Turn with me, if you would, to
James chapter 4. James chapter 4. I was talking to a brother who
is very dear to me. And he was telling me how disheartened
he was because he felt so far from the Lord. He just felt so
far. From the Lord, he felt he said
he felt like he was close at one time. And. Now he said he felt like he just
had drifted away. And I know that many of you here
think that I'm talking about you because I have this conversation
with brethren all the time. But I just go ahead and tell
you this particular brother is not from this congregation. I'm telling you all this because
this is something that all of God's people experience. All
of God's people, every time that I have this conversation with
a brother or sister, I say, I know exactly how you feel. I
know exactly how you feel. Maybe that's a shock to people.
You know, I'm a preacher and all that kind of stuff. But I
know exactly how you feel. I have moments where I feel like
the Lord is right beside me. And then in no time, it's like
I'm all alone. I honestly feel all alone. Now, I know that Martin Luther
said, feelings come, feelings go, feelings are deceiving. I know that he said that, and
I know that so. I know that so. I know that and I believe that
our salvation is not dependent on our feelings. It's dependent
on the finished work of Christ. But if it's possible to feel
one way or the other, I would rather feel close to him. I would, I would just rather
feel close to him. I would rather have the comfort
and the reassurance of knowing that he's with me. Like David,
I want to be able to say, thou art with me. Thou art with me. So in thinking about this, for
all of our benefit, I want us to look this morning at James
chapter four, verse eight. It says, just one line here,
it says, draw nigh to God, and he will
draw nigh to you. That is a promise from God's
own word. Whatever your condition is, whatever
your situation is, whatever your circumstance is, if you need
him, if you need to be with him and have his presence with you, verse eight says, draw nigh to
God and he will draw nigh to you. Now for our Bible study
we're going to look at how do we do that and I believe in my
heart this will help God's people. I really believe in my heart
this will help God's people. How does a child of God draw
nigh, draw near to him? Well let's start here. Turn with
me to John chapter 6. John chapter 6 verse 37 says, All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. First, let's acknowledge the
fact that only God's chosen redeemed people will draw nigh to him.
Let's start with this. All that the Father giveth me
will come to me." Look at verse 44, it says, no man can come
to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. No man or woman can come to Christ
or draw near to Christ because his or her sin has separated
him, them, us. All men and women, from Christ,
from God, by nature no man can come to him and even if he could,
by nature no man would come to him. Look at chapter 5 verse
40, it says, you will not come to me that
you might have life. You will not come to me. It's
not in the nature or the ability of a man or a woman to, of his
or her own doing, come to Christ. You hear people say that all
the time, come to Christ, come to Christ. That's impossible
with man. That's impossible. It's not in
a man or a woman's ability or nature to draw near to the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is God. Draw nigh to God. All the fullness
of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit is found in the person
in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. If a sinner is ever going
to be made able and willing to draw nigh to God, God is going
to have to draw that sinner nigh. God is going to have to make
that sinner willing in the day of his power and God is going
to have to draw that sinner to Christ. God's going to have to
do that. But back in John chapter 6, verse 37 says, All that the father giveth me
shall come to me. All that the father giveth me
shall come to me. All who the father draws will
come, will be made willing, will be made able to come. So it's only by way of the father
that we come to Christ. And it's only by way of Christ
that we come to the father. Let me say that again. It's only
by way of the father that we come to Christ. And it's only
by way of Christ that we come to the Father. Look with me at
John 14. Verse 6. Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. So if a sinner draws night of
God, God gets the glory for it. That's where we're going to start.
We're going to talk about drawing night of God. Just draw night
of God. If a sinner draws night of God,
God is going to get the glory for it. That's how I'm going
to end this Bible study. If we make it all the way to
the end, I'm going to repeat that. God gets the glory for
it. And if God does indeed do that
for us, if he does that glorious work for us and if he creates
that way for us to come to him, then he said, we can come boldly
unto his throne of grace that we may find mercy and grace to
help in our time of need. If he has created that way, he
said, you come with boldness. So how do we do that? How do
we come to Him? How do we draw night when we
really need Him? How do we draw night? Well, turn
with me now to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew 7 verse 7 it says, ask and it shall be given you. Ask and it shall be given you.
Our Lord said this coming off of the subject of prayer in chapter
6. Chapter 6 he's talking about
praying. He said you ask and it will be
given you. I really think this will help
us. We draw nigh to him in prayer, but here's the thing about it. We draw nigh to him in prayer,
but here's the thing about it. When we feel far from him, we
usually feel so far we struggle even to pray. Do you know what
I'm talking about? When we feel far from Him, it's
like we can't even pray. When you desire to pray, but
there's no emotion. I believe all of God's people
can enter into this. You want to pray to Him so badly,
but there's no emotion and there's no connection. There's no sincerity
in your prayer. You just feel like it's dead
lip service. Has anybody ever been there? John Newton described it by saying
prayer, a task and burden prove. Well, I guess I need to pray.
