A Fresh Encounter with God - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, May 31st. If you long for a renewed closeness with Christ, today's program helps you understand and embrace the overflow of a fresh encounter with God. 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.

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 need he's not already provided. You can't hurt without him knowing it. You can't be sick without him knowing it. 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, is he an intimate friend or is he a distant somebody that you serve and sort of worship? 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? 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 realize that God is, 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 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? Here's what I want to ask you. Who do you love the most? The heroes of the world that are on drugs, alcohol, married 20 times, you name it, the ungodly lives they live.

Is that what you want to satisfy you? When you can be alone with Christ. He's not a phantom. He's not an imaginary thing.

He is somebody real, willing to encounter with you if you give him some time. The second thing I want you to notice is this, in this passage the Bible says in verse 2, Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, two he covered his feet, two he flew. And he called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory. Now, the second thing you can expect in an encounter with Christ is this, and that is an awareness of his holiness. He spoke of these two Seraphim.

It's the only time in the Bible that I mention they're angelic beings that God created. Now, here he said, two covered their eyes, their face, so as not to look upon the holiness of God. Two covered their feet, a sign of their being humble before him and modest before God.

And two with wings ready to serve him to execute his will and his judgments. And he said the whole place was full of smoke, and the whole place was filled with this robe. And he said he heard them crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Holy, the Father, holy, the Son, holy, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, holy, holy, holy.

Let me ask you something. Do we live in a holy society? The most unholy. But when there's an encounter with God through his Son, Jesus Christ, there's going to be an awareness of his presence. And with the awareness of his presence is going to come an awareness of his holiness, which leads me to the third thing that happened to him. And he said in this fifth verse, having seen the Lord Jesus Christ in his lofted position, in his holiness, he said, woe is me.

For I'm ruined because I'm 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. That is, you and I can expect a sense of our own unworthiness when we have an encounter with Christ, a sense of our own unworthiness. And what Isaiah is simply saying to us here is for himself and so often for us, there will be those times when we have an encounter with him. And what happens is we begin to see our sense of unworthiness.

And the more intimate we are with him, the easier that is to see. Then I want you to notice what he said. He said not only was he a man of unclean lips and he says, woe is me for I'm ruined because I'm a man of unclean lips. And you see unclean lips symbolize that his actions and his attitudes were not right because out of our mouth we speak what we think and how we feel and our actions are going to follow.

And he says, I dwell among people of unclean lips and what had happened was he'd allowed his environment to rub off on him. Let me ask you this now. Let's be honest. You don't have to answer it for me, but for yourself.

In your vocation, your office where you work, wherever you work, would you be deadly honest about this question? Are you rubbing off on them or are they rubbing off on you? Are you coloring them or are they coloring you?

Are you influencing them or are they influencing you? You see, he says, woe is me because I am in a miserable, wretched condition. He says, unclean lips, I live among people of unclean lips. He says, how do I know this, because mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts in the presence of holy God. Our sins are magnified till they become what they really are and then we must deal with them. But if I can stay busy enough and I can run long enough that I don't have to deal with the Lord Jesus Christ, maybe I can escape it only to my great displeasure ultimately.

Listen to what else he said. 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 with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. One of the things you and I can expect in an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ is, listen, the awareness of the forgiveness of our sins. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't come to you and to me in our relationship with Him just to condemn and condemn and condemn.

But to do what? To remind us of His forgiveness. He always brings us back to the cross.

Let me ask you this. When is the last time you thought about, you contemplated, you meditated on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the shedding of His blood for you and you wept about it? That you were so overwhelmed with gratitude and thanksgiving for what He had done that you just wept. Because you see, the greatest act in human history in the mind of Almighty God was the crucifixion of His Son.

The greatest act. It was the most grievous act in the life of Almighty God of everything that has ever happened was the crucifixion of His Son. That doesn't move you. That doesn't stir you. That doesn't evoke gratitude and thanksgiving. You've never gotten on your knees and cried out to God and just thanked Him and thanked Him and thanked Him for dying on the cross for you and shedding His blood and atoning for your sin and making it such that that atonement is working today after two thousand years and that your sins are paid for in full even now? You mean that doesn't move you?

That doesn't stir you? Then what you have to ask is, Lord, am I intimate with you or have I grown so religious? Have I grown so super spiritual that I'm above weeping and I'm above tears and I'm above those emotional feelings and getting all fired up about the cross and the blood of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the second coming, all those things that settle. But you see, I've become so intellectual now those things don't really matter, then my friend, you really need an encounter with Christ. Because you see, the more that you understand, the more grateful we ought to be. And somebody says, well, you know, you should grow out of crying.

Well, that may be one viewpoint, but I'm going to tell you what I believe about that. The more in love you are with Jesus Christ, the more tears of joy you're going to share out of pure gratitude to this man. And so we see Isaiah, he says, the angel came and put the hot coal upon his lips, symbolic of the whole religious system of sacrifices. And what is he saying to us? What's made us clean, not straightening up ourselves, but the blood of Jesus Christ shed at Calvary? The last thing I want you to notice here is what he says. He says, not only did he touch his lips and cleanse him, but then he said, 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, said me. I will not say every single solitary time because I don't think you can say that. But I believe that most of the time, one of the things you and I can expect in an encounter with Christ is He will require of us something. Aware of His presence, of His holy presence, of our sinfulness and unworthiness, of His forgiveness at the cross, usually He's going to say something that requires of us. Now sometimes those encounters are for the purpose of comforting us in times of great ordeals and great sorrow and loss. Sometimes it is to heal us.

