Evening Service, 18 October 2009
What is the greatest privilege that you have as a Christian?
Is it forgiveness? Help? Heaven?…
As genuine and as great as all these are, what good are they without communion with God? This is the greatest gift that we have, and is the very essence of what it is to have eternal life as Jesus notes in John 17:3. A relationship with God. John calls it “fellowship” in 1 John 1:3. It is the rightful portion of all true believers. It is surely a wondrous and amazing gift of grace!
Communion with God – is this not the very essence of heaven, and is it not heaven begun below?
Yet for many Christians ‘communion’ means simply eating bread and drinking wine at the Lord’s Supper.
But the Bible talks of a sweet intimacy with God – involving a realisation of His presence, joy of communication, experience of blessings.
This is the spiritual communion that underpins the visible sign of the Lord’s Supper, and to which the Lord’s Supper should turn our hearts.
And it is the call of James when he tells us to “draw near to God”. What James meant by drawing near to God is based on the approach of the priest to God in His temple for worship and sacrifice (Ex. 19:22; cf. Lev. 10:3; Ezek. 43:9; 44:13). Godly people approach God to perform their spiritual service.
But it also conveys the sense of humility and sincerity in our approach. Through Isaiah, the Lord said of those who came near Him hypocritically and superficially, “These people draw near with their mouths and honour Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men” (Isaiah 29:13). But the psalmist declared, “But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Your works” (Psalm 73:28). Likewise, David assures us that “the Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Ps. 145:18).
Concerning this “drawing near to God” we should see four things:
1. Natural – to all believers
By this I mean that it is open to all believers, meant for all believers, that it is but natural that we should know this communion with God since God has saved us to be with Him and to relate to Him.
We can talk about drawing near to God by which we mean coming to God through faith in Jesus Christ – our conversion – but James is here writing to people who profess their having come, their having been saved. Hence we must take it as meaning that we are to look for a continuance and deepening of this new relationship we have with God through Jesus. We are children of God through faith in Christ, and as children we are to see ourselves as in a growing relationship with God.
We need to let this truth sink in, for many Christians seem to doubt this reality.
Perhaps you have read journals or biographies of believers from the past – or perhaps even in your reading of the accounts of Enoch, Moses whose face shone, Mary at Jesus’ feet, the Apostles, Stephen as he was being martyred – and thought to yourself ‘I can’t hope to enjoy such communion with God as they did.’ But why should you not? Read the text again – if you draw near to God you will have as much communion as they did, and your relationship will be as real and personal as it was for them.
Or perhaps you remember former times in your Christian life, but such times of felt closeness with God have long since been turned into memories – and now there is a routine to your relationship, maybe even a touch of dryness, and you doubt whether you will ever again know such warm intimacy with your Lord. Maybe you’ve backslidden, and you doubt your right to even expect it and so you satisfy yourself with merely knowing that God has forgiven you. Read the text – it also speaks to you! When we find ourselves remote from God we need to hear God saying to us in the words we find here: “draw near unto God”.
In this regard hear the sweet promise David communicated to his son Solomon, “Know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him” (1 Chron. 28:9) This is God’s sweet promise to us today, these things were written for us and as such this is a promise we should embrace in prayer and in the pursuit of holiness; which leads on to our next point:
2. Nurtured
As we look at these words we should also note that they are a command – this is something we are to pursue.
As a result we see that this is not something which is automatic. The relationship is from the moment we become children of God through faith in Christ, but the relationship needs nurturing – and in this we have a part to play. We must want it and work for it – we must draw near to God. This is the heart of the Christian life – a life with God, seeking ever to be closer to Him and more like Him. Christian maturity is live in close and hallowed fellowship with God
It is important to note that the Bible speaks of our relationship with God as a marriage relationship. When you make the vows you are married, the relationship now exists, but it needs to be worked at – you are one, yet you need to become one and that involves knowing more of the other and opening yourself up more to the other. It involves being together, and communicating.
In similar fashion we should devote ourselves to the means of grace – to prayer and Bible reading, to worship and fellowship – and to do so particularly with the aspiration that God will show more of Himself to us. But it also means a decided effort, by His grace, in pursuing godliness in our lives.
While rejoicing in present spiritual life, we must ever be seeking to draw closer to God.
