Best Friends
Mark Shannon -- Guest Preacher
John 15:9-17
As the Father has loved me, so I have
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. I
have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy
may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have
loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s
friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you
servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is
doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you
everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose
you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that
the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these
commands so that you may love one another.
The
Bible is an amazing book. When we
read a novel or work of nonfiction, the events in that volume are typically
confined to a specific time and place and relevant to a few pertinent
characters or subjects. But the
Bible is unique in that even though the words of a text may apply to a narrative
story in Scripture, or even directed to certain individuals in an epistle, the
Holy Spirit’s words reach across the generations and speak to our own hearts
and minds and engage us in the story of God’s plan for the world.
So
it is in today’s text from John.
In these verses Jesus is speaking to his disciples, those twelve men He
has chosen to teach and to witness the events of His life and death. For these are the people that have to
carry on in His place after Easter and His subsequent ascension forty days
later.
Yet
even though these words of our Lord were spoken shortly before His arrest and
crucifixion to a group of confused and bleary-eyed followers more than two
thousand years ago, I do not think any theologian would disagree that the words
in this text can equally be said to be addressed to Christians and those who
will become believers around the world today. Such is the power of Scripture that the words Jesus spoke to
His disciples can inspire and inform our walk with Him this morning.
So
what is Jesus saying to us in this passage?
One
thing He is saying is “Congratulations!”
Other spiritual leaders and worldly teachers regard their followers as
servants. In exchange for lessons
that impart one person’s idea of the truth and how to live one’s life these
leaders and teachers put themselves in positions of authority over their
listeners and consign them to lower-class status.
But
Jesus will have none of that.
Instead of servants, He has declared us to be His friends. He has elevated us—and not demeaned
us—by sharing with us all that we need to know about Him and what He wants us
to do in His strength. We are not
mindless servants who blindly obey without understanding. We are friends of the Son of God and
not because we claim to be but because He has announced that we are His friends. So again “Congratulations! And
rejoice!”
Did
you know that today the word “friend” is a verb? On sites like Facebook you can approach someone online and
ask them to “friend” you. Then
they can decide whether to include you on their list of followers or not. And by the same token, you can be
unfriended-another new verb, if you fall out of favor with that
individual. Well, here’s some more
good news. Once you become the
friend of Jesus, and He becomes your friend through your acceptance of His saving
work on the cross, He doesn’t have a button that He can push that renders you
“unfriended”. His promise of
friendship is an ironclad guarantee that He will never desert you or turn away
from you as long as you draw breath in this world. And I know what you might be thinking. What about after you die? Fear not, the hand he extends in
friendship will be the hand you see in Heaven, pitted with a hole where the
nail to the cross has been pounded through it. This promise of friendship includes an eternal lifetime
guarantee.
And
the wonderful thing about this guarantee is that it is now in effect. It is not just reserved for our
Heavenly home. Through His
resurrection power Jesus is alive today.
It is He who lives in us and through us. And only because He is alive in us are we able to carry out
His commands.
So
what does it mean to be a friend of Jesus? It all sounds well and good….as long as I don’t have to go share my faith with that guy
that leaves his cigarette butts outside the back door of the apartment
building. And don’t count on me to
be a friend in deed if it means I have to go someplace wet and hot with big
hairy spiders coming at me with poison in their fangs. Friendship with Jesus will probably
cost us something—won’t it? It’s
not like hanging out with the neighbors over a cup of coffee and catching up
with their family and comparing notes on who got kicked off “Dancing with the
Stars”. Is it?
What
does the Bible say about friendship?
Right
off the bat the verses that came to my mind are from the book of Proverbs. There we read that a friend loveth at
all times and that there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Sometimes we make the mistake of
putting ourselves in place of the word “friend” in these verses. Who among us can measure up when it
comes to loving the other person at all times or being closer than a blood
relative to someone else?
Take
heart friends. It makes much more
sense to say that Jesus Himself is the Friend that loveth at all times and it
is indeed He who sticks closer than any relative. Sometimes in the Old Testament we catch glimpses of the
Savior before His incarnation—and so it is in these verses, I believe.
