Knowing God Intimately # 8
We’ve been teaching on knowing God in a close intimate way, having that close relationship and fellowship with Him. The closer that we get to Him the more we’ll experience the blessings of God. We’ll experience the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, you’ll have joy in your life that you’ve never had before. The Bible calls it the “Fullness of Joy.” You will also have true fulfillment in your life, which would also include victory in your life.
I) As you look back to the original idea that God had for man, you see a picture of harmony and tranquility.
A) You see people in fellowship with God.
1) Their thoughts are toward God, and their every need and desire is supplied.
2) God’s plan for man was the Garden of Eden.
a) The 1st chapter of the Book of Genesis revealed that God wanted man to live in a glorious relationship with Him.
b) In that relationship man had no real concern about his needs, because they were all supplied.
B) The heart of God was longing for companionship.
1) When He made man, He made him in His own image and likeness because He wanted someone to commune with.
a) Sure He had the angels, but nowhere in the Word of God does it say that the angels we created in God’s image, like man.
C) Children are born into a family because of the love and union of the parents.
1) Most parents then desire to pour themselves into that child and create for him a life that is full and beautiful.
a) Everything the parents have is used to accomplish that Goal.
2) Likewise, our heavenly Father sought His own offspring.
a) He gave His children the right to receive all He has and is, so that they can obtain the powerful and beautiful results that His fullness brings.
b) JOHN 1:16.
(i) The NIV translation says, “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.”
(ii) The Amplified translation says, "For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received [all had a share and we were all supplied with] one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift [heaped] upon gift."
D) God’s desire and dream has always been to fellowship with someone on the same level, someone that was created in His image and after His likeness.
1) Man was in that position before he turned away from God, and sinned.
a) At that point, man’s pure fellowship was destroyed.
b) But God had a plan that would restore mankind to that fellowship.
2) The redemption Jesus brought restored man to a position of intimate communion with God.
a) Through faith in the work that Jesus did put man back into the kind of relationship with God that Adam had in the Garden.
II) Turn with me to GEN 3: We’re going to pick up the story from the point of their sin and just after.
A) GEN 3:6-9.
1) When Adam was hiding from the presence of God, the beautiful, familiar voice of God rang out, “Adam, where are you?”
a) That call has remained alive throughout history.
b) God is still seeking His people.
2) Turn to 1COR 1:9
a) You have actually been called by God Himself into the same fellowship that the Father has with Jesus.
(i) That calling is an invitation into a very personal and intimate relationship.
(ii) You have a divine summons to be joined into the same fellowship that Jesus has with the Father.
B) Many pull back from that kind of fellowship with God.
1) Many of the religious have taught that God is ready to hit us over the head.
a) They have taught that God tolerates us, but has little pleasure in us, and so we pull back.
2) Many of the things we do for God are based on Guilt.
a) We Pray because we feel guilty if we don’t.
b) We go to church because we feel guilty if we miss.
c) We give because we feel guilty for not doing more.
C) God does not lead by Guilt.
1) God wants people to pray because we’ll see God move through our prayers.
2) The praying, the church attendance, and the giving all must be done, but it needs to be done with the right motivation, or they will be fruitless.
a) God wants us to pray, attend church and to give, but they should come from the love that we have for God and from the love that He has for us.
b) When we get a real understanding of how God sees us, the better we’ll be able to fellowship with Him.
III) MATT 13:44-46.
A) To understand these parables, you have to know that the central figure of the parable is God Himself.
1) Earlier in this chapter Jesus told another parable of a man that sowed seed in a field.
a) Jesus went on to say that the Man was the Son of God.
b) In (LUKE 15) Jesus told another parable this 1 of the Prodigal Son, but this is not a revelation of a son.
(i) It’s a revelation of our heavenly Father and His attitude.
B) These 2 parables Jesus told here in (MATT 13:44-46) reveal something about God.
1) The man that discovered a treasure buried in a field, saw that treasure to be of more value than all he owned.
a) So He sold all he owned to purchase the field and obtain the treasure.
2) In the 2nd parable the man was looking for beautiful pearls and found 1 of the most superior quality he had ever seen.
a) He said to himself, “That is the 1 I must have.”
b) He went and sold all that he had and bought it.
3) The man of these 2 parables is God.
a) But who is the treasure, and who is the pearl?
(i) You are the treasure and you are the pearl.
b) When God sees you, He sees a treasure. He was willing to go to any expense to purchase you.
(i) It required the most expensive price that has ever been paid.
(ii) But God wanted you, so Jesus came and paid that awesome price.
C) God was willing to go to any length to enable you to fellowship with Him.
1) When you see it this way, that God longs to have fellowship with you, it will bring you into a new level with Him.
a) TITUS 2:14.
(i) When it says a “Peculiar People” it doesn’t mean strange or weird, right from my Expanded Strong's Concordance it says, "That which is one's own, belonging to one's possessions." So in other words it refers to a people that belong to Him.
(ii) In (EXO 19:5) The Lord says, “Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people.”
b) God is saying that His people would be a treasure to Him.
(i) His treasure is to have fellowship with you.
IV) You have been united to God through the new birth, but union is not the end of God’s plan.
A) He longs for fellowship and Fellowship is Communion.
1) According to the American Heritage Dictionary, “Communion” is “The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings, Religious or spiritual fellowship.”
a) Our pursuit for fellowship with God is what makes our union with Him vibrant and alive.
(i) Many Christians have accepted the union but denied the communion with God.
2) JOHN 15:4.
a) Listen to how the Wuest Translation puts it.
(i) (JOHN 15:4 Wuest) “Maintain a living communion with me, and I with you. Just as the branch is unable to be bearing fruit from itself as a source unless it remains in a living union with the vine, so neither you, unless you maintain a living communion with me.”
b) Just as a branch draws its life-giving sap from the vine, you and I draw the flow of God’s life through our intimate times of communion in His Word and in His presence.
B) Go down to JOHN 15:7-8.
1) LISTEN to how the WUEST Translation puts it. “If you maintain a living communion with me and my Words are at home in you, I command you to ask, at once, something for yourself, whatever your heart desires, and it will become yours. In this my Father is glorified, namely, that you are bearing much. So shall you become my disciples.” (JOHN 15:7-8).
a) God’s Word becomes fruitful in you as you maintain a LIVING, RICH, CONTINUING FELLOWSHIP with God.
b) God longs to have fellowship with us, and that’s where we can be the most pleasing to the Father and that’s where we will receive God’s blessing, spirit, soul, and body.
WOLCC Sunday A.M. 12/3/95 from the book by Dennis Burke pp. 51 through 62 called “Knowing God Intimately.” Pg. 51-64