“God’s Friends”
Acts 2:1-21
The title for today’s sermon comes from a confirmation text book used in my church.(1)
In fact, the scripture lessons I selected for today are actually the texts traditionally read in Christian churches around the world on Pentecost Sunday – the day on which confirmation is traditionally celebrated.
The themes of the scriptures and the title of the message both seemed especially appropriate on this Sunday when we have chosen to celebrate 20 years of faithful ministry of one of God’s Friends in our own community.
I love the title and the text book. It’s a wonderful, reassuring title, and the book tells of God’s friends in the Bible, then ends by tell the reader how he or she can also be counted among God’s friends.
Remember Jesus said in John 15, “I have called you friends.”
Although Jesus was speaking directly to his disciples some 2,000 years ago, I believe the passage applies to his modern day disciples as well. Jesus dares to call us his friends.
Remember during the Clinton years, some Hollywood personalities were pejoratively labeled FOBs, F-O-Bs, “friends of Bill” by some conservatives. They got special privileges like spending nights in the White House as guests of honor of the President.
Perhaps we could be labeled FOGs – “Friends of God.” But before you get too heady, remember that Matthew tells us Jesus was the friends of tax collectors and prostitutes, the lowest of the low in his day!
We sing a song about that – “Jesus, What a Friend of Sinners!”(2)
“Jesus! what a friend of sinners! Jesus! lover of my soul!
Friends may fail me, foes assail me, he, my Savior, makes me whole.
“Jesus! what a strength in weakness! Let me hide myself in him;
Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing, he, my strength, my vict’ry wins.
“Hallelujah, what a Savior! Hallelujah, what a friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving, he is with me to the end.”
Those are powerful words! They remind us of the promise from 2 Timothy 2:13 that even when we wander and are unfaithful, he is always faithful.
Jesus! What a friend for sinners! And Jesus said there is no greater friend than this, that a person would lay down one’s very life for one’s friends.(3) Then he stretched out his arms and died on a cross for you and for me.
“Jesus! What a friend for sinners!” “What a friend we have in Jesus!”
God’s Friends! What exactly does that mean?
Oh, we understand what it means that God is our friend. He created us. When we sinned, he sent Jesus to redeem us with his own blood. One day he will send him again to take us to live with him in eternity. He is a friend who takes us as we are, changes us in who we were meant to be, brings out the very best in us, and wants nothing less than the very best for us. In short, he’s the kind of friend we all long for!
But what kind of friends are we?
What kind of friend does God have in me?
I love top read my Bible – but I must confess, in the midst of many busy weeks, the most reading I do is not in devotion to draw near to God, but to prepare a sermon for Sunday morning.
Prayer for me is also a personal struggle. As I set out toward Gethsemane with my Lord and Peter and James and John, I have a firm will that vows to kneel beside my Lord, upholding him in doing battle against the powers of darkness through prayer. But as the other disciples begin to nod off, leaving Jesus alone, my eyes also grow heavy, and my mind wanders to the unfinished business of today’s ‘honey-do” list or the every growing stack of work on my desk waiting for my attention. I wander again to desperately try to construct three coherent points for a sermon. I begin humming the melodies of ten familiar hymns trying to pick one everyone will know and most will like. And soon I discover that I too have left the Lord alone in his prayer vigil.
What kind of friend am I?
I’m afraid I am not a best friend to Jesus. But I want to be. I really want to work at it. And I suspect some of you would consider joining me on that journey as well. Perhaps the best place to begin is by looking at some of God’s friends from scripture.
Everyone can be a friend of God by applying three life lessons from God’s friends in the Bible.
First, let’s look at David, whom the Bible calls, “A man after God’s own heart.”(4)
David was only a shepherd, the youngest, smallest, least impressive of Jesse’s children, yet he was chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to succeed Saul as King over Israel. And God was with him.
God was with him as a young boy when he saved his sheep from the jaws of a hungry lion. God was with him when he faced the giant Goliath. God was with him when he led the army of Israel into battle and returned to crowds shouting, “Saul has killed his thousands, David his tens of thousands!”(5) God was with him when Saul rebelled against God and tried to kill David.
