The God We Encounter - Ezekiel 1

Ezekiel is just past the halfway point of your Bible… Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel...

As you find your place, I just want to take a little poll: How many of you have you ever heard someone say about Christianity: “It’s not about religion, it’s about relationship with God.”

Raise your hand if you would affirm that is true...

Absolutely… I would affirm that is true in this sense:

That the Christian life is not about a set of external rituals… it’s not about a certain list of dos and don’ts… it’s not about EARNING our way into God’s favor…

But I wonder if we would all mean the same thing when we described what it meant to have a “relationship with God.”

Because some people think a relationship with God is like a relationship with your Great Uncle on your mother’s side who you’ve never met… but since you heard their name before and looked them up on Facebook and you share some of the same blood, that must mean you have a relationship...

Others think a relationship with God is something really far in the other direction… that it’s like sitting with your bestie over coffee while you tell them everything that you dream about and they just affirm you… and they never say a hard word to you… they always think just like you think... and we kind of bring God DOWN to this level that has no resemblance of who he actually is…

Still others have a relationship with God that looks a lot like religion… they go through a lot of motions… show up at church… they sing songs… they attend their Gospel Community sometimes... read their Bible sometimes… pray before dinner…

But it’s not like God is a personal, active, regular participant in their life.

I’d imagine that a lot of us can relate to that third description especially… at least in certain seasons…

And believe me… I’m not just preaching AT YOU… here… I can relate to all three of those concepts of relating to God at different points in my life...

Like even this week there were times when I felt like I was just going through the motions and I had to come to my senses and remember… the presence of God again… my relationship with God again…

It’s HARD to relate to someone who is invisible to us… I get it...

And yet God’s word would call us to something different than all of these…

God, through his word, would call us to a relationship that recognizes both his TRANSCENDENCE… the BIGNESS of who he is… AND his imminence… or his nearness… his personal care and concern about the details of our lives...

THAT is why we are doing this series… “Encounters with God.”

That we would grow in our understanding of what it means to encounter the Living God together.

That we would see how GREAT he is… and then that we would see how he has promised to MEET WITH US… his people…

We talked about this verse on Good Friday: - For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God... (ESV)

says For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God... (ESV)

Jesus died so that we could draw near to the Holy God of the Universe… and we don’t want to squander that!

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, (ESV)

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (ESV)

says, “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” (, ESV)  

says, “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (ESV)

We are called… we are invited… to pursue and realize the very presence of God…

he will quiet you by his love;

says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, BEHOLDING THE GLORY OF THE LORD, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (ESV)

he will exult over you with loud singing. (ESV)

God wants us… through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ… to behold his glory… to truly and personally encounter HIM.

To know WHO HE IS… and to also know that he is ACTIVE in the affairs of our lives.

And then to be completely changed by him… to turn from sin… and to be transformed into his image...

To know WHO HE IS… and to also know that he is ACTIVE in the affairs of our lives.

So the question we want to ask today is this: WHO is this God we encounter? Who is the God Jesus died to bring us to? What is the presence of God that we seek? What is the glory of God that we behold?

Here’s our Big Idea:

Here’s our Big Idea:

When I truly encounter God, I am brought low before his glory.

We are in Ezekiel chapter 1 today...

This series is a little different than our typical series… we usually go through a book of the Bible at a time…

But in this series, we are going to preach expository sermons… verse by verse explanations… from different parts of the Bible that help us see what it means to encounter God.

We are mostly going to be in passages that describe theophanies… times when people encountered God in some sort of visible form… there will be a couple exceptions throughout the series that will take us through the end of May...

But this will get us into a lot of different parts of God’s word…

And today we are in the Prophets… the Book of Ezekiel...

Ezekiel was a prophet of God during a time when Israel (God’s people) had been taken away into captivity in Babylon…

This was divine punishment because Israel had turned their backs on the Living God… they had broken their covenant… they had gone after false idols...

And so Ezekiel’s job is to proclaim judgment against Israel… and judgment against the nations...

And not only that… God calls him to REENACT some of the judgments… in some REALLY strange ways...

Get low because God's glory is...

Get low because God's glory is...

He has to build a tiny representation of Jerusalem and then stage an attack on it… kind of like us guys did with army men and lincoln logs when we were kids...

He has to lay on his side for a little over a year eating food cooked over human poop as a sign of how bad it would be in Israel’s destruction...

And as if that’s not bad enough... God tells him from the outset that no one is going to listen to him...

Now at the end of the book, Ezekiel also describes HOPE for a remnant of Israel… so it’s not all bad… but it’s certainly not a fun calling...

And so what is going to keep Ezekiel going in all this? What is going to sustain him?

