The Privilege Of Intimate Knowledge
By Woodrow Kroll
John 10:11-17
This current series from the Gospel of John has been showing us the important issue of "what we know about Jesus." Throughout the Gospel of John we're introduced to people with little or no knowledge of Jesus as their Savior and Messiah. They may recognize Him as a great teacher, a miracle worker, or a prophet--but until they meet Him face to face, their knowledge and understanding is insufficient.
It's the same for us today. We may know a lot about Jesus, but until we get to know Him personally, we lack the intimacy, closeness and trust that's a part of our relationship with Him. As the Shepherd we saw in our study yesterday, we have a special relationship with Him. And we'll take a look at what that means for us as we return to John chapter 10.
Now, in looking at the Gospel of John over the last number of days we have been thinking about the ways John uses the word know, K-N-O-W. And today I'd like you to look with me at John chapter 10, because we want to look at the privilege of intimate knowledge of the Lord.
We've talked about those people who knew nothing about the Lord Jesus. John chapter 1, they came to John the Baptist. John the Baptist said, "there stands One among you whom you do not know" (John 1:26). It's a tragedy, my friends, that there are people who do not know the Lord.
And then in John chapter 3, we looked at that man Nicodemus who came to the Lord Jesus and he said, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher sent from God" (John 3:2). But, what he knew was not enough. He knew Jesus as a teacher; he didn't know Him as a Savior.
And then we looked into chapter 4 and we saw the woman at the well, a woman who knew nothing about Jesus. She called him "Sir." She didn't know His name. And then she said, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet" (John 4:19).
She got to know Him a little better. And then, finally, she recognized that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and she said to the whole town, "Come, see a Man who told me everything I ever did. Is not this the Messiah?" (John 4:29) And the whole town came out and they had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. And when they got personal knowledge of Jesus, they said, "this is the Savior of the world" (John 4:42). Now, that's how to get to know the Lord Jesus.
Now, if you're going to get to know the Lord Jesus in a very unique way, a very personal way, you've got to see Him as we see Him in John chapter 10. John chapter 10 talks about the privilege of intimate knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And the first several verses of John 10 talk about His excellent character, that Jesus is worthy for us to follow Him. After all, Jesus is the Shepherd, He's the Good Shepherd, He speaks to His sheep, He calls us by name, He personally leads His sheep, and He is worthy of our great care. He's worthy of us to follow Him.
But that's not enough for most of us. We want to know "What has this Shepherd done for us lately?" And the great thing about John chapter 10 is what he describes that the Shepherd does for us. This Good Shepherd did something for you, my friend, nobody has ever done for you. Look a little further into the passage in John chapter 10. Down at John 10:11, Jesus speaking here says this, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."
Now, having owned three sheep in my lifetime, and having watched how brilliant those sheep were, and having loved them dearly (until they went to the butcher, that is, loved them dearly), I want to tell you--it would be hard for me to understand how a shepherd could lay down his life for his sheep.
Now, look, friends. This is not a conscientious shepherd. A conscientious shepherd is like David. Remember the story of David, 1 Samuel chapter 17, when David is trying to convince Saul that he can take on Goliath, it's no problem, and when he says this, "The reason it's no problem is, well, I was just a shepherd boy back there in Bethlehem. One time a lion and a bear came out after my sheep. I grabbed that lion by the hair of its chin and I slew him." Now, that's a conscientious shepherd. I mean, you grab a lion by the hair of its chin--that's conscientious. Stupid, but conscientious! He was willing to risk his life to spare his sheep.
But there is a huge difference between being a conscientious shepherd that has to take on a lion now and then, and the Good Shepherd who voluntarily lays down His life for the sheep. What Jesus is saying here is, "Look, a conscientious shepherd certainly would risk his life for the sheep, but I didn't risk my life. I gave it."
