My relationship with God

Turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 1. John's Gospel and chapter 1 and verse number 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. Verse number 18.

No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared, or led Him out into view. Turn, if you will, to John chapter 13.

Verse 1. Now before the feast of Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot Simon's son to betray him, Jesus knowing the Father had given all things into His hand, and that He was come from God and went to God, He riseth from supper, laid aside His garments, and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

Then cometh He to Simon Peter, and Peter saith unto Him, Lord, dost Thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do Thou knowest not now, but Thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash Thee not, Thou hast no part with me.

Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith unto him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. And ye are clean, but not all.

John chapter 17 We appreciate some that have come from a distance. We don't want to seem like we take that for granted. A lot of travel and a lot of time and heavy gas prices too these days.

So, anyway, thank you very much for coming. John chapter 17 verse number 1 These words spake Jesus, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee. As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.

And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do.

And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. Now, the epistle to the Colossians. I appreciate your patience.

We only have one or two more portions of the word of God to read, but I think it's vital. Colossians 1 Verse number 12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which are who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, or His dear Son, in whom that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled on the body of His flesh. First epistle.

John's first epistle, and the first chapter. Verse number 1 That which was from the beginning. Now that's a different beginning than John 1 and 1. But that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life.

The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and it was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

Now I trust God will add His rich blessing to the reading of His word. As you are aware, and as has been announced, the purpose of our meetings are to look at the broad issue of relationships. Relationship of believers in an assembly together.

Relationships of believers with other Christians with special needs and burdens. The relationship of believers within a family. Relationship of believers to the world around us.

To the unsaved and as well to believers who do not gather as we. But having covered all of that, what we are looking at tonight is really the most important relationship. And it is the relationship that we as believers have with the Lord.

So we want to look at the value of the vertical. The value of the vertical. All the other relationships are on a horizontal plane.

It's person to person in one form or another. But here is the vertical relationship that we have with the God of heaven. And we want to look at the value of the vertical.

Now in many ways, if you were to ask me, is there one meeting that would be important to get if you get nothing else? I have to say it's tonight. Tonight is the most important meeting. Because this relationship is the most important relationship.

Because for the most part, now there are some little asterisks and footnotes to what I'm going to say that are little bits of exceptions. For the most part, all that we are talking about for the rest of the weekend is for time. We will not be ministering to one another.

We will not be helping each other go through trials. We will not be involved in restoring one another when we go astray. That ministry that is now our responsibility one to another will not occupy us in eternity.

That will all be past. So that relationship, those relationships that we will look at for the most part this weekend have to do with time. Here is a relationship that is eternal.

That's one reason why it is perhaps the most important. But not only is this relationship eternal, but this relationship is essential. I don't mean simply from the standpoint that you need to be saved to be in heaven.

We are taking for granted that that is already a given. But what we are looking at is what you and I were made for. Remember, we were made for God and a relationship with God.

Now that may sound like we are Christians, we are part of the family of God, but we were made for a relationship with God. Eternally. A relationship begun now in time and which will stretch into eternity.

So it is eternal, it is essential, or rather it is essential, and then thirdly it is effectual. What I mean by that is just this, that every other relationship we will talk about through the weekend will spring from this relationship being right. If a man is not right with God, he will not be right with others.

In fact, if you see a man who is not right with his brethren, you can begin to wonder, is he right with God? A man who is right with God will then be right with his brethren. So this then becomes the bedrock upon which everything else will grow. You remember, don't you, just to give you some rapid thoughts through Scripture that will substantiate what I am saying, you recall what happened in the garden.

Genesis chapter 3. Here was a man who was made for a relationship with God and with Eve. And the moment that his relationship with God was sundered and affected, what happens? He was supposed to nourish and cherish that woman that God gave to him. And what he says is, when God comes, the woman you gave me, she's the one that made me do it.

Take her and leave me alone. You just go a few pages on in your Bible, and there's a man, the father of the faithful, Abraham. And when he begins to think, the fear of God is not in this place.

I can't trust God here. I've got to take things into my own hands. And he tells his wife to lie and gives his wife to a heathen kid.

You know what happens there. Relationships became strained and difficult. You remember, don't you, certainly Joseph's brethren, when they were away from God, what they did with Joseph.

