Someone I'd Like You to Meet--Life With God Series

            I never thought I’d be able to say this, but it felt strange not to see the Royals in the playoffs this year. But even though I didn’t have the chance to cheer for them, I’ve still been able to cheer for my favorite player—Ben Zobrist of the Chicago Cubs!

            Many of you heard about my distant connections to Ben while he was playing for the Royals last year. Several members of his family attended the same Bible college that I went to, so I have some connections to his family. I’m on a first-name basis with his sisters, and I have some acquaintance with his dad, who is a fellow pastor.

            I’d be lying, though, if I said I had a relationship with Ben, because the truth is, I’ve never met him. Until that might happen, I won’t have a relationship with him no matter how many of his family members I know and no matter how much I know about him!

            For all of us, this principle holds true in every area of life—if you want to have a relationship with a person, you have to meet him first. This principle also holds true when it comes to God—if you want to have a relationship with Him, you have to meet Him first!

            Now, what’s it like to meet God for the first time? Well, that really depends on who you ask. As it turns out, you would get a very different answer to that question if you listened to the dominant idea of our culture or whether you listened to the Bible! Let’s talk about the different answers that we would receive.

What is it like to meet God for the first time?

Our culture—It’s like meeting a distant relative. There’s no reason to think we can’t hit it off just fine! I can build a closer relationship with my relative through my own efforts.

            Think about it like this—imagine meeting your third cousin for the first time. Your third cousin is someone who has the same great-great grandparents as you. I’ve never met my third cousins, but if I did, I don’t have any reason to think that we couldn’t have a great friendship from the get-go. We don’t have any bad blood between us because we’ve never even met, so it seems like we could hit off pretty well. All that seems to be required is for me to look them up and contact them. And as I long as I put in a little effort to stay in touch with them from now on, maybe it could be the start of a beautiful friendship!

            This idea of connecting with a distant relative is probably the dominant way that most people in our culture think about meeting God. They might say, “No, I’m not very close to God right now, but if I just started praying more often and going to church a bit more, me and God could get along just fine! We could probably get pretty close if I just stayed in touch a bit more!”

The Bible, though, paints a very different picture of what it’s like to meet God for the first time.

The Bible—It’s like making peace with someone whom I’ve deeply offended. Our relationship is broken, and it can only be repaired by God’s grace and mercy.

            When I’ve deeply offended someone, there are problems there that must be resolved before I can have a close relationship with that person again. And when I’ve committed the offense, I’m the one who has to ask for forgiveness. And as far as repairing that relationship, that ball really isn’t in my court. That ball is in the other person’s court – he has to decide whether he is going to extend forgiveness to me and whether he is willing to rebuild that relationship.

            According to the Bible, this is a more accurate picture of what it’s like to meet God for the first time – or to be a little more precise, we might say that this is what it’s like to meet him on friendly terms; to establish a friendship with him. We do learn in the Bible that we have always had a relationship with God, but unfortunately, it has been a broken relationship – even a hostile relationship! The Bible uses some very unflattering terms to describe what we are like in relationship to God because of our sinfulness:

·         An adulterous spouse (Hosea)

·         A rebellious child (Luke 15:11-32)

·         Lovers of darkness and haters of the light of God (John 3:19-20)

·         Following the spirit of Satan (Ephesians 2:2)

·         Ungrateful creatures (Romans 1:21)

·         Exchanged the truth of God for a lie (Romans 1:25)

·         Enemies of God (Romans 5:10)

            The reality of our broken and hostile relationship to God is why the Bible uses such dramatic word pictures to tell us what its like for us to come to be on friendly terms with God. A few of those word pictures are:

·         Moving from a state of spiritual death to a state of spiritual life (Ephesians 2:5)

·         Being forgiven of an oppressive, unpayable load of debt (Matthew 18:23-27)

·         Being freed from slavery (Romans 8:15)

·         Becoming a citizen after being a foreigner (Ephesians 2:19)

·         Moving from a domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Colossians 1:13)

·         Being crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20)

To make sure we all understand what is necessary for us to get on friendly terms with God, I’d like to focus on two more word pictures that tell us what is necessary for this to happen—one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament.

I Need a New Heart! (Ezekiel 36:22-27)

            The prophet Ezekiel ministered during the time when the Lord had allowed the people of Israel to be conquered and taken out of their land because of their sins against Him. We call this “The Babylonian Captivity” because they were taken as captives to Babylon, which was in the area that is now modern-day Iraq.

            One result of all of this is that the surrounding nations had started to really look down on the Jews and their God. They saw them as weak and powerless and thought that their god must be the same because he apparently wasn’t able to save them (though in reality, God had allowed all of this to happen as a discipline upon the people of Israel).

            In Ezekiel 36, God told the Israelites what he was going to do to restore His honor among the nations and provide forgiveness and spiritual life for the people [READ 36:22-26].

            Think about that word picture literally for a moment. If my physical heart is stone cold, then I’m dead! My heart cannot sustain life in that condition. It is the same with my spiritual heart, or my spirit. God is telling me as I read this passage that my heart cannot sustain spiritual life in its natural condition. I need a new heart, which only he can give.

            And the new heart that he gives is even a fitting place for his Holy Spirit to live! Notice verse 27 [READ v. 27].

            So here in this passage we read a very dramatic word picture that describes what it’s like to meet God. Coming to be on friendly terms with him is like receiving a heart transplant! He removes my heart which is stone-cold dead and gives me a new heart in which his own Spirit actually lives!

I Need to Be Born All Over Again! (John 3:1-7)

            One of the dominant word pictures in the New Testament for meeting God is just as dramatic as the idea of receiving a new heart. Let’s read in John 3 about an exchange between Jesus and a religious leader named Nicodemus [READ 3:1-7].

            So according to Jesus, nothing that we received in our physical birth is sufficient to give us a home in the kingdom of God. God’s Holy Spirit must give us spiritual life, which we can think of as being born all over again. We are receiving a new kind of life from a new source, the Holy Spirit.

            Don’t miss the fact that Nicodemus was a devoutly religious man! He was a Pharisee, and the Pharisees were famous for the great care that they took to obey God’s commands as closely as possible. If there ever was a man who could have been on friendly terms with God through his own efforts, it was Nicodemus! Yet Jesus told even this devoutly religious man that he needed to receive new life from the Holy Spirit if he wanted to enter the kingdom of God.

            The question before us now is, “How do we do it?” How do we come to be on friendly terms with God? How do we get this new heart; how do we receive this new life from the Holy Spirit? Well, the answer is described for us in this very same chapter – John 3. Look at verses 16-18 [READ 3:16-18]

            To receive this new life from the Holy Spirit, here is what you must do. First, you must acknowledge to God that what he says about your spiritual need is correct – that if you do not trust in Jesus, you are condemned already because you have sinned. You need to confess that you have been in rebellion against God; that you have done things you should not have done and that you should do no longer.

            And once you have admitted that God’s assessment of you is correct – that you are guilty and deserving of punishment – then you only need to accept the forgiveness that he offers to you through Jesus Christ. Place all your hope of being forgiven in what Jesus accomplished for you by dying for your sins on the cross. He, as the son of God, came into the world, died to pay for the penalty of your sins, and came to life again to achieve new life for anyone who understands their need for it and trusts him to give it to them.

            If you desire to have a closer relationship with God, you must meet him in this way if you never have before. Get on friendly terms with him today by acknowledging your guilt to him and receiving the free gift of forgiveness that he offers through Jesus Christ!