The Touch of God
Notes
Transcript
Preliminary:
Preliminary:
Introduction
The Nazarene hymn and Gospel song writer Haldor Lillenas, in attempt to both testify as an act of worship, and lift our eyes to God and our dependence upon him wrote a beautiful song called, “The Touch of God” - Maybe one of these days I will sing it, but I want to share the words with you - to me they are moving and beautiful...
The touch of God brings healing to my soul
Amid the stress of cares that round me roll
The touch of God assures my soul of rest
It still the storm and tumult in my breast
Chorus:
He touched my eyes that had been blinded long
He touched my lips and filled my life with song
He touched my heart and gave new life within
He touched my soul, and cleansed me from my sin.
The Bible is full of places where man was touched by God. Now you may not find those exact words in the Holy Scriptures - but the implication is clearly there.
While there are many in the Old Testament - and I may get to some of them - there are many more familiar ones in the New Testament.
I am going to read through a series of the more explicit ones that happened during the ministry of Christ.
Now if you want to follow along with these you may - and I encourage you to do that - but I will go through them rather quickly - and these are not in any particular order and some are cross-posted - meaning other Gospels share them as well, but I am only reading one.
Mark 10:13 “13 And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.”
Luke 22:51 “51 And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.”
Matthew 9:29 “29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.”
Matthew 8:15 “15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.”
Matthew 20:34 “34 So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.”
Luke 5:12–13 “12 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 13 And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.”
Touch is extremely important in human development.
The touch of a parent to a child we are told by scientists, acts as a fundamental building block for social bonding, emotional regulation, and cognitive development, particularly in early childhood.
The reason for this - the sense of touch is the first sense to develop and plays a crucial role in forming secure attachments with caregivers through skin-to-skin contact.
Birthing centers - at least our families experience with them, was that they wanted to get skin-to-skin contact just as soon as possible with our newborns.
One psychologist offers the accepted hypothosis that “social touch from caregivers is so consistently paired with rewards (i.e., comfort, nourishment) that it is a strong candidate for a pivotal mediator (or that it causes links or connections) of Hebbian learning (This is a fancy way of saying "neurons that fire together, wire together." In simpler terms, it's how the brain learns by connecting things that happen at the same time.) in the developing “social brain.” Indeed, the reward value of social touch is so powerful that it rivals drugs of abuse and may be protective against substance use disorder.
That does not mean that if your children have social anxiety, or abuse drugs, that you failed some how as a parent - the psychologist is attempting to point out the importance of physical touch in the development of a child.
Even before birth the child in the second and third trimester are responding to the mother’s touch on her abdomen.
Dr. Gary Chapman reminds us that
“physical touch is a way of communicating emotional love.
And he defines it as one of the many love languages of individuals - that physical touch can be a vehicle to communicate either love or hate - but it is very important.
In a crisis - I don’t go around hugging women, but I have hugged a few in a crisis - there is something about the need for touch in a crisis -that nothing else can communicate but physical touch.
We can definitely say there is a human need for physical touch - I know not all of us have that as our love language - but all of us have or have had a need for physical touch in our life.
I believe it is because we are created in the image of God - God isn’t interested in distancing himself from his creation - he is directly and immanently involved with us.
and we see that coming through in the touches of God on humanity.
In the Old Testament we have the story of Gideon and you find an interesting verse
Judges 6:34 “34 But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abi-ezer was gathered after him.”
Gideon was called by God to do some things before the battle and as he was doing that
God touches him and he grabs a trumpet and begins to blow it
We don’t often think about it - but we need the touch of God just in everyday life. “The Holy Spirit is required for the right performance of common every day duties”
Gideon needed a special touch or enduement of the Holy Spirit so that He might blow the trumpet and that it might be heeded to call the people to him.
Gideon wasn’t playing a song on the trumpet - it was used as a way to communicate a message.
Symbolic meaning of Jesus's touch:
It symbolizes the immeasurable power behind the touch
In the list of scriptures I gave earlier - many of those things were untouchable - you didn’t touch people with leprosy. You didn’t touch dead things - you tried to be so careful as to not become impure -
But all the impurity that Jesus ever encountered was never enough to overcome the purity of Christ - rather his touch overcame the problems the blindness, the deafness, the leprosy, the severed ear, even death had to succumb to the touch of God.
I’m so glad that sin can’t be too far or too deep
Evangelist Chuck Milhuf wrote that stirring song:
I cried, "I've gone too far."
He said, "My blood's gone farther."
I cried, "The stain's too deep."
He said, "My blood's gone deeper."
And then I cried, "I've done too much."
He said, "My blood's done more."
I'm glad. Praise God, for the changing blood.
I praise God the touch of God shows its power in cleansing
And if one precious drop of his blood touches me
I'll be alright because now I've reached Calvary
Bill Gaither testified,
“He touched me and made me whole”
The touch of God can help us accomplish more than we can think or imagine -
20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
Handfuls on Purpose for Christian Workers and Bible Students, Series I–XIII The Need of the Holy Spirit
The late Dr. A. B. Simpson, in one of his addresses passed on a thought all Christian workers would do well to heed. It is as follows:
One Touch of God. At one time a group of men were attempting to raise an obelisk in Egypt to its base, and the work was under the supervision of a very exact and careful engineer.
They had raised the great mass of granite to within few inches of the level of the base and then were unable to lift it further. They could not get it up to the level of the pedestal by their utmost efforts.
But there was a secret in Nature that they did not know. There was a sailor there who knew all about it. He shouted, “Wet the ropes!” As they did so, the ropes began to groan, and strain, and shrink, and the great mass rose, and rose, till it came to the level of the base, and they could push it over and establish it firmly on its pedestal.
It was a little secret, but it was an effectual one. The men had pulled at the cordage and strained away at it, but the obelisk was in mid-air, and there it hung until the cry came to wet the ropes.
Dear friends, the instant we let the Holy Ghost saturate the soul, the Lord Jesus Christ brings into it all His infinite forces of love and power. One touch of God will do all that our tugging and struggling could not do.
Oh the touch of God
It represents proximity and intimacy, as Jesus came right over to where people were and singled them out with His touch
Other verses to Bro. Lillenas song The Touch of God
The touch of God
The touch of God meets all my souls deep needs
HIs changeless love, doth satisfy indeed
The touch of God brings calm and rest and peace
A deep unbroken joy that shall not cease
Oh how we need the touch of God.
Easy-to-Use Sermon Outlines 23. The T-O-U-C-H of God
The T-O-U-C-H of God
“And there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched” (
