[0:00] Good morning. My name is Carolyn White and I'm privileged to read God's word this morning. Be reading John 7, 25 through 36 out of the ESV.
[0:11] Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him.
[0:23] Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.
[0:34] So Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple, you know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true and him you do not know.
[0:47] I know him for I come from him and he sent me. So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not come.
[1:01] Yet many of the people believed in him. They said when the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.
[1:16] Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me where I am. You cannot come.
[1:27] The Jews said one to another. Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?
[1:37] What does he mean by saying you will seek me and you will not find me and where I am. You cannot come.
[1:48] Thank you, Carolyn, for leading us in the reading of the word and thank you worship team for leading us to God as we prepare to hear from His word now.
[2:00] Morning, my name is Eric and I serve as one of the pastors here and it's my privilege this morning to get to share with us from God's word. I'm excited about this passage because it offers us some real hope and some real context for our lives and how we live our lives and what we should be doing with it.
[2:21] I'm excited to share this and I want to just ask that you would just consider where you're at right now in life. Consider what you're feeling.
[2:33] Consider maybe what you believe or what you don't believe. Maybe you're here this morning and you're excited about your faith and you want to know God more.
[2:45] Maybe you feel as though God doesn't know you as he should. Maybe you feel you're losing confidence in the truth of God's word. Maybe you feel you've been busy and haven't spent enough time with God recently.
[3:01] Or maybe you're here this morning and you don't believe in God at all and you don't even know why you're here. But for all of us here today, I believe this text has something for us and here's why it revolves around a man named Jesus.
[3:24] And this Jesus is not just some man. He's the Son of God and He has come to give us life.
[3:35] We're going to get to hear from Him this morning and so I'm excited to see just how the Lord will work as we look at His word. So if you would, turn with me to John chapter 7.
[3:46] John chapter 7, we're going to start in verse 25. And if you've been attending over the last few months, you've known we've been in this book of John. It's the Gospel of John and the Gospel of John is an incredible book because it displays Jesus in all of His might and glory for us to see that Jesus, the Son of God, has now come to finally fulfill the word that has been spoken and that Jesus is the very one that this text centers around.
[4:19] It's very one that the whole Bible centers around. And what's great about this context in John 7 is as you guys have known the last few weeks, you've been talking about this thing called the Feast of Booths.
[4:30] And how the Feast of Booths was a festival or a time for the Jews to come all over, from Jews all over to come to Jerusalem to establish these temporary dwelling places to remind themselves of the time they spent in the wilderness.
[4:48] And at this Feast of Booths, we've seen incredible amount of tension that is developed. And I want to just use an illustration here. You guys are seeing Star Wars and New Hope, Episode 4, originally the only one.
[5:04] Okay, and there's this scene, the trash compactor scene. And they fall into the trash and the walls are there and they, where are we? And all of a sudden the walls turn on and they start to move and everything starts to get compacted.
[5:18] That's kind of what happens at the Feast of Booths in John. Is the pressure just slowly starts to mount and every inch those walls come in, the more they feel the pressure, everyone at the festival, tons and tons of people.
[5:34] So we've already seen, I'm going to just rehash a little bit of this. We've already seen in verse 10 that Jesus attended the Feast in private. Remember his brothers, that whole interesting scene, they say, hey, go display yourself.
[5:48] You want to be known and he says, no, I'll stay back and then he goes in private and secret, it says. So immediately I would offer those trash compactor walls start moving when Jesus attends the festival in private.
[6:02] Because everybody knows who this guy is. We've already heard of him. We've seen his miracles and now he's going to where all of the Jews will be. But then in verse 11, we're told that everyone is looking for Jesus at the Feast.
[6:16] Is he here? Where's that guy who's been doing all this stuff? He's been drawing a lot of attention to himself. He's really interesting. Everyone's excited. Is he here? Is he not here? But then we also see in verse 12 and 13 of chapter 7 that some think he's great as they talk about the murmuring in the Feast.
[6:34] I think he's great. And then it says other people think he's a liar. They don't believe him. You can see the tension. The walls are coming together a little bit.
