AT the beginning of a new year it is inevitable that we review life and our own life in particular. If we do this we can't fail to be confronted with a world in turmoil, and the church also in turmoil. Then we have our own particular problems and difficulties. So as we enter this new year it is a great help and encouragement to have the message of this text. There can be nothing greater than what this scripture is telling us. There is nothing greater than this message in all the world, and it is the very heart and goal of Christian life and experience.

ACCESS TO GOD.

Here is the wonderful truth - the revelation of the glorious blessing of access to God.

God is the high and lofty one, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. He is the creator of this earth, and all the planets, and space in which they hover. In God's hands and under his will and power is everything, ourselves included. God is a Spirit, and we can't see God. We are totally in his power, and he is holy and we are sinful, and so to think of coming even near God makes the honest soul to tremble. While the children of Israel were travelling through the desert of Sinai, they encamped about this mountain of Sinai, and although God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and guided them on their journey, yet when they were called to gather around the mountain of Sinai before God, they trembled and were very afraid. God is incomprehensible. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the voice of God can be heard through creation (Psalm 19), but God is so great and we are so small. Everyone and everything is in the hand and control of God. He sustains everything. How can it be true that it is possible to come into his presence, and have communion with him. Yet this is what our text tells us.

We can enter into this new year, and any new year, with this glorious message. It means we can come into the presence of and have communion with the one who controls and sustains everything.

This glorious access tells us that heaven is open; that fellowship and communion with God is renewed. It tells us that it is possible to come into the presence of God, and speak with him, have communion with him, enjoy his company. It means we can come before the ruler of the universe, and bring to him all our needs, problems, difficulties, sorrows, perplexities, doubts, feelings, fears, and much more. It means we can come to God and dwell in his love, enjoy his company, and behold his beauty.

THROUGH CHRIST.

How is this access possible? There is a popular belief today that because God is love, this access is possible for everyone and there is no impediment regardless whether a person seeks God, or lives to please God, or trusts in God, or considers the way and will of God. Such an all embracing understanding of this access is not found in our text.

Our message for this year states explicitly that this access is through Jesus Christ, and only through Him. There is no possibility of knowing God or having access to God except through Jesus Christ. In fact our text implies that there is no access to God except through Jesus Christ. If we will not have Jesus, and seek to come to God in and through him, then we have no access to God.

Why is this so? Jesus expressed this truth in John 14, when he said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except by me." If a person seeks to come into the presence of God without Christ, and without faith in Christ, then such coming would end in disaster. Trying to reach God in prayer without Christ and coming to God through Jesus, does not simply mean that we are not heard, but also that we are calling down God's wrath upon us for such presumption.

The fact is that human beings are so defiled by sin, and corrupt within, that the very sight of us in our sins is an affront to God, and God will not hear us, and we tempt him to judge us for such presumption.

The reason why access is open through Jesus is because Jesus was sent by God to deal with the problem of our sin and sins, so that God may be just, and at the same time the justifier of the sinner who applies to him by faith. God made Jesus to be a propitiation for our sins. God made Jesus sin for us, who knew no sin, so that we might be the righteousness of God in him. This means that God laid on Jesus all our sins, made Jesus responsible for them, and then executed his holy judgement on our sin by condemning Jesus to death and hell as a punishment for our sin. It was God himself in the person of Jesus who opened access into his presence, and made it possible for sinners to enter his presence. The fact is that we have access to God simply because Jesus was given by God to be our substitute, and come into this world and make atonement for our sin; and that Jesus obeyed the will of his Father, God, and willingly satisfied the whole holy law of God in our place, lived according to the law completely and then gave his life, his infinitely precious and holy life, as a ransom for our sin. In this way he cancelled our debt to God, and bestowed on us his own righteousness by imputing his righteousness to us, so that by this means we stand clean and justified before God.

We must come as sinners to Jesus, and place ourselves in his care, trusting in his death for us, before we can have the blessing of his work for us, which is access into the presence of God. Jesus reconciled believers to God.

BY THE SPIRIT.

That we are unable to have access to God except through Jesus is something that we know from the moment we become Christians. We know that we have access into the holiest of all by the blood of Jesus. To be a Christian in truth is to know the holiness of God, and that we need to be washed from all our sin before we can come to God, and that nothing but the blood of Christ can wash away our sin and make us clean for God. But do we also realise that we can't have access to God except by the Spirit of God? We have access by one Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the blessed Trinity. Our text makes this absolutely plain. It is through Jesus and by one Spirit that we have access to God.

What does this mean? It means that only by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to dwell withing the believer, are we able to enter into and experience this blessed access to God which Christ has opened up to us. The Christian lives by the one Spirit, and every application and experience of the blessings Christ has won for us is made real to us and applied to us by the Spirit.

