Overview

This sermon explored the connection between the fear of the Lord and true friendship with God, emphasizing that intimacy with God is built through reverence, trust, and obedience. Using the lives of Abraham, Lot, Moses, and the disciples, the message contrasted surface-level belief with deep relational closeness to God. Abraham was presented as the model of God’s friend because he obeyed immediately and faithfully even when God’s commands did not make sense, such as when he was asked to sacrifice Isaac. Because of Abraham’s fear of the Lord, God entrusted him with deeper revelation and shared His plans with him. In contrast, Lot was described as righteous yet spiritually unaware because he lived too closely aligned with the world rather than cultivating intimacy with God. The sermon also highlighted that while many followed Jesus for signs and miracles, only those who obeyed and remained faithful were called His friends. Ultimately, the message taught that friendship with God is conditional upon obedience and holy fear, and that God desires believers to grow beyond simply being servants into mature, trusted friends who know His heart and walk closely with Him. # Notes

• What is important in a friendship to you?
• - Acceptance, Empathy, Communication, Respect, Come as you are.
• How does the fear of God draw you into friendship with him?

>[!Bible Verse] Psalm 25:14 ESV >The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, >and he makes known to them his covenant\.

• Who do you share your secrets with? Your close friends or anyone?
• - God is the same way, he shares his secrets with those he is close to. He’s not everyone’s ‘friend’.
• Abraham is an example of a friend of God
• - God asked Abraham to kill the son he waited for, no reason given.

>[!Bible Verse] Genesis 22:3 ESV >So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac\. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him\.

• Abraham didn’t hesitate, he woke up early the next morning.
• The emotional war he went through must have been so devastating.

>[!Bible Verse] Genesis 22:12 ESV >He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me\.”

• The Angel knew Abraham loved God, because he obeyed even though he didn’t understand.

>[!Bible Verse] Genesis 22:14 ESV >So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided\.”

• God revealed a piece of himself to Abraham that hadn’t been revealed before.

>[!Bible Verse] Genesis 18:17 ESV >The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do

• God asks Abraham his opinion on Sodom and Gamora

>[!Bible Verse] Genesis 18:26-28 ESV >And the LORD said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake\.” >Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes\. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking\. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty\-five there\.”

>[!Bible Verse] Luke 17:27-28 ESV >They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all\. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building

>[!Bible Verse] 2 Peter 2:7 ESV >and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked

• The bible calls Lot righteous and he is as clueless to what’s going on as Sodom and Gamora.
• I’ve righteous man knows God’s plan, the other righteous man does not. The difference is, one righteous man fears God and is his friend. The other doesn’t
• Lot represents the world’s view of or carnal Christianity, Abraham represents the biblical view of Christianity.

>[!Bible Verse] Genesis 13:12 ESV >Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom\.

• The fruit of Lot’s life is not the same as Abrahams.
• God spoke face to face with Abraham, like you would with a friend.

>[!Bible Verse] 1 Corinthians 10:3-4 ESV >and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink\. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ\.

• Israels’ righteous and Moses righteousness
• Israel knew God by his acts, and how he answered their prayers
• Moses knew God intimately, and new his secrets, and actually managed to change his mind.

>[!Bible Verse] John 2:23-24 ESV >Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing\. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people

• God trusted Moses.
• Jesus didn’t trust people

>[!Bible Verse] John 6:66 ESV >After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him\.

• Jesus had a lot of people leave him, persecute him, and betray him. But he trusted his disciples

>[!Bible Verse] John 15:15 ESV >No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you\.

• Jesus no longer saw them as servants, but friends.

>[!Bible Verse] Galatians 4:1 ESV >I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything

• Why is there a time that we are treated as servants to God?
• - It is to protect us.
• God isn’t going to be our friend till we are established in who we are, and who he is.
• Once we truly fear the Lord, then we can truly be his friend.

>[!Bible Verse] John 15:15 ESV >No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you\.

>[!Bible Verse] John 15:14 ESV >You are my friends if you do what I command you\.

• You are my friends IF, if is a conditional statement. We must OBEY him first.
• Jesus is saying that not everyone in the church is his friend, but he does want us to all have a close enough relationship with him to call him friend.
• When we live too closely to the world, it can end up poisoning our relationship with God and who he wants us to be.
• We don’t have to be perfect, to be friends with God.

>[!Bible Verse] James 4:1-5 ESV >What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder\. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel\. You do not have, because you do not ask\. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions\. You adulterous people\! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God\. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

• James is considered a New Testament book of wisdom
• God is jealous for us, His Spirit inside us, is jealous for us to obey him.

Reflection