Abide in My Friendship

Well, good morning, Grace Church. Good morning. Thank you for standing for so long. But it was for a good purpose, right? Tons of people getting baptized.

Evidence of new life in Jesus.

So I want to welcome all of you today, welcome those of us who are from Homestead, from Lorraine, and people tuning in from all over the world for the livestream. We want to continue the series today on life on the vine. And today we're going to focus more on abiding, not just in the vine, but abiding in friendship with Jesus. So if you have your bible, your smartphone, I want to read as we begin, John chapter 15. And we'll look at the next section, verses 9 through 16.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love, abide in my love. If you obey my commands, you will abide in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made complete. My command is this.

Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants. Because a servant doesn't know what is his master's business, doesn't know what his master is doing.

Instead, I have called you friends. For everything that I learned from my father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go bear much fruit, fruit that will last. And then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. So we are moving on, drilling down a little deeper here.

And this is really one of the most amazing truths of all the New Testament. And so lean in as we, as we focus on this. You probably already know this, but we in our culture today are living in, in the midst of a loneliness epidemic with very sad, very sobering consequences. 2023, the Surgeon General of the United States declared, we have a loneliness epidemic in this country. And he filed a report, he issued a report that talked about all of the downside, the consequences of being socially disconnected from other people.

Physical consequences. Here are some of the physical consequences. You have a 29% increased risk of heart disease. If you don't have friends, you have a 32% increased risk of stroke. Older adults who are not connected have a 50% greater risk of developing dementia.

And all people have a 29% increased risk of premature death. That's the downside of being just isolated and Disconnected, without a lot of friends in your life. In the last five years, Google searches on where to make friends have skyrocketed and gone through the roof. On the other hand, there is a mountain of social science evidence that people with really close friends, close connections, and enjoy better health and live longer than people who don't. And exhibit A of that was Winston Churchill.

You remember Winston Churchill led Great Britain through World War II. Prime Minister Winston Churchill had terrible health habits. He had an unhealthy diet. He smoked cigars constantly. He drank like a fish.

He had weird sleep habits. He never exercised. And he lived to be almost 90 years old with a great quality of life. Why, he had a wonderful marriage. He had deep connections to his family.

He had a wide circle of good friends. And he had a significant cost to live for. In fact, he was asked, do you ever exercise? He said, the only exercise that I get is serving as a pallbearer for my friends who died while exercising. I don't think that.

I don't think that's really true. But anyway, even people with terrible health habits, if they have some really close, great friends in their life, tend to live much longer and healthier lives. So Jesus is speaking directly into this issue of connection, close connection, friendships with other people. So point number one. You and I were created.

We were made for friendship. And we were made. In fact, Jesus holds up some models here of close relationships for us. And he's repeatedly. He's talking about the model of God, him, the person of God, the triune God, the three person God.

You and I. You and I were created in the image of that God. And let's think about that for a second. Aren't you glad you came to church this morning? I'm going to explain the Trinity, right?

Good luck to me. Right? If any of you understand it, call me. I want to pick your brain a little bit. God is one God.

He is one divine being, yet at the same time, he's three distinct persons. And these three persons have the closest possible relationship with each other. And throughout all eternity past into all eternity future, these three persons of the Trinity are deliriously happy in the fellowship and friendship of company with one another. I like the way C.S. lewis tries to describe the Trinity.

He says God is not a static thing, but God is a dynamic, pulsating, relational life. Almost a kind of drama, almost, if you will, a kind of death dance. The three persons of the Trinity have been loving each other, communicating to each other, honoring each other, blessing each other, delighting in one another throughout all eternity. There's never been one moment when God was lonely or bored because of the infinite delight within the Trinity. And we are created in his image as highly relational beings.

In fact, even Adam, when God created Adam, Adam lived in a perfect environment. He lived in paradise. He had a perfect relationship with God, a very close soul, satisfying relationship with God. And Adam was not going to God complaining, I'm lonely, you know, can you create? No.

