knowing god

Philippians 3:7-12

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.

Philippians 3:7

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the

knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord

Philippians 3:8

for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as

rubbish, that I may gain Christ

Philippians 3:8

and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in

Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;

Philippians 3:9

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the

fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,

Philippians 3:10

if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:11

And this is eternal life…

John 17:3

that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus

Christ whom You have sent.

But also eternal death

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of

heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

MATTHEW 7:21

Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied

in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders

in Your name?’

MATTHEW 7:22

And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me,

you who practice lawlessness!’

MATTHEW 7:23

Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

WESTMINSTER CATECHISM

What is the chief end of man?

Knowing God

The chief end of man

Eternal life and eternal death at stake

Our highest aim

Greater than anything else

Our greatest purpose

Knowing God Matters

What does it mean to

Today

Know God?

How can we come toknow God Better?

In Two Weeks:

What does it mean to

Today’s Main Question:

Know God?

Our Terms

“Knowing God”

When we talk about

are we talking about something objective or subjective?

Question #1

“Knowing God”

Objective or

Subjective ?

Objective Subjective

“Based on personal feelings, tastes, or

opinions”

“Not influenced by personal feelings or

opinions in considering and representing facts”

*Webster’s Dictionary


“Dependent on the mind or on an

individual's perception for its existence.”

“Not dependent on the mind for existence”

*Webster’s Dictionary


Based on feelings or experience

Based on facts or reality

Facts

Feelings

Feelings

Facts


Facts

Feelings

Objective “Knowing God is first about knowing His

character and works through the Word, which informs our experience of the

Christian life.”

Feelings

Facts

Subjective “Knowing God starts with feeling His presence which

informs how we go about understanding

His character and works in the Word.”

“Knowing God”When we talk about

do we mean objectively or subjectively?

Facts

Feelings

Feelings

Facts


Facts

Feelings

Objective Our feelings and experience of God center around the

truth and reality of God, not the other

way around.

Facts

Feelings

Objective Now faith is the substance of

things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

Problem:

Everything is

Subjective

Today…

isSubjective !

“Knowing God”also

ispreference

“Knowing God”merely

isFeeling

“Knowing God”just a

Reality

“Knowing God”has nothing to do with

“Especially prominent among millennial Americans is the tendency to begin a

statement of either fact or judgment with, “I feel like,” rather than the confidence of

a statement of objective truth.

“These people don’t think, believe or reckon. They feel like. Listen for this phrase and you’ll hear it everywhere,

inside and outside politics.

This reflex to hedge every statement as a feeling or a hunch is most common among millennials.

I hear it almost as often among Generation Xers and my own colleagues in academia, and in so many things, the

young are clearly carriers of a broad cultural contagion.”

“Now one of the things that Christians always have to keep in mind is what we

would call an “epistemological humility”.

Albert Mohler “The Briefing”

May 3, 2016

(Epistemology = the study of how we know things)

That is a certain humility in making a very clear

acknowledgement that we are finite human beings

which to state the obvious means: we might be wrong.


May 3, 2016

This epistemological humility for the Christian points to our dependence upon Scripture and God’s

gift of revelation.


May 3, 2016

The only way out of a disastrous epistemological

humility is the fact that God has actually given us truth in

His Word…


May 3, 2016

and He has addressed it to us in order that we might

know all that he has revealed.


May 3, 2016

In that sense, for a Christian, it’s not a proper humility to say, “We don’t know,” when the Scripture

says,

“We do know.”


May 3, 2016

or just “fEEL”? Do we know?

for at this time I will send all My plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people,

that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth

exodus 9:14

If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me

john 10:37

but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may

know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”

john 10:37

But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to

your house.”

Matthew 9:6

“…that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are

the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints”

Ephesians 1:18

“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know

how you ought to answer each one.”

Colossians 4:6

The phrase, ”that you may know” occurs 29x in the Bible

Scripture emphatically teaches that we

we don’t just feel.know

Key Idea #1


we don’t just feel.can have confidence

Key Idea #1


we don’t just feel.can have assurance

Key Idea #1


we don’t just feel.can have courage

Key Idea #1


we don’t just feel.can have conviction

Key Idea #1


we don’t just feel.engage reality

Key Idea #1

Question #2

What does the Bible mean by the word

“know”

Facts

Feelings

Feelings

Facts


Facts

Feelings

Objective Subjective Danger:

We base or Christian life on

feelings, and don’t live according to

truth.

Objective Danger:

Thinking that Knowing God and

knowing truth about God are the

same thing.

Subjective Danger:

We base or Christian life on

feelings, and don’t live according to

truth.

is not just feelingsKnowing God

but it is also not just true beliefs either

is having an interactive relationship“knowledge…

with someone or something”

- Dallas Willard

is having an interactive relationshipknowledge

with someone or something

- Dallas Willard

is having an interactive covenant relationship

with the God of the Universe.

-Me

“Knowing God”

Requires action, not just teaching.Interactive

Covenant

Relationship

Involves our heart, mind, soul, body

Based on what God has revealed to us about Himself in His Word

Personal and transformational. Knowing God changes who we are

Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought

up from the land of Egypt, saying:

Amos 3:1

“You only have I known of all the families of the earth; Therefore I will

punish you for all your iniquities.”

Amos 3:2

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not

know a man?”

Luke 1:34

“They profess to know God but in works they deny Him, being

abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

Titus 1:16

And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me,

you who practice lawlessness!’

Matthew 7:23

1 John 3:16

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also

ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

1 John 4:13

By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has

given us of His Spirit.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God

and keep His commandments.

1 John 5:2

1 John 2:3

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.

1 John 2:4

He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a

liar, and the truth is not in him.

1 John 2:5

But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we are in Him.

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.

Philippians 3:7

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the

knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord

Philippians 3:8

for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as

rubbish, that I may gain Christ

Philippians 3:8

and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in

Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;

Philippians 3:9

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the

fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,

Philippians 3:10

if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:11

knowing god

Education