Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 12, 2016 | Men's Fraternity - Fall 2016, Session 5

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October 12, 2016 | Men's Fraternity - Fall 2016, Session 5 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right, man.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, good morning this morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: My uh voice is doing a lot better.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not totally over my cold, but uh feel a lot better.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I had a um I just want to share with you, I had a real revelation, no pun intended, this week as I'm reading through uh Gene's account of of John.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, he's talking about you know John the fisherman and uh you know John the second son of Zebedee and uh you know some of these different attributes.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you know as I'm as I'm reading through and he's pulling some things, it's like, oh yeah, this is the same John that wrote the gospel and wrote those three letters, and then you know, wrote Revelation.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, so think about it for a minute.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh considering the Gospels, you know, we know that Matthew and Mark and Luke, uh often called the synoptic gospels, you know, kind of similar in style, um, you know, chronology and things like that, um, but John's gospel was much different.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was kind of a um a maverick.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ninety percent of his gospel is unique uh to the gospels.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um Matthew, you know, he presents uh uh Jesus as the um as king.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Mark, you know, he presents Jesus as a suffering servant, and and Luke, he presents Jesus as as a man, you know, man's man.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But John, he presents Jesus as God.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so uh you know, and then he then he wrote the the uh the three letters, and then you got the uh Revelation where you know God spared him from martyrdom so that he could write that great book of eschatology that probably most Christians you know struggle to to even comprehend.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So so you think about, you know, so as I'm thinking about this this fisherman, this son of Zebedee, this second son, you know, and and uh the way that Gene portrays him, that he's the one that wrote some of the greatest literary masterpieces in the Bible.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I'm gonna turn it over to you guys to tell us more about the man.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: That was great.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: That was an awesome intro.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: We appreciate that, Paul.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: No kidding.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, anybody uh not have a book yet?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: We got another book in?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: First one to Nelson.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: We uh they're slow coming in.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: We should have a half a dozen coming in later this week.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So um oh and um okay, a couple of you don't have uh this chapter, and I forgot to run it off.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'll run that off uh when once we get started because there's at least a couple of you that need this chapter, okay?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And Brad, you're one, right?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And who else raised your hand?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, one, two, three.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll run off four or five copies.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think five copies.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing, coach?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, okay.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about coach, but I'm something.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Texas Tech, that was uh that was great.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Great win.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Texas Tech took a gamble at midfield and failed, and we won.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Also, KU.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: We were keeping.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: They they scored points.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: We were good.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Which was very good.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Had a little problem with a field goal kicker, didn't we?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is a picture of this guy, number seven, right now.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can see him in the act.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's about to kick the football.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: He thinks right now, in his head, he's going, I'm gonna make this.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be a hero.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, he feels really bad in about 2.5 seconds.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that a shame.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: But Texas Christian Christian, so we got a root for Christian.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: We got a root for TCU.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Horn frogs.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we root for horned frogs.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: We root for Christians.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So and then we got Chiefs, didn't play this last week, but this is Jamal Charles.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure he's excited about coming and playing the Raiders at Oakland this week, this weekend.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna be a big game since Oakland is uh starting to tear it up, and Chiefs are pretty good.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hopefully the Chiefs don't play like they did recently against Pittsburgh.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they've had two weeks to think about the Steelers lacking.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we are talking about the apostles of Jesus, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And they are a very diverse group.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we've had what we did, Peter, we've done James, now we're into John, and um this is uh the guy that um Paul introduced to us uh as the beloved disciple, James's younger brother.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So open your books.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: You'll notice that on the first page of the chapter, um uh Getz talks about this guy, uh Chuck Colson, who uh was a special assistant to Richard Nixon, a tough guy, tough Marine who had turned politician and who would do anything to serve the president.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: He stayed in the uh you hardly find any pictures of him next to Nixon, but he was sort of the hatchet man, they called him.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh during the whole Watergate thing, it turned out he'd had a, he, as well as Ehrlichman and so forth, had had a real role in um covering Watergate up.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So he was taken to trial and he was convicted, and he was sent to jail.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: But something happened just before he went to prison, paragraph three, page 46.