After making his historic stand before the Diet Of Worms where
he defied the church and refused to recant, Martin Luther started
for home. He had stirred up a hornet's nest of opposition, and plots
were made against his life. As Luther's carriage entered a narrow
pass, ideal for an ambush, it was suddenly surrounded by 5
horsemen, who were masked and armed. They forced Luther to get
down, and they threw a cloak over him. They put him on an extra
horse and disappeared into the forest. Silently they took Luther to
the Castle of Wortburg, which was hidden high in the mountains.
There he discovered that he was in the hands of friends.
Frederic the Elector had Luther kidnapped in order to protect him
from his enemies who would certainly have killed him. This single
act of friendship changed the course of history and played a major
role in the success of the reformation. It was while hiding in that
castle that Luther translated the Bible into the German language.
He did much other writing also that influenced the thinking of the
masses.
Time and time again friendship has been the force determining
the course of history. We see it in the great friendship of David and
Jonathan in the Old Testament. Jonathan loved David even more
than his own father Saul. He defended and protected David when
Saul was out to kill him. When Jonathan died in battle David
wrote in great sorrow in II Sam. 1:26, "I am distressed for you my
brother Jonathan, very pleasant have you been to me, your love to
me was wonderful passing the love of women." David is saying that
friendship love can be a greater pleasure than erotic love, and we
will see the importance of this later even in marriage.
This also has tremendous implications for singles, for it is
saying that the sexual relationship is not the highest relationship of
two people. Jesus never had a mate, but He did have friends, and
this is potentially a higher level of love. Friendship can be a higher
level than any other relationship. Abraham is called the friend of
God, and there is no way to top that. The Bible puts friendship on a
very high level, and sometimes even above family ties. Even pagan
authors recognize this as true to life. Euripides wrote, "A friend
welded into our life is more to us than twice 5000 kinsman, one in
blood." Engel the German said, "Blood relationship is sweet, but
how much sweeter are alliances of the soul?"
Similar statements can be found from every land and people
from ancient times to the present. Emerson said, "A friend may
well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature." We are designed by
God to be social beings, and so there is a hunger in all people for
friends. And ancient Jewish proverb said, "Friends, though they be
as Job's friends, or else death." The Russian poet Dimitriev wrote,
"I've been seeking a friend! There's none below. The world must
soon to ruin go." I do not exaggerate when I say I could go on for
hours just quoting the praises of friendship from philosophers and
poets from around the world. We would expect that Jesus would
have something to say about such an important subject, and we find
this to be the case. In fact, Jesus is unsurpassed in His exaltation of
friendship. He raised it to the highest possible level by making it a
relationship that can be had between God and man. In Christ God
becomes our friend. We have the testimony of Christ's enemies to
support this, for they called Him a friend of sinners. They meant it
as slam, but it is, in fact, a compliment, for had He not been a friend
of sinners He would have been a friend of no one, for all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Jesus was a friend to the friendless, and you see Him
befriending those sinners and victims of sin that the Pharisees
shunned. They would toss coins to them and give them advice, and
even pray for this scum of the earth around them, but to befriend
them was a definite no no. And to eat with them was unheard of.
That is how they thought they knew Jesus was not divine, for had
He really been deity He would have known to have better taste than
to eat with an befriends with such sinners. Listen to this testimony
from the great Jewish scholar Montefiore. He is looking at Jesus
from a non-Christian point of view:
"The rabbis attached no less value to repentance than Jesus.
They sang its praises and its efficacy in a thousand tones...
They too welcomed the sinner in his repentance. But to seek
out the sinner, and instead of avoiding the bad companion,
to choose him as your friend in order to work his moral
redemption, this was, I fancy, something new in the religious
history of Israel."
The Jews set up shop and said come and get it, but Jesus, like a
Shepherd, went out to seek and save the lost. He went after them
because He was their friend. Friendship evangelism started with
Jesus. The idea of winning people to God by first of all winning
their friendship was His strategy from the start. Most Christians
do not win others to Christ because they think they need the gift of
evangelism, or some special training. The fact is, all you really need
is to be a friend. Walter F. Isenhour wrote,
You may not stand in the halls of fame
With many honors to your name;
You may not own a lot of wealth,
Nor even have the best of health;
You may not reach some earthly throne,
Nor claim a mansion of your own;
You may not master some great art,
Nor rank with those the world calls smart,
But you can be friendly.
You may not be a scholar great,
Nor with the learned highly rate;
You may not wear a pretty face,
Nor fill a great, important place;
You may not write a book or song,
Nor have the praises of a throng;
You may not ride in Pullman cars,
Nor reach through eloquence the stars,
But you can be friendly.
Studies show that the vast majority of people who attend
church do so because of friends. Eliminate friendship from the
picture and you eliminate most church growth. Every church
wants to be known as the friendly church because it is a known fact
that friendship is the source of growth. If a church is not friendly it
will not grow. Dr. Wilbur Chapman did a study of the people who
were healed by Jesus and he found this same truth. Of the 40
specific people Jesus healed of a disease, 34 of them were brought to
Jesus by friends, or he was brought to them by friends. In only 6
cases did people come on their own. The point is, people do come
on their own to Christ and the church, but the vast majority come
because of friends. The most likely way any Christian is going to
touch another life for Christ is by means of friendship.
