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The last two weeks, we’ve been talking about friendship. We started by establishing that God wants us to have great friends and that to have a friend we need to be a friend. Then, last week, we talked about how important love is in friendship and we identified some of the important ways we can love others to build friendships with them.

This week, we’ll talk about the most important friendship of all, which is our friendship with Jesus. This may sound odd since we typically think of friends as people we physically spend time with, text, or call on the phone. Those things would be great to do with Jesus but, at least until He returns to Earth, we can’t. So, then, how should we think about being friends with Jesus? We are fortunate that Jesus answered this question for us in John 15:15 which says:

I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Jesus said this to his disciples as part of a long set of instructions outlined in the four chapters from John 13 – 17. This took place in the short period between His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) and His crucifixion a few days later. These words were among His last in-person instructions to the disciples, who He had been training for over three years.

Being able to hang out with Jesus in-person for three straight years must have been an incredible adventure for these young men, all of whom were likely teenagers when they started following him. While there wasn’t a written test to graduate, Jesus was essentially recognizing all of them as graduates of the “Jesus academy”.

Specifically, He said to them “everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you”. And this fact is the basis on which He said they were qualified to be His friends. Note that He didn’t say they were friends because they knew everything He shared but simply because He had shared it with them. In other words, we can’t earn His friendship. It is a gift freely offered, like the salvation He offers.

Once again, we see an example of Jesus doing everything He can to build a friendship with us. And we see that gift of a friendship with Jesus is ours to take if we want it. Let’s go through a few questions to discuss what we can do now that we know this gift is being offered to us.

Questions:

• As we think back over the past three lessons on friendship, what are some of the main criteria for calling someone a true friend?
• As Christians, we think about Jesus as our Lord and Savior, but have you ever really thought about Him as a friend? Share any thoughts you have about that.
• Just because Jesus offers His friendship, does that mean we’re friends with Him? Why or why not?
• What does it mean to you to know that you can count on Jesus as a true friend?
• What are some things we can do to enhance our friendship with Jesus and become true friends?

Last week, we talked about the idea of true friends and why God wants us to have true friendships. The Bible has many verses about friendship and many of these highlight the importance of love. And we know that Jesus said love is the most important thing (Matthew 22:37-40), so we know how important love is in developing true friends.

But what exactly is “love” or what does it mean to be “loving”? For example, what is the difference between loving ice cream and loving another person? They are clearly not the same, but we use the same word (love) in both cases, so it’s important to define the type of love that is so important to God. We are fortunate that He provided us with lots of explanations about love in the Bible and one of my favorites is 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, which says

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

What if we substitute “true friend” for “love” in the passage above? Let’s re-read it that way together now and see if it works.

Let’s tie a couple of thoughts together from last week with this new idea of love being at the heart of true friendship. Last week we discussed the idea that if you want to have a friend, you need to be a friend. And if we now combine that with the description of love above from Corinthians, we can say that if we want to have a friend, we need to be loving. More specifically, we need to practice patience, kindness, and all the other characteristics of love.

We know that God has great things in store for us and wants to shower us with many blessings, including the blessing of true friendships. And since we know that love is the most important thing, as we continue to love God and others, true friendships (or deepening of existing relationships) will follow.

Questions

1. How did you feel about substituting “true friends” for “love” in today’s verse? Did that open your eyes to anything new?
2. We know that we can only control our actions (not the actions of other), so if we want to build more true friendships, what are some things we should do? (Hint: reread today’s scripture)
3. If building true friendships is based on things like being more patient and more kind, how can we work on these things? Can you build patience like you can build muscle? If so, how?
4. Today’s lesson says, “as we continue to love God and others, God will honor these actions and bring special friendships into our life”. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

It might not seem that the Bible would be a good source of advice about friendship, but it actually has a lot to say about it. One powerful passage about friendship is from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, which 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.

