A Word Before We Begin

Jesus defines eternal life in John 17:3 this way: "And this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent."

Not: that they believe correct things about you. Not: that they feel certain they are yours. That they know you — present tense, active, relational, ongoing. The knowing that happens between persons who are genuinely in contact with one another.

Everything in this sermon turns on that definition. Because the question we are going to sit with today is what happens to that knowing — and to the person doing it — when the knowing feels like nothing. When the contact has gone quiet. When God seems to have left the building, and the building is on fire, and you are standing in the ruins trying to pray.

The answer the Scripture gives is not what you might expect. It does not say: if the knowing feels like nothing, check whether you were ever really knowing. It says something harder and more merciful: the knowing and the feeling of the knowing are not the same thing. You can be in genuine contact with the living God and not be able to feel that you are.

That is the claim we are going to examine. It will take three texts and some honesty to get there.