knowing God

The Privilege of Knowing God.

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And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. – 1 John 5:20 ESV

1 John 5:13-21

John closes his letter with a strong note of affirmation: “We know that the Son of God has come.” John has given his own personal testimony to that fact, along with the testimonies of the three very reliable witnesses, not to mention God Himself. The evidence is more than sufficient to prove that Jesus not only came, but that He was and is the Son of God. He existed before the creation of the world with God. Not only that, He played a major part in the creation of the world. John begins his gospel with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3 ESV). The deity of Jesus is essential to the plan of salvation. Without it, mankind’s sin problem remains unchanged. We are left with the ever-present reality of sin in our lives and the complete incapacity to refrain from sin or remove the guilt and sentence of death associated with it. There were those in John’s day who believed that Jesus simply came to show us a better way to live. He came to give us a more enlightened moral code by which to conduct our lives. But Jesus’ entire life led to the cross, where He sacrificed Himself for the sins of mankind. He atoned for man’s sin by offering Himself as a worthy, sinless sacrifice. And as a result, when anyone places their faith in Him as their Savior and sin substitute, they receive not only cleansing from sin, but His righteousness. In other words, Jesus didn’t just pay our debt off and bring our balance to zero. That would still have left us spiritually penniless and helpless. No, what Jesus did was give us His righteousness. He replaced our indebtedness to God with the wealth of His righteousness. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV). Not only that, He provided a way for us to know God and experience fellowship with Him for the very first time in our lives.

We can know the one, true God. No longer are we left to try and conjure up our own version of God or find something else that might act as a stand-in for Him. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, we can actually, legitimately know God. We can come into His presence. And when we do, we come as His children, not groveling, fearful debtors. He looks on us as His own children. He sees us as righteous, because our sins have all been paid for in full – past, present and future. We no longer have to try and earn His favor. We don’t have to attempt to measure up and keep our sin-quotient below 50 percent. Yes, we are to live holy lives, because that is what He has called us to. But we don’t do it out of a sense of obligation or in order to earn His love and favor. We do it gladly, out of love for Him. And we do it in the strength He has provided us through His indwelling Holy Spirit. Our testimony can be that of Paul’s, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 ESV). Through the Holy Spirit, Christ lives in us. The Spirit of God has taken up a permanent residence within each and every believer.

But the main point John leaves us with as he closes out his letter is that “we may know him who is true.” By coming to know Jesus as Savior, we come to know God the Father. There is no other way. Any other attempt to come to know God will fall short. It will end in idolatry, a false form of God. Rather than the true God, man will always end up worshiping false gods – apart from Christ. John wants us to know that Jesus makes it possible for us to know the one true God and experience eternal life. But one of the false perceptions among many believers is that eternal life is somehow a commodity. It is some kind of future reward reserved for those who make the right choice and place their faith in Jesus. But Jesus said, “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3 ESV). Knowing God and Jesus is eternal life. It is the reward. A relationship with God and His Son is the prize. But do we value it? Do we fully appreciate the remarkable reality that we can have an intimate, experiential knowledge of God – right here, right now? Jesus has made it possible for us to know and understand the infinite, indefinable, all-powerful God of the universe. Through the living word, Jesus; and the written Word, the Scriptures; and the indwelling Spirit; we can know and understand God. We can come to comprehend His character and nature. We can grow in our knowledge of Him. We can increasingly see His incredible love for us and respond in kind. Rather than seeing Him as distant, detached and difficult to understand, we can know and love Him. And we don’t have to wait for heaven in order to start. What an incredible privilege.

Knowing God.