But despite God’s faithfulness to David, David committed a grievous sin.
2 Samuel 11 tells the tragic story of this King of Israel , the man after God’s own heart, who fell into the death trap of sin.
It was the spring of the year, and David was seeking a breath of fresh air walking about the rooftop patio of the palace. Then he saw her, the beautiful Bathsheba, wife of David’s faithful soldier Uriah. She was bathing. And David was filled with lust and sent for her, had her brought to his chambers, used her sexually, then sent her away.
When he later learned she was pregnant with his child, David tried to cover his tracks and sent for Uriah who was serving the nation’s army in war. He assumed when Uriah came home from his deployment he would surely sleep with his wife and no one would suspect the child was not by Uriah.
But Uriah was more noble than his king. He refused to sleep in the comfort of his own home or bed or to enjoy the company of his wife while his men were still in harm’s way in the AOR(6) sleeping on the grass. He would sleep on the King’s threshold and guard the palace until he was sent back into battle.
So David sank deeper into sin and sent Uriah to the front lines, into the heat of battle, and ordered the army to retreat behind him so Uriah would surely be killed.
David, a man after God’s own heart, committed adultery then murdered an innocent and noble man to cover his own deeds. This doesn’t sound like a man of God, a friend of God. What lesson can we possibly learn from him?
From David we learn that when we sin, we must ask God’s forgiveness then trust he will give it.
Turn in your Bible to Psalm 51. This Psalm is written by David as his confession of this very sin and as his petition to God for forgiveness.
Read Psalm 51
David’s last words, recorded in 2 Samuel 23:2-5, are not words of fear that God may hold some secret grievance against him. Rather they are words of confidence in God’s gracious forgiveness.
“The Spirit of the LORD speaks through me; his words are upon my tongue.
The God of Israel spoke. The Rock of Israel said to me:
‘The one who rules righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is like the light of morning at sunrise, like a morning without clouds, like the gleaming of the sun on new grass after rain.’
“Is it not my family God has chosen? Yes, he has made an everlasting covenant with me. His agreement is arranged and guaranteed in every detail. He will ensure my safety and success."
These are words of confidence spoken by a friend of God. From David we learn that to be a friend of God requires genuine repentance of sin and acceptance of God’s grace.
David was dead in sin, but repented and God put sinews and flesh on those bones, and brought new life where there was none.
The first life lesson is the friend of God repents from sin and trusts God!
Second, we know from the Gospels that Jesus had a special friendship with Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha can teach us a second life lesson about being God’s friends.
When Jesus visited them one day, Martha busied herself in the kitchen preparing dinner and getting ready to entertain Jesus as a DV(7) deserved. Mary on the other hand sat at Jesus’ feet and waited expectantly for him to teach her. She worshipped at his feet. She sat in the awe of his presence. She dared to presume that Jesus would want to spend time with her, when all customs of the day would have required her to retire to the kitchen with her sister and slave over a meal.
Martha let Jesus know she was not a happy camper about the situation. She rebuked Mary and asked Jesus to do so as well, but Jesus refused to criticize Mary. And while he stops short of being critical of Martha for her servant heart and desire to busy herself with the logistics of being a perfect hostess, Jesus says Mary has chosen what is better.
It’s important to note Jesus doesn’t tell Martha her busyness is not important. After all, if they’re going to eat, someone has to prepare the meal. But neither will he scold Mary for choosing to simply sit in his presence. There are times when both are needed. We are told to serve the Lord with all our heart and soul.(8) But we are also told to be still and know God.(9) There is a time for busyness and service. But there is also a time for quiet reverence and worship.
We learn from Mary that to be a friend of God means taking time to spend simply sitting in God’s presence, waiting for him to speak, to teach, or simply being still and letting God be God.
God calls us friend and longs to spend time with us.
A young boy and his dad were going through a car wash one day. As the brushes began to whirl about the car around them and the soap and water sprayed and foamed about them and the car began to bump back and forth, the boy jumped into his daddy’s lap, shielded his eyes from the “storm” outside the car, and said, “Talk to me, Daddy! Just keep talking to me!”
