KNOW JESUS, KNOW THE FATHER

“While Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he called out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I come from. But I’m not here on my own. The one who sent me is true, and you don’t know him. But I know him because I come from him, and he sent me to you.” – John 7:28-29.

How well do you know God? For most Christians, we go through life with a sense that we know God. One of the greatest challenges we face today is a lack of understanding about who God is. You may know about God, but do you truly understand what He says about Himself—and what He wants from you? Job 36:26 seems to suggest an answer: “Look, God is greater than we can understand. His years cannot be counted” (Job 36:26).  Hosea grabs this idea in Hosea 4:1… no knowledge of God in your land.”

If we want to know God then we need to look at Jesus. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. He is the full and final revelation of what God is like. By looking at Jesus, you can tell exactly what God is like. The Bible says that ‘Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven” (Hebrews 1:1-3).

Jesus is not just an amazing person; He is the Son of God—and God’s free gift to us. Jesus is the one who has come to reveal the Father. He is also the perfect representation of the Father’s nature.

We’ve been invited to know Jesus and, by extension, our Father God. Jesus confirmed, “My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). The connection is so strong when the Pharisees asked Jesus about the Father, He sharply answered, “…Since you don’t know who I am, you don’t know who my Father is. If you knew me, you would also know my Father” (John 8:19).

It is the Father’s intention that we know Him. That is a major reason He sent Jesus to earth. In 1 John 5:20 we are told: “And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life.”

To know Christ is to know the Father. Christ came so that we might understand who the Father is.

Discussion Questions:

1. Jesus is God’s Son and reveals God to us. Would you put that first in your list of fundamental beliefs surrounding Christianity? If not why not?
2. How do we hang on to that truth each week?