Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - How to Know If Your Relationship with Jesus Is Transactional

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

We often come to faith expecting perks like peace, blessings, and protection. When the blessings slow down, we wonder what we did wrong. We treat our relationship with Jesus like a contract: “I’ll pray, give, obey, so that you’ll give me health, salvation, and success.” But what if friendship with Jesus is less about what we collect and more about what we offer? In this episode, Pastor Allen explores the incredible privilege of being Jesus' friend and how we can invest in a deeper relationship with our Savior.More Information:My Friend Jesus: https://store.allenjackson.com/category/offers/BK250907?source=25WEBI000 —It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Welcome to culture and Christianity. This has been a very unusual week. My friend Charlie Kirk was the victim of a political assassination. Not a hit piece in the media, folks. His life was taken. There's not really an easy response to that. I want to ask you to pray to pray for Charlie's family, for his wife, Erica and their two children, for a turning point USA. Pray for our nation. We've got to be able to speak the truth in public, freedom of speech and the right to a peaceful assembly. are necessary in order for us to maintain our freedom and liberty. And don't be confused, they're under threat right now. Charlie Kirk was a remarkable, remarkable man. He did his good a job of sharing our faith with the younger generations, college students as anyone I have ever known. God used his life in a profound way. It's still very fresh for all of us.

The emotions are very real. This one feels personal. I'm quite confident that God will in some way turn this for his good. The devil always seems to overplay his hand, but it's not an easy day. This podcast, I actually recorded a couple days ago about my friend Jesus. I think the message is important.

I think it's an appropriate follow-up to the loss of Charlie. It's a good reminder that the important things about our life will be more true in eternity than they are in time. It's too easy to be captured by the things that are temporary, and I don't wanna do that. I wanna keep my hope and my attention focused

on what is beyond time, And that's really the point of this discussion today. So don't forget, we're praying for Charlie's family, we're praying for Turning Point USA, we're praying for our nation, but most of all, we're determined to be friends with Jesus. I hope you enjoy the message. Welcome to culture and Christianity.

You know, the real heart of this is to learn to live at our faith so that we don't just attend to church or listen to sermons or read our Bibles, but we actually are living expressions of the Christian faith. That means we engage our culture outside of the walls of church, or outside of our Bible studies or small groups, that we don't compartmentalize our lives,

that there's a consistency across all of our lives. I'm in a new podcast studio. Our team here has put together a great new space for me to get to do this. So they told me it would make me look younger and thinner. I would appreciate your comments. If they didn't achieve that, they're all fired. So it's an idea anyway. The topic today is really driven from a theme that's been a part of my

ministry, my life for a long time. Not surprisingly, it made its way into sermons. And from that, there's a new book out called My Friend Jesus. But you may have heard me talk about, let's pray, the idea that a sentence prayer can change a life, that some of the most powerful prayers in the Bible are just a sentence prayer. So I've spent several years and have engaged thousands and tens of thousands of people in taking a sentence prayer outside of church into the context of their lives. I think this notion of my friend Jesus is just as transformational is that let's pray sentence prayer idea. The prayer idea helps prayer become something that's perfunctory or ritualized or routinized in a formal worship service and integrates it into your life. Anybody can do it

no matter what you're where you are in your maturing process as a Christ follower. Well my friend Jesus is intended to really transform our whole notion of what it means to be people of faith. We'll do another series and talk about our spiritual life, but to be a person of faith, to my way of thinking, is really centered

in understanding your relationship with Jesus. And the simplest way for me to get to that is my friend Jesus. There's a verse of scripture. I'm a pastor. Most things start there.

I'll read it to you. It's John 15. In verse 15, Jesus was speaking to his closest friends. And he said, I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn't 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 that's a drop the mic moment you know Jesus is with the disciples it's a little bit of an expanding group beyond that 12 and he said you know I don't call you servants anymore because you're my friends

and the characterization of that is because I have shared with you what the father shared with me you said I've taken down all the petitions I've taken down all the walls of separation you're my friends Well, that's a very accessible idea to almost all of us. We all have a friend, or we've wanted to have a friend, or we've been asked to be a friend,

and we understand the nature of that relationship. And so I want to invite you away from all of the clumsiness and the clutter of religious language and religious thinking. Now, I've had the privilege of a pretty good theological education. And there's a place in a time for the formality of that and understanding what exegesis means or homiletical appropriateness or hermeneutical correctness. But at the end of the day, I want to be Jesus' friend. And I get what that means. You know, my life has been changed by the people who have been my friends. Most of the best learning of my life has come from people who have been my friends.

and I certainly my kingdom life, my spiritual life, my faith life is completely encased in this idea that I want to be Jesus' friend. When he thinks about me, I want him to smile. I don't want him to make a fist. When he thinks about he's going to spend time with me, I don't want it to be something that is a point of frustration or angst or that he's looking to avoid. We all have had people in our lives that we would rather not spend time with. And we have other people we spend that we can, when we have an opportunity to spend time with them, we look forward to it. We treasure it, we value it, we'll make sacrifices to do it. We'll travel to do it.

