In this sermon Tim encourages us to follow the model of Jesus and his disciples and to make friends in the Church, show God’s love, kindness and hospitality to others and think about others rather than ourselves! How will you proactively seek to build friendship with someone this week?
05/02/23 – John 12:20-33 Following Jesus & Intro – by Tim Giovanelli – The Farewell Discourse Series – Manly Life Church Podcast
- 05/02/23 – John 12:20-33 Following Jesus & Intro – by Tim Giovanelli – The Farewell Discourse Series
- 29/01/23 – The Glory of Christ – Greg Beech
- 22/01/23 – Luke 15:1-8 God's Heart for the Lost – by Lani Daniel
- 15/01/23 – 1 John 4:11 Friendship In Church by Tim Giovanelli
- 08/01/23 – Philipians 3:17-4:4 Stand Firm in 2023 – by Peter Brooks
Friendship – SERMON NOTES
I am speaking on friendship with Jesus and being a community of friends…
- But I’ve been thinking we need to take worship and music in a different direction here at Manly Life…
- So I actually wanted to start with a song by an amazing 1970’s Catholic synth-pop group called Sonseed who I think hold the keys to our future…
- And also speak into our message today. OK, get ready to be blown away
- Video…
Well as many of you know, I was part of a fantastic church network in London 20 years ago when I lived there called HTB…
- They have planted hundreds of churches, developed and shared the Alpha Course globally…
- And it is just such a healthy… vibrant and admirable church.
- Many years ago, I was listening to Nicky Gumbel at a huge leadership conference…
- Sharing the secret to HTB’s success… waiting to hear the secret. And we are all leaning in… hoping to learn the key to a growing healthy church…
- Maybe it was going to be the music… or the preaching… or amazing social justice initiatives…
- And in a very English voice he said, the secret to a great church is… friendship!
And over the years, I have come to realise that he was spot on current… the best of what we call church is built on friendship
- Slide: life is better with friends…
- After salvation… I think it is friendship that makes the church so attractive.
- We don’t join a community of ideas but a community of people… of friends who do life together.
1 John 4:11 “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
- As we start this year as a church community we have so much to be thankful for…
- Last year we celebrated our church’s 10th anniversary…. And so many people are now involved here at Manly Life…
- We have great services, and Alpha Courses and worship nights and missions…
- But what makes me most happy… is seeing people connect and make friends.
- Dutch girl… Bertine… nervous… wasn’t sure if she was connecting and making friends…
- Next I hear she is moving in with some of the young adults at church, she is in the young adults life group… and she says to me… “I’ve never felt so at home and connected at a church”
You see there are many things you can do to grow a church
- You can have slightly better coffee than the church down the road… not a great strategy!
- Maybe you could offer an introductory 8% tithe 😉
- But let me tell you my hope: A church of friends who brings friends to hear the good news of salvation in Jesus…
- That is a deeply compelling vision for a community!
My own story: coming to faith… invited by friends… saw amazing friendships… beyond obviously being compelled by Jesus… wanted to be in that community.
Church can be hard to crack if you just turn up… possible! Cornelis. Now most popular person at Manly Life behind Todd Baker…
- Easiest way to grow as a church community is not Facebook ads, or handing out flyers at other church’s…
- It is to bring friends and introducing them to friends who know Jesus…
- Faith makes sense in a community of people doing life together and following the way of Christ…
- Jesus didn’t write a book but he did leave a community of friends… and they set about changing the world together.
So I really believe great churches are built on great friendships…
- Billy Graham (the great evangelist), had these two friends, Cliff Barrows and George Beverly Shea who sung at his meetings… (there at his first and last crusade).
- HTB and the 6 families… Perry – holiday together!
- That is my hope for Manly Life too… Ryan and Cass (10 years)… Joey and Bec (8 years)… so many of you through hard seasons…
- Beautiful thing: We get to do life together…
- So we hurt when the other hurts, celebrate when the other celebrates… raise kids together, keep each other on the right track with faith, have fun!
More so than that, I think it is a part of what it means when Jesus says he came to bring life…
- He restores relationship with God but also between one another.
- Explain… great reconciliation… cross, vertical and horizontal.
- I want to live this way… in close community… to love and be loved by people
- I am perhaps never happier than when surrounded by friends…
- My guess is those who commit to life groups and life at the church get the dividend of community and friendship…
- You will get in one sense what you put into it…
John Wimber used to say people come to church for a lot of reasons but they only stay if they make 5 friends…
- See that all the time – you can only sit on your own for so long…
- Nicky Gumbel: “People aren’t looking for a friendly church; they’re looking for a church where they can make friends.”
- (more than a one off smile)… welcome is important… but it goes deeper…
Our culture is looking for friendship…
- University campus – Famous graffiti: “I am surrounded by 30,000 students. Why am I so lonely?”
- I read Teenagers spend 6.5 hours a day on social media…
- The problem with Facebook and Instagram is we compare our ordinary lives to peoples highlight reels… so we always end up feeling inadequate…
- It’s like there is a party going on and I am at home watching replays of the cricket…
- We can have a huge social network but an increasing sense of loneliness
CS Lewis “friendship is the main course in life’s banquet.” Love that…
- What we seem to have developed in our culture is not a banquet of friendship
- But a junk food diet of acquaintances and social media post likes.