[6:46] And then in verse 14 that we saw last week, what happened? It says this, in the middle of the Feast, Jesus began teaching publicly in the temple.
[6:59] Those walls are now just starting to do this, right? Jesus stands up and publicly teaches proclaiming himself. Now, we're going to pick up this morning in verse 25.
[7:12] And I want you to continue to see how this scene, the pressure is building and it's leading to something glorious. Verse 25 says this, some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, Is not this the man whom they seek to kill?
[7:33] And here he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.
[7:48] Now, in all chapter 7, what's been interesting is that it's talked about the group of people at the Feast. And it's just said the Jews, the Jews, the Jews. It's just referring to this giant collection of people with no necessarily direct references.
[8:02] But here's what's interesting at the beginning of this verse. It says not just the Jews, but it actually says the people of Jerusalem. So now we have a specific sect of people that are saying this collectively.
[8:15] And these are the people of Jerusalem, aka the Jews who live in Jerusalem that didn't really have to travel for this Feast. They know the area, they know what's going on and they know something specific that maybe the rest of the Jews that have traveled to Jerusalem didn't know yet.
[8:30] And here's what they knew, this select group. Back in chapter 7 verse 1, we're told this that after this, Jesus went about in Galilee and he would not go into Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him.
[8:46] Now, the Feast of the Boost was at hand. So what we're seeing in verse 25 is this, there's a group of Jews in Jerusalem and they know the authorities are wanting to kill this guy.
[8:58] And so here's why that matters. In verse 26 it says this, here he is. They want to kill him, here he is and he's speaking openly and they say nothing to him. He's right here, that's the guy they want to kill.
[9:09] Like come on authorities, do something. But then it says this, look at this sentence. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?
[9:26] In other words, maybe they do believe this is the promised Messiah. That's why they're not doing anything? Is that why they're not doing anything?
[9:40] They're speculating. They're not arresting him, maybe is he the Christ? And you can see there's just some, there's a little bit of even tension in this sentence that there's a group of Jewish people in Jerusalem that are seeing what's happening.
[9:58] And they're saying, could this be the Christ? Maybe our leaders think so. I want to stop for a minute here in the narrative and just ask something.
[10:11] Who is the Christ? What's an important question you will ever ask in your life is this question. Who is the Christ?
[10:24] This is not just a question for people who are familiar with the Bible either. It's for every single person and here's why. The term Christ means anointed one.
[10:36] Now I know when I was younger I thought Christ was Jesus last name. I'm in that camp, I'll just claim it. Jesus Christ. And if you were right kids, they would have been something Christ, right? No.
[10:47] The word Christ means anointed one. It's less of a name and more of a title. And it's a title that is applied to somebody that all of the Scriptures have all predicted.
[10:59] It's someone who would come and release God's people from bondage once and for all and redeem them. Christ, the anointed one, the one God's people believe, can deliver and save them.
[11:16] I want to offer to us when I ask the question, Who is the Christ? Like every single person has an obligation to answer.
[11:30] Who's the anointed one or the anointed thing in our lives that we look to deliver us? Some people, that anointed thing might be my job.
[11:42] My job is my Christ. My job will deliver me. My career, my family, my friend group, even my parent.
[11:52] My parent, they're the person that could save me. And then lastly we have to ask this painful one. Is the Christ the anointed one that can deliver and save, is it myself?
[12:09] I can deliver and save myself. I know this was my understanding for such a long time, that I lived my life to excel and to be successful that God would see and say, Well done, I'm impressed by you Eric.
[12:24] You delivered yourself and now you get to be in heaven. That was honestly the way I viewed myself for a very long time. That was the Christ in my own life. But here's what's fascinating in the text. We have to wrestle with this.
[12:35] The people are sitting here and they're saying, Do our leaders think this is the guy, the one that would deliver? Maybe he is. Why aren't they arresting him? You can see that tension in their voice. But then it says this in verse 27.
[12:47] Notice here comes the doubt verse 27. But we know where this man comes from. And when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.
[12:59] That's kind of interesting. Here's what's happening here. They say the word no.
