John 15:13 * October 26, 2008 * Festival of Friendship Sunday * Pastor Leyrer

Dear Friends,

In 1971 the singer James Taylor recorded a song that became a number one best seller that year and is still popular today. The title is: “You’ve Got a Friend.” My guess is that a number of you, if asked, could break into at least some of the lyrics on command.

The song itself is an ode to the power and depth of friendship. It’s one person reassuring another person of their loyalty and utter availability. Regardless of the time or circumstances, all they have to do is call and the friend will be there for them, no questions asked.

What do you think made this song so popular? Certainly it has a pleasant, lilting melody that is catchy enough to stick in one’s memory. But I would suggest the subject matter itself is just as responsible. Everybody wants and needs friends.

Because for most of us going through life solo can be awfully lonely. Friends and loved ones are kind of like the currency of life. “My friends are my estate,” wrote the poet Emily Dickinson, and those who have them possess a wealth beyond riches.

And that’s what makes the connection we’ll be talking about today so striking. If you are blessed with deep personal friendships or even if you are not, the message before us today is that there is One who cares for us more deeply, more selflessly, and more consistently than even the dearest of friends. His name is Jesus Christ. And in Him

“YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND”

For the next several minutes we’d like to center our thoughts on

1. The nature,

2. The depth, and

3. The blessings of this friendship

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the nature of Jesus’ friendship with us is that He is the One who initiates it. Most of the friendships we develop over time have to do with something in common. But really, with Jesus, we don’t have much in common.

Because, you see, Jesus is God. He made this claim about Himself many times and proved it by doing things only God can do. He healed people, He walked on water, He raised people from the dead. Because He is God He is holy and just and righteous and sinless. And we aren’t. We’re just the opposite.

Sin is not necessarily a popular subject in our culture. To suggest that we are somehow sinners is considered not good for our self-image, so you don’t hear it talked about a lot outside of church or private spiritual conversations. Sin-talk makes us feel uncomfortable, and generally we like to avoid those kinds of things. But failing to talk about it doesn’t mean it isn’t so. The fact of the matter is that we are all sinners.

How do we know this? When we look in the Bible and compare ourselves to what God the Creator asks of His creatures, we know. When we understand that things which won’t necessarily send you to jail – like lust and greed and selfishness and self-absorption and revenge and envy and pettiness – are not just moral failures but condemned by God as hostile acts of disobedience to Him, we know.

Even without any Bible knowledge, but just through the process of peering inward and honestly evaluating some of the things we say and feel and do, we know. The conclusion (and the evidence is all around us): People are sinful. It’s in our DNA.

So the ultimate question we must consider is this: Why would Jesus want to hang around people like us? People so unlike Him?

The answer, in a word, is love. Here is a profound mystery: Jesus Christ likes us. He wants to be our Friend. He wants us to be His friends.

There is more. Not only does He like us and love us, He pursues us. Recognized as somewhat of a classic of Christian devotional literature is a lengthy poem written by a man who had spent a long time running away from God. He talks about God not giving up on Him through all those misspent years. He refers to God (and this is the title of the poem) as “The Hound of Heaven.”

Think about that. Jesus is the Hound of Heaven. He pursues us. How? By putting a restlessness and a sense of incompleteness in our hearts that can only be calmed by friendship with Him. That’s why we are here today.

Let’s talk about how far He took that love and, in the process, try to plumb the depths of His friendship toward us. Recall the words of Jesus which serve as the basis for this sermon: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

And that’s precisely what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s the reason He came to our planet.

This is so important. The world often sees Jesus as a teacher or a philosopher or an enlightened instructor. Jesus would disagree. If we can imagine Him having to fill out some sort of job application and coming to the line where it says “occupation,” you know what He’d put down? “Savior.”

Now we need to go back to that whole discussion on sin, because we left it hanging there. Here is the rest of the story. (For some of you this may be new, for others it may be old; but it never gets any better)…

The sin which God condemns and which resides within each of us has to be resolved. God is simply too just to simply brush it aside or wink at it. And it can’t be counterbalanced by a life of good works or strict adherence to some religious code or some other system of performance, because the weight of our sin is just too great. We are powerless to resolve our own guilt.

It can only be removed by God. And that’s what He did for us in Jesus Christ. The life of perfection that God asks of us was lived for us by Jesus. He spent 33 years on this earth and never sinned. He lived perfectly as mankind’s substitute.

Then after 33 years of perfect living, Jesus, again as mankind’s substitute, took upon Himself the just punishment for sin. The Bible says “the wages of sin is death,” and that’s what Jesus did on a cross roughly 2000 years ago. He died as the substitute sacrifice for every sin committed by every person who lived, lives now, or will live in the future. That includes every one of us.

Three days later, to prove and to proclaim to the world that He was who He said He was and that He did what He came to do, Jesus rose from the grave.

And here is the best news yet. God credits everything that Jesus did to the account of those who trust in Him as their Savior from sin. John 3:16: “God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Practically speaking this means we have the same amount of guilt and sin before God that Jesus does: Zero. Practically speaking this means we can be confident we have a place reserved for us in heaven, because heaven does not depend upon what we do for God, but on what God has done for us in Jesus.

And practically speaking, one of the greatest blessings of this friendship is the knowledge that we count, that we are valued by God, and that our lives have meaning and purpose. Let me try to illustrate this with a story.

If you have more than a passing interest in art you may be familiar with the name Paul Gauguin. He was a French painter who lived and worked in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. If you never heard of him, you might know his more famous contemporary, Vincent Van Gogh.

At any rate, Paul Gauguin fancied himself to be a philosopher and deep thinker as well as an artist. At one point in his career he decided to devote some time and deep thought to the big philosophical questions of life. Such as: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? The way in which he decided to go about this was to put his thoughts on these big questions into the form of a painting.

So for two years Paul Gauguin worked on this painting which is now considered to be his masterpiece. It’s huge – approximately 10 x 30 – and now hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Art. Its title is just a few words in French, but its English equivalent would be: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where do we go?” For two years – day in and day out – Gauguin is painting and contemplating these big questions of life.

Then, after he was finished with his masterpiece, do you know what he did? He fell into despair and attempted to take his own life. And do you know why? Because in all his philosophizing and deep thinking nowhere to be found was God. And without God at the foundation of our lives and Christ at the core of our existence the big questions of life cannot be answered.

Another way of putting it might be this: Paul Gauguin didn’t know that in Jesus Christ he had a Friend. A Friend who through all the inevitable ups and downs of life would quietly guide him with His Word and comfort Him with His promises; a Friend who at the end of life on this earth would eventually take him to a heavenly home.

What Gauguin did not know, we do.

On that note, let’s bring our thoughts to a close. We call this Sunday our Festival of Friendship. Some of you may be here at the invitation of a friend, and we are most glad to have had this time with you today. Some of you may be visiting for other reasons, and we’re equally glad to have you with us as well.

But whether you are a visitor or a long time member, here is what we all need to know. In Jesus Christ we’ve all got a friend. A Friend who pursues us with His love; a Friend who saves us with His sacrifice; and a Friend who blesses us with fulfilled life now and eternal life in the future.

Isn’t it good to know we’ve got a friend like this? Amen.