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: He was born again.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: He um uh he went to a, you know, as a well-known politician in Washington who trusted Christ, and he was reading out of the chapter on pride in mere Christianity by C.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: See, and Colson realized that he was that man.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: He was proud, and his heart broke, and he became a Christian.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when he came out of prison, he uh started prison ministry called Prison Fellowship.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Colson died, by the way, at age 80 here a couple years ago, two, three years ago, but he had a profound effect.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason Gene Getz tells that story is he wants to tell the story of someone who's been transformed.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because his point is that Peter, James, and now John were men who had been transformed by Jesus Christ.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a good start to think about him as being transformed.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what we're gonna do today is uh Derek and I are gonna take the first half of the chapter and um uh chat about the two divisions of the first half of the chapter and um then dismiss you.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: The lessons from this part of the chapter are really, you know, cool lessons about friendship and stuff.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so we're gonna dive right in if you have your book.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry for you four or five who don't, page 47.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's entitled A Plan That Backfired, and I'm renaming it A Suck Up That Backfired.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: So the story is in Mark 9, 38 to 41 and Luke 9, 49, that um um so so they've got quite a good club going on.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: The disciples of Jesus is sort of there's Jesus in front, and then he's got the inner group, the 12, and things are going well, and the church is growing, you know, sort of that's I mean, they've got loads of people following them.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: At this time in Jesus' ministry, it says the whole world had gone after him, so he is super popular, and uh Jesus is casting out demons.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh then John sees this guy as they're walking south, they're heading toward Jerusalem.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus has made this prediction that he's going to die.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, in in Mark, Jesus makes three major predictions he's going to die in Jerusalem.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in the after the first one, Peter says, No, you're not, I don't buy it.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: After the second one, James says, No, you don't, I'm not gonna.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And now this is John decides, you know, the three main disciples, none of them, you know, catch up to this.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So John sees this guy who's not part of the entourage, not part of the inner circle, not part of the club.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: He's watching him cast out demons, which is really interesting, isn't it?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, here's a guy who's saying, in the name of Jesus, I cast you out.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's a guy doing exorcisms in the name of Jesus, but he's not part of the club.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: He's not, doesn't go to the church.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: He hasn't signed up, he's he uh, you know, doesn't have a membership.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um background of this, by the way, is just it's earlier in this chapter where John and some other guys try to cast out demons in Jesus' name, and they fail.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this got to be a little rankling anyway.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're watching a guy who's not part of the club and he's successfully, the demons are going out.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they failed, and so he's feeling this righteousness.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, he's probably feeling a bunch of stuff, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like pride, probably needs to somehow he's got to prove that he is right, that he is tough, that he's sticking up for the disciples, and not for these other you-hoos who don't get to spend as much time with Jesus.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: All those things.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So he goes to Jesus.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Jesus, this guy who's gassed him out, but he's not he's not one of us.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I told him to stop.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, this is a little bit of a suck-up problem.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way Gene gets pictures of it.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus just said, thanks for letting me know.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that what he said?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: An unexpected review.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, don't stop him.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Whoever's not against us is for us.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta be kidding me.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: This guy's successful and I'm not.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So uh anyway, on page 47, you have this really good question.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can you recall a time when you thought you were gonna be complimented, but instead you were rebuked.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: You're admonished.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can think of a lot of times like that.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I remember one time I was uh it was my first major overseas speaking gig.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um it was the year the Royals went to the first, you know, year the Royals won the World Series '85.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm over in this island called Papua New Guinea, which is north of Australia, for this 10-day, you know, gig to hundreds of Wycliffe missionaries.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm and so they'd had, you know, the year before Tony Evans had done it, and the year before that had been Louis Pilau or something.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it was I've really felt honored.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd prepared this deal, and I was gonna give them the book of Proverbs, and I gave them the book of Proverbs, so I speak this one time.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they loved these missionaries, loved it, and and they were really responsive, hundreds of them.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't tell this story much, Derek.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna find out why.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, so this this message from Proverbs was on your tongue, and how there are certain things you shouldn't do with your tongue.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't lie, shouldn't exaggerate, you shouldn't flatter was one of them, because flattery is sort of the other side of the coin of slander.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because what happens is in either case, you're telling something, you're overdoing something that's not quite true, but in slander, you're trying to ruin people, and flattery, you're you're sucking up to them, trying to get them on your side.