We'll, we will change our schedules to do so. And I want to imagine that my relationship with the Lord is not one of formality. It's not one that's so compartmentalized that I have like a Jesus vocabulary. and a Jesus wardrobe and a set of Jesus friends. But then I have a whole other wardrobe and a whole other vocabulary and a whole other set of friends. And I don't intend them to know that Jesus is my friend. If you're living that kind of life, you're not a Christian.

And I don't mean that as a criticism. It's a diagnosis. We can't compartmentalize that way. And that's the way I was introduced to faith. You know, when I felt God inviting me into the ministry, I didn't want to be a minister because the ministers I had known as a young person were black robes and vestments. You know, those things they hung around their necks

that are different colors that symbolized different parts of the Christian calendar and season. And I thought of that. I didn't have a single memory of, that was positive around that. The most positive memory I had from those settings was leaving.

All the joy was when we were exiting. Everybody walked in like we were walking into something that was punishing, but we left with enthusiasm. And so when the invitation began to kind of emerge inside of me, to go into the ministry.

I can't do that because Jesus wasn't my friend. And I don't mean that in an overly casual way. I really don't like the language where we talk about Jesus in too casual a way. I have some people who are important friends of mine, close friends of mine, but I'm not overly casual with them. I have a friend who was a surgeon. And that would never occur to me when he was in surgery to go bursting into the operating suite and go, hey, how you doing?

You know, I would recognize the spheres of influence in his life, and there's a respect that to do that, and my friendship doesn't transcend that. In order to maintain the friendship, I have to respect those places in the lives of others. And the same is true with the Lord. So I'm not inviting you to something that is so casual that Jesus just becomes your buddy. I'm not trying to reduce him from the King of Kings to the Lord of Lords. You know, I have some friends who have been very accomplished in some arenas. And while I treasure those friendships, I'm very respectful of those places in their lives, too, and I want them to be respectful in my life in that way.

And that respect doesn't make our friendships distant or less significant. And I'm uncomfortable sometimes with the language that emerges from the Christian community that tries to reduce Jesus to just my buny. or Bubba, you know, and we're going to hang a little bit. I don't see those portrayals in Scripture. And so I think we can be Jesus' friend without reducing him to the basest part of our human experience. So I want to take a little journey

and how I've imagined Jesus as a friend in my life. The book will help you do that, but I'm going to give you kind of a teaser. It's a spoiler alert, maybe. But, you know, I think we learn to be friends with somebody. You learn what they enjoy and what they don't enjoy. You learn the things that matter to them and the things that don't matter to them. And that becomes kind of a basis of a friendship. If you have a completely different taste, completely different objectives, completely different agendas, completely different worldviews, it's unlikely you're really going to be friends.

You can be acquaintances. You can be co-workers. You can work on a project together. You can share some common interest. But you share completely divergent perspectives on most things. That's not usually the basis for a really good friendship. The people who are my friends, when I'm with them, I want to learn what they're interested in.

I have some friends who like to hunt. And I didn't grow up hunting. My dad was a veterinarian, so I grew up putting things back together, not blowing them apart. But to develop that relationship with my friends who hunt, I got involved in that set of behaviors for a while. You know, I'd get up and go out at 3 o'clock in the morning, and get ready to hunt turkeys.

It never occurred to me to get up at 3 o'clock. to go hunt a turkey. I'd just go to Kroger about midday and get one. But I had friends that liked to hunt turkeys, so I changed my calendar and learned the behaviors and got engaged in that. I have friends that liked the fish. You know, I'm good with a good seafood restaurant, but I've got some friends that really liked the fish. One guy came up to me and said, hey, I don't want you go fishing with me? I said, sure. I thought we were going to the local lake. And he came back the next week, and he said, I blocked out three days. And I said, why? And he said, we're going to the golf. I thought, oh, I didn't know I'd made a commitment for a journey 25 miles offshore,

but I did, and I learned a lot about fishing from my friend, and the passion he had for that. Well, in a similar way, if we're Jesus' friends, we're going to learn what he's passionate about, what he cares about, what he's interested in. And it's really difficult to argue that you're someone's friend if you don't care about what they care about. I'm not a world-class hunter nor a world-class fisherman,

but I have friends who are, and I'm very happy to engage in some of those activities or some of those conversations and be respectful of them. I've got another friend that is a championship, he wins barbecue championships. And I have learned so much about food prep and how to participate in a championship barbecue cookoff. and they weren't things that were familiar with to me, but I spent a lot of time over a lot of hot coals and done a lot of things that, but it was a way of building a relationship,

a friendship with someone. And if you don't like the things that go with those people, it's really unlikely you're going to build a relationship. And in your faith life, what I discovered in myself was I didn't like Christians, which is a problem. I was very aware of their weaknesses, and their failures and their shortcomings.