It’s the vision of the glory of God that he saw that he’s about to share with us... That’s what chapter 1 is all about…

The chapter is going to end with these words: Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” (, ESV)

The chapter is going to end with these words: Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” (, ESV)

… and what follows is God’s call on Ezekiel’s life.

When we truly encounter God, we get low before his glory.

Today we want to see (from this text) three reasons why we need to get low...

Get low because God's glory is...

...present in our situations. (1:1-3)

Look at ... [read]

In the thirtieth year...

Now there is no point of reference… the thirtieth year of WHAT?!?!

But most commentators agree that this is the thirtieth year of Ezekiel’s life.

That’s the year you would entered into the actual ministry of a priest if you were born in that lineage...

Which would be a big deal… it would have been something Ezekiel looked forward to his whole life...

His dad, Buzi, would have been a priest… his grandfather would have been a priest…

He would have grown up around the temple in all of its magnificent images and symbolism… knowing that the Holy of Holies was just on the other side of that big thick curtain with the scary looking cherubim sewn into it...

And now that he was 30, Ezekiel got to be a priest before the MOST HIGH GOD… this was something he waited for all his life!

The PLACE WHERE THE GLORY OF THE LORD was located in a special way...

King David had said that he would rather be a DOORKEEPER in the house of the Lord (an undesirable job in the temple FURTHEST from the most holy place) than dwell in the tents of wickedness...

So Ezekiel would likely be anticipating the day when he entered into service of God...

EXCEPT that as this year had come in his life, HE has been in exile with God’s people for FIVE YEARS, living THOUSANDS of miles from the Temple… separated by deserts and a couple bodies of water… [show map]

HE is stuck in BABYLON… sitting next to an irrigation canal...

OH… and we’ll find out in verse 4 that it looks like storm clouds are rolling in…

Thirty years old… a captive of a foreign nation… his people are under God’s punishment… feeling rather purposeless…

This isn’t a great day. This isn’t even a great life.

Where is God in all this? Has he abandoned? Is he way back in Jerusalem, not caring about his people… just kicking them off to the side?

But it was in that setting… sitting by the Chebar canal… that the heavens were opened and he saw visions of God.

The veil between the earthly realm and the heavenly realm was opened to him.

It was in that setting that the hand of the Lord was upon him.

Far from the temple… far from where the glory of God “SHOULD” have been in his mind… there he encountered God.

And it is in these first three verses that I want us to see that God is present in our situations.

No, we are not all Ezekiel…

In fact, few people in the history of the WORLD got to see what Ezekiel saw in the way that he saw it… (Moses, Isaiah, the Apostle John)… a few others had SIMILAR experiences...

VERY FEW had a similar calling to Ezekiel… to speak for God in the weird ways Ezekiel had to… Jeremiah and the other prophets had to do some strange things… but in the history of the world… not many..

So WE are NOT EZEKIEL… But I want you to see that God was meeting his Ezekiel… and his people… in exile.

In this series, I’m not trying to tell you to go out and have visions and all that kind of stuff...

Ezekiel had the vision and recorded it so that GOD’S PEOPLE could KNOW who God is...

And God was meeting his Ezekiel… and his people… in exile.

He was meeting them in the place of their punishment… he was meeting them in the judgment for their sin...

To call them out of sin and back to himself...

He did not punish them to throw them aside… but to cause them to TURN to him.

In these first three verses, Ezekiel is the perfect example of … “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” (, ESV)

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” (, ESV)

We serve a God who is PRESENT.

The question is, “Will we RECOGNIZE he is present?”

Ezekiel… God’s people… could have assumed God was done with them.

They could have assumed that they had broken God’s law and that was it.

They could have gotten bitter at God.

They could have turned and served the Babylonian gods… after all, that’s BASICALLY what they did when they lived back in Israel...

But God was using this exile… and then using his prophets… to bring them back into right relationship with himself...

He was going to call them to repentance…

And restore them to hope.

And so I want you to ask yourself: how often do I recognize the presence of God in my life?

I read earlier, “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” (, ESV) 

How often are you aware that the glorious God that we are about to read about is present with you?

When you are at work, do you think about God being right there with you at your desk or out on the construction site?

Or at school… students, do you realize the presence of a GLORIOUS GOD as you endure lectures and take tests or laugh with your friends in the lunchroom?

Or when you are disciplining your kids… do you recognize God’s presence with you and with them?

Or when you are in church, do you realize that God has promised to be with you, delighting in the praises of his people?

Or in your Gospel Community… are you aware that God wants to show up in that place and speak through people whom he has indwelled with his Spirit???

I would encourage you to actively make this a part of your thought process in all of those things: wherever I am going, there God also is.

That thought should fill you with AWE and bring you to your knees...

That thought should fill you with AWE and bring you to your knees...

And if it doesn’t, I would suggest that you need a fresh vision of who God is… which is what is comign in these next verses of .

