I want to ask you to consider something as we enter this Fall season.
How would you describe your relationship with God?
That’s a personal question that I simply invite you to simply reflect upon.
I would presume that many of us find ourselves in many different stages and seasons.
You may just be searching… in a season of wondering… of openness
Faithful…committed… or perhaps unfocused…inconsistent
In and out / up and down…
We probably tend to think of this in terms of closeness. But of course that can mean different things at different stages in life. Just as we generally mature through stages of social development … so we develop in relationship with God.
For an infant… being close means the great provider called mommy or daddy is providing a bottle and wiping our bottom. (Some of us may still be in that stage.)
Or perhaps you can relate to the adolescent – teenage stage…. Outlook of being free to do our own thing… unless we get into trouble and need some help. (I have a feeling God sees a lot of humanity in that stage.)
Now let me flip the question around…
Another question: What type of relationship does God want to have with you?
This may be the most important question we could even dare to ask. Because the relationship you end up having with God will not simply be a matter of what you desire… but of what God desires.
> Here is the remarkable news: God desires you to become His friend.
Amazing… God desires you to become His friend. Not join his Facebook friend list… but become your best friend. He desires us to be a company of friends… intense and involved friends.
Friendship with God. There is something so basic yet profound in such a description.
What does it mean to become friends with God?
How do we become friends with God?
> These are questions we are going to engage and expound upon over the next several weeks in a series which I want to begin today simply entitled Becoming Friends with God.
This morning… begin with some foundations for discovering and developing such a relationship.
The potential to become friends with God begins with the heritage of Abraham.
James 2:23 (GW)
“Abraham believed God, and that faith was regarded by God to be his approval of Abraham.” So Abraham was called God’s friend.
"Abraham … was called God’s friend.” (c.f. 2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8 )
You may recall… that God begins His pursuit of humanity through Abraham… calls him out… promise… but he must respond. Later… the very son promised… told to sacrifice… trusts God… who provides.
> The very context is that of recognizing that Abraham represents what God seeks with all of us.
They referred to it as the ultimate amazing relationship that God had with their forefather.
It becomes clear that he represents what God has always sought… in particular… it wasn’t one who fulfilled all the rules… laws… there weren’t any. Abraham simply responded to what God prompted… he trusted the God who was calling him.
Romans 4:12 (MSG)
Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the "outs" with God, as yet unidentified as God’s. It is precisely these people in this condition who are called "set right by God and with God"!
Being the friend of God was not a claim made by Abraham of himself, but by God through His prophets.
The promise was that through Abrahams lineage… would come one who would fulfill the blessing of all the nations on earth… and of humanity beyond just that lineage of the Jewish people.
> Jesus fulfills this… and describes this quality of establishing friendship with God.
Words of Jesus… as recorded in the Gospel of John…
John 15:5, 9-16a (MSG)
"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing.
9 "I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love. 11 "I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. 12 This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. 13 This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. 14 You are my friends when you do the things I command you. 15 I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father. 16 "You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil.”
There is a lot of depth and dimension being said here. The underlying theme is that a new dynamic is at hand for us to enter.
In the midst of describing it… comes the reference to a distinction between being related to as servants… and something new and fitting… that of friends.
Word used in Greek language is “PHILOS”…which implies a close friendship that bears personal attachment … a sense of liking and fondness.
I want to take a minute to avoid the natural tendency to simply hear Jesus saying that we are no longer to be servants… something we may even consider bad… and are now simply friends… which is greater. Many of us would naturally hear these two to be almost opposites…. And presume this is simply a shift from something bad to something great.
That’s not the intention here at all.
There are at least three primary descriptions of the nature of our relationship to God… that of servants, children (adopted / family / heirs), and now friends.
Jesus is introducing a new dynamic… but his intent was not to diminish the others but rather to expand them. Each of these represents something profound… and provocative.
To be a servant … especially a faithful servant of a benevolent land owner or king was a great honor. Jesus is called the great servant. Paul was proud and even boasted of being a servant of God.
And of course being a child of God… which John begins his Gospel describing how Jesus came so that we could be called children of God… adopted… becoming heirs of God’s riches.
