[Darris McNeely] One of the richest blessings that we can have in life is the friendships that we make, hold, and have throughout all of our lifetime's experiences. I've been blessed with a number of friendships through the years. I've been blessed to even have friends that have had through more than 40 plus years of life in the Church as an adult that we can still say we are friends, and we are still in the same faith, and even in the same church for that matter, which is quite a remarkable experience. My best friend is the one I'm married to, and I'm pleased to say that. But to have those friendships in our lives are extremely important.

The richest friendship that we might ever have in our life, I think, is the friendship that we might have with God. And that's what I'd like to talk about today is not so much the physical friendships that we have but the most important one that we can have in our life, and that is the friendship with God. In James 2, a comment is made about the patriarch, Abraham. And it says this, in James 2:23, "The Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God." What a friend to have. What a statement to have made about any of us, anyone says a great deal about Abraham. He believed God, and through that belief over the years and experiences, developed a rich friendship with God.

Becoming a friend of God begins and ends with faith and confidence that nothing really is too hard for God, nothing is too hard for God, and nothing is too hard by God. God actually desires that He have a friendship with His people, with His disciples. And as disciples, we are to have that kind of a relationship. Do you want that? Do you want to have the type of friendship with God that we find described here in the Book of James that Abraham had? I do. And because going through the story of Abraham recently with the ABC classes, this particular thought popped up in all of the Scriptures that speak to the blessings that we're given and poured out reiterated to Abraham, his son, Isaac, and his grandson, Jacob, and then passed on to Jacob's family.

This episode about being a friend of God kept popping up in all of the Scriptures and provided something for me to talk about here today. Let's look quickly at a summary of Abraham's life. We all, I'm sure, have a working knowledge of many of the stories from the Scriptures about Abraham and his life, but let's just remember a few things that we are told about this man. The story of Abraham begins in Genesis 12 where he was told by God to leave his homeland in the area of the ancient land, what is called Haran, and to go to a place, God says, "I will show you." The opening verses of Genesis 12 show exactly what happened there. He said, "Get you to a land that I will show you, and there I will make of you a great person, a great people, and began to pour out the blessings.” That is where the story of the blessings to Abraham began.

And then it says in really two words that are the unique part of that section, "Abraham went," or "Abram went." He did what God said. He obeyed. He went, and he left everything that he had and was in that area, and he went to a land that he didn't know anything about. We read right over that without thinking, in our modern terms, exactly what that means. We can pick up and move today with ease anywhere we go and take our credit cards with us and already know exactly maybe what a housing is going to cost or look like, and even have a range that we want to move from one side of the country to the next or any part of the world virtually. And with ease of transportation and global society that we have today, we can do it if we choose.

But in Abraham's time, it wasn't done. And for him to say, "Yessir," and to pick up and go was a huge decision and endeavor. And it truly… I thought about it many times through the years and kind of try to put yourself there, and I still don't fully grasp it. I've moved all my life so many times. I moved away from my hometown and from my family, and I've had a life virtually apart from where I grew up. And I made a little bit more about it than and had I stayed there all of my life where I grew up. But sometimes, God moves us away from places, from people, from even family, and from the known to the unknown to move us out of our comfort zone to begin to work with us in the way that He wants to work with us, to accomplish what He wants accomplished in our life. That is a very important part of conversion with Abraham.

That's what began, and that's what he did, and God began to work with him. We have to be willing at times to… we want to be a friend of God. We have to be able to move from a comfort zone that we have had built for us, given to us, or created for ourselves, whether it's an actual physical location, or a place, a job, or where we feel the most comfortable and be willing to move beyond that to something that God may have for us. And detecting that and understanding it is a critical key at times in this process of building a relationship with God that can ever rise to that of being a friend with God.

Abraham had that trait of almost instant obedience with God. We're just told in the Scriptures, "Abraham went." We don't hear about a discussion. We don't hear about a debate about that. It just said he went. You know, when he was told by God later on in the story of Abraham to take his son, Isaac, and sacrifice him, that was the most significant action that Abraham was ever asked to do, to sacrifice the "son of promise." And God told him to prepare for that, "Take your son Isaac to sacrifice."

