Knowing Christ
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No God No Peace
Know God Know Peace!
My wife posted an meme that stated: You can’t expect God to be the source of your peace if the world is your source of satisfaction!
What is it that we spend all of our time getting to know???
What does it mean to know God and what God are we to know!!!
There are many gods but only one true god and his name is Yahweh, Adonai - The Lord and His son is Jesus the Christ!!!
In order to have real peace - we need to Know Him!!!
What is our intent in KNOWING CHRIST --- have we settled for a mere knowing about HIM and not a depth of knowing HIM???
Paul talked about knowing Christ in the power of His death and resurrection - that is a deep sense of experiencing what Christ experienced...
He even equated Knowing Christ with becoming perfected into the purpose Christ had intended for him
10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death,
11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.
I remember years ago sitting at a table talking with one of my teenage nieces. I thought, I know about her as my parents would keep me up to date, I know who she is, and where she comes from, but I also realized than if I did not engage in conversation with her I would have no relationship with her - and as an Uncle I wanted to be connected with her in her life.
Do we treat Jesus the same???
Do we settle for casual knowledge???
I want to talk about knowing Jesus and the different levels - each of which has importance.
1. Knowing Christ Literally
1. Knowing Christ Literally
Knowing the facts about who He is, what He has done, what He taught us - having knowledge about Christ is so important and builds our faith
17 So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.
We can not deny this part of knowledge - we must know about Jesus!!!
However, it does not end with awareness or even having a depth of head knowledge.
Nonetheless,
Solomon teaches us to pursue knowledge and wisdom (what to do with what we know), and this is where it begins!!!
One of the greatest issues facing the Contemporary Church is BIBLICAL ILLITERACY - people just do not know the Word of God and what is inside.
The same, people do not know much about WHO JESUS IS!
How can we know what HE wants us to do and how to live, if we are not familiar with who HE was, what was IMPORTANT TO HIM, and what He taught us???
How do we say we love Jesus when we don’t know who Jesus is? We have had an initial encounter, but often it ends there. Pursuit of knowing who God is through Christ is our purpose as Christians… we should be ever growing in our understanding of Jesus.
2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
In fact, Paul also wrote that we need to destroy those things that keep us from knowing God more
5 We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.
33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!
The reason why it is impossible to understand all God’s ways is because knowledge of Him is not sufficient, it has to be knowing him...
2. Knowing Christ Experientially
2. Knowing Christ Experientially
There is a vast difference of knowing about someone and experiencing someone -
It is getting into their presence - getting into their midst and sensing their personality, love
- the vibes they give -
If we have no interaction with a person do we really know them?
- Think of teenagers who chat on Social media or look up documents, pictuers, stories about a person’s life - and make a decision about who they are, but they have never experienced someone’s persona first hand.
Experiencing someone’s presence and interaction with them helps you to know their interests, nuances, what pleases them and what angers them- what makes them smile and laugh - what is their passion
Many people try to serve Jesus Christ from head knowledege only. What they have read in the Bible, but have not experienced in the prayer closet, worship or through the infilling of the HOly Spirit!
HOw do we know someone’s heart if we have not spent time together????
It is encountering the very presence of Christ...
24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Here Jesus is speaking about a new day coming, one He was exemplifying to this woman. The Pharisees had knowledge of God, but she was encountering him! Experiencing His presence.
We are called to know Jesus experientially - in SPIRT AND IN TRUTH - God in PERSON not just in WORD
20 “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.
This is not a literary study, it is a relationship --- to get to know who God is! That happens through time spent in prayer, worship, listening, meditating on Him.
No noone ever knows someone that they do not spend time with… in order to know Christ we must experience His presence.
3. Knowing Christ Intimately
3. Knowing Christ Intimately
Deepest sense of knowing someone deals with intimacy - becoming one
It is a step beyond just knowing someone experientially! We often get to know many people in life experientially, but intimately is reserved for our spouse!
Scripture compares the relationship of the church to Christ as marriage!
31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”
32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.
33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
2 For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ.
9 Then one of the seven angels who held the seven bowls containing the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come with me! I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
Old Testament often referred to the act of marriage is “knowing someone”
The beauty of sexual relations is two becoming one - science has detected there may be a possible connection that the dna of men a woman has intimacy can find its way to the brain. The study is under debate and is compared with carrying a male fetus, however, some have shown it goes beyond just what is found from the DNA of a male fetus... may I say that when two are united and the become fruitful and multiply there is oneness as well...
Regardless of the DNA factor, the Biblical concept of oneness is- this why God designed this deepest of intimacy for marriage and for one person in life forever
We are the bride of Christ - the consummation of intimacy really is a description not of sex, but oneness with God in knowing a person in such a way that the experience is one of connection and interaction or being intertwined.
So much the heart of God and your heart becoming as one.
It is a description of faithfulness and fulfillment in relationship that is derived from mutual fidelity. commitment and unconditional love that is the picture of TRUE MARRIAGE ONENESS.
Have you ever heard people complete their spouses statements, begin looking like one another, and having the same thoughts? Part of oneness.
Paul, prior to talking about knowing HIm in His death and resurrection speaks of the oneness with Christ being the most important thing possible in life...
8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ
9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.
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CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
SO, KNOWING Christ is something to be pursued in the life of a Christian.
Knowing about Him literally in who he was, what he taught, and what he is like
Knowing Him experientially by being in His presence and discerning Him and his heart
Knowing Him intimately becoming one in fidelity, fruitfulness, unconditional love
When we reach this level of knowing, the outflow of Christ in our lives to others, the sharing of our faith with others, the obedience of our will no longer comes from choice but an outflow of connectedness with God Himself.
Why else would the promise of heaven be so rewarding...
Just like we want to spend every moment with one we are in love with and know in this earth, so is the relationship between the believer and Christ! The bride of Christ and the bridegroom...
How much do you know Him, how much time do you spend in pursuit of knowing Him, how intimate with Christ have you become???