My Best Friend

We are starting a new series today called Jesus Is. We went through, we just finished up a series on the Apostles' Creed. Kind of a heavier theological subject, so we walk through that. I always try to make things as simple as possible, obviously, so that anybody can understand. Take something complicated.

I feel like my job is to take something complicated and make it easy to understand. And I do that every week. I try to do that the best I can. Some people like it real heavy and real complicated, and some people like it very, very simple. Well, I meet in the middle.

I get the complicated, and I make it simple for you guys. So we're going to be looking at the traits of Jesus Christ, the personality of Jesus Christ. And there's a lot of ideas about Jesus out there. I mean, there's a lot of Jesuses, and people have different opinions about Jesus, and people don't see Jesus the way that other people see Jesus. And we want to make sure we have the scripturally based, the right Jesus, the Jesus that changed our lives right.

And we're going to look at some of those traits. And there's a lot of things I could talk about Jesus, and this could go on for weeks and weeks. And I might come back and do a Jesus is part two at some point. But we're going to lead right into Easter, talking about the person of Jesus, who Jesus is. And so I do want to make it plain and simple.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, he says, You'll remember, friends, that when I first came to you, I didn't try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy. But he was a very smart guy, right? He could do that, but he didn't do that. I deliberately kept it plain and simple, first Jesus and who he is, then Jesus, and what he did. Jesus crucified or Christ crucified.

That's what we want to preach. That's what we share. That's why we do what we do. And so we're keeping it simple, something very theologically heavy. We're keeping it simple.

It's going to be very practical. You're going to love it. You can bring your friends to this because they're not going to be, it's not going to be over your head. I don't think it's ever over anybody's head, but this will definitely not be over their head. And today I want to talk about, the first thing I thought I would talk about today is Jesus, a friend in Jesus.

Him being our friend, our best friend. He is our best friend. He can be our best friend. He can be your best friend. If he's not your best friend, he can be your best friend, but he is our best friend.

What a friend we have in Jesus, the old hymn goes. We used to sing that all the time in church. My grandmother loved that song. She'd sing it, and she knew what it was to have Jesus as a best friend. And I want to help you guys understand what it means to have Jesus as a best friend.

There's something about having a friend, right? Everybody probably has been there. You have a friend. You might have a friend right now that you've known since grade school. You've known since college.

You've known for a long time that you know you can go to, and they're your friend. They're absolutely your friend. Now you have friends that come in and come out of your life. We all have lots of friends that probably have been a part of our life, maybe for a small period of time. Sometimes you have friends that come out of your life.

Sometimes you have friends that come out of your life. Sometimes you have friends that come out of your life. Sometimes you have friends that come out of your life. Sometimes you have friends that come out of your life. Sometimes you have friends that come out of your life.

Sometimes you may drift away because they move away. Maybe it was something bad or whatever happened and it kind of ended ugly, but yet you know that in that period of your life, you did have friends, so we needed that friend in that period of your life. God brought that friend to us in that period of our lives, but then we just have those friends. We know that we'll be friends for a lifetime, and if you look at research about friends and friend circles, you'll learn that most people average about three really, really, really close friends in their lifetime. Now, that's average, so some might have one friend.

You might have just one friend, or maybe you have up to six or seven or eight. Some people may be nine friends. You're like a popular person, and you have nine really close friends, but most people average around three really, really close friends, and you probably have those friends in your head right now. I can call that friend anytime I need them. They know me.

I know them. They get me. They really get me, and we've always been friends, and there's something about nicknames, too. Do you have any nicknames in here? Your dad calls you this, or your mom calls you this, or your close friends call you this?

It's like an endearing statement that they use, and you know that's your friend. I had a couple of friends. I had Jay Bird and Big Willie that were my friends, you know, growing up in high school, and Big Willie was big, and Big Willie had your back. His technical name was William, but Big Willie just sounded tough, you know, Willie, and he's big, and if Willie, if anything went wrong with one of Willie's friends, Willie was there, and when Willie showed up, everybody got quiet, okay? I was glad to have Willie as a friend.

One time, me and Willie wrestled, and I'm like, I'm glad I got Willie as a friend, because that was really tough. My mom's family has nicknames, too. My mom's name is Sharon. My mom's name is Sharon. That's her birth name, and anytime we're around her family, it's Shirley.

Shirley, Shirley this, Shirley that, Shirley. You know, so it used to be Shirley, and then it turned into Shirley. So, my grandpa was really big on nicknames, so everybody, all my mom's siblings had nicknames. My oldest brother was Big Ox, because he was big. His name was David.

