Friend of God
Notes
Transcript
Good morning, thank you for being with us today. Today is the seventh day of our 21 days of Prayer and Fasting. I hope that those of you who have chosen to participate in this time have started to experience times of deeper and more meaningful communion with God as you read Scripture, pray, and listen for His voice. Even if you didn’t start with us last Monday, I encourage you to join us for the next fourteen days and make that a time to seek God and deepen your relationship with Him.
The fact that we as Christians talk about having a personal relationship with God is something that wasn’t believed possible, much less expected two thousand years ago and earlier. Tim Keller wrote in his book about prayer that the great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who lived in the period of time between the Old and New Testaments, believed that it was possible to honor and appease the gods, but that actual friendship with god was impossible because friendship requires that both parties share much in common as equals. They must be alike, but since God is infinitely greater than human beings, “the possibility of friendship ceases.” (Tim Keller, Prayer p.75)
Thankfully, God didn’t pay attention to Aristotle. He had different and much greater plans in mind. What Aristotle missed was that God had a plan to bring humanity back into a relationship with Him, not just as servants and creatures, but as friends, and ultimately, family.
If you have your Bible with you today, we are going to start out reading two passages of Scripture. First, turn with me to
12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.
13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.
17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.
And now turn with me to
4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.
Let’s Pray...
Sometimes it takes us some time to realize just how incredible those passages are. In the hundreds of years that passed between the time that God called Abram to follow Him, slowly establishing the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and making of them a nation, delivering them from slavery in Egypt, and establishing them as a kingdom in the land of Canaan, the Israelites had understood that they had a special place before God. They knew that God had chosen them from among all the nations of the earth for a special purpose, which included being a blessing to all the other nations in the earth. However, even with this understanding, they considered personal friendship with God as practically impossible; something only reserved for a very few people like Moses, King David, and the prophet Elijah.
If you look at other nations and cultures with their religions over the thousands of years leading up to the coming of Christ you find a wide variety of religions and beliefs. But overall, people from other nations viewed their own gods and goddesses as beings to be pacified, or to curry favor with. They were not beings that desired to relate closely with their followers individually and on a regular basis. But this is exactly the kind of relationship that the one True God, the Creator of the Universe desires with His people.
So God planned from before even time began to send His Son to earth in human form in order to accomplish His plan. And in order to bring us into that plan Jesus taught His disciples about His Father. In this passage we find some important things that can help us understand some ways that we can be directing our prayers over the next two weeks as we continue to ask God to speak to us and reveal Himself to us.
Christ’s command to His disciples: Love one another.
Christ’s command to His disciples: Love one another.
We have seen this point repeated so many times over the past year that I almost hesitate to bring it up again. However in light of where we are as a nation and even as a church in this country, it cannot be said too often. We are called to love one another, and we are especially called to love other brothers and sisters in Christ. Over the past months I have been saddened to see Christian brothers and sisters tear into each other over political differences and beliefs about who is telling the truth and who is good or bad.
Jesus is not conservative or progressive. He is not Republican or Democrat. He is not pro-Trump or pro-Biden. Jesus is pro-God the Father. He is about the heavenly and eternal kingdom of God. If you think He would choose one side over another, just look at what He did when He was here on earth. When the crowd wanted to forcibly make Him king, he left that crowd. They wanted to use force and uprising to overthrow a ruling group they believed was ungodly and illegitimate. If he refused to take a political stand FOR the Jews against the Romans (Romans who were anti-God, corrupt, and approved of all kinds of ungodly actions, behaviors and lifestyles, to a much greater levels than any current American political party), what makes you think that He would be for or against one of OUR political parties? Jesus told His followers that we would be known for our love of one another, not for our righteousness, not for our zeal, not for our condemnation of evil, not for our kindness and helpfulness. Does that mean that Christians can’t be politically active? Not at all, but at any time when we choose to represent Christ, we represent Him in a way that He commands, by loving and not with hate, anger or sinful behavior disguised as self-righteous zeal. We are called to be peacemakers and witnesses of the hope, forgiveness and healing that comes through Christ.
Jesus goes on to define love of our friends even further. He declares that...
