July 22, 2007
Morning Worship
Text: Isaiah 40:27-31
Subject: Intimacy with God
Title: What Are You Waiting For?
I want to share with you today about a topic that might scare you. I want to talk to you about relationships, specifically, your relationship with God. Relationships can be confusing.
If you think your family has problems, consider the marriage mayhem created when 76-year-old Bill Baker of London recently wed Edna Harvey. She happened to be his granddaughter’s husband’s mother. That’s where the confusion began, according to Baker’s granddaughter, Lynn.
"My mother-in-law is now my step-grandmother. My grandfather is now my stepfather-in-law. My mom is my sister-in-law and my brother is my nephew. But even crazier is that I’m now married to my uncle and my own children are my cousins."
From this experience, Lynn should gain profound insight into the theory of relativity.
Campus Life, March, 1981, p. 31.
The reason that a personal relationship can be frightening for some is because it contains a concept that, for many people, creates an image of a place where we become exposed to those around us and open ourselves to being seen at our most basic level – the inner man. I’m talking about the word “intimacy”. For many intimacy is just a word that is used but not one that has truly been experienced. Webster’s dictionary defines “intimacy” as, “the quality or state of being intimate…” and intimate is, “being on familiar especially affectionate personal terms…” One of the definitions that is also given refers to sexual relations. That is the world’s rendition of intimacy. True intimacy goes beyond the physical realm and reaches into the spiritual.
And that leads us to the place I want to take you today – intimacy with God. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I would hope that each of you would really desire to reach the place in your spiritual life where you can have the deep kind of relationship with God that could only be termed as “intimate”. You see, intimacy involves two people knowing the deepest secrets about one another. The good news is that, if you want to be in that place, you’re already half way there. God already knows your innermost thoughts. He knows what is taking place in your inner man. He knows the real you. Now for this to be a real intimate relationship you must know and understand the heart of God. You can do that!
Let’s look today at the three steps towards achieving intimacy with God.
I. THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS INTIMACY WITH GOD IS RECOGNIZING THAT GOD KNOWS YOU. (27-28) I believe that the world is divided into three categories of people. #1 - There are people who deny the very existence of God or at the very least do not want to make the effort to find out if there is a God. These are the people of whom the Psalmist speaks in Psalm 53:1, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” #2 - These people believe that there is a God but deny that He is willing to be involved in their lives. Psalm 8:4, “What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” People deny that God desires to be intimate with mankind because to them it just doesn’t make sense. 27Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my just claim is passed over by my God”? Even though God has revealed Himself as a loving and caring God throughout history man’s “intelligence” stands as a roadblock to intimacy. #3 – This group of people know God’s nature and His desire for intimacy. 28Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. Isaiah is asking the question, “After all that God has done to make Himself known to mankind, how can you doubt?” I had a conversation with an acquaintance the other day. I asked him if he had a church home. His response was, “I find God in the creation – in nature – and that is good enough for me.” Then I asked him this question. “Did you ever stop to consider the kind of relationship that God wants to have with you? By saying that you can sense God better in nature than in church is saying that you want a relationship with God but that you want it on your terms. And those terms are rather one-sided because all that happens in nature is that you can know there is a God. God isn’t going to teach you about your sin by you looking at a mountain. He won’t show you your need for a Savior by displaying the stars in the night sky. You’ll never know that Jesus died on a cross for your sin by listening to the sound of the sea crashing on a rocky shore. And you’ll never hear a rosebud tell you, “Jesus is alive.” Nature will never tell you that His understanding of you is more than you can ever fathom. He knows you better than you know yourself. The first step towards intimacy with God is confessing that. Hebrews 11:6, “6But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
II. THE SECOND STEP TOWARDS INTIMACY WITH GOD IS UNDERSTANDING THAT HE WILL HELP YOU IN YOUR WEAKNESSES. (29-30) I love the story in Mark 9 about the dad who brings his son to the disciples to cast out a demon. It didn’t happen… But God, in His desire to display His perfect love for us, didn’t back down from a seemingly impossible situation. 17Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit. 18And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.”
19He answered him and said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me.” 20Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.
21So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?”
