An Encounter With God As He Is

AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD AS HE IS

Exodus 3:1-6; 14

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. 2And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. 4And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. 5And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. 6Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

14And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

God; is able to arrange encounters with Himself, when we least expect it and in surprising ways. God can get an encounter with us anytime He wants to. But you and I need to understand that there are many things in life that can become a substitute for an authentic encounter with God. There are things in life that can become idols, keeping us from an encounter with rather than a means leading to an encounter with God.

And let me just say to you that no encounter with a religious personality equals an encounter with God.
As an evangelical people we are atavistic (we’re busy). But religious activity can become a nerve gas that keeps us from an encounter with God.
Religious emotions are not an encounter with God. We need to feel deeply and express energetically, but in their authenticity these are the results of an encounter with God, not a substitute.
Religious institutions are not substitutes for an encounter with God. The church, the Bible College, the Seminary, the Divinity School can become a place of idolatry if we confuse that place with an encounter with God.

Many things in life can become idols that keep us from “AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD AS HE IS.”

One of the great records of an encounter with God is this theophany in Exodus chapter 3. But, this is one of those texts, in which the familiarity with dulls us. Some texts like this are like coins passed from hand to hand until the distinctness of the image is rubbed off of them. We have over heard them until we no longer hear them. But we should ask God the Holy Spirit to make it live for us again. Now, there are several things nestled in this text, and I want you to help me as I do my feeble best to unpack what has been packed into this text. You are going to help me aren’t you? First of all there is,

I. THE PREPARATION FOR AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

Moses’ preparation included an experience of devastation; a spirit of isolation, a spirit of humiliation and then he met God. And the same preparation that ready Moses for a meeting with God readies us for a meeting with God.

a) Moses Encountered God Out of a Spirit of “DEVASTATION.”

If you were to count the devastations in history; certainly, the change in Moses’ anticipation and his situation was one of the greatest devastations. For forty years he lived as a prince in Egypt. Now, historians, tell us that the Pharaoh of Egypt was carried around in a sedan chair everywhere he went; he never walked, he was carried about as the s-o-n of the s-u-n; the incarnation; the apotheosis of the sun god. And Moses, as a prince, would have received the same kind of adulation and treatment. Everyday as a member of the royal household, Moses would have been manicured, pedicured, bathed, massaged and oiled as a son of Pharaoh. He knew what it was to walk down the lapis lazuli hallways of Pharaoh’s palace; to see the Malachite that inlaid the floors and the walls; to walk out on the famous golden balcony. He knew what it was like to attend under-graduate and graduate school in military science, political science, algebra, astronomy, and engineering. He was the crème de le crème! Until one day he did the right thing the wrong way. He tried to pull off an exodus by killing an Egyptian. And in that one moment there was devastation. He went from the palace to the pasture. He went from dinning at Pharaoh’s table to ruminating with sheep. He went from the adulation of the multitude to absolute anonymity. And he experienced devastation. But not only was it an experience of devastation,

b) It Was an Experience of Incredible “ISOLATION.”

He led the flock to the back of the back of the desert. In those days, like the Bedouins today, when the weather was cool and the grass was growing in the low lands; they would graze the sheep in the lowlands. But when the sun began to seethe in the heaven above and simmer their sandals and the sand on their feet, they would have to take the sheep up into the craggy highlands of the horrid mountain chain. There fed by subterranean sources of Artisan water, sparse grass grew. And the sheep devastatingly hungry would seek the grass. And Moses had gone to the back of the back. Horeb was the region; Sinai was the peak. And for forty years he set in the quietness of isolation.

In quietness and isolation, God prepared him. Sometimes God makes us get away from the noise, into the silence! Takes us away from the crowd into aloneness! Gets us out of a hurry and into stillness! Because he wants to get us ready to meet Him. When God wants to prepare us for an encounter with Him, He puts us in isolation. If you want to encounter God, seek a Sinai; have a Horeb, and be isolated with God. When God wants to have “AN ENCOUNTER” with us,

c) He Takes Us to A Place of “HUMILIATION.”

Beyond the devastation and the isolation; here was this 80-year-old prince of Egypt, for forty years living in the humiliation of what had been; he’s now the assistant shepherd to his father-in-law. He had the shortest résumé in history, 40 years prince, and 40 years assistant shepherd. In that day all of your wealth, your equity, and your security, was your flock. He had nothing; he was an assistant shepherd.

My sisters and brothers, life can lead us from places of desolation to isolation to humiliation in preparation for “AN ENCOUNTER” with the living God. And if you are here today and you say I feel devastated, I feel isolated, I feel humiliated: then you’re in a position to meet God. That’s how God did it when He sent His son. Was there anything more devastating than for a teenage maiden heavy laden with child, accompanied by an older man, to have no where to lay her head, and then after her son is born to have to flee to Egypt to get away from Herod. Devastation! Isolation—the Son of God grew up in Nazareth, a place so obscure it wasn’t even mentioned in the Old Testament. Joseph didn’t know of it. Humiliation—working in that carpenter shop until He was 30 years old with all of the rumors that floated around Nazareth until one day, He went down to the Jordan River; where there was a baptism service like no other in history. When the heavens split open, God said, “This is my beloved son.” That’s how God does it! But beyond the “PREPARATION FOR AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD,” let’s look at:

II. THE REALIZATION OF AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

I want to tell you today, it comes when you least expect it. Our “ENCOUNTERS WITH GOD,” come at God’s initiative and not ours. That’s why we have a religion not of discovery but of revelation. The word “revelation” means the lifting of a veil, the parting of a curtain when we weren’t expecting it.

a) God takes the initiative by arresting us where we are.

