Experiencing God

Written by Ed Allen
Saturday, 07 October 2000 19:00

Ephesians: Christianity for Dummies

God longs for us to really experience Him. And inevitably our hearts, our minds, our wills, our whole lives are changed by such an encounter. For example, the Bible talks matter-of-factly about hearing the voice of God. It witnesses to being safe in God’s strong arms. It speaks of being delivered by God. It encourages us to delight ourselves in the Lord. It tells us to taste and see the Lord, that He is good. All of these are different ways of expressing God’s deep desire to be experienced by us. God longs to really reveal Himself to us and in doing so, to bless us. I like what one Christian author said: “Christianity is not, and never has been, about finding the right combination of words! It is about encountering the living and loving God.” (Alister McGrath) God longs for us to really experience Him.

And that explains Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians at the end of Chapter 1. In the first part of the chapter, he laid out a clear picture of God’s activity on our behalf. He has shown his prayer, Paul recognizes that the Christians in the ancient city of Ephesus have demonstrated faith in God and love for one another. But he longs for them to experience much more. He prays for them, he longs for them to really experience the glorious Father, the awesome power that raised Jesus from the dead. Let’s listen in.

Ephesians 1:15-21

(15) For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, (16) I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. (17) I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. (18) I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, (19) and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, (20)which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, (21) far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

God longs to be experienced by us.

• Good news for those of you who did not grow up in dead churches
  • - never exposed to the idea that this stuff is not really real, not to be taken too seriously.
  
  
• Arresting news for those of you who did grow up in dead churches, but knew there was something more
  • - some of you have been experiencing God in a real way in your life lately and it’s exciting to watch.
  
  
• Challenging news for those of you who have been around the faith for a long time
  • - it is easy to grow accustomed to living out of a past experience with God
  • - or out of someone else’s experience.
  • - But God longs for you to experience Him.
  
  

God longs for us to know him.

• God is not satisfied when we know things about Him. He longs for us to know Him. He wants us to be connected to Him in a personal relationship. Knowing things about God without knowing him personally is like:
  • being in a dark room, buying a lamp and not plugging it in, or
  • being in a cold room building a fireplace and not lighting a fire in it.

How do you experience Him?

• I must warn you. There is a built-in frustration to this lesson. Knowing that God longs for us to experience Him begs the question "HOW?". How do you experience Him?
  
  
• And the answer frustrates us because we cannot experience God in any of the usual ways.
  • There is no instrument you can use to measure Him;
  • there is no map you can use to locate his exact position;
  • there is no recipe you can follow.
  
  
• If we are to experience God, He must reveal Himself to us in a way that we can understand.
  • That’s why the author prays that God would "give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation"
  
  
• If we are to experience God, He must enlighten us in a way that we can see Him.
  • "eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
  
  
• Experiencing God depends on God showing Himself to us.
  
  
• And when we experience God, we experience...
  • Hope
    To which He has called us. This hope, once understood, does not disappoint.
  • Wealth
    Our future inheritance is vast. It is everything for which our hearts long.
  • Power
    The power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us.
  
  

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

A few hints:

1. Pray for an experience with God -- that’s what Paul does!
   
   
2. Recognize God -- He’s all around us!
   • Paul doesn’t pray that they will be taken to a new place; but that they will have new eyes to see the place they’re already in.
   
   
3. Recognize that an experience with God is an "other-worldly" experience!
   • Hope -- in heaven
   • Riches -- that will be ours when we get there
   • Power -- that will secure our arrival, secure our future
   • What we long for is typically a "this-world" encounter with God: healing, miraculous display. God does these things, but they are never the point. In fact, these things always point beyond themselves.
   
   

Some of you grew up Baptists. Came to think of experience with God as an emotional experience. But for many of you these emotional experiences did not change your life.

Some of you grew up Catholic. Came to think of experience with God as sacramental experience. But for many this did not touch you in any real way. It was empty ritual.

God longs for you to really experience Him. Recognize that He is here. Recognize that your heart longs for what this world cannot provide and an experience with God is an experience outside of this world. Now let’s pray that God will come. That He will invite us into His presence. That He will open the eyes of our hearts.