Message 1: Encountering God’s Person SUGGESTED PASSAGE: EXODUS 3:1-14 MESSAGE GOAL: The goal of this message is that you and your church, Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, individually and collectively, will experience a life-transforming the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of divine encounter as we meet God at our burning bush. the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was INTRODUCTION: burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. 3 So Moses Far too many Christians have a relationship with God that is said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why more like a flicker of a candle than the brilliance of the noonday the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the LORD saw that he turned sun. What we need is a fresh encounter, an experience with the aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and Most High God. 5 said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, One of the most famous encounters in Scripture is when Moses “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, meets God at the burning bush. Moses is eighty years old at 6 for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He this time. He has spent forty years in the court of Egypt as the said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the adopted son of Pharaoh and forty years in the wilderness as God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for a lowly shepherd after killing an Egyptian slave master in a he was afraid to look at God. misguided attempt to liberate his people, the Israelites. 7 The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people So, when we find Moses in Exodus 3, there is a forty-year who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of gap between his misstep and his encounter with God. He 8 their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have has gone from the spotlight in Egypt to following sheep come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, in a remote desert, a lowly profession in the biblical world. and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious Life certainly had not worked out the way Moses must have land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the thought it would. Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 9 Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Are you here today feeling like you are just leading sheep? Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression That is, life is not working out like you had hoped it would. with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Something happened years ago, and now you are wondering around behind sheep. If you could go back and change 10 Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that whatever happened to put you there, you would do it. But you 11 you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” But can’t, so you’re just leading sheep, doing the best you can with Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and what you’ve got. that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to I have some good news for you today, particularly if you’re in you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the a wilderness with sheep. Even though it had been forty years, people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” God had not forgotten Moses. And He has not forgotten you, even though it may seem like it as you perform your routine 13 Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of day-to-day tasks and watch the clock and the calendar go Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent by. But the good news is that there is still hope for a fresh me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What encounter with God. shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” TonyEvans.org | LoisEvans.org SERMON POINTS: • Some people will never burn for God because they are 1. IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A DIVINE ENCOUNTER WITH wearing “evangelical asbestos suits.” GOD, YOU NEED TO HANG OUT WHERE HE IS. • People like this don’t want to get too close to God’s holy fire lest His spark catch them on fire. • A lot of people who say they want an experience with God • We have to deal with sin because many of us are too don’t want to hang out with where He is located. “Egyptianized.” We have too much of the world in us. • If you want to pursue God’s Person, you must be willing to • God doesn’t want to tell us His plan for lifting us to a new go into God’s presence. level in our Christian lives until we have had an encounter • As long as we insist on a long-distance relationship with with Him and dealt with the sin that is holding us back. God, that is precisely what we will have, but it will be absent a true encounter with Him. 4. IF YOU WANT A DIVINE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD, YOU MUST COME TO HIM ON HIS TERMS. 2. ONE WAY YOU KNOW YOU’RE ABOUT TO HAVE A DIVINE ENCOUNTER IS WHEN GOD PRESENTS YOU WITH • God is the personal, self-revealing God whose name is “I A CONTRADICTORY SITUATION. AM WHO I AM,” who sits outside of time in eternity. • This means that no matter how long you have been leading sheep, I AM can deal with your situation and • Throughout the Bible, we see contradictions occurring restore the years that have been lost if you will depend when God shows up—things that are not operating completely on Him. according to their normal flow. • This is why there is no room in the Christian life for the • Many of us have missed an encounter with God because pride that says, “I can do this myself.” we ignored His contradiction. • Having an authentic encounter with God doesn’t mean • If you are seeking God and something happens that your problems are over; you’ll still have to face your doesn’t make sense, don’t ignore it—turn aside and Pharaoh. investigate it further. • But when you face your Pharaoh, I AM is going to be your • The Bible says that when you respond to what God has power, your deliverer, your sustainer and your victory, done, He will give you more (Matthew 13:12). because “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the • It’s easy to talk about wanting a fresh encounter with God, world” (1 John 4:4). but He wants to see us turn aside and seek Him, not just talk about it. • If you will call out to God in the midst of your contradiction, He will answer because He responds to His name being called. 3. YOU CANNOT HAVE A DIVINE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DEAL WITH SIN. • When you come into God’s presence, you are standing on holy ground. • Moses’ shoes represented the collective dirt of sin that has to be put aside before you can go any further in an encounter with a holy God. TonyEvans.org | LoisEvans.org SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS: QUOTES BY DR. TONY EVANS: REMOVING SHOES FOR WORSHIP “A rhema word is an utterance with your name on it. The Perhaps you have seen pictures of the long lines of shoes question is, do you hear it as being for you? Do you hear God outside of a Muslim mosque. A person has to take his shoes calling your name in the wilderness that has been an extended off before he can enter the mosque because it is considered place for you? When God grabs your undivided attention, you’ll a holy place and the people coming in have been walking experience what we call in theology, God’s shekinah glory all over town collecting dirt on their shoes. But they are when He manifests Himself.” not allowed to bring that dirt into their place of worship. How much more should we who worship Yahweh treat His “People put on asbestos suits so they don’t catch fire. Some of presence as holy. us will never burn for God because we really don’t want to get that close to the fire. We’re satisfied with services, seminars, BACKGROUND BIBLICAL HISTORY AND CULTURE: programs and preaching, but we don’t want to catch fire.