Closer Than You Think: Friend of God

“Friend of God” is one of the most comforting titles in Scripture and one of the most confronting. We sit with the tension that intimacy with God is the most beautiful thing available to a human being, and also the most demanding, because real friendship always costs something.

We start with Abraham, the biblical blueprint, and ask what his trust actually looked like: leaving home with no map, waiting decades on a promise, and still walking up the mountain willing to surrender what he loved most. We talk about faith in the valley, not just praise on the mountaintop, and why “God will provide” matters most before you can see any provision. Along the way, we explore the friendship test that exposes whether our love for God’s gifts has quietly replaced our love for God himself.

Then we turn to John 15 where Jesus defines friendship in plain terms: trust that becomes obedience. We wrestle with the cost of choosing God over culture, comfort, and the need to be liked, and we look at Moses as proof that closeness can include wilderness seasons, conflict, and hard consequences. We also get honest about how the modern church can celebrate peace, joy, and blessing while skipping the part where closeness to God means closeness to his heart.

If you’ve been asking for a deeper walk with God, this conversation offers a clear question to take into prayer: what is God asking you to do or release that you’ve been holding onto? Subscribe to the Christian Cafe, share this with someone in your circle, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Friend Of God And The Cost

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There are two words in the scripture that stop me cold the very first time that I really read them. And that's friend of God. Not servant of God, not worker of God, not even attendee of God's house. He just friend of God. Now that sounds beautiful, doesn't it? That sounds like the kind of thing that you might want to put it on a t-shirt or even a coffee mug. Friend of God. It's got a nice ring to it. But I want to spend this entire episode doing one thing. I want to look at the people Scripture actually gave that title to. And I want to ask an honest question. What did it cost them? Because friendship, guys, with God is the most beautiful thing available to a human being. It is also the most demanding. And if we're going to pursue intimacy with Him, and after all, that's what this whole series is about, we need to go in this with our eyes open. Welcome back to the Christian Cafe. This is episode three of Closer Than You Think. Let's get into it.

Abraham’s Trust Without A Map

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Let's start out with Abraham, because he is the blueprint to this. In Second Chronicles 20 and 7, and in Isaiah chapter 41 and verse 8, and then he confirms it again in James 2 and 23. Abraham is called the friend of God. That is a title given to exactly one person in the Old Testament by name. And when you read what Abraham's life was actually, what it actually looked like, you begin to understand why. In James 2, 23, the Bible says, and the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God. And it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see, Abraham was called the friend of God because Abraham trusted God enough to go where God said to go, do what God said to do, and give up what God asked him to give up every single time. Even when it made no sense, even when it cost him everything. Now just by hearing that, are we a friend of God? Don't answer that. Just think about it. Ponder in your heart and see where you fit in as a friend of God. Because I'm telling you something right now, that right there is powerful. When Abraham done everything that God told him to do, and that's why he was a friend of God. Hmm, I'll stop right there. I won't go any further because we could go open up a can of worms there that I don't think anybody wants to open up. But think about what God asked Abraham to do. I mean, he told him to leave his country, told him to leave his people, his father's household, and go to a land that he would show him later. Not now, but later. Abraham didn't get a map. He sure didn't get a five-year plan. He only got a word and a relationship. Did you hear that? He got a word and a relationship. And he went. He didn't question, he just went. See, God had promised Abraham a son, and then made him wait twenty-five years for that son. Twenty-five years of trusting a promise that looked biologically impossible. You know the story. Twenty-five years of holding on to something he couldn't see yet. And you and I, we can't hold on for a day or a week or a month. And we're doubting God. I didn't say that, did I? Makes you wonder. But he held on to this for 25 years and didn't see any fruit from it. See, that's just not casual faith. That's a type of intimacy that has been tested and refined. That's a type of intimacy that we need to have. Amen. Then and then after Isaac finally comes, after the son of promise is born, God asked Abraham to do the impossible. He asked him to give him back. In Genesis chapter 22, we hear about Abraham and Isaac heading up to the mountain and how they how they're carrying the firewood and everything. And Isaac looks back and asks his father, says, Dad, we have the wood, we have the rope, we have the axe and everything. But where's the sacrifice? Abraham, what was Abraham's word? He says, God will provide. Even in the valley. Now this is good. Catch this now. Even before they reached the mountaintop, Abraham understood and believed that God would provide. He didn't wait till they get to the mountaintop and see the thing happen and see the miracle take place. But he believed before he climbed the mountain to receive and expect God to provide a sacrifice. Even though he knew what God told him to do, God told him that he was going to give back his son to him through a sacrifice. He not one time did he doubt about going up there. But catch this. Like I said a while ago, listen to me closely. I just just come to me this week, and I've been fighting it and been aggravated about it ever since. Sometimes we want to we want to wait till we get to the mountaintop in order to receive our blessings and shout and carry on and thank God for everything for what we saw happen. But when we're in the valley, we forget about what God is doing and what he promised us, and we abandon God and we go do what we want to do to see what our plans is and we mess it up. But Abraham told Isaac, God will provide. See, again, he went anyway. I mess you might say concerns. But Abraham went anyway. And then at the very last minute, when the knife was come down on the sacrifice on Isaac after biting him up, God stopped him. See, God had to know. He had to see whether Abraham's love for the gift had replaced his love for the giver. Did you catch that? He wanted to see if Abraham's love for him and for the gift that God had given him in Isaac had replaced the love that Abraham had for God, the giver. See, that's the friendship test. Not whether you love God when things are good, but whether you love God more than the things he's given you, or even when you're in a desperate situation, even when you're in the valley and you can't see your way out, do you still love God? Or are you ready to abandon him like Peter did? Are you ready to abandon God and deny him because you don't see what's taking place? You don't see the victory at the end. You just see the struggle. Think about that. Think about that. I so want to be better at this. I so want to get to the place in my life that when I'm in the valley, when I'm everything seems to be going wrong, every decision I make is wrong, everything I do just seems to turn sour. I still want to be able to believe God has a better way and has the way out. All I need to do is follow it and believe God and have the intimacy with him that Abraham had and believe that no matter the situation, no matter what God asks me to do, I'm going to do it and not doubt him and believe that his word is true.

