James 4 and verse 8, you'll see that passage, you know that verse where God says there in James 4, draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Draw nigh, draw near, draw close to God and he will draw nigh to you. And I want you to just look at what we're being taught here in that verse. That if you take steps to have a close relationship with God, God will be there. And God will take steps toward you to develop a close relationship there. And just think of the magnitude of that. That you and me as sinful human beings can have a close relationship with the one who made us. Just think about that. I mean, that's a really powerful opportunity that we have. And James reminds us here, if you reach toward him and that's your intent to draw nigh to God, he'll do that. He will draw nigh to you. And as studying through this for the week, this past week, and then in my Bible reading, reading through the Bible, I've been in Deuteronomy this week, and I want to just read here a couple of verses from Deuteronomy 13. I read this yesterday in my Bible reading, and it It arrested my attention again, knowing what we were going to talk about tonight, about how important it is to God that we have a close relationship with Him. And He feels so strongly and has really powerful consequences for anyone who would try to take us away. from that relationship. And just listen to these words. He begins in chapter 13, verse 1, If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spake to you, saying, Let us walk after other gods whom you have not known, and let us serve them You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. But that prophet, verse five, or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has counseled rebellion against Yahweh your God. Verse six, if your brother, your mother's son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly saying, let us go and serve other gods whom neither ye nor your fathers have known. You shall not be willing to accept him or listen to him, and your eyes shall not pity him, and you shall not spare him or conceal him, but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people So you shall stone him to death because he has sought to drive you from Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And then he goes on with another one. If you hear in one of your cities which Yahweh your God is giving you to live in, anyone saying that some vile men have gone out from among you, and have driven the inhabitants of their city astray, saying, Let us go and serve other gods whom you have not known, then you shall inquire and search out and ask thoroughly. Behold, if it is true and the matter is confirmed that this abomination has been done among you, You shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, devoting it to destruction and all that is in it and its cattle with the edge of the sword. And then he goes on. Now those are really powerful consequences that God is calling for. And obviously we don't live on the Old Testament law now. But I'm reading that just to say the God of the Old Testament has not changed. We are hearing the heart of God in the relationship that we have with him. And he's so intent on that, that these powerful, deadly consequences that he was having here in the Old Testament for anyone who was going to drive people away from a close relationship with God. That's pretty significant. And so I just wanted to begin tonight just kind of talking about that and how strongly God feels. Well, what steps are necessary to have a close relationship with God? We're going to go through that in our handout this evening. And there are five of them, five action items that are essential. And just trying to think through, there are so many things that could be put on this list. But for the sake of our time, I just wanted to boil it down to what are just absolute essentials that you cannot draw close to God. You cannot have a near relationship with God if any one of these is not there. These all have to be there. And so I want us to kind of walk through those here tonight. And we have many verses of Scripture. And for sake of time, I'm putting most of them up on the screen so we can see them. Here are these five. The first one of those action items is listen to God. Listen to God. Reading your Bible daily enables you to hear from God each day. You know, prior to the completion of the Bible, God spoke to people through dreams, through visions, through angels, etc. But since we have the inspired and preserved infallible Word of God, this is the way that God speaks to us. This is the primary way that God speaks to us. And we know that from 2 Timothy 3, about the Scripture, you know these verses, verses 16 and 17, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, is breathed out by God, and it's profitable to us for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly, throughly furnished unto all good works. That's what the Word of God is there for us to make us. The word here is perfect. The idea of that word is mature. So God has given us his word to make us mature so that we can grow here. And some people sometimes claim a supernatural experience of hearing God's voice. I hear people tell me that from time to time. Well, no, I heard God's voice or God talked to me in a dream. or all of those kinds of things. You can hear people that tell you that today. And I always tell them, well, you need to make sure that whatever you feel like God is speaking to you about, that it is in keeping with the Bible. Because this is the primary way that God is going to speak to you. And he's never going to tell you anything that's not in keeping with this book. because this is the one book that God gave us for us to know his heart about all things at this time. And then you see 2 Peter. 