Friends Who Love Like Jesus

If given the opportunity to speak to a group of Christians about love and friendship, what would you say? You could present all kinds of illustrations, quotes and anecdotes from standard dictionaries, secular psychology, social studies and statistics, world religions and philosophies, fictional literature and New York Times best-sellers, popular songs and well-known movies. There is so much to say about love and friendship, because the world at large explores these themes in all kinds of ways and has done so throughout history. We do this because love and friendship are basic threads woven by God into the fabric of humanity.However, to speak to a group of Christians about these themes you would probably want to share some biblical material. You might provide a topical study of all the Bible teaches about friendship. Or you could explore the wisdom that Proverbs gives about this topic. You could explain what it meant for God to call Abraham his friend. You could study the good friendship of Jonathan and David or the bad friendship of Amnon and Jonadab. You could study the words friend and friendship in the New Testament, making observations from all 39 times in which this word appears (in the NKJV).You could take a similar approach to talk about love. What does the Old Testament teach about the love of people to other people or the love of God toward people? What does the New Testament teach about love? What can we learn from 1 Corinthians 13, the place in the Bible that concentrates on this topic more than any other place?While there is a lot to learn from God’s Word about love and friendship, let us focus here on what Jesus taught his closest followers when he walked with them the night before his crucifixion (John 15:12-17). On this intimate occasion, he taught important lessons about love and friendship. He explained three ways by which he had shown love to his disciples and treated them as friends. By doing so, he taught that you and I should love and befriend one another in a similar way. A genuine believer should love other believers with the love of Jesus.

A genuine believer should love other believers with the love of Jesus.

By teaching these things, Jesus was preparing his followers to live without his physical presence. He was teaching them how to remain in constant contact with him (how to “abide” in him, even though he would become absent from them in a physical capacity.We find in John 15:1-11 that he has already taught them to retain his teachings in their heart so that his words will stay with them to guide them through the challenges of daily life and service. This would be important (and is important for us today) because Jesus is not available for us to consult in person. We need to be able to know what he taught at any given time so that we can depend on him and respond as he teaches us to do.But there is another key factor that enables us to abide in Christ. This factor is the ongoing help that comes from experiencing the love and friendship of Jesus from one another. Since you don’t have Jesus walking by your side, you need to carry his words in your heart on a regular basis; but you also need the close friendship of other fellow believers who love you like Jesus does.

I. Jesus loved you like a friend. (John 15:12, 15)

In this section of Scripture (John 15:12-17), you notice that Jesus says something in verse 12 which he repeats in verse 15. He says, “I am commanding you to love one another.” In the first occurrence (v. 12), he adds the phrase “as I have loved you.” Then between these parallel statements, he explains the way that he loved his disciples. Since he would be leaving them soon, it would become their mutual responsibility to love one another in his absence, the way that he had loved them. This responsibility continues for us today.Jesus said that he interacts with his followers as friends. This word friend comes from the Greek word phileo, which means brotherly love. One Bible dictionary says that this word means “to treat somebody as one of one’s own people.”^[1] This idea reappears only a few verses later when Jesus describes how the world “loves its own” (John 15:19). This idea refers to the kind of love that family members should have for one another because they are the same family. Young people join gangs to gain this kind of friendship. They want to belong to a group that “has their back.”Another Bible dictionary describes this kind of friend as a “person with whom you associate and for whom you have affection or personal regard.”^[2] It is the kind of love related to the “holy kiss” that we read about throughout the New Testament (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Pet 5:14).While we don’t greet one another that way at church in America today (for cultural reasons), we should still understand the kind of friendship that this portrays. It refers to a friendship that resembles a close-knit family. You should view one another at Faith Baptist Church as being brothers and sisters in the family of God. You should relate to one another with the same endearment and affection that you share with your earthly family.

Believers should have a friendship with one another that resembles a close-knit family.

At an early time in his ministry, he called genuine believers (those who do his will) his “brothers and sisters” (Matt 12:49-50; Mark 3:33-35; Luke 8:21). In Matthew 12:49, “He stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” In a parallel passage (Luke 8:21), he said, “My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”When a father passes away, he hopes that his children will continue to love one another in the absence of his stabilizing presence. In some unfortunate cases, children fall into arguments over the inheritance and estate. Other times, they go their separate ways. Knowing that he was about to leave them, Jesus urged his followers to move into the future by loving one another as brothers and sisters, not by abandoning or fighting with one another. He urged them to love one another more, not less.To teach what he wanted them to do, he described the way that he had loved them. That’s what you find in the verses between verse 12 and verse 17. Let’s look at the three ways he outlined in these verses and then let’s ask the question, “Are we loving one another the same way?”

