I Call You Friends

Sermon Text

John 15:12-17

12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 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 remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Jn 15:12–17.

• God intends his people to have friendships, and Jesus grounds Christian friendship in his command to love one another as he has loved them.
• A friend is more than a companion who shares activities; friendship includes reciprocal affection, loyal support, shared life, and active love.
• Christ's love is the pattern and source of friendship: he loves sinners before they become lovely and lays down his life for his friends.
• Friendship among sinners requires humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, and a willingness both to challenge and to receive challenge without self-defense.
• Self-contempt, self-centeredness, fear, deceit, pride, manipulation, criticism, and self-sufficiency can isolate people and prevent reciprocal relationships.
• The gospel creates a shared family across differences: those redeemed by the Son receive one Spirit, call upon one Father, and are reconciled to God and one another through the cross.

• Do I treat friendship as a biblical good worth pursuing, or as an optional luxury?
• Are my relationships merely based on shared activities, or do they include affection, loyalty, and sacrificial care?
• Am I waiting for people to become easy to love instead of remembering how Christ loved me as a sinner?
• Which form of self-focus most obstructs friendship in my life: pride, self-pity, fear, defensiveness, control, or self-sufficiency?
• Can a faithful friend challenge me from Scripture without triggering immediate justification or attack?
• Am I looking for friends primarily to make me feel significant, or am I prepared to serve and love them?
• How should our shared Father, Spirit, and Redeemer move me across social, generational, or cultural differences in the church?

Friend

A person joined to another through reciprocal affection, loyal support, meaningful interaction, and self-giving care.

Companion

Someone who shares activities or circumstances with another without necessarily possessing the deeper affection and loyalty of friendship.

Brotherly love

The family-like affection believers owe one another because they share one Father through Christ.

Forbearance

Patiently bearing with another person's weakness and faults in love without ignoring serious sin.

Adoption

God's grace of receiving the redeemed as his children and giving them the Spirit who cries, 'Abba, Father.'

Gospel unity

The peace Christ creates by reconciling diverse sinners to God in one body through the cross.