Knowing God

All right, well, we're gonna jump back into a series that we started two weeks ago, something that we're calling What Jesus Wants.

And this is a study of John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

If you're new to his hands, the normal way that we go about teaching is we go through scripture.

And so last year we went through the entire book of Matthew.

Earlier this year, we went through the entire book of Philippians.

And right now we're going through one chapter in the book of John, but it's a very unique chapter.

It's a chapter where we have this entire prayer of Jesus to God the Father.

And if you were here a couple weeks ago, you heard this.

If not, and this kind of messes with your brain a little bit, go back and listen.

Hopefully it's helpful.

This is God praying to God.

Jesus is God, he is God the Son.

And in this prayer in John 17, it is God the Son praying to God the Father.

And as you can imagine, God praying to God is a pretty deep conversation.

This prayer is unlike anything else in the Bible.

We have prayers in Scripture of people praying to God.

Read the Psalms.

Those Psalms oftentimes are prayers of David or someone else that are set to music.

We have prayers recorded in some of the books of the prophets.

We have the prayers of kings.

We have Jesus teaching us how to pray, how we should pray to God.

But the prayer in John 17 is unique.

It's a prayer that only Jesus could pray.

None of us could pray this prayer.

And what's really cool is it's a prayer about us.

And as we get into it more and more, we're going to see that.

That the majority of this chapter is Jesus praying for us, his followers.

And he's praying for what he wants to see happen in our lives, what he wants us to become, how he wants us to operate, how he wants us to live together with one another, how he wants us to live in our world.

It's Jesus praying for what he wants to see as the result of his life and his sacrifice on the cross.

And this kind of blows me away.

It challenges me, it encourages me.

This is a prayer that I can live out.

I mean, think about this.

You can live in such a way that you are the living answer to Jesus' prayer in John 17.

You can live your life in such a way that Jesus looks at you and he says, Yes, that is what I was praying for.

I want to live that out.

I want to be that.

It's powerful, it's challenging, it's encouraging, it is extremely deep and layered.

And so we're going to jump into it here in just a second, but I want to get our minds sort of primed for what we're going to talk about today.

How many of you have ever heard the phrase, it's not about what you know, it's about, repeat it for me.

Who you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like who you know matters pretty pretty deeply in life.

Some of the best opportunities you may have had have come as the result of someone that you knew.

You can glean a lot of wisdom just by being around the right people.

It's not about what you know, it's about who you know.

So I want us to do this little mental exercise and think for a second.

We're gonna, I'm gonna try this.

This could backfire tremendously, but hey, let's have some fun.

Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna prompt you with a certain person I want you to think of, a person in your life, and then I'm gonna count to three, I'm gonna point, and you're gonna yell that person's name, and it's gonna be a jumbled mess of indiscernible sounds.

But I just I'd like you to participate.

If you don't mind, if you don't want to, you don't have to.

You're not you're not pressured to.

Um but yeah, let's try this.

Okay, so I want you to think real quick of the smartest person that you know.

Smartest person you know.

Give yourself a few seconds, and let's go ahead and exclude the people sitting next to us.

That way, if we don't think of them, they won't know that we didn't think of them.

So, as a rule, you cannot say the name of the person next to you, and this is to safeguard all of us, especially those of us who are sitting next to spouses or significant others.

Because of course, your spouse is the smartest person.

I mean, of course.

So, look at the smartest person you know on the count of three, just shout it out.

One, two, three.

Yep, that sounded exactly like I thought it would sound.

I love it.

Now, I know a lot of you, so please don't be offended by what I'm about to say.

I had about five or six people that were neck and neck.

But I chose in my mind a friend of mine named Todd, who I think is traveling to Florida today, so shout out to Todd.

Todd's brain lives in the future.

I don't know if you've ever been around someone like that.

Like everything that's happening today is something that Todd was talking about 10 to 15 years ago.

I've been his friend for a long time.

It's like Bitcoin's a big thing in the world now, you know, Bitcoin and all that.

Todd was talking about Bitcoin like 12 years ago.

And he explained it to me, and I didn't know what he was talking about at all.

And still, I don't know what it don't understand.

AI, there's all this buzz about AI right now, and everyone's playing with AI on apps and all kinds of things, myself included.

Todd was talking about AI in this deep way, like researching it deeply, 10 years ago.

And he's like, man, I'm telling you, AI is gonna take over this.