2 Peter 1, Peter's writing here and he says this, and for sake of time we're just looking at these two verses. Verse 16, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, Peter says, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. And so just to summarize, Peter is telling these people as he's writing this, he said, what I'm telling you here is not something that I've just chased after some wild dream. That's not what I'm telling you at all. What I'm telling you is what I saw. I was an eyewitness of his majesty. And then look at what he says in verse 19. He spends verses 17 and 18 talking more about the eyewitness aspect there. And then he says, we have also a more sure word of prophecy. Now listen to what he's saying here. More sure than what? He's just said we were eyewitnesses that we would think, well, that's a pretty powerful dimension there. But then he says, What we have here is a more sure word of prophecy, where unto you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in the dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your heart. And then, you know, the verse goes on to say, and it's talking to us about the Bible. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So that's what Peter's telling them, the powerful word of God. And so we have to be engaged in this book. This is the primary way I'm going to listen to God, the primary way. And so we read the Bible. How do we read the Bible, practically speaking? First of all, we read it for nourishment. This book, I hope we know, is like no other book. Brother Degard gave us some really, really good resources. Many of us in this room have read some of those resources. Maybe somebody here has read all of them. Those are great resources. They're going to help us, but they are nowhere near the same as engaging and reading this book. There's a powerful quality to this book that's energized by the spirit that nourishes the soul, right? Like nothing else. And you see these verses here, Jeremiah 15, 16. Thy words were found and I did eat them. And thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. For I am called by thy name, O Lord, God of hosts. First Peter 2.2. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Jesus said in John 6, 63, it is the spirit that makes life alive. It's the spirit that quicken it. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life, Jesus said about his own words. And then, of course, you know, Hebrews 4 and verse 12, the word of God is quick. The Word that's living, the Word of God is powerful. The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Reading the Bible is not like reading any other book. The moment you got saved, God put His Holy Spirit inside of you. The Spirit that inspired this Bible. God has that Spirit living inside of us. And so every time you're reading the Bible, you have this ally inside of you that's confirming in your own soul. You know what? That's right. That's right. And that's not true of any other book. There is a living, powerful quality to this book. So our reading of the Bible should never be an academic pursuit. That's not why we're reading. We want to let the powerful word of God nourish our soul. So you read for nourishment. Number two, letter B, you read for understanding. Brother Ron was giving us some of the summary of what Jen Wilkin was writing in her book there, Women of the Word, and Hendrickson also, and the book that he mentioned. And several of the things that we're talking about are right along with that. Reading for understanding, and I think I put it on your handout, read, purposefully, with a plan, and read slowly. If you want to draw close to God, you have to read slowly. When you're driving 65 or 70 miles per hour, you don't catch many details, right, along the highway. And so, to try to help us to catch as many details as possible, Advertisers put up these massive billboards. They're way, way, way bigger when you're right up close to them than they look when we're just driving by, but they're enormous, and they're there to get us to catch as many details as possible, and we still don't get enough. And imagine, instead of having one of those billboards, you had a poster board, right? Or a regular sheet of type paper and that somebody's put on a stick beside the highway. You're not going to get any of what's on that piece of paper, right? You're going by too quickly. You cannot absorb that. So you can't be a speed reader of the Bible and really gather everything. You have to slow down and take in the details if you really want to draw near to God. You want to make sure you understand what He is saying. And so you want to explore those details that are there. Three keys to aid our understanding. Just quickly, when we think about observation, interpretation that Brother Ron was just referencing in Hendrix's book, I'm sure some aspect of these are in that book, but three keys. Number one, when you're reading