Day 1148: Friends of Jesus - John 15 vs 9 - 17

9-10 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 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. 14-15 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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. John 15:9-17 English Standard Version.

In God's providence, today's post follows 1 Samuel 18 where we were told that “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.” I commented there on the value of true friendship, and quoted Jesus' words which we find in vs 14-15 of today's reading.

At the start of this portion of John's gospel he wrote that “before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” (John 13:1) How well this is seen today where Jesus says “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Oh to be a friend of Jesus!

But is that possible? Can any man or woman be a friend of Christ? The disciples may have asked themselves the same question. Could the man they were coming to realize as someone very special, regard them, with all their faults, as His friends? What did Jesus say? (vs 14-15.)

He chose to promote them from being servants, even slaves, to being His friends. The word for friend is 'philous', and implies a loving relationship - like that of Jonathan to David. And part of being a friend is that plans and ambitions, even secrets, can be shared. So Jesus says to them “all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

What were the plans and ambitions Jesus was calling them to be part of? (vs 16)

They'd been especially called by Christ to go into the world to share His message of salvation. And Jesus promised them success in that venture. Their fruit would remain - because the Father would answer their prayers. An example of such praying is seen in the apostle Paul's prayer for Christians in Colossae, whom he'd not even met: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel.” (Colossians 1:3-5)

How should we respond to the friendship of Christ, and what would be the result? (vs 11)

The result would be that the same joy which Jesus found in obeying the Father, would be known to his disciples as they obeyed Him. We get a glimpse of this joy in a letter that John would later write to a brother in Christ. He wrote: “To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health, and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 1:1-4)

Let me end by 'ammending' an old hymn. “Blest be the joy that binds, our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds, is like to that above.” We love Jesus as friend - when we love His friends as He loves us.