Sermons
"Knowing" Him, Without Knowing It
“KNOWING” HIM, WITHOUT KNOWING IT
Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / May 22, 2016
Last Sunday we spoke about, Knowing It, Without Knowing Him.
It is vitally important that we be a people of THE BOOK. We must love God’s word and be serious students of The Bible.
Yet, it important to realize that the Word (the Bible) was never intended by God to be an end in itself.
God’s written word is a means to a greater end, and that greater end being to help us be more Christ like.
The express purpose of the written word is to mold us and shape us in becoming like Jesus - - The Living Word.
We all know of (or perhaps know first hand) people who know the word of God thoroughly.
They can quote Scripture. They can point others to passages in the Bible that address a wide variety of topics.
They know the Book, but they don’t have the fragrance of Christ (2Cor.2:15).
As a result they fail to draw others to the gospel and often times work to repel others away from Christianity.
This should never be!
How ironic it is to know the book so well and yet not known HIM of whom all of Scripture speaks.
When Jesus walked on the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and another unnamed disciples, Luke states (Lk.24:27) - -
Beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
All Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, points us to CHRIST JESUS. Jesus is The Living Word.
If we are living like Jesus we can be sure that God is smiling.
On the other hand, if we do not look like Jesus - - if we do not speak like Jesus and act like Jesus,
all the Book learning in the world will not bring us the applause of Father in heaven.
To finish summarizing and recapping last Sunday’s sermon let me say one more thing briefly.
In living sanctified lives we must never be sanctimonious or smug. Our piety must not breed pomposity and arrogance.
We must walk in love, just as Christ did. We must let our light shine ever so brightly.
It is not enough to know the word, we must know intimately THE LIVING WORD, JESUS, and imitate Him.
Our lives must be rooted in our Savior - - we must have the mind of Christ (1Cor.2:16) and the heart of Jesus (Philp.2:5).
This morning our topic is, “Knowing” Him, Without Knowing It. You will notice that I have the word knowing in quotes.
Just as it is a serious shortcoming to know the book without having the mind and heart of Jesus,
it is also a serious error to teach others about a Jesus that is foreign to the Bible.
Many people have created a Jesus in their image, and that Jesus doesn’t reflect the Jesus of The Bible.
Donald McCullough has written a very thought-provoking book titled,
The Trivialization Of God - - subtitled, “The Dangerous Illusion Of A Manageable Deity”. He writes,
“The New Testament warns us, ‘offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; For indeed our God
is a consuming fire’ (Heb.12:28-29). But reverence and awe have often been replaced by a yawn of familiarity.”
So, as we make it our aim to point others to Jesus, we must be very careful in pointing them to the Jesus of the Bible.
We must not yield to the temptation to re-configure Jesus: to make Jesus more palatable and easier to embrace.
Our present American culture seems to be working overtime to promote the concept of pluralism.
Pluralism is just a fancy term for “anything goes” - - I’m okay, your okay… so let’s just let everybody do their own thing.
This is tolerance run amuck. It may sound nice to the ears of many, but it is not at all Biblical.
It is true, that as Christians we live in two worlds.
We are citizens who live in a secular society where we must display tolerance to people who differ with us.
Any culture with great diversity requires that we try to live in peace with one another, despite our differences.
But it is also true, that as Christians, we have a higher calling - - we live as citizens of a heavenly kingdom.
In this realm, which is the far more important of the two worlds, we are not free to compromise.
Yes, Jesus was a friend to sinners (Mt.9:10-13), but the focus of His friendship was on helping sinners come to be saved. “I did not come to call the righteous, but SINNERS.” The Jesus we read of in Scripture was not wishy-washy about sin.
The Jesus of the New Testament never downplayed or watered-down the problem of SIN and man’s need for salvation.
In being a friend to sinners, Jesus’ exhortation to others was, “Follow Me” (Mt.9:9) - -
(a reference the very words he spoke to Matthew the dreaded tax collector and others who desired to be disciples).
