I remember the first time that I realized that it wasn't safe for other people to know me. I was in middle school and I was at a birthday party. It was a swim party. It was at Brian Frickinick's house, which you all know. How cool his house was and, to be clear, it wasn't him that taught me this painful lesson, but I was at his house. His house was the coolest house because his pool had like two levels to it and his diving board was the springiest diving board. So of course you're going to go swim at Brian Frickinick's house. That's what everybody does. His mom served the best tater tots and of course, as we all know, tater tots are better than French fries. So these are all truths that I'm going to just deliver to you. But I was there and, as we're hanging out, it was a guy's swim party for a birthday and we're sitting there and one of the things that we decided to do, we started talking about the girls that we had crushes on, and so it was your turn, your turn, your turn, you share. And so I, at that point, shared with some people some that I knew, some that I didn't know who I had a crush on. And so I shared that, and then we went and kept swimming.

At that point in my life, I also was not super confident in the shape of my body, and so I felt that one of the things that made me more comfortable was that I would swim with a T-shirt on. And that was just in middle school. That's just what I chose to do, and so I realized the next day that I went to school is that I started to hear about that swim party and the things that were shared from people who weren't at the swim party, and it consisted of making fun of me for the way that I looked, what I wore into the pool and the girl that I liked, and that was the day that I began to go oh, you can't know me. It's not safe for you to know me. And let's be honest, I mean, we all do that, right, we all do that. We take different parts of who we are and we showcase them. We say these are my hobbies, these are my passions, these are the things that I like, and so I'm going to share this with you and hope, maybe. What are you going to do with this? Are you going to give a respect? How are you going to handle these things, and some people share more, some people are more comfortable, some people share less, but in all of them, how it goes is usually an indicator, then, of how you're going to begin to trust in other people and let them know you. And then I think the other part in that that it then becomes is that we then go and put that on how safe it is to know God and if God can know us. Could it be that, as we're talking about the brokenness of being known by other humans, that, as we put that onto God, is that he's actually the one that knows us best, knows the most about us and loves us more than we could ever imagine?

Good morning, my name is Jeff Bachman and I am one of the pastors here on staff. It is a privilege to be here and with you, not just today, but as a part of this Hope and Help mental health series. It's interesting even walking out here. There's a weight to this and it's an honor that we can sit in this with you, that we get to have this conversation together. This is the second in a 12-part series that we're going to be talking about and actually for the next couple weeks we're going to be talking about these different lies that we believe of ourselves. Pastor Larry kicked it off last week so fantastically. If you haven't had a chance to listen to Pastor Larry's message last week on, it's okay to not be okay. I would really encourage you to because it frames the conversation and what we're going to be doing this summer.

So then, with that, I would say the one part that is very important for you to know right now is, as he talked with medical professionals, they really encouraged us to identify, as we're talking about this idea of mental health, that there's four different buckets that we really operate out of, and they're this they're situational, clinical, medical and spiritual. And I think those four buckets, what they help us to do is not only to recognize and identify what it is that we're going through, but it's also to recognize that some of them, some of the things that we are struggling with when it comes to mental health, really are situational. Is it a time, will this pass? There's parts where it's clinical that there's somebody that I need to sit and I need to talk with it's medical, that there's wiring in my brain and there's a chemical imbalance that I need to talk with. It's medical that there's wiring in my brain and there's a chemical imbalance that I need to identify, and then I think that there's a spiritual element that we're going to be leaning in heavily to this. I also think that there's another part to this that we see in research that it not only can jump from bucket to bucket, but be in all four of them at once, and that, if you are a person who struggles with depression, is that it could be flared up, because it's situational needs, clinical help needs to be addressed medically, and then also as you pray, and what we see in scripture is that some things may never go away, but it can be subsided, and God, at least, is sitting with you in it. So it's all those, and we'll be addressing those four different buckets at different points in time.

