Loyal Friendship
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 6 viewsNotes
Transcript
We struggle with loyalty because how we view loyalty has been skewed.
The world views loyalty as a disposition or a characteristic.
The view loyalty as something thats inherited or something thats apart of your DNA.
How many of us heard
“ Ride or die”
“I will rather be carried by six then judged by 12”
The great philosopher 50 cent said “get rich or die trying.”
These kind of loyalties are void of God.
They don’t consider God.
They make there loyalties there God.
God isn’t present with this these kind of loyalties.
The first answer to the question of Christ and culture we shall consider is the one that uncompromisingly affirms the sole authority of Christ over the Christian and resolutely rejects the culture’s claims to loyalty”
D. A. Carson
Uncompromisingly affirms the sole authority of Christ.
The cultures loyalty is inflated with self, ego, pride.
We should resolutely reject the cultures claims of loyalty.
Meaning we should be purposefully, intentionally, aggressively, rejecting the worlds view of loyalty.
Especially when that loyalty can cause us to deny Christ.
I love in the scriptures God is very loyal to who He is in the scriptures.
Theres no compromise in Himself.
What is Loyalty?
Dictionary of Bible Themes 8304 loyalty
A commitment to an ongoing relationship and to the attitude and behaviour demanded by it. It is evident in human relationships and also in the covenant relationship between God and his people.
Loyalty goes beyond just being present but theres a specific attitude and behaviour associated with your commitment.
Loyalty isn’t just presence or attendance.
Just imagine someone being at the church every time the doors are open but they are gossiping about everyone. Every-time theres an event they are negative. They are not displaying the attitude or the behaviour to say they are indeed loyal; present yes loyal no.
Judas was present but he wasn’t loyal.
Someone can be present but not loyal. Someone can be commited but not loyal.
God is an example of such loyalty
Turn to Hebrews 10:22
The three LET US
let us draw near (verse 22), let us hold fast (verse 23) and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works (verse 24). The first refers to personal devotion, the second to consistency and the third to social obligations
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
There are four conditions how we should approach God.
With a true heart- With a real heart oppose to what is apparent.
Its the genuineness of our heart is how we approach to God. I’m laid bare before Him in full transparency to God.
What is apparent is usually what your eyes can see and never go deeper then the surface. It only focuses on whats clear and visible.
2.Full assurance of Faith- there is not reason to doubt that access will be granted to God.
Full assurance is the sphere or environment in which approach is to be made.
I can be fully assured that I have access to God through the virtue of Christ.
3. With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.
Ex 24:8 “8 And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.””
The sprinkling of blood was a ratifying of the OT.
It was an agreement of the covenant that God made with the people. Its to reveal the new relational and moral condition of Gods people.
4. And our bodies washed with pure water.
The washing of the water, I believe is the word of God.
Eph 5:26 “26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,”
This is an overt act. of washing of the body.
3 is an inner attitude and 4 is an overt act.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
. The final clause is introduced by , “for,” and indicates the grounds for the exhortation to “ hope without wavering.”
Believers can count on God standing behind his promise; hence the reason we can “hold without wavering” to the confession of our hope.
Hebrews 4:14 “14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”
Hebrews 3:6 “6 but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.”
Hebrews 3:14 “14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end,”
Rev 3:11 “11 Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.”
24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,
God’s covenant loyalty Dt 7:9 See also 1Ki 8:23 pp 2Ch 6:14; Ne 1:5; Ps 25:10; 89:28; 103:17-18; 106:45; Isa 54:10; 55:3
At a higher and theologically more interesting level the idea of friendship contains not only the component of association but also that of loyalty. The “king’s friend” (2 Sam. 15:37; 16:16; 1 Kings 4:5; 1 Chron. 27:33) . Hiram of Tyre’s “friendship” with David (1 Kings 5:1) is actually a political alliance that may have little to do with affection but everything to do with treaty obligations. The “friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24) shows loyalty. When the Jews accuse Pilate of not being “a friend of Caesar” (John 19:12), they are questioning his loyalty to the emperor.
To my fellow men a heart of love; to my friends a heart of loyalty; to my God a heart of flame; to myself a heart of steel.
Augustine of Hippo
It is a personal relationship of love and loyalty to the one who has loved us more than we can begin to imagine. And the test of that love and loyalty remains the simple, profound, dangerous and difficult command: love one another.
N. T. Wright