How to Have Friendship with God | Approaching God in Prayer

Hey everybody, you're listening to A New Beginning, which is a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners.

If this program has impacted you, I'd love to hear from you. So just send an email to me at greg.harvest.org. Again, it's greg.harvest.org.

You can learn more about becoming a Harvest Partner by going to harvest.org. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points to Moses as an example we can follow for prayer. Bold, courageous prayer. Moses asked for the most audacious thing. He actually said to the Lord, I want to see you. Please show me your glory.

I love talking with you. I love our conversations together, but I actually would like to see you God and Moses saw God, and you can see God too. The Lord never advises us to approach His throne gingerly with reluctance and uncertainty. Even though He's God Most High, Hebrews invites us to come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points to the example of Moses, who showed us how to approach the Lord with uncommon courage and confidence.

We'll get some practical insight on taking our prayer lives to the next level. I have a message for you from a new series that we're doing called Water, Fire, Stone, based on the life of Moses, and the title of my message is How to Have Friendship with God. Would you like to have friendship with the Creator of the universe? Talk about having friends at high places.

I'm telling you it's possible. I want to talk to you about a man that knew God in a personal way. A man who had a friendship with God, and of course that man's name is Moses. Exodus 33 11 says, the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

What an amazing statement that is. And especially in light of the fact that it's in the Old Testament. Now in a few moments I'll talk about how we can have friendship with God and it's all a part of the New Covenant as we might call it that came as a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Well we can all be friends with God. But in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, you didn't have that kind of access to the Lord. But Moses did.

He was the friend of God. And one day in deep conversation Moses and his friend God Almighty were talking. And Moses asked for three things from the Lord. And if you're taking notes you might want to write these three things down because these are three things you should ask for.

Number one. Moses asks the Lord for divine direction. He asks the Lord for divine direction. Verse 13, now I pray if I have found grace in your sight show me your way. Every believer should ask God to reveal his will to their life.

And I believe God has a plan for your life. The book of James says if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God and the Lord will give generously. So when you don't know what to do pray about it.

Say Lord just give me wisdom. Romans 12 gives a really important insight into how to know the will of God. Paul writes and says I urge you therefore brothers by the mercies of God present your bodies to the Lord as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable and don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Listen. And he goes on to say that you may know what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So if you want to know the good and acceptable and perfect will of God first present yourself to God. And that is something you do over and over. Not just once.

Number two. You have your mind changed as you read his Word and you are being changed into the image of Jesus. And then the Lord promises to reveal his will. Notice also he says the good and acceptable will of God. God's will is good. Don't be afraid to ask God to reveal his will to you. Don't be afraid to say not my will but yours be done.

Never be afraid to commit an unknown future to a known God. God loves you. His plan for you is good. And if he says you can't do that that is because he is keeping you from something that is bad. The Bible says no good thing will he withhold from those that walk up rightly.

So his plan for you is good. I love what the Lord says to Moses. Verse 14. My presence will go with you and I will give you peace. The Hebrew here is vivid. It could be better translated my face will go with you. Now what does that even mean?

God says you have my full attention. When I am hanging out with my five grandkids they always want me to watch them do whatever it is they are doing. Maybe it is a cartwheel. Maybe it is riding a skateboard.

Whatever it is. Papa they say watch me. Watch me. And I watch them and afterwards I give my approval. Oh you did that beautifully.

That was great. They want to be affirmed. They want to be loved.

They want to be appreciated. Are we any different. We are saying Lord watch me. Lord says you have my full attention. I am looking right at you. By the way aren't you glad God doesn't have a cell phone.

You know how distracted people are with cell phones. And if the Lord if I what what he is scrolling through stuff you know. Now the Lord you have his full attention. He is watching you but he is watching you with great love and with affection. I think sometimes I think oh God is watching me.

And that is a negative thing. I heard a story about a thief that broke into a house. It was very dark. And he is making his way around and suddenly he heard a voice pierce the darkness which said Jesus is watching you.

Oh who said that. He couldn't believe it. And then another moment passes and again the voice says Jesus is watching you. He is fumbling for his flashlight. He turns it on and it is a parrot who says for the third time Jesus is watching you.

The thief is laughing. Oh and I was so scared. And then he follows the perch that goes down to the base and there is a doberman with his teeth showing. And then the parrot says sick him Jesus. Wow. You know first of all don't ever name your dog Jesus ok.

But it is a silly joke to make this simple point. That is how some people see God. Oh sick him Jesus. God is against me.

No. God loves you. God is for you. And God approves of you. Now if you are living apart from him in sin that is not true. But if you have asked him to forgive you of your sin the Bible says he has made you accepted in the beloved. Ephesians 1 tells us that. You are accepted by God. You are loved by God.

