WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE

Do you like meeting new people and forming new friendships? Some people do. Some don’t. Those that do are usually the ones you see in a social setting (such as a party) who, if they see someone on their own, they feel they should be the one to go over to that person and have a conversation with them. Such people are naturally friendly and seem to make friends quite easily. They find starting conversations with others easier than most and seem to somehow have the knack of making people feel at ease. But these people are rare. In fact, good friends are hard to find these days. However, they may now become less rare if everyone who is unfriendly or friendless reads this short article and discovers how to become a good or even better friend.    

A man who has friends must [first] himself be friendly,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 18:24 NKJV

THE QUALITIES OF A FRIEND

Friends come in different shapes, sizes, ages, and either sex. A friend is someone who knows you and perhaps despite what they know about you they still like you. A friend invests their time, talent, interests, efforts, in getting to know you and along the way they are prepared to help you where they can. They know where you live. They know the date of your birthday. They know where you grew up. They know what book you’re reading at the moment. They know what makes you happy or upset. They share your heartaches and celebrate your triumphs. Importantly, some friends are for seasons that don’t last. Perhaps with this in mind the Sage wrote that family members rather than friends is where we seek and find lasting support:

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
Proverbs 17:17

But because families are often scattered beyond their hometown these days, the wisdom of the Sage found in Proverbs 27:10 should also be appreciated.

 

THE ACTS OF A FRIEND 

 Friends have limits. Despite the infinite number of internet memes that declare a true friend will always be there for you the reality is they can’t and probably shouldn’t be. Sure, they may be able to be with you in an emergency moment of crisis, but often times even those moments will be restricted by time, distance, and convenience. Your friends have jobs, families, and appointments to keep that may make it impracticable if not impossible for them to “always be there for you”. More reasonably, a good friend will usually make time to spend time with you. Over time they will have got to know you. This proper use of together-time builds trust and allows trust to grow. This kind of friendship trust enables you to hear hard truths from them about your traits that others might find unacceptable. A friend tells the truth to their friend. A friend can look you in the eye and tell you what you need to hear even though you don’t want to hear it. A friend can open a curtain to parts of your soul that you have not made visible to others. Yet too few people ever experience this kind of deep friendship.

He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.
Proverbs 22:11

FINDING A GOOD TRUE FRIEND

 The average person who lives in a community (unless they are one who lives on a desert island, or deserted island, or by themselves on a dessert island 🙂 ) will generally have up to sixty to seventy-or-so acquaintances. These are people they would wave to and probably have some idea about their name. The average person in that community would also probably have just a handful of people who would be their friends. And statistically maybe just one of those friends would be a close friend. However, it seems to be a modern phenomena that a growing number of people across all ages are experiencing loneliness from having no friend. So I have a few suggestions to solve this friendless (deadly) crisis.

¶ Know your sheep by name; carefully attend to your flocks;
Proverbs 27:23

 

FRIENDLY AS THE STEP TOWARD FRIENDSHIP

If you would have a friend, first show yourself to be friendly. Talk with people. Listen to people. Remember people’s names (when someone introduces themself to you, repeat their name back to them in your response. “Hi, my name is Slabodan.” “Hi Slabodan. Nice to meet you. My name is Annabel-Natasha.”). The next time you meet them, ask them a follow-up question based on your previous meeting. (“How did you go with that job interview?”) Show interest in them with questions. Share your interests. If you haven’t got any — get some! Be interesting! (‘Interesting people have lots of interests.’) In fact, common interests is often a magnet that attracts people into people into a friendship. Note how interesting these young men, Daniel and his three friends, must have been based on Daniel 1:4 – (i) well groomed and well dressed; (ii) highly educated; (iii) hungry to learn; (iv) dignified and polite; and (v) fluent in foreign languages and cultures.

1. 1. Talk with people you don’t know.
   2. Listen to the stories of people you’re getting to know.
   3. Remember people’s names.
   4. Follow up on information you gained about someone the next time you meet.
   5. Explore what interests a person has.
   6. Share your interests with the person you have just met – make yourself interesting.
   7. Get out your comfort zone every now and again and try something for the first time.  When was the last time you tried something for the first time?

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.
Matthew 11:19

 

YOU HAVE A FRIEND REQUEST

The message of the Gospel is really good news for anyone craving a true friend. The Gospel presents Jesus as the True Friend who “sticks closer than a brother”.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 18:24

I’m a very shy person. As anyone who was at my last birthday party could testify, I am not a party-animal. Yet when I read the Gospels though I meet a Jesus who loved to be around ordinary people. He loved parties. If the producers of the Chosen are correct, Jesus loved to eat, drink and dance at parties with His friends.  

And while Jesus was GOD-in-the-flesh; the Lord of Heaven and Earth;, He told His disciples that above all, He was their friend.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15

Jesus is now coronated as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, yet He wants to be your friend. You may feel like you are a nobody. (You and me both.) While we maybe no-bodies, we can know Somebody who knows everybody who calls us His friend – if we have accepted His Friend Request. Will you? 

