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What is known and she.
Share depends on the relationship.
Between the parties involved.
And so a man that has a servant.
His servant in certain ways and expects the response from that servant, but in the natural.
Relationship of a master and a servant. Not everything is shared or enjoyed between them because sometimes just because that's the character of the relationship. So the Lord Jesus is distinguishing here between the master, servant, relationship and friendship.
And saying to his disciples.
You're my friends. Friends are those that share in a different way.
And in a more personal and intimate way with each other than is expected in a servant master relationship. I'm in relationship in this room to my wife sitting beside me and there are things that we share that aren't shared with anybody else in this room.
On shouldn't be it's appropriate to the enjoyment and responsibilities too that are connected with the relationship. What we have here in this chapter goes we find what we have for ourselves goes even farther because as we had in the meeting previously, when we address God, we address him as Father because we're in children father relationship.
And more than that, we're in a relationship of sonship. When my children were small, there was limited. They had a capacity to know me and enjoy me as my children because they had the same life and nature as I do. But you always enjoy as your children get older that they may enter more and more into those things that you enjoy.
And eventually, in a sense, they become your equal. And when they relation, when they are what scripturally calls the sun, because they have matured into that place where they can fully comprehend and understand your mind and your heart. And so it is with God our Father that we now in the relationship of his children, He wants us to grow. He wants us to grow from children to young men to fathers and in as we grow.
We are able to more completely enter into and enjoy.
Our relationship with himself. Just one more comment. When the Lord was going to go into and destroy the cities of of where Lot lived in Sodom.
He said I can't do it.
Without telling my friend Abraham.
And so he stops enroute to what was going to be done, because he had to tell Abraham, his friend.
What it was that he was planning to do, he knew he would be interested. He knew he would care on the outcome of it, and it resulted in Abraham interceding. I'm sure the Lord knew that he was interceding for his own nephew Lot and Abraham's faith went as far as it could. He started it, I think at 50, and then 45 and 40 and 30 and 20 and 10, and he stopped. That's as far as he could go about. Well, Lord, would you destroy this city if there's 10 righteous people in it?
Well, that's a character of a friendship that listens and intercedes and goes together in in that thing. And so it was that the Lord knew and there weren't 10 righteous souls, but everyone that was righteous, and specifically Lot himself, is spared and part of his family is taken out from the judgment.
And so the Lord Jesus wants us to have a relationship with himself.
That is near respectful and reverent because of who he is, but nonetheless here.
To us, and He wants us to talk to him about those things that are on our heart, and He wants to tell us the things that are upon his heart He wants us to share.
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And I've often thought that that brings a dimension into this scripture that I speak for myself. I don't know whether the depths of it really hit home to my soul. We sometimes sing together that him.
No man of greater love can boast than for his friend to die.
Thou for thy enemies was slain, but love with thine confined. And it's true that naturally speaking, all of us were enemies of God, and the Lord died for us, as it says in Romans.
When we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That is blessedly true.
But the Lord carries the relationship into a different dimension here. Why? Because He had worked in the hearts of those disciples. He could say, Ye are clean, of course, but not all. Because Judas wasn't real. But there had been a work of grace in their souls that had brought them to recognize who He was, brought them into relationship with them as friends. Now he is going to die for them, not merely as enemies.
Although that's what they were naturally. But he's going to die for them as friends.
Not only to redeem them from the consequences of sin and from a lost eternity.
But as Dawn has brought out, in order that they might enjoy that wonderful relationship with him.
As friends.
They say that to each one of us. Here again quoting a brother who has been quoted before. The secret of a happy Christian pathway.
Is to be able to communicate with the Lord as with a dear friend.
So it's not a matter of saying, well, what can I do or what can I do? Or is this all right, or is that all right? But it's a matter that the one who made this world, the one who created us, chose voluntarily to come down and die for us. Not merely to save us from our sins, but to bring us, us into a relationship with Him as friends, to give us the same life as he has, as God has brought out.
So that we have the capacity to enjoy with him what he enjoys. That's most blessed beyond our understanding, isn't it?
Paul speaks. I believe it's about Timothy.
I can't remember the exact worst, something probably helped me on them but he speaks of.
He serves with me as a son, like as a son with a father.
There is a.
A capacity in which a son would serve the father. But it's as far beyond that here, isn't it?
I've seen written on AT shirt you saved to serve and it is a privilege to serve the Lord, isn't it? But.
He saved us for a lot more than service, didn't he? He wanted his companions, his friends, and that's very precious. Although that in itself should make us a servant, shouldn't?
When the prodigal son returned home in the prayer, he made-up.