You know what it says right there in the Scripture, in Genesis 22:3? It says, "He got up early in the morning and he went." He got up early. He didn't sleep until noon. He didn't put it off a day. He got early in the morning, which means that his mind was ready. His heart was willing as hard as it obviously would have been. That's the type of obedience that Abraham had cultivated to even go when he came to hear the voice or to know this being that he became a friend with called God to leave his home. Later when he was told to "go and sacrifice your son,” he didn't wait.

Earlier, in another episode when the issue of circumcision came up, Mr. Clore was talking about circumcision. And when you read where it all began in chapter 17 of Genesis where God made this covenant, this agreement that He added to, and He bound it by this covenant of circumcision. This is why it was such a big deal for the Church to have to get over as he was bringing out in the actual conference of ministers that was required to be convened to settle these issues, a huge doctrinal matter that had to be resolved because it went all the way back to Abraham. And to this moment, where, in terms of all of the promises that were made, they were tied to this. And Abraham was told to circumcise himself and his household. He's helped himself and his household.

In chapter 17 verse 23, what did he do? It says he did it that very day. Again, he didn't say, "Oh, can we wait two weeks on this and do a doctrinal… can we have a doctrinal meeting on this one?" I know that if I'd been an older man at that time, and that was what was told had to be done, I'd be scratching my head and thinking, "There's got to be way around this. There's got to be a plan B, God. You know, take my word for it. I love You. But we don’t… do we really?” “Yeah,” "Oh, wow." So it says, "That very day, he did it."

So you see on three instances with Abraham with his later his son to be sacrificed and the original part of the story where he was told to leave his home, he went. He got up early, and he did it that day. No debate, no discussion. "Yes, sir," salute, go. That's what he did. Wow. These were some of the qualities that we're talking about here as you survey the story about Abraham. Abraham also was a very generous and a decent man. That comes out in the story of Abraham as well. You know, when he went to the land, the only family member that went with him was his nephew, Lot.

And they had herds and people that were extended part of their household. And the story comes, you remember where they're bumping up against one another in that part of the land where they were, and it was too crowded. They were overgrazing the land with the animals, and the ropes and the tent pegs on all their tents were beginning to overlap, and everybody was stumbling over them in the middle of the night, it would seem. So there's overpopulation.

So they said, "Look, let's decide we're going to have to separate," Abraham says to Lot, and he gives to Lot the choice of where he wants to go. First, now, Abraham could have said, "Look, Lot, you go here, or you stay here, and I'll go where I want to go." But he gave it to Lot, and Lot chose the well-watered plains and where Sodom and Gomorrah was, which we know got into trouble. But that's what he chose. Now, would Abraham have chosen that? Whatever, we don't know. I think the critical point of the story to think about is that Abraham's generosity and his deference was to his son… or his nephew Lot there. He let him have the first choice, which, again, speaks to his generosity.

Now, you know, on the very next chapter, Lot gets in trouble. He gets captured when there's a skirmish and some other kings come in and rustled up not only cattle but also people. And Lot gets carried away, and Abraham has to go and rescue him, and ride in, and take care of him. And in the aftermath of that, Abraham has got all the spoils of the war from that battle, and he tithes on it. And it's in that episode that we find the first teaching about tithing where he tithed to Melchizedek. And so we see, again, the generosity of Abraham in his nature as well as the decency of the man in the way that he dealt with his nephew, Lot.

But that's part of the story. That's a big part of the story about Abraham. There's other parts. Abraham was not without his shortcomings and his weaknesses. Abraham had a problem with lying, hard to believe, but on two occasions with his wife, Sarah. One, immediately when they went into the land and they wound up going down to Egypt, which they should never have done because God didn't tell them to go to Egypt, but because he hadn't learned all of his lessons, he wound up going down to Egypt. And Pharaoh cast his eyes upon Sarah and Abraham says, "Look, tell him… tell him that you're my sister." And then that creates a problem. But he lied. He tells her to lie. Boy, what would have a federal prosecutor investigator done with that one, do you think, if that had been geared up?

