Friendship with God
John 15:12-17
Have you ever thought about God as a friend? There are a number of ways we can view God. One way to view Him is that he is the King and He reigns supreme. And that would be true. We can say that he is our Savior and that too would be true. God is holy, just, faithful, righteous and good. All these would be true. Have you ever looked at God as a friend?
Have you ever gone to a really big concert and thought to yourself I would love to meet the artist who is singing right now. Have you ever gone to a Vols game or some other major sporting event and thought to yourself maybe I can invite one of the most popular players over to my house after the game for pizza or something but afterwards you realize that you’re just another face in the crowd. You feel like you know them but they don’t know you. It seems the same with a king or president or an actor or actress.
It’s not that way with God though. He is the most popular and famous person of all time; the most important person of all time and yet he still has time to be your friend.
What or who is a friend? Do we really have many friends? Or do we have acquaintances?
Over the last several decades, many songs have been written about friends and friendship. Songs like:
"Lean on Me" by Bill Withers — An ultimate, enduring pillar of friendship music about offering a helping hand when life gets heavy.
"You've Got a Friend" by Carole King (and famously covered by James Taylor) — A soothing promise that no matter where you are or what you are going through, a call will bring a friend to your side.
"That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder — A massive chart-topping collaboration celebrating love, security, and lifelong solidarity.
Here are a few definitions of the word friend that I found on the Internet:
dictionary.com – a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
Cambridge Dictionary - friend noun [C] (PERSON YOU LIKE)
Miriam Webster dictionary - one attached to another by affection or esteem
If you would look at Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media platforms you would deduce that they define friend as someone you know, want to know, think you know, someone you met one time or someone you’re interested in.
The chances are, if I did a survey of our Church family, we would probably find that there are many people with many different definitions of friend.
There’s a strong connection between love, truth/obedience, and friendship in the Bible.
Jesus tells us that God‘s word is true. (John 17). If we can’t take God at his word, then we can’t have faith. If we can’t have faith, then we can’t have salvation. this is why it’s so important to get to know who God is(I.e. The attributes of God that Pastor TJ recently taught on Wednesdays).
In our text of John 15:12-17 we see Jesus defines what a friend is:
When we hear the truth from God, we should have nothing else to do, but obey. Unfortunately we are just like Adam and Eve; rebellious.
A true friend will be truthful with you at all times even when it hurts or when they call out some sin in our life. Our first response shouldn’t be to be defensive when someone brings attention to something in our life that needs to be addressed.
Left to ourselves we like to think that we have a better plan or way than our Creator does.
Why is it? We can follow instructions when it comes to going to a car wash (i.e. Put your car in neutral, take your foot off the brake, take your hands off the wheel, etc.)?
Why is it? We can listen to the GPS in our car and turn when it tells us to turn without any questions usually. When it comes to finding out what God created us for we don’t have the time or we can’t pay attention to the instructions from God’s word.?
There’s a really cool story about how ‘in the late 1700’s an island in the south pacific(Pitcairn Island) was inhabited by a small group of people as they tried to hideout from those that wanted to bring them to justice for the mutiny on the Bounty(British ship whose sailors overthrew their captain). Several years later, there’s only one man left from the sailors that participated in the mutiny and his name was John Adams. While going through one of the storage boxes from the Bounty ship he came across a Bible and a book of prayer and began to read it. He was transformed by reading it. He was so affected by his reading and understanding of the Bible that he began to teach it to the women and children on the island. Years later, when other ships found the island from Britain and America they were very impressed by how the people of the colony conducted themselves towards the crew from the ships, this eventually led to full amnesty for John Adams for his part in the mutiny on the Bounty.
I simply share this historical account to show that God’s word can and will change lives when applied to our lives and not just read and forgotten. The evidence is overwhelming how God has transformed lives through his word.