He said at the end, Make me as one of thy hired servants. When he got home, he left that part off of his prayer.
And I think it's wonderful, like you say, is what did the father want? Did he want more servants? He didn't really need any more servants. What he wanted his sons that would be able to sit at his table and enjoy fellowship, share his thoughts. That's what he wants above all. And then service should flow from that.
I was thinking that verse two in Proverbs it says he that.
Has friends, must show himself friendly.
If you're going to be friends with somebody, you there's conditions to it, aren't they? And verse, sometimes I've heard these verses, friendship with the Lord applies to everybody, kind of applied to everybody.
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Well, it's not exactly that way In verse 14 says ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. Abraham was the friend of God. You pointed out Don and.
He was one who obeyed God. Not that he didn't have his failures, but.
God came to him and said, Abraham, take your son and offer him up. He got up early the next morning and did what God asked him to do. Tremendous. That's a friend and he proved that friendship.
And it's wonderful to walk in the privileges of that friendship, but it's not something that you can apply just to anybody.
Without any distinction, there's a, there's a conditions to it. That's why you have a if there in verse 14.
In that story of the prodigal, later on, the father speaks to his other son and he says all that I have is thine it was that his disposal, it was all there, but the son wasn't interested in it, He was interested in himself.
It there has to be a certain confidence.
Between people, for those things to be made known.
And in the end of our version 15, it says, For all things that I have heard of my father, I have made known unto you.
It's a very, it's a very wonderful and we might say a secret thing.
That God would open up his heart and reveal all things to us like He has we ought to. That's a great entrustment to to think of him doing that. I think that kind of goes back and relates to what we spoke earlier about Judas having gone out.
His very being there was a hindrance because Judas didn't treat the things of God in the right way.
And how could the Father open up and be a friend to such a one? He was and he did that, but there was an hindrance there. But this ought to speak to us. You know how we treat the things of God. God has opened up His heart and reveal it to us. And all of us have no doubt had our feelings hurt by entrusting some friendship to someone. And then?
Finding it amused or slighted or youth multi used to malign or for wrong purposes. And that the closer the relationship is, the worse it hurts when that friendship is abused.
So this I find this is real.
We need to treat this with respect, what God has brought us into in being friends.
Proverbs chapter 27, there's a lot of mention of the friend and how that relationship is developed and maintained. It says in chapter 27 of Proverbs, I'll just read verse six. It says faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
And so that little expression, the wounds of a friend that really speaks of a little surgical procedure where there's a little.
Spot on the flesh perhaps, and a little bit of pus underneath and there's a little incision given and it releases the pressure and there's a cleansing and then there's there can be a healing. And so the Lord doesn't always tell us what we want to hear. He tells us what we need to hear. And he's faithful in this way. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. All through this series of proverbs in chapter 27, it mentions the friend. I just encourage you to read it.
And so here the Lord Jesus as a man, God's man, desired to express his friendship, and he not only expressed it and said that he was friends, he proved it. And a friend, he says, has love, and he has no greater love that no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. He proved it by laying down his life for us, and then he proved it as well.
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By revealing those secrets from the Father, He desired to bring us into His councils, and then He as well says a little bit later on in verse 16 that that He would have.
He would desire that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. And so as a friend we would have the perfect confidence to come to him and as our brother.
Spoke of in the previous meeting with holy hands, hands undefiled, not having something that we shouldn't have in them. We would have a relationship open with that Blessed One and could come in confidence and request what we would have a desire for. And it would be according to his mind.
How do you become a friend? Yesterday everybody was here together.
You've met people that you haven't met before, and maybe you've made a friend with somebody here. How did that start? You meet one another, you greet one another, you say hello. How are you? And the other person responds and you start a discussion. You ask one another question and you learn that you have interests together with one another and so.
Today you see your that new friend, and you talk to them again.
And you get to know one another better and better. Well, that's how it is with God. You want to have a relationship with God. He wants to be your friend. He says, you are my friends if you keep my commandments. And so we need to talk to God. God talks to us. We've heard that about reading the Word of God and praying. When we read the word of God, God is speaking to us. And he says in our verse here.
He says all things that I have heard of my father.
I've made known unto you. How are you going to know those things? Just because you have eternal life doesn't mean you know all these things. Just because you have the Spirit of God doesn't mean that you know all these things. You have to communicate. Communicate with God as your Father. Communicate by reading the Word of God, and it will be made known to you. And then you pray to the Father as you learn these things.
And you find out that there's many secrets in the Bible that He's made known unto us, many promises, many commands. His will is made known to us, our future is made known to us, and so we can develop that friendship.
With God, the gods are fun.
In a master servant relationship, there's no obligation to love.
