Christ Known

Well, this morning we carry on from Matthew 7. We began verse 21 last

Sunday, and we're keeping that context together as a whole. Verses 21 through 23 belong together as a unit.

We looked at, especially last week, this idea of Jesus' warning against externalists.

That was the term that Charles Spurge and the great British preacher used, externalists. In other words, those who only care to look the part, but they don't have the inward reality.

The very thing that Jesus condemned in Matthew 6, halfway through this Sermon on the

Mount. What he called the hypocrites. Or the those that the prophets of old condemned.

Those that would seek to worship God with their lips, but keep their hearts far from Him.

So we spoke last week about keeping the heart. Not being a mere externalist. Not being merely one who says,

Lord, Lord. But one who keeps their heart to the Lord. One who, as we'll see and focus on this morning, one who truly knows the

Lord. And so Matthew 7, beginning in verse 21. 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.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?

Cast out demons in your name? Done many wonders in your name? Then I will declare to them,

I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Well, as we've been saying in this home stretch from the

Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been giving us a word that we need to respond to. This is a sermon, as every sermon should close, with a demand for a response.

A call for application. Jesus here is again warning us against the mere profession of Lord, Lord, if that profession is empty.

I think we said something like this last week. Everyone who enters the kingdom of heaven says,

Lord, Lord. It's only by the confession that Christ is Lord and believing that in the heart that one is able to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

So everyone who says, Lord, Lord, belongs in the kingdom of heaven, but not everyone who says,

Lord, Lord, will enter it. When we're in glory, when we're in the kingdom, everyone that will be around will be those who are worshiping the

Lord, saying, Lord, Lord, but not everyone in this life who says, Lord, Lord, will enter that kingdom.

And you see that here in the progression of verses 22 and 23. It's not just saying,

Lord, Lord, as I think we said, putting a gold chain with a cross on it around the debauched life, as celebrities tend to do.

It's not a mere token of Christ. It's the kind of life that can even claim, Lord, we prophesied in your name.

Lord, not only do we know you, we prophesy in your name. In other words, we speak, we proclaim things about you.

Lord, look at the mighty things we've done. We cast out demons in your name. We've done many wonders in your name.

If you're understanding how this flows in light of the gospel, Jesus himself validates his own ministry as a prophet sent from God, as the mighty one, indeed the very son of God, by the demonstration of his own power, by the work of casting out demons.

If I, by the finger of God, cast out demons, then surely I've come as the son of God.

Or surely the kingdom has come upon you. Or Paul saying, we didn't come merely with words, but with manifestations of power.

The kingdom is not mere words, but in fact, it consists in power. And so we find that in all these striking ways, the things that would seem to be the most certain, the things that would seem to validate that one truly has known the

Lord and is operating by the power of God, may have those within them that don't know the

Lord at all. Or more precisely, the Lord doesn't know them. Haven't we done all this in your name?

Lord, Lord. And he says, I never knew you. Whatever name you were doing that, whoever you were professing as Lord, it wasn't me.

I never knew you. Now, Jesus says, verse 22, many will say this.

Yeah, if you're feeling the weight, as we must, as we come to the close of this Sermon on the Mount, just as we said, there are many on the broad path, many that cannot see the narrow way, few find it, few endure it.

Well, there's many on the broad path. There's many that say, Lord, Lord, but he does not know them.

He says, I never knew you. And then we come full circle to the concern at the very beginning.

These are not they who are doing the will of the Father in heaven. Why? Jesus says they're workers of lawlessness.

To work lawlessness, to practice lawlessness, is to not do God's will. God's will is

God's law. That's his prescriptive will. That's what he's given to us. God's will,

God's desire for us is our sanctification. Our sanctification looks like conforming to his law.

And so we see here, those who work lawlessness are those who have not done the will of the

Father in heaven. And these are the ones, many there will be, who say,

Lord, Lord. We could put it simply in the terms of 1 John 2, verses 4 and 5.

He who says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar.

And truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, truly, you could say, whoever does the will of the

Father in heaven, truly, that love of God is perfected in him. And by this, we can know that we are in him.

How do we know that we know him? Because we know that we do the will of the Father in heaven.

Jesus says, why do you say, Lord, Lord, but you don't do the things that I command? What does it mean for you to Lord if you're just going to live your own life in your own way?

Don't call me Lord. You might think you know me. I don't know you. If I'm Lord to you, that's going to look like something in your life.

That's what John is saying here. Whoever says, I know him, but doesn't walk in his way, doesn't perform his will, just lying, doesn't know him at all.

Certainly the Lord does not know him. Well, let's just take a big step back before we press into this idea of knowing the

Lord. The first thing I want to say is this, we're again born as thistles and thorns.

We're not born as good trees bearing good fruit. We're certainly born alienated from the life of God, ignorant to him in that Romans 1 sense.

The first point is this, the world does not know the Lord. The world does not know the

Lord. Many in the world think they do. Many in the world claim they do.

Many will say Lord, Lord, but he is unknown to them. Paul depicts this.

This is something that begins at the fall. Romans 1 28, even as they did not retain the knowledge of God, so he gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting.

Notice how knowing and doing are tied together even there in Romans 1. What happens when you do not know

God? You're not able to do the will of God. That's what Romans 1 28 is saying. Even as they did not care or did not like to retain

God in their knowledge, he gave them over to a debased mind. In other words, now they cannot know him.

Now they refuse to know him. And what does that mean? They cannot do the things they ought to do. They cannot see the need to do it.

They have no desire to do it. Quite the opposite. They're repelled by it. They need, as we've said, a new heart.

They need a whole new life. They need to be reborn, created afresh by the Spirit of God.

And so notice again this combination of knowing and doing. This is a world dilemma.

This is how we are born as human beings. We're born into this cursed condition, alienation from God, ignorant in our mind, not wanting to retain a knowledge of God, unable to do the will of God.

Think of Acts 17. Paul preaching at the Oropagus, and he's pointing out the ignorance of mankind in this sense.

He says, as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown

God. That was the Greek piety. We're going to worship the gods, and if there's a God we're missing, let's build an altar to the

God we're missing, an altar to the unknown God. And Paul says, I'm here to declare to you the unknown

God, the God that is to be worshiped alone, the one you worship without knowing Him, Him I proclaim to you.