Interesting, the word there for "gave His life," the Greek word is tithemi and it means to "lay down." It's used a variety of places, for example, look down at verse 15. Jesus said, "As the Father knows"--there's our word, by the way--"As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep." Same word tithemi, same word that's used there back in verse 11.
Look down at verse 17, same passage verse 17, "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."
In every one of those cases, the word is exactly the same. What Jesus is saying is, "I have not risked My life for my sheep, I have voluntarily laid it down so that it could be sacrificed for My sheep."
Now, I have found that if I want to know what a word means, the best way to find out what a word means is to find out where it is used elsewhere in Scripture. And when I can see how it's used elsewhere, then I understand how it's used in this passage. This very word, tithemi, this very word is used in a variety of places in the Gospel.
For example, Mark 6:56, when the people had the sick, and the lame, and the others that they wanted to just lay out there in the street, hoping that the hem of Jesus' garment would come by and they could touch it and be healed. The word that is used for laying the sick out in the street is this same word, tithemi.
And in Luke 5:18, when the four men bring the man who is sick of the palsy (remember that) and they lay Him before Jesus, exactly the same word. Matthew 27:60, when Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus down from the cross and laid it in a tomb, it's exactly the same word. And when Jesus said in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, than he lay down his life for his friends," that's the same word.
Now, what do you see in common in all those references? What you see in common is this--nobody took His life. He did not risk His life. This Shepherd gave His life. This Shepherd laid it down. He laid everything He had on the altar to die--are you ready--for sheep like you and me. He, God in the flesh, voluntarily, purposefully, as the Shepherd made the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I could go to heaven when we die.
Robert Coleman has a delightful little book entitled Written in Blood. And there's just a tender a story in that book. It's a story about a little boy and his sister who had a very rare disease. This sister needed a blood transfusion and without the blood transfusion she would die. They needed a perfect match in blood type, and presumably that would mean a family member. And they discovered that the little boy was a perfect match. The blood type was rare. If the little girl was going to live, the little boy had to give his blood.
So they came to little Johnny and they explained what they were going to do. And they said, "Your sister won't live unless we are able to take blood from you and give to her." And very tenderly they said, "Now, Johnny, this is your decision. Are you willing to give your blood to your sister?" And with a quiver in his voice, he agreed.
And as they're laying side by side there on the tables and the gurneys, and the blood is passing from one to the other, little Johnny is watching it go from his body to his sisters. He looked up at the doctor and he said, "Doctor, when do I die?" You see, he didn't understand he wasn't giving all of his blood. But that makes his sacrifice even greater, doesn't it? He thought for his sister to live, he had to die. Now, it didn't happen that way, except with Jesus.
Do you get some appreciation of who this Person is you need to love more, this Person is you need to know more, K-N-O-W? Because, this Jesus I'm talking about, this Person is One who voluntarily died for you. Some of the great old hymns of the faith say it much better than I can:
In the old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see;
For 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died
To pardon and sanctify me.
See, He loves me. He knows my name. He ultimately gave the great sacrifice for me. Now, that's why I want to get to know Him. That's why I want to get to know Him more intimately. I want this Great Shepherd, the character of this Great Shepherd, I want that character to be my character. The Man who made the ultimate sacrifice, the Good Shepherd, He gave His life for me!
Now what do I have, to give back to Him? What I have to give to Him, basically, is ME. And that's it. And that's not such a good deal for Him, I understand that. But it's all I have. And so, in the meantime, as I give myself back to Him as a living sacrifice, I need to get to know Him as intimately as I can. And the key word in this Gospel is know, K-N-O-W.
Now look down at verse 14. John 10:14. Look how intimate the knowledge becomes. This is a two-way street, friend. Verse 14, Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd; and I," K-N-O-W, "I know My sheep, and am known by My own." This is the joy of mutual knowledge. He knows me and I know Him. He knows you and you know Him.
