Knowing Jesus Personally: Fans vs. True Jesus Followers

From the sermon preached on July 12, 2026

Knowing Jesus and knowing facts about Jesus are not the same thing, and John 7 is written to expose that gap. In this passage, a crowd in Jerusalem debates whether Jesus is the Messiah based on where He was born, who His parents were, and what they had heard secondhand. They have information. They do not have Him. This is the difference between being a fan of Jesus and being one of His true Jesus followers, and it is the question underneath everything that follows in this post.

Pastor Adam Gahagan opened this message with a story about the New York Knicks winning their first championship in fifty years. He described becoming a fan overnight (learning the players' stats, their college teams, their trades) without ever becoming a true follower of the sport. That is precisely the danger John 7 names in the religious life of Jerusalem's crowd, and it is the danger Adam invited this congregation to examine in themselves. Do we know Jesus, or do we just know about Him?

The crowd in John 7:25-36 thinks they already know who Jesus is. "We know where this man comes from," they say; He's the carpenter's son from Nazareth, nothing more. Jesus's identity, though, is not settled by His hometown. In John 7:28, Jesus tells them plainly: "You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know."

Adam illustrated this with Grand Central Terminal. A daily commuter rushes through, headphones in, blind to the ceiling's constellations and the whispering wall tucked into its corners. A tourist stops and looks up. Familiarity, Adam said, can make us blind to wonder, and that is exactly what happened to the crowd questioning Jesus's identity. They had walked past Him so often that they stopped looking up.

Jesus's identity, as this passage insists, is rooted in where He actually comes from: the Father. He fulfills the prophecy of Micah 5:2, born in Bethlehem as promised centuries earlier, and the crowd's own murmuring in verses 26 and 31 (wondering aloud if He might really be the Messiah) shows the truth was closer than they realized.

One honest step today: before you open your Bible or say a prayer, pause and ask whether Jesus still feels like a wonder to you, or just a familiar name.

A relationship with Jesus Christ, Adam said, is not a one-time download of information. He compared it to his twenty-one-year marriage to his wife, Evita. Many people know facts about Evita (that she is Puerto Rican, a mother of four, a gifted cook, a writer). Adam knows her. That is a relationship with Jesus Christ in miniature: ongoing, deepening, and never finished.

Genesis uses the word "know" for exactly this kind of intimacy, and Adam pointed to it directly. When the text says Adam knew Eve, it describes something far past information exchange; it describes union. A relationship with Jesus Christ works the same way. Jesus said eternal life is knowing the Father through the Son (not someday, after death, but now, today, in the ordinary texture of a life).

Adam named the quiet danger in this: not knowing too little about Jesus, but assuming you have already figured Him out. Checked the box. Learned the doctrine and moved on. A relationship with Jesus Christ resists that kind of closure; it asks to be renewed daily, in prayer, in Scripture, in the small moment when anxiety or shame sends you reaching for Him instead of a screen.

One honest step today: name one thing you turn to before you turn to Him, and bring that exact thing to Him in prayer tonight.

True discipleship, Adam preached, is not decided by how a person feels about Jesus when the crowd is cheering. It is decided at the cross. Jesus tells the crowd in this passage, "You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come," and their confusion (wondering if He means to travel abroad among the Greeks) misses the point entirely. He is not describing geography. He is describing the cross, the one place Jesus alone could go on our behalf.

True discipleship means following someone who bore what no one else could bear. Adam was direct about this: Jesus is not merely a better example or a wise teacher to imitate. He is God in the flesh, absorbing sin and defeating death so that people who were far from the Father could be brought near. A fan applauds a comeback story. A true disciple picks up a cross.

Adam closed by pointing forward: this same Jesus, having gone to the cross and risen, sends His followers to the ends of the earth (to neighborhoods, workplaces, apartment buildings, and friendships) not as an obligation bolted onto faith, but as the natural overflow of having actually seen His glory.

One honest step today: name one person in your life who needs to hear this, and ask God for an opening to talk with them this week.

John 7:25-36 captures a crowd caught precisely between information and revelation. They knew Jesus was from Nazareth. They knew He taught with authority. What they had not yet grasped was His origin in the Father, His identity as the promised Messiah of Micah 5:2, and His destiny toward a cross that only He could carry. Adam framed the whole sermon around these three markers of true Jesus followers: knowing His origin, knowing His identity, and knowing His destiny.

It is one thing to hear that fans and true Jesus followers are different, and another thing to feel the ache of not being sure which one you are; that tension does not resolve itself by reading a blog post. Apostles Church Uptown exists precisely for people carrying that question, whether you are commuting in from Washington Heights and Hamilton Heights or walking over from the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights. From East Harlem to the Upper East Side and every neighborhood between, this congregation gathers each Sunday to wrestle honestly with exactly what Adam preached: the gap between knowing about Jesus and truly knowing Him.

Adam preached that the crowd in John 7 mistook geography for the real issue, when the real issue was always belief; Jesus was going to the Father by way of a cross no one else could carry. He closed with an old but urgent invitation: today, if you hear His voice, do not settle for secondhand information about who Jesus is. As Hebrews puts it, the time to respond is now.

Take one step toward putting that response into practice this week by visiting Apostles Church Uptown in person, where this conversation continues every Sunday morning; plan your visit here.

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