Friendship with Jesus

9(A) As the Father has loved me,(B) so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10(C) If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as(D) I have kept(E) my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11These things I have spoken to you,(F) that my joy may be in you, and that(G) your joy may be full. 12(H) "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13(I) Greater love has no one than this,(J) that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14You are(K) my friends(L) if you do what I command you. 15(M) No longer do I call you servants,[a] for the servant[b](N) does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for(O) all that I have heard from my Father(P) I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but(Q) I chose you and appointed you that you should go and(R) bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that(S) whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17These things I command you,(T) so that you will love one another. John 15: 9—17

1(A) Everyone who believes that(B) Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and(C) everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2(D) By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3For(E) this is the love of God, that we(F) keep his commandments. And(G) his commandments are not burdensome. 4For(H) everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—(I) our faith. 5Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes(J) that Jesus is the Son of God? 6This is he who came(K) by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And(L) the Spirit is the one who testifies, because(M) the Spirit is the truth. 7For there are three that testify: 8the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. 1 John 5: 1—8

Jesus and his disciple John had a special bond. That is reflected in John calling himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” It is reflected in John taking Jesus’ mother Mary into his home at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. And it is really reflected in the writings that John left to the Church. The close relationship between John and Jesus is evident in the way John says things. You can hear Jesus all through it. Compare the two readings you just heard. It is as if the same person is talking. It sounds like John has absorbed Jesus’ teachings to the point that he speaks with his Master’s mannerisms. So it should not shock us too much to learn that what John says is challenging, uncompromising, and truthful.
Just like Jesus, John links love for God with obedience to his commandments. It’s easy enough to understand. It’s also pretty provocative. John equates love for God with obedience to God’s commands, and he goes onto say that “his commandments are not burdensome.” You might be thinking to yourself, “Oh really? Not burdensome? God’s command to always love and forgive—not burdensome? God’s command to love others as we do ourselves—not burdensome? Does John know what he’s talking about?
Well, yes he does—don’t forget, he was perhaps Jesus’ closest friend. And therein lies the key to understanding the link between love and obedience. Like the apostle John, you and I are invited into friendship with Almighty God. Jesus calls us his friends. His friends! If we think of obeying God’s commands in some kind of abstract, hypothetical way, then we will always be hit with the Law. That is to say: commands are rules, and by nature, we break rules. By nature, we resent anyone who tells us what to do. We will, however, on occasion, listen to a trusted friend. We will listen to the perspective of someone whom we know really cares. This is what Jesus is saying to you through the words of John 15.
He says, “I consider you my friend. I’m not some impersonal deity in the sky ordering you around, trying to make your life miserable. I am your friend who loves you. Jesus defines for us the greatest test of friendship: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Think of some of your best friends—the people you love spending time with—the people you have shared so much with—the people you can be yourself around. Now ask yourself—would you die for them? Sometimes there are heroic people who do just that. Consider the life and death of Marine Corporal Jason Dunham.
In April 2004, while leading a patrol of his Marines in an Iraqi town near the Syrian border, a nearby Marine convoy was ambushed. Corporal Dunham led his squad to the site of the attack, where he and his men stopped a convoy of cars that were trying to make an escape. As he moved to search one of the vehicles, an insurgent jumped out and grabbed the Corporal by the throat. The Corporal engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. At one point he shouted to his fellow Marines, "No, no, no, watch his hand." Moments later, an grenade rolled out. Corporal Dunham did not hesitate; he jumped on the grenade to protect his fellow Marines, using his helmet and his body to absorb the blast.
A friend who was there that day put it this way: "Corporal Dunham had a gift from God. Everyone who came in contact with him wanted to be like him. He was the toughest Marine, but the nicest guy. He would do anything for you. Corporal Dunham was the kind of person everybody wants as their best friend." Despite surviving the initial blast and being given the best of medical care, Corporal Dunham ultimately succumbed to his wounds. And by giving his own life, Corporal Dunham saved the lives of two of his men.
Jesus would call that the ultimate expression of friendship. You may see where I’m going with this. Jesus can call you his friend because he laid down his life for you. He’s proven his friendship to you in the most extreme way possible. Because of our inability to love and obey, we deserve to be sentenced to hell and blasted with punishment. That’s not going to happen now, thanks to a Friend who loves so fully that he would voluntarily take the impact of your sin; your guilt; your punishment upon himself. He laid down on the cross beam for you. That is friendship. That is love. He did it to claim you as his friend forever. I’ve had great friends throughout my life, and they’ve been very good to me, but they’ve never done that. They didn’t suffer what I should have suffered. They didn’t die what should have been my death. Only Jesus did that. Only Jesus could. What a friend we have in Him!
Since He has done this for us; since it is His desire to call us His friends, that changes the whole way we look at the idea of obedience.
Think again, if you will, of someone you consider a close friend, if not your best friend. If they ask you to do something, how will you generally respond? Most of the time, you will do whatever you can to help out a friend. Even if it means shuffling your schedule and sacrificing valuable personal time, you’ll do it precisely because that person is your friend. You do it, not out of fear or obligation, but because of a bond of love and friendship. You might recall the image of one small boy carrying another on his back, with the caption, “He ain’t heavy Mister; he’s my brother.” That became the motto of what is now Girls and Boys Town, founded by the real-life Father Flanagan. And that captures how we feel and what we would do for a friend.
Since Jesus calls us His friends and demonstrated His friendship by laying down His very life for us, we, in turn, can call Him our Friend. More than that, the Holy Spirit enables us to treat Him as our Friend. That means we can come at the concept of obedience to his ways not in some detached, analytical way, but our response of faith and obedience is wrapped up in a relationship of friendship and love with the One who paid for our sins with His death! In other words, because Jesus has extended to you his nail-scarred hand of friendship, you can live His way, with Him, not out of fear or obligation, but because of a bond of love—because He is Friend and Savior to us. He and His ways ain’t heavy; He’s our Brother. As John writes, “His commandments are not burdensome.” Now we can see why. Friendship with Jesus transforms “ought to” into “want to” and “got to” into “get to,” because we know how far He is willing to go to help us.
Chances are you’ve never heard of Mike Dunlap, assistant basketball coach at the University of Oregon. We don’t have time to re-cap his career, but there’s a comment about him that is worth mentioning, that applies to what we’re talking about. Dunlap’s former athletic director says this about him: “He’s very demanding of his players, but he would run through a wall for them and they know that. So they run through walls for him.”
Jesus ran through the wall of death for us, and came out the other side alive. Let’s run through walls for Him, our Savior and Life giver. It is no burden to share in Jesus’ victory with him or to be called His friend.