Let's all bow our heads. I'll pray. He said, tell me you who love
the Lord indeed, is it thus with you? In those moments, all right,
in those moments, ask the Lord to put a prayer in your heart. In those moments, ask and you'll
receive, okay? We think, okay, well, I'm gonna
start praying. In those moments where you feel so far from him,
you just can't even pray to him, ask him, draw night of God in
that moment. and ask him to put a prayer in
you. Draw nigh to him for prayer. I've put this to the test. I'm
speaking from experience. I'm telling you, I'm speaking
from experience. Preaching is relentless. Everything's relentless. Parenting is relentless. Work
is relentless. Life is relentless. It's not
that preaching is above anything else. It's just among it. Preaching
is relentless. And you study and study and you
prepare messages and you deliver messages and then you need another
message and you want it to bless God's people. I don't want it
to be dead lip service. And it's relentless, relentless.
And in those moments where I have nothing left in me, I tell you
all the time I get up on Monday morning, every Monday morning
and think now what? Every Monday morning. When you're in those moments
where you're just so empty, you're just so empty, there's nothing
there. Draw nigh to him. Ask him to
pray for you. Ask him, number one, to pray
for you. He said, Peter, I've prayed for you. In the same way
that you would come up to your preacher or come up to whoever
and say, hey, would you pray for me? Ask him to pray for you. Lord, would you pray for me?
I can't even I can't even pray to you. Would you pray for me? He said, Father, I've prayed
for them. Ask the Lord to pray for you and ask the Lord to pray
for you. When you're in those moments
when you just don't feel like you can do it with sincerity
and fervency in your heart, ask the Lord to do it for you, drawn
out of God in that moment. If you ask him to do that for
you, he will. Drawn out of God and he will
drawn out of you. Turn over to Romans 8. Romans 8 verse 26. Oh, I love
this verse of scripture. It says, likewise, the Spirit
also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought. But the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And
he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the
spirit because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the
will of God. When you feel that distant helpless
place that we feel all the time, draw not to God in prayer for
prayer. All right, here's the second
thing. Turn with me to first Peter chapter
two. Verse Peter 2, verse 2, it says, as newborn babes, do this as
a baby, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word. As a baby, desire milk. That's telling us something.
That's not talking about meat that's talking about milk. As
newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may
grow thereby when you're in those moments where you feel so far
from the Lord. And you want to hear from him.
You want to hear from him. Open his word. Now. Just like in prayer. When we feel dead inside and
we feel far from God, it is such a struggle to read. It's such
a struggle to read. Does the scripture flow to you
like the morning paper does? Or you get the latest big author
book, the next series, I can't wait, it's coming out, here it
come. Is it as hard to read that author's book as it is to read
God's word? No. You hang on every word, don't
you? We'll start reading and all of
a sudden we realize I have no idea what the last 10 verses
just said. You ever done that? So what you
do is you start over. You go back up and you start
over and then you get to the bottom and you say, I did it
again. I didn't pay attention again. That's how most of my
day is spent. When that happens, with prayer,
asking the Lord to help you, do this. Find one verse of scripture
that has very simply spoken to your heart before and fed your
heart before and asked the Lord to spoon feed it to you again.
Ask the Lord to just spoon feed that one verse to me again. Matthew 11, 28 says, come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you
rest. Oh Lord, feed me with that. Come
unto me. Lord, let me get a hold of three
words. Come unto me. Just come unto
me. Wouldn't you just love to get
a hold of those three words? All ye that labor and are heavy laden,
come to me. If you're labored, if you're
heavy laden, come to me. I'll give you rest. Just feed me with that. Draw
nigh to him in prayer for prayer. Draw nigh to the simple, sincere
milk of his word, asking him to spoon feed it to you. Here's
the third thing. Turn with me to Matthew 18. Matthew 18 verse 20, it says, for where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. If you
want to draw nigh to God, draw nigh to his worship. Draw nigh
to his worship, gather with his saints. Where two or three are
gathered together in his name, For the purpose of worshiping
his name. That's where he is, he said,
that's where I am. Now, here is the problem for
us. When we don't feel close to the Lord, this is talking
about moments where we don't feel close to the Lord. We don't
feel that fervent heart. We feel cold and we feel dead. At best, the Lord called it lukewarm. That would be at best for us
sometimes, just lukewarm. Here's the problem for us in
those moments. We struggle to find that urgency
to gather with God's saints. We just struggle to do it. We
tell ourselves that we're too tired, we're too depressed, and
we say, I wouldn't get anything out of it anyway. I would go,
but I wouldn't even get anything out of it anyway. Try the Lord
on that. Just try the Lord on that. In
those moments where we're struggling to come and gather with God's
saints, just draw not to God in worship. And say to yourself,
you know what? Worship is not about me anyway. If we could ever learn that,
that would put a whole new spin on our worship. Worship is not
about me anyway. It's all about Him. It's all
about Him. And if I don't get anything out
of it, it's not about me anyway. I'm here to present myself before
him and to worship him. Just draw nigh to him in worship
and see if he doesn't draw nigh to you. Just see if he doesn't
draw nigh to you. I can't tell you how many times
I have heard, I wasn't gonna come because I
was so tired I thought I'd just sleep through the whole thing.
