Know or Know
Notes
Transcript
As you know, I completed my requirements for my doctor of ministry degree this week. I’m feeling pretty good.
The last thing I had to do was an exit interview with my primary reader and the head of the doctoral department of Dallas Theological Seminary.
This exit interview was conducted over Zoom. Now, to have a meeting over Zoom, one must have internet. Yes? Well, to have internet, one must have electricity.
My primary reader had asked a rather profound question. I was waxing eloquent in my answer, and then his video froze and then, his account left the call. The director and I had no idea what had happened.
Turns out, Ron, my primary reader, lost electricity in his house. Randomly. There was no storm. Nothing. Poof when the electricity. Poof went his internet. Poof went our video call.
So, much of our life is connected to internet. I’m not here to talk about the connectedness of our life. But, when we want something that runs by electricity, we have to plug that thing in.
If we have an electric stove and we want to make cookies, we are not going to get cookies unless that stove is plugged in.
The same is true with our Christian life.
Where have we been?
We are powerless
God has the power
We must trust Him in faith
We must make a fearless moral inventory
We must be people who confess
We must be people who repent
We must be people who follow
We must be people who forgive
We must be people who make amends
We must continue
For us to be able to do all this:
We must seek intimacy
We seek to deepen our relationship with God daily and depend on his power to do his will.
We cannot live the Christian life effectively, if we are not depending on the power of God in our lives. This dependence only happens through a deepening relationship with God.
Let’s read our passage:
After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Pray
Eternal Life
Eternal Life
Let’s talk about eternal life.
Jesus said:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
It is ironic, our first main speaker actually used this verse for message during the first session.
If you were there, don’t worry, I’m not going to steal too much from him.
Need for Life
Need for Life
What’s the big deal about eternal life? Isn’t this life the best there is? Why look forward.
Well, because every single person, whether they realize it or not, knows that they were made for eternity. And when death comes knocking at the door, even if we have tried to hide what we know, we remember again, that there is a great unknown.
Even if we fill our lives with all sorts of idols, in the form of addictions, whether alcohol, drug, pornography, or control, co-dependency, people-pleasing, we fill our lives with all these things to convince ourselves that this world is enough.
Then, death comes, and reminds us that this world is not enough.
I was at the bedside of dying person last fall. She looked at me and was terrified. Her sister, who was standing next to me, was even more scared. They knew eternity was just a few breaths away, but they had no idea what that means.
At the beginning of this season, I talked about how we were made for eternal life and that life is found through the creator of the universe. Unfortunately, we are separated from him because of the sin that we willingly commit.
So, we are doomed for an eternity of death. We don’t want this. Whether we choose to believe the truth or not, deep down inside we do not want eternal death.
Blaise Pascal said that everyone has a God-shaped hole in their life, which they try to fill with all sorts of things, but these things don’t cut it.
This life is not eternity. And our addictions are not God. Only one thing can fill that hole. Only one thing can provide what we yearn for.
Prescription for Life
Prescription for Life
So, what is the prescription for eternal life?
Jesus says:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
The only way to eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom God has sent.
Let’s take a pause.
How does Jesus describe God.
He describes him as the only true God.
Shall we unpack that?
He is the true God. This is not a subjective truth: like ice cream is the most delicious food group of all time. I might think so, but you might not. It is subjective.
He is the true God. It is an objective truth, something that is reality despite people’s opinions or preconceived notions. He is the creator of the universe, the one who holds all things together, the one who has a righteous standard.
And this can be proven. Over and over again, because this truth is based upon reality and not just perception.
He is the true God.
Which means there are false Gods.
Jesus said that he is the only true God.
There are many religions out there, which all tout a god, or multiple gods, but they are not the only true God. If you crack open any of their sacred texts and read their descriptions of their so-called gods, quickly we would see that their god is not our God.
We are actually going to start a study to see those. Once we finish the Gospel-shaped outreach, we will be starting a studying on World religions and cults. In the back, there is a bowl. Please write on a notecard a religion or cult that you would like to study. It is important to know how we are different from the other religions in the world, that we are not a copycat religion, but the truth.
Jesus said:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
If you want it more blatant, Jesus said earlier:
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
God is the only true God, and the way to the eternal life which God offers is through Jesus Christ, whom God sent.
Jesus died on the cross, taking our sins on himself, raising from the grave, proving that his salvation is real, and he offers it to us as a free gift.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Have you received that gift?
