October 6, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Hebrews 5-7

Weekly Memory Verse: Mark 12:30

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Romans 5:10 (NASB95)
¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. ^[1]

The study today is focused upon being a friend of God.  Perhaps this is difficult to fathom as you think about it, how can a righteous, just God be a friend to man?  In the Bible, God is viewed as a lot of other things which seem to make it impossible for Him to be our friend.  Consider how it would be if the President were to make you a personal friend.  Although it could happen, it is highly unlikely because he has too many other commitments which would make developing a personal friendship very difficult.  God is different, He desires to have a personal friendship with his people.  Before we discuss that though, look at the verses that Rick cites concerning the attributes of God concerning Lord, Master, King, Judge, Maker, :

Psalm 95:6 (NASB95)
⁶ Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

Psalm 136:3 (NASB95)
³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

John 13:13 (NASB95)
¹³ “You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.

Jude 4 (NASB95)
⁴ For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

1 John 3:1 (NASB95)
¹ See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

Isaiah 33:22 (NASB95)
²² For the Lord is our judge, The Lord is our lawgiver, The Lord is our king; He will save us—

Isaiah 47:4 (NASB95)
⁴ Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name, The Holy One of Israel.

Psalm 89:26 (NASB95)
²⁶ “He will cry to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’ ^[2]

Originally, God had not intended for man to be as much of a servant  or slave as he was intended to be in fellowship with God.  Adam and Eve walked with God daily in the garden and enjoyed a personal one-on-one, face-to-face relationship with God.  They were created perfect, and had lived perfect lives, standing righteous in the presence of God.  In order to be in fellowship with God, they had to be perfect and righteous in His sight.  After the fall, this personal relationship was nearly impossible because of the wickedness of man’s heart. Since God is totally righteous, He cannot tolerate any sin or any wrongdoing at all. When Adam sinned, he gave up perfection and took on spiritual death since he killed his spirit by abandoning the righteousness of God for the unrighteousness of rebellion against God.  The only way that the relationship between God and man could be restored was for a perfect, righteous person, such as Adam before the fall to pay the penalty for the sin that Adam had committed.  Therefore Jesus came and offered himself on the cross to pay for the penalty of sin that was required.  As a result of this offering, we are now free to approach God at any time.  The reason for this is that the blood of Jesus covers the sin that we have committed completely and totally makes us righteous in God’s sight. 

Romans 5:11 (NASB95)
¹¹ And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Romans 8:1 (NASB95)
¹ Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:18 (NASB95)
¹⁸ Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,

1 John 1:3 (NASB95)
³ what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:9 (NASB95)
⁹ God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

2 Corinthians 13:14 (NASB95)
¹⁴ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.^[3]

God bridged the gap, He made it a point to make sure that we could have fellowship with Him.  Try to picture the way that God loves us, He wants us not just to have fellowship and friendship with Jesus, but also with the Holy Spirit and the Father.  He wants us to learn about friendship from Him and to pour it out on our fellow men.  God’s friendship is unique, personal, and is meant to be developed on an intimate basis with God.  While we are developing that friendship, He expects us to extend the friendship toward our fellow believers and toward those we come in contact with in everyday life.

The example that Rick uses from the Old Testament is that David was considered to be a man after God’s heart.  There were others listed who also had learned to draw near to God, these included Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Enoch, Elijah, Elisha, and Noah.  Enoch and Elijah had become so close to God that they were taken up into heaven without experiencing death.  Yet what does it take to develop this close fellowship with God? 

John 15:12-17 (NASB95)
¹² “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. ¹³ “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ “You are My friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. ¹⁷ “This I command you, that you love one another.

John 3:29 (NASB95)
²⁹ “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full.

James 2:23 (NASB95)
²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

James 4:4 (NASB95)
⁴ You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ^[4]

The word friend in these verses in interesting, it doesn’t speak of an associate, but rather one who is a close personal acquaintance.  The idea goes beyond a normal friendship and indicates a relationship such as friends of a bridegroom.  The idea is that they are buddies, close friends who enjoy and desire to spend time together.  Imagine that, being a close friend with God.  The word from James 2:23 says that Abraham was a close friend of God, we can be too.  Our advantage is that we stand forgiven under the blood of Jesus Christ, therefore our way has already been paved through faith in Him.  It goes beyond that though because we don’t solicit the friendship with God, He is the one who chose us.  He is the one who empowers us, He is our life, His love sustains us, His friendship goes beyond any human friendship that we can imagine.  Along with being a friend, Jesus is loves us and bathes our lives in His love. 