What we're going to talk about, though that today, is this idea of am I known, and that the lie is, it's a couple parts of that, because I think that that's what's so insidious. It's not just that it's am I known, it's am I known, or maybe it's that you believe I'm not known, or maybe it's I am too known or I'm not known enough, and then I would say the final part in all this is also, then, if you really knew me, you either wouldn't love me or accept me, which is what we're going to be talking about for the next two weeks, or you know me and you won't miss me if I'm gone. And so all of these playing together and where we're at in this whole conversation, because we're operating from the belief that mental illness is a real illness, which I believe and it is, it absolutely is, and that it isn't a part of the original design, of how God made us, which is also true. So then there's got to be a starting point that we look at from here, of saying that God's original design, because of sin and Satan, has been twisted and turned from pure goodness and truth. And so then we start in Genesis, which Genesis means beginning. And so you see very quickly, in Genesis 1 is that God made us, and all through Genesis, or in Genesis 1, as it said, that he made land and plants and trees and animals, everything that he made was good. The only thing that wasn't good was us, and that we were very good. We were very good because we were a reflection of God, that he made us to be a reflection of him. We are made in his image, and so then we can trust and know in that.

Then turn the page and go to Genesis two, and it said that it's not good for man to be alone. So he gave them a partner, and the two were to be fruitful and multiply. From there he said I have one instruction that you're not supposed to do Do all this, but don't do this. Do not eat from the tree of knowledge, as if to say I have given you everything out there. This is everything that you get to experience and enjoy. I have designed this for you to live in joy, so do that. I've put a restriction on you because you love or you restrict the things that you love and that you want to protect, and so that's the sense that you get in. This is that things that you love and that you want to protect, and so that's the sense that you get in. This is that it gives you that purpose of restriction.

And then the lies start to come very quickly. Turn the page to Genesis 3, where it says in Genesis 3, 4, and 5, satan the deceiver says the following to Eve he says you will not certainly die. You won't. The serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Not a full lie, but turning and twisting that truth and deception which then really sets the stage for Satan.

Of this understanding that, as we talk about each week in John 10, 10, if you go to the first part of it, it says that Satan as we talk about each week in John 10.10, if you go to the first part of it, it says that Satan has come to steal, kill and destroy. And then the other part of that is that it's not just deception, but it is that in 1 Peter 3, it says that Satan is compared to a lion who roams looking for prey. So then if you have somebody who is hunting you and their only purpose is to steal, kill and destroy, when you are hunted you usually don't see the one who is hunting you, but you know that they're there. And so then you get the sense that Satan who is out there if we are actively aware of what he is doing and what he is up to, then you get the sense that it's going to cause anxiety and fear Because you go, I don't know where it is, and I can't see it, because that's the purpose of one who hunts is that they stay in hiding until they pounce. But then of course, knowledge and knowing God as a creator too, will then be twisted. So then it all then generates this idea of saying it's not bad to know more, but it's what we do with that knowledge. And so then Satan saying it's not bad to know more, but it's what we do with that knowledge. And so then Satan, and then the sin that we have said yes to is designed to then steal, kill and destroy. So humankind says no to God. Right that they eat from the tree of knowledge, their eyes are open, that they become like God. And immediately, what do they do? Run and hide. They run and they hide and they cover themselves. It's as if if you've ever seen kids who get embarrassed or ashamed, or that they know that they've done something wrong, is that they'll go and they'll take their t-shirt and pull it up over their head, or their dress and they'll pull it up over their head and you're like I don't think that's working. The way that you think that's working, that is not doing what you're hoping that it's going to accomplish, but it's as if, in the moment, for us as humans, it's as if, at the moment that they finally know what they wanted to know, that their immediate response is that I'm known too much and I must run away from that. I think it's so wise that we are in this mental health series.

Starting right here was specifically this idea of knowing, because sin and our lives are in this constant cycle of wanting to be known by God and other people, then covering that and then manufacturing a story and a narrative of what I want you to know about me, when, actually, if I were to just go back to what is fully known. But the problem is, if you fully knew that, then you wouldn't love me and you wouldn't accept me. And so then that becomes this very ugly cycle that I don't know if you've ever lived in that, but I sure know that I have. And then we live in this fear of saying if you knew the fullest version of me, that's when the love stops, that's when the acceptance stops, and that's probably where you would even stand up and walk out of here if you really knew me, because I couldn't be lovable and I couldn't be accepted.

So then, here's a couple thoughts for us, as we're talking through Scripture, of this quest for knowledge. The first is this is that we are I believe we are wired to connect. That is who we are, that is who we are created to be. Is that we are wired to connect? In fact, you see that ordering in Genesis and then it continues as God is establishing humanity and establishing humankind, and then giving them orders and instructions of how they're supposed to interact with God, is that he gives them Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9, which is called the Shema. It's a prayer that they were to say every day. It's that they were supposed to realign their head and their heart for this.

