Let us turn again to God's Word in John chapter 15, the chapter we read, the 15th chapter in the Gospel according to St. John, and I'll read again from verse 12 through to the beginning of verse 16. Christ says, This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Greater loveth no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. But I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit.

I want really to take up the subject, the theme of Christ's friendship as he speaks of it in this short portion we've just read. In verse 13, following, He says, "...greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." You are My friends if you do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you. You have not chosen Me. but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit

in the opening part of the chapter the Lord Jesus is very much speaking of union with himself and communion with himself in the opening 11 verses he takes up this imagery of the vine declaring himself to be the true vine one of the great I am statements that we find scattered throughout this particular gospel I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman says the Lord Jesus and he speaks of believers as those who are as the branches in the vine and though they are to be fruitful branches Verse 8, Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. He speaks then of union. There can only be fruit as there is that union between Christ as the vine and his people as those who are the branches.

What does he say in verse 4? Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine. No more can ye except ye abide in me. The importance of that union. Well that's the first 11 verses. The theme that runs through that passage and then when we come to verse 12 through 17 he is speaking of a particular fruit. He speaks of that fruit of love.

at verse 12 this is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you greater loveth no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends and then at verse 17 these things I command you that ye love one another and what is the great motivation that his disciples should heed these words and and seek to know the communion and the fruits of that communion. What is it that would motivate them to be fruitful and fruitful in that Christian grace of love, the chief of all the graces? Now abide of faith, hope and charity or love. The greatest of these is love, says the Apostle.

Well, the motivation, of course, is in the Lord Jesus Christ It's in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks of that there in that 13th verse. Greater love. That no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. This is what he was about. to do, to make that one sacrifice. He's coming to the end of his ministry. These words, of course, are all part and parcel of those discourses, those valedictory discourses that John records here in these chapters before the great high priestly prayer in chapter 17.

He loves his disciples. and so he willingly gives himself for them because they are his friends they are his friends and yet in their very nature of course they were those who were in that state of alienation they were born dead in trespasses and sins enemies of God but now God commended his love toward us in that while we where yet in our sins Christ died for us says the Apostle to the Romans.

How God commends that love, the motivation is the great love of the Lord Jesus Christ that death that he so willingly died should move his disciples to seek to bear fruit to the honor and glory of his name.

But there's not only the the motivation that we should witness in the dying of the Lord Jesus. Think of the delightings of the Lord Jesus. He says, doesn't he, at the beginning of verse 16, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.

Now, the disciples all of them of course were chosen in him before the foundation of the world and now from eternity he has had that delight in those that the father had given to him in that eternal covenant he says doesn't he as the as the wisdom of God there in Proverbs 8 and 16. Then I was by Him as one brought up with Him. I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him. And my delights were with the children of men."

His delights were with the children of men, those that the Father had given to Him. He can speak of those children. that were given to him by God before the foundation of the world that in the fullness of time he would come to identify with, that he might live and that he might die for their salvation, all his delights.

It is so clear that the motivating cause then of any real fruitfulness is to be found in the Lord Jesus, his delights, He's dying for His people. And here we see Him speaking so much of love. If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love, He says in verse 10. And this is my commandment, that ye love one another.

And it's not just in this chapter. He says it time and again in the course of His ministry. back in verse 15 of chapter 14 if you love me keep my commandments and we are to love him because he is that one who was first loved us why is it that believers obey him and do his bidding? it's because of what he does in them we are so dependent upon him Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruits of itself except ye abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. Nothing.

Believers obey because of what God does in them. The grace of God to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling says Paul, because it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Think of those words that we have back in the Old Testament in Isaiah 26 and verse 12. Thou also hast wrought all our works in us, says the prophet. O Lord our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us, but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy Name, by Thee only. O what complete, what utter dependence there is then upon Him. Well, let us come to consider this theme that I announced just now, that of the friendship of Christ And as we have it set before us here, in particular at verses 14, 15 and the beginning of verse 16. Ye are my friends, he says, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit."

And I want really to deal with just two headings, two points for a while this evening. First of all, to think of this friendship in terms we might say of eternity, an eternal friendship. But then in the second place is that friendship that must be experienced here in time. An experimental friendship we might say.

Firstly then that eternal friendship which stretches back of course to God's great purpose. from before the foundation of the world. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And for whom was the Lamb to be slain? There was a people. As I've said, there were those children that God had given to him. And he comes and he identifies with them. He is made of a woman, he's made under the law. it's those who are the election of grace from amongst mankind and so we have it here, you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and now they are chosen clearly chosen in the Lord Jesus Christ this is why he delights so much in them you know the language of the apostle there in that great opening chapter of the Ephesians Epistle, there in Ephesians 1.3 following, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved."

It's all in Christ. That friendship, it stretches back then, before ever time was created. And here, of course, the Lord Jesus is speaking as that one who is the mediator of that covenant, the mediator of the New Covenant, as He's giving instruction to His disciples. And He is that one who is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament offices.