The greatest act of love is to lay down your life for your friends.
The greatest act of love is to lay down your life for your friends.
Jesus isn’t only referring to actually physically dying for one another, although on rare occasions that might be required too. He is talking about the act of dying to ourselves, of giving up our preferences, our plans, our objectives, and the things we want for US for the sake of those we are showing love to. This is probably harder than giving our physical lives for others because this is something we have to do on an ongoing basis, putting others ahead of ourselves. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we give others everything they ask of us. Sometimes what is best for them is not what they want. Like a child who only wants to eat sweets or an addict who wants more of whatever it is they are held prisoner by, we practice make decisions with thoughtfulness and wisdom.
Jesus continues by telling his disciples an important characteristic of His friends:
Friendship with Christ requires obedience.
Friendship with Christ requires obedience.
Friendship with God and friendship with Christ does not mean that He ceases to hold authority and require obedience from us. One of the great truths about Christ is that He is fully human and fully God. It is a mystery that we can only understand in limited fashion, and this truth has deep and wonderful implications for our relationship with Him. On the one hand, as His creatures, we ought to stand amazed at the fact that Christ calls us friends. The Creator of the Universe, who knows at any moment the number of hairs on our head and the drops of water in the world’s oceans, and who has named every star in existence, cares about you and me. On the other hand, He is THAT God who created it all, who with a single statement of His voice brings things into existence, and who by His active will sustains it all.
Our faith as Christians is about relationship, but many have been deceived into thinking that Christianity is about some sort of transaction that happened at a point in their lives when they said some “magical words” someone else told them to repeat and in return God promised them a ticket to heaven. For some, that is the extent of their “relationship” with God. However, the Bible is clear that this is not true relationship with Christ. Jesus speaks of obedience, of growing relationship; He speaks of our relationship resembling a branch connected to a vine for life and fruitfulness. Other New Testament writers speak of transformed lives, righteous living, and other evidences of a real and active saving relationship with Christ. Although a Christian may go through seasons of disobedience, a person who has never had a growing relationship with Christ marked by obedience is in for a tragic surprise when they die and are informed that Jesus never knew them and they are denied entry to heaven and instead cast into eternity in hell. But that is not God’s desire for us. He desires that everyone would receive His forgiveness and salvation, and enter into a true relationship with Him of growth and obedience.
Part of how that relationship grows is through our efforts to seek and understand God through reading Scripture, praying, and letting God transform our lives.
Jesus has made everything he heard from His father known to us. It is available, but we need to study Scripture to receive it.
Jesus has made everything he heard from His father known to us. It is available, but we need to study Scripture to receive it.
We talked about this last week. Our primary resource for knowing God, understanding His will, His plans, and His desires for who He wants us to become is the Bible. Through our study of the Bible we learn what pleases God, how we are to love one another and help each other seek God and know Him. We learn the promises of God and are able to encourage others through what God has said in His word. We learn how to discern the voice of God versus the voice of the devil. We learn to value what is important and eternal, and to set aside the things that are unimportant and temporary. Through studying Scripture we learn what kind of fruit God wants our lives to produce, and how to nurture the things in our lives that produce that fruit. This is important because...
We were chosen and appointed to go produce fruit.
We were chosen and appointed to go produce fruit.
Producing fruit isn’t just an optional activity for Christians. This is what Jesus chose us for and the task He has assigned us. Just like a person who has never submitted his or her life to Christ in obedience to Him cannot be His follower and friend, a person who has never produced fruit in their lives is not likely a Christian, because fruit is evidence of life.
The question then becomes, “What is fruit?” Part of what Fruit refers to is the fruit of the Spirit found in...
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.
Developing this character traits in increasing fashion in your life is evidence of God’s work in your life and of His work of transformation in your life. But if this is the only fruit that your life produces, fruit that is only internal, then I fear you will miss out on the greatest joys and the most important fruit we have been called to produce: The fruit of spiritual reproduction as we pour our lives into other people and help THEM grow closer to God, and hopefully, see some of them go from spiritual lostness to salvation.
The fruit we produce shouldn’t be temporary, it is supposed to be of eternal value.
