But for a lot of us, the idea just draws a blank: We cannot imagine any statement about us that includes both of the words God and friend. God is someone to keep at a safe distance, someone who demands things from us that we don’t want to give up, who basically takes from away our life that we both enjoy and want to keep. The fact is, God is dangerous, and so we avoid thinking too much about him.

But that’s not living in reality. It’s living in denial, and a lot of us live there and like it. The fact is, though denial may be utterly foolhardy in the long run, it can make life a lot simpler and more fun in the short run. But we are too often sprinters in a marathon life, right? Life does not consist in the “short run.”

However, there are a few who don’t fit in the description above. There are some people who have a longing in them that draws them to God like the proverbial moth to a flame. These are people who want to know God and to serve him, no matter what the cost. It is from this group that God chooses his friends.

Moses was a friend of God, as was David. Abraham was one of God’s best friends, and we can learn a lot from him about this sort of friendship.

Abraham was called “exalted father,” and he experienced things with God that leave us amazed. For example, there was his initial call: to pack up, taking all of his considerable property, his family, and more, and set out, headed southwest. And here’s the interesting part: Abraham had no idea where he was going. He knew neither where the destination was, nor how to recognize it when he got there. God simply told him to “just go, and I’ll tell you when to stop.” But Abraham obeyed. It’s interesting to imagine what Sarah’s initial response might have been to that.

Abraham did some things that impress and amaze us, and then he did some other things that we wonder about. His near-sacrifice of Isaac is one we really have trouble processing (Genesis 22). We struggle to understand this, but (perhaps to save our own sanity) we can look at it and acknowledge that there may be something very good about this event that we simply don’t see or understand. It has some perhaps poorly understood redeeming value.

But there are some things that are simply appalling, any way we look at them. For example, letting his wife—who was very attractive—be taken into the harems of not one but two kings (Genesis 12; 20). How could he possibly have done that? What could he have been thinking? The modern American mind is appalled at the thought. But Abraham obviously saw it differently.

Abraham teaches us at least two things about being God’s friend.

First, God’s friends are not people who “have it all together.” David and Abraham both had appalling incidents in their lives.

Second, Abraham teaches us that God’s friendship comes at a cost.

God, who wisely does not lightly enter into friendship, will test us first. After all, when we seek friendship with God, we are asking for direct access to the throne room of heaven. So we will undergo experiences that will reveal to us who and where we really are in life, and that will move us more into a carefully chosen, solid relationship with God.

Some years ago, in a difficult time, I visited a church in Denver and heard a sermon on this subject that changed my outlook on life. The speaker spoke of three areas where Abraham was tested. I think Abraham was somewhat typical, so let’s look at some events from his life.

First, Abraham had to trust God for physical provision.

Abraham was a wealthy man when God called him, and he became even richer with time. However, even great wealth was no guarantee of safety and continued prosperity in a nomadic lifestyle where anything from bandits to storms, from disease to drought could quickly devastate even the wealthiest of men. And to simply pick up and go, heading into a land that was unknown but not uninhabited, was a risky proposition. People—like Abraham—with large flocks of sheep need space and lots of it. They also need a reliable and adequate supply of water. They need protection from others who are not thrilled to see all these grass-chomping, water-guzzling sheep moving onto their turf.

Abraham started a long trip with little certainty about anything, except that he was convinced that he had heard the voice of God. And he certainly knew that he was vulnerable and protected only by the shelter and care of God.

We don’t know if this dependence on God was an easy thing for Abraham. We do know that a similar reliance on God for our own care can be very difficult. Some of us know the experience of God telling us to pick up and move, and He will fill in the details later. It’s a feeling a little like trying to bolt the wings on an airplane while rolling down the runway. We hope to have all the parts fastened tight before we reach takeoff speed. Depending on God for physical provision is a challenge for us, and many of us utterly reject anything that we call “living by faith,” not recognizing that we all live by faith. The only difference is in where we place our faith. Some of us have faith in ourselves only, though we profess to trust God.

And Abraham arrived in what would one day be the Promised Land only to find it locked in drought, with little grass or water for his flocks and herds. So, off he went to Egypt.

The second test for Abraham was to trust God with his reputation, a much more difficult task.