And it starts the Shema starts with declaring the singularity and the importance of God and God alone. Look at it in Deuteronomy 6, 4. It says, hear, o Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. And then it goes on and it says okay, so now we understand who you are aligning your life with. Now here's what you're supposed to do. It's love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength, as if to say I've created you to have a capacity to love God and God alone. That there is enough space for you to do that, and in fact, that's when you are gonna be at your happiest. Your most full joy is when you have directed your head and your heart and your alignment in that way. However, when you go and take parts of that heart and that head and you give it to other things, to other people not in alignment with who God is, you begin to miss. And then he says it like this, and he says this is how we're supposed to operate. In it, verse six and following it, says these commandments that I give to you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them to your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your house and on your gates.

There were Jews at that time and even now today, that believe that it was so important that they took these scriptures that they would place them in a couple different areas. The first was they would take things called mezuzahs, and they're these little. In fact there's a photo of it. Mezuzahs are these little plaques, and they're wood or metal and they're carved with scripture on it. Usually it would be Deuteronomy 6, the Shema or other scriptures in Deuteronomy. And so, as you would put these on your doorframes it says to bind them on your doorframes and on your house you would walk by and touch them and acknowledge that God's word was continuing to be on your head and your heart. Those are mezuzahs.

And then the second one was these it's called the tefillin and these it's a tefillin was actually and these are interesting because from a distance you can see that it almost looks like a person with like a fancy top hat and you're like, oh, you're so fancy, but that's not it. It's that they have taken God's word it is a scroll and it's a scripture and they've put it within like a leather box and they would bind it on their heads, closest to their brain, and then they would put it on their arm, which was closest to their heart, and so they were living out this literal idea. And while that's not required for salvation or a relationship with God, you go. I'm not sure if they missed the point. I think that they actually are.

It's these reminders that they have of saying let us keep God's word, his Shema. Love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength, and then continue this. And it's a sense of imparting this on your children and doing it as you walk. So as you're walking along the road and as you're working and tending to the fields, and as you're doing these things, you're imparting it to the very people who are the most important to you your family and your children and your friends, and your children and your friends, saying that this is what you should think about, don't forget. Last week we said in Philippians 4, 8, whatever is good and right and pure and lovely, think about such things.

But for us, because we're on this quest for knowledge, is that now we know more, we tend to get farther away from God instead of closer. I think it's interesting. So the Industrial Revolution ended, or at least your history books would say that it ended in 1840. The Industrial Revolution is interesting because it allowed us, for the very first time, to work outside of the house, that you had factories and you had machines and you had reasons to be away from your kids and away from the place where you were determined to stay. And we in our generation know that all more Latchkey kids. Can I get a where's my key right Anybody? Oh, yeah, latchkey kids. You know that you came home to an empty house. And now let's just be clear this is not guilt and shame for telling two parents or a single parent to be working. So that's not what I'm saying. I think that we can work outside of the house and that we can advance ourselves, but that we need to understand that we need to adjust our life, that there's going to be a repercussion for adjusting away from the way that God has orchestrated us and designed us, and I think that we are lacking in the areas of critical connection.

In the 1990s, after school shootings became more prevalent, there was a landmark study that came out of Dartmouth. It was a medical study and it was called this Hardwired to Connect, and what they did is that they took in 2000, or by 2003, they released the information that they had been studying and they took 33 children's doctors, research scientists, mental health experts and youth service professionals and they discovered this. This is the opening statement. It says what is this crisis? This crisis comes in two parts. The first part is the deteriorating behavior of mental health of US children. We are witnessing high and rising rates of depression, anxiety, attention deficit, conduct disorders, thoughts of suicide and other serious mental, emotional and behavioral problems among US children and adolescents.

The report concludes that the main cause in the crisis of American childhood and adolescence is this, and it's the first lie that I think Satan wants us to believe is that connection is not that important that we are able to replace or substitute a connection with something else. Now understand, this is a secular study. This is not some sort of a bias of trying to convince a Christian world to do. These are people who are trying to discover what is going wrong and as they are discovering what's going wrong, it's actually identifying, more than anything else that we could do, that there is a spiritual issue here that we are a deficit in. It continued on that.

