Serving Our Friend
There are some great advantages to speaking in a rotation, the most obvious being that you don't have to do it every week. When you have another full-time gig, the weeks you speak involve long hours. To do that constantly, or even in consecutive weeks, would wear a person down.There are some disadvantages however, and one of them cropped up this week. Occasionally after I preach, something comes up during my regular study that I dearly wish I had seen before...a point I wish I'd made, something that had felt muddy that had suddenly become clearer, or just a little addendum to one of my remarks. It makes me wonder how often you regular preachers take a little time to address something from the week before. It happens, right?
On Sunday I spoke about having a "servant's heart." I mentioned that many of the New Testament letters begin with the writer calling himself a servant. Paul, Peter, James, and Jude all did it in the first verse of one of their letters, and John did it in the first verse of Revelation. The disciples may have first been called "Christians" at Antioch, but the disciples called themselves servants. In the whole ridiculous realm of nomenclature, we could do far worse than forgoing the labels of "Christian" or "Christ follower" and simply tell the world we are servants. It's a title with a heavy responsibility, but a perfect description.
Then on Monday, I hit the following verse:
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15)
And now I wish that I could share that with the church. That Jesus doesn't call us "servants," he calls us friends! And this: the disciples called themselves servants anyway. We serve Jesus, not as a Master (though I'm uncomfortable taking that analogy away completely) but as a friend. We are servants taking the place of the Great Servant here on earth.
posted by Thurman8er @ 3:48 PM
3 Comments:
At most business meetings, the minutes of the last meeting are read, additions or deletions offered, and then they’re voted on. Since you guys preach in “rotation,” how about starting off services with the “Preacher of the Day” reading off the “minutes” or in this case, the “highlights” of the previous sermon. This would give the previous preacher a chance to “add or delete” from his sermon of the previous week.
Of course, you run the risk of someone making a motion to approve the minutes and go home summarily. I never thought about the “Preacher boys” ability to elaborate on the previous week’s sermon the following week. I guess I do the same thing with each class that comes my way each period.
There seems to be no trouble for the NT disciples to call Jesus Lord, and follow him closely, and at the same time consider him their friend because he had revealed God's plan for the world to them.
In no way is this an "either/or" truth. Jesus trusted them with his life, his message, and called them, even warned them, at times, to follow him closely.
As for repreaching a sermon, I sometimes don't want to see them again! I was so impressed with Greg saying the church was changed through the teaching of Colossians (check out his blog). How I long for that change…
We moved so much as I was growing up that I never really had a "true friend". I found such a person a few years back and learned what it meant to have a friend to lean on. She is my prayer warrior and someone I can talk with about anything. Through my relationship with her I learned what it was like to have someone stick by you no matter what (like Jesus promises). It is great to have a friend like that, both her and Jesus.
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