You don't have to earn that every day. It is done already bought for you by Christ on the cross. And so the Lord is saying, buddy I got your back. Ok. Don't worry. I will go with you. You will have my full attention.

Now number two. Moses asks for confirmation. First he asks for direction.

Now he asks for confirmation. Verse 15. If you don't personally go with us don't make us leave this place how will anyone know that you look favorably on us or on me and on your people if you don't go with us. Lord the angels are great ok. But we don't want an angel.

We want you. I love that. Remember when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus early in the morning. She was not expecting to meet a risen Savior. She was going to show her devotion to Him and undoing His dead body. And suddenly an angel is talking to her there at the tomb. And it is interesting because the angel engages her and says, woman why are you crying. And she says, well because they have taken away my Lord. And I don't know where they have taken Him.

I find that fascinating. You would think she would say, wait what. You are like an angel and you just asked me a question. Yeah whatever an angel. Well they have taken away Jesus. All she could think about was Jesus. Jesus isn't here. I don't know where His body is Mr. Angel.

And then what happens after that. Jesus appears and says Mary. You see Moses didn't want an angel. He wanted the Lord Himself to go with him.

And that is what we should all want. And God reassures His friend Moses in verse 17. The Lord replied favorably to Moses, I will indeed do what you have asked and look favorably on you. And I know you by name. Loose paraphrase buddy.

You got it. The Lord was drawing him out. This is always what God wanted to do for Moses.

But Moses was learning how to pray and how to be persistent and how to keep going to the Lord again and again and again. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We're encouraged to hear when these studies have impacted lives even through difficult times. Pastor Greg I truly feel as if I personally know you. I have followed your ministry from the early 90s on one of Billy Graham's radio stations in North Carolina. You will never know how much your messages have touched my life and made me a better Christian. I won't soon forget the day I heard the devastating news of your son Christopher's passing because it happened on my husband's birthday. And then in December of 2021 I experienced my own crushing loss with the death of my husband. Through it all I am thankful you continue to let your light so shine before man that we glorify the Father. God bless you and your family. How have these daily studies ministered to you and your family? Would you let us know? Tell us your story by calling 1-866-871-1144.

That's a special number 866-871-1144. Well today we're learning to follow the example of Moses in approaching the Father confidently and expectantly. Pastor Greg continues his message now. Now Moses goes to the next level. Moses goes for the gold. He figures hey man I'm on a roll. God's answering my prayers and Moses asked for the most audacious thing.

It's really unprecedented what he asked for. He actually said to the Lord I want to see you. Verse 18 please show me your glory. Another way to state it I want to see you God. I love talking with you. I love our conversations together. But I actually would like to see you.

And by the way that is a good thing to want to see God. A.B. Simpson. No relation to Homer Simpson I don't think.

He's a commentator from days gone by. Made this statement and I quote, Once it was the blessing now it is the Lord. Once it was the feeling now it is His word. Once His gifts I wanted now the giver alone. Once I sought for healing now Himself alone. End quote.

I love that. So Moses is saying I just want to see you Lord. And what did Jesus say? Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. He wanted to see the Lord. But of course if he saw the Lord he would have died on the spot.

The story is told of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. He was in outer space and he famously said I looked and I looked and I did not see God. Hey if Yuri had taken his helmet off he would have seen God really fast.

You know. But I think all of us should want to see God. And when I say see God I mean know Him of course. But one day we want to see God face to face. So the Lord works out a super sweet deal for Moses.

Check this out. Exodus 33. I read him from the New Living Translation. The Lord replied, I will make all My goodness pass before you and I will call out My name the Lord to you. I will show kindness to anyone I choose and mercy to anyone I choose. But you may not look directly at My face for no one can see Me and live. The Lord continues, stand here on the rock beside Me. As My glorious presence passes by I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed. Then I will remove My hand and you can see Me from behind but My face will never be seen.

Like what? This is insane. It is so beautiful. The Lord is saying, you are My friend. I am going to cut a special deal for you Moses.

I am going to let you do something no one has ever done before. And what Moses then saw I can't even imagine. The apostle Paul died and went to heaven and came back to earth again and he said what I heard and saw is indescribable. It is unspeakable.

I can't even put it into words. We are in awe of such a relationship. We think oh man I wish I knew God like that. But here is something that might surprise you. Did you know that your friendship with God as a Christian is even closer than the friendship that Moses himself had with God?

You say how is that possible? Because Moses was in the old covenant. And though this was a very special relationship he had with the Lord you if you are a Christian are in the new covenant.

And you go what are we even talking about new covenant? When Jesus died a new covenant was established. He fulfilled all of those Old Testament sacrifices and types in himself.