And then he did it a second-time years later with Abimelech. He tells Sarah, "Tell him that you're my sister, that you're not my wife." And it creates a problem for the house of Abimelech that has to be sorted out as well. Abraham had a big weakness. I don't know how you feel about lying. How do you feel about lying? Have you ever been lied to by somebody? Did somebody ever told you a lie? And not just that, "I'll pick you up at 2:00," and they're there at 2:30. I mean a big lie that really hurts, that betrays a friendship, betrays a confidence, betrays a trust, a compact. That's one thing I've learned over the years. I cannot abide a liar. I can abide by a lot of things. I can overlook a lot of weaknesses, and perhaps that shouldn't but maybe I do. I put a scale of important on certain problems. But lying, I have no use for somebody that would lie to me or steal from me.

And, yet, Abraham did it twice. We know that breaks a commandment. This was all from "Father of the faithful." And then, of course, the other major weakness that comes out in the story of Abraham is the story with the child of promise. God has said, "Look, I know Ishmael is not going to be your heir. You're going to have a son, don't worry about it," which he can't figure out because of their age, obviously. And so as he goes back and tells the story to his wife, Sarah, "Well, you know, we are going to have a child. This is what God says. This is what has come to me, and God has revealed this to me. We're going to have a son."

And, you know, he laughs at that point in time. She's going to laugh later on about it, just the ridiculousness of it because of their age. And yet, in that the solution that they come to because of what? Impatience? Lack of faith? Disbelief that it really could happen? I mean, physically it couldn't and wouldn't happen, and you and I would be confronted probably with the same crisis.

"God, look, I'm 75, I'm 90," whatever we might be. "I'm past that time. I know that." All right, just not going to happen. And yet when God says something is going to happen, it's going to happen. And we know what their solution was out of either impatience or lack of faith, Sarah says to Abraham "Here's my handmaid. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen with her. It's not going to happen with me." And, of course, for whatever reason working on Abraham's mind, we don't find him arguing about that one either. And so he goes into Hagar, and Ishmael was the result. And he loves Ishmael, but Ishmael is not the child of promise. God takes care of Ishmael when finally… Ishmael has to be removed from the family because jealousy after Isaac comes along. But God takes care of him, but that had to have hurt Abraham as well in that particular situation.

But impatience, weakness, you know, when you look at that story, we think about ourselves. And, again, in our relationship with God, have you ever taken a decision to yourself because of unbelief, because of a lack of faith, and thinking, "Well, I've waited long enough, God." Maybe in regards to marriage. A lot of times, you know, I observed counseling with people and working with people through the years, obviously, the desire to be married is very, very strong in all of us. And if sometimes the person who's not in the faith comes along, there is a challenge, and there will be decisions to be made. And I've seen people make those decisions to marry outside the faith. That sometimes have worked, and I've seen people make that decision to marry outside of faith more times than not. That doesn't work, in my experience.

And I've come to the conclusion that as I have counseled those things over the years, look, here's what God says. Here's what promises are that I think are true and that we all have to rely on, but it's your decision to make. And if you choose to take it into your hands and not trust the God might have a woman or a man for you that you just haven't met yet, then you'll have to make that decision. And it may be the roll of the dice, and you will have to choose what odds are good for you, but every one of us has to make those decisions. Abraham and Sarah are faced with a decision, and we know that story, and we know how that turned out. But in our lives, whether it's marriage, whether it's a job, whether it may be other things that come up, do we have the patience to wait on God? Do we have the faith and the confidence to believe God's Word, and that it can apply for us?

