Tuesday, February 03, 2009

"You Are My Friends" Sermon: John 15:12-17

“You Are My Friends”
[John 15:12-17]
February 1, 2009 Second Reformed Church

Last week we looked at Jesus telling the eleven – after Judas had left – that they were His disciples – His students. He told them that He had to die, but that in His Death – and then Resurrection and Ascension – God the Son and God the Father would be glorified – so the disciples should trust in God and God’s Plan. And not only that – so others would see the glory of Christ’s Sacrifice through them – Jesus commanded them – and us – to love each other with a sacrificial love.

As Jesus continued to talk with the eleven that first Maundy Thursday evening, He spoke the words of this morning’s Scripture in which He explained to the disciples that they are also His friends. All those who believe in Jesus Alone for their salvation are Jesus’ friends. And Jesus commanded them again that they are to love each other in the same way that He loved them. Jesus emphasized again that the life of the Christian is to be marked by a willingness to sacrifice ourselves for our brothers and sisters. Even to the sacrifice of death: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.”

Now, as we considered last week, it is unlikely that you and I will be asked to literally lay down our lives for each other here in America – at least not yet – that day may come. But it was a very real possibility in Jesus’ day, and it is a very real possibility in many countries around the world today. In many countries – today – if you become a Christian, you will be shunned by your family and, possibly, killed. Most people don’t live in a country like the United States where we can say we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be free to never live it out.

But Jesus told the disciples that they were to live out the Gospel – and we as disciples in the twenty-first century are to live out the Gospel – and if we do live as Jesus has called us to live, if we live lives of sacrifice that show the Glory of Jesus and His Salvation, if we’re willing to be inconvenienced for a brother or sister in Christ – for Jesus’ Sake – in response to what He has done and promised – not because every Christian is a person we would normally go out of our way for – if, because of Who Jesus is, we live lives willing to sacrifice for each other, we are Jesus’ friends.

What does that mean?

Jesus told the eleven that He no longer called them servants – bond-servants – in the sense of being uninformed. All of you who have had servants in your homes, or who have had employees under you, will understand that the master – the boss – is under no obligation to reveal all of his plans to the “help.” Those who serve are on a “need to know basis,” we say. But Jesus told the disciples – and us – that we are not servants, but friends, because He has revealed to them – He has told them everything the Father told Him. Jesus told the disciples, in the flesh, everything that the Father told Him – and we have that recorded in our Bibles, so we know everything that the Father told Jesus that He told the disciples and tells us through the Holy Spirit making sure it was all written down – preserved – for us and our instruction. All of the information is right here – shall we open it?

Have you ever thought about the condescension of Jesus? Not that Jesus was condescending towards us, but that He condescended to us. That is, Jesus is the Master of the entire universe, and He humbled Himself by coming to earth as a human being, gave His Message of Salvation to His people, and then voluntarily gave up His Life on the cross that we would be able to receive His Salvation. No other Master has humbled himself before his servants like Jesus did – and now He calls us friends – He has revealed everything the Father said to Him to us that we might grow in the intimacy of our relationship with Jesus.

Soon we will receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus calls us to this Sacrament as His friends. He has revealed to us what He did on the cross, and He will spiritually meet with us and give us grace to strengthen us as we receive the bread and the cup, and as we receive them, we are reminded of the sure promise that He will return again, and He will restore the Creation, and He will bring all of His friends into His Kingdom – into His Father’s House – for all of eternity. Are you His friend?

Then Jesus reminded the eleven – His friends – and He reminds us – that we did not choose Him, He chose us. Why does that matter? It matters because it lets us understand that our relationship with Jesus is not based on our merit. Our relationship with Jesus is not based on anything we did or did not do. On the one hand, we cannot earn our friendship with Jesus, and on the other, we cannot lose our friendship with Jesus. It’s all about Him – it’s all because of Him. And that should comfort and assure us. Paul admits the same truth, “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace” (Galatians 1:15, ESV). Jeremiah tells us the Lord told him the same, “‘Before I formed you in the womb I loved you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations’” (Jeremiah 1:5, ESV).

I hope you find that exciting! I do. I can say with confidence, as someone who believes in Jesus Alone for my salvation, that before I was conceived in my mother’s womb, Jesus Christ, the Lord God Almighty, chose me to be His – to be His disciple and follower and friend. And He chose me, not based on anything I did – I didn’t exist yet – and not because of anything I would do – because the Scripture clearly teaches we are all born dead in sin and only worthy of eternal Hell, but because it pleased Him for His Own Reasons – not based on me. I am His forever and eternally, and though I sin and need forgiveness every day, I cannot be lost again, because I am saved by His Choice and His Authority – my salvation is not based on me at all, so I can’t lose it either. I hope you can say that, too.

Jesus continued: He told the disciples that He did not call them just to be saved and then sit on their couches. Jesus calls us to a life of service. Jesus said that, as His friends, He chose us and appointed us that we would do and bear fruit – fruit that abides. Paul explains what has happened like this: “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4, ESV).

What does this fruit look like? Well, Jesus said it is not something that can perish or be destroyed, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21, ESV). Paul wrote, “(for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true)” (Ephesians 5:9, ESV) and “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11, ESV). “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him” (Colossians 3:12-17, ESV). That’s what being fruitful for Jesus looks like. If we live like that, we will show ourselves to be Jesus’ friends. If we live like that, He will be glorified through our lives.

Can we live like that?

Jesus does not leave us on our own, thank God. Jesus told the eleven that whatever they asked in Jesus’ Name, according to His Will, the Father will give us. In other words, we have no excuse, no inability, that can keep us from living as Jesus has called us to live. Jesus said that we can love each other sacrificially, we can bear fruit that abides, because if we ask God for anything that Jesus Wills, God will give us the ability to do it – God will cause it to occur – because it is God’s Will! It may not happen instantly, but, for example, if you realize you need to learn to be more patient – that you are not as patient with your brothers and sisters as Jesus has been with you – and we know that Jesus has called us to be patient with each other, then ask – pray – that you would become more patient – and then pray again and pray and pray until you have achieved perfect patience – it will take us all the rest of our lives and until Jesus brings us into Glory to achieve what He has called us to be and do, but we are to start now. We are to run the race now – to work hard to become the people Jesus calls His friends now. Like we saw last week, we are students – disciples – we are to learn and put that teaching into practice until we have perfected it.

Therefore, Jesus told the eleven, we are commanded to love each other.

Why does He keep saying that? Because we are prone not to. It is not in our fallen nature to love others – to be willing to be put out for others – when we don’t get something from them. “I’ll do this for you, but you have to do this for me.” Jesus said that we are to do for others, not thinking about what they can do for us, because Jesus has already given us more than we could ever conceive or deserve.

Are you His friend?

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for calling us Your friends. We thank You for the reality and the example of Jesus laying down His Life for His friends. We ask that You would make us more like Jesus, day by day, willing to be put out for others, desirous to bear fruit that is pleasing to You, and praying that we will accomplish Your Will on earth. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

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