Knowing Christ
Ephesians 1:17
CHCC: November 22, 2009
INTRODUCTION:
Today I have the opportunity to preach anything I want. So I decided … why waste that opportunity --- If I can talk about whatever I want, I’ll talk about the most important thing in the universe – knowing Christ. There is absolutely NOTHING that matters more in your life or in mine than that. Knowing Christ is the only hope for this world. It is the primary and foundational message of the entire Bible.
In Ephesians 1:17 Paul gives this prayer for those who follow Jesus: I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Sprit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.
The English word for “know” is generic. It can mean anything. I “know” that 2+2=4. I also “know” my wife, Susan. Those are two very different kinds of “knowing.” The Spanish language has two different words for “know” that make this distinction between knowing a fact and knowing a person. The two Spanish words are “saber” and “conocer.”
Saber means to know a fact or to learn a lesson. When you ask a person if he is savvy concerning what you are saying you are using a gringo-ization of the word for saber. In fact, in Spanish, you might say simply, “Sabes?” meaning, “Do you understand?”
The word “conocer” means to know a person and it implies a two way relationship … meaning that both people know each other in a personal way. In Spanish the verse says we need to conocer Jesus better.
I’ve read several books about Winston Churchill … but of course, I never met the man. I admire him and appreciate him, but can’t say that I know him in the way that I know my own father. The difference lies in the fact that I have been around my father for 59 years. I’ve talked with him and spent time with him I know his voice when I hear it. I know his personality as well as his strengths and weaknesses. I know the kinds of things he worries about, I know how reliable he is to keep his word and commitments. I know how honest he is. I know the kind of provider he has been for his family. I know what ticks him off. I know what are the most important things to him.
In other words, I KNOW my dad. But I only know ABOUT Winston Churchill. That’s true of most historical characters. We can know all kinds of things ABOUT them. But we have no way to really KNOW them personally.
But Jesus is not JUST a person who lived in history. Jesus still lives today. Through His Spirit, Jesus Christ can have a very real and personal relationship with you and with me … in the here and now.
So when Paul prayed for Christians to KNOW Christ better, he was talking about personal relationship kind of knowledge. I wanted to come up with a way to talk about how we can KNOW Jesus --- some way that would be easy to explain and easy to remember. I believe we need to know Jesus the LAMB, our LORD, and our LIFE.
1. Lamb
Jesus was first introduced to the world as the LAMB of God. John the Baptist was preaching to large crowds in the wilderness when he saw Jesus approaching in the distance. He told the crowd, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! When He called Jesus the LAMB of God, He was quoting the prophecy about the Messiah from Isaiah 53.
John already knew Jesus in a personal way because he and Jesus were cousins. But it took divine revelation from God for John to know that Jesus was the Messiah – the LAMB of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Knowing Jesus as the LAMB of God is the way most of us are introduced to Jesus. Before we can start to know Christ, we first have to understand our own sinfulness … and our need for a savior. In our confession of faith we say, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, and my Lord and Savior.”
Every week, when take the Lord’s Supper, we remember the central truth in all of history --- that Jesus … the perfect LAMB of GOD … gave up his life in order to take away the sins of the world.
2. Lord
Knowing Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is not full Knowledge of Christ. The better we get to KNOW Jesus as our Savior, the more we want Him to be the LORD of our lives. But knowing Jesus as LORD means so much more than just following a bunch of rules. Jesus is not looking for rule-keepers.
Listen to this warning from Jesus. In the sermon on the mount, he said, "Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ’I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7:21-23
What makes these words so chilling is that these people called Jesus “LORD.” They thought that doing things Jesus said to do was the same thing as actually KNOWING Him.
But these people didn’t really KNOW Jesus at all. Could it be they had confused saber with conocer? Did they know FACTS about Christ without knowing Christ himself?