Just coming in the doors at the church every Sunday doesn’t mean we’re going to be changed. We have to apply the word of God that is taught to us while we are there. It begins with us realizing that Jesus died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins and trusting in His goodness and grace to rescue us from the justice of God. (Ephesians 1:7-10; Romans 6:23)
I believe the avoidance or resistance of truth will be the demise of any person, family, Church, country, etc.
Most importantly, though, when the Church or individual churches start watering down the truth of God‘s word, that’s when it begins to cease to be salt and light in the world. When we neglect God by not listening to or reading the truth then the pillars are shaken and the walls are breaking in our church and in our homes. this is also when we stop being a true friend to those we call friends. This is what happened with Judas, Jesus called him a friend, but he lied to Jesus. Can you really lie to God, though? No! Jesus already knew what Judas was about to do to him the night that he betrayed him, but Jesus still called him friend anyways. Most of us know that many, who you call friends, do not always do the right thing towards you.
Before we go out and pretend like Judas is the worst person in the world, in what he did. Let us remember that we betray Jesus all the time too. Come on now, let’s be honest with ourselves and with God.
In 1 Timothy 3:15 we read that the church is the pillar and ground (foundation) of truth. This doesn’t mean the church can create new truth, but rather our job is to uphold and defend the truth of God‘s word, as it’s already been given to us. We don’t get to write new truth or change God‘s word to our liking. That is how every cult today has begun; someone who claims they had a better interpretation or better revelation than anyone else has ever had. That is called a false teacher or apostasy.
Matthew 12:50 -“whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.“
Look back at John 15:14-15 “You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
Are you a friend of God? Are you a friend to your church family? Are you a friend to your family? Are you a friend to those your community?
God already extended his hand of friendship to you when he sent his son Jesus to the earth to pay the penalty for our sins or our rejection of his truth.
We have been given truth by Jesus and we must decide whether or not we will obey.
A. This is true of salvation.
Romans 5:8 - God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Look at Jesus as the model of a friend, and this is what we see:
He’s the one in your life that walks in when everybody else walks out. (I.e. woman at the Well, one caught in adultery, the prodigal son)
Jesus came so that we could be a friend of God and a friend to others by pointing them to Jesus, so they too can be a friend of God.
So what does that look like for us today?
While the churches are to uphold the truth, Christians are to be marked by being truthful and telling the truth at all times. One of the greatest Temptations for us today as Christians is for us to be accepted rather than be a light in the world. You can’t do both.
A famous quote that I love is:
“Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words.“ Author Unknown.
This doesn’t mean that preaching is less important than living out your faith? It simply means that we need to be preaching the message of Christ through our actions and our words.
Listen to Jesus‘ words from his most beautiful prayer to the father in John 17:
“While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.””
John 17:12-26
When is the last time you’ve prayed this kind of prayer for your friend?
Are you currently truly being a friend to the people that you call friends?
Does your friendship with others depend on what they do for you?
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””
John 13:34-35 ESV
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:7-8 ESV
Have you ever thought about God as a friend? There are a number of ways we can view God. One way to view Him is that he is the King and He reigns supreme. And that would be true. We can say that he is our Savior and that too would be true. God is holy, just, faithful, righteous and good. All these would be true. Have you ever looked at God as a friend?
Have you ever gone to a really big concert and thought to yourself I would love to meet the artist who is singing right now. Have you ever gone to a Vols game or some other major sporting event and thought to yourself maybe I can invite one of the most popular players over to my house after the game for pizza or something but afterwards you realize that you’re just another face in the crowd. You feel like you know them but they don’t know you. It seems the same with a king or president or an actor or actress.
It’s not that way with God though. He is the most popular and famous person of all time; the most important person of all time and yet he still has time to be your friend.
What or who is a friend? Do we really have many friends? Or do we have acquaintances?
Over the last several decades, many songs have been written about friends and friendship. Songs like:
"Lean on Me" by Bill Withers — An ultimate, enduring pillar of friendship music about offering a helping hand when life gets heavy.
"You've Got a Friend" by Carole King (and famously covered by James Taylor) — A soothing promise that no matter where you are or what you are going through, a call will bring a friend to your side.
