This series of 11 sermons was preached by Peter Misselbrook at Church Hill Baptist Church Walthamstow during 1986-1987. The 11 sermons are these:
1. Introduction - We were created for fellowship with God
2. Genesis 18 - Abraham prays for Sodom
3. Genesis 32 - Jacob wrestles with God
4. Exodus 32 etc. - Moses pleads for God's people
5. Exodus 17 - Moses praying for victory
6. Job 31 etc. - Job: Prayer as worship
7. Psalm 34 - David prays in trouble
8. Psalm 51 - David prays for forgiveness
9. 1 Chronicles 29 - David's prayer of Thanksgiving
10. 2 Kings 19 - Hezekiah's prayer
11. Hebrews 4:14-5:10 - Learning from Jesus at prayer
More than 1500 years ago there was a young man named Augustine living in Hippo in North Africa. He was quite a tearaway and lived entirely to please himself. But God touched the life of this man; he was converted, became a Christian, and his whole life was changed. Later he wrote an account of how God had brought him to a knowledge of God in Christ. In the first chapter of his Confessions, for so the book was called, he says concerning God, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." This is the plain testimony of Scripture and, surely, if only we are alive to the reality of the situation, this also is the testimony of our own hearts. God has made us for himself and we can find no true rest or peace until we find rest and peace in him.
We read in Genesis 1 that after God had created the world and everything that it was to contain – with the single exception of human beings – "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our own image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
Man – and I use the term here of male and female – man was created for fellowship with God. This is implied by the very way in which God speaks of creating men and women in his own image. In the more detailed account of God's creation of man which we have in Genesis 2 we read that the man, Adam, was first created and that he was alone. God said that it was not good for the man to be alone (2:12). Adam could not find any suitable companion from among the animals with whom he could share his heart and his life (2:20). So God put Adam into a deep sleep and from him made the woman. Adam's response on awakening is immediate: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh . . .", and a comment is then added concerning marriage, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.' (2:23,24).
Now the point of this story is surely this; in Eve Adam recognised one made in his own image, one like himself, and one therefore with whom he could share his heart and his life.
Return now to what the Bible says of the created relationship between God and man – man male and female. God has created us in his own image, It is this which distinguishes us from all other animals and, indeed, from everything else in all of creation. He have been made in the image of God and God has made us so because he has determined to share his heart and life with us. God has made us for himself. This is why the Bible is bold enough to picture the relationship between God and his people in terms of the relationship between husband and wife. We were created for fellowship with God.
The Bible gives us only a glimpse of what this relationship might have been if sin had not entered the world. Genesis 2 describes for us the way in which God prepared a special place where the first couple would live – the Garden of Eden. This is later spoken of in the Bible as 'The Garden of God.' It was not simply a place where man might live, it was the place where men and women were to live with God – a place where God lived with them. We can only imagine what might have been if sin had not entered the world – God walking and talking with man in the Garden.
If it is true that we were made for fellowship with God, why is it that so many people feel that God is far away? They would not say that they knew God nor that God walked and talked with them. The Bible tells us that sin separates between ourselves and God.
In Genesis 3 we read of the sin of Adam and Eve: they disobeyed God in eating the fruit of a tree from which God said that they must not eat. The consequences of this sin are immediate and tragic. They are troubled by feelings of guilt in their relationship one with another and they are troubled by a fear of God – a wrong sort of fear – which makes them want to hide from him (3:7,8). This is the first reason why sin separates us from God, our knowledge of our guilt makes us want to hide from him.
But the reason for separation between God and man goes even deeper than this. It is not just that guilty man wants to hide from God, it is also that a Holy God will not allow sinful man in his presence. God will not let Adam and Eve hide in his garden, he throws them out, and cherubim with a flaming sword stand guard to prevent their return (3:23-24). A Holy God will not permit sinful man to live with him.
And this is the case still. Sin still separates men and women from a Holy God. They live apart from him and he seems far off because he has withdrawn himself. This is the tragedy of human existence in a fallen world. God has made us for himself and our hearts can find no rest until they find their rest in him: and yet, men and women live without God, separated from God. They live therefore without peace and without hope.
