Friendship, Grace and Humily

FRIENDISHIP, GRACE & HUMILITY

Preached August 4th, 2013 - Iglesia Maranatha, Aruba 

James 4:4-12

4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 

⁵ Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the 

spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 

⁶ But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 

⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 

¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

¹¹ Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 

¹² There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Expressions that got my attention:

1)   FRIENDSHIP

Friend of the world, friend of God (enemy of God)

James 2:20-23

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 

²¹ Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he 

offered his son Isaac on the altar?

²² You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 

²³ And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 

²⁴ You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

João 15:13-14

¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. 

Philippians 2:5-11

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

2)  GRACE

⁶ But He gives us more grace.

Hebrews 12

¹⁴ Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 

¹⁵ See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many (to corrupt the purity). 

¹⁶ See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 

¹⁷ Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.

Revelation 2:18-23

These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 

¹⁹ I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

²⁰ Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 

²¹ I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 

²² So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. ²³ I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

3)  BEING HUMBLE

Rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you

Being humble is not trying to show less than you are. It's just being who God created you to be and do what He enabled you to do.

¹¹ Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another

Slander: calumniate, defame

Defame: to harm the reputation by libel or slander

Libel: oral defamatory statement or representation that leads an unjustly unfavorable impression

How many pastors, preachers, brothers and friends have you killed with your tongue?

Romans 8:29

²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 

I John 3:1-3

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 

And that is who we are!

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see 

him as he is. 

All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.