Know
Know
Let’s talk about that word “Know” now.
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Eternal life is found in knowing God.
Do you know what it means to Know?
When someone is dating someone, they are getting to know them. They, hopefully, are building up a database of what that person is like in all sorts of different situations. What does the person believe? What do they want to do with their life? Are we going the same direction, with God as the focal point.
They are getting to know someone intellectually.
That’s not what this word means.
You see, after dating, comes marriage. After marriage, comes a baby in a baby carriage.
This word is used, Biblically, for when a husband and wife consummate their marriage. They know each other intimately.
You see, there is knowing, intellectually, and then there is knowing, experientially, intimately.
If you study different languages, many languages actually have a different word for those two concepts.
German: to know intellectually is Kennen. To know someone, experientially, is wischen.
That is your random fact for the day.
Eternal life is knowing God. We were created to have a relationship with God.
That relationship was broken because of our sin, our choices.
Jesus died to restore that relationship, that we might know God again, or a better translation for our English idioms would be to have a relationship with him, or to intimately know him.
There are many people who accept Christ, they trust him for their salvation, and then they think they are good. And yes, they are saved, but their life is shallow, still feeling a lack. They have no victory in their life, no joy, no purpose. Because they are missing a piece. We are saved in order to have a relationship with God.
Jesus died, so that we might have a relationship with God.
So these people accept Christ, sometimes come to church, because that’s what we are supposed to do, I guess. Maybe listen to the Christian radio, watch some Christian comedians. You know.
But, they are not pursuing a relationship with God. They are not seeking to know him, even as we are known.
There are many Christians, who have been Christians for over twenty years, and they have never pursued a relationship with God.
And that saddens me, because they have never known the sweetness of fellowship with someone who loves them so much.
I think about the Psalmist
You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
My soul yearns for you in the night;
in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
the people of the world learn righteousness.
When was the last time, you yearned to spend time with God?
In the morning, when I rise. In the morning, when I rise, in the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. You can have all the world. Give me Jesus.
And you know the amazing truth? Once we begin to actually pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ, seeking an intimacy with him. We will stop turning to the idols in our lives?
It’s like being married: once we finally commit to pursue only one woman, and we are overjoyed in the relationship with her, We won’t want anyone else.
We pursue a intimacy with Jesus and the idols, our addictions, our sinful patterns, stop being desirable to us.
We start realizing that only in our dependence on him, found through our intimacy with him, do we find the power to turn away from those false gods in our lives.
Method
Method
What does this look like to pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ?
Well, it means to look at our life and rip it apart. To turn it head over head and reshape our priorities.
Back in the day, this process was called pursuing the spiritual disciplines. If you want more information on this than what I am about to share, I have some resources you can borrow. I just ask that you give them back.
Do you know why they are called spiritual disciplines? Because they take a discipline to do them. We do not naturally prioritize a relationship with Jesus. We must discipline ourselves to do it. But the more we do it, the more we want to do it.
The concept is found in
Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
It’s like going to the gym And working out. Many days, you don’t want to do it. But once you do, it feels so good. And then you start looking forward to it.
What are some of these spiritual disciplines? Arm exercises, leg day, core. What are these spiritual disciplines?
Many writers split the disciplines up into disciplines of letting go:
Based on 1 Peter 2 11
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.
And then the category of activity, things that nurture our soul and strengthen us for the race ahead.
I’m not going to do that. I’m going to talk about daily disciplines and seasonal disciplines.
Daily Disciplines
Daily Disciplines
Shall we talk about daily disciplines?
And, I know that many of you are going to say: Peter I don’t have enough time to do that. Don’t you my day? And yes, I probably do know your day, but I might not.
My question is: Do you have time to go to the bathroom? Do you have time to drink water and eat food?
You might be busy. You might push off going to the bathroom or eating a meal, but we will find time sometime that day to do it. Because we know that it is important and we will be physically uncomfortable if we don’t.
These spiritual disciplines are important. Seeking intimacy with God is important. And we will be spiritually uncomfortable if we don’t do them.
Unfortunately, many of us have become spiritually constipated, or spiritually anorexic, and we’ve lived this way so long that we don’t see the problem.
We have so many symptoms in our life, and we wonder why? And we don’t realize that it’s because we are not spending time with God, we are not seeking intimacy.
