Real Life Community Church Sermons
Real Life Community Church, is a church located in Richmond, Kentucky. Our fellowship is comprised of authentic followers of Jesus Christ who aim to glorify God in all that we do. We have a desire to reach our community, meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of those who are hurting.What to Expect in a ServiceOur Sunday Morning services include a time of dynamic, contemporary worship. We have a full praise band, consisting of real Christ-followers who are committed to worshiping God, not just through song, but in every area of their lives. Each service will include a relevant, Bible-based message, that will inspire and challenge those who hear it, in their walk with the Lord. Come casually or formally dressed… however you are most comfortable. We hope to see you soon!
Real Life Community Church Sermons
Abide | Part 2 | What a Friend We Have in Jesus
July 29, 2024 Sermon by Chris May
Ever wondered what it means to be a friend of Jesus? In this journey through John 15, Chris May contrasts the depth and intimacy Jesus offers with the often superficial nature of modern friendships. By examining the terms "servant" and "slave," we illuminate the balance between reverence and closeness in our relationship with Him. Jesus' friendship is marked by candor and an unwavering commitment, much like the trusted "friends of the king" in ancient courts.
The following resource is brought to you by Real Life Community Church in Richmond, kentucky. We hope you're both challenged and encouraged by this message from Pastor Chris May. It's John 15, starting at verse 12. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you, my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that someone laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a 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 you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask in the father's name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.
Speaker 2:Well, friendship is one of God's greatest blessings to humankind. There are many verses in the Bible that speak to the power of friendship. Let me just read you a couple. I think we have these on the screen Ecclesiastes 4., 9 and 10. Two are better than one Because they have a good reward For their toil, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But listen to this, it's a warning Of isolation. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Proverbs 17, 17,. A friend loves at all times Beloved. We all need a friend and friends, people who will stand by us through thick and thin, and I'm sure each of you right now is thinking of someone who is that friend to you.
Speaker 2:There are many biblical examples of friendship. I could name many, but I'll just list a few. You have Elijah and Elijah, who were great friends. You have Jonathan and David, who had this beautiful, intimate friendship, ruth and Naomi. And then you have, in the New Testament, particularly Paul, who was great friends with everybody. It seemed he called, you know, luke and Silas and Barnabas, and particularly Timothy, even John Mark, as a matter of fact, when Paul is on death row and he's writing his final letter, the book of what we call 2 Timothy. At the very end of that letter, you know what he calls for he calls for his friends to come to him. Particularly, he says to Timothy come to me quickly. Friendship is life-giving, and we know that from the pandemic that isolation is life depleting. Friendship is a pathway to joy. Isolation is a pathway to despair. Do you know that science? Science backs up the biblical claim of the importance of friendship.
Speaker 2:There is a man by the name of Dan Buechner. He's an author. He wrote a book and many others, but this particular book is called Blue Zones. Dan Buechner was a photographer for the National Geographic, and he traveled all over the world taking these photos, and as he did, he noticed something that interested him very much. He noticed that there are, let's say, pockets around the globe where the people tended to be much healthier than other places in the world, and particularly Americans, and so he thought is this just genetic or what is it? So what he did is he went again and traveled the world, and he spent time in each of these very healthy communities that are full of, like centennials, people who live to be a hundred and live to be a hundred with very good health In these places, like chronic disease, like heart disease and diabetes and cancer and even dementia. They're almost unheard of those diseases. And so he went and he stayed in these communities and he's deemed them blue zones and he began to study these communities and he compiled all the data to look at maybe overlapping factors that contributed to such health. And here's what he found.
Speaker 2:Some of these factors are not surprising to us. One of them is diet. Like they're not eating McDonald's Come on, somebody Listen, this hurts me to say but they're not even eating Chick-fil-A. Somebody's like well, it might be worth taking a few years off your life for that right. So diet was a huge thing. They're eating high vegetable diets, a little bit of meat, but it's all clean. They're growing their own vegetables.