Here's what AI is gonna do.

And I was like, man, it sounds like a sci-fi movie.

What are you doing?

What are you talking about?

And here we are.

So I need to listen to what Todd says now, because that's gonna be what happens 10 years from now.

I should take advantage of that.

He's the smartest guy I know.

His brain lives in the future.

All right, let's do another one.

Prime your brains for a little bit.

The best leader, the best leader you've you've ever known.

Okay, I've got someone in mind, so let's just think.

Count a three, here we go.

Let's do it again.

One, two, three.

Did that someone say Jesus?

Smart.

Smart.

Yeah, that's good.

That counts.

Really, all the answers could be Jesus.

We'll get to that in a second.

So, in terms of people not named Jesus, the person who came to my mind was Steve, who started his hands.

Steve is one of the best leaders I have ever known.

I had the real honor and privilege and at times challenge of working for Steve for about a decade before I became the lead pastor here.

And Steve was phenomenal as a leader in a lot of different ways, great decision maker, but one of the things that always blew me away, still blows me away to this day, was his ability to stay the course regardless of how many people were actively discouraging him.

In fact, one of the things he told me when I stepped into this role about 10, 11 years ago, he said, if you're gonna be the leader, people are gonna say a lot of terrible things about you, and some of it's gonna be true.

That was a really good bit of advice.

It's true.

Now, Steve, when actually when Steve started this church, when he and Susan started his hands, they received more resistance than you can possibly imagine.

In fact, there was a pastor of a very large church that sent them a letter telling them that if they started this church, they would be damaging our community.

Seriously, that they that they should shut the whole thing down that they were wasting their money because they paid for this, they were wasting their time, and they were actually going to do spiritual damage to our community.

They got that letter.

And fast forward, next year we'll celebrate 20 years together as a church next year here at his hands.

It's really exciting.

And I think 2,200 plus people have been baptized since his hands started, which is really exciting.

And you just look at all those things.

And I'm not even I'm not even judging the person who sent that letter.

They shouldn't understand what they were doing.

What Steve and Susan were doing at the time was was pretty different.

But Steve had a really unique ability to hear that kind of stuff and just power through.

And it's something that good leaders have to do.

Alright, one more, one more.

Who is the wisest person that you know?

Wise and smart are different.

There's a lot of smart, unwise people.

And there's a lot of wise people who wouldn't necessarily get a high score on their SAT, but they figured out life.

Okay, let's think about that.

Wisest person you know.

Let's do it on three, and obviously you can say Jesus, or you can say it's not wrong to not say Jesus, by the way, okay?

This is just whoever comes to your mind.

Let's do it on three.

One, two, three.

Who is it?

I don't know what the person back there said, but you said it emphatically, passionately.

I love that.

So I'm gonna give a shout-out to one more person, my friend Ben.

And Ben has been part of his hands for a long time.

Ben has saved me from like stepping on rakes, you know that phrase?

Where you just self-inflicted pain?

Ben has saved me from that so many times.

There have been so many instances in my life in the last 10 years where I was fired up, I was angry, I was upset with someone, I felt justified, I felt like an injustice had been done against me, and I was ready to have a conversation with someone and just have it out.

But I had a little check in my spirit, and before I did that, I talked to Ben, and Ben's words brought new perspective into my mind and my heart.

He calmed me down.

Honestly, there's some relationships I probably would have ruined if I hadn't talked to Ben first.

In fact, once I remember I was really mad at someone, and I was talking to Ben, and he said, You know, Justin, you've known this person at the high point of their life, and it's blessed you tremendously.

Now they're at their low point and you're angry with them.

Maybe you should pray about what you can do for them in their low point, since your life was so blessed by them in their high point.

And I was like, dang it, Ben, uh why are you so wise?

And my attitude changed, my heart changed toward that person, and I avoided what would have been a really damaging conversation.

I'm really grateful for Ben.

He's wise.

We need people around us who are smart, who are good leaders, who are wise.

And I'm sure God's put people in your life that fit that bill, and that's a blessing.

You should thank God for it.

Life really is not so much about what we know, it's about who we know.

And the amazing truth that we're gonna explore today, through this prayer of Jesus, this line that Jesus throws out that is so much bigger than we could probably appreciate, it's that we can know God.

You can know God, truly, know him.

John chapter 17, verses 1 through 3.