To prepare for this lesson, I looked up some stats on friendship and it seems like the consensus is that most people 3-5 true friends. As you probably already know, there is a difference between an acquaintance and a true friend. Here are some questions to determine if someone is a true friend. Do they:

• Accept you for who you are?
• Stick around in good times and bad?
• Celebrate your victories with you?
• Make time for you and are truly present when you are together?
• Encourage you to be your best?
• Tell you the truth, even if you don’t like it?
• Make you feel good when you are with them?

Even if you are fortunate enough to find even a few people who check all of those boxes, friendships can still sometimes be challenging and frustrating. But, in a way, that’s what friendships are for.

God wants us to have close friends AND He wants us to have the opportunity to grow and strengthen those friendships. If we never faced challenges in our friendships, how could we have the opportunity to deepen those relationships?

Using a sports analogy to emphasize this point, what if you were an athlete but never had the opportunity to compete against other athletes? What would be your motivation to practice and try to get better? In the same way, when we have true friends, it encourages us to work hard on those friendships, even if they become challenging and frustrating. We want to work harder to protect these relationships and, in working harder, we become better people. Our rough edges are smoothed and we become more patient & kind.

When you face challenges in relationships, consider where God may be moving and don’t necessarily assume that friendship is strained beyond repair. He might just be providing an opportunity to strengthen that relationship and take it to the next level.

Questions:

1. Do you agree that it is difficult to have more than five true friends?
2. Why do you think God wants us to have true friends in our lives?
3. Do you agree that when we encounter challenges in our closest relationships, it might be a good thing? Why or why not?
4. Do you have any examples where you or someone else you know worked on repairing a strained friendship and it turned out that friendship became much deeper?
5. What are one or two things we can do this week to either deepen a good friendship or start repairing a strained friendship?

Two weeks ago, in part 1 of True Faith, we established that we tend to put boundaries around our faith, meaning that we’re glad to “follow” God as long as we can enjoy certain comforts and avoid certain difficulties. Then, last week in Part 2, we discussed Paul’s teaching in Romans 10:17 that faith comes from hearing and reading scripture. As part of last week’s lesson, we touched on the importance of taking time to reflect on scripture, which brings us to today’s verse from Colossians 3:16 which says,

“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives.”

If you’ve ever lived through a prolonged drought, you may remember that most of the limited rain that fell during this period ran off the dry soil instead of sinking in. It takes prolonged periods of rain for the soil to soften up and allow the moisture to sink deeply.

In the same way, we need prolonged exposure to scripture for it to sink in and nourish the roots of our faith. This reflection time is the best way to receive genuine revelations about God’s path for us and how He is working in our life.

But consistently scheduling in even 15 minutes for reflection often seems like a challenge. We wake up running, jump in the shower, grab some coffee, drop the kids off, get our workday started, and go hard until we get home. Then we’re so stressed from the day that it’s all we can do to be present at kid’s activities and dinner with the family. We barely have time for an hour or two of Netflix 😊before we try to get to bed at a decent time.

But there is good news – God’s got this. He’ll bless the time you spend on scripture and multiply it. So, you really get a Faith BOGO (buy-one-get-one). Not only will we get the faith-enhancing benefit of reflecting on scripture, but our faith will be further enhanced by trusting God enough to cheerfully carve out this time.

If you are ready to give it a try, there is no wrong way to get started. But, to help keep your mind from wandering, you might pick a quiet place and start with a plan – any plan. Maybe it’s meditating on one verse or a short passage. Or maybe you want to read a longer passage and just observe where the Holy Spirit draws your attention. As with meditation, it might be clunky at first, but will become increasingly comfortable over time.

Here are a few questions about today’s topic:

1. After we’ve talked through it for the past couple of weeks, how important do you think it is to make time reflect on scripture instead of just reading/hearing it quickly?
2. Do you find it difficult to carve out time for God because of your busy schedule?
3. Do you agree that God can multiply the time you set apart for Him? If so, what are some of the ways He can do that?
4. The word “cheerful” is used above in relation to our mindset going into scriptural reflection. Do you think it makes a difference to God how enthusiastically we approach the time we give Him?
5. Two weeks ago, one of our questions was “why do you think faith is so important to God?”. After two more discussion about faith, do you have any additional thoughts on this question?

