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Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date May 3, 2026
Text I John 3:1-7;
Pastor Paul Lehmann
II Chron. 20:7 tells us that Abraham was a “friend of God;
Prov. 18:24 tells us that God is a “friend” who is closer than a brother; then Jesus is accused of being a “friend to sinners” Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:24
It is important to recognize that God loves us, He is our friend, and Jesus is our friend, even when we haven’t received his friendship.
How many friends do you have? Some people think you can never have enough. Usually, we qualify our friends. “Old friends”—not just in age, I know, we are all old! But those we have been friends with for a long time, even though we hardly ever get to see them anymore. Best friends, just friends, and then lots of acquaintances.——– These are the people that when we are asked if we “know” them, we might respond, yeah, I know him, or I know her. Actually, we might not really know them at all. What we mean is that we met them, or “heard” of them, or we know who they are. This is especially true if you have a large number of acquaintances. Those who are on one of the social networks, like Facebook, usually have quite a few “friends.” There are some though that have thousands, and they can’t possibly be real friends. They have just responded to a request to be your friend, and you click yes. You can also unfriend someone by just clicking that. Apparently, there’s a Facebook page entitled, “Raise the maximum number of Facebook friends allowed.” You see, you are “allowed” to have 5,000 friends, and some are not satisfied with this “paltry number” that Facebook has deemed to be enough. More friends are necessary, the writer on this “Facebook page” claims, but not for in-depth conversations or a soul-searching exchange of ideas about the meaning of life. No, he (it’s got to be a “he”) needs more friends because that will make games like Mafia Wars and Farmville (whatever they are) more fun. If there are more people, more friends to play with, the games will have more variations and last longer. More friends meant better play time. (It sounds like a bunch of kids.) Now I personally think all of that is ridiculous, but many seem to respond to this. At first, it was only college students and other young people, but with the introduction of other social networks, Facebook is now used mostly by middle-aged and older people who want to share photos and chat with family.
Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Oxford, says, “the ideal limit on friends is actually 150. More than that, we limited humans, simply can’t keep track. It doesn’t matter if the 150 are all in your neighborhood and you see them every day, or if you have connections with friends, neighbors, and relatives across the globe. If the number exceeds 150, relationships will start to suffer, and meaningful contact will become more sporadic. Gradually, the connection will fade away, and that person will no longer be counted among our “friends.” This will happen over and over until we naturally whittle our true friend list to —guess what? 150 people or fewer. Humans seem to be hard-wired to maintain a certain number of meaningful relationships at one time. Dunbar has researched this so thoroughly that the phrase “Dunbar number’ refers to these 150 people who make the inner circle of meaningful friends.
Dunbar based this research in part on the experiences of Bill Gore, the founder of GORE-TEX, a company that makes wetsuits, hiking boots and ponchos. The company was started in 1958, born out of Gore’s passion for outdoor pursuits. The humble beginning was in his backyard, where he pursued his interest in producing quality products for outdoor enthusiasts. The company created dependable and useful tools and clothing. Word spread, and the company grew. What started as a small startup with a few employees who enjoyed an intimate, family-like work environment evolved into a large manufacturing company with close to 200 people laboring in an intense, impersonal atmosphere. To Gore’s dismay, he experienced the disconnect that occurs when too many people are working in one place. He walked around the now large factory and discovered that there were many people he did not know by name. He felt out of touch and cut off from his dream of creating a different kind of work environment.
Gore came up with a unique solution. Instead of enlarging the workplace to allow for more employees, he capped the number of workers who could be hired in any one place. When demand grew, and expansion was necessary, he built another factory; the limit of workers in any one place?—150. He discovered that this allowed the workers to work together better and maintain a close atmosphere. He discovered that the bigger a company got, the less likely people working for the company were less likely to work hard and help each other out. Everything ran more smoothly when people knew each other, from the top manager down to the lady behind the counter in the cafeteria, or the janitor, who could address each other by name. The employees felt as though they had a personal stake in what happened at the factory. They knew who that person was, and maybe even spent time with them outside of work. It wasn’t just business; it was personal.
Now we can know more than 150 people of course. In fact, it has been estimated that humans can recognize and remember up to 1,500 people. They just can’t maintain a relationship with that many. (I might add that we can’t always remember names either. Certainly not the names of 1,500 people, unless maybe you have learned to use Jerry Lucas’ memory system. When Jeannene and I were missionaries, our mailing list got up to 1000. These were people who signed up to receive our prayer letter after I spoke in their church. The vast majority, I don’t think I would have recognized, let alone would have known their name if I had seen them, four years later, when we came home on furlough. In fact, some people would see us at our General Counsel meetings and say, “Don’t you remember me? I go to such and such church in –wherever.” I would have to politely say, “I’m sorry. Thee are so many people that I meet.”
The point is, we don’t have the time, the memory or the resources to engage on a deep level with more than a limited number of people at one time. The answer is not to have an ever-increasing number of friends on Facebook. Less may indeed be more when it comes to quality, deep understanding, and in-depth relationships.
The good news is: God’s number is not Dunbar’s number.
There is no limit to God’s love, and Jesus is a “friend to all sinners as well as his disciples. The apostle John says in I John chapter 1, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.” Verse 1. Then he goes on to say something to the effect of, “Yet that is precisely what we are—children of God!” The astonishing thing is that God receives us—just as we are—and wants to restore us to fellowship with him. God loves us, even when we are far from him. God does not place a cap on how many people can be saved and come into His presence. He does not want anyone to be lost for eternity, we are told in 2 Peter 3:9. It reads, “The Lord is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN GOD LOVE?
God loves the world. He loves everyone. But he doesn’t have an intimate relationship with everyone. We read in John 1:12 …To as many as receive him and believe on his name, he gives the right to become children of God.”