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

HOUSE (of God) RULES

Our theme for this year is Welcome home and there’s a good reason for it. I pray regularly that God will bring into our church the hurting, the lost, the lonely, and the broken. What these people will need most is: love, care, support, understanding, acceptance, friendship, and rules. These are the things that a good home provides and they are also what our church can deliver. But it will mean that we will have to be very clear about the rules for achieving this because hurting, lost, lonely, and broken people are all too often hardened, bitter, self-pitying, and very negative people who don’t live with ‘house rules’. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians he went to great length to explain to them what the church was, what people could expect  from church, how a church was led, how a church helped a believer to grow and become like Christ, and the rules for living within the ‘household of God’.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God
Ephesians 2:19

HELPING THE HURTING,LOST, LONELY, CONFUSED, FRIENDLESS, & BROKEN

If you’ve fostered a child, you’ll understand what I’m saying. Children who are made wards-of-the-State have often been hurt in unimaginable ways and quite possibly have never experienced true love. When foster parents offer to take in such a child, it is often heart-breaking for all concerned. A child who is hurting, lost, lonely, confused, friendless and broken, is hard work—just ask any foster parent who has attempted it!

in whom [Christ] the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:21-22

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians he was writing to a church comprised of Jews and Gentiles who saw the world very differently and came from radically different backgrounds, and often didn’t get on very well to put it mildly. But Paul tells them that Jesus has now “broken down the wall of hostility between them” and brought them together into the church.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
Ephesians 2:13-14

While Jewish converts were familiar with God’s moral laws and even His instructions for how a family should function, these Gentile converts in the Ephesians were not. Paul later tells the Ephesians that when it comes to selecting elders, you should only consider the candidates who “have one wife” and “have their household in order”. This gives us a clue that there were possibly many in the Ephesian church who, in typical Roman practice, may have been married to several wives (polygamy) and quite probably had several ‘concubines’ (‘sex-slaves’). In setting the church in order, Paul describes what families should look like: parents who love each other; parents who love their children; children who obey their parents; fathers who teach their children about life and God; and how the family unit is a bastion of spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness. And all the while, this single, celibate, apostle, has an even bigger picture in mind: what the local church should be like. Despite being comprised of people who have just come out of lifestyles of immorality or religious arrogance, he sees the local church as a big family where everyone must learn to live in Christ together (Eph. 2:5; 2:21; 2:22; 4:16).

In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:22

Paul’s strategy for healing the broken was to minister Christ to them by the power of God’s Word. This was because what the hurting, lonely, self-pitying, despondent, really needed was not what they themselves thought they needed — more attention, more popularity, better looks, more money, more wishes to come true — but the True Source of Satisfaction to their deepest and greatest need: Jesus. 

In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit
Ephesians 1:13

That He might sanctify her [the church], having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word
Ephesians 5:26

THE POWER OF THE WORD WITHIN THE COMMUNITY OF THE CHURCH TO BRING HEALING

People who are hurting and consequently feeling misunderstood and isolated, often become very bitter. In the Old Testament there is a story about a school of prophets who were served a stew that was very bitter and tasted like poison (bitterness is indeed a poison and it causes hurt people to hurt people). They called on Elisha for help. He instructed them to take meal (a very finely ground flour) and cast it into the bitter stew (2Kings 4:41). When they did this, the bitter stew became safe and savoury to eat. This is a picture of what the Word of Christ does to a bitter and broken soul. He and His Word takes a bitter, lonely, hurting soul and transforms it into a healed, whole, and attractive soul. Thus, Paul told the Ephesians- 

¶ Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Ephesians 4:25-31

HOUSE (of God) RULES

Based on the above passage we can see that the Apostle Paul gave the Ephesians some important ‘house rules’ for their church. We might summarise the house rules of Ephesians 4:25-31 in this way-

• Speak the truth – leaders should not shy away from correcting the wayward
• Don’t withdraw if someone in the church upsets you – if someone innocently offends you don’t let your anger lead to the sin of slander (especially if it was a leader) 
• Forgive quickly – unforgiveness gives the devil an foothold in a church to weaken its effectiveness
• Be a contributor – both within the church community and in the world so that you can share with anyone in need 
• Speak positively about the church – let your words build others up not tear them down
• Cooperate with the Holy Spirit – Christ has sent the Holy Spirit into the world to assist in the outworking of His plan of redemption through the church, therefore resist the Devil’s temptation to be a rebel and cooperate with the Holy Spirit in praying for your church (remember, bitter criticism and slander is your admission of prayerlessness)

In the meantime, please continue to take a moment to welcome those who are new to our church then be on the look out for those who may feel left out. This is what families do, especially church families, and it’s what makes a house a home.

