Meeting God

Posted by Brance on March 6th, 2005 filed in Relationships

Part 1 of the series "Relationships, God’s Way"

We must begin our discussion of relationships by defining what exactly a relationship is. Webster’s defines it this way.

• a connection, association, or involvement
• a connection between persons by blood or marriage: kinship
• an emotional or other connection between people

All three of these are important aspects of any relationship, and especially of your relationship to God. The first step in any relationship is to start it. We have to make a connection. You have to meet the other party. This week we are talking about meeting God.

Have you ever had someone introduce you to another person? Chances are, they told you a little about the person before actually introducing you. The same thing has to happen before a person can meet God. They have to be told a little about Him. The best way to learn about God is by reading His Word. Today we’ll follow what has been referred to as the “Roman Road”. It’s called that because all the verses come from the book of Romans. The apostle Paul wrote Romans, and later in the lesson we’ll take a look at Paul’s own meeting with God.

Step I

The first step on the RR (Roman Road) is:

This verse teaches us two important things. First it teaches us that God has glory. Webster’s defines glory this way.

• worshipful praise, honor, and distinction
• great beauty and splendor: magnificence

God is all these things. He is distinct, beautiful, splendid, magnificent, and worthy of praise and honor. Romans 3:23 also teaches us something about ourselves. Here’s where it starts to hurt. We learn that in contrast to God’s glory, every single person who ever lived is marked by sin. Once again turning to Webster’s, sin is defined like this.

• transgression of the law of God
• a state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God

Our sin, our breaking of God’s law (I John 3:4), separates us from God. It causes us to “fall short” of God’s glory. This implies an unbreachable distance. We cannot reach God in our sinful state.

Step II

The second step on the RR is:

Wages are earned by work. You are paid wages for your actions. We learned at Step I that we have all sinned. Here we learn that our due, what we have earned by our sinful actions, is death. You cannot earn life on your own. You can only earn death. But, God GIVES us eternal life! It’s free! This is the “Good News” people!

Now why would God give us a gift we don’t deserve and could never earn? The answer lies in the next step.

Step III

God gives us the gift of eternal life because He loves us. He showed that love by His action on the cross. Jesus Christ died for you and me. Now think about this, Jesus is perfect. He never sinned. He did not deserve death. He freely chose to pay the penalty for your sins. Remember back at the start of this lesson we defined a relationship as “a connection between persons by blood or marriage”? Now I know this is not what Webster’s had in mind, but it still applies. The blood that makes the connection between you and God is the blood of Christ. Blood He gave on the cross while dying for your sins. That’s powerful.

Step IV

The last step is found in Romans 10:9

The only action required of you to meet God and start a relationship with Him, is this. Simply believe that Jesus died for you. Believe that He rose again. Then talk to Him. Tell Him you believe. Tell Him you know you are a sinner; you know He is God, and accept His gift of eternal life. Ask Him into your life, into you heart, and you will be saved.

This is only the beginning of a great relationship. Next week we’ll explore how to continue this relationship.

Biblical Example - The Apostle Paul

Our Biblical example this week is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who later became the apostle Paul and wrote the book of Romans from which we learned the Roman Road. First let’s establish his background. He was a Jew whose Hebrew name was Saul, but he was also a Roman citizen and later chose to use his Roman name Paul. Saul was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee (Acts 23.6). As such, he was highly educated and trained in religious law. He was good at being a Pharisee. His keeping of the legalistic form of righteousness practiced by the Pharisees was faultless (Phil 3.4-6). He viewed Christians as the enemies of traditional worship and pursued them with vigor.

Destroy means:

• To ruin the structure, existence, or condition of
• To put out of existence: kill, annihilate

In other words, he was a Christian’s worst nightmare. After destroying the church in Jerusalem and scattering the Christians, he headed for Damascus to do the same. But Saul met God on his way.

There are several important points in this passage. First, God called him. As we learned at Step I on the RR, we cannot reach God in our sinful state. Second, Saul wanted to know who was talking to him from heaven. Third, Jesus said that Saul was persecuting Him. From this we learn that sin, by it’s very nature, is an offense against God (Ps. 51.4). We also see that although Saul had kept the law by man’s standards, he was still a sinner.

Steps II and III probably happened pretty quickly for Saul. Being highly educated in Old Testament law, he knew that sin was punishable by death. Jesus Himself told him that he was sinning against Jesus. He knew that sin was offence against God. Therefore he knew that Jesus was God. He was aware of Jesus death on the cross and what the Christians believed about that death being a sacrifice for our sins. It follows that if Jesus really was God, His death must have been for that purpose.

Acts 9:20-30 tells us that immediately after his conversion Saul “began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.” Not only did Saul believe in his heart, He confessed it with his mouth. He preached it. Saul had met God!