Because of this we must worship God not only in truth but in Spirit. We must realise the presence of the Spirit of God, and submit to him in obedience. We must live in the Spirit, so that life is living under his influence and leading. This is what Paul teaches us in Galatians 5:16ff. Nowhere is this more needed than in access to God. Access to God means coming into the presence of God, into the holiest of all. Christ has opened up this access, the Spirit teaches us how to avail ourselves of this access, and to come in the right way.

This is why it is so important to realise the presence of the Holy Spirit within us when we seek to avail ourselves of this access to God. How does this work out in our experience?

The first thing is to let the Spirit apply the work of Christ for us to our soul. Paul speaks of this in Romans 8:13ff. The fact is that when we are led by the Spirit, and know his guidance and influence in our lives, this proves we are truly sons of God. The Spirit assures us that we are Christians and so God's children. This is the seal of the Spirit, the earnest of our inheritance which Paul speaks about in Epesians 1:13,14. Then we find the Spirit taking away the spirit of bondage and fear as we seek access to God, and assures us consciously that we are children of God, by giving us this sense of God now as our Father. It is the Spirit which enables us to know and feel God loves us as a Father, and so we cry to him Abba, Father. The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. This is at the very heart of this glorious privilege of access to God.

Let us notice our text again! In the original Greek it goes like this - "because through Him we have access both by one Spirit to the Father." Notice the word both. In the context it means both Jew and Gentile, so everyone who is reconciled to God by faith in Christ. But notice more importantly that 'by the Spirit' comes before 'to the Father'. It is by Christ and by the Spirit that we know God as Father. This is the blessing of this access. God is our Father through Jesus Christ, and it is by the Spirit that this relationship is made real to us.

In the light of this we should be listening to and being sensitive to the Spirit all the time. It is the Spirit that calls us to prayer. It is alright to have times when we pray regularly day by day, but these can become a duty or a ritual, and empty, unless it is the Spirit motivating us. There are times, and these come more frequently when we live more intimately in the Spirit, when the Spirit calls us to pray. It is an urgent inner movement that he gives to us to pray. We must respond positively to the Spirit's call, and whatever else we may have to do, we must leave this aside and pray. It may be for a few minutes, and it may be to be lifted up by the Spirit in exalted worship filled with the love of God, but we must never allow Satan to prevent us from answering this call of the Spirit to pray.

Then in our daily regular prayer times, we must be in the Spirit. We must realise the Spirit's presence, and acknowledge that it is by the Spirit alone that we can truly pray. Prayer will be dry and hard if this is not so. Jesus gives the example of this in the Lord's Prayer. Jesus taught his disciples to commence "Our Father, who art in heaven". There it is – we must recollect the wonder of this access, that we are coming to our Father, and let the Spirit enhance the spirit of adoption so we cry Abba Father.

Then we must wait upon the Spirit for his giving us the prayer we pray. Jesus gives us the framework in the Lord's prayer, but we need the Spirit to enlarge this, and bring to our mind that which is the Spirit's will, the will of God, that we should bring before the Father. This is a powerful experience. It stops us from praying by rote, and hurrying into petitons. It gives us the prayer to pray, and stops us from the petitions or requests which are not appropriate. This means waiting upon the Spirit. It may be, that the Spirit brings upon us a deep sense of conviciton for some sin in our lives whereby we have grieved the Spirit. It may be a little thing, and hardly a sin in a real sense, but something the Spirit has told us not to do or engage in, and we have succumbed to Satan's temptation. The Spirit will not let us go any further in prayer until he has brought us low in penitence, and sorrow for grieving him.

Then the Spirit might leave us empty of thoughts and words, and when we try to mouth petitions it is hard to concentrate and thoughts seem dry and empty. Here we must be silent before the Spirit. He knows all the thoughts and supplication which our in our hearts. He knows all our needs. He knows the will of God which we only partially know, and we find as Paul expresses it in Romans 8:26 "The Spirit helps our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that can not be uttered." Silence before God in the Spirit is an important experience of prayer.

CONCLUSION.

So let us come boldly, through Jesus Chriat and by the Spirit, to the throne of grace, and find grace and mercy to help in times of our need. Let us live in the Spirit so that we are sensitive to all his motivations to avail ourselves of this wondrous privilege of access to God. Beseech the Spirit to increase the spirit of adoption within us, so as little children we come into the presence of our heavenly Father, delight in his love, worhsip his glory, and rest in his care. Let us never be afraid to bring our petitions to him. He is the sovereign king over all. Nothing we ask him is beyond his power to grant.