But I decided to come anyway and man, the Lord woke me up.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. If you feel far, and this is
for those who just feel far, if you feel far and distant,
go with his saints, go gather with his saints in the place
where he said he would be, asking him to pray for you and spoon
feed you. Ask the Lord to spoon feed you.
Lord, would you help the man preaching and take the words
through him and spoon feed me with it and see if he doesn't
warm your heart because of it. It's in his hands to do. He's
going to get the glory for it. But just see if he doesn't warm
your heart with it. I was gonna give you an illustration,
I don't have time. I'll give you the short version.
You remember that, you know the story well about the man who,
the brother who they saw less and less until they didn't see
him and the pastor went to visit him and he was sitting by his
fireplace and the pastor scooped a coal and set the coal out by
itself on the hearth and that red hot coal just went black.
And then the pastor laid it back on that pile of coals and it
got hot again. And the man said, thank you. Yeah, you're right.
Go gather with God's saints. If you feel, just go gather with
God's saints, see if he doesn't feed you. Draw nigh in prayer,
draw nigh in the word, draw nigh in worship, gathering with the
saints, hearing the gospel preached. One more, okay, go to Romans
10. This comes through gathering
with the saints, hearing the gospel preached. Romans 10 verse
17 says, so then faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the word of God. We draw nigh to God in faith.
Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, hearing the gospel preached.
That's how faith comes. The disciple said, Lord, increase
our faith. Okay, well, here's how it happens.
Faith comes by hearing the Word of God preached. The gospel preached. And the gospel preached will
always remind us of this. Even though we are far from Him,
He is not far from us. That's what the gospel will remind
us of. We may feel like he is nowhere in sight, but this is
what he said. This is the good news of his
word. Here's the gospel of his word. He said, I will never leave
you. I'll never forsake you. Never. And the faith that comes to us
through the hearing of the gospel causes us to believe it. It causes
us to believe that we were far from him. But he came to us and
he loved us, even when we didn't love him. He died for us, shed
his blood for us, purchased us to himself. And he said, you're
mine and you'll be mine forever. And in hearing that, faith causes
us to say, even though I'm so unfaithful, even though I am
so unfaithful, he is faithful forever. He is faithful forever, even
if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself. Even if I don't draw nigh to
him, because of his promise and because of his covenant, he'll
never stop drawing nigh to me. Never. That will warm a cold
heart. That really will. His faithfulness. His prayer for us, His word to
us, His gathering with us, and opening our eyes of faith to
see that. There's a poem that said, far
by nature and by practice, how very far from God, that's how
we were, yet now by grace brought nigh to Him through faith in
Jesus' blood. And now because of that, near,
so very near to God, I cannot nearer be. For in the person
of his Son, I am as near as he. As near as Christ is, that's
how near we are. So I'll leave us with this statement,
okay? If God will draw nigh to us, we will draw nigh to him. And him revealing to us and causing
us to know our coldness and our deadness is him drawing nigh
to us. Now let me repeat that. If God will draw nigh to us,
we will draw nigh to him. And him revealing to us and causing
us to know our coldness and our deadness is him drawing nigh
to us. When we're in the middle of coldness
and deadness, we don't know it. We're dead. You don't feel anything and you
don't care. That's the problem is you don't care. You know,
it's like I don't feel I don't feel anything over not feeling
anything. It's a bad state to be in. But
when the Lord starts showing and I start saying, oh, wretched
man that I am, that is him drawing not us. That's the start of the
work, that's him revealing this is where you are. That's him
drawing not us. So when we know we're in that
state, let's be thankful to him for revealing that to us. Lord,
thank you for showing me where I am. Thank you for not just
leaving me here. That's the first step in him
bringing his warmth to his people, his life to his people. And I'm going to go ahead and
close. I was going to close with the story on the road to Emmaus,
and that's the very thing that God does for his people. After
the Lord was crucified, Two were on the road to Emmaus and they
were so sad. They were talking about the fact
that, you know, we thought he was the one who was going to
save us. We thought he was going to redeem
us, but they hung him on a cross and he died. And the Lord came
to them and said, why are you so sad? He came to them where
they were. And then he said, oh fools and
slow of heart, shouldn't you believe everything that was written
in the scripture concerning me? And he opened their eyes and
they saw him and he vanished out of their sight and they said,
did not our heart burn within us? While he talked with us,
by the way. And that's what I pray God would
do for us, Lord. Cause us to see, cause us to
rejoice, open our eyes when we're down in the dumps like they were,
draw nigh to us. Lord, you draw nigh to us and
we'll draw nigh to you. Well, I pray the Lord will help
us with that and make it to be a blessing. You're dismissed.