So
don’t be afraid to be considered one of Jesus’ friends. You’ve heard it said in this church
from many different people down through the years. Jesus won’t send you somewhere that He hasn’t equipped you
to go. He will accompany you
whether it is across the street or around the world. And another adage that’s become familiar to members of this
congregation is that Jesus hasn’t taken us all this way so far just to drop us
abandoned and alone somewhere totally unfamiliar to us. Make no mistake, Jesus doesn’t promise
us that the path will be an easy one and that the journey will be pleasant all
the time. But His companionship
means that He will walk along side you, surrounding you on every side, helping
us to accomplish what He has for us to do. I don’t want to jump the gun on next week’s message but as
if the very Presence of Jesus with us was not enough, He also plants within us
the Holy Spirit to remind us of the Word and the promises made in those
pages. There is no way He will
abandon us to the world or take His Holy Spirit from our lives. He is indeed a friend that is “stuck”
with us.
Now
what about that line in today’s text that says: “You are my friends if you do what I command”? That sentence has always bothered me
somewhat. Those words sure sound
like something a bully in the schoolyard would say. “If you give me your lunch money I won’t beat you up…I’ll
even say you’re a pal.” Is this
what Jesus is talking about? What
kind of friendship is that?
I read the text again a
few times. What could that
sentence mean? What does Jesus
command us to do? Suddenly a light
bulb gleamed just like in the comics.
The last verse of today’s text, verse 17, says it plainly. “This is my command: Love one another.” Could it be that
simple? By the same token Jesus
couldn’t have said words much more difficult to obey.
A
couple of weeks ago Mitzi and I were talking about the words found in verse
13. “Greater love has no one than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” What prompted our discussion was something Susan said in her
sermon. She said that if her kids
were awakened in the night by someone holding a gun to their heads and asking
them if they were Christians or not, she hoped that they both would answer with
a question: “Which answer is going
to keep me alive?” So in our
discussion we wondered if denying that we were Christians in order to stay
alive meant that Jesus would deny us to His Father in heaven. Because elsewhere in Scripture that is
just what He does say. We talked
about stories we’ve heard about. In times of warfare one man throws himself on
a live grenade in order to save his fellow soldiers—even if he knows he’s going
to die. We call those people that
do commit such acts heroes and we know that they are the exception—not the
rule. Even in peacetime there are
stories in the news about somebody jumping in front of a speeding subway car to
rescue somebody else who has fallen onto the tracks. They are just as much heroes as the sacrificial
soldier. One conclusion I made
during our talk was that even if we fail to confess the truth about our faith
in the event that someone’s holding a gun to our head, we don’t need to fear
that we have denied Christ. To be
honest, if we think about it, we deny Jesus all the time. When was the last time you reprimanded
somebody for saying “Oh my God” by telling that person: “Hey, watch your language that’s my
Lord you’re talking about”? When
we fail to say grace at mealtimes, aren’t we failing to acknowledge that God is
the one who provided the food and the money to purchase it? Jesus won’t abandon us for failing to acknowledge
Him to other people in circumstances like these. Thanks be to God for that.
Once
again, I believe that Jesus is telling His disciples in this passage that the
greatest example of love for one’s friends, laying down one’s life for them, is
a foreshadow of what He is about to do on the cross for them—and for us as
well. He is giving them an example
to aspire to, and a foretaste of what is about to happen. You’ve heard it said that Jesus is the
Pioneer and Perfector of our faith.
His life is recorded for us to learn from, not to duplicate. We can never come close to doing the
things He calls us to do with any degree of perfection. This is because no matter our
intentions, our motives are so beset with sin that the end result falls far
short of perfection. But His life
is meant for us to be a model of how to live, a measuring rod to aim for, full
in the knowledge that we can never equal much less surpass His accomplishments.
If
you think about it, in one respect the Lord’s command to love each other isn’t
SO terribly difficult. After all,
it’s somewhat easier to love our friends, isn’t it? Those people we’ve come to know over time get something of a
pass when it comes to the things about them that would make strangers
unappealing to us. It’s easy to overlook a character flaw or a sharp retort
when we consider the time spent together with friends.
Remember,
it is only because Jesus is alive and living in us that we are able to carry
out His command to love one another.