Well essentially, every human being is seeking to worship something, and we're all worshiping something in our lives, often idols in our lives, and often there's many that say,

Lord, Lord, that think they are worshiping and knowing the true God, and Jesus says, I don't know them. I don't know them.

I like their gold chain, but I don't know them. I like the mighty works.

I like the hoops they jump through. I like the lifestyles that they've adopted, but I don't know them.

And ultimately, in that life, just like you can tell a tree by its fruit, in their works, in the way they conduct themselves, they show forth that they have not known

Him. This is how Titus 1 says that. They profess to know God, but in works they deny

Him. Talk is cheap. They profess to know, but in their work, in the way they carry out their life, they deny

Him. It's one thing to say, Lord, Lord. It's another thing to live, Lord, Lord. They profess to know.

They profess, Lord, Lord, but Scripture is clear. They do not know Him. He was in the world.

The world was made through Him, but the world did not know Him. So that's the first point, is the world doesn't know the

Lord, but the second point is this. The Lord knows His people. There's many who say,

Lord, Lord, and the Lord says, in that day I'll tell them I don't know them, but let's appreciate there are also many in that day the

Lord will say, come enter into my joy, good and faithful servant.

I've known you. Now He knows His people. The Lord knows

His people. He doesn't, in the broadest sense, in this covenantal sense, know humanity.

In a broad general sense, He knows humanity, or He condescends to understand the way of man.

Psalm 144 .3, Lord, what is man that you would take knowledge of him, or the son of man that you're mindful of him?

That's speaking of God's condescension to even interact with and deal with humanity at large, but this type of knowledge in the

Hebrew idiom, this intimate acquaintance, this kind of knowledge really belongs only to those who have known the

Lord through faith. Nahum 1 .7, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who trust

Him. He knows those who have believed upon Him. How does He know them? He's called them by name.

John 10 .4, when He brings out His own sheep, He goes before them. The sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.

He knows them. He calls them. They know Him. John 1 .40a, the classic example of this,

Nathanael said to Him, how do you know me? And Jesus said to him, before Philip called you while you were under that fig tree,

I saw you. And that was world -altering to Nathanael.

We don't even know why, but it was something so intimate, so personal, that Nathanael spontaneously confessed that indeed

Jesus was the one sent from God. So what we know in this intimate way of communion, what we know is

God's voice, God's calling, God's love to us wrought in Christ. In that sense, we know

Him. In a moment, I'll make a distinction between that kind of knowing versus a knowing about Him, knowing about versus actually knowing.

The Lord's people know Him. That's the third point. So world does not know Him. He knows

His people, and third point, His people know Him. John 10 .14, I'm the good shepherd.

I know my sheep, and I am known by my own. I know them.

Therefore, they know me. I call them. Therefore, they hear my voice. 1

Corinthians 8 .3, if anyone loves God, this one is known by him. That love is a response to God.

We only love because He first loved us, and so if we love God, we're known to God.

Why? He has first known us. He has first called us. He has first drawn us to Himself. All of my knowledge of God depends upon His act to know me.

That means we as believers are those who have put on the new man, renewed in knowledge, according to the image of Him who created him.

That's Colossians. The idea is that part of becoming this new man, part of being made new in Christ, is no longer having a debased mind, unable, undesiring to retain this knowledge of God that we lost in the fall, but now we're given a knowledge of God.

Now we're given this intimate communion with Him. I know Him. That can only be said truly by a believer.

There's all the difference in the world between one who has not known Him savingly in Christ saying,

Lord, Lord, and going on in their own way, and one who says, Lord, Lord, crying out like an infant with that spirit of adoption.

That's something that only a believer can do. And so the question right up front before we press into knowing

Him is simply this. Do you know Him? Or will you belong to one of the many that will say, of course

I know Him. Look at all I've done in my life. I say, Lord, Lord. I show up on Sunday.

I've even adopted all sorts of little differences in my life. Of course I know Him. It's beyond question, beyond dispute.

And Jesus is saying, no, no, don't settle for that. Do you really, do you really know me? Do you really mean,

Lord, when you profess it? Do you know me? Martin Lloyd -Jones, he says, do you know

Him? I'm asking whether, not whether you believe certain things about Him.

Listen, like James says, even demons believe, they shudder. I'm not asking whether you believe certain things about Him.

I'm asking, have you met Him? Have you encountered Him? Have you found yourself in His presence in such a way that you can also know what it's like to feel

His absence? Do you know Him? In a way that a worldling could never understand, does

He speak to you? Not in the wrap -your -head -in -tinfoil kind of way.

Oh, wait, what's that, Lord? Yes, Lord, I hear. But in a way that somehow our souls become sensitive to His voice, to His leading, to His prompting.

He might as well speak to us. We open His living word and it cuts down deep. It bears down deep into our soul.

That's Him speaking to us. And do we speak to Him?

Do I pray to a dry ceiling and walls surrounding me, or do I pray to the

Living One of God? Do I speak to Him? The most vital question, this is

Lloyd -Jones again, the most vital question to ask about all who claim to be a Christian is this, do you have a soul thirsting for God?

Do you long for this? Is there something about you that is always waiting for that next manifestation of Himself?

Lord, when will I see you as you are? Lord, draw near to me. Lord, bless me, refresh me.

Lord, do not hide your presence from me. Lord, help me to see your face. This is what it means to know

Him. And so knowing Him means, in the first point, this, moving from knowing about Him to knowing

Him. Not enough to hear His teaching. In the context of Matthew's Gospel, many are beginning to be drawn out to hear this

Mighty One who's done inexplainable things. Who is this Mighty Man of God? This is why they gathered out to see

John the Baptist. There was no prophet quite like John the Baptist. When people are wavering, you know,

His disciples are wavering about Him, Jesus says, well, what did you come out in the desert to see? A reed swaying in the wind?

You came out to see someone that was just going with the flow? That's not why you came out to the desert. You came out to see a

Mighty Man of God. You came out to see a man who clearly had known the Lord in a way that you had not.

You wanted to hear from Him. Well, how much more so the Lord Jesus? And He's gathering crowns by the thousands.

Our brother alluded to scraps of bread and fish, multiplying that in to feed the multitudes.

