Inland Empire: Riverside
Do You KNOW Jesus - Audio
I hope every's doing well this morning. Thank you, Rob, for a great communion and offering. It's great to reflect on just how much God is there for us and it's great to hear from the teens this morning, to see just their hearts, especially proud of my son, just walking with God and drawing near to him. I don't know if you feel this way, but it's been extremely busy in our walk with God lately, a lot going on. We have the summer of prayer going on. I know there's been a lot of praying this Saturday. It was great. I got up at 515 because I was going to join the Edge ministry at the hike and prayer event that they're having. So I got out there in East Highlands Ranch. I was excited to pray with them. I had a meeting at 8. So I knew it only could stay for the first hour, but there was no one there. And I realized, well, that's next week they're having that prayer. So the Lord got me up early out there to pray because I know he thought I needed it. And you'll be having a great hike next week. I know that the Edge ministry will be doing that. Let's go to God in prayer with you to get our lesson. Father in heaven, thank you so much for this morning to come and worship you. Thank you, Father, for how you've worked in our life and continue to work. Thank you for the lives of people that you've brought this very morning to sit here and hear your word and hear the singing. We ask God that you would continue to reveal yourself, that we would have a deep understanding of what it means to know you this morning. But I pray that you will minister to us wherever we are at in our walk and our life with all the feelings and busyness of life and difficulties and challenges or victories, we pray that we would know you and be close to you and that you would guide us along this path of life until we see you face to face. Father, we ask you to be with us now. Be with this lesson in Jesus name, amen. You know, in the leaders in training program with campus, we've been reading a book called "Not a Fan" from Kyle Idelman. I'm going to take a lot of today's lesson from chapter 3. I really enjoyed it. The title of the lesson is "Do you know about him or do you know him?" Do you know simply about him or do you know him? You know, a couple years ago, I went to a Laker game with my son Kyle. We brought pictures of all the Lakers. It's happy to know that Dwight Howard is now playing for the Lakers as well as Steve Nash and I'm a Laker fan. I'm encouraged by that. We brought pictures because we had these incredible seats. My friend from college had seats right behind the Laker bench. So Kyle and I got there early because we knew that we were so close like right there behind the bench. We thought we could get signatures of some of the players. We knew all about the players. We printed up pictures of each one, you know, all 15. We didn't know who would be out practicing. And we actually got a signed picture from Lamar Odom who has since moved on from the Lakers. And a signed picture from Andrew Vynum who just now has moved on from the Lakers. Each one said to Kyle, you know, with their signature. It was very encouraging to have that. I thought, you know, we know all about these guys but we really don't know them. We know their stats but we don't know who really they are in their lives. We are fans of them but we're not their friends. Sadly, this is oftentimes how people can be in their connection with Jesus. We can be fans of his more than we are his friends. We're eager to get a signed picture from Jesus and say, look at this. I'm part of his fan club. I'm connected to him but we're not really following him or being his friend. In the Bible, there's a group of religious leaders known as the Pharisees. The Pharisees knew a lot about the Bible and a lot about God. It would absolutely win a game of Bible jeopardy or Bible trivial pursuit. We find that they knew about God tremendously all the scriptures but they did not know him. In Matthew chapter 15 verse 8, Matthew 15 verse 8, Jesus describes the Pharisees this way. You can turn to that with me. Matthew 15 verse 8, it says, "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me." The Pharisees. "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me." That's a description of those who know about Jesus but do not know him. They study the Word of God. They attend services. They do the many things that give a reflection of possibly being a religious person, a disciple of Jesus, they would say, or a disciple of God in his Word for certain in their day they would have said and yet they did not know him. You know, Jesus said in John 14, "If you love me, you will obey my teaching." And I want us to study right now this concept of do you know about Jesus? Are you more like the Pharisee or do you know him? And there's a great passage in Luke chapter 7. Let's turn there to Luke chapter 7 and we're going to begin reading the story about Simon, the Pharisee and the sinful woman. And today I want to just get you to answer the question. Do you know simply about Jesus or do you know him? Let's read together, Luke chapter 7 verse 36. Is there? I hear the page is turning. It says, "Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him. So he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. And a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume. And as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had been invited or who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is that she is a sinner." Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." "Tell me teacher," he said. "Two men owed money to a certain money lender. One owed him 500 denari and the other 50. Neither of them had the money to pay him back. So he cancelled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" Now interestingly, if you look in the footnote, denari is a coin worth about a day's wages. So if you owed 500 of those, that's a year and a half that you owed of work, right? I don't know how much you make, but that would be a lot to owe a year and a half of your entire salary. Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt cancelled. You have judged correctly," Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said, "Simon, do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. For she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little. Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." The other guest began to say amongst himself, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." An amazing story. You've got two primary characters. You've got the Pharisee and you've got the sinful woman. Jesus had been invited over for dinner by the Pharisee. Most likely, Jesus had at some point that day been doing some teaching. You read in the earlier passages the different things he was doing and teaching and guiding people. So certainly it's likely that he had done some great lesson. He was well known. He had been doing miracles. He was a radical rabbi of the time. Likely Simon had him over as a courtesy also as a religious merit. Let's have the new preacher over for dinner. Let's have him on over. He was interested in doing his religious good deeds. But as you read the passage, you find that the motives of Simon were certainly skewed. Jesus should have been the guest of honor, but it's apparent that he wasn't treated that way, is it? As you read, you find that he's not following the proper dinner etiquette of that day. Certainly as history shows, you find that it would involve welcoming somebody into your house and in that culture, that would involve a kiss of some kind. A kiss on the cheek if they were a peer of yours, equal in social rank, but if they were somebody of high honor, a kiss on the hand would be a normal greeting. To neglect a kiss of that kind is sort of like showing up at somebody's house and then just being ignored. At least these days when we see one another on campus, they give the dad, you know, what's up? Or at least when somebody ends, sometimes we have campus events or our edge ministry events and in our married family groups, we have many different gatherings and hospitality and when people come in, if you're busy and talking, at least you give them the nod, you know? Nice to see you. In this culture, it's the kiss and he did not receive one. You know, washing a feet was customary in that day before the eight. They walked great distances on dirty and dusty roads, wearing their sandals. It was a customary part of hospitality. If you wanted them to feel very special, you would wash their feet yourself, just as we find in John 13, Jesus does before the Passover meal with his own disciples. If you maybe don't feel that strongly about them, at the least you'd have your servant wash their feet or certainly you'd give them a bowl of water so they could wash their own feet, certainly they would at least deserve that. You know, if they were especially distinguished, an excellent rabbi, a great teacher, someone you admired and wanted to learn from, you might give them oil for their head to be anointed and yet Simon does none of this for Jesus. Remember, Simon is a Pharisee. What is that? In that day, a Pharisee was the keeper of the law, the interpreter of the law. Simon, being a Pharisee by the age of 12, he would have been required to memorize the first 12 books of the Bible. By the time he was 15, this is the Old Testament, he would have had to memorize the entire Old Testament. He would have had to commit to his own memory because of memorizing the Old Testament, more than 300 prophecies about the coming Messiah. He was committed to knowing all about God, God's ways, God's teachings, God's prophecies to be deep in the scriptures and yet he does not realize it is the Messiah who sits at the very table with him, with a hand that's not been kissed with feet that have not been washed and with a head that has not been anointed. He knew about Jesus but he did not know Jesus. You know, as we grow older in our walk with God or maybe your entire life with God, you've known about him. Maybe you've known about the scriptures. You grew up in Sunday school or in kids kingdom classes. Maybe you've been taught two to three times a week a lesson. You know, if you're in our ministry, you will be taught two to three lessons a week. You'll be taught at the midweek services on the Sunday services. If you go to the devotional, you'll be taught something. You'll have your times in the Word of