How Well Do You Know God’s Son?

And Does It Really Matter if You Do?

David Bryant

At the moment of his Second Coming,

the Lord Jesus Christ

will appear more majestic and powerful
than we can possibly imagine.
He will split the heavens.

All humanity will see him for who he is.
Who he will be on THAT DAY is precisely who he is THIS DAY.
His sovereign glory THEN is his sovereign glory NOW.
What he will be Lord of THEN, he is Lord of NOW.
All humanity will see him for who he is.

The questions are:

Do you really know him like that today?
And does it really matter if you do or not?

The book of Hebrews tells us in the first chapter that God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets, and he revealed himself in many other ways. Beginning more than 2000 years ago, he has chosen to reveal himself most clearly in his Son. This is a perfect plan since the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his nature. When the Son had made purification for sins, he was enthroned at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The Father then announced that in this age of the Church, God the Son is to have supremacy.

But by the twenty-first century, most believers had lost their focus on these truths. They still spoke of Jesus, but they mostly talked about the days he walked on earth. They were more likely to picture him sitting on a big rock with giggling children in his lap than reigning from the throne of heaven. Sermons, Bible lessons, and church hallway conversations became almost entirely devoid of any focus on the transcendent majesty of who the Son is today.

Believers, local churches, and Christian organizations that lost their focus on the glory of the Son began to lose hope. This left much of the Church lethargic and mostly irrelevant. Many churches became filled with hopeless leaders and members.

Believers generally shifted their primary focus from knowing Jesus more and more in all his glory to becoming more prosperous, comfortable, and happy. They still held to Jesus, but just as their church mascot and an addendum to pursuing the American dream. Like the frog in the kettle, many believers slowly lost any sense of the majesty of Christ. Many slipped so far in their view of Christ that they almost needed to be introduced to him all over again. That is where many church-goers and even believers find themselves today.

A New Beginning

Our sovereign God is always achieving his sovereign purposes. Even now, there is every indication that the Father and the Spirit are initiating a movement, awakening the Church to the reigning glory of the Son. For over 30 years, I’ve watched God move his Church toward an unprecedented moment that may now be near. I’ve witnessed a groundswell toward worldwide revival throughout the Church. Today, many Christian leaders sense it’s truly at hand.

We stand at a doorway. Beyond it beckons a widescale awakening to God’s Son throughout the Body of Christ. It is an awakening for which many have longed and labored for years. We are poised at the sunrise of extraordinary answers to the cries of the modern-day global prayer movement, an unprecedented movement in Church history. We rise with the crest of a wave that can lift us into fresh hope, passion, worship, and mission focused on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here at Proclaim Hope! and ChristNow.com, we’re in the thick of a grand campaign. It is a Nationwide Campaign for an American CHRIST Awakening. It is a campaign to proclaim the supremacy of God’s Son to Christians everywhere, doing so in such a way that every facet of discipleship, church life, and outreach can be radically (and wonderfully) transformed in the process.

As I talk about in my latest book—The Hour Has Come: How a Christ Awakening WINS the Battle for the Soul of America—what is now required is to flood the Church with “Christ Awakening Servant Teams” (CASTs) to foster and serve Christ Awakening movements right where the CAST members live. And what comprises Christ Awakenings? The answer forms the foundation for the book, so be sure to read it! (Available December 8 at ChristNow.com as a free ebook download (about 200 pages.)

A Christ Awakening unfolds whenever
God’s Spirit uses God’s Word
to reintroduce God’s people
to God’s Son for ALL he is.

Within the Trinity, the Father himself is so thoroughly consumed with the primacy of his Son that throughout the New Testament he insists on being known as “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Can we choose to be any less passionate about this same Person?

The Person-Driven Life

Many today call Christians to be “purpose-driven.” That’s good. But think about this: to truly live a purpose-driven life, you must be passion-driven, because without a lasting passion for the purpose, you will not be able to sustain your involvement in the purpose.

But even before you can be passion-driven, you must first become promise-driven. You must be filled with great hope concerning that which you are passionate because you are confident these promises will be fulfilled. Even further—ultimately—you cannot be promise-driven unless, first of all, you are Person-driven—as long as that person is Christ! He is the Person—the only Person—who can fulfill all the promises of God!

All the promises of God are “yes” to us in the person of Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 1:21), which means they are fulfilled in him and only belong to me because I belong to him. We become fatigued if we are trying to be purpose-driven when we are not, first of all, Person-driven. But if we experience an awakening to all Christ is, our new way of seeing this Person creates a fresh sense of promise, a new fire of passion as we move out with and for his purposes.

What Christ will be Lord of ultimately, he is Lord of already. Ten thousand years from today, who he is as the Son of God will remain exactly the same as it is today. His glory will be no different at that point from what is true of our Savior at this point. We follow Jesus in anticipatory discipleship. Simply put, we love and serve our Savior at this moment in a way that prepares us to receive more of what he has for us the next moment.

Christian discipleship consists in large part of eagerly seeking all God has promised us in the unending reign of his Son and then walking with Christ today in a way that is compatible with what we seek. Any human prospects (Christian or otherwise) that leave him out of the equation for all he really is must inevitably dissolve into irrelevance, confusion, and despair. Our future is not preeminently about things or events, but about Christ. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

Christ declares, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13). Not only was he at the beginning, but he himself is the Beginning. Not only will he be waiting for us at the end, he is the End. All history streams from him and is directed toward him, to be completed by him. The eternal past has no other eternal future but Christ alone.

A Crisis of Supremacy

There is an emergency, however. A significant number of believers already find themselves caught in its grip. It is a crisis of supremacy. It signals a serious shortfall in how we see, seek, and speak about Christ. Believers who are sensitive to this issue are making remarkable and troubling discoveries.

