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MAXimum Loyalty

August 31, 2015 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

God on Film
Max – MAXimum Loyalty
Sycamore Creek Church
August 30/31, 2015
Tom Arthur

 

 

Peace friends! 

Omar Eduardo Rivera was a blind computer technician working on the 71st floor of the World Trade Center when the planes hit on September 11, 2001.  When the elevators went out, he was dependent on his service dog, Dorado, to get him safely down seventy flights of stairs.  As the noise and heat increased, it became apparent to Omar that it was not going to be an easy or quick task to navigate the packed stairs.  He was uncertain he would make it out alive.  So he unclipped Dorado, nudged him, and told him to go.  Dorado was swept away by the flow of people, but only a few minutes later, Omar felt Dorado’s wet nose at his hand and he refused to leave his side.  An hour later, Dorado led Omar safely out of the tower only moments before it collapsed.

Today we wrap up a series called God on Film.  Each week we’ve been looking at a different summer blockbuster and exploring the themes that each movie evokes and what the Bible has to say about that particular theme.  Today we’re looking at the movie Max.  Max is about a war dog who suffers PTSD after his handler is killed in an ambush and how he becomes loyal to his handler’s younger brother.  Today I want to talk about MAXimum loyalty.  Now I’ve got to warn you.  I’ve never cried so much reading sappy loyal dog stories.  I cry every time I watch this trailer.  It’s the “feel good movie of the summer.”  So be prepared to shed some tears.  And if you’re like me and you need to do some “man crying” then we’ll let you pretend to be itching your eyes and we won’t rat you out.  We’re loyal like that.

I want to explore two kinds of loyalty today and what the Bible says about them: MAXimum loyalty to friends and MAXimum loyalty to God.  Let’s dive in.

1.       MAXimum Loyalty to Friends
Jesus taught about friendship.  Friendship and happiness or joy are very closely tied together in Jesus’ teaching.  He says:

I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.  This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.
~John 15:11-13 (The Message)

Joy and friendship are intertwined.  I was recently listening to a Freakonomics podcast interview with Dan Gilbert, a Harvard Professor of Psychology.  He wrote a book about happiness and gave this nutshell suggestion of how to be happy: “Care about and interact with other human beings.”

So if you want to be happy, then invest in friendships.  Let’s look at what MAXimum loyal friends look like.

Trustworthy
MAXimum loyal friends are trustworthy.  So much so that you can bet your life on them because Jesus says, “Put your life on the line for your friends” like the soundtrack song to the movie, I Bet My Life.  Have you ever had a friend or a dog put their life on the line for you?  Gage was a Christchurch, New Zealand Police Dog who worked with Senior Constable Bruce Lamb.  Lamb and Gage were called to a routine drug search when things went terribly wrong.  Lamb was shot in the face with a shot gun and lay on the floor.  When Lamb looked up from the ground he saw the barrel of the gun in his face ready to finish him off.  At the last second Gage jumped in front of him and took the blast that would have killed Lamb.  This gave other officers the chance to disarm the man while Lamb crawled out of the house.  Gage died that day but Lamb lived.  Gage was awarded a gold medal posthumously.  Like Gage, a loyal friend puts his or her life on the line.

A loyal friend is trustworthy because that friend isn’t seeking their own agenda from you.  They’re seeking God’s will for you.  You can trust them because you know they want the best for you.  They want the best for you so much that they not only tell you when you’re doing well, they tell you the hard truth when they see you falling out of God’s best plan for your life.  Or as a friend of mine likes to say, “A false friend stabs you in the back but a true friend stabs you in the front.”  A MAXimum loyal friend is trustworthy.

Tenacious
A MAXimum loyal friend is not only trustworthy but also tenacious.  The wisdom book of the Bible, Proverbs, says:

There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.
~Proverbs 18:24 NLT 

Hachiko was a tenacious dog in Tokyo.  In 1924 Professor Ueno took him as a pet.  Each day after work Hachiko would meet Ueno at the train station.  One year after Hachiko became Ueno’s pet, Ueno had a massive stroke and died.  For the next nine years until he died himself, Hachiko continued to come to the train station at 6PM to greet his master.  Riders on the train began to notice and over time Hachiko became a national hero in Japan because of his tenacious loyalty to his master, even after his death.

A MAXimum loyal friend is tenacious by being stable.  They aren’t fickle.  They’re there for the good and the bad.  The ups and downs.  In a world dominated by mobility, I might even go so far as to say that the MAXimum loyal friend is unwilling to move away, even if a higher paying job presents itself in another faraway state.  MAXimum loyal friends are tenacious in the friendship.  They stick closer than family.

Troupes
I know.  I’m stretching it here (I spent a lot of time in a thesaurus to come up with a T word for group), but MAXimum friends come in troupes, or groups.  The wisdom book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, says:

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.  If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
~Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NLT

Two is good.  But three is even better.  I’d suggest that a whole community is best.  A MAXimum loyal friend recognizes the need for a community of friends.  C.S. Lewis says that three friends are always better because the third friend pulls out of your second friend things you could never pull out of them.  I don’t think there’s any better community of friends than the church.  Now I need to recognize and name the experience that the church has not always been and is not always a compelling community of friends.  Instead of being friends that stick closer than families, sometimes we are “friends” who destroy one another or those around us.  I’m moved deeply by one community of Christian friends who acknowledges this and confessed it in a unique way:

 

 

Yes, I confess stupid stuff like the Inquisition, the crusades, the constant battle against science, being known more for what we stand against than what we stand for.  Yet there is still something fundamentally compelling to me about the community of friends called the church and it looks something like this.  I don’t know any other place where people come together on a voluntary basis who would not naturally choose to associate with one another.  The word “church” in Greek is ecclesia.  It literally means “those called out.”  The church is the community of friends “called out” to create a laboratory of love.  It’s at church that I learn how to love people I wouldn’t naturally choose to spend time with.  I become a better person by the very nature of practicing love with people who aren’t always easy to love, which includes myself.  MAXimum loyal friends come in troupes or groups.

So far we’ve been talking MAXimum loyal friends.  They are trustworthy, tenacious, and they come in troupes.  That’s the first kind of MAXimum loyalty I wanted to talk about today.  The second kind is MAXimum loyalty to God.

2.       MAXimum Loyalty to God
While we’ve been talking about friends, I’m guess you haven’t been thinking of God in that category.  But Jesus’ teaching we began with puts God in that very category: 

You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
“You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
“But remember the root command: Love one another.
~Jesus (John 15:14-17, The Message)

We are God’s friends!  So what does MAXimum loyalty to God look like?  Perhaps we get the best picture of that in the most sacred verse of the Hebrew scriptures:

Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.
~Deuteronomy 6:4-5 NLT

MAXimum loyalty to God means putting God first, God alone!  You do this by responding to God with everything you’ve got: your heart, your soul, and your strength, or in the original language, your levav, nephesh, and mehod.  So what exactly does it mean to love God with your levav, nephesh, and mehod?  Let’s explore that a little more.

I had a Hebrew professor who liked to say that the word “heart” wasn’t really big enough for translating “levav.”  She thought a better translation for “levav” was “imagination.”  Love the Lord your God with all your imagination!  Now that really captures my imagination.  How do you imagine the world around you?  How do you see it?  How do you envision yourself and those around you in this world?  Do you see it from merely human and mortal eyes or do you imagine the world the way God imagines it?   You see, humans imagine the world based on what they see, but God looks deeper.  God imagines the world through the lenses of God’s purposes in our lives.  When you love God with all your levav,  you’re loving God by giving your entire vision for life to God.

What about loving God with all your nephesh?  Nephesh usually gets translated as “soul” but it is a word that is probably best contrasted with the word inanimate.  The nephesh is what animates your life.  A rock has no nephesh because it is an inanimate object.  But you have a nephesh because you are a living and breathing creature.  What does it take for you to have life?  Imagine it all the way from the cellular level.  Go back to your biology class and imagine your nephesh as encompassing all that makes you alive.  Your mitochondria, your cellular wall, your endoplasmic reticulum (yes I had to look that up).  Let’s go up a level: your bones, muscles, veins, arteries, heart, lungs, nervous system, brain, eyes, ears, nose, mouth.  It’s all your nephesh.  It’s your soul.  It’s through all of you.  It’s what makes you alive.  Love God with it all!

What about your mehod?  Your strength?  Mehod is an abundant force.  It’s not weak or timid or shy.  Mehod is active and assertive.  You don’t passively love God.  You love God with your mehod.  Your strength.   You don’t wait around for it.  You intentionally look for ways to love God.  You love God with all your mehod.  All your strength.

MAXimum loyalty to God is loving God with all your levav, all your nephesh, and all your mehod.  All your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.

But what happens when you fail?  What happens when you don’t show MAXimum loyalty to God?  Here’s the really good news! Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the book of the Bible teaches:

If we are unfaithful, he remains (abides) faithful, for he cannot deny who he is.
~2 Timothy 2:13 NLT

When you’re aren’t loyal, God is the MAXimum loyal friend to you.  God is tenacious and trustworthy and God gives you a troupe/group of friends to show you that.  God is the Duardo, the Gage, the Hachiko.  God knows what it means to love with heart, soul & strength because he’s the one who created the heart, created the soul, and created strength.  God knows what it means to be friends because he was the friend who bet his life on us in Jesus.  Remember what Jesus said?

This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.
~Jesus (John 15:13, The Message) 

Friends, Jesus put his life on the line for you so that we might be friends with God.  Even when we aren’t loyal, God remains loyal to us.  Jesus has bet his life on you.  Have you bet your life on Jesus?

 

 

Prayer
Jesus, I bet my life on you.  Thank you for being such a loyal friend that you laid your life down for me.  Like Gage, you gave your life so that I might live.  Like Durado you led me to freedom.  Like Hachiko you stuck by me even when I was dead in my sins.  Forgive me for the times I don’t show you maximum loyalty.  Give me your grace today so that I might love you with all I’ve got, my levav heart, my nephesh soul, and my mehod strength.  I give myself to you in the name of Jesus, and in the power of your Spirit at work in my life.  Amen.

 

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#struggles #relationships*

January 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment

#struggles

MP3thumb

#struggles #relationships*
Sycamore Creek Church
January 25/26, 2015
Tom Arthur

#peace #friends!

