Welcome to the Daily Disciple podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. Good morning, friends, and welcome to the Together on Mission Daily podcast. This is Travis, and it is great to be with all of you this morning. It really is.
I'm excited to spend the day with Jesus Spend the morning with Jesus Spend the day with Jesus to do with friends that are friends of Jesus do. And so good morning, friends. And honestly, I say friends intentionally because the title of the podcast is Friends this Morning. And we're journeying through the Gospel of John.
And you can't really get far in the Gospel of John without being confronted with the spirituality of friendship. So we're gonna get there in just a bit. But the question is, is there anything that we fear more than isolation or loneliness or being disconnected, completely disconnected, isolated loneliness. In fact, for thousands of years, solitary confinement has been used as a means to torture a human being.
That sense of complete and utter aloneness. Now, you might be an introvert and think, well, I really want to be alone. And that makes sense to recharge your batteries as an introvert. But is there anything worse than the idea of complete and total isolation and aloneness?
And you might think, well, you know, I have young kids and I would love to get some alone time. And that makes total sense at that stage in life. But that's because you've been so inundated with. You'd like a little bit of rest and relaxation.
And of course, that makes a great deal of sense. But there's nothing that we fear or hate more than total isolation, utter aloneness, you know, just being completely disconnected. There's nothing that we fear more than that which makes us think, or it should make us think about how we've been created or more particularly, who has created us. And Scripture reveals that the God that created us is himself.
Friendship, heroic fellowship. And we need to think about that a little bit more often than we do. And we are in his image. And then God has come.
He's arrived in his world in and through the person, Jesus, to become friends with his creation. And that is what John chapter one is all about. And I think if we stop and think about it, we desire friendship more than anything else. And someone said that at the heart of a great marriage is a friendship, or at the core of a great dating relationship is a friendship.
Or when two siblings are really close, at the core of that is friendship or a great team or a great staff. And so John chapter one, beginning in verse 35, the next day, John the Baptist was there with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the Lamb of God. And when John's two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.
Turning around, Jesus saw them following, and he said, what do you want? And they said, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Come, he replied, and you? So they went and they saw where he was staying, and they spent the day with him.
Now, Andrew, Simon, Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John say this and followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon. And he told him, we have found the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus.
And Jesus looked at him and said, you will be Cephas, which, when is translated, is Peter. Now, the next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee, finding Philip. He said to him, follow me, Philip. Like Andrew and Peter, we're from the town of Bethsaida.
Philip found Nathanael and said, we have found the Messiah, the one that the prophets have written about. And on and on this story goes. It's a story of gathering friends, becoming a group of friends. What is John doing?
What story is John telling? He's telling the story of Jesus inviting these guys into what? Not when he made these guys. He meant community, he meant friendship.
He meant together on mission. He's talking about the spirituality of friendship. And again, this is perhaps the greatest human need. And I'm just wondering, as we read this passage, is this how we've seen Christianity?
Is this what we've experienced, as we've experienced Christianity? And incredible things happen in the context of friendship. Like Jesus says to Peter, you're going to be Cephas. You're going to be the rock.
And that's going to mean an identity and a mission and a call as the gospel develops. And so this morning, I'm thinking, and I just would love to invite you into the thinking, who are your friends? Who are your few friends that God has blessed you with and the enemy? Is there all kinds of things to destroy friendship in our life, whether it's that we've been hurt or we feel that we're too busy.
You know, we say things like, I can't find the right friends. I don't have time. I don't want to get hurt again. You know, I don't like anybody.
It seems like too much effort. And so we settle for what our culture says will bring fulfillment. But what if our culture is wrong? Our culture tells us that more stuff or more accomplishment or more fame or notoriety or whatever is going to bring fulfillment.
But what if the culture's wrong? What if deep, true friendship is actually what brings fulfillment, what brings satisfaction? I think that's exactly what John is saying in John, Chapter one, we'll continue to say throughout the rest of the gospel. That's the point, a deep friendship with God and others.
And I think the truth is that friendship with God is worked out in and through friendship with others. And that brings satisfaction, fulfillment, celebration, mission, community, and a whole bunch of other things that we were created for. And if that's the case, if friendship is what we were created for, what we're looking for, then that changes, or it should change our strategy for life, what we pursue, what we go after, what we seek. And maybe, maybe some of us need to go low and forgive and seek to reconcile with some friendships that the enemy has been successful in destroying.
Maybe it looks like prioritizing friendship for some of us, taking more time for it, maybe being incredibly grateful for the friends that we have, being intentional and going deeper and being more vulnerable with our friends. But this morning, let's just think about this whole topic of friendship. Let's read this text, let's make a list, let's thank God for our friends, let's pray for them. And let's begin.
As we walk and talk with Jesus today, let's begin to take seriously what it looks like to be friends that are friends that are of Jesus. And we'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the Daily Disciple Podcast. We truly hope that you were encouraged by it today.
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