From the Pulpit...

Pastor Matt answers a question from Matthew chapter 1:23 about the word "the" when referencing the virgin Mary. It specifies "the virgin", who did not know a man. This is the well-known virgin. Not all verses referencing the virgin begin with "the" virgin. Additionally, Pastor Matt leads our study today. Do you have friends in high places? I ran into a verse in John 15 recently that fascinated me, so I studied a little bit about it to see if I could understand it better. Here it is: John 15:15 “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. My thoughts started out with the idea of being a friend with God as contrasted with being a slave or servant of God. But that led to other passages which speak of someone as a friend of God. And that then led to what it means to be a slave of God. What is the Lord saying in John 15:15? It seems unarguable from other passages that a Christian is a bondservant, or more simply, a servant, of God. The apostles were Christ’s servants (Rom. 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1, Jude 1:1, Revelation 1:1). We are “unprofitable servants” (Luke 17:10). But the Lord Jesus makes it plain that His disciples are not slaves, or better, not merely slaves. I am going to lay down the assumption that this applies to us as well, not just the apostles because they have a super-privileged place. Somehow, both slave and friend are true descriptions of our relationship to God. The partial conclusion that I’ve drawn from thinking about this question of friend versus servant is that we need to be careful not to make our relationship with Jesus be too “slavish” to the detriment of other facets of our relationship. Indeed, we do have a relationship with the Master. He considers us his friends, and we can consider Him our friend as well, without being flippant about it. We should not be indifferent to this idea because it is precious, important, powerful. We need to see ourselves in the full light of what God has told us our relationship with Him is, not just part of that light. It is a huge privilege to be able to rightly think of ourselves as friends of Christ—very close friends, not merely acquaintances. We are “in” on His plans. We know what He is doing because He has told us. We are not in the dark on things.