The first life lesson is we must repent and trust God. The second is if we are to be like Mary, a friend of God, we must make time for Jesus, spend time in his presence, make worship not a one hour appointment on Sunday, but a lifestyle everyday. We must be like that little boy and climb into our Heavenly Father’s lap and say, “Talk to me, Abba! Just keep talking to me!”
Finally, we learn a third life lesson from Peter, the evangelist in our lesson from Acts. It is Peter the simple fisherman whom God uses to lead 3,000 people into relationship with the risen Christ in just one day.
It is the same Peter who hastily jumped into the water when he saw Jesus approaching, then just as hastily sank when he realized he was trying to do the impossible and forgot Jesus was all about doing the undoable.
It is the same Peter who on the Mount of Transfiguration was so overwhelmed with awe he interrupted the historic moment Jesus spent with Moses and Elijah by asking if he should put up three tents so they could all camp there on the mountaintop.
It is the same Peter who heard Jesus predict his own death, then tried to convince Jesus he was wrong—and was told by the master, “Get behind me, Satan!”
It is the same Peter who boasted confidently he would never desert Jesus, even at the threat of death, but within just a few hours denied knowing him three times.
It is the same Peter who tried single handedly to save Jesus from the temple guard who came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he drew his knife and cut off the ear of a soldier. Before we as Airmen applaud his courage, think of the futility of one fishing knife against a hundred professional soldiers with swords!
This immature, hot tempered, slow to think, quick to speak follower of Jesus became a great friend of God. How did he do it? What can we possibly learn from him?
On Pentecost, the winds blew and the Spirit came, and Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was empowered and emboldened to speak clearly and act rationally. No longer was he driven by the wind of human thought or action. He was guided by God.
We too can be filled with that same Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is in this place at this very hour and is we but ask and receive, he will fill us and make us into the likeness of Jesus.
I’m not promising miracle powers or gifts of other languages. Nor do I for a moment suggest such things can’t happen if that’s how God chooses to act! But I am promising if we will allow the Spirit to fill us with his power and presence, we will demonstrate that presence with a rich harvest of the Fruit of the Spirit visible to all around us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
By these things, all will know we are friends of God!
That’s how I know today that Carol and Mel are true friends of God – because they have humbled themselves before God and trusted him; because they have made worship and service of God the center of their lives; and because they have shown so much love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in their 20 years service in the Protestant Christian Community at Grand Forks.
One of the former Chaplains at Grand Forks took time to write a warm letter of appreciation for Carol’s work.
Read letter from Darrell Morton
Another sent an e-mail proudly proclaiming on ongoing friendship …
Read letter from Andrew McIntosh
We will ever know how many lives have been touched – how many children reached with the Gospel, how many marriages enriched by your witness, how many chaplains made better, stronger, more effective in their ministry by your encouragement in ministry – because like David, one day you repented and trusted God; like Mary you took time regularly to sit at the feet of the teacher; and like Peter, you allowed the Holy Spirit to indwell, empower, and embolden you to serve God in great ways.
And this is no funeral sermon. This isn’t a retirement. This is just a transition because you have already found a new place to worship and serve, and you have already begun investing yourself in a new and different kind of ministry in caring for those near the end of their life’s journey who need the hope you have found and can offer.
I pray the same for all of us.
That we may learn from David, Mary, and Peter. That we can walk in the legacy you have begun over these past 20 years, to live as God’s friends and to invite others to join us in the glad journey.
May it be so in all our lives. Amen!
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1. Wesley W. Nelson, God’s Friends: Called to Believe and Belong. Chicago: Covenant Press, 1985. Covenant Press is a ministry division of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
2. “Jesus! What a Friend of Sinners!,” words by J. Wilbur Chapman, 1859-1918.
3. John 15:13
4. 1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22
5. 1 Samuel 18:7
6. AOR is a military acronym meaning Area of Responsibility or theater of war.
7. Another military acronym, for a Distinguished Visitor or VIP, Very Important Person
8. Deuteronomy 10:12
9. Psalm 46:10
