Fellowship: Experiencing Fellowship with God Leads to Intimacy with God Lesson # 10

The believer has been called into fellowship with the Trinity in order that the believer might enjoy and experience intimacy with the Trinity.

Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom

Sunday September 10, 2017

www.wenstrom.org

Lesson # 10

The believer has been called into fellowship with the Trinity in order that the believer might enjoy and experience intimacy with the Trinity.

Just as there is intimacy in families in the natural realm, there is also intimacy in the royal family of God.

Our lives are composed of many relationships and the greatest relationships that we have in life are those where we are able to experience intimacy with the other person.

Most of our relationships with people are merely acquaintances.

An acquaintance is simply a person that you are not on intimate terms with.

Intimacy is a close, familiar and usually affectionate or loving, personal relationship with another person or group.

In relation to people, intimacy is a close association with or detailed knowledge or deep understanding of a person (cf. ).

If you are smart you will only be on intimate terms with a few and in fact, if you have one person in your life that you can be on intimate terms with then you are truly blessed.

David had a friend that he was on intimate terms with, namely Jonathan (see ).

But as great as this relationship with Jonathan was, it did not last; Jonathan was killed with his father Saul in battle.

The Lord will at times remove human relationships from our lives that we value and have great intimacy in because He is trying to gain our attention.

The Lord is demonstrating how much He loves us by taking away these human relationships that we have great intimacy in because He wants us to recognize our most important relationship in life and that is our relationship with Him.

He loves you more than anyone…He will never let you down…He is a trusted friend…when all of have forsaken you, He is there waiting for you to come to Him.

He is there waiting in the darkness as you lay on your bed at night…when your tears fall like rain and you feel as if you can’t go on…He is there waiting for you with open arms! ()

Sadly, in our day and age, believers treat God as a mere acquaintance or they simply ignore Him, abandoning Him until the next time they are in a terrible jam.

We as believers must recognize the awesome privilege that we have been given; namely, we have been called into fellowship with the Triune God (cf. ; ).

So why do believers treat the Lord as a mere acquaintance?

They do not love Him and are disobeying the first great commandment ().

If you love the Lord you will obey His Word ().

There is a curse upon you if you don’t love Him ().

Too often, believers value their human relationships rather than their relationship with the Lord and this is reflected in their priorities in life.

Priorities: Put the Lord first.

Perspective: Acquire His divine viewpoint.

Performance: Put into practice His divine viewpoint.

The Lord is last on the list of priorities in the lives of many believers.

The Lord Jesus Christ constantly challenged His disciples to put their relationship with Him above every relationship that they had in life.

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” (NASB95)

Of all the relationships that you have in life, your relationship with God is the most important, but it must be cultivated and matured.

At the moment of conversion when you expressed faith alone in Christ alone you were entered into an eternal relationship with God and at the same time were given the opportunity to become intimate with God ().

This relationship with God can never be broken ().

You and I as church age believers have been entered into a marriage relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ at the moment of conversion (; ).

Many believers are committing spiritual adultery with the Lord today forsaking their relationship with the Lord and have committed spiritual adultery by putting idols in their souls such as money, houses, wives, husbands, children, jobs and self (cf. ; ).

A great marriage relationship is one in which the woman respects her husband and responds to his initiation.

In our spiritual marriage, our Lord and Savior initiated the relationship with His death on the cross, which demonstrated not only the Father’s love for all of us but demonstrated His infinite, eternal love for all of us in that He was willing to suffer the humiliation of the cross.

Now, why wouldn’t you want to get to know a God like that and fall in love with Him?

How could any of us, not respond to so great a love as our Lord demonstrated at the cross in that while we obnoxious sinners, He died for us as our Substitute ().

Many believers show no appreciation for the fact that their sins have been forgiven and this is manifested after conversion when they place the Lord as last on their list of priorities.

There is a woman in Scripture who appreciated the forgiveness of her sins and it caused her to love the Lord.

In fact, the Lord states because she was forgiven much, she loved much.

You know we have all been forgiven much by the Lord and we should all love Him much! ()

Like all relationships such as marriage, you need to put some effort into your relationship with the Lord.

Those who make a diligent effort to know their God and be obedient to His commands as found in the Word of God will be on intimate terms with God ().

Those who put the most effort into their relationship with the Lord will have greater intimacy with the Lord than those who do not put as much effort into their relationship with Him.

This is illustrated in the Gospels where Peter, James and John more intimate with the Lord than the other nine apostles (cf. ; ; ).

Now, many believers erroneously think that because they devote 1 hour on Sunday to going to Bible class or even two or three hours a week that they have a good relationship with the Lord and that they love Him.

May I say to you that even if you come to Bible class every day of the week this still does not mean that you have an intimate relationship with the Lord.

There appears to be two types of Christians in the world today: (1) Those who love the Lord because they obey His Word. (2) Those who do not love the Lord because they do not learn His Word or they do not apply that which they have learned.

Loving the Lord is picking up your cross and experiencing the cross of Christ in your own life on a day by day basis.

Picking up your cross means you are willing to experience identification with Christ in His death meaning you are willing to exchange living for self for living for Him and by doing so, you can experience the life of Christ ().

The Word of the cross is the basis of fellowship and intimacy with the Lord ().

The apostle Paul made personal application of the Word of the cross in his own life (cf. ; ).

Those who pick up their cross will become intimate with the Lord because our spiritual life and fellowship with Him pivots off His cross!

Those who achieve greater intimacy with Lord are those who have experienced the cross in their own lives meaning they are dedicated and are devoted to picking up their own cross making personal application of the cross in their own lives.

Those who pick up their cross daily agree with God that they were crucified with Christ and have been raised with Christ.

The greater the effect the cross has in our lives, the greater our intimacy with the Lord.

Finally, those who are diligent in pursuing their relationship with the Lord will also be rewarded with even greater intimacy with the Lord during His Millennial reign and eternal state.

Those who are willing to pick up their cross in time will reign with Christ in the future and those who reign with Christ will have greater access and intimacy with the Lord (cf. , ; ; ).

I will say to each one of you that the greatest reward that can be bestowed upon us as believers by the Lord is greater intimacy with Him, greater access to His Person, greater access to His presence for the Lord is our inheritance, our reward.