Remember the provision that God had made for His ancient people, the children of Israel, there were to be priests, there were to be prophets, there were to be kings or princes. And all of that is anticipating the one who would come in the fullness of the time and be all of those things, the great king of kings, the one who is the true prophet of the Lord, and that one who is the great high priest who has made the one sacrifice for sins forever

and how we see him here exercising his prophetic office really what does he say at the end of verse 15 I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my father I have made known unto you this was what he was charged with in the covenant that he would come and he would be the fulfillment of that office those men who the Lord see us and we read of their ministry throughout the Old Testament scriptures They made known to the people the words of the Lord.

But He is the fulfillment of all that had gone before. He is the very Spirit of prophecy. And He has made known these things to these men, His disciples, whom He addresses as His friends. All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

We know how In the outworking of the covenant, of course, God the Son, who is equal to the Father, equal to the Holy Spirit, in the great mystery of the doctrine of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, one God, and yet that one God subsisting in three distinct persons, but not three gods, or the great unity of the Godhead. But in the Covenant, how it is God the Son who becomes the servant. Behold My servant whom I uphold, Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth. I have put My Spirit upon you. Oh, He is that One that the Father has appointed to be the Saviour of sinners, and how the Spirit has anointed Him. For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

And so we see him fulfilling the prophetic office. The language of Amos chapter 3 and verse 7, Surely the Lord God will do nothing but revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. These things were revealed to Christ then. He was party to these things in that great Eternal Covenant, the Council of Peace, shall be between them both, we read in Zechariah 6.13.

And what does Christ come to do? He comes and He speaks of these things. He says here in chapter 7 and verse 16, My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me. The things I have heard of My Father, This is my father's doctrine that I'm making, no, my father's teaching. Go back to chapter 14 and verse 10, what does he say there? Addressing Philip, Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me. He doeth the works. He's about his father's business, all his days here upon the earth again what does he say there in verse 24 of chapter 14 he that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings and the word which ye hear is not mine but the father's which sent me all the time, you see.

He is that one who has come to serve the will of God in the outworking of the covenant. This is his office. And principally in these chapters, these valedictory discourses, we see him in his prophetic office. We'll go on to see him later, of course, in chapter 17, more in his priestly office. where we see him as a praying priest, and then subsequent to that in the final chapters we see him as a sacrificing priest, as he makes the one great sacrifice for sins. But all the time he is doing the Father's will.

Look at the way in which he prays in that 17th chapter. as He addresses the Father, there at verse 8, I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me. All these are His friends and they are His friends from all eternity, the ones that He delighted in in terms of those covenant engagements when they were given to him and he was to come in the fullness of the time and he was to be their teacher oh what a privileged position belongs to these then Christ's party you see to the eternal covenant and now communicating to them those great truths of the everlasting covenant again go back to the language that we find being employed in the third chapter here in John's Gospel. John chapter 3 and there at verses 31 and 32 the language of the Baptist his great harbinger, his forerunner. He says of verse 30 concerning Christ, He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthly and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth. And no man receiveth his testimony.

All those things that he had seen and heard, in the eternal covenant as he says here in this 15th verse back in chapter 15 I have called you friends why are you friends for all things that I have heard of my father I have made known unto you the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him He will show them His covenant.

This is what the Lord does. If we're those who are truly His friends, He'll show us His covenant. We'll have some understanding, some appreciation of this great covenant, the covenant of redemption. That that God's purposed from eternity and that was accomplished when the fullness of the time was come and Christ was born.

Remarkable, isn't it? All history revolves around that, you see. The fullness of the time. You think about it. Isn't human history revolving around that great incident? There was a time when we used to speak in terms of before Christ, B.C., and Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. and so we live now in 2025 it's over 2,000 years ago that the man Christ Jesus was born of a virgin there in Bethlehem now we live of course in a society that is ever more secularized and I'm sure you're aware that today certainly academics won't rather to speak of BCE and CE. They don't talk about BC anymore, before Christ, they say before the Common Era. And they certainly don't use the Latin expression Anno Domini, the year of our Lord, but they speak about CE, the Common Era.

But it makes no difference, does it? Because it's still 2025. They tried to wipe it away, as it were, but it's all in vain. All of history, all of history revolves around that glorious event, the fullness of the time, when God sent forth His only begotten Son, the eternal Son of the eternal Father. In that mystery, of the Incarnation God was manifest in the flesh and of course every event throughout the life of the Lord Jesus up to his death upon the cross all the outworking of that covenant ordered in all things and sure and he knew it he knew it he knew that the time would come And when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. He knew it. There were those occasions when the Jews would have seized him, they would have stoned him, they would have killed him. But his time was not yet come. For him there was a time to be born, a time to die.

But ought to be those, you see, who are his friends and he makes known the wonder of these things, his covenant. he says doesn't he in Matthew 11 27 all things are delivered unto me of my father and no man knoweth the son but the father neither knoweth any man the father save the son and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him all the son you see has a will to reveal the things of God

What a blessing it was for that man who was such a hater of Christians and a persecutor. Saul of Tarsus. Because in the mystery of God and the ways of God he was a chosen vessel. And he was to be converted. He pleased God, he says, to reveal his Son in me. The very God who had separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace revealed His Son in me. What do we know, friends? Do we know anything of that revelation, that inward revelation? Our eyes open to the wonders, the mysteries of this covenant of grace. Can we say that we know the friendship of Christ? Can we come in, in some small measure, into the words of this text? I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you, that ye should go forth and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father, in my name ye may give it.

