A Fresh Encounter with God - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, May 30th. Today you'll be encouraged to reevaluate your priorities so that God doesn't get pushed aside. Here's part one of A Fresh Encounter with God. Do you ever feel that somehow your prayer life has just dried up and you've lost your joy and talking to the Lord and God doesn't seem to be answering your prayers and you think you're just wasting your time? Have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you think, well, I've heard enough of that and you're no longer excited about learning some new spiritual truth?

Have you found yourself being able to look at other people who are suffering in pain and hurting and feeling nothing? Have you found yourself enmeshed in material gain and it has become a priority in your life and what you want above everything else is to make more and more money? Have you found yourself absolutely smothered by the world's ways and before you realized that you were doing what the world's doing?

Has the world invaded your life to the degree that what you really want is to keep up with the world's fashions and what other people expect of you? Do you feel sort of distant from Christ that He's up yonder at the Father's right hand but you're way down here? Can you cheat your employer and never have a twinge of conscience? Does your conscience send out a ripple when you sin against God and used to be that it was like a tidal wave that crashed in upon you? Can you keep going to a church that the gospel is not preached and there's no power of the Holy Spirit evident and be satisfied? Then more than likely, you need a fresh new encounter with the living God. And that is the title of this message, A Fresh Encounter with God. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 6. And let me define what an encounter with God is all about. And I want to read in this sixth chapter of Isaiah an account of a prophet of God who had a fresh encounter with him and the result in his own life. And what he did in the life of Isaiah, God desires to do in the life of every single person when it comes to having an encounter.

So let's begin and let me give you a little background of what's happening. King Uzziah had been an excellent king. He served the Lord as king of Judah for 52 years. He had made Israel a bastion of military might and power.

And economically, they had become a tremendously progressive nation. But it all went to his head and one day in his pride and arrogance, Uzziah walked into the temple and he himself put incense on the altar which was a responsibility given only to the priest. And he did it in a way and God gave him a case of leprosy.

And he spent the last 12 years of his life in a house built specially for him, isolated from everyone else until he finally died of leprosy. Well the people of God just began to indulge themselves in sin and Isaiah begins this chapter with a sense of helplessness about the nation and he says, In the year that King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofted and exalted, with the train of his robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings.

With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds, that is of the temple, trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth, and with it he said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me.

And he said, Go and tell this people. And the rest of that is a message of judgment upon the people of God. Now when we talk about a fresh encounter, a new encounter with God, what are we talking about? Well an encounter is a meeting with someone or something that is either casual or unexpected. So when we talk about having an encounter with Christ, we're talking about an unexpected visit, an unexpected confrontation, an unexpected experience for the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I think about those many times in my own life and think about what they're like, first of all, you cannot manipulate an encounter with God. It is unexpected. It is unplanned.

You can't program it. It is a visitation of God in the life of a person when he wants to say something specific to that person. It is not isolated or limited to prophets of the Old Testament or the apostles of the New or preachers or servants of God today. But God is still in the process and still in the business of confronting us and encountering us at times in our life. So an encounter is a meeting with the Lord that's unexpected.

I can remember two of those that I've had that I'll recall. The speaker had finished and we began singing, Have Thine Own Way, Lord. We came to the verse that says, Hold all my being absolute sway. All of a sudden I was totally overwhelmed and overcome with awareness of the presence of God. And I knelt there at the pew and I could not wait to get out. It was like just God in myself. I couldn't wait to get out of here. I went back to the study.

I got on my knees and for three hours I wrestled with God. I knew what he was saying to me and I didn't like it. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to hear it until about three hours. I finally said, Yes, Lord, if that's what you want and that's the way you want it.

All right. One other time I was kneeling by the bed in the motel room in Florida and God just overwhelmed me with awareness of His presence to say, Here's what I'm going to do. Another time I was in a hotel room heading out the door and God just absolutely stopped me. And I was overwhelmed with His presence and knelt at the bed crying out to God to show me what shall I do. Now I could go through a long list of times in my own life when I've had personal encounters with God.