And there's multitudes there when He's teaching that will then turn away from Him. It's one thing to be drawn out to the spectacle, to the sight, to the teaching, to the charms, to the external forms.

It's another thing to know Him. The first thing is to know about Him, but the second thing is to actually know

Him. So that means at some level, as Lloyd -Jones is getting at, it's not just certain beliefs about Him.

It's not something you could reduce to a catechism or some sort of doctrinal formula. This is not knowing

Him descriptively. It's knowing Him personally. Jesus Christ, we often say this, maybe connected to baptism or hearing someone's testimony, we say something like, is the

Lord Jesus your personal Savior? Not your Savior on paper, not your

Savior in abstract. Do you know Him? Do you know Him? Do you love

Him? Is He your Lord? Is He your Savior? Do you know Him personally, not descriptively?

Yes, of course I know Him. I've memorized the Westminster Larger Catechism about His person and attributes. No, no, no, no, no.

That's all wonderful and good and probably necessary, but do you know Him? Do you know Him?

Not descriptively, but personally, because He's a person. When we're talking about faith, it's not primarily faith in doctrine, so much as that doctrine articulates and elaborates what it means to have a relationship with Him.

I know Him in these ways, according to sound doctrine. So the doctrine has a role to play in that, but it only voices and grounds and articulates what is already true of us.

I know Him personally. He saved me. I don't know how. Give me the doctrine to help me understand how

He saved me. Give me the pattern of sound words that helps me articulate and understand what

He's done for me. But I know Him, but I love Him, but He saved me. Everyone in this room that's been born, if I were to sit down at lunch and say, what was it like when you were born?

What was the doctor's face like when you came out? What was the room like? What kind of noises were you hearing?

What was it like when you were first held by your mother? You would all give me a blank stare. I have no idea.

You had to be taught this is what it was like when you were born. This is what happens in delivery.

The umbilical cord is caught, and the nurses do their thing, and you all are, oh, okay, that's what happened.

That's what it was like when I was born. Oh, that makes a lot of sense now. Now I can situate my own experience.

You don't know what it was like. You were just born. So is everyone who's born of God. I was talking about this with someone this week.

It's like a lot of our testimonies, like sometimes we're witnessing to someone, and we're in our minds so much, and we walk away, and we're like, oh,

I should have brought up that, and I shouldn't have said this, and why was I stuck on that one thing, and oh, it would have been perfect if I had just remembered that.

But you know what it's like when you come to faith. If I sit down with someone who, you know, the

Lord used someone in your life to witness to you, and I say, you know, what were they saying? Like what argument really convinced you?

I have no idea. I don't remember. I just know they were talking to me about the

Lord, and the Lord saved me. It wasn't some perfect, logically crisp argument that was undeniable, though that may have played a part in it.

It was just being born again. It was coming to life. The reality is you came to know

Him because He first knew you. And so this idea of this personal relationship, faith lays hold of that union, of that communion, of that intimate relational knowledge of Christ.

So we don't always have the word knowing or knowledge, but we have synonymous phrases or language that goes along with it.

For example, the way that Paul prays in Ephesians 3. He prays that God would grant you, the

Ephesian believers, believers at large by extension, that God would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Christ dwelling in your heart, that is knowing Christ. Faith laying hold of that.

By faith, Christ now living in me. To such an extent, as Paul would say elsewhere, it's not even

I'm living anymore, it's Christ living in me. That's how radical this re -identification has been in his life.

It's not even I who live. Paul died. It's now Christ who lives in Paul. Christ is the source of my life.

He's dwelling in my heart by faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all of the saints the width, the length, the depth, the height to know the love of Christ.

This is, again, this intimate knowledge. That's not a descriptive knowledge. That's not a knowledge on paper.

That is a knowledge in the heart born by faith from a new birth. He says, in fact, to know the love of Christ in this way passes all knowledge.

It's not a knowledge human beings can muster up. This is not a sales pitch. Yeah, maybe

I'll try that. It's not up to you. This is a knowledge that surpasses all knowledge.

This is a knowledge that comes from above. This is a knowledge that can't be bartered for or negotiated for.

In fact, the only way to receive it is to recognize your inability to receive it. Lord, you have to do this.

I can't do it for myself, Lord. You must give the very thing that you seek. Lord, all I can do is hang my head low in humility and repent and ask that you would save me.

His saving is entirely up to him. Paul dwells upon this in all these ways.

He has known the love of Christ in this knowledge that surpasses everything. Paul keeps his heart.

Why can he keep his heart? Because Christ is dwelling in his heart. He's known him in that way.

Do you know him in that way? So keeping your heart in line with last week, keeping your heart will be the result of this desire, what

Lord Jones called a soul thirst, to be more intimately acquainted with him.

Lord, in other words, I don't want to just know about you. I want to know you. I don't want to just hear about you,

Lord. I want to speak to you. I want you to speak to me. Lord, I don't want to just be in a place where you're described.

Lord, I want to see you. Lord, I don't want to just be near your people.

I want to be with you. That's the kind of knowledge that's being held out.

Lord, Lord, casting out demons, doing many wonders in his name, that can get you pretty far in the eyesight of man, but you still may fall short of this knowledge of Christ.

To those, he says, I never knew you. Do we know him? Well, let me tell you, when

I was growing up, I grew up hearing all sorts of things about Jesus. I have a shoebox downstairs that has crayon scribblings of second commandment violation scribblings of Jesus on the cross.

They're very, very messy, which meant from a very young age I was hearing about Christ and him crucified, and in my young imagination

I was drawing the snowman anthropological figures that children always draw, you know, big circles, big eyes.

I have one that, you know, I was doing the word blurb, ow, ow, ooh, ow, as he was being crucified.

These are the things that were capturing my imagination. I was hearing about him. I was hearing about him week after week and month after month and year after year.

I knew about him. I knew about him so well that I could go to school and if others talked about Christianity, I had something to say about him.

I could defend him. I had made all sorts of little changes in my young life according to what I could see with my young eyes.

I could really say, in a way, I thought that I knew him. I really did think that I understood what

I needed to understand. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know until I really came to know him.

And then I realized, no, I knew a lot about him, so much so that I thought

I knew him. Like if you watch a video, you know, someone who's obsessed with maybe a certain figure, a certain, you know, a speaker, a musician, and they watch everything they can.