And I had a better time being around people who weren't Christians because there was so little Jesus in me that I was much more comfortable with ungodly people than I was with people who loved the Lord. And when I came to recognize that as a fundamental weakness in me, I began to change. I began to talk to the Lord about it. And so, you know, the truth is I don't like people who like you

because I'm not that close to you. And I think of you in an angry way or a judgmental way. I think that you're limiting my life and you're trying to keep me from having a good time or that the best things in life don't include you or the things that I'm most excited about I wouldn't want you to join me in. And it began to give me an awareness that I was not really walking very closely in the things of God. That I was far more comfortable in the midst of paganism than I was in really being a Christ follower. And so this notion of my friend Jesus, I don't want to, I'm not looking for sloppy language, an overly casual language.

I'm inviting you to imagine a faith life that will bring as much joy to you as any person you could think of spending time with. I don't want to displace your family or your marital relationship. I'm not suggesting that. But I would suggest to you that God's at the top of that list. And if you don't like him and you don't like to be with him and you don't want to do the things that he's interested in. and you don't care about his plans or his purposes or his objectives or his interest, that we need to think about that. We need to recalibrate a little bit.

And I just don't think anybody's really ever helped us. So that's my target. And that's a long on-ramp. But it's changed my whole life. It has changed my priorities. It didn't happen in a week or a month or a year. But it has changed how I imagine success, how I define my goals. It's a reason I would do a podcast.

like this. You know, I'm much more of an introvert and a private person. I'm happy with a book in a corner. But I'll sit down and have a conversation with you because I want to tell you about my friend. He's changed my life. You know, we live in a tumultuous, confusing, frightening world. And the rate of change is accelerating so rapidly. You know, AI is not the future. The AI is happening now. And there's so many perspectives on what that's going to mean. And the only way I know to face that without being afraid is I got a friend. And I got a friend that can handle this. And he's been such a good friend to me through all the changes in the past 30 years that I trust him completely with the changes in the next five.

And if I told you I had to feed 500 people brisket next week, I got a friend and I would call him and we would do it because I've done it in the past. Or if I needed to take you on a trip to Israel, in the midst of a war over there. I've got friends I could call, and I would trust my life with them. Well, I am learning to trust the Lord that way. And I would love to plant that seed in your heart

that your relationship with Jesus is not about a church or a denomination or a set of experiences or a set of rules. He can be your friend. And in those places of the greatest pressure or the greatest opportunity, you don't want to hide them from your life. your friend, you invite your friend to them. So I'm just going to kind of walk you through some

things. I hope just to plant some seeds maybe. I think you learned to be friends. We learn that with one another. We learn it as children. We learn it as adults. We learn it in the context of a marriage. We learn it in the context of our faith. And we definitely learn that in the context of our relationship with the Lord. And I went to the gospels. At the end of the day, the Bible is my rule of faith and practice. And Jesus recruited these disciples to be with him. You know, Peter, James, and John, and the crew. Then there's that expanded circle that includes the Marys. And I mean, a whole group of people who recognized there was something unique about Jesus and wanted to spend time with him, which is kind of a fundamental component of emerging friendship. But then Jesus began to

teach them who he was. If I could take you to Israel with me and I could take you to the Sea of Galilee, which is a big freshwater lake in the northern part of Israel. And about about 75% of Jesus miracles took place in about a five-mile area. Well, the circuit centered around that northern end of the Sea of Galilee. And the essence of those messages, if you follow them through the Gospels, was he kept looking at the people and said, believe in me. You can believe in me. He wasn't presenting himself as a credentialed rabbi.

He wasn't a part of the power structure from the temple in Jerusalem. He was showing them glimpses of the kingdom of God. He was showing them that he wasn't like any other. their friend they'd ever had before. Then I brought a couple of samples. In Matthew 8, 25, they're in the boat. The majority of the disciples he recruited were fishermen.

They spend their life on the lake. They're in the boat. A storm comes up, which is not unusual on Galilee. And Jesus is asleep. It's a little open-air boat. It's almost impossible if you imagine he was truly asleep. The water would have been breaking over the boat. The rain's coming down.

The wind's howling. But nevertheless, the narrative says Jesus is a asleep and the disciples are, the fishermen are awake, and the fishermen wake up the carpenter and say, we're going to drown. Well, carpenters aren't the one you would call in the middle of a storm if you're the fisherman, but Jesus stands up in the boat, mistake, speaks to the wind, and it grows calm. But his message to them is he said, you have little faith, why were you so afraid? And it completely freaks them out because Jesus has an authority they didn't know he had. He said he even speaks to the wind and the waves.

