Awe and Intimacy [Part 2]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. He swallows up addictions. He destroys idols.

He transforms characters. He will swallow up your life, and he will make you who you're supposed to be. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Word and Spirit, The Beauty of Ballots, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this resource, today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. What God is interested in is not merely being a power that we tap into. He is interested in a relationship with us.

And so Jesus is not content to be a power outlet for a woman, to just have power go out from Him. He stops and He finds the woman because He wants to identify her. He wants to know her. He wants to see her. He wants to bless her. This is a marvelous picture of the nature of God.

He is so strong that the worst disease cannot stand in His presence. And He is so tender that He longs to show you His love and His forgiveness and give you assurances about tomorrow. So in one scene, here is a woman who experiences Jesus in both awe and intimacy. And Jesus approaches her and I wonder all of the things that she might have guessed that Jesus would call her. Would He call her sinner? Would He call her intruder? Would He call her unclean? What would He call her?

He called her daughter. This is a picture of the nature of God. We are made for all. We're made such that we love to be astonished. You know the very best in the whole world at being astonished? Toddlers. I miss having toddlers around because they're so easy to impress. And I remember when Bennett was two, there were a couple things that he thought were absolutely awesome. And one was I could take a cheerio, you know that ever-present food for toddlers that you have in little baggies and on the floor of the van, and I could take a cheerio, put it between my fingers, and crush it by brute force and just turn it to dust. He was astonished.

He would take them and squeeze them. And for him, it was like I had just crushed granite between my bare hands. He was also amazed that I could slam dunk on his little tykes basketball goal.

It was a sad thing to watch him grow up and discover I was not Mr. Atlas and that I'd never slam dunked anything on a real goal at all. We grow up and suddenly we're not impressed by the crushing of cheerios or little tykes basketball goals, but we still love to be astonished. I think it's part of the reason that we have such interest in sports is we just like to look at somebody, do something that we can turn to somebody else and go, can you believe that he just did that? Can you believe that shot?

Can you believe he hit the ball like that? We like to see something that is above and beyond us. It's why we like the Grand Canyon or fireworks or even why people go to a scary movie. There's something inside of us that needs, that yearns, that longs to know that this is not all that there is. That there is something that transcends my normal life. That I am not just stuck in some world of the mundane, but instead there is something of greater glory and I want to encounter it and I want to know of it.

It's the thing that captures your gaze when you look into the nighttime sky and try to count the stars. It is the very thing that causes your your inmost being to begin to soar with great delight when you see some sort of transcendent art or music that you hear and it takes you to some other place and you, at least for those moments, remember that this world is not all that there is. There is a longing for something greater than us and if we do not have it, if we do not have a sense that there is a greater power, then quietly, inwardly, perhaps unconsciously we become hopeless. In other words, we are made for all, but we're also made for intimacy. Every sociological study proves that without human contact we cannot flourish. A baby cannot thrive without contact and love and so it is as we become adults we cannot be healthy. We cannot be healthy alone. We cannot be healthy isolated.

There's no technique, no way in which you could try hard enough to be healthy without other people, which means that the healthiest people on the face of the earth are people who are known and know others. You have to have somebody in your life, you have to have some people, it doesn't have to be a whole lot of them, but you have to have some people that you're willing to dare self-revelation to be known by someone and to know them in return and to know them in return in a framework in which there is love and there is acceptance because only until that happens can your soul actually be healthy. We are made for connection and in the same way that we can see this in the natural realm with our human relationships, what I'm saying is that we are made for connection with God. We are made for intimacy with God. Look at paradise and see God walking in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve. Uninterrupted fellowship where there is affection and there is no fear and watch sin come into the world and the very first thing that happened was that humanity became afraid of God and so everything that's important to understand about the nature of God and the nature of the gospel depends on this that we are simultaneously in need of awe and intimacy.

It's God's design. The problem is that so often we tend to gravitate towards one view of God or another and we can become uncomfortable with anything that's not this safe God in the middle of the road, but if God is awesome and yet never close to us, then He is just someone who is in the distance. I had the image of like going to the zoo like our state zoo where it has these big natural habitats and you can see the rhinoceros off in the distance. I like to look at the rhinoceros and I'd like to get closer to the rhinoceros as long as he's on the other side of the barrier. I'd like to see the rhinoceros through a telescope.