He was the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. Coming back to Mary who was hanging on to Jesus after he appeared to her he said, stop clinging to me for I must ascend to my God and to your God to my Father and your Father. No Jew in the Old Testament called God Father. But in the New Testament we can all call him Father because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Lord was saying to Mary, Mary listen now he is your God and now he is your Father and you can call on him. And so we can have this friendship with God. And it is interesting because Jesus says, no longer do I call you servants for a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends for all things I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. And Moses saw God.

And you can see God too. You may remember the story of Stephen in the book of Acts. He became the first martyr of the church.

A courageous young man that would not back down from his faith. And he stood before the religious rulers of that day known as the Sanhedrin sort of the Supreme Court but a religious group as well as a political group. And he proclaimed the gospel to them and they rewarded him by taking his life through stoning a horrible way to die. And as his life was draining from him we read that Stephen full of the Holy Spirit gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God. And he saw Jesus standing at the place of honor at God's right hand. As Stephen saw his glory. Moses saw his glory. And one day we will see his glory.

Do you have a loved one who has died and gone to heaven who put their faith in Christ? They have seen his glory. They are seeing his glory. And one day you will see it too. But until that day we need to walk with him in friendship with him. So in closing I am asking are you a friend of God?

You say I hope so. Well listen to this. If you are not a friend of God you are by default an enemy of God. Not a frenemy. An enemy of God. The Bible says before we are believers that we are living in sin and we are enemies who need to be reconciled to God. The Bible describes people that don't believe as enemies of the cross. And the Bible also says a person that loves this world is not a friend of God but they are the enemy of God. So I don't think you want to be an enemy of God do you? I think you want to be a friend of God. I have told you my story before of how I became a Christian but there was one statement that hit my heart like a lightning bolt from heaven.

And it is when Lonnie who was the preacher that day said on my high school campus Jesus said you are either for me or against me. Another way of putting it he was saying you are either God's friend or God's enemy. I looked around at the Christians and I thought well they are the friends of God. They have a relationship with God. They know the Lord.

They are for Him. And I am not one of them. Does that mean that I am against God? Well the last thing I wanted was to be against God. So that was the day I believed.

And maybe this will be the day you believed. By the way when I went to that meeting on the front lot of my high school campus I was not invited by anyone. In effect I was eavesdropping on their time of worship. And maybe some of you have joined us like that.

You know someone told you to tune in and you are checking it out and you are thinking I don't know could this even be true and if it is true would it work for someone like me? Well number one it is all true. Everything I am saying to you is true. Not because I said it but because the Bible says it. And Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. It is all true.

Number two. You can come into a relationship with God. You can have your sin forgiven. And you can go to heaven when you die.

You say no Greg that is too good to be true. No it isn't. It is true.

And it can be true for you right now. Jesus died on the cross for your sin. You see we talk about intercession. Moses stood in the gap for the people of Israel. Jesus stood in the gap for you and died in your place.

With one hand he took hold of a holy God and with the other hand he took hold of sinful humanity and spikes were driven through those hands and he bled and died on the cross for your sin. And if you will turn from your sin and believe in Him you can be forgiven just like that. And know without any doubt that you will go to heaven when you die.

And you too can see the glory of God. You too can have friendship with God right here right now. Maybe I am talking to somebody that has no friends to speak of. You are lonely.

You are isolated. You are hurting. You think no one cares about me. Oh that is not true. God cares about you.

I think a lot of other people do too. But I know this much. God loves you. And God has a good plan for your life. But He won't force it into your life.

You need to reach out and ask Him to come and be your Savior, your God, your Lord, and yes your friend. Jesus who died on that cross for your sin and rose again from the dead stands at the door of your life now and He knocks and He says if you hear His voice and open the door He will come in. That is what it means to be a Christian. It is having Christ live inside of you.

And in a moment I would like to extend an opportunity for you to believe in Jesus. An opportunity for you to be forgiven of all of your sin. If you want Jesus to come into your life. If you want to go to heaven when you die. If you want your sin forgiven.

If you want to be ready for the Lord's return. If you want to start this friendship with God stop what you are doing and pray a prayer with me right here right now. Again I will lead you in a simple prayer. And I want you to pray this after me. You can pray it out loud if you like. You can pray it silently if you like. But offer this prayer to God and He will hear you.

Just pray this if you will. Lord Jesus Lord Jesus I know that I am a sinner. But I know that you are the Savior who died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for hearing this prayer and answering it. In Jesus name I pray.

Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie closing in a word of prayer with those who are making a decision for the Lord today. And if you've just prayed that prayer with Pastor Greg we'd like to follow up with you and help you as you begin to live the Christian life. We'd like to send you our New Believers Growth Packet free of charge.