You see, there's a relationship being built. It's not a bag of tricks. They're learning something about their friend they didn't know. And I think that's where we have short-circuited this process. Rather than imagine the Jesus we read about in the Gospels could be our friend. We'll go to a seminar and we will talk about whether miracles ceased in the first century or not. That makes no sense to me. I don't know why you would give me the Bible with,

with the presentation of Jesus as he is, and then say to me, but he won't be your friend that way. He won't do that for you. I don't believe it. In fact, I have proven otherwise. And what I'm suggesting is that we can learn to be his friend. Now, if you want the power of God in your life, you've got to be willing to be a faithful friend to him. It's not that you earn it, but you invest in the relationship enough. You know, my friend that can feed hundreds of people

really good brisket, he won't do it for somebody he bumps into on the street. He would do it in response to a relationship that he's established with people. I've watched him do it in multiple states. And I want to establish a relationship with the Lord that opens the possibilities of the kingdom of God to me. I give you another example.

In Matthew 14, 29, this is on Galilee again. The disciples are rowing across the lake. It's late at night, and Jesus comes walking across the wall. water, which frightens his friends. I understand that they've never known anybody to do that. They've never had a friend like this before. That's a part of the learning. And Peter says, Lord, if it's you, I want to walk too.

And Jesus says, come on. The way I read it, they could have all walked. But Peter's more brash. His mouth typically goes off before his brain. And so he climbs out of the boat and starts to walk to Jesus. And then it says that he looked at the wind and the waves, and he got frightened. And he starts to sink.

He began to sink. I've been on the Sea of Galilee, I don't know how many, more than a hundred times. And I always check. Never yet have I begun to sink. If I get in the water, I sink. Peter began to sink,

and he had enough time to say to the Lord save me, and the Lord reached out and saved him. What intrigues me is Jesus' response to him. He said, you have little faith. Why'd you doubt? He said, I'm standing here in the lake, and I ask you to come stand with me. You don't know me well enough yet.

And every time I come to a place in my life where I need God's help, I come back to this notion of my friend Jesus. Do I know him well enough that I trust him to walk with me through this place? And if I'm frightened or anxious or angry or whatever the emotion is, then I've got to sit, I've got to begin to invite God in and I say, you know, clearly I don't trust you enough in this. I'm far more aware of the storms than I am of your presence. with me. Because if I'm in Israel with my friend, I've been, I was after the October 7th attack in

Israel, I went to visit. And I went down to walk through the communities where those horrible things had happened. And there were still shells going off. But I didn't even flinch because the friend I was with, I trusted him completely. If it wasn't a safe place, he'd have told me. If I had needed to get to a shelter, he would have told me. If I had needed some sort of an intervention, he would have provided it. I didn't have any anxiety whatsoever. We stopped and had lunch. We had a great day in the midst of a place in the world where most people wouldn't even go travel. And I had a complete peace of mind, not because I'm brave or clever or smart. I didn't even understand all the language, but I trusted my friend. And I'm learning to trust Jesus every day

in new ways. That's a whole different thing than are you saved? Are you born again? I've been baptized. I read through the Bible once. You know, all those things are important and they matter, but I want to be Jesus' friend. I've written a new book. It's called My Friend Jesus. I'm a pastor. A lot of ritual, tradition, a lot of formality in the way we know God. It's not bad. There's some good things in that. But when I'm in real trouble or I have something I want to celebrate, I call a friend. Well, I want to live my life with Jesus of Nazareth is my friend. It changes everything in both celebration and when there's a problem. I wrote the book to help. I think it'll open your

life to God in a more personal, transformational way than ever before. Enjoy the book. In his book, My Friend Jesus, Pastor Allen shares how friendship with Jesus brings clarity, strength, and peace in every part of life. This isn't about following a religion or religious rules. It's about cultivating a cherished relationship that will help your faith become more personal, more joyful, and more powerful each day. Request My Friend Jesus with your donation of $25 or more today at Alan.

Jackson.com. Then in Matthew 16, there's another one. The disciples are getting in the boat. They're on Galilee again. Again, this is where Jesus made the revelation of himself. When we go to Jerusalem with Jesus, the message is different. It's not believe in me. When you go to Jerusalem, he says, you're going to have to believe in what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to allow myself to be a sacrifice for you.

I'm going on a cross for you. Jerusalem's message is different than the Galilee message. But we'll do that in another podcast. How about? But they're getting on a boat to cross the lake. And Jesus says to the disciples, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees. And it starts an argument amongst the disciples. It's a fun Bible study. Read the things that the disciples argued about.

Who's the greatest? We didn't bring enough bread. Silly, childish things, because they're learning about their friend. But Jesus says, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And the disciples start to argue. They said he's mad at us because we didn't bring enough bread. And Jesus understands what they're arguing about. And he said, remember when we find out?

fed the 5,000 with a one boy's lunch? And how much did you pick up, you know, 12 basketfuls? And we fed 3,000 and how much did you pick up? Clearly the point is, with a little bit of food, we could eat for months. I'm not talking to you about bread. But his response to them, again, is that phrase, you of little faith. And I don't think he's criticizing their Bible knowledge. He's saying to them, you really don't know me yet, do you? Are you not paying attention? If I can stand on the lake, You can stand on the lake. If we have fed thousands of people with a very small amount of food, do you think we would have a problem if we only had a couple of loaves amongst ourselves?