What the heck is a hashtag anyway?  If you follow me on Facebook then you may notice that I often post things my oldest son says that capture my imagination.  I include with those sayings a hashtag: #micahsayings.  That way I group all those posts together with that hashtag.  Or here at SCC we encourage to add the hashtag #sccmi to your posts on social media so people can see all the things that are going on around here.  Hashtags allow a very diverse group of people to have a mostly shallow, but occasionally deep and meaningful conversation about a shared topic.  To get a better sense of what hashtags are all about, I turn to Late Night Hashtags with Jimmy Fallon:

 

 

So we’re entering into this series called #struggles.  We’re trying to learn how to follow Jesus in a selfie-centered world.  Selfies are pictures taken of oneself usually with one’s phone.  I came across this great set of pictures in The Atlantic that get the point across.

So we’re going to spend five weeks exploring the effects of social media and technology on all kinds of aspects of our lives.  Let me be clear up front.  SCC embraces social media.  We like technology.  Tech and social media are our friends.  I personally enjoy  using social media.  I regularly post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  But lately Sarah and I have both decided to scale back.  We’ve noticed some negative influences on us and our relationships.  Maybe I should have noticed it some time ago when I was hiking with Micah on my back and taking a video of him singing in the backpack.  When he got done he said, “Daddy, are you going to post this on Facebook?”  Social media can be very good, but if you do too much of it and are consumed with it, it can hurt your relationships and rob you of that which God values most.

So here’s how this series is going to unfold.  Next week we’re going to look at #contentment.  The third week we’ll look at social media’s effect on #authenticity.  Then we’ll explore social media and #compassion.  And wrap it up with maybe the most important topic of all, #rest.  Today we’re beginning with #relationships.

Love One Another
Here’s where I want to begin this message today:

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.
~Jesus (John 13:34-35 NLT)

Jesus didn’t say, they’ll know you follow me by your perfect theology, you’re always at church, or the fish you put on your car (some of you drive so bad you need to take that fish off your car).  I want you to listen to the message through this lens of Jesus’ teaching to love one another.

How Technology Is Changing Relationships
Technology and social media help relationships.  I told you I embrace them.  But there are some unintentional negative consequences.  Here are three big issues:

1.  The term friend is evolving

“Friend” used to mean “together doing life.”  Now it means “someone you have never met in person but follows you on FB.”  The average Facebook user has 328 friends, but the average American only has two close friends.  That’s down from six close friends two decades ago.  And an amazing 25% have zero close friends.  We have lots of online interaction and fewer to no intimate friends.  We are more connected and more lonely than ever before.

2.  Addicted to immediate affirmation

Take a selfie right now.  Seriously.  Do it right now.  How long before you expect someone to like it.  I just posted a #library #selfie on Facebook.  Let’s see how long it takes to get a like…It’s been over four minutes and I’m beginning to sweat…Five minutes now.  Come on.  Somebody put me out of my misery and like my selfie.  Maybe I don’t look very good in it.  Let me go check to see if someone liked it.  Nope.  Not yet…Six minutes…Nine minutes and still no likes…L…I give up.

When we get the “like” our brains release a chemical called dopamine.  Dopamine is the brain’s version of crack.  It makes us feel good.  We get rewarded with dopamine and we want to do it again.  Our phones and computers have become Skinner Boxes.  Don’t know what a Skinner Box is?  Check this out:

 

Yep, you’re a rat getting trained to press a lever, or in this case, push a button.  We end up meeting a short-term need but deferring a long-term deeper need.  Sociologists call this “deferred loneliness.”  We are deferring a longing for intimacy into the future.  We are living for likes while longing for love.

3.  We have the power to do friendship on our own terms.

I can read a text, respond to it, not respond, or respond later.  Is the picture on instagram worthy of my “like”?  I see that friend who posted another cat picture.  One more and I’m unfollowing him.  One person said, “The more I use social media the more I crave social interaction.”  Another said, “I feel more connected than ever before and feel more alone.”  We end up not having the discipline to stop scrolling and clicking.

The author of Hebrews said:

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect [liking one another’s posts] our meeting together, as some people do, but [comment on one another’s posts] encourage one another…
~Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT

What we need to begin doing is to practice the power of presence.  Jesus said:

For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.
~Matthew 18:20 NLT

We can experience Jesus’ presence alone, but there is something special and powerful together with other believers.  When we pray together, study together, join in small group together.  There’s power in presence.   God didn’t shout his love from heaven, but showed his love on earth.

So let’s make two hashtags for #relationships:

1.     #bepresent

Let’s recite this Mantra: “I will love people face to face, not just thumbs to thumbs”  And if you’re married you can add: “belly button to belly button.”  Paul, the first missionary of the church, said:

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them…Love each other with genuine affection…When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them…
~Paul (Romans 12:9-10 & 13 NLT)

So let’s pretend someone gets bad news or ends up in the hospital.  How do you show love?  One very acceptable way right now is to text them or send them a message: “Thinking and praying.”  That’s nice.  But let’s take it up a notch.  You know there’s something else you can do with your phone besides text.  You can actually use it to call.  When you call you can actually hear tone of voice and go places in conversation where you wouldn’t imagine going.  Or let’s take it up another notch: visit that person.  Go visit them face to face over a cup of coffee.  Listen.  Put a hand on a shoulder.  Give an appropriate hug.  Pray together.

I experienced the power of presence when I first became a pastor at SCC.  I quickly met Ken and Mary Ziegler.  Ken had M.S. and was in a wheel chair but his faith was evident.  Over my first year or so of being a pastor he was in and out of the hospital quite often, and in my second year his health deteriorated quickly.  Toward the end of his life he was moved to home and given palliative care.  I visited Ken and Mary several times.  I was a new pastor and didn’t really feel very competent visiting with someone who was nearing death, but I was present nonetheless doing what I could.  I don’t really remember doing much at all besides listening and occasionally praying or reading some of Ken and Mary’s favorite scripture, but after Ken died, Mary told me how much it meant to them that I spent time with them during Ken’s last weeks and days on earth.  It wasn’t what I said, it was taking the time to be present.

I have also been the recipient of this kind of presence.  I remember one day when Bill Chu, a fellow pastor and friend of mine, and I were planning on getting together to discuss some strategy about our mission and ministry.  We had some very specific things we wanted to talk about, but something happened that day.  I don’t even remember what it was, but I called Bill in tears.  I told him I wasn’t in any shape to talk about ministry, but that I still wanted to meet, because I just needed someone to talk to.  Again, I don’t even remember what all the emotion was about, but I do remember sitting with Bill and talking.  He was present to me and prayed with me and encouraged me in my time of struggle.

Friends, do life together because life is better together.  In fact, one of the women’s small groups, led by SCC’s founding pastor, Barb Flory, is reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic book titled Life Together.  Be present together in this or any of the other twenty-three small groups this semester.

2.     #beengaged

So it’s actually not quite enough to just be present.  You also need to be emotionally and completely engaged.  Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers said:

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.
~1 Peter 4:8 NLT

Sometimes we miss the fact that the person in the room is the most important person.  Have you ever been at a restaurant and seen a family or a group of friends all sitting around a table, but they’re all looking at their phones?  Maybe that’s even been your  family.  They are alone together.  Moms and dads, your kids are begging for your attention but you’re on Pinterest changing the world by collecting recipes and pictures of dogs.

What if we were in the middle of conversation over coffee you pulled out a book and read two pages?  Then you kept talking a bit.  Then you pulled out your to do list and did something on it.  Then you talked a little bit.  Then you walked off and talked to someone else.  Then came back and talked.  What kind of friendship is that?  Not any kind that I want.  I want my friends to be focused on me when we’re together.

There’s a new fear that is developing in our culture.  It’s called FOMO or the fear of missing out.  Everytime the phone beeps, vibrates, or blinks you think, “What am I missing?”  Here’s what you’re missing: a cat picture, a like on your picture, a comment: “girl you look gorg”, which is not to say that you gorged yourself but that you look gorgeous.  It’s not about how many likes you get but about how you show love.  Parents, don’t let your kids lead you on this.  Lead them.  Here’s what your FOMO should be: fear missing out on your children growing up while you’ve got your nose buried in your tablet checking out your old high school girlfriend.  Husbands, here’s what you’re missing out on: the beautiful wife sitting across from you.  Wives, here’s what you’re missing out on: the amazing and mysterious man sitting on the other side of the table.  You know you’re really missing out when you are both in bed with your cell phone and you text your wife to ask her if she’s in the mood and she responds with #headache.

Rules of Engagement
So let me suggest four simple rules of engagement.  First, turn the notifications off on your phone.  Become a #notificationnazi.  “No notifications for you!”  Second, your phone face down during dinner.  No phones during meals.  Third, turn off your phone during your small group.  Fourth, make this a rule in your house: at 10PM phones are off and charging.  (On a side note: I recently read a very disturbing article in The Atlantic and learned that sexting is extremely prevalent among teens of all kinds and happens mostly late at night.  Most teenagers sleep with their phones.  So one simple solution to sexting: no sleeping with your phones!)

So let’s get back to the theme of love.  John, Jesus’ “beloved” follower wrote this:

Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.
~1 John 3:18 NLT

When I read that, I’m reminded of Meghan Trainor’s song, “Lips are Moving:”

If your lips are moving, if your lips are moving
If your lips are moving, then you’re lyin’, lyin’, lyin’, baby

Too many of us are talking love but not acting love.  We’re talking love on social media.  We’re talking love in our texts.  But we’re not loving.  Our lips are moving but we’re lying.  Don’t just text them, pray for them.  Don’t just pray for them, pray with them.  Don’t just like their post, like them.  Don’t just comment on a post, comment to them.  They’ll know you follow Jesus not because of what you say, but because of how you love.  They’ll know you follow Jesus not because of how many likes you get, but because of how well you love your real friends.  A skeptical world may say, “I’m not sure I believe this whole Jesus thing, but I want what they’ve got.”  And when a skeptical world asks, “Why do you love?” You can say, “I’m on a mission from a God who sent his son on a rescue mission to save this broken messed up world.  That’s why I show you my love.”  God didn’t just shout his love from heaven, he showed it in Jesus.

Prayer
God, you loved us so much that you came to be present with us here on this earth.  Help us follow Jesus by loving those around us by being present and being engaged.  May a skeptical world know you because of the way we love one another.  Amen.

 

* This sermon is based on sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel.

