Would Jesus Christ Call You His Personal Friend?

This is Mr. Hill, I'm not sure who's on the other phones, but hello to the various people on the phone calls. This is from sitting at our drawers, getting ideas as we were singing. Because you have the three TVs, we could actually, each song, face a different monitor and sing in a different direction and get exercise, too. That was one of the ideas. The other was just putting my notes back there. I never have to look down. See, that's another possibility, but we won't do any of those along the way. Do you know what the record is for the highest number of friends or followers on Facebook? Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo has over 122 million Facebook friends. Singer Shakira has 101 million friends they've never met. Are they really friends or are they just followers? For most of these famous celebrities along the way, life can be very lonely, very unhappy, very fake. They're often very open about that when they have private interviews. Few really have close friends that they can trust. And sadly, what many people today tend to have are only virtual friends. People barely connected electronically, linked only to like whatever's posted on Facebook. None of these relationships are able to satisfy what we have as humans, our deep hunger and need for connections, for companionship. To what great length would any of us go to be friends with and then fill in the blank? Say you are a favorite celebrity or athlete or dignitary or person you look up to and admire. I think many would go to great lengths. Some in society are even willing to sacrifice their moral standards or what they know to be right just to be accepted by another person. And we can look back to high school days. I feel for Drew because it's just what it is where you think of all the things done in order to be friends with the so-called in crowd. And even as adults, there's areas where we get involved in these things and we go to efforts to be accepted by somebody who probably doesn't make a very good friend anyway.

Okay, with that as background, I would now like you to think about how much effort, comparatively speaking, we put into being friends with God.

It's got to be bewildering. Jesus summed up the commandments in Matthew 22, 37-39 with two very simple lines. He said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Now, that sounds simplistic, but loving God and loving people is the foundation to everything in life. Think about that for a moment. You take relationships with God and relationships with people away, and you're only left within existence. Not life. Without relationships, you have a house and not a home. So what does it mean to really be a friend to someone? You all know the well-known statement that says, there are friends and then there are friends. That's where you get this phrase, the fair weather friend. The person who hangs around as long as the sun is shining and there's no real hardship. But then you have the true friend, the real friend, who shows up, who stays with us when we're facing trying times and circumstances, when we face those storms in life or illnesses or death or crisis. Will our friends stay with us when there's nothing to do but wait? Are we able to talk to them, to be candid, to have trust, to be safe? Please turn to James 2, verse 23. James 2, verse 23. I think we all inherently desire to have a close personal relationship with God. We certainly think of God when we have trials. And along with that, when our prayers are not answered, it's very human to wonder about whether God is a real friend. But is that the right perspective? Let's start by recognizing that God has had real friends throughout history. Real human friends. James 2, verse 23. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. So they had this intimate relationship. John 10.30 shows how close Jesus and the Father are when it says, I and my Father are one. That means they had the same goals, the same characteristics, objectives. Have you ever noticed that in Scripture, the word Christian was used only after the word friend was used in relationship to Christians? It was in Antioch, well after Christ had died, that the word Christian was first coined. But Christ was the one who said, I have called you friends. So by far, the most important friend that we can have is the Lord Jesus. The title of today's sermon is, Would Jesus Describe You as His Personal Friend? Would Jesus describe you as His personal friend? And that's the question I'd like you to think about and ask yourself throughout this whole message. Please turn to John 15, verses 9 through 15. John 15, 9 through 15. This is the biblical text that we're going to focus on most today. And it reveals the key characteristics of whom Jesus calls His friends.

Jesus taught and He exemplified the pattern for true friendship while He was here on earth. And He showed us how to be a friend like He learned from the Father. So we'll start in John 15, verse 9. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you, so now abide, or the word also means remain, in my love.

Do we love other people like Jesus said to do? Is it even possible? One of the key secrets to loving others is we need to remain in Jesus' love. When we do, then God's love within us begins to have this ripple effect that goes outward toward other people. What Jesus was teaching His disciples is we receive from Him what we need in order to be able to understand people, to forgive people, to make allowances for their frailties, to be a friend.

And we can only do that through Jesus Christ. One of the most common verbs in Greek throughout the Bible for love is phileo. You think of Philadelphia, brotherly love. The Greek word for friend, phylos, comes from this same verb. And so in the New Testament, a friend was immediately understood as one who loves. And that fundamental connection between love and friendship is an essential starting point for understanding what Jesus taught on friendship.

And candidly, understanding this connection was the key concept to help me make sense of some of the ways that Jesus Christ used the words, friend, in the Bible. And we'll talk about that. You see, Christ never hated anyone. He only hates our wrong deeds or our sins. So no matter how we might feel about ourselves, no matter how we might feel about others, no matter how we might feel about God, God still loves us.