Servant doesn't have the master. Master is required to love the servant even.
That's just the nature of the relationship. But as we see here in friendship, as the Lord says, greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends, that in a friendship relationship, it introduces that dimension of love and it becomes a very important part of it. There are some things in a friendship that you don't ask.
But if the friendship is as strong as it should be, it can be the very fact that a person's need is made known, or even desire is made known on the very strength of that knowledge. A friend will often say, I want to help, that is, will volunteer without having to. And there are aspects of our relationship with the Lord Jesus that he will not command of us.
But desires of us a response that is as a result of love in the relationship.
And it's important for us because we understand that as parents, there are sometimes.
Things that if we commanded our child because we have the right to command them as a child in the family to do something, we may refrain from commanding on occasion because it would not satisfy our own heart. Our heart can only be satisfied in it if the child acts out of respect or love or care for us as an individual in the relationship and does it voluntarily.
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Not solely as an act of obedience. And so it is with the Lord Jesus. He wasn't commanded because he called them his friends and brought them into that relationship. He wasn't commanded to lay down his life for them. But he couldn't have done otherwise.
The very heart of the Lord Jesus and the relationship even with his disciples was such that His heart demanded, if you will, that He do it.
We know of course there are other dimensions to it, that he was sent of God for all men and so on. But we're talking about the friendship part of it here. And and he laid down his life for his friends.
Well, the Lord reminds them in verse 16 that it was not they that had chosen him, but He that had chosen them. Very important to recognize that because it was all the work of God in us. If there's any coming to Christ in the beginning or any blessing in our lives, it's all starting out with the work of God.
Some would try to teach that man has free will, and in one sense he will be held responsible if he exercises his will against God. But the fact is that none would come to Christ without a work of grace beginning in the soul. And so here they were. Yes, as the disciples, they had been chosen particularly to spend time with the Lord Jesus. But in the broader sense, it applies to all, doesn't it?
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
And so while the preciousness of the relationship of friends is brought in here, yet on the other hand, I believe we see in a very gentle way the Lord turning the focus around, not so much on our interests, but on God's interest, on his interests. And what a difference that makes. Because then it's not so much that I'm looking at things, what do I get out of it or what do I?
Gain from this.
That is true, we gained tremendously, but God rather would have me to approach with the sense of I have been chosen. Now I have a privilege, and the privilege is as it says here, that you should go and bring forth fruit. Again, not so much in the character of a servant, although we will serve if our hearts are right. But the thought is that in enjoying the same things He enjoys and enjoying his company.
There will be that in US which will answer to his heart and his mind, and that fruit will remain.
Friendship is largely an unselfish relationship, isn't it? And so we don't, as you say, look for what's in it. For me, friendship response to something of love for the other, and there is an unselfish relationship. Christianity is not characterized by selfishness and the Lord Jesus is perfect example in that way.
Lay down his life for his own. And so John in his epistle says that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. We ought to love our brethren. That's one of the proofs that we're believers, and it's one of the proofs that we're a friend of the Lord Jesus if we love those that he loves.
I find it a real challenge too, brother you previous verse 16 that he's chosen us and set us to bring forth fruit that remains.
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We live like you were mentioning, Bill. In a day when?
Man's will is so evident, and even we as believers can have our own.
Ideas, our own thoughts and purposes to serve the Lord according to what I have in my heart instead of really truly getting into His presence to see what His thoughts are. His mind is. It's so important. It makes it so much more meaningful too if we can see His thoughts. Why did He choose you? He chose you with a specific purpose.
No so many young people, it seems like, lack a sense of purpose in life.
Remember hearing not too long ago that girl out in California who took the college entrance exam and got a perfect score, something that never been done before? And they interviewed her and they asked her what her purpose in life was. She says, I have no clue. You know, it's, it's it's too bad.
Brilliant girl that. No purpose, no idea of what her existence was for.
Well, there is a reason God has made us, and when he made you, He made you for a purpose.
The youth village where we go to talk to the young people, they're often disorientated like that too. And I sometimes say, what do you think somebody had in mind when they made that chair there with some pieces of steel? What did they have in mind?
Well, they always say, well, it's something to sit on. Sit on. Yeah. They had a purpose in mind when they made that.
And so everything has a purpose that is made. When God made us, He made us worth with a purpose in mind.
So it's so wonderful to understand something in the word of God, of the purpose of God, why he chose us and I, I enjoy this chapter 15.
Speaks of fruit. He speaks of more fruit. He speaks of much fruit. He speaks of fruit that remains. This is something that will last forever.
And it's like it's been brought out. Fruit is not.
The result of actions.
