Knowing God vs. Knowing About God

Matthew 7:21-23

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Imagine for a moment that someone handed you an autobiography. Not just any autobiography — a comprehensive, exhaustive account of Dr. John Piper. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it contains every detail of his life within its pages. His upbringing, his defining moments, his convictions and failures. Let’s say you studied this book with the diligence of a doctoral student and memorized it cover to cover. You could then hold your own in any conversation about Dr. Piper. Here is the question: Can you then say you know John Piper?

Of course not. You have never met him. He doesn’t know your name. No matter how thoroughly you have studied his life, there is an unbridgeable distance between you — because knowledge about a person is not the same thing as knowing a person. One lives in your head. The other lives in relationship.

Now take it one step further. Suppose you became so devoted to Dr. Piper that you began doing great acts of service in his name — volunteering for his cause, donating to Desiring God Ministries, organizing events on his behalf. You still wouldn’t know John Piper because you still have never become acquainted with him. There is no relationship, no communion, no mutual knowing whatsoever.

That distance is exactly the point. And it is precisely the distinction that Jesus himself draws in the most sobering terms imaginable. The question before us is not whether you know about God. The question is whether you know Him.

God's Relational Design from the Beginning

To understand why this distinction matters so deeply, we need to go back to the very beginning. Genesis 3:8-9 gives us a brief but profound window into God's original design for His relationship with humanity.

"And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, 'Where are you?'"

God is omniscient. He is not wandering the garden confused about Adam's whereabouts. When He calls out "Where are you?" it is not a search party — it is a summons. It is relational pursuit. It is God, in the aftermath of the fall, still moving toward His creature, still calling, still drawing near. From the very beginning, God's design was not a distant, transactional arrangement. He came walking in the garden and His aim was to be present with them. The pattern of Scripture from its earliest pages establishes that God's purpose has always been communion — to know and to be known by His people. The fall interrupted that communion, but it did not extinguish His pursuit of it.

True Knowledge Over Empty Religion

Fast forward several centuries, and God's people Israel have fallen into a pattern that should sound uncomfortable. They are performing religious rites, bringing sacrifices, going through the motions. But the relational heart of their covenant with God has gone cold. And through the prophet Hosea, God makes His priorities unmistakably clear.

Hosea 6:6  

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

To feel the full weight of that rebuke, consider the Hebrew word for offering: “korban” (קָרְבָּן) — a word that means to draw near. A offering (korban) was never a cold transaction. It was, by its very definition, an act of drawing near. Every offering placed on that altar was a worshipper saying, “I am moving toward You.” That is what makes God's indictment so piercing. His people had taken the very act designed to draw them close and hollowed it out into empty performance. The word still meant "drawing near" and the ritual still looked the same. Yet, the heart that was intended to move toward Him was instead moving toward idols.

God is not opposed to these forms of religion—He is the One who designed and ordained them. What He opposes is when those forms replace the relationship they were meant to nurture. Worship, acts of service, and theological study are not ends in themselves. They are God‑given means by which He draws us near to Himself.

A book about John Piper won’t help you draw near to John Piper. But if that same book—insufficient for knowing Piper—were written about your spouse, it would profoundly deepen your relationship with your spouse. The difference isn’t the book; it’s the relationship.

So it is with Scripture. The study of God’s Word can become a way to accumulate distant knowledge about Him, or it can become the roadmap that leads you into a close, intimate walk with Him.

Eternal Life Is Knowing Him

It is in this context that the words of Jesus in John 17:3 become so theologically weighty. In His high priestly prayer, on the very night He was betrayed, Jesus pauses to define eternal life itself.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say eternal life is knowing about God, or serving God, or performing religious works in His name. He says eternal life is knowing God. The Greek word here carries the weight of intimate, relational, experiential knowledge — the kind of knowing that comes from genuine communion. Eternal life is not primarily a destination — it is a relationship. It is not merely something we receive at death — it is something we enter into now.

I Never Knew You

With all of this in view, we come to the text that demands our full attention. Matthew 7:21-23.

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'

Jesus is not describing irreligious people. He is describing people who called Him Lord — people who prophesied, cast out demons, and performed mighty works in His name. These are people with a robust religious resume. By any external measure, they look like serious disciples. And Jesus says to them: “I never knew you.” Not "I knew you once, but you fell away." He says, “I never knew you.” The relationship was never there.

The activity was real. The religious performance was real. But the knowing — the intimate, relational knowledge of Christ — was absent. And on that day, no amount of religious accomplishment will substitute for it. This passage is designed to stop us in our tracks. It is meant to make us ask hard questions about ourselves.

Self-Examination and the Call to Draw Near

So here is the question this passage places before each of us: Do you know Christ, or do you know about Him? Do you read Scripture to accumulate information about God, or do you read it as God's word drawing you into His presence? Do you serve in the church as a means of drawing near to God, or has your service become a substitute for communion with Him?

Consider this: when you pray, you are not speaking into a dark void. He hears your voice. Every word, every whispered confession, every desperate cry in the night — He hears it. When you worship by song, you are not singing into empty air. He hears your worship. It rises before Him. And when you come to the table and take communion, He is present with you.

These are not religious performances directed at an absent God. They are means of grace given by a God who is near, who draws us close, who desires to be known. The Book God has set before us is not given merely to inform us about Him. It is given to draw us into Him. Our theology, our worship, our service — all of it is given not as a replacement for knowing God, but as the very means by which He draws us to know Him.

The warning of Matthew 7 is not given to produce despair. It is given to produce honesty. Examine yourself not by the inventory of your religious activity, but by the quality of your walk with Christ. And if you find that your religion has been more about performance than presence, the invitation of the gospel is still open: draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

With love in Christ,

Pastor Chris