Last week we talked about the idea of “bounded faith” which means that we’re glad to follow God faithfully as long as we get to set the terms about certain things. Kevin observed that this would be like a bounded marriage – I’ll go to work all week and then fish & golf all weekend while you take care of the kids. Since this is not really faith at all, we discussed some ideas for going deeper in our faith walk.

Chris pointed out that last week that if he saw a burning bush, he we be more inclined to act in complete faith, but since we don’t see a lot of flaming shrubs these days, it’s hard to always know exactly what He’s calling us to do. And, since knowing God’s will for us is the first step in growing our faith, let’s start with a verse that will help guide us. Romans 10:17 says,

“Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”

Paul specifically mentions hearing the word but doesn’t mention reading it. That might be because when he wrote this, people didn’t have the same access to written material, including scripture. I think the spirit of his message is probably that a growing faith comes from exposure to scripture, no matter how we get it.  Assuming that’s true, if Paul was writing this message today, he might say that faith starts with :

1)      Having a plan to regularly read and study scripture, and

2)      Regularly attending worship and Bible studies to hear the word

One additional idea to add to our faith-enhancing recipe is to make time for reflection. Just like rain running off of hard soil, if we don’t take time to reflect on scripture, it might not get down to our faith “roots”. In some cases, it might be as if we were never even exposed to the scripture. We’ll go deeper on that idea in Part 3 of this series next week.

So, a growing faith starts with dedicating time to read/hear scripture and then reflect on it, but how much time is enough? That’s a personal decision, of course, but the answer for many (most?) of us is that we need to do more than we’re doing now.

My friend Kevin humorously observed, “If you are praying for 5 minutes out of the day, come on.  Do you realize what percentage that is of your day?  I mean 1 hour of church is 0.5% of your entire week…Do you think the big man upstairs feels that?” 

Here are a few questions to help us think more about it.

1)      Do you agree with the idea that growing our faith starts with reading and hearing more of the word? Why or why not?

2)      Growing our faith is the primary focus of today’s lesson, but what are some other benefits of consistently reading and hearing scripture?

3)      What are some ways we can reflect on the scripture?

4)      If today’s lesson inspired you, in what ways would like to be more intentional about reading & hearing the word and reflecting on it?

What if I asked you to permanently leave your home along with your family but didn’t tell you where you were going? You would probably think I had made a mistake or lost my mind. When we start going anywhere, we like to plug it into Waze, determine the travel time, review the weather, schedule our accommodations in advance, and plan for food along the way. So, it would be an odd and confusing request to ask someone to get started with no details. But that’s exactly what God told Abram (later called Abraham) in Genesis 12:1:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”

God didn’t say “go to Canaan”, which is where they ended up, He just said, “go to the land I will show you” and, apparently, Abram proceeded in faith. God did provide guidance to Abram and his family, as we see in the next few verses, and they did arrive safely. But, at the beginning of the journey, God required that Abram trust in faith that He would guide him safely to the right place.

Although most people don’t have this level of absolute faith, in fairness to us, Abram did experience God speaking directly to Him, apparently out loud, which would make it a little easier to follow God. But even if we acknowledge that absolute faith is a very challenging standard, we can still start to incorporate more faithful thinking in our day-to-day lives.

I’ve prayed a lot and asked for a lot of blessings for myself, loved ones, business ventures, and even my favorite teams, but only a few times in life have I truly, with no hesitation, said to God, “wherever You lead, I will follow”. I tend to live by what might be called “bounded faith”. If I can live in a certain place, with a certain lifestyle, and with all the comforts I would like to enjoy, I’m glad to follow God wherever He leads me. But that’s not true faith and I’ve probably given up many blessings He had in store for me because I’ve stayed mostly on my own path.