"That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder — A massive chart-topping collaboration celebrating love, security, and lifelong solidarity.
Here are a few definitions of the word friend that I found on the Internet:
dictionary.com – a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
Cambridge Dictionary - friend noun [C] (PERSON YOU LIKE)
Miriam Webster dictionary - one attached to another by affection or esteem
If you would look at Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media platforms you would deduce that they define friend as someone you know, want to know, think you know, someone you met one time or someone you’re interested in.
The chances are, if I did a survey of our Church family, we would probably find that there are many people with many different definitions of friend.
There’s a strong connection between love, truth/obedience, and friendship in the Bible.
Jesus tells us that God‘s word is true. (John 17). If we can’t take God at his word, then we can’t have faith. If we can’t have faith, then we can’t have salvation. this is why it’s so important to get to know who God is(I.e. The attributes of God that Pastor TJ recently taught on Wednesdays).
In our text of John 15:12-17 we see Jesus defines what a friend is:
- One who loves and lives sacrificially. Agape v. 13
- Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
- Mark 12:28-31 The two greatest commands. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.
- Romans 12:1-2 I appeal to you, therefore, brothers by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
- Philippians 2:5-8 have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Any being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on the Cross.
- One whose life is marked by truth/obedience.
- There is truth and there are lies/untruths. John 8:44
- There is a growing belief in our culture today that says that there is no right and wrong. This is also known as moral relativism. When this teaching or view is carried out to its full extent, then basically you have lawlessness. There’s no punishment for doing wrong because everyone determines what is right in their own eyes. Whenever this philosophy has tried to be implemented in a country or a culture, chaos usually follows.
- As Christians, we believe differently. We believe there is a God in heaven who loves us and created us for a purpose and that is to bring glory to Him.
- There is no such thing as a half or partial truth. Adam and Eve.
- If you were to go to court and have to testify on someone’s behalf, you would probably have to recite something like this; I swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. Mankind is good at telling people what they want to hear and disguise it as truth. Some politicians for example. Kids do the same thing with their parents and yes, we’ve all done it. Mom comes and asks if you ate the cookie out of the cookie jar. Your response is like this, “Well Susie did it too”. You kind of admitted that you did it but with somebody else being named as the person who did it in order to, take the focus off of you. Just like Adam and Eve in the garden. Gen. 3:8-13
- God asks Adam first(notice he goes to the head of the household first), did you eat of the tree that I told you not to eat? Adam says it was the woman you gave me, it’s her fault. (Paraphrase, of course)
- God asks Eve next; did you eat of the tree I told you not to eat? Eve’s reply: the serpent tricked me and it’s his fault.
When we hear the truth from God, we should have nothing else to do, but obey. Unfortunately we are just like Adam and Eve; rebellious.
A true friend will be truthful with you at all times even when it hurts or when they call out some sin in our life. Our first response shouldn’t be to be defensive when someone brings attention to something in our life that needs to be addressed.
Left to ourselves we like to think that we have a better plan or way than our Creator does.
Why is it? We can follow instructions when it comes to going to a car wash (i.e. Put your car in neutral, take your foot off the brake, take your hands off the wheel, etc.)?
Why is it? We can listen to the GPS in our car and turn when it tells us to turn without any questions usually. When it comes to finding out what God created us for we don’t have the time or we can’t pay attention to the instructions from God’s word.?
There’s a really cool story about how ‘in the late 1700’s an island in the south pacific(Pitcairn Island) was inhabited by a small group of people as they tried to hideout from those that wanted to bring them to justice for the mutiny on the Bounty(British ship whose sailors overthrew their captain). Several years later, there’s only one man left from the sailors that participated in the mutiny and his name was John Adams. While going through one of the storage boxes from the Bounty ship he came across a Bible and a book of prayer and began to read it. He was transformed by reading it. He was so affected by his reading and understanding of the Bible that he began to teach it to the women and children on the island. Years later, when other ships found the island from Britain and America they were very impressed by how the people of the colony conducted themselves towards the crew from the ships, this eventually led to full amnesty for John Adams for his part in the mutiny on the Bounty.