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One Community Away

September 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment

friending

 

 

 

 

 


Friending – One Community Away *
Sycamore Creek Church
September 21/22, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Where have you experienced a community of friends at the deepest level?  Sarah and I probably experienced a community of friends at the deepest level when we lived in this crazy house called Isaiah House while we were in seminary in Durham, NC.  Isaiah House was a “new monastic” house.  Probably the best way to describe it was to imagine living with your small group in the local homeless shelter.  We were a group of Christians who lived together in one very big house and offered several rooms in the house for women and children who were homeless or in transition.  We practiced our faith together with daily times of prayer and scripture reading.  We simply practiced life together with a daily dinner together.  We played together.  We cried together.  We sought to make a positive impact on the neighborhood that we lived in together.  We were in mission together.  I have never been so bonded to a group of friends who shared a similar mission than I was when I lived at the Isaiah House.  It was an amazing, powerful and life changing experience of what is truly possible with a community of friends.  It is not for everyone, but aspects of it are for everyone.

Today we continue this series called Friending by looking at the community of friends we put around us.  This series as a whole has had one key thought:

Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

We’ve also had a key verse through this series:

Walk with the wise and become wise,
For a companion of fools suffers harm.
~Proverbs 13:10 NIV

You will either rise to the level of the wisdom of your friends or you will sink to the level of foolishness of your friends.  Today I want to take that to a community level.  And our key thought for today’s message is this:

You might be one community away from changing your destiny.

Our culture worships independence, but to be independent is to be distinctly non-Christian.  Rather we are to be dependent upon God and upon one another, in a community that is called the church.  Yes, we are to have a personal relationship with God in Jesus, but a personal relationship with God is incomplete.  We need a shared relationship with God.  We are built to experience the power, glory, beauty and love of God within the breadth of a community.  We may be able to be a child of the King by ourselves, but without a community, we will always be orphans of the king.

I’d like to begin our exploration of community today with a look at the early church as described in the book of Acts in the Bible.  The book of Acts picks up the story of the early church just after Jesus has ascended into heaven and passed off the leadership of the community he created to his closest followers and friends.  Here’s what happened:

Acts 2:42-46 NLT
All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity.

Wow!  Have you ever been in a community like that?  I don’t think that what we read about is a prescription for how every Christian is supposed to live, but wouldn’t it be powerful if you had a community like that?  This is a community centered around Christ, not your neighborhood, not the soccer league, not your local school.  You don’t stumble into a community like this, you intentionally create it with the love of Christ.  Today I’d like to look at three great qualities seen in the passage and other places in the Bible of any great community.

1.     A Great Community Shares Life
We read in Acts 2:44 that this community “shared everything they had” and they met each day in homes and around shared meals.  This is more than just an every-other-week small group.  This is more than a weekly small group.  This is a daily small group!  I think it’s important to point out that while I hold small groups at SCC with a very high value, I do not think they are the end goal of where we’re called as Christians to go.  Small groups create an environment for friendship to begin and to thrive.  But for true friendship and community to go to its deepest levels, it will likely begin in a small group and be nurtured beyond the small group.  The church as a whole creates the environment and fertile soil for this kind of friendship to grow, but it does not do all the heavy lifting of friendship for you.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet and talk with two friends in our church, Erin Umpstead and Lori Welch, whose friendship has really thrived because they both belong to this community called Sycamore Creek Church.  I’d like to introduce you to them.  Listen for the moments when a broader community of faith helped their friendship go deeper.

You probably know some people who could really use a community that would be fertile soil for significant life-changing friendships.  You probably know some people who need Sycamore Creek Church.  Coming up the first weekend of October (5th & 6th) we’re throwing a Farm and Zoo Day.  Farm Day is on Sunday at Lansing Christian School and Zoo Day is on Monday at Jackie’s Diner.  This weekend is a great opportunity for families to be introduced to SCC because it’s going to be fun for the whole family, filled with faith, and FREE!  Sunday we’ll have a petting zoo, antique tractor hay rides, a farmers market, a pie contest (bring your pie to enter the contest!), and lots of games for the whole family.  On Monday we’ll have docents from Potter Park Zoo who will have zoo animals that you can see and touch up close and personal.  What three friends do you know who need a spiritual community like SCC that you could invest some time in those families between now and Farm Day and pray for God to open a door to invite them?  Then when you see God open the door to invite them, be courageous enough to hand them a postcard about Farm Day.  Don’t keep SCC to yourself.  Share this community of faith with your friends around you who don’t have a church family.

I have had the fortunate opportunity of sharing life with one of the people I work with.  Many pastors don’t get to have staff that they are also friends with.  But I get the chance to be friends with all my staff. One friendship that has really become important to me is my friendship with Jeremy and Kristin Kratky.  Of course you know Jeremy as our worship leader, but I know Jeremy as my employee, friend, and godfather of my son, Sam.  I probably spend more time with Jeremy than any other person in my life besides my family.  But over the past five years Jeremy and I have take this friendship a step further with our families.  We’ve gone backpacking together.  We organized a Dad Kid Night Out group so we could spend time with our kids and other dads.  Our wives who both enjoy writing meet on the same night to write.  I always find it somewhat ironic that Jeremy and I go out to be social and talk about being dads while our wives get together to sit silently across from each other typing on their computers!  We asked Jeremy and Kristin to be the godparents of our youngest son Sam.  To us a godparent is someone who you invite to intentionally invest in the spiritual life of your child.  You give them a full green light to talk about God and Jesus and faith and whatever comes up.  We’ve even joked about arranging a marriage between our families!  It has been a friendship that thrives because we have this faith community around us.  Are you just showing up for worship on Sunday or Monday or are you sharing life beyond an hour a week in worship?  A great community shares life together

2.     Risk Vulnerability
A great community also risks vulnerability.  On the first week I mentioned that one of the two greatest needs of all friendships is to be authentic.  What is true of friendship is no less true of community.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books of the Bible wrote:

Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.
~Romans 15:7 NLT

A great community is open to not only the hopes and dreams of friends but also the fears and failures.  Earlier you met Erin and Lori.  I’d like you to hear about a time when Erin was particularly feeling like a failure and how Lori supported her through that time.

 

As I was growing up I attended a church that had a youth group about the size of SCC.  Yes, it was big.  I will never forget the night when Tim, one of the senior leaders I looked up to and the son of missionaries, stood up to the mic and shocked us all.  He confessed before a room full of teenagers that he struggled looking at pornography.  He did not go into great detail, but he was in that moment being more vulnerable in a community than I had ever experienced before.  Tim’s vulnerability and confession had a profound impact on me.  Later that week I got together with Tim and confessed to someone for the first time ever that I too looked at pornography.   It was a moment when the evil side of creation cringed: two young men being open with each other and vulnerable with each other in their failures.  That was the beginning of the end of pornography’s hold on me.  And it took place in a community where people were willing to risk vulnerability with each other.

I want you to notice something that happened in that moment.  One person risked vulnerability in community through confession of a sin.  But I did not respond inside the youth worship service itself.  I responded by getting together with Tim one-on-one.  Confession in community often leads to confession, but it does not always lead to confession right then and there.  Community is the soil in which vulnerability can grow.  I think this is true of small groups as well.  Oftentimes in a small group someone will share something very personal.  Others may really resonate with what was said but are not willing yet to share so publicly.  So don’t miss the opportunity that the community provides.  Set up some time outside of the small group to talk further.  Every great community risks vulnerability.

3.     We Fight Predators
Every great community shares life together.  Every great community risks vulnerability.  And every great community fights predators together.  Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers and friends, wrote:

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
~1 Peter 5:8 NLT

You’ve probably seen the video online called Battle at Kruger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM).  If not, it’s the scene of a herd of water buffalo attacked by a pride of lions.  The lions scatter the herd and pick off the most vulnerable water buffalo, the baby.  But the herd comes back in force and fights  back.  Eventually each lion is chased off by the herd and the baby water buffalo lives to see another day.  That’s a great image of how the enemy prowls around looking to pick off the vulnerable in our community.  Great communities fight off the enemy so that the vulnerable is not left to fight alone.

Let’s go back to Lori and Erin.  At a very vulnerable time in Lori’s life, she became deathly ill.  Listen for how Erin helps fight of the predators of illness, depression, isolation, and more.

 

Don’t fight cancer alone.  Don’t fight a financial crisis alone.  Don’t fight a struggle in your marriage alone.  When Micah was born I experienced a kind of male post partum depression where I really just wanted to smash Micah against the wall whenever he would cry.  I remember sitting in a reCRASH event at Grumpy’s Diner on a Saturday morning with Ben Shoemaker, Keith Cantrall, and John Brinkhuff and sharing what seemed like a very un-pastoral kind of thing to share: I wanted to kill my son.  They helped me fight off the predators of depression, anger, and frustration.  I went home from that time of being with a community of men better equipped for the challenges that faced me as a dad.  Great communities fight predators together, not alone.

My hope and dream for Sycamore Creek Church is that we would be that kind of community.  A community that shares life, risks vulnerability, and fights off predators.  I want those who don’t have a church family to say to themselves, “I don’t know that I get all this God stuff, all this Jesus stuff, but I want what they’ve got.  I want friends and community like they’ve got.”  Jesus says:

Everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another.
~John 13:35 NIV

So how do we build this kind of community here at SCC?  Here’s the answer: you have to be it to have it.  Be the kind of friend who does life with the community around you.  Be the kind of friend who risks vulnerability.  Be the kind of friend who fights off predators.  Make SCC great by being a great friend of this community.

I don’t know any better way to begin doing this than by joining a small group this fall.  We run our small groups on a semester basis.  When you sign up for a small group, you’re only signing up for the semester.  If it doesn’t work out, don’t drop small groups.  Just sign up for a different one next semester.  Small groups are like doctors.  Everyone needs a small group community, but not every small group is right for every person.  If you don’t like the doctor you’ve got, you don’t give up on medicine.  You find a new doctor.  Begin the journey of building a great community at SCC by joining up for a small group this fall.  You do so here online.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, you exist within your very being as a community of friendship with the Son and the Spirit.  Thank you for inviting us into that community and giving us a community here on earth called the church.  Help each one of us be the kind of friend that makes Sycamore Creek Church a great community.  In the name of Jesus, the founder and leader of our great community.  Amen.

* This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel.

 

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One Friend Away

September 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Friending – One Friend Away *
Sycamore Creek Church
September 14/15, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

We are in to week two of a series called Friending.  Our key thought for the series is this:

Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

Our key verse for the series comes from Proverbs:

Walk with the wise and become wise,
For a companion of fools suffer harm.
~Proverbs 13:20 NIV

You will rise to the level of wisdom of your friends or you will sink to the level of foolishness of your friends.  Which way do you want to go?

