I got a chance to preach in a small village church on Sunday
about some things God has been teaching me in my own life. This is a spark notes version of what I
taught. I hope you find it
encouraging and not too heretical… I’m still new at this. But as Don Stubbs once told me as
Christians we are supposed to “Teach what you know, and grow as you go.”
John 15:15 reads “I no longer call you
servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I
have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have
made known to you.”
When we read the word of God it’s essential
to understand the context in which things are written. I know when I first learned that
everything in the bible was for me it got me really excited. But it wasn’t until later that I
realized that not everything is for us today, BUT, everything is available for
us as we grow closer to God.
This quote from John 15 is Jesus speaking to
the disciples who he had been with for three and a half years.
The whole chapter is helpful to understand
the qualifiers for this great statement in verse 15 but the most important
parts come from verses 12-14:
12 My command is this: Love
each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my
friends if you do what I command.
Verse 12 explains his command, to love as He
loved us. Verse 13 explains what
that love looks like, laying down your life. Then verse 14 tells us what the requirement for friendship,
obedience to his commands, one of which is stated in verse 12. And because of Jesus’ audience, the
disciples, he goes on to say that they have obeyed his commands and now he had
promoted them to the status of friends.
Everyone starts as servants, and we move to
friendship by being faithful as servants.
But the important thing to remember is that we never graduate from being
servants. One day when Christ
returns we will be his bride and enter into marriage with Him. In marriage your
spouse should be your best friend and you should be his or her biggest
servant. Even though you have been
promoted to a marriage relationship you have not graduated from friendship or from
being a servant. This is the same
with our relationship with Christ.
We never graduate from serving Him. Moving to friendship means that we actually move into co-laboring and dreaming with God. God begins to share His heart and His
dreams with us and we work with Him to see them come to pass.
But we must be ok with doing what we are
told and being faithful with what we know we are supposed to be doing from
reading the written word before we expect to know all His plans and dreams for
us. This faithfulness gives us
access to God’s heart.
In Matthew 25, the parable of the talents,
the Master first gives the servants a little and he waits to see what they do
with it. When he returns and finds
that some of them gained more talents he says “Well done, good and faithful
servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of
many things. Come and share in your master’s happiness!”
So we see that there are two clear
consequences of faithfulness; more responsibility (I will put you in charge of many things) and friendship (come and share in your master's happiness). We are always crying out for God to
reveal His will for our lives. But
before we do that we need to ask ourselves if we are being faithful in the small
things we already know we are supposed to do according to the word of God. Are we being joyful always? Are we
doing everything as if we are working for the Lord? Are we loving our neighbor as we love ourselves? Are we
honoring our parents and the authority that God has placed in our lives?...
God wants to reveal his dreams over our
lives. But a premature release of
these dreams could destroy us. If
we are not mature enough to pursue the great plans He has for us, He can’t
reveal them to us. He wants
friendship with us and it’s available for each and every one of us. He wants to dream with us! He wants to
co-labor with us! But it takes
faithfulness to get there…
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