Speaker 2:And then there's the area, the factor of movement. Now, what's interesting is none of them are going to the gym. They don't have to because natural movement is worked into their everyday lives. Like they don't drive everywhere, they walk, they don't sit behind a computer screen for 18 of the 24 hours a day. So movement's a huge factor in health. And then there's the element of faith, which is not surprising. The research shows that people of a deep faith tend to live longer and happier lives than those who don't.
Speaker 2:The area that may be surprising to you, the factor that may shock you, is that one of the predictors of longevity in health is deep, meaningful friendships. And I don't have time this morning, but there's a lot of other. There's a lot of other research to back up that claim. So here's what Dan Buettner said. After all his research, he said quote Having three good friends you can call on on a bad day Will exponentially increase your happiness and longevity. Sit with that for a moment. Here's what we know from the Bible, from science and, I would argue, from experience, that deep, meaningful friendships, friendships they contribute to our mental, physical and spiritual health. Shake your head if you're with me this morning, all right, I know it's been a long service already and I'm going to try to be quick, but I want us to get this.
Speaker 2:So now we move to John, chapter 15, and I started unpacking this chapter last week. Read the first several verses and what we find is that the chapter is essentially about the importance of bearing spiritual fruit through abiding in Christ. So, as we are connected to Jesus, we have what you might call a fruitful lives that provide ministry and God's blessings to a barren and dry land. And so we begin unpacking this concept of what it means to abide in Jesus, because Jesus says you have to do it or you're going to be cut off, like there is no Christianity apart from abiding in Jesus. And so what we saw was this last week, jesus said I am the true vine and you are the branches. And so what that means is this as Christians, our primary relationship with Jesus is not one of student to teacher, like he is our teacher, but that's not primary, it doesn't go deep enough. To be a Christian is to be a branch connected to the vine of Jesus Christ in such a way that, organically, jesus' life just flows from us. That's what it means to abide in Christ. That's one facet, and there's another facet that we see in our text today, and it's unbelievable. Here's what it means to abide in Christ. That's one facet, and there's another facet that we see in our text today, and it's unbelievable. Here's what it is Abiding in Jesus means that we don't just relate to him as servant or slave to master, but get this as friend to friend, like friendship is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:But there is no greater invitation to friendship than the invitation from Jesus to say you're my friend. Look at verse 15. Let's just hear it from God's word. He's speaking to 11 of the 12 disciples Judas is not here, and here's what he says to them no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing but I have called you friend. We sang it this morning I am a friend of God. That's not nothing. I don't know how you felt when you came in this morning, but if you'll just get a hold of this, it'll transform your day. If God before us, who can be against us? Hallelujah. So what does this mean? What does friendship with Jesus look like? Now, I must be honest with you.
Speaker 2:When I hear people talk about this, sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, because they do so. They talk about friendship with Jesus in a very trivial way, because friendship in our culture has been trivialized. Let me just give you an example. On Facebook, I have well over a thousand friends, most of whom I would not recognize on the street. If they knocked on my door, I'd say who are you? And we're Facebook friends. Fair enough, I'll just have to trust you. I would say 80% of the people I'm connected to on social media I never have a phone conversation with, much less see them face to face. The only interaction we might have is maybe an occasional comment on a post, but they're my friends. So we've trivialized this idea of friendship and I think that's very important to understand, because the Bible does not give us that kind of shallow picture of friendship. Jesus is calling us into a deep, meaningful, intimate relationship with him, not just where we comment every once in a while on something he says. He's calling us into a daily communion with him. He's calling us into intimate friendship.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I want to clarify about friendship with Jesus is that our friendship with him listen is not void of reverence, because I've seen contemporary people take this verse well, we're friends of Jesus, so when you pray, it's bro to bro, right, we're just old chums, me and Jesus. And so they pray something like this oh, what's up, geez, right. And there's just this flippancy when they're speaking to him or speaking about him, and I get the sentiment like we don't have to go to the Lord with big words, but we ought to go to him with reverence. We ought to go to him with reverence and let me just show this to you in the text. So let's look at verse 15 again. Jesus says no longer do I and I want you to get this if you'll put verse 15 on the screen no longer do I Say it, it's not a trick Call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I call you friends. Alright, now notice that word call. This is very, very important. Jesus does not say you are no longer servants, does he? He says I no longer call you servants.
