OPEN: I read about a woman who telephoned a friend and asked how she was feeling,
"Terrible," came the reply over the wire, "my head’s splitting and my back and legs are killing me. The house is a mess, and the kids are simply driving me crazy."
Very sympathetically the caller said, "Listen, go and lie down, I’ll come over right away and cook lunch for you, clean up the house, and take care of the children while you get some rest. By the way, how is your husband Sam?"
"Sam?" the complaining housewife grasped. "My husband’s name isn’t Sam."
"Oh dear," exclaimed the first woman, "I must have dialed the wrong number."
There was a long pause. "Does that mean you’re not coming over?"
That housewife had hoped she’d found a friend.
Someone who would be there in her need.
Friendship is a powerful thing.
Growing up, I remember how important it was for me to have “friends”. I didn’t have many friends, but the ones I had I cherished deeply.
According to one study I read recently:
People 25 or younger listed friends as their most critical social network; church ranked 5th. By contrast, adults over 25 ranked church as their key social group, followed by their work relationships.
Friendship is a powerful thing.
And the Bible agrees:
· “A friend loves at all times...” Proverbs 17:17
· “… There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24
· “Wounds from a friend can be trusted...” Proverbs 27:6
· “Do not forsake your friend and the friend of your father...” Proverbs 27:10
Friendship is powerful thing.
That’s why it is no surprise that one of the most popular features on Facebook is “friendship”
Just for the sake of those - who don’t what Facebook is - it’s THE most popular social get together place on the internet. There are 400 million users (if they had their own country it would the 3rd largest nation in world).
Facebook is a place where people can share their lives.
They can talk with others, post pictures and articles they’d like people to see…
And most of this sharing is done between “friends”
Friends (on Facebook) are people you’ve given the privilege of being able to visit your Facebook page. To “see” your pictures. And to share your thoughts.
If I write something on MY Facebook page… my friends will be read it on THEIRS.
If you’re not my friend (on Facebook) you might not be able to share in those things.
So when someone invites you to be their “friend” on Facebook, they are inviting you to share in their life on the internet. That makes “friendship” on the this site something of an honor.
The average Facebook user has about 150 friends. But there are many on the internet that can have hundreds – even 1000s – of friends. Some have as many as 30,000 friends who get access to their page.
Now I’ve got about 350 “friends” on Facebook.
But there is an odd thing about THESE friends.
They’re not all what I’d call “friends”.
Many of these are people I respect, people I like or would like to get to know. Or they are people who like what I’ve said… or what I’ve stood for. But very few of them are what I’d call friends.
ILLUSTRATION: (We showed a cartoon of a man standing at his open front door. Outside his house were obviously a large number of people waiting in line. The caption read “Hi. We’re you friends on Facebook, and we thought we might pop in for a drink”)
That’s never going to happen.
I’m never going to see all those Facebook friends I have “in person”. Ever.
If I were sick and in the hospital… they wouldn’t come visit me.
If I needed some money to help pay a bill… they wouldn’t be there for me.
If I was stranded on a highway at night… they wouldn’t come and get me.
Like that lady in our opening illustration - THEY’RE NOT COMING OVER!
They don’t really know me.
They don’t know the details of my life.
They don’t know what I struggle with.
They might not even LIKE me.
On Facebook… they’re my friends.
(PAUSE) But, for the most part, they’re just passing acquaintances. Most of them are very nice people, but they’re not REALLY my friends.
And, that’s what happens in real life too.
Sometimes even the people we call our friends – aren’t really our friends.
They’re not there when we need them.
They disappoint us or forget us, or ignore us.
Jesus tells the story of the youngest son of wealthy man.
The boy didn’t want to wait til his father died to get his inheritance, so he bugged him to his father finally gave it to him… then he went to a far away city and lived it up. He had parties, he had friends – at least until the money ran out… then his “friends” ran out and didn’t come back.
I’ve talked to young people who’ve used their money to “buy” their friends. It worked for a while, and then they were gone.
I read a blog where people had shared what worried them. And one woman posted: “Are my friends really my friends?” because she had learned that, too often, the people she thought she could count on… you couldn’t.
In the midst of this troubling reality - the reality that we don’t ALWAYS have true friends that we can count on… Jesus tells us HE wants to be our friend.
Now, this is a bit odd when you consider the fact that we didn’t make the first move. We didn’t send a friend request to Jesus. He sent one to us.
In John 15:16 Jesus says “You did not choose me, but I CHOSE YOU and appointed you to go and bear fruit— fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”
John tells us much the same thing in I John 4:19 “We love because he first LOVED us.”
Jesus reached out to us – first.
Now, why is that important?
Well, because frankly, if most people knew what you and I were REALLY like… they wouldn’t accept a friend request from either you or I. If people knew some of the things you’ve SAID/DONE/THOUGHT they wouldn’t have anything to do with us.
But Jesus knows exactly what we’re like… and He STILL wants us as His friends.
