Sermon Notes 5-5-2013

Not a fan!

Sermon three: Intimacy, Say What???

Read Luke 7:36-50

Simon is a great follower of the law, a real religious guy, and this woman, a known sinner, a woman of ill repute, both need Jesus, but only one has an intimate relationship with Him.

But we will get back to the story in a bit, let’s look at how God already “knows” you!

1) God Knows You Intimately

The best Biblical word for intimacy is the word “know.”

Genesis 4:1 (ESV)

 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”

Other translation use different words for ”know” but looking at how its translated we start to get a glimpse of how God “knows” us

The Hebrew word for “know” here is the word “yada’.”

·         The definition for yada’ is “to know and to be known completely.”

God knows you! God knows us all!

John 2:24–25 (NIV) But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.  He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

Luke 12:7 (NLT) And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Psalm 139:13 (NLT) You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Jeremiah 1:5 (NLT) “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.       Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

Just like others in the bible he knows you. He knows everything about you. All your sin, all your problems, all your hang ups! You can’t hide from it. 

John 5:42 (NIV) but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.

And Jesus knows the two people in this story:

Read Vs 39-40

Read Vs 47

You need to understand, if you’re a believer or not God knows you, and want a intimate relationship with you. He did not come to this world to cast us all in to hell but to save us all from ourselves! And he wants us, he calls us to know Him intimately as well!

2) God Wants You to Know Him

While it’s crazy that God knows us that deeply and intimately, it’s even more crazy to me that God invites us to know Him. God wants His soul to mingle with ours. For some wild reason, the Creator of Heaven and Earth has offered an invitation to you and me. He’s opened his heart and said, “I want you to know me more closely and intimately than you know anyone else. I want you to know my heart, to connect with me on a level that can only be reached through the most vulnerable intimacy. I want our souls to come together, for both of us to know the other deeply and wholly.”

Intimacy can be pretty scary

·         Because it involves allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

·         Many people fear intimacy with others and with God because they know that vulnerability and pain go hand-in-hand.

·         Some of you, most of you have experienced a betrayal, or a crushing blow from someone close to you.

·          You opened up, made yourself vulnerable, and then someone let you down.

It’s called being offended and when we don’t forgive, when we don’t let go it gets in the way of having a real and deep relationship with Jesus! It keeps us from being intimate with the one that was sent her to save you. The one sent to turn you from just a fan to a committed follower. Life can’t begin to truly change until your willing to open up and let go of the past.

When we make ourselves vulnerable to God, we know He’s going to find some things that we’re not proud of.

·         Think of the sinful woman in Luke 7.

·          A woman of ill repute, she knew she had sin in her life that made her unworthy to touch the Messiah. REALLY EXPLAIN HER PAIN

·         Because we’ve all fallen short, we know that God’s going to look into our lives and find things that He doesn’t condone.

·         Things we are not proud of

·         So it kind of makes sense that many people would be afraid of that vulnerability.

But followers know that there’s so much more gained from intimacy with God. We have learned that God can heal us in our pain, use us to reach others. When we truly become intimate with Jesus we can “love one another, as He loves us” and fulfill His call on our lives. And through that all your relationships get better! So are you a fan or follower?

Even demons “know Jesus”

Luke 4:41 (NIV) Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.

3) Fans Choose Knowledge

But in church, we’ve often failed to embrace that kind of intimacy with Jesus. Instead, we’ve created systems focused around learning, not unlike Simon and the other Pharisees. Admittedly, our default setting is knowledge, not intimacy.

Simon was a Pharisees, that probably knew every word and could recite the first 5 books of the bible (the books of the law), but when God incarnate (in living flesh) stood before him he was so wrapped up in the law that he missed his Savior standing in front of him.

We have become a church full of Pharisees!

·         We create barriers to keep people out

·         We use language that people don’t get

·         We love only those who look like us

·         We hide our sin form each other

·         If Jesus walked in would we even see him

Are you Simon the Pharisee?

He knew a lot about Jesus and his teachings, and he wanted to learn more. He calls him Teacher (vs 40), emphasizing that he’s most interested in learning from Jesus, not opening up to Jesus. Do you just want knowledge or do you want a life changing relationship.