John 17:1–3

It says, After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son so he can give glory back to you.

And we talked a few weeks ago about the glory of Jesus Christ.

For you've given him authority over everyone, he gives eternal life to each one you have given him, and this is the way to have eternal life.

To know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.

This is the way to have eternal life, to know God, and to know Jesus.

That's how you have eternal life.

It's that simple.

But it's also profound and sometimes difficult to wrap our heads around.

Do we live on a day-to-day basis as if we really know God?

It's one thing to believe in God.

It's another thing to know him.

It's one thing to know about God, but it's an entirely different thing to know him.

Do we live on a day-to-day basis pursuing the knowledge of God, an intimate relational knowledge?

Listen to some of the things that Scripture says come through our knowledge of God.

Colossians 3, 8 through 10 says, now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malice behavior, slander, dirty language.

Don't lie to each other.

For you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.

Put on your new nature and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.

You're renewed.

Your new nature, if you've given your life to Jesus, you have a new nature inside of you, and yes, that new nature and your old nature, they fight, and sometimes the old nature wins.

But you can be renewed, refreshed, re-energized by what?

Just knowing God.

And the more you know him, the more you become like him.

2 Peter 1.2 says, May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.

Grace and peace.

You get more and more of it, the better you know God.

2 Timothy 1.12.

Paul writes, that's why I'm suffering here in prison.

I'm not ashamed of it though.

For I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.

Paul says, I'm not ashamed, I'm not worried, because I know God.

I know him.

And I know what he's capable of.

We can know God.

I want us to reflect on this and understand the unique place that we're in because we actually have the opportunity, guys, to know God in ways and with a level of intimacy and closeness that even some of the greatest people in the history of the world in terms of their faith have not been able to know him.

We have this amazing opportunity every single day to live in a close-knit, loving, and deeply intimate relationship with God.

In fact, the word know, very often used when it's describing us knowing God, is not it's not the word in the Greek language that means a head knowledge, like what you would read in a book.

It's it's the same word you would use to describe a really close friend, like I know them.

It's an intimate knowledge.

And we can have that kind of relationship with God.

That's not always been the case.

Go back to the Old Testament.

Let's just explore for a moment the story, if you will, of God helping us know him better throughout history.

I want us to appreciate where we are now in this story.

And it's a story that's not over, by the way.

Go back to Abraham.

Abraham's one of the first major characters that we see in the Old Testament, pretty early in the book of Genesis.

And we learn that Abraham heard God speak.

And God called Abraham to leave his home, to leave his family, and to go to a new place, to go to a promised land.

And this is the genesis of the nation of Israel.

Abraham heard God's voice.

And that tells us something right there.

We can know God's voice, we can hear him speak.

Jesus actually says it this way in John chapter 10, verse 27 My sheep listen to my voice.

John 10:27

I know them and they follow me.

Have you ever heard God speak to you?

Have you heard his voice?

You can.

Now I'm gonna be really transparent.

I as time has gone on and I get older and hopefully wiser, and usually that's the hard way by just making dumb decisions and mistakes, trying to learn from those, I am more careful than I've ever been saying God told me.

I think it's really easy for someone in my role to overuse that.

And it's really easy to present things in such a way that no one can argue with you if you can just say, Well, God told me, God told me, and then God told me.

So very often I'll use the phrase, I felt like God told me, when I'm not a hundred percent sure that I've heard from God.

If we're all honest with ourselves, we can probably all find moments in our past where we thought we heard from God, and then we realize, oh, maybe that wasn't God, maybe that was my own emotions or desires, and I kind of convinced myself that it was God.

And it's okay to admit that, by the way.

And you know what?

If that's the case, don't even feel bad about it, because wouldn't you rather look at God one day and say, hey, I'm sorry that I did that, but I thought that's what you wanted me to do?

I thought I heard from you, my bad.

I would much rather say that to God one day than be like, yeah, I know you told me to do that, but I just didn't.

So give yourself some grace for making mistakes.

But we got to be careful with just saying, God told me, God told me.

However, at the same time, there are moments in life where, I'm sure many of you can relate to this, where you know God spoke to you.

You know you heard him speak.

There's no question.

I can think of a few.

The first time is when I was in high school.

And kind of like Abraham, I guess, I felt a call on my life.

It's the first time I ever felt called to this.

And then I fought that calling for a while, but I felt called to this when I was in high school.

And here's the basic story.