the Bible, and you're trying to understand what it says, always begin with a literal interpretation. When you're reading the Bible, you always want to think that way. You're just taking it literally. So in Mark 8 and verse 19, this key, always take the Bible literally, means that we accept that there was a hungry crowd of 5,000 people that were fed with real bread And they were fed with a fish by a miracle-working Savior. One of the common phrases that you see when people talk about taking the Bible literally, they say, if the plain sense makes common sense, then seek no other sense. If the plain sense makes common sense, well, we hear that and we say, okay, that's a lot of people. There's a miracle-working Savior here. That makes sense. So we accept that, literally. When we read in Revelation 19 and verse 15 that out of Jesus' mouth comes a two-edged sword, a sharp sword. Now, that doesn't make much sense if we try to picture Jesus coming at this point in the future with a sword sticking out of his mouth. That just doesn't make sense. But when we look at that figuratively and say, okay, that is speaking about the power of Jesus' words when he is actually speaking the destruction of his enemies. So we interpret that figuratively. And so, but we want to begin with a literal interpretation. Number two, always let Scripture interpret Scripture. The Bible, as you hear people say from time to time, the Bible is the best commentary on itself. So you want to compare Scripture when you're trying to determine the meaning of a passage. And a lot of times, a concordance, that you can get or you may have, you see them in your Bible, in the margins there, in the middle, in between those columns with all these little tiny verses. They're just directing you to other places of Scripture to help you tie all of that together. Always let Scripture interpret Scripture. And then number three, always interpret obscure passages in light of clear ones. The Bible does not contradict itself. And truth can stand up to your questions and the investigation that comes from those. And so, you look at that and you never let... This is a huge way where people go off the deep end into false doctrine. It's when they take some obscure verse and they build a whole theology around that obscure verse. You have to let the clear passages of Scripture guide our thinking when we're looking at something else. One theological statement in one verse should always be harmonized with the other theological statements throughout the Bible there. And remember, anytime we talk about obscure and our interpretation there, I always like to remind us what I was taught in college by a professor that has just stuck with me all through these years. A text can never mean what it never meant. A text can never mean today what it never meant. So what that text meant When it was written, it's what it means today. And if it did not mean that when it was written, it does not mean that today. So people can't just pull a verse and then create some interpretation of that verse, which is really not what John said. It's really not what Paul or Peter said there. So we have to be really careful about that. Number two. If I want to grow close to God, I need to listen to Him. And in addition to listening to God, I need, I'm going to use the word, concentrate on God. I need to concentrate on God. And you can see, this is a point about meditating. Meditation on God's Word. And again, we're just boiling things down to what are the essential things if I want to be close to God. And this is one of those, meditation. Meditation enables us to take focused steps of growth. There's a huge difference between Christian meditation and non-Christian meditation. And you hear about that when people, you know, they're sitting and they're humming and they're They're doing all the transcendental meditation, Buddhist kinds of forms of meditation, those kinds of things. Those are things where they tell you you're trying to empty your mind with that and just free yourself of everything. That's the total opposite of Christian meditation. And it's very dangerous. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to empty our minds. That's really, really dangerous. But we are told to fill our minds with the Word of God. And this is what meditation is. It's not emptying our minds. It's actually filling our minds there. We're not trying to disengage the mind. We're not trying to silence. the mind, we're trying to engage it to understand and apply the Bible. Several quick verses here, Joshua 1.8, and again we don't have time to look through all of this, but I think you know the story there, Moses is passed on, Joshua is coming to take the people into the promised land, he's being given counsel here by God in Joshua 1. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then," you see the end of the verse? "...thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." That's from meditating day and night. And of course, you know what the psalmist said in Psalm 1? The blessed man, he doesn't walk after this or this or this or this. In verse 1, here's what he does. His delight is in the law of the Lord. And in that law, we would say in our Bible, he meditates day and night. And because he does that, he is like this tree that's planted by the river of waters, whose leaf also shall not wither, but whatever he does shall... What's the next word? Prosper. Just like God tells Joshua here in Joshua 1.8, that that is going to cause you to have good success. That is going to cause your way to prosper. And meditation involves two primary elements. It involves, first of all, deep reflection. I don't remember exactly the way Brother Ron said this when he was summarizing what Jen Wilkins says in her book, Women of the Word. But when she's talking about meditation, That's what she's talking about. Ron, I can't remember those words, but he referenced there a deeper understanding and thoughtful, I care, this is what we are talking about here, deep reflection. Psalm 119 verse 15, I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways. We concentrate on God through his word. And meditation, it's just simply, it's me reading God's Word slowly, intentionally, thinking deeply about what we are reading. James 1, 25, but whoso looketh, and the idea there, you may have a translation that says peering. Peering intently is the idea. Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. The peering intently, again, it's not speed reading. It's stopping, slowly taking in. That's what this is talking about here. It's reflection, it's concentration. And that deep reflection then leads to personal application. And that's the second key element, making specific, practical changes to our thoughts and actions. This is where we actually flesh out the Bible in our lives. I put up Philippians 4, 8 and 9. You know these verses, especially verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, if there be any virtue or if there be any praise, okay, think on those things Paul says there. And then he says, those things, verse 9, which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace shall be with you. So meditation is this deep reflection that results in personal application. And we're taking time to just prayerfully consider what are some ways that I need to change based on what I'm thinking about right now in the scripture. And I hope that the final session that we do on our relationship with God, I hope to take some time and just practically walk us through and I'll just kind of show you very personally this is what I do and walking through that and hopefully that will be an encouragement and helpful to us in how we do that but we're thinking through specific ways that my life should change because of what I'm reading here and it's impossible to really have a close relationship with God without taking time to just really let God speak to us as we meditate on his word. I think we'll do one more here. Essential to growing close to God is reading the Bible, meditating on it. We have to listen to God, concentrate on God, and then, of course, we would expect we have to talk to God. And I think we all understand that praying enables you to share your heart with God daily. And we would all every one of us would quickly agree. I'm not going to grow close to someone that I do not talk to. It's just not going to happen. I may want to, but unless I talk, you know, and you can put it in whatever, you know, obviously, I want to have a good relationship with with Janice. My wife, I never talk to her. I'm not going to have a good relationship with her. Matter of fact, it's going to go south really fast if we don't talk, right? I'm not going to grow close, you know, with Pastor Bob or Pastor Brad and the others on the staff. You want to have good relationships and good working relationships. Well, if we never talk to each other, we're not gonna grow close in our relationship there. We have to talk, we have to communicate, and this is true of our relationship with God. Prayer is, I think there's a blank here in your handout, prayer is to our spiritual life as breathing is to our physical life. The atmosphere around us, it exerts pressure on us, on our lungs, and it forces us to breathe. We take in air naturally in response to this pressure. And we do this naturally without having to constantly go about grasping or trying to grab for some air. We just naturally do this based on the pressure that's exerted around us. And because that is true, it's harder for me to hold my breath than it is for me to breathe. Because breathing is just natural in this process. But if I'm going to try to hold my breath with all this pressure that's exerted, that's hard to do. And none of us can do that very long. And prayer is to my spiritual life what breathing is to my physical life. It's just really an essential part. And if I'm not faithfully in prayer, it's like I'm trying to constantly hold my spiritual breath. And I can't do it. I can't survive very long. And so we've got a couple of things here. Frequency in prayer. And I just gave you several verses there. Luke 18.1. Many of you know these verses. Men ought always to pray. not to faint. Luke 21 verse 36 Jesus said watch ye therefore and pray always. Paul's letter gives us many commands concerning the frequency of prayer, his various letters. Romans 12 verse 12 continuing instant in prayer. Philippians 4 verse 6 be careful for nothing But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Colossians 4, verse 2, continue in prayer with thanksgiving. 