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Jesus Calls Us Friends If we do what He Commands
John 15:12–17
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
Communication is essential to friendship.
Friends speak to one another.
They bare their souls and tell their troubles.
They share their aspirations.
When you’re not friends you don’t speak to one another
It is no surprise then that in the upper room, in the midst of those conversations in which Jesus calls his disciples friends, the Lord of glory shares his thoughts with them.
Men who in a matter of hours will either deny knowing him or run in fear before they do the same
Already he has done this in reference to his death and resurrection, heaven, the coming of the Holy Spirit after his ascension, and other doctrines.
Now he does so in reference to his special calling of them to fruitful service.
He declares that they are his friends because “everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you”[1]
a cornerstone of friendship of true relationship is a transparency, a not holding back
Christ’s Friendship for Us
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
John 15:12
Jesus loves his people so as to take us as his friends.
It is not common or easy for men and women of different stations to enjoy friendship.
Learned men are seldom close companions with the unlearned.
You tend to hang with people who have a similar station in life.
People in high positions are isolated from others and isolate themselves, often being more admired than known and loved.
“For sinful men and women like ourselves to be called ‘friends of Christ,’ is something that our weak minds can hardly grasp and take in.
The King of kings and Lord of lords not only pities and saves all them that believe in Him, but actually calls them His ‘friends.’
”1 J. C. Ryle
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
We are brought near to his heart, he says, by the greatest love imaginable.
how is this friendship actuated?
There is no love greater than that of one who lays down his life for others.
Anything else must be less.
This is the supreme test of love.
In the context this must refer primarily to the love of Jesus shown on the cross.
There he laid down his life on behalf of his friends.[2]
There are differences when it comes to Christ that makes his death the greatest expression of love ever.
Jesus died for us when we were not really his friends.
He was our friend.
...but he died to save men and women who had done nothing but wrong to him and would in fact hate him until he saved us.
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom.
5:8).
Jesus died for us, knowing all the details of our wickedness, knowing all our sins and every corrupt twist in our hearts, but loving us nonetheless and giving his life for our salvation.
There are no dirty secrets for Jesus to learn about us later that will cause him to turn his love from us.
Christ’s friendship “is unchangeable, resting upon His knowledge of what we are by nature,
and of what He means His grace shall make us to be.”
We may therefore rest on Christ’s friendship, knowing that it originates in his sovereign, unchanging grace and not in ourselves.[3]
The friendship is established only when God acts in Christ to remove the barrier.
It is only after he has spoken of laying down his life for us that the Lord Jesus speaks of his disciples as friends.[4]
Our Friendship with Christ
Recognizing Christ’s love for us, We receive his friendship as the single greatest possession of our lives,
and also as the great calling on our lives.
We are God’s friends—by grace.
But that does not mean that we can approach God as his equal or dictate the terms of the friendship.
It means that we must approach him in gratitude always bearing in mind that the friendship exists because he has stooped to our estate.[5]
“You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14).
This is not teaching salvation by works, but rather a salvation that necessarily involves obedience to our Savior and Lord, since,
as branches in the vine, we have his Spirit working in us.
Obedience is the test of discipleship.
The friends of Jesus are those who habitually obey him.
At the heart of our obedience to Christ, then, is our treatment of other people, especially our fellow believers.
How far it is from Jesus’ brand of obedience for us to attain some man-made code of conduct while scorning or neglecting other Christians.
Loving one another requires us to bind our temper,
to speak in ways that build others up,
to turn from envy and contempt
to respect and goodwill, and to sacrifice readily for the well-being of others.[7]
Jesus will no longer call them “servants,” that is “slaves.”
John 15:15 (ESV)
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Jesus did not intend to convey that Christians are no longer his servants,
for in this very passage he speaks of the necessity of our obeying his commands.
What he does mean is that our relationship with him is not merely one of hierarchical submission.
Even when a friend is in a subordinate position,
he is a confidant and companion.
Jesus emphasizes the idea of our entering into his confidence and his full disclosure of his plans and practices.[8]
“All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
We have likewise been entrusted with the revelation of Christ.
Friends bare their souls, and Jesus has opened his mind to us in the Scriptures.
Through God’s Word, Paul said, “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor.
2:16).
Friends will often spend long hours sharing ideas and talking about their plans for the future, and Jesus wants to do this with us.[9]
The characteristic of the slave that Jesus picks out is that he “does not know his master’s business.”
The slave is no more than an instrument.
It is not for him to enter intelligently into the purposes of his owner.
His task is simply to do what he is told.
Jesus showed His friendship for His disciples by confiding to them the deepest things His Father had confided to Him.
A master does not confide in a servant, He said.
However, He had told them all things His Father had commissioned Him to make known.
This is the way of a friend.[6]
In the Bible, Jesus has clearly told us the purpose of history and of his kingdom, informing us of his plans, explaining his works, and entrusting to us his promises.
We are to receive his teaching not as reluctant servants
but as eager friends and partners in Christ’s kingdom, knowing that his commands are good and filled with blessing for us and for others.
They still have much to learn, and Jesus will disclose it in due time through the Spirit.[10]
Appointed for a Purpose
John 15:16 (ESV)
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you
and appointed you
that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
“But I chose You”
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