He loves people through us—it is not by our own doing. We are completely reliant on Him to
accomplish this. What an amazing
idea. Jesus gives us a command and
then only by His power can we carry it out.
Throughout
my life I’ve enjoyed knowing a number of friends. Some of them I got to know through childhood
activities. Others were introduced
to me through work experiences, and many of them worship here in this
congregation I’m happy to say.
One
of my friends was a paratrooper in the Army. Another friend thought that the best way to spend a vacation
was to take two weeks and travel to Churchill, a little town in Canada where
polar bears roam wild every year around Halloween. And another friend was nominated for an Academy Award for
her role as a blind woman in the movie “A Patch of Blue”. All of these people and
others besides them have a special place in my memory.
But
friends have a way of leaving us, don’t they? They move away or get married and have kids. And they also leave us by their death.
Studies
show that one of the keys to a healthy and long life is the quality of our
social contacts. If we have at
least a few close ties to other people as we grow older, we will be more likely
to enjoy good mental and physical health.
It is a concern of some scientists that men have a harder time
cultivating close ties with other people in their senior years. Men who haven’t bonded with teammates
in sports activities when they were younger are at somewhat of a disadvantage,
I think. There is a lot to be said
for the tight-knit relationships that athletes form in team sports. These ties often are points of
reference for reminiscing and for assessing the skills of the current crop of
players.
So
I challenge myself, and I also challenge you, to keep making new friends at each
stage of your lives. Today’s text
says we are called by the Lord to bear good fruit that lasts for the
Kingdom. If we are content to stop
exploring the possibility of making new friends we may well be cutting
ourselves off from what Christ is calling us to do.
Where
do we find potential friends? Look
around you as you leave the sanctuary today. There are infinite possibilities to explore. You may literally run into your next
new friend at the grocery store or that person may be the parent of one of your
children’s classmates. And if it’s
a romantic relationship you are pursuing, try making a date with a real- life
Christian matchmaker. It worked
for me and my wife. This is
definitely an area where prayer would be beneficial. Praying to meet a new friend seems like just the kind of
prayer that God enjoys answering.
The
real challenge in following Jesus’ command is to love those people that are
difficult to love. Sometimes we
are thrust together with people we would cross the street to avoid. What do we do then?
Once
again it is good to consider Scripture.
Jesus says “Apart from Me you can do nothing. Because He lives and is alive in us we can carry out this
command. Years ago the author
Corrie Ten Boom, a survivor of the Holocaust, happened to see a guard she
recognized in the hospital where she was visiting a friend. As I recall, the man was very ill. Despite all that he had done to her and
the other Jewish prisoners in the camp, she felt a strong urge to say a word of
forgiveness. She noted in her
account of the incident that she didn’t want to offer this man
forgiveness. But she did so
knowing that it was only Christ that enabled her to say anything to him. In her own strength she was paralyzed
and kept from speech. But Jesus
worked through her and accomplished a great work in the process.
It’s
always a good idea to find common ground.
Shared interests and opinions can go a long way toward overlooking those things that we
find unappealing in another person.
It’s also wise to try to determine if the people you inwardly shy away
from belong to Christ. If that is
the case then a world of common experiences and points of reference open up
before you. Through conversations
with strangers who are Christians, we develop a keener awareness of how Jesus
is at work in the world and what He has been doing in the lives of others. Those kinds of conversations can form a
strong basis for friendship.
Notice
that in today’s text the disciples have no idea what awaits them in the next
few hours and days. Despite some
pretty explicit descriptions they fail to realize that very soon their friend
Jesus will be taken away from them and put to death. By the same token they also have almost no conception of His
coming resurrection.
We
don’t know what will happen to our church in the days ahead. We have some ideas and some strong
indications about how things might proceed. But we have something the disciples didn’t have during their
final lessons with Jesus. We have
the assurance that no matter what happens the Triune God will be up to His
elbows in the midst of events with us every moment along the way. The building may crumble and the
hymnals may fall apart and be forgotten.
But Jesus will abide.
And
finally what better way to end this sermon—and maybe every sermon—than to
repeat the Lord’s command.
Friends: love one another.
