had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and he said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. In a grammatical sense, verses 2 through 4 would be in parentheses. And then verse 5 will continue that thought. So you could get to the end of verse 1, that the Son may glorify you. Pick up in 5, and now Father glorify me. So 2 through 4 is kind of a parenthesis. Verse 2, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life. that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished, having finished, having completed the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Father in heaven, we ask that you'll bless the preaching of your word, that we would be encouraged today as we reflect upon Christ and upon what it means to be in a genuine and real relationship with you through your Son, the Lord Jesus. We pray these things in his name. Amen. I won't bore you with the length of the story, you already know most of it anyways. Many, many years ago, 1988 or 7 or somewhere, 6, 1986, somewhere in that neighborhood. I forget, I'm getting old. I walked into a lawnmower shop to get my weed eater repaired and there was a young girl there working at the cash register and her name was Beverly. And so, at that moment, I knew her. Her name was Beverly, I know her. Do you know Beverly? Yeah, I know Beverly. So I walked out of the store, never went back, never talked to her again. It makes no sense. Here we are, we've been married 34 years, four kids and four grandkids, and so this relationship continues to go on. So I knew her that day by name. In a sense, I knew her by relationship, her dad, sister, mom, these types of things, so I had a little bit more knowledge. But something happened in the knowledge. It's a thing called love. When love happens, the knowledge I had wasn't enough. I want to know more of her." For these last 34 plus years, that knowledge has been growing. We understand this. This is common, understandable things in relationships. We get it. It should not be that hard of a leap when we come to eternal life. This is eternal life that we would know, we'd have this knowledge of the one true God. We say, well I know God. Yeah, I've read my Bible. I know who God is. Is that enough for you? You know him by name? Do you know him by event? Well, God created the world. Well, I know him because of what he did with the nation of Israel. I know him because of these facts that have been taught to me in Sunday school from the time I was a little bitty kid. I know him because I read a Bible story. My question is, Is that enough to walk out of the room today and not come back? Is it enough to say, yes, I know him and then move on with life to move on to, I suppose, bigger and better things? However, if the knowledge you have of God causes you to love him, then what knowledge you have is not enough. Why do people come to church? Why do people read their Bibles? In one sense, I have no idea. In another sense, I know. It's because they love Him and they want to know Him more. What I know of God today is still not enough. You don't have to make me come to church. Don't call me today and say, Brother Randall, you coming to communion? It's a given. Are you coming to prayer meeting on Wednesday? Don't ask me. It's a given. Why? Because I want to know Him more. I need more. I'm satisfied and I'm never satisfied. I mean, that's the case of Christianity. It's like, man, that's a great sermon, but I need another sermon. I need another lesson. I need another exposition. I need another prayer. I need another hug. I need another encouragement. I need more fellowship. I need to be around the people of God. Why? Because it's with them that I learn about God. Love, it shouldn't be that hard of a grasp. Love demands it. love desires, love wants, love craves for. Look, I could skip a lot of things this week. Shocker, I didn't even ride my bicycle yesterday. That's shocker. You don't have to ride my bike. You don't have to ride. That's secondary. That can come or go, but we're not going to skip out on the things of God. We're not going to walk away from God like, I just have to season off. No, this is because love demands. This is eternal life. Don't you want eternal life? Well, sure. What is it? Well, it means I get, I get, I get, I get. No, it means you know God. Try exhausting that subject. Right? I know God. No, how much do you know God? Well, I know him this much. There's more. Well, I know him this much. There's more, and you can't get your hands far enough apart. Back in the old days, people would say, yeah, I already know all that stuff. Stuff? I already know that gospel stuff. Stuff, I'm already offended. You don't know the half of it. So much more. As a matter of fact, I believe with all my heart, and I think Scripture bears it out, I will be pursuing this knowledge for all of eternity and never get to the bottom of it. Why? Because God is eternally vast. So well that you can't get to the bottom of. The personal relationship of eternal life in verse 3. is where we are today. The personal relationship of eternal life. What is eternal life? There's a couple of things, and