Two sections are left in today’s study under the subtitle of “Becoming a Best Friend of God.”  The first one is “Through constant conversation”, and the second “Through continual meditation.”  Both of these are covered in depth in the book, I would encourage you to read them.  For the sake of space I am going to hit on them briefly.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NASB95)
¹⁷ pray without ceasing;

Ephesians 4:6 (NASB95)
⁶ one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. ^[5]

Constant conversation is interesting, Rick makes the point that having constant conversation with God does not mean that we have a quiet time in the morning then forget God until evening.  It doesn’t mean that we pencil God in for a few moments during the day, and work Him around our schedule.  It means that we are conscious of God all day long, speak with Him and think about Him.  I have wondered how that a person does that, Rick suggests that it is retraining the mind to think about God all day long.  One other remark that he makes is that “Just be sure that your motive is to honor God, and not to control him.”  This is in reference to what he calls “breath prayers”.  These prayers are short prayers of just a few words where you honor God by thanking him, praising him, quoting scripture, or bringing quick requests before him.  The idea is that we make it a point to think about God and to determine to communicate with God constantly.

Psalm 23:4 (NASB95)
⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 143:5 (NASB95)
⁵ I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands.

Psalm 145:5 (NASB95)
⁵ On the glorious splendor of Your majesty And on Your wonderful works, I will meditate.

Psalm 119:97 (NASB95)
⁹⁷ O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

Psalm 77:12 (NASB95)
¹² I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds.

Joshua 1:8 (NASB95)
⁸ “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

Psalm 1:2 (NASB95)
² But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.

Job 23:12 (NASB95)
¹² “I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. ^[6]

The second thing is similar to the first, “ continual meditation.”  Rick makes a statement that if you know how to worry, then you know how to meditate.  Worry is the same thing as meditation except it has the wrong focus.  Meditation is taking the same energy and focusing it upon God, therefore you are constantly considering and mulling over the word of God in your heart. 

Picture this, you have a computer problem, and back in the back of your mind you know how to fix the program in order to get it to do what you want.  Won’t you think about it, consider it, and dig through the manuals until you get the answer?  Do the same thing with God’s word, consider it, think about it, and dig into the manual.  How often have we heard a sermon and thirty minutes later, can’t remember what it was about?  When asked, we may say that it was a good message, but in reality we didn’t take it to heart enough to place it in constant consideration.  The difference falls under the “want to” part of our life, we will remember and meditate upon what is important to us.  If money and bills are important to us, we will meditate or worry about how to pay them or to make more money.  If our projects are the most important to us, we will put our mind to work figuring out how to fix, build or use our projects.  If God’s word is important to us, how come we don’t spend our time trying to figure out how it applies to our lives?  Who are we really fooling, God knows our hearts, He knows all things, if we say that we treasure His word, isn’t it time that we act like it?

Wake up call….  When we were going through Hesperia today, we noticed an abnormal amount of cars parked on the side of the road a mile or so ahead.  Our train was traveling at 50 mph so we passed the group rather quickly.  It was a somber scene, two automobiles were in an accident, it appeared to be a head-on collision.  Both cars looked like their hoods were crushed all the way back to the firewall, the engines and front ends seemed to be missing.  They appeared to be made of tin foil.  I can only speculate as to how hard the impact must have been, and seriously doubt that either driver survived. (I prayed for their lives, if possible, and for the families that they belonged to.)  Then consider some of our friends that have left us rather suddenly lately, Larry Cardoza and Josh.  I doubt that any of these people had any idea that their number would be called, and did not have time to make final preparations before passing.  What we are doing here is serious business, we aren’t just going through spiritual gymnastics or learning to jump through spiritual hoops.  This study is about real life, it is about eternal life with God.  Don’t put off setting your heart right with God, this is not a game.  I would encourage you to stand before Him, admit that you are a sinner, and ask Him to forgive your sin.  He wants to have a friendship with you, have fellowship with you, and put peace and joy in your heart.  Jesus is waiting for your response, and He is waiting to give you a satisfaction and purpose that you never dreamed possible.  Ask Him and see.

Father, as we consider Your word today, we want to praise You for the opportunity to read Your word and learn from it.  Thank You for the truth about how that we are to constantly pray and constantly fellowship with You.

In Him,

Joe Turner.