And you recall, don't you, a man named Thomas. And Thomas is not right with God. And as a result, Thomas becomes a demanding, condition-setting brother to his brethren.

Unless I see the print, I will not believe. Look, you boys can tell me what you want. You can say anything you want to me, but these are my conditions.

You meet my conditions, or I'm not playing your game. Now, nobody like that in Wisconsin. Nobody who sets the rules and says, you've got to play by their rules.

I know. But that's the way Thomas was. He wasn't right with God.

And the result is, he wasn't right with his brethren. So, you will understand then why I have referred to this as the value of the vertical and why it is so vital and so essential. It is eternal.

It is essential. It is efficacious. It is what is going to give value, as we will see, and we'll come back to that in a moment.

It is what is going to give value to every other relationship. So, let me then bring you to what is before me tonight as we look at the value of the vertical. And I have three major headings under which I will present what I have for you so you can kind of know where we're going.

I want to talk about the character of God that encourages. The character of our God that encourages us in this relationship. I want to talk about the capability of Christ which sustains us in this relationship.

And I'd like to talk as well about the capacity of a new life which enables us in this relationship. What do I mean by the character of God that encourages us? Have you ever thought? We all kind of think differently and view things differently, but at least, I think, if you come to John 1, it seems evident to me that God is a God of relationships. You may say, where do you see that in John 1? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God. God has always existed in a relationship. A relationship of divine persons.

Absolute harmony, absolute tranquility, absolute unity, absolute love and joy, but divine persons have eternally existed in a relationship. God has ever and eternally been in a relationship. Father, Son, and Spirit together.

And I think, without any stretch of our imagination, when we come to Genesis 1, the very first chapter of our Bible, we find that relationship expressing itself, don't we? Let us make man in our image. Taking counsel together. Communicating together.

The whole concept then of relationship. Cooperation, and counsel, and communicating. All there in Genesis 1. God existing in a relationship.

He is pre-eminently a God of relationship. But that wouldn't do us much good, would it? If that's where it ended. A God who is beyond us.

Transcendent. We hear upon earth so dark. So that God not only had to be a God of relationship, He had to be a God of revelation.

I've learned that in John 1 as well. You ever ask yourself, why does it say, in the beginning was the Word? Now I think, if most of us were honest, and we were given by the Spirit of God, and you'll allow just this human way of thinking for a moment, we were given by the Spirit of God the task of writing a gospel that would substantiate the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ we would have begun with in the beginning was the Son. Or in the beginning was God the Son.

In the beginning was the Son of God. But John begins by telling us in the beginning was the Word. What is John communicating to us? What is the Spirit of God communicating to us? That in the beginning, before the worlds were, there was one whose name was the Word.

What do you use words for? What's the purpose of words? The purpose of words are to communicate. To reveal your thoughts. So that before ever worlds came into being, before ever the grand fiat was issued from the lip of God, that hurled into space our cosmos, it was ever God's intention to reveal Himself.

That's the idea of the Word. God always intended to reveal Himself. That's why eternally His name was the Word.

Here was the One that God was eternally intending to use to reveal Himself to us. A God of revelation. So that God has in His Son communicated to us about Himself.

Tremendous to think of that. So some night when it's not cloudy and overcast and you go out and you look at the vast stellar sky and you think that that's just one little part of the Milky Way which is just one little part of the huge cosmos, you just remember that that's all just God's props. Just God's background that He could reveal Himself to you and to me.

And when you stand over, towering over some tremendous mountain range and look at it with all of its grandeur and all of its majesty, just remember they're all just the background props. Just the stage. Just the things that God is going to fold up one day when He is done using it and accomplish His purposes.

And still just continuing to reveal Himself when all that is gone. That was all just a prop. All that is around us that seems so wondrous and so grand from God's creation and indeed it is.

It's all just a background. It's all just the stage God was setting to send His Son for this great purpose. To be the Word.

To speak to you and to me and tell us what He is like. The God of relationship. The God of revelation.

But, again, that revelation would have only told us how inaccessible He is to us if He were not something else. He is not only the God of relationship. Not only the God of revelation.

He is the God of redemption. The God of redemption. I want you to just follow with me, if you will, very hurriedly through what we read together in Colossians chapter 1. I want you just to think of the wondrous truths that are there.

