Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5, 17. We need the daffodils and daisies and every possible reminder of new life so we can rebound with hope.
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Jesus is brilliant. and has invited you to be his friend. I think if the world understood the invitation properly. that the invitation into the Christian gospel is not an invitation. Primarily into servanthood, onto a master.
but an invitation. to the joy of a friendship.
Well Who wouldn't want to be friends with Jesus? That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Abide, taken from John 14 through 17, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina.
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More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here. is Alan Wright. This joy is only possible to experience when you come to know That there is endless fuel for right living and fruitful living.
By this extraordinary statement of verse 15, which is our focus, no longer do I call you servants. For the servant does not know what the master is doing. But I've called you friends. For all that I've heard from my Father, I've made known to you. In the Old Testament, two figures.
were glancingly called as if friends of God. Abraham and Moses. And here Jesus is saying, to every follower of Christ. to every one. Who is a child of God?
He is saying, you are a friend of Jesus Christ. And he is your friend. The newest Christian, the most immature Christian. The one who is the most ignorant of the Bible and has yet to even start to understand some of the most basic Bible stories, to the person who has walked with him for nine decades. You're a friend of Jesus if you're a Christian.
And I was just thinking so much this week about what it means to be a friend rather than a servant. And it must start with this, beloved. There's only one way that you could be a friend of Jesus rather than a servant alone. and that is that Jesus wants you as a friend. This is why I think he said at verse 16, you did not choose me.
But I chose you. Because after all, there's a principle And let's face it, we all understand it. whether we're conscious of it or not. It's it's a principle. and we're operating by it.
And that is that where there is a greater person and a lesser. By whatever standard you call it, a greater person and a lesser person. If they're going to be friends, it must be at the initiative of the greater person. That's just the way it works. I mean, you could just think of somebody that you'd like to be friends with, and you know some things about them, but they don't even really know you exist.
Well, you're not going to be their friend. You can't just say, I want to be their friend, and then you become their friend. It doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work that way. I mean, I was thinking about who I'd really like to have been friends with, and you know who I'd like to have been friends with.
Billy Graham. I'd like to have been friends with Billy Graham. Honestly, I think he would have liked me. I mean, we would get along. We have a lot in common.
We really have a lot in common. I mean, we both love Jesus a lot. We really like preaching a lot. He liked golf. I like golf.
We could have played golf together. We could have been buddies. He didn't live very far away. And on top of that, I was only one step away from him. We had other people in common.
And Uncle Stanley was his pastor for years. He and Joella knew the Grahams well, baptized their kids, traveled with them. Billy Graham filled in the pulpit for my Uncle Stanley when he was on vacation. I've got correspondence that Billy wrote to Stanley. I've got a Bible.
That Billy Graham signed to Ann's grandmother when Stanley was in Brazil as a missionary, and Billy Graham came to do a crusade, and they sent the Bible home. And I've got it at my house. I've got a dear friend who was executive director for years of the Billy Graham Association and knew Dr. Graham well. I've got people in common.
I know some of Billy Graham's grandchildren. We would have liked each other. I know he would have. We're just up the road, an hour and 45 minutes away. I've driven by where he lived and.
But we weren't we weren't friends. It was mainly because he didn't know I existed.
So that gets in the way. It's hard to be friends with someone who doesn't know you exist. I'm not saying that he wouldn't want to be friends with the world, but you know, if there's a greater and a lesser, there's only one way you're going to be friends. The greater has taken the initiative. You did not choose me, Jesus said, I chose you.
You have an opportunity to be a friend of Jesus because the Lord of the universe wants to be your friend. Wow! I mean, this is one of the things that's just so moving. It just wrecks you for Jesus when you go on a mission trip like this and watch these orphans and see people that have traveled a long way to get there and wind up that windy pothole-laden road that you have to stop and people throw up on the way. But you do, you do, and you know this road, the Revises, and yet you get up there and just love these kids.
And what is being conveyed is that somebody, child, wants to be your friend. Be my friend. And it changes you. But it comes at the initiative of Jesus, not your own. There's a vast difference between a servant and a friend.
