How to be in a Relationship with God - Oasis

I am thinking… How to be in relationship with God? God has preferences. You have failed to live by them. He has come through Jesus so that you might live in relationship with him. Cain and Abel, 2 brothers get torched, and then some worship passages?

Opening ill: Things not going your way. “The dress didn’t twirl” I can’t do sticky hands.

Tonight were going to talk about how to be in a relationship with God.

- One of the things that is essential to ANY relationship is to be mindful of each other’s preferences.

- Like I need to know what Sky and Hezi like and dont like if I am going to be in a relationship with them as a husband or dad.

- But we have a tendency to live life according to our preferences. If you go on placing your presences over other people and not minding what they like and dont like you wont be in relationship for long.

- I dont like to get my hands sticky. I am like a very chill person, except for my hands. Having a baby is challenging that in a big way. He always has jam hands so everything he touches gets sticky. But also I get poop and pee on my hands now and he has a rash that needs special cream that stinks and is sticky!

- Now I have to decide if my preferences are more important than the relationship.

- You and I are the WORST with God’s preferences. We think he runs on our schedule and according to what we like and dont like and can I just say that God has preferences and He CARES that you live by them. It is not this anything goes God is your desperate BF type of thing.

- So lets start with how to NOT be in relationship with God.

Lets go to the first worship service ever:

Genesis 4 Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”[d] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.

Notes: Failure at the altar led to failure in the field. Submitting to God’s preferences in worship would have led to less influence of sin in his life. Rather Cain thinks only of himself with God and will do the same with Abel. His offering was manifest of a lack of trust in God. Can worships God his way rather than God’s way. This proves to be costly. God wont accept worship or sacrifice unless its his way. (Insert practical things here)

- Abel brings God the good stuff. Cain brings him some stuff. If you are picking out produce at the Grocery store Cain gave God the pieces no one else wanted.

- Cain worships God his way rather than God’s way. Failure to give God acceptable worship gives the way of sin more power over Cains life.

- If you try to engage with God on your preferences then you will fail to reduce the influence of sin in your life.

- It is only by giving yourself over to God’s preferences and prioritizing them that sins influence will reduce.

- When you worship. Right here at Oasis. Do you think about what brings joy to God? Do you think about what is acceptable to him and makes him smile? Or do you just think about how you feel because your emotions are the real god of your life?

- First worship service leads to death. Let’s jump forward to another worship service:

We jump forward to Leviticus! Everyone’s favorite book.

- God has just brought Israel out of Egypt. So he has made them his special people (what the Church is today) and then he goes further to tell them what his preferences are.

- This is what the law is. That’s the 10 commandments and the other 613 laws we find in Leviticus as well.

- If they are going to be in relationship with God then it will be on his terms

- God has just given instructions for how Israel is going to worship and the Priests are going to play a big part in it. He picks Aaron and his family as THE family for the priesthood.

- The priests have just been ordained and they are invited to dinner with God. So they are feeling pretty legit. And then we get to their first worship service.

Leviticus 10 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. 2 So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said:

“‘Among those who approach me

I will be proved holy;

in the sight of all the people

I will be honored.’”

Aaron remained silent.

Notes: God has given his unique people his preferences. He has told them what he likes and doesn’t like. Now Israel is ready to worship God his way. So Moses ordains the priests. Nadab and Abihu are feeling pretty confident. They have the cool Robes they facilitate this unique relationship between God and his people. Then they go off to offer worship to God. But he didn’t ask for it. They get fried. Seems harsh because you are like hey they just wanted to worship! YHWH will be proved holy, or set apart. Unique and distinct. Nadab and Abihu thought that THEY were special. So they thought that was the reason they got to be close to God. They didn’t realize that it was JUST grace! They got lost in the sauce. The better you get to know God the better you get to know yourself. Like you see an accurate estimation of yourself. You see how short you fall.

- The boys got lost in the sauce. They drank the koolaid. They thought God picked them because they were special or better than everyone else.

- So they were just going to go and worship God. God will be proven HOLY and set apart.

- To be in relationship means that you have to set yourself apart to move away from how you used to do life and operate on HIS terms.

- They thought they were Priests because they were special. they didn’t realize that it was God’s GRACE that he picked them!

- The better you get to know God the more Humble we should become. If you think you are getting to know God and you are getting all proud then I will tell you that your are just gathering information. You aren’t building a relationship. Information will always puff you up but that relationship humbles you because you realize that you aren’t in it by what you have done!

How not to be in a relationship with God:

- You don’t get to decide what is a big deal to him.

- You don’t get to decide what worship is pleasing to him

- God wants the good stuff and he wants it on his terms.

-Now the question is okay what does God like. Well here’s God’s preference on how your relationship with him starts and this has to go his way.

Takeaways on how not to be in a relationship with God:

You don’t get to assume what is ‘okay’ with God You don’t get to worship how you want Gods preferences set the tone of the relationship, not yours. Worship that God will accept is giving God what he wants, when he wants it. Failure to worship in this way will give sin greater influence over your life. Know thyself. The better you get to know God the better you should get to know yourself.

Start

Romans: 3:21-26 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

- Paul says that God’s preferences have been made known.

- But the way to uphold them. To live as God desires starts with Faith in Jesus. You can’t start a relationship with God any other way.

- You can meditate until you are blue in the face. You can manifest all you want. You can try to follow all the rules that you want. You can discipline your body or live however you want to but none of those things start a relationship with God.

- Why does the relationship NEED to start this way? Because ALL have fallen short. Of God’s glory. Glory just means weight. You dont measure up. Flat out you aren’t good enough.

- But for FREE you can be justified, made right with God, through faith in Jesus.

- How has Jesus made this possible? He took on the penalty of what you deserved. Of what you earned. A maybe more accurate way for us to understand this idea of faith is allegiance. Like you would have to a king. I submit to his rule and place my life under him. It’s not just I believe that he was a good guy.

Stay

Romans 12:1-3 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

- Look at how these instructions from Paul later in Romans help out the Cain problem and the bothers problem.

- Give God the good stuff and think about yourself the right way. This is God’s preference. He wants the good stuff from your life. Not the leftovers.

- He wants to take over even the way you think. He wants you to know thyself. In contrast to him that you would live under Grace and not pride. This is how you stay in your faith.

- Don’t skimp God and see worship as a privilege not something God is lucky to get from you. He isnt lucky to get 5 min in the morning with you. You are luck to be able to approach the KINGS throne.

Play

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Last God wants you to play your part.

- Did you know if you give your allegiance to Jesus you are part of a priesthood? Just like Nadab and Abihu. So there is work to do.

- If you start your faith. Stay by giving God the good stuff and knowing yourself accurately. But dont play your part. That’s consumerism. And thats like one of the churches biggest problems!

- Like you dont get to stay on the sidelines. And it wont be acceptable on God’s end for grace to pool up with you instead of running out to others from your life.

- You need to start playing your part. This pleases him. You have priest work ahead.

- When you go to church the questions should be how can I minister to God and minister to others. Not was the message good? Or I didn’t really like that 3rd song they played.

- You need to start playing your part to be a priest to you friends. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.