He's inviting them into this notion of being his friend. And that's what I want to give you today. I hope by the time you're done with this podcast that you can say to the Lord, I'd like to be your friend. It'll be a change. It means we understand that there's no, I don't have a voice. vocabulary set for when I'm at church and when I'm someplace else. I don't have a beverage list for when I'm with Christian friends and when I'm not. I don't have a, you know, all those things

where we compartmentalize, I got to be willing to invite Jesus into the midst. If he's really my friend. But it is such a dramatic, it'll change the whole context of how you think about your faith. Because the friends in my life, I'm not trying to get things from them. Imagine walking up to somebody and so, you know, I'd like to maximize my friendship with you. I want to get as much from you by putting it as little as I can. I don't want to be a friend with that person. They're a user, and we've all had those friends, friends that are more takers than they are contributors. They're short-term or limited relationships. Real friends understand that I'm not always counting. I'm not keeping score. We're in it to help one another, and sometimes that means the sacrifices

are not equal. The investments aren't proportional. We've got some messed up conversations in marriage. You know, people say they're 50-50. Oh, stop it. No 50-50? I don't even want a 50-50 friend. Because there's times I need a friend to be all in or they'll need me to be all in. And I'm like, I'd like to come help you, but I'm 45 minutes over on time I'm supposed to spend with you. And yet we come to God with this, it's really perverse. Like, you know, well, I want to know God so I can get him to do what I want him to do. We don't say it that way, but it's really how we feel. Or how close would I have to be with the Lord, but still be able to do what I really want to do? That's not a friendship. And so a component that has helped me a lot is John 15 in verse 16.

Jesus is talking to his friends again. And he said, you didn't choose me, but I chose you. I chose you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. There's something really significant when a person who you value, whether it's their opinion, their accomplishments, their ability, their talent, their resources, their power, whatever would fit into your framework of accomplishment. Someone you consider accomplished, and that would shift a little bit for all of us. But there are people who you consider accomplished, and if they reached out and said, I want to make an investment.

I'd like to be your friend. I'll block out the time to do that. You just tell me where to be, and I'd like to get to know you. Well, if it's somebody that you truly value, I think you would attach value. I would attach value to that opportunity. So when I hear Jesus say, the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, the water walking, dead raising, the creator of the earth and everything that's in it, When Jesus says to me, I chose you.

And I don't call you a servant. I call you a friend. I promise you that's the best invitation that's ever coming to Alan Jackson. I have some accomplished friends. I have some successful friends. I have some friends that have a good bit of fame. Nothing compares in my life to the privilege of imagining that Jesus of Nazareth would be willing to befriend me. that he chose me.

And I haven't always held up my end of the bargain as best I could have. And I've talked to him about that. Because the same is true in my other relationship. Sometimes I'm not listening well enough. Sometimes I've been too selfish. Sometimes I've been too busy. Sometimes priority. A lot of things, all of that goes into a friendship.

You understand that as well as I do. And I have to talk to Jesus about that. because I want to demonstrate the integrity of my friendship in that. Not to earn my way to anything. It's simply my life goal. You know, at some point, my earth suit will wear out, and I'll step out of time into eternity, and I'm going to see my friend.

And I want him to be pleased. I don't intend for that to be like an initial introduction, or how many times I had to go to church, or how many sermons I preached, or whatever. I want to have lived my life like I really intended to be his friend. So he's been chosen. You've been chosen by God. There's two perspectives on chosen by God in Scripture,

and it's relevant to the culture right now. So I'll take just a moment with it. There's two groups of people that God has chosen, very distinctive in Scripture, not separate, fully integrated. I don't have time to explain all of that. But the first is the Jewish people. And I know that's crazy offensive to a big chunk of folks, but it's still the scripture.

If the scripture offends you, you need to change. It's like being offended by gravity. You won't win the debate. And God chose the Jewish people. I don't even think Israel wants to be different. Through the scripture, you see them multiple occasions say, we want to be like all the other nations. And the reality is they're not because God chose them.

God chose them. He didn't ask for a vote. He said, out of all the nations, I have chosen you. And with that, they're called. some things that is not such a blessing. They've been hated, persecuted, they have suffered greatly. Exodus 19.5, you can check me. It's really in the book. This is the message to the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Out of all the nations, you'll be my treasured possession. And although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

He chose the Jewish people. I've earned a couple of degrees in history, and I can tell you throughout the history of the Christian Church and beyond, the Jewish people have been uniquely hated, and it's because of who their friend is. I know there's other things that have been given. Right now, it's fashionable in America. It's even fashionable to many on the conservative side of the ideological spectrum

to hate the Jewish people. And we have reasons for it. One of the things I've learned, you know, in Matthew 24, when Jesus is talking about the end of the age, prior to his return, he says about us that we'll be hated by all nations. And I always thought that that would be like some generic hatred, that they would just decide, there'd be some spirit unleashed, and you would hate Christians. What I have come to the realization of is we'll be hated for reasons that are pushed into the public square. The Jewish people have been hated lately in our culture.