A. He sacrificed his life for you. (John 15:13)

The words “to lay down your life” are somewhat hard to understand. In regular use at that time, a phrase like this meant to “take a risk” with your life for the benefit of someone else. But in the Gospel of John, it means something more.Only John uses this phrase in the New Testament, and it appears in the Gospel of John seven times (John 10:11, 15, 17, 18; 13:37, 38; 15:13). Until John 15:13, it refers to the crucifixion of Jesus. But here, in the final occurrence, Jesus encourages believers to do the same for one another.Jesus didn’t merely “take a risk” with his life. He actually “gave up” his life instead. He knew in advance that by coming into the world he would die for your sins. As such, he did not take a risk. He made a firm commitment. He met your greatest need by laying down his life in your place. This is one of the ways that he loved you and treated you as a friend.

B. He revealed the will of God to you. (John 15:15)

The practice of slavery was not entirely the same as the atrocious kind of slavery that mars the history of the United States. In many cases, slavery was a contractual agreement in which one person agreed to provide specific services to another person. The servant (or slave) would be obligated by law to carry out these services until the end of the term. The governing party would be obligated to meet certain needs in return, providing things like housing, food, clothing, and other material needs.Some of these arrangements were very bad, but others were very good. But in most cases, slaves did not usually have an intimate relationship with their earthly masters. They would not know what the master was doing. Masters did not disclose their goals and purposes to their slaves. They only told them what they wanted them to do.While the Bible frequently uses “slavery” terminology to describe our relationship to Christ, we find here that Jesus assures us that we are more than slaves in our relationship to him. He called us his friends. He treated us as friends by doing more than merely telling us what to do. He went beyond this by teaching us all that God the Father had revealed to him. He shared with us many things that we could never learned before.To understand what this means, consider how the New Testament uses the word mystery, which means “something that is now revealed which was previously unknown.” There are things like this that we know because Jesus revealed them to us in the New Testament. These things include:

• The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (Matt 13:11)
• The mystery of Israel’s hardening (Rom 11:25)
• The mystery of the gospel (Eph 6:19)
• The mystery of the rapture (1 Cor 15:51)
• The mystery of God’s will (Eph 1:9)
• The mystery that Jews and Gentiles would be one body in Christ (Eph 3:4-6)
• The mystery of the union of Christ and the church (Eph 5:32)
• The mystery of Christ’s indwelling of believers (Col 1:26-27)
• The mystery that the Messiah would be God incarnate (Col 2:2)
• The mystery of lawlessness and how it relates to the antichrist (2 Thess 2:7)
• The mystery of the faith (1 Tim 3:9)
• The mystery of godliness (1 Tim 3:16)

Friends, Jesus has revealed to us many things from God the Father. By doing so, he has given to us precious information that goes far beyond just “telling us what to do.”

C. He chose and appointed you. (John 15:16)

In the first century, it was customary for disciples (students) to choose the rabbi (teacher) they wanted to follow. But Jesus reversed this by choosing his own disciples. Perhaps you remember the feeling of playing soccer or basketball during elementary school recess. The most popular or athletic children would be team captains and would choose other children for their teams. Do you remember the encouragement of being chosen?Friends, that’s what Jesus did for you. I can’t explain how it all works. But I can tell you this. If you know Jesus as your Savior, then he chose you. He did not choose you because you deserved to be chosen. In fact, you didn’t deserve to be chosen; you deserved to not be chosen. But he chose you because he loved you. This word chosen means that he chose you because he favored you very strongly. He really wanted you to be his friend.Jesus also appointed you. The Greek word tithemi means “to be chosen to carry out an important service,” as in the following verses:

• “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
• “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry” (1 Timothy 4:12).