God doesn't pick and choose who He loves. He loves us all. Even with our imperfections, our irritating habits, our bad temper, our bad breath, whatever it is that we do as humans, God demonstrates His own love for us that while we were still sinners, He died for us. He loves us all and acts friendly toward us all, no matter what. Now, we're going to review examples of that later, but that's a concept that's critical to understand. He also expects and requires special actions for people to qualify as His good friend. He acts friendly, but that doesn't mean He expects things for somebody to be His friend.

Verse 10, if you keep My commandments, you will abide in Me, again, or you will abide in My love, literally the same word. So you will remain in, continue in, to be present in, or not perish from His love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. Now, this isn't saying that Jesus expects us to obey His commandments perfectly to be His friend. If everyone who was called into the church had to be perfect before they followed God's calling, there would be no ministers.

In fact, there would be no members. There would be no Christians. For some unexplainable reason, Jesus finds something lovable in us, something so lovable that He was willing to go to the cross in order that we could properly love Him back. It made possible the friendship and the love that He wants from us. And so the amazing news is that God sent Jesus to reconcile rebellious sinners to Himself. The self-righteous, fair-cycled crowd at the time mocked and scoffed at Jesus and said, well, you're friends of sinners. He gladly accepted that label, and He explained that He didn't come to call the righteous.

Again, put that in context. He's reflecting the self-righteous, but sinners to repentance. So the first step to being called a close friend of Jesus is to come to Him as a helpless sinner. And ask Him sincerely and passionately to save us. We then are to reflect that sincerity of our repentance by keeping His commandments.

And only then can we consider the next characteristics as He's going to start spelling out that describes His friends and seek to grow in them. Verse 11, These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. So being obedient so we abide in His love is where true joy comes from.

Now the next verses, verses 12 through 15, are the key verses describing this theology of friendship with Jesus Christ. They describe who and what Jesus views as His friends. And as we read them, I want you to note that Jesus explains the concept by showing He is both the model and the source of friendship. So as the model of friendship, He calls the disciples to love as He has loved.

As the source of friendship, He makes possible our own friendship with Him and others through what He has given us. And we'll talk about that. Verse 12, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friend. Jump into verse 17, it says something very similar to this, I command you that you love one another. So lesson one is this, Friends of Jesus love one another just as He loved us.

Friends of Jesus love one another just as He loved us. Now, if these commandments that I mentioned sound vaguely familiar, it's because Jesus already said in John 13, 34-35, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

So why would Jesus repeat this command multiple times on the same evening?

He repeated it because He was a Master Teacher, and He knew that repetition is the key to learning, especially learning something that isn't easy.

It takes more than one hammer blow to sink a nail. It takes more than saying it once for us to learn how to love one another.

And so He repeated it. And during the Last Supper, the disciples got into an argument about which of them was the greatest. And it's so easy for us to look at things like that in Scripture that's captured, these vulnerable moments that we all have, and we armchair quarterbacks and say, what a petty squabble!

But I think the embarrassing truth is that many of our conflicts stem from the same self-centered motives.

The Lord knows our propensity towards selfishness. So during His final hours on earth, and His final hours with His disciples, He hammered on this concept, this command to love one another. And He wanted them, and He wants us to remember this, because love is not optional for those who follow Jesus and live as His friends. So let me expand on three things linked to this verse and linked to this lesson. The first is this. Jesus' love for us is the supreme standard for our love for one another.

In both sections of John, where Jesus gave His new commandment, He repeated, Just as I have loved you. The highest good for all people is that we would have their sins forgiven and receive eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. And as Christians, conforming to the image of Jesus, and being His tool to grow His family, should be our aim in all of our relationships. That's what we're striving for. Now, because love is primarily a commitment and not a feeling, it can be commanded. The Bible does command certain feelings.