Faith is one of those concepts that looks simple on the surface but gets way more complicated as we dig in. Here are a few questions to help us think more about our own faith journey:

Questions

1. Why do you think Faith is so important to God?
2. Do you struggle with a “bounded faith” or do you easily turn things over to God with zero hesitation?
3. Do you have any examples of where you went to God before making a big decision and felt like he guided you as you made that decision? Please share your experience if so.
4. For the flip-side of the last question, do you have any examples of decisions you wish you would have made only after going to God for guidance?
5. Why is faith something that we often struggle with? Why do we have trouble following God’s plan for our lives without hesitation?

Today’s lesson may leave you with more questions than answers, but sometimes those are the best ones. Don’t worry if you leave today with one or more areas where you are confused. Just ask God to let the seeds that are planted in your heart & mind today to grow your understanding of Him as He desires, and in His timing.

We’ve talked about the fact that the Bible is one cohesive story that can be concisely described in one sentence – The Bible is the story of God pursuing us. Although it seems like God changes dramatically from the old testament to the new, He does not. That’s not to say His “agreement” or covenant with us isn’t different now than before Jesus came to earth, because it definitely is significantly different. But God’s plan has always been one overarching strategy designed to bring us closer to Him.

God has always known exactly what would happen everywhere on earth and with every person, at every moment in time. The earliest example we have of this is hidden in plain sight in Genesis 2:17-18 which says:

You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.

And, of course, they did eat the fruit. It’s a heartbreaking and confounding story but it starts to make more sense when we consider the part that’s hidden in plain sight. God doesn’t “if” you eat from the tree, he says “when” you eat from it. He knew all along what they would do. He did not have to turn to plan B. He’s always been working from plan A.

Just like Adam & Eve, we’ve all done things God asks us not to do and we all carry some form of guilt or shame thinking that we’ve let Him down. We ask ourselves how we could possibly face God having come up short in so many ways. But just like in the garden, God has always known what we would do in advance. And, even with all of our mistakes, He could not possibly love us any more than He does.

I am genuinely in awe and humbled by the fact that He knows everything about us, all of our mistakes past & future and HE STILL LOVES ME AND YOU more than any of us can possibly imagine. That’s not to say that He doesn’t want us to consistently strive to get better, but simply that we don’t need to go to Him with shame and regret in our hearts. He forgives us for all of it, and all of it is part of the plan. Accepting this forgiveness is not always easy, of course, but for many of us, that is the first step to embracing a deeper relationship with God.

Questions:

1. Was there anything that struck you about today’s lesson? Maybe something you had not previously considered?
2. Was there anything confusing to you about today’s lesson?
3. What, if anything, about today’s lesson gave you a sense of peace and comfort?
4. Do you agree that accepting forgiveness is often the first step in deepening our relationship with God? Why or why not?
5. What are your main take-aways from today’s lesson?

One of the key ideas in the book Untethered Soul is that all our problems start with that annoying voice inside our head. The voice that constantly tells us we’re not good enough, smart enough, strong enough or rich enough. It tells us that people are disparaging us and that we’re going to die destitute and lonely. Or it makes us think that someone in our life is only contributing 49% while we’re contributing 51% which, of course, makes us a victim.

Assuming this voice is at the root of all our troubles, why don’t we just turn it off? Of course, it’s not that easy or we would just do it. To help us think through the answer to the question, we’ll start with our verse for the day:

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, give us all things?” – Romans 8:31-32

Since God is for us, isn’t it comforting to know that nothing, not even the voice inside our head, can be against us? The author of Untethered Soul doesn’t directly call that voice the devil, but maybe that’s who it is. It’s not us talking because we’re the one hearing the voice. So, once we know that the voice is not us speaking, then we can ask two very simple questions:

1. If we had a friend who said all the things to us that the voice says to us, would we remain friends with them? and
2. Since the answer to #1 is a firm “no”, why do we attribute any more meaning to what the voice says than we would a terrible friend who said the same things?

The short answer to solve this problem is that we need to observe the voice instead of interacting with it. We can watch it just like we would watch a TV show, but we don’t have to be part of the TV show. When we simply observe and let each thought pass by, then we can reduce the voice’s influence. And only then can we truly be the person God created us to be and not a person controlled by the voice.

