God has an amazing plan.  It’s a plan for intimacy with you and me.  I’m talking the sort of closeness that comes when a man and woman marry and make a home and life together.  In fact - God wants to set up His home in you and me.

WEDDINGS ARE WONDERFUL, BUT …

I just want to set the scene … we are in the second programme of a four programme series that I’ve called “How to Get Close to God”. And so many people have this desire to be close to God – they want it, but it’s been elusive. It’s hard to get close to God – we can’t see Him, we can’t touch Him, we can’t hear His voice – we want it, but how?

Interesting … a husband and a wife, they love each other, they want to be close and yet so often marriages fail because they just don’t know how to be close and how to love one another. And it can be the same thing with God. So often we drift away; we hear the promises of God but we just don’t know ‘How can I live them out? What do I do? How can I be close to God?’ And so we can’t believe the promises because we can’t experience them.

We began this important series last week on the programme when we looked at God’s promise that if we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, then we have already been brought close to Him. That promise is kind of like the marriage promise that a husband and a wife make at their wedding – it’s completely unconditional – it’s a promise for life. And from God’s perspective, there’s no divorce.

Let’s have another listen to that promise – it comes in two parts – the first part is about God’s desire; the desire of His heart. Have a listen – if you’ve got a Bible, grab it, open it at James chapter 4, beginning at verse 5. This is what it says:

God yearns jealously for the Spirit that He has made to dwell in us. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Humble yourself before the Lord and He will exalt you. (James 4:5)

And the second part is what God did to fulfil that desire; what He did comes in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning at verse 13:

Now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away, have been brought near through the blood of Christ. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near, for through Him we both have access to the Father by the one Spirit. (Ephesians 2:13-18)

A desire and an action. Together He’s promised the intimacy for us … a promise He will never break; a promise that we can live our lives in with absolute certainty.

So the first step that brings us close to God is the step that He takes through the cross, towards each one of us. It’s a step that He took – the cross is for you and for me – the cross opens the way to God for each one of us. In fact, the cross is the way. That’s why Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one shall come to the Father except through Me.” And the only response that He requires of us is simply to believe in Him, with all that we are – with our very lives – to put our faith in Jesus.

I don’t know about you but every time I rest in that wondrous truth my heart is fit to burst with a joy that words can’t describe. So often I have sat quietly on my own, just gazing with the eyes of my soul, at that wondrous cross and wept with joy at God’s incomprehensible plan to draw me close to Him. Those times without doubt, are the high points of my life. Even if all around there are dark storm clouds; even if all around people seem to be raging and arguing and there is conflict in the middle of that, I can sit quietly and experience the knowledge of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Today I want to take a look at the next step to getting close to God. He took that first mighty step – we looked at that last week on the programme and we respond with a small stumble of faith and … there it is – the marriage promise; the marriage covenant; the eternal relationship between God and you, between God and me, has begun – an eternal marriage.

But what comes next? How do we experience the closeness, the intimacy of that relationship in the reality of our lives? Well, this week we are going to take this one step further, well, not just us, but God. And to understand what He’s about, we are going to use the language of marriage because it makes an awful lot of sense.

Weddings are wonderful but they don’t go on forever. They’re celebrations, when everybody gets dressed up and family and friends come along – this beautiful ceremony where a man and a woman decide in front of everybody, to make that promise; that declaration that they are going to spend the rest of their lives together. Then they have a ceremony, they sign the register, there are flower and photos and a feast and it’s fabulous.

And it’s exactly the same at the moment that we go to God and ask for His forgiveness and accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord. It’s an awesome, awesome thing! If it’s something you have never done I just want to encourage you that there is no time like right now, to pray just a simple prayer.

Now back to my wedding – I remember that time – when Jacqui and I were married; a few years ago now but it was just unreal. Being a typical male I said, ‘Well, why don’t we just go to church on Sunday morning and have the wedding as part of the Sunday service and we can have some coffee and some fairy bread afterwards.’ Well, not surprisingly, my lovely Jacqui did not quite see things that way. Instead we hired a marquee and put it up on the vacant block next to our church building and our friends and family came along. By the way, I still had the fairy bread served to her at the bridal table and I had the video with a priceless expression on her face when the plate arrived. Anyway, it was just a wonderful celebration of a man and a woman falling in love and deciding to spend the rest of their lives together as husband and wife.

But, you know the best part of that day for me was when, at the end of the celebration, the car came to pick us up and we left everybody else behind. I still remember that feeling when we hopped into the car to take us to the airport so that we could fly off on our honeymoon. I remember waving to the people and driving off thinking, “This is by far the best part of the wedding, leaving the people behind.’ It’s not so much that I didn’t enjoy the celebration, I did, it was great – but heading off together as husband and wife was awesome. And so began that process of becoming one; of making a life together and a home together, “The two shall become one flesh and cleave to one another.”

See, it’s exactly the same when we leave the rest of the world behind for Christ’s sake; when we except Jesus into our hearts; when we accept once and for all, His offer of eternal relationship through His sacrifice on the cross. We head off with Him. And strangely, in the Bible, God uses the same language as the language of marriage to describe what happens next. And we are going to have a look at what happens next, after that beautiful marriage promise, next.

UNDER ONE ROOF

We were taking a look earlier at how two people come to be one; to be intimate and close in marriage. The wedding is great but then they leave all the other people behind at the wedding and head off on their own, to become one – to set up home together – well that’s marriage.

But how does this closeness, this intimacy work in our relationship with God? As it turns out, exactly the same as in a marriage. We set up house together, we move in with one another – God moves into us and we move into Him – we live together with God, as one. That’s Jesus plan – take a look – He says to His disciples:

If you love me, you will obey what I command and I’ll ask the Father and He will give you another counsellor to be with you forever – the...