A servant helps or works for a boss or a master because he or she wants to be paid. Or maybe in some settings to avoid punishment, like if there's a master and a slave. But a friend helps a friend. because of love and partnership. I mean, in a sense, the servant and the friend, when they're doing something for the other, might look similar, both helping, but the difference, right, is what's why and what's going on in the heart.
Jesus said, greater love is there than to lay down one's life for a friend. But I think there should be also a second Bible verse. There's no greater love hath one for another than this, that he helps his friend move. This is it. When you help somebody move, my days of helping people move are just over.
Dicky, I remember the basketball goal, that thing. It would move one of the heaviest things ever. And I'm sorry, you had back surgery last year. And I was thinking that could have been from that basketball goal. I was thinking about when there was a friend that helped me move from one house to another here, and it got late.
We had the last load of stuff in a truck and a pickup truck. Like it was, you know, his pickup truck. And it's just overflowing like Beverly Hillbilly's truck. And it's like 10 o'clock at night. It had taken longer than we thought.
And it started to rain. It started to rain. Started the rain. And it was too stacked high. Beverly Hill Billies, couldn't get in a garage, couldn't do anything, had no tarp.
We just had to just go and drive over across town and just unload it in the rain. And I'm watching my friend just carrying in my junk, you know, in the rain. And I'm just like, greater love hath no man than this. You can't find a mover at 11 o'clock at night to move in the rain. They don't, you have to have a friend for that.
I was thinking about when a couple years ago we had a septic backup flood in our downstairs level of our house and it ruined everything. And how, in the early time of it, while I'm trying to get a plumber to come out and all of that, a friend comes over who this is greater love hath no man than this. My back wasn't feeling good. And so somebody had to go upstairs and flush toilets. And the other person had to stick their head down in the septic tank and see if anything was coming out.
And he was that guy. And so I was the flusher. And greater love hath no man than this than to put his head in his friend's septic tank down. Deep with a flashlight to see if sewage is coming out. I'm just saying, you can't pay people to do some things, you've got to have a friend for that.
It might look similar, like someone serving for pay or duty, and someone else who's serving another because they're friends. You might not know unless you could see the heart. Really? What I'm saying is: take this from John 14 and 15. It's the vine and abiding on the vine, and the power of the life of Jesus coming into us that bears the fruit, but it is a lot of fruit.
Friends don't do less than servants, they do more. But they're not doing it out of duty. There's a fundamental difference he describes here between a servant and a friend at verse 15. Look at this again, second half of that verse. I've called you friends.
for all that I have heard from my father. I've made known to you. Here's how you know you're a friend with someone. You're brought into their confidence. You're brought into their heart.
Master doesn't do that with a slave. Boss isn't doing that. with someone who's a mere servant. I've heard Billy Graham preach. I've read stuff of his, I've seen him interviewed, I studied him in courses in college.
I've got friends who can tell me things about him. But he he never pulled me aside and said, Alan, you know, listen, let's go play nine holes. And I just want to run a few things by you, you know, and talk to you about some things and share some of the things we just never did because we weren't. Friends. Jesus wants you so close that it's like he's sharing secrets with you.
And enjoying Having you. As such a close companion, You can know you're my friends, Jesus said, because. What I hear from my father, the way that my father talks to me, I talked to you. The Son of God. voluntarily Longingly.
relates to the children of God. As if Equals though not equals. The Son of God. brings into his council Those who do not deserve to be there do not deserve to be there. And maybe don't belong there.
But because you are redeemed his sacrifice. and called a friend. Indeed, you do belong there. Grow up and accept it. Yeah.
I was thinking about this whole thing about friends, the greater and the lesser, and there was a sitcom, Seinfeld, which changed the whole kind of genre of sitcoms because it was a show about nothing except these friends. Later, there was a big famous show, The Friends. And Seinfeld, by the way, I don't endorse all the crass things that might show up on some of those episodes, but Seinfeld is a comedian, and he plays. himself on the show. He's Jerry Seinfeld, a comedian.
on the show. But he has these friends. Especially these two men friends of his. That are just So much less than him. George Costanza is a short, bald, stocky guy who is an underachiever and always expects to fail and does fail, and has a short temper and is just a bozo in every way.