I was later in high school, uh, I had peaked at five foot nine.

It's great.

One of the first things people always say to me when they meet me for the first time off the stage is wow, you're shorter than I thought you were, which is a wonderful, just such a lovely thing to be told.

No, it's fine.

I don't care.

I'm five nine and three-quarters.

Um, which is uh, you know what, five nine is the average height of a man in America and uh or in the world.

I'm not sure where it's the average height.

I'm five, nine and three-quarters, so I'm above average, technically.

Okay?

No, like I peaked at five's nine, so I knew by 17, okay.

The sports dreams, time to put those aside.

And when I talk about that with like my love for basketball, people always be like, Yeah, Spud Webb.

And I'm like, cool, name five other people like that.

You know, and they're like Muggsy Bugs, and yeah.

I'm like, correct.

He also had a 55-inch vertical, so it helps, right?

Yeah, it's just I realized 5'9, not gonna be a pro athlete.

What else could I do?

And I'd always been really good at talking, which by me saying good at talking, what I mean is I had always gotten in a lot of trouble for how much I talked and how comfortable I am with talking.

I every single class I had from elementary school on, I treated it like an audience.

Like, hey, I've got things to say, and this is funny, and let's do this.

And my teachers did not like that.

But I had honed my craft and spent a lot of time in special desks and rooms.

But I was like, I'm good at talking, I'm comfortable with talking.

And so I started thinking I could do sports journalism, and I actually did that for a little while, and and I could talk and I could talk about sports.

So I'm not an athlete, but I'm one of those guys, maybe I could even be like on ESPN or something like that.

That was a dream of mine.

And then that sort of expanded to me just doing the news.

I was like, man, why just do sports when I could talk about everything happening in the world?

And I could be one of those people that when some big event's happening, you know, you turn on your TV and boom, there's a person talking about it.

And that seemed really cool at the time.

And so that's where my head was.

I'm gonna do that.

And one day I was brushing my teeth.

This is the first time I ever heard God speak to me.

And I think it's so good.

I think the reason he spoke to me when I was brushing my teeth was because it's like one of the only chances he could slide in some words.

He's like, I gotta pick my spot because Justin will not shut up.

So it's the one time I wasn't talking.

And I heard I heard this and I heard it as clear as day in my mind.

When I say I heard God, it wasn't with my ears, it was with my mind, but it was a voice that did not sound like my own.

I know what my brain sounds like, I know that voice very well.

This did not sound like it.

And I'm just brushing my teeth, and I heard this.

Why would you use the gift I've given you to tell people about all the horrible things happening in the world when you could use the gift I've given you to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ?

I heard that and I was like, hmm.

And then I continued brushing my teeth.

And honestly, I kept that to myself for a long time.

I shared it with a few people I was close to.

I wasn't, I didn't walk out of the bathroom and say, Mom, I've been called.

I didn't do that at all.

I really didn't have a honestly, I didn't have a category for that at the time.

So I just sort of pondered that.

There have been a few other moments in life where I was that confident that God said something to me.

But Abraham tells us that we can know God's voice.

We see this many other times in scripture.

You can know the voice of God.

You can hear him speak to you.

That is not a superpower, by the way.

In fact, if we can learn as people to push out some of the other stuff that we're listening to and quiet our minds a little bit and ask God to speak to us and open up his word so we know we have discernment if what we hear from him is actually accurate, because God will never say something that contradicts what he's already said.

We can hear God speak.

That's powerful.

We can know his voice.

Now, Abraham knew his voice pretty early, but he didn't know his nature, he didn't know his character.

And so you have to give some major props to Abraham because he started following a God that he heard and knew was real, but he didn't really know what that God was all about.

He would learn that over time.

We see that in a few different stories.

For example, there's a story of a city called Sodom and Gomorrah, kind of these two cities together, and it's a wicked place, and it's so bad that God is like, this place has to go.

And that's a sometimes that's a tough concept for us to think about, but God is God, and we actually did a series a few years ago as we went through the entire story of the Bible, and it's called So Much Blood, and it's about those sections of the Bible that are about wars and all that kind of stuff.

And if you're interested, give it a listen.

I don't want to go through all that right now.

But God basically says, hey, this has to stop, this has to go, and this really concerns Abraham.

Because he's wondering, what if God isn't fair?

What if God isn't just?

What if God is cruel?

What if God overreacts?