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And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life. – 1 John 5:20 NLT

1 John 5:13-21

We can know God. That should be an amazing, mind-blowing thought, but to most of us, it carries little or no weight. It has long lost its significance, if it ever had any. We have grown so used to using God’s name and claiming to have a relationship with Him that we no longer understand the unbelievable nature of that reality. Because of Jesus and His death on the cross, we can know God. The term that John uses for a knowledge of God is ginōskō and it is the same Greek word used when talking about the sexual intimacy between a woman and a man. It is an intimate word. It is not merely describing a cerebral or cognitive kind of knowledge – head knowledge. It is a knowledge grounded on personal experience. In other words, it is heart-knowledge. We have the unique privilege of coming to know the God of the universe – intimately, closely, lovingly, and experientially. I can actually know God, not just have knowledge about God. What’s the difference? Why does it matter? It matters because Jesus gave His life so that we might be reconciled, made right with God. He died so that we might have life, but that life is intended to be focused on and lived out for the glory of God, not ourselves. We were once alienated and separated from God. Paul reminds us, we “were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions” (Colossians 1:21 NLT). He tells us that “while we were still his enemies,” God sent His Son to die for us. Why? Just so we could go to heaven some day? No. So that we might have a restored relationship with Him. We can have what Adam and Eve had before the fall changed everything. We can have communion with our creator God. We can have fellowship with Him. We can know Him closely – like a child and a father.

In his letter to the Colossian believers, Paul told them that he never ceased to pray for them, asking that they “may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9-10 ESV). It is interesting that Paul puts equal emphasis on knowing God’s will and knowing God. It is only as we grow to know Him better that we will come to know what He loves, how He thinks, what He desires, and what His will for us might be. I always find it fascinating that, when Jesus prayed in the garden on the night He was to be betrayed, He described eternal life in these terms: “that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3 ESV). Jesus died so that we might come to know His Father in the same way that He does. It is about relationship, not religion. Christianity is not about performance or earning favor with God. It is about understanding the love of the Father and growing in our appreciation for that unmerited, undeserved love. It is about coming to know just how loving, gracious, kind, generous, forgiving, merciful, and patient our heavenly Father really is. Our quest in life is not to please God, but to grow to know Him. God is not asking us to perform for Him or prove our love for Him. He is asking us to rest in the love He has for us – a love so powerfully illustrated in the sacrifice of His own Son on our behalf. Far too many of us don’t know what it means to be a Christian because we don’t know what it means to know God. Some of us live in fear of Him. Others of us misunderstand Him. Many of us take Him for granted. There are those who see Him as distant and unknowable. He doesn’t hear their prayers. He doesn’t show up in their lives. For them, God is an impersonal, unperceivable God, who remains a mystery to them. But Jesus died so that we might know Him. He gave His life so that we might spend the rest of our lives getting to know God better and better. God desires a relationship with us. He wants to reveal Himself to us. He has placed His Spirit within us, provided His self-revealing Word to us, and proved His love for us. All He asks in return is that we seek to know Him, “the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20 ESV).

I Know That I Know.

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And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. – 1 John 2:3 ESV

The knowledge of God is far more than an academic or cognitive kind of knowledge. You can know details and even personal information about the Prime Minister of England or the President of the United States, but that doesn’t mean you know them. You simply know something about them. You have no personal knowledge of them and cannot claim to have a close relationship with them. Sadly, this describes the relationship that many have who claim to know God. Their knowledge is Book-knowledge, fed to them from the pulpit or Sunday School classroom, or passed on to them by their parents. If you were to ask them if they know God, they would say, “Of course, I know Him.” They could probably tell you facts and details about God, concerning His character, His creation of the world, His miracles recorded in the Bible, and even His offer of salvation made available through belief in His Son. But according to the apostle John, the proof of their knowledge of God would be far more simple and conclusive. “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3 ESV). In other words, obedience is the true test of our knowledge of God. But we must be careful here. John is not telling us that obedience is the way to come to know God. He is not saying that you have to obey God in order to know Him. No, John is telling us that obedience is a proof of our knowledge of God. It is how we can know that we truly do know Him. The kind of knowledge John speaks of is intimate and experiential, not academic. He uses the Greek word, ginōskō, which was a Jewish idiom referring to sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. This isn’t some kind of a head-knowledge. It is an intimate awareness of God’s involvement in one’s life. Because the only way we can keep His commandments is IF we know Him. It is His power, made available to us through the presence of His Spirit, that makes it possible for us to live in obedience to His will. It is our relationship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ, that makes a life of obedience, a life of righteousness, possible. So when John states, “whoever says he abides in him [Christ], ought to walk in the same way in which he [Christ] walked” (1 John 3:6 ESV), We can and should live our lives as Jesus lived His – humbly, sacrificially, and in complete obedience to the Father’s will. No, we cannot live our lives completely without sin, as He did, but we can live in obedience. Because we know God, we can put to death the deeds of the flesh (Romans 8:13). Paul tells us, “So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires” (Colossians 3:5 NLT). We can live differently and distinctively. We can say yes to God and no to sin. Again, Paul writes, “Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God” (Romans 6:13 NLT).