It says, Rejoice always. Be anxious for nothing. And love shouldn't be devoid of feeling. It's a caring commitment. But people should feel that we're genuine. They should feel our genuine feeling of love for them. But even when we don't feel especially loving, we need to obey God by sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others. I'm quite sure being on the cross was not something that felt good to Jesus. But Jesus endured it because He was focused on the future joy of having us as part of His family for eternity. In verse 13, Jesus says, Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. Now, some have said to lay down your life for your enemy is greater than to lay it down for your friends. And that's ultimately what Jesus did, because He gave His life for all of us while we were still sinners. But in this context, Jesus is speaking about love among friends. And He exemplifies the highest standard for how we should love one another. Now, of course, we can never die as a substitute to save others from their sins, like Jesus did. But He set the standard for our lives as laying down our lives for one another. During the Vietnam War, there was this little rural village that had been bombed and an orphanage run by missionaries had been hidden. An eight-year-old girl had multiple injuries, and she was bleeding profusely. Two American medical people came by, a doctor and a nurse, and they checked on her. They realized she was in critical condition, and she very badly needed a blood transfusion. Neither of them was the blood type that could donate. So the Navy doctor tried to communicate in some pigeon Vietnamese, and the nurse in some broken French. And they tried to explain that unless someone could replace some of the girl's blood, she was going to die. And so they asked the other Vietnamese children there who did have the right blood type, would any of them be willing to give some blood? Wide-eyed silence is what they were met with. And after this awkward period of time, one little hand went up and then came down and went up a little bit. Oh, thank you, the nurse exclaimed. What's your name? Hang, the little boy replied. During the procedure, Hen covered his face with his free hand, and he started to cry. And the nurse said, is it hurting you? And he shook his head, no, but something was clearly upsetting him. Just around that time, a Vietnamese nurse came in, and she started to speak to him. And upon doing that, she learned that the little boy thought he was dying. And the Vietnamese nurse said, he misunderstood and thought you had asked him to give all of his blood to save the little girl. The Navy nurse said, but why would he be willing to do that? So the Vietnamese nurse asked, who replied, because she's my friend. We all can sit around and speculate about whether we would do some heroic deed, giving our life for someone else, or giving a kidney for somebody along the way. But the place we all need to apply this is by confronting our selfishness in small and daily matters. Husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

Do you? And you can say, oh, sure, I'd die to save my wife's life from her intruder who came in and tried to kill her. But do you die to yourself so that you can serve her? Do you turn off the TV or leave the computer and help her clean the kitchen or help with the family or something she has to do? Do you give up your own pursuits because you delight to be with her? It's in these things daily that we should be practicing sacrificial love for one another. Because to be a real friend to someone means giving our life for them other ways than dying. Where we're willing to give of our time, where we're being able to give up, or I should say put up, with the idiosyncrasies that we all have to drive somebody bad. And that's just common. Do we go out of our way to give of ourselves when we would rather do something else? Because sacrificial love means sacrificing time, or it might be money, or it might be requiring patience. 1 Corinthians 13 says, Love is patient, love is kind, does no evil, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrong. Do you and I allow small problems to get in the way of loving others? I think we all do. Second point, we can only love one another if we abide in Christ's love. We can only love one another if we abide in Christ's love. The commandment to love as Jesus has loved is one of the most radical concepts in the Gospels. And that's because it claims that the love that enabled Jesus to lay down his life is also available for us. It was not unique to him. This love can be replicated. It can be embodied over and over again in his followers. And to keep Jesus' commands is to enact his love in our lives. Because he affirms the significance of this commandment by stating that his followers become his friends to the extent that they keep his commandments. In John 15.9, Jesus said, Just as a father has loved me, I have also loved you, abide in my love. Now, Jesus applies abiding in his love to our relationship with one another. Abiting in his love is the key to loving our brothers and our sisters in Christ. Also note in verse 17, I quoted real quickly, that Jesus repeated the command for us to love one another immediately after he had repeated the concept that he saved us so that we would bear fruit. The two are intertwined. When he gave his new commandment, Jesus said that others would know we are his disciples by our love for one another. As people see the love between Christians, then they're drawn to the source of our love, our Savior, who gave himself for us on the cross. Benjamin Franklin once said, If you want to be loved, love and be lovable. Likewise, if he wants to have friends, we need to be a friend. A true friend doesn't seek his own interests. He's always ready and willing to help, to be useful, to serve.

True friends are those who remain your friends, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're at the top or the bottom. For better or for worse, they're faithful. Look at the example of Ruth. She didn't want to abandon her mother-in-law, and in the long run, she was greatly blessed by God. And, of course, the best example is what Christ himself gave. He loved everyone. He helped everyone. He died for all of us. His persecutors blamed him for being friendly with the publicans. As a teaching, John 15.13 affirms what was a common cultural ideal of the time. And there's examples that are quoted from the Greek philosophers. A true friend should look to the interests of others for the sake of the common good. There's even famous quotes of saying they should give their life for others. What distinguished Jesus' words from this ideal wasn't their content, but the fact that Jesus didn't merely talk about laying down his life for his friends, he enacted that ancient ideal of friendship. He actually laid down his life for his friends. So his whole life is this exemplification of the ideal of friendship. What he taught, he lived. And the pattern of his own life and death moves the teaching from some philosophical ideal along the way to an embodiment and a promise and a gift that you and I have.

Do we live this way? I think it's always a black eye for the name of Christ when believers don't judge our own selfishness and work through conflicts out of obedience to Christ's command to love one another. But it's easy to say, you don't know how difficult that other person is to love. That leads to the third point. The others that were commanded to love are imperfect sinners, just as we are. The others were commanded to love are imperfect sinners just as we are.

