Sermon - Friendship that Builds the Kingdom: Kingdom Relationships

So isn't it interesting that as Jesus defines friendship here in John 15, he doesn't define it by how much you enjoy company with another person, he defines it by sacrifice.

Welcome to the Church of the Lakes weekly sermon podcast.

We're so glad you joined us, and we're honored to be part of your spiritual journey.

This year, Church of the Lakes is focusing on having a good mindset, and all that we do are living out of cultural makes the world to become more like Jesus.

Today, after Eric's Greek steps, continues our sermon series called, which will help us think about how we treat others, our spouse, co-workers, families, and others who know our meetings, and to those who don't treat us very well.

Today's message is titled Friendship That Builds the Kingdom.

True friendship in the kingdom is marked by loyalty and sacrifice.

And now, Dr.

Gary, be blessed.

Well, we are in the midst of a sermon series entitled Kingdom Relationships, uh Living the Love of the King.

And uh throughout this series, what we've been doing is we've been uh discussing how when we follow King Jesus as our Lord and Savior, it doesn't just change our behavior or our um our beliefs.

It also changes our behavior and how we relate to one another.

You know, our culture tends to really be fixated on self, doesn't it?

It's all about protecting self, uh, engaging in certain uh things to maybe allow self to enjoy, to keep score, to only love those who will be able to love us back.

But Jesus offers a different way to our existence.

I would actually argue that it's a better way.

A way where strength is seen in our humility, in our dependency on Christ, where greatness is found in the way we serve the least of us, where love looks like sacrifice.

Because again, kingdom people, kingdom of God people don't just believe differently.

We relate to one another differently.

And today what we're gonna discover is a very simple, but I think powerful truth, and it's simply this that kingdom friends don't just make life more enjoyable, they actually compel us to want to be more like Jesus.

Friends, kingdom of God is the kingdom of God is most visible in our lives when the love of God is shown and demonstrated through us in very visible ways.

Today we're gonna look at a text out of uh John's gospel.

It's John 15.

It's it's actually part of Jesus' farewell discourse uh with his disciples.

He goes and meets with them in an upper room, he has this conversation with them uh after he washes their feet, after he institutes holy communion, after he teaches on the Holy Spirit, the advocate that will play a part in our lives as God's people after his departure.

He gives them a command.

And I'm gonna pick up in John 15, just verses 12 to 17, uh, and this is what Jesus says.

This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

You are my friends if you do as I command you.

For I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends.

Isn't that awesome?

Let me say that again.

I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you my friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

You did not choose me, but I chose you.

That's a significant statement.

We know we don't even come to salvation on our own.

Holy Spirit illuminates God's desire for us to be in salvation, uh relationship with Him.

You do not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

And I'm giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Friends, this is indeed the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Will you pray with me?

Almighty God, I thank you so much for this morning.

I thank you for the way you've already shown yourself to be our living God in the midst of the worship and the praying and the proclamation of your word.

And I just pray now, Lord, in the midst of this moment that you'd bless the words of my lips, the meditation of all our hearts, that they be of profit to us and acceptable to you, for you indeed are our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

And I don't know if you've noticed this, but we are living in one of the most connected generations in all of history.

Is that a true statement?

And yet, I would also add one of the loneliests.

You know, we have devices in our pockets that connect us with hundreds, if not thousands, of people in any moment's notice.

Uh Facebook, Instagram, group text messages, more connected than any generation in all of history, and yet many people will say, statistically speaking, that they are more lonely today than they've ever been.

I wonder if it's because we've mixed up connection with actual friendship.

Could that be why?

Everything's lived on the surface, nothing goes deeper.

However, the Bible offers us something better when it comes to our existence.

Something better than just casual relationship or a social media connection.

What the Bible offers us, church, is friendship centered on Jesus Christ.

Here's what's remarkable about the passage I read a moment ago.