I think that many of us are longing for something more when it comes to our friends.  We think that there must be something more relationally than we are actually experiencing.  There’s a hole there that isn’t being filled.

Sociologists talk about three different kinds of poverty.

  1. Material Poverty
  2. Spiritual Poverty
  3. Relational Poverty

If you’ve ever been on one of our medical mission trips to Nicaragua, you’ll have experienced a progression that goes something like this.  On day one, you’re overwhelmed by what you see that the Nicaraguans don’t have.  By day 3 or 4, you’ll begin to wonder, “Why am I kind of jealous of these people?”  You’ll notice that they have very little material wealth, but they have spiritual and relational depth.  When you get back home you realize that you’ve got so much, but you’re missing something that Nicaraguans have.  And it is likely not someTHING but someONE that you’re missing.

Here’s our key thought for today:

You might be one friend away from changing the course of your destiny.

Now let me be really clear.  When I say one friend away from a changed life, I don’t necessarily mean that this friend will be like you or like all your other friends.  This friend may be very different than you.  Don’t just look for friends like you: your age, education, race, etc.

I’d like to introduce you to two friends in our church.  They are Mark and Justin.  Mark and Justin have a unique friendship.  I’ll  let them introduce themselves.

Mark & Justin Friendship – Intro

We’re going to walk with Mark and Justin throughout this sermon so don’t forget them.  But for now, did you notice how there were some similarities between them, but there was also one big difference: Justin might be young enough to be Mark’s son.  That hasn’t kept them from developing a friendship.  Don’t think that the friends who will change your life will necessarily be your age.

What I want to do today is share with you three types of friends that every person needs.  I’d like to do that by looking at three kinds of friends that King David had.  King David was one of the ancient kings of the nation of Israel, and much is written about him in the Bible.  So let’s dive in and see what we find.

1. Samuel: A Friend Who Makes You Better
Israel went through a period of development in their government.  They began with Moses and then eventually ended up with “judges” who were kind of like local tribal leaders.  This system didn’t work very well and the people wanted a king.  God eventually relented and gave them a king.  Samuel, a judge and prophet was tasked with anointing the first kind of Israel: Saul.  But Saul had problems.  He was insanely jealous, literally.  He probably had some mental breaks with reality and didn’t always follow the path that God wanted him to follow (although I have a side theory that Samuel wasn’t always willing to give up the power he possessed as a judge to let Saul lead).  So God asked Samuel to anoint a new king: David.

The story of how Samuel found David is worth studying in some depth.  God tells Samuel to go the house of Jesse to find the new king.  Jesse brings his oldest son to Samuel and he looks the part.  He’s a natural born leader.  But God is looking for something different than Samuel is looking for and rejects the first born son of Jesse.  So Samuel asks about other sons and here’s what happens.

1 Samuel 16:10-13 NLT
In the same way all seven of Jesse’s sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.”

“Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”

So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes.

And the Lord said, “This is the one; anoint him.”

So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah.

No one saw David as a potential king.  No one thought he was the kind of person who could be king.  But Samuel eventually saw him the way God saw him.  Samuel looked with the imagination of God on the heart of David and saw that David would be a king who would be pursuing God’s own heart and imagination for Israel.  Samuel saw that he could be more than just a youngest runt of a son watching sheep in the back forty.  He saw that he could be the king who would become known as the best king of all of ancient Israel.

Most of us have our friends by accident.  They’re the friends who happened to have a locker next to ours.  Or they shared a birthing class with us.  Or they have kids in your kid’s classroom.  But do they make you better?  What if you intentionally built a friendship with someone who saw you the way God sees you?  What if you built a friendship with someone who imagined your life the way God imagined your life?  Mark and Justin have been that kind of friend to one another.

Mark & Justin – Make You Better Video

Do you have someone in your life who helps make your life better in the things that matter most?  Who makes your marriage better?  Your kids better?  Your learning better?  Your health better?  (Brad Kalajainen, the pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in Michigan, asked me one of the first times we met whether I was exercising.  It was an important question for the future of my well being as a pastor, dad, husband, and friend.).  Do you have friends who are making you a better leader in your field?  What about your finances?  Do you have friends who are helping you make wiser decisions in your stewardship of your money?  What about like Justin and Mark talked about, your character?

Of course, God not only wants you to have friends who make you better in this way, but God wants to use you to make others better as well.

As Iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Proverbs 27:17 NLT

So do you and your friends make one another better?

2. Jonathan: A Friend Who Helps You Find Spiritual Strength
So David was anointed to be king, but Saul wasn’t so quick to give up his kingship.  David became a war hero and the people sang a song saying, “Saul has killed his thousands, David his tens of thousands.”  Saul becomes jealous and plans to kill David.  But Saul has a son named Jonathan who sacrifices his own route to the throne to support his friend, David.

One day near Horesh, David received the news that Saul was on the way to Ziph to search for him and kill him. 16 Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God.
~1 Samuel 23:15-16 NLT

What friends do you have who encourage you to stay strong in your faith in God?  Most of you will probably remember how close we came to remodeling a rental on Cedar Street in Holt and moving our Sunday morning worship to that space.  I invested a lot in that project: time, energy, leadership, prayers.  We voted on it and it passed with about a 90% approval.  But then the whole thing unraveled in the next several days and the landlord pulled out.  I had planned a trip to Chicago that next weekend because I had imagined that I would be pretty tied down with all that it would take to get into that building and wouldn’t have the time to get away for a while.  When it all fell through, we decided to still go out of town for the weekend, but I left Lansing about as discouraged as I have been as your pastor.  I felt like I was getting ready to sit in a chair, and at the last moment someone yanked the chair out from behind me, and I crashed to the floor.

Sarah and I had planned to spend the weekend with her college roommate, Chloe and Chloe’s husband Mark.  They had just bought a house and were sharing it with us as a kind of retreat away from home.  Over dinner the first night I shared about our frustrating situation with this building.  After listening Mark and Chloe asked if I was familiar with their own similar experience.  Their church, Church of the Resurrection, had put close to $750,000 into a potential land purchase for a new building when the township vote did not pass.  They too were devastated as a church, but about three years later they were able to move into another building that is working just fine for their mission.  They encouraged me to hang in there and rely on God and God’s provision.  I left the time with them and came back to Lansing refreshed and ready to do what needed to be done to move us into God’s future.  They were exactly the friends I needed in that moment to encourage me spiritually.  And now we sit on the edge of a possible purchase of another building that looks like it will work in some amazing ways to accomplish our mission.

Let me make a suggestion for you about how to be a spiritual support to your friends:  Think like a pastor!  Pray for them (I keep a list of my favorite prayers to share when the need arises).  Send them scripture.  Bless them.  Lay hands on them when you pray for them.  Hand-write notes of encouragement.  Think like a pastor and give your friends spiritual support.  God wants to use you to help others find spiritual strength.

3.     Nathan: A Friend Who Tells You the Truth
The third kind of friend David had was a friend who could tell him the truth even when it hurt.  David was a “man after God’s own heart,” but he took his eyes off God and put them on Bathsheba.  She was out washing on the roof of her house one day and David spied her from his palace window.  He sent for her and slept with her.  When she became pregnant, he had her husband sent to the front lines of the battle so that he would be killed.

David thinks he has gotten away with this, but one day Nathan shows up and tells him a story.  A poor man has one ewe lamb that he adores.  A rich man comes by and sees it.  The rich man takes the ewe lamb for himself.  In righteous anger, David says that this man should be brought to justice.  Nathan responds, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:17 NRSV).

David could have done several things in that moment, but he chose to humble himself and repent.  Out of that time of humility came one of the most beautiful psalms in the Bible: Psalm 51.  Psalm 51 is traditionally considered David’s prayer of confession.

How often do you have someone in your life who tells you the truth about yourself?  How often are you open to hearing the truth about yourself?  Let’s get back to Mark and Justin who have a unique friendship where Justin has to regularly hear the truth about himself from Mark.

Video Mark & Justin – Telling the Truth

When was the last time you had a friend who loved you enough to tell you, “Don’t go there.”  When was the last time you had a friend who loved you enough to tell you that they saw some unhelpful patterns in your life?  A couple of months ago I had a friend ask if they could meet with me.  We found a time that worked.  A day or so before we met this friend sent me some thoughts written down about some unhelpful patterns they were seeing in my life.  It took great courage to share this with me.  What they were noticing was that I was displaying a pattern of not listening to people.  It wasn’t easy to hear (no pun intended), but after the sting to my pride wore off I was thankful for this brave friend risking to tell me the truth.  I’ve since been putting a plan into action of practicing more active listening skills.  (Speaking of active listening skills, you might consider signing up for the Caring and Listening Skills small group this summer!).  I’ve been practicing both with the staff and with the Lead Team.  During each meeting I hold a little 3×5 card that has one word written on it: paraphrase.  I’m trying to listen better.  After each staff meeting and after each lead team meeting one person in that meeting takes five or ten minutes to review the meeting with me and reflect on how I did paraphrasing and active listening.  It has been a very helpful exercise, and I believe those around me are seeing me take a proactive role in listening.  I haven’t arrived yet, but I’m on the path because a friend took the risk to tell me the truth.

For the majority of you, your friends are not going to lead you to jail, but they will lead you to more of the same.  What’s more of the same?  Lukewarm half-hearted commitment to God.  A self-centered life all about you.  Accumulating things that will never satisfy.  When the highlight of your life is going to a football game or a three-day weekend, you know something’s wrong, but you don’t know what it is because that’s all you see around you.

You may be one friend away from, being a better parent, being more generous, overcoming an addiction, taking better care of your body so that you live ten more years to invest in your grandchildren, investing in the church to change people’s lives, waking up with divine purpose and living into a higher calling, meeting the risen savior, Jesus Christ.

So what do you need to have these kinds of friends?  One simple thing: be that kind of friend.

  1. Make others better
  2. Encourage others spiritually
  3. Tell others the truth

Prayer
Jesus, friend of sinners, our hearts burn to have real true friends.  Give us the intentionality we need to seek out friends who will make us better, friends who will encourage us spiritually, and friends who will tell us the truth.  Give us the courage to be a friend who makes others better, to be a friend who supports those around us spiritually, and to be a friend who tells the truth.  May we be the kind of friend to others that you are to us.  In the power of your Spirit, Amen.