we'll make these make sense, I hope. We have a basic definition of eternal. Pertaining to a period of unending duration. There is never, ever going to be an end of God. Eternity past, eternity future. We're never going to get to that stopping point. I've used the illustration so many times. These kids and people with their phones and all this stuff, they get these games and video things and they play them and you get shortcuts and cheats and all this stuff and you master the game. When you master the game, what do you do? You throw it away and you move on to something else. That's why I love God. You'll never master Him. You'll never get to the end. There's no shortcut to this thing. You can study God and know God for all of eternity, and every day the light will surprise. Every day there's something new. Every day something else is revealed. Every day there's a reason to love Him more. Every day God gives you a little glimpse, a little hope. You see something, you say, there's more to Him than I first imagined. I thought I knew God when I was eight years old. I did. I believed upon Christ. I got baptized by immersion. I know God. I didn't know squat diddly as we say in East Texas. I didn't know anything. It's been revelation after revelation after revelation of this unending God. Spiritual, eternal life, never ending, ongoing. Some people hear the term eternal life and they immediately flip the truth of this text into some kind of personal thing because we like to make the world revolve around us. Quite odd that we have a verse that says eternal life is knowing God, and we make eternal life something to do about us. Some phrases, we say, I get to live eternally. Eternal life means I get to live eternally. Eternal life means I don't have to go to hell. Eternal life means I get to spend eternity with my loved ones. Eternal life means, the old King James rendering, I get to have my own personal mansion up in the by and by someday. In all of those statements, whether true or not true, the focus becomes on the subject being the I. Eternal life is not about the I. It's much more so about the God. Eternal life is knowing not me, the eternal life is knowing Him and this ongoing pursuit. I hope that I'm not losing you, but somehow you have to comprehend love. What kind of nonsense is it? If you don't want to talk about marital relations in the sense, what are you going to do with parental observations? Your baby's born, you give your baby a name. Jonathan's going to have a new baby. I told him they should name the baby Randall to aggravate Yvonne, which they're probably not going to do. They have their new baby boy. They're having a boy, by the way, so they're going to have the boy. They're going to say, we named him Jose. Then they're going to leave the hospital and never do nothing with the kid again. They know him? They gave him a name. They all rejoiced, and they all left. You say, that makes no sense whatsoever. Right, because parents would love the baby, and they would invest to know this child the rest of their lives. This is basic logic humanity. Why should we be so mesmerized that it's not the same with God? I know God, but there's so much more I want to know about him. For Jesus, what He's saying to us is it's very much relational. The old Greek word, it's pretty common, ginosko, is a pretty common word. To know. To arrive at a knowledge of someone. To arrive at the knowledge of something. To know something about something. To make the acquaintance of. To know God. To have Him revealed to you in His Word by His Spirit. I can't venture to guess how many people you've met in your life. I'm sure there are a lot of them. Have you ever had somebody you meet, and you just never forget them? You just happen to run into this person, and you met them. I still remember the time that my transmission blew up, up in the panhandle of Texas, and we're sitting on the side of the road, and we meet this guy. This guy, the next morning, brings us. He comes over to the house, comes to the motel, and takes us to get donuts, because he knows that we don't have any money. I'll never forget that day. I'll never forget that guy knocking on my motel door. It's like, man, this is just an ordinary fallen human being knocking on my door, but it's still in my mind. How can you meet God and forget? How can you meet God and not be impacted by who He is? How can you have the God of all of eternity revealed to your mind and heart and get over Him? Sometimes, maybe you say, I think our pastor's crazy. I don't care what you think. It doesn't matter. I fell in love with God, and I just can't get over him. And I want you to love him to the degree that you passionately pursue him, to know him, to love with him, to walk with him, to be with him. If you would get this, it'd solve so many problems in your life. Do you understand that if your plane is delayed, it's not a problem? That you can just fellowship with God while you wait on your next plane. You understand when your car breaks down, it's not the end of the world. That you can contemplate and walk with your God until your car is fixed. You understand when your family