One famous statement made by Jesus is found in John 8:32, where He says “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. Now these words spoken by Jesus have been repeated and re-used for all kinds of things. It is quoted in churches all across the world, but what is it really saying? What are we free from? How are we made free?
I have spoken with many people who recite the words that they have been made free, but are still very much bound. I have lived that way myself for many years! It happens because of sheer ignorance a lot of times… So what I want to share with you today, is the truth about the truth… the truth that Jesus spoke of, the truth that will actually make you free – and everything that means. So today, you can say that you are free, and actually know what it is that you are saying. So that you can truly be free, and not just be reciting empty words. You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
When you hear the word “God” spoken, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For many, it is terms like “all powerful”, “ruler”, “judge”, “creator” and it is certainly true that God is indeed all of these things. Yet He is so much more. One of the more popular cliché statements used in our current culture is that Christianity is not about religion, but about relationship… and while that is absolutely true, for many of us, the truth of that statement is lost in our daily lives.
For many people the relationship with God does not progress beyond the basic “Christian behaviors” and rituals that most people perform because it is what they think a good Christian is supposed to do. I’ve spoken with people time and time again who are not actually living out of a true relationship with Jesus, but out of rituals and traditions that are empty and unfulfilling. And they flounder around – many of them their entire life, searching for something that they don’t even know exactly what, because they can sense something is missing but they have not made the connection, that what is missing is the foundation of a real relationship with Jesus Christ. This is what we will be studying today.
There is much confusion and differing ideas regarding what it means to “walk” from a Christian standpoint. It is often said that we are to “walk worthy of our high calling in Christ”, and this is generally thought of to mean that we should guard against sinful acts in order to prove our worthiness. But is this what the Bible actually means when it speaks of our walk in Christ? Are we really supposed to prove our worthiness by our performance or behavior?
In this study today, we will be examining this question in the light of the finished work of Jesus Christ, because there is no other light by which things can be clearly seen. Everything will either stand or fall by Jesus Christ. 1st Corinthians 3:11-13 makes it clear that anything built on Christ will stand firm, but anything built on another foundation will be burned-up. So we will see if this idea of proving our worthiness by our performance stands up by Jesus.
The word “know” is an interesting word. We sometimes use it to refer to personal, even intimate relations, and other times we use it in more of a formal and distant familiarity – as in “I know of him.”
The Scriptures speak of knowing God, in-fact the entire Bible is designed to show us Jesus for the purpose of us knowing Him. Even so, there are a great many believers today who know more of God, than actually know Him. You may have even heard me say that before and wondered about it. So today we will be exploring what it means to actually know God, and how a real relationship with Jesus benefits us in our daily lives.