* This sermon is based on a sermon originally preached by Craig Groeschel.

 

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The Foundation of Friendship

September 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Friending – The Foundation of Friendship*
Sycamore Creek Church
September 7/8, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Recently I’ve been making a new friend named Chad.  Chad is the director of the Peppermint Creek Theater Company.  He’s an actor, director, and also an entrepreneur in the arts.  I found out something really interesting about Chad.  Chad’s claim to fame is that he auditioned for…here it comes…Saved by the Bell!  Yes, Saved by the Bell!  That cheesy 90s teenage sitcom.  And he made it pretty far into the audition process.  Chad almost made it into a very elite group of friends.  Zach, Slater, Screech.  Jessie, Kelley, Lisa.  He could have been one of those friends!

Chad mentioned to me recently how friendship is kind of like an audition.  Peppermint Creek Theater runs their auditions every summer for the entire next season.  A host of actors and actresses try out for several roles in one of the many plays over the next year.  Directors are looking for just the right person to join their play.  But besides the right chemistry, there are two other things they’re looking for.  Are they available for all the rehearsals and what are they willing and not willing to do?  If an actor can only make half the rehearsals, then they’re not going to make the cut.  And if an actress isn’t willing to kiss someone (as a recent actress wasn’t because she felt it would disrespect her husband), then the director can’t cast them in a roll with kissing.  Friendship is similar.  How available are you?  How open are you?

I’m really excited about this series we’re entering because it has the potential to be the most significant series this year to impact your life.  We’ll be talking about friendship over the next four weeks.  If you get your friends right, it can orient your life in godly ways.  If you get your friends wrong, well, the opposite can be true.

Here’s a key thought for this entire series:

You show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

The book of Proverbs in the Bible describes our future this way:

Walk with the wise and become wise;
associate with fools and get in trouble.
~Proverbs 13:20 NLT

If you hang out with people who are wiser than you, you’ll become wiser.  If you hang out with people who have a better marriage than you, your marriage will improve.  If you hang out with people who handle their money with care, you’ll begin to handle your money with care.  We rise to the level of the friends we have around us.

But if you hang out with people who are party idiots, you’ll become a party idiot.  If you hang out with people who always whip out their credit card with no regard to how they’ll pay for what they’re buying, you’ll bury yourself with debt too.  If you hang out with someone who gossips about their husband or complains about their wife, you’ll soon be gossiping about your husband or complaining about your wife.  These fools will drag you down. You see, we rarely grow alone.  We also rarely get in trouble alone.

I think it’s safe to say that we are the average of our closest friends.  If you partied last night, you probably had three or four friends who were partying too.  If you were stoned last night, you probably had three or four friends who were stoned too.  If you are seeking God, you probably have three or four friends who are seeking God too.  Same thing with your marriage, your finances, what you eat, and your health in general.  You are the average of your closest friends.

Take a moment and list your closest friends.  Right now.  Stop.  Write them down…Not your spouse, your dog, or your imaginary friend.  I’m talking about the people you can call at 2AM.  The people who you can be authentic and transparent with your hopes and dreams but also your fears and failures.  How many people did you write down?

Before we go any further, let’s define friendship.

A friend is someone you may or may not know well who accepts your friend request on Facebook.  This person is born to like and comment on your posts to make you feel good about yourself.
~Proverbs 17:17 FBV (Facebook Version)

No that’s not really in the Bible.  Here’s what the Bible says:

Friends love through all kinds of weather,
and families stick together in all kinds of trouble.
~Proverbs 17:17 (The Message)

What would your life look like if you had a handful of friends like this?  That stayed with you for decades?  Sociologist Lynn Smith-Lovin, professor of sociology at Duke University, has found that since 1985, our number of friends has shrunk.  “The evidence shows that Americans have fewer confidants and those ties are also more family-based than they used to be” (Lynn Smith-Lovin, Professor of Sociology at Duke University

Here are the details of her research as published in the American Sociological Review.  Compared to 1985 there has been a 33% drop in number of close confidants, an 80% increase in spouse/partner only confidants, a 40% increase in family only confidants, and a 100% increase in no confidants!

Our friendships are getting fewer and fewer.  Why is this?  Increased work hours are crowding out friendships.  Longer drive times are doing the same.  Isolated entertainment options like watching shows on your iPad rather than the TV or the movie theater are keeping us from developing deep friendships.  Rising divorce rates break apart friendships.  When a couple divorces they divide their stuff and this often includes friendships.  And or course, we can’t neglect the rise of social media.

Social Media is redefining the way we think of friendship.  We have more friends and more people giving us advice, but our friendships are not nearly as deep as they once were.  Ten years ago you would never have considered picking up your phone and calling every friend you had to tell them about what you had for breakfast and then posting a picture of your oatmeal with the perfect filter to make it look professional.  We are becoming less invested in friends and more invested in how we appear.  Consider the rise of selfies.  We post these things and then we sit around and wait for it…wait for it…wait for it…YES!  SOMEONE LIKED IT!  Now don’t get me wrong.  If you are one of my 900 friends on Facebook, you know that I love sharing stuff on Facebook.  But we need to use social media to supplement our friendships, not replace them.  We have more “likes” and Facebook friends and we’re more isolated and alone than we have ever been.

Throughout this series, I hope to help you correct this isolation.  Today we’re looking at the foundation of friendship.  Next week we’ll be looking at how each of us may be one friend away from our lives changing.  The third week we’ll look at being one community away from changing our lives.  And we’ll wrap it all up asking whether there aren’t some friends that we need to unfriend!

So with our time left today I want to look at two things that are absolutely essential for friendship.  These are the greatest needs of friendship.  You might call this rediscovering the lost art of friendship.

Be Present
First, you can’t build friendships without being present.  Aristotle said, “The desire for friendship comes quickly. Friendship does not.”  You have to be present over and over again with your friends.  Face to face!  You can’t audition for the role of friend and only show up for half the rehearsals.  Say it with me: “I will develop my friendships face to face, not just thumbs to thumbs.”  I don’t mean belly button to belly button.  That’s only with your spouse!  I mean get together with your friends.  Coffee.  Walks.  Bikes.  Meals.  Whatever floats your boat.  Do life together.  Jesus said, “Follow me.”  Now he didn’t mean that by Twitter standards.  He meant, come and spend your life learning how to do life together with me.

The author of Hebrews puts it this way:

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing together.
~Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV

This month we’re beginning to focus on the small groups that we’ll be offering this fall.  My own experience leading a small group is that it starts out with a bang.  Lots of people.  Lots of enthusiasm.  Lots of potential.  But over time people stop coming.  I never know quite why.  But a group may begin with fifteen people but by the last meeting it’s down to five regulars.  Those five regulars are the ones who have prioritized friendship in their life.  They’re the ones who have not neglected meeting together.

As I have been preparing for this series over the last several months I’ve noticed something about myself.  I tend not to prioritize friendships.  I prioritize two, maybe three things: work, family, and self.  But I noticed that my friendships get pushed to the periphery of my life.  So I did what I do when I want to prioritize something.  I put it on my daily to do list.   Yes, I know I’m a geek.  But if I want to make sure I spend time on something, I put it on my to do list and write it in my calendar.  So each day I ask myself, “Have I planned some time with friends this week?”

One friend I’ve begun to invest more time in is Bill Chu.  If you’ve been around here lately you’ve met Bill, because he has preached a couple of times at SCC.  Now Bill and I have spent a lot of time together doing work related things.  We strategize about ministry and mission all the time.  But we had never done anything together without talking shop.  So I called up Bill one day and said, “Bill, let’s go out on a man-date.  Do something fun together.  Don’t talk at all about church or ministry.  What do you like to do?”  After some back and forth ruling out this and that thing, we settled on going to the Broad Museum.  You might call it a “broadmance.”  Yes, two guys going to an art museum to talk about art is rather unconventional, but you’ve got a geeky guy as your pastor.  Sorry.  Accept it.  We had a great time.  Best thing about it all: we didn’t even talk about church once!  I went home and checked “friendship” off my to do list.  No!  I put it back on my to do list.  When can Bill and I get together again?

How are you prioritizing friendship in your life?  A simple way to do it: join a small group this fall and prioritize your time to actually show up all semester long.

Be Authentic
Too many of us have shallow friendships because we don’t open up.  We’re not transparent or vulnerable with those around us.  Now I’m not saying you’ve got to spill your guts to every person who walks by or every person in the church, but do you have at least one or two or more friends who know not only your business but also your secrets?

Do you know that there’s a new phobia popping up?  It’s a fear of talking on the phone.  The phone rings and you let it go to voicemail.  Then you text them back.  You may even just now realize that you’ve got this fear.  I even feel it a little bit sometimes!  What’s this fear all about?  It’s because when we actually talk to someone we can’t control it.  But when we send a text, we can control the conversation.  But being authentic means giving up some control.  Facebook gives you the false impression of being authentic but our posts and our pictures are very calculated.  We each are building a carefully crafted brand on Facebook.  I’m not saying this is wrong.  I’m saying that this isn’t true authentic friendship.

James, the brother of Jesus, said:

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
~James 5:16 NLT

Did you catch that?  Confess your sins?  Admit your weaknesses.  Admit the places where you’ve messed up and screwed up.  We may impress people with our strengths, but we connect with people through our weaknesses.

Back to my bromance with Bill Chu.  Bill and I had a meeting scheduled one day to talk about some ministry strategy.  I don’t even really remember what happened that morning, but I called him barely holding it together.  I said, “I don’t have it in me emotionally to talk about what we planned to talk about, but I’d still really appreciate getting together to talk.”  Again, I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT EMOTIONS I WAS DEALING WITH, but what I do remember was the powerful feeling of having a friend that I could open up to about what I was really struggling with, a friend who would listen, and then point me back to God.

Where do you have friends who you can be authentic with?  Are those friends receiving you as you are, showing you compassion, and then pointing you back to God?  If your closest friends are not pursuing God, then you are likely not pursuing God.

So what do you need to do today?  Put friendship on your to do list.  Spend some time with friends this week.  Face to face.  And then open up and be authentic.  It may be the most important thing you do this week.

Prayer
God, we all need friends.  Thank you for sending your Spirit to invite each one of us into the friendship with you.  May your Spirit open up doors to old and new friends here on earth that can point us back to you.  In the name of Jesus, amen.

*This sermon series are based on a sermon series by Craig Groeschel.