falls amuck and your kids rebel and they act like goofy morons, that you don't have to be in despair because you still have God and you can walk with God and you can love God and you can know God and you can be comforted by God and that no matter what happens in this world, you are not alone. He says we should know this God. Christians should be the calmest people on the face of the earth as they walk in relationship with God. To know God is to understand what He loves, what He hates, what pleases Him. What displeases Him? What honors Him? What dishonors Him? What His Word says? Who His Son is? What He expects of you? All of these things, this is what it means to know God. It becomes so ingrained in you, you start having thoughts like this. Well, I would do this, but I don't think God would approve. Well, I'm gonna do this because I think it will honor God. And all of your decisions and how your family functions and what you do on work becomes a connection with your relationship with God. I talk this way, I dress this way, I act this way, I raise my kids this way, I do evangelism this way, I go on missions this way, I do church this way, I act this way in church like this because I know God. See, God's holy, holy, holy. And because of my knowledge of him, it affects how I sing on Sunday morning. It affects how I give on Sunday morning. It affects on how I dress for worship on Sunday morning. It affects how I do my hair. It affects how you do your makeup. It affects how everything about your life, it's in a sense you come before the mirror and you say, oh God, do you approve? I've read in your word that you love modesty. I know God. It affects every aspect of my life. This is eternal life that you would know one true God. He could have said that you may know God, but he gives two adjectives, does he not? He wants you to know there's only one Contrary to all the political correctness in the world, there's only one God, and that one God is the only one who is verdad. True. I don't know why I'm speaking Spanish. True. Now, knowledge of God does have some implications, so let me give you a few. You write these down and hang on to them. Number one, there is a faulty knowledge. There is a faulty knowledge. Not all knowledge is the same. You can't have a faulty knowledge of God. Romans 1.21, 2 Timothy 3.7, Romans 1, for although they knew God, same word, there's a group of people and they knew God, but they didn't honor Him. I know who he is. I'm just not going to honor him as God. I'm not going to give thanks to him." As a result of their rejection of this thing, they become futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts are darkened. I know who he is. I'm just not going to honor him, and the conclusion is self-destruction. It's a faulty knowledge. The other one, 2 Timothy 3.7, and this is what Paul said to Timothy, that in those last days, there are those who are always learning, but always learning, but they're never able to arrive, where? At the knowledge of the truth. You say, what are you saying about faulty knowledge? I'm saying there's churches just like this one all around the world that are filled with people that have knowledge about God but has not led them to the truth that they ought to know. In other words, you're going to have all the right Sunday school answers. You say, how do I know whether I just have this head knowledge or some kind of faulty knowledge you're talking about? It's real easy. Do you love him? Do you love God? Is that the condition of your heart? I'm not asking you for a litmus test if you can answer all the catechism questions. I'm not asking you if you can get the right Sunday school answers. I'm asking that if you know God, do you love Him? You say, well, how do I know if I love Him? It's not rocket science. What you love is what you engage in. You love to fish. Fish. You love to ride a bike? Ride a bike. You love to shop? You shop. You love to eat? You eat. You love God? You seek Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength because that is the only thing that will satisfy you. It is love for God. Knowledge that leads to love is a true knowledge. Knowledge that leads to just correct answers is just superficial nonsense. You've got to have love. Faulty knowledge is a danger. You want a present application test? Do you love God? Or is the entirety of the morning just you contemplating, when we're going to get out of here, we can go do what you want to do anyway? There are people in this room who all week were waiting on today. There's people in this room who've waited all week going, man, is there any way I can get out of it? I mean, if I don't go two Sundays in a row, I'm going to look bad. This is a total different knowledge. One knowledge leads to joy and love and anticipation. It leads to an expectation like, I can't wait for the day to get started. I can't wait. It's Sunday. And another one is like, when will this moron get done preaching? I'm sick of listening to him. He says the same thing every week. It's true. The second knowledge, implication of knowledge, relational exclusion. Relational exclusion. You'll be impressed. I don't even start all these with the same letter. Relational exclusion. 