We can know that we know God, that we have a relationship with Him, when we see the remarkable change take place in our character that is only possible through the redemptive work of His Son. When we come to know Christ as our Savior, we receive a new nature, a new capacity to live in obedience to the will of God. He sets us free from slavery to sin and provides us with the freedom to live in willing obedience to God. “When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life” (Romans 6:20-22 NLT). When we obey God, we don’t get the credit, He does. What we get is the assurance that we know Him. “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 NLT). I know Him. He knows me. Not only that, He loves me. And He empowers me to live righteously, even when surrounded by unrighteousness. He has given me His Spirit to help me do battle with my own sin nature. I don’t have to give in to sinful desires. I don’t have to fall for every temptation that comes my way. I can walk like Jesus walked. And when I do, I can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I know God. Over in his gospel, John recorded a fascinating statement from the lips of Jesus. It was part of His prayer that He prayed to the Father not long before His trials and crucifixion. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3 ESV). Eternal life is NOT simply heaven. It is not an opulent residence reserved for us somewhere in the future. It is the knowledge of God and His Son. It is a relationship with the Creator of the Universe and the King of kings and Lord of lords. And I can know that I know them because I can see their life-transforming power at work in my life – right here, right now. And THAT is eternal life.

Exodus 7-8, Mark 1

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And You Shall Know.

Exodus 7-8, Mark 1

“The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” – Exodus 7:5 ESV

God is in the revealing business. The entire Bible is the revelation of God to mankind. In it we get a glimpse into His character and the holiness of His divine nature. But God has not limited what we can know about Him to the Scriptures. Paul tells us in the book of Romans that all men have had His nature revealed to them through the creation. “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (Romans 1:19-20 ESV).

In the book of Exodus, we see God revealing Himself once again, both to the Jews and the Egyptians. He had already told Moses that He was going to deliver the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The end result of His actions would be a knowledge of who He was and what He could do. “…and you shall know that I am the Lord your God…” (Exodus 6:7 ESV). God’s goal was that they would recognize Him as the one true God. He wanted them to understand that they belonged to Him and Him alone. They were to worship no other gods beside Him. But they were going to have to learn just how great and powerful He really was. And in order for God to accomplish His promise of redeeming the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, He was going to bring the people of Egypt into a full understanding of who He was as well. By the time this story is over, everyone is going to know who God is and just what He is capable of.

What does this passage reveal about God?

There are no other gods like Him. He is singular in nature and incomparable in power. But the Israelites didn’t know that yet. And the Egyptians had no idea who God was. They had a plethora of different deities they worshiped, but Yahweh was not one of them. This God of the Jews was new to them and they had no reason to fear or respect Him. But that was about to change. God was going to reveal Himself to the Egyptians and prove to them that He alone was God. He was going to multiply His signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. He was going to bring about ten devastating plagues. He would never-before-seen miracles in the land of Egypt that would leave the Pharaoh’s magicians mesmerized and the people terrorized. Over and over again, God says, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord.” His actions will demonstrate and prove His character. They are going to learn that He is all-powerful. So much so, that He controls nature. Not only that, His power is greater than that of the Egyptian gods. It has been said that each of the plagues was a direct assault on a different god of the Egyptians. Each of the plagues attacked a different area of life that was supposedly protected by or representative of a god worshiped by the Egyptians. But those gods would prove no match for Yahweh. The gods of Egypt would prove to be no gods at all. They were powerless before the God of Israel. They could not protect. They could not save. They could not deliver. But Yahweh could and would. By the time the third plague arrived, even the magicians of Pharaoh were saying, “This is the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19 ESV). They were learning. But they were still not fully convinced. The real lesson they were going to have to learn was not just that God existed, but that there were no other gods besides Him. Moses told Pharaoh, “that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God” (Exodus 8:10 ESV). He is the only true God.