 

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Friendship with Self: A Series on the Book of James

June 1, 2010 by

Friendship with Self

Friendship with Self: A Series on the Book of James
Sycamore Creek Church
James 1:1-4
Tom Arthur
May 30, 2010

Peace, Friends!

Does anyone like watching sunsets?  Before I went to seminary, Sarah and I lived in Petoskey for eight years and had the opportunity to see many amazing sunsets.  Petoskey is one of the best places to watch sunsets.  Petoskey is on what is called the sunset side of the state as compared to the eastern shore on Lake Huron which is called the sunrise side of the state.  Ironically enough, the name “Petoskey” comes from Chief Petosega, the son of a wealthy French fur trader and an Odawa princess, and means “Rising Sun.”  There is a park in Petoskey called “Sunset Park,” and it is perched over the waterfront up on an old quarry cliff.  From this vantage point one can easily and perfectly see the sun over the marina and all the rigging of sail boats right in the middle of the Little Traverse Bay.  Here the “sun comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy and runs his course with joy” (Psalm 19).  Many nights Sarah and I have gotten Kilwin’s ice-cream and spent the last hours of the day simply watching the sun go down.

Another interesting feature of Petoskey are the clouds.  There are about an equal number of sunny days in the year as there are cloudy days.  Unfortunately most of the cloudy days congregate in the winter and most of the sunny days gather together in the summer.  Generally speaking, clouds in our culture symbolize trouble.  They hint at or forecast rain or even great storms.  Sarah and I sailed with a friend for ten days from Northern Michigan to Up-state New York.  It seemed we were always trying to outrun a front of clouds and storms.  It also seemed like we were always losing that race.  One time we made it into a harbor just as the clouds burst forth both rain and lightning.  We hunkered down as the winds blew the boat to and fro.  Soon we found ourselves aground in the harbor.  Clouds were not something we looked forward to.  In fact, there’s even a disorder based on the clouds.  It’s called “SAD” or seasonal affective disorder. When some people go so many cloudy days, then they become depressed.  There is a high rate of SAD in Northern Michigan.

Now here’s the odd thing about clouds and sunsets that I began to notice after eight years of watching them: it’s the clouds that make the sunset.  If there are no clouds in the sky when the sun sets, it can be beautiful, but when there are clouds in the sky as the sun sets, the sunset is often spectacular!  The clouds make the sunset.  The clouds provide the character for the light of the sun to make beautiful.

Consider these pictures I’ve taken in various places.  Here is a picture of the sun setting in Petoskey over the break wall.  Beautiful.

Petoskey Marina

But here’s a picture of the same Little Traverse Bay and sunsets with clouds.  Stunning!

Little Traverse Bay

I also love backpacking and seen many sunsets from a campsite.  Here’s a picture I took while on Grand Island in the Upper Peninsula looking out over Lake Superior.  It’s a beautiful sunset.

Grand Island

But here’s a picture on a trip with the same group of guys, several years later, on Charlie’s Bunion along the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in North Carolina.  This time the sunset has clouds.  Incredible!

Charlie's Bunion

The same phenomenon happens no matter where you’re at in the world.  While traveling in the Middle East I took this picture from the top of a crusader castle in Palmyra, Syria.  The sun was setting over the vast desert.  Not a cloud in sight. It was a beautiful sunset.

Palmyra

But here’s a picture from the same trip.  This time from Hydra Island looking out over the Mediterranean Sea.  Clouds are in this sunset.  Magnificent!

Hydra Island

You see, it’s the clouds that make the sunset.  It’s the things in our atmosphere that we consider to be negative, that give us trouble that actually give the sunset its beautiful character.  The clouds make the sunset.

I think this same basic idea is present in the book of James when he talks about the trials and troubles that come our way.  Listen for this same basic concept as I read the very beginning of the book of James

James 1:1-4

1 This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is written to Jewish Christians scattered among the nations. Greetings!

2 Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. 3 For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.

This is God’s story, God’s teaching for us today.  Thank you, God!

Did you catch how James sees the clouds making the sunset?  Trouble should equal joy, because joy equals endurance and endurance equals growth and growth equals maturity.  This is what it means to grow in your friendship with yourself: to grow in maturity.

James is very interested throughout his whole book in the idea and process of maturity.  The Greek word behind maturity is “teleios” and it shows up five different times in the book of James.  The old-school way of translating “teleios” was “perfection.”  Perfection?  Can we really reach perfection?  That’s a pretty crazy idea.  Perhaps “maturity” is a better way to understand teleios.  Let’s walk through James and see what exactly James means by perfection or maturity.

First, maturity is a gift from God.  James says, “Whatever is good and perfect [teleios] comes to us from God above, who created all heaven’s lights. Unlike them, he never changes or casts shifting shadows” (1:17, NLT).  Maturity isn’t so much about something we do but about what God does in us.  When I first started exploring this issue of maturity or perfection, I asked my grandmother what she thought about it all.  She was a woman that I looked up to in terms of her faith.  Our initial conversation was on the phone, and I was so struck by what she had to say that I asked her to write it down for me.  She wrote me a letter to tell me about it.  Here’s what she said:

My witness to God’s sanctifying power.

Jesus took our 7-year old son, John Paul in death in 1951.  John Paul had been ill 5 months with meningitis.  We sat by his bed side many hours, talking, reading to him and playing records.  He had loved the Christmas records.  One day we were listening to “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.”  He had been in a coma for days.  As the record played he said, “Joyful and triumphant.”  I said, “Oh!  John Paul, where have you been?”  He said, “I have been in my own fair home and you weren’t there.”

From that time on he seemed to improve, could set up and be in a walker that had a seat.

One Sunday morning, as Paul [her husband] was preparing for church, John Paul asked, “Where is my Daddy.”  Paul went to him so he would know his Daddy was there.

When Paul returned from church he saw something was wrong.  I rushed to him and spoke his name.  He heard me for he said, “Here,” and he was gone.  God took him from our care.

After this I wanted more than ever to be ready for heaven.  We had written on his grave stone—Heaven is nearer since he entered there.

I prayed and read the Bible more seeking more of God.  Paul was working.  Judy [my mom, and her oldest and now only child] was in first grade so I had time alone.  In searching I learned that the Holy Spirit was the gift of God to believers.  All I needed to do was to accept the gift holiness [perfection/maturity].  As I believed that instant I felt a gentle warming of my body from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet and I knew that the Holy Spirit had entered my life.  [On the phone she told me that had happened while she was washing the windows.]

Were there any changes?  Only that I knew I was renewed in spirit and there was a desire to serve and labor for the Lord.  The church gave us plenty to do.

I know that this gift of the Holy Spirit doesn’t come in such feeling to every one.  I remember asking my mother how she knew she was sanctified.  She said it was just the knowledge that she was committed completely to the Lord [perfection/maturity]…

Mary White

Two things I think worth noticing in this letter are that she considered the gift of maturity, complete commitment to the Lord, a gift that comes from the Holy Spirit.  The second is that this gift came during a time of intense trial, trouble, and suffering.  Maturity is a gift, and according to James, this gift often comes in times of trouble.

Second, maturity is a completeness that lacks nothing.  James says, “And let endurance have its full [teleios] effect, so that you may be mature [teleios] and complete, lacking in nothing” (1:4, NRSV).  I mentioned earlier that I went on a ten-day sailing trip with a friend from Northern Michigan to upstate New York.  This trip was filled with all kinds of clouds, literally.  We began in Lake Michigan and then sailed down Lake Huron into Lake St. Clair.  From there we sailed east through Lake Erie.  We by-passed Niagara Falls by way of the Welland Canal.  We finished our trip in Lake Ontario.  By the end of those ten days and the troubles we had encountered, we were more prepared to meet the same troubles again.  I don’t know that I was out long enough and encountered so many troubles that I am yet to the point of lacking nothing when it comes to sailing (in fact, I know that I am not because the next summer I ran another friend’s sailboat aground!), but I am a more “mature,” more “perfect” sailor than I was when I began.  Perfect maturity is a completeness that lacks nothing.  Growing in maturity is a process of growing in that direction.

Third, maturity perseveres in doing good.  James says, “But those who look into the perfect [teleios] law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing” (1:25, NRSV).  In other words, you may not feel like doing good, but as you grow in maturity you no longer are controlled by your feelings.  Maturity is knowing the good that needs to be done and doing it no matter what you feel like doing.  When you do what is good even when you don’t feel like it, when you persevere, you receive a blessing.  How many of you have ever come to church when you didn’t feel like it and left glad that you came?  One time I was planning a hike with a friend on the John Muir trail in Yosemite.  We were going to hike 55 miles over five days.  One of those days included sixteen miles and 2500 feet of elevation.  Did I mention that my friend is also an Ironman?  Yes, he swam 2.4 miles, rode 112 miles on his bike, and ran a 26 mile marathon all in one day.  You know what I had to do to be ready for this trip?  Train.  Hard!  When I began I could barely go ten minutes on a Stairmaster.  By the time I was done I could easily stay on the Stairmaster for an hour or more.   I did not particularly feel like or want or enjoy training almost every day for six months for that hike, but when I finally hit the trail, I was more prepared for a hike than I had ever been.  The best part about it was that I seriously enjoyed the hiking.  Yes, I was sore at the end of every day, but by the morning I had completely recuperated.  I persevered in training and received the blessing of the joy of the trail, the joy of being outside.  Maturity perseveres in doing good no matter what you feel like.

Fourth, it is worth pointing out one thing that maturity is not.  It is not absolute perfection where you never make mistakes.  James says, “All of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect [teleios], able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle” (3:2, NRSV).  There is a tension, I think, in this verse.  On the one hand James says that making no mistakes in speaking is perfection, but this comes on the heels of him having just said that all of us make many mistakes!  So which is it?  Mistakes or no mistakes? I think what he’s saying is that we all make mistakes, and we can grow in making fewer and fewer mistakes with our tongues.  When I first talked to my grandmother on the phone about perfection and maturity, I asked her if she ever made mistakes after she had received this gift of the Holy Spirit of complete devotion to the Lord.  She said that she certainly did make mistakes, and that she had to ask for forgiveness for them all.  The difference seemed to be that she did not intentionally seek to disobey God or hurt others, but she still made mistakes.

Maturity for James is a gift of God that brings one to a place of maturity by way of endurance through trials and trouble so that one perseveres in the good works of loving one’s neighbor as oneself.