Isaac On The Altar Faith In The Valley

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Now, let's go to John 15. Jesus here, he tells his disciples, he's calling them friends. And in the very same breath, he tells them what comes with that. In John chapter 15, verses 13 and 14, it says, Greater love has no man than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. You are my friends if you do what I command. There it is. Friendship with Jesus is connected to obedience. Not blind, fearful, legalistic obedience, but the obedience that flows from trust. The kind of obedience that says, I know who you are, and I know you're good. So when you tell me to do something that I don't fully understand, I'm going to do it because I trust the one giving the instructions. Do you trust the one that's giving you instructions? Do you trust God? And see, and then he adds this in verse 18 through 20. The friendship with God will cost you the friendship of the world. He says, if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own, but you don't belong to the world. That's got to be hitting somebody right now. That's got to be hitting somebody right because the friendship with God, again, I say this, will cost you the friendship with those that you think are your best friends. Those that you think are religious and everything. Your friendship with Him is going to cost you all that. It's going to cost you friends that you grew up with. And because they don't believe the same way you do, they're going to hate you. That's tough. Being a friend of God means your primary allegiance, your primary alignment is with Him. Not to culture, not to popular opinion either. Not even the opinions of people in the church who've decided that following Jesus means making everyone comfortable. When those things conflict, God wins. That's what a friend is. Moses is another example. The man who spoke to God face to face, the man we talked about, we talked about over in episode one. Do you know what being that close to God cost him? It cost him Pharaoh's palace. It cost him 40 years in the wilderness. It cost him 40 more years leading a people who complained about him constantly. Now, does that not sound like you're going to lose some friends? Because you don't have the popular say. Why did it cost him the promised land? Because he got tired of them complaining. He said, I need to be friends with these people. I I need to, you know, whatever his thought process was, I'm just I'm just guessing, okay? I don't know. But we know why? Because he disobeyed God. He struck the rock and brought water when God didn't tell him to. Did he want the good vote, popular opinion? Do we do things in this life to be liked? To fit in? When we do those things, we cannot no longer. My English is not the greatest. We can no longer be a friend of God because we've compromised our beliefs. We've compromised because of the culture, because of our surroundings, because of the people that we hang out with. See, just as being a friend of God costs us something, not being a friend of God, it also costs us something. At the end of Deuteronomy, the epitaph the Bible gives Moses is not about the miracle or the plagues or the parting of the Red Sea. It's simply this in Deuteronomy 3410. Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. Wouldn't you love for that to be your epitaph? No person, no prophet in all of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, all over the world has ever risen to be like you, John or Jeff, Mary, Sally, Dawn, whoever. Say your name there, whom God knew face to face. See, the Lord knew Moses face to face. That was the thing. It wasn't the Red Sea, it wasn't the Ten Commandments. Again, it was the relationship. Everybody say this. It's the relationship that matters. Nothing else matters. We want to make it about everything else, but in the very end, it's all about the relationship. So what does all of this tell us? The title, Friend of God, is not a participation trophy. It is a title that is forged in trust, tested in obedience, and refined through seasons that cost you something. If it doesn't cost you anything, was it really worth it? Think about that. Of what they went through and what it cost them. And sometimes I question, God, am I really had that much intimacy with you? Let's be honest, do we? Answer that for yourself. I want to be honest with you for a minute because I think the modern church has sometimes sold an incomplete version of the intimacy with God. We talked about the peace and we talked about the joy. We even talked about the presence and the power and the blessings of God. And all of that is real. I'm not walking any of that back or saying it's not real, but we haven't always been honest about the fact that closeness with God means closeness with his heart. And his heart breaks over things that are comfortable for us to ignore. His heart moves toward people we'd rather avoid. Let that sink in. It's truth. When you get close to God, you start to feel what he feels. And that is glorious and painful and sack sanctifying all at once. But here's what I want you to hear today. Because I don't want to preach cost without preaching glory. Everything Adam, Abraham gave up, God returned with interest. The country left became the nation that he fathered. The Son, he almost gave up, became the line through which the Messiah came. The life Moses poured out in the wilderness produced a generation that looked that took the land, he never entered. See, friendship with God cost you. But it cost you things that were going to hold you back