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, we all know this one, pray without ceasing. David said in Psalm 55, verse 17, evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. So you see the constant nature of that, praying always. It doesn't mean that I'm to pray in noticeable ways every walking or a moment, every waking moment. Jesus did not do that when he walked upon the face of the earth, nor did the apostles do that. Praying always is, I think I have it written there on the handout there. It just means that we are God conscious. in everything in our life. So we're going about our day in this constant spirit of prayer. From the moment we get up in the morning, we're just acknowledging today, God, I have no idea what's in front of me today. I can't see the future. You've already been there. You know it all. I know this. I am not sufficient for it, and so I need your help. So you begin right off the bat with that, praying for God's help in our lives and recognizing our dependence. on the way to work, you know, you might be just thinking about your work day and asking God to guide you. I've got this meeting today and I'm anticipating it's a challenging meeting and God, would you just guide this meeting today? I'm making this presentation today for this, pitching this to a company or whatever, God, it would be great for us to have that business there. Could you just guide me today in that situation, you know? And you're just constantly in this. in this awareness. It's not just when we're thinking about bowing our head to pray for a meal but just throughout the day here. This is what praying without ceasing means. This is God's consciousness that's going on there all the time in our lives and we're seeing our need for God in everything about us. And then methodology in prayer. There are many methodologies out there. that you can look at, and this is the one that I've enjoyed, and I've mentioned it here before, and I've just got it all down in the handout there. The Acts Plan. The adoration, the confession, the thanksgiving, and supplication. Adoration, acknowledging the nature and character of God and worshiping Him in that. That's adoration. That's us beginning in our prayer time just acknowledging who God is and thanking Him for who He is and recognizing, reading this chapter here that reading yesterday and just stopping in adoration and saying God you are supreme and you demand that and you want me and my family and everybody that we come into contact with, you want all of us to bow before you And you don't want us running after anyone else. And no one is worthy of our undivided attention and honor and exaltation than you. And so we want to be faithful with that. We're acknowledging that. Letter C is confession. Naming your sins and asking God to forgive you for those sins. We're just acknowledging here, God, forgive me there. That was a terrible thought and the devil put it in my head and I did not run. I entertained that thought and that was wrong and I'm acknowledging that. Would you forgive me? Or whatever else it is. Then the Spirit of God brings these things to our minds. This is again, you can't be, you could make a whole different section on confession You can't be close to God without this, but I included it in prayer because it is part of our praying there. We're just confessing our sins there. And then Thanksgiving, expressing gratitude to God for the specific ways that he's working in us and in those around us. And there again, just being grateful to the Lord, acknowledging his good favor and many, many kindnesses to us. that he shows us constantly. And then supplication. And here we're just requesting. We are asking God to supply our needs, the needs of those around us. We're praying for our family, our children, and our grandchildren, our church family, and our coworkers, and our neighbors, and all of those kinds of things. We're just making requests of God. And this is essential for us. And we have to have times, daily times in our lives. There's always this awareness, praying without ceasing. But there needs to be a specific time where you can just be alone with God and you're just pouring out your heart to Him. Now, when you're hurting, tell God that. You don't have to be ashamed of that. When something is You've come into your life and you're just really as a human being. That is just so disheartening. That is so disappointing. God already knows that. Tell Him that. Acknowledge that. You're talking to Him. And He's going to talk to you through His Word. And maybe He's going to bring someone along that day in your life to just remind you of truth that you know, but you need to be reminded of it. And this is the way God works. in our life and in our prayer life. And I can't be close to God without these. So just thinking about these first three things that we have in the handout and we'll look at numbers four and five the next time we're together. Next Sunday we have a Connect Sunday so it may be the following Sunday but we'll look at these and no, that's our revival so it'll be the following Sunday that we look at this. So hang on to your handout And we'll look at these next two later. But these all are relating to, OK, I began a relationship with God. Well, how do I grow that? How can I become a serious minded Christian that feels close to God? Because if I draw nigh to him, he will, he will draw nigh to me. He's there right there. He's wanting it, you know, and he's commanding it there. And he certainly will.