Becoming a Friend of God
Deuteronomy 6:5
"I withdrew to my usual place of retirement, in great tranquility. I knew only to breathe out my desire for a perfect conformity to Him in all things. God was so precious that the world with all its enjoyments seemed infinitely vile. I had no more
desire for the favor of men than for pebbles. "At noon I had the most ardent longings after God which I ever felt in my life.
"In my secret retirement, I could do nothing but tell my dear Lord in a sweet calmness that He knew I desired nothing but Him, nothing but holiness, that He had given me these desires and He only could give the thing desired "I never seemed to be so unhinged from myself, and to be so wholly devoted to God "My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day."
-David Brainerd, eighteenth-century missionary to American Indians
Intimacy with God, the prospect thrills us-and at the same time frustrates us.
How few people we know, or even know of, who experience the kind of closeness with God that our hearts long for. The whole concept of "an intimate relationship with God" may be so foreign to you that it is like Greek.
Even in Scripture only a handful of people seemed to have a special relationship with the Father. The scriptures say Enoch walked with God. Abraham was called a friend of God. The Lord spoke with Moses face to face. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne. Paul was taken up into the third heaven, and the Apostle John had an incredible vision, which he recorded in the book of Revelation. These are not your "every day with Jesus" testimonies!
When we read the words of saints like Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, D. L. Moody, and the writers of the great hymns we find a spiritual depth that not many of us have experienced ... and in truth, most of us never will experience. Is this special communion with the Lord reserved for a favored few? Is it presumptuous to consider that God, Himself, would be our intimate Friend?
God: The Initiator
Very simply, intimacy is close or confidential friendship. And God, far from making it mysterious or unobtainable, has sought that kind of relationship with us from the beginning: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness" (Gen. 1 :26).
He revealed Himself to the patriarchs and prophets; He personally led the Israelites in the wilderness by cloud and by fire.
But God's ultimate invitation to fellowship with Him was in sending His Son to pay the price for our sin so that we who believe could be called His children. To seal His presence in us, He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell within us.
God continually invites us to respond to His love and desire for fellowship. He longs to love us as only He can, and He wants us to know Him in all of His fullness.
Nowhere in scripture do we hear His great plea to us as we do in Deuteronomy 6:5 ... "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength". He wants us to be intimate with Him.
I believe that is not so much a command as it is a heart cry ... "Love me."
Though it has nothing to do with need ... it is very much like the cry of a child who feels rejected and unwanted by his parent, but who deep down, more than anything else in this world wants to love his parent and have them return that love. "Please love me."
Why, then, do so few of us experience the kind of love relationship with God that David Brainerd described? What does it take to know Him as an intimate Friend?
I want to help you to deepen your understanding of what friendship with God is like and of how it is developed.
1. Deep Desire
Those saints-past and present-who have enjoyed exceptional closeness with God are first of all those who have deeply longed for it. God promised in Jer. 29:13: "You will ... find me when you seek me with all your heart."
That is not a promise to those half-hearted followers, those who are willing to let God into their lives, but only on their terms ... don't be too needy or too demanding.
David's longing for God was insatiable. Even when he was pursued by enemies, he did not seek deliverance or a change in circumstances; he sought ONLY God. He wrote,
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.-Ps. 63: 1
The Apostle Paul said, "I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege-the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth and supreme advantage--of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:8, Amplified).
The only intimacy that mattered to Paul was intimacy with his LORD. He had become his focus, his goal in life, his chief desire. True intimacy with God leaves us with a desire for deeper intimacy. The more we know our God, the more we want to know Him. Paul went on to say,"[For my determined purpose is] that I may know him-that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly" (Phil. 3: 10, Amplified).
In Enjoying Intimacy with God, J. O. Sanders observed, "It would seem that admission to the inner circle of deepening intimacy with God is the outcome of deep desire. Only those who count such intimacy a prize worth sacrificing anything else, are likely to attain it. If other intimacies are more desirable to us, we will not gain entry to that circle."
A desire to know only the Lord and His character must be our motive for intimacy. If all I seek are His gifts or whet He can do for me, I have a self-centered relationship based on God's "performance" in meeting my perceived needs. Instead, my desire to seek Him must be based on a longing just to know Him, to
fellowship with Him, to enjoy His company.
2. ABIDING
Desiring the fellowship of the Lord and fervently seeking and trusting His strength for my life motivates me to want to be with Him.
If I truly desire to be intimate with someone, then I plan to be with that person as much as I can. David wrote: "The one thing I want from God, the thing I seek most of all, is the privilege of meditating in his Temple, living in his presence every day of my life, delighting in his incomparable perfections and glory" (Ps. 27:4, TLB).
To dwell means to remain, abide, sit. It conveys a constancy, a continuity, a daily communion with the Lord.
The relationship spoken of here is not an erratic visitation as need dictates.
Jesus, in Jn. 15:5, taught, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing" (NASB).
These flowers up here today are beautiful. We love to look at them ... but none of us expects them to shoot forth new buds and make more flowers. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE CUT FLOWERS!!! We know they have been separated from the roots and the stem ... the very conduits of life.
In the spiritual realm, to bear the fruit of His character, which can only come from the intimacy of living with Him, we must choose to dwell in His shelter.