Sometimes it is purely to bring us face to face with sin in our life and genuine repentance and a change. So often what's going to happen is that He is going to say, here's what I want you to do. And you see, when I think about so many people who are so talented and so gifted who've said, well, God never told me anything or God's never spoken to me. Then I'm wondering, is it because you've been so busy He couldn't?

You see, I want to say this again. He is a genuine, true, loving, intimate friend. Not a distant relative, not a stranger to a believer.

And so what does He do? He comes to deal with us and usually He tells us something about the direction of our life. You see, if I were in the process of making a decision for my life at this time and I didn't know what I was going to do about my vocation. I didn't know what I was going to do about my major in school or maybe I lost my job or whatever it might be.

Friend, I wouldn't be in the ads trying to get a job quickly. I would be on my face saying, Lord, let me be aware of Your presence. Surface anything in my life that's not right. Let me thank You for Your forgiveness. And God, I just want to hear from You. I want to do exactly what You say do. You see, nothing so pleases Him as to come to Him and to humble ourselves before Him and acknowledge our need of Him and have Him speak to us.

Audibly, I doubt it. Through His Word primarily or in prayer, He'll impress your spirit in a very specific, clear, distinct fashion. You don't have to wonder what to do and fumble your way through life and just figure one day, where is God?

I can tell you, He is right there, ready and willing to listen and to confront and to give us a sense of direction. Well, I think about so many of you who are young people and in your twenties and you've got your whole life before you if you live a normal life. Friend, listen, don't spend your life and waste it out yonder somewhere doing your thing until finally you decide to let God in on it. Listen, the wisest, most intelligent, brilliant thing you could possibly do at this point in your life is to make a full, complete surrender of your life to Christ and ask Him, Lord, what do You want to do with my life? You help me set goals for my life. You guide me in the direction You want me to go. God is ready to meet your needs.

Listen, He loves you and He wants to. And when I think about the millions of young people on drugs and alcohol and sex and wrecking and absolutely ruining their lives and shutting down God's great plan for their life before they reach the age of eighteen. Tragedy of tragedies of tragedies of tragedies. But I want to tell you something more tragic than that is to walk into this church week after week or to listen on the radio and disregard what you hear. And decide in spite of everything you hear, you're going to do it your way. You're going to try little drugs and try a little alcohol and try a little sex. And you're going to decide what you want to do with your life. And you'll call on God when you need Him, but stay out of my life until I do. I want to tell you, here's what you're doing. You absolutely shut the door, slammed the door on God's great exciting will for your life. That is the most foolish thing you can do.

If I'd heard this sermon, I hope I would be smart enough to say, God, I'm not sure I quite understand all of what it means to have an encounter. But I want it and I want you to have all of my life and I choose to give it to you, God. And I'm going to wait for you to speak to my heart and I'm going to wait for your direction in my life. Don't ruin your life before it ever gets started. Did you know that there are millions of people who ruin it before it ever gets started? And the reason they do is because they come to the helm of the ship of life and they decide they are going to guide their life.

Through the storms, around the rocks. And what happens is not 99 percent, but 100 percent crash sooner or later. I want to say to you, if you're a young person, the smartest, wisest, most brilliant, intellectual, intelligent thing you can do is to surrender your life to the Lord Jesus Christ now. Whether you are nine, 19 or 29, now. Absolutely now. And begin to develop an intimate relationship with Christ while you're young. Don't wait till you're old to do it.

Now. Then you have your whole life to learn. Your whole life to experience.

Your whole life to allow God to bless you all of your life. And all you have to do is make a decision. You say, but you don't know my circumstances.

It doesn't make any difference. I know Christ. And I know what He'll do in your life if you'll let Him. You see, listen to me.

I know some folks are hurting bad. Some of you have already messed it up in so many ways. You say, what do I do? You ask God to forgive you and I'm sure you probably already have done that. Thank Him for His forgiveness and say to Him, Lord, above everything else, I want to know you. Because you see, listen, that isn't some theological idea, knowing God. But knowing Him is building an intimate relationship with someone who'll walk with you and guide you and lead you and give you wisdom and provide every single need.

Listen, in this life, all of us have four and a half strikes against us. We need Christ. Some of you grew up in homes. Your parents are not Christians. They can't help you. Some of you grew up and your parents left before you ever knew them. You've never known them.

They can't help you. But the Lord Jesus Christ can. And all I challenge you to do is simply this. He loves you, wants to have an intimate personal relationship with you, wants to bless you, wants to provide your needs, wants you to succeed in life. I'll just ask you one question. Are you available to meet with Him and to listen to Him?

And are you wise enough to obey Him? Thank you for listening to part two of A Fresh Encounter with God. As In Touch Ministries continues to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, we'd like to encourage you to visit our 24-7 web radio station. Join us anytime at InTouch.org for great biblical teaching and encouragement. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.