Union: Finding Intimacy with Jesus
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1. Enjoying God
1. Enjoying God
We were made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. However most people, even most Christians do not experience true intimacy with God. Enjoyment means pleasure.
Where do you turn to find pleasure? Wherever you are turning may be an indicator of an idol you chasing as a substitute for true enjoyment. God’s Word has numerous commands about sin and idolatry. One reason God communicates so much on areas of sin is because He knows they will never satisfy the longing of our souls.
A finite pursuit can never satisfy an infinite desire.
Examine your desires? What longing lies underneath them?
We live in a world where the message is get as much sex as possible. Our culture sexualizes nearly everything. TV programs, Advertising, Magazines are all filled with sexual messages.
But here is the confusion, sex is pleasurable. God created it. He made it something good but it is not who we are or where we will ultimately find what our soul longs for. Pornography, Sex clubs, Same Sex attraction, lust, all seem to offer a path to fill the hunger in our souls. But we were made for something greater - INTIMACY.
Intimacy to be fully known and fully loved and in response to fully love and fully know another. Intimacy requires real union, not just sex.
What do you want most?
Do you want God or do you just want His blessings.
We are going to look at Exodus as an exploration of what intimacy with God truly looks like.
In God makes an incredible offer to Moses and to Israel that Moses at least is wise enough to decline.
English Standard Version Chapter 33
The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
2. Elevating Jesus
2. Elevating Jesus
3. Embracing Jesus Identity
3. Embracing Jesus Identity
The message of the world around us is find your identity in your appetites. The culture communicates that you are what you desire and that what brings your please and a sense of significance is who you are.
But God’s Word tells us we are much more than that. We are more than defined by what we want. Who we are is a child of God adopted by the work of Jesus to enjoy the full intimacy of a child fully known and fully loved by God the Father.
Many people see there identity through their desires or through what gives them a sense of control and value.
A person may state “I am a Vegan!” And in that statement a sense significance and control is brought forth. Eating vegetables is a good thing, a very good thing in fact. But if it controls who we are it is an idol.
We are more than our apnetitites. My message for you today is do not settle for so little to define you.
One of the prevailing messages of our day is you are your sexual attraction. God created sex as a gift to be enjoyed in marriage that is to point us to a greater gift and a greater joy - union with Christ.
4. Enriched in Community
4. Enriched in Community
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