Ezekiel is going to recount the vision that he saw there by the Chebar canal… and it is going to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen or experienced…

It’s like he’s grasping for words to describe it...

And we are going to need to get low because God’s glory is...

...peculiar to our senses.

Read

As we get into this vision, we are going to see 5 ways the glory of God is peculiar to our senses… unlike anything we’ve ever seen...

Ezekiel is going to take us on the journey of this vision with him… from the first sight of the whole thing… to the servants… to the way they move… to the throne… to the One who sits on the throne...

And ALL OF IT is the appearance of the glory of the Lord.

All of this is meant to give us a sense of the WEIGHTINESS… the HOLINESS… the OTHERNESS… of God…

[5 ways the glory of God is peculiar to our senses:]

1. A Peculiar Appearance

Ezekiel sees this storm cloud coming out of the north as he sits by this canal...

Only this isn’t just any storm cloud… fire is flashing forth continually…

And it looks like gleaming metal...

Have you ever seen a cloud like THAT?

I mean, maybe you’ve seen a lighting cloud before… maybe with a little heat lightning that seems to light it up from within...

But non-stop… like fire…

Paul tells us that God the Father DWELLS in unapproachable light… and this vision of Ezekiel gives us that same sense of peculiar and awesome appearance...

But that’s not the most peculiar thing… Next, Ezekiel goes on to explain some...

2. Peculiar Servants (four living creatures)

Read [explaining along the way… (calls them “cherubim”… KNEW them from images in the temple… holding up the chariot throne of the Lord]

Not what you typically picture when you think of angels, is it?

It’s not even what they typically picture in cartoons or Jesus films...

This is like, “wet my pants if I saw that kind of stuff...”

They make HORROR films about creatures like this...

And then it gets really weird… not too many people understand what this next part means, but I’m going to put it in the category of…

3. Peculiar Movement and Knowledge

Read [explaining along the way]

Now these wheels might be the most confusing part of the whole vision… but remember… they are related to the four living creatures… who are holding up the chariot throne of the Lord...

And I see in this description the ability for incredible movement… and incredible knowledge...

First incredible movement…

The wheels move in all directions instantaneously...

And this makes me think of God’s “Omnipresence”

The fact that God is everywhere at once...

And yet also specifically demonstrating his glory in unique ways for different circumstances and situations..

So when the church gathers, there God is in a special, unique way...

When we are fulfilling the Great Commission of making disciples… Jesus is present in a unique way with us...

So God is able to be everywhere at once… and yet specially present at once… I think the wheels are a part of that revelation...

But we also see in the wheels “Knowledge” or “omniscience”

That God knows all things...

I think that’s what is being described by saying the “wheels” have “eyes all around.”

The eye is the entry-point of knowledge into the body…

This is God the “all-seeing” one.

At any rate these wheels move with the living creatures who are underneath a...

5. Peculiar Throne

Peculiar Throne

Read [explaining along the way]

This is a beautiful throne for a beautiful God.

This is unlike any throne you’ve ever seen...

I mean, there are some pretty cool thrones out there… Here are some pictures of a few more notable thrones throughout the ages...

Here are some pictures of a few more notable thrones throughout the ages...

A throne was meant to capture the splendor of the King who sat on it...

And many of us would probably LOVE to see ANY ONE of these thrones in person..

But if you were to compare ANY of these to the throne of Ezekiel’s vision… you have to say, “LAME.”

God’s throne dwarfs any other throne in size or in beauty...

The sights and sounds are peculiar to Ezekiel’s senses… to our senses...

At this point, Ezekiel is on sensory overload...

And then he sees HIM..

5. Peculiar Deity.

Read [explaining along the way… ending with “such was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.”]

This is a God that words can barely describe.

We know from other passages of scripture that God is Spirit...

So this is some sort of revelation of God’s glory that Ezekiel can understand...

And it’s fearsome… and awesome...

And it’s a lot different than many of the conceptions of God in our day...

The image of God that many have in their minds is something like Michaelangelo’s Sistene Chapel… an old guy nearly touching Adam...

Other’s think of God like William Young’s book “The Shack”

An African-American Woman, a Jewish Carpenter, and a middle-eastern woman...

How does that compare to Ezekiel’s vision?

Others think of God as some force OUT THERE… distant from his people… unconcerned with the affairs of men because he’s too busy in some other corner of the universe...

But here we see a God who is enthroned above the Cherubim… moving effortlessly throughout time and space… and yet somehow in another realm (remember… the heavens were opened)...

He is transcendent in glory and yet personally moving toward his people.

He is unlike anything our senses have ever encountered… beyond all description…

And I just wonder… when you think about God… is this vision of Ezekiel anything close to what your mind considers?