As we mentioned yesterday, the fruit of the spirit that's mentioned in Galatians 5 are all passive things.
They may be manifested in actions, but they're all passive in themselves.
They're not actions in themselves.
It's the result of this SAP that runs up the trunk of the vine and into the branches and out to where the fruit the **** is, and then the fruit forms. And the vine itself doesn't have to wave its branches around to produce fruit, No, the only thing that's necessary is to stay connected to the vine, and that fruit will form.
And it's so wonderful just to realize that's why we've been chosen and set in the position that we are, that we would bear fruit that remains for all eternity.
You want your life to count for something that will last, that's fulfilling.
Here's a secret right here in verse 16.
So wonderful, wonderful thing to go through life learning by experience with these purposes of God and fulfillment of why he's called us in walking in obedience to the Lord and and seeing the results of that, that purpose of God being fulfilled in your life. There's a lot of people that don't have that.
I I went to a graduation once and they a man, a preacher.
Christian man spoke a man who had visited in prisons and he decided to visit this one well known federal prison and he went there and he.
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Requested to visit the worst criminal they had.
And he went to the cell and visited this man. And this man was totally devoid of any purpose in life.
A little different from the case than the brilliant one there. And he interviewed that person.
And they had no purpose and because of that, no knowledge of God or no reason to be checked up on anything or to live his life in in with a God that had a plan or anybody else's plan. Therefore he went about doing his own plan in whatever way, thinking there are no consequences long as he got away with it. That is so sad.
When souls lack this relationship with God this verse is talking about.
To be a called 1 Chosen and then to go through life and see in your life the realization of these things, not just for all benefit too, but for God. Of course, that is mutual. It's mutual what God will rejoice in, in being fulfilled in a life that's walked according to his purpose. It's a great thing to see that in yourself and.
It's it's encouraging.
And it really keeps you going on when you have some sense that even though there's difficulties, that God is with you and he has some fulfillment going on in your life.
Just so there's no misunderstanding, Doug, would you expand a little on that?
Are there times, even in the believers life when perhaps.
There is a true desire to please the Lord, a true desire to have the Lord's purpose and mind in our lives. And yet are there sometimes times, maybe of a bit of uncertainty, or perhaps times when we seem to be, as it were, marking time for a little while? Or perhaps times when it seems as if the Lord has put us in the backside of the desert for a little bit and we're not sure where we're going is? Is that included too?
I'm sure it is and we've all probably all of us experienced that and it's Moses was that those 40 years and well, think of John the Baptist when he was in prison and he he spoke to the Lord our job he that should come or look wait for another.
I think he was questioning.
Something along those lines. The only problem is he was questioning about the Lords part of it and and we have hindsight now and we can look back and see that God did have a purpose for John. And so I suggest that if you're at a place in your life where you don't maybe see some of those purposes and you wonder about things, it's so good to be keep you in the scriptures and read these Old Testament stories.
And maybe you'll find one that relates to you, where you are, and it will encourage you. Elijah got discouraged, and that's another story of partly why he got discouraged. It was a bit of a wrong focus there, but he didn't have the light that we do.
Perhaps you had some more Advil? No, that's very good. Just just wanted to bring out the fact that even when a true believer has a right desire to please the Lord.
There may be times in our lives when the Lord is doing just what we had in the earlier part of the chapter, pruning in order that He may have more fruit and dealing with us in a way putting us through a school for something that is ahead. It's not wasted time, even though perhaps we may not see the issue of it immediately. But at the same time, I thoroughly and 100% agree with what was brought out that it's sad to see dear souls, even believers that.
Seem to be having no sense of direction and God's purpose in their lives. And I don't believe we see that in the Word of God, do we? That is, that's not God's.
Thought for us that's not a self confident attitude is it is walking here with a purpose. It may be in much humility and weakness, but but it's focusing on the Lord, knowing that the Lord has chosen us.
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No, he's not going to let down his side of the bargain. He's going to. He's going to follow through with his purpose and in calling us.
Have you ever thought of Joseph?
Who left his father's house at 17 years old?
And everything seemed to go wrong.
For 13 years, that's a long time in the life of a young person.
For 13 years, everything went wrong.
Yet I think he must have thought back to those dreams he had.
And God answered in his time, 1 morning.
Everything. One day everything changed. He started the day in prison. He ended the day as second ruler of the Kingdom.
Tremendous.
That he lived for the Lorde glory at all times. He didn't lose sight of that, did he? And I think that's what's so important when you don't understand what the Lord has in mind for you. Keep close to the Lord, read the word, walk in obedience to Him.
And in his time, God will make it all clear.