On the night before Jesus would go to the cross and shed his blood for our salvation of our sins, our salvation of our existences, when he knew betrayal was coming, when he knew suffering was but hours away, when he knew that his friends would soon all desert him, what does he spend his time talking about?

Friendship.

Look at again, verse 15.

Jesus says, I no longer call you servants, I call you my friends.

Can you think about that for a moment?

The creator of the universe, the Lord of lords, the King of kings, the one to whom angels will cover their faces, looks at sinners, sinners like you and me, and says, You are my friends.

That has got to be one of the most astonishing statements in the entire Bible.

But like the Holy Son of God doesn't just tolerate us.

The Holy Son of God welcomes us into relationship with himself.

So before Jesus teaches us about what it means to be a friend, what we see in this passage is he becomes the friend that we so desperately need.

Look, everything we're gonna talk about today flows out of that reality that Jesus has become the friend you and I so desperately need.

So what does Jesus teach us about friendship that he first demonstrates for us?

Well, the first thing he teaches us is that kingdom friendship remains with us through the highs and lows of life.

Kingdom friends stay loyal to each other.

Look at the statement again.

Jesus says, this is my command, verse 12, love one another as I have loved you.

Jesus doesn't say love one another when it's easy.

He doesn't say love one another as long as you agree on everything under the sun.

He doesn't say love one another until the other person disappoints you.

He just simply says love one another.

It's indicative of this kind of love that is steadfast, that endures, that stays, that that remains.

It it doesn't disappear when life gets complicated or confusing.

That's what kingdom friendship looks like.

Kingdom friends stay, they remain, they don't walk away when life gets messy.

I I think sometimes kingdom uh friends maybe don't have all the answers to questions, but they at least show up.

I mean Jesus did, didn't he?

Like, think of the gospel narrative.

Jesus remained faithful to his disciples through misunderstanding, through failure, through denial, through fear.

Like his love remained.

How counter-cultural is that in in the American story?

Like think of our culture.

It is so much about me, isn't it?

About me and having my needs fulfilled.

Like like even relationship.

Our culture trains us to look at other people and say to ourselves, what can I get out of this relationship?

If I can get something out of it, then I'll engage it.

But if I can't, no worse for the wear.

But what does Jesus say?

Jesus says, look at another person and ask the question, How can I faithfully love and serve that person?

But like a true friend isn't measured by simply how much fun you have with another person.

True friendship is revealed when you stay with that person even when life gets difficult.

I I think we can all look back in our life stories and picture people who walked away from us when life got inconvenient for them, can't we?

And on the other hand, we all can remember people who stayed.

Someone who called, who prayed, who sat in the hospital room, who brought us a meal in our time of need.

Somebody who simply refused to let us walk through the valley of death alone.

Paul, we're gonna walk through this with you.

That's what kingdom friends do.

And if you've ever had a friend like that, hear me, you've experienced one of God's greatest gifts this side of heaven.

Now, Jesus doesn't just say friends are loyal, he takes it a level deeper.

Not only do friends stay loyal, but friends also sacrifice.

Look at verse 13.

Jesus says, Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend.

Again, kingdom friends sacrifice for us.

You know, isn't it interesting that as Jesus defines friendship here in John 15, he doesn't define it by how much you enjoy your company with another person.

He defines it by sacrifice.

Again, if you asked our culture to finish this sentence, a good friend is someone who, they would probably say something like this.

A good friend is someone who makes me laugh.

A good friend is someone who shares my interests.

A good friend is someone who's fun for me to be around.

Now, all that stuff is wonderful, but the defining characteristic of true friendship is not what that person can do for you.

It's just simply the sacrificial love you exhibit to another or that person exhibits to you.

In other words, kingdom friendship isn't built on what you solely receive, it's also built on what you're willing to give.

It's the reciprocity and relationship the give and take.

Now, when Jesus shares this, he's not speaking specifically in theory alone.

No.

We know that because we know the rest of the story when we read John 15.