Some hated them because they were the sponsors of the Epstein scandal. And the whole Epstein fiasco, as horrific as it is, we were told, was a response of Israeli intelligence, and they were running honey traps to blackmail. That may come out to be true, but the people that were saying it weren't presenting any evidence. They were just hating on it. Lately, they've been starving the children of Gaza.

And they've been showing, they showed a picture of a child. New York Times was a picture of an emaciated child. And it's days later when they come out and say, well, actually that child had a disease, it had nothing to do with nutrition. My takeaway from that, and it's not new, but that helped crystallize it in my awareness, is that when Jesus said, you and I'll be hated by all nations, they'll attach a reason to that. Are moral codes antiquated? We're a, we'll be an existential threat to something. You know, they'll put a reason on that.

Well, we've seen that towards the Jewish people across millennia. I told you there was two groups God had chosen, the Jewish people and the church. And I'm not talking about a particular denomination or a building where you sit. The church is that group of people, that global group of people from every race, nation, tribe, and language who have acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth as Lord and Christ. That is the church, which would include the Jewish people who believe that Jesus is their Messiah. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9 this is New Testament if you're keeping score Peter is writing a Jewish man is writing to a non-Jewish community and he said you're a

chosen race to royal priesthood a holy nation a people for God's own possession very similar language to what I read you from Exodus except Peter's applying it now to the church so here's this notion God has chosen us it's fundamental to the message of the New Testament. In Acts chapter 10, when Peter is speaking, Peter's the head of the church in Jerusalem at this point in the unfolding narrative, and he's gone to Cessaria, which is a pagan city, a Roman city.

The center of Cessaria in the first century was a temple to a Roman god. Observant religious Jews did not go there, and God sends Peter there as the result of a rather vision and angelic visit, and the Holy Spirit's poured out. And he goes back to Jerusalem, and the church leaders hate him. They're mad at him. And there's this big debate in Jerusalem. And this is what Peter says to them in response.

It's Acts 1035. He said, I now realize how true it is that God doesn't show favoritism, but he accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. See, the Jewish people had lived for hundreds and hundreds of years, understanding themselves to be unique, special, separate from everybody else, God's chosen people. And the message of the New Testament, when that curtain's torn into, and Jesus offers himself as a sacrifice,

is that all people are welcome that we've been chosen by God. Doesn't mean the Jewish people have been rejected. It means the invitation has been expanded. So when I'm talking about friendship, it needs to, it's very important, it's important to me at least, to realize that before I ever thought about being God's friend, he chose to be mine. You know, somebody came up to me a couple days ago and said they'd had a conversation. With a man I know, we're casual acquaintances.

We're not close friends, but he's a, been very, he's three-star general. And they said, I was talking to the general, and he said, you were one of the finest pastors he's ever known. I'm sure I was three inches taller when I got done with that conversation. Because there's something that is affirming in all of our lives when someone who's accomplished or significant, somebody we respect, returns that sense of value. Well, I want you to imagine about yourself for a moment. that the creator of heaven and earth would like to be your friend. And think about that for a little bit,

because he knows everything about us. He knows the worst parts about Alan. He knows my thoughts. Jeez, you don't. You got to listen to me prattle on before you can figure out what I'm thinking. Jesus knows my thoughts. He knows my emotions. He knows the darkest chapters of my life.

And he still said, I choose you. And I'm not unique. He's chosen you as well. The question on the table is, will I choose him and will you? Again, I'm not recruiting you to be religious. I'm not asking you to listen to more sermons. I'm asking how you're doing with your friend Jesus. It has completely changed my life.

I can have formal theological discussions. I can write papers. I can use big words. But all of that gets distilled down in my heart to how am I doing with my friend. Do I talk to him about what's going on? People say, you know, do I don't know how to pray? I know how to pray. I talk to my friend.

Now, that's a different thing in front of a room full of people. But my prayer life is a conversation and time to listen. That's why I read my Bible. It's a way I can hear from the Lord. I'm not a huge music person, but I listen to Christian music because I want to create on ramps where I can hear from the Lord because he's my friend. No burden. I don't want him to demand.

I'm not looking for direction. I'm not asking him to reveal the future to me. If he does that, that's okay. He's my friend. If I need to know it, he'll show me. But I'm listening just because I want to be his friend. What in my life? What in my world?

What in the relationships that I'm engaged with? I imagine that he's deployed me. The New Testament word is I'm an ambassador. I've got some friends that are ambassadors that have been ambassadors in New Zealand and Israel and other places in the world. And they've been sent out to represent a government. Well, to do that, you have to know what your government thinks.

and I'm an ambassador for the kingdom of God. So I've got to have some sense of what my friend thinks about the world I'm in. People get all heated up with me talking about current events. And I'm like, I can't be quiet. I can't be quiet about a culture that's changing the definition of marriage. My friend defined marriage. He gave that to us. And I would much rather stand with his approval and his blessing than any court or any politician or any political party.