[13:10] This is a key word in our passage, no. And they say this. We know something. We have an understanding, a factual understanding about something related to this guy named Jesus.
[13:26] And here's what we know. We know he's from the place called Nazareth. They don't say it in the text, but this is what they're thinking. We know where he's from. They're thinking literal.
[13:37] They're thinking geographic. We know that this guy's from Nazareth. And so he can't possibly be the Messiah because in order to what it says, because when the Messiah or when the Christ comes, no one will know where he's from.
[13:51] I want to say something real clear. It's possible to think we know something about God and it not to be correct. It's possible to think we know something about God and it not to be correct.
[14:03] And here's an example of that. So what are they referring to? What are they talking about? Well, for this, you have to go back to the book of Malachi. And there's this understanding of the Christ, the one that would come that's promised in the book of Malachi that is misconstrued and it turned into a Jewish folklore, if you will, people believed about the coming of the Messiah.
[14:24] And here's what it was. I'm going to read this for you actually in Malachi chapter three. This is a misunderstanding of this passage. Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me, the Christ and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.
[14:40] We'll do that one more time. Suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming said Lord of hosts.
[14:50] So what are we talking about here? How could they misconstru that? And what does that have to do with our passage? Suddenly come. This is the folklore. It turned into this, that when the Christ comes, he's going to basically just appear.
[15:03] And we're going to see him, adjustically, mysteriously, powerfully, whatever, but we won't know, no one will know who he is. He just shows up and we go, wow, the Messiah is here. They want something exciting.
[15:14] They want something bold. And they read that Malachi prophecy as this incredibly overdone outward facing feeling of the Christ.
[15:34] So here's what they say, we know where he's from. He's from Nazareth. He's just some random normal dude from Nazareth. There's no way that's the Messiah. So is scripture wrong, is scripture to blame here?
[15:46] Is God to blame? No. Why? Because God himself, in utter detail, has made clear the birthplace, the literal birthplace of the Messiah, hasn't he?
[16:01] In Micah 5.2, a passage that many of us have heard, says this, but you, O Bethlehem, from you shall come forth for one who is to be a ruler in Israel.
[16:14] Where was Jesus born? Bethlehem. Was that known? Yes. God is a God of promise and fulfillment.
[16:27] And the Messiah, the Christ, who the anointed one to come and deliver God's people, He came, but just not in the way they thought or wanted.
[16:38] Instead, He is born in a lowly manger. We just celebrated the last month in a place called Bethlehem, a little known name town. He grows up for 30 years, fairly discreetly, and then finally comes onto the scene and goes privately into the feast, steps into the temple and begins to teach.
[17:02] This is not the person that they were told and they wanted. So here's what's fascinating.
[17:13] Verse 28, so Jesus proclaimed. Now, I want to stop here for a second. Usually when the Gospels talk about Jesus speaking, it says, when Jesus said, when Jesus, then Jesus spoke or Jesus said unto them, and there's a generic term used for speaking, but this is not a generic term.
[17:30] I want this to really like make a point here. Notice what it says. Jesus proclaimed as He taught in the temple. Now, the word proclaimed here is to cry out loudly.
[17:42] So Jesus, who's just teaching in the temple, He knows. He hears, rustling. He knows that there's questions. Is this the Christ? People are wondering, is this the Christ?
[17:52] He can't be because we know He's from Nazareth and if we know where He's from, He couldn't possibly be the Son of God and He knows all of this. And here's what Jesus does.
[18:03] He stands in the midst and He proclaims with a loud voice. This is kind of like a stop everything. The rustling stops. Someone is speaking loudly with authority.
[18:15] And here's what Jesus says. You know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord.
[18:26] He who sent me is true and Him you do not know. That compactor is starting to really, really compress.
[18:44] He sent me and oh, Him who sent me, you don't know Him. Why is it such a staggering statement? It's staggering because Jesus goes to the people of God, the Jews, in the city, Jerusalem, into the temple, the place where worship was prescribed and done.
[19:12] He goes into the heart of all Jewishness and at that place, He proclaims with a loud voice. Don't miss this. You do not know God.