And the steps that have been taken relative to our redemption. To bring us into the potential for our relationship with God. We read together those wonderful words that we were delivered, giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Who has delivered us out of the kingdom of darkness crossing over the border into the kingdom of the Son of His love in whom we have redemption through His blood. What? The forgiveness of sins. This God of redemption, He has forgiven us our sins.

Forgiven us our sins. That tremendous barrier, that tremendous cloud, that tremendous gulf that existed between our souls and God. Forgiven.

But it gets even better than that. In whom we have redemption, rather giving thanks unto the Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints. Who hath what? Delivered us.

So not only have we been forgiven, but we have been freed. We have been freed from all that once held us. All the bondage that once marked us.

Well, you say, can it get better than that? Yeah, it can get better than that too. Because it says He has made us meet. What does that mean? Well, it means something more than just being forgiven.

And it means something even a little better than being set free from the bondage of sin. It means being made fit for His company. Made fit for His company.

Do you know that the moment you were saved, and if you've only been saved a day, it's true of you, and if you've been saved a hundred years, it's true of you just as equally. The moment you were saved, you were made fit for the company of God. Made fit for His presence.

Made fit for enjoying communion with Him. Can't get any better, can it? Yeah, it can. Gets better in this very portion.

Colossians 1. Because it says, you that were one time's enemies in your mind by wicked works, you have been made friends. Wow. Forgiven? That'll take us a couple of million years to eternity, won't it, just to fathom that.

Freed? Boy, to think that not only has He forgiven me, but freed me from all the bondage of my sin. Fit? Made fit for His presence? Me? Who once cowered at the thought of meeting God, fit for His presence? That I can move in His presence without a sense of guilt or unfitness or unworthiness? I'm fit for His presence, yeah. But I'm also made a friend.

You see, that's vital. Because the very nature of friendship is to share. If you have a friend, you know what that means, don't you? You'd hardly think of having some wonderful thing happen or having some important thing happen and not sharing it with a friend.

Someone who is your close friend. The Lord Jesus said, speaking to His disciples, didn't He, I no longer call you servants, but friends. Because the very nature of friendship is to make known to you what's on my heart.

And so you will see then, won't you, that what God has done is brought us into a relationship where not just that we're saved and going to heaven, but far greater than that. Brought to become friends of God. And God has not only given His Son to tell me what He is like, He has made me a friend to make me know He wants to reveal His heart to me.

The God of relationship, the God of redemption, the God of revelation. But my problem is I wander and stray. And there's a world out there with bright lights that sometimes attracts me, and there's a heart in here that sometimes leads me away.

And that fragile relationship of communion and fellowship with God is so often broken or marred or hindered. Thank God that He not only is a God of revelation, a God of relationships, and a God of redemption, but He's a God of recovery. God of recovery.

He's constantly working to bring me back into the enjoyment of that relationship with Him. So you will understand then, as time is hurriedly going, why we would underline for you and stress the very character of God that encourages us. That it is the longing desire of the Father you have in heaven.

I cannot explain it, so please don't put into a question box or come and ask me, why is that? I can't explain it. God actually longs to have fellowship with me. Actually wants to.

He's going through a lot of trouble to do it. A lot of trouble. He didn't give His Son just, and I don't want to minimize that, just to save us from being lost.

He gave His Son because He wants to enjoy us. He wants us to enjoy Him in a relationship. The character of God that encourages.

The capability of Christ sustaining me in that relationship. The glories of Christ that He possesses. Have you ever stopped to think? Every glory that Christ possesses in resurrection, and you can start going through them in your mind, high priest, shepherd, advocate, all the glories that Christ possesses in resurrection are placed at your disposal and mine.

He possesses no glories just for His own sake. He possesses no glories that somehow He just selfishly hoards for His own honor without somehow turning that glory and using it for us. So as high priest, He removes us from sin.

As advocate, He restores us when we sin. As shepherd, He refreshes us to preserve us from sinning. All of His glories are literally placed at the disposal of His people for our blessing and for our good to keep us and to maintain us in the relationship in which He wishes to.

Let me just say something here that I think is vital, because it mars so many believers in their relationship with the Lord. Could I just take one minute from this busy weekend to talk about guilt? Guilt. Guilt serves one purpose only.