God was the one that said, adam, as happy as you are, there's still something you need. You need friends. You need human friends. So he created Eve. And then the world began to populate.

And God created us in his image, needing and only really being fully alive when we have close relationships with other people. And I just want to say marriage is not the only way of not being alone. God said to Adam, it's not good for man to be alone. Marriage is not the only way of not being alone. In fact, even married people need close friendships with other people.

If we don't, if we're not close, if we're not connecting with other people, we just begin to shrivel up and kind of slowly die on the inside. So we are created in the image of the infinitely relational God as relational beings. And then point number two, our friendships with other people, our relationships, but especially our friendships with other people, impact us and influence us far more than we probably realize. First you make your friends, and then your friends are going to make you. They're going to rub off on you.

They're going to influence you. Our friends are crucial. They're so important that they. They either set us up for success in life or they do the opposite. Proverbs, the wisdom of Solomon, the wisdom of God.

Whoever walks with the wise is going to become wise, but the companion of fools are going to suffer harm. How many of us today regret some of the stupid things we did? What? Because we were hanging around with the wrong people, with the wrong crowd. We impact each other for good or ill. And there is again, a ton of social science research on this.

I just want to pick out one because the holidays are coming up soon. Keep that in the back of your mind. But research shows. And we're going to talk about putting on weight here. I'm sorry, I know the holidays are coming, but when it comes to gaining weight, if your spouse gains weight, you have a 37% chance of gaining weight.

If you have a sibling who gains weight, you have a 40% chance of gaining weight. If it's one of your best friends, you have a 57% chance of gaining weight. Now, some of you may need to have a hard conversation with your best friend and say, I need you to go on a diet right now, okay? But he who walks with the wise grows wise. I guess he who walks with the skinny gets skinnier.

But we influence each other immensely. In fact, Craig Groeschel, pastor, he said, take a look at your two or three best friends. You're looking at the future you, because they are going to influence you greatly. The good news there is that if you walk with the wise, you grow wise. If you walk with a godly person, with a strong Christian, that is going to rub off on you and help you to grow as well.

Proverbs 18:24. A man of many companions may still come to ruin, but there is a kind of friend who sticks closer than a brother. You might have 5001000 Facebook friends, but they're probably not going to come and help you move or visit you in the hospital or get in your face when they see you going down the wrong path and say, hey, you got to wake up. This is going to turn out very badly for you unless you turn around. It's the quality of our friends that really, really matters.

When you have some good friends in your life, it helps you become the best version of you and a good friend. When we're talking about good friends here, we're talking about the kind of people that know your secrets, that you're transparent with. They know your heartaches, they know what you're struggling with, and they can be there for you, to support you, to help you, to pray for you. I love how one guy, I like to read this one pastor, and he talks about the first time he ever experienced this. I think he was in grad school or was just starting out in ministry.

He had a best friend, his closest friend, and he felt the Holy Spirit nudging him to confide in his best friend about this struggle he was having, this besetting sin he couldn't seem to overcome, and he was nervous. He was taking a risk. But he says, we got together, sitting across from each other, and I told my friend, hey, I just sense God wants me to share this with you so you can help me. Pray with me, support me. And he said, I couldn't even look him in the eyes.

So he's looking down. He shares with his friend what's going on, you know, would you hold me accountable? Pray for me? And his friend didn't respond right away. And finally he looked up and he met his friend's eyes.

And his, his friend's eyes were pooling with tears and he said, john, I just want you to know I have never had more respect for you than I do right now at this moment. Hallelujah. That's the response you want? I have been blessed myself to have some friends like that. I have some friends like that today.

They know all my dirt. They know all my secrets. And you know what usually happens when you take that risk of confiding in somebody that you trust. You're going to hear you too. I thought I was the only one.

Let's fight this battle together. So we need, we were created for friendship. We need godly friends. Our friends are going to rub off on us and make us so. We need to pray and look for healthy, godly, growing Christian kind of friends.