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I preach this message.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Afterwards, these these missionaries are going, yeah, wow, it's really great.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So up comes this guy who I've been hearing about as one of the sharpest missionaries of the 700 that they have there.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's he you normally it takes 20 years to translate a f uh a new language in a tribe.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: This guy's done three languages each in like five years.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody has talked to me, mentioned his name to me, that this guy's amazing.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: He goes to these islands, and he so he comes up and he says, Ah, it was really good, I really enjoyed that.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: My name is da da da.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I say, wow, I've been hearing great things about you.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I go through all this and he looks at me real quiet.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, You realize you just did what you spoke against today.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: He just flattered me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: That that was not a good thing.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know how, you know, you think you're scoring points with someone, and instead you just collapse.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I have I'll never ever forget.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, he's exactly right.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was what'd you say?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I said, umar.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I think you're right.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think you're right.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he walks away, and I think, ah, crap.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so so there would be an embarrassing illustration of what I thought.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: He was gonna go, yeah, I'm sure glad.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, we're buds, you know.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Not not so much.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Are you Facebook friends now?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, he won't accept your request.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: I keep begging.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, any uh you got an illustration of this?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: You ever thought, yeah, you know, with one of your football coaches, you thought he was gonna compliment you on you know how you demolished an opponent, and then he goes, that was a crackback block, they should have called that on you or something.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Man, this always happened on I guess in college it would have been Mondays come film time.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, just have like this awesome play, you know, he scored a touchdown on it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, zigzag between these guys, juke this guy, and scored.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yes, I can't wait for that part of film session because that's the only part I did well, and everybody's gonna say that did such a great job, great job scoring.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: And come to film session, and I'm like, okay, here's the play.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's coming up.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know this one's gonna be good.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Watch, coach is gonna say, I did a really good job on this, and we're watching the film, and the play comes up and it starts, and we finish the play, and he's not really smiling, not really happy, doesn't compliment, doesn't say good job.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Says, why didn't you hit the hole you were supposed to hit?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Seriously, we scored, but it wasn't the right hole, and it's like, oh, okay, so maybe I did make the wrong cut.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Embarrassing.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Bill Belichick.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's an interesting story.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh follow-up question, uh, which leads into you know the section you're gonna take on love.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel when someone like Jesus loves and trusts you in spite of your self-centered and even obnoxious behavior?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: John, I'm sure, realized, wow.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus is far more open, far more generous.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus basically says, you don't have to go to my church, you know, to use my name.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh you don't have to belong to our club.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a war going against Satan and his demons.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, if someone wants to use the name of Christ to cast out demons, even if they don't, you know, go to first, you know, speak a Bible, whatever church it is, you know, great.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, and and I think John probably f realized, wow, how self-centered, how obnoxious am I.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus still goes, Hey, you know, you're my beloved disciple.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a that's a really interesting point that you know we see this time where Jesus rebukes him, rebukes John, um, because John's trying to, you know, kind of be tough, kind of stick up for the disciples and thinks he's gonna be get complimented when really he gets rebuked.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: But as something that we see throughout the book of John is just how John even refers to himself and how Jesus referred to him as the disciple that Jesus loved.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so there was some sort of special connection, there's some sort of kind of special love that Jesus had for John.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um we see that in a couple other ways.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's sitting next to him at the meal, kind of leaning, reclining on him.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so we see that there's some type of special relationship in spite of kind of John's attitude, in spite of him being rebuked.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus had this kind of affinity um for him.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then we see that Jesus gives John this specific assignment.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus gives John something, an assignment that is full of responsibility, an assignment that's probably really, really near to Jesus' heart.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And let's just let's just check that out from scripture.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's on page 50 and gets includes the scripture passage for us, um, right there in the middle, where he says, Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopus, and Mary Magdalene.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Dear woman, here is your son, and to the disciple, here is your mother.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're at the cross, and in the midst of this horrible thing that's going on, Jesus is on the cross, his mom's there, um, the rest of the women are there, lots of people are around watching Jesus die.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus gives this special privilege, kind of this special task, this special responsibility specifically to John to take care of his mom.