Slaves and Friends of Jesus, Part 1

what in the world makes us so embarrassed about the gospel I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified [Music] [Music] slavery that word stirs emotions and bring so many images to mind but did you know the Bible actually talks about slavery not just in relation to instances like the children of Israel being enslaved in Egypt but in describing our relationship to Christ for the next two weeks we take a look at a portion of Scripture that is both completely humbling and profoundly encouraging as Pastor John unfolds our relationship with a loving but just master fifteen verses 12 through 17 this is a marvelous portion of scripture is full of significant instruction for us that while you're sort of settling into that particular text and before I read it to you what would you think if someone came to you and said you can be my friend you can be my friend I want to invite you to be my friend but there's one condition in order to be my friend you have to do everything I ask you to do really you can't even imagine anybody trying to initiate a friendship with a comment like that when we think of friendship we think of equality we think of sort of face-to-face communication we don't think of hierarchy we don't think of demands and commands and submission and authority we don't think of friendship that way but that rather strange reality of you can be my friend if you do everything I say to you is exactly what Jesus says in this passage I want you to be my friend but if you expect to be my friend then you must do everything I ask you let's look at the text in verse 12 this is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends you are my friends if you do what I command you no longer do I call you slaves for the slave does not know what his master is doing but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name he may give to you this I command you that you love one another it seems strange in calling people friends to keep repeating to them commands but that's exactly what our Lord does now just so you know where we are in this particular text we find ourselves again on a night like no other it is Thursday night of the final week of our Lord's life Friday he will die on the cross this is Thursday the whole evening has been spent with the disciples they were all there at the beginning all 12 of them for the Passover meal in the upper room now that meal has ended Judas has been dismissed Satan having entered into him he is now gone to gather together the force that will come to the garden arrest Jesus and put him on the cross the next day the eleven remained they have left the upper room where they were starting in chapter 13 and they are now walking through the darkness headed for the garden where he will spend some time in prayer and then be arrested it's an amazing night it was the last official legitimate authorized Passover meal the night was fraught with the horrible reality of Satan and Judas but beyond that our Lord has for all the hours as recorded in chapters 13 14 15 and 16 been making amazing astonishing promises to his disciples he's been giving them some warnings along the way but primarily these are words of great great promise as they walk the Lord one more time gives them an amazing promise if you do what I say you can be my friends there's really one reality that dominates this whole night it's recorded in chapters 13 14 15 and 16 and then his prayer that night in 17 so it's a huge chunk of the New Testament that features this one night but what really dominates this night is love it's really a night of incomparable unparalleled love that culminates the next day in the greatest act of love the Lord giving up his life for his own and he said it didn't he that greater love has no man than this that a man would lay down his life for his friends it's really a night of love if you go back to chapter 13 where it all started they arrived in that Upper Room and Jesus knew that his hour had come the hour of his death that he would be departing out of the world of the father it says in verse 1 having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the limits he loved them to the max he loved them if you will to the limit of God's capacity to love which is limitless it's about love and love then becomes the underlying reality in all of his promises in all of his warnings love is what is featured here down in verse 23 John even identifies himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved and in that thirteenth chapter over in verse 34 we read our Lord set a new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you that you also love one another by this all men will know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another and then in chapter 14 again in verse 21 he who has my Commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and will disclose myself to him and again in verse 23 if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him and again in verse 28 if you loved me you would have rejoiced because go to the father it's all about love then in Chapter 15 you remember verse nine just as the father has loved me I have also loved you abide in my love in verse 10 if you keep my Commandments you will abide in my love just as I have kept my father's Commandments and abide in his love and our Lord then in chapter 17 prays this prayer that God the Father will fulfill all the promises he has made and he wraps it up at the end of 17 in verses 25 and 26 with this final statement oh righteous father although the world has not known you yet I have known you and these have known that you sent me and I have made your name known to them and will make it known so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them this is a night of love this is a night of love like no other night ever this is where the love of God is promised through Christ to all who belong to him love is behind all the promises love is behind all the warnings love is behind all the commandments he shared his love by washing their dirty feet in a humble way he shared his love by lavishing on them the promise of eternal life peace joy divine presence forever righteousness answer prayer assurance everything they would ever need his focus is on love but love hits a high point in the verses that I read 12 to 17 and the high point of course is verse 13 greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends in this paragraph that we just read the Lord expresses his love and commands his disciples to love him and to love others to live in love the father loves the son the son loves the father the father and the son love us we are to love them and love each other love defines this relationship but it is a very unique kind of love and there is a rather strange way in which this relationship is described here because in verse 14 we read you are my friends but in verse 15 it says no longer do I merely call you or only call you slaves for the slave doesn't know what his master is doing but I've called you friends for all things that I've heard from My Father I've made known to you he identifies the disciples as slaves who are also friends now this might seem a bit bizarre to you because we don't have any slaves in America and in the modern world slavery is a heinous kind of reality that we reject we're not used to that kind of concept of that kind of social structure we know about friends and friends typically in our society or people who have some kind of usually somewhat silly and frivolous relationship sometimes it deepens into something beyond that but this is a new dynamic reality slaves who are also friends by the way the Bible nowhere condemns slavery as the social structure no where it condemns every abuse of it as it condemns every abuse of every social structure every sin every wrongdoing every maltreatment is condemned but slavery in itself not only is it not condemned it is elevated as a spiritual structure on which to understand our relationship to the Lord we are slaves who have become friends now you say well how in the world can that be well let me help you in the Roman courts and in the eastern courts as well in the ancient world slavery was common it didn't have to be bad for some people slavery was the best of all possibilities because they were cared for along with their family for the whole of their life many of them were so loved and well cared for that they would go to their master and say I want to serve you for life in the old testament pictures that they would put up their ear against a post and an awl would poke a hole in the ear and that would indicate that this was a willing slave for life well at the court of Roman emperors let's say there were many many slaves there were as many as 12 million slaves and that may be a low number in the ancient world and slaves did everything they didn't just do menial tasks they did everything every profession every skill every craft every everything could be done by slaves they were literally strewn throughout all the levels of society in terms of function they were unique in that they were owned but there were some slaves who had risen very high and they had become friends of the king friends of the emperor friends of Caesar everybody understood that look Kings need slaves there were slaves who had access to the King because they were so trusted because they were so faithful they had so much fidelity they were so dutiful they were so concerned to do what they were told to do they had risen through the social ranks until they were trusted enough to be made the intimate friends of the King we read about these slaves that they had the right to enter the Kings bedchamber so that they were the last ones to see him at night and the first ones to see him in the morning they cared for his most intimate needs at a very personal level they were so well acquainted with him that they literally were trusted with his life with his life they had become protectors of his life they would know his fears because they were intimately acquainted with him in all informal situations they would know his thoughts they would know his hopes his Joy's his ambitions very likely they would know his plans they would know far more about this King than anybody who met him on a formal level any statesman any politician any noble or any general wouldn't know what these intimate friends of the King knew these slaves who took his sandals off and put on his bedclothes and were there in the morning to bring him out of bed to help him prepare for the day they they knew more than his wives knew because marriage was a convenience and concubines were only for sexual pleasure and children were not necessarily given the attention of their important fathers anyway one could say that these were the intimate people in the life of a monarch they were the closest most personal private people in his world and they had to be trusted they had to be trusted with his life they had to be trusted with his thoughts they had to be trusted with his plans they had to be trusted with his goals and objectives and if you were a friend of the King if you were a slave who was a friend you are of all men most specially favored and you can understand why by the way the word friend and the Greek is Phyllis it's from the Greek verb fill L which means to love to love to have affection for Jesus says you are my friends slaves who are love you are slaves who know me most intimately go back to verse 15 I call you friends even though your slaves because all things that I have heard from my father I've made known to you there are no secrets there are no secrets I'll tell you everything everything the father has revealed I pass on to you you know me better than anyone knows me you know me most intimately it's a magnificent picture of the believer who is a slave but elevated to an intimate level of being uniquely loved and trusted and to us the Lord has given us everything that the father has told him he holds no secrets from us what an amazing way to understand our Christian lives you say wait a minute there are no secrets no you have the mind of Christ he's revealed it all here nothing held back how how blessed am i to be able to say I'm a friend of the king of kings and Lord of lords and he has no secrets that he's kept from me all that the father has revealed he has given me how privileged him am i this is real friendship this is true relationship now when we talk about slaves who are friends we are entering into a concept that is alien to even the evangelical world it was back in 2010 that I wrote a book and the title of the book was slave some of you have seen that book maybe some of you had looked at it slave I had a hard time getting the publisher to accept the title I had an even harder time getting them to accept the fact that I was going to expose a cover-up a long-standing