And then point number three, and this is ten. One of the most mind boggling, mind blowing truths in the whole Bible. But look again at what Jesus said in verses 14, 15, 16. Jesus came to this world to open up for us and to invite us into the greatest, most life giving friendship imaginable. First look at verse 13 again.

No man has greater love than this. Than that a man lay down his life for his friends. Remember, Jesus was part of this dance, this dance of the trinity, this ongoing 247 enjoyment and joy giving relationship of mutual love, mutual communication. Never had one moment of boredom or unhappiness. Nothing but joy, constant joy.

But Jesus came into this world to lay down his life for his friends. How much did Jesus love us? This much. And after enjoying this intense joyful happiness of communion with His Father throughout all eternity, Jesus went to that cross and that communion was shattered. It was broken.

Jesus paid a very steep price to open up the communion of the Trinity to us. Remember on the cross, my God, my God, for the first and only time ever. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He took our sin, he took our guilt, he took our loneliness, he took our pain and he took the wrath from his Father. He took the punishment from His Father in our place so that he could open up to us eternal joy.

These things I have spoken to you that my joy, the most intense joy imaginable, so that my joy may be in you and it might be made filled to overflowing throughout all eternity. So amazingly, Jesus calls us not his servants, not his slaves, not his subjects. But he says, I call you now my friends, because I've revealed to you, I've confided in you, I've revealed to you why my Father sent me what I'm going to do how I'm going to build my church and what the future holds for you. And so it's even better than that. We are not just friends of Jesus with a relationship with him, but when we put our faith in Christ and are born again, we come to be in Jesus and Jesus in us through the Holy Spirit.

This is what one author said. I love this quote. Becoming a Christian is not simply coming to believe certain things about a God who remains outside of you. And being a Christian is not simply about what you do or don't do. Christianity is a life of faith, but it is a life of faith.

It's a new life. We have been grafted into God's own life so that his supernatural transforming life is flowing into us as the life of the vine flows into the branch. 247 Jesus opened up the way to be joined to this life transforming God in an eternal relationship of mutual love and friendship. That is the closest relationship possible for any human being to have. Much closer than human friends, much closer than even a relationship with a spouse.

And Jesus wanted us to experience that joy and brought us in by paying for our cross. So let's look quickly at some of the amazing benefits of being a vine in the branch of being a friend of Jesus. First of all, we've already talked about this. We now have 247 access to God's sacred secrets. Only his people are able to know and understand these things.

His wisdom, his insight, what he's most passionate about, what he most wants to do in our lives. We have 24 access to that and it's all recorded in this book. And we can spend our life picking God's brain, so to speak, and learning how to navigate all the different issues of life. It's all here in this book for us. And I love how one person I heard say this.

I'm pretty sure it was Jonathan Schaeffer a couple of years ago, but it stuck with me. He says when you get up in the morning, grab your coffee, sit down and open your Bible. He says it's like meeting with your best friend in a coffee shop and just sharing with each other, talking to each other, learning from each other, being encouraged by each other, and walking away from that, just feeling really uplifted and encouraged. And so that wisdom is all there available to us. 24:7 so read your Bible, talk to your best friend Jesus, cast your cares upon him.

I love how the Old Testament describes this. Psalm 25:14, the secret counsel, or another translation says the intimate friendship of the Lord is for those who hear him. And he reveals to them them his covenant. He keeps revealing to them more and more about his greatness, his love, how he wants us to live. 24.

7 access to God's infinite wisdom. And we have 24, 7 access to the powerful, dynamic, fruit producing, transformative, supernatural life of God flowing into our lives, seeping into our heart day after day after day as we experience the life connected to the vine. He changes us from the inside. It's like some of you may have done the science experiment when you were in school where you took a white carnation and you clipped and you stuck it in a glass of water and then you added to the water red food coloring or red food. Anybody do that in school?

All right, good, good. I never did it, but I've read about it. Anyway, what happens? You go home the next day, you come back to school, there it is. What color is the flower?