The answers to those questions determine the level and the relationship that we have with God and, ultimately, whether or not we can look and do have that relationship with God that rises to that level called about Abraham, "A friend of God." And we all have to look at the Scriptures and face that indeed. Faith is a need, very often, the evidence of things not seen. Abraham's life, when we look at it, is rich and it's varied. And as we know, it gets a lot of ink in Genesis and rightly so because of who he is as the father of the faithful and as the one to whom God began to make these monumental promises of dealing with the actual seed of Christ and the seed of his children and their impact upon the world, and history, and prophesy. In many ways, the whole story of faith and God's promises and what it means to really have a whole relationship with God, worts and all, is told through the life of this man.

No wonder sometimes critics want to erase Abraham from memory and say that he never existed because he really exemplifies so many of the human matters that we all have to deal with as we wrestle with our relationship with God. There's one passage that I would like for us to turn to and go through in a bit more detail, and that's in Genesis 18, that tells us something about this relationship to the level of friendship. In Genesis 18, whereas one author put it in a book that I have on my shelf or actually on my Kindle, where God came down and had lunch with Abraham. It's a wonderful book. I recommend it if you want to go a little deeper into some of the theological aspects of this, When God had Lunch with Abraham I believe is the title of the book. But that's what's happening here in Genesis 18. God appears to Abraham, and they have lunch together here.

But it tells the story of where this quality of friendship comes out. Let's look at it. Let's begin in chapter 18 beginning in verse 1. We'll take a few minutes to go through this in greater details. "The Lord appeared to him” to Abram… to Abraham, “by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day." Quite vivid, very colorful verse right there. I don't imagine Abraham just sitting there in the heat of the day spitting and whittling as they do down south. I don't think that's what he was doing. What I think he was doing was sitting there in his tent, and it was probably a large tent with big compartments. It wasn't just the little Coleman pop-up tent that, you know, you just throw it out there and it pops up.

It was a big tent with several compartments and rooms in it, probably quite ornate and still a tent. It wasn't a permanent building, but he was probably sitting there managing his affairs. And men and his workmen coming and going, and that was his office essentially is what he was doing. When we're introduced to what he was doing here in the middle of the day. "He lifts his eyes," in verse 2, "And he looked, and behold, three men were standing by him," all of a sudden. He's probably busy. He's been distracted with others, and then perhaps his own people clear for a few minutes. He's looking down, he's engaged in something else, preoccupied, and he looks up and there are three others that he's not seen before. They're not his men.

They're not his employees, his extended household, standing by them. “And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground.” He does this because he recognizes one of them, and he knows that this is a significant visit. "He bows himself to the ground, and he said, 'My Lord, if I have found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servants. Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.'" Probably a large tree giving a great deal of shade needed in that environment, in that location, and he's offering hospitality. What he says in verse 3 by saying, "My Lord,” he's saying “my Adonai… my Adonai.” And he recognizes this as God, as a divine appearance of God.

He's already had a manifestation or an occurrence when he was with Melchizedek. This is another one. And keep in mind that however, it was that he interacted with God when God told him to go, a voice, a vision that we're not told about, he begins to know God and to recognize God, and he knows this is God. And he treats them accordingly. He falls down with his face to the ground, and he wants them to stay. Now, this is an occasion that because of the years of experience and the relationship that had built up, he knew what it was. Now, this relationship, this story, this episode is retold in the New Testament. And in the book of John, Christ had an engagement with the Pharisees, and He identified Himself as one of these three individuals when Christ said to the Jews, in the book of John, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day." And the Jews said, you know, "How could that be?"

Christ was telling them that He was the one who had visited Abraham in this particular occasion here in Genesis 18. That story is told in John 8 where He's referring to this and perhaps other incidences of the manifestations, but what is here is recognized by Abraham and then later retold by Christ. They had a relationship. You know, true friendships are built through time and experience, and they are tested and proven. What we see Abraham doing here is really at the heart of a relationship that builds to a deep friendship that endures through the years. He says, "Let a little water be taken and wash your feet." Again, reminiscent even of the foot washing service of the Passover service, something done by servants, Abraham is providing it for them, and rest, he says. In verse 5, he says, "I will bring a morsel bread that you may refresh your hearts, and after that, you can pass by, inasmuch as you've come to your servant." And so they said, "Do as you have said."

