“TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM”
The Key to Being a Real Christian

Ephe 5:25-32  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
We read identical words to the description of the church as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh in the story of Adam and Eve where Adam called the woman “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”.

• Paul said this was the case with the Church and Christ.
• The Church is the Bride or Wife of Christ.

Last service I ministered the thought circling around the multiplying of God’s images throughout the world.

• We read a progression towards this end when we read “God created man in his image… God said, ‘multiply and replenish the earth.’ “
• If He said He created man in his image and then told that image to multiply, we understand that he wanted many images of God in the world.
• The reason He made man in His image was that He wanted the image to multiply and then be within each of those images so as to influence as much of the world as possible through those images.
• He took the man and took from material from the man’s side to build the woman
• Man became multiplied into two.

This is still God’s will today.

• Adam failed and Jesus Christ Himself came and manifested in flesh as the image of God.
• God took material from His side, blood and water, and made the church of many images of God.

If you are not saved and living for God totally, you can be in on this plan of God!

Now there are many images of God.

• Now what?
• God wants to influence this world.
• He wants to use you to touch this world through you.

Jesus was described as God manifested in the flesh.

• We, being images of God as Jesus was, are in the place to allow God to manifest in our flesh, also.
• Let us get at it and do it!

God wants images of himself all over the world.

• Then what?
• What next?

The very beginning of the famous prayer says, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

• This is fulfilled through His Spirit living through us and into the world.

God told Adam to multiply and fill the earth.
Gene 1:28  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:…

• Adam sinned.
• And after having sinned, Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bare a son.
• The result of that “knowing” was Cain’s birth.
• A child was born.
• And we read that Cain was a murderer.
• Why?
• We do not read of Cain eating the forbidden fruit to make him a sinner.
• But his father and mother, Adam and Eve, did eat of it.
• Cain was a multiplication of Adam, a defiled vessel.
• What was in Adam and Eve was in Cain now.
• Adam multiplied himself through Eve.

Adam failed, and filled the world with sinners.

• Later God cleansed the world with a flood and saved Noah out of it all.
• And God told the righteous man…

Gene 9:1  And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

The world became filled with sinners and idolaters again, so God chose Abram and told him…
Gene 22:17-18  That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which [is] upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. .

David was raised up as a godly king, and God said…
Jere 33:22  As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.

We think of MULTIPLICATION when we read of SEEDS.
Psal 22:30  A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

John 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

We are truly born of God, if we experienced Acts 2:38, in this world of sinners.

• God is our Father and the Church is our Mother.
• Not a mother-denomination, though.
• We are as much children of God as Cain was a child of Adam.
• And what is in Jesus is also inside us.
• Jesus did a great job in manifesting God into this world.
• Look to Him and see that this is what we must do.

But there is a key to manifesting God in this world, and it has to do with seeds.

The children produced by Adam and Eve were produced because ADAM KNEW EVE.

• To miss this purpose is to miss the entire will of God.

That is why we read…
Matt 7:22-23  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Matt 25:11-12  Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Ephe 3:19  And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

John 10:27  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

1Cor 8:3  But if any man love God, the same is known of him.

2Tim 2:19  Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
Knowing Christ causes us to bear fruit.

• As Adam knew Eve and she bore children.

Roma 7:4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, [even] to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Notice it says BRING FORTH FRUIT.

We are the vessels God needs in this world to manifest through.

• We are the branches for him to bear fruit through.
• The fruit we bear will be His manifestation.
• Knowing Him deeply allows Him to bear fruit through us and into the world.
• After a Good Bible-Word church service, I leave the gathering and the Spirit of God is flowing powerfully through my life.
• In the times when I have deeply loved God with you people together, and sung songs of Zion from my heart, and praised from my heart to Him in deep love, something happened inside me, and nothing but fruit of the Spirit came forth from my life.

So often we experience this when we are in service together loving God.

• But it wanes away during the week and the old carnality rises up again.
• I have found that when I get into the Bible at home and in prayer at home and with others during the week in fellowship in their homes, and I love Him there, it all starts happening again!
• This is bearing fruit.

Get thrilled with Jesus and love Him.

• Live this lifestyle at home and at work, and praise Him in your heart always.
• This is knowing Him and it causes you to bear fruit.
• To KNOW Him means to LOVE Him.

John 15:1-5  I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every [branch] that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

The vine is in the world to do something here.

• God wanted a vine here.
• A source of OFFSPRING to bear fruit in this world.
• Jesus is the beginning.
• And the branches that bear fruit are intended to bear even more fruit.
• He takes you who already KNOW HIM and bear fruit and purges you to bear more fruit.
• How does He purge us?
• Ephesians 5, in our opening text, told us how.
• He washes us with the word and cleanses us.
• And this is exactly how Jesus explains what he meant by purging us in the third verse of John 15.
• The word you are presently hearing me preach to you is purging you so that you can bear more fruit.

Look what the word did for Paul.

• In Romans 6 he told about how he KNEW that Christ died as him.
• Paul knew he was a new creature.,
• The word taught him that.
• He knew he was a vessel, a servant of God.
• That knowledge affected his living, whereas too many believers do not live by what they know.
• It was not simply a nice philosophy Paul considered.
• He LIVED by this truth.
• He kept these truths in mind in his life in this world and based his decisions and steps upon them.
• And Paul said at the latter part of the 8th chapter of Romans that nothing could separate him from the love of Christ.
• Persecution did not stop him.

In 2 Cor, he was once whipped with 39 lashes for preaching Christ.

• Such whipping is intended to  stop someone from ever doing it again.
• But Paul kept preaching and it did not stop him.
• In fact, FIVE TIMES he was whipped with those many striped.
• And he was beaten with rods on three separate occasions.
• Nothing would stop Paul from preaching.
• Why?
• Jesus said the ones who KNOW him are the ones who build on a rock and when the storms come the houses ARE NOT DESTROYED, BUT KEEP STANDING.
• To know Him produces fruit and it ALSO MAKES YOU UNREMOVABLE AND UNSTOPPABLE in your life for God.

To build your HOUSE on the rock means to LIVE THERE.

• Dwell on the rock.
• Dwell on the word.
• Make it your life.
• Do not just COME TO CHURCH once a week!

Like a wedding vow, Paul said…
Phil 3:10  That I may know him, [1] and the power of his resurrection, [2] and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

Like saying I will LOVE YOU…

1.     For better (in the power of resurrection)

2.     Or for worse (in the fellowship of His suffering).

Jesus told the “Lord, Lord” criers, “I never knew you,” because they spoke to Him as though they KNEW HIM AS THEIR LORD, when they had no right to call Him Lord for He did not know them.

• Luke’s Gospel has Jesus saying, “Why call ye me lord and do not the things I tell you?”
• This is a call to TOTAL DWELLING ON THE ROCK.
• LIVE THIS LIFE!

And you will not fall and will bear much fruit!