Matthew 1:18-25
iWant God Close To Me
Woodlawn Baptist Church
December 23, 2007
Christmas is certainly about a lot of things: family, food, presents, shopping, get-togethers and most importantly, about the birth of Jesus Christ. For the past few weeks I’ve been preaching a series titled All iWant for Christmas. We started with a look at Matthew 2 and how we want to believe in something bigger than ourselves. From there we went to Luke to consider that we want to experience peace in our lives. Today I want to be very brief and draw your attention to Matthew 1:23, where Joseph was reminded of Isaiah’s prophecy: “They shall call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us.” I don’t know about you, but I want God close to me. I want to know that He is close by, that when I pray He hears and when I hurt He cares and when I am lonely He is there. I know all that up here, in my head, but I want to feel it. I want to know it.
Do you ever feel distant from God? Wish you were closer to Him? We go through those times when we know something is wrong, something is amiss, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. I think more than we like to admit, we all go through seasons of our lives when we do feel that way. We all go through wilderness times in our lives, times when we feel deserted by God, when our prayers aren’t being heard, let alone answered. We feel distant from God, cool in our devotion to Him, wondering if we will ever get that closeness back.
Some of you may be going through great trials right now and you wonder if God is there and if He cares. Do you feel abandoned in your trial? Why does God seem so distant when you need Him most? And why do you feel guilty for having those feelings? You’re troubled, so you pray. You’re distressed, so you cry for God to bring you relief. But all you hear in reply is silence. God isn’t listening. Christmas is supposed to be a time for family and celebration and joy and happiness and peace, but in the midst of a world of noise and busyness and crowds of people you feel all alone. Is that your testimony?
The psalmist cried out on many occasions things that sound awfully familiar to me. In Psalm 13:1 he said, “How much longer, LORD, will you forget about me? Will it be forever? How long will you hide?” I don’t know whether you feel that way or not, whether you feel distant from God today or not. Perhaps you do, and you want God to be close to you. It may be that you’ve never felt closer to God than you feel right now and your relationship with Him is wonderful. That’s where we all need to be. We all need what Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers. He said,
“I bow my knees unto the Father, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.
Do you want to know the fullness of Christ? Do you want to be strengthened with His power, rooted and grounded in love? Able to apprehend the width and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ? Do you want Him to be close to you?
The truth is that Jesus Christ really is Emmanuel: God with us. Initially the prophecy quoted here had nothing to do with us – it was a pledge by God to be with Israel, but Matthew makes an application here to the Incarnation – that God the Son, Jesus Christ, took on human form to dwell among us. Nowhere in the Scripture is it said more beautifully than in Philippians 2:5-8.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
We might say that we want God close to us, but the fact is that He is close to us. He demonstrated that when He took on human flesh to experience the life you and I know. He is close to us in the person of the Holy Spirit today, at work in and around us. He is the omnipresent God: not a God who lives way up there in some far and distant land while we live here in continual search of His presence. He is the God who dwells among us, who tabernacles with us, and in fact for those of you who believe, lives within you. And God never moves – He is the Father of lights in whom is no variableness. Like the sun in the sky, He is established and radiates in every way. Everything else revolves around Him.
When we say we want God close to us, what we’re really saying is that we want the feeling that God is close to us. We want to feel His closeness. We want to know, to experience that He is near. I know He hears my prayers, but I want to feel that He does. I know God is always with me, but I want to feel that He is beside me. Don’t you? If so, I’ve got good news. If you want God close to you in such a way you know and feel and experience that closeness, then there are really just a couple of things for you to do.
Think about why you don’t feel close to God
1. Could it be that Satan, your accuser, is speaking lies to you?
2. Is it time for a good housecleaning? In other words, do you have unconfessed sin in your life that is distancing you from God? Your sin doesn’t make God love you any less than He ever did, but it may be driving a wedge into your relationship. It doesn’t have to be some big thing, and most likely it is not some big thing. Ask God to show you if it is unconfessed sin that’s keeping you from feeling the closeness to Him that you desire.
3. In relation to unconfessed sin is simply a cooling off in your devotion to God. We go through times when we’re not hot or cold, just lukewarm. It’s not that we don’t love God, but we’re not really fascinated with Him. God and the things of God are so commonplace, so mundane that we just cool off in our devotion. If that’s you then don’t hesitate to confess it…to repent of it and ask God to restore the fellowship you miss.
4. Sometimes it doesn’t have to do with sin or coolness in our devotion, but perhaps a misunderstanding of who God is and what He’s doing. We all go through great trials and times of sorrow in our lives. Then to make matters worse it can seem like God is gone and has left you alone. If we’re thinking about why we don’t feel close to God and we know it’s not Satanic deception, it’s not sin and its not a cooling off in our devotion to Him, then could it be that God is using difficult times in our lives to strengthen and test and teach us?
Is that not what faith is really all about? It’s easy to follow and love God when I feel His presence, but do I have faith to keep walking and following and loving and praising when I do not feel that presence? Could it simply be that God is teaching us? Suffering in silence and walking without the feeling that God is close will teach us…
a. To be more obedient Ps. 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
b. Deeper insights into God’s Word Ps. 119:71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
c. Greater compassion and effectiveness in ministry 2Co 1:3-4 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
d. To wait patiently on God Ps. 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
e. That our joy must not be dependent on circumstances Hab. 3:16-19 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.
f. To appreciate God all the more when He restores you Job 42:7-17
We’re still thinking about why we don’t feel close to God: maybe we’ve accepted a lie, maybe it’s because of sin or we’re not as devoted as we ought to be, and maybe because God is trying to teach us something. But there’s one more thing besides thinking about it. We must also…
Do the things that bring us closer to God.
1. Stay in the Word. I know it sounds simplistic, but there’s absolutely no replacement for spending time in the Word of God. Read it, allow it to saturate your mind, and like you’ve heard me say frequently lately, don’t give up reading it until God has spoken to you. Reid is reading 30 or more chapters of Scripture every week now – and the longer Reid does that the closer He’s going to feel toward God simply because He knows God and His ways better.
2. Spend time talking to God. In other words, be a person of prayer, and lots of it. Turn the radio off, turn the TV off, turn the computer off, put down the magazines, stop your busy-work, get up a little earlier and pray.
3. Practice the other disciplines, like fasting and meditation and Scripture memorization. These are not just the things of fanatics – they’re to be part of the normal experiences of all believers. It is any wonder that we are weak and defeated and feel like God is not near when we are so unwilling to go beyond what we’re doing now?
4. Be obedient to the things you know.
As one of God’s children, you are promised His presence, though for now you may feel alone and without help. Rest in knowing God your Father has good reasons for bringing you into your trial. He is committed to making you holy, even if it means taking away your happiness for a time. He is Jesus Christ, not Claus, committed more to making you like Himself than He is with making you a spoiled child of His. He is Emmanuel – God with us.
Are you experiencing that intimacy today? Do you want God close to you? Perhaps today you do feel that closeness – rejoice in it. Celebrate it. Praise Him for it. And continue to do the things that facilitate it. But when it is gone, or if it is gone today, think about why it is gone. God’s invitation to you today may simply be to believe the truth and not a lie. He is close. He does care. He does hear your cries. He knows your hurt.
God’s invitation to you today may be to confess some sin in your life that is keeping you from being close to Him. That thing you won’t let go of. Repent of it today.
Have you cooled off? Is God trying to teach you something?
Commit yourself to Him today.