Whether we're talking about preaching to the unsaved and the Spirit of God convicting them and bringing guilt before them, or whether we're speaking about the believer and the Word of God coming and revealing failure and sin and invoking guilt. Guilt has only one purpose. The purpose of guilt is to drive us to God for restoration.

That's all. And when guilt has done its work, it is put aside. It has no more purpose.

There are believers who live with guilt for years as though somehow they are atoning for their failure. As though somehow the guilt that they feel and carry is going to somehow make amends. Almost like we're back to the idea of doing penance for our sins.

That's inbred in our hearts. That's part of our fallen nature that we feel we need to do something to make God really forgive us. Yes, we've confessed it.

Yes, we've forsaken it. Yes, we've told Him we're wrong and we recognize that it's by the blood of Christ that that sin is put away, but I kind of have to walk around feeling guilty for at least six months before I can let that guilt go. No.

I'm not speaking about being arrogant and being proud after sin. That's not the idea. What I'm saying is guilt is not something God expects us to carry when we have confessed, when we have forsaken, and when we have owned it before God.

Guilt has only one purpose. We do not, as believers, need to live with guilt. We need to live in the fear of God.

We need to live with a consciousness of our frailty and our dependence upon God, but to carry our guilt is just to do penance and really to fail to give credit to what God has said. When we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. The glories of this wondrous Savior that preserve us.

There are three statements in the Hebrew Epistle that are valuable to underline and important to consider relative to the high priestly work of the Lord Jesus. They all really begin with the same expression, at least either directly or in the margin. He is able.

He is able to succor. He is able to sympathize. He is able to save.

That's the high priest you and I have. He is able to succor us amidst trial. Sometimes He doesn't deliver us from it.

What He does do is He succors us. He strengthens us through the trial. Sometimes He chooses just to sympathize with us in the trial.

And we get a sense in which He understands what we're going through. Sometimes He chooses to save us out of the trial. But whatever He chooses to do, He is absolutely able to do it.

Enable us in all of those ways to maintain relationship. Just in passing, for those who wish to look at it, you can take those three expressions and link them next to Psalm 22. The three things the Lord Jesus did not find at Calvary.

Why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why art Thou so far from Me and from the words of My roaring? Things He didn't know at Calvary. Things we know because of that. Because of His high priestly work.

So, the glories of Christ, then, that are available to us. But could I just speak of the gentleness of His ways with us? The gentleness of His ways. Is it David in Psalm 18 that says, Thy gentleness hath made me great.

Now, I don't think David was dwelling so much on His greatness as on God's gentleness. As David thought of his wanderings, as David thought of his failures, of his lapses, of his coldness of his great sin. And he looked back upon how God had dealt with him.

He says, Thy gentleness. How gentle God was with him is what led David to that pathway of recovery and usefulness for God. So, let me just speak for a moment on the gentleness of His ways.

And I can find ample scope in John's Gospel. Let me just come to John 13 where we read. The Lord Jesus longed.

I don't know any better word to use. He longed to impress on His disciples His great desire to know fellowship with them. Women in the audience will appreciate what I'm saying more than those of us who are less artistic and less aesthetically minded.

You know how you can have a nice picture to a man. Any frame will do. But for a woman, it's got to be just the frame that will enhance the picture.

It's not the right color, not the right kind of wood, not quite the right shade of stain. It's not going to make the picture look as good as it could look. And so the frame becomes vital to enhance the value of the picture.

Now the picture in John 13 is the Lord Jesus stooping to wash the feet of disciples. That's a picture that is priceless. But let me show you the frame.

The frame that enhances this picture so beautifully. There are four things that are said at the beginning of the chapter that become the frame around the act. We read together, didn't we, of the hardness of the hearts of disciples.

You say, where did you read that? Supper having ended. What the Lord Jesus did was to have been done at the beginning of supper. When they all came in and sat down and were ready for their Passover meal, it was customary for one to take the place of washing and wiping the feet of the others.

And the Lord Jesus sat there all through supper waiting. There was not one that would take the place at the feet of the others. Imagine imagine the Lord Jesus taking in His hands dusty dirty feet of disciples.