So he extends an invitation to stay and have a meal, stay aspell, as we will sometimes say, "Don't rush off, sit down. We'll have something to eat together." "And Abraham hurried about," in verse 6, "And he went to the tent, and he told Sarah ‘Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal; knead it, and make cakes. Get the fires burning, get the ovens up, start putting together your best recipe,'" whatever it might be, a strawberry upside down cake or is that a pineapple upside down cake?

My wife is telling me about a recipe, the favorite recipe we haven't had for years that she had found on the internet the other day, a walnut torte. And it'll take a few measures of meal to do, and some eggs, and butter, and all that good stuff, and so she's promised that sometime soon for me. And so Abraham is telling Sarah, "Let's make the best. Let's get this going here and prepare it." And they also, in verse 7, "Abraham ran to the herd, took a tender and good calf, gave it to a young man, and he hastened to prepare it." So they slaughtered a beef, and they were going to have prime rib, filet mignon, t-bone steaks, what's your favorite? Which one would you have wanted here?

And this was probably one Abraham… I have to imagine this was one that Abraham was saving for himself to kill it at the right time to enjoy. Maybe he put it up and was feeding it a little extra to make it just the finest and the best. There's a movie I watched about a year or so ago on Netflix. I recommend this to you. I can be safe with this recommendation. And if you watch it, you're going to enjoy it. It's called Steak. It's called Steak. And it's this guy's quest to go around the world to find the best steak in the world. He goes to the top steakhouse in New York City, Peter Luger Steak House in New York City has one of their steaks, it's good. It's also expensive.

He goes to Scotland, and he gets the best Angus beef, Scottish beef. He goes to Argentina, and he gets the best Argentinean grass-fed beef there. He goes to Japan, and he gets this expensive Kobe beef. But none of them rise to the occasion quite. Then he goes to this place in Spain, and he finds this farmer who's got a few cows out in the backyard. And these cows are old. They're beyond 10 years old. Most cows that are killed for good steakhouses are much younger. This guy holds his cows so they're about 15 years old, and he rubs them down every day with hay, and he talks to them, and he sings to them.

And then when he gets ready to kill one, he just kind of strokes, and pets it, and talks to it so that they don't freeze up when the hammer falls on them. And he says, "This is the best steak." This expert eating it, he said, "This is the best steak I've had all over the world." That's maybe the kind of cow that Abraham killed for God, one that had been put up just for him for this period of time, and they sat down and prepare it.

Go back to verse 8, "He took butter and milk," all the good things. "And the calf which he had prepared, and he set it before them;” and then Abraham stands by them under the three as they eat it, and he watches them eat. So he's kind of stands off in the role of a servant. He doesn't even presume to sit with them as an equal in this meal and take part in this. So Abraham shows his gracious hospitality by preparing this large meal and then he stands by and he serves it to them.

There's a saying from this part of the world where Abraham is living that has endured through the years. I read about it in the numbers of years ago, and it does speak to friendships and to relationships. And it says this, "You never really know somebody until you've eaten a peck of salt with them." Now, we don't use the term "peck of salt" today in measurement but a peck of salt is more than just a Morton salt shaker that we have one on the tables back here in our kitchen service through the week or maybe on your table. A peck of salt is a lot of salt, and you don't eat that much at one setting in a week or in a month or in a year.

It'll take us many years to eat a peck of salt as we put it on our food and season our food. And the point is it takes a lot of meals. It takes a lot of time. With people over a meal like this and in a restaurant, in a home, in a campfire, whatever setting over a period of time, it takes a peck of salt to get to know somebody. There's a lot of wisdom there. There's a lot of truth. And I think applied to this, it takes a peck of salt to build a friendship that endures through the years and through the ups and downs, even on the physical level, and it takes a lot of time for us to build a relationship with God.

