We Are Jesus’ Friends
2009-07-26
Grant S. Sisson, MSCP, CI
I’m not thrilled about taking tests, & I’m glad my years of schooling are behind me. The tests I take now are stress tests & EKGs & hearing & vision tests. And I don’t have to study for them.
ILL. In undergraduate study in college, it is common for teachers to assign a term paper. Ours were usually from 1000 words to maybe 2500 words in length. We would study like crazy to put together enough research material to write that much, and it was a major ordeal if you waited too late in the semester. Procrastination would kill your chances for success.
But when I went to grad school, there was one professor who really loved assigning papers. We had to write a 2500 word paper, not for the entire semester, but one EVERY WEEK for the whole semester! She took the idea that grad school is supposed to be rigorous to the extreme!
I heard a story of a guy who was convinced that one of his College professors really enjoyed giving tests. He didn’t give just 6-week tests & final exams. He gave his students a test every single week without fail.
On one occasion he gave a very difficult test. You could tell that by the groans of the students. And as one question followed another, the groaning got louder.
Then, after the test was finished, each student was told to grade his own paper. This guy said, "He read us the correct answers & to my dismay, I found I had scored just 65 on the test. In other words, I failed the test. And I thought, ‘This will ruin my grade point average for the whole semester!’"
But just then the professor said, "Now I’m not going to record the grades of this test. I gave you this test for your benefit, & not for mine."
B. You know, at times God does the same thing. In fact, all the way through the Bible you’ll find God giving that kind of a test.
ILL. God presented Abraham & Sara with a wonderful gift in their old age, their son, Isaac. But later, God tested Abraham. He said, "I want you to take your son Isaac, & offer him as a sacrifice on the mountain."
Now, this test was for Abraham’s benefit, not God’s. God already knew Abraham’s heart, & He knew that Abraham loved Him. But God wanted Abraham to know just how far he was willing to go in trusting God - & Abraham passed the test!
ILL. Not everyone did pass their test. God gave Jonah a test & Jonah failed. Instead of going to Nineveh, as God had directed, Jonah fled in the opposite direction. And it was not until he was caught in the storm & then in the belly of the great fish that Jonah repented & God was able to use him. The test was for Jonah’s benefit, to reveal to Jonah how strong his faith was, not for God’s benefit.
ILL. We read in the N.T. that God tested Peter on the seashore after the resurrection, when Jesus asked him, "Do you love me, Simon? Do you really love me?"
APPL. Now how about you? If you were asked, "Do you love God?" how would you answer? I imagine that most of us would answer, "Why, yes. I love God."
It’s easy to say that we love God, but I’m going to probe deeper than that. (1)
The last sermon I brought to you was the day before my father passed away, and I brought up the question, “How do we know that we are walking with Jesus?”
BODY
So I bring your attention to 2 Cor 13:5 this morning. Here Paul in his loving but sometimes rather stern way demands an answer to the question – Is Christ in you?
“5Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”
Let’s look again at what Paul is saying, "Examine yourself. Give yourself a test: Are you in the faith? As a Christian, if Jesus Christ lives in you & His Spirit affects the way you think & speak & act, then the answer is ‘Yes.’ But if the way you speak & act shows that Jesus Christ is not living in you, then no matter how much you may say you love God, the answer is ‘No,’ & you have failed the test." I remember I John 4:19-21: “19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
And so God tests us. He instructs us to test ourselves. Are we in the faith? And that brings us back to my question: How do we know that we are walking with Jesus (that we are “in the faith”?)
The faith of far too many in the US is questionable because they say they believe, but their actions – the way they live their lives - does not glorify God. Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven," and I don’t want to be in the group at the Judgment Day to whom Jesus says: “…Yes, you did all kinds of cool things in My Name– miracles, moving mountains, prophesying, speaking in tongues, whatever – but I never knew you. Depart from me, you evil doers.”
Now I am convinced that there is not a person on earth that God doesn’t know. He even knows the number of hairs on our head; He created us. But what Jesus is saying here is “knowing” in the sense of “being close to” or “having an intimate friendship with.” And so I say again that it is not doing – obeying laws, rules or ordinances, or checking off the boxes, or even doing benevolent works for their own sake – that counts. It is walking with Jesus, being His friend.
If we just understood that one concept many of the debates common to Christianity would simply fade into irrelevance. So many Christians fight over the point at which we are considered to be saved. Some say all it takes is belief. After all, didn’t John say, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”? But James issued the counterpoint here; “Even the devils believe, and tremble.” They are certainly lost, and unrepentant. So maybe that’s where we draw the line. Maybe it’s belief AND repentance.
We might then say that repentance is the point at which we are saved. Luke 13:3 (and again at vs. 5) –“1There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
So then, repentance is the magical point at which we are saved, right? Well, maybe, but what of the confession of our faith? Rom 10:10: “10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” But is that all there is? Can we simply come down to the front at the invitation, confess that Jesus is God’s Son here in safety among people of like mind, and go on about our merry way? What of the change that comes within us that is so obvious that people who knew us before don’t recognize us? Will confession alone be sufficient to save us?
And then there’s baptism. The most controversial of all. Some say it is not relevant to salvation at all. They say, how could God be so arbitrary? What of those who can’t get to the water? What of the thief on the cross?
Much earlier in my life, I attended a private Christian college for a couple of years. During that time I attended a small country church whose members solidly believed that unless one was baptized he or she was going to hell, no questions asked. Then one day they had a young man come forward at the invitation to be baptized. Since they didn’t have a baptistery, they had an agreement with a neighboring church a few miles up the road to use theirs. But this fateful day the unthinkable happened. On the way to the other church to conduct the baptism, there was an accident, and the young man who would have been baptized was killed. The congregation was thrown into a theological tizzy. How could they possibly reconcile all that they had witnessed? And yet some believed that since he had not been baptized, he was lost, even under the circumstances.