But you know, your knowledge of Him is very different from His knowledge of you. See, Jesus knows you intuitively. He knows you because He's God. He knows everything about you. He doesn't have to study you. Jesus knows you eternally. He didn't come to knowledge of you when He met you--He's always known you. He knows you intuitively, He knows you eternally, He knows you completely. There isn't a thing Jesus doesn't know about you. And the remarkable thing is, He knew all that when He gave His life for you.
Now, contrast that with my knowledge of Him. I mean, I don't know Him intuitively. I know Him experientially; I know Him because I've trusted Him as Savior. I know Him scripturally; I know Him because I read about Him in God's Word. I know Him scripturally and experientially--but in all honesty, friends, I just know Him superficially. And I want to get to know Him better. And there's a direct relationship between my study of His Word and my obedience to what He tells me to do in His Word, and how well I get to know Him and how much I become like Him.
So He says, this is a mutual knowledge. This intimate knowledge is one He has for me and one I have for Him. But look at verse 27, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them," K-N-O-W, that's our word, "and they follow Me." See, not only is there joy in this mutual knowledge, but there is also joy in obedient knowledge.
Jesus doesn't just want me to know Him; He wants me to follow Him as well. The more I get to know Him, the easier it is to follow Him. See, the real test of love is obedience. Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). And it's easy to say, "I love you, Jesus" till He asks me to do something I don't want to do. And that's when how intimate I am with the Savior comes shining through, friends. If He had asked me to do something I don't want to do, then we really know how much I love Him, don't we?
Love is the basis of our knowledge. When He says, "If you love Me, you'll keep My commandments," what He is saying is, "If you know Me, you will keep My commandments. If you really, truly, intimately know Me, you will keep My commandments."
Now I want to explore this with you for just a moment before I close, because it is very important for you and me to understand that to know God means more than to know about God. To know God means to know Him intimately. And it goes even beyond that.
In Amos 3:2 God says of Israel, "You only have I known of all the nations of the earth." Now wait a minute, surely that can't mean God doesn't know about the Amalekites, God doesn't know about Hittites, the Hivites, all the other "ites"? Surely it doesn't mean that! You're right, it doesn't mean that. When He says, "You only have I known of all the nations of the earth," He is saying, "You only have I loved of all the nations of the earth. You are the object of My special care. You are the object of My special love." For God to know me is to love me.
And for me to know Him is to express my love back to Him. Hosea 13:5, "I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought." That doesn't mean God didn't know them when they weren't in the wilderness. It means that He was loving them through the experience of the wilderness. The Shepherd leads us through dark valleys. First Corinthians 8:3, "But if any man love God, the same is known of Him." Have you noticed that our word for this week is in all those verses? What does it mean to know God?
Well, you can tell from what I've done today that I love old hymns. I love the lyrics of the Isaac Watts hymns, the John Wesley hymns. I even hate to do this to you, but I see some of you are old enough to remember one of the great hymns of the fifties. So I'm going to quote a hymn from the fifties to show you what it means to know and to love. Are you ready?
"To know, know, know Him, is to love, love, love Him, and I do, shooby doo. And I do."
I think Don Wyrtzen may have written that hymn! You know, there's a lot of truth in that, isn't there, friends? When you get to know Him, you really get to love Him.
And my prayer for you is that you will recognize that the more you know about Him, the more you fall in love with Him. And what I want from you and for you is just to really become intimate with God. And the way you become intimate with God is through the God you know, and the God you know is the One who died for you.
Jesus said, "You want to find the Father? Find me. You want to know the Father? Look at Me. You want to see the Father? Look to Me. I am the One who reveals to you the Father." And the more you fall in love with Jesus, my friends, the more you love Him, the more intimate you become with the Father, the more dynamic your relationship with God becomes.
And my prayer for myself and for you is always that our knowledge of God will not be the sterile, academic, senseless kind--that it would be the kind that drives us to obedience, the kind that drives us to worship, the kind that drives us to want to know Him more and to love Him more, and the kind that drives us to service. Because, after all, "How can I do less than give Him my best, after all He's done for me?"
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