“You are my friends…” Jesus told his disciples, His phílos – a friend; someone dearly loved (prized) in a personal, intimate way; a trusted confidant, held dear in a close bond of personal affection, because they loved Him and followed His commands.
This is an amazing statement made by the Creator of the universe, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God, and yet Jesus demonstrated to this group of twelve men, what this kind of love looked like. Jesus dearly loved these men personally, intimately. He treated them as trusted confidants, as He shared the truths of the kingdom with them, and demonstrated a personal affection in an intimate way, by washing their feet just hours before He made this declaration.
We too, if we love Jesus, are called friends. Because we have been called friends of Christ, He gives us this warning as well, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
The contrast between the friends of God and the world is diametric. For God so loved the world that He gave and the world hates Him and it will hate those who love Him.
But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. John 15:21-27
Jesus promised His friends a Helper, One who would never leave or forsake. One who would be a comfort, a strength, and the power to love, even when the world hates. The world will hate us, as it hates Jesus and the Father, but the Helper will give us the supernatural power to love the world, as Christ loved the world. It is only through the Holy Spirit can we love.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:7-12
Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Jesus speaks hard truths because He loves us enough to expose the lies of the world and bring eternal healing. Jesus’ words and actions lined up so that we could walk in His example, in grace and truth and love.