Sunday Sermon August 4, 2024 - You’ve Got a Friend in Me!
Posted on August 4, 2024
You’ve Got a Friend in Me!
John 15.12-17
When you choose friends, what qualities do you look for?
Do you choose friends based on similar interests and hobbies?
Do you choose friends based on a similar place in life — for example: married with same aged kids; retired with free time; or, young and single?
Do you choose friends based on character traits such as loyalty, honesty, dependability, kindness, gentleness, and respectfulness?
Do you choose friends based on a common faith that allows you to love, support, prayer for and encourage one another on a daily basis?
Do you choose friends based on who is going to let you drink and drug without accountability?
Do you choose friends based on their wealth and the extravagant lifestyle they can provide for you?
Or, do you choose friends based on their position and power in your community and/or world?
Cultural commentators speak about the fact that we are more connected to other people and events than at any other time in history because of the globalization that technology allows.
However, at the same time, those same cultural commentators, with the statistics from medical professionals, speak about the fact that despair, depression, and loneliness are more prevalent than any other time in history as well.
The irony is that we have the ability to be connected to more people than ever before but we feel more alone than ever before.
A California startup claims it has a solution to loneliness.
Groundfloor, which began in the San Francisco Bay Area and will soon open a location in Los Angeles, is a social club with a focus on friendship.
Groundfloor co-founder Jermaine Ijieh says the club provides space for work (meeting rooms and phone booths), wellness (classes, gym space, and meditation circles), and socializing. There are karaoke nights, member-led special interest groups and craft workshops. It’s not aiming to compete with WeWork or elite social clubs, Ijieh says. Instead, he likens it to “an after-school club for kids,” but designed primarily for adults over 30.
“There’s always been an issue once you start to hit this age range,” he says. “We start to lose institutions where we used to build communities, such as places of worship, colleges, offices, schools … Once you leave your 20s, it sort of feels like a social purgatory.”
The pitch is working: Groundfloor’s new location in Los Angeles already has 2,000 would-be members on its waitlist. Perhaps that speaks to the isolation of a city of endless traffic, few pedestrians, and its own scientific scale for loneliness. But the club also has three locations in the San Francisco Bay Area that almost 1,000 people have joined. Those numbers underline the reality of the loneliness crisis, especially when you factor in the club’s price tag: $200 a month.
I ask you again, when you try to lessen the loneliness in your life and choose friends, what qualities do you look for?
The Bible tells us this:
Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” (1 Corinthians 15:33, ESV)
Sometimes we choose friends to our benefit and health.
But, sometimes we choose friends to our detriment and destruction.
Someone once said that “Jesus most impressive miracle was being 30 years old and having 12 close friends.”
When Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, chose his friends, he didn’t pick the most popular kids or the most wealthy kids or the most educated kids. Instead, when choosing friends, Jesus used the measuring sticks of faithfulness, availability, and willingness to learn.
The theme this week at VBS is “Diving Deep Into Friendship With God.”
Every day at Vacation Bible School we are going to be teaching the kids that they have the greatest and truest friend in Jesus.
So, for this morning’s text, this VBS Kickoff Sunday, I chose a Biblical text from the disciple John’s biography of Jesus, or John’s Good News about Jesus (as we can also call it), in which we are told what Jesus is the greatest and truest friend we could ever have.
Let’s hear from John 15.12-17 now.
John 15:12–17 has Jesus speaking these words to us:
[12] “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. [14] You are my friends if you do what I command you. [15] No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. [16] You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. [17] These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (ESV)
To begin, let’s look at the four (4) qualities that make Jesus the greatest and truest friend we could every have.
First, Jesus obeys God.
The two greatest commandments are love God and love your neighbor.
That means that Jesus loves God always and perfectly and therefore Jesus love you always and perfectly.
You can’t say that about your human friends.
Second, Jesus loves unconditionally.
The Bible makes it clear that there is nothing we have done, nothing we are doing now, and nothing we will possibly do in the future that will cause God, in Jesus Christ, to stop loving us and chasing after us.
You can’t say that about your human friends.
Third, Jesus sacrifices himself for the needs of others.
The Bible says to put your needs above the needs of others.
And, since Jesus always and perfectly obeys God’s commands, that means that He has, is now, and will always put you well being first on his list of priorities.
The ultimate demonstration of this is when Jesus gave His life over to death on the cross for you. This personal sacrifice of Jesus ensured that through repenting of your Sin—which includes being a selfish and self-centered, unloving, using and abusing friend to others—and placing your trust in Him as the only Lord and Savior who is able to open up the gates of God’s Kingdom wide for you, ensures you that you have the forgiveness you need and the righteousness you need to be accepted and welcomed by God the Father in Heaven.
You can’t say that about your human friends.
And, fourth, Jesus never leaves you or forsakes his friends.
When Jesus ascended back to Heaven after He was crucified and resurrected for your forgiveness and eternal life, he promised you that he will never leave you or forsake you and that he would be with you and living in you every second of every day under the end of time.