They listen to every song, they memorize every lyric, they've watched every interview, and they've seen so much of those things that they almost think

I know them. I know what they would say in a certain situation. I can actually quote you things that they've said to those exact questions.

I have all their posters in my wall. I mean, definitely, it's like I know them, but you actually don't know them.

And so you'll often see these moments, right? Maybe a young boy running up to his favorite NBA player, you know, well,

LeBron, will you sign? And he's like, get away from me. And the kid's usually shattered.

That's my hero. I thought we were best friends. And he's going, I don't know you, kid.

You might know every stat and everything about my life, my background, but I don't even know who you are. Well, that's what it was like for me growing up in churches.

I really thought I understood what I needed to understand. I thought I knew what I needed to know until he revealed himself to me.

And then I really knew him, not from the outside, but from the inside.

Not from the ear, not from the eye, not from the experience, but from the heart. That's the difference between knowing about and knowing.

So there's a difference. I was drawing pictures of Jesus on the cross.

That was very moving to me from a young age. But I never understood from my own soul's point of view that he died on the cross, not abstractly, not somewhere out there for some reason, but as Paul could say, he gave his life for me.

And I knew that at a soul level, not in some generic sense, Jesus died for sinners. But I could say in a knowing way, no,

Jesus died for me. And the life that now I'm going to live,

I'm going to live in him. I'm going to live by faith in the son of God who gave himself for me.

Because now I know him. Now I hear him. Now I see him. Now I love him in a way

I could never love him unless I had known him. Do you see the difference between knowing about and knowing? It's the difference between knowing

God as an object in my mind or as some concept of religious belief and knowing God as a person.

Do you have a relationship with him? What does that relationship look like?

Is it the equivalent of a Zoom call every three weeks? Do you actually know him? Do you commune with him?

Are you intimate with him? Are you like Nathaniel under that fig tree and there's things just between you and him?

Do you bear it out? You bear out your soul to him in ways you could to no one else on earth. Because, you know, he knows you like no one else on earth and he sees it all.

And isn't that a comforting thought to you? Like J .I. Packer says in that great book, Knowing God, a classic book.

And he says, is there not tremendous relief in knowing God's love to me is realistic, based at every point on a prior knowledge about the worst things in my life?

So that there's no discovery about me that is waiting for him. There's nothing that can disillusion him about where I really am and what

I'm really like. And there's nothing, therefore, that can quench his determination to love me and bless me.

Is that not a bewildering thought to you? We gain others love by concealing and diverting the worst aspects of who we are internally.

And so we gain their approval and their love. We end up being born into or making a marriage covenant with the people that we're going to love most.

And it's just because we have those thick relationships that they can bear a little bit more of those hideous things that they see.

But even then, there's so much that's hidden, so much that remains inward, so much that stays just at the thought level.

And God sees it all. He knows it all to a depth that we can't even go.

And he still chooses to love me. I don't have to hide from him.

I don't have to go further into the far country. All I have to do is return to this father who loves me with a perfect love.

Do you know him in this way? It's not some vivid dream.

It's not some vision. It's not some fad in your life. It's an actual knowledge.

It's actually something that has come into your life and given you a whole new life. It's not a knowing that you adopt in stride in the way that you're going.

It's not a knowledge that you can just compartmentalize and carry into the things that you're already pursuing.

It's the kind of knowledge that opens your eyes and gives you a whole new life and turns you 180. It's not like me when

I go to the Wikipedia homepage and I'm like, oh, that's when Paraguay became a nation. Interesting. It's not some random tidbit that's a bonus.

Oh, that's a little new layer in my life. I'm going to add Christ in this. No. If my life has not been transformed into a newness of life, how could

I, how could it be said that I know him when he is life itself?

He's the way, the truth, the life. He's life altering.

He's world transforming. The grave couldn't hold him and he's going to enter into my heart and have almost no impact.

How could that be? Do we know him in this way? Listen to Spurgeon.

Do not be satisfied with thinking that you know him, hoping that you know him, just know him.

It's nothing to have heard about him, nothing to have talked about him, to have eaten, to have drank with him, to have preached him, or even to have worked miracles in his name, to have been charmed by his eloquence, to have been stirred with the stories of his love, to have been moved even to imitate him.

This gains you nothing if you don't know him. Jesus says there's many who will fit that bill,

Lord, Lord, but he never knew them. They never knew him. Now, of course, to know him is something that has to be granted by the

Father. We were praying for our brother's mother this morning, and we were praying in this very way, weren't we?

Pray that the Lord will reveal himself to her. Pray the Lord will show himself.

Pray the Lord would open her eyes. When we pray like that, what are we admitting? What are we recognizing?

This is not something you stumble into. If you can see and know the Lord, it's because you've been granted to see and know the

Lord. You've been given that sight from above. Remember Peter, when he comes to confess that Jesus is the one they've been looking for, he, in other words, is the

Messiah, the hope of the ages, the desire of the nations. And that meant for them, like, we're, you know, we're going to see the

Romans under our feet in a matter of time. This is great. Get your swords. Annie, get your gun. Like, we're going to go.

That was the idea. They didn't understand that for him to be the Messiah, if they had read the scriptures more carefully, meant he'd be stripped bare and crucified on a tree, become a curse for all of his people.

Now, of course, when Peter makes that confession, we usually jump to the downer that comes after that.

Surely, you will not suffer. Surely, we will make sure that the Son of Man does not suffer. And Jesus, rebuking him, says,

Satan, get behind me. We usually go there. And that, we end up then missing the glory of what

Peter has actually come to see. Jesus had asked the question, what do men say about me?

And then who do you say that I am? What do others think? What do you think? And Peter says, we say that you are the

Christ. You're the Messiah. You're the Son of God. Now, I'm not saying

Peter wasn't bright. He wasn't just some lowly peasant fisherman on a boat.

He probably ran something more like a fishing business. Think Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. That's probably more where he was.

I think he had all sorts of skills and acumen as a fisherman, but he certainly was not some savant.

It wasn't like, you know, his father walked by and there was some trigonometry equation on the chalkboard, like goodwill hunting.

Oh, what's going on with Peter? He didn't figure out this in his own wisdom. You know, I've been studying the prophets and I've been working these things out, and I think you are the

Christ, the Son of God. Jesus doesn't say, well, Peter, how'd you get that? That's amazing. He says, blessed are you,

Simon Bar -Jonah. Flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven revealed this to you.