Imagine that. Why? Because He wanted to have fellowship with them. Wanted to impress them with how important fellowship with them was.

It's remarkable, isn't it, that the same section that says the Father had given all things into His hands those hands are willing to hold the feet of disciples. So the first thing is the hardness of their hearts. The second thing is the hour that awaited Him.

Jesus knowing that His hour was come to depart out of the world. Imagine what the horror of that hour must have been like in His foreknowledge. That was before Him.

Then there is the hatred of a Judas at the same table. Satan having put into Judas' heart to betray the Lord Jesus. And the fourth thing was the honor that awaited Him.

The Father having given all things into His hand. So now you take that fourfold frame. The hour that lay ahead.

The hardness of disciples' hearts. The hatred of a Judas. The honor that was going to be His.

And it says He riseth from supper, laid aside His garments, took a towel, and girded Himself, and stooped. See that begins to unfold to me something of the longing of His heart. How gentle His ways with them.

In that scene with all that before Him and all that Calvary would mean, we didn't take time to read it, there is a subtle distinction that is made, and those with Newberry Bibles or Bibles with good margins will notice it. It says that John was leaning upon His breast. And then it says the Lord Jesus informed them of the fact that one of them would betray Him and the hour was coming.

And it says that John was then falling into His breast. The availability of the Lord Jesus. He wasn't thinking about His own horrors.

He wasn't thinking about His own suffering. He was comforting His disciples. It was going to be a dark hour for them.

One of the things that amazes me as I look at the Lord Jesus, especially in the shadow of Calvary, is there was never a moment's self-pity. Never a moment's self-pity. Even when He discloses to the disciples that one of you shall betray Me.

He's not looking for pity. He's telling them to forewarn them, to strengthen them. When He tells them that it's written concerning Me, He shall be numbered amongst transgressors.

He's not telling them that for somehow they would feel sorry for Him. He's telling them that because He was making clear to them that the character of the hour was changing and soon they would be branded as those that were worthy of stripes. So we see then the longing of His heart and the love of His heart.

So the glories of His person, the gentleness of His ways. Could I just mention the greatness of His purpose. You will have to just let your mind roam freely through John's Gospel for a moment with me.

We began in John chapter 1, didn't we? No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son of the bosom of the Father, He hath told Him out, declared Him, brought Him into view, so that we are impressed at the very beginning of John's Gospel with this truth. The Lord Jesus has come to reveal to us what God is like, what the Father is like.

And as I go through John's Gospel, I am reminded time and again that's exactly what the Lord Jesus is doing. Bringing the Father into view, displaying for us the words of the Father, displaying for us the works of the Father, displaying to us the will of the Father. It's all through John's Gospel.

I come to John 17. And the Lord Jesus Christ prays, Father, glorify Thy Son. Now to the cynic, to the skeptic, he might say, hmm, look at that.

Praying for His own glory that Thy Son may glorify Thee. He prayed for resurrection glory that He might continue to reveal the Father to us. I have manifested Thy name on the earth.

I have glorified Thee. How did the Lord Jesus glorify the Father? By revealing the Father. How does the Lord Jesus glorify the Father now? By continuing to reveal the Father.

That's what He does in resurrection glory. That's what He's doing now for you and for me. He is continuing the ministry He began on earth of revealing to us the heart of God through this book.

That's why He asked for resurrection glory. Not for Himself. Not somehow as a sign, show them they're all wrong and I was right.

Not for vindication. He asked for resurrection glory that He might continue to carry out the great work He began here on earth of glorifying the Father and revealing Him to us. So that for all eternity forever and forever there is going to be a continual unfolding to you and to me through the Son of the heart of the Father.

Now God says that's what He'd like to begin even now in your life and mine. So let me then come to the capability or rather the capacity of a new life that enables. Three things.

A permanent endowment. A precious enrichment and personal exercise. What does all that mean? A permanent endowment.

The indwelling spirit of God that has been given to us. Let me just again ask you to come with me in your mind to a number of scriptures that I know you're familiar with. Three times in our New Testament the Spirit of God has given the unique title the Spirit of Christ.

Still the Spirit of God but He is on three occasions referred to as the Spirit of Christ. Romans chapter 8 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his. When you come to Philippians chapter 1 Paul in prison.