In our devastation, isolation and humiliation God shows up. The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame in the mist of a bush. That morning Moses got up, as he had gotten up for 40 years (480 months) taking the same sheep out to the same barren, sterile, bleak desert. But by God’s initiative, that day was going to be different. Do you understand that to be a person of faith means that any moment, all moments, and every moment, are moments when God can intervene, and everything will be different? As Moses was sitting there, there was a bramble bush that broke into flames. There is a tide in the affairs of men when taken at the crest leads on to destiny, but when missed we spend life in the superficial. {I hope that you are not so ministerially cynical that you do not think that you can come to a revival like this, and God not appear to you in a way that He has never appeared before}. Some of us think that God showing up is like an airplane schedule at an airport, if I miss this one, there’s one an hour later. That’s not what Jesus said, He said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth…” God is not in some prepackaged plan! He shows up in our lives when and where He will. And when He does that and the bush burns, we best, be ready.

b) God takes the initiative! Not only in arresting us but then in instructing us.

When that 80-year-old shepherd started looking at the bush, he saw that when God is in something; it can burn but not burn out. He had already experienced burn out at 40 and now at 80 God wanted to reassign him for another 40 years. One thing this 80-year-old shepherd, with an impediment of speech, needed to know was you can burn for God, without burning out.

But there was something more profound than that that he saw in that bush. What he saw was that any old bush will do when God is in the bush. Do you think that that was some spectacularly theological bush that burned that day? Was it an exquisite, well-tailored bush; no the Hebrew word ceneh (sen-eh) means it was a bramble bush; a thorn bush. I wonder if maybe God didn’t speak to Moses and say, Moses do you see that bush over there, had I wanted to I could have burned in that bush; you see that Juniper tree over there I could have ignited that bush; you see that sage colored bush, I could’ve burned…but I chose that one Moses because any old bush would do, when I’m in the bush. Never let it be said that I ever belittled credentials; God has an infinity for prepared minds. Sometimes people don’t come through the channels we expect them to, but any old bush will do when God is in the bush.

III. KNOW THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE GOD YOU ENCOUNTER AS HE REALLY IS

God identified Himself in continuity with who He had always been. “I am the God of your father.” When Amram helped put you in that river and you floated down the Nile on the promises of God, “I was there.” “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” I am the same one I was.” The God, who was then, is the God who is now! And the God, who resides over the world with Osama Ben Laden and Sudam Hussein, is the same God who dealt with Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh. We act as if some how He is new at the game. But, they’re midgets, compared to some of the others, He has dealt with. We need to understand that God is in historical continuity with who He was and who He is. We’re not dealing with God number two, when He reveals Himself to us. You’re having an encounter with the same God who burned in that bush. We encounter God not only in the historical continuity of who He is; but we also encounter Him in the immediacy of who He is. {And with this, I prepare to finish!}

God meets us always in the immediacy of the now. He says, “I AM THAT I AM…” That means that the time we meet God, is on the razor edge of this moment. We create an idol out of the God of the past. The old church over there and back there that stirs devotions of nostalgia, rather than an encounter of the living God. We anticipate the God of the future, the God of the other side, when He always comes to us as the “I AM,” the God of immediacy and of urgency. That’s why Jesus stated that incredible statement in John 8, given the context where He said it; “Before Abraham was I AM.” That’s why we relate to Him differently than anyone else.

For example, I’m a fan of Kareem Abdul-Jabar; I fell in love with him while he was at U.C.L.A.; I followed his carrier in Milwaukee and then in L. A. As a child, I would skip meals, because I wanted to be tall and skinny just like him. And I made assertive efforts to watch him every time he was on local TV. But guess what, I didn’t get up this morning and say “oh, Kareem!” For, you see, I’ve read a book about somebody else! And I got up this morning and spoke with Him, because, I have a different kind of relationship to Him. It’s a relationship of the immediacy of “I AM.”

You want to ask somebody? Ask Paul? Come in here Paul. When He met you and stopped you on that Damascus road, in the immediacy of the now, aren’t you glad you stopped? Paul says, oh, I’m so glad I stopped. Because I stopped that day, there’s a book of Romans. Because I stopped that day there’s a First and Second Corinthians. Because I stopped that day there are churches all over Asia Minor. I’m glad I stopped!

Come in here Peter. You were sitting there, a small businessman of Simon Peter and Andrew Incorporated, when He came by one day and said, “Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.” Are you glad you seized the day? Peter says, oh, I’m so glad; you wouldn’t have 1&2 Peter; I wouldn’t have preached at Pentecost, I would never have gone down to Cornelius house and broke down the wall… Oh, Peter would say, I know how many seeds are in an apple, but only God knows how many apples are in a seed.

Come in here John; you were sitting there mending your nets when He came by, what you say. John would say I’m so glad I seized the moment. I got to write the Gospel and 3 letters, and then I got to see the Revelation. I’m so glad I seized the moment; that’s why His name is “I AM.”