Friends, we're living in an extremely divisive time right now where the growing pressure is that we either agree with somebody or we're then judged to be against the them and therefore we're enemies. Us, them, right, wrong, you're either for me or you're against me. It's really interesting, I think it's very instructive that Jesus didn't pick a homogenous, cohesive group for those he called his apostles.

Specifically, he picked Matthew the tax collector and Simon the zealot. Now, as background, zealots were a radical political group whose main objective was getting Roman rule out of the Holy Land. They viewed tax collectors as despicable traders who had sold their soul to Rome. Tax collectors took advantage of their fellow Jews, they milked them for excessive taxes, and they pocketed what they got.

So I have no idea whether Jesus first picked Matthew or Simon, but it had to be interesting. It's almost comical to think about what the one who was already a disciple thought when he saw the other one. And then all of a sudden Jesus said, now love one another. Well, he still does that, you know. Jesus picks people for his church today that I never would have picked, and he commands me and you and them for us to love each other. And they say the same about me. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to like them all the time, but you do have to say no to your selfishness and help them become what the Lord wants them to be, just as they are to do the same for us.

Friends of Jesus love one another just as he loved us. For modern readers, Jesus' definition of love and friendship to lay down one's life for one's friend, that's unprecedented. It's not what our contemporary language looks at. We don't view friendship as his life and death thing, right? You don't read that much. Sure, we celebrate our friends. We'll go on vacations with our friends. We will be there to help our friends. But the modern ideal isn't someone laying down their life. So as you think about this, it's important to remember two key concepts that Jesus linked in this section of Scripture for us to really learn, I think, everything he wants us to.

First was that Jesus was contrasting being slaves with being friends. And I'm going to bring that up multiple times as we go through this section. What is lacking in the relationship of a master to a servant? Love is. Love is not the defining characteristic of a master-servant relationship. A servant serves because he has to, because he's paid to, because he's obligated to.

A servant will not do more than is required and will not make sacrifices. The relationship of a servant to the master is a relationship of power. The relationship between friends is a relationship of love. Our relationship with God has to do with love. We're to be more than just his servants. We're to be his friends. Now, I think it's easy for us to love and see love as a motive to God.

But what this set of Scripture is saying is our motivations serve one another must also be love. Even if the person you're serving isn't as perfect as God. The second thing to remember is that Jesus is stressing love in relationships in this short part of the conversation. The love between the Father and himself, the love he had with the disciples, and the love the disciples ought to have for one another.

So this emphasis was really to correct the disciples' lack of understanding. As the hours before Jesus' death approached in John 13.1, he tells readers that Jesus loved his own to the end. Now, that phrase, to the end, eos te telos, can mean, simultaneously, it can either mean to the end of time or to the full extent of love. And to love to the full extent of love means that Jesus loves perfectly. And it's our example. This is about why this is a key area to learn about friendship.

His lessons here encourage us to re-examine the sometimes casual way that we can refer to Jesus as our friend. The mark of friendship with Jesus isn't what Jesus does for us. Listen to our sorrows, walk beside us, hear our prayers, but what we do for Jesus.

One popular way of worshiping God or keeping the concept in mind these days is the WWJD bracelets or phrases you see people wear. What would Jesus do? And it's intended as a reminder to Christians that our ethical and our moral decisions, whether they're small or whether they're big, should be guided by the model of Jesus. Fair concept.

In these verses, Jesus gave us something similar, but a very much more direct charge. He has already acted decisively in love, been the ultimate friend to all of us. He gave his life for us. Now it's our turn to be Jesus' friend, which means we love one another as he loved us.

You guys put that on a bracelet and sell it. It's yours. Genuine love and friendship begins with our deeds. Are we kind to people or are we condemning and rude? Are we patient in traffic or where somebody cuts in front of us in line? Are we gentle with others who irritate us and drive us crazy?

Ultimately, our very spiritual existence depends on the love we have for others.

Our very friendship with God depends on how much we love each other, on how much we put up with each other's idiosyncrasies, on how much we overlook each other's faults and failures, and how often we're willing to forgive each other as Christ has forgiven us.

That is our journey of Christian maturity. We're to continue to meet with other Christians, to love them, to feed off their love for us, whether we feel like it or not.