And so we see this in Genesis chapter 18.

Genesis 18 · chapter mention

Abraham talks to God.

He says, Hey, suppose you find 50 righteous people living in the city.

Will you still sweep it away and not spare it for their sakes?

Surely you wouldn't do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked?

Why, you'd be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same.

Surely you wouldn't do that.

Should not the judge of all the earth do what is right?

Abraham's pretty bold here.

But we've all had arguments with God.

Or conceptually, at least, we've thought to ourselves, man, should God really be like this?

Should God really care about this?

So this is how God responds.

If I find fifty righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake.

Then Abraham spoke again.

Well, since I've begun, let me speak further to my Lord, even though I'm but dust and ashes.

Suppose there's only forty-five righteous people rather than fifty.

Will you destroy the whole city for the lack of five?

And the Lord said, I will not destroy it, destroy it if I find forty-five righteous people living there.

Then Abraham pressed his request further.

Suppose there's only forty.

And the Lord replied, I will not destroy it for the sake of forty.

Please don't be angry, my Lord.

Abraham pleaded, Let me speak.

Suppose only thirty righteous people are found.

And the Lord replied, I will not destroy it if I find thirty.

Then Abraham said, Since I have dared to speak to the Lord, let me continue.

Suppose there's only twenty.

And the Lord replied, I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.

And finally, Abraham said, Lord, please don't be angry with me if I speak one more time.

Suppose only ten are found there.

And the Lord replied, Then I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.

And when the Lord had finished his conversation with Abraham, he went on his way, and Abraham returned to his tent.

Abraham's starting to learn the nature of God.

That he's fair, that he's compassionate, he's not cruel, he's not hot-tempered.

Still, Abraham had a lot to learn.

He didn't really know God that well.

There's a story in Genesis chapter 22, an interesting story, where God speaks to Abraham again, and Abraham's good at hearing his voice.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

And God tells him to sacrifice his son Isaac, his only son.

Well, not really his only son, his only son with his wife Sarah.

That's a whole different story.

How many of you have ever been uncomfortable with the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac?

Anybody?

Anyone at all?

You guys have greater faith than me.

Yeah, it's a crazy story.

And it often gets taught that way that God calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

That's actually not the story.

God does not want Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.

In fact, as they go through this whole ordeal in Genesis chapter 22, verse 12, an angel comes and says, Don't lay a hand on the boy.

Genesis 22:12

Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God.

You've not withheld from me even your son, your only son.

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket, so he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

And then Abraham named the place Yahweh Yireh, which means the Lord will provide.

And to this day, people still use that name as a proverb.

On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.

That story is not a story about God asking Abraham to kill his son.

It's a story of God showing Abraham that he is not a God who takes, he is a God who provides.

And what's really crazy about that story, if you know the culture and the history of the world, in the area that Abraham lived, all of the religions of that area, child sacrifice was a normal thing.

That was a that was an incredibly horrific and normal thing in these pagan religions that surrounded Abraham.

And it's almost like Abraham's following the one true God, and then God says, Hey, I want you to sacrifice your son.

And you can almost picture Abraham being like, Oh, is that really what my God is like?

Is he just like these other pagan gods?

And we know that Abraham had great faith and heavily suspected that wasn't the case, but you could see in Abraham's mind, oh, maybe maybe my God is just like these other false gods, and he's just as bloodthirsty.

And it's almost like God had to put Abraham and Isaac through that so he could say, No, I'm nothing like those other gods.

I will never call you to do that.

In fact, I'm going to provide the sacrifice for you, ultimately, one day that will cover all of your sin.

It's a totally different story when you look at it that way.

But Abraham didn't know the nature of God, and that's just another story where now he knows that he can hear God speak, but he knows that God is fair and God is good, and God is a provider, that he covers us.

You go on through the Old Testament, and there's more stories.

There's the story of Moses.

Moses comes a good bit after Abraham, and in Moses' day, the people of Israel have become slaves in Egypt, and this has gone on for generations.

And one day, Moses, he's a shepherd, and he sees a bush and it's on fire, but it's not being consumed by the fire, and he's like, that's cool.

So he walks up to it and it starts to talk to him.

And he would have had a precedent through Abraham of God speaking.

And God speaks to him through the bush.

And as God tells Moses what he wants him to do, he wants him to go to Egypt and get his people freed and tell the Pharaoh to let the people go.