Consider the solar system, where we see the planets revolving around the sun in their set orbits. Some closer, some further away. Well, we all revolve around the Sun of Righteousness – some believers are close, others are further away. Now just like the planets, though far from the sun some rays of light and heat still reach them, so also some of the divine light and heat is within believers living at a distance from the Lord – but it is so little compared with what they might have! But unlike the planets we can and are exhorted to come in closer to our Sun.
There are heights of communion which some Christians have attained which others have never dreamed. Let us seek to have the closest communion with God that man can have on this side of the eternal divide. Let us not be content with outer orbits of grace, but ever seeking to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Let us cultivate every appointed avenue whereby we can draw near to God, not resting content till we know more of His glory and grace, and of His presence and power.
3. Agreement
As children we were always taught that it was improper to visit someone unless we gave some attention to our appearance.
The context in which this injunction occurs shows that it is impossible to draw near to God without giving attention to your life.
Amos 3:3 asks, “Can two walk together lest they be agreed” (3:3)
Jude 14-15 illustrates this in relation to Enoch who is described as one with a heart after God’s – a preacher of righteousness. “Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” This is a wondrous picture of agreement between God and His people. They are with Him in glory, and they come with Him in the last day, but notice what that coming is about: judgement. In this they evidence their agreement with God, an agreement of fellowship even in judgement; but there are others with whom there is no agreement, and hence no fellowship – only judgment.
Warren Weirsbe helpfully draws attention to the nature of this aspect of drawing near to God when he notes that ‘Dr. A.W. Tozer has a profound essay in one of his books, entitled, “Nearness Is Likeness”.’
In the present context we are told on the one hand to flee satan, then on the other to draw near God. Also we are told to come with clean hands and pure hearts.
The very first evidence of a true desire to draw near to God is a deep repentance of sin. It was when we first came, and continues to be as we come again and again.
For many Christians, the lack of the sense of God’s presence and joy of intimacy with God is because they do not take this reality seriously. But you cannot separate Christ as King away from Christ as Saviour, you cannot be a citizen and yet a rebel at the same time.
In Hosea 10:11 we read, “Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh grain; but I harnessed her fair neck, I will make Ephraim pull a plough. Judah shall plough; Jacob shall break his clods”.
Here Israel is introduced to us as being like a cow treading corn. Such cows were not allowed to be muzzled, and hence this was a preferred work to ploughing because they could eat as they worked. And so Israel preferred the work of treading rather than bearing the yoke of ploughing. The meaning is that God’s people wanted blessings but could not endure the yoke of obedience.
Do we also want the nearness of God with all its blessings, yet show a persistent unwillingness to stir ourselves up to a life of obedience? But the two cannot be separated.
4. Reassured
As Manton points out: ‘This is a standing law of heaven: to have God turn to us in mercy, is to turn to Him in duty.’ Here God encourages us by enshrining this promise into gospel law.
We do not labour in the means of grace driven merely by possibilities, but with confidence, driven by the absolute of God’s Word. This is a blessed assurance.
But is one that we must be careful not to despise – we do so to our loss:
Yet do we not have a tendency to reverse the order? Do we not think: ‘How easy it would be to keep a daily time with God if only we had, to begin with, a more vivid sense of His presence’ And so we yield to our sense of weakness and dryness and miss out on the promise.
Yet others do by their reluctance to draw near. Don’t bask in self-pity, don’t be filled with envy of the portion enjoyed by others, nor be despondent because through sin you have flung yourself off into the far reaches of the solar system of grace – draw near to God. Pick up the Bible, speak up in prayer, lock up in fellowship, gear up in godliness, ie, draw near to God. He has promised to honour and meet that desire by drawing near to you.
Let none of these keep us back from a close walk with God.
Have we seen the depth of our privilege as Christians? Salvation involves submitting to God as Lord and Saviour, but also brings the desire for a true relationship with Him. It is to draw near in intimate fellowship and communion with the living, eternal, almighty God.
If the church was fully conscious of this truth, what dignity and reverence would characterise its worship! What urgency and frequency would characterise our attendance upon the services and prayer and study meetings! Ps 73:28 declares, “It is good for me to draw near to God”; Heb 10:22 cautions, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”.
May God give us the grace to both see and do this, and to know and sense the blessing of His drawing near to us. But let us not miss the point of the writer to the Hebrews who in 10:19-22 stresses that this access and hence the privilege of drawing near is entirely based on Jesus’ work not our own. A point not lost on James either.