Sermon Central
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God's Desire To Be Close And Intimate With Us Series
Contributed by John Gullick on Jul 5, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: A sermon that considers God’s desire to be intimate with us and how to respond
The character of God.
The sovereignty of God
The compassion of God
The justice of God
The eternity of God
The intimacy of God.
The Apostles Creed.
- James 4:8, “Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you.”This morning I want to highlight the fact that God is knowable.
- This morning I want to begin where so many of the sermons in this short series have ended up at the beginning – The early chapters of Genesis.
When God created us as a species he said :-
GE 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
GE 1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
In this passage we learn something trerribly important about us and God that we shoulod never forget.
In the image of God He created them?us
God said let us make them in our image and in that I believe he was talking about Himself the Father – Jesus the son and the Holy Spirit.
Note that god made us to be in relationship as he is.
Little wonder he says in:-
GE 2:18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.
And so he makes a woman to be in community with the man.But none the less God made us in some way to be in community with him thus we read:-
GE 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
GE 3:10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
The reason that the man hid was because there was sin in his life but note that God was walking in the Garden and the conclusion we are left with he was doing that because he wanted to be in relationship with Adam the man he had created.
In his book Drawing near John Bevere notes – It seems to be god’s pattern to make a step toward us, and if we respond, He takes another and draws close.
We see that in the life of Abraham for example where Abraham and God seem to be in an exceptionally close relationship. In Genesis chapter 17 verse 1 Abraham is invited by god to “Walk before me.”
Moses also is in close relationship with God as is Noah.
Five times in the scriptures we read the words “God said to Noah.”
None more significant than the ones that say:-
GE 9:8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you--the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
Here God makes a promise to Noah which means that God not only is knowable and wants intamcy he is also prepared to make promises to His creation.
Genesis also says – Genesis 6 verse 9 Noah walked with God.
John Bevere the author I referred to earlier concludes about the intimacy of god that god desires to draw near to us even more that we desire to draw near to Him!
If this is the desire of God who is all the things we have been talking about in the last few weeks for example:-
The sovereignty of God
The compassion of God
The justice of God
The eternity of God
Don’t you think we should discover something of the nature of the intimacy of God and to avail ourselves of every opportunity to respond to his outreached hand.
Later on in Genesis we read of an amazing man who discovered what it was to be intimate with God his name was Enoch:-
Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Enoch was Adam’s great great great great Grandson.
Because of the ages people lived to in those early Bible days Enoch and Adam were familiar with each other – Adam knew what it was to walk with God in the garden and he knew more than any other person who has ever lived what it was to have that perfect communion with god broken off.
