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06.04.2008
Intimacy with God
Philippians 3:7-11; NIV
How close to God are you? You say, well, I am not so sure how close I am. So I ask; how close do you want to be? You say, well, I want to be as close as I can. Why aren’t you any closer than you are? Oh, well, I do not know. Do you realize that you can be just as close to God as you choose to be? I thought I had to know a lot of things. No, you don’t have to. You can be just as close to God as you choose to be.
The problem is that most people just do not give God much thought. You might as well ask yourself a question; “how close to God am I, and how close do I really and truly want to be?” The most important thing in your life today is your personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Everything about you, in your environment, every relationship you have, your work, your friends, your loved ones, your money, every single aspect of your life is affected by your relationship to Jesus Christ. When your relationship with him is right, God can make all these other things so awesome.
Notice I have not mentioned church, or reading the Bible, or praying, or giving or witnessing. I am talking about a personal relationship between you and God through his son Jesus Christ. In Philippians 3:7-11 Paul says that the heart of his whole life is his faith in, and knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, “Therefore I pursue that above everything else”. People can neglect this relationship for years and years. But when they think they are about to die or when they are going through difficulty, trial, pain, prosecution, all of a sudden, what should have been important from the moment they were saved becomes important now. The most intimate friend should be God through his son Jesus Christ. Intimacy with God simply means this; it is a close, personal, private relationship with Christ that results in a strong desire to know him, to trust him, to obey him and to accept his love. That is more than just going to church. It is more than just reading the Bible. It is more than trying to do good works. That is the will of God for every single believer.
It is not enough just to be saved. God desires that you and I have an intimate relationship with him. Think about your relationship between your husband or your wife. You can have a marriage without having intimacy. Most people think in terms of intimacy as sex; that has nothing to do with it necessarily. You can have sex with somebody whom you have no intimacy whatsoever. If you genuinely love your husband or your wife, you want to know them, and you want them to know you.
Peter, James and John
Jesus chose the 12 disciples. Out of that twelve, three began to surface; Peter, James and John. Out of these three, John seems to be more intimate than the others. Now, did Jesus choose these three men as his favorites? No, he did not choose them. God is not partial. He does not choose favorites. Each one of these disciples chose how intimate they wanted to be with Jesus. Peter, James and John were not simply satisfied with just knowing him as a trainer. They wanted to get closer and more intimate.
The scripture says that if you and I draw to him, he will draw out to us. But note this; it is God who takes the initiative to build an intimate relationship. “…and God spoke to Abraham. …and God spoke to Moses. …and God spoke to David. …and God spoke to Daniel. …and God spoke to...” When Jesus had some very special experiences, Peter, James and John wanted to go, and he chose them. He responded to their hunger for him. When he raised Jairus’ daughter it was Peter, James and John who were there. On the mountain of Olive when he was sharing with them some of the most precious knowledge about the future, who did he pass that to first? It was Peter, James and John. Where were the others?
Tragically enough, most believers have a “settle-for” Christian life. I trust Jesus, I go to church and they just settle for that. Here is what most Christians are; they get saved, they step into the door of salvation, and they just park right there. Someone may honestly say this; “No body ever told me that I can have an intimate relationship with God”. Somebody may ask, “Why do you think that you can have a special relationship with God? What makes it special is that I accepted an invitation to have a personal relationship with him. It is special to me. You can have the same thing.
What is it all about?
I watch the Television, and I see congregations sitting and listening to some body speak, and nobody in the congregation has a Bible, no body has a pen or pencil to take notes! You might say, “I remember the sermon”. You may remember something in the sermon, but you won’t remember much. As soon as the service is over, your mind is jammed; with lunch, traffic, getting home, you name it. People who go to church and sit and listen, no Bibles and take no notes, they do not know whether what has been preached is true or not. This is how liberal pastors destroy their churches. What is it all about? If it is all about learning to have an intimate relationship with Christ you have to put in some effort. You say, “When I go to church, I do not necessarily take notes”. If you are going to sit 30–45 minutes and listen to something and you do not hear anything worth writing down and remembering and putting into practice in your life, there is something wrong. Change churches. Church is all about understanding a little more about how to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
Who are you going to spend eternity with? It is Jesus. One of these days you are going to die, and face him. So, I ask you a question; what are you doing about gaining knowledge of him? The aim of the church, is to have you hear something that deep down in your heart, will create a hunger to know him and to walk in obedience to him, and to walk in his will and fulfill your purpose and his plan for your life. All about it is about Jesus. He wants us to build a relationship with him, because he said, if we see him, we have seen the Father. If we know him we know the Father. He came to reveal the Father, and die on the cross to make it possible for us to go to the Father. He came to reveal himself. God wants us to know, first of all, who he is. You will be surprised if you ask the people who sit in church, whether they believe Jesus is God; many will say they do not believe that.
Who is Jesus? He wants us to know who he is. He is the son of God. He is the Lamb of God. He is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. He is our very light. He wants us to know his ways. How did he live? That is the way he wants us to live. What are the ways of God? What motivated him? How did he think? How does he think? He wants us to think the way he thinks, to know and to understand his ways. He wants us to love as he loved, and to forgive as he forgave. He wants us to walk like he walked before the Father in obedience to him. He wants us to know how to respond to difficulties, temptations, trials, prosecutions and rejections. He wants us to know how to respond when everything about us is going in the other directions. He wants us to have such relationship to know him the way he responded. The apostle Paul is a beautiful, powerful example of the life of Christ. You name it, and he faced it; he never gave up, he never quit, he never stopped. He kept going. Your intimate relationship with him is the most important thing in your life. Therefore how do we develop it?