What does this passage reveal about man?

The very fact that the Egyptians had more gods than you could shake a staff at, gives credence to the words of Paul in Romans. All men have an awareness of God, but due to an active sin nature, they tend to create their own version of Him. Paul goes on to say, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:21-23 ESV). That is exactly what the Egyptians, had done, even viewing the Pharaohs as a deities. And the Israelites, having spent the last 400 years in the land of Egypt, had taken on the gods of the land. They knew no more about Yahweh than the average Egyptian did. So they too were going to have to come to know God.

How would I apply what I’ve read to my own life?

Over in his letter to the Colossians, Paul tells the believers that he is praying for them and says that he is constantly, “asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9-10 ESV). One of Paul’s desires is that they grow in their knowledge of God. He wants them to know God better and better as they understand and obey His will, living their lives in a way that brings honor and pleasure to Him, and producing fruit that reveals His presence in them. Knowing God is not just to be academic. It is to be experiential and practical. I am not just to know about God. I am to know Him from His presence and power as revealed in my daily life. The Egyptians were going to know just how powerful God really was. So were the Jews.

When Jesus showed up on the scene hundreds of years later, He would be greeted with both amazement and anger. He was both revered and reviled. John tells us, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:10-11 ESV). They couldn’t figure Him out. He was like no one they had ever seen. “And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority” (Mark 1:22 ESV). He could command unclean spirits and they obeyed Him. The Jewish people didn’t know what to do with Jesus. They were attracted to Him, but did not recognize Him for who He was. But the demons did. Mark tells us, “And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him” (Mark 1:34 ESV). God had proclaimed just who Jesus was at His baptism. “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11 ESV). But the people would have a difficult time accepting that fact. The religious leaders would refuse to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, eventually accusing Him of blasphemy and having Him crucified for claiming to be God.

Knowing about God is not the point. It is all about coming to an intimate awareness of His power and presence in my life that really matters. Jesus Christ has provided me with a way to know God experientially and personally. I know Him intimately. He is active in and around my life. He is not just God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is MY God. He is involved in my life. He rescues me daily. He reveals His power regularly. He shares His will with me repeatedly. And He loves me unwaveringly. He isn’t just a god, He is my God. All because He provided His Son as my Savior. Now my desire is to grow to know Him better and better with each passing day.

Father, thank You for revealing Yourself to me through creation, but more importantly, through Your Son. I am so grateful that I have a restored relationship with You because of what Your Son did for me on the cross. I can know You intimately and personally. I can come into Your presence boldly and unashamedly. I ask that You would continue to reveal Yourself to me, so that I might grow in my knowledge of You daily. Amen.

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

Day 119 – John 14:1-14

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Knowing Jesus.

John 14:1-14

Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am?” – John 14:9 NLT

Jesus had just informed Peter that he would deny Him three times, then He says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1 NLT). Really? For the last few hours, He had been talking continuously about being betrayed, denied, having His body broken, His blood shed, and that He was going away, and where He was going they couldn’t go. So how could He tell them to not be troubled? There is much the disciples do not understand. And they would not understand it until some time after Jesus left and the Holy Spirit came. So until then, Jesus tried to assure them that, in spite of all the fear building up inside themselves, they could trust Him. In fact, He encouraged them to trust in God AND to trust in Him. Why? Because He and His Father were one. This was a joint plan, involving both the Son and the Father, and so the disciples had nothing to fear. Jesus assured them that He was going away, but that He was also returning for them, and when He did, He would take them to be with Him.