Just like to turn to Galatians chapter one and I think this might be a help. It's a New Testament example of someone in Galatians chapter one and.
Perhaps we could read from verse 15, the apostle Paul. There was a waiting time. I used to have the impression when I was a young person that Paul was given the Great Commission to go up to the Gentiles and he was saved and it was a mighty work of God. There was direct divine intervention in his life.
And then he immediately went out and began to preach the gospel. But I don't believe that that's really what took place. It says in Galatians chapter one and verse 15. Please God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen. Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem, to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus.
Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him.
15 days. But other of the apostles saw none save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not. Now perhaps there was a little work, a little gospel, and so on. But there was a time in Paul's life, a little perhaps parenthesis, when he had said, Lord, what will thou have me to do?
And there was a little parenthesis where he had to spend some time alone with the Lord.
And they must have been days. He must have thought perhaps three years is a long time. A long time, Lord, I've been saved now for three years. Surely there's something. I've been called to go out to the heathen. And the Lord had told him that he would suffer great things for his name's sake and so on. But I believe that Paul there received from the Lord, the risen Lord in heaven, those some of those revelations that he had.
Given to him and he was prepared a vessel that was prepared of God in the wilderness and he was going to get it from Christ himself. He didn't get naturally speaking. Who would have thought that he would go to Jerusalem and confer with the apostles there and receive something that he might be able to go and present to the Gentiles. But that's not what God had in mind. Amendment. I just would call attention to what Peter says in first Peter chapter four he says in verse 2.
First Peter chapter 4 and verse two, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. And then this in verse three it says they're the will of the Gentiles. So you have these two things, the will of God and the will of the Gentiles. And so here we have in the 15th chapter of John the marvelous grace of God and how he presents to us that the path of fruit bearing for the Lord.
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A path of real blessedness and happiness for you and I as those that can identify in that relationship of friends with the Lord.
Is a relationship where we want His will, we want His way. We know from practical experience and perhaps from the experience of faith in the Word of God that His way is perfect, is absolutely flawless. And that's what we want. And instead of getting impatient with the Lord and those 3 long years.
Then just need to go on with the Lord. If I could just put it in a practical way, perhaps there's a young person here struggling in his life. Thank you. Perhaps he went to college and things just haven't turned out the way they should. I don't have a job, and so on and so forth. Wait for the Lord. Work in your local home assembly. Go to all the meetings. Spend time in the presence of the Lord and the local assembly. Don't miss a meeting. Go to every reading meeting, every prayer meeting, Be at all the meetings. Be there with the Lord in the presence of the Lord. He's going to bless you. And if you truly ask Him, Lord.
What wilt thou have me to do? He will die. He will leave you. He will give you something to do for himself.
I just like to add something else to Joseph from Psalm 105.
Verse 17.
Does he sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant whose feet they hurt with feathers. He was laid in iron until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. The king sent him loose to him, even the ruler of the people, and let him go free, and made him Lord of his house and ruler of all his substance, and so forth.
In verse 19, until the time they let his word came about, Mr. Darby puts it.
The word of the Lord of the Lord of Allah tried him those dreams that he had had.
Sustained him and tried him both.
And doesn't matter what our age is, if we have something of divine revelation from the Lord, cleave to that.
In times of difficulty, when we can look at something the Lord has given us.
Will sustain us through the difficulty.
He didn't have New Testament Dr.
Look at the light you and I am.
Something important in this chapter as well concerning the relationship between the Father, the Son and ourselves connected with friendship.
I think it's see if we see it somewhat developed in the Lord's Prayer in the 17th chapter where he says in chapter 17 verse 10 and all mine are thine and.
Design our mind and I am glorified in them. And then in backing up in verse four, he says I have glorified thee on the earth since chapter 17, for I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. Now back in our own chapter, the chapter again to remind us starts with the statement I am the true vine. My father is the husband.
And then going down to verse.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that he very much fruit.
So shall you be my disciples.
God's purpose in the life of everyone in this room.
Is really the same?
The most simple expression of it, the purpose of God for every person in this room, is for God to glorify Himself.
That's why we exist.
Because it says in the end of Romans 11 or of him, and through him and for Him are all things to him be glory forever. Amen. The end result and purpose of God in everything is the glory of Himself through His Son.
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And in this chapter, when it's talking about fruit bearing, it's fruit bearing as we have in verse 11, that God might be glorified.
And the Lord Jesus, first for himself, came into this world to glorify the Father, and his life was a life of fruit.
For the Father its glory, and the Father in turn chose to glorify the Son.
And the sun is glorified as well, as we see particularly in the 17th chapter now.
The Lord the Son introduces us into a position with himself as friends that we too might bear fruit. Glory of the Father. It's a blessed thing that the Lord Jesus chose us.
