Biblical Perspectives On Encounters With God Series

Encounter With God Part 1

Biblical Perspectives on Encounters

A video version of this message can be seen at https://youtu.be/_BuzSsNHZ_I

Good morning.

Some of you know my conversion story. You can watch my full conversion story in YouTube. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvpxU6D-asM ). I am not going to tell you the whole story right now, but let me make a confession. When I first started to go to church, it was more for the samosa and tea than for anything spiritual. My association with the Church started by me being the chauffer for my wife. To drop her and bring her back from the Church. Now when I say chauffer, don’t get any high ideas, it was a 100 cc motor bike (Hero Honda CD 100, for those of you know the older 100 cc bikes) that I used for these regal journeys. I used to drop her at the gate and then go and pick her up from the gate of the church. After sometime, I started feeling comfortable enough to go a little early and start joining their post service fellowship. Admittedly, purely for the samosas and tea that were served during the fellowship. I will stop my testimony here. If any of you are interested in hearing the full story, watch the YouTube video or speak with me later.

You might be wondering why I started with a not-so- spiritual part of my testimony this morning. Well, there is a good reason. Now that I have confessed, that my going to church has always not been for spiritual reasons, I want to ask you a question. What is your reason for coming to Church Sunday after Sunday?

We all have different reasons for coming to Church isn’t it? And some of them are really great reasons. To worship God, to pray, to listen to the message, to fellowship with others etc. This morning, God has placed in my heart to explore together with you one great reason for coming to Church. That is to “Have an encounter with God”

I want to thank Pastor Augustine Bhasker for trusting the pulpit with me for the next six weeks. I will be preaching a series on this topic of Encounter with God. Today I have titled my message “Biblical Perspectives of Encounters”. God willing, next week we will look at the topic of “Personal encounter with God- A life Changing Experience” and the last week of the series we will dig into “Impact of an Encounter with God in our lives”.

This message (and this series) is equally applicable to leaders. One cannot truly be a Servant Leader without having an encounter with God. So whether you are looking at growing spiritually in Christ or you are pursuing a leadership journey of leading like Jesus, this series will help you. Let us jump in.

The first Biblical Perspective of an encounter is this; we might completely miss the point. Let us look at someone who almost missed the whole point. Let us look at Jacob. Genesis Chapter 27 is a story that reads like a Bollywood movie script. Plotting, cheating, Fraud, anger, vow of vengeance, murder plot etc. All that is missing is some songs and running around the trees. Jacob is far from a perfect man. He gets the blessing of his father through a fraudulent action, in connivance with his mother, and as a result, has to run away from the presence of his brother who he cheated. But on the way to his uncle’s place a beautiful thing happens to Jacob. He has his first encounter with God. He is weary, he is tired, and he is afraid and unsure of his future. He finds a stone for his pillow and lies down to take rest. And then he dreams of an event that is come to be known as Jacob’s ladder, the stairway to heaven and the LORDs promises to him (Genesis 28:12-15). And when he wakes up, Jacob realises a simple truth that many of us might need to be reminded of. Genesis 28:16 (NKJV) Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it." Surely, the LORD is in this place and I did not know it. Jacob was obviously not referring to just the night before. The LORD was with him all through his life and he did not know it. He was trying to reach his life goals all by himself through fraudulent means. He was trying to make his life a success through his own efforts. He was trying to get blessings from the LORD through cheating. All this time, while the LORD was with him and the blessings of the LORD was always with him, just that he did not know it.