Speaker 2:Now, before I unpack that, let me just tell you about this Greek word, translated here as servant. It's the word doulos and it should be translated slave. Do you have your csb with you? The csb gets it right, but because of the the horrors of slavery in the west, the english translations have have gone away from using this word slave. But that's a much better word because it literally means someone who is the property of another.
Speaker 2:And I want you to know that the Apostle Paul said these words in Romans, chapter 1. He says I, paul, an apostle, a slave, a slave of Jesus Christ. And what's that mean? What it means is this yes, are we friends with Jesus? Absolutely, but first and foremost, he is our Lord.
Speaker 2:Friendship with Jesus does not negate the lordship of Jesus. Here it is. We are not merely friends with Jesus or merely servants of Jesus. We are more than servants, we're friends. So what does friendship then look like?
Speaker 2:Let me just give you two aspects, very quickly, of this friendship with Jesus. What we see here is Jesus' friendship with us involves candor. Everybody say candor, make sure you're awake. Candor and commitment. Candor and commitment. So let's begin with candor. So verse 15, let's look at it again. No longer Jesus says to his disciples do I call you servants for the? For this is the reason he calls us friends, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I've called you friends for all that I've heard from the Father I have made known to you.
Speaker 2:Now listen, you, like me, have many acquaintances. Yeah, do you share your personal business with everybody? Some people do. You post every moment of your life on Facebook, but generally, most people do not share the most intimate details about their family, even their hopes and dreams and aspirations. They keep that for a very close group of people. But your friends, that close group, how many know you should share fears, hopes, dreams, because it ought to be a safe community of people. I hope you have somebody like that in your life, very, very important. That's what Jesus is saying. I've been candid with you. I've given you the truth.
Speaker 2:Let me give you a little historical background here. In the ancient Middle East, there was a group of people within the courts of the emperor or king, of people within the courts of the emperor or king, and this group of people, very small, would be called friends of the king or friends of the emperor. This is unbelievable. So you know, emperors, particularly in the Roman world, were very leery of people because it's like everybody's trying to stab them in the back. It's hard to trust people. But what they would do? They would take someone who might be considered a servant, because everybody under the emperor is essentially a servant, and they would build a relationship with them. And they would. Those people would be invited into this very close friendship. And do you know that? The friends of the emperor, this very close friendship? And do you know that? The friends of the emperor, that he would speak to them about his plans before he would even talk to his generals and statesmen? Really fascinating. As a matter of fact, these friends had access to him as long as he was present 24-7. They could even go into his bed chambers first thing in the morning and speak with him. Think of that Like emperors were brutal for the most part, but they had this circle of people called friends of the king, and that's the backdrop that Jesus is using to speak to us. We were servants, but he's trusted us and we have access to him 24-7. Unbelievable. I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends.
Speaker 2:Now, friendship with Jesus involves candor. Can I say this? A true friend Will speak to you about the good, the bad and the ugly. Proverbs 27 says this. I think it's verse 6. Faithful do you know this? Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. We all know what it is To have I think I can say this Brown nosers as quote unquote friends, you know they're always telling you how good you are and cheering you on, right, but they never want to hurt your feelings, right, and that sounds really good, except a true friend. I mean, we want friends like this. A true friend will tackle you if you are about to make a decision that's going to wreck your life, and you ought to want people like that in your life, Vitally important.