Jesus Defines Friendship As Obedience

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anyway. It cost you smallness, it cost you self-sufficiency. It'll cost you the illusion that you can manage your own life better than he can. Let me say that again because that hits home. It will cost you the illusion that you and I can manage our own life better than he can. How can we manage something that we he knows better? Think about that. And what you get in return is not just blessings. You get access, access to him. You get the ear of the God who holds everything in his hands. You get the kind of relationship where he tells you things, where he lets you into his counsel, into his hearts. That is worth more than anything you could ever hold on to. Friendship with God is the best trade you will ever make. Can I say that again? Friendship with God is the best trade you will ever make. Huh? That's something, ain't it? Think about your life. Think about when you was following God and it cost you something. Maybe it cost you you a relationship, an opportunity, a comfortable situation. What did it look like? What did the obedience to God, what did it look like? What did it produce in your life? Was there a moment when God asked you to do something that generally cost you something? How did you wrestle with it? How did what did you do? Did it take you a while to submit or just forget about it? We all probably resisted at first. Yeah, we probably all resisted to do what God told us to do because we knew it was gonna cost us something. We knew it was gonna cost us some friends or something else that we didn't want to lose. And maybe s sometimes we did did what he asked us, and sometimes we just went on about our way and just said forgot he ever said anything. But I want to close today with a challenge. And here's the question I want to leave with you. Is there something God has been asking you to do or to release that you've been holding on to? An area where obedience would cost you comfort, your reputation, or even control. Because that might be exactly the place where your friendship with God deepens. Not in spite of the cost, but because of it. The place where we trust him enough to obey when it's hard, when the places are hard where the relationship goes to the a different, whole new level. Abraham didn't become the friend of God in the easy seasons. He became the friend of God on the mountain with a knife in his hand and his son on the altar and a faith that said, God will provide. What's your mountain? What's the thing that's been setting between you and a deeper walk with him? You don't have to figure out the whole journey. Just take the next the next step of obedience. God's going to handle the rest. Amen. God's going to handle the rest. Wow. Three episodes in to closer than you think. We talked about intimacy being God's original design. We've talked about God's always initiating. And today we got honest about what the closest relationship available to a human being actually cost. Next time, we're going into one of the hardest places in any relationship with God. The silence. Guys, look us up on Facebook and YouTube. Visit our uh website, the Christian Cafe. And if this series is helping you, share it with somebody. Somebody in your circle needs this. Until next time, guys, the cost is real, but so is he.