Sinclair Ferguson

So where do you really come from?

What makes you tick?

When John says in 1 John 3, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be children of God, literally the question he's saying is,

From what country does this love come from?

It's like, this is from another country, another world.

And we're back to question and answer number one.

Again, it's really, you know, even if you just learned to live by that question and answer, you would have learned a great deal.

Well, that itself is a profound question, and just as a rabbit trail, the best catechists

not only asked the question, but also asked your question.

So they followed up with it.

And that, I think, made for them, for parents, the Catechism a really helpful teaching tool because it was a start.

And I think the answer, obviously, to that question is, just to put it in biblical terms, for example, what Jeremiah 9 says, don't let the rich man boast in his riches or the strong man in his strength.

But if you're going to boast in anything, boast in this, that you know the Lord.

And Jesus says, this is eternal life.

that they might know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, which in my lifetime actually has become a revolution in the evangelical world.

Because I would say until, maybe even until about the mid-1960s,

Evangelical faith was not really thought of in terms of knowing God.

It was thought of in terms of experiencing regeneration and new life.

And of course, that is genuine Christianity, but it's rooted in the knowledge of God.

And the importance of that is because unless we know God, we can't really reflect Him to the world.