1 John 3.1. This is what you'll find if you truly love God. You'll find it in the church. You'll find it in the world. See what kind of love the Father has given to us? A note, the primary that love he gave to us is a love for himself. That we should be called the children of God. What a relationship. He goes, and so we are. We're God's children. The reason why the world does not know us. They don't understand. They're not in relation. They don't get why we're here. I stand out here from 5.30 in the morning till 7.50 in the morning with my tie on the street, waving to everybody that goes by, and they look at me like I'm a moron. Moron's my word today. Just get over it. And so there's the moron preacher waving everybody, like, what's wrong with him? And I'm standing there going, what's wrong with you? Why are you rejecting the Lord's day? The world doesn't know us. Why? Because they don't know God. It makes no sense to them why you'd give up a perfectly good day to put God first when there's so much money to be made out there. I don't know how many boats I count every Sunday morning. You can't make it to Sunday school, but you can get to the lake before the sun rises. It's a heart condition. Number three, don't worry, there's only 72 of these. Implication of knowledge, negates continual sinning. Negates continual sinning. Knowledge of God does that. You can't continue to live in sin if you know God. Your love for Him prohibits it. 1 John 3, 6, no one, no one, exclusion, no one who abides in Him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or You cannot be in this knowledge that Christ is talking about. This is eternal life. It didn't mean no, the one true God. You can't have this knowledge and live in ongoing sin. You can't do it. It's like you can't love your spouse and be in constant rebellion and fighting with them. You can't stay like that because love will do what? It'll even make prideful men say, I'm sorry. It'll make the prideful wife say, I was the old Fonzie's line. I was. Y'all didn't watch Fonzie Happy Days? Wrong. I was wrong. And why would somebody admit to a fault? Because love says I can't stay like this. It's the same way with Christianity. I can't continue like this because of love. I want my relationship with God to be clean. I want to be right with God. I don't like being standoffish. I want to be near. I want to be in His presence. But this sin is prohibiting it. Lord, I repent. It's Christianity. Number four, implications of knowledge. Don't worry, we're not moving fast. Verse three, it opens ears to the truth. Knowledge of God opens your ears to the truth. First John 4, 6 says, we are from God. We're from God. Whoever, listen cleverly, whoever knows God, whoever it is. No, in this context of what I'm giving you about what knowledge of God is, whoever it is that knows God listens to us, the Apostle John says, listens when the Word of God is preached, when the Word of God is taught. You know God, you listen. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. I'm not saying you have to take notes and for some people taking notes is not a good idea because it distracts you My point is only this on Wednesday nights. I don't preach. Let's give you a commentary here I don't preach on Wednesday nights a different guys preach and teach John preaching through Timothy right now Look, I'm in the seminary for 14 years a pastor this church over 20 years. I've read my Bible through I don't know how many times I've done all these mission trips and advances and all this You know what I do when somebody stands up here on Wednesday night and teaches I open my Bible And I look at the words, and I take my pen, and I write down statements because God's speaking to me. My ears are open because I know God. It's like, whether it be Jack, or whether it be John, or whether it be Jeff, or whether it be Cody, or whoever it is that's holding this book, this is why I came Wednesday night. I need a word from God. Because I know Him, my ears are open. Tell me wonderful things out of this book." Even in my position, you can't say, well, I already know all that. I can read Greek. Whoop-dee-doo. It doesn't matter. We've got to be teachable, and knowing God will give you those type of ears that want to listen. It's true. It's true. Number five, if you really want to know there's six, that's the truth. Number five, knowledge of God has this implication. It causes mutual love. It causes mutual love. Beloved, let us love one another. Why should we do that? Because love is from God. Whoever loves, whoever it is, they've been born of God and they know God. Anyone who does not love does not know God. Why? Everybody knows the line. Even the world knows this line because God is love. Listen, if you know God, you love me. Now I'm talking about me, Randall. You love me, and I love you, because that's what the knowledge of God produces, is a genuine love, one for another. That's the reality of Christianity. Knowing God brings about mutual love in the body of Christ. That's why it makes no sense to my mind, no understanding