Though Jesus appoints some men to be leaders and overseers of churches, he also appoints every believer to be a fruitful Christian. He chose you to “go” and to “bear fruit.” As you go about your life, he intends for you to make God visible through your attitude, speech, and behavior. This is how he described this fruit a few verses earlier, saying that by living according to his teaching, you would glorify (make visible) God the Father to the world (John 15:8). We also learn that he intends for the God-revealing fruit of your life to last forever, to have ongoing results in this life and to have implications that last forever.To do this, you will need to talk to God on a frequent basis (John 15:16). You will need to ask for wisdom to understand his Word. You will need to ask for help to remember his Word. You will need to ask for strength to obey his Word. You will need to ask for his help to navigate the daily challenges of life – which are sometimes very difficult. But when you pray for the things that Christ has taught you to pray and you pray in the way that Christ has taught you to pray, then God will respond to your prayers and give what you ask.When Christ says, “whatever you ask in my name,” he is not teaching us to pray for anything that comes to mind, or anything that we want to ask, by adding his name to the end of our prayer or by claiming a special relationship with him as a way of demanding that God do whatever we ask. Instead, he is teaching us to know his teaching and his Word well enough that we know what kind of prayers he has encouraged us and authorized us to pray. This is praying according to the desires of Jesus and the will of God. The opposite of this is praying according to our own lusts and desires, and God does not answer those kinds of prayers (Jam 4:3).As an illustration, the deacons of a church cannot spend church money for anything that comes to their mind. They can only spend within the parameters of what the church budget has authorized them to spend. The same is true for you and me whom he has chosen to make God visible to the world. We should know his teaching thoroughly and pray accordingly, and then you will receive answers from God.

II. You should love one another in the same way. (John 15:12, 14, 17)

Having considered these thoughts, it is important to remember why Jesus gave them. He gave them to explain how he had showed his love to his disciples, and he explained this so that they would know how to love one another the same way.

First, do you love the believers in your family, your church, and your scope of Christian fellowship the way that Jesus loved his twelve disciples – by laying down your life for one another?

We know that John was present in the group of disciples which Jesus was teaching in John 15. It appears that he was listening and that he treasured those words in his heart, because several decades later – as an old man – he wrote a letter we call “1 John.” In that letter, he said this: “By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18).Here John teaches us how to “lay down our lives” for one another. While it may not get us killed like Jesus, it will require that we draw from the personal resources of our life – our time, energy, and possessions – to meet the needs of one another. In this way, we must learn to “treat one another” as our own brother and sister. We need to “have one another’s back” better than the unbelievers have the backs of one another in the world.

Second, are you passing along to one another the teaching that Jesus passed along to us?

In the Great Commission, Jesus taught us to teach one another everything that he taught us to know and to do (Matt 28:20). In Hebrews 5:12, we are told that we should all be teachers of the truths of God’s Word. When you consider the teaching ministry of Jesus, can you say that you know what he taught about the Christian life? Do you know it thoroughly and accurately? Do you know it because you have studied it for yourself? And what are you doing to teach it to others?I praise God for those who faithfully teach the Word of God in our church. I am thinking especially of Sunday School and Frontline teachers and those who mentor new believers in the church. I am also thinking of Christian parents who teach the Word of God to their children. Let us all be diligent to teach the teaching of Jesus to one another. That’s how Jesus showed his love to his disciples. Since he is no longer present with us in person, then we must take up this responsibility and teach one another in his place.

Third, are you taking the initiative to be a friend and to help one another live the life in a fruitful and effective way.

“A man who has friends must himself be friendly” (Prov 18:24). Unfortunately, many believers do nothing more than attend a church service on Sunday morning, with no more involvement or ownership than when they attend a movie theatre during the week. They show up, put in some money, listen to the sermon, mumble some songs, shake some hands, then leave. That’s why many Christians lack genuine friendship and are therefore floundering through life in the world as though they are alone.I ask you, “What are you doing to be a friend to someone in your church?” Don’t sit around complaining about how unfriendly everyone else is. Step out and be a friend. Do like Jesus and choose someone in whom you see potential. Choose someone who has a need. Choose them and determine to love them, meet their need, and help them to become a fruitful, vibrant Christian who reveals the goodness of God to the world.Again, I remind you that Jesus doesn’t come to your church in a physical way. If he did, we could certainly count on him to do what I am talking about. But he is not there, and you are there instead. We all need friends like this, but to have friends like this, we need to be friends like this. Will you take that step with someone today, this week, this month, and keep on doing it?

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^[1] Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, and Geoffrey William Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1985), 1262.^[2] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 446.