How were you able to see and know me, Peter? It's because my Father gave you sight, gave you knowledge, revealed me to you.

So flesh and blood can't do this. Flesh and blood can't muster this up. We pray this way.

This is our own testimony if we understand it rightly. We only love because we were first loved.

We only know because we were first known. Jesus, as he says to the disciples, you didn't choose me,

I chose you, that you should go and bear fruit. And all that the Father gives to me will come to me.

The Father has to draw, the Father has to reveal. This is not something that comes in any other way.

That's why Peter, toward the end of his life, when he's writing his epistle to the church, full of believers who had never been with Jesus in the way that Peter had.

What would it have been like to be one of those early generations in the church, and you're at lunch fellowship, and you have your lasagna in front of you, and you're sitting next to one of the apostles, and you're like, please just keep telling me what it was like to be with him.

Please don't leave. Listen, I know you're tired, but please just share a little bit more about what it was like. Because you actually knew him.

You actually saw him. You have memories about what his voice sounded like, and where you went, and in your mind's eye you know exactly what he looked like, and I just want to have something of that.

But listen to what Peter says. Yeah, but even though you haven't seen him, you love him.

They were amazed to be in the presence of a man who had known Jesus. Peter was amazed to be in the presence of people who had never even seen him or been near him, but had an absolute love for him, a love to such a degree they were willing to suffer, even die for him.

Peter was amazed. You haven't even seen him. You didn't know him like I know him, and you love him.

This is a love from God. This is a knowledge from God. Flesh and blood doesn't reveal this.

This is what my Father in heaven reveals. That's the first point. So we must go from knowing the bound to actually knowing him, and the second point is this.

In knowing him, we must continue to abound in knowing him. So the first move is be sure that you will not hear on that great day, you said

Lord, Lord in all sorts of ways throughout your life, but I never knew you. Never knew you.

You knew about me. Certainly you knew a lot about me, but you didn't know me.

First move is to go from not knowing about, but knowing. Secondly, in knowing, to not settle in.

Oh yeah, I'd known him. I'd known him about 13 years ago at summer camp when I gave my life to him.

That's it. It's not having known him, it's abounding in knowing him.

Listen to what Paul says. This is Philippians 3, 8 and following. He says,

I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

Just pause there for a moment and appreciate that. He says, whatever I had going for me in my life, whatever

I had amassed and amounted, I look at that all now, I count it all like rubbish when

I compare it to just the excellence of knowing Christ. All the things that consumed me became my whole desire and way of life.

All that's just trash to me now. Now I know Christ. Christ is my whole life. It's like the,

I forget the preacher, is a preacher of old and he was reading that place where the apostle says, for it pleased

God to make all the fullness dwell in him. And he paused and he said, if all the fullness is in him, then everything else is emptiness.

And that's Paul. Whatever else this life could offer, when

I compare it to knowing him, it's just trash. It's just trash. It's the excellence of knowing him.

But notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say that happened all these years ago and I've been coasting ever since.

That's not Paul's attitude. That's not what we would describe as soul thirst. Listen.

I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my

Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things. I count them like rubbish that I might gain

Christ, be found in him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness, which is from God by faith that I may know him.

You see, that's the difference between settling into a previous knowledge and abounding in knowledge.

He says, I have known him and there's something still that I desire to know of him.

I have known him and I want to abound in knowing him. I want to know him more. I have gained the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my

Lord. Now the whole world is like trash compared to that, but I only long to know him more.

I only long to know him more. So on the one hand, he pours contempt on all his pride, on all his self -boasting.

He counts it all as a loss when he holds it up to Christ. That's on the one hand, but on the other hand, he holds the knowing of Christ as something yet to come, that I may know him, that I may come to know him, that I will know him in a way

I don't right now know him. That's the soul thirst of Paul.

Can I remind you, this is Paul who actually saw Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Can I remind you, this is Paul who, as he says, was caught up into visions in the third heavens. This is

Paul who was taught directly from the Lord to the point where he could say, now the Lord says this and I don't say this and I say this and not the

Lord. This is Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, and he's saying, oh that I could know

Jesus more. Oh that I would know him more. Do you have anything like that kind of hunger?

Christian, have you had your fill? Do you know him enough? That'll do, thank you.

I don't need to press on. I don't need to voice my relationship through sound doctrine.

I don't need to grow in the mysteries. I don't need to move from milk to meat. No, one drip, one sip, a little bit and I'll go my way.

Thank you. Have you had your fill? Then I would ask you, have you actually known him? Have you known him?

Paul knew him to this degree where he said, I've known him in such a way that I don't even know if I can bear to exist on earth anymore.

The only thing that's anchoring me here is you need me. But frankly, if you didn't need me, I'd be there.

Don't hold me here. I'm happy to have my life poured out like a drink offering because I want to be with him.

I want to see him and be made like him. I want to know him as fully as he knows me. I don't like being veiled by this flesh.

I don't like having to operate through this world. I haven't had my fill. I have a soul thirst. I'm hungry.

I'm thirsty for righteousness. I want to see him who loved me. Do you believe in such a way that this soul thirst is characterizing your life?

It's compelling you. It's causing you to endure. It's causing you to persevere. It's what he describes as this upward call of Christ.

I have to keep trudging along this narrow and difficult way. I've seen many turn back and many falter.

But I know you and I hear your voice and I want to see you. I'm not going to give up now. If it's gotten harder,

I've gotten closer. That's the idea. The point in all of this is it all began with Paul as an encounter with the risen

Lord Jesus. And so it is for everyone, born of God, it begins with an encounter with the risen

Lord Jesus. That encounter shatters the way of our life.

Not in some neat little way. It's like my favorite published testimony of all time is the testimony of Rosaria Butterfield and she describes her conversion experience as an absolute car crash.

It's beautiful. And the only thing that sustained her was knowing

Jesus Christ as her savior. Everything in her life had to get wrecked as a result of that.

That's Paul. My whole life now is completely crashed as a result of this encounter with Jesus.