I'd like to see him if he got up close but not too close. In fact, if you said you can go see the rhinoceros very close, go on in there into his own habitat. I'm like I'm not going into the rhinoceros habitat because he's awesome. And yet if you said here is another natural habitat and all we have in here are puppies, then I'd like to go in with the puppies. I could lie down and let the puppies run all over me, but I do not want to go in with the rhinoceros. And so there is a sense in which we tend to either want God to just be the rhinoceros off in the distance, keep him safe.

I know he's great, but keep a barrier there. Or we want to make him seem like he is so tame. He is a cuddly, a cuddly God, a little cherubim and who could never hurt a flea.

Because both those images are safe. One, he's awesome but he's in the distance. Other, he's merciful but he's up close.

And yet the real God, the God of the universe, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our God, Jehovah God, El Shaddai, the one who has all power and all authority is also the one who came to us in the person of Christ and who is with us in every moment and counts the hairs on your head and knows every one of your thoughts and attends to every detail of your life. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's word and his spirit and grow like never before. With word and spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Theologian Wayne Grudem put it this way, creation is distinct from God, yet always dependent on God. This is the important thing if you want to understand this theologically about the transcendence of God, meaning he's above and beyond, and the eminence of God, meaning he is still within the creation. Because what it means is that God is the creator and therefore he's not part of creation. I said God is the creator. He's not part of creation. No one created him. No one created him. And because he created everything, he is distinct from the creation. He is over the creation. He is beyond the creation.

He is beyond you and me. And yet what eminence means is that he remains in the creation because he is interested in every aspect of the creation. Ephesians 4-6, it says both in the same sentence, one God and Father of us all who is above all and through all and in all.

He's above all and yet he is through all and in all. This makes Christianity absolutely distinct from every other religion and from the ideologies of the age. This makes Christianity distinct from materialism, which says this world is all that there is, and it makes it distinct from pantheism, which says the whole universe is God. We're not saying that God being in all things means that all things are God.

And we are not saying that because God is great that therefore he is not merciful. And so if you look and you studied world religions, you tend to see that religions tend to emphasize one nature or the other of who God actually is. So Islam, you'll always hear the cry that Allah is great.

They want to make this declaration of the greatness of this being. And yet if you look at all of the Eastern religion, it tends to be more pantheistic and God is in the midst of everything. And you'll see then the spirit of the age that we tend to either want to have this God who is big and distant and a judge and who's going to come back with all this thunder.

And that's what's talked about. Oh, we tend to talk about how God is so kind and so gracious. And yet the real God, the God of all, is the God who is both. And some point in your life, if you're really going to know God, what's going to happen is that you're going to have a revelation of God as both all and the one who invites you to intimacy with him through Jesus Christ. And it requires something within us like this woman had where she comes and she just dares to risk it all because there's something inside of you that knows that you're so desperate to know God that you want, even if it feels like to you a great risk. And not knowing exactly what's going to happen, you come and you reach out and you are allowing yourself to be held by God himself.

I know I've shared this scene a number of times before, but I just can't describe one or come up with any image better than C.S. Lewis' brilliant scene in the silver chair as part of the Chronicles of Narnia when Jill, little Jill, first meets Aslan, the great lion who is the figure of Christ. And she is thirsting near to death and she sees the most beautiful, beautiful stream. And there's a big, scary lion that's next to the stream.

Here's what Lewis wrote. The lion speaks, if you're thirsty, you may drink. A voice said again, if you're thirsty, come and drink. It was deeper and wilder and stronger, sort of heavy golden voice.

It did not make her any less frightened than she'd been before, but it made her frightened in a rather different way. Are you not thirsty, said the lion. I'm dying of thirst, said Jill. Then drink, said the lion. May I?

Could I? Would you mind going away while I do, said Jill. The lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. As Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized she might as well ask the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. Will you promise not to do anything to me if I do come, said Jill. I make no promise, said the lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. Do you eat, girls, she said. I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms, said the lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were losing, nor as if it were sorry, nor if it were angry.

It just said it. I dare not come and drink, said Jill. Then you will die of thirst, said the lion.

Oh, dear, said Jill, coming another step nearer. I suppose I must go and look for another stream then. There is no other stream, said the lion. It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the lion. No one who had seen his stern face could do that. Her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she ever had to do. But she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand.

It was the coldest, refreshing water she'd ever tasted. Jesus is a living water, so refreshing, so deep, so lovely. But he is the lion of the tribe of Judah who will not leave you alone or leave you the same. He swallows up addictions. He destroys idols.

