EncounteringGod
5-17/18-08
Encountering God
Some of us are here because we’ve always come to church. You would say, “My week isn’t complete unless I get up and dress a certain way and do whatever and go to church. It’s just part of the deal. I’ve done it ever since I was little and the rhythm of my week is thrown off, if I don’t show up at church. So I’ve always done it. That’s why I’m here.” Some of us are here kind of investigating and church is kind of new thing to you but you’ve heard a little about it or maybe a friend invited you, and for whatever reason, you’re kind of here checking it out and some things are suspect--some people are suspect--and some things aren’t. And you’re kind of getting some of it. You’re just kind of investigating--checking it out almost like a bystander. And that’s a good thing to do, to kind of figure out what you’re next step in life is. Some of you are here kind of out of duty or obligation. Maybe you’re not even aware of it, but your perspective is kind of like this: if Jesus died on the cross for you, I mean the least you can do is show up at church. Right? That’s the least you can do, so it’s kind of a trade-off for you. For some of you that trade-off goes even a little deeper. If your motives were written like a mind bubble on a cartoon, yours would say, “Making up for Saturday night.” Right? And sometimes we use church that way. It’s kind of a karma approach to our relationship with God that we need to counteract all the junk we’ve done with some good things and church falls into one of those good things along with helping old ladies across the street and other things like that. So, we kind of take that karma approach to church. It’s the idea that hopefuly the good will outweigh the bad in our life. And for some of us, who may have been in this for a while, we initially got into the whole church thing or relationship with God thing, because we frankly were afraid of hell. We wanted to avoid hell and so this was one way to do that. “You don’t want to go to hell, do you?” Of course not. Church only lasts an hour and hell is for an eternity, you know. So, it’s a good deal. But church is every week and hell’s a long way off, so sometimes you lose motivation. If truth were told for many of us we would be honest to say, “We just didn’t want our kids to not grow up in church and so they kind of drug us here. They don’t even want to go, but it’s important for them.”
For whatever reason you’re here, as many and varied as they are, here’s what I want you to know. Whatever the reasons are, God is in this for one reason. God only has one reason that He’s showing up, interested, involved, participating, trying to get involved in your life. He has only one reason. He wants a relationship with you. That’s what He wants. He knows you, and He wants to be known by you. And I don’t know if you’ve ever stopped and wondered at all, maybe you haven’t. What is His stake in the whole deal? I mean, why is He even involved in this whole relationship with people business? It can’t be because He needs it. It’s not because He needs our money. He’s got the cattle on a thousand hills. He can create gold in a second. There’s nothing that He needs. It’s not because He needs our help. He’s omnipotent. He’s all powerful. It’s not because He needs our presence. He’s omniscient and He knows everything. And He is everywhere. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need you. So why? Why does He even bother? Here’s the reason. It’s because He loves you. He knows you better than anybody else does already, and He wants you to know Him. It’s about a relationship. I wonder how frustrating it must be for God to be in His position and know that we have all of these motivations--that we kind of play at the church thing and investigate the God thing, or even show up regularly with all these wrong ideas about what this is about--and what He wants more than anything is for you to know Him?
We have all these preconceived ideas of how to approach God and how we do that and we usually mess it up. God just wants a relationship with us, but in our search for meaning and purpose in relationship with God--the way we approach it is, we reduce it to as system. God wants a relationship and we make it into a religion--a list of do’s and don’t’s--of things that we need to do, of things we shouldn’t do. The way we should act--the way we shouldn’t act. Boxes to check. Things to check off our list. Church to attend. For the really committed, you know, a check to write. Share a story about Christ with a co-worker. Did that. Check this list. Did that. And so we reduce all this idea of a relationship to a system. And there God waits. God waits while knowing you and desiring to be known by you. And we keep Him at an arm’s length through the power of a religion and that’s not what He wants at all. The Bible tells the truth when it says...
"We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ." [Galatians 2:16, The Message]
The true point of any spiritual activity whether it’s goinig to church, prayer or meditation or service or sacrifice or devotion, is NOT to get good at doing those things, and being able to look at people and say, “Look at how much church-going and praying I’m doing. God must be really happy with me.” The point of it is to be able to love God, and to hear from God, and to love people. If you’re doing any spiritual activity, and you’re finding that it’s not making you more loving, but you’re starting to get impressed with yourself and proud, then for crying out loud, stop it. Spiritual life and spiritual maturity is never defined in terms of doing a bunch of practices. That’s where people and ideas about spirituality get distorted. From God’s perspective spirituality is always defined in terms of living Jesus’ kind of life--becoming a joyful, loving person. It’s not “How committed am I?” And “How many spiritual activities am I doing?” It’s “Am I becoming a Jesus kind of person?” So, being a spiritual person and growing in spiritual maturity means knowing God and having a relationship with Him.