As Romans 5:10 puts it “…when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son”
Ephesians says it this way:
“…because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…” Ephesians 2:4-5
We were enemies
We were dead in our sins and messed up lives.
We weren’t worth much --- to God… or anyone else.
But it was then - when we were enemies of God/ dead in our sins - that God sent us His “friend” request. Rephrasing John 3:16, you could say it like this “For God so loved you and I, He sent us His a very special friend request”
Or as it really says: “For God so loved the world that He gave (sent) His only begotten Son”
(PAUSE) Now the way you become a “friend” on Facebook is - one person sends out an INVITATION to someone else to be their friend. The other person can then either “CONFIRM” them as a friend or IGNORE you.
What Jesus is telling us here is “I invited you to be my friend… you didn’t invite me.”
John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you...”
Why is that important?
Well, I’ve served in 2 other churches before this, and I’ve met people in those other churches that act that the church should be honored that they are members of that congregation.
They are IMPORTANT people.
You should feel privileged that they are honoring you with their presence.
Obviously they didn’t get the memo.
They don’t seem understand that they didn’t invite Jesus to be their friend…He invited them.
God didn’t get their “invitation” and then pull Gabriel aside and say:
“Did you see this? Jeff sent me an invitation to be his friend. That’s great! I am SO honored that he wanted ME for their friend.”
Ahhh… no. That’s not the way it works.
You see – if YOU think God got YOUR invitation to be YOUR friend then He should be the one to feel honored and privileged you thought He was worth your time.
BUT if we realize that He invited US to be HIS friend, that He reached out to us because we weren’t worthy to reach out to Him - then it is we should be humbled that He thought WE were worth His time.
A person who is filled with pride and acts like the church should be honored that they’re around didn’t get the memo. They don’t understand this. And as a result they act like God–and everyone else–needs to bow down to them.
Now, unlike Facebook… where most of my “friends” aren’t really my friends, not only is Jesus my friend, but my friendship with Jesus improves my friendship with others.
You see, in this world, earthly friends will disappoint me.
If I am your friend… sooner or later I’m going to disappoint you too.
Why? Because, frankly - I’m kind of selfish.
It’s not normal for me to think of you first.
It’s not normal for me to worry about your problems when I’ve got problems of my own.
If it comes down to a question of whether I scratch your back or you scratch mine… I’d prefer you scratch mine. Why? Because I’m inherently selfish. I tend to think of MYSELF… FIRST.
So Jesus said “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:12
It’s a repeated command, over and over again throughout the Scriptures.
Why repeat such a command?
Because it doesn’t come naturally to us.
We don’t really know how to love until we’ve learned the love of Jesus in our lives.
How did Jesus love us?
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13
You see, God isn’t concerned with how many friends you haveHe’s concerned with how many people to whom you were a friend.
How many people you and I laid down our lives for.
Because God KNOWS that in this world people can be lousy friends because they’re all selfish.
They all look after their own interests FIRST. But Jesus set us the example of putting others first.
He laid down His life for us… so that we could live.
ILLUS: I once read the story of a High School freshman who had a BIG weekend planned. He was going a party with some friends and then go the football game.
He said “I saw a kid from my class walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books home. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd."
About that moment, a bunch of kids came running down the sidewalk and they ran at Kyle knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, landed in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes.
My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, "Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives."
He looked at me and said, "Hey thanks!" There was a big smile on face.
He found out that Kyle didn’t live that far from him so he helped him carry his books home, and invited him to join his friends that weekend. The more Kyle was around, the more he realized how likable this kid was and his friends thought so too.
Over the next four years they became close friends. And when they became seniors, they began to think about college. “Kyle decided on Georgetown,” he said, “and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a football scholarship.”
Over those years he said Kyle “filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him. Boy, sometimes I was jealous.”
Graduation came, and Kyle was the Valedictorian. As Kyle approached the podium to give his Valedictorian speech he cleared his throat and began
"Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach... but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story."
He then related how – as a freshman – he’d decided that life wasn’t worth living. He had planned that on a particular weekend he was going to commit suicide and he had cleared out his locker to take home his possessions so his mother wouldn’t have to do it later.
"Thankfully, I was saved,” Kyle said. “My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable."
It was just a simple selfless act of kindness.
And that small act developed into a friendship.
That friendship models for us why Jesus put such an emphasis on friendship in His ministry. Friendship is the framework for His church, and it’s the power of our ministry for Him. And it also emphasizes the value friendship can have in SAVING others from death.
In the story I just related, Kyle was saved from taking his life. At this church we believe that for someone to commit suicide would be a truly sad tragedy. But we believe that it would be an even greater tragedy if someone we cared about died without Christ… facing eternity without God.
Jesus said: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13
Romans puts it this way: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:7-8
What Jesus did was He has died for our sins… so that we might become His friends.
He has sent you a request to be His friend.
If you haven’t become a Christian yet… then the question is this
Will you accept his offer, or will you ignore it today.
