What Does It Mean To Encounter God? Series

Even though it is cold outside there is a real warmth of the Spirit in here tonight.

Tonight is Encounter Night and the format is a little different to other evening services. At the end of the service you have four options,

The first option is the option for you to remain here, sit quietly, listen to the band play some beautiful music and take the opportunity to Encounter the Lord.

The second option is for you to come forward to the front row of seats and be prayed for.

The third option, if you want to enjoy a chat and some refreshments then please go to the back hall.

The fourth option is that you can go home - and that's fine too.

So tonight is Encounter Night and I am assuming that you are here tonight because you want to Encounter the living God.

Somewhere within each of us there is a deep desire to experience an encounter with God.

And tonight you can Encounter the living God and move forward in your walk with Him.

Tonight is the night for you to move from walking with God to living for Him!

Tonight is the night for you to Encounter the living God and grow in your relationship with God.

Everyone of us needs to reach the point where our relationship with God is personal and intimate.

Tonight is about Encountering a loving God on a personal level not just singing about him.

In your life there is probably someone that you have admired or looked upto on a human level from afar.

Maybe it’s a politician, a cricket legend, a great musician, or a TV chef.

Maybe you can even talk quiet knowledgeably about them, Maybe you even Sing Their Praises.

Maybe you even met the person once and got their autograph on your hand (and you have not washed since).

But do you really know the person?

Do you know them as well as their spouses, or their family?

Listen, Having an encounter with God,

is more than a distant admiration or

an emotional 5 minutes sometime in your life.

An Encounter with the living God,

a true encounter with our Savior!

An encounter with Jesus should not just excite us;

It should change us forever!

We should come to Encounter Nights because we want a living relationship with the Lord.

A relationship that isn’t based just on “head knowledge” or “lip service”

but based on a true “heart transformation”.

Real worship isn’t just some religious method that we go through.

Its not about always playing the right note on an instrument or singing a song in tune, but

It’s having an actual encounter with the Lord of Lord, and King of Kings!

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Tonight I want us to look at a passage that clearly demonstrates what happens to a person that has an encounter with God.

In Isaiah 6:1-8, is recorded an account of when the man of God had an encounter with God.

1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

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Its an amazing moment when Isaiah says : “I saw the Lord”

He was not dreaming, He didn’t have a nightmare or vision caused by eating cheese before going to bed the night before.

He was not making up a story nor was this his imagination running riot.

Isaiah experienced a true, life-changing encounter with the Lord of Glory!

Where he was praying, like an earthquake, the doorposts and the thresholds shook.

The room filled with the smoke.

This happened and he was there.

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I was first saved when I was 17 years old,