Every now and then it’s kind of interesting when you talk to somebody and you ask them the question, “Are you a Christian?” You get a lot of different answers. Maybe you’re at some kind of social gathering and somebody gives the hint that they go to church and so you might venture out and say, “Are you a Christian?” There are all kinds of settings where that question might come up. The answers you get are pretty interesting. The answers that are most commonly given are like this. “Well, yeah, I was baptized in 19 whatever.” And they tell you this date. Or, they tell you, “Yes, I’m Lutheran, or Episcopalian.” Or, “Yes, I go to church.” Whatever the answer is, it’s very interesting when the answer points to an event or a date or a church pedigree or “I was raised in the church” --whatever it is. Every now and then, once in a great while, you’ll come across somebody and when you ask them that question, “Are you a Christian, a follower of Jesus?” They talk about God not like He’s an idea, not like He’s a philosophy, not like He’s an event, but they talk about God like He’s a person. Do you know somebody like that? They talk about God like He is a friend. When you ask this person that question, the light in their eyes begins to light up. They view God as a friend with whom they have a relationship. Here’s what the Bible says.
"And this is the way to have eternal life—by knowing you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth!" [John 17:3, The Living Bible]
I also know that really deep down in your heart, you know that there’s got to be something more than you showing up at church and just kind of going through the motions. Eternal life is a matter of getting to know Jesus and having a relationship with Him. I know you want that, because you were made that way. You were made with an imprint in your heart to live that way and to know God in that way. I know that you want your relationship with God to go beyond the surface. And, some of you have discovered that something more and it goes beyond these walls. And it goes beyond any thing that maybe you’ve been taught here. And you’ve dug into Scripture and you have a prayer life. You have an awareness that God is with you throughout your day. And you realize that it is about knowing Him and Him knowing you. And, so some of you have experienced that. But some of you are still asking the question, “There’s got to be more to this whole deal than what I’m seeing on the surface.” And we want you to know that there is.
"This is the secret: Christ in your hearts is your only hope of glory." [Colossians 1:27, The Living Bible]
God desires this kind of relationship with you today--one that’s completely different from you going through the motions of religious activity. Or showing up to a place. It goes beyond all of that. From the very beginning God has desired this relationship with you. He did with Adam and Eve and He did with everybody we see throughout Scripture. But here’s what we know about relationships. And you know this whether you’ve said it out loud or not. Every relationship thrives only if given energy, attention on your part. You know that. You know that’s true in your marriage or with you kids or with your co- workers. If a relationship is going to grow, then that relationship requires and needs energy and emotional, spiritual, and intellectual energy on your part, and time set aside and focus. It needs all of that. And I believe that most of you want that in your relationship with God, but for all kinds of reasons we kind of stay in the same spot.
One of the reasons we don’t invest a whole lot in our relationship with God is because we don’t see the value in it. Because we all invest in the things that we value. The truth is, if I said to you as just an agreement between you and me, here’s what I’m going to do just to get you growing in your relationship with God. I’m going to pay you $500 a day if you will get up every day and spend 15 minutes developing your personal relationship with God. It would become very valuable to you to do that. I’m certain of it. But the reality is this. A relationship with God is far more beneficial than any monetary gift I could give you. Money is going to go away. You’ll find a good way to spend it no doubt. But your relationship with God will last forever. Jesus told a story to illustrate this value.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!" [Matthew 13:44-46, New Living Translation]
A modern day equivalent of this may be something like a man meeting a woman at a party. He is stunned by her beauty, and he thinks to himself, “I cannot let this woman get away. I’ve got to figure out some way to create a connection.” So he says to her, “You know, I may not look like much, but my father is a very wealthy man, and he’s in bad health. He’s an old guy. He’s not going to live more than two years at the outside. And when he dies, I will be worth fifty million dollars.” And you can tell the woman is impressed. And she asks for his business card. And three days later he gets a note that she is now his stepmother.
Jesus tells these stories about people who have a chance to get rich. They don’t look like very spiritual stories, but the point of them is how important a relationship with God is. And in Jesus’ day, that actually happened. People get this, and they come to realize that the life they have always wanted––to have authentic love and joy, to have healing for brokenness, forgiveness, and passion and meaning, gratitude and wonder and courage. Jesus is my one shot at it. Jesus is it. And when peoplem get it, it doesn’t matter who—Pharisees, religious leaders, tax collectors, prostitutes, fishermen—it doesn’t matter—when they “get it” they say, I’ve got to get Jesus, and I can’t let anything stand between me and Him. If I have to tear the roof down off a house so that I can get lowered inside the room, then I’ll tear the roof down. If I’ve got to climb a tree, if I’ve got to get through a crowd, if I’ve got to grab onto the hem of His garment—whatever it takes. People were watching folks do this. They didn’t look particularly spiritual, but they were so gripped by this that nothing could keep them from it. This is fundamental to spiritual transformation. “I’ve got to have a relationship with Jesus.”
Whether it takes going to church, Bible study, prayer, meditation, solitude, fasting--whatever, it’s worth it to have a relationship with Jesus.
"For as you know him better, he will give you, through his great power, everything you need for living a truly good life..." [2 Peter 1:3, The Living Bible]