John Bevere - Do You Want to Be Close to Jesus?
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Aren’t we all friends of God because we’re born again in the New Testament? Well, that’s not necessarily true. All right, you just completed chapter 35; let’s dive a little deeper. All right, you’re saying, «John, yeah, Moses was the friend of God; um, Abraham was the friend of God.» Aren’t we all friends of God because we’re born again in the New Testament? Well, that’s not necessarily true. Jesus made a statement to his disciples. Now listen to this statement: he said, «No longer…» This is John 15:15: «No longer do I call you servants.» The fact that he says that means that at one time, these guys were looked at and merely regarded as servants. Why does God do that? To protect us. Why? I mean, look at Galatians 4:1. As long as he is a child, he differs nothing from the servant.
Why does God do that? To protect us. He doesn’t want us to become overly familiar with him. I look at Ananias and Sapphira; I don’t think God was happy about that situation. As a matter of fact, I know he wasn’t. He doesn’t want situations like that. They became overly familiar with God; they thought they could hide something from him. It resulted in them coming near his glorious presence and encountering judgment. Let me tell you, God says, «I would rather my presence be distant and you learn how to walk in holy fear before I bring you in close and make you my friend.» You will see this all throughout the Bible. It’s always the love of God that protects us.
So God says, «Even though I want to be your friend and you want to be my friend, I have to keep you at a distance because I want to protect you. I don’t want what happened to Ananias and Sapphira happening to you.» Wow, that’s how great his love is for us. He yearns for us. The Bible actually says he yearns for us. James 4:5. To yearn means he longs for you intensely and consistently. He constantly is yearning for your fellowship, but he says, «I’m going to protect you.» So Jesus said, «No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but now I have called you friends.» Why does he say «now»? Well, if you look at the Gospel of John, in the beginning, it says many people believed in Jesus, but he didn’t trust them because he knew what was in man.
So why didn’t Jesus trust them? Because they hadn’t proven trustworthy. These guys had stayed with him through all of his trials for three and a half years. They stayed when other disciples left, when other people began to ridicule Jesus, when other people gave up. They stayed with him; that’s why he says, «Now I call you friends.» Now this invitation is open to you and me because Jesus said in John 15:14, this is a statement to all of us. That statement I just read to you was specific to those 11 disciples. Now Jesus says, «You are my friends if…»
Now what’s amazing to me is that we preach about this, we write about it, we sing songs about it, but we never finish the «if.» «If» is a condition. In other words, this will happen if you fulfill this condition. What is the condition we have to fulfill? Jesus said to be his friends: he said, «You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.» There it is: the fear of the Lord, trembling at his word. What Jesus is saying is that not everyone in the church is my intimate close friend, but he passionately desires everyone in the church to be his intimate close friend. Yet, we are the ones that choose the level of our relationship with God, not God. That’s why God implores us in James 4:8: «Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.» How do we draw near? In the holy fear of God.