One time I was driving down the expressway and I can remember exactly where I was. It's as if the Lord Jesus was sitting by my side in the car and God said to me something very specifically. I'm telling you it was so real I wanted to look. I didn't.

But I wanted to look. The reason I say that is not to say to you, I'm going to preach to you some mystical sermon, but just simply to say, friend, don't get satisfied with the relationship to Jesus Christ that He's up there. See the Father's right hand and you're down here and never the twain shall meet or at least not very often. That isn't the way God works.

That isn't who He is. He is a loving, intimate Savior who wants to walk with you and me day by day in an intimate, warm relationship that is more intimate than a husband or wife even could possibly be because it is Spirit, divine Spirit with human spirit, the perfect Spirit of Christ with a spirit that is being transformed, likened unto His moment by moment, day by day. He desires far more from us and of us than we do of ourselves and is far more willing to make Himself known.

Those encounters can come in all kinds of times. For example, Moses was going about shepherding after 40 years on the backside of the desert. And one day with no warning whatsoever, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, that is Christ Himself, appears in a burning bush to say to Him, Moses, Moses, and He sent Him back to Egypt. It was the same God through the Holy Spirit who spoke to the Virgin Mary, going about her everyday work, mundane things in a household.

But her life was transformed, never the same. It was Christ who had spoken to Paul at Troyes when he was trying to preach the gospel there in Asia. And he saw in this vision a man who said from Macedonia, come over and help us to change the direction of his ministry.

John the Beloved was on the Isle of Patmos, he had been banished by a Roman emperor to live there forever till he died. But it was the Lord Jesus Christ who came to him in that encounter and said to him, John, write what I tell you. And that's how we got the book of the Revelation.

Is the Lord Jesus Christ just limited to Old Testament characters and New Testament characters? No. Because you see the truth is you and I have something they didn't have. We have the whole story.

They just had part of it. We've got it all. Genesis 1, 1, Revelation, last chapter, last verse. You and I have the most awesome privilege of living in an intimate, personal, warm relationship with Christ. And that's what he desires. He desires to have encounters with us, to meet us personally, to speak to us. Not simply to answer our prayer, not simply to enlighten us in some verse of Scripture, but in a personal relationship. And you see, it grieves my spirit to think about how many people go to church week after week and who are simply satisfied going to church, listening to sermons, reading the Bible, praying prayers, giving money and going home.

It grieves my spirit when I know that Jesus Christ desires to walk personally with you, intimately with you, closer than a friend, closer than a relative, closer than a husband or wife. And to be a vital part of everything that you're a part of. And to be absolutely, perfectly, intimately interested in everything that interests you.

And to care for you in every single area of your life. You can't have a care he doesn't care about. You can't be concerned about something he's not concerned about. You can't have a problem without him being perfectly aware of it.

You can't face a crisis that he's not in. You see, that's the kind of Christ he is. He is not distant. He is not out yonder. He is living on the inside of us. He said, I am abiding in you and you in me. But I want to ask you, when you think about the Lord Jesus, does he appear to be distant?

Something of a myth? Have you limited him and relegated him to Roman and Greek mythology? You see, in our society, isn't it interesting that you can still talk about God?

Nobody gets too upset. But start talking about Christ. Start talking about knowing Jesus. Start talking about Christ answering your prayer. Start talking about living for Christ. Start talking about him living on the inside of you.

Start talking about some personal testimony. And what happens? Everybody around you and oftentimes believers get fidgety. What are you embarrassed about? And yet many of you who name him and say that you're his follower and that you're a Christian, that you're a believer, the real gut level truth is you are embarrassed when someone brings up his name in the presence of your friends and the people you work with who are not saved. You get embarrassed. Why? Why get embarrassed about Christ? I want to tell you why. Because you have a distant relationship with him. When you love him and you're walking intimately with him, you know what you're going to say? Yeah, let me tell you about it.

Let me tell you what he did in my life. What difference does it make if somebody doesn't understand? What difference does it make if they don't care? And what difference does it make if they get upset and they become nervous? Listen, if I were lost and hellbound, I'd become very nervous if you start talking about Jesus Christ, my only hope for salvation.