God. You'll study with people all the time. If you go to a conference or see, you know, like the teens, they probably heard five to ten lessons about God and yet evaluate where you're at. Is there a criticalness in you? Are you focused on the mistakes I'm making in my speaking and I'm sure I'm making many? Are you focused on the problems you see in the worship? And at times, I'm sure there are many problems in the worship. I'd like to hear the back row sing as loud as the front row. So I think we should put the podium in the back one Sunday service. Where are we at? I know a lot about my wife, Carrie. I know what kind of food she likes and doesn't like. I know how to make her coffee. Sometimes I mess it up and I know what she wants. I know her things that make her happy. I know when to push her in certain areas and when to back off. I know when that Latin blood in her is starting to boil and I've got to calm that down a little. I know her love language. Time spent. I know a lot about her and certainly there's nothing wrong with knowing those things about her. There's nothing wrong with Bible knowledge. There's nothing wrong with knowing all about God. It certainly is a part of intimacy just as it is with a husband and wife. But just because there is knowledge does not mean there is intimacy. Early on I had really very little knowledge about Jesus and the Word of God. In my early days as a teen, as a high school student, as a college student until my last days of college when I began to learn the Bible in depth. And through the Bible studies that we do with one another in here to help people become Christians I gained a knowledge about God but also through the lives of the people as they shared vulnerably I began to see not only about God but what it meant to know God. And in 1990, October 1990 I was baptized as a disciple of Jesus having gained knowledge about Him but also knowledge that led me to an intimacy and wanting to be connected to God. It's been the greatest thing in my life. I've never traded for the teens that say I want to become a disciple. It's the greatest decision in your life. It's the right decision. It's so special. The only rivaling event of my life next to my baptism was my marriage. The two greatest events in my life and then the next two were the birth of my children. All involving relationship. Involving connection. However you know as I've grown older as a disciple and learned the Bible and read through the Bible multiple times, my knowledge has increased taking a graduate work for master's degree study for all kinds of Bible studies and people taking multiple programs within the church to learn how to be a minister and how to speak and hearing in-depth studies regularly from staff meetings to all sorts of conferences. At times, Carrie will ask me, "Hey honey, where's this verse in the Bible?" And I'm like, "Proudly, that's it in 2nd Corinthians chapter 2." You know? I'm walking concordance and it makes me feel like the spiritual man in the house. Look, can you rely on knowledge about these things in your walk with God? I know far more about the Bible than I've ever known. I intend to continue learning all about God. But something that struck me recently is how am I doing knowing God? Really being close to God. How's my intimacy with God? How easy is it? And it occurred to me that I think I knew and was more passionate and connected to him in my prayer life at age 24. At age 25, then I at times feel age 44 or 45. I have far more knowledge about how to help people, how to counsel, how to convert souls, how to say the right things. I understand the backgrounds of the Bible and I can get in there and I've had so many challenging experiences, difficulties that have have trained me. But where do I go for my greatest comfort? Is it to one of you? Is it to my wife? Or is it to my lord? I was grateful the other day when I showed up to hike with the edge ministry and there was no one there because I thought, "This is going to be a good long walk. I'll check out their hiking path and I'm going to call out to God and I need that every day." We call him on the church to have a summer of prayer for a reason. Our prayer lives connect us to God in such intimate ways. He speaks to us as we speak to him. He trains us as we call out to him. I bring my to-do list on my iPhone as I'm praying because I get so many inspirational ideas as I'm praying. God begins to speak. How are we doing? Do we know about him or do we know him? I want to get serious at this concept of knowing God and I want to look at something that for some of the teens and campus you might giggle a little at. But let's look closely at the word Yada is the Hebrew word for no. The first time we find that being used in terms of God knowing us and us knowing God in this concept of knowledge, we find it in Genesis chapter 4 in the King James Version. I'm going to read it to you. King James Version, Genesis chapter 4 verse 1 says Adam knew Eve his wife. Now open up your Bibles to Genesis chapter 4 verse 1 and the NIV is what we normally preach out of and the NIV translates that word Yada a little differently here because it is putting the action going on into context. What's happening in the event? It puts into