Dangerous Word Night, June 10th-16th

Acts 10

Intimacy with God

Main Point: The ability to hear God's direction and voice in your life has a direct correlation with your level of intimacy with Him.  (Rephrased): 1. To clearly hear the voice of God in your life, you have to have intimacy with Him.  2. The closer you are to God, the easier it is to hear Him speak.

What is intimacy?  Close, personal, detailed, knowledgable, loving, deep.  Are those words that you would use to describe your relationship with God?

Everyone has questions and wants to find purpose and direction for their life.  So how do you find that?  Intimacy with God.

#1- You can't fake intimacy with God.

What were the attributes of Cornelius that helped him become intimate with God? (vs. 2)

Ways that prove you can't fake intimacy are your ability to hear God's voice, and how God views your life (giving, relationship, attitude, actions).  You can fool men, but you can't fool God in these areas.

Recognizing God's voice is step 1.  What is step two, which is just as important and very difficult sometimes?  (obedience).

Which better describes you: lack of intimacy, lack of obedience, or lack of trust?

-Intimacy would be not being able to hear or discern God's voice.
-Obedience would be knowing exactly what God has called you to do, but simply not doing it.
-Trust would be knowing disobedience driven by the idea that you don't trust God to take care of you, provide for you, work out the details.

#2- Intimacy is more than just following the rules.

What did the dream mean?
1. We can eat bacon.
2. The segregation of God's people from the rest of the world through circumcision, dietary rules, and societal separation is over.
3. The message of the Gospel and a relationship with Jesus is now open to everyone!
4. We can eat bacon!  YAHTZEE!

#3- Intimacy is a continual process.

When you becomes friends with someone, you don't stop working at friendships.  BFF rarely means Forever without working hard on it.

#4- Intimacy involves trust.

Is your intimacy level with God deep enough to push you to do things that are uncomfortable, unconventional, and unexplainable?

Think about the weight of this: God has put you at your work, in your neighborhood, with your set of friends to make sure that people know about Jesus.  Are you missing a huge opportunity?  Is your neighbor Cornelius and you Peter?  Please don't be content to sit on the Gospel message.  Intimacy with God will force us to realize the importance of telling others about Jesus.

#5- Intimacy doesn't happen overnight, so start pursuing intimacy with God NOW.

Don't wait until something bad happens to pursue God.  Don't wait until you are in a jam to begin having the desire of intimacy with God.  I know we all run to God when bad things happen, but how many of us run to God when everything is going well?  Good health, good job, good money, good relationships.  How diligent are you in pursuing God?

This is a game changer for our church.  If our intimacy level with God grows deeper and we are obedient to His voice, we'll be an unstoppable force, a Dangerous Church!