So, friend, expect them to get nervous and upset and fidgety. Isn't it interesting how Christians will let unbelievers tell dirty, filthy, immoral, sensual jokes? Never say a word.

But they can criticize the Lord Jesus Christ and profane his name and you never say a word. My friend, is he an intimate friend or is he a distant somebody that you serve and sort of worship? And I want to ask you again, are you satisfied with what you know about Christ?

Are you satisfied with just applying some of the things that you've heard and known? Or could you say, I have a deep yearning hunger to know this man Christ. I cannot get enough of him. I want to know how to live intimately with him.

I want to know him. I want to serve him. I want my whole life to be his possession. Or do you get your greatest sense of contentment with the world's approval? Do you love what the world has to offer? Are you satisfied with the world's pleasures? Are you more interested in what the world has to offer or what God has to offer? Are you so in tune to the world's entertainment that you want to come to church and be entertained?

Or do you want to hear the truth that rivets itself into your soul and challenges and threatens your lifestyle? Because you know deep down inside, Christ isn't the friend that he desires to be. He's a distant savior and somehow you're more comfortable with his distance.

Well, that's not the way he wants to be and that's not the way he's going to be in your life and mine. And so I want us to look at this sixth chapter of Isaiah in the light of a new encounter, a fresh encounter with him. When there is this sense with him that I'm going to describe, what can you expect? Well, the first thing you can expect is an overwhelming awareness of his presence. You see, you can have an encounter with Christ anywhere, in church, at home, as we said, driving down the expressway, in your office, walking down the street.

It doesn't make any difference where. Wherever he chooses. But one of the things that you'll always be aware of is an overwhelming sense of his presence. Now listen to what happened to Isaiah. He said that he, it was the year that King Uzziah died and he saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train in the road, filling the temple. He was in the temple, either meditating or sitting there or thinking about God, whatever it might have been. All of a sudden, God gave him a vision of Christ.

Now you say, but wait a minute. John chapter 1 verse 18 says, No man has ever seen God. So what did he see? We call this a theophany. That is, he saw a manifestation of God.

And who is this? He says in John chapter 12, what Isaiah saw was he saw the glorified, living Christ. So what Isaiah sees here is Christ in his exalted position as he says, sitting upon a throne, high and lofty and exalted.

This is what he has seen. Now, is it not normal and naturally be expected when the Lord is going to speak to us in a very special way about something that we become aware of his presence? And I want to ask you, when is the last time all of a sudden you were just overwhelmed with the awareness of the presence of Christ?

Or have you relegated that again to the Old Testament or the New Testament? Listen, he says he is the same yesterday, today and forever. So why would I not expect him to make himself known to me and to overwhelm me with the awareness of his presence? There are times when I'm sitting at my desk and I'll be reading or studying something and all of a sudden I am so overwhelmed with the presence of Christ and something about him I just have to quit, walk away and get on my face and not begin to pray, but to be quiet and to listen. I don't want to say anything.

I don't want to say anything because I don't want to miss anything that God may be trying to say. Now, you know, if I'm in too big of a hurry then more than likely I'm going to miss even God. And you see, you realize that he has to compete with a lot of things in your life and mine. He has to compete with our schedule. He has to compete with the things that we love. He has to compete with our friends. He has to compete with our work.

He has to compete with all of the thousands of voices. When does God ever have any time to say, hey, I want to talk to you? When does he have any time to make you feel the awareness of his presence?

When is the last time either in church or you were doing anything when all of a sudden you just knew you were in the presence of the Lord? You say, I don't think God does those things today. Then, my friend, you just confessed your distance from him.

And I want to ask you a question. As you look at your life, don't look at anybody else's life. As you look at your lifestyle, can God even get in a little bit?

I mean, does he have any time at all? You say, well, I don't think I can remember any counters with him. Is it because your ears were so attuned to the world's voices and its sounds and its music and its athletics and it's all this other stuff that you couldn't even hear him? Thank you for listening to A Fresh Encounter with God. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.