Paul says as he is asking the believers in Philippi to pray for him and he is writing to them. This also shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the further supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And when you come to Peter's epistle and Peter is writing about Old Testament prophets and the inspiration and what they inscribed and telling beforehand the sufferings of Christ.

He speaks there of the sufferings which the Spirit of Christ which was in them that signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ. Let me read the entire scripture. I'm not quoting it at the beginning as I should have.

Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them that signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. So three places where the Spirit of Christ is used as an expression for the Spirit of God. You might say that's interesting that's a nice fact.

That's if we were playing trivial pursuit with Bible things that would be nice to know. But what are you trying to say from it? Well I just want you to think of it for a moment. Because in Romans 8 he is called the Spirit of Christ because he relates me to Christ.

I am his. So it's relationship. When I come to Philippians 1 what Paul is saying there is your prayer and the Spirit of God supplying me grace is going to make me more like Christ.

I am going to be like Christ in this trial. I don't think Paul was praying for deliverance from prison. He was praying for Christ likeness in the trial.

For me to live as Christ. Christ magnified it's the whole context of Philippians chapter 1. Christ likeness in the trial. And so he says this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the further supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ so that when I come to Philippians it is not in our relationship but it is the reproducing of Christ in my life.

What do we have though in 1 Peter? The Spirit of Christ that signify when it testified when it witnessed. What? The sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. So it's his purpose then to reveal Christ to me.

So he not only relates me to Christ. He not only reproduces Christ in my life as I allow him through this scripture he reveals Christ to me in his word. So that's why when it comes to this issue of relationship and enjoying communion with God.

It's not something we do by just sitting back and letting our minds roam and rove and just conjure up what God must be like and what it no no no no. It's in this book. It's in this book.

That's where the Spirit of God reveals Christ to us. That's where the Spirit of God brings us into living vital relationship and fellowship with God. The permanent endowment of the Spirit of God and of course I've already touched upon then the precious enrichment, the scriptures, the word of God that brings me into fellowship with God.

What is the basis for your communion with God? You're using words like communion with God, relationship with God, enjoying relationship. What's the basis for it? If you have a friend, you have common interest, don't you? That's what you talk about. Your closest friend, you talk about the things that are really important unto you and your heart and in your longings.

That's what you talk about. What's really important. What's vital.

What you agree upon and find such delight in together. The basis of your fellowship with God is not your service. The basis for your fellowship with God is not your failures.

It's not your feelings. The basis for fellowship with God is His Son. That's what you enjoy together.

That's what brings you into fellowship with God. Yes, tell God your failures and your sins. Yes.

But that's not communion in a sense. Tell Him and leave them there. Let everything bring you back to Christ.

Let everything be a window to Christ, either in contrast or in comparison or in insight. That is the basis of your fellowship with God. When the Israelite of old wanted to enjoy fellowship with God at the tabernacle, he didn't come with his family and tell God, God, thank you for saving all my family.

Here they are. Isn't this wonderful? Let's rejoice. He would rejoice in that, but that wasn't the basis of his fellowship.

He brought a peace offering. And he gave some to God, some to the offering priest, and some to his family, and together they enjoyed what God was enjoying. What God has been enjoying for all eternity is His Son.

That's been what God has been delighting in. For all eternity is His Son. Now he says, all that I have done is for this purpose.

I want you to enjoy Him as well, and I want to talk to you about Him together. I want to enjoy Him with you. I want to just share something of what I have enjoyed of my Son together with you.

As you go through John's Gospel, you may get the feeling, and I think it's my bias, John is the Gospel of relationships. Not just divine relationships, but relationships of divine persons with human beings. When you go through John's Gospel, just go through them again, and looking at something you all know and are very familiar.

Look at the I Am's of John, and begin to appreciate them as what God intends for relationships. I am the bread of God. See, that's God's bread.

It's what God has been feeding on. And He's the bread of God come down from heaven. And He is giving life to the world, but not only that, but, whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, and so on.

For the eater of my flesh and the drinker of my blood has life indeed, and so on. It's an ongoing thing in that second mention in John 6. It's what should mark us just feeding upon Christ daily. The Israelite went out every morning except the Sabbath, as he walked those 40 years through the wilderness, and had every right to expect manna.