So be it. I count that all trash now. I have the excellence of knowing him in the most intimate ways, in the deepest ways

I've come to know him. And yet he desires to abound in it more. One way or another, we come to know

Christ by this encounter. It may not for any of us be as abrupt or as dramatic as Paul's encounter, but it is no less an encounter.

It may be an encounter that is sudden and sharp like a lightning strike. It may be an encounter that's just a patient presence, a gradual warmth and drawing that eventually draws you near.

But in either way, whether the lightning strike or that gradual drawing, it is an encounter with the risen

Lord Jesus. Do we know him? Some people want just enough of getting their toes wet in the

Christian faith, just enough Christian curiosity and religiosity that like the lepers, they can be cleansed and then depart from him entirely.

I got what I needed. Thank you very much. I've seen that play out too many times. Marriage on the rocks, alcoholism, some great crisis, moral crisis in someone's life, and they're all of a sudden drawing near to Christ until something in their life gets worked out.

And guess what they will not do? Return to him. Crisis averted.

Thanks, Jesus. It's been real. I'll see you later. Didn't I heal 10?

Why have you been the only one to return? Some people will endure that crisis, that situation, again, by jumping through all of the hoops, by settling for knowing about.

And as I did as a young child, convince myself that knowing about was actually knowing. Knowing descriptively was all that was required.

Didn't know relationally. I didn't know personally. I didn't have communion by faith with the Savior dwelling in my life.

Listen, there's two ways that you can hide from God without even knowing you're hiding from God. You can just stay in the outer darkness, stay in the far country.

That's one way to hide from God. The other way to hide from God is you can be right in the middle of his presence and just keep covering yourself in religious leaves.

As was said in times past, some people run from God by never setting foot in a church. Other people hide from God by coming to church regularly.

But they're in a spiritual ghillie suit hiding from his presence. Is this enough? Enough religiosity?

Have I done enough to satisfy him? I hope so. And their whole life is an altar to an unknown God. They haven't known him.

They haven't had that encounter with him. Do you understand? So Jesus, he asked that question that the disciple must answer, and he asked it in such a specific way.

Who do people say that I am? Well, Lord, many say

Lord, Lord, but their lives don't seem to back that up. Many seem to know you, but you could say to them like you said to Philip, have you been with me so long and yet you don't know me?

Well, that's great. What do people say about me? What do people say that I am? It's important to understand where are we?

What are people saying? What are the people around you, surrounding you in your life, what do they say about the Lord Jesus? But if you stake your whole way of life on what others say, what others experience, and you just mimic and imitate or nod and yawn with that, what good is that to you?

So Jesus doesn't ask just, what do others say about me? He asks this, who do you say that I am?

Many will say, Lord, Lord, I never knew them. And he comes and he looks right in your eyes, each one of you, and he says, so who do you say that I am?

Lord? Savior? Who do you say that I am?

If we don't continue to abound in knowing him, we should not be assured that we've ever known him in the first place.

To know him plants within us a desire to continue to know him.

To see him puts within our hearts a desire to see more of him. To have a newness of life born by God in our very souls has to get worked out in a whole newness of life that we live.

To the degree, to some extent, that we could say, it's no longer I who live, it's

Christ living in me. That's how intimately I've known him. It's a spiritual counterpart to the one -flesh union of a marriage.

The only human relationship that scripture could describe horizontally as a one -flesh union is a marriage, but that's just a picture of the vertical relationship that truly is a one -flesh union.

Christ by his Spirit dwelling in my body, such that I am flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, his life my life, his blood my covering.

If that doesn't abound in the same way that that marriage relationship is to abound, in the same way that this intimate knowing only becomes more comfortable, more sensitive, more aware, there's a depth and a maturity.

That's true of Christ by faith in our lives. We grow and we abound in these ways.

So I'm simply taking a big step back and saying if you would avoid hearing that tragic, catastrophic declaration,

I never knew you, you have to answer the question now, do you know him? Do you know him in such a way that you don't just know about him, but you know him?

You have soul thirst for him in such a way you're abounding to know him more. Now what do we do, as our brother was saying during interaction a week ago, what do we do when our hearts are just so numb?

We look at the branches of our lives and we see a lot that should be there that isn't and a lot that should not be there that is.

How do we respond to that? Do we hang our heads low and say I've got to work harder,

I've got to try harder, I need to try somehow to abound in him? Sometimes even sometimes often in Christian life we're reminded that we really feel like strangers in the earth, pilgrims, sojourners, exiles.

We feel like we're walking alone as silent waves of difficulty and trouble wash over us, especially when we don't find this desire within us.

It's hard for a Christian to feel like the deer panting for water, that's hard, that's hard.

What's harder is when the Christian's no longer even panting for water, they've just learned how to press on without it.

They become numb to it, in other words, numb to their own thirst. So what happens when you're numb and you don't find this yearning?

You can't find this heart that Paul had at work in you.

You don't have an earnest burning desire to know Jesus more because if you're being brutally honest with yourself, you're content with yesterday's knowledge, you're content with last month's faith, you're settled into last year's growth, and you daydream about maybe the beginning of your life in faith.

It felt so natural, it felt effortless. Your life was filled with wonder, all excitement.

You thought you were going to be the crusader to put the kingdom of God to work in the world.

That's the zeal and the power and the energy you felt. All else may fail, surely not

I. Peter rushing to the scabbard. I'm going to make this happen,

Lord. And you daydream about those days. You don't even quite remember what it was like to have that kind of heart and mind, that the simplicity, the energy, the wonder, the awe, the melting self -sacrifice that was bound up with it, and now you're slogging along in the trenches wondering, did that actually happen?

Was that actually really part of my life? Will that ever happen again? And so the thorn shoots of this world sprout and wrap and choke this communion, this abounding desire to know from our lives, and we want to wave that white flag.

We want to capitulate to our weariness, to our comforts, and I would say we don't experience the

Lord in this way that Paul describes because we've never expected to experience it.

The deer stops panting because it doesn't expect to be able to find water. It's not coming, so I just have to stop seeking.

It's not going to happen. If you don't expect this ever -deepening relationship, you won't find it.

Listen. You won't receive what you don't ask for. It won't be opened if you don't knock.

If you're not expecting to have this intimate communion with him, this life -giving indwelling from him, an ever -deepening communion and knowledge of him, if you're not expecting it, you won't have it.