The factors of this lack of connection was this divorce, busyness of schedules, shallowness of relationships, a lack of honesty in relationships, people moving for jobs, disconnected from family, extended family and close friends. It's as if they're serving the landscape and saying I'm concerned, there's something that is going wrong here. Maybe we need to discover something else, we need to create something else. And so they studied the 90s. They came out with the findings in 2003. They then came to discover that between 2007 and 2017, that the numbers of those suffering with anxiety and depression tripled in teens. So we discovered that they were not connected, and then it got worse. Does anyone else remember what happened in 2007? I'm going to show you the scariest photo out there. It's this one right here. Anyone remember that? Now, just to be clear, I found mine. It doesn't turn on. I don't have the right charger anymore, but I have it. So this is not a shame on you for electronics, but it is saying isn't it interesting?

At the point that we were introduced to a thing that fits in your pocket, that knows everything, things got worse. Don't forget that original sin in Genesis that they sacrificed, being known for knowing, and we now have access to everything. I thought it was really interesting you can look this up is that both Bill Gates, who at a point was the creator and CEO of Microsoft, and then Steve Jobs, both of them either put limits or restrictions on their kids for the products that they had invented. Steve Jobs, before he passed, was historically known to not give his kids an iPad. It's as if the drug dealer isn't using their own product. It's as if the drug dealer isn't using their own product.

The danger comes when we replace these God-given designs and connections for something that feels better or easier or faster. And so then, by knowing more and being, we are more connected now than we ever have been. And yet we are living in a world that is more depressed and anxious and angry. And it's not because we don't know about it, that's for sure. I mean, think about it. What happened at the point we were told to shelter in place for COVID, we baked sourdough bread and we picked fights on the internet, like that's what we did. And it's because we went and divorced ourselves from human connection, because I can sure say a lot of bad things about somebody when they're not nearly as human as I am. We're disconnected.

Found this quote. I thought this was interesting. It says it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. It's a quote from Albert Einstein. By the way. Albert Einstein died in 1955. So poor guy never even got to see an iPhone, and yet he had that. Because technology is not iPhones and computers. It is an advancement to make humankind have ease. It's for ease and development. So there's something that even he identified before 1955, that if our technology is superseding our humanity.

We got a problem. We are getting farther and farther away from God, my friends, and his original design, and then we sit here and wonder why it's getting worse. I believe that the farther away from the one who made you and knows you will make you feel less known, and we will then lash out in kind because we believe that sin and that Satan are not real, and that that is not where this battle is. This battle is that if I can solve the Democrats' problem or the Republicans' problem, then we're going to have peace, and, my friends, that if I can solve the Democrats' problem or the Republicans' problem, then we're gonna have peace. And, my friends, this side of heaven, we won't. The problem is spiritual, and so then, the second lie is this is that Satan is not real, but he is, and it is a spiritual battle, not one of flesh and blood. Ephesians 6, 12 says it like this for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. My friends, we are fighting a battle with somebody who is quicker, smarter and faster than us and we think that we're going to figure it out by fighting somebody else. And yet if we don't direct our attention back at the person who is making us to believe the lies about ourselves and the world that we live in, we are going to absolutely miss it. Jesus spoke about him in John 8, 44. He says when he lies, he speaks his native tongue. For he is a liar and the father of lies.

Satan is devaluing humanity by giving lies and half-truths and twisting things. Have you ever tried to sell something to somebody else? I mean, the game that you play when you're selling something to somebody else is that I want to sell it for the highest price and you want to buy it for the lowest price. I've done this with a house. I've done this with cars and at every point I present my thing, I present this car and I say here it is, here's the car. I went and I got it detailed, everything, here's all the paperwork, and they walk around and they go see that scratch over there these tires. They're pretty bald. You know, when I was driving it was kind of wobbly like that. I know that you're asking this, but it just doesn't seem.

We are being devalued as a humanity, by the father of lies, who is twisting truths and making us believe that it's not because Satan wins if he's able to convince us that God didn't make us Lies, that this life is random that's a lie. That all of life has no purpose that's a lie. That one race is better than another that's a lie. And that one political party is going to solve our problems and the other one is the enemy that's a lie. Scripture and history has taught us that none of those things are true and that we as humanity keep falling into that same pattern Make a tower and be like God. Lie, genocide, a race and a nation and everything will be fine.