He had a nice, you know, birth name. It meant something, right? But Big Ox. Here comes Big Ox. Or Uncle Buddy.

I had an Uncle Buddy. We had Sis. We had Aunt Sis, and on and on. So, they had a lot of nicknames, and that was just kind of the thing. In the South, you know, you just gave everybody nicknames.

There's something special about nicknames. You're part of the family, you know? It means something in your family. It means who you are in that family. So, nicknames are important.

Jesus had two names. Jesus had his birth name. Obviously, Jesus was given by God to Mary through an angel. He said you're going to name him Jesus. Matthew 1.

21 says she will give birth to a son and you will give him the name Jesus because he will save the people from their sins. Jesus meaning the Lord is salvation. That was his given birth name by his father. It meant something. It was powerful, sort of like David.

My uncle David's name was a family name that meant something. My name's a family name that meant something. You know, there's something powerful about that because mine goes back generations at being a junior. I'm Dwight Leon Dunning, Jr. That was very significant for my family because Leon was my grandfather's brother who passed away at a young age.

That meant that was important. But Dwight, my first name, which some of you may not know, Dwight's my first name, was Dwight L. Moody, the ministry he was saved under. So there's a significance to names, right? And Jesus had significant.

There was power and something placed on him with that name, but also he had another name. He had another name. It's found in 1.23 of Matthew. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call his name what?

Emmanuel. Emmanuel. It was another name. It wasn't his birth name, but it was a signifying name, if you want to call it a nickname, a God-ordained nickname called God with us, meaning that God is actually a person put on flesh, came down, has dwelt with us. He is with us today.

We have a person in Jesus Christ. He came to us. He's not just some faceless being up there in the sky. He's not just some vapor. He's not just some energy force that's out there.

We're not like the deists that believe, oh, he just spun the earth around, and he has no personal involvement. We believe in Emmanuel. Jesus is Emmanuel. He came to this world. He is fully God, and he is fully man, and he came to this earth.

He put skin on. That's why it says the Word became flesh and made his what? Dwelling among us. He dwelt with us. He became a man.

He became a friend, and he came down, and we can have a personal relationship with him. He dwelt. Think about that for a minute. He dwelt with us. Many of us think of Jesus as that last three years of ministry where he was teaching, and everybody called him rabbi, and he had, for some reason, we put, you know, a purple shroud around him and white clothes on him, and he's very clean cut, and he's got, like, the lotion on his hands.

I'm sure we're thinking that when he shakes people's hands, it's nice and soft, you know. We think of Jesus that way, right? But Jesus in his 30 years was not that. He was a real man. In fact, his last three years of ministry, he still was a real man.

He was an absolute man's man. He walked this earth 30 years. What did he do in those 30 years? Relating to us. Just living life.

Becoming a person. Being witty. Playing with his friends. Knowing life. No miracles.

No teachings. None of that. Learning. Just being him. Those first 30 years of his life, he learned what it was like to have friends.

He learned what it was like when friends, even back then, before Judas, betrayed him. And, you know, I love the chosen where he's playing ball with the guys, you know, his old buddies, you know, at the thing. And he can't play. Jesus couldn't play ball. He wasn't.

Apparently, he wasn't athletic, according to the chosen. And he tried. He wasn't. And we'll think, oh, yeah, Jesus, I bet he was athletic. Well, apparently he was not good at this ball game they were playing, whatever it was was called.

But Jesus was kind of a normal person. There were things he really wasn't good at in the practical way. I mean, he was a fully human. So there were things he just he just couldn't do. So he was he was a regular person.

And he probably felt, you know, loss in his life. Obviously, he did because his father isn't mentioned later in Scripture and later in the Gospel. His father's gone. So and I love that part. I know I'm using the chosen a lot.

I should just put clips of the chosen up here and do a whole series on the chosen. Let's do that. Let's do that. OK, next time we'll do that where he's he's actually at his father's grave remembering some things from his father. And there's like this intimate part of them, this man part of them that's getting set and ready to do the ministry that he's called to do.

But yet he's he's going back to that that intimate relationship he had with his earthly father. And so he was he was a real person most of his life. He was a carpenter most almost all of his life. He was that not just a rabbi in Hebrew says it like this in the message paraphrase puts it this way. That's why he had to enter into every detail of human life.

Then when he came before God as the high priest, which he is now. Right. To get rid of the people's sins, he would have already experienced it. What is it? Everything that we've experienced experienced it all himself, all the pain, all the testing and would be able to help where help was needed.

This is what what what Hebrews is is putting out there. Many many don't see him that way. They see him as the rabbi. They see him as the teacher. They see him as God in flesh, which is great or this respect.