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And we don't know too many other details about maybe what that relationship looked like or why he specifically chose John, but we do know that there is that kind of special relationship because John probably definitely didn't deserve that role that he that Jesus gave him, didn't deserve that love, didn't deserve to be that close to him, but he did anyway.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so the question at the beginning here is Jim Jim said earlier, how do you feel when someone loves and trusts you in spite of your self-centeredness and even obnoxious behavior?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think one specific example for me that I can think of is so my family's like a weird web looking thing.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I've lived with my mom my whole life, I've never met my dad.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um my mom's mom, so my grandma was married like three times, and so this would have been the the second husband of my grandma's mom, if you can follow that web.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, she's like a I guess you could say like a step great grandma.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's a thing, but we're we're gonna use it today.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna we're gonna go with that.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: A step-great-grandma.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so this great this step-great-grandma, not any blood relation to me, but I can remember ever since I was little, she would send us, and we didn't live in the same city, she would send us, you know, Christmas presents, she would send us birthday cards, she would send us Easter cards, um, all these different things.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: And something that you know I never deserved, something that my younger brother never deserved.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And this is also the same lady who you know kicked in some of the finances so that I can make it through school and and pretty much not have any debt after I graduated.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, what?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Why why would she do that?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: She I was the step great grandson of you know her son's ex-wife.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, why how in the world would she have that much love just to be able to share things like that?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: But she did, and and I don't know why, but it's a really cool feeling and a very humbling feeling when you are on the receiving end of that love and that affection, especially when you don't deserve it, which is really, really cool.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then it kind of rolls into the to the next big section that we have here, a unique relationship starting on page 51.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it it ties very much into the the Jesus John relationship, and the the main question that he asked at the beginning is Have you ever had a deep, Christ centered, loving relationship with another man?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever had that?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of times in our society, we don't we don't like to say.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: That we have you know that that brotherly love, that that Phileo kind of love with another guy.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because it I don't know, it seems like we should be tough, we should be able to handle things on our own.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you shouldn't have that loving of a relationship with another man.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um but in in this context, we're talking about not the not the necessarily agape kind of love that that Christ has for us and showed us on the cross by sacrificing for us and loving us.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: But we have that Phileo kind of love, that that brotherly love, where you know you just genuinely really, really like this guy.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: You have that kind of deep Christ-centered relationship where you're able to share struggles, you're able to pray for each other, you're able to talk about things that are going on in your life.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something that it looks like that Jesus and John had.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: They they kind of had that Phileo type relationship.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you um you know you're not sure, but it looks as though Jesus had, if he had concentric circles at the real heart of it, there was John, and then expand the lens a little bit, and then there would be three of them, right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Peter, James, and John.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And probably those three, all three of those, might have been what we would call good friends, deep relationship.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then you expand to the twelve, and uh probably the other nine were in, you know, you know, have you ever done this?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I've done this a number of times in my life.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've written down sort of the concentric circles, who I would say is a close friend, a guy, guys that are close friends.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then then I've made a list of those who are just outside that, who I know that if I if I spent a little more time with them, like if we went on a trip somewhere, if we did something together, if I called them regularly or something, went out to eat lunch, they might move into that, you know.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I would suggest that exercise for you sometime, especially if uh if you're one of those guys that I talk to guys and ask them, and and there are a number of guys, Jerry, who would say, I don't have anybody who's who's really a close buddy, who's really close.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have someone, you know what you ought to do is you ought to make a list, I think, of the people who are just outside that.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's probably a dozen or at least a half a dozen guys who are just outside that, and then go, you know, Lord, which one of these, you know, do I really like?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do I sort of feel knit to?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: And exert just a little more effort.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: It may not take much.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, uh maybe plan a trip with them, you know, to go to a you know, go to a uh jayhawk game out of town or case state or something like that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um that makes sense.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can move you can move you can actually move them into that circle if intentionally.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I but I would I would really suggest it.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the sweetest things in life is wouldn't wouldn't you guys agree who have a really close friend, wouldn't you agree?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: One of the sweetest things in life is um, you know, a good is a is a close friend who's a guy.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, C.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis felt that that was even better than the love, the love of a woman.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, that was before he got married to Joy, but you know, anyway.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, uh, you know, I think it's a good point.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and um so we have illustrations of this in the Bible, right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Who can you think of close friends in the Bible?