And one of the lessons from this hospitality that Abraham shows to God is, take the time, whether it's for their own friendships, to have those meals, to sit down, to talk, to work through issues, to work through some of the tough times. We have to do the same thing with God. We have to be willing to sit down with God, to kneel down with God, to put our face to the ground with God, in our prayers and in our relationship with God. And as we read His word over many years, to develop that level of friendship with God that we are talking about to where we can have that confidence and that patient faith in God, in His Word, and in all of His promises as we look to them for our personal lives, for our children, for our grandchildren.

You know, when God makes promises and says He will do that, it takes a lot of faith for us to read them, and say, "That applies to me. That applies to my children. That applies to my grandchildren." When you were teaching the book of Acts here at ABC several years ago, I read through Acts 2. And the sermon that Peter gave there, he brings out a promise of… he says what was happening on the day of Pentecost and the pouring out of God's spirit, he quotes from one of the minor prophets and says, "This was promised by them." They pour it out on your children. And I explained it in my typical teacher-type way that, well, “this is what the Bible says, and this is what we've always taught in the Church, and this is what it means.”

And then one of the students came up to me, and he said, “You know, my grandfather always read that verse to us in our family,” and basically said… and his grandfather was reading it and saying, "This promise from God is for you." And he was speaking to his own children. And as years go by, he would read that same verse and say, "This promise is for your children," and he was sitting there as a grandchild. Now, this guy was an adult, and he was in my class. And he's was saying, "My grandfather would read that as a promise from God to all of us that the…" And it's really talking about the faith and the promise of God's calling is a promise for all of us. And he said, "He always told us that this was for you from God, take it."

And he said, "All of us were in the Church." All of his children stayed in the Church, all of his grandchildren were in the Church. And he said, "He would read that verse to us time and time again, and he believed that promise." That really stayed with me that day and stayed with me… I'll pass it on to you. We all as parents, as grandparents, as great grandparents have to believe what God says. And to have that level of relationship, we read it, and we have to accept it and say, "That's what it means, and I'm going to claim that."

And as we look at the story with Abraham, we see that that is really what is developing here beyond even a meal because we know that this is really more than just having a good steak. This is dealing… the reason that these three are there and God in the flesh with these other two divine beings is because of what was going to take place in Sodom and Gomorrah. And as we look at this going on in the story, of course, the promise of a child is repeated. In verse 9, "They said to him, 'Where is your wife, Sarah?' And he said, 'Well, she's in the tent.' 'I will certainly return to you,' He said,” this is God saying to Abraham, "according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son."

It says in parenthesis, “(Sarah was listening in the tent, which was behind Him.) Now Abraham and Sarah were well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbirth. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, "After I've grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’” I'm not going to comment too much further on that one, but we can just read into it with our own imaginations but the Bible is pretty direct and frank in some of its stories here.

"The Lord said to Abraham," in verse 13, "Why did Sarah laugh?" Of course, she was behind Him and maybe some distance away, but He heard it. He knew what was in her heart because He was God. “'Shall I surely bear a child, since I'm old?’ ‘Is anything too hard for the Lord?’" verse 14. That is a critical issue of faith to believe that there isn't really nothing too hard for God. We would want to have that relationship with God that rises to the level of that of the friend. We have to realize there's nothing too hard for God as we take Him at His Word. “'At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.’ Sarah denied that she had laughed, and she said, ‘I didn't laugh,’ but she was afraid. And God said, "No, you did laugh!’” He knew.

And Abraham had laughed earlier as well, but God overlooked all of that, and we know that He fulfilled His promise. But it’s what takes place next that we should focus on. “The men then rose from there and they looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on the way.” That's another kind of interesting thing to note about hospitality. Abraham wasn't content just to say, "Well, glad you stopped by," shook hands with them and turned his back on them as they turned to walk off. Abraham walked to the end of the lane. He walked them out to the car. Do you walk your guest out to the car? Do you ever walk out to the car, or you've just been dismissed at the door?

