No Longer Servants But Friends John 14:9-17 10/10/10

John 14:9-17 10-10-10 – no longer servants but friends

9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I 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. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.

Today I want to talk about What kind of place this is
That is not to defame other places………..
But What do people hear here that they find unique
Love and grace, and isn’t that odd.

Velvet Elvis class
Fear
Rules
Judgment
manipulation
hell

did hear from one who was surprised at all the negativity.
Georgia Johnson – 6 churches
I am happy for them.
I wish there were more like them.
They have been blessed
Don’t we want to provide just such an experience to our children.

Youth video?

I was not excited about church as a youngster because everything was shut down
That is why I don’t get excited when kids run in church………

Books –
Quitting church
Leaving church
They like Jesus but not the church
Unchristian
I’m fine with god its Christians I can’t stand
Loving god when you don’t love the church
When Christians get it wrong

Testimony of so many, that here they found a message that they did not find somewhere else………
Woodruffs
Bethany
Jim Schultz nephew from kck
Eliz hancock

Drummer- tired of feeling bad when I left church

It is easier for us to make rules than to help people find a relationship with god
It is easy to fall back into the rules

It is easy to be spackled with the trappings and forget the love

1 cor 13. without this msg, we are not the church.
Without love, we are just pretending

Blocks and trampoline

Gina’s testimony

My story of young life
I argued with the leader. That is not in the bible.

So what. Pat yourself on the back?
No. keep loving. Keep reaching out. Invite your friends to your church.
Make room in your heart, your life and your church for others that need to find god’s love.







Hi, I’m your video testimony today for our campaign to add on to our building.

Every time we have a capital campaign they ask the pastor to talk about his family’s gift and as you might imagine that is a very uncomfortable thing. They ask the pastor to talk about his family’s gift because hopefully the pastor’s gift will model sacrifice. It’s so easy for us to give from our abundance or to make a gift that is easy for us. But to accomplish the kind of project that we are looking at today, it’s important for us to think about making a gift that honors God.

Once of the old testaments’ prophets said I will not give to God that which costs me nothing. So when I tell you that my family is going to give $30,000 to this campaign that is a sacrifice for us. That’s more than we have given in any campaign in the past. There are a number of ways that we are going to have to consolidate and manage things carefully in order to do that. But we believe very much in our church and in the mission of our church and extending that reach to others.

An interesting story, Sunday at lunch time, my daughter Jennifer, my wife and I went to Red Robin. We were talking about the campaign and my daughter asked how much we were going to give and I told her, her mouth went O, and she said dad that’s like a whole brand new car for me. I said, hon, remember in the old church when there were 250 of us and we made a commitment to a campaign and built a building and today there are over 1,000 here at our church. What would you rather have, all those people or a brand new car for you? She didn’t think very long, she said dad I would rather have the people.

So I invite you to join me, my family and many others as we sacrifice and work together to extend the reach of our church and make room for others.

Thank you.