John 15 - What Does a True Friend Look Like?



Click Here to Read John 15

 “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.

 John 15 is perhaps one of the greatest chapters in all of the bible.  It definitely ranks up there with Romans 8 and others.  As we have said John is the "relational gospel", and nowhere is it more evident than in this chapter, as Jesus focuses what a "true friend" looks like. 

 For a Jew to think of God as their friend would have been bordering on blasphemy.  But Jesus' mission was to restore our relationship with God.  The bible says we were once enemies with God but now we have been reconciled to him by the cross. (Romans 5:10) Most importantly Jesus defines what true friendship looks like. 

 Jesus summarizes by sayinig, "Greater love has no one than this that a man lay down his life for his friends."  Jesus is going to show them the full extent of his friendship when he goes to the cross.  Then Jesus says, "You are my friends if you do what I command."  Jesus isn't offering a "conditional" friendship.  He chose us before we could choose him and laid down his life before we had shown any movement toward him.

 But Jesus' plan wasn't just to love but to show His love through you.  He said, "Just as I have showed the Father's love, you are my friend if you show this same love to others."  Jesus makes becoming a Christian quite simple.  He says, "Accept my love I have given freely to you.  Then share that same love with the whole world."  Now that may be a simple command, but not so easy to carry out, especially with people who seem unloveable.  

 Jesus redefined what it means to know God.  Because of what he has done on the cross, we are now friends with God.  What an awesome thing to be friends with the One who created the heavens and earth. And God has called us to be His friends through the Son. As Jesus called us to be his friends, we are offered the greatest friendship one can have, which continues in the life hereafter where it will be consumated.  

 Who are your true friends by Jesus' definition?  Who are you a true friend to?  Who is God calling you to reach out to even though they may not be the easiest person to love?  "Greater love has no one than this to lay down his life for his friends!"  

 God bless you "friend"!

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