As vital as this aspect of friendship is, it is not the theme of our
text. Jesus is not speaking in public here but in private with His
chosen disciples. He is not talking about their friendship
evangelism and relationship to the world, but of their relationship
to one another. Jesus is teaching that friendship is to be on the very
highest level among Christians. In fact, it is to be on the level of
divine love, which is unselfish and self-sacrificing love. Jesus starts
with the love of God for the Son. Then He says that the Son loves
the disciples with this same love, and then the disciples are to love
one another with this God-like and Christ-like love. Agape love and
Philia love are one here. Friendship if lifted to the very heights of
divine love. To get to a level higher than this is impossible, and so
friendship has the capacity of being the highest degree of love
possible.
Jesus says that greater love has no one than that of laying down
his life for a friend. Jesus was about to go to the cross and do just
that, and so He is telling us here that the cross was the greatest act
of friendship in all of history. It is theologically accurate to say that
the greatest word in human language is friendship, for it was by
this loving act of friendship that Jesus made eternal life possible for
fallen man. Everything that we love and treasure is ours because of
the friendship of God revealed and carried out by Jesus. Now Jesus
says in verse 14, "You are my disciples if you do what I command
you." And what He commands in verses 12 and 17 is that we love
one another. If we want to be a friend of the Greatest Friend, we
must be friends of those who are His friends. It is failure at this
point that is the source of every problem in the church.
When Christians are not friends they lose the friendship of
Christ, and they are not then agents of friendship in the world, but
are part of the problem. Every problem you can think of can be
traced back to a lack of friendship. And every blessing can be
traced to the presence of friendship in some form. This subject is
not a mere minor talk to children to be nice to one another. This is
the very essence of the Christian life. The key to all relationships
being their best is friendship. The more we grasp this the more we
will pray a prayer like that of Brennon Manning:
Father, you have so many
Wonderful friends.
Thank you for sharing them
With me.
Thank you for sending me
People to love;
People who love me.
Thank you for sharing them
With me,
These friends of yours,
Who have done so much
And make me happy.
Thank you, Father, for Jesus
And the gift of His friendship.
The English word friend comes from the Anglo-Saxon word
meaning one who loves. Elizebeth Seldon in the Book of Friendship
says, "There is so much friendship in love, and so much love in
friendship, that it would be futile to ask where friendship ends and
where love begins." Biblically, friendship doesn't end, for it is a
part of the very love of God. Friendship is everlasting, and the
more we get in time the more we enjoy heaven on earth. Friendship
love is not a love that is to be excluded from other levels of love. It
is to be included on all levels in order to enrich them. In other
words, we are to aim at the goal of making our mate our friend, our
children and grandchildren our friends, our parents and
grandparents our friends, and our God our friend. The goal of all
relationships is to get to the level where they are friendships.
Friendship has to do with intimacy that is not just physical.
Eros is sexual intimacy, but that can be had with a harlot. It is not
really a sharing of one's self except on a superficial level. An in
depth sharing of who you are and what you know is intimacy on a
higher level, and Jesus calls this friendship. In verse 15 He says, "I
have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my
Father I have made known to you." When you open up your inner
being and share that with another, you make that other a friend. If
you do not share your deepest interests and insights with another
person, you are saying to them that they are not your friend. A
friend is one who gets to see the real you that is hidden to those who
are only acquaintances. The more you can feel comfortable in
sharing with another, the greater the degree of friendship.
The disciples were deep friends of Jesus, for He says that
everything He learned from His Father He made known to them.
Jesus held nothing back, but became an open book to them. He told
the crowds a great deal, but He had an intimacy with His disciples
that made them special. What we see is that friendship is a
complicated concept because it is like a color. It comes in so many
different shades. There is almost an endless number of shades of
red, and so it is with friendship. You have for example:
1. Single purpose friends. You go fishing or hunting together, or
you shop and swim together. They get to share just certain aspects
of your life.
2. Multipurpose friends. This is a deeper friendship, for you enjoy
many different things with them. Mates are sometimes just single
purpose friends and so you do not have as deep a friendship with
the one you marry as one you enjoy many things with, for you have
so many common interests.
Every couple needs to work at becoming multipurpose friends to
deepen their intimacy. Couples tend to settle for being single purpose
friends because that was the intense emotion that brought
them together in the first place, but as life changes they need to
expand their levels of friendship. The more levels of intimacy they
develop, the more likely their relationship will grow rather than
decline with time.
Every relationship is enriched by friendship. St. Augustine
developed a friendship with his mother so that could share the joys
of nature and travel, and even have theological discussions together.
They had a friendship that was so deep and inspiring that Ladislaus
Boros in his book Meeting God In Man devotes a whole chapter to
unique friendship. There was no rebellion or resistance to each
other, but only a common joy in being together. That is friendship
that is an ideal for all Christians to strive for. Helen Steiner Rice
wrote,
Friendship if a priceless gift
That cannot be bought or sold,
But its values is far greater
Than a mountain made of gold,
For gold is cold and lifeless,
It can neither see nor hear,
And in the time of trouble
It is powerless to cheer.
It has no ears to listen,
No heart to understand,
It cannot bring you comfort
Or reach out a helping hand.
So when you ask God for a Gift,
Be thankful if He sends
Not diamonds, pearls or riches,
But the love of real true friends.
These true friends may be your mate, parents, or children.
They are the best potential friends, for they already know you at
your worst, and one of the concepts of a friend is that they are
someone who knows the worst about you and still love you. They
know of your spots and wrinkles, and they aggravating
idiosyncrasies of your behavior, but they love you just the same,
and you love them. This mutual acceptance of the flawed selves is
what friendship is all about. If we come to Jesus and confess our
sin, He will forgive, for He is our Friend, and He will accept us even
with our flaws, when others would not. That is why He is our
greatest Friend.