Moses asked this question.

Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, the God of your ancestors has sent me to you, they'll ask me, What's his name?

And what should I tell them?

And God replied to Moses, I am who I am.

Say this to the people of Israel, I am, has sent me to you.

God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This phrase, I am, it really means like I am, I was, I will be, kind of all wrapped into one.

We see Jesus use this language in the New Testament as well.

And it's so amazing because here it is, so many years after Abraham, and the people of Israel, they follow God and they worship God, but they don't know his name.

And God shows Moses, you can know my name.

You can know me personally.

It's like being on a first name basis with someone.

You can be on a first name basis with God.

You can talk to God and not just by his title, although that is appropriate and worshipful and reverent, and we pray, Heavenly Father, and we pray out, oh God, oh King of kings, like all those kinds of things.

Absolutely, but you can call him by name.

He wants to have a personal relationship with you.

Now we see that God is personal.

He's not just big, he's personal.

As Moses' story goes on, we learn about the power of God, because to Moses, he may have not believed that his God was that powerful because he's in Egypt.

And those Egyptian gods, just statues and made-up things, but they probably seem pretty pretty impressive to Moses, to all the Israelites, because you know, they're slaves to those people.

And those gods that are worshipped seem to be more powerful than their God because they're slaves and those people are ruling over them.

I mean, what's what gives?

And as the story of Moses goes on, we learn that no, no, no, our God is powerful.

There is nothing that can stop him.

And his power is displayed so much through the freeing of the Israelites from the hand of the Egyptians, their escape across the Red Sea, how they're sustained and protected in the desert.

And by the end of Moses' life, not only does Moses know the name of God, and he learns a lot more about him as well, he learns the power of God.

And so now, as we go through the story, we we know that God can speak to us, we can hear his voice, we know that he's good, we know about his nature, we know that he's powerful, that he's personal.

You read the story of Israel and you realize that he's patient.

Like one of the worst takes you can ever have on the Old Testament is that God is impatient and God is cruel.

Because if you read the story of the Old Testament and you recognize just how many times God gives the people another chance and another chance and another chance.

I promise, if any of us were God, we would be over it so fast.

If we had that kind of power, we'd be like, I'm done, you're done, I'm moving on.

But God time and time again forgives and he forgives and he forgives and he forgives that God is incredibly patient.

Even when the people have lost it to such a degree, they've turned away from God so many times that they are conquered, God still says to them, I'm not giving up on you.

I have a plan for your future.

This isn't over, and I will redeem you.

He's not just powerful, he's patient.

Then we get to Jesus.

Oh, this is where it gets it gets really good.

Jesus, he makes God look so clear.

I've heard it described before that Jesus is like you putting glasses on.

And whatever picture you have of God, it's kind of hazy.

You see it, you understand aspects of it, but you can't quite see it clearly, it's not in focus, and then you look through the lens of Jesus and all of it becomes clear because Jesus is the perfect picture of God the Father.

He isn't God in a good mood, he's not God, you know, putting his best foot forward.

No, he is God.

Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3 says that the Son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God.

Hebrews 1:3

In John chapter 14, Jesus is talking about the Father.

John 14 · chapter mention

And Philip, one of his disciples, said, Lord, show us the Father, and we'll be satisfied.

Just show us the Father.

That's all we want to see is the Father.

And Jesus replies, Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know who I am?

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

So why are you asking me to show him to you?

Don't you believe that I'm in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me and does his work through me.

Jesus is the perfect picture of God.

And so now we we know him in an entirely different way.

Because of Jesus becoming one of us, because the Son became one of us and became flesh and blood, we get to see what God would do in all these different situations.

What does God do when he's lied about?

What does God do when he meets someone who's entrenched in sin?

What would God do if someone tried to push him, to use his power for his own good?

What would God do in this situation, in that situation?

What would God do when face to face with his enemies?

Oh, he prays, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing.

We see this clear picture of God through Jesus.

Now we we know him in an entirely different way.

We have this intimate understanding, this clear understanding of God through Jesus.

And what a blessing, because Abraham didn't have that, and Moses didn't have that.

And the prophets of the Old Testament, as much as they follow God and listen to God and experience God, they didn't have Jesus.

They didn't know him the way that we can know him.

We are really blessed.

Jesus shows us the love of God.

I mean, Jesus is every aspect of God on full display.