For this wonderful privilege and responsibility He will share with us, He will enable us, He will teach us that we, with Him and in association with himself and under His direction, are those who may.
Produce fruit to the glory of the Father and that's really the the setting of the sense of what the Lord Jesus when he's talking to the disciples here is I've chosen you. He knew what it was to live his whole life to that purpose and his life was full of purpose and and perfect direction to it just in a practical sense.
If you want to know the purpose of God in a down at the bottom, everyday step level, you always have to start at the top. Don't start with yourself and say, well, what am I going to do with my life? It doesn't tend to come out right. When we start in anything with ourselves, we don't often end up at the right conclusions. But if we start with God and say what is God's thoughts about something?
With respect to anything concluding ourselves and if we start with the realization that I exist for the glory of God, for God's purposes, for his own pleasure and then we can see how the Lord Jesus has brought us into that relationship that we can do that and says I'll direct your life. I will guide you so that you may have a fruitful life. Then we get down to the practice of it, but.
Man and self will, he wants purpose to life that satisfies himself and he always goes wrong.
What were you going to say, Brother Clem and I thought of.
Tom, 41.
Verse 9.
I'm quite sure that you all agree who the Lord is prophetically talking about.
In Psalm 41, verse 93, he gave my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted with the need of my bread, had lifted up his heel against me.
Thought leaving that word there in our Bible, friend.
Does it mean that? Or is he an impostor, just a pretender?
Reading Mr. Darby's translation, it says yeah, my known familiar friend in whom I confided.
Who did eat as my bread that lifted up his heel against me. It's Judas, isn't it?
Is really referring to?
It's really.
AB that we have here the.
Pages that word would be this way.
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Mine. The man of my peace that's lifted up his hero against me. That's the way that we read That would take that away. My own familiar parade, the man of my peace. I don't know whether that errors into it or not.
Touching to see that the Lord did not disown Judas from that relationship of friendship.
That he'd been called to.
He he but he felt the feeling of that being betrayed and being him lifting up his deal against him that when so when Judas came to betray him. The Lord calls his friend work for art thou come hit her in the Lord Jesus did not enact his anticipation of knowing what was going to happen didn't cut off the friendship beforehand.
Because he uses to go through the experience of having a friend forsake him and and betray him in that way. So it's.
It it to me it's just touching to see how God or the Lord Jesus.
Maintaining on his part the friendship.
He did not break it. Judas broke it.
We've been speaking about.
For the purpose of the glory of God in connection with these verses of Judas going back to chapter 13 as well.
In chapter 13, they're sitting at the table.
Where they had to Passover. And as they sit at the table, the Lord is conversing with the disciples and teaching them and preparing them for his separation from them. And during the conversation, Judas is up to this point sitting there as a friend and as one of the inner circle to whom the Lord had been making known his thoughts and his heart. And so it says verse 21, when Jesus had.
Thus said, he was troubled in spirit. His spirit was troubled because.
Of what was there in their midst? Judas, whose heart wasn't right with God, and he felt it in his own spirit. But as Doug says, he, he doesn't deny the relationship, but it brought grief into his own soul and it troubled it. And so he says, he testified and said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And then the whole character of the supper changes, and there's distress among them all, because they loved him, and they were distressed that someone of their own number might do such an awful thing.
And so the question comes up, who is it?
And not to take up that part of it, but just to notice that in verse 27, after the soft Satan enters into him, then said Jesus unto him, that thou doest too quickly. And so verse 30, he then having received the soft, went immediately out and it was night. I just want to call attention to what's immediately follows. That therefore, when he was going out, Jesus said, now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him?
If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself and straightway glorify him. The glory of God and being fruitful requires reality in the relationship. And if there's something that is unreal, false and improper, it causes a troubling that there will be no fruit in it for God but the holy hands, if you will, that the unholy handsome.
That were present at the table.
Or remove themselves. Judas voluntarily, because of his own desires. He goes out to fulfill his lust. And then there's a freedom, there's a liberty that brings in immediately the matter of the glory of God. So it is in our lives. We exist to glorify God, and we're brought into the friendship relationship.
But it has to be on the terms of God's own character of life and love. And if it's not, then there's no glory for God in it and there's no fruit in it. And so it ought to be an exercise with us to always seek to live in a way that our lives could be fruitful and useful according to his will, that the fruit might grow within us. The Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering.
00:55:23
Can't really properly coexist with evil.
I think we're going to need a little explanation of our 17th verse about being commanded to love one another because we we've already had. We're not in a servant master relationship where you generally think of commands being given. Why do we have a command here to love?