Man without God is man with an ache which nothing can truly satisfy. He may seek satisfaction in marriage or in family, in business or in success or in money. He may seek satisfaction in pleasures or entertainments or in the drink or drugs which hold out the fleeting promise of sorrows drowned in a moment of mindless delight. But none of this can ultimately satisfy. This is the tragedy of a fallen world as men and women chase the shadows and discover that every hope crumbles at last into the dust of death. God has made us for himself and our hearts can find no rest until they find their rest in him.
Shortly before his death Jesus prayed, "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:1-3). By these words Jesus tells us that the purpose which moved the heart of God to send Jesus into the world was this, that men and women might know God. Here we see that the ache in the heart of man is, if I may put it this way, echoed by an ache in the heart of God. God made us for himself and he will not rest until he restores us to fellowship with him. Jesus is the means by which God restores us to fellowship with himself: "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:19). That is why Jesus said of himself, "I am the way,the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6).
Jesus is able to bring us back into fellowship with God first because of who he is. He is the God-man, he is God become man. He is able to bring men and women into fellowship and communion with God because he is both God with man – Emmanuel – and the man who stands now in the presence of God on our behalf. He is the only one fit to act as mediator between God and man, the only one capable of reconciling God and man.
Secondly, Jesus has restored men and women to fellowship with God through his saving work at Calvary. It was our sin which created the separation between ourselves and God. No reconciliation is possible which does not first remove this barrier. This is what Jesus was doing when he went to the cross. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At the cross he was bearing the penalty that our sin deserved, he was bearing our sin and judgment. In the text we quoted earlier, Paul says, "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them." A few verses later he explains this further, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God." This is what Jesus' death means. On the cross Jesus was bearing our sin and punishment and so was removing the barrier that separated us from God.
Moreover, the Christ who died is the Christ who now is raised from the dead and has ascended into heaven. If we are those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ then, not only do we know that our sins are forgiven, we know also that Christ appears for us in the presence of God. Through Christ, therefore, we may come into God's presence, we may have fellowship with the Father.
Thirdly, Jesus restores us to fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit whom he pours out into the hearts and lives of his people. Again, it was shortly before Jesus' death that he spoke to his disciples about the work of the Holy Spirit. In John 14 Jesus says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever -- the Spirit of truth . . . I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you . . . If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." (John 14:15-17,18,23). Here Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is the one who makes God present to the believer: through the Holy Spirit in the heart, God the Father and Christ the Son are with us. This is the precious experience of those who have, by faith, come to a living knowledge of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. To his obedient children God is no longer one who is far off, whom we do not know and cannot touch: God has made his home with us and we have fellowship or communion with him.
In Christ, we who once were far off have been brought back into fellowship with God. The deepest longings of our hearts have been satisfied as we have begun to enjoy that for which were created. But the best is yet to come. The fellowship which we enjoy with God now is only a foretaste of the glorious communion we shall enjoy with him when we spend eternity in his presence, an eternity which will begin at death or when the Lord comes.
We have seen, then, that God created us for fellowship with himself, but that sin has separated between ourselves and God. We have seen that it is in Christ and in Christ alone that we may be restored to fellowship with God. What then of yourself? What of your relationship with God now? Are you still cut off from God because of your sin? Are you still far off from God and feeling that he is far off from you? There is no need to remain far off. There is a way back to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to know Christ and to know God through knowing him. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Come then to him.
Being a Christian is nothing more nor less than knowing God through Christ. A Christian is one who knows God, not only knows about God but knows God, one who has fellowship or communion with him. A felt sense of communion with God is therefore that which alone can give reality to the Christian life. The consciousness of the presence of God is that which gives reality to our worship and which elevates it above the level of empty form. Similarly with prayer: true prayer is conscious communion with God, talking with him and listening to him. It is this consciousness that God is present with us which gives reality to our prayer: it is not merely words flung into space but conversation with God.
Prayer is at the very heart of the Christian life because it is the deepest expression of our fellowship with God. Moreover, it is through prayer that we grow in knowledge of God and our fellowship with him is deepened. A married couple who rarely talk one with another will soon drift apart and their claim to union one with another will be more fiction than reality. So it is with the Christian. If we claim to know God, that relationship which we enjoy with him must find its expression in prayer, and through prayer that relationship must be maintained and deepened.
It is with these things in mind that I want us to examine our own prayer lives. Are we going on in knowing God through prayer?
Peter Misselbrook