INTIMACY WITH GOD
I read recently in a book the following: ‘Look at any Sunday morning congregation and what do you see? Tired women and bored men.’ There is, I believe, some truth in both of those descriptions. It is all too easy to become exhausted in the Christian life. The comment ‘my Christian life is not what it once was’ is very common today. For some reason after the initial excitement and enthusiasm of faith many settle down to what one man described ‘as lives of quiet desperation.’ What has gone wrong in our lives, in the life of the Christian church, that Christian people are tired or bored in their walk with God? Listen to two verses from two different men in the OT: READ Psalm 42.1-2, and Job 29.4. Both Job and David had been greatly blessed by God and then both (for different reasons – David because of sin and Job because of righteousness) journeyed through a period of suffering, difficulty and what seemed to them to be abandonment by God. Yet, even in the midst of that feeling of abandonment they could speak those words of longing. Now let me ask you a question: Are they words which could be applied to your soul this morning? When you got up this morning to come here was it with a longing (a panting as of thirst) to be in the presence of the living God and to know again in your soul ‘God’s intimate blessing?’ I believe the truth is for the majority of you those words are hollow and empty of meaning this morning. The truth is for many, not just here but throughout the Christian world, there has been a loss of intimacy with God and what is even worse there has been a loss of desire for intimacy with God.
So this morning I want to take a few moments to encourage all of us to once again desire intimacy with God and to know again the blessing of God. Turn with me to Job 29. In this passage, and the next two chapters, Job is like a lawyer summing up his case. He begins in this chapter with an emotional recall of times past – when his life was full of happiness. A life full of wealth and honour. He then proceeds to lament his loss, not of wealth, but of his dignity and more importantly of his intimate friendship with God. He concludes in chapter 31 by stating his innocence before God.
Job was blessed by God and honoured by men. We know that from the prologue to the book. If you look at verse 14 of this chapter you will see that Job used his position and his wealth to be a benefactor and a leader in the community. In the first 6 verses of chapter 29 Job’s words are charged with emotion. He longs for the precious days when he enjoyed God’s watch-care (verse 2) and his guidance (verse 3). God had been his friend (verses 4-5) and he had enjoyed the blessing of wealth and family (verses 5-6). Verse 6 speaks poetically of the abundant blessing of his life by God. But let me focus for just a moment on verse 4 – I think this is one of the most beautiful verses in all the book of Job – READ. Literally translated it says this ‘oh, for the days when God’s counsel was my tent.’ Think about a tent for a moment and the image that it conjures up in your mind. A tent is a place of shelter and protection from the elements. Was that not what satan had said of Job to God – you have put a hedge of protection around him. A tent is a place of rest and refreshment after a long day in the fields. It is a place where the heat of the day can be escaped and the cold of the night avoided. It is a place of warmth as well as a place of refreshment. In a tent it is impossible to hide. In fact it is a picture of intimacy. Job was saying that God was all of these to him. It is an amazing picture of intimacy with God and between God and Job. Please note it is God’s counsel that is his tent. Job was saying that God’s wisdom, God’s Word, God’s guidance and God’s presence were the things which were his tent. They were his dwelling place. His shelter from both the heat of persecution and the cold of suffering. In everything that entered into his life Job found God’s counsel his dwelling place. That is where his intimacy with God came from. You cannot know God’s wisdom, word or guidance if you do not spend time in the presence of God. For Job time in the presence of God was part and parcel of everyday life. Is it for you?
Yet at this moment in time Job feels that those days are gone – how he longs for the return of those days. Job knows in his heart that he has not sinned before God – so it is not a punishment for sin, contrary to his friends opinion, that he feels the intimacy with God is lost. Yet we know that the reason for this apparent loss of intimacy is actually to prove to satan that Job will remain a righteous man even if he loses his wealth and his health, which indeed he does. This verse shows that the removal of health and wealth does not affect Job’s longing for the presence of God or the knowledge of God which only comes with intimacy. The story of Job also clearly teaches that someone who is living a righteous and upright life may also feel abandoned by God. Please note that it is only a feeling and not the reality. Let me repeat that – it is only the feeling of being abandoned and not the reality of being abandoned. God never abandoned Job – in fact with the benefit of the prologue to the book we are aware that God is in control all the time – limiting satan and protecting Job. So remember that when you feel that God has abandoned you – the reality is that He has not. Your feelings are not a true judge of the reality, or the spiritual reality, around you, (John 5 verse 17).