Guess I feel for my own soul, Doug, that it's because.
Well, let me backtrack a bit. As we had brought before us yesterday, God has given us through the new life we have in Christ.
The capacity to love as he loves. The capacity to love even if the object does not return. The love even if the object is not appreciated.
But I suggest, for my own soul at least, that the reason we find the commandment to love reiterated over and over again is it is because it is so natural to our hearts to fall back into natural love and into that which.
Responds to what responds to us. That is, human relationships are largely based on.
Natural love. They are based on individuals whom we can relate to, and the whole world revolves around groupings of individuals who have things in common. It doesn't matter whether it's business arrangements, whether it's professional things, whether it's an interest in a particular line of things, a particular political point of view. Anything will do as long as there's a common ground.
But what does God do in the church? He takes the most unlikely group of individuals from every walk of life and with every reason that in most cases they would not know each other.
Puts them together and says, now I have given you a capacity to love one another that transcends anything that is natural to you. And I want to see that exhibited. But I don't mean it takes spiritual energy to do it, although that no doubt is true. But it is so easy, isn't it, for us to fall back into the natural way of things because we live and move in a world where all of that.
Is going on all the time. Is that? Is that true?
Like that?
That's why you have the very next verse speaks of the world.
And hatred.
It's so important, isn't it? To let love like you say though, is let it flow from abiding in Christ.
We are commanded to love, but it's I like what Mr. AC Brown used to say, says those commands are divine directives to the new life that we possess in Christ and so.
That love is evident amongst his brother and his sacrificial love. It's like it says in Hebrews 10. Let us consider one another.
To provoke and to love and the good works.
I know you a little bit.
I know what pleases you and I know there's certain things you don't like, and so I'm going to consider that to do what would provoke to love and to good works. So it's important that that be in operation amongst us and if that were more so then this world would not have entrance into our lives so much we wouldn't be interested in it.
01:00:08
The world loves its own.
Says in verse 19, if we were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you're not of the world.
That I've chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Join forces with them.
You'll be let feel their hatred.
You cannot be neutral.
In the world we live in, you're either for Christ.
Or against. There is no middle ground.
They're both warnings.
An example about things and in connection with that you've mentioned Hebrews and the first verse of Hebrews 13 is let brother and love continue. What's the last words of the the river before that?
Our God is a consuming fire. That's a warning.
Let brother in love continue.
That's an advice.
It's very serious, isn't it?
Living Christ? Really.
And we should be able to live Christ.
The first we had a relationship yesterday. If you live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. Practice what you preach if it's if the right way to preach even.
If our practical Christianity is made known, we reflect Christ to this world, it will bring out their hatred. Because if you and I obey the word of God as the Lord Jesus has been telling His disciples here and instructing us, and if in our hearts affections we bear fruit for him as we walk in obedience to His word, and then we have love, one for another will walk as the children of God will reflect the very life of Christ.
And it will produce hatred in this world because this world doesn't want Christ in any way, shape or form. And so you and I are going to display that nature of the divine nature. And so it brings out before us here the fact that if we do these things that the Lord Jesus has asked us to do and indeed commanded us to do, there's going to be reproach for the name of Christ. Somebody's going to ask you, why do you do what you do? And if you say honestly that you do it because you love the Lord.
Belong to the Lord Jesus, and you want to please Him, to like thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Your desire of heart is to please the Lord. It's going to show, and then there's going to be reproach. And so he instructs his own here that they should expect that it's not going to be abnormal Christianity. It is normal Christianity to reflect Christ and to speak of Him and then to feel something of the wrath of this world.
As they see the man they crucified, see some reflection of that man in your life.
Like to comment a little in connection with what we have before us from First John chapter 4.
We have the same expressions and John's epistle that we have in the Gospel with respect to the commandment and the use of the word command.
In first John chapter 4.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. And down in verse 20, if a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
And this commandment have we from him, that he that who loveth God, love his brother also.
God is God is love.
And when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That nature of God as love is put in us.
We love because it's our nature to love. We love our brother because that's the very nature. It's not a matter of having to do something as as if it was worked.
01:05:06
We don't.
Generally speaking, work and breathing, it's according to what we are and here is giving expression to the thought of be what you are.
It's be what you are. And the command isn't a command contrary. In the law, commands were contrary to man's nature. He wanted to do this and the law said no, do that. And so there was a conflict between man's nature and what was good.
But the commands of God are commands that are a delight to us.
They are a natural outflow of what we are.
And they're usually, I believe that at least partly, the expression command is simply the test word of this is a test of whether you're real. If you're real, you will display your life.