Or do we just read them on the page of scripture and that's as far as it goes? Or do we have such a hungering and a thirsting after these things? We want to know what it is to enter into the reality of these blessed truths. There is an eternal friendship there. but oh how important that we understand that it must be more than that it must come into our experience and so turning in the second place to that the experimental friendship and that's the ministry isn't it of God the Holy Ghost it is the spirit who comes to reveal more to the friends of the Lord Jesus Christ what does the Lord go on to say later here in chapter 16 at verse 12 he says I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now.

Obey it when he the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all things for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to come where is the great promise you see that there will be another who must come who will be the teacher and that one of course is none other than God himself the third person in the Godhead God the Holy Spirit what is the day we're living in? it's the day of grace but sometimes we might refer to it as that dispensation of the Holy Ghost And when he comes, he comes as the Spirit of Christ.

You remember what John says back in chapter 7, verse 39. The Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Strange thing that John says there. It's a little parenthesis. It's the Lord teaching, isn't it, in the temple. the Feast of Tabernacles and he speaks of the ministry of the Spirit and John under the inspiration of that same Spirit says he was not yet given Jesus was not yet glorified of course he was given he was there he was there in creation the heavens were made it says by the breath of God's mouth by the breath of God's mouth, that's the Spirit.

The Spirit is there in creation together with the Father and the Son. The Spirit is there throughout the Old Testament in the work of regeneration, saving sinners. There were those in Israel who were the true Israel. Although the Lord had left unto us a very small remnant, says Isaiah in the opening chapter, there was always a very small remnant, the true people. the spiritual people of God, in the midst of ethnic Israel, in the midst of the nation. They're not all Israel, they're not all of Israel. But the Spirit was there, David knew Him. And David feared, did he not, that he had committed that sin against the Holy Ghost? Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

But there must be some significance in what John is saying here in chapter 7 and verse 39. The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. But then the day of Pentecost comes. And when the day of Pentecost comes, oh, there's such a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit of God. And it's the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Peter says there in his sermon in Acts 2.33, And doesn't Christ say as much here at the end of the chapter that we read? Verse 26, When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, ye shall testify of me.

Here we have it, all the persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Comforter, says Christ, whom I will send unto you from the Father. even the Spirit of Truth which proceeds from the Father. And what does He come to do? He shall testify of mine. He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. That's what the Lord goes on to say there later in chapter 16, verse 14, previously. Verse 13, He speaks of the Spirit of Truth. Be it when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak. And He will show you things to come, He shall glorify Me. He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of My and shall show it unto you.

Christ has finished His work. Christ has ascended on high. He has sent the Holy Ghost. And what are we to expect as a result of that blessed coming of the Spirit? We are to expect great things, great things.

Back in chapter 14, verse 12, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. What a word is that! You think of all the great works that the Lord Jesus Christ did whilst He was here upon earth, the remarkable miracles that He performed, And yet, greater, it says. But it's an interesting verse, isn't it? You will observe that the word works is in italics. In other words, it's been introduced in the translation. It literally says, and there's a double verily on this verse, verse 12 of chapter 14, So the Lord is not only underlining, he's underscoring what he's saying. He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater than these shall he do.

We're not to think in terms of the works of the Lord Jesus, but something greater. Something greater. And what is it that's greater? than all those mighty miracles and wonders well it's a greater spread of the gospel surely it is when we come to the opening chapter in the Acts previous to the day of Pentecost we're told what the number of the disciples were the number of names was 120. 120. The Lord had been ministering, what was it, three years? Multitudes had followed him, but oh, his ministry was such a weaning, winnowing ministry. And at the end there's only 120 disciples, it appears. And then the day of Pentecost comes, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, and the great outpouring of the Spirit of God. And 3,000 are converted. You see, these are the greater things, are they not?

The greatest bread of the Gospel, we go over to Acts chapter 10, and we see that this Gospel is not just for Jews, and proselytes, gentile converts to Judaism those were the ones who were present on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 but in chapter 10 of course it's the house of Cornelius and it's a gentile Pentecost then of course we have the record in the remainder of the Acts really of more especially the ministry of Paul who is called to be the apostle to the gentiles and I don't need to remind you how in Ephesians chapter 3 he speaks of that great mystery in some detail we've looked at it on previous occasions Ephesians 3 that mystery that was hid which is now revealed that this salvation that is in the Lord Jesus Christ is for Gentiles those who were so far off alienated the language of Ephesians the Ephesian church of course was a Gentile church primarily there would have been some Jews in that church doubtless but it was primarily made up of Gentiles but remember how Paul reminds them what they were There in Ephesians 4 verse 17, This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, the Martin says the hardness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all on cleanness with greediness

Gentile sinners having none of the privileges that