Obedience is important … but not so we can show off how many good works we can do. Obedience to Jesus matters because it is only through obedience that we grow in personal KNOWLEDGE of Jesus. We grow in our relationship to Christ as we pass the test in the classroom of obedience.
Every act of obedience on our part helps us learn to trust Jesus for greater and greater things. Every act of obedience helps us to know Jesus better and to love Him more. This is what it means to KNOW Jesus as LORD. It is so much more than obeying Him.
It is obeying Him SO THAT we can learn to understand and know Him better and better.
And that leads to the third way that we can truly KNOW Christ. Knowing Jesus as the LAMB is the way we first connect with Him. Knowing Him as LORD is the way we grow in our knowledge of Him. But if we don’t come to know Jesus as our LIFE, we will never experience the amazing JOY and PEACE that He wants to give us.
3. Life
I can see these three ways of knowing Christ in my own life. When I was 10 years old, I connected with Jesus as the LAMB of God who took away all my sins and brought me into God’s family.
Then, right away, I entered the school of obedience! Day by day, I began to KNOW Jesus as my LORD. Day by day I learned what it meant to obey Christ. Of course I learned a lot of things the hard way … by messing up … and then trying to straighten up.
Every time I obeyed, I learned that Jesus had my best interest in mind. And every time I DIS-obeyed, I learned that I should have obeyed!
By the time I got to college, I thought I was doing pretty good at living the Christian life. But it didn’t take very long to find out I wasn’t the prize I thought I was! For example, I thought I was the kind of guy who could get along with ANYONE.
But I found out that under the right kind of pressure, I was capable of getting really angry. I never thought I was capable of actually hating someone. But then I’d never lived much of life. So I found out that I could develop the exact WRONG attitudes … and on top of that, there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to fix myself. In fact, the more I tried to MAKE myself feel the right way … the worse it got.
For the first time in my life, I completely understand what the apostle Paul was talking about in Romans 7:15 when he exclaimed: I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions … such as they are … don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. (The Message)
The Apostle Paul discovered that that the harder he tried to obey Jesus, the more he found himself falling short. He WANTED to know Jesus as LORD, but something else in him gravitated toward disobedience and sin. And if that’s how it was for Paul, you know that’s how it will be for you and me!
Here’s what Paul said in Romans 7:24-25: I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. ( The Message)
For me, the answer came when I started to KNOW Jesus as my LIFE. It’s a hard thing to explain … so I’m not going to try to explain it myself. I’m going to let Paul do it. Look in Romans chapter 8 starting in verse 5. (Again, I’m going to us THE MESSAGE version:)
Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God!
I sometimes hear people talk about trying to get “closer” to Christ. Jesus already lives IN you … how much “closer” could you possibly get? As soon as you put your trust in Jesus, His Spirit comes to live IN you. Knowing Christ as your LIFE starts with believing that His life has already been joined with your life.
Paul went on to say: Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.
It doesn’t do much good to BELIEVE that Jesus lives in you if you spend all your time thinking about yourselves and trying to somehow MAKE yourself behave the right way.
The difference is to stop thinking about yourself and … instead … put all your focus on GOD. Instead of putting effort on TRYING to do right, use all that energy to keep your focus on GOD.
Look at what Paul said next: When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! Romans 8:5-14 (The Message)
CONCLUSION:
Doesn’t that kind make more sense than they way most of us try to live the Christian life? Do you want to keep trying to whip yourself into shape, using your own will power and determination? Wouldn’t you rather just relax and trust in Jesus … who is already living within you?
The secret of the Christian walk is not trying harder to do everything on your own. The secret is to KNOW CHRIST. Know Him as the LAMB who took your sins away. Know Him as your LORD. And Know Him as your LIFE. Jesus has joined HIS life with yours. He is already living inside you. You don’t have to find a way to bring Him closer! Just focus your effort on believing that He lives in you. Keep your mind focused on Him. Let go of that urge to control everything and begin to discover the JOY of allowing Jesus to BE your LIFE.