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: David and yeah, David and Jonathan, for example.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you'll notice uh if you've got a book, on page 51, this sort of segues into these different Greek words, and they and he just focuses on the two main ones here, agape and phyllo, phileo.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you have these uh in Greek, you sort of have four different Greek words, uh eros used in the New Testament as passionate love, uh romantic love, lust, whatever.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got underneath that here in the green, agape or agapeo is the verb.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's uh that's a word hardly used in in Greek classical literature before the New Testament, but in the New Testament, uh Jesus and Paul take this word and they fill it with new meeting, and this is the word for the for the love of God for us, the unconditional love that causes God to send his son to die for us, and that Jesus loves us with.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's salvation love, it's selfless love, it's a great, great love.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so and this is the kind of love that you have to have for your spouse when they really disappoint you or when they let you down.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have this selfless, unconditional love.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Top right, the the blue or the purple, whatever, this is Phileo, and this is Philadelphia, you've heard of it.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is Romans 12.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you need to love each other with a brotherly love.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the kind of love we're talking about this morning.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, store-gay, by the way, the bottom right happens, this is like the love you have for your for your uh for your dog.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's cool love.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even mentioned in the New Testament, though, but it's just affectionate love that you have for your pet or something like that.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting because in English, we just have one word for love.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Love.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: You love your shoes, you love that food, you love your wife, you love God, especially biscuits and gravy.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love my wife, I love my biggest.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And those those little uh those little berry berry cakes.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what you call them.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love my berry cakes.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you publish a cookbook, I want some rights on there for the berry cakes.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love my chiefs.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: I love my yeah, yeah, but in in Greek, we get to kind of see this breakdown and we see how all these things play out in the different ways that we use the word love in English.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I know for me, I can think of different guys that I've had in my life at different times who I would consider to be one of those close friends, somebody who you can talk to, somebody who you can pray with.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: When you have something that's going on, you know, you can call them on the phone, you can go see them, and they're probably gonna make time for you.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not gonna, you know, be too busy if you really do have something that's going on.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like Jim was saying, I hope that that's something that that everybody has.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: I know when I was in high school, I had a friend named Derek, and we played football together, we wrestled together, ran track together, kind of did everything together.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: And he was one of those.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: He had the name Derek.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: And he had the name Derek.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you weren't looking in the mirror when you chose him as your friend?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, but he spelled it the wrong way.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: He did the R-I-C-K thing at the end, and oh, that's weird.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm sure it's his fault too.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: He named himself that.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then when I was in college, I had a guy named Van who was also the best man in my wedding um a couple years ago, and it just got this past summer he got married, and so I had the opportunity to be in his wedding, and now he moved out to Virginia, and so um he's definitely one of those guys, and there's several several guys that I have here, which is really cool when I have things that are going on.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: I can just say, call him up and say, Hey, this is what's going on.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what what would you do?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Can you just pray for this?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good idea.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's uh it's pretty simple.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: The questions for this morning are really those questions on 45, 47, and 49.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Not so much the questions at the end of the chapter that gets into uh how did you trust Christ and how when did you become a Christian and stuff?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna fit with next week's lesson.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So so the questions you want you to look at for today are the ones we put on the screen.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh have you ever been thought you were gonna be complimented, but instead got um blasted or rebuked?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh have you ever had a situation where someone's loved and trusted you despite your stupid behavior?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And have you ever had a uh real friend, a Christ-centered loving relationship with another guy?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the main questions that we want you to look at.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this week's memory verse, let's say it together.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's up on the screen, 1 John 3.16.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is how we know what love is.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ laid down his life.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oh, questions, I'm sorry.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 47, 49, and 51, and pray for each other.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to pray for us?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Heavenly Father, thanks for this morning.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your word.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for all these guys here who we can talk with on a Wednesday morning, we can pray together on a Wednesday morning.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, help us to grow in our friendships, help us to grow in our brotherly love and our relationship with you.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And just pray for this week.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, help us to be bold for you in every aspect of our lives in Jesus' name.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.