We know that within hours of Jesus saying these words, he would stretch out his arms on a Roman cross and shed his blood for our salvation.

Like the disciples didn't understand that yet in this moment.

Oh, but they would.

That the one who called them friends, not servants now, the one who called them friends would prove his friendship with the shedding of his own blood.

Think about it.

Like Jesus didn't merely tell his friends to love that he loved them, he demonstrated it.

Romans 5 8, Paul says that God proves, God demonstrates his love for us in this way.

That while we were still sinners, while we were the enemies of God, Christ Jesus died for us.

Notice Jesus didn't wait until his friends deserved it before he died for them.

No, he loved them, he gave up his life for them when they were still weak, still fearful, still selfish, still imperfer imperfect.

Guess what?

That's the gospel.

And because we've been loved like that, Jesus says, now it's your turn to love one another in that same way.

But even with that said, most sacrificial love isn't as dramatic as Jesus being nailed to a cross.

Most sacrificial love, friends, looks like simply showing up, making time, carrying someone else's burdens, praying faithfully, refusing to walk away when it gets tough.

Listen, most sacrificial love actually looks pretty ordinary.

But ordinary acts of sacrificial love become extraordinary things in the hands of our God.

Here's an example from Scripture.

Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Remember the four men in their paralytic friend that they brought to the feet of Jesus?

Jesus was gonna be in their village in this specific moment in time.

At this point, he's gotten quite a following of people because he's at a teaches with authority and he's a heal healer, a miracle worker.

And so he comes to this particular village, and these four men don't just run to hear Jesus teach.

They remember their friend who's in need and they ran back and got him.

They carried him to Jesus, but the crowd was so dense to where Jesus was teaching, they couldn't get him to Jesus.

So what'd they do?

They bring him up to the roof, they cut a hole, and they lower him down right in front of Jesus.

Like they knew they couldn't heal their friend, but they refused to let their friend miss the opportunity of being with Jesus.

Friends, kingdom friends help carry other people to Christ when they can't get to Christ themselves.

That's kingdom friendship.

Listen, sometimes loving your friend means carrying them when they don't have the strength to walk themselves.

Sometimes it means believing for them when they have forgotten how to hope.

Sometimes it means praying on their behalf when they no longer have the words.

Again, some of you like me have experienced that type of relationship with people.

Like there have been seasons where your faith has felt weak, where your heart has been so heavy, where you've wondered if you could could muster the strength to keep going, but then God places someone in your life beside you.

Someone who wouldn't let you quit, someone who kept reminding you of the promises of our living God, someone who kept pushing you back to Jesus.

Can we just pause for a moment and thank our living God for people like that in our in our circles?

But here's the question.

As you're starting to think to yourself, do I have friends like that?

Ask the question.

Am I actually a friend like that?

Because that's what Jesus is forming in his kingdom.

Not solely consumers of friendship, but contributors to friendship.

Oh, the selfish world in which we live says, find find friends that will make your life easier.

That's not the Jesus way.

Jesus said, No, the first question is become the kind of friend that helps other people connect to Jesus Christ.

Doesn't that change everything?

Because kingdom friendship doesn't simply walk beside us and sympathize with us in our moments of grief.

Kingdom friends help walk us to Jesus and with Jesus.

Kingdom friends are loyal, kingdom friends sacrifice.

Here's the third one.

Kingdom friends help shape us.

I tell my children all the time show me your three closest friends and I'll tell you who you're becoming.

Show me your three closest friends, I will tell you who you're becoming.

Because over time we begin to adapt the values and the priorities of those we spend most of our time with.

Iron doesn't sharpen itself.

No, iron is sharpened through friction with another piece of iron, through contact, through through the way it meets up with more iron.

The same is true spiritually speaking.

God often uses other believers to help shape us into the image of Jesus Christ.

Now the opposite is also true.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, he warns us to not be misled.

He says, don't be misled.

Bad company corrupts good character.