You won't receive it. You won't find it. I was talking with the

Brooks last Sunday about a book that I had mentioned from Lloyd -Jones, Joy Unspeakable, and his whole desire to say, yes, we need to be careful about the excesses and the errors that the charismatic movement makes in regard to the

Holy Spirit, but let's take up our heritage of the Puritan past and realize that they often prayed for the

Spirit to be poured out upon them afresh, to enter into a deeper resonance with his presence, to have a more powerful, as it were, rainfall of his work in our lives, and they labored and prayed and fasted for that kind of thing.

In other words, they were panting for something that they were expected, that they knew they couldn't muster up from flesh and blood.

It had to be received by the Spirit of God, and so they sought it, and they prayed for it, and they tried to arrange the altar stones of their lives in such a way to receive it, but they did it in a way knowing the altar stone arrangement means nothing if the fire of God doesn't descend.

And so you ask the question, oh yes, I don't really know that I've known him in this way. Have you even expected to?

Have you even hungered to? Have you been walking in your life panting for that? What have you done in such a way to seek it, to receive it, to arrange the altar of your life, of your means of grace, of your presence in time, that the

Lord could pour out his Spirit in you in this way? Are you too distracted?

We live in an age of distraction, too easily distracted. It keeps our minds from thinking rightly, from desiring rightly.

We take the right things out of proportion, or we put the wrong things in places they never should belong.

We live in that kind of distracted age, or we're so static, and it's the illusion of thinking

I can maintain ground even if I do nothing, and that's just never true. You ever been at the airport, and they have the escalators that go straight, and if you go the wrong way on that, that's the

Christian life. You're just taking this casual stroll. It's the illusion of I'm making it there. I'm making it there.

Three weeks later, I'm going to be there soon. Not actually. It's until you turn around, and all of a sudden, you're actually getting somewhere in the

Christian life. You can't maintain. If you're not advancing, you're declining.

That's just how it is in a life of faith. It's a narrow and difficult way. It's uphill. If you're not going forward, you're sliding backward.

That's how it is. Maybe you're self -absorbed.

That's one thing that will keep us from desiring to know Him more. We want to know

Him less because we desire things more for ourselves, for our own right, for our own estimation, for our own ambition.

If I seek to know Him more, that means I have to seek me less. If He has to increase in my life, then

I have to decrease. I don't like that arrangement. I'm quite content with where things are. Well, then you haven't known

Him, because if you knew Him in this way, you'd cry out spontaneously like John the Baptist. He must increase. I must decrease.

I don't want any part of this pitiful man to eclipse the glory of the Son of God. That's what

I want to see. I want to get out of my own way to see that more clearly. That's the desire. So I'm not self -absorbed, and I don't commend myself in that way.

I'm not looking for things that I can put my flag in, maintain, or boast in my status, or my efforts, or my achievements.

All these things will keep me from truly knowing Him. Paul sought to know

Him, and he described himself as a chief of sinners. He made himself a slave to all. And so if these are the things that keep us from knowing

Him rightly, then what can we do as we come to a close? And I'd say four little points, maybe, of application that can help us to begin to pant, and to seek, and to have that soul thirst that accords with having known

Him, and seeking to know Him even more. And the first thing is, rather than being distracted, to be focused.

That's a rare virtue in these days, focus. Do you have a setting on your iPhone called focus?

It's meant to shut out all the distractions and help you focus. And then you're distracted by the settings trying to get it all right, and it ends up kind of being a self -failing effort.

You need to focus. Paul is absolutely focused.

When he comes to Corinth, they're distracted with all of their maneuvering, all of their desire to be able to boast, that split them into factions, that they're all craving after wisdom.

They're looking for the best speakers, just like the pagans have these orators that are very skilled, standing in the agora, proclaiming some great display of speech.

And so they're clamoring to have speakers like that. Let's get someone who's really gifted that go, I'm of Apollos.

Oh, I'm of Paul. They want to have all their great speakers and rhetoricians, and they're looking to know God through this worldly wisdom.

And so when Paul addresses this at the beginning of 1 Corinthians, he says, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know

God. God wasn't going to make himself subject to discovery at the end of some equation. It wouldn't be for philosophers to discover at the end of some train of logic.

This wasn't something that we can get through with the mere transcendentals. Of course, what other option do we have? We must believe in Yahweh.

No, he denies the wisdom of man. He denies the wisdom of the world. In these ways of seeking

God, they'll never know God, though they might understand the display of his majesty and power in that Romans 1 sense.

They might conclude that there must be a God who's infinite, but in their wisdom, they don't actually know him.

And he says, in fact, it's through the foolishness of this message that I preach that God has saved his people.

And then he presses this in 1 Corinthians 2. Brethren, when I came to you, I didn't come with excellence of speech.

I didn't come with wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. I determined to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified.

That's focus. Paul doesn't say, what are they clamoring for?

Wisdom? Oh boy, what am I up against? Okay, that faction has him as a speaker. Oh, he's really, really good. All right, let's see the best

I can do. I think I'm going to try to do something from like Tantius and going to work it. It's not what he does. He says, when

I came, I saw all that clamor. I cut through it all. I wasn't distracted like you were distracted. I was focused on this.

I determined I focused myself. I won't know anything among you but Christ and him crucified.

You want to make this gospel more palatable to the Greeks? I won't do it, Paul says. I'm going to come preach a stumbling block.

I'm going to preach foolishness. The son of God came into flesh, was stripped bare and crucified on a

Roman cross, and he's the Lord of the entire universe. Paul says, that's my focus.

And so the focus here is absolutely clear. Do you want to know God in these deeper ways? You've got to cut through the clamor.

You've got to avoid the distraction. What are you going to determine to know if your desire is to know God more?

You have to be focused. That means that as the new year comes and we all say, what devotional should we do this year?

We don't settle into checking off a little box as if God's living word was

Flintstone vitamins we take each day. You would be far, if that's where you settled into, where you're barely just scanning lines and you don't actually care what's there, you go, oh,

I missed two days in a row. Okay, I'm just going to kind of speed read through this and ah, I can now in sincerity check the boxes.

If that's what you get to, I would say throw that reading plan out. Go to the psalms and spend three months in one psalm and chew on it every day until it's in your heart to such a degree that you're actually living that psalm out.

