Life in the Vine | Week 8

Life in the Vine - Week 8October 26, 2025Teacher: Pastor Dave BrownYou are my friends if you do what I command. 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. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.— John 15:14-17I call you friends…but this is my command?Perhaps we may now hazard a guess why Scripture uses Friendship so rarely as an image of the highest love.  It is already, in actual fact, too spiritual to be a good symbol of Spiritual things.— C.S. LewisAppreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.— C.S. LewisNow and forever more, we are friends of God.  We just don’t always act like it.A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.— Proverbs 17:17Savior AND LordWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— Declaration of IndependenceIt is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness.  For happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether…This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone…God alone constitutes man’s happiness.— AquinasIt would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.— C.S. LewisThis is my command: Love each other.— John 15:17When spiritual vitality is measured by sin-avoidance, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are following Jesus faithfully. But following Jesus is to be measured by love—love for God expressed in love for neighbor. This is the good, beautiful, and kind life. It took me some years to realize this. In fact, I need to be reminded of it often.— Rich VIllodasLife has no better gift to give.— C.S. Lewis