Friendship With God Is Its Own Reward
Taken from a Red Rock News Article (5/3/24)
Rev. Dona Johnson | Jan 21, 2024
When many of us think of Jesus, we don’t think of him as having a friendship with us. Maybe because we think of God as holy and untouchable. Or maybe we think a friendship with God would be way too informal and casual. Or maybe we have attachment issues and find it hard to befriend God as a heavenly Father. Wherever you are, in John 15:13-15, Jesus, with great love in his heart for his disciples called them friends. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends…”
Jesus goes one step further and affirms his love for his disciples when he says, “I no longer call you servants but I call you friends.” Jesus is referring to servants who have no rights or access into the presence and royal courts of their master. Instead, Jesus declares the disciples as his friends. It’s important to note that Jesus doesn’t call himself a friend to the disciples. They are friends of his and not the other way around. Jesus lays out that they are not on equal ground but subordinate to him. What does this type of friendship look like? In Jesus’ understanding of friendship it is distinct from a modern western understanding of friends as equals. There is no equity between Jesus and his
friends and yet he dies for those who are subordinate to him.
Jesus understood all too well what laid ahead for his disciples. And he wanted them to grow in love for each other, a love that would sacrifice, encourage and bind and unite through all the struggles they would face. God chose them for this specific time and place to take on his mission. They did not choose God, nor did they choose their mission. And it is the same with us. We always tend to feel that the initiative is on us but it is not. Like the disciples, Jesus chooses us, calls us friends, appoints us with the responsibility of
ambassadorship and gives us the task to bear fruit—share the message of salvation with the world. Friendship with Jesus is not divorced from risks, responsibilities and obedience. The very mission given the disciples, to preach the gospel would bring them into collision with worldly mindsets and the religious powers of the day.
Sometimes it seems as if Christians are sent out into the world to compete against one another, or dispute one another or even quarrel with one another. And many times this type of behavior weakens the Church’s witness. But if Christ’s Church remains obedient to the same mission Jesus gave to his disciples, to proclaim the Easter message of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and while doing so are called to deeply love one another, then that may mean dying to our pride, it may mean reaching out and bridging denominational boundaries in order to sustain the apostolic banding together, abiding in Jesus’ love and finding common ground.
It is both astounding and beyond belief, that the God of the universe through Jesus would call his followers friends, would want to die for them and hold nothing back from them. God’s friendship with his people brings great benefits and God has a special interest in the welfare of his people. Friendship with God is its own reward. Amen.