Happy 14th Birthday Epic Church! We have so much to celebrate. Speaking of celebrations, this past December, Shauna and I celebrated 24 years of marriage. That’s quite an accomplishment – especially for her. What most people do not know is that we never lived in the same time zone until we got married. Our entire dating relationship, including our engagement, was long distance. And this was before Facetime. We would see each other every other month. Though we dated long distance the whole time, we did not date for a long time. It was my desire to shrink the distance between us as fast as possible.

Can you imagine me telling her after we were married, “I think I prefer us living far away from each other”? Like marriage is intended to give us access to a whole new level of intimacy, God has been trying to come close to us since the beginning of creation. And yet, for one reason or another, we are the ones who have often chosen to keep our distance.

Do you prefer a long-distance relationship with God more than you desire an intimate relationship with God?

And what of relationship do you think God wants? When Jesus was questioned by some Pharisees about why his disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate, he ends up quoting this verse from Isaiah 29.

Isaiah 29:13 The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

It’s like they’re saying the right things, they’re singing the songs, and they are for sure making the people around them believe they are close to God. But the reality is that their hearts are so far from God. This means it is possible and perhaps even probable that there are a number of us in this room who are doing the external spiritual activities but our hearts are far from God. What keeps us from living in close relationship with God? I think there are several possibilities and I’d love to explore some of them with you. Here’s the first one:

Intimacy with God will never be built without time and intention.

Intimacy, in any relationship, never just happens. Our gatherings at Epic, like the one we’re in the middle of, are intended to bring you close to God…but they will never be enough to build and sustain a close relationship with God. This is also true for our Epic Groups that start meeting this week. These groups are meant to enhance your spiritual growth, but they cannot be the only source of spiritual growth in your life.

When Martha complained that her sister should have been helping her rather than sitting at the feet of Jesus, Jesus responded in this way:

Luke 10:41-42 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Is your life so full of other things that you literally don’t have time to cultivate a close relationship with Jesus?

There’s something else that will keep us at a distance with God. Back to the Isaiah 29 passage.

Isaiah 29:14-16 “Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”?

A little bit of context for what is going on. They were doing the external religious practices and saying the right things. But the truth is that they were trying to take their destinies into their own hands or to say it another way, they were trying to be their own masters. You can see this in the text where God claims that they were acting like they made themselves and even as if they were over God. This is what C.S. Lewis calls the great sin – PRIDE.

“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Pride always creates a distance between us and God. Pride makes us think we are completely independent and that we don’t need anyone, including God. Pride makes us believe that the only presence that matters in our lives is our own presence. Pride will never lead to love of God, because a proud person only loves self. This is the posture pride leads us to take, which will always keep God at a distance.

Let’s go back to the beginning. God created human beings with the full intention of us living in an intimate relationship with Him. No barriers. No distance. No shame. No protection needed. And then this happens.

Genesis 3:1-10 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

The serpent tempted them in a way that led to pride. “You will not certainly die. You will actually be like God.” They were led to believe they could shorten the distance between who they were and who God was. And yet, the act they engage in creates the greatest distance between them and God they had ever known.

“The primary goal of the enemy is to keep you from union with God.” John Eldredge, Get Your Life Back

There are ways we should want to be like God. We absolutely should pursue becoming more loving, merciful, gracious, holy, and more. But wanting to be worshiped like God is worshiped or wanting to sit on the throne of the universe or even in our own hearts – we should want that space to only be for God. We want to humble ourselves, but not in a way that keeps us far from God.

1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

I love this encouragement from Peter. The posture he’s inviting us to take is one where we stay so close to God, but always beneath him. We don’t lift ourselves up; we trust God to do that – in His timing.

Pride creates a distance from God, but shame will keep us far from God.

“Hiding is the natural response to shame.” Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame

Shame keeps us at a distance because, how could we ever come close to a holy God when we know all that we’ve done that we shouldn’t’ have and all that we haven’t done that we should have? Is there anything that could remove our shame and close the gap between us and God? We will never draw close to God if we lack confidence in doing so or if we put our confidence in the wrong thing.

Hebrews 10:19-22 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Have you ever walked into a place where you knew you didn’t belong? Sometimes I go meet with friends where they work. And some of them have extreme security measures. And when I’m down at the security desk explaining who I am and why they should let me through, I don’t always have confidence that it’s going to work. But when my friend shows up and explains to the person at the desk that “it’s okay, he’s with me” – my confidence goes way up. This is how the author is trying to build our confidence in drawing close to God.

He says we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place. Now the Most Holy Place is the very presence of God. By what means should we be confident? By the blood of Jesus. Then there’s talk about a curtain. There was a curtain or a veil that separated the holy place from the Most Holy Place. Jesus, by his body being sacrificed, opened up a way for us to be near God at all times. There are 4 implications we’re given for drawing near:

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-Have a sincere heart – this is about personal devotion to God
-Have full assurance – this is about having bold confidence because of Jesus
-Hearts sprinkled – this is about constant confession, so we stay cleansed before God
-Bodies washed – this is the picture of baptism; internal reality; external reality. Our next baptisms will take place on March 16. I know this is a next step for many of you.

What is the source of your confidence or lack of confidence when it comes to drawing close to God?

In Jesus, we can be cleansed and we can have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place. God did this of his own initiative. But even in the story of Adam and Eve, notice that God is the one who comes looking for them. Henri Nouwen said it this way:

“God is the good shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep. God is the woman who lights a lamp, sweeps out the house, and searches everywhere for her lost coin until she has found it. God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, and expects his children to come to him, apologize for their sinful behavior, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embrace them, pleads with them, and begs and urges them to come home. It might sound strange, but God wants to find us as much, if not more, than we want to find God.” Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Direction

God has moved heaven and earth to come close to you. Will you arrange your life to come close to Him?

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