The fruit we produce shouldn’t be temporary, it is supposed to be of eternal value.
The fruit of the Spirit from Galatians is of eternal value, although some things, like goodness and self-control may not be as valuable in heaven where we are perfect and there is no more temptation. However I can think of nothing of greater eternal value than seeing the people we love and care about in heaven with us. Even if we were to share Christ with a practical stranger and they came to faith in Christ, the joy we get to experience from that as we enter heaven will by far exceed any kind of joy we might have for our temporary and earthly accomplishments. So when weighing the things you invest in during your life here on earth, let an eternal perspective guide the decisions you make about what your life will be spent on.
When we are loving one another, sacrificing our lives for each other, obeying Christ, seeking what the Father said through Jesus, and intent on producing eternal fruit, we can ask the Father for anything in Christ’s Name and He will give it.
When we are loving one another, sacrificing our lives for each other, obeying Christ, seeking what the Father said through Jesus, and intent on producing eternal fruit, we can ask the Father for anything in Christ’s Name and He will give it.
Notice that the act of asking God for “anything” has conditions and parameters to it. This doesn’t mean that God will give us a new car or a good grade on that exam or the dream job we hope for if we just add the magical, God-arm-twisting phrase “In Jesus, Name...” First of all, our act of asking God for something is couched in a life of obedience and spiritual fruitfulness. Second of all, it is done “in Jesus Name.”
“In Jesus name” is not a magical phrase we can add to a request that somehow forces God to do what we ask Him to do. We need to first understand what it means to pray “in Jesus name.” As I was studying this, I came across a blog post by Pastor Wes Woodell. (He summarized the important meaning of names in his blog post, The Significance of Names in the Bible (https://crossingscollinsville.com/2019/05/26/the-significance-of-names-in-the-bible/). )
He explained how names are significant in the Bible, and how they serve a variety of functions. in the end He makes this point:
“Names were often used to express the nature and function of a person. They were used to indicate a person’s purpose in the world...”
“Names were often used to express the nature and function of a person. They were used to indicate a person’s purpose in the world...”
The name Jesus means, “The Lord Saves.” Throughout the Gospels Jesus tells His disciples and those who would listen what His purpose is. Scripture tells us that Jesus is God in His very nature. We are told that His function is to bring salvation and restoration of humanity’s relationship with God.
So when we pray and ask for something of God, and do it “in Jesus’ name” we are declaring that what we are asking God to do lines up with Jesus’ holy nature as God, Savior, and Lord. We are affirming that what we are asking for is in agreement with God’s plan to bring lost people to repentance and salvation.
When we pray for something “…in Jesus’s name” we aren’t adding some kind of magic tag that somehow twists God’s arm to submit to our selfish desires, we are declaring that our requests line up with Jesus’s nature, His function as Savior, and His purpose of growing His Kingdom.
When we pray for something “…in Jesus’s name” we aren’t adding some kind of magic tag that somehow twists God’s arm to submit to our selfish desires, we are declaring that our requests line up with Jesus’s nature, His function as Savior, and His purpose of growing His Kingdom.
So the next time you spend time in prayer, and come to that final phrase, think about whether what you are asking for really is something that you are asking “in Jesus’ name.”
Finally, as the passage in Galatians that we read at the beginning of this service states,
4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.
By coming alongside Christ, working with God to accomplish His plans, and allowing God to transform us and use us, we are behaving as loving and faithful children who are devoted to a loving and all-powerful God and Father. Just like last week’s parable where we saw that the master desires to share his joy and possessions with the servants, God desires to share His inheritance with His children.
We are not only friends of God, but we are also His children, and He desires to share His inheritance with us.
We are not only friends of God, but we are also His children, and He desires to share His inheritance with us.
What an incredible truth and gift that God has redeemed us to such a place of love, honor, and blessing. This week as you continue to seek God in prayer and fasting, ask God to help you know Him more deeply. Ask Him to help you be more and more fruitful in ways that are of eternal value. Thank Him that you have been given the privilege of calling Him “Daddy”. And ask Him to give you opportunities to share that great news with others who don’t know Him yet, and for an opportunity to help them know how they too can become children of God.
Let’s Pray.
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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