We're to love those who love us, but we're also supposed to love those who do not love us. This is what Christ has done for us, and when we're ministering to the needs of others, as you think of it that way, we're ministering to our own needs. If we take Jesus' commandments to love seriously and we long to be called friends of Jesus, then the Christian vocation is to give love freely and generously without counting the costs and without wondering and worrying about who was on the receiving end of our limitless love. Because this is how Jesus loved us. Jesus loved Judas, who he knew was going to betray him. And he didn't exclude Judas from the circle of his love. He loved him in the same way he loved all of his other followers. What counts most to Jesus about you and I is us embodying God's love in the world, not the character of those who receive our love. What are we doing? Are we doing it from his mindset or are we doing it conditionally? Let's go ahead and continue now. John 15 and verse 14. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. The second lesson is friends of Jesus obey his commandments. Friends of Jesus obey his commandments. On one occasion, Jesus' mother and brothers arrived to see him when there was a big crowd at a house and Jesus was teaching. And so when someone told Jesus that his mother and his brothers were outside, Jesus shocked everybody by his response. Mark 3, 33-35, he said, Who are my brother and my mother's? Then he looked around at his audience and he shocked them again by saying, Behold, my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Tied into this thought. Jesus' true friends are those who obey him. Do you and I qualify? Again, to understand this one, again, we have to understand this master-slave relationship. Now, I started by highlighting that Jesus loves all equally and unconditionally, that he is friendly toward everyone. Something that I struggled with when I was putting this sermon together, because I had to get past this to make sense out of it.

If you want an interesting study, study how often Jesus uses the phrase, Friend, towards somebody who is... who comes with the wrong attitude, is his enemy, is his foe. For instance, the parable of the worker in the vineyard, Matthew 20, verse 13, when the workers were in a bad attitude, he told one of them, Friend, I am doing you no wrong, did you not agree with me for a denarius?

The parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22, 12, when a man came to him, he said, Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? When Judas approached him, he was being betrayed. Friend! But realize that is monumentally different with him using it that way than making a faulty assumption that Jesus is automatically our friend and everyone's friend. We need to be careful about being too chummy in calling Jesus our friend.

The Bible does say that Jesus had friends. Jesus called Abraham and Moses his friend. In this set of Scripture, Jesus called his disciples his friend. But no human in the Bible ever referred to God or Jesus as their friend. Interesting way to look at it. John was called the disciple Jesus loved, probably his best friend humanly on earth. And they had a wonderful relationship. His respect for him can be seen in that when he died, he said, will you take care of my mom?

Keep an eye on her. As this message was being given, the Last Supper, the Apostle John, lay his head on Jesus' breast. And just picture that. There's no way you can do that for any set of time without them having their arm around you. They were close. Yet years later, when Jesus saw, or I should say, when John saw Jesus in his glory, Revelation says he fell at his feet as a dead man. So as we consider whether or not we're friends of Jesus, I encourage us to maintain John's reverence. We are friends if we do what he says. But keep that reverence involved.

Because it's not like we stumbled upon Jesus and seeing him. We fell head over heels in love, and we ran to him. We held on to him for all of our life and begged him to be our friend. Not close. Instead, Christ sought us out, like a person searching for a lost coin, like a shepherd searching for a lost sheep. He first came to us and made our relationship possible. And we especially need to know that we're not Jesus' friend because we're a good person.

The Bible teaches that by nature, we are all enemies, because he is holy, and we have all sinned. And these disciples who were just being called friends, they were more interested in their own lives. Within hours, they all betrayed him when they faced trials. Yet Jesus died for them and us. So, let me tie it together. Obedience doesn't make us Jesus' friend as if it were earned. Rather, it describes what Jesus' friends do. Jesus' friends obey him. Ultimately, Jesus isn't personal friends with anyone who lives in disobedience or self-will. And the Holy Spirit helped the apostles do this better and better and better.

He called them friends, and they failed him hours later. Jesus will disclose himself and make his home with those who keep his commandments. And so, when we look at his use of the word friend toward others who rebel, it just symbolizes that he loves all. And so, he is able to look at them as a person who is giving his life for them and say, Friend, I'm about to give my life for you. And then the next words that come. Turn to Matthew 11, 28-30. A small boy defined a friend as someone who knows all about you and likes you just the same. And this is really how it is with Jesus.

I think many of us feel as if we must measure up to some kind of incredible standard before God will love us. Which is why I started with that earlier. A lot of people don't even try because of that. Many people feel that they can't live up to what is required to be a Christian, but we can. Matthew 11, 28-30. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy lighten, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. See, many Christians live out their entire lives feeling it's this obligation to live up to God's rules and God's regulations.

And so they view them as burdensome. Obedience to rules will make someone feel no joy and generate no love that springs out from within us. If you'll turn to 1 John 5 and verse 3, 1 John 5, 3, and said, Jesus wants us to understand that when we take on His yoke as His friends, we're not feeling weighed down with a heavy burden, but become free to grow in characteristics that give us a good life for ourselves and for others.

1 John 5, verse 3, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome or are not grievous. So Jesus is telling us as His friends, if you remain in my love and do what I ask you to do, you're going to have joy, and your joy will be complete, and it's going to spill over to the other people around you.