But we don't see him as the friend. We don't see him as the person. We don't see him as as all these things that that we've experienced he's gone through. And your level of comfort with with helping someone only goes as far as what you've experienced in life. You're not able to help somebody as much.

You can always help somebody even if you haven't had the experience. But it's a lot better if you've had the experience because you can speak into that. Well, Jesus had every experience possible and he gets it. You ever use that? You ever use that?

Statement with your friend, I get you. I get you. I get it. I get it. When somebody, when you relate to somebody really well, I get it.

I get it. I know what you're going through. I've been, I've been there. I'll never forget my, my, my father-in-law is probably on here. He watches every week.

He always tells us when the sound's not working. So he's, he's good at that. Um, but, uh, but Mr. Terry, if you're on there, I'll never forget. Uh, uh, when he, we were at, uh, Miranda's brother's funeral, he passed away, uh, young.

And had a heart attack and it was very, very sad time. But I remember the, the, the hurt that I could just sense the hurt that, that he felt being at the funeral of his son and another man walking in and hugging him. And he said, I get it. I get it. Cause he had lost his son just a few months before.

And, uh, uh, tragically, he says, I get it. I get it. I get it. And they cried together. They held each other.

And they, there was just a connection there. Well, Jesus gets it and he gets it in three ways. I want to talk about three ways. He gets it. He gets it in relationships.

Okay. He gets your relationships. He gets relationships. He understands relationships because he was in relationships. He had a family.

He had a full on family, a nice, healthy family. He had a mother. He had a father. He had brothers. He had four brothers.

The only time in scripture we see his four brothers spelled out here is in Mark 6, 3. It says, isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son, the brother of James, of Joseph, of Judas, and Simon? He had four brothers. And he had sisters too.

Aren't his sisters here with us? In fact, he had more than one sister because this is plural. So he had to have at least six siblings, if not more. He probably had more siblings. Could you imagine the household?

Could you imagine what was going on relationally in that house? You know, you have the tattleteller, you know, and in my family, it was, look, I had three sisters and you had the tattleteller and then you had the serious one and then you had to cut up. And then I was a little bit of all of them. So I had to kind of mix it up a little bit because I was the only boy. And you're, you know, as the oldest and the only boy, you know, you always get accused of everything.

Actually, I was a huge picker. So they remind me of that all the time. So it was very, very dynamic, you know, in there. And Jesus experienced all that, the fighting, the picking, the tattletelling, or whatever went, the disciplining. And Jesus did this, Jesus said that, Jesus, you know, and Jesus had no sin.

And so obviously he probably wasn't wrong, but he had to deal with the chemistry of the environment. And I'm sure he got angry at times, you know, and all those things because he was a real human. And you may say, well, he doesn't understand everything. Well, he understands what it's like to be single. If you're single, he certainly understands what it's like to be single.

Some of you are like, well, he's never been married. So he couldn't understand that. Yes, he was married. He was married to the church. He says the church is his bride.

He understands what it's like to be single. He understands what it's like to be single. He understands what it's like to have a bride that's unfaithful. He understands that very, very well. He even understands, you know, when a friend betrays him in the most terrible way.

You all know that story, and some of you have experienced that. Some of you, it's hard for you to even have friends, because you can't get past what's happened to you. But Jesus has experienced that. And his family thought he was crazy. His family didn't even think he was really God.

Look at Mark 3, 21. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, and they said, he is out of his mind. Because they saw him, the human side of him, they knew good and well he was human. Although he was fully God as well, they probably, you know, when this happened, they didn't know what to think. They tried to correct him.

No, I'm about my father's business. I got something to do here. They were embarrassed. They didn't even believe him. This is the relational piece that he had to deal with, that his own brothers, his own half-brothers and sisters, and even at times his mother wasn't even sure if he was doing the right thing.

Could you imagine? He knows. He gets it when you go through relational pain. He gets it when you have to deal with your family. He gets it when you have to deal with your friends.

He understands that. He also gets life. Write that down if you're taking notes. He also gets life, that life's hard sometimes. He gets everyday mundane life, too.

I mean, he was a carpenter. In fact, Jewish tradition suggests that a young man started working on his trade as early as 12 years old. So he was probably working all the way from 12 years old to that day in the carpentry business. So he knew what it was like to run a business. He knew what it was like to deal with angry customers.

He knew what it was like to wake up with blisters and aches and pains in the morning, having to go to work early. He had to pay taxes. He had to do all those things, you know. He had to deal with people. He didn't just walk around with a white robe all the time.