Every right to expect it. God said it would be there. It's there.

Find it. Not on the Sabbath, but every other day it was there for him to find. Come to your book.

Come to your Bible looking for Christ. I realize that you can be going through some pretty heavy portions, chronicles, and so on, and you might say, where in the world can I look for Christ? Whether in contrast with the failures of men? I think of Christ in contrast or in comparison and likeness. He's there.

He's there for us to enjoy. Make Christ the basis of your fellowship. Not what you're doing for God, however ardent or zealous you may be.

Not how many tracts you gave out today, or how many people that you've contacted, or... No. Christ. The basis for your fellowship.

The basis for communion. So, permanent endowment, precious enrichment, finally your own personal exercise. There needs to be personal exercise.

This doesn't come just because you're a Christian. Now, I know that just discipline is not going to do it. When I say just discipline, I mean just, you know, I am going to read so many chapters today, I am going to pray for so many minutes.

No, no. But there needs to be discipline. Needs to be a time set aside where you will spend time with God, and time with His Word, and time in prayer, time reading and meditating over it.

There needs to be that time. You're not going to find it. You can't say, well, you know, maybe at the end of the day there will be... No.

There's got to be time set aside. Personal exercise. Could I just say a word about, in connection with personal exercise, maintain a tender conscience.

For young Christians especially, this may sound severe, so please forgive me. It's what we were taught when we were young believers, and maybe it's a bit hard, but I think it didn't hurt me. If it's doubtful, it's dirty.

If you're not sure about something, then stay away from it. If it's doubtful, it's dirty. Keep a tender conscience.

Don't begin, you know, we are masters at mental gymnastics. You know what I mean by mental gymnastics? We can play games with our mind. We can make white, black, and gold medalists when it comes to the Olympic sport of mental gymnastics.

We can jump around on our minds and change ideas and thoughts and exchange them, and make right wrong and wrong right if it's something we want. Maintain a tender conscience before God. Maintain a clear conscience.

Confess sin. Keep a clear slate between your soul and God. And obey the Word of God as it's revealed.

Nothing will hinder you in your fellowship with God so much as failing to obey what is clear from the Word of God. It's not that God ceases to love. It is impossible.

Could I underline that? It is impossible for God's love to vary one iota for you regardless of your life. God's love never varies. Christ's love never varies.

He never restrains His love. He never somehow holds it back. What happens is we don't appreciate it.

And He is not able to express it as He would like when we are not living in fellowship. His love never changes. His love never varies.

So it's not a problem on His end. It's a problem on my end. So maintain a tender conscience.

Confess your sin. Obey the Word of God. And be marked by a willingness to carry out the Word of God in your life.

So let me link together what we have looked at very hurriedly. We have looked at an inspired Word. We have looked at an interested Father.

An interceding Christ. An indwelling Spirit. All of that coming together like four huge rivers meeting together to bring us into the current of fellowship with God.

What more could God do? What more could God do? Not only to make it possible, but to perpetuate it and to make it as rich and as blessed as He possibly could in all that He has given us. The character of God that encourages. The capability of Christ that sustains.

The capacity of a new life enabling. So let me close that by then talking about the consequences that follow. I mentioned at the outset that this relationship is vital for all that follows.

If I am not right with God, I will not be right with others. So then the consequences that follow include the fact that my tank is full. My tank is full.

Do you ever try to run on fumes? I remember a number of years ago, I was one of those brave souls that bought a diesel car that was a diesel engine. One of the first ones out that General Motors experimented with. And there weren't many diesel stations at the time.

This is back, I don't know, loose track of time, back maybe the early 80's. And when that gas gauge got down to around a quarter, my wife would begin getting very nervous. Don't you think you should stop? I'm a last minute gas person.

Look for the one that's two cents less than the next one. We'll find it, don't worry. And she was always worried we were just running on fumes.

It's hard to run on fumes. And if your tank isn't full, as a result of a spiritual relationship with God, you're running on fumes. And you'll have nothing to give anyone else.

You won't be able to be a help to anyone else. But, if our relationship with God is right, our tank is full. Now that's vital.

Because if I am not running on a full tank, there's the danger that what I'm doing may be to try to fill my tank. You say, what are you talking about? Talk English. The difference is this.

