Do We Really Know the Father? (John 8:13-19)

Many of us go around saying that we are saved, we know who God is.  But the reality is it is simple to say so, simple to get up on Sunday mornings and go to church, even read our bibles throughout the week, maybe read a quick devotional daily.  The problem is that doesn’t mean we really know God, you see the Temple Leaders did all these things they knew the law understood the law, but they did not truly know God, which gave them a false since of knowing God.  For as we read John 8:13-14 we see how Christ points out to them that they do not know His Father.  In fact in verse nineteen he just comes out and says to them, “Since you don’t know who I am, you don’t know who my Father is. If you knew me, then you would know my Father, too.”  I fear how many of us are going around with a false since of security in thinking that we really know God, when we really know of God.  The difference in knowing God and knowing of God is huge, I know of the President, but I have never meet the President to talk to him and get to know him.  Many of us are that way with God, we hear His word, read His word but we leave unchanged, we decided to question some of the harder sayings, we decided that maybe He really didn’t mean that. 

Christ warns in Luke 6:46-49, “So why do you call me ‘Lord,’ when you won’t obey me?  I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then obeys me.  It is like a person who builds a house on a strong foundation laid upon the underlying rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against the house, it stands firm because it is well built. But anyone who listens and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will crumble into a heap of ruins.”  How many of us are just pretending to really know God, fooling ourselves into thinking that I am ok I know God when really we know of God.  What Christ is saying here in Luke should be cause for us to stop and think, am I really building a sound relationship with God, doing what He commands and following His teachings?  Or am I like the Pharisees who knew of God, knew the old testament but didn’t know God,  Didn’t understand what it was that God really required of them.  We see also in Matthew 7:21 Christ saying, “Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but they still won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven.   On judgment day many will tell me, ‘Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Go away; the things you did were unauthorized.” 

We have a God that loves us and wants us to enter into His family, but many of us do not want to look at the reality.  The reality that we have to follow His rules, we may have to do things that we do not want to do.  But there is a great reward for following God Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:1-7.  Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins.  You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.  All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature. We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God’s anger just like everyone else.  But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much, ⁵ that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s special favor that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ, and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms—all because we are one with Christ Jesus. ⁷ And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus.  The question is are you really following God, obeying His word focused on creating a sound relationship with Him, or are you just floating along saying I’m fine I go to church and do good things so God knows who I am?