Understanding the essentials of what it means to know God.

1. knowing god

2. Philippians 3:7-12

3. But what things were gain to me,
these I have counted loss for Christ.
Philippians 3:7

4. Yet indeed I also count all things
loss for the excellence of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord
Philippians 3:8

5. for whom I have suffered the loss of
all things, and count them as
rubbish, that I may gain Christ
Philippians 3:8

6. 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

7. 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

8. if, by any means, I may attain to the
resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:11

9. And this is eternal life…
John 17:3
that they may know You, the
only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom You have sent.

10. But also eternal death

11. “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

12. 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

13. And then I will declare to them,
“I never knew you; depart from Me,
you who practice lawlessness!’
MATTHEW 7:23

14. Man’s chief end is to glorify God
and to enjoy him forever.
WESTMINSTER CATECHISM
What is the chief end of man?

15. Knowing God
The chief end of man
Eternal life and eternal death at stake
Our highest aim
Greater than anything else
Our greatest purpose

16. Knowing God Matters

17. What does it mean to
Today
Know God?

18. How can we come to
know God Better?
In Two Weeks:

19. What does it mean to
Today’s Main Question:
Know God?

20. Our Terms

21. “Knowing God”

22. When we talk about
are we talking about something
objective or subjective?
Question #1
“Knowing God”

23. Objective
or
Subjective?

24. Objective Subjective
“Based on personal
feelings, tastes, or
opinions”
“Not influenced by
personal feelings or
opinions in considering
and representing facts”
*Webster’s Dictionary

25. Objective Subjective
“Dependent on the
mind or on an
individual's perception
for its existence.”
“Not dependent on the
mind for existence”
*Webster’s Dictionary

26. Objective Subjective
Based on feelings
or experience
Based on
facts or reality

27. Facts
Feelings
Feelings
Facts
Objective Subjective

28. Facts
Feelings
Objective “Knowing God is first
about knowing His
character and works
through the Word,
which informs our
experience of the
Christian life.”

29. Feelings
Facts
Subjective“Knowing God starts
with feeling His
presence which
informs how we go
about understanding
His character and
works in the Word.”

30. “Knowing God”
When we talk about
do we mean objectively or
subjectively?

31. Facts
Feelings
Feelings
Facts
Objective Subjective

32. Facts
Feelings
Objective Our feelings and
experience of God
center around the
truth and reality of
God, not the other
way around.

33. Facts
Feelings
Objective Now faith is the
substance of
things hoped for,
the evidence of
things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1

34. Problem:

35. Everything
is
Subjective
Today…

36. is
Subjective!
“Knowing God”
also

37. is
preference
“Knowing God”
merely

38. is
Feeling
“Knowing God”
just a

39. Reality
“Knowing God”
has nothing to do with

42. “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.

43. “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.

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

45. 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.”

46. “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)

47. 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.
Albert Mohler
“The Briefing”
May 3, 2016

48. This epistemological
humility for the Christian
points to our dependence
upon Scripture and God’s
gift of revelation.
Albert Mohler
“The Briefing”
May 3, 2016

49. The only way out of a
disastrous epistemological
humility is the fact that God
has actually given us truth in
His Word…
Albert Mohler
“The Briefing”
May 3, 2016

50. and He has addressed it to
us in order that we might
know all that he has
revealed.
Albert Mohler
“The Briefing”
May 3, 2016

51. 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.”
Albert Mohler
“The Briefing”
May 3, 2016

52. or just “fEEL”?
Do we know?

54. 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

55. If I do not do the works of My Father,
do not believe Me
john 10:37

56. 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

57. 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

58. “…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

59. “Let your speech always be with grace,
seasoned with salt, that you may know
how you ought to answer each one.”
Colossians 4:6

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

61. Scripture emphatically teaches that we
we don’t just feel.
know
Key Idea #1

62. Scripture emphatically teaches that we
we don’t just feel.
can have confidence
Key Idea #1

63. Scripture emphatically teaches that we
we don’t just feel.
can have assurance
Key Idea #1

64. Scripture emphatically teaches that we
we don’t just feel.
can have courage
Key Idea #1

65. Scripture emphatically teaches that we
we don’t just feel.
can have conviction
Key Idea #1

66. Scripture emphatically teaches that we
we don’t just feel.
engage reality
Key Idea #1

67. Question #2
What does the Bible mean by the word
“know”

68. Facts
Feelings
Feelings
Facts
Objective Subjective

69. Facts
Feelings
Objective Subjective
Danger:
We base or
Christian life on
feelings, and don’t
live according to
truth.

70. 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.

71. is not just feelings
Knowing God
but it is also not just true beliefs either

72. is having an interactive relationship
“knowledge…
with someone or something”
- Dallas Willard

80. is having an interactive relationship
knowledge
with someone or something
- Dallas Willard

81. is having an
interactive covenant relationship
with the God of the Universe.
-Me
“Knowing God”

82. 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

83. 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

84. “You only have I known of all the
families of the earth; Therefore I will
punish you for all your iniquities.”
Amos 3:2

85. Then Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be, since I do not
know a man?”
Luke 1:34

86. “They profess to know God but in
works they deny Him, being
abominable, disobedient, and
disqualified for every good work.
Titus 1:16

87. And then I will declare to them,
“I never knew you; depart from Me,
you who practice lawlessness!’
Matthew 7:23

88. 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.

89. 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.

90. By this we know that we love the
children of God, when we love God
and keep His commandments.
1 John 5:2

91. 1 John 2:3
Now by this we know that we know
Him, if we keep His commandments.

92. 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.

93. 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.

94. But what things were gain to me,
these I have counted loss for Christ.
Philippians 3:7

95. Yet indeed I also count all things
loss for the excellence of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord
Philippians 3:8

96. for whom I have suffered the loss of
all things, and count them as
rubbish, that I may gain Christ
Philippians 3:8

97. 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

98. 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

99. if, by any means, I may attain to the
resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:11