- Many people have countless acquaintances but few people you do life with!
- Thousands of Facebook friends but very few who would drop everything for them
3 quick things about friendship as we think about it as Christians.
- In the church, our model of friendship is based and modelled on Jesus and his disciples.
One of the things about Jesus is that he didn’t just come to break down the dividing walls of hostility between us and God, but he also came to show us what friendship looks like.
- His entire ministry was in fact built on friendships – doing life with a group of men and women… eating together, traveling together, ministering together.
- Jesus had the crowds… but we read he also had the 72 who he did life with… he had the 12 who he was close with… and he had the inner 3.
What does Jesus say in John 15? Remember that is God incarnate, powerful to defeat evil, heal the sick and teach with authority.
- He says in verse 15, “I no longer call you servants. Instead I call you friends.”
- Here is the Lord of the universe offering not a master and servant relationship…. But friendship!
- That’s a mind boggling reality when we think this is who Thomas calls “My Lord and my God.”
- So we would do well to look at what this looks like?
- But one thing we do see, is that so much of Jesus ministry seems to happen around meal time…
- There is an old saying; “Eating together turns strangers into friends…”
- So I’d encourage you, if you want to do ministry, if you want to do friendship well… do a lot of hospitality!
- True friendship is not a transaction…
John 15:12-13 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
- That is really the heart of friendship… it is not about ourselves but what we offer to another.
- Proverbs 17:7 “A friend loves at all times…” love is sacrificial
- The greatest love and act of friendship the world has ever known is Jesus laying down his life on the cross so we could be free.
- It is why the truly admirable acts of friendship are always sacrificial.
Think Philippians 2:3, it says; “in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
- People think to make friends we must get people to be interested in us… but actually it is about the other… taking interest in the other…
- Dale Carnegie: you make more friends by being genuinely interested in other people…
- I remember when I was pursuing Victoria… do you think I made her come and watch me do the swim?
- NO! I went and did dance classes and went to the theatre…
- Little dating tip but also for friendship: If you want to be a good friend, take a genuine interest in the life of others…
- What makes them tick? Get to know their story. Be a good listener.
We are too self interested… who do we look at when we see a photo of ourselves with a group…
- Old joke about the man arrested outside a police station because he was staring at his face… on the wanted poster!
- So get over yourself if you want to be a good friend… look to the interests of others!
You know this is so important – particularly if we are going to build a church of friends…
- Because what happens in any community and friendships is that we will let each other down…
- But how we deal with that is what matters.
- Christian communities and friendships are voluntary things… and so if you fall out with people you can just leave… but of course you will never deal with things and never put down roots!
- Just bounce around from one superficial relationship to another.
- Christian community must be a place where we release offences, constantly forgive…
I loved how Pete Brooks last week mentioned the couple of people in Philippians 4 who Paul calls out because they are not getting along.
- Wow, what an honour to be in the Word of God forever because you fell out…
- But we know this happens all the time… it happens with me!
- But strong churches are built on strong friendships where we learn how to deal with offenses and forgive.
- Colossians 3:13 says forgive as the Lord forgave you.
- One of the amazing things about the church is it produces the most odd friendships.
My favourite film is the seven time academy award winning Milo and Otis… do you know it? Just kidding, Milo and Otis is… only my 2nd favourite film… and didn’t win any awards…
- But it is about this odd friendship between a dog and a cat. Genius, I know…
- And along the way in their journey they become friends with a pig and an owl and a deer!
- So you get this odd bunch of friends going on a journey together
- Totally inspiring, I know! But it kind of reminds me of what church should be like. Right?
- You pick up people along the way… and they become a part of the adventure… and you do life with them.
One of the most striking and totally revolutionary things about the early church that intrigued the people of the Roman Empire was the bizarre friendships.
- Pauls talks about in Galatians 3:28. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
- In other words friendship formed in the family of God across every dividing line humans can put up!
- And they ate together… and it baffled the ancient world…
I want to see odd friendships… here at Manly Life!
- So many communities and friendships these days are just homogenous, boring, same type of people hanging out with the same type of people…
- You know surfers hanging out with surfers, hipsters with hipsters, old people with old people…
- But that is so boring and unhealthy.
When I left my last church to begin Manly Life with Victoria I often reflected on who I missed the most…
- Guy called Steve Stormer… he was a schizophrenic middle aged man who lived in council housing… so not a lot in common…
- But we used to hang out all the time, have lunch together, do projects around the church
- Going to speak at a conference… took Steve Stormer!
- What do Steve and I have in common… friendship with Jesus Christ, leading to a great friendship with each other.
You know people come to church for all kinds of reasons but they only stay if they make friends.
- People aren’t looking for a friendly church, they are looking for a church to make friends at
- Friendships modelled by Jesus who gave us a relationship with God
- Friendships that aren’t self serving but about giving life to others
- And friendships that cut across all the normal divides we find in life…
If this church has grown to 800 people in a few years time it will be because our music is really, really good!
- Haha… no… but we do want amazing worship…
- But it will have grown because of friendships… and making room at the table!
- There is nothing more attractive to a selfish and lonely world than a community doing life together well…
- Offering friendship with God through Jesus Christ
- And offering a quality of friendship that makes us all come alive!
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