Friendship with God - NI Youth Weekend 2020

Friendship with God

Being careful to use Biblical defn of friendship rather than the prevailing cultural definitions – today’s friendships are often distant and shallow

READ (NIV) Psalm 25:14 – the LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them

· David’s writing from a lonely place – he has numerous enemies who hate him, and he feels the effects of his own sin

· Yet he’s declaring his trust in God, and asking that God will guide him in the right way, God’s way – because he knows God personally

· Astounding truth! – the LORD God confides in human beings!

· Heb: Sod is used elsewhere to speak of “sweet fellowship” Psalm 55:14; “intimate friendship” Job 29:4

· Parallelism - Confiding in = making known his covenant

· Covenant= binding love agreement; God’s promise to do something that’s entirely undeserved

· This is astounding because…

We’re all God’s enemies

· Naturally hostile in mind and behaviour, rebels

o Romans 5:10 - while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son

o Colossians 1:21 - Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour.

· Yet, God, in his mercy and grace, sets his love on us in Christ before time began – his unconditional electing love.

· Nothing in us to merit this love; he does not see in us anything good, or worthy of his election – out of the overflow of his love he chooses us for himself in Christ

· Then, through faith in Jesus Christ – itself a gift of God’s grace – we are brought into eternal relationship with God

· ‘Reconciliation’ in Rom 5:10 often makes us think there was something good to begin with that was lost and then needed to be restored – but that’s not what Paul is saying

· He knows that we’re born sinners; all little rebels who become increasing enemies of God

· Therefore ‘Reconciliation’ in Rom 5:10 means “bringing 2 hostile parties into friendly relations” (Greek dictionary defn)

· And this is achieved through the death of his Son – God’s wrath on him

· Jesus is the great friend of sinners - God who came near to bring us to God by giving himself to bear God’s righteous hostility against our arrogant & impertinent hostility

God has no need, in himself, for friendship with humanity

· God has always known the perfections & joy of the eternal love relationship of the Trinity

· This love spilled over in creation of humanity and was experienced in the Garden of Eden

· God knowing all that would happen had set his love on us to bring us to himself with the expectation that we’ll love him in return

· In fact, God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, comes to live in us to give us both the desire and the capacity to become a friend of God through a deeper knowledge & understanding of him, and his purposes. Like…

Abraham - the friend [ahav] of God

· 2 Chron 20:7 (Jehoshaphat), Isaiah 41:8 (God), James 2:23

· Chosen not because of anything good in Abraham – but because of God’s eternal purposes

· Ahav = to love deeply = he is loved by God

· Abraham, by experience, learns to love God in return

· Genesis 18:17 – “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”

· He refers to himself as “dust and ashes” – proper fear / respect

· God was no pal, chum, bessie mate

Moses

· Exodus 33:11 – The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend [rea = friend, darling, companion]

· Chosen not because of anything good in Moses – but because of God’s eternal purposes

· Moses, by experience, learns to love God in return

· Deuteronomy 29:29 – “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

· He often fell on his face amazed at the holiness and glory of God

· God was no pal, chum, bessie mate

Enoch & Noah “walked with God” & Daniel “highly esteemed by God” were brought insight into God’s future purposes

READ John 15:12-15

· 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 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.

· Jesus says his disciples are his friends – evidenced by his bringing them into the understanding of everything he learned from the Father!

So, we’re seeing that we’re loved by God, called into relationship with him that’s to be characterised by reciprocal love on our part

· This relationship of love is conditional – remember that those who fear the LORD – Psalm 25:14 – are those who are brought into his confidence & knowledge of his covenant

Today God shares with us his purposes in & through his Word!

· When we realise & believe that the Bible is God’s full and complete declaration of himself and his purposes it transforms our engagement with the Bible

· Those who love God – as a natural response to his electing love – will have a reverential respect for God’s holiness and a desire to know his revelation of himself in his Word, which brings us to Christ.

· Philippians 3:10 – I want to know Christ

Caution - let’s be careful how we understand our friendship with God

· A lot of praise songs employ language that’s irreverent, i.e. if we were to replace ‘Jesus’ with the name of another person it would sound no different from a standard-issue love song in the charts

· If we bring God down to our level, then we’re not engaging with the God of the Bible!

· God is holy, as David, Abraham, Moses, Enoch, Noah, Daniel knew

· People who reverence God who will experience friendship with him

James’ letter to Christians who have been quick to stop loving God

· He might have been addressing people who said they were Christians but really had no true experience of closeness with God

· They didn’t have Bibles in the same way we have; we are blessed!

· James 4:8 - Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

We cultivate friendship through communion – John 15:4 – “Remain in me”

· in reading / studying God’s Word and by prayer & conversation

We prove our friendship by obedience – John 15:14 – “You are my friends if you do what I command”

· And this includes the weekly reminder of the new covenant relationship we have with God through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus @ the Remembrance