Think about that. There are times when you have people, and you are truly sorry to see them go. And you will walk them to the car, or to the end of the lane, and you make sure they're in and go and you'll stand. "Don't forget to write," you know, like The Princess Bride, you know, episode. Everybody is waving as they drive off. You're really sorry to see them go. Again, those are little things that show… this is what Abraham was really doing. He didn't want Him to go, but he didn't want to leave this moment to pass.

He went with them, and then what God says, in verse 17, is really important. “The Lord said,” we're hearing His thoughts, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm doing?" They hadn't discussed the real purpose of their mission. "Shall I hide from him what I'm doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him." And so He has this monologue with Himself.

So that settled on Him. He's the one who's going to train his children for the future, to observe his way of life and to live kindly. And he goes on, and He says, “And the Lord said,” in verse 20, "Because the outcry against Sodom is great, and because their sin is great, I will now go down and see whether they have done what they have done altogether to the outcry against it," verse 21, "That it has to come to Me; and if not, I will know. The men then turned away from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord.” So God reveals what He's going to do to Abraham. The other two men go on, but God's business with Abraham isn't finished. And what it says here, in verse 22 then is, "Abraham still stood before the Lord."

Now they're down to the two of them. This is an interesting compelling moment here. Abraham has put himself between God and the people in Sodom and Gomorrah. This is really what is happening. And he begins to talk to God about what is taking place here. He stands before the Lord, and in verse 23, "Abraham came near,” the guy took a step toward, maybe got in God's space. We all hate it when people really get in our space when they get too close in a conversation. It's always good, in a relationship, to keep enough space between. But when you get up too close, then it gets intense, and it might be problematic in certain situations. So, we have to give each other space.

But Abraham not only stood before God, but then he takes a step before God and begins to engage Him, and say, in verse 23, "Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for fifty righteous that were in it?" Remember that despite Abraham's problems that we talked about earlier he was a generous, decent, kind, compassionate man. And he was thinking about the righteous people in Sodom and I think he knew the type of cities that were there. We don't find him talking Lot out of going down there.

Maybe he just let Lot make that choice and that decision, and he had to live with it. But he knew the type of cities and what their problems were. "Far be it from You to do such a thing," verse 25, "to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” One of the great statements made out of Genesis about God. In fact, in all the Bible. "Shall the Judge of all the earth not do right?" God does do right. God is righteous in all of His judgments.

And here is Abraham bargaining with God over people that he feels, there's got to be 50 down. "And the Lord said," in verse 26, "If I find fifty righteous in Sodom, then I will spare all the place for their sakes." Then Abraham answered, thinking, "Well, maybe there's not fifty.” So, we've got to revise this negotiation. “‘Indeed, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all the city for the lack of five?' And so He said, ‘If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.’ And he spoke to Him yet again and he said, 'Suppose there should be forty found there?’ So He said, "All right, I will not do it for forties sake.’"

Then Abraham is beginning to get confident here. “He said, ‘Let not the Lord be angry, and I'll speak: Suppose thirty would be found?’ So God says, ‘All right, thirty.’" God knows there's not even 30 there, probably. I'm sure there that that's already known, “But he said, ‘Okay, indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?' And He said, 'I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.’ And then he said, "Let not the Lord be angry and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?' And He said, ‘I'll not do it for the sake of ten.'" God is working something in Abraham's life. He's also showing something about His own nature and character, that he would spare it for fifty, for forty, for ten. "The Lord then went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place." He didn't go down with the Lord. And then this conversation came to a close.

When you look at this episode, Abraham stood before God, and he actually then took a step nearer to God as he began to get earnest in the conversation and negotiation. I look at that, and I realize this is really saying something about Abraham. He had spunk. He really had spunk. He's what I call interesting. He was willing to stand up to God in a respectful way and engage Him on behalf of other people. It wasn't for him, it was for other people. Surely there was 50, all right. Maybe there's only 10 but you'll spare for 10? We know that they wound up only four people came out, and Lot's wife didn't make it all the way.