Perhaps this morning, you’re saying to me, “Tom, I get it.  I see that clouds make the sunset.  The troubles in our lives are like clouds upon which the sun of God’s grace can shine and create character.  Let me tell you though.  I’ve go so much trouble that the sky of my life is entirely overcast.  The light of the sun can’t even shine through.  God has forgotten me.”

I agree.  Sometimes there are so many troubles in our lives that we can’t see any of God’s grace.  Sometimes it really looks like God has forgotten us, but did you know that when the sky is entirely overcast, that there is a sunset on the other side, above the clouds?  You may not be able to see it, but from another perspective, from God’s perspective, something amazing is happening.  The clouds make the sunset, and occasionally only God can see it.

Sunset Above the Clouds

O merciful Father, who has taught us in your holy Word that you do not willingly afflict or grieve the children of humanity: Look with pity upon the sorrows of your servants for whom our prayers are offered.  Remember us, O Lord, in mercy , nourish our souls with patience, comfort us with a sense of your goodness, lift up your countenance upon us, and give us peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

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Friendship with Community

May 17, 2010 by

Friendship with Community

Friendship with Community: A Series in the Book of James
Sycamore Creek Church
James 1:9-11 & 27
Tom Arthur
May 16, 2010

Peace, friends!

What is of lasting significance in your life? And what kinds of things tend to clutter that out? Today we’re continuing in a series on friendship. Our guide for the series is James, the brother of Jesus. James writes a letter that gives very practical guidance to those who would seek to follow Jesus. He also answers this question about lasting significance. Let’s see what he has to say.

James 1:9-11 & 27 (NLT)

9 Christians who are poor should be glad, for God has honored them. 10 And those who are rich should be glad, for God has humbled them. They will fade away like a flower in the field. 11 The hot sun rises and dries up the grass; the flower withers, and its beauty fades away. So also, wealthy people will fade away with all of their achievements…27 Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.

James is pretty clear about what exactly is of lasting significance and what gets in the way of it. Friendships within community are lasting. Then there’s a whole lot of other stuff that gets in the way. He adds a little later:

Look here, you people who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog — it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.
(James 4:13-14, NLT).

James isn’t so big on the clutter of things like money and profit. He reminds his readers that these things are like fog. In the movie Australia Nicole Kidman plays a wealthy wife going to visit her husband’s outback ranch. She flies into Australia and meets the man who is going to drive her to the ranch. His name is Drover. She’s got more luggage and stuff than anyone really needs in the outback. Drover piles it onto his truck and they begin their long journey through the outback. During the trip they have the following conversation:

Drover: I’m a driver. Right? I move the cattle from A to B. Alright, I work on commission. No man hires me and no man fires me. Everything I own I can fit in my saddlebag which is why I like it.
Lady Ashley: Yes, well, it’s all very outback adventure, isn’t it?
Drover: I’m not saying it’s for everyone.
Lady Ashley: No, definitely not for everyone.
Drover: Most people like to own things. You know land, luggage, other people. Makes them feel secure. But all that can be taken away. And in the end, the only thing you really own is your story. Just trying to live a good one.
Lady Ashley: Yes, yes. An adventure story. Mmm. You sound just like my husband.
Lady Ashley is more interested in stuff at this point than where the story of her life is going. The story of her friendships seems cluttered out by the stuff that she’s carrying along with her.

James makes it very clear that stuff and money aren’t of lasting significance. Back in the passage we began with he says: “The hot sun rises and dries up the grass; the flower withers, and its beauty fades away. So also, wealthy people will fade away with all of their achievements” (James 1:11, NLT). How much money disappeared overnight in each of the various economic bubbles over the last several decades? $5,000,000,000,000 (five trillion) was lost in the dot com bubble (http://www.fsteurope.com/news/when-the-bubble-burst/). How about the housing bubble? The economic impact is still being explored and no one is quite sure, but what we do know is that money was here one day and gone the next.

James is talking about wealthy people, but I wonder if we might not also speak about wealthy churches. This is a phenomenon I think goes unnoticed most of the time. What is of lasting significance for wealthy churches? What clutters that out? I’d like to suggest that it is friendship with community that is of lasting significance for all churches. How are we using our money both individually and corporately? Are we using our money to bless or oppress? Once again, James focuses on money saying, “For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The wages you held back cry out against you. The cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty” (Text: James 5:4, NLT).

Anybody holding back wages from anyone? It’s easy to let ourselves off the hook on this one, but consider the way that we spend our money. Our culture has a fascination, an obsession, with buying everything as cheaply as possible. This is one reason we love big box stores like Meijer, Walmart, Target, Kmart, and so on. When you go to a smaller store you pay more. So we tend to choose the bigger stores so we can save some money, but do you ever think about how the people who are working there are getting paid? One of the reasons those stores are able to sell things so inexpensively is because they’re rarely paying a living wage to their workers. Our desire to buy cheap often has a dark side: withholding good wages from those who work at these stores.

Several years ago a journalist named Barbara Ehrenreich attempted to live on the minimum wage and found it nearly impossible. She wrote about her experience in the book, Nickel and Dimed. An interesting musical documentary highlighted this experience in a unique way. In this documentary a banker notices for the first time all the people who work at the places where he shops. He notices how little they get paid for the work that they do. The scene can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDgFiW2xtf0.

One way to reflect on this is to consider how much you tip. Once upon a time back in the good ole days a young boy went in to a diner to order some ice cream. The waitress came to the table and asked him what he wanted. He asked how much an ice cream sundae cost. She said it cost 50 cents. He looked at the change he had in his hand and counted it. The waitress got a little impatient as he counted. She could see people lining up at the door. Finally the boy asked how much plain ice cream was. She said that plain ice cream costs 35 cents. He said that he’d like the plain ice cream, so she went and got the ice cream for him. After he ate it and paid, the waitress came back to the table and was surprised to find laying on it two nickels and five pennies. The boy had enough for the ice cream sundae but not enough for the ice cream sundae and a generous (40%!) tip.

Too often we nickel and dime those who serve us rather than giving them a generous full wage. We clutter out friendship with the community so that we can simply have more stuff.

So what if we use our money to bless rather than oppress? What would that look like? James says, “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us” (James 1:27, NLT). To take care of the vulnerable in our community, to be friends with them is what it means to use our money to bless rather than oppress.

But even here in our own churches we sometimes fall back into the trap of oppressing rather than blessing. James says, “Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well” — but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?” (James 2:15-16, NLT). Notice that James is talking about “brothers” and “sisters.” That is code language for fellow Christians, those who worship together. Surely we never do this. Or do we?

Dotty and I were meeting for lunch a couple of weeks ago and reflecting together on what she does each week. If you’re in the first service you may not even know this, but Dotty picks up women from the Rescue Mission women’s shelter every Sunday and brings them to worship with her. Sometimes she’s got as many as five or six women with her. Because the shelter isn’t open again until later in the afternoon she has to drop them off somewhere after church is over. She would like to give them a meal of some sort, and sometimes she does, but she doesn’t have the money to always do this. It struck us both that what was happening here was that we were saying to these women in worship, “God bless you”, and then dropping them off and saying, “Stay warm and eat well”! What would it look like if different members of our church took these women out to eat after church every Sunday? What would it look like if members of our church invited these women to their homes for a meal after church on Sunday? Now we’re talking about real blessing and not just talk. Now we’re talking about real friendship with the community, and we don’t even have to go outside our church to find it!

James reminds us of Jesus quoting the book of Leviticus when James says, “Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s royal command found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (James 2:8, NLT). What if we all picked someone up for church who didn’t have a car and then had them over for lunch? Then we’d say “God Bless” and we’d be loving our neighbor too.

In essence, I think that what James is teaching us is that friendship with the community is friendship with God. Friendship with the vulnerable especially, the orphans and the widows and their modern day counterparts, is friendship with God. Your spiritual growth, your worship of God, and your friendship with God is intimately tied to the way that you spend your money to care for the vulnerable and have friendship with the community. Let’s make that all corporate too. Our spiritual growth as a church, our worship of God, and our friendship with God is intimately tied to the way that we spend our money to care for the vulnerable and have friendship with the community.

The Shepherd of Hermas, a very early second century Christian guidebook, sums this all up well saying, “Instead of fields, buy souls that are in trouble, according to your ability. Look after widows and orphans. Do not neglect them. Spend your riches on these kinds of fields and houses.” In other words, have friendship with the community so that you can have friendship with God.

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Friendship with God

May 4, 2010 by

Friendship with God
Friendship with God: A Series in the Book of James
Sycamore Creek Church
James 2:14-26
Tom Arthur
May 2, 2010

Peace, Friends!

Friends.  What makes a good friend?  Is it someone who says they’re your friend or someone who acts like your friend?  And what does a friend act like?  I have a great friend from college named Bill.  Bill and I both graduated in 1997, and while our paths split, we continued to keep in touch with one another.  Amazingly, our paths came back together in 2005 when I decided to attend seminary in Durham, NC.  Bill was working as a psychologist in Durham, and we decided that living in the same town provided too many opportunities to build our friendship to pass up.  But we realized that if we weren’t intentional about it, those years of living in the same town would come and go and we’d say, “We sure wished we had spent more time together.”  Spending time together.  That’s what friends do, isn’t it?  So Bill and I set a day each day of the week to get together in the morning for coffee.  Out of the four years I was there, we probably made 70% of those man-dates.  Pretty good if you ask me.  During those conversations over coffee we’d also come up with plans for getting together on the weekend or for backpacking trips in the North Carolina mountains.  We’d talk about our marriages and our future plans and our careers and vocations.  We’d talk about kids.  We’d talk about just about everything.  We even helped each other out from time to time.  Had we not intentionally taken time to spend together, we might have called ourselves “friends” but what would that word have meant?  Not much.  Friends don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk.  Friendship isn’t just about what you say you believe, but about how you act.  Friendship with God isn’t much different.

Today we begin a series on friendship in the book of James.  Each week we’ll be taking a look at a different kind of friendship.  Week one: friendship with God.  Week two: friendship with others.  Week three: friendship with the community.  In week four we’ll take a little detour for our Commitment Sunday with a special guest preacher on that day.  Then in week five: friendship with self.  James, the brother of Jesus, will be our guide throughout pointing out the way that friends act and live and show love.

Let’s begin with a teaching from the book of James.  Watch for what James says about friendship with God.