Paul, was an apostle of Jesus Christ.
His word of admonition was (Rom.12:2): do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
With similar words, James (a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus / Js.1:1) writes,
Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?
Therefore, whoever wishes to make Himself a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God / Js.4:4
Jesus did not preach a message of salvation that was flexible. It is true, that gospel was for all
(whosoever will may come / Jn.3:16) - - but that gospel was not subject to change based on the situation of the sinner.
OBEDIENCE to the will of God was never optional. It was always mandatory! Jn.3:16 states, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
In the very same context (Jn.3:36) Jesus made it very clear that this call to believe was non-negotiable: He who believes
In the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on Him.
The book of Acts is filled with numerous examples that affirm plainly that there was water in God’s plan.
BAPTISM INTO CHRIST Christ as a necessary expression of one’s faith is enumerated over and over in the book of Acts.
Acts 2:38 / let each one of you repent and be baptized into Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins
Acts 8:38 / he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water…and he baptized him
Acts 10:48 / (Peter) ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ
Acts 16:31 / he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds and immediately he was baptized…
Acts 22:16 / why do you delay? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name
In quoting from Luke/Acts and, earlier, from Paul and Peter, we’re not presenting teachings that are foreign to Jesus. This is a dangerous road that many have taken to try to make a distinction between the words of Jesus and His apostles. Jesus promised the apostles that the Holy Spirit would guide them in the presentation of all truth (Jn.16:13).
To argue that the apostles taught something that was not sanctioned by Jesus is to destroy this promise of Jesus.
This is an argument made by some who desire to marginalize the teachings in the epistles about alternative lifestyles.
Jesus spoke many hard sayings/difficult statements (Jn.6:60) - - truths that were not easily put into practice.
You can see many of “hard truths” in Jesus’ sermon on the mount in Mt.5, 6 & 7.
John’s gospel records that many of Jesus’ disciples withdrew (were not walking with Him anymore / Jn.6:66)
because of “the hardness of His words”. His words were not harsh or mean-spirited, but they were plainly spoken.
We do not find Jesus equivocating, recanting or revising His teachings just so that others wouldn’t jump ship.
Rather, Jesus says to Peter, “Will you also go away?” (Jn.6:67).
There are many things about following Jesus that are HARD - - hard to hear, and even more so, hard to practice.
But we must not fall prey to soft-pedaling the gospel or re-writing the teachings of Jesus just to entice others to remain.
Someone has coined the phrase, EASY-BELIEVISM, which is a concept is that is anti-Biblical at its core.
There is nothing easy about following Jesus.
Jesus never once tried to hide the cost of discipleship.
Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it. / Mt.6:13-14
Luke records these strong words of Jesus (Lk.14:17) - -
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
In case you need clarification of what it means to “carry one’s own cross”, listen to Jesus in Lk.9:23 - -
If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross DAILY, and follow Me.
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In summary,
I cannot stand before us today and truthfully say that following Jesus is an easy life.
As we strive to model Christ to our world by imitating His words and deeds, let us also give due
diligence to paint a picture of Jesus to our friends and family - - just as it is revealed in the New Testament.
Let us not be found guilty of telling others of a Jesus that doesn’t look like or sound like the One revealed in Scripture.
Our task is not to portray Jesus as a Savior who accepts everybody on their own terms.
Jesus invites us all to come as we are, but we must also realize that Jesus desires to change us and re-shape us.
There is no such thing as knowing Jesus, except that such knowledge comes from the written Word of God.
If you claim to really “know” Jesus, but your version of Jesus differs considerably from what we can read and study
in the pages of the New Testament, then the truth of the matter is that you really don’t know Jesus as you ought.
Jesus loves everybody, but His terms are not negotiable.
Such a declaration should not be surprising to us, because HE IS GOD.
As The Son of The Living God, Jesus is worthy of our awe and reverence.
He is also worthy of a demanding of our obedience and submission to His will.