[19:28] And that should stop us. Did He win over friends from this statement?
[19:39] Well, this is the thing about Jesus. When He enters into places, when He does things, there's this natural dichotomy that happens everywhere Jesus goes.
[19:50] There are those who resent Him, who think He's a false teacher or a liar or He's a charlatan or whatever, and they deny Him, they reject Him, they even persecute Him. And then there's this other dichotomy, this other side of this that happens where there's other people that stop.
[20:04] And for the first time in their lives, they reconsider what they've thought and how they've lived their lives. And all of a sudden, they start to wonder, is this the Christ? Is this the anointed one?
[20:14] Is this the one that could deliver and say, does He have power? Is He God's Son? And I need to wrestle with this. You see this everywhere Jesus goes. There's this splitting that happens.
[20:25] And it happens here. Notice what He says in verse 29, I know Him, for I come from Him and He sent me. And then verse 30, so they were seeking to arrest Him, they being reflective back to the Jerusalem Jews that wanted to kill Him.
[20:45] Notice this, first group, they wanted to arrest Him, but no one laid a hand on Him because His tower had not yet come. The sovereignty and providence of God to ensure that all things are done in His timing and in His hand, that Jesus would not be touched.
[21:03] First group, arrest Him. How dare He proclaim to us the Jews in Jerusalem, in the temple, that we don't know God? But then here's the second group, verse 31.
[21:14] Praise God for this, yet many of the people believed in Him. And they said, when Christ appears, will He do more signs and this man is done?
[21:28] And it's a temptation to look at the people that believed and say, oh, their belief is outward. They just believe because they saw signs. But actually what's happening here is this. There's a group of people, likely Jews, who did believe.
[21:39] When Jesus comes and He says, I came from God, you know Him not. And I and Him. We have the same essence.
[21:50] He sent me, I came from Him. That's what He's proclaiming. This group over here is now saying something. This has to be the Christ.
[22:01] This has to be the promised one, the Son of God Himself. How do we not believe this? That's the thrust of their statement.
[22:15] This is a point where, man, again, those compactor walls are just, you can feel the tension. And that's okay.
[22:26] And here's why that's okay. When I was in high school, I remember I took four years of Spanish when my teacher was Senor Chavez.
[22:40] He was an excellent teacher. And he would always remind me of one mistake that I would make over and over and over again.
[22:52] And it was the difference between the verb, saber and canosco. Now you who speak Spanish, you know what I'm talking about.
[23:02] Saber is used more factually. I know. They both mean to know. Saber is used more factually. I know information. I know data. I know skills. I know this set of info.
[23:13] And canosco is to be used more in relational terms. I know this person. I know Scott. I know Jay. I know Cole. I know, like, on and on and on. I know people.
[23:23] I know somebody in a relational capacity. Those are those two verbs. I know, I know this. Good job, Senor Chavez. But in the class, I would always, oh, Jose Taylor.
[23:35] Jose Jordan, he'd be like, ah, like, canosco. Canosco, Eric. Enrique, what are you coming? Enrique. Canosco. Ah, that's right. I would always forget this.
[23:47] And it was astounding to me though, studying this passage, just how the Lord brought this back. And I think for this reason, that there's a massive difference in the way that we know people versus the way we know things.
[24:02] And even in the Sunday morning class, it was just in with Jay, we're traveling about evangelism, how to have conversations with people, to get to know them and to win people to Christ. We had this conversation about, literally at the table, the difference between knowing factual information and knowing somebody in a personal way.
[24:23] And here's what's so fascinating about this. I want you to look back with me again at verse 27. The Jews say, we know where this man comes from and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.
[24:39] They use the word know a lot. We know of the Christ. He will, we know he'll be from here. We know he won't be. What is the type of knowing that's happening here?
[24:49] We know the city that he'll be in. We know this fixical location and this place and he'll be here and if he's there, he can't be here. And if we know that he knows, it's all saber.
[25:01] And here's what's so unbelievable, what Jesus does. Look with me at verse 27 or verse 28. So Jesus proclaims, he taught in the temple, you know me and you know where I come from. I want to offer to us, that's more of the saber usage.