What the heck? and I don't understand Christians that won't have the conversation. Just exactly who are our friends. You know, I have friends that like to hunt. And I know people that think hunting is beastly. And they can't believe I would have a friend that hunts. But I do, and I talk about them,

and I will gladly stand next to them. Not everybody will like you if you choose Jesus as your friend. But it's a worthwhile relationship. So let me plant one more idea. unfold this. I'll wrap it up in just a minute. I know. You know, when I do sermons, they turn off my microphone, but you don't have that luxury. But think about friendship in terms of a spectrum. Then we talk about best friends or best friends forever. I mean, those are high-quality friends or high-valued friends. And I mean, there's friendship all along a spectrum. So I'm going

to ask you to think a little bit about your relationship with the Lord on a friendship spectrum. How are you doing with that? And what's the language look like around that? And there's some things that have been helpful for me. There's a big difference. Friendly does not equal friendship. You know, in general, I can be a pretty friendly person. Depends on who you ask. Nevertheless, friendly and friendship are very different. And some of us are friendly to the Lord. We have no intention of being his friend. And I'm not talking just about respect or kindness. I'm respectful to people when I pay for the groceries at the grocery store. or I get a cup of coffee someplace.

I'm kind to those people, but I'm not their friend. I'm not invested in the relationship. There's a transaction taking place. And we've had a transactional faith. We don't want to go to hell. So tell me what I need to know about God. Maybe there's a hell. I don't know if there's a hell.

But if there is a hell, I don't want to go there. And I'm a good planner. So tell me the plan. So I can be certain. I don't have to go. Where do I need to go? What do I need to say? How much is it going to cost?

That's not a friendship. that's a transaction. You're buying groceries. And some of us have tried to buy fire insurance with no intention of being a friend to the Lord. Friendship is completely different. Friendship emerges and grows out of agreement. Over time, doesn't mean I agree with everything about my friends,

but we don't have fundamental agreements about fundamental worldview issues. If they don't think faithfulness in their marriage is a good idea, I'm probably not going to be their best friend because I can't absorb, I can't afford to absorb that ideology. If they think physical violence against their wife is a good idea, I'm not going to be their friend because I can't afford for that to flourish and I won't give space to that. You know, I may treat them with whatever is appropriate in the context of a relationship. But again, I think friendship emerges from agreement. And one of the challenges we have in our faith is inside of us, I think we really don't agree with God.

Either we're mad at him, we think he's unfair, we think he's too harsh, we think he doesn't pay enough attention, his timeline's messed up something, so we don't agree with him. And so we hold back, we keep ourselves at a distance. Well, the people I trust, my really good friends, you know, if they say to me, I've got a friend who's done a great deal of construction, the church is into construction project right now. So I talked to him more. And he said, you need to be moving more quickly. Or you're pushing that too fast. You need to slow down or you need to look at this. I trust him implicitly.

I've changed my behavior based on counsel he's given me. Because he has more experience than I do. And I can learn from that. It's the value of a friendship. I'm not mad at him when he says I'm behind or I need to hurry or I'm getting out ahead of my skis or whatever it is. I think, wow, that's valuable counsel. I'm thankful for that. Let me buy you dinner and maybe over dinner.

I can learn some more about what I'm in the midst of. And I think of the Lord that way. I want to learn to agree with him, not be agitated with him. And when I am, I have to sit down and say, you know, I don't understand. I don't know what you're doing or I don't know why I'm in this place, but I trust you. And I trust you either to lead me through it or help me to change or friendship begins with agreement. There's a third component I'll give you friendships grow and develop. They don't start fully formed.

They just don't. Even parents get to know their children. You know, they love their children, but they don't start out with a friendship with them. They can't communicate. Friendships emerge over time, and every child is different. Their emotions are different. Their personalities are different. And wise parents build different kind of friendships with their children.

They love them all, but they don't respond to them all the same way. And God creates us uniquely and distinctively. We want to get to know him. Now let me give you an alternative. If you don't want to be the Lord's friend, I want to ask you a question. Whose friend is that you're really working to be? And this is an honest question. It's a culture and Christianity, so they answer to everything tends to be Jesus.

But listen to this. It's James chapter 4 and verse 4. James is writing to the people of God, to the 12, that's the opening to James, to the 12 tribes scattered abroad greeting. Consider brothers, consider it all joy. So he's writing to believers, and he said, you adulterous people. Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