Thomas speaks up, expressing his confusion and concern. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:5 NLT). You can sense the growing anxiety in Thomas’ reaction. He doesn’t understand WHERE Jesus is going or WHY He has to go. He can’t comprehend what is happening and what it is that Jesus seems to be inferring. This is NOT what he and the disciples had expected. But Jesus tells Him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 NLT). With this one statement, Jesus summed up His entire ministry and message. It had always been about access. Jesus came to provide a way for men and women to be made right with God and to restore them to fellowship with Him. Sin had compromised their relationship with God. Sin had alienated them from God. The Law had showed them God’s holy standard and sin had caused them to rebel against it, preventing them from keeping His law perfectly. Jesus had come to remedy that. He had come to do what they couldn’t do: Keep the law perfectly. He came to live a sinless, holy, obedient life, so that He might be the perfect sin substitute and die in their place on the cross. In doing so, He would satisfy the just demands of a holy, righteous God. Jesus would take on our sin and suffer our punishment, and in return, we would receive His righteousness and God’s approval. So when Jesus told Thomas and the disciples that He was the way, the truth and the life and that no one could come to God any other way than through Him, this was radical news to them.

If You Had Known Me

Jesus followed this bombshell by bringing up the subject of the knowledge of Him. He said, “If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is” (John 14:7 NLT). This had to have offended the disciples. Hadn’t they just spent the last three and a half years of their lives with Jesus, and now He was insinuating that they didn’t know Him? But in reality, they didn’t know Jesus. Up until that point, they hadn’t known Him as the way, the truth and the life. They knew Him as the Messiah, the healer, the Son of God, the teacher, rabbi, parable teller, and miracle worker. But there was so much they still didn’t know about Him. But Jesus assured them that even with their limited knowledge of Him, they knew God, because He was revealing God to them through His life and actions. He really was the way, the truth and the life. And He really was going to provide access to the Father through His coming death on the cross. It would all make sense to them eventually.

Philip, hearing all this talk of knowing God, asked Jesus to show the Father to them, and then they would be satisfied. Once again, Jesus responds with a statement that had to have deeply hurt Philip. “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am?” (John 14:9 NLT). The inference is that Philip still did not know or comprehend the deity of Jesus. He knew Him, but He didn’t know Him. His knowledge of Jesus was limited. Jesus told him, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? (John 14:9 NLT). What Jesus wants Philip and the other disciples to grasp is that He and the Father are one. He is not just a representative of God, He is God in human flesh. He is divine. Seeing Him is as good as seeing the Father. Hearing from Him is as good as hearing from the Father. “The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me” (John 14:10 NLT). This was news to the disciples. This intimate connection between Jesus and the Father had been unknown to them up until this point.

The main focus of this entire exchange between Jesus and the disciples seemed to be their knowledge of Him. Because ultimately, their belief about Jesus would need to be based on what they knew about Him. If their knowledge of Jesus was limited, so would their faith be. Jesus wanted them to know exactly who He was, so that they could believe. “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the seame works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with my Father” (John 14:12 NLT). The belief Jesus spoke of had to be based on His identity as the Son of God. His unity with the Father was to be the foundation of that belief. And ultimately, the disciples would do greater works than Jesus. This is not talking about greater miracles, but it is speaking about the scope and reach of their ministry. Jesus’ ministry was limited to a specific geographic area and only impacted a limited number of people, but the disciples would be responsible for helping spread the Good News of Jesus Christ around the world. Their efforts, when based on the name of Jesus, would be backed by the power of God and would therefore be unlimited. But it all began with their knowledge of who Jesus was.

And the same is true for us today. We must fully understand and grasp the significance of who Jesus is. For many of us, He is simply our Savior, which is important. But we must also recognize Him as our God and Sovereign. If we limit our understanding of Jesus, we will limit our belief in Jesus. If we fail to see Him as God and fully deserving of our full obedience, worship and honor, then our belief will be limited. Jesus came to provide us with more than just a ticket to heaven. He has given us access to God. We can know God through Him. We can experience the power of God because of Him. He is still the way, the truth and the life. It is still true that no one can come to the Father except through Him. No one can know the Father, but through Jesus. So the greater we grow to know Him, the more we will know God. And our belief will increase exponentially.

Father, help my unbelief. Help me to grow to know Jesus better and better every day. Open my eyes to the reality of who He is, the significance of His deity, His sovereignty and majesty. I want to know Him better so that I might know You more. Amen.

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org