And he said, “From childhood. 22And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
23Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
24Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” How can we get to the place where we can overcome our own weaknesses and move into that deep intimacy we desire to have with God? I think the dad’s response in Mark 9:24 tells us more than we realize. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! This guy wants to have the faith to trust God but his mistake is that he wavers between God’s power (Lord, I believe) and his own faith (help my unbelief). In order for us to gain the kind of intimacy with God we want and I know He wants us to have, our focus must always be on Him. If we strive to know how great, how powerful, how wonderful and how magnificent He is, it is natural for us to take the next step into a deeper relationship with Him knowing that as we do He will further manifest Himself to us. Verse 30 explains what happens when we focus on our human strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall… Ephesians 6:10, “10Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might…” When we trust Him and Him alone to be the perfect one in this relationship, He will take us deeper. There’s no mountain He can’t move. There’s no situation He can’t overcome. There’s no one He will refuse if you will just believe that “HE IS” and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”
III. THE FINAL STEP TOWARDS INTIMACY WITH GOD IS TAKING TIME TO BE WITH HIM. (31) But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength… Let’s do a quick word study on the word translated “wait”. It is the Hebrew word qaòvaòh (kaw-vaw) and it means to bind together (perhaps by twisting), that is, collect; (figuratively) to expect:—gather (together), look, patiently, tarry, wait (for, on, upon). So let’s get a clearer picture of what Isaiah is saying.
1) They that bind themselves together on the Lord…
2) They that expect the Lord to do something…
3) They that gather together…
4) They that look upon the Lord…
5) They who are patient…
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…
I speak to you a lot about walking in the Spirit or living under God’s anointing. What that really means is that you have a continual awareness of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life at all times. That is true intimacy with God. You know you can talk to Him at any time. You know He hears your voice and you take the time to hear His voice. That constant sense that the Lord is right there with you at all times will lead you into the deepest intimacy that you could ever experience. Now before you start thinking about what you have to do to get there consider this; When you are binding yourself to Him, gathering together, expecting something to happen, looking upon the Lord; when you are patient, when you wait on the Lord always consider who He is before you think about what you have done. There is a song from one of the Veggie tales videos that talks about how big God is. You were lying in your bed,
You were feeling kind of sleepy,
But you couldn’t close your eyes because the room was getting creepy.
Were those eyeballs in the closet?
Was that Godzilla in the hall?
There was something big and hairy casting shadows on your wall.
Now your heart is beating like a drum,
Your skin is getting clammy,
There’s a hundred tiny monsters jumping right in to your jammies!
Bob: What are you going to do?
Junior: I’m going to call the police!
Bob: No. You don’t have to do anything!
Junior: What? Why?
Bob: Because...
God is bigger than the boogie man.
He’s bigger than Godzilla and the monsters on TV.
Oh, God is bigger than the boogie man,
And he’s watching out for you and me.
Junior:
..So when I’m lying in my bed,
And the furniture starts creeping,
I’ll just laugh and say "Hey! Cut that out!"
And get back to my sleeping.
’Cause I know that God’s the biggest, and He’s watching all the while,
So when I get scared, I’ll think of Him, close my eyes and
smiiiiiiiiiiiiile!!!
God is bigger than the boogie man.
He’s bigger than Godzilla and the monsters on TV.
Oh, God is bigger than the boogie man,
And he’s watching out for you and me.
Once you have concluded that your God is bigger than any obstacle that you will ever face, then the door to intimacy opens wide. It is when you approach the Lord with that attitude that you will mount up with wings like eagles. When you confess that God is all-powerful you will draw your strength from Him and run and not be weary. When you abide under the shadow of His wings you can walk by faith and not by sight and never faint.
It’s time to stop and ask yourself this question. How intimate am I with God? Do you understand that God knows you and every problem that you have and He wants to take you through it?
Do you know that God sees your weaknesses and He wants to make you strong in the power of His might?
Do you get it, that all God wants from you is for you to take time to worship Him and spend time in conversation with Him? That’s what prayer is.
Those are the three steps towards building a lasting intimate relationship with the Living God.
There are so many invitations in the Bible where God is saying, “Come” That’s all. It doesn’t matter how much baggage you have. It doesn’t matter whether you are saved or not. If you aren’t God is saying Come and be saved. “Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
If you are saved this morning, Come and find rest in Him. Worship Him. Confess His holiness. Worship His awesomeness. Celebrate His Grace..
Enter into intimacy with the Living God.
