness, I let Jesus cleanse me. And as He cleanses me, I feel God explode inside of me. I feel God fill me up. As Jesus says, I feel God coming out of me like a fountain of living water. It's one thing to find God in those who are in need. It's another thing to find God in stillness; to hear that soft, still voice. The soft, still voice is where I find God.

So first I find Him in those who are in need. Second, I find Him in silence. The Bible says God comes not like the earthquake, not like the fire, but in the soft, still voice. Jesus says if you want to pray, don't do it out loud in front of people. Go into a closet, close the door, and the God that you meet in secret will reward you openly. I ask you when was the last time you gave God five minutes of stillness? Five minutes of stillness, closing out the world, hearing God say, "Be still and know that I am God." I challenge you to just take five minutes and go off someplace, shut the door, and think of nothing but Jesus. And let Jesus come and invade you and penetrate you. And in the stillness, in the quietude of prayer, you will experience God.

The third place you will find God is in the Scriptures. I find God every time I read the Bible. Don't try to read the Bible from beginning to end. You'll get weighed down in so and so begat so and so and begat so and so somewhere in the Old Testament. Start with simple stuff like the book of James or the book of Mark, easy books to read. Read the Psalms. As a matter of fact, that's my favorite. Here the thing to do. I'm suggesting this to you. The next time you're alone, open the Bible to the Psalms and pray the Psalms. That's what the Psalms really are, they're prayers. And let the psalmist put the words in your mouth. You will find yourself lifted like you cannot believe. The Bible is an incredible book. When you read it, you not only read words, you meet the author. The author of the Bible is God himself.

When I was in college I had a teacher named J. Wesley Engles. He had written a book that I had read in high school. The book didn't mean a thing to me when I read it in high school. My mother made me read it. She thought it would be good for me. It was a religious book. But when I got to college, I had J. Wesley Engles as a teacher. I want to tell you that the book came alive to me. People: the Jesus that you meet in others; the Holy Spirit that will invade you in stillness; that God that indwells your life will be your teacher. So when you open the Bible don't try to be a super-scholar. Just simply say, "Lord, teach me from your Word. Speak to me from your Scriptures." Don't read the Bible as though it was a text. Read the Bible as though it was a love letter. It is, you know. It's a love letter written by God to you.

The psalmist said it one place: "Oh, God, why are thou so far from me?" And, of course, God is never far from you. God is as close to you as that person in need. Look deeply into that person's eyes and you'll feel God coming at you. You will know God in that person's sufferings. God is as close to you as a secret, quite place. God is as close to you as that Bible that's on the shelf waiting to be opened.

When I was a boy, I hated Sunday evening church because the pastor had never prepared the sermons. You could tell he had never even picked out the hymns. He would always say, "Anybody have a favorite?" And Mrs. Kilpatrick always did. "Page 111 in the Tabernacle Hymn book!" she would yell back. I hated that hymn when I was sixteen. It's "In the Garden": "I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses..." You could imagine how a tough kid off the streets would hate that song. The second verse for me was even worse. "He speaks and the sound of His voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing." Can you imagine a sixteen year old tough kid singing that song? I hated it. But the older I get, people, the more I love 111 in the Tabernacle Hymnal; the more I love to sing: "And He walks with me and He talks with me and he tells me I am His own."

You can know God in people. You can know God in prayer. You can know God in scriptures. I invite you to go to the garden alone with Him and experience Him in His fullness.

God bless you.

Conversation with Tony Campolo

Floyd Brown: Tony, it’s always a privilege for me, as you well know, whenever I have a chance to listen to you speak. I think about you quite frequently when we’re not together. You seem to have such an insight into what is happening in the world today and around us. And I ask, "What would Tony think about this?" One of the things that I thought about was the Promise Keepers. I think it was a wonderful display in Washington. Is Christianity getting new life, new movement? What’s happening here?

Tony Campolo: I think Christianity is coming alive today as it has seldom come alive in human history. You had a million people there to praise God, to make a commitment to God, and to make a commitment to their families, to their churches, to their communities. These are very, very positive things. I think the Promise Keepers may be one of the most promising movements of our time. There was so much good: the commitments that were made, especially commitments to reconciliation between the races, there was strong emphasis on that, with an apology to Native Americans for breaking peace treaties.The things that some of us are concerned about are these: they have to be careful to make sure that marriage is defined as a partnership between equals and that we do not have male domination. A lot of women were a little afraid of Promise Keepers. I don’t know that their fears are justified, but I understand them. They’re worried if there is something lurking behind here that we’re not catching. So they are afraid of that. Also, I've got to say, having told that story about my homosexual friend in high school who committed suicide, that I always worry if a movement does not show love and grace to gay and lesbian people. And I do hope that the Promise Keepers, which I think is of God and is going to do great things in this country, expresses that love and that concern for the gay and lesbian community. There has been criticism about that point. I think they need to move beyond that and they need to communicate genuine love to these hurting people. And they need to reassure women that as they become committed to God, they will not become dominating lords of the household, but equal partners in faith for Jesus Christ. If they do those two things, this movement which now is one of the most dynamic and spirit filled movements in the world, may change the course of human history.

Brown: Let me ask one other quick question here. You talked in your talk today about you as a child and making a decision about your friend. You also talked about the lady who liked the hymn, "In the Garden," and talking about being alone. And here we have the people putting on a demonstration in Washington, D.C. How does a Christian act?

Campolo: Well, there is no one way for Christians to act and that’s why we all have to stand back and remember Jesus’s words: "Judge not that ye be not judged." When I was a kid, I was an enthusiastic witness for Christ. I was what they called a "Bible thumper." I was out to convert everybody. As I’ve grown older I still talk to people about Jesus. But more often when I come to people, I don’t so much say, "Are you saved?" as much as I say, "Could I have a word of prayer with you? Could we pray together?" And I find that people are more touched by the prayers of the old man than they were at the ravings of the young man. The more I live in this world, the more I am convinced that the world out there is waiting for a praying people to come and minister to them rather than a judgmental and preaching people to come. If you come preaching, they turn you off. If you come praying, they become your friends.

Brown: That’s wonderful. I like that. It’s good. Instead of making that bold statement, come in warmth.

Campolo: Just this morning when I was flying in to Chicago, there was a man on the plane who was very troubled. I could see that we was upset and I said to him, "Look, I don’t want to lay a trip on you, Mister, but would you like me to pray for you? I think that would be a good thing today." He said, "You can’t know how much I want that." I don’t know much about him but I held his hand and I prayed to Jesus to minister to him. He couldn’t be grateful enough. So your style changes as you get older.

Brown: Don’t change your style. Thank you for coming back, Tony. It was just marvelous.

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