context and it's very interesting. It says there Adam lay with his wife Eve. You get the concept but let's keep it mature. God is talking about true intimacy. You know the King James Version says Adam knew his wife Eve. There are other words that the Hebrews could have used, that the writers could have used to describe the physical act, that intimate physical act. And yet Yada is the word that is used right here. It's the word for no. It means to be known completely by you and to know completely, to be completely known and to completely know. It's a deep intimate connection. So God wants to know us and be known by us in the deepest possible human conceptual way of knowing somebody. Throughout the Old Testament, God uses this concept of Yada multiple times to describe how God wants to be known by you and how he already knows you. Turn with me to Psalm 139 and we read this on our prayer diva on Tuesday. It impacted me powerfully. This concept of our relationship with God, to know God, to be intimate with God is far deeper and broader than knowledge about him. We find in Psalm 139 David writing, what I love about David is as a team, he had a deep relationship with God. And he struggled throughout his life what he ended his life with a deep relationship with God. For the teens, for the campus, I want you to hear this. You can be as close to God as anybody on this earth. You don't have to be the preacher or the leader of a mission team or the Bible scholar to have a deep relationship with God. You can know God so closely. He can walk with you so closely through the darkest and most difficult of times. You can be a guide in your walk and in your spirit for those of us that are younger or older. And I want to challenge those that are young in here. Don't let anyone look down on you while you, because you are young. But, said an example, in all the areas that the passage talks about, we've heard that one preach, but in knowing God is what I want to challenge you for. Being known for how you walk with God, how you speak to Him by yourself and all the stresses and anxieties of life that will come upon you. And I know how difficult the high school world is. Many stresses and pressures will come upon you. You can walk with God in an intimacy and a connection deeper than as much as anyone on the earth. When we grow older, we do have more knowledge about God, but let us not forget Psalm 139 verse 1. Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways before word is on my tongue. You know it completely. Oh Lord, God desires that we have a relationship with Him better than the best relationship in here between a husband and wife. I love my wife completely. I am deeply in love 18 years of marriage going on our 19 coming in February. She's my best friend. She's so much fun. We know all about it. She knows me better than anyone else, and yet God desires to exceed even the depth of our closeness and connection and intimacy. He wants to take it even further than that. Let's go back to Luke chapter 7. So I hope that you as you think about the parable or the story here, it would be great to not relate to Simon, but at times I know I do. That I'm critical. I'm cynical. I'll never forget the time I went to a church service down in Orange County on my vacation. I sat in the back of the church service because I didn't want to, I just didn't want to be asked to do a welcome. I saw my vacation with my wife and kids. I'm just going to church worship him sitting in the back. It was the worst worship service of my life, not because of the people up front preaching or the singing because of the condition of my heart. I was not there to give. I was there to just be given to only. And so everything that I didn't like about the service was just highlighted in my eyes. If you come to a worship service just to be given to, you will be critical and cynical. You won't enjoy the worship. Worship to God is a giving, being a living sacrifice to God from the back row to the front row with how we sing, with how we spend time with each other, with how we look at each other and that, with how we read the scripture, with how eager we are to let God minister and be with us. We want to be with God at our worship services. We want to experience our relationship with God, not only as we worship, but it is fun to worship collectively and be together. Throughout our day, we want to worship God. In Luke 7, the woman comes on the scene as the dinner has begun. Look in verse 37, she had lived a sinful life in that town, many theologians and commentators assume that the prostitution was what she was known for. You know, they were eating probably in a courtyard at the home of Simon, which was visible to people. They could get on in the location where they were eating. Some commentators say it was normal to have some that weren't invited around these dinners just sort of spectating and seeing what was going on. And she comes to the dinner party for a reason. She possibly was in the same lesson that Simon heard earlier that day or that week. She might have heard what he was speaking about. Maybe it was a lesson on grace, which we heard an awesome one last week about grace, didn't we? On forgiveness that were broken vessels, we all need