Learning the Way – Church
Do you believe in the church? We are to be a community of the King, a city within a city. How do we use our money differently? Do we share it? How do we use our sexuality differently? How do men and women treat one another in this new community? How do the races get along?
John 15:12-15 12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
A true friend lets you in. That’s the difference between a friend and a slave here. Notice what Jesus says in verse 15 Jesus lets us in on what he is doing. No longer are we servants that don’t know what God is doing. Now we are friends because he lets us in on the gospel.
Secondly, a true friend never lets you down. Jesus says he will never let us down. Greater love comes in him laying down his life for us. So that is what being a friend looks like. We let people in and we don’t let people down.
Are you open? Do you let people in or do you try to spin them?
Are you unconditionally there for them? Or do you use them?
The only way to be able to be a true friend is if Jesus is your perfect friend. Jesus is the only friend that will let you all the way in and will never ever let you down! And only when he becomes your friend and you know that friendship will you be freed from self-salvation. Freed from the pride that destroys the community to truly be able to be that true friend. When we know Jesus as our friend we can follow his pattern in John 21 and Feast with them, Fail with them, Follow Him with them, and Fly to him.
Which of these four things come easily to you? Which of these four things do you need to grow in? What were your thoughts on what the sermon said about failing with Jesus?
Bonus Question: In the message we were reminded that Jesus lets us in on our story not everyone else’s story. This reminds us that Jesus has a plan for those that you are talking to and you don’t know and honestly you don’t need to know it to know that this is true. You are going to treat that person as a fellow traveler on the way and you are going to try to help them on the way but you are not going to be trying to tell them you know exactly where they should be going and I know what you are doing right and wrong.
How does that help you to be able to deal with those God has placed around you?