Speaker 2:Jesus gives us candor as part of friendship. Does jesus pull any punches? I just think of john, chapter 15. He's like at the beginning hey, disciples, you're going to bear fruit through me and you get to abide in me. And then he says I'm going to call you friend. But he also says to those same people if you don't bear fruit, if you don't abide in me, you're. He says I'm going to call you friend. But he also says to those same people if you don't bear fruit, if you don't abide in me, you're going to be like a branch that's not bearing fruit and you're going to be cut off. God's going to cut you off and you're going to be thrown into the fire. Do you see the balance?
Speaker 2:Jesus often talked about the gospel of the kingdom, the good news, but he talked about judgment a lot. And a true friend like Jesus will tell you the good and the bad. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. You have this facet of Jesus' friendship. That is candor. The second is commitment.
Speaker 2:Look at verse 13. Greater love has no one than this that someone lay his life down for his friends. Wow, jesus clearly has the cross in mind. He is giving this discourse in the upper room with 11 of the 12 disciples and the next day he will be hanging on a cross at Calvary, giving his life as a ransom for many, taking the punishment owed to us, taking the punishment owed to the 11 disciples, bearing the wrath of God, bearing our sin so that we might be forgiven While we were yet sinners, christ died for us that we might become the righteousness of God. Beloved Jesus does not just talk to us about loving friendship, but he demonstrates to us in the most amazing way that friendship the apex of his friendship scene at Calvary and Ron. We'll talk about this in a few minutes as we prepare our hearts for the communion, but I want to encourage you today to look at the cross not only through the lens of love, but through the lens of friendship. The Son of God, hanging on the tree, full of love, died for me, out of a deep friendship That'll change your life.
Speaker 2:Jesus is committed to us. He put himself in harm's way and you know, we remember just last week that, or maybe a couple weeks ago now, when the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and you saw the Secret Service. Many of them jump on him, men and women who risked their own lives to protect his. And that was done probably out of duty and maybe friendship as well. Jesus did it out of friendship, thanks. Be to God. A friend is committed. A friend will stand beside you through the thick and thin.
Speaker 2:And there are two kinds of people in our lives. There are exploiters and there are true friends. Exploiters you know the type they are very into speaking with you and hanging out with you as long as you're okay and they're there and they're happy when you can benefit them in some way. But when you lose it all, where are they? It's like crickets and exploiters. It even gets worse Exploiters. Sometimes they actually rejoice in your failings. They spread it around. Why To bolster their own, let's say, moral superiority? That's not a friend, but a friend. Hopefully you have one of these, a friend in the best of times and the worst of times will be right by your side, even when you made the stupidest decision you've ever made and you're on the ground and they don't kick you while you're down. Oh God, thank you for friends like this, but they lift you up and they help you up. Beloved, that's a friend. They don't exploit and spread your mess ups. But love covers a multitude of sins. They try to protect your dignity.
Speaker 2:Think about the difference between the devil and Jesus. The devil and you're going to say duh. But I want to unpack this. The devil is not your friend. I know the Grateful Dead sing a song a friend of the devil is a friend of mine. Okay, apparently you don't know it because you're looking at me kind of lost Probably a good thing. The devil is not your friend and it's not as obvious as it seems because a lot of people are like Eve in the garden. They think the devil is on their side. See, the devil will give in to your hedonistic desires. I mean, he's happy to do it. He's happy to give in to your impulses and coax you, like he did Eve, and say it's all right, god didn't really mean what he said. But then when you give into that temptation and it crushes your life, the devil's not going to help you up. He's going to beat you while you're down and cause you to try to make you blame God.