So one way of understanding our lives and our spiritual momentum is what we're friends with. And again, I don't mean, if you, I'll tell you how to figure that out, if you let me look at your calendar and your checkbook, I'll get a lot of clarity on what you're really friends with. It's where you spend your time and your money. And again, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, something that grows in our lives. And if you're not there, I didn't come today to make you feel condemned or shamed or embarrassed. I wanted to open an opportunity. If you've never prayed, you know, outside of a formal church service, go listen to my let's pray stuff. You can learn how to say prayers

that'll change the course of your family, your world, your business. Well, if you've never thought about Jesus being your friend, this will change your faith life. It'll stop being burdensome. It'll stop being intrusive. It becomes exciting. It truly does. It truly does. Friendship with his present world system. Jesus said makes us his enemy. It's hatred towards him. So I have to think about that a lot. This present world system, how they define success,

what their goals are, what are their behaviors. Those aren't necessarily the things that I want to lead with. I'm in the world, but the Bible says I'm not of it. So I don't mean you have to be contrarian, but I want my friendship to be aligned with the purposes and the values of the kingdom of God. And I'll give you one more. I'm going to wrap this up. I think we think about friendship in terms of friendships with one another, the people in our lives,

and then my friendship with Jesus. And there's a difference. What I've chosen is to make friendships with people that will help accelerate or solidify my friendship with Jesus. I try not to give my discretionary time. You know, sometimes I don't have to, I don't get to choose how I use it. I have responsibilities and commitments and I don't choose. and I don't choose who I meet with always or where I work or what these, you know, some of those I have responsibilities for, but when it's my time, and I can choose what I do with it,

I choose to spend my time with people that will help my friendship with Jesus grow. And if I ever vary from that much, then I go into that discussion very clearly thinking, I want these people to know Jesus is my friend. This has nothing to do with my day job. This has nothing to do with my pastor label. I got the pastor label because of this idea of my friend Jesus. I wouldn't do... I don't know if you get to hear that or not,

but we're doing construction on our campus and they just shot off some dynamite. The people in the room with me all jumped. But this notion that my friendships are inseparable for my friendship with Jesus. There's some simple things. I'll do. Like, if I'm with a group and they're more secular, but it's a discretionary kind of a thing,

I'm going to pray. They'll say something. I say, oh, we need to pray about that. And I don't really wait. I'll just kind of drop my head and say a prayer. Or if there's somebody that I've been with repetitively because I'm trying to build a relationship that's valuable to me, I'll put the habit in place before I go. Say, before I go, I'd like to pray with you.

What can I pray with you for? And again, this has nothing to do with me being a pastor, folks. I don't want there to be any lack of clarity where the central relationship of my life is. And I'll tell you why, I'm selfish, because when the pressure in my life is the greatest, I know where I'm going first. There may be some people I go to,

but I will never go to the people until I've gone to my friend Jesus. Again, this changes the narrative for me. This isn't about a church building or a sermon or a set of rules or a debate on morality. What can I do to build my life? to be Jesus' friend. You can do this.

You know what a friend is. You know what you want a friend to be. You've got some good friends. You've got some friends that have betrayed you. There are times you have betrayed friendships. We all get this. What I'm asking you to do is to ask the Spirit of God to let you understand what it means to be a friend.

There's all kinds of cats. Think of old friends and new friends. You know, if your faith is newer to you, Jesus is going to be a new friend. And there's a learning curve in that. You don't have all the stories and the experiences. You don't have years of common journey together. It's a new thing.

No shame in that. Just start. I make new friends all the time. I like friends, so I'm glad to add somebody else. But I also discover if I add new friends, it means I'm going to have to lessen the time I have for some of my old ones because there's a finite amount of time and availability. And that tension lives in us.

And it's not simple. and you have to know where the primary relationships are and we're the ones that can be adjusted based on the need of the season and the time. Well, anyway, I hope that invites you towards an idea. We've put it in a book, and it's not a complete explanation, but it'll get you started. It's called My Friend Jesus.

It's not too long. What is it, 100-something pages? It does not look like war in peace. It's 130 pages. No picture. Sorry about that. But the print's not too small. You can read this. But it'll give you a framework for to begin to develop a friendship with Jesus.

We live in a confusing world. You know, trust has been so broken in our culture. I don't know about you, but there aren't very many public institutions that I feel are trustworthy anymore. That's changing a little bit with some current leadership, which gives me a note of hope. But I used to trust implicitly places like the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. They gave us counsel. I trusted it completely until COVID. I used to trust the FBI

until we've watched Russian collusion and a few other heinous things come out of that place. You know, there's many places where trust has been broken and the best way I've found to navigate that, you don't have to be afraid or frightened or panicked or anxious.

You need a friend that's more powerful than any of those places where trust has been broken. And that's Jesus. He will lead us through whatever comes. And I don't know. know what next is. I'm quite confident there's more disruptions. COVID was not the last. That was a training exercise in control and pretty effective for a while. And my prayer is that

we would not be that easily controlled the next time. But that's not a license to be rebellious. It's a license to develop a friendship that can take us through whatever disruption is coming. So if you're willing to read, get a copy of my friend Jesus. I believe it will help you. I can promise you that deciding to make Jesus your friend will change your future and it'll make your faith meaningful, vibrant, personal and something that'll walk with you every day.

I'll be anxious to hear your comments. I want to know how you do with your friend Jesus. I'm sure it'll help me in my relationship with him too. Well, for now, that's culture and Christianity. We will talk again soon. Hey, thanks for joining me today. before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel

and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.