James 2:14-26 (NLT)

14 Dear brothers and sisters, what’s the use of saying you have faith [belief] if you don’t prove it by your actions? That kind of faith [belief] can’t save anyone. 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, 16 and you say, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well” — but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? 17 So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith [belief]. Faith [belief] that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith [belief] at all — it is dead and useless.

18 Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith [belief]; others have good deeds.” I say, “I can’t see your faith [belief] if you don’t have good deeds, but I will show you my faith [belief] through my good deeds.” 19 Do you still think it’s enough just to believe [have faith] that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror! 20 Fool! When will you ever learn that faith [belief] that does not result in good deeds is useless? 21 Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was declared right with God because of what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see, he was trusting God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to do. His faith [belief] was made complete by what he did — by his actions. 23 And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, so God declared him to be righteous.” He was even called “the friend of God.”   24 So you see, we are made right with God by what we do, not by faith [belief] alone. 25 Rahab the prostitute is another example of this. She was made right with God by her actions — when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. 26 Just as the body is dead without a spirit, so also faith [belief] is dead without good deeds.

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God.

Abraham was called “the friend of God” because of what he did.  How we live our lives is an essential part of what it means to be a friend of God.

Now if you’re like me (and many may not be…), you’re wondering how this teaching from James about friendship with God fits with what Paul teaches about being friends with God.  Doesn’t Paul say that we are made right with God, or become friends with God, by our faith and not by our works?  And here James is saying that we are made right with God by our works and actions.  What’s up with that?  Here’s a quick sample from Paul and James side by side.

Paul & James?

James 2:23-24 (NRSV)

Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

 Romans 4:2-3, 22 (NRSV)

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.  For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”…Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

It sure seems like Paul and James are teaching two different things.  Paul seems to teach that we are friends with God by faith alone.  James seems to preach that we are friends with God by faith and works.  Let’s take a closer look.

First, it is helpful to realize that Paul and James are coming at this question of friendship with God from two different starting points.  Paul begins at the beginning.  You can’t earn God’s love by what you do.  God’s love for you is unconditional.  All you can do is receive it.  James begins at the end.  You can’t stay in God’s love without works.  If you’re going to receive God’s love then that reception means cooperating with God’s love, participating in God’s love in the world.  It means not just saying or believing you’re friends with God, but acting like you’re a friend of God.  In this way James says, “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17, NRSV).

There’s a great scene in the last Indiana Jones movie, The Search for the Holy Grail.  In it Indy is rushing to find the Holy Grail because his father has been shot.  He has to pass three tests.  After passing the first test about humility, he comes to the second one: a great chasm.  He must have faith that he can walk across the open chasm, but he sees no way to do so.  Because his father is dying he is compelled to not just believe that he can walk across the chasm, but to actually do it.  So he takes a step of faith out into the chasm.  Just when it looks like his foot won’t hit anything and his whole body will go tumbling down the chasm, his boot hits ground.  He realizes that he’s standing in front of an optical illusion.  There is a bridge that he can walk across that he could not see until he took the step.  His “faith” would have been worthless to saving his father had he not taken the step.  Faith without works is dead.

Second, Paul has something to deal with in his churches that James does not.  Paul has to deal with gentiles and Jews worshiping side by side.  This brings up the question of the Old Testament law.  Do gentiles, non-Jews, have to become Jews first before they can be full Christians?  Do they have to be circumcised and observe all the rules about kosher eating and so on?  Paul says, No, they don’t.  James doesn’t have this issue to deal with.  The very first verse of the letter says, “[This letter] is written to Jewish Christians scattered among the nations. Greetings!” (James 1:1b, NLT).  James is dealing with Jewish Christians only and not gentiles too.

Third, what does the rest of the New Testament teach?  I think the rest of the New Testament teaches exactly what James teaches: faith without works is dead.  Consider John the Baptist who says, “Prove by the way you live that you have really turned from your sins and turned to God” (Matthew 3:8, NLT).  Or a few chapters later in Matthew Jesus says, “Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:16, NLT).

There tends to be two ways that we like to talk about faith.  The first way is what I will call “faith alone.”  It has to do with having the right beliefs.  Belief is important, but this is not the sum total of what we mean when we say “faith.”  James makes this really clear when he says, “Do you still think it’s enough just to believe that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror!” (James 2:19, NLT).  It’s not good enough just to know the right answers.  Yes, God exists.  Yes, Jesus is God’s son.  Yes, we can’t earn God’s love.  Yes, Jesus will come back again to judge the living and the dead.  Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  But…  Friendship is not made up just of beliefs.

Oecumenius, a 6th century bishop, writes:

Take note of what spiritual understanding really is.  It is not enough to believe in a purely intellectual sense.  There has to be some practical application for this belief.  What James is saying here does not contradict the apostle Paul, who understood that both belief and action were a part of what he called “faith.”

Belief and action are both part of faith.  I think Oecumenius hits it on the head, and that brings us to the second way that we tend to talk about faith.  I will call this “faith plus.”

Faith plus is a belief that leads to trust that leads to actions, deeds, and works.    James gives us a practical example of this kind of faith.  He says:

Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, ‘Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well’ — but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?” (James 2:15-16, NLT).

You can’t make it much more obvious than that.

Oecumenius says that Paul’s idea of faith included this kind of belief and trust together that leads to actions, works and deeds.  I think that his reading of Paul is probably right.  Can you really see Paul telling someone to bless others who are in need of the basics of life and not help meet those needs?  No!  Paul says, “Whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to our Christian brothers and sisters” (Galatians 6:10, NLT).

Faith plus is friendship with God.  Our faith is belief and trust that is perfected by our works, by our acts of love.  Our friendship with God is perfected by our works.  James says, “Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?” (James 2:22, NKJV).  He’s talking here about Abraham who in the following verse is called “the friend of God.”  Not a friend of God just because he believed, but a friend of God because he also acted.  He trusted God in two places.  First, God told him in his old age that he was going to have a son.  Well, if he’s going to have a son then for he and his wife it’s “business time.”  And you know what I mean by “business time.”  Abraham had to do something to have a son.  He had to act on what he believed.  Likewise, when God asked Abraham to sacrifice this son, Abraham trusted that God knew what God was doing.  As crazy as it sounds, Abraham offered Isaac back to God, and thankfully, God stopped him at the last moment.  In both cases, Abraham believed God and perfected that belief by acting.  He was a friend of God because of what he did.

I like to think of faith and works like a banana.  In a banana you’ve got the peel and the fruit.  Which is which?  Well, let’s call the peel the faith and the fruit the works.  You need the peel to be able to make fruit grow.  Fruit without a peel is going to be pretty bad fruit if it can be fruit at all.  So the fruit, or works, need the peel, or faith, to grow.  But what about a peel without fruit.  What good is that?  I mean, the fruit is where all the action is at.  It’s where the substance is at.  In fact, a peel without fruit is pointless.  The peel and the fruit work together to make the banana.  In the same way, faith by itself without works is dead.  Faith is perfected by works.

Interestingly enough James points out that the opposite can happen too.  We can be an enemy of God.  He says, “Don’t you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God.” (James 4:4, NLT).  It appears that we can’t be both friends with the world and friends with God at the same time.  Either our actions are geared toward enjoying God’s friendship or enjoying the world’s friendship.  It’s pretty hard to have a split-personality spirituality when it comes to friendship with the world and friendship with God.

So what kind of actions, deeds, and works do we do that perfect our friendship with God?  There are both horizontal actions and vertical actions of friendship.  Let’s briefly look at the first: horizontal.

Our friendship with those around us is part of our friendship with God.  If I dive into this too deeply, then I’m jumping the gun for the rest of the series where we’ll cover friendship with others and with community.  But for now, let’s get just a glimpse of where James is going with the horizontal actions of friendship with community.   He says, “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us” (James 1:27, NLT).  So there is a good kind of religion here.  I know we like to quote Bono who says, “Religion generally gets in the way of God,” but James has a little different perspective.  He says that there is a pure and lasting kind of religion and it has to do with how we treat those who are the most vulnerable, the poor and poor in spirit.  We’ll get into that more in the coming weeks.

Our friendship with God not only has to do with our friendships around us but also has to do with our direct friendship with God.  This is a vertical friendship with God.  Cyril of Alexandria, a 4th & 5th century leader of the Alexandrian church, says, “Just as faith without works is dead, so the reverse is also true.”  There is a direct friendship between each of us and God, and just like any other friendship, a friendship with God requires time spent together.  James likes to speak of this friendship with God in terms of wisdom.  He says, “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” (James 3:13, NRSV).  This wisdom isn’t something necessarily inherent in each of us.  It comes from God, and if you don’t have it, then you can ask for it.  James says, “If you need wisdom — if you want to know what God wants you to do — ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking” (James 1:5, NLT).  Implied in all of this is spending time with God.  How do you ask if you aren’t spending time together?

So how do you spend time with God?  How do you build up your friendship with God?  Here are a couple of suggestions.  The first is obvious: prayer.  Prayer is talking with God and listening when God talks back.  One great way to do this is through journaling. If you have a hard time with a wandering mind, consider writing your prayers as a letter to God, but don’t forget to sit in quiet and listen for what God speaks back to you.  It’s always a good idea to listen and discern that hearing with others in the church community.  Another obvious way to spend time with God is in reading the “love letters” God has written us: the Bible.  Spend time daily reading your Bible.  Add to that daily time reading your Bible weekly time in a small group studying together.  Like prayer, discernment of God’s leading in the Bible is best done in community.  A third way to build your friendship with God is in community worship.  If you’re here at worship this morning, then you’re already spending time with God building that friendship.  A fourth way to be a friend of God is to spend time in solitude with God.  This could be a weekly time or a monthly time or a couple of times a year, but whatever the frequency, make sure to get out and be alone with God.  This kind of solitude can include silence (spend a day not doing anything except listening for God), prayer and Bible study (just like any other time except more extended), fasting (skipping a meal or taking a bread and water fast), reading a book (spiritual devotional or spiritual novel or poetry), or a host of other spiritual practices that nurture your friendship with God.  The idea of solitude is to get away from all the distractions of your everyday life and just be with God.

Are you a friend of God?  If not, the first step is simply desiring it.  Maybe you’re not quite there yet.  You don’t yet desire it, but you want to desire it.  That’s good enough.  Take the next step and act.  Spend time with God.  Pray.  Read the Bible.  Join a small group.  Worship.  Spend time in solitude.  Friendship is built over time spent together.  God will give you the desire later.  Friendship with God is faith that leads to trust that leads to actions of love.  Be a friend of God.

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