He doesn't say bad company might corrupt good character.

He says bad company does corrupt good character.

Which means friendship is never neutral.

Friendship is always moving you in one direction or another.

It's moving you toward Christ or away from Christ.

It's moving you toward faith or toward compromise.

It's moving you toward holiness or toward worldliness.

So here's the question every one of us needs to answer.

Are my closest friends pulling me towards Jesus?

Or are they pushing me away from Jesus?

Now let me be clear about something.

Jesus spent time with tax collectors and sinners, didn't he?

He spent time with the most broken of his society, and so should we.

Look, like if we isolate ourselves into holy huddles and disassociate with anybody who's not in relationship with Jesus Christ, we will never fulfill the great commission of Jesus in Matthew 28 or Acts chapter 1, where he says, Go make disciples of all nations, right?

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all my commands, and lo, I'll be with you until the end of the age.

Like we're called to serve our neighbors, to love our neighbors, to build relationship with people who don't necessarily walk with the Lord.

Like, how else are they going to get witnesses to the love of Christ?

But friends, here's the thing there's a difference between loving everyone and letting everyone shape your heart.

Right?

Jesus influenced sinners.

Sinners never influence Jesus.

Do you see the difference?

And as followers of Jesus Christ, we should have many friends with people from all walks of life.

Even those who do not yet know Christ as Lord and Savior.

We pray for them, we eat with them, we invite them into our lives, we point them to Jesus.

But our closest companions, call them your inner three.

Your closest companions have to be people who will speak who the ones who speak into your heart, who challenge you, who help you follow Jesus, they have to be people who are also following and pursuing Jesus as well.

Think about the illustration of mountain climbing.

Any mountain climbers here?

This feels a little out of left field.

Run with it.

If you're climbing a mountain, you want to make sure that you're strapped to somebody who's anchored to the rock, right?

Because if you're sliding down that mountain, you don't want them to slide down with you.

That's kingdom friendship.

It helps keep you anchored in Christ Jesus.

Do you have friends like that?

That keep you anchored into Christ Jesus?

That you have given them uh permission to speak into your life in in godly ways.

Well, like here's a Who in your life has permission to call you out when you're drifting?

Who knows you well enough to ask the question, how's your walk with the Lord going?

Who in your circle loves you enough to confront you if your marriage is struggling, if your priorities are slipping, or if your heart is growing cold.

Friends, if you do not have those kind of relationships in your life, you are missing one of God's greatest gifts to you.

The Christian life was never intended to be lived alone.

We don't just need cheering sections.

We need kingdom companions.

We need people who will walk beside us, carry our burdens, pray for us, challenge us, refuse to let us settle for anything less than God's best over our lives.

Man, I thank God that we are a congregation that really tries to create an environment to pursue those types of relationships.

We have anchor groups that are continuing to grow.

I see it all the time: people praying for one another, serving alongside one another, helping carry one another's burdens through life's journey.

Can we continue to be the kind of church that does that?

It lives with that mantra that we are the one another religion.

We are in this together as we pursue Christ together?

Listen, kingdom friends don't just make life more enjoyable.

Kingdom friends make us more like Jesus.

Let me go back to where I started.

I love this.

Jesus says, I no longer call you a servant, I call you a friend.

Can you remember that this week?

That you are a friend of the living God.

That statement should astonish us.

That Jesus calls us his friend.

Listen, Jesus isn't speaking that reality into people who were always faithful to him.

I mean, think about the Motley crew.

Judas would betray him, Peter would deny him, Thomas would doubt him, James and John argued over who was the greatest amongst them.

All of them deserted Jesus in his hour of greatest need.

If we're honest, it sounds a lot like us, doesn't it?

Weak, fearful, imperfect.

Yet Jesus still says, I have called you friend.

How can he say that?

He can say that because he knows what's coming.

In just a few hours, he would fulfill his own words.

Greater love has no one than the one who will lay down his life for a friend.

