Friend of God
Notes
Transcript
One of the great Rich Mullins songs titled “all the way to kingdom come” has these lyrics
We didn't know what love was 'til He came
And He gave love a face and He gave love a name
And He gave love away like the sky gives the rain and sun
We were looking for heroes He came looking for the lost
We were searching for glory and He showed us a cross
Now we know what love is 'cause He loves us
All the way to kingdom come (All the way)
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Love begins with God! It is His essence…
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Paul tells us in Colossians that the love of God was embodied in Christ…
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
So, as Rich Mullins put it, love has come!
He gave love a face and He gave love a name..
And so, Jesus tells us…
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
We must understand that we we can only truly love each other because of the love that God has shown us!
19 We love because he first loved us.
If we want to love others, love Jesus! Understand the love that He has for us!
We understand as Paul prays in Ephesians 3…
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
And, we saw in Colossians, the fullness of the Deity was embodied in Christ…
That we may be filled with love!
So, we should understand the love of God!
And, that we may love others in the way that Christ loves us…
And, how does He love us?
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Love is what brought Christ to the earth
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
And, He came with a purpose…to go to a cross, the ultimate act of love…so that we, who walked away, could again, be united with Him!
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
And,
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
So, Christ came in love and went to the cross in love, so that we, who were dead, may be alive!
And, what is the culmination of His love on the cross?
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
This is not a conditional statement..
It is not a checklist to be a friend of God…
Doing what Jesus commands is an outflow of the friendship that we have with Him!
As we talked about several weeks ago, love is the highest reason that we obey!
Because we love, we then obey!
Not a perfect analogy, but maybe drives him the point…
In high school, I had two high school wrestling coaches
We had the assistant coach and the head coach
The assistant coach, respectfully, was a bit overweight..
He was kind of a brash guy and one that would demand respect and obedience.
He would stand at the side of the room with his whistle and bark commands at us
Needless to say, he didn’t have much respect from the wrestlers…
On the other hand, our head coach was an ex-military guy. He was a bit older, but resolved to not ask us to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself
He would do warm-ups with us, drill with us, wrestle live with us and do all of the conditioning with us!
I remember one time we were wrestling live and doing takedowns and it was right at the end of time, he shot in and got to my legs, but I sat on my bottom and was defending..
This was back in the time that that particular position was a bit of a judgement call for the official…he would determine if the bottom guy had control of if the top guy was still defending
Of course, the assistant coach said he go the takedown
I was angry and was like “no he didn’t” I was like “coach, we are going to go again!”
He said “no, it’s time for conditioning” I argued and was like “come on coach, just one more”
Finally, he gave in and said okay, but if you lose, everyone has to do 100 birpees…
Of course, everyone in the room was like no way, don’t do it…and I said “I’ll tell you what, if I lose, I will do everyone else’s birpees…” there were like 12 people there….young and dumb…
For fun, I’m not going to tell you if I won or not…
But the point being…we all respected and loved that coach…
He did it with us! He built that relationship with us!
But the other coach didn’t have much respect..
That’s a good picture of the difference in Christianity and other religions…
We don’t have a transcendant God who has no part in His creation…We have a God who has “done the stuff”
He walked with us! He suffered with us, He was tempted as we are, yet didn’t sin.”
That’s a God that I can follow!
And, not only that, He calls us friends!
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Jesus invites us closer….to move from simply obeying Him, so we can go to heaven, be become friends with Him!
We aren’t like the servants who simply do what they are told in order to earn their master’s approval…
We are friends with Jesus!
Some of us need to move from being servants to being friends of Jesus!
It’s not that we don’t know what God is doing, The Holy Spirit has revealed that through the writing of scripture
and Jesus showed us perfectly how to live it by His example!
But, now, through Christ, we are invited into a place of friendship…
The Greek word is philos…where we get the Greek word phileo…brotherly love…
Jesus says “I no longer call you servants…” which is the greek word dulos…meaning servant or slave…
Not in the since that we think we think of slave..
A slave in scripture is typically one who owes a debt but can’t pay it..so they agree to work for a period of time for the person that they owe the debt to in order to pay it off…
Jesus says He no longer calls them slaves or servants…they don’t have a debt anymore…
Jesus took on the debt, when He laid down His life for them!
So, now, they are friends…philos…friends, as close as a brother…
Some of us need to move this morning from being a slave/servant to being a friend…
We need to stop doing all of the things that are good or right because we are trying earn our salvation or our way to heaven or to God’s love an affection…
And we need to understand that because of His affectionate love on the the cross, we can be His friends..
Jesus said:
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
another…of the same kind as me…and He will be with you, in you…forever…
Some of you have never actually moved to the position of being a friend of Jesus…
He wants more than for you to serve Him out of obligation…He wants to be your friend…
So much so, that He sent His Holy Spirit to be in us forever!!! That is how intimate He wants to be with you!
So, how…believe…trust…talk to Him, read His word!