[25:13] In other words, you know that I'm Jesus. You know my name, you know my mom, my dad likely. You even know saber, you know data that I'm from Nazareth.
[25:24] But here's what's so amazing. Notice Jesus uses the word know again. It's the same word in the Greek, but they have different syntactical meanings. Listen to this one, ready? The last one. But I have not come of my own accord.
[25:37] He is semi-true and him, you do not know. Do you think Jesus is talking about just factual data here? They have the scriptures.
[25:53] They think they know the facts, but even their facts are wrong. Here's what Jesus is saying. A relationship, a knowing relationship with the Father is absent in this place.
[26:11] Jesus himself is suggesting that to know somebody implies more than what you can get in a textbook.
[26:25] Now hear me? Knowledge of God, fact and truth, theology, sound doctrine is extremely important.
[26:38] And we know, even this definition, we know that God is three and one. We know God is personal. We know that he's powerful.
[26:48] We know that Jesus is God's son. We know the scriptures are true. We know all of these things. They're really important. But that knowledge with relationship with the one that it speaks of is what leads to true faith and worship.
[27:09] And this is what Jesus is pointing at, that there's a God that wants to know you personally in relationship. And I have come to make him known.
[27:28] So there's this guy who played tennis with him, his name is Louis, and I just met him. And met him this week, and I learned some things about him, more on the Sabaire side, okay?
[27:39] He has a beard, he's in his 20s. He works in the assembly line, he loves his mother. He came across a lot. I love my mom. We spent a lot of time together. We love my mom. I know those things about Louis, okay?
[27:50] I had one conversation with him, 30 minutes, that's about all I learned, all those things, okay? Now I'm going to offer something to you. Can you discern a difference in my meaning when I say these two sentences? Ready?
[28:01] I know Louis. Same words. I know Brooke, my wife. Is there a difference in between those two? No, it's the same word, right?
[28:14] What's the difference? And this is huge. If we can pick up on what the difference is between me knowing Louis and me knowing my wife, Brooke. We start to see what Jesus is talking about here.
[28:28] And this is the type of knowledge that God wants for you and for us to know him as Father, as God, as Savior, as the one that provides for us and cares for us and hears us and wants relationship with us.
[28:51] There's a crucial difference. And just thinking facts alone lead to a knowledge, a full knowledge in relationship and taking what we know of somebody and investing in that relationship.
[29:06] And here's what Jesus does. He's the one that invests for us through the gospel. Notice in the next section of this passage here, in verse 32, the Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him. They're muttering.
[29:17] What in the world just happened? He just said, we don't know God. People want to arrest him. People want to believe in him. There's just all of this, again, the pressure, the stress of the situation. But notice it says this. Finally, the Pharisees heard the muttering and said the following things.
[29:32] Go arrest him. Chief priests, go. We can't do this anymore. In other words, the Pharisees had lost control of the situation. And Jesus had just proclaimed, you don't know God.
[29:48] And I come from him. So here's what it says in verse 33. Jesus responds to this, call to arrest with this. I will be with you a little longer. And then I'm going to him who sent me.
[29:59] You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am, you cannot come. And what Jesus is doing here is he's preaching a veiled gospel, if you will. Now, veiled to the original hears, as they would have been very confused, and they were, but not veiled to you and I.
[30:14] We know what he's talking about. He says this, I'm only going to be with you a little bit longer. He's hinting at the fact that he's about to depart. Six months from this point in the story, Jesus goes to the cross and dies.
[30:27] He's hinting that the veiled gospel here is this. I'm going to go, I'm going to die. And I'm going to resurrect. I'm not going to be with you anymore, because I'm going to die. But then I'm going to resurrect.
[30:38] And then he says this, and then I go to the father. He's hinting at his ascension. After I come back to life in the resurrection, I'm going to leave and go to the father and sit at his right hand. He's preaching this veiled gospel that when these events take place, here's what's going to happen.
[30:52] People who are there in the masses will have heard this gospel and then they will believe if they didn't already. That that was the Son of God.