His commands are not meant to be burdensome. They're meant to make us full. They're meant to enable us to continue to live in God's love for us, so that our joy will be and will remain complete. I'm not going to return back and continue reading, so if you want to turn back to John 15, 15, the next thing He said is, No longer do I call you servant, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends.

For all things that I heard from my father, I have made known to you. Lesson 3. Friends of Jesus understand the truths that He made known to us from the Father. Friends of Jesus understand the truths that He made known to us from the Father.

Even though Jesus had just elevated the disciples from being slaves to being friends, this master-slave relationship wasn't eradicated. If you want, you can look at verse 20. Just a few sentences later, He clearly implies that He's a master and they're slaves. So, there's nothing wrong with the word servant or slave. If Jesus is the Son of God, then to serve Him is a privilege and it's the right thing to do. He is indeed our master and our Lord, and we are His servants. Paul, James, Peter, all with joys called themselves bond-servants or slaves. So what's the difference? A master can command a slave, fix dinner for 50 people tomorrow. He doesn't need to explain why he is having so many for dinner. But a master who views himself as a friend to his slave would explain the situation behind some of the problems. True friends know each other's business. A servant can be ignorant, but not a friend. And that distinction, the distinction that Jesus is making between a servant and a friend, is the distinction between not understanding and understanding. A different way to look at what He's teaching. The friend is let in on what is going on. They understand, and that understanding doesn't originate because the slave is intelligent or because they're worthy. The Master chose that. Jesus' point is that He had openly shared with the disciples the things He had heard from the Father. And, in context, by all things He means all things necessary for them to know at that point. Right? John 16, 12, He tells them He had many more things to tell them, but they could not bear them yet. After the resurrection, He opened their mind to understand the Scriptures in ways they couldn't understand before His death. And now we have the Holy Spirit. We have the Spirit-enabled Word to reveal to us all that we now need to know for life and for goodness. Yet we still complain about what He hasn't yet revealed because we aren't ready. It's kind of ironic, but it's very human. Friends share their thoughts openly with each other. Let's make an easy example in that one. Genesis 18, when God wanted to judge the city of Sodom, God said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? So He shared this with Abraham because Abraham was God's friend. God shares with His friends what He is about to do, and Jesus has done the same thing with us.

He doesn't have hidden agendas or ulterior motives or secret plans. He models for us openness in His relationship that He wants us to emulate. Because true friends should share their concerns and their thoughts and their feelings.

So if you know Christ, you know things the most brilliant scientists and philosophers in the world don't understand.

As chosen friends, you know the Father's business. You know the living and true God who spoke the universe into existence. You know His plan for history. You know how you have sinned. You know why He put you on earth to bring many sons to glory.

You know that you have the potential to spend eternity with Him in glory. And you know how He wants you to conduct yourself in all of life's difficult situations. Obey my commandments. All of this is revealed in the Bible. All of this is for His friends. He makes known. The ability, therefore, to open up to one another is important to the growth of a relationship.

Good. Open an honest communication. It's like oil to a car. It keeps the relationship going. Are you and I frank with God in that same way? The same way He is with us. Do we take time to enjoy His presence? Do we trust Him as much as He trusts us? Do we share everything with Him? Is there anything keeping us from entering fully into the relationship that He offers?

Obviously, if so, we must throw that out. Because there's nothing in this life that can come even close to comparing to friendship with God. Christ's friends and His friendship and His love for us goes to incredible lengths. And what He asks us to do, again, remember, is to reproduce this kind of friendship we find in Him. Not only back toward Him, but toward everyone we come in contact with. We need to learn how to communicate with one another.

We need to communicate in that same way that He asks us to do. For a relationship to grow and to deepen, then we need to be able to share in loving ways, likes, dislikes, hopes, and problems. And as we share our plan with God, and as we share it with others, we need to keep something in mind. Being God's friend doesn't mean He will give us whatever we want.

He will give us whatever we need. And He knows what is best for us. Again, it's interesting that God only specifies certain people as friend, but there's very clear examples. We can find a very easy example on that one. He received a plea from his dear friend Moses asking to see the Promised Land. Right? We know they're friends! But his request was turned down. Play that one forward. Don't always look for friends who will give you all you are asking for, or take your side when you're wrong.

For example, if a friend leaves the church, do you go with them? We've all seen, sadly, too many examples of that over time. Remember what Joshua admonished when he said, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So let me highlight one more point related to this lesson. Please turn to 2 Chronicles 34, 26-27.

2 Chronicles 34, 26-27. We're going to read and cut into the story about King Josiah. He began ruling when he was very, very young, age 8. He sought God. It took six years to cleanse the evil out of Judah. He had the law read to him for the first time, and he was shocked.