 -Pastor Andrew

PROPHETIC PORTENDS THROUGH MY EYE-CUP

MY EYE CUP

First The Natural

But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
First Corinthians 15:46

These days I rarely misplace things. I have learned the value of routines for such matters as putting things where they belong. But lately, and curiously, I have lost certain things which are not of great value but they are of great value to me. It’s embarrassing to admit that in these moments I pray for their discovery and return. This all seems to have commenced around the time we began construction on our new auditorium. Upon reflection, I can see yet another way God has been teaching me some valuable lessons about my relationship with Him through this construction project.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Luke 19:10

I won’t bore you with a catalogue of the things that I have lost over the past 14 weeks – which have nearly all been returned or found – but I will share about the latest one. A few days ago my eye-cup disappeared. No, I don’t keep my glass eye in a cup, partly because I don’t have a glass eye. An ‘eye-cup’ is a photographic term for the rubber and plastic surround to the view-finder on a DSLR camera. This seemingly insignificant bit of plastic and rubber is highly valuable to me because, (i) I use it everyday; (ii) the camera manufacturer doesn’t make them anymore. I looked “everywhere” for it without success. I began doing what I always do when I don’t know what to do. I prayed. 

The loss of my eye-cup was also particularly frustrating because I didn’t lose it. It wasn’t as if I took it off and randomly left it somewhere without being able to recollect where I put it. No, it had decided to run-away from home! Each time I have prayed for God to help me to locate what I had lost over the past 14 weeks, I have felt a degree of guilt. After all, God is extremely busy. He’s got a lot going on at the moment – what, with the situation in the Middle East, the various atrocities being committed by East African despots, and now the North Korean crisis. I could hardly think He was concerned with something so incredibly trivial as my eye-cup. 

But as He answered each prayer for such trivial losses, I began to realise something magnificent about our God. He is audaciously, gloriously, splendidly magnificent! No detail escapes Him. No task is too great for Him. I have discovered that the more I appeal to these facts about God, the more my soul appreciates His unfathomable magnificence and then the greater my confidence to pray every care to Him. This includes run away eye-cups.

¶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.
First Peter 5:6-7

Yesterday morning, I had someone, who is not a part of our church, drop in to see me. As they looked inside our new auditorium they said, “I have felt God saying that this is the place where the lost will be found! Keep being faithful and God will be glorified in this place by bringing and saving the lost here!” 

At the end of the day, after daylight had gone, I hooked up my trailer (which I had taken to church to removed some of the left-over building materials), and as I did I noticed my eye-cup just near my trailer’s wheel! I nearly cried as I worshiped the Magnificent God and thanked Him for His deep care for my trivial matters. But I was awash in the realisation that each of these lost-and-found moments had been portends, prophetic sign-posts, of what God was ultimately going to do. I have found that what the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians has a broader application than just the point he was making about the nature of the resurrection, when he wrote, “First comes the natural, then the spiritual.” 

As we open our building this weekend, may we indeed pray that many who are now lost will indeed be found.

Pastor Andrew

It Starts This Sunday

IT STARTS THIS SUNDAY

This Sunday, there will be someone coming to church who is looking for something. If someone really knew them, they might describe them as hurt and lonely. But they would never openly admit to that. They’re not quite sure what they’re looking for but they know they haven’t yet found it. They at least know that they crave for someone – anyone – simply to listen to them – to understand them. If someone could just see them, noticethem…care. They pray to God asking Him to help. Perhaps this is why they are giving church a go this Sunday.

remember that you were at that time separated from Christ … having no hope and without God in the world.
Ephesians 2:12

They will come to church this Sunday. They will wonder how God might answer their prayer for someone, anyone, who will give them time – listen to them – care.  The Devil knows he is at risk of losing one of his own if they go into his Enemy’s domain. He also knows he can’t injure the Spirit-filled, Spirit-sensitive, Spirit-led follower of Christ. It frustrates him that these Blood-Bought ones daily arm themselves in prayers of surrender to the One who shed His blood for them, and, that they sharpen their spiritual swords by filling their hearts and minds with the Word of the Lamb. But he can sometimes deceive them. 

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
Second Corinthians 10:4

If Satan hasn’t been able to deceive the Christ-follower with an excuse to not go to church, then he loves to use another old favourite trick that is nearly as effective: busyness. 

But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”  ¶ But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details!
Luke 10:40-41

This Sunday, someone is coming to church. They’re empty. They’re lonely. They ache and don’t really know why. They are open to God, but don’t know Him. They will watch closely those who do claim to know God. Will they notice them? Will they reach out to them? Will they listen to them. Will they care?

Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2

Will you notice them? Will you reach out to them? Will you listen to them? Will you care? If your prayer is indeed a prayer of surrender to the One who notices everyone, who reaches out to everyone, who listens to everyone, and who cares for everyone, then your prayer will be answered. In fact, someone will be coming to church this Sunday because someone who daily prayerfully surrenders their heart to Christ in private worship has already reached out publicly to them with an invitation to come to the place where Jesus meets with the hurting-hearted. Someone’s life is going to be saved and renewed and it starts this Sunday. 

Ps. Andrew