We have found that references to Jesus Christ, as he is today in his spectacular glory, are seldom even mentioned inside many churches. They may refer to Jesus’ days on earth or even quote him from that period. They likely use the word “God” often. But they almost never speak specifically of Christ and his reign from heaven as it is unfolding today.

Many of us have participated in extended worship sessions where specific references to Christ were virtually absent in the choruses we sang. Others report listening to widely respected preachers deliver biblically grounded messages that barely referenced our Lord Jesus, let alone bring the congregation to bow at the feet of their King.

How many of us follow Jesus daily with the exciting conviction that what he will be Lord of ultimately, he is Lord of even now? That every believer is being led by him in triumphal procession today toward the Grand Finale over which he will fully triumph at the end? Without a doubt, Christ embodies our blessed hope. He provides the guarantee for all we could ever become or do for God. And he offers to be this for us in himself alone (1 Timothy 1 and Titus 2).

But I ask you: Is this how we typically and consistently talk about him with one another?

Such silence and confusion about Jesus form a significant part of the crisis of supremacy and help explain the worrisome spiritual malaise that plagues many of our congregations. It provides one insight into the various deep-seated disappointments with Christ that eat away at passion for his kingdom. It is a prime source of growing despair over endless battles with sin and evil.

Over 80% of U.S. congregations are either stagnant or dying. In proportion to the population, there are fewer than half as many churches today as there were a century ago. In fact, the United States is considered by some to be one of the largest unchurched nations in the world, in a class with China, India, Indonesia, and Japan.

Should not such facts send forth strong warnings? Shouldn’t these developments challenge us, at the very least, to reexamine in what ways the glory of Christ himself is currently misunderstood and miscommunicated inside the Church by those who claim his name?

Jesus Our Mascot

As I’ve taught for years, in so many churches, Jesus is deployed as our football mascot. On Sunday, we trot him out to cheer us up and to give us new vigor. We look to him to reinvigorate our celebration of victories we think we’re destined to win. Enthusiasm for him energizes us for a while.

But then, for the rest of the week, he is pretty much relegated to the sidelines as our figurehead. We are the ones who call the shots. We welcome him among us to cheer us on, to inspire our efforts, and to give us confidence about the outcome of the contest. But in the end, the “game” is really about us, not about him.

Without promoting an overriding passion for Christ as our Monarch, as our everything, why would we ever openly celebrate him as anything other than our mascot?

Faded Passions

One of America’s best-known worship leaders recently confided to me a personal heartache he faces repeatedly in churches where he ministers. He said, “Often it feels to me as if, for many of our people, singing praise songs and hymns on a Sunday morning has turned into an affair with Christ.” I was stunned by his imagery.

He continued: “Too many of us are far more passionate about lesser, temporal concerns such as getting ahead at the office, finding personal happiness in a hobby, driving a new car, or rearing well-balanced children. But we rarely ever get that excited about Christ himself, at least on any consistent basis—except when we enter a sanctuary on a Sunday. Then, for a while, we end up sort of ‘swooning’ over Christ with feel-good music and heart-stirring prayers—only to return to the daily grind of secular seductions to which, for all practical purposes, we’re thoroughly ‘married.’”

He concluded, “Christ is more like a ‘mistress’ to us. He’s someone with whom we have these periodic “affairs” to reinvigorate our spirits so we can return, refreshed, to engage all the other agendas that dominate us most of the time.”

Lost Hope

Unmet longings for promised spiritual advances suggest that Christ somehow has failed us. He has not brought to pass what we have every right to expect from someone who declares to utterly love us while at the same time holding sway over an entire creation. If truth were told, you and I have probably backlogged scores of prayers for help and healing that inexplicably still remain unanswered.

The implications of this are huge. Any loss of hope in Christ inside the Church wounds our witness outside the Church. It guts the credibility of our claims to a deeper spirituality. It significantly paralyzes our mission to neighbors and nations. It reveals to the world that our vision of God’s Son is too small.

Your Church’s Conversations

Do the Christians in your church ever spend time talking to one another about the supremacy of God’s Son (by whatever terms they use)? If so, do they speak in ways that indicate a desire to deposit with one another larger visions of who he is and how he reigns? Whether conversing between worship services, in a weekly home Bible study, or at a Saturday men’s breakfast, do the Christians you know seek to promote among themselves greater hope in Christ and his kingdom? Or do you see a crisis of supremacy at all?

Messengers of Hope

The time is at hand to mount a campaign within the Church to reconnect the people of God to the Son of God for all he’s worth—to recover all the hope and passion we are meant to have toward him. We must set about the task of delivering a radically reformed (though thoroughly biblical) message of hope to fellow Christians. God has recruited and empowered millions of passionate believers everywhere. They are committed to inviting Christ to live his life through them at any cost to see strategic breakthroughs. These pioneering believers are the first wave throughout the Church of the promised awakening to Christ we so desperately need.

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Would you like to be among them—become part of the solution, help to lead others into the joys of a Christ Awakening? Would you like to join with others across the nation in a NEW American Revolution—the moral and spiritual revolution so desperately needed for our nation in this confusing, chaotic, consequential hour?

Then watch for David Bryant’s latest book! This major, 200-pager is available to read or download for free at ChristNow.com on December 15.

About the Author

Over the past 50 years, David Bryant has been defined by many as a “messenger of hope” and a “Christ proclaimer” to the Church throughout the world. Formerly a minister-at-large with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, president of Concerts of Prayer International (COPI), and chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, David now provides leadership to ChristNow.com and Proclaim Hope!, whose mission is to foster and serve Christ Awakening movements. Download his widely read ebooks at ChristNow.com. Enjoy hundreds of podcast episodes. Watch his vlogs at David Bryant REPORTS. Meet with David through Zoom or in-person events through David Bryant LIVE!