I don't even know what I'm going to say?
So guys, welcome to the live stream. It's good to have you with us.
Now, if you haven't already,
make sure you liked, shared and subscribed to be part of the community that we're
building up. We are going to be looking at all things to do with being known today,
but our sponsor for this episode is GHD. Look at our hair.
If you want to be part of this now,
make sure you hit up our discount code below KNOWN 20.
We'll get you 20% off your GHDs. Now I want to ask you the question.
Do you know who I am? - No.
Now it's something that a lot of people say. And people say it to make themselves
sound big and popular. And in today's society,
there's no better way to be well known than on social media.
Now, this year, YouTube turns 18. - Wow.
It was sold for $1.65 billion and grew massively in the first
18 months.
Social platforms have totally changed how we present ourselves and how many
people we can be known by.
Now they've made it so easy for us to be able to make a lot of money by showing
certain parts of ourselves and then hiding the parts that we think people don't
want us to see.
It is just so different when it comes to God. From what we can read about him in
the Bible,
God doesn't tell us selected things about himself to make himself look good
while hiding certain things back. He chooses to make himself fully known.
He describes himself as a God of compassion and mercy,
that he is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness,
and that he will lavish his love to a thousand generations.
God hasn't just chosen the Bible to make himself known.
All of nature is one massive sign pointing us to God and what he's like.
Psalm 19 says, 'The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day, they continue to speak.
Night after night, they make him known.'
We see this with our own eyes as we look up.
Over 9,000 stars are visible to us, but a trillion in the Milky Way.
If you're not careful when you look down,
you might fall over one of the 339 different breeds of dog from the tiny
Cocker Spaniel to the massive Saint Bernard.
If we looked inside us, we'd see our DNA, which went unraveled,
would stretch billions of miles.
That's like the distance from Earth to Pluto and back again.
It's not like everything is beautiful. Have you considered that
there's over 6 billion bacteria in your mouth.
In the wonder of creation, God makes himself known to us.
and in that we see his creativity, his generosity, his compassion,
his abundance and his joy.
What do you think about all this?
Let's find out.
Do you think that God is still someone that can be known by people?
I think that's a really tricky one.
Yeah, I think faith in general can be something really beautiful for some people
and something that gives them a lot of strength.
I think it's definitely changed over the years. But yeah, it's still...
God is still present.
Higher power, whatever you want to call it.
I think that it's at the core of every human,
and the more you get to know yourself, the more you know our nature.
I think it's kind of in a past.
Like more people can hear about him,
but they don't really necessarily know the true God.
'cause they're getting opinions and things like that off social media.
It would appear if it's becoming like less popular.
God is becoming less popular and everybody's trying to be like woke and just be
accepted by everyone.
It's Christmas!
But it's not Christmas. It's summer. It just doesn't feel right, does it?
This must be how the Australians feel.
Getting the tree ready,
preparing your favorite snacks and warming yourself by the fire just isn't
the same when it's not Christmas.
As Christians, we believe that behind the lights, the food, the presents,
and the iconic Christmas jumpers, there's a deeper meaning.
One that can be applied to our daily lives all year round. That's right,
it literally could be Christmas every day.
You see,
the same God who placed every star in the universe and fashioned all
the wonders we get to experience here on earth,
well, became a tiny baby Jesus,
dependent on the very people he created for his every need.
Let's stop and think about that for a sec.
Imagine you're a God and you're going to introduce yourself into human history.
How would you go about it? Surely you'd consider making some noise.
Maybe some live streams.
He'd make sure you were born into a wealthy family, right? Maybe even royalty.
Yet God chose the opposite. He chose to come in weakness and humility.
a sign of who he truly is. And when Jesus grew up,
he became someone that people could have a conversation with face-to-face.
Although he was God, he spent time with everyone,
even those that society at that time thought weren't worth knowing.
He displayed his love and kindness by physically helping people,
by healing their illnesses, miraculously, making food appear when they had none,
and even raising people from the dead.
By sending Jesus as a human, God made it possible for him to be known.
You might be thinking,
we don't get to have that same experience as those that lived around the time of Jesus
2000 years ago. We don't get to sit and chat face to face with him,
and I hear you.
I would've loved nothing more than to have that kind of time with Jesus, too.
But we do have reliable historical documents that tell us about these encounters
and how he treated people.
And that's why we believe the best way to know Jesus is through the gospels.
It's these preserved gospel accounts that tell us if we seek Jesus,
we, too, will encounter him like the people we read about. More than anything,
Jesus wants to make himself known to you.
Christmas will always have the glitz and the glamor.
For those northern hemisphere people. It'll always have that winter vibe,
and that's OK.
But we don't want the story to be restricted just to December because
it's an incredible story of how God inserted himself into human
history so that the life of Jesus could be recorded,
so that we could know his character. And as Jesus ultimately said,
if we know him and know who he is,
then we get to know who God is, as well.
