Encounter Intro Sermon

What is an "Encounter" with God? Session 1

Session Objective: To welcome you as a special guest and encourage you to anticipate a visitation from God into your life during this Encounter.

Action Point: Teaching time- 15 minutes Activation: 5 minutes

(Activation after the teaching is a prayer for each person to have an open heart to receive from God during this encounter)

God Chooses To Allow Us To Have An Encounter Experience With Him

Although the Lord usually communicates with us through prayer, the Bible, and quiet nudges from the Holy Spirit, sometimes He comes to us in a more dramatic way, as He did with the prophet Isaiah (see ). Such moments are:

Unexpected

The word "encounter" conveys the idea of an unforeseen meeting. When Isaiah went to the temple one day, he had no idea that something life changing was about to happen. It was just an ordinary day—until the Lord showed up with a dazzling display of His glory.

Initiated by God

We cannot manipulate this kind of experience. Our responsibility is simply to keep our spiritual ears open and be receptive. Then, when God has something to tell us, we'll be ready to listen.

Still happening today

Bible accounts describe God having unexpected and life-changing interactions with people. Since the Lord never changes, He continues to deal with humanity in powerful, unanticipated ways.

What can you expect in an encounter with God?

Although the Lord wants to talk with you every day in constant fellowship, sometimes He has something so important to convey that He'll step into your life in a more dramatic way. Isaiah's experience shows what to expect when the Lord pays us an unannounced visit ().

An encounter with God can happen anywhere—at home, in church, during a walk, or while driving—but wherever He shows up, you'll always feel an awesome sense of His presence. Isaiah "saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple" (). Although your experience will probably not be this dramatic, anytime God wants to grab your attention, He'll make His presence obvious

When the Lord appeared to Isaiah, He was accompanied by angelic beings who covered their faces in utter reverence for His absolute purity and perfection as they cried out, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts" (). This glimpse into the spiritual realm overwhelmed Isaiah with an awareness of God's glory and holiness.

Living in a fallen world keeps us from truly comprehending how vast the difference is between the Lord and us. Too often we attempt to bring Him down to our level. But an encounter with God opens our eyes to recognize His unapproachable superiority.

A sense of our own unworthiness

One result of an encounter with God is an immediate awareness of our own sinful condition. That's why Isaiah cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!" (). In God's presence the contrast between His holiness and our sin is magnified—not to condemn or produce feelings of self-loathing, but to help us see our wrongdoing from His perspective so we'll confess and repent.

The sight of the Lord immediately reminded Isaiah of his own area of weakness: "I am a man of unclean lips" (Isa, 6:5). Although believers have full forgiveness through Christ, our lives should never be dominated by sin. As we grow in our faith, the Spirit progressively reveals behaviors and attitudes that don't fit our new identity in Christ.

An awareness of God's gracious forgiveness

After encountering the Lord and facing our sins, we need to know that we're forgiven. To cleanse Isaiah's lips, one of the seraphim touched his mouth with a burning coal from the altar. The hot coal symbolized the sacrificial system of atonement through which God granted His people forgiveness. For believers today, forgiveness has been accomplished once for all time by Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

This was the greatest act in human history, but sometimes we don't truly appreciate His sacrifice. We've heard about it and sung about it, but have we wept over it in gratitude? If the thought of God the Son hanging on a cross doesn't move you, something's wrong in your relationship with Him. When familiarity has made our hearts grow cold, an encounter with Jesus re-awakens our love and gratefulness for the magnitude of His sacrifice.

A call for Action

When the Lord appeared to Isaiah, He asked, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" (). He had a job for Isaiah, just as He has assignments for each of us. And sometimes, in order to move us in the right direction, God has to interrupt our lives with an overwhelming sense of His presence. That's what happened to Moses when he was tending sheep in the desert. Suddenly the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush and turned his life in an entirely different direction.

Welcome to your Encounter. The next few hours will be hours that will mark your life forever.

Welcome to Freedom Gateway - Encounter God Center.