to be forgiven. A lesson on hope that no matter where you're at, God has a plan for you as Rob shared. God is working in our lives even when we're in despair and can raise us up and use us all across his land. Maybe it was simply the way Jesus looked at her during the lesson or the way she felt about his spirit, but she knew there was something different about Jesus. Maybe she could be more than a fan of Jesus, but a follower and friend of Jesus. And so she comes to the dinner, even though condemnation would reign at that dinner, all the guests wonder what is she doing here? It's a dinner she would never have been invited to. And she forgets what people think of her. And she focuses on what Jesus thinks of her. In our workplace, in our cubicle, or on the job site with the loud and vulgar people working side by side, fixing that truck or repairing that plumbing or whatever it is they're doing. In the school, as we drop our children off, and the women are talking about things they talk about, and women talk a lot about a lot of things, a lot of times we can go the right place. Are we concerned about how we're perceived? Are we concerned about what people think about us on our campus, in our workplace? Are we concerned about people think about us so much so? They were unwilling to know our Lord and walk with them. Are we concerned about relationship with other people more than our relationship with God, so that we give in, or we're cowards, or we don't stand strong, or we won't say what needs to be said. And we have them in our mind, in every conversation. Are we speaking with Jesus, even in our conversations with other people? She's interested in her relationship with Jesus. And they just reclining at the table back in those days, they would lie down, or maybe on a little pillow with their elbow, and their feet would sort of recline backwards, would go away from the table. So she walks on in behind him over his feet, and maybe looks her in the eye, but something moves in her heart that she begins to weep. She reflects on his spirit, maybe the only man that has ever looked at her with a warmth as a father would look at his daughter, his beloved daughter. She begins to cry, and she begins to weep and cry, looking down at his feet, her tears wash over his feet, and she notices they're dirty still from the day, and so there's mud on them, and the trickling mud is falling onto the ground. And so she begins to unbind her hair in order to wipe the feet, because certainly they're not going to provide her a towel. Everyone standing there, aghast, scared, almost embarrassed of the environment, except Jesus, and the woman, and she lets down her hair, which in that culture, letting down your hair for anyone other than your husband would be grounds for divorce. But she's interested in walking with Jesus, knowing Jesus, and meeting this need, and she's vulnerable, and wipes his feet. And then she has a perfume, an alabaster jar perfume, likely perfume, maybe she used in her profession, if in fact she's a prostitute, it would make sense to perfume herself, and yet she begins to pour out that bottle of perfume, all the perfume, anointing him, because she's saying, "I don't need it anymore. I'm going to empty my life out, and anything that was my old life is gone." I want to close today asking us the questions about, do we know about God, or do we know God? Ask yourself in a time of need, what is your first response? In a time of difficulty, what is your first response? Is it only to your spouse? Is it to a close friend that is a good ear, and that's great? Is it to a comfort food, or a comfort activity when time of need comes? Do you retreat to an addiction, or to your relationship with God? What about financially? If somebody looked at your financial situation, what would it reflect about what your priorities are? Does it have to do with knowing God, being close to God, or would something else be revealed? What about disappointments, or things that excite you? What things disappoint you the most, or excite you the most? That's a good indicator of what you're interested in the most. I know the college football season is coming on, and I'm very interested in UCLA football, and I've been very disappointed over the years. Is my joy level set by disappointments of things that are really frivolous like that, and not the things that should guide my sense of security? What disappoints you the most, or what excites you the most? I would hate for my wife or kids to say, "I know Dad what he's really excited about is those UCLA football games. He gets so committed and fired up about those things." I do like watching those. I hope my kids don't think I'm more excited about that than I am about my worship of God. Amen? She risked it all. She poured it all out. She emptied herself in vulnerability because she knew him. She'd been forgiven much, and so she loved much. And yet Simon did not. And though he knew all about God, he didn't know him. This morning, ask yourself, do you know about God, or do you know him? My prayer is that if you need to know him in a way you never had before, begin today. Thank you very much. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Do you know about Him or Do you KNOW Him?