We are committed to knowing God and one another.
Knowing God
It’s an amazing truth that God, who made this world, made us to know Him. We come to know God through the pages of Scripture because it’s there that He speaks. We learn what He loves and hates; how He sovereignly rules over this world and transcended time and space in the person of Jesus Christ; and how we are to live under Jesus’ authority. At Mount Vernon we are committed to searching the Scriptures in order to know God. Our responsibility is to faithfully read, explain, and apply the Bible to our lives.
We cannot, however, fully know God in the most intimate relationship until we come to know, love, and embrace Jesus Christ. Eternal life is not simply happiness and blissfulness forever. It is knowledge of God. Here is what Jesus prayed, “Now this is eternal life: that they many know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). This is what we are about at Mount Vernon - Knowing God in Jesus Christ.
What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance; and this the Christian has in a way no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?
J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 34
Knowing One Another
At Mount Vernon, we are also committed to knowing one another. The Christian life is a commitment to God and other Christians, particularly members in a local church. Knowing one another is more than a warm handshake and welcoming smile on Sunday morning (though we do offer that). It is having lives that overlap. This is the idea Jesus shared when he told his disciples “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Knowing one another happens formally in our public gatherings and informally through dinners at members’ homes, 1-on-1 discipling relationships, and many small gatherings.
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