And then even that after all of that, Lot's called righteous Lot later on, so he learned, but they were the only ones that came out, four, and then three eventually. But Abraham, because he had this relationship with God, stood before God. I don't think he stood up to God, it's not what I'm saying. But he just said he stood before Him. He stood and he talked to Him, and he talked straight and direct, which is really the type of relationship that we have to, I think, have with God as we engage Him in the affairs of our life, in intercessory prayer for the lives of other people who are suffering, who are sick, who are struggling with sin, with some problem and ask us to be praying for them. We've all done that, haven't we?

We have prayed for people and prayed regularly and consistently an intercessory prayer on behalf of someone close to us day, after day, after day, asking God to intervene, asking God to grant healing, peace, deliverance, whatever it might be. This is what we do. And at times, we may grow weary in that. And if a person is not healed, we will be tempted to think God doesn't heal, or God doesn't care, or God doesn't answer, and we might let off. But we can't because there will be another need, there will be another friend in need, there will be… maybe the next one will be us, and we have to go to God.

We have to stand before God, and we have to pray to God in all the emotion, with all the details, reading the Psalms, reading the Scriptures, claiming the promise. We have to be like Abraham, be able to stand before God on behalf of other people. That is perhaps one of the biggest components here of this quality of having a relationship with God and coming before Him. God didn't want to destroy the righteous with the wicked. You know, other servants of God will find the same thing. Ezekiel will find, when God says, in Ezekiel 3, that, "You're to be a watchman.” And if a person hears your warning and they turn from their sin, they will save themselves.

God doesn't want to always destroy the righteous with the wicked, and He wants to give even the wicked an opportunity to turn from their ways. We find that Moses did that with the children of Israel when they had put up the golden calf. He, in a sense, stood before God and then interceded for the nation as well. That's what the servants of God do. God said, "I'm not going to hide this from Abraham."

Friendships require openness, and God is open with us, that we can be very sure and very calm. Abraham is many things. Abraham is the father of faithful. He was also a prophet, but he was also the friend of God. And I think that that is told us to bring it down to the level… to something that we can relate to. I'm not the father of the faithful nor are you and that level of what Abraham is called, and I'm not a prophet standing like Abraham or any of the other prophets did, but I can relate to being a friend of God, and I think you can, too, as we look at all of this. We are all the children of Abraham as we grow in faith.

In John 15, the same God who appeared to Abraham and have this meal with Abraham said to His disciples the night before he died, John 15:14, He said, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing." This God, this one, this God who had the Logos, who had appeared to Abraham was now telling His disciples that, "You are My friends." In essence, He was saying just like Abraham was. "I have called you friends, for all things that I've heard from My Father I have made known to you." As disciples of Jesus Christ, you and I are friends in that way like Abraham.

And we may struggle with some of the same weaknesses that we see that Abraham and Sarah had with impatience, or doubting, or even fear, hopefully not anything more severe than that. But aren’t weak and tempted just like they were? And we have our weaknesses as well, and we struggle with the same human nature, and we are tempted in all things. There’s a scripture in Hebrews 11:34 that I think gives the real basic key titled, my sermon you may have in your… looking at your announcement bulletin says, "Four Steps to Being a Friend of God." After giving that title, I got to looking at this, and I said, "I'll just give one step, one key."

Hebrews 11, and the chapter on the faithful. After talking specifically about Abraham and others, it comes down to verse 34, and it talks about a variety of different episodes and situations. One of them, I think, fits Abraham and it fits us, "People quenched the violence of fire, they escape the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong… out of weakness were made strong.” Abraham did not start out as the father of the faithful, but he became the father of the faithful. Abraham had weaknesses. And as he overcame those in a relationship with God, he then became the father of the faithful and very strong in faith.

You and I started out weak, hopefully, we grow stronger as we grow in the grace and in the knowledge of God and of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The key to having a relationship with God like Abraham did is to move from weakness to strength in our life and in our relationship with God using the Holy Spirit and that divine nature within us, the very life of God within us. He grew in faith to become a friend of God and so can we. As we grow in faith, we have that hope and expectation of becoming a friend with God, the richest of all friendships that we can ever hope to have.