If I am full, I have come to meet the needs of others. There's the danger I could be up here hoping that you'll meet my needs. That you'll make me feel good because I'm standing in front of people and this is my ego trip.

This is my up. This is my sense of importance and significance. That I'm here and you know what I mean.

It's that danger. That we can begin because of empty tanks to look to others now to meet my needs, even in my ministry. So it's a difference between ministering to or manipulating from.

Am I ministering to others in my service for God or am I just manipulating to get a sense of what I need back from you. So my tank is full. My task becomes later.

If I am enjoying fellowship with God, my task becomes much later. Because I realize then that when I move out to meet the needs of others, it's not my wit or my wisdom or my experience or my skill but I am just a vessel through which God's fullness flows to others. And I give what God has given me.

I don't have to somehow conjure up my own wisdom in this issue but I am able to minister because God has filled me and it flows from me to others. So my task becomes later. My tears become genuine because I feel as God feels.

If I am in fellowship with God, the more I know of relationship with Him, the more I will begin to feel as He feels. There were men that God brought into unusual circumstances for the single purpose that they might know how He felt. Let me just mention one of them and you can think of others.

The farewell message of Moses to the people of God is a touching message. Yet I one day sat in amazement as I thought, how could God do that to Moses? Moses says to the people of God, I know that after my death you will go whoring after all the other gods. God had revealed to Moses that after Moses was off the scene, the children of Israel were going to go whoring after the other gods and depart from God and I almost felt like saying, and you'll forgive me for my simple way, why not give the man a break? Look at all he's lived with, the burden for all these years and he's about to leave earth and you're telling him at the end that all he served for and all he lived for is going to somehow vanish? And then it dawned on me.

God was looking for someone to share His heart with and there was only one man He could do it with. Only one man He could trust that burden to and that was a Moses. The only person He could do it with.

Amazing. That God brings men into circumstances to share His heart, to know what He is experiencing. Our tears become genuine as we are in fellowship with God.

Not simply empty acting, put on tears when we're with someone who's suffering, but genuine before God. My tenor becomes different. It's no longer a moralistic judgmental type of attitude when others fall because in the light of God's presence, I learned the plague of my own hearts.

I learned how easily, how easily I could fall and falter on the way. So my tenor becomes different. My thinking becomes scriptural and finally my touch becomes meaningful.

There were in the book of the Acts those that sought just to be in the shadow of a Peter. That his shadow passing by might fall on them. There are men whose shadow I covet because they have a touch that all of the intellect, all of the learning, humanly speaking, of this world could never match.

They have the touch of God in their lives. And when they touch my life, they leave something meaningful and valuable. I'd like to have that kind of a touch.

Like to have that kind of a... Not that somehow I might take some pride and look what I have done. But there is hardly anything so valuable as being able to touch another's life for good, for God. Whether in the Gospel, whether in ministry, whether in personal help, to have a touch that leaves an imprint for God.

Something to be coveted. A goal to strive for. And I will know that to a measure in which I know fellowship with God and a right relationship.

The value of the vertical enables me to move out on the horizontal, to be useful for God in our world, to serve the will of God in our generation. May the Lord bless His words, shall we pray. Our Father, in the name of Thy Son, we bow before Thee.

We stand amazed at the grace of God to us. We bow and thank Thee afresh for all the kindness and goodness of God. We have been tracing in these Scriptures Thy goodness to us and giving us Thy word.

The wondrous marvel of an indwelling Spirit. The untold blessing of a Savior who is interceding for us above who once hung upon Calvary to bring us into relationship with Thee. And the longing of the heart of a Father that desires to embrace us and know and enjoy fellowship with us, mortals of earth.

We bless Thee and thank Thee. This is not only Thy design for time, but Thy design for all eternity. For this we give thanks.

We commit to Thee Thy people. Some have traveled a good distance to be with us. Bless them, we pray, and grant that as we meet again on the morrow the word of God will come with freshness and with power and with help to every believer present.

For all this we give thanks. Returning to Thee, our thanks for all of Thy goodness through this day that has passed. Looking to Thee for blessing in the gospel where it has gone forth tonight and where it still will be going forth to our west.

Grant Thy good hand upon all as together we return thanks in our Savior's name. Amen.