Meeting Jesus - Week Five: Friends of God. John 15:9-17
At St John’s in our weekly worship, we are exploring a series called “Meeting Jesus.”
This week, we are exploring the second part of John chapter 15, where Jesus is described as the true vine.
Last week we heard the invitation to abide with Jesus, to spend time connected to him so that we might bear fruit. Today, in the second half of John 15 we hear more in practical terms what fruitfulness looks like.
In the ancient Graeco-Roman world, friendship was seen as one of the highest forms of love.
Epicurus, an ancient philosopher once said:
“Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.” – Epicurus (431-270 BC).
This was a common idea.
We would likely agree – it is good to have friends.
And in today’s reading from John – Jesus turns to his disciples and he calls them his friends.
Jesus says – “You are my friends” and “I have called you friends.”
Do you think of Jesus as a friend?
Because that is how we meet Jesus in this passage – he calls his disciples friends, and he calls all those who follow him friends too.
This fact is more than just nice, given who Jesus is.
He is God incarnate, the word made flesh, the second person of the Trinity. Here he is saying – “you are my friends.”
In the Hebrew Scriptures there are a couple of examples of people being called “friends of God”
-Abraham is called a friend of God in 2 Chronicles 20:7 and Isaiah 41:8:
“But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend.”
-Moses is treated as God’s friend. Exodus 33:11: “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”
However, it isn’t a widespread way of understanding the relationship people have with God. And so, it is striking as we hear Jesus speak of being a friend!
There is an intimacy to this term – friend. It speaks of love.
As well as intimacy, the friendship that Jesus speaks of implies shared interest too. It speaks of common values and in Jesus’ case, a commission to his disciples to participate in his work ushering in God’s kingdom.
Firstly – Jesus speaks of love.
He speaks of the love he has for his disciples. This theme is woven through the passage.
At the heart of Jesus teaching about love is verse 13 which says:
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
This verse has been quoted for all kinds of occasions – but its central force is to draw our eyes to the love that Jesus will show on the cross.
It isn’t about sacrificial love in general – but rather it is about Jesus. Jesus is the one who lays down his love for his friends in his sacrificial death on the cross.
His death makes it possible to have true friendship with God, his self-giving love on the cross is what breaks the power of sin, which simply put is to live our lives turned in on ourselves – selfishly and without love for God and others.
And so, in this second half of John chapter 15 we see more of what it means to abide in Christ, and to be connected to the vine. The practical outworking of life with God, and in relationship with Him is that we bear the fruits of love.
We become more loving.
We become more like Jesus.
Spirituality without love is a clanging cymbal – it jars our ears because it is not genuine.
It’s no good pursuing a so-called spiritual life, spending hours in prayer and reading scripture if our love for God doesn’t flow out into our everyday life and life with others.
St Paul shares this sentiment when he says to the Corinthians:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
To abide is not a passive thing. To abide in Christ is to grow in love.
Jim Wallis puts it well saying this:
“Jesus tells us, "Love one another as I have loved you." He does not say love one another because I have loved you. He says love one another as I have loved you. He's telling us to love in the same way he has. The simplest definition of community is that we are to extend to one another and to the world the same life we have been extended by God in Christ. We give as we have been given--the same love, the same forgiveness, the same peace”[1]
Jesus calls us as his friends to care about the same things that he cares about, and to join him in his mission in the world.
It seems to me quite natural – after all, with our friends we are often drawn together by shared interests and things we have in common. Our relationships often grow as we do things together. Many of my closest relationships have developed over going fishing together, or talking about books, or sharing coffee…
C. S. Lewis said:
“True friends don’t spend time gazing into each other’s eyes. They may show great tenderness towards each other but they face in the same direction – toward common projects, goals – above all, towards a common Lord.”
And so, as Jesus calls us friends, we are drawn into sharing his passion and his love for the world.
To put it simply – the church should look like Jesus.
It’s easy when the church fails us or others to say, never mind the church, just go to Jesus. Yet this is to diminish and undervalue the true calling of the church – we are called to be Jesus’ friends and to be known by our love.
We are told by Jesus that when people see our love they should know that we are his followers.[2]
Jesus frames this up as a commandment saying: “you are my friends if you do what I command you.”
The point isn’t that we become Jesus’ friends by doing what he says but rather it is entirely illogical that if we are his friends that we ignore Him. After all Jesus is both our friend and Lord. He invites us into a life of obedience.
When we think of obedience, we might think of drudgery and servitude. Yet notice that Jesus says that as we keep his commandments and abide in his love that his joy will be in us, and that our joy may be full.
We are made for love, and so when we obey Jesus’ teachings to love God and love our neighbour we will be full of joy – we will come fully alive.
None of this is really rocket science.
What this passage invites us to is the invitation to become Jesus’ friends. This means we will love as he loves us.
To talk at length about this is to miss the point – here we have a simple call to action by Jesus. And so to unpack this passage a little more, I want to share a couple of stories with you – one reflecting on the history of Christians and their love for the world, and one reflecting on some friends of mine.
PLAY short film clip from “For the Love of God Documentary” put together by Public Christianity Australia (6.5 minutes) CLICK LINK HERE TO WATCH
I love it where in the film, we hear this:
“In other words, there was a practical demonstration of this love, which went hand in hand with the theoretical articulation of this love, which slowly and partially reformed the classical mind.”
The practical nature of Christian love is deeply important. Jesus asked his friends to bear witness to his love not just through prayer and preaching but embodied love – being the hands and feet of Jesus, serving a broken and hurting world.
With this in mind, let me share with you another story.
Jono and Annie story –
Jono and Annie are friends of ours from when we lived in Christchurch and were at church together over a decade ago.
They have always both been passionate and loving Jesus followers.
In recent years their friendship with Jesus has taken them to the middle East.
Jono is a photographer and movie-maker and Annie is a nurse.
They have recently spent time in Syria, and are currently in Northern Iraq. They work for Frontier Alliance International.
Annie provides medical attention and aid to those desperately in need, and Jono uses his creative skillset to help raise awareness of the plight of the people living in war-torn and poverty-stricken areas in the middle east.[3]
Together they, as friends of Jesus are living out their calling – and I find their example super inspiring.
At a recent family wedding I bumped into them both and we were chatting, and something Jono said really struck me.
I asked him how it was going and he said: really good but slow. He said how over his time there he realized how slow the important work was.
To love like Jesus takes time and it means investing our lives in others day in and day out.
I hope these stories inspire you.
The point of them isn’t to make heroes, but rather to illustrate how the love of Jesus can flow through the lives of his friends – like you and me.
The last few verses of today’s reading ground us in the reality that this friendship with Jesus isn’t of our own making.
We hear Jesus say this:
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.
Jesus chooses us. He takes the initiative.
He approaches us so that we may be His friend.
And he chooses us not just for our own good, but for the good of the world. He calls us for a purpose.
John in his first letter says this:
1 John 4:19-21:
“We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
So today, as we meet Jesus in this passage, we hear him call us friends. May we trust in this friendship, and as we do may we bless the world as we love as he loves us. Amen.
Preached by Joshua, 9th of May 2021
[1] Jim Wallis article “A Reconciled People for the Sake of the World” sourced at: https://sojo.net/preaching-the-word
[2] John 13:35
[3] https://www.thebigidea.nz/stories/creativity-with-a-cause