Do You Know Me? Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• Today I want to talk about Jesus. Is Jesus the central part of your life, or is His simply on the periphery of your life?

• What tangible difference does Jesus make in our lives? Is He even supposed to make any difference?

• What it mean to have a relationship with Jesus? Is a relationship with Jesus more than just going to church, singing and giving some money?

• Is a relationship with Jesus more than saying I have one?

• All these relationship questions lead to this question…

• How do I know if I know Jesus?

• This is a question that people have posed to me in the past; people want to know if they really know Jesus.

• Is there a difference in knowing Him and knowing Him? I believe there is. Can we really get to know Jesus? Yes we can!

• It is one thing to know A LOT about Jesus; however, KNOWING Him is a completely different issue.

• Throughout the ages people have claimed various ways to prove or reassure themselves that they know Jesus.

• In the days of John, a group called the Gnostics claimed they “knew” Jesus because of a special revelations of knowledge they claimed to possess.

• Today the struggle is the same, how do I know if I really know Jesus?

• Speaking of Jesus, the question is, “Do You Know Me?”

• Let us examine what it means to know Him as well as how we can recognize if we really KNOW Him or just simply know about Him.

• Today we are going to look at three myths concerning who one get to KNOW

• Let’s open the Word to 1 John 2:3

• SLIDE #2

• 1 John 2:3 (HCSB) This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands.

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. Knowing Him is more than an intellectual pursuit. Verse 3

• John seems to be inquisitive. “KNOW” is one of John’s favorite words based on the number of times he uses it in this letter (about 40 times) and the 60 some odd times he uses the word in the Gospel of John.

• What does it mean to “know” Jesus?

• For many, it boils down to knowing all the facts thy can about Jesus. It becomes an intellectual pursuit.

• Intellectual pursuits are not a bad thing, we should learn as much as we can about the Savior we have given our lives to.

• But there is more to knowing Jesus than being able to win a bible trivia game about Him.

• I have come across people who would almost boast to me about how they USED to be a Sunday School teacher, but now when you look at them, they are not even a part of a local Church.

• The Gnostics that I mentioned in the introduction thought that because they claimed to have secret knowledge about Jesus, that they really knew Jesus.

• The problem with boiling your relationship with Jesus down to an intellectual pursuit is the fact that an intellectual pursuit is void of any morality.

• This does not mean intellectual pursuits are evil, nevertheless, only accumulating facts about something in itself does not change you or spur you on to love and live the way Jesus would want.

• We have more information in the public about the problems drugs, tobacco, alcohol and sexually transmitted diseases, yet the knowledge of these bad things in themselves does not change much as far as behavior.

• People till get addicted to drug, people still become alcoholics,

• there needs to be more to change a life. Why in the world would a person even consider starting to smoke, or take that first hit of meth?

• As I spent time with Robyn, I got to know her. My goal in spending time with her was not to learn all the facts I could about her, it was to know her, Robyn the person.

• I used to be able to tell you all the facts about Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and other ball players, but I did not know them!

• I used to get really disappointed in a person who went to Bible College, and then years later to see them not serving the Lord faithfully or rarely if ever seeing them darken the doorstep of a church.

• I used to wonder how a person who knew so much about Jesus, God and the Bible could EVER stop serving Him or ever let their relationship with Him drop to the point it seemingly meant nothing.

• Then I came to understand that knowing Jesus is more that retaining facts about Him, it is more than what I can tell you on a Bible Content test you take before entering some Bible Colleges.