Author: Jonathan Dodson

Embrace Chris Martin of Coldplay actually wrote a song for Embrace’s self-entitled album (below) called “Gravity.” Embrace is a mix of U2 and Coldplay with distinctive vocals, a definite stadium band. Also check out “Glorious,” “Ashes,” and “Someday.” Lyrics are middle of the road.

Keane Newcomer Keane blew me away when they opened for U2 last year. Tom’s vocals have a range like few piano-driven bands out there. The amazing thing is that they don’t even have a guitarist. Lyrics are sometimes cryptic, but fairly introspective and, at times, illuminating. Check the reference to the Sermon on the Mount in the great story in “Frog Prince.”

“[I]f the New Testament is right, Christ did not come to pluck souls from

an evil and worthless creation and transport them to an angelic existence;

instead he came to announce the beginning of the world’s renewal.”

-- Norman Klassen and Jens Zimmermann, 

The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism 

and the Future of University Education (2006)

Audio Update here.

Many thanks to those that prayed for my preaching opportunity today. I sensed God’s grace while preaching and my religious affections were quickened by the Word and Spirit. The congregation seemed to appreciate the message. As you can tell, I changed the sermon text and topic from Work: A Gospel-centered Perspective to How Do You Know God? (2 Cor 4.1-6). See the full manuscript below.

How Do You Know God?

2 Corinthians 4.1-6

Intro

This morning I am not going to give you three application points for the week. Instead, I want to us to reconsider a very basic question: “How is it that we know God?” No doubt many of you in this room believe in God. According to the very recent the Baylor Religion Survey published in 10/30 issue of Time, 85% of Americans believe in a Christian God. However, as the survey points out, this belief in God is incredibly diverse. 40% of this group believe in a God who is removed from the world, which by definition implies that there are a large percentage of Christians who do believe in God but do not know God.

What percentage of Americans really know God? What percentage of Christians really know God? It’s really impossible to know, so let’s make this personal—what percentage of you really know God? How do you know you know God? When you think of knowing God, what comes to mind? Knowing the Bible, having a daily devotional, or a worship experience? How is it that we know God?

In order to answer this question, I’d like us to examine a very familiar passage. 2 Cor 4.1-6 is about the gospel of Christ. It answers the question, “What does it mean to know God?” from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. The Corinthians were pretty messed up people—far from perfect. They were arrogant, superspiritual, sexually perverse, doctrinaire, etc. and for all of them Paul had the same message, the gospel, the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” These verses get at the question, “What does it mean to know God.”

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