You can’t say that about you human friends.
Friendships in this world come and go as we have all experienced.
But through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, friendship with God will come to you but will never be taken away from you.
Songs often have a way of clearly and succinctly putting truths out into the world. I want to share with you several songs this morning that describe great and true friendship.
In 1971, Carol King, wrote “You’ve Got a Friend,” in which she said:
Now, ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend
When people can be so cold?
They’ll hurt you, yes, and desert you
And take your soul if you let them
Oh, but don’t you let them
You just call out my name
And you know, wherever I am
I’ll come runnin’, runnin’, yeah, yeah
To see you again
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there, yes, I will
You’ve got a friend
In 1995, Randy Newman wrote “You’ve Got a Friend In Me,” for Disney’s blockbuster Toy Story. In this iconic piece of music from 20th Century America, we hear this:
You’ve got a friend in me
When the road looks rough ahead
And you’re miles and miles
From your nice warm bed
You just remember what your old pal said
Boy, you’ve got a friend in me
Yeah, you’ve got a friend in me
You’ve got a friend in me
You’ve got a friend in me
If you’ve got troubles, I’ve got ’em too
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you
We stick together and can see it through
Cause you’ve got a friend in me
You’ve got a friend in me
As the years go by
Our friendship will never die
You’ve got a friend in me
Now, after describing what a true friend is like, using the four above qualities of (1) obeys God, (2) loves unconditionally, (3) sacrifices their own wants for the needs of others, (4) and sticks around in good and bad times, Jesus commands us to love others the way that He loved us.
Let’s be honest. That’s impossible!
We are naturally selfish.
We are naturally self-centered.
We don’t want to waste our time bending over backwards to help someone else.
“Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
After all, people are annoying; People are needy; People are difficult.
Getting involved in the lives of other people is messy and uncomfortable and requires the hard work of compromise, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice.
Like I said,
“Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
So, if we have a natural aversion to doing everything we possibly can to make sure the people in our lives feel loved and valuable, what hope is there for us?
After all, to disobey Jesus’ command is to disobey God’s command since Jesus is God-in-the-flesh with us. And, the punishment for disobedience to God’s command, even one single time, is rejection from Heaven and eternal separation from God, your Father in Heaven, the Creator of all things.
Well, this morning’s Biblical text tells us the good news about the hope we have.
Through simple faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as the only way to God in Heaven, we have the promise and presence of Jesus living in us doing the work of love for us.
The only hope we have for a never-ending friendship with God, the Father in Heaven, the Creator and Maker of all things, is through faith in Jesus which transforms and renews our hearts and minds to be just like His.
In 1855, Joseph Medlicott Scriven wrote the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” where we are reminded day after day that:
What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged;
take it to the Lord in prayer!
Can we find a friend so faithful
who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
take it to the Lord in prayer!
This morning dive deep into your friendship with Jesus who lovingly sacrificed himself by obeyed God’s command to die on the cross to forgive you of your Sin and who promises to never leave you or forsake you, but instead walk with you through every trial and temptation until the very end of time when you will be welcomed into God, the Father’s, Kingdom of Heaven.
This week, go into the world and love others as you have first been loved by God—obey God’s commands, love without expecting something in return, make sacrifices for the good of those around you, and stand strongly next to those that are celebrating and those that are suffering.
I want to insert a Biblical note of caution and warning when we are taking about being loving friends to others.
At some level, we all have a Savior complex. But, You are not a Savior. You are not someone else’s Savior. You will never be someone else’s Savior.
The only person that can save someone from their self-destructive thinking, speaking, and behavior is God through Jesus. Jesus is and will always be the only Savior and life-changer.
It is always easier for someone to bring you down than it is for you to lift them up. Without exception.
As we heard in the beginning, we need to be wise in choosing friends because,
“Bad company ruins good morals.” (1 Corinthians 15:33, ESV)
Choosing the wrong friends that reject the help that true love provides will destroy you, your reputation, your family, your health, and everything and anything else that you hold dearly.
Sometimes, the most loving thing, from a Biblical perspective, that you can do for a friend is walk away. Some people don’t want the help that true love provides and just want someone to commiserate and join in their self-destruction.
The hope is that the time left alone and separated from the presence of real and true love will be the wake up call that is needed to bring the person to their senses that they are losing everything that means anything.
With that Biblical warning and caution in mind, I leave you with two pieces of good news and some encouragement for your life this week from the disciple John’s 1st letter to the churches around the world.
1 John 3:16–18 tells us this:
[16] By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. [17] But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? [18] Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (ESV)
And, a little further on in his letter, 1 John 4:7–12 tells us this:
[7] Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. [8] Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. [9] In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. [10] In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. [11] Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. [12] No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (ESV)
You’ve got a friend in Jesus!
Bring all of your friendships to him prayer.
This is the Word of God for you today.
This is the Grace of God for you today.
Amen.
Reverend Fred Scragg V.
August 4, 2024.