And so he commanded the priests to inquire of the Lord. And basically, to sum up what he heard back, it was like, Yep, it's coming. But God also gave him a very personal response. 2 Chronicles 34, 26. But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, in this manner you shall speak to him. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, concerning the words which you have heard, because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place, and against this inhabitants, and you humbled yourself before me, and you tore your clothes and wept before me.

I also have heard you, said the Lord, because Josiah's heart was tender, God heard him. And as humans, we have a right to our desires, to our passions, to our moods, to our plans. And be honest with it. The Bible tells it very clearly. Our natural conscience is focused on self. We're selfish. We protect and we coddle the self. We bow our will to it.

Our nature doesn't want to accept God into our heart. But once we're under the blood of Christ, once we choose to be friends with him, we have an obligation to bring all under his blood and his authority. And Jesus' friends do this gladly, they do it humbly, out of a tender and irreverent heart.

That's the lesson of Josiah. Because, you see, God will only take us as far as we are willing to go. God will only take us as far as we're willing to go. If we resist, we're resisting the tenderizing process of our heart. Each time we go down the process of grateful service and submission, it's tenderizing us a bit. Our hearts soften and we get a bit more prepared for the next time, for the next preparation. But God will not force this on us. We're presented a choice for how we respond, and the amount of God's spiritual plans, his intents, and the truths that he reveals to us depends on how much we allow our heart to be tender and submissive to our friend Jesus Christ.

Tim Franke gave a wonderful sermon on having a tender heart, recommended. Turn to Psalms 139.14-24. Psalms 139.14-24. If we're truly friends, then we desire to be like God and we actively seek to know where we fall short. We become incensed if we sin and we repent. We strive to bring our heart back into subjection because keeping a tender heart dictates the rest of our Christian walk, it dictates our friendship. It's critical to us.

David set us a great example about this for striving to keep and develop this tender conscience to be a friend with Christ as a lifelong priority. Psalms 139.14. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

I saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they all were written. The days fashioned for me went as yet were none of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sands.

When I awake, I am still with you. Friends of God will see His creative work in us. David realized he was precious to God. And we are precious to God. We need to keep God at our core. And our opinion on something is not core. Society is fighting us like crazy on that one. We should not compromise with any things or persons or laws that is against the law of God, which should be our core. And if God calls something an enemy, then that's what it is. That's what we should grow toward.

Verse 23 continues, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties, and see if there is any wicked ways in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. So what have we learned so far? Friends of Jesus love one another, just as He loved us. They obey His commandments, and now we learn they understand the truth that He has made known to us from the Father.

Let's go back to John 15 and verse 16. Last lesson. John 15, 16 says, You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name He may give you. Lesson 4 is, Friends of Christ are chosen to bear fruits that remain. Friends of Christ are chosen to bear fruits that remain. So let's break down the various parts of verse 16. The first thing that we can take from it is this. Friends of Jesus are chosen by Him. If it was left up to us, none of us in our pride, rebellious state would have chosen Christ.

As Paul told the Corinthians that God chose them as foolish, weak, unimportant people, so that no man may boast before God. Rather, the Father graciously drew us to Him, and opened our blind eyes to see the glory of Jesus. And if you're a friend of Jesus, it's because He chose you first. That's why we choose to repent, and return, and serve Him. But why did He choose us? The next part. Friends of Jesus are chosen to bear fruit that remain.

We've already been told to obey. So, remember, Jesus was externally focused, love focused. So fruit here most likely refers to converts who come to Jesus through the proclaiming of the Gospel. Turn to 2 Timothy 2.10. 2 Timothy 2.10. Most likely, Jesus' primary intention was reminding His disciples that He chose them for an upcoming role. A main reason that God chose all of us as disciples and friends is so that we would help bring others to know Him as their Savior, and further add to His family for eternity. I'm going to read you what Paul wrote from the New American Standard Version.

2 Timothy 2.10. For this reason I endure it all things, for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. So, you see, Paul suffered so that God's elect would hear the Gospel and be saved. And that should be our aim as well. The intimacy of sacrificing for a friend is really... Everything wraps around this day of discussions that Jesus had, but it's wrapped around the foot-washing in John 13, if you think about it.

Foot-washing is this sacrament of friendship. One of the words that in my studies I found was fascinating. It was the verb used to describe Jesus removing of His outer robe in John 13.4. It's the same verb used multiple times, John 10.15-18, to describe Jesus laying down His life. So when Jesus laid down His robe, it anticipated Him laying down His life in friendship. So, again, we go back to the foot-washing, and Peter initially resisted Jesus' foot-washing. It shows how radical it was for that to be done, especially with somebody who realized a master-servant relationship.