[31:03] And here's how it finishes. The Jews said to one another, they still don't get it. They're still after fact. Here it is. Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him?
[31:14] Does he intend to go to this version among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does it mean by saying, you will seek me and you will not find me? And where I am, you cannot come. They're so hung up on this.
[31:25] Sabeir, that they cannot grasp the idea of a loving, knowing relationship between an incredible, all-creating God that made them and wants to know them and has this incredible personal ministry to them through the very person they're talking with.
[31:44] Jesus, our mediator. And the reason they say all this is he's going to go to the Greeks and preach to the Greeks is this. This is literally what they're thinking.
[31:55] Okay, he's in the middle of the temple in Jerusalem. We could just grab him right now. Where is he going to go that we're not going to know about it? Right? Well, there's probably one place that he could physically go to that we probably wouldn't pursue him, and that's if he goes among the heathenistic, horrible, terrible, worldly Greeks.
[32:12] The insinuation is here. Well, we may not actually follow him in there because we can't associate with them. Here's what's so unbelievable about all of this.
[32:23] Jesus preaches a gospel that starts in Jerusalem and extends to all of the earth. The very people who looked and said, he's just going to run away to someplace that he knows we can't go, we wouldn't go because we're too holy for that.
[32:40] Jesus, in his holiness, dies that those places might hear this good news. So I want to leave you guys with this.
[32:51] The reason Jesus came, the reason Jesus came is to make God known. And knowing God through the love of Christ is the highest privilege of the human heart.
[33:06] Knowing God through the love of Christ is the highest privilege of the human heart. I'm known by my wife, I know my wife, but we've only married eight years.
[33:19] I pray by God's grace it'll be another 10, another 10, another 10, down the road maybe we're 40, 50 years we've been married. And I will be able to say at that point, I know my wife really well, even better than I did when I preached this.
[33:32] But the love of God and the knowledge of God is fully and completely accessible right now through Jesus Christ.
[33:44] So I want to call you this morning to answer the questions that we raised in the text. Who is the Christ? Whether it's the first time this morning you're asking that question or you've already answered it, I would think we need to still think through it.
[33:59] Who is the Christ? The anointed one in my life to deliver me. Who is it? And then secondly, do I know God?
[34:12] John 20 gives us the whole reason of this gospel. John the author says this, he wrote this book that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
[34:27] Jesus came to make God fully known. And through His work to live perfectly, to die sacrificially on our behalf, to pay the debt of sin that we owed that holy God because of our sinfulness and because of His victorious resurrection from the grave, which dominates and defeats all power of death and evil, we get access to God.
[34:50] Full access now today that we might live with joy, with meaning, with life. And I pray that knowing God today would be on the heart of every person in this room.
[35:07] Whether for the first time considering it or for the millionth. I'm going to finish this morning just by reading a passage in Philippians chapter 3.
[35:21] Paul, the author of this book, he understands what it means to know God well. And he understands that this very one that came and said, you know not know God. Paul once not knew God.
[35:32] He didn't know God. God had to blind him and knock him off his horse before he would even be able to lead a life of knowing God. But here's what Paul says, now that he knows God is in Philippians 3.
[35:44] He says this, indeed, I count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
[35:56] For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God that depends on faith, that I may know him again and the power of his resurrection.
[36:18] My prayer in here this morning is that each and every person, we would know things of God, we would understand him in the severe sense, but every person in here, we'd be able to say, canosco God in a real sense.
[36:34] I know him. Lord, I pray that this morning, that that would be true, Lord, that we would truly be able to understand that this relationship we have with you is initiated by you, it's empowered by you, and it's seen out in every way by you and your love.
[36:57] And Lord, as we see from Jesus this morning, that it is possible to sit in the most religious place with the most religious posture and to truly not know you.
[37:14] So God, would you convict our hearts and for every person in this room, I ask that you would know them intimately and that in response, Lord, we would give ourselves completely to you, to know you as surpassing worth of anything else in this earth, as Paul says.
[37:36] I pray that that would be true of the people in this room, true of this church, and true of every single believer, Lord, in this city and beyond. Amen.