It's his power with miracle after miracle, it's his kindness and the way he treats people, it's his wisdom and the way he teaches, it's his love and the way he forgives.

It's powerful.

So here we are.

This is where we are in the story.

We're post-Jesus, and it's not quite the end.

There's more to come.

In fact, Revelation.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

Chapter 19.

And actually, I don't think I have this in the notes.

That's okay.

Um, Revelation 19 talks about a wedding feast, it's describing the end.

When evil is finally defeated, Satan is finally, completely and totally, once and for all, defeated.

And there's this wedding feast.

And we're there.

If you're a follower of Jesus, you're there because you are the bride, so to speak.

Has anyone ever been to a wedding feast, just out of curiosity?

You've been to a wedding with food.

That's what I'm asking.

Like wedding feast.

Okay.

Very specific question.

Anyone ever paid for a wedding feast?

You had a child that got married and you paid for it.

How was that?

Still recovering, I'm sure.

My wife and I have been married 20 years, and I can still remember our wedding feast.

In fact, I remember planning for it and meeting with caterers and listening to what they were going to provide and then learning how expensive it was going to be.

And I had this idea, you're going to have to forgive me because I was 20 years old.

And I was like, that's an insane amount of money to spend on food.

We could totally do this differently.

And Megan was like, well, what?

What could we do?

And I was like, well, there's lots of things we order pizza.

You know?

I was like, you know what we could do?

We could just have microwaves all over the room and just have hot pockets, and everyone could just make their own hot pocket.

I was a college guy, I ate a lot of hot pockets.

And she was like, We will not have hot pockets at our wedding.

Some of the girls in here are just like, that's crazy.

But then you know what?

We went we went that way, we hired a caterer, and we're going through the line.

And I looked at Vegas, hey, what's this?

And she goes, Oh, that's uh chicken cordon bleu wrapped in a puff pastry.

And I was like, that's a hot pocket.

That's exactly that is a ham hot pocket, just with really good marketing, okay?

It's like we could have done hot pockets.

I can only imagine how good the food will be in heaven.

But when I think about this concept of the fact that right now we can know God, and then what are we looking forward to?

We're looking forward to a day where we come together with our creator, and it's a celebration, and it's described in scripture like a wedding feast.

I remember my wedding feast.

And I remember how much I loved my wife on our wedding night, and I knew her really well, or so I thought, but fast forward till today and or to today, and I know her so much better.

I know her so much more, I love her so much more.

And if that's what heaven's gonna be like, if getting to heaven is just like what the beginning of a marriage can be, and then you have all of eternity to get to know God better and better and better and better and more and more and more deeply.

Man, I can't wait for that.

Guys, we can know God.

We can know him.

In fact, that's really all that matters.

This is often read as a scary verse, and maybe in some ways it is in John, or rather, Matthew chapter 7, verse 22.

Matthew 7:22

Jesus says, On judgment day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and we cast out demons in your name, and we perform many miracles in your name, but I will reply, I never knew you.

Get away from me, you who break God's laws.

Anyone ever read that verse and felt terrified?

Like, I don't want that to be me.

I will say, if that's the fear you have, one of two things is usually true.

Either A, you just need to drop to your knees and repent and give your life to God for the first time, or B, you feeling that is an indication that you're the last person that should ever be worried by that verse because you have such a desire to know God that the worst thing you could imagine would be to hear him say, I don't know you.

So just relax a little.

Unless you don't need to.

Here's though, a different take on that verse.

The people that are speaking to Jesus that are cast out, they're bringing a resume.

I mean, think about the things you're saying.

We prophesied in your name, we've cast out demons in your name.

Like, think about that.

We've performed miracles in your name.

That's a pretty good resume.

I'm just saying.

Like if you're sitting in line and you're trying to get to heaven and you're sitting next to someone, you're like, hey, so you think you're gonna get in?

Yeah, I feel pretty good about it.

Well, just I'm curious, where's your confidence coming from?

Well, I don't want to brag, but prophesied.

Cast out a few demons, a couple miracles.

How many miracles did you perform?

Like, oh, none?

None.

And the resume doesn't impress Jesus.

He's like, yeah, but I don't know you.

Now, again, that that's a warning verse for sure.

It challenges us to check our hearts and go, do I know God?

But the flip side of that is that you don't have to have a resume.

You don't have to impress God, you just have to know him.

Like, what's a lower bar?