Listen, Jesus didn't simply teach about sacrificial friendship.

He demonstrated it.

He carried a cross up a hill.

He stretched out his arms on it.

He shed his precious blood.

He bore our sin.

He took our judgment.

He died the death that we deserved and were destined to die, not just for us, but instead of us.

Why?

So the enemies of God could become the children of God, could become friends of God.

Church, that's the gospel.

The cross isn't just proof that Jesus loves you, it is proof that Jesus wants to be in relationship with you.

I mean, think about it.

The King of Kings wants a relationship with you.

Like look at yourself in the mirror later today and remind yourself of that reality that the King of Kings, the God of the universe, wants a relationship with you.

Not because you earned it, not because you deserve it, not because you've always been faithful, but because he loved you while you were still a sinner.

And today, church, he still invites people into that type of friendship.

Some of you have spent your life looking for fulfillment in other people, and other things are an achievement.

Where there's a place in your soul that only Jesus can fill.

Like, and we know this through experience.

Every earthly relationship we have at some point fails us.

It's temporary and it's imperfect.

But Jesus is the friend, hear me, who never leaves, who never changes, who never breaks his promises.

And perhaps today you need that friend in him.

Maybe you've never surrendered your heart to Jesus Christ.

Friends, please hear me today.

He invites you to do just that.

Not simply to admire him, not simply to believe the facts about him, but to know him, to walk with him, to become his friend through repentance and faith.

Listen, if the Holy Spirit is stirring something in your soul today to claim this friendship in the living God, don't ignore it.

Don't dismiss the invitation.

Because the Christian life was never meant to be lived alone.

We need Jesus as our greatest friend.

And then we need one another to be kingdom companions for this life's journey.

Friends who will remain with us, friends who will sacrifice for us, friends who will lovingly sharpen us and call us out, friends who will keep pointing us back to Christ.

So today I want to give you a chance to respond to the message on friendship.

You know, most of us are going to stand and sing our closing hand, What a friend we have in Jesus.

Make that a declaration of your heart.

But I want to open the altar rail to you this morning, too.

If you feel this invitation from the Lord to enter into relationship with him, to claim him as your friend, through through believing he is your Lord and Savior, believing he rose from the dead after paying for the price for your sin.

Come and kneel in an act of surrender at the altar rail.

And simply say, Lord, I want you to be my friend and I want to be yours.

Walk with me and bring me into the church more fully.

Or the altar rail is open.

Maybe you just want to come and kneel as an act of gratitude for the friend Jesus has been with you through life's ups and downs.

Or maybe you need to come and kneel like Paul did earlier for healing.

Mind, body, and soul.

Friend, the altar rail is open.

We have a God who constantly gives us invitation to come and come abide with Him.

Let's pray, and we'll stand and sing and know the altar rail is open, and I would love to pray with you as well during that song.

Let me pray.

Lord God, we want to thank you first and foremost for your friendship with us.

Lord, we if we're honest, no, we don't deserve your love, we don't deserve your loyalty or your sacrifice or your companionship.

But we are so thankful for it.

God, we thank you that you love us despite ourselves.

That you made a way for us to be with you forever by sending your Son Jesus, who bore our punishment on the cross, who shed his blood for the salvation of our souls, who paid the penalty for our sin.

Lord, there are those here today I think who want to disregard friendship with the world.

Finally, and instead become a friend of yours.

And God, as your Holy Spirit illuminates in their heart of this need, I just pray that they would have the courage to open up their arms and just say, Lord Jesus, I want to be a friend to you.

Maybe take this prayer as their own.

Lord Jesus, I want to be a friend to you.

And I want you to be a friend of me.

I trust in the work of the cross that your blood saves me from my sins.

And that through the resurrection, you have provided me access to eternal life with you.

God, will you teach us to be the kind of friends that we need to be the one another that you were first to each and every one of us?

We love you, Lord.

We pray this all in your name and all of God's people's son.

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