He actually, if you put them in a modern-day context, he probably would have had jeans and a t-shirt on with a carpentry belt. And maybe a trucker's hat. A trucker's hat would say, got God, you know, question mark, maybe. I don't know. But anyway, he was just a regular dude, you know, just working his job, slaving away.

He knew what a bad economy was like. He knew what... He was a real person. And this was a part of his life, you know, everything. And this was probably just as important a part of his life as those last three years where he was healing, teaching, and showing people that he was the Son of God.

It was just as important because he could relate to us. He was really, really human. Hebrews 4.15 says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Because he's faced it all.

It doesn't matter what it is. Highs, lows, ins and outs. The little things, the big things, he's faced it. But we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are yet without sin. So, he was tempted the way we were, he was aggravated the way we were.

He tried to go through frustrations in life the way we did. A sin knocked at his door just like it does with us. He gets it. He knows. He knows when we're dealing with pain.

He knows when we're dealing with life. He knows when taxes come due and we don't have the money, how hard it is to get through those times. He knows. And if you see him this way, if you know him this way, you get to experience him and approach him in a different way. If you don't see him as just some guy in the sky somewhere that doesn't have any personal relationship with us, you can't relate in the way you really need to relate.

But if you see him this way, it can change everything. He gets it. He gets it. And he also gets our pain. He gets it when you're in pain.

And some of you are experiencing pain right now. Maybe it's physical pain or maybe it's emotional pain. Maybe you're not experiencing any kind of physical pain, but emotional pain. Emotional pain can be worse than physical pain at times. In fact, in most cases, it can be.

Emotional pain is really, really tough. He was despised, it says in Scripture in Isaiah 53. He was despised. He was despised and rejected. He was despised.

And let me say this. Have you ever been despised? Have you ever been left out? I want to speak to if we have any elementary age people here or any high school people here, and you've ever been left off the team? You've been cut from the team when you did better than somebody else?

Or the kickball game in the backyard. You were the one left out. You were kind of left out of that. I feel for kids that have to go through that. Jesus went through that as well, I'm sure.

There were times he didn't make the game, like on The Chosen. I mean, they were laughing at him, you know. I was a kid that, I was a pastor's kid, so we moved around a lot. And I was always the new kid on the block, so I had to earn my reputation if I had any athletic ability in me at all. And I always was last to get picked, you know, when I was a new guy in the area.

And I know what it feels like, and I'm sure Jesus knows what it feels like, too. He was despised. And he was also rejected. He was rejected. He was despised and rejected.

And he was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. He was familiar with suffering. So if you are facing any physical pain today, he faced it. And it's no surprise to any of us here what he had to go through. That the exact moment in time, in fact, the Bible even says they picked the exact moment in time perfect in God's orchestrated plan to be in the time that he was in so that he could reveal himself to the world.

Not only to reveal himself to all the world so that the gospel can go out past, present, and future, but so that in that moment he could experience the pain he experienced. Because capital punishment in that day is not capital punishment today, okay? Capital punishment today is a lethal injection and you're gone, you know, like that, peacefully. But capital punishment in that day was one of the most brutal forms of capital punishment possible, the crucifixion. And he went through that.

He faced the pain, physical pain. He gets it. He understands it because He was pierced for our transgressions according to Isaiah 53. He was crushed, pierced and crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed.

We are healed. Amen. Amen. So be it. He gets it.

He understands this. Jesus qualifies to be our best friend because He gets it all. He gets it all. He is with us. He has gone through it and you have nothing in your life.

Listen to me. There's nothing you have been through that God doesn't understand, that Jesus doesn't get. Okay. You got to get that in your heart. You got to get that in your soul.

He knows. He gets it and He is with you. He wants to be your best friend. For Proverbs says it like this, a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. You have a God that is personable.

He is the person of Jesus. He came. Emmanuel. He's got that nickname. Well deserved.

He is with us. He is your best friend. He wants to be your best friend if He's not your best friend today. Okay. So I'm going to give you three things real quick, just some practical stuff.

First of all, make Jesus your best friend. Simple. Make Jesus your best friend. Change your relationship status. Okay.

To I'm single, to I'm whatever it is, to I'm best friends with Jesus. Okay. A lot of you are on social media. You have relationship status. You go from single to married or dating to single, whatever it is, right?

You need to change your relationship status with Jesus. Make Him your friend. Make Him your Savior. He says that He wants to be your friend, but some people are only, they only change their relationship status temporarily. You see those people that are temporarily changed and it goes back.

Some people do that on Sunday morning and Easter and Christmas. And then they go back to not being Jesus, Jesus not being their best friend the rest of the week, right? I mean, that's how, that's how, but Jesus, in fact, Jesus even says this. And this is, and I say this with no, with no, you know, I'm not saying this with any joy necessarily, okay? Jesus, He says this.