Lie. There are so many lies that will make you believe that if you are known in some other way by power or a stage, by love, sex, drugs or money that all of those will make you better it's a lie. And if this world is about you and your truth and that you are the first, the narrative is about you. It's a lie. Don't believe that. It's not true. And the lie goes on and on, and we live in this culture of darkness where death is bringing it in and it's the only language that Satan knows when he speaks he lies. It's his native tongue. So then, if you are generating value of anything other than God's word and his spirit dwelling in you, then it is either from Satan native tongue. So then, if you are generating value of anything other than God's word and his spirit dwelling in you, then it is either from Satan or it is at least Satan adjacent.

And remember what Pastor Larry said last week. What do we do as we determine that those things are lies? We tell them to go away. Go away. This is the human condition that we live in because of sin, being known and knowing others, and that we then go and take in these categories of living, in situational and clinical and medical. But this is spiritual, my friends, and if we can't at some point go and submit our lives to be known by the creator, we will never get past that. We have been given a message from the father of lies telling us that we don't matter, that it is not important that you are known and that when you are known, actually things get worse and if you are gone, nobody will miss you. That is a lie. It's a lie, and I'm here to tell you and remind myself of something very much different. You are known. You are known by the one who matters. Ji Packer says it this way. He says what matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it, the fact that he knows me. I'm graven on his palms of his hands. I'm never out of his mind. All that knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative of knowing me.

Think back to the Old Testament, in the three probably lowest seasons or generations that were experiencing difficulties of the Jews. It was the slavery in Egypt, it was the exile and it was the wandering throughout the wilderness for 40 years. That word wander actually means to wander, but it also means to quiver and waver, as if to say that when we wander and when we get farther away from God, we get less secure and more insecure and questioning more. I think it's interesting that in the wilderness in the Old Testament, that at some points in time it was only 10 to 12 miles wide, which housed millions of people. So you know that as this whole large group of people wandered for four years, they believe that they wandered over 3 million miles of wandering over 40 years. You got to believe that, as they're wandering, they're like I've seen that rock before, I've been here before. Maybe God's trying to get me to know and to learn something. Here's what he was trying to tell them. I haven't forgotten you and, as you may know, that's a painful lesson to learn sometimes. I think it's interesting.

I look at scripture and it says that in all throughout scriptures it has that word known, but the one that, if we could it's a whole different sermon for a different day is the word known. And you see, here's a good example of it. It's in John 10, 27. It says my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. That word know is again, it's all over the place. That one is, though, experiential know. I've created you, I made you, we have interacted with each other. Different from, oh, I know that person, oh, I recognize that person. Cognition it is I know you.

I think the best picture of how God knows us and why that matters is in Psalm 139. And let me read verses one and six. It says you have searched me, lord, and you know me. You have searched me, lord, and you know me, you've searched me. What we'll see later is that you made me. You know every part of me and you know me. And then it says in verse 6, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. You are known by the God who made you. He knows every part of who you are and every mistake that you have made. And yet he pursues you and that, while God may seem at a distance or far away as we wander, he is not distant. He is with you and in fact, as we see, the psalmist say, it's kind of overwhelming Makes you want to run and hide, doesn't it? But we shouldn't, and here's why it goes on in 13 through 16.

It says for you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body and all the days ordained for me were written in the book, before one of them ever came to be Every part. I want you to pause for a second, close your eyes, think about the thing about yourself that you hate the most and think about the thing that you wish that you could hide. Think about the thing that nobody knows about. God knows it, he sees it and he loves you. And not only does he love you, but you are a reflection of God, but you are a reflection of God.

We are born into sin because of our humanity and yet, while God created us, we are still subject to death on the side of heaven, and he repaired that through the life of Jesus. Isaiah 53, four and five talks about Jesus coming and taking that on that. He was even considered. He took on our sin, he took on our shame, he took on our knowing, and it even says that he was cursed for that. He took all of that on so that we could remain in a knowing relationship with God, as if to say I know who you are, I see every part of you and I love you. In fact, I love you more because of all that.

