Our Key verse for this series is:
- James 4:8, “Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you.”
- God desires for us to be close to Him, to share intimacy with Him
Intimacy is a strange word.
When you think of the word intimacy, what do you think?
- Most people immediately associate the word intimacy with sex.
- Which there is intimacy in sex but it goes far deeper than just sex.
Dictionary.com gives these 3 definitions for Intimacy
- 1: close or warm friendship
- 2: a usually secretive or illicit relationship
- 3: a feeling of being intimate and belonging together
Tonight we are going to talk about #’s 1 & 3
– Having a close friend
– And being intimate and beloning to someone.
– Having an intimate, close friendship with God
Genesis 2:4-7
“When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground- 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
Skip to Genesis 2:18
“18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Skip to Genesis 2:21-22
“21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”
Skip to Genesis 2:25
“25The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”
Most of us know this story of creation, how God made Adam and Eve.
We know about the “Tree of Life” and the “Forbidden Fruit”
We know how Satan tricked the women and she then made her husband eat the fruit of the tree.
Genesis 3:7
“7Then 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.”
Most of us have heard this story in Sunday school or from our parents or daycare or wherever.
Most of us know that God was pretty upset with Adam and Eve.
- Because of this first sin, God made women to have pains in labor
- God made man to work hard for food and to survive.
- God then kicked them out of the beautiful Garden of Eden where they had everything they could have ever wanted.
Why am I talking about this then?
- There is an important message in here that most people don’t teach you when you’re young.
- Some people may not understand it themselves.
- Let’s read this next passage and figure out what it is.
Read Genesis 3:8-11
8 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. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." 11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
There is an intimacy between God and man that was destroyed because of sin.
“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…”
It says here that God was walking in the midst of man and women.
The God who created the universe, the moon, the plants, the animals, the oceans, the deserts, food, man…He was walking among them.
- It was God’s original plan to walk along the people He created.
- If man didn’t sin, me and you would be walking along side of God himself today
- How amazing would that be?
- Hey God, I have an itch right in the middle of my back, do you think you could stratch it for me?
- Hey God, I’m having troubles with my math homework, could you sit down next to me and help me figure it out?
- Hey God, I really like Samantha over there, do you think you could tell me if she’s the one I’m going to marry, you know to save me some time?
- Wouldn’t life be great if God was walking among us today?
But because man sinned, it caused us to be seperated from God.
Kind of a bummer, huh?
We could’ve had the “life.”
- But the Bible says, don’t give up hope, you can still be close to God.
- We’re going to talk about some initial steps of being close to God.
As we start our journey to closeness with the Father, I want you to think about these 3 steps.
3 Steps to Closeness with God
1) Depart Your Course
- I want to read you a short story in Exodus.
- Exodus 3:1-3 says, “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”
- Moses had to make a choice here. He had to desicide whether to take his father-in-laws flock and continue on his course or to leave his father-in-laws flock and see what was going on.
- If Moses hadn’t departed his course, then he would’ve never found out God’s plan to lead His people.
- God wants us also to set aside our agenda’s and own desires and seek after His.
- He needs people who are passionate for Him and ones who will seek after Him
- Depart your course and seek after the course God has for you. When you do this, you’ll experience closeness with the Father.
2) Draw Close First
- The key verse says, “Draw close to God and God will draw close to you.”
- It doesn’t say, “Wait for God to come to you, then you can come to Him.”
- No, we are too draw close to God first and then He will come close to us.
- How do we draw close to God?
o Let me give you an example: How many of you have gone to a church camp before?
o When we get there, there is no television, no fast food, no movie theatres, no entertainment.
o Everything is taken out so you can focus solely on God.
o Most young people come back excited and inspired because for the whole week, their whole focus was on God.
o Worshipping Him, singing praises to Him, listening to His Word and by praying with other Christians.
o At church camp, we feel close to God because we put all distractions aside and draw close to Him.
o He then sees that we are drawing close to Him first and then He comes and we can feel His closeness.
- When we’re at church, let’s try and focus on God.
- Let’s raise our hands in worship, let’s pray with one another, let’s reach out to our friends and invite them to church.
- God will see that you are drawing close to Him and I guarantee that He will draw close to You.
3) Wait For God to Draw Close to You
- To often we rush into things in our life and expect changes overnight
- When we start to draw close to God, wait for Him to draw close to you.
I want to end with a short story of an older man
- Daddy’s Empty Chair
A man’s daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. "I guess you were expecting me", he said.
"No, who are you?" said the father.
The minister told him his name and then remarked, "I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up."
"Oh yeah, the chair." said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"
Puzzled, the minister shut the door.
"I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head."
"I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day four years ago, my best friend said to me, ’Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with God. Here is what I suggest. Sit down in a chair, place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see God on the chair. It’s not spooky because he promised, "I will be with you always." Then just speak to him in the same way you’re doing with me right now.’ So, I tried it and I’ve liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day."
"I’m careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she’d either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."
The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, annointed him with oil, and returned to the church. Two nights later the dauhter called to tell the minister that her daddy had died that afternoon.
"Did he die in peace?" he asked.
"Yes, when I left the house about two o’clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"
The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that.”
God desires for us to draw close to Him.
He wants a close personal relationship with Him today not tomorrow or when you get the chance.