The beautiful carnation. It's now pink. That's how our lives change. Jesus fills us with his life. He changes us from the inside.

He changes what we want to do. He changes what we're passionate about. And he produces the fruit of the spirit, Godly characteristics in our life. He changes us from within. So he changes us in such a way that he says, you know, if you love me, you'll obey My commands.

When you have a supernatural life in you, how could you not begin to love others and obey? It bubbles up from within us. And his fruit, the effect of his life within us, it changes our life. It makes our lives spiritually provocative, spiritually attractive to other people in a way we could never do this ourselves. In fact, his life within us is so dynamic that he produces a love in us that will enable us not just to love our friends, but, but to love people who are very different from us in the body of Christ.

People who have a different skin color, people who are racially different, people who have different political views, people that we probably would never hang out with, except we have a common Savior, a common Holy Spirit, a common friend. And it is very honoring to Jesus to be the Lord and King over a community of people like us who are being so transformed that we live in harmony with people outside of church we probably would never have anything to do with that is very glorifying to Jesus. And it's possible because of his life in us. And then one last thing. And again, this is the most amazing, mind boggling truth of all.

Jesus said, I no longer call you servant. It would be a great honor to be his slave, his servant, because he is so good and he is so loving. But he says, no, I now call you my friends because I've opened up and I reveal the truth of God, the secrets of God, to you. Jesus came as the friend of sinners. You know, the title friend of sinners, Sinners was given to him by his enemies, the Pharisees, who thought he was a false prophet because he was hanging out with the sinful people.

And he said, it's not those who are healthy and need a physician. It's those who are like, I haven't come to call the religious. I've come to call the sick, who know they're sick and they need healing. And that's you, and that's me. He is the friend of sinners, the best friend we could ever hope for.

And let me share with you something that Martin Luther said a long time ago. Obviously, the love of God is far different than the love of human beings. He says, this is human love. Human love, every other kind of love except God's. It finds something lovable, something lovely in the other person.

And that's why we love them. The love of God is different. Why? Because none of us are naturally lovable. None of us are lovely, none of us are naturally attractive to God.

But he loves us in order to make us lovable, to create in us what is pleasing to him and what is attractive to Him. In other words, Jesus chose us not for what we could do for him, but for what he could do for us and what he could do in us and what he could do through us. So he says, abide in me, remain in me, and I'll transform your life. Make it into something healthy and beautiful and good, and you're going to make a great impact on the people around you. Let me share this story in closing.

One pastor. I like to listen to a guy named Skip Heitzig, who is a pastor out in New Mexico. And he had a couple in his church that were not able to have kids. They were looking to adopt. And so they contacted an agency.

They found a little girl in a foreign country that they wanted to adopt. So they started filling out the paperwork. They paid the price. They went through all the hoops that they were required to do in order to adopt her. And finally they found out, okay, the last court proceeding that will finalize your adoption is on this day.

So they flew into the country. They went. The little girl's name was Alona, which is ironic for a girl that nobody wanted. And these were the exact words that the judge spoke in this adoption proceeding in as much as, oh, Alona is orphaned and unwanted by any family in this country, and inasmuch as no citizen of this country wishes to have Alona. And then he went on and he granted custody to this American couple.

And as soon it was over, they rushed to their new daughter and they knelt down in front of her, and the father took her face in his hands and he said to her daughter, he said, you will never again hear the word unwanted spoken of you. Never again will you hear the word unwanted spoken of you. And they took her home to America, and they legally changed her name from Alona to Hope. And that's what Jesus did for you. He came after us.

We why he wanted us. We'll find out when we get to heaven. But thank God he came after you. He wants you as his friend and his servant and his child. What a friend we have in Jesus.

Amen. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we do not understand this, but, Lord, we will be eternally grateful to you that you left heaven to come after us, to pursue us, to die for us, to open the way up not just into heaven, but into life with you here on earth. Lord, we give you praise. We give you thanks. Help us to love you and to serve you in return. We ask it in your name, Lord Jesus.

Amen.