“Now you are my friends.”
If there is anything I would commend to you, it is your value as my Christian friend.
I have embraced the love of many throughout my life: family, my wife, our children, co-workers, neighbors, school-mates, team members, club members, teachers, students, mentors, apprentices, bosses, employees, and many more. I have included friends into parts of my life from each of these roles and relationships at various times, but none is so valuable as a Christian friend. But you, my beloved Christian friend, contribute more blessing than those who do not know Jesus Christ.
“What is the difference between a true Christian friend and any other? It is the intimacy of the love of Jesus Christ.
Intimacy is valued only as a commodity by the worldly. Intimacy is maligned to mean sexuality in a way that is not intimate at all.
Where is the closeness of the relationships of family and friends of the world? It is sadly lacking (for the most part), because we have so few friends we can trust who embrace the righteousness of Christ.
Among the worldly, integrity of relationship is displaced by the hypocrisy of shallowness.
(My indictment includes many shallow christians and all-too-often, my own timid relationship to Jesus Christ.)
Who do you trust? What friend will you lay your life down for? What time-tested faithfulness of your intimate friend has such value in your life that you cannot live or die without this love?
Intimate friends such as these… such as some of you… I have found ONLY within the intimacy of the church.
My former wife (before the Lord took her) was part of these intimate relationships with our friends. Our daughter has been part of the relationships with these intimate friends. I have loved and do love many of you who were first part of a ministry, or small group, or Bible study, or the regular gathering of two or three in the Name of the Lord.
I thank God for the intimacy of my friends who have seen to my needs in the most trying of times — you, my friends in Christ Jesus.
Matthew 10: 16 “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves… 21 “A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed. 22 And all nations will hate you because you are my followers…
35 ‘I have come to set a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
36 Your enemies will be right in your own household!’
Jesus asked His twelve Apostles to go out and tell the world “the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” {v.6}
His Twelve friends did what He asked.
Eleven would NOT betray Him.
We need the intimacy of friends we can trust. (Have you betrayed a beloved friend? Repent. Apologize. Return to our Lord.)
True Christian friends have an intimacy of love for each other which resembles the love of Jesus Christ. Your parents may not have it. Your siblings and your cousins may not have it. Your spouse may not have it. Your children may have forgotten it. Those you work with and associate with may go about their obligatory relationships to you without ever sharing one word of compassionate empathy. And even your near friend, when self-interest steps in, may betray you to death.
Christian friends obey Jesus as our Lord.
12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.
13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves.
Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
The World’s Hatred
18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world.
Yes, dear friend, it is the intimate friend who knows the heart of his friend… the friend who shares in the same Spirit of the love of our Lord and Savior, Who laid down His Life for all of us. It is our Christian friend who has done what our Lord commands:
“Love each other.
Any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine, beloved.