Speaker 2:The Bible, in Romans 12, calls the devil an accuser of the brethren. It says that he accuses us. Get this. He accuses us before the Lord, night and day, relentlessly. He's always saying you remember what Mike did? The devil's always. You remember what Thomas did, always accusing us. But then there's Jesus, hallelujah. Then there's Jesus In 1 John 2, verse 1 says that he is an advocate with the Father. Hebrews 7.25 says that Jesus is always interceding for us. So it's like the old cartoons God has on one shoulder the devil going, you know, accusing us night and day. But Jesus is interceding for us, saying oh, I know that Pastor Ben's messed up every once in a while, but he's covered by my blood, he has a relationship with me, he's abiding in me, he stands forgiven, his sins are paid. And who do you think God's going to listen to? Jesus Christ? God already knows all things, and so Jesus is a true friend.
Speaker 2:Now, as I'm wrapping this up, I want to ask you are you a friend of Jesus? I didn't ask you do you believe in the facts of the gospel? Well, I believe in Jesus. Good for you. The demons in hell believe in. Shudder in fear.
Speaker 2:James says. I want to ask you are you a friend of Jesus? And say how do you know? Well, I see two ways that you can kind of take this test to see if you are a true friend of Jesus. By the way, it's not optional. Friendship with Jesus is not Christianity 2.0. Either you're a friend or you don't know him. Are you with me? All right, here it is I'm almost done, stay with me. Very important.
Speaker 2:The first, let's say, litmus test of friendship with Jesus is obedience. Look at verse 14. This is really crazy. It's kind of shocking. If you don't, if you've never studied this out, jesus says to his disciples you are my friends if you do what I command. Now, that sounds like some VBS kids. That's very impetuous. That's what toddlers do, right? Hey, I'll be your friend if you do everything. I say I mean Ben, just imagine if I came to you when I first came to this church. I said Pastor Ben, man, I'd like to be your friend and we can do that If you do everything I command you.
Speaker 2:Well, we would say, no, that's not somebody you probably want to be friends with. And the question is, why? Well, because Ben and I are both fallible human beings. I don't always know what's best for Ben, nor he me. This is reciprocal, it's give and take. I'm not Ben's master, ben's not my master. We're friends. We're on level ground. But Jesus is infallible. He always knows what's best for us. And so friendship, get this. Friendship requires trust. If you don't trust someone, they probably are not a great friend.
Speaker 2:And you know what we say, what we're saying, what we're implying. Every time we disobey the Lord, every time we disobey His word, that's called sin. You know what we're saying. We're saying, jesus, I don't trust you. We're saying, jesus, I know't trust you. We're saying, jesus, I know what's better for me than you do. That's dangerous ground. So one test is do I desire to obey the Lord, jesus Christ? The second is this it's love for other Christians. Love for other Christians, friendship with other Christians.
Speaker 2:Look at verses 12 and 14. These serve like bookends for this passage of Scripture. So verse 12. This is my commandment that you love one another as I've loved you. Now go. Actually it's verse 17, the very end of our section. Jesus says these things I command you so that you'll love one another. All of this Jesus says is pointing to the fact that you must love one another. Listen to me.
Speaker 2:I've heard people say well, you know, I believe in God and I pray and stuff, but I'm just much. I'm not much into that church thing? I'm not. You know, christians are all hypocrites and I don't want to. You know, I don't want to hang with them and it's like come to church, there's room for one more hypocrite, right? Here's the thing. Jesus is the head of the church, true. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians that the church is his body. And I would just say you've heard me say this before. You don't go to Jesus and say I like your head but not your body. Like, try saying that to your wife yeah, sit with that for a minute, you'll get it. When you come to Jesus, you get all of him or none of him.
Speaker 2:And it is a great offense for you not to absolutely love his people. As a matter of fact, it's impossible. Because when Christ, when you love Christ and he sends you his spirit and he changes your heart. One of the proofs this is replete throughout the New Testament, one of the ev Testament, one of the evidences, pieces of evidence that you are belong to Jesus is your love for one another. As a matter of fact, jesus said this is how you know my. The people in the world will know you're my disciples. That you'll speak in tongues that's not what he said that you'll sing really well and you'll lift your hands in the music service no. Or that you can quote scripture frontwards and backwards no. He said this this is how they'll know that you're my disciples you will love one for another.
