Jesus Calls You Friend

Great Hard Questions

Focus:

Great Hard Questions

“What has been the best part of knowing Jesus?”

“What has been the best part of knowing Jesus?”

“What do you love most about Jesus’ character?”

“What drew you to Jesus for the first time?”

He Calls His Disciples - FRIENDS

Those questions ask about relationship not position – best part of knowing Jesus, characteristic of Jesus that I love best, and what attracted me to Christ. These are questions that I might be asked about Cindy, my wife. Can they be asked of our Lord and King?

John 15:9–17 NIV

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

The good news is wholeheartedly, “YES!” Jesus can be your friend and all of the characteristics of friendship can be found in your relationship with Him.

This is what we will explore this morning in .

Why Is It That Jesus Calls Us Friends?

He Calls His Disciples - FRIENDS

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other. [1]

Friendship with God is not a privilege just for Abraham; it belongs to all who follow Jesus. If we trust in Christ, we are His friends and can know His thoughts more deeply the longer we walk with Him. As Matthew Henry reminds us, “Those who by faith live a life of communion with God cannot but know more of his mind than other people. They have a better insight than others into what is present, and a better foresight of what is to come.”

Why Is It That Jesus Calls Us Friends?

Because they are in love with Jesus

John 15:9–10 NIV

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

Obedience Flows from Loving Jesus, Obedience Does not Generate Love for Jesus

The disciples have seen the relationship between Jesus and the Father. The Heavenly Father confirmed the identity of Jesus at His baptism and then again at the Transfiguration. Jesus has repeatedly stated that He has been doing the will and work of the Father. Additionally, He has emphasized the point that He reflected the Father. The characteristics that were found in Jesus were there because of His Father.

This emphasizes the point that I made earlier about the questions I have been wrestling with this week –

“What has been the best part of knowing Jesus?”

“What do you love most about Jesus’ character?”

Joel 2:23

“What drew you to Jesus for the first time?”

Joel 2:23 NIV

23 Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

James 2:23 NIV

23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.

I think that there is an interesting point that arises from this passage. What motives our Christianity?

Obedience Flows from Loving Jesus, Obedience Does not Generate Love for Jesus

In Genesis we find the first mention of being a friend of God. It is with Abraham and an experience with messengers from God. Abraham dines with them. He talks with them. They reveal the plan of God for Sodom and Gomorrah to him and Abraham intercedes for Lot and his family.

The following questions will help you determine the quality of your relationship with Jesus:

• Do you do what he commands? (He wants you to love him enough to love others.)

A Friend is Quite Different from a Servant

• Do you know what he wants to do in the world? (He wants others to experience his love and know who he is.)

• Do you know how Jesus thinks? (He wants you to be familiar with what he heard from the Father.)[3]

A Friend is Quite Different from a Servant

Obedience is a characteristic of being a disciple but the motivation is from relationship, not an attempt to manipulate relationship. I believe Paterson is right when he says,

“The essential lifeblood that all true Christians share with Jesus is love and obedience. If there’s no love for other believers, there’s no life. If there’s no obedience to the commands of Christ, there’s no life.”[4]

A Friend is Quite Different from a Servant

A Servant is a Legal Relationship, a Friend is a Loving Relationship

A Servant’s Access is Restricted, a Friends Access is into the Heart

John 15:15 NIV

15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

The heart of a home is the kitchen/dining area. A servant will not have access to where the heart of the family are relaxing. In fact, the family will be guarded and won’t really relax around the servant but a friend is granted access all the way into the heart of the home. An old philosopher defined friendship as the existence of two souls in one body.

John 15:15 NIV

15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

A Servant is Coerced, a Friend is Free

A Servant is Coerced, a Friend is Free

2 Corinthians 5:14–16 NIV

14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

2 Corinthians 5:14-16

Servants are Watched, Friends are Trusted

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.[5]

Isaac Watts wrote this song over 300 years ago:

1. When I survey the wond'rous Cross On which the Prince of Glory dy'd, My richest Gain I count but Loss, And pour Contempt on all my Pride. 2. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, Save in the Death of Christ my God: All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his Blood. 3. See from his Head, his Hands, his Feet, Sorrow and Love flow mingled down! Did ever such Love and Sorrow meet? Or Thorns compose so rich a Crown? 4. His dying Crimson, like a Robe, Spreads o'er his Body on the Tree; Then am I dead to all the Globe, And all the Globe is dead to me. 5. Were the whole Realm of Nature mine, That were a Present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my Soul, my Life, my All.

It is good for us to remember what our friend and Savior has done for us – so undeserved, but so grateful. His love compels us, it doesn’t coerce us.

Servants are Watched, Friends are Trusted

Jesus calls us friends! Often, He does not tell us how much to do, or how to do it. He trusts our love, knowing that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments.

So, Jesus says, “no more will I call you servants but friends”. Isn’t that wonderful!

Responding to Friendship: Joy and Love

The inward experience is that of joy (v. 11). There are some who think that to obey the commands of Jesus will be boring; that it will limit our fun. Indeed, that’s why they won’t fully obey him. They think they know the way to joy better than Jesus does. But what becomes clear is that the perfect obedience of Christ to the will of God the Father ultimately resulted in joy, even on the way of the cross (see ).

But Jesus also spoke of an outward expression (v. 16). This is picking up on what Jesus had said earlier about bearing fruit (vv. 2, 4, 5). So what is this fruit that Jesus is looking for? It is not Christian love. Jesus did not refer to that as fruit. It becomes clear from the expression ‘fruit that will last’ that this fruit is nothing less than others who come to saving faith through our work and witness.

So the inward experience of being in Christ is joy, and the outward expression is that there will be a passion and concern for men and women who are lost and without Christ. That’s the fruit that marks out the genuine believer.[6]

Jesus does not call Christians to a dull existence of being hated by the world, obeying commands, and waiting to get to heaven. Instead, he offers us fullness of joy! Nothing else in all the world can bring the joy that we find in serving, abiding in, and obeying Christ. Jesus had promised, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (10:10 niv).[7]

Back at a New Start

I want to go back to where I started, with those questions:

Philippians 3:10 NIV

10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

“What has been the best part of knowing Jesus?”

“What do you love most about Jesus’ character?”

“What drew you to Jesus for the first time?”

I don’t think that I ever want these questions to be easy.

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,[8]

Today I can add to my answers that Jesus is my friend, but it also challenges me to be a better friend –

When is the last time I called?

Do I remember the last thing that my friend, Jesus, spoke to me?

Did you know that Jesus can be your friend? Make today the beginning of your friendship with Him by simply asking Jesus to come into your life.

[1] The New International Version. (2011). (). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. (2011). (). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] Barton, B. B. (1993). John (p. 313). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

[4] Paterson, A. (2010). Opening Up John’s Gospel (pp. 131–132). Leominster: Day One Publications.

[5] The New International Version. (2011). (). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[6] Paterson, A. (2010). Opening Up John’s Gospel (pp. 132–133). Leominster: Day One Publications.

[7] Barton, B. B. (1993). John (p. 312). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

[8] The New International Version. (2011). (). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.