Hi everyone and welcome to our fourth and final installment for The Servant series. We hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have.
We felt to present this final episode in quite a different and creative way. Transitioning from The Servant and The Master parable of Luke 17, in this episode we are looking into a modern day parable if you like, which is actually a movie released in 2019 called Knives Out. Using this movie as a springboard into our topic, we draw on the shadows and types revealed in it that lead us to what we believe is a most beautiful conclusion to the series - that a true friend of God emerges out from being a faithful servant.
Jesus said:
"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You 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". John 15:12-15
What are the qualities of a friend of God? What does it look like to be called God's friends? How can we be God's friends today?
Looking at the qualities found in the main characters of the movie and of Abraham who was called both God's servant and God's friend we discover something very special of our Lord and what it takes for us, the church, to be not only God's servants but truly and most wonderfully, become His friends.
Scripture References
Psalm 105:42 - For he remembered his holy promise given to his servant Abraham
Isa 41:8 - But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend
1 John 3:16 - “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”.
James1:22 - “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves”.
Phil 2:4-8 - “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, empty yourselves, and take the form of a bond-servant, Humble yourselves by becoming obedient to the point of death”.
Matthew 16:25 - He who saves his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake will find it
John 15:20 - Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
James 2: 22-24 - You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
Proverbs 18:24 - A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.
James 4:4 - You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God
Exodus 33:11 - Inside the Tent of Meeting, the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.
Hebrews 3:5-6 - Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast.…
Revelation 3:20 - Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
Philippians 3:7-10 - But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,