It says in 1 John that we now, because of Jesus, we now walk in the light. So then, don't walk in darkness, because God sees you and he knows you and he pursues you. I think the best reminder of this at the end, when Jesus was crucified and then he is resurrected. He says to the people, he says go find the disciples and Peter. And for a while there I says go find the disciples and Peter. And for a while there I read that and it didn't hit anything. But just think about that for a second Peter, if you know your scriptures, know that Peter's like one of the top disciples, like Peter's, the one who's like this is great God. We should just hang out here, just you and me. We're awesome, right? That'd be like saying go find the warriors and Steph Curry You're like that's stupid. I mean like of course he's a part of the warriors.

Could it be that it was at that moment that God said you can find all the disciples, but find Peter. He needs to know he denied me, he, he cut off the soldier's ear, he is far away from me. Go find Peter. He must know that I know, I know him and I love him. Go find Peter.

So we must live in the truth that I believe sin gives us a false perception of being known, that I want to be known by God but I don't want him to know me, and we're going to have to live in how that balance comes because intimacy is expensive have to live and how that balance comes because intimacy is expensive. And here's where we end this. I would love to tell you that middle school Jeff is all better. I love to tell you that middle school Jeff doesn't think about that conversation every summer when I have to go near water and get into a swimsuit. But I do. I know God knows me and he made me, and I can make adjustments, I can address things of my life that I don't love and fix them, and I can be reminded this, and this is probably the most powerful thing those kids aren't God, those kids' voices are not God's voice, and so then it's a constant battle of me turning down the volume of what this world is telling me and not hiding.

Can I encourage you? I don't know where you're at in this process of this understanding of knowing, but there's help, there's all sorts of help. You need to know that we have literally worked for months to try and find every resource, not only internally within the church, but out there. We have a website. If you go to thisischurch, we have a website that has local, national and global resources phone numbers, emails, people and we want you to know that we want to sit in this with you, that you shouldn't have to do this alone, because here's what we know is what we have seen so painfully and tragically recently is that no matter.

This doesn't avoid anyone, and, in fact, the more known you're known by the world that we're in, it may actually make it more difficult. We were brought to knowledge that Grayson Murray that the cause of his death he was a famous golfer who has won tournaments and was successful at the time that he walked off the PGA Tour and then took his life at the age of 30. So then, it can't be that if we're more known by others, that that's going to fix it. I've got to believe that we live in a world where, no matter how known we are, you can feel so invisible. My hope is that you feel that battle today, not that I delight in the pain that you are experiencing, but in the battle of the one who wants to know you, the one who does know you, and then, even if you don't fully know that, know that your soul is longing for that relationship, and that might be the very thing that you are missing.

Which is why we, as a church, exist is to help unchurched people become wholehearted followers of Jesus. And then on a Sunday, we wanna take the rows that you sit in and turn them into circles with men's group and women's groups and groups that meet on the weeks and different activities. And that goes with our students and our kids that we as a church want to say you are not alone. Our student ministry washed hundreds of cars yesterday to raise money so that your students can know that they get to experience summer camp and they get to be with other people. Our children's ministry is throwing a vacation Bible school called Summerama in August.

To say you're not alone and while that's not going to fix it, it's a pretty good start. Don't do this alone. You're worth being known. And it's tough, and here's what I would say it's difficult to fully understand this and to step into the full reality and knowledge of it. 1 Corinthians 13, 12 says it like this. It says for now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

With every day that we get closer to heaven, as we lean into being known by the one who knows us best, we get a bigger picture of who God wants to be for us.

And can I tell you with full confidence, because of what I see in scripture and the authority that I have based on that, and that God has met me in this myself, is that who you are and what you have done. He offers hope, he offers life and meaning, and it is the fullest, maybe scariest and most beautiful version of being known. Let me pray for us, god. Even in the word know or known, it feels so vulnerable that if I, if someone were to know all those parts of me, is that that's where the relationship would stop, that's where it would end. And yet, god, that for what I see and what I see in scripture, is first off, it matters most that we know the one who knows us best, and that's where the fullest version of life and identity begin is in being known by you and knowing you. So, father, may we rest in that, may we start there, and then may we be in a community of other people who are worth being known and worth trusting with that same knowledge. In your name, we pray Amen.