1. Spend Time with him
The necessary thing to build an intimate relationship with the Lord is time. You have to spend time with him. What matters is the value you place on knowing him. You have time to watch TV, time to work, time to do all things; is it not interesting that you and I would be so brazen as to tell him “we do not have time”? Do you know how long it takes you to die? You are telling this God who loves you and wants a relationship with you that you do not have time for him? We all have 24 hours in everyday, and we all make choices about how we are going to spend those 24 hours. Somebody says, “I really do not have time”. How many hours do you spend watching the TV? You might say, “I have to get the News”. I can tell you what the News is. It is bad. It is always bad and you will sit listening to that bad news one or two hours, and you even listen to the comments and challenges. What about finding out what God thinks. He knows all about what is going on in the world.
2. Listening to him
Listen to him. Do not do all the talking. You can lie down, kneel down, sit in your chair, or whatever it might be. I am not talking about listening to him just as in waiting for your telephone call, and when it rings you jump and get it quickly. Who is more important in your life than God? Did someone say “my husband”?
Take time to learn to listen to God. It takes time to learn to listen to God. There are times when you just need to be alone, quiet, and just say to him, “Lord, I am just here to listen. Whatever you want to say to me, I am available to hear it”. Then when he brings up something, you cannot ignore it. He is not there just waiting for you to give him a chance to pounce on you. That is not who God is. For those of you who are married, when you talk, what do you want your husband or wife to do? Is it not to listen? If the man doesn’t listen, she gets upset. She thinks that you do not put much value on what she says or that you do not put much value on her.
3. Talking to the Father
It takes talking to the Father, talking to the Lord Jesus. Lord here is what I am thinking. Here is how I am feeling. Lord, speak to my heart. Sometimes what you say to him may simply be; Lord I just want to tell you that I love you. Thank you for being so good to me. Prayer isn’t just a plea for help. Prayer is just being in his presence and talking to him, and you have to decide the best way for you to do it. Find some place in your house where you and Jesus can get by yourself. You say, there is no such a place in my house. Yes there is; if the extremes come to the extremes get in the bathroom, lock the door, and there, it is you and God. I think especially about older people who are single. You got time and place. You can be alone, as the scriptures say, Jesus was oftentimes. He would go alone to pray and the disciples would come and say “people are looking for you”. Jesus spent time with the Father.
4. Being truthful
We have to be truthful and honest with him. When God brings up something continually in your heart, and in your mind, you may ignore it but you should know that God knows what is going on. Intimacy says I have to be honest, truthful, open, which means I need to be transparent. Tell him how you feel. He already knows so he will not be disappointed. What keeps us from building an intimate relationship with God? What are the barriers?
1. Willful known sin in your life
You cannot have an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus and have willful known sin in your life and you won’t deal with it. You become estranged. It is like, for example, a husband and wife. Instead of having an intimate relationship, a real wonderful kind of relationship with unconditional love, not only are you telling her that you love her, but you have something going on inside of you. You think a woman cannot figure that out? When God sees us so distracted by something we won’t deal with, you cannot have intimacy with the Omniscience as if he didn’t know.
2. The desire or determination to control things.
Not just the desire but the determination to control things; control him, control her, control my circumstances, when the opposite of that is surrender. If you are not willing to surrender your life to him, your circumstances and all the rest, there is not going to be any real, genuine intimacy.
3. Self-centeredness
Lord I know what you are saying but here is what I think I need to do. Jesus said different things different ways to the apostles. They had to deal with some of those things. Peter, for example, had to ask the Lord to forgive him for lots of reasons because he was certainly self-centered. Self-centeredness, selfishness, is a barrier. You cannot have intimate relationship and be self-centered at the same time.
4. Fear
Fear for what? Fear that God is going to take something from me. “I would like to be fully surrendered, but I am afraid if I fully surrender he is going to take her, or take him, or something is going to happen to my finances. God may kill my children”. It is amazing the things people say. Do you realize that the accusation is that God is mean and that he is demeaning and that he is not loving? The only action God is going to take with us is love. You do not have to fear what you are going to lose for developing a relationship with him.
5. Disbelief
“Well, I know what it says but…” He knows what he wants to go on in your life only if we believe him. Just believe the Lord Jesus Christ enough to talk to him about your circumstances or somebody else’s.
I simply ask you this; what is it in your life that is more valuable to you than a personal intimate relationship with Jesus Christ who loves you unconditionally with a love that is absolutely indescribable, who will never leave you nor forsake you, who will meet your every need, who sacrificed his life because he loves you, whose intimate relationship with you can bring you a sense of satisfaction, fulfillment, contentment, joy, happiness? Just think about this message, and be wise enough to make a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, and ask him not to live a day without coming to him for thanks giving, confession, repentance, intercession for your friends, and most of all, just listening to him to hear what he has to say to you today. Mark my words, God will never disappoint you. If we draw near to him, he says he will draw near to us.
If you have never been saved, you cannot start with anything in this message. The first thing you must do is to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins, not on the basis of what you are going to do, but on the basis that he died on the cross and paid your sin debt in full. He is willing to forgive you the moment you ask him, cleanse your heart, and start you on a new path of an intimate relationship with him.
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