GORE-TEX caps at 150. Facebook caps at 5,000. God doesn’t set a cap on the number of people that he loves and wants to have a relationship with. We may stumble, choose a broad path that is more crooked than straight and narrow, or at times be deeply disappointing to God. But when we search for God and call on God for forgiveness and new life. God’s door is open. There’s always a welcome waiting. Jesus emphasized this when he said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)
God loves us and wants a relationship with us. He does not love Christians more than those who have rejected Him, because he shows his love and mercy to everyone. We all deserve death and punishment, but he withholds that punishment from those who reject him, always waiting for them to repent and receive his forgiveness. There are some who believe that God only loves Christians, or that God only loves “good” people. Who is good? Just because some have integrity, or they have decent character and a pleasing personality, or they help a lot of people ir they do good deeds, or give a lot of money to the poor, or contribute to charity; those things do not make them “good.”
In Mark 10:17-22, a young man came to Jesus and said, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered, “Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother, he declared. Teacher, all these I have kept since I was a boy. “Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lack, he said. “Go sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this, the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.”
Does this passage teach that in order to have eternal life, we must sell all of our earthly possessions, in order to be a disciple of Christ and have assurance of Eternal Life? No, not at all! This man said that he hadn’t broken any of the commandments that Jesus mentioned, and maybe that was true. Maybe he had even kept the Pharisees’ loophole-filled version of them. But Jesus lovingly broke through the young man’s PRIDE with a challenge that brought out his true motives; “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor.” This challenge exposed the barrier that could keep this young man out of the kingdom: his love of money. Money represented his pride of accomplishment and self-effort. Ironically, his attitude made him unable to keep the first commandment to let nothing be more important than God. He could not meet the one requirement Jesus gave- to turn his whole heart and life over to God. The man came to Jesus, wondering what he could do; he left seeing WHAT HE WAS UNABLE TO DO. What barriers are keeping you from turning your life completely over to Him?
When Jesus asked this question, he was saying, “Do you really know the One to whom you are talking? Because only God is truly good, the man was calling Jesus God, whether or not he realized it. Jesus wanted this man to sell everything, but this does not mean that all believers should sell all their possessions. Most of his followers did not sell everything, or if they did, the money was used for Jesus’ itinerant ministry. Also, they used their possessions to serve others. This account does show us, though, that we must not allow anything we have or desire to keep us from following Jesus. We must remove all barriers to serving him fully.
We must realize that it is not what we do that makes us somehow worthy of God’s love. Romans 5:8 says that, “God demonstrated his love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” It is important to note that God’s love is a love that initiates; it is never a response. That is precisely what makes it unconditional. If God’s love were conditional, then we would have to do something to earn or merit it. We would have to somehow appease His wrath and cleanse ourselves of our sin before God would be able to love us. But that is not the Biblical message. The Biblical message—The gospel—is that God, motivated by love, moved unconditionally to save His people from their sin. Even though His love is unconditional, there is just one conditional part—we must accept or receive this gift of salvation, and put our faith and trust in Him alone. Nothing else.
GOD’S LOVE IS LARGE ENOUGH TO MAINTAIN A RELATIONSHIP WITH ALL OF US. IT IS NOT LIMITED.
Bill Gore at Gore-Tex cannot do that with his 9,500 employees. The 150 associates at each of his factories can maybe somewhat know everyone who works at any given location. But Facebook people cannot possibly maintain a viable relationship with 5,000 “friends.” —BUT GOD CAN.
GOD’S LOVE IS BIG ENOUGH TO COVER US WHEN WE DO WRONG.
Verses five and six tell us that…” he appeared so that he might take away our sins, and in him is no sin. (I John 1:9, once again—tells us that we have forgiveness if we confess our sins.) No one who lives in him, though, keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Confession without repentance (that is, turning from our sin), does no good. We are encouraged to pursue purity. The notion of being pure in oneself because He is pure is familiar. We read that in Leviticus 11:44—“Consecrate yourselves, and be holy, because I am holy.” Peter repeats this in I Peter 1:14-16:As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written, “Be holy because I am holy.”
The Apostle Paul says, “Be filled with the Holy Spirit”—(Keep on being vfilled) Keep on being holy. This happens when—
We “consecrate ourselves” completely to the CONTROL of the Holy Spirit. That’s the only way we can be pure.
God has provided a remedy for when life goes wrong,— when we go wrong; and that’s good news.
God is of course, capable of everything. Since the Scriptures say that GOD LOVES WITHOUT LIMITS, then we need to take that blessing on faith. The challenge of unconditional love, therefore, lies not with God but with our imperfect ability to conceive and then believe such a possibility. The notion that we are both loved and lovable is perhaps the most challenging one that God places before us; this idea dares us not only to accept ourselves as a beloved child of God, but also to view every person that we encounter as another potential brother or sister in Christ. I know that we encounter many people who are hard to love, and we can’t imagine them as someone God can love, but he does. He wants us to love them too. Love them into the Kingdom. “They will know we are Christians by our love” for each other in the body of Christ, and also the way we relate to those outside the Church. We may not like them, but we must respect them, and God’s love in us can be shown to them. We don’t get to declare limits either. We can’t turn to God and say, “I’ve done my part; I’ve cared for all the people that I can care about today. I have reached my limit. There is no “Dunbar number” to caring. What God asks of us is to receive this love so that we can share it as Jesus does. When we say that we are members of the Body of Christ, we are saying that we want to follow Jesus, to serve Jesus, and to live as He did. What Jesus did was to offer love. We are asked to love as freely as Jesus did. It is truly amazing what he did for us when he died for us. When he died for the world.