to my heart, and no verification from scripture that anybody can claim to know God, walk away from the church, and have nothing more to do with her. That's not love. If you love God, you can't stay away. It's almost like saying, oh, I love my wife, and we got married, and I'm never going home to see her again. That doesn't make any sense. We got married, and I never saw her again, but I love her. You're a liar. I love God. I just don't need God's people. I don't need God's church, and I don't need preaching. Your heart is dead. Number six, implications of knowledge. This is eternal life that we know the one true God. Here's the implication. Number six, reveals the true identity of Christ. Knowledge of God, you've got Muslims and Buddhists and all these people around the world, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, whatever. They know God. If you actually knew God, then the true identity of Christ would be revealed to you. First John 5 verse 20, and we know that the Son of God has come and He's given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true. In His Son, Jesus Christ, He is the true God and eternal life. For all of these religions around the world that believe in God and reject the deity of Christ, they do not know God. Because if they knew God, they would understand the identity of Jesus is God in human flesh. That knowledge would produce that. In form of application and conclusion of this sermon, I know it's not published, but we've seen it enough and we do at least one question every week. The entire catechism book I wrote is called Questions and Answers for Growth in the Knowledge of God. Why is it titled that? Because that's what eternal life is. There's hundreds of questions in a catechism book. You've got all these scripture references in bold and memory verses. You've got these personal questions. You've got all this stuff. I read something to my mom the other day. She goes, man, this is going to take a lot of work. But when you love someone, it's worth the labor. It's worth the effort to read the text, answer the questions, to memorize the verses. That's what for the life of me, I don't understand people who won't even try to memorize memory passages. Why would you not want honey? What are you not ... You don't like honey? What's wrong with you? It's sweet. It's flavorable. The word of God says ... God's word is precious. It's precious. It's good. It's honey. It's dripping from the honeycomb. It's all of these things, but I ain't got time for it. It doesn't make any sense. How can we know God and not have a desire for these things that are so sweet and good? Questions, answers, memory verses, scripture readings. You say, oh my, legalism, legalism, legalism. Oh, all the tasks, all the things the pastor wants me to do. I care about your soul, and I know that this is the only thing that's going to feed you. You must look at God's word daily. You've got to memorize. You've got to meditate. You've got to read. You've got to pray. You've got to spend time with God in God's book for your soul, and I'm not going to back off from these things because if I do, what would I give you? I just want you to grow and store up His Word in your heart. I want you to know God. I want you to walk with Him in joy. I want Him to be your best friend. I want you to be side-by-side, hand-in-hand. I want you to love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And I want you to put Him as the priority over everything else. I want you to say no to the world and yes to Christ. Okay, I'm done. Jeff, you come close this in song. Father in heaven, thank you so much. There's so much more that we need to know of you. So much more. God search our hearts today. Every man, every woman, every boy, every girl in this room calls them to search their hearts to ask themselves this one prevailing question. Do I know God? Do I love God? Do I love God? Lord, if the answer is no, I pray today they would see the wickedness of their own heart and they'd look unto Christ and ask for mercy. We'd ask Christ to forgive them of their transgressions and to cause them to believe upon Him. And that this day, right now, this moment, this hour, they would believe. And they would be given eternal life, which is to know you. And from this day forth, unto all eternity, they would search you out. And they would go from revelation to revelation to revelation, from joy to joy to joy, from satisfaction to satisfaction to satisfaction. Oh, would you do that in someone's heart today? For, Lord, if they will not repent and believe, they will continue to be miserable in this life, and they will be miserable in the life to come for all of eternity. Father, for your church, by the word Baptist Church, forgive us of our apathy, forgive us of our callousness, forgive us of taking these great things and making them common. Stir our hearts that we wouldn't look like Ephesus any longer. Restore us. Restore us, O God, unto our first love. May we love you with passion. May we love you with zeal. May we love you in truth. May we love you for all of eternity. Pray these things by your Spirit. In Christ's name, amen.