I think Jesus made it clear that if you’re not close enough to Him to KNOW him, that there’s a problem. So this one thing probably everyone would agree on: that salvation requires that one love Jesus, that if we really are Jesus’ friend, if we desire to have the kind of relationship with him that Peter did, that John – the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” the one that Jesus gave responsibility for the care of his own mother, the gentle and sweet Mary – we know that if we have that kind of relationship with Jesus that all is well. And listen, brothers and sisters, if he truly is our friend, we will respond to his requests with loving submission, whether we think it makes any sense, to us, or not. When Jesus says, “Believe in me,” we understand that. We know that without this, we are not going to follow his ways at all. But when he says, “repent and turn away from the evil ways that have been your life,” it can be seen just how much we love him. There’s sometimes more of a problem; we begin to hedge, we come up with all these issues. Does he mean this, or does he mean that? How much is OK? Can we have a beer in the evening with dinner, or do we have to be tea-totallers? Can we go to the boats to eat a meal? Can we drop a quarter in the slots while we are there? And we return to our legalistic, check off the boxes mentality, and friendship with Jesus, our relationship with him is lost in all the noise.
And baptism is the same way. We don’t understand how being physically dunked in water can have anything to do with salvation, or our spiritual lives at all, and it is such a pain to do, and if we say it’s part of it salvation then some may not come forward at the invitation, and what of the one who was killed on the way to the baptistery, or the thief on the cross, if he doesn’t have to be baptized then I don’t either, etc, etc. You see in all this how relationship with God’s Son is obscured into the background?
My question to you this morning is just this – if Jesus asked us to do it, and we truly love him, how can we say no? Isn’t refusing a simple request from a friend a rejection of that friendship? How many of us would buy our kids a toy at the checkout line, not because they need it, or even because we can articulate why they think they want it, but just because they asked for it? How many of us would drop everything and run down the street to go help a friend or neighbor who asked for our help, even if we didn’t really understand the nature of the call until after we got there?
We very well may not understand a lot of what Jesus asks of us until we get there. But at that point, will we hear him say, “Well done thou good and faithful servant,” or will we hear him close the Book of Life, scratch his head and say, “What difference did it make why I asked you to do it? If you had been my friend, you would have obeyed this simple command and much, much more. Depart from me. I never knew you.”
You see, this is not about checking off the boxes. This is about Jesus. This is not about baptism, or repentance, or confession, it is about Jesus. Do we love him? If we do, what matters most to us? Isn’t it what Jesus wants? Isn’t it that we are so blessed that we get to serve a master who is so gentle and kind, who so tenderly serves our needs in ways that we can go no where else to fill? His commandments are not burdensome. And the blessings of being his are out of this world.
I say that it’s not about belief, repentance, confession or baptism. But these things are important because Jesus asks them of us. He says, “If you will believe on me I will give you eternal life.” That makes belief pretty important! And he tells us, “Don’t continue to live the old painful way of life. I have so much better in store for you.” That makes repentance pretty important! And again, “Don’t be ashamed of me. I was not ashamed of you. If you love me, people will know it because you will not be ashamed to say you are mine.” That makes confession before the world pretty important! And he says, “I have done all. There was so much you could not do, but I love you enough to submit myself to the degradation and humiliation of having the very ones I myself created, to scornfully laugh and mock me, scourge me, and then torture me do death. I did that so that I could prove Who I Am by the resurrection of the dead, but more importantly, so I could lead you through death into a new life. I ask you to likewise submit yourself to baptism, and follow me through death, be resurrected in spirit as I was in the body. If you will do this, I will give you the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God Himself to dwell in that true Temple which is your body, and I will forgive your sins so that you will never have need again. And then I will nourish you, and feed you, and be there when you hurt, and protect you from the Evil One. I will be your Shepherd, you shall not want. I will lead you beside still waters, I will restore your soul. I will lead you in paths of righteousness, and even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be there so that you need not fear. And even when your table is spread in the presence of your enemies, your cup will be overflowing with My blessings. And from the day you are reborn into My Kingdom, the church, whether in the tabernacle of the physical body you inhabit now or after you leave this earth, you will dwell in My Presence forever, and goodness and mercy will follow you throughout all eternity. I will do this, because you are my friends.”
You see, one can do all these things without loving Jesus, but it can’t be said that one loves Jesus when he leaves all these things undone.
Test yourself this morning. Are you His? Are you walking in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake? Do you love Jesus above all else? I challenge you this morning – don’t walk away from the gift of eternal life! If you have not committed yourself to Jesus, the gift is yours, just for the asking, because God is love, and because Jesus, His Son, shares with us what the Father has revealed to him, and because He wants you to be His friend. Believe on his Name. Repent, turn away from your sin. Confess that it is Jesus who loves you and to whom you have committed your life. And be baptized in water, for the forgiveness of your sins and God will come and dwell in your heart.
And if you are a Christian, but maybe have relied on checking off the boxes to establish your salvation, test yourself. Have you given your life completely to Jesus, in thought, word, and deed? Let it make a difference in the way you live your life. And if we can help, if you need your church family to pray for you, come forward and let your needs be known so we can help. Do it today, as we stand and sing –
(1) Thanks to Melvin Newland for “priming my pump.” Some of this material (mostly in the introduction) was retrieved from SermonCentral.com and is attributable to Mr. Newland.