It's become your heart song. That'll be far better than going through the motions. Listen, you see what

I'm saying? Don't get distracted. Be focused. You want to know him. What good does it do to your soul to check boxes?

Is that pleasing to God that you fulfilled your yearly reading plan? Lord, Lord, many things have we done in your name.

19 times in my life, I've read your word cover to cover. I never knew you. You did commendable things, but you weren't seeking me in that.

Do you see that trap? Jesus says, listen, scribes, Pharisees, experts in the law, you devote your whole lives to studying the scriptures, but they testify of me and you won't come to me that you would have life.

So what good does it do to check off boxes or pour over means of grace if you're not focused on what those means of grace are for to actually grow in the knowledge and grace of Jesus Christ the

Lord? And that's the second point.

If you're going to be focused, you'll grow. So don't be static. Don't backslide thinking you're maintaining.

Turn around on that airport escalator. You actually need to press forward. You need to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ the

Lord. And then thirdly, that growth ought to look like service. For Paul, his growth in the

Lord went hand in hand with serving the Lord's people, seeking to advance the kingdom in whatever way he was gifted and capable of doing.

That cuts against self -absorption. Are you absorbed with yourself?

You want to mortify that? You want to be more Christlike? Make yourself a servant to all. Serve. Crucify your ego.

Serve. Jesus was so focused that he wouldn't let anything distract him from the mission that God had sent him to accomplish.

His whole life was focused singularly on the will of his Father. No worldly clamor, no opposition, no heartache of the disciples that he had come to see as so fickle.

And even when they depart from him, there was nothing that could deter him from fulfilling the will of his Father in heaven. He was focused on it.

He grew, as Luke says, he grew in the favor and stature of men. He grew in this ever -deepening awareness of this messianic task set before him.

Some of us last night were talking about this and just the wonder of thinking he had to enter into life just as we are, born in flesh as we are.

He had to grow and actually learn to communicate and learn to develop his thought. Jesus of Nazareth had a developing brain and part of that brain's development was a gradual awareness of what we could call messianic consciousness.

Long before he said to the scribes and the Pharisees, you pour over the scriptures but these testify of me,

Jesus as a young boy was beginning to realize these scriptures testify of me. Whatever other little

Israelite had ever read, I have come to do your will. Now in the fullness of time has come the one for whom those words were written, lo

I have come to do your will. And in that messianic task of absolute focus, in that way of complete growth in this task, such that in the downward slope of the gospel, he sets his face like a flint toward Golgotha, nothing's going to stop me now.

And though he soaks his robes in blood in Gethsemane and he asks the father to remove the cup, he still bends himself, nevertheless your will, not mine.

And yet what went hand in hand with that focus, with that growth, it was service.

Was it not earlier that very night that he girded himself and sat down beneath the table front to scrub the feet of his disciples?

Is it not embarrassing? Our petty, fickle grievances and offenses, does that not humiliate you?

He scrubbed the feet of the disciples he was about to be flayed on a cross for.

The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And that is all of his glory. And so we serve to avoid this self -absorption.

And if we have done that, there's no place for boasting. There's no place for commending ourselves or our efforts.

We make our boast in God. Listen to what Jeremiah says, let him who glories glory in this.

That he knows me. That's what Paul is saying. All the things that I had amassed and ever could amass, it's just trash now because I have the excellence of knowing him.

He's fulfilling Jeremiah 9 24. You want to glory in something? Here's something to glory in. You understand and know the

Lord. Let him who glories glory in this.

He understands and he knows me. I'm the Lord. He understands and he knows and his whole life is characterized by this knowledge, exercising loving kindness, judgment and righteousness.

I delight in this, says the Lord. Jesus says that's our glory. This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true

God. So I ask the question as we close now, do you know the

Lord? Are you abounding in that knowledge? We ask the question from Matthew 7 23.

Does he know you? Many will say

Lord, Lord on that day. Do we think there's nobody in this room that will fit that bill?

If you don't know him, let this be your desire. Like Paul says that I may know him.

If you don't know him, if you've not loved him, as we say, you just need to turn to him.

If you're in the far country, come home. If you're in his presence, but you're covered under leaves, let him cover you with his own bloody righteousness.

And you say it with this prayer, Lord, I want to know you, but I can't know you if you don't show yourself.

So, Lord, save me and reveal yourself to me. Call me to yourself. Do you know him?

Will you know him? And if you do know him, let this be your desire that you may know him more, more than you did last year, more than you have last month.

Know him and press on to know him in ways that you cannot even fathom to discover the excellencies, the glories, the perfections of his wisdom, his power, his strength, his beauty.

Do you glory in it? Do you glory in it? Do you know him?

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.

Lord, may we be a people who know you and know more and more of you.

As the old hymn says, more, more about Jesus would we know. May that be a genuine song from our hearts,

Lord. And as another hymn puts it, we have not known thee as we are.

Have I been with you this long, Lord, and yet I don't still know you in ways that I should. Help us all to grow in this knowledge,

Lord, to grow in this faith we have in the Son of God who dwells by faith in our hearts.

I pray, Lord, that if there's strangers to your grace here this morning, those that perhaps know about you, know you descriptively, but don't know you personally,

Lord, save them. Let them have a cry to know you, to see you, to turn to you, to run to you, to be embraced by you.

And given that soul thirst that perhaps only now has just driven them away, may it now drive them to you.

Not to false idols, not to lesser hopes or false ways, but let that soul thirst drive them and compel them to the only living stream of water from which when we drink we have life everlasting.

We'll never thirst again. May we continually drink of this water as the woman says.

Give us this water ever to drink. And Lord, for those of us here who do know you, forgive us,

Lord. Help us to be humble for all of our flesh and ignorance, Lord, so eclipses our knowledge and sight of you.

We don't see you clearly. We don't see your ways, your will at work in our lives in ways that we should.

But Lord, do not chop down the tree yet. Let us do the deep root work and give us time and let us bear fruit in season once more.

Help us, Lord, to press on this upward call. Be merciful to your people, Lord. Help us to respond as Calvin said,

Lord, giving our whole heart promptly and sincerely to you, the chief shepherd who calls us. May we hear your voice and may we run this difficult race, throwing aside every weight that would encumber until we're with the one who loves us and calls us, the one who gave his life to buy ours.