To finish this sermon let me turn for a few moments to the question of why Job desired intimacy with God? What was it about intimacy with God that made Job, even in the midst of such suffering, long again for God’s counsel to his tent?
INTIMACY IS WHY WE WERE CREATED.
Well turn with me for a moment to Genesis 2 verse 7 and 3 verses 8-9 READ. Did you notice anything special about man here? God breathed life into his nostrils. The intimate picture of God breathing into man. Literally God kissed Adam and gave him life. A kiss is a pretty intimate act. So right at the beginning of creation there is an intimacy between God and man that does not exist between God and the rest of creation. Man alone is made in the image of God. Of man alone it is said that God breathed life into. Right at the beginning of creation we realise that for this reason we were created – to be the glory of God’s creation (made in His image), and to enjoy an intimacy with God. Job knew this as a reality in his own life and now that this intimacy is gone he desires it with all that his heart.
INTIMACY SATISFIES THE SOUL.
Turn with me to Psalm 42 verses 1-2 READ. David speaks here of a desire for intimacy with God to be restored. He speaks of it as the thirsts of a deer for refreshing water when being pursued so David says the same of his soul at this time in his life. David longs for God’s intimate presence because it alone is the soul’s refreshment. The intimate presence of God is the only thing which satisfies the thirst of the human soul. This morning you can fill your life with all sorts of things but the Spirit of the living God alone will satisfy the longings of your soul. David and Job both knew that. In the midst of trial and tribulation the intimate presence of God alone would satisfy.
INTIMACY IS GOD’S DESIRE FOR US.
Read Hosea 6 verse 6. God says here that His desire is that we might know Him. His desire is not that we might sacrifice to Him but that we might know Him, that we might be intimate with Him. God’s desire is that we might know Him, not that we might know about Him but know Him. Listen to what Jesus said to His disciples in John 14 verse 9. They had spent three years living with Him and still His desire for them – that they might know Him and in knowing Him know the Father. Think of all the images that Jesus uses to speak of His relationship with His people. I am the vine and you are the branches – intimacy. I am the bread of life which when you eat you will have life – intimacy. I am living water which will well up within you to a spring of eternal life – intimacy. I call you friends, and not servants, intimacy. God’s desire for us is intimacy. Let me ask you this morning ‘Do you believe God desires intimacy with you? Do you think it is possible this morning that God actually mourns over you? Mourns over you because of a loss of intimacy with you?’
You see it is very easy for us all to slip into frenetic activity within the church and the result is a loss of intimacy with God. It is actually about a relationship with God in Christ and not about frenetic activity. It is easy for us to come to amass a lot of head knowledge from God’s Word but never actually have the intimacy of a living relationship with God. It is about our transformation into Christ-likeness and not about information about Christ. Intimacy is not information but a face to face encounter with the living God in Christ. Busy lives, even busy church lives, leave us irritable, uncaring, vulnerable and guilt ridden because we have failed to complete some spiritual ‘to-do’ list. This morning God would desire intimacy with us and we…? Well you alone can answer that part of the question. Remember Jesus said ‘you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.’
Let me finish with a simple story. A big brother was becoming bored with reading his little sister a bedtime story each night. So he struck upon the idea of reading them all on to tapes. He presented them to his little sister and said ‘there, now you can listen to any story you want anytime.’ His little sister looked at him and the tapes and said ‘but they don’t have a lap.’ There was no intimacy in just listening to the stories on tape – the reading of the stories was only part of it – the intimacy of the relationship of sitting on a lap listening to her brother’s voice was the main thing. It is the same with you and I this morning. Listening to the Word of God is only part of it- the main thing is the intimacy of the relationship with God our Father. So this morning can I encourage each of us to once again stir up that desire for intimacy with God in our lives and to be like Job and David to desire it especially when times are difficult and trying.
AMEN.