He transforms characters. He will swallow up your life, and he will make you who you're supposed to be. He's God.

The dilemma always has been this. God who is perfectly loving and perfectly giving and perfectly gracious only wanted to pour out upon humanity his blessing and favor and only wanted to show kindness. And yet this same God who is perfectly loving is utterly holy, and he is absolutely righteous and just. And he established the world according to both his love and justice. And he told his creatures that if you should disobey and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden, then you'll surely die. And because humanity sinned against God, there was a vast gulf, a great chasm between us and God, and there was a great dilemma. How could God be utterly loving and yet at the same time be honest and truthful and righteous?

Because if God had said that you would surely die and he did not fulfill his word, he would be made to be a liar, and anyone who's a liar is not righteous. And if God simply turned a blind eye to the wickedness of the world, if he simply said, well, after all, evil doesn't bother me and evil need not be punished, how could you ever say that he was a just God? You could say that perhaps he was a gracious God. You could say perhaps he was a merciful God. But you certainly wouldn't be able to say that he's a just God.

So how could God be both just and merciful? Even the angels stooped and longed to look into the mystery that was being unveiled through a thousand shadows in the old covenant and prophesied over and over by the prophets of old until Jesus came. And when Jesus came, in this one man, there was God and humanity joined together. He came close so that we could touch him and not die.

He came close because we could see him, he could be one of us, and we, like Jesus together, could know each other in our humanity. And yet he was awesome in every way, and he calmed the storms with a word, and he raised the dead, and he could not be held back by the grave. And this person Jesus came, at one moment he would be so awesome and transfigured that the disciples would be beside themselves with terror and awe. And yet this same Jesus began to teach them that he came to willingly lay down his life like a lamb, and he was led like a lamb, silent to the slaughter. He put himself into the place of being placed upon a Roman cross with a crown of thorns that pierced his brow, from which he bled. And he hung there on that cross as a stumbling block to the Jews, and a sign of weakness that no one could comprehend. For he was claiming to be God, and yet he was being killed. How could he be how could it be that this same man who was to be God and man could at the same time be both glorious and yet so utterly vulnerable?

Here is what happened. God took all the sin of the world, yours and mine, and everybody would ever trust in Christ and put that sin upon Jesus. And Jesus instead gave us his righteousness so that anyone who trusts in Christ through the miracle of the cross is invited into the very intimate presence of God. And what God did at the cross was he said, I am just and sin is being punished and wickedness is being righteously met with wrath. And yet at that same moment you never seen any greater demonstration of love than this that God the Father gave his only begotten Son and that Jesus laid down his life willingly. What I'm saying is that God in the cross became both just and justifier. God's wrath and his mercy met and through the cross we can know God both in his awesome astonishing sovereign holiness and we can know him in all intimacy. God is awesome.

He is powerful enough to deliver you from any darkness and heal any disease and transform any problem and move any mountain. And because of the cross of Jesus Christ you are invited into his lap like a toddler unto his daddy into the throne room of grace and your time of need. Anybody who really knows God will know him both in awe and intimacy and that is the gospel.

Alan Wright. Boy that gets you moving on a good day like today and it's our teaching wrapping up on this particular teaching awe and intimacy but never fear there's more in this series to come the beauty of balance hope you're enjoying it. If you've ever thought that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant shutting off your mind you're in for a wonderful surprise. God's word and God's spirit were never meant to be separated. Word and spirit always belong together.

The key to abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible. The secret isn't being filled with the spirit. The answer is both word and spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying scripture and some traditions emphasize the spirit the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both word and spirit. As someone once said all word no spirit you dry up. All spirit no word you blow up. Both word and spirit you grow up. When you make a gift of support this month we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's word and his spirit and grow like never before. With word and spirit you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastoralan.org. Alan this really reminds me of the old cowboy songwriter Stewart Hamblin who wrote the couple of lines that they come to my mind how big is God how big and wide is his domain to try to tell these lips can only start he's big enough to rule the mighty universe yet small enough to live within my heart and I think this is the beauty of the balance we have of our God. I'm so glad that he's strong enough to overcome my sin strong enough to overcome death strong enough to create and recreate with the sound of his voice and yet so sweet yeah and so kind that he would have mercy on us and every Christian can know God in both his awesome nature and his sweet nature so he is inviting us to both awe and intimacy what a gospel. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.