I simply share this historical account to show that God’s word can and will change lives when applied to our lives and not just read and forgotten. The evidence is overwhelming how God has transformed lives through his word.
Just coming in the doors at the church every Sunday doesn’t mean we’re going to be changed. We have to apply the word of God that is taught to us while we are there. It begins with us realizing that Jesus died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins and trusting in His goodness and grace to rescue us from the justice of God. (Ephesians 1:7-10; Romans 6:23)
I believe the avoidance or resistance of truth will be the demise of any person, family, Church, country, etc.
Most importantly, though, when the Church or individual churches start watering down the truth of God‘s word, that’s when it begins to cease to be salt and light in the world. When we neglect God by not listening to or reading the truth then the pillars are shaken and the walls are breaking in our church and in our homes. this is also when we stop being a true friend to those we call friends. This is what happened with Judas, Jesus called him a friend, but he lied to Jesus. Can you really lie to God, though? No! Jesus already knew what Judas was about to do to him the night that he betrayed him, but Jesus still called him friend anyways. Most of us know that many, who you call friends, do not always do the right thing towards you.
Before we go out and pretend like Judas is the worst person in the world, in what he did. Let us remember that we betray Jesus all the time too. Come on now, let’s be honest with ourselves and with God.
In 1 Timothy 3:15 we read that the church is the pillar and ground (foundation) of truth. This doesn’t mean the church can create new truth, but rather our job is to uphold and defend the truth of God‘s word, as it’s already been given to us. We don’t get to write new truth or change God‘s word to our liking. That is how every cult today has begun; someone who claims they had a better interpretation or better revelation than anyone else has ever had. That is called a false teacher or apostasy.
Matthew 12:50 -“whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.“
Look back at John 15:14-15 “You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
Are you a friend of God? Are you a friend to your church family? Are you a friend to your family? Are you a friend to those your community?
God already extended his hand of friendship to you when he sent his son Jesus to the earth to pay the penalty for our sins or our rejection of his truth.
We have been given truth by Jesus and we must decide whether or not we will obey.
A. This is true of salvation.
- “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”” John 14:6
- There aren’t other ways to get to God in heaven. Jesus is the Only Way. He is the Only Truth. He’s the only one that gives life. Both life on this earth and life eternally in heaven. Eph. 2:8-9
- The Bible also says that Jesus is a friend of sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15)What does that mean? Simply put, Jesus loves sinners! He doesn’t love it when we sin. He doesn’t love our sin. He loves us in spite of our sin. He doesn’t love us so we can keep on sinning, he loves us enough to be able to give us a clean slate when you come to him for forgiveness through repentance. He’s not afraid of your sin. He came to die on the cross to make a way for you to be forgiven for all of your sins. Those around you may have given up on you and said there’s no hope. Jesus still invites you.
Romans 5:8 - God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Look at Jesus as the model of a friend, and this is what we see:
He’s the one in your life that walks in when everybody else walks out. (I.e. woman at the Well, one caught in adultery, the prodigal son)
Jesus came so that we could be a friend of God and a friend to others by pointing them to Jesus, so they too can be a friend of God.
So what does that look like for us today?
While the churches are to uphold the truth, Christians are to be marked by being truthful and telling the truth at all times. One of the greatest Temptations for us today as Christians is for us to be accepted rather than be a light in the world. You can’t do both.
A famous quote that I love is:
“Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words.“ Author Unknown.
This doesn’t mean that preaching is less important than living out your faith? It simply means that we need to be preaching the message of Christ through our actions and our words.
Listen to Jesus‘ words from his most beautiful prayer to the father in John 17:
“While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.””
John 17:12-26
When is the last time you’ve prayed this kind of prayer for your friend?
Are you currently truly being a friend to the people that you call friends?
Does your friendship with others depend on what they do for you?
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””
John 13:34-35 ESV
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:7-8 ESV
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