I greatly admire Abraham and in many ways envy him. However, his life was not always easy. And it’s important not to idealize him, as we often do with biblical characters. He was as human as we are, and we can see that in his relationship with his wife, Sarah.

Sarah must have been a supremely beautiful woman. When Abraham took her to Egypt, she was about 60 years old, and he was afraid that he would be killed so someone could take her. From our vantage point in modern America, that is pretty hard to imagine. But it’s true.
Sarah was indeed taken into the harem of the Pharaoh—as Abraham’s “sister”—and it appears, comparing “Sister Act I” (Genesis 12) with “Sister Act II” (Genesis 20), that in Egypt, Sarah was sexually compromised. Read the passages, paying special attention to God’s response in each case.

So Abraham, who was very rich and very well known back in Palestine, is now known in a different light: He’s the guy who gave up his wife to save his own skin. That’s a pretty big stain on a reputation, and there was nothing Abraham could do about it, but to trust God to make it right.

From experience, I can attest that it is far easier to trust God for material provision than it is to trust him with my reputation. We hold our reputation close to our hearts, tied to our self esteem. Few things are more important to us. Yet, it is evident that we cannot enter into a really good relationship with God if we can’t trust him even with this.

The third area of testing was that Abraham had to trust God with the deepest dreams and longings of his heart.

So Abraham seems to have passed the first two, though it doesn’t seem from our perspective that he did so “with flying colors.” But now we get to the really tough stuff. We don’t give our fondest dreams up to anyone, but that’s what God was asking of Abraham. But we resist giving up our dream until we are in a place of desperation, because if we give The Big Dream to God and He doesn’t come through for us, we are out in the cold. There is nothing left, and we are without hope. Let’s read about Abraham from Genesis 22:

“Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’”

Notice the way God describes Isaac: “your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac.” It’s almost as if God were rubbing in the pain of this thought, in addition to giving a command.

“So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.’"

Many scholars believe that Moriah, the place of the binding of Isaac, was later to become the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

“Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ And he said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.”

This scene is even more poignant in Hebrew, because Abraham doesn’t actually say “God will provide,” but “God will see.” (Adonai yireh) The implication is that when God sees the need, He will supply it. Also, notice that Abraham says God will supply “for himself” a lamb, not “for us.” The offering belonged to God.

“Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’”

This has to be one of the most dramatic events in scripture, and perhaps in all of literature. What was going through the mind of Abraham? What was going through the mind of Isaac? It’s an amazing scene.

“Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, ‘In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.’"

Again, Adonai yireh: God will see, and when God sees the need, He supplies the need as we are obedient to him.

“Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, ‘By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.”

The bottom line is, Abraham trusted God with his deepest dream, with the fondest longing of his heart, and God honored his obedience.

I think this is beyond question the most difficult step God can ask of us. We can risk going broke, being hungry, or even—if we think the stakes are high enough—our reputation. However, when we risk the deepest longing of our heart, the central desire in our life, then we put ourselves in a terrible place. If God doesn’t “come through” for us, we are left with nothing. We have already given up material goods, plus our reputation, and now we give up our fondest dream. What’s left?

But this is precisely what Abraham was asked to do when he was told to sacrifice Isaac. There is no question: It is hard to imagine how God could fulfill the promise to Abraham without Isaac, and the request had to cut to the core of Abraham’s being.

From the text, we are unable to see into the mind of Abraham. He seems confident, trusting, certain that God will come through before he is required to kill this one, the son of promise. And his actions seem to say that, even if God did not come through, Abraham was still prepared to carry through with the killing, apparently trusting that God would make another way. The writer of Hebrews ascribes to Abraham a great faith, a certainty that God would bring Isaac back from the dead (Heb. 11). But it’s difficult to imagine this scene without some serious emotional turmoil.

To be a friend of God is no small thing. It is through his friends that God works to change the world. And it is the friends of God, indeed, who in the end, have the richest, most fulfilling lives. God has called us to friendship with him. It’s a great privilege and a high honor. It is not something we should take lightly.

A life of friendship with God is a life with God. As I finish this, I have received an announcement of a conference, called “The With-God Life.” God calls us to a with-God life. And a with-God life is the only life truly worth living.

Amen.