But Jesus wouldn't let Peter resistance stop Him. And instead He explained to all of His disciples, Unless I wash you, you have no share in Me. So let's paraphrase that again in relationship to this message. A paraphrase of John 13.8 in the language of friendship would be, Unless I wash you, you are not My friends. In the foot-washing, Jesus and His disciples moved from being servants to master, or servant and master, to being friends.

And He clarified that. Who knows how much time? 30 minutes later. John 15 is when He clarified that. But He had already enacted it in the foot-washing. Jesus gives everything to us as friends, His knowledge of God, His life, so we can bear fruit. He's our model of friendship because He loves without limits, and He makes it possible for us to be fruitful living a life of friendship, because we've been transformed, because we want to share the beautiful things that He has done within our life.

One of the best-known phrases by John F. Kennedy was, Don't ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. You know, that's true in the Church, in how we should react to our friend Jesus Christ. Unlike servants, friends make sacrifices because they love each other. A friend will do more than is required because he is motivated by love. Most people enter into a relationship with an eye toward what they can get out of it, rather than what they can put into it, and that's a wrong attitude, that's a wrong start.

In the Church, at times, we have had a tendency of primarily thinking of our needs. At times, we've even been known to look down on those who were not converted. We focus heavily on that these days, but there's a difference between liking the people in the world and liking their ways. We can be friendly and not imitate their bad habits or bad examples.

Look at Jesus' example. We must be friendly with everyone. To speak to others, as Jesus did to his followers, is this radical act because it assumes everyone in which we speak with is our partner for eternity. It's our companion. And that kind of plain speech is far from what we normally, these days, can think of with somebody, you know, I will tell that person what they need to hear. I'm going to speak my mind. That instance of plain speech is the opposite of friendship that Jesus talked about, because that's based on a master servant or a teacher-student model, with the speaker positioning himself over or against the listener.

If you listen to so much of the dialogue in the press, it's against people. Adversarial. Jesus replaced models like that with a friendship model. And his example of friendship and love encourages us to enter into relationships with an eye toward being a blessing toward others, toward completing what is lacking in the others, even to the point of sacrificing ourselves.

And when we enter into relationships with that perspective, doing more than is required, our relationships are strengthened and enriched, and the praise goes to God. In the Greek texts that we just read, there are really two parallel clauses in John 15-16. The first shows the why God chose and appointed the disciples. The second shows how that purpose would be fulfilled. You can paraphrase it this way. I chose and appointed you, why, that you would go and bear fruit that remain, which you will do, how, by asking the Father in my name.

And that leads to the third point. Friends of Jesus, bear fruit that remain through prayerful dependence upon the Father. Friends of Jesus, bear fruit that remain through prayerful dependence upon the Father. While it's good to be a light, it's good to share our faith, we always need to keep in mind that making converts who go on with Christ is not dependent on our methods, on our sales pitches.

God closes the deal. Only God can produce a convert who, think of the word at the beginning, who abides. Turn to Proverbs 3, 5-6. Proverbs 3, 5-6. God alone does it through calling and giving life to the spiritually dead, which we were. So, prayer is a God-given necessity to bear God's intended fruit. Proverbs 3, verse 5, well-known verse, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. A wise teaching I read says, Before you talk to a person about God, talk to God about the person. Ask him to direct our steps. Turn next to James 4, verse 1. James 4, 1. Of course, we're supposed to and encouraged to also pray to God about ourselves, about our own challenges and our dreams and our hopes.

We know that God knows our needs and our desires, but he wants that relationship. He wants that friendship. Any deep connection revolves around trust. It revolves around transparency. You can think of that with your human friends. James 4, 1. Where do wars and fighting come from among you? Do they not come from your desire for pleasures that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. So, this is pointing to the right relationships we should have. If we only ask for physical things, it's shallow as a friendship. God wants us seeking and trusting His will. And if we have a true friendship with God, then we can be confident He will take care of us in the best way possible. So, primarily pray for what brings us and others closer to the kingdom. That gets to the fruit that He wants us to have. Let's begin concluding the message. Jesus is our model for friendship. Because He loved without limits. And as a result, He made it possible for us to live a life of friendship. So, I'll go back to the question I started with. Would Jesus describe you as His personal friend? He would if you are loving others like He loved, especially those in your home and in the church. He would if you are seeking to obey His commandments. He would if you are growing to understand the truths revealed by the Holy Spirit in God's Word. And He would if you know that He chose you to bear fruit that remains, and you're seeking to bear that fruit through prayer. Through friendships, we come to know God. And through friendship, we enact our love for God. We must never forget that Christ is our friend. He is our best friend who loves all of us and wants all of us to be in His Kingdom. And if we do the points that were just mentioned in John 15, 12-15, then at some time in the future, when Christ returns and establishes His Kingdom, He will come out to meet us. And He will present us to God the Father and say something like, Father, this is a dear friend of mine. It's an amazing thing to look forward to.