Some people say, Lord, Lord, and they will enter heaven and say, you really never knew me because I wasn't your best friend. Or you weren't, you weren't, you didn't make me your best friend. That's why John 15, 15 says, I no longer call you servant because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I call you friend for everything that I've learned from my Father, I've made known to you. You are not just some puppet in the universe that's just used for His plan, okay?

Okay, okay, He has brought you in. You are a part of His purpose and a person. He's made that. You are now a member of the family. You're not just an employee, you are relationally connected to him.

That's what he's there for. And you need to make him your friend today. Number two, talk to him. Because if he's your best friend, you need to talk to him. And don't just throw out a King James prayer every now and then, okay?

Now I'm not against the Lord's Prayer and using those things. I often quote the Lord's Prayer when I've just filled my spirit to do that. And it's just a magnificent thing. But don't just talk to him like a person talks to a person. He is available to listen.

Jesus is interceding at the right hand of the Father. He's talking to the Father as a person. He says, Father, Father, Father, Father, you know who I am. You know what I went through. And they're going through the same thing, Lord.

Help them in this area. Talk to him on and on day, 24-7. Pray without ceasing. Just talk to him. Talk to him.

And in fact, he says this in John 15, 15. I no longer call you servant because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, he calls you friend. Right? So we can talk to him.

And it says this in Hebrews 4, 16. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. He has mercy. He has grace. He has help available for you today.

Amen. He is available for you. He can be your best friend. And lastly, trust him with your life. Trust him with your life.

It says there is no greater love than one who lays his life down for a friend. This is a true friend. This is the friend we really need. That he would actually give his life for us so that we could become righteousness on his behalf in him. This is a friend.

Maybe you're here today and you are struggling. You're going through some stuff in your life. Maybe you can't. Maybe you can't figure out why, you know, everybody does this or everybody does that or why I can't keep friends or whatever. Can I tell you there is a Savior available for you today wherever you are in your walk with Jesus.

Take a step closer to having a relationship with Jesus. It says, but to all who receive him, he gave the right to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them. Trust in him that he has paid it all. He has paid it all.

Psalm 37 says, commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him and he will help. He's available to you. Trust him. Make him your friend.

Talk to him and trust him today. Would you do that? Would you make that decision to trust him? Do you just trust him today? Do you million dollars live in your home today?

did you just trust him today? you If you've never made that decision in your life, maybe you've never given your heart to Jesus and I'm going to pray with you for a second for that, but let me just say it's not just a prayer, it's not just some kind of magical formula, it's saying in your heart, deep inside yourself, you know that something there is bigger than you and it's been crying out for you a long time, for a long time, some purpose, something, some design beyond what you're currently experiencing. You can call it whatever, but what we see in that is Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit is convicting you to come home to Him. Come to me. I'm going to give you reason.

I'm going to give you purpose. I want to be your friend. I want to be your very best friend. I want to walk with you from this day forward. And if you believe that in your heart, the Bible says you are indeed saved.

You have been given salvation. Jesus, He is our Savior. That's what Jesus means. That's His birth name and that's what that means. And if you'll bow your head and close your eyes today and just take a second.

Some of you here, somebody here today, somebody here today is ready to give their life to Jesus. Somebody here today is ready to make that commitment to Jesus Christ. Would you do that? Make this today that you get to live with an everlasting friend for the rest of your life, for the rest of eternity. Make that decision today.

Pray this with me. Pray this hope with me. Pray this life with me. That's what resurrection is. Life, life.

When Jesus comes in, He makes life better. He becomes your best friend. Just pray this with me. Father, in the name of Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God and that you died on the cross for my sin. Come into my heart.

Come into my life. Make me a new creation. I want to walk this life with you. I want to walk this life with you, my best friend, for the rest of my days here on earth and throughout eternity. I believe in you.

In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Can y'all give God some praise?

Give God some praise. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We thank you for salvation. If you gave your life to Jesus today, we don't ask you to stand up and get a commitment card in front of everybody or whatever.

But please do visit somebody at the table. Check off on that card, that blue card that you have. Check off on that card and let us know that you gave your life to Jesus today so that we can give you some information. Talk to somebody at the Next Steps table. We've got Bibles.

We've got everything you need to begin your walk with Jesus Christ. Get connected in the church. Get connected with a small group. Get connected with a team. Whatever it takes, grow in Jesus.

We need to mature and we need to grow and become more like Him every day of our lives. Amen. Amen. God bless you. Join us next week for part two of Jesus Is.