I want us to grasp the broader range of relationship because it’s the context by which we can truly understand the nature of being friends of God.
The Creator of the universe… who transcends all space and time… truly intends for us to relate to Him in the inseparable nature of servants, children, and friend.
Can one be a servant, child, and friend to the same person?
> Yes… and that is who Jesus was and is inviting us to become.
What Jesus is doing is introducing a new dimension… expanding our relationship with God.. It’s a new added dimension and dynamic. The benevolent king whose reign is good and for whom it is fitting to serve… is also our father… and our FRIEND.
Jesus has made the relationship which first marked Abraham open for all of us… friendship with God… which is entering a relationship of mutually sacrificial love flowing in trust.
Great truths about friendship with God…
1. Friendship with God is born of response to what God has INITIATED; what has been CHOSEN and ESTABLISHED in Christ.
16 "You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you,
Such love is set into play with the laying down of his own life for us
. 12 This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. 13 This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.
John would describe this so plainly in another writing… “We love God because He FIRST loved us.” (1 John).
I think when we want to be closer to God… we tend to start with the wrong focus. We tend to start with the natural mistake of thinking ‘what can I do?’ The best point to start in the pursuit to discover relationship with God… is to start with what He has done.
2. Friendship with God involves entering the love that ALREADY EXISTS in God.
9 "I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.”
We are entering what already exists in relationship between the Father and Son… and the soon to be revealed Spirit. (Same words used of Spirit—next chapter—John 16:25)
So many of us might wonder if we have the level of friendship we really long for. Jesus is letting us know that there is a friendship that extends itself to you.
3. Friendship with God allows us to discover the transcendent JOY of the Divine and Eternal realm.
11 "I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.
His whole purpose is to share his joy. The joy that he knows and shares is distinct… transcendent because it transcends the temporal dimension.
Common to equate Christ with sorrows… but he also lives in joy.
Jesus says that he wants us to share in his joy… that which he enjoyed in relationship with the Father in the midst of all he endured.
This is a part of what prayer is all about. It allows us to connect with another dimension… and draw upon that reality. While Jesus faced and felt such deep pain in his humanity and experience in the fallen world… through payer he drew upon the heart of the Father.
4. Friendship with God involves an inner responsiveness to the INDWELLING presence of Christ.
"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing.
> Beautiful picture our relationship flowing as naturally as a vine and it’s branch.
A reminder of what the name of our spiritual community reflects… a Vineyard…
10 If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.
At first these words can seem a bit confusing in that he seems to be shifting away from servant hood… yet talks of the essence of obedience to his commands.
But there is a vital distinction / shift at hand.
Both servants and friends can flow in relationship to the desires of another… but only the latter flows from the heart. It is obedience to his law of love. “Love one another.”
It is now about abiding in a relationship of love out of which we will live in a rightful and loving way.
This is not the obedience that makes us friends… this is the obedience that characterizes our friendship.
Out of this… we bear fruit. Notice… we don’t produce fruit… create it from our own strength or gifting.. Rather we bear it from the nature of what it is now at work within us… if we remain in responsive relationship to that indwelling presence.
It the nature of fruit— The trees in our back yard… I’ve never heard them striving… screaming… but they’re active and alive.
Central quality is TRUST.
The central quality that Abraham held which established friendship with God
What Jesus exemplified. He fulfilled the law by living a life entrusted fully to the Father.
Many of us need to make a shift from thinking of “Faithfulness” that often means just fulfilling our sense of duty… and which can be void of any real relationship… to that which truly reflects the very meaning of the word…FAITH-FILLEDNESS… living by faith in God.
When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at "the house of the dying" in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, "And what can I do for you?"
Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him. "What do you want me to pray for?" she asked.
He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States: "Pray that I have clarity."
She said firmly, "No, I will not do that."
When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of."
When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, "I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."
CONCLUSION:
I want to suggest a healthy step towards taking hold of Christ’s words… developing friendship… is to find times this week to just ask what he wants to help you BE… and let the DOING flow from that. Many of us think of all the things we SHOULD do… and duty has it’s healthy role to play. But when our approach towards relating to God is reduced to duty… we soon live from the outside in… trying to fulfill an impossible and
From should to want
From duty to desire