And that, to me, is the single biggest reason to make it a priority to stop the voice. God created each of us for a very specific purpose and He wants us to be THE person He created us to be. Only then can we experience all the love and joy He has in store for us and share that love and joy with others as He intends.

Questions:

1. Do you agree with the idea that the voice in our heads is at the heart of all our problems?
2. What would you call a person who said the same things to you that the voice says? (Psychopath, troublemaker, etc.) And would you remain friends with them?
3. What are some examples from your life or others you know where the voice has gotten you or others off track and caused damage?
4. Do you agree that only when we minimize the voice can we become the people God created us to be?
5. How can we tell the difference between the bad voice and the Holy Spirit since the Spirit can talk to us at times too?

I read an interesting concept recently in a book by Richard Rohr titled Immortal Diamond. The overall theme of the book is that we need to find our true selves in order to be most useful to God and to fulfill the plan He has for us while on earth.

The author posed this question – when we face difficult or even tragic events, do we adopt that as our identity, or do we look at it as a gift? For example, assume someone’s business fails. Rohr says that person tends to make that their identity and view everything through that lens. “I am a failure in business” or “I can’t be trusted with responsibility of running a business” or “nobody will ever trust me enough to do business with me again because I failed”. This can become our new identity if we allow it to.

That brings us to today’s scripture, which is from James 1:2-4:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Richard Rohr suggests a way to avoid allowing difficult times to define us. He says that as Christians, our true identity is in Jesus and that we are beautiful, worthy children of a risen savior. We are completely and permanently justified by faith, and we have been relieved of the condemnation, guilt, and penalty of sin thanks to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

He says that if we confidently claim our true identity in Jesus, we can (and should) view difficult times as a gift instead of allowing these experiences to falsely identify us. The gift may come in many forms and will help make us more mature and complete, as referenced in today’s scripture.

Of course, at the moment tragedy strikes, it is nearly impossible to immediately say “wow, I’m glad that happened and I really appreciate that gift”. These events sting and are highly disruptive factors in our lives. But eventually, if we are looking for it, the gift will be revealed to us.

1. Do you agree that it is easy to allow tragedy to define us if we don’t do something to alter our thinking?
2. When we say our identity is in Jesus, what does that mean to you?
3. Have you had any tragic experiences that turned out to be an unexpected gift?
4. Is there anything in your past that you’re allowing to define you? If so, what can you do to let that go?

[If you have time, read Matthew 5 before the lesson]

Waze and other GPS apps have revolutionized efficient driving, but do you remember the “old days”? Back then, how would you know if you needed to get off the highway to re-route a few miles before a big traffic jam? Or how could you be completely confident with every turn of a set of complicated driving directions?

In those days, it was possible to make a wrong turn and then drive miles before realizing you were lost. You were actually lost right when you made that turn but the fact that you were lost wasn’t always immediately apparent. Waze isn’t perfect, but if you follow it, you’re less likely to get too far off track for too long.

Similarly, what if we had a “Waze” for life that would help us with our direction? Since you’re sitting in a Christian men’s group, you may have already figured out that we’re going to discuss the idea that the Bible can be our own personal Waze.

And within the Bible, there are plenty of examples we can use as our life’s GPS – 10 Commandments; Love God, Love People; the parables of Jesus – but today we’ll cover the Beatitudes of Jesus which are contained in Matthew 5:3-10:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
• Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
• Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
• Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
• Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
• Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

If you would like to go deeper in your understanding of the Beatitudes, Dr. Bill will cover each of them in a series of sermons in June and July. For now, here are a few questions for discussion:

1. Do you agree that a life modeled on the Beatitudes can serve as a “Waze for life” and help us avoid getting too lost for too long?
2. Which Beatitude do you most consistently follow, and which one do you need to work on the most?
3. Can you share an example of a situation that would have gone more smoothly if you would have referenced your “Beatitude GPS” before engaging?
4. In your opinion, how does access to the internet and social media affect our ability to live a life consistent with the Beatitudes?