Being a miracle performer or just knowing him.

The relationship trumps the resume.

And so at the end of the day, that's all that matters according to this.

It's just that you know him.

Now he knows you.

That is clear.

Scripture says he knows every hair on your head, every single one of them.

Or for some of us, how many there used to be?

Um, he could do the math.

Like he could look at my head and be, well, today it's this.

Ten years ago it was much more.

No, he he knows you so well.

Do you know him?

Do you know him?

Because you can.

You can know God.

You can know him deeply, you can know him personally, you can know his voice, you can know his nature, you can know his power, you can know his character, his goodness, you can know his love.

You can know him.

And if you're if you're honestly, if you're someone who's never given your life to God, if you've held back, if you've resisted for whatever reason, my prayer for you today is really simple.

Stop.

You don't need a resume, you don't need some list of accomplishments to be worthy to know God.

He loves you, he knows you.

He just wants you to respond to him.

And it can just be a prayer in your heart that begins a relationship where you say, Jesus, I believe in you.

I believe that you are exactly who you say you are, and I want to know you.

I want to know you.

So come into my life in a way I've never experienced because I want to know you, God.

I don't just want to know about you, I don't just want to know of you, I want to know you.

And that's all it takes to start this relationship, guys.

It's a confession, it's a humility, it's repentance because you recognize that all your stuff that you've ever done, it's worthless.

That resume doesn't matter.

It's just about knowing him.

That's all it takes.

And if you if you have given your life to Jesus, but you feel like you don't know him well enough, well, here's the good news: just get to know him better.

I think a lot of the times the reason that we don't feel like we have a relationship with God if we ever struggle with that is because we don't treat our relationship with God like a relationship.

We don't do any of the things that we do with God that we do in all the other relationships that we have.

We don't talk to him, we don't listen, we don't carve out time to spend with him.

We fill our days with all kinds of other things, all kinds of lesser things.

And then we wonder sometimes, well, why do I feel so far from God?

Just talk to him, spend time with him, prioritize him.

Do the same thing with God as you would do with any relationship that matters to you, and see what happens.

See how close you can get, how fast.

You can know him.

I'm gonna take all the sounds that I'm hearing as indication that we've gone long enough.

I don't need to say anymore, you can know him.

So know him.

And if you don't know him, ask ask him to come into your life so you can.

And trust that that matters more than anything else.

This is how to have eternal life, Jesus said.

To know God and to know the one he sent, Jesus Christ.

Let's take Lord's Supper together.

And if you're new to His hands, by the way, we have uh these little cups with bread and juice in the back, and uh they're easy to miss when you walk in.

We're trying to figure out how to make them less easy to miss, but they are right now.

And so if you want to go grab one right now, no big deal, you're not gonna mess us up.

And if you you don't, just know anytime you come, you're welcome to join us with this.

But we take this little meal together every week because, well, Jesus' followers have been doing it for thousands of years.

It matters, it's really meaningful.

This represents the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross.

This comes from a meal that he had with his followers right before he was arrested, right before he prayed the prayer we have in John 17.

And we learn that this bread it represents his body sacrificed on the cross, and this juice represents his blood that was spilled for us.

And so we're gonna pray and we're just gonna thank him for what he's done and recognize that not only has this paid the price for our sin, but this has been Jesus opening the door for us to step into a relationship with our Creator.

We can now know him and have an intimate relationship with him, and it would be impossible if not for this.

So let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for this bread.

Thank you for what this bread represents, what it means.

This is your body, Jesus.

And the same body that walked on water, the same body that laid hands on people and healed them of blindness and deafness and all kinds of other things.

That same body that was nailed to a tree, was crucified.

And you did that for us.

You love us that much.

Thank you, Jesus, because through your sacrifice, through your gift, we can know you.

We have a relationship with you.

Let's take the breath.

Now the juice.

For what this represents and means.

This is your blood.

And it was spilled to purify us from our sin.

And because you've washed us, because you've cleansed us, now we can step into a relationship with you.

We can step into a relationship with our Creator and our sin and our issues, all of our mess.

It's no longer a barrier.

It doesn't get in the way anymore.

It's been washed away.

Now we can come to you cleansed and whole and made holy and righteous, not by our own works, but by what you've done for us.

Thank you, Jesus.

Help us take advantage of our opportunity to know you and to know you more and to know you better.

Let's take the juice.