Which is a love of God is as it says that we just read. He that loveth not knoweth not God. We didn't put this love in ourselves, we didn't create it.
God's the love of God is put in us by God himself.
We didn't put it there, Don. Can you always put it this way?
Since we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Yes, you can. I mean it's a wonderful because we do live in the spirit we do. We have no other way to live if we have the life of Christ.
But the problem, the conflict, the reason for the last half of that verse is because it's still possible for us to live according to the flesh, because the flesh is still in US. And so we do at times, sadly, we live according to the flesh instead of according to the life that we have in Christ in the Spirit. And so we need these exhortations. But at the same time, with John and the way he presents it, he takes us down to the very nature of the matter.
What it absolutely is in the bottom of it. And as it worries the exhortation of the command is now you be what you are. Yeah. And then in Galatians it always says again, it says ye are all the children of God, my faith in Christian, all of you.
God that take any rules about that?
The contrast is we have in our chapter with evil in the world. It's important and you have it in First John as well as it presents the world to us. In First John and in John's Gospel, there's a conflict between the world and God because the world is of the devil.
The world is.
The source of what the world is, is safe.
And Satan is the absolute wicked one who is in opposition to all that God is, and he has taken the world and motivated it to the full extent that he's capable of making it be what he is, which is a hatred of God. So as it says in First John, why did Cain slay his brother?
Because he was of Satan, he was motivated as a man in enmity against God, and he hated righteousness as one who was of the wicked one. And so the world hates God, and it hates all that God is and His righteousness because there is an enmity between it and the world. And so we talked about friendship, and as it says, friendship with the world.
Is what enmity against God?
If I go join the world in its pursuit, I put myself in a place of a friendship. We know what we've had already in the meeting and friendship. But on the other side of it, which he brings out at the end of the chapter, is the friendship with the world is that which is in direct opposition to all the, excuse me, all that God is, and the very source of it is Satan.
And there's two ways in the verses that follow that the world has shown.
01:10:04
Unmistakably their enmity.
To God and to the Lord Jesus, verse 22.
It's.
His words and verse 24. It's his works.
Verse 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them.
They had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin. He spoke to them.
And they rejected it. Verse 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other men did, they had not had sin. But now they have both seen and hated both me and my father. So the crowning.
Where the world showed what it really was, when the Lord Jesus was here and they rejected his work, His words.
They rejected his works.
The world can appear so often attractive and that's what it mentions like was mentioned in first John 2.
All that is in the world, the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life.
Can appear attractive.
Satan tries to get us to be attracted to it, but it is shown itself to be hatred toward God.
So how important for us to realize that's the world we're passing through?
In verse 25 really connects.
Shall we say that?
Jewish religion with the world.
Hebrew said the sanctuary of world it's.
This cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled. This is written in their law.
Interesting that it's worded that way.
The whole thing is set aside as Jesus touches.
Aspect of what was given in the particles in the book of Hebrews. When he touches it, it becomes perfect for the first time forever.
Sets aside.
Probably nothing more difficult to set aside than that which was divinely revealed, but it can only be set aside by averages and better and.
It brings it down to the thing that is now identified with the world.
Well, it seems that every aspect of the world is against Christ, isn't it? But.
The religious aspect of the world perhaps takes on.
An even more vicious, if I could use that word, and militant character than anything else.
If it's man in his politics, man in his businessman, in the whole system of things that he has set up in this world, yes, it is all ultimately against God and his purposes in Christ. And as you say, the hatred is there, but.
Judaism had become a worldly religion. If it had had the right effect on the people, they would have said.
Requirements, we have put ourselves under them and look what we have done. We cast ourselves on His mercy. But instead of that, as we have in an expression in a modern world, when they didn't like the message, they got rid of the messenger. And so they said we don't want God's message, we will get rid of His Son.
And.
That made Judaism a worldly religion, and ultimately it's the pattern for every kind of religion that man makes. That is, it gives some kind of glory to man and takes away from the glory of God. That is the kind of religion this world wants, and ultimately it's in diametric opposition more than anything else to Christ.
01:15:18
It's the same as.
A case of Cain and Abel. Abel never did anything against Cain to be to be murdered. He he did righteousness. He offered something that was acceptable, but he was hated for it because he was accepted of God. And the Lord Jesus never did anything wrong, but he bore witness to the the evil that was in man's heart.
And he revealed it. And so he was hated for that. That's without cause.
Shall we sing 282 #282?
Master, we would no longer.
At all, in that we.
Shady.
My creation.
In life for that, so I saw.
As I.
Join.
Rewarded fortune was passed.
And joy shall run thy serve thy soul.
And.
To say your sin, your sight, you're saying, you're saying, you're saying.