What does First B Jackson teach about knowing god?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on knowing God starts with a distinction that comes up again and again across these messages: there is a difference between knowing about God and actually knowing Him. Ray worked through all fourteen chapters of Hosea to make that point from the Old Testament. When God brings his charge against Israel in chapter four, the accusation is not that they have stopped going through religious motions. It is that there is no real, experiential knowledge of God in the land. The Hebrew word Ray kept reaching for was "yada," a knowing that comes from lived relationship, the way you know a person you have spent your life with, not the way you know a fact you have memorized. That gap, between religious familiarity and genuine knowledge of God, is what Hosea called spiritual adultery.
The verse that anchors most of the teaching here is Hosea 6:6, where God says He desires mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Ray pointed out that Jesus quotes this verse twice in Matthew, once when the Pharisees object to Him eating with tax collectors and sinners. Both times Jesus is saying, in effect, you have this memorized and you still do not know what it means. The implication Ray drew out was direct: if someone's religion is making them less merciful, it is not true religion. Deborah Buckingham made a similar move in her teaching on mercy, arguing that knowing God personally is what produces mercy in a person, not accumulating doctrine or performing religious rituals.
Several messages connect this to daily life in practical terms. Matt Litzelman, drawing on Philippians 3:10 and John 15, described knowing God as something that grows through abiding, through time in prayer, through the word, and through genuine community with other believers. The image he used was a hunting dog trained to stop staring at the food bowl and start watching the handler's face, because in the field the dog has to trust the handler's direction completely. Matt connected that picture to the Song of Solomon, where God is described as moved by even one glance from us. The point across all of these messages is the same: God is already there, already pursuing, and what He is looking for is the kind of attentive, trusting relationship that goes well beyond religious routine.
Taught from Hosea 6:6 · Philippians 3:10 · John 15:1-8 · Hosea 4:1 · Matthew 9:9-13
The passage taught · 1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- February 15, 2026 We Are All Gomer Hosea 4-14 traced in one sermon: Israel's unfaithfulness, God's relentless mercy, and what it means to truly know God rather than just know about him.
- February 15, 2026 All of Us Are Gomer Ray walks through all 14 chapters of Hosea in one sermon, showing how God pursues a spiritually unfaithful people with mercy rather than religion, and what it means to truly know Him.
- October 30, 2022 Apart From Me You Can Do Nothing Matt Litzelman opens John 15 on abiding in Christ, bearing spiritual fruit, and what it actually looks like to follow Jesus as his disciple.
- April 9, 2017 Do You Know Him On Palm Sunday, elder Matt Litzelman explores what it means to truly know God, drawing on Philippians 3:10 and four practical habits: prayer, reading Scripture, community, and solitude.
- September 14, 2016 Fall Afresh - Women's Ministry Kick Off (2) Deborah Buckingham teaches on mercy as both action and forgiveness, showing how knowing God's love for us shapes the way we value and serve one another.
Mentioned along the way
- October 9, 2024 Women's Bible Study - October 9th, 2024 - Declaring Our Faith: Who Do You Say I Am? Natalie teaches Matthew 16 and 19 at a women's Bible study, asking the question Jesus asked his disciples: who do you say He is, and what does your answer cost you?
- September 4, 2024 Women's Bible Study - September 4th, 2024 - First Week on Matthew with Deborah Buckingham Deborah Buckingham opens an 8-week study of Matthew at a women's Bible study in Jackson, Wyoming, exploring evidence for Jesus and four forces that pull us from knowing God.
- April 9, 2017 His Determined Purpose Was to Know Him A sermon on knowing God personally, not just knowing about Him, through prayer, Scripture, time in His presence, and relationships with fellow believers.
- January 21, 2015 The Eyes of Your Heart Becca Block walks through Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23, exploring what it means to know God, hope in our calling, and live in the power that raised Christ from the dead.
- January 11, 2015 The More Excellent Way Pastor Aaron walks First Baptist Jackson through 1 Corinthians 13, showing that love is indispensable, behavioral, and permanent, and asking each of us how we actually measure up.