It'll answer the questions you might have and get you started on the right foot. Just call us anytime 24 hours a day at 1-800-821-3300. 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to harvest.org. Well Pastor Greg I know there's a brand new movie we're excited about that deals with the subject of fame. Yes. And the other day I saw one of those brief reels on social media little short video clips and this was featuring Julia Roberts the famous film star. And she said early in her acting career after one of her first movies as she was just starting to get famous she was in a public restroom and she heard a voice from outside the stall. It said girl in stall number one if you were in that movie such and such give me your autograph. Oh my gosh.

And a hand reached up under the divider holding a piece of paper and a pen. Wow. And she thought hmm things have changed in my life. Yeah and probably not for the better.

No. You hear what happens to these celebrities and you know people can be incredibly obnoxious and rude and demand so much from them and I think that you know that you dream and you hope one day that maybe you'll be successful and people will know your name and then you get to the top and you're so empty. I mean look at how many of these celebrities have become drug addicts and alcoholics and they're checking in and out of rehab and tragically look how many of them have taken their lives when they were at the peak of their career.

Example Whitney Houston, River Phoenix, Scott Weiland, Corey Monteith, Elvis Presley, Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters, John Belushi, Chris Farley. The list goes on man and and it's just these people have what many dream of and they see the emptiness of it. I think deep down inside we are searching for significance. We are searching for meaning and we think fame is the answer but fame is not the answer. In fact many ways fame is like gasoline on an out of control fire. So let me just save you a lot of misery. Don't chase after fame.

It's empty. Chase after Christ. That's what you're looking for but I talked to some people that I would describe as experts on this topic. Alice Cooper, Daryl Strawberry and others. You know Daryl Strawberry had incredible success as a baseball player playing for some of the best teams out there. He won the World Series rings.

He even let me put one on once, gigantic ring but he watched me very carefully in case I wanted to run off with it. But Daryl one of the nicest guys and he has an amazing story because here he is hitting home runs, people packing stadiums to watch him in action, little kids and young boys wanting his autograph and their bats and their balls and Daryl was having this empty life as he was getting heavily into drugs and well let's just hear from Daryl himself. Here's a little excerpt from our upcoming film called Fame where I talked to baseball great Daryl Strawberry. Being famous is hard. It's not easy and I think people believe it's the greatest thing to be famous but when you reach that point you're going to usually stay in the house because everybody's going to be looking for you everybody's going to be pulling at you and you don't you never know who's pulling at you for the right reasons.

In that lifestyle you get kind of embedded in it and it's really hard to get out because it gets ugly like my lifestyle it got real ugly. So today Daryl is not only a Christian he's a preacher and he travels around inspiring people. I had him in our church a few years ago and I interviewed him and after this service he said to me Greg if anybody wants to meet me afterwards I'd be happy to meet them and I I went over there after the service was over he was the last man in the room he signed every baseball every bat took time with every one of those kids because he knows he has influence he wanted to use that influence for God. So fame isn't always bad you know one of the most famous people I ever met was Billy Graham but he used his fame well because he used it for the gospel so fame is not evil it's just not the answer and it's like money you know money is not good or bad money is whatever you make of it and so you can take a platform where you're known and use it to touch people with the gospel and certainly Daryl Strawberry is a great example of someone who does that well. Well I know in addition to the movie Fame we have a book by the same title that actually takes the subject of fame and goes into more detail about its dangers and how we can steer our kids away from those dangers is that right? That's right and it's filled with a lot of quotes a lot of illustrations a lot of examples from people who did it who found it and saw the emptiness of it and then I have some biblical principles on what we really should be looking for in life so we will send this book to you for your gift of any size to help us continue on here at A New Beginning to reach more people with gospel and we'll also encourage you to go see our brand new film Fame.

Dave tell them where they can see that. Yeah the movie called Fame premieres the weekend of October 20th through 22nd at our new Harvest media platform at harvest.org and also other streaming platforms such as Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, Amazon Fire and Google Play. It's free to watch so mark your calendar for October 20th through 22nd and don't forget the companion book also called Fame.

It's an engaging look at how to find significance in God's plan for our lives rather than the culture's rush to make people insta-famous and often filled with long-term regret. We'll be glad to send a copy of the book called Fame to thank you for partnering with us so Pastor Greg can continue to bring the gospel through this radio program through books and film and through so many other forms of outreach. Get in touch with your donation today by calling 1-800-821-3300.

Call anytime 24 7 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org. Well next time Pastor Greg continues our studies based on the life of Moses. It's a look at the blessings the Lord has in store for his children. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor and Bible Teacher, Greg Laurie. Thanks for listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for daily devotions and learn how to become a Harvest Partner at harvest.org.