cover-up a cover-up of centuries trying to cover up the fact that Christians are slaves I wrote the book to expose the cover-up the the effort that had gone on for centuries to hide this essential reality that we as Christians are slaves of Christ slaves who are very intimate friends of the king now let me help you to understand only make two points this morning that'll take me a while but I'm only gonna make two point one Jesus is Lord point two you're his slave that's all I want to say point one Jesus is Lord that is the substantial foundational confession of Christianity if you say you're a Christian then immediately you would say Jesus is Lord that's what sets a Christian apart Caesar is not Lord by the way in the ancient world everybody was can was confessing Caesar is Lord Caesar is Lord Caesar is Lord along came these other people saying no Caesar is not Lord Jesus is Lord and we are slaves of Jesus who are intimate friends of him you can't even be a Christian unless you confess Jesus the Lord Romans 10:9 and 10 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you'll be saved right and you can't do that on your own first Corinthians 12:3 says nobody can confess Jesus as Lord except by the power of the Holy Spirit that is an absolute reality it is an essential required confession and belief and it demands heart submission you may not have understood that before but let me you with that the true reality of Christ's lordship has been all but obscured and eclipsed through the centuries by the translators of the New Testament and even the old who have tampered with the word slave it really is an amazing cover-up amazing but let's start with Jesus is Lord that is the Christian confession it is the word curious curious that's the word Lord it means one who has power ownership and absolute authority one who has power ownership and absolute authority that's a Lord choose 750 times in the New Testament and its meaning is not in question there is a synonym to curious the synonym is death spot s despot s which means absolute ruler from which you get the use word despot we use it as an adjective somebody's a despotic ruler we mean they are a unilateral dictator that's what despot s means Jesus in the little book of Jude is called master and Lord verse for despot s and curious when the New Testament refers to Jesus it primarily refers to him as Korea's Lord for example our Lord has referred to ninety four times in the book of Acts ninety two of the ninety four he is called Lord - he is called so tear Savior the lordship of Christ has clearly declared throughout the entire New Testament he is Korea's sovereign ruler he is despot s absolute ruler so when you say Jesus is Lord you're not identifying him merely as diety although he is that you're not identifying him in some sort of abstract way as the most important religious figure when you say Lord that's slave talk that's slave talk you're saying he is the master with absolute power and absolute dominion that word would be used to describe a slave owner he is Lord it's such a bizarre thing as I look back over my life to realize that I have been trying for decades to get evangelical Christians to understand that Jesus is Lord for a long time it was the theology of the lordship and I was writing books the Gospel according to Jesus the Gospel according the Apostles trying to show that theologically and biblically Jesus is Lord but now that the church is much more informal and less interested in theology and practically speaking evangelism has a very weak sense in which they confess Jesus as Lord it's really about me they've they've really sucked up the air of the culture the church is an assembly of people who think they're there to tell God what he needs to do for them what he needs to give to them it's sort of like I'm Lord and you're the genie I rub the magic lamp you act I don't think there's an effort to prove this scripture early but there's just an indifference toward theology it's a kind of practical disowning of Christ as absolute sovereign Lord I mean Jesus said it this way why do you call me Lord and do not the things I say this is ridiculous you can't call me Lord and then not do what I tell you to do you're done with you you're not in charge anymore your ambitions your schemes your desires your goals your objectives your possessions your relationships all set aside you deny yourself maybe and you hate your father your mother brother sister hate your own life may mean abandoning your possessions it may mean forsaking everything you can't even perhaps go home and say goodbye to the family go home and take care of all your things like the disciples in Luke wanted to do you better count the cost you better understand what he's asking you you are saying you are Lord that means you are absolute ruler of my life [Music] I began to look at the New Testament word Doulos the word Doulos means slave when I began to unfold the hundred and fifty times that word is used in the New Testament I realized that my understanding of the New Testament had exploded in a new way the book slave is about the hidden word that unlocks the believers identity virtually all English translations ignore the fact that Doulos only means slave and translated the servant there had been a conspiracy to cover up a truth that is so essential to the New Testament that without it we misunderstand our relationship to Jesus Christ the servant does a job a slave his own when you understand the concept of the Christian as a slave then you understand what it means to be bought out of the slave market of sin as believers we are slaves who become friends friends who become sons sons who become joint heirs just changes everything that I perceive about the Christian flight Jesus is Lord and I am his slave to take advantage of the resources available simply visit our website GT wide org or you can give us a call at eight eight eight five seven grace and someone will be happy to speak with you thank you for joining us today we will see you next time on grace to you

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 21,060

Rating: 4.9385562 out of 5

Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ, Salvation, Gospel, Discipleship, Submission, Authority, Commandment, Lordship of Christ, Adoption, Slavery, Friendship, Master, Bondservant, The Gospel According to Jesus

Id: 6-l-MFgcR5I

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019