The God who is with you… the God who is revealing himself to you right now through his word and is present with you by his Spirit even in this moment...

When you think about God as you try to motivate yourself to pray…

Or when you think about God as you consider obedience to his commandments...

When you think about God… is this anything close to what your mind considers?

Or do you think about him like some weak old man...

Or some effeminate Far-Eastern deity...

Or as some distant God who NEVER has revealed himself?

God gave Ezekiel this vision to empower and energize him in a very difficult calling...

God gave Ezekiel this vision to validate his message to the nation of Israel...

And God gave us this vision through Ezekiel so we could know something about what he is like...

When we open a passage of scripture like this, we are encountering the living God...

He is revealing himself to us through his word…

It’s a revelation that is consistent with visions that Moses had in Exodus… and Isaiah described in his prophecy… and it’s consistent with John’s account in ...

Such was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.

THIS is the God we encounter…

THIS is the God whose presence we seek…

THIS is the God who, through Christ, we all, with unveiled face, are beholding his glory, and are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

And when we really get a hold of that fact, it brings us low before him. It is...

...pulverizing to our self-glory. (v 28c)

Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” (, ESV)

God’s glory is pulverizing to our self-glory.

The Hebrew word for glory is kavod… it means weightiness…

It’s like when someone says, “woah… that’s heavy.”

And that is what Ezekiel just described, isn’t it?

It knocks you off your feet and onto your face as a first reaction…

It’s like God is this bowling ball and we are this little army man...

There is no chance we are standing up against the weight of his glory...

The glory

You see, we tend to put ourselves up on a pedestal… to create a throne for ourselves just like this little LEGO man…

We try to make ourselves look just right on social media...

We try to gain status and the praise of others in our sphere of influence…

We try to posture for titles and positions in the church… or in our company… or in the community…

We imagine our own self-glory by thinking we can maintain control of our own lives...

We seek maximum comfort and pleasure for ourselves...

But NONE of that will stand when it TRULY encounters the weight of the glory of God. [cinder block]

Ezekiel’s response is the common response when coming face to face with a visible manifestation of God.

Ezekiel’s response is the common response when coming face to face with the glory of God.

He gets as low as he possibly can… he humbles himself… he falls facedown in the dirt...

In chapter 3, Ezekiel says that when it was all over, he went back to the camp and just sat there… completely overwhelmed… for seven days straight...

This type of face-down response is similar to what we see from Abraham in front of the heavenly messengers...

It’s the response Moses on Mt. Sinai…

it’s the response of Joshua before the Commander of the Army of the Lord…

it is the response of Isaiah in the heavenly throneroom…

it is the response of John in his Revelation...

it is the response of John in his Revelation...

And it needs to be our response to the Lord… OFTEN.

It would do us good to literally make ourselves low sometimes… to bow down… even prostrate ourselves in prayer...

And then to maintain that posture as we go about our days…

Because it is from that position that we are ready to listen to God...

At the end of verse 28, Ezekiel said, “I fell on my face… and I HEARD the one speaking TO ME...

It was from this position that Ezekiel is ready to receive God’s call on his life.

In chapter 2 verse 1, Ezekiel tells us “And he said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.” (, ESV)

We have to see that we cannot stand in the presence of God’s glory...

We are sinners… he is the righteous and holy judge...

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Eze 2:1–2). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

We are finite… he is infinite...

We are creature… he is Creator...

And it is at that point that we can understand the relationship that he has offered in Jesus Christ...

You see… Jesus died… the righteous for the unrighteous… that he might bring us to God.

JESUS is the image of the invisible God… he is THIS GOD OF GLORY that we have seen in Ezekiel chapter 1… who took on full humanity...

And he walked among us… perfectly righteous… perfectly holy...

And he died for those who would recognize that they need a savior...

He died taking on the full punishment for their sin...

So that he could lift them up again and cleanse them of their sin and call them into relationship with God.

He rose again from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God...

The throne that we just heard described in Ezekiel...

And he offers new life to all who put their faith in him… new life of new relationship with God.

And just like for Ezekiel… when we put our faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord… the very Spirit of the glorious God comes to indwell us...

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” ( ESV)

TRUE FREEDOM means that we get to come face to face with the weight of the glory of God...

Which will mean that we aren’t living for ourselves and our own ways anymore...

That we aren’t living for our own glory… we are living for his...

And then we are transformed into the same image of God from one degree of glory to another…

He is the one seated on the throne… HE is Savior and Lord over our lives...

THAT is the relationship with God that Jesus died to bring you into…

And so let me close with this thought: what does a relationship with THIS God mean to you?

Now that you have spent some time dwelling on his glory… how are you going to relate to him?

Are there any parts of your life where you have been living for your own glory or someone else’s glory instead of God’s?