Speaker 2:So let me just ask you here's your to-do. If you're not a friend of Jesus today, if you don't know him in this intimate way, I would beg you, implore you, to repent today and know what it is to have a friend who will sit closer than a brother. If you'll repent and turn to him, put your faith and trust in him, turn to him as Lord and follow him, you can be saved and he will absolutely change your life. He will become a friend to you. You know, apart from Jesus, romans says that we are enemies of God. Like we're not just aloof to God, we're enemies, but when we come to Jesus, we become a friend of God.
Speaker 2:If you're here and you are a Christian and I hope you are I want to ask you to do something. I want to ask you to first cultivate your relationship with Jesus through prayer and the Word. Because a good friendship. What do you do? You talk to Him constantly and you listen to Him constantly Do that. And then I want to give you one more challenge. All right, I want to challenge you. Let's say this Let me give you two weeks on this and you'll be my friend if you obey my command. Let me give you a couple weeks on this. I want to challenge you to find somebody else.
Speaker 2:If you're part of this church, in this church, if you go to another church from your church, I want to challenge you to have someone else over for dinner another family, another single, and or let's say, meet them for coffee, meet them for dinner and start cultivating a deep relationship, because church is really important and you ought to commit to it. But we're called to live life together. It's one of the things I love most about this church, jan. We live life together. Is that true, steve? And Hunter? Is that true? How many days a week, hunter, do you talk to somebody from this church? Seven days a week, dina? How many days a week do you talk to somebody from this church? Would you say? Probably seven. That's what we're called to be and do.
Speaker 2:I will close with this illustration. Tim Keller, in 2016 at the Gospel Coalition, used this illustration and I don't even know what the tie-in was with his message exactly. But it's from an old, old, old movie, I mean goodness, early part of the 20th century, and it's called the Bride of Frankenstein. Has anybody seen that version? The Bride of Frankenstein? Yeah, now you say where's the tie in here? Let me tell you.
Speaker 2:So, the monster, frankenstein's monster, he is wounded and he's running through the woods and he's misunderstood and people are trying to kill him and he's alone and he's in the dark and he's frightened. And he comes upon this little cottage and he stops a and he's in the dark and he's frightened. And he comes upon this little cottage and he stops a little ways back and he sees that there's a light on and he just pauses and he takes it in and he hears coming from the home this beautiful music, and so he goes up in the dark to the window and he begins to peer in and he sees this poor old man playing the violin and he's so drawn by the, it seems, the spirit or the countenance of this man and by the music that he just barges, this monster barges into the home, into the little cottage. Well, come to find out. The man is blind, the violinist is blind and he had been praying. He's in the woods all alone. He had been praying night and day God, send me a friend.
Speaker 2:And in walks, in Frankenstein's monster, the man is blind, so he is not afraid. He can't see this monster. He's not frightened. And he realizes very quickly that the monster cannot speak. And here's what he says to him. He said you know what? I cannot see, you cannot speak. We can be friends. And this man, this blind man, begins to tend to the wounds of the monster, gives him some soup and puts him down on a couch, lays blankets across him, and something amazing happens this deep friendship begins to humanize the monster. He starts speaking, just a few words, like good or more. It humanizes him. And that's what friendship does.
Speaker 2:The soldiers end up finding the little cottage and they see inside that the monster's there, and so they they attack the cottage, they burn it down. This is kind of the final thing. We see the monster's running through the woods, fleeing for his life, and here's what he says Friend, friend, where's my friend? Beloved, in a sense, apart from Jesus, we're all like the monster. We're running through life broken, and we're looking to human beings to fill the void and to somehow humanize us in a deep way, but no other human being can give us the healing that we need and the true friendship that we need. But then we come to Jesus, who sticks closer than a brother. We encounter friendship with him and he transforms us, he satisfies us, he tends to our deepest wounds and gives us joy unspeakable.