Friendship with God
Session 2: Walking in Intimacy
I.A Relationship Based on Faith:
As we laid out in the first session God wants friendship with us. As a result we are given access this most incredible relationship that we have with the eternal God in every second of the day should we choose to embrace it. But intimacy with God must be fought for and we have to press in to believe; to believe that He exists, that He is listening and that He will respond to us. We want to be like Abraham, the friend of God to whomit was credited as righteous to him because he had faith.
- Pleasing God Requires Faith:
God says that the reward comes to those who believe that He exists and that He listens to the prayers of those who believe. The author of Hebrews connects this faith to earnestly seeking Him.
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (He. 11:6).”
- Do Not Doubt:
The asking however must be tempered with truth and must not be mingled with doubt. Doubt puts chains on our asking and hinders our prayers and capacity to connect with God.
“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do (Jm. 1:6-8).”
- Living by Faith:
The scripture says that the righteous will learn to live by faith, not relying on what we see merely but on the truths of the scripture and what it says about who God is and what He has spoken. To walk by faith is to walk closely with God in friendship; remember Abraham was called God’s friend and he was the model of living by faith laid out in the Old Testament.
“And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back (He. 10:38).”
“For we live by faith, not by sight (2Co. 5:7).”
II.A Relationship of Reciprocated Love:
The foundation of our faith is the incomparable love of God for mankind and His infinite forgiveness for all those who believe. This love draws us deeper into relationship with Him and it is the basis of our friendship with Him. The relationship is about that love being reciprocated back and forth between us and God, receiving His love and then returning it back to Him.
- First He Reveals Himself to Us:
His methodology is to reach down to us and to revealthe glorious aspects of His nature to us. This effectively calls us higher and more Heavenward as our perspective is broadened and our eyes are enlightened.
- Then We Respond to Him:
Our response is still a choice; but the way that this is supposed to work is that we see aspects of who He is and hopefully our hearts are soft enough to be impacted by those revelations and to long for more of Him. It is Him beckoning us closer and into walking with Him in intimacy.
- Spending Our Life Learning to Love Him Well:
The affect of God’s love being revealed to the human heart is that it causes us to want to love Him back with all of our heart. We want to become really good at loving our friend. Along these lines Paul’s prayer for the Church of Ephesus was that they would continue to grow in the knowledge of Christ’s love for them so that they could then walk in the fullness that God had for them; for them to love Him back to their fullest potential.
“I pray that…he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God(Eph. 3:16-19).”
- Finding Ourselves Always at His Feet:
Look at what the revelation of God’s love and nature did to Mary of Bethany; she was so deeply impacted by who He is that she spent herself gladly on Him. Mary understood the love that God had for her and so all three times that we see Mary in the gospels we find herdown at Jesus’ feet; worshiping, listening, crying or anointing Him. The knowledge of God as an intimate friend touched her in a way that provoked her to respond back to Him in kind.
“Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said (Lk. 10:38).”
“Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet (Jn. 11:32)”
“Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil (Jn. 12:3).”
III.A Relationship Requiring Obedience:
Hearing from God and then doing what He has said is basic Christianity, so foundational that Jesus said anyone who does not obey Him does not love Him and is not a follower of Him (Jn. 14:23-24). The issue comes down to hearing and then obeying what we hear Him say to us, whether through the Word of God or by the conviction of the Holy Spirit or His leading in our heart. Obedience is therefore tied to whatever it is that God might speak and not merely to areas of right and wrong. Obeying means doing the things that He has made clear that He has asked of us.
“Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly (Dt. 6:3)”
“He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it (Lk. 11:28).”
- Those Who Obey are Called His Friends:
Now we can all enter into this privileged role of being a friend of God. But Jesus said that friend to friend relationship is dependant on us obeying what He tells us, it’s about following Him in all His ways.
“You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you (Jn. 15:14-15).”
- Sin Breaches Our Fellowship:
When we sin we are in agreement with darkness. This causes a breach in our relationship that must be dealt with for us to have fellowship with God who is light.
“what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness (2Co. 6:14)?”
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth (1Jn. 1:5-6)”
- We are Instructed to Walk in Humility:
Another area that God has commanded obedience in is that we would walk humbly before him all the days of our life. This issue of humility was the thing that drew God to Moses.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves (Php. 2:3)”
“In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble (1Pe. 5:5).”
- We are Commanded to Live Righteously:
Our God is holy. As those that claim to know a holy God He demands that we also walk in righteousness. Job’s excelling in this area of obedience was cause for why God took notice of Him.
“Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness (2Ti. 2:22)”
“Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness (Ro. 6:19).”
- We Cannot be a Friend of the World:
As we aspire to cultivate deeper friendship with the Lord we want to avoid decisions and omissions that would cause that relationship to dull or weaken as a result. The measure of our friendship with the Living God is contingent on the manner in which we pursue Him. Sin and love of the World will negatively impact our relationship with Him. The Apostle James spells it out quite clearly that we cannot have friendship with the world and it’s ways. The decision to hold onto the world and its falsehood
“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (Jm. 4:4).”
IV.What Intimate Friendship Looks Like to God:
We really need to search out how God defines friendship to rightly identify if we are His friend and if we really want to be His friend. In this section we will look at some of the aspects of friendship with God.
A.Friendship Requires that We Follow Him:
Relationship requires proximity and interaction. In our relationship with Christ we have to follow Him wherever it is that He is going. In the time of the disciples they physically followed Him around in order to be in relationship with Him, now we must do similarly though He has no physical form in our midst, we are called to know what He wants for us and then for us to go, say and do those things. It’s where He is going.
“While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother (Mt. 12:46-50).”
B.Friendship Requires Unity with Him:
Let us not forgot that this one that we are seeking friendship with is called the Holy One and that He requires holiness in order for us to be near to Him.
“Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth (Ps. 15:1-2).”
C.Friendship Requires Willingness to be Rebuked:
Whether we are comfortable with the idea or not has little bearing on the fact that God gets up in our business and rebukes those He loves so that we will not continue on in our sin. Sometimes His voice is louder than others but no matter how in our face He is about it we still have to make the choice to stay in right standing with Him and respond to His corrections.
“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent (Re. 3:19)”
“Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men (Mt. 16:23).”
D.Friendship Requires Willingness to be Wounded:
God wounds those who draw near to Him. We see this painful truth in the life of Job who was one of only a small handful ofpeople in scripture who were directly called a friend of the Lord. God wounded Job deeply. This is an aspect of the nature of God that is actually a sign of trust from the Lord and a mark of maturity of a believer because the Lord is confident that He can wound without fear of fallout.
“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless person would dare come before him (Jb. 13:15-16)!”
"Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses (Pr. 27:6)."
E.Measuring the Maturity of the Friendship:
We can actually measure the depth of our friendship with God according to this scale; how are we doing in the areas of submission to His will, obedience to His leading, righteousness in our lives, willingness to receive His rebukes and even to be wounded by Him? These, not exuberant worship in a corporate worship meeting are the proof of friendship.
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