We make time for what we think is important.
So, what is important, daily spiritual disciplines:
Study
Study
What we fill our minds with defines what we think, which defines what we act. Intimacy with God comes as we study the Word of God, we get to know him better.
So, this weekend was crazy. The concert didn’t end until after 10:30 at night. We didn’t get to where we were staying until 11. We didn’t get the kids settled down until 12:30. And we had to have breakfast at 7:15. So, yeah, I was exhausted in the morning, and I didn’t want to get up. I had a choice, was I going to sleep or was I going to spend time with God.
I grabbed a few moments to read the Bible and pray, because I knew that I could not get through the day without the strength that comes from intimacy with God.
Prayer
Prayer
Which brings us to the next spiritual discipline: prayer.
This is not just praying before a meal, or after as the Jews did. Or praying with kids before bed. Those are all important, as we build rhythms of prayer into our lives.
But, we need specific times of praying to God about our hurts, our needs, our desires, because we were made to have a relationship with him.
Worship
Worship
We shouldn’t just be bringing our hurts, needs, desires, etc. to God, but we should also be spending time exalting him and worshiping him daily. Yes, coming to church is important, and that is included in this. Coming to church is a spiritual discipline, because there are some Sundays that we will not want to. We come to worship, but we should also have moments every day that we set aside to worship God.
Confession
Confession
Included in that time of worship, in our praying, should be a time of confession. This is tricky, because as we confess to God, he will probably spur us to confess to someone else, a trust individual. We don’t want to do this. This is what it is a spiritual discipline, but the process of confession builds our intimacy with God. I preached a whole sermon on this.
Silence
Silence
The last daily discipline that I will mention, there are many others, is silence.
We live in a world of noise. It’s amazing how many houses I walk in and the tvs are on. Because they are always on. Or we get into cars and the radio is automatically playing.
I sub in the school, and students when they are studying immediately put headphones in their ear and they are listening to music.
We fill our mind with so much stuff. And we need to shut it off, sometime during the day, and be still before our holy God.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
Unfortunately, many of us, if we say that we are too busy to read the Bible and pray, would say that we are too busy to be silent and reflect on what we have read and what we know about God.
Seasonal Disciplines
Seasonal Disciplines
Not only are their daily disciplines, but there are also seasonal disciplines. And these are sometimes harder for people to do. Because even though they only happen a few times a year, they take a longer amount of time.
Fellowship
Fellowship
Fellowship is a spiritual discipline. We say: I am going to disrupt my ordinary life in order to spend time with the people of God, so that I can know God better, so that I can build my intimacy with him.
Did you know that our monthly fellowship meals are a spiritual discipline? Eating food is totally fine. But holding a conversation with someone about something deep in their lives or mine, that can be hard. But it is a way of pursuing intimacy with God.
Solitude
Solitude
Not only should we spend time with the people of God, but we should spend time alone, away from people. Once a year, I take a few days to go away and seek God. I pray over the past year and I pray for the future year, and make some plans based upon what I believe God is calling me to do.
Once a year, I send Maggie out for a few days to do the same. And we make stipulations, that were we go, we will not interact with people. There might be a high, or the check in process, but we will not hold conversations with other people, because we are there to spend time with God. And sometimes, people get in the way of that.
Jesus routinely went on a mountain, alone, to spend time with God.
Fasting
Fasting
There are so many more spiritual disciplines, things that we do to draw close to God.
The last one I want to talk about is fasting. Fasting is the process by which we say no to something in order to focus on God.
Traditionally, food was the means of fasting. And it is an important means. The Jews would fast on a certain day every week. The early church would fast on a different day every week. They would fast one meal, and during that meal, instead of eating, they would spend time on God.
This would remind them that God is the one who provides and he is all we need.
Intermittent fasting, while possibLy worthwhile, is not true fasting, because I do not know anyone who takes the time they would have been eating and uses it to spend time with God.
Today, we can fast from all sorts of things that could be a distraction to us. People should probably routinely fast from technology. From desserts. From any number of things. But the important thing is: during that fast, when we feel the desire to go to social media or to eat ice cream, we use that as a cue to spend time with God.
We were created for intimacy with God. That is when we feel whole. That is when we have worth. And it is only through intimacy that we will have the strength to live the life that God has called us to live.
We seek to deepen our relationship with God daily and depend on his power to do his will.