And yet he's been the longtime friend of Jerry Seinfeld, who is an accomplished comedian who makes appearances on the Tonight Show and would, you know, and is making pretty good money. Costanza can barely hold down a job and has not much direction. And yet, they're friends. And so like their episodes, it's like at one point there's a story and Seinfeld is pitching a T V show to a network executive and Costanza goes with him. And when you're watching, like, no, don't let George go with you.
He'll blow it, you know? But they're friends.
So George gets to go alone. They're actually friends. They're actually friends. And the other friend is a guy named Cosmo Kramer, who is this lanky doof with wild hair and hairbrain schemes going on in his life all the time. And yet, Kramer just walks in all the time and opens the fridge and eats Jerry's food and drinks his milk straight from the carton and stuff like that.
And he just gets to do it because even though he's just nowhere near like Seinfeld's obviously smart, funny, and more prosperous, and Kramer is nothing, but they're friends.
Okay. And so in a weird way, they become sort of equals. Weird illustration, but you and I. or Costanza and and and Kramer. And we get to be friends with Jesus.
And where he goes, we get to go. The stuff he does, we get to do. The stuff he has, we get to drink. And we're in it with him. He who Was in divine glory, did not count it equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, Paul said, and became like a servant.
Humbling himself And taking on flesh. Becoming obedient even on death on a cross so that You could be his friend. You're not as equal. But you're Paul said Seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Enjoy your friendship with Jesus.
This sort of friendship. is what is fueling all of this obedience of mission. that Jesus is talking about. I just, you know, again. Coming home from Jamaica Friday night late, and I'm just so tender with all of the beauty of experiencing what you experience on these.
kind of trips and um seeing What our church has been doing there for over 30 years and seeing seeds of the Revis' work in Jamaica so many years ago that's just bearing fruit and then watching our people pour out their lives and Watching The medical clinic and our doctors. Our doctors. Dr. Connolly, Dr. Rich.
Walking up to the gate and walking 85-year-olds down into the clinic and giving them a hug, I was like, We don't do this in America. The doctor does not come out in the lobby and welcome you with a smile. And I'm just so stirred by all of it. I want, we're going to put together a little film, but I walked around with my camera, just video, and asking everybody: why are you doing this? You could have just stayed on the beach in Montego Bay and be snorkeling today.
Why are you here? And people have almost a hard time answering it.
Well, I just, I love this. Why are you kneeling down to bless a child and you're the one that's so blessed, you're crying? Why is it that you can't wait to think about getting back? Why is it you come home and lie there in your bed weeping and thanking God for the opportunity to have been with those people? What is that?
I'll tell you what it is. It is just simply friendship with Jesus that causes within you a kind of fruitfulness that becomes your joy, and that's what he's talking about. Jesus is brilliant. and has invited you to be his friend. I think if the world understood the invitation properly.
that the invitation into the Christian gospel is not an invitation. primarily into servanthood, onto a master. but an invitation. to the joy of a friendship.
Well Who wouldn't want to be friends with Jesus? I do not call you servants. He said. I call you. friends.
And that's a gospel. Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message: Friendship with Jesus, from the series Abide. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day here in just a moment. Unlock the power of blessing your life.
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That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan at the conclusion of the teaching friendship with Jesus. You know, I don't know about you, Pastor Alan. I have some friendships that Shall we say, are complicated?
They're a little different. They might take more work than others. But boy, when you talk about the friendship of Jesus, it's one that is full of joy. The servant's heart is, or a slave's heart, is not working out of joy, but out of obligation. But once you're in a friendship, you know, it changes everything, doesn't it?
Yeah. And so, in many ways, to be a friend, a deep friend, will call forth from you something greater than any amount of servitude ever could. My dearest friends, they know they have access to me morning, noon, and night. That at some point you find yourself, because of the love and covenant we're in, you have an access to me that is greater than what anybody could pay me for, right?
So, for Jesus to say, I call you friends, it wasn't saying that it meant that the disciples were going to somehow become lazy and never want to be obedient to the exhortations and admonitions of Christ. No, it's the very fuel for it. Christianity is a love relationship with Jesus, and that does change everything in our hearts. The invitation from Jesus remarkably is come to me. Let's be friends.
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