Andrew Murray's thoughts on abiding give us insight into what we need to do in order to be a vital part of the Vine: "It needs time to grow into Jesus the Vine: do not expect to abide in Him unless you will give Him that time .... Come, my brethren, and let us day by day set ourselves by His feet, and meditate on this word of His, with an eye fixed on Him alone. Let us set ourselves in quiet trust before Him, waiting to hear His holy voice-the voice that is mightier than the storm that rends the rocks-breathing its quickening spirit within us, as He speaks: 'Abide in Me. '"
Abiding is taking the time to nurture my friendship with the Lord. It is spending special time with Him daily, reading and studying His Word and conversing with Him. It is planning mornings or days alone with Him. Since He is my confidant, it is coming to Him first with my joys, my hurts, my frustrations.
Abiding is choosing to live in His presence and realizing that He is with me wherever I go. It is continually sharing my thoughts with Him throughout the day. It is meditating on His Scriptures so that I can know Him better. It is friendship sought on the deepest level. The decision to abide commits me to a lifelong process of developing intimacy with God and of "delighting in his incomparable perfections and glory."
3. OBEDIENCE
4.
We have established that God desires to know and love and bless us. He wants to be our closest friend. Yet, even with God's great love and desire for us, we cannot presume upon His character. Our God is a holy God.
David wrote, "Friendship with God is reserved for those who reverence him. With them alone he shares the secrets of his promise" (Ps. 25:14, TLB).
Reverence, respect, and fear of God are essential to abiding in Him. To reverence the Lord is to stand in awe of His majesty, His holiness, His power and His glory. To fear the Lord is to be concerned about ever displeasing Him.
In Ps. 15: 1-2, David described the heart of those who dwell with God. "LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart."
One of the most succinct verses on intimacy 'with God is In. 14:21: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
If we love God and want to grow in our knowledge of Him, we will obey His commands. It is in our obedience that God discloses Himself to us. Jesus said, "You are my friends if you do what I command" (In. 15:14).
If I desire to share in "the secrets of his promise," then I will choose to pursue a lifestyle of purity. This decision to be intimate with God will affect what books I read, what movies I see, what music I listen to, what programs I watch on television. Abiding in His presence will alter my thought life, my activities, my relationships. My speech and actions will want to honor and reverence His Holy Name.
POINT OF CLARIFICATION
Last week I preached on GRACE and how my relationship with God did not begin because of my goodness or righteousness... it was by GRACE that God commendeth His love toward me in that while I was yet a sinner, Christi died for me.
And it is not by my righteousness or works that I stay in relationship with God ... His GRACE holds me in spite of my sin.
And it is not because of anything I will do or fail to do that I will gain my eternal abode with Him.
IT IS ALL BY GRACE!!!
So ... when I speak of obedience being necessary for joining the inner circle of those who are His intimate friends, I am not turning back to works.
I want to help you distinguish between the MEANS of intimacy and the CAUSE of intimacy. The CAUSE is Christ's sufficient price, that he paid and given to us by GRACE.
The means is through certain activities. EXAMPLE: A young man went to college. When he left his parents feared he would get into a bad crowd, or get away from church or forsake his bible reading. They had no way to control the first two but they decided to do something about the latter. They bought the boy a new bible. They picked out several passages that dealt with god being our supply, our source of blessings and in each page they inserted money ... a $10, a $20 or a $50. They wanted to teach the boy to see the bible as the storehouse of God's blessings. After he was at school a few weeks he called home to ask for money. The father told him to turn in the new bible to Ps 23: 1 where it says, "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not be in want." The boy hung up angry, he did not go to the Bible. This happened again and his father told him to read Ps 68:9 which says, "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits ... " Again the boy was angry and hung up. After this happened a few times… and all his father offered was bible verses the boy stopped calling. He did not go home on breaks. One day his father died. The boy was heart- broken because of the way he had treated his father. He saw the bible on the shelf and picked it up. He noticed something sticking out of the bible and opened the bible to find $20. His eyes fell on a verse of scripture highlighted in pink. He thumbed through the bible and found more money ... and more ... and more. Each time there was a verse of scripture highlighted. He realized what his parents had tried to do.
Reading the scripture was not the CAUSE that made his parents love him and give him money. They loved him before they put the money in before he left for college. Turning to the scriptures was just the MEANS they designed to give him the money. They could have just sent money. But they wanted to train him to love the Word.
So it is for us. God could just give us his blessings. But He wants to develop friendship with us. Deep desire, trust, abiding and obedience are not the CAUSE of God's friendship with us. They are the means through which he has ordained we will receive that friendship.
It is not by works. It is just by grace. But that grace is delivered
through certain means.
Would you like to have that personal, intimate friendship with God? Are you willing to let God develop that friendship I you, to draw you deeper into that relationship with Him? Are you willing to do it on His terms?
Today, that next step in a deeper friendship with God ... FOR
YOU ... that next step in the deeper friendship with God… FOR YOU…might be ...
Accepting His free gift of salvation, letting Him remove the sin and the hindrances to a relationship with Him.
Joining with this church ... developing Christian friends to help you grow in Christ.
Deciding to go beyond just sitting a pew in preaching, stepping up to the next level... Sunday School, volunteering for a ministry.
Whatever your decision, I want you to say with the Psalmist ...
"My heart has heard you say, 'Come and talk with me, 0 my people.' And my heart responds, "LORD, I am coming."
-Ps. 27:8, TLB
Let's stand and sing the hymn of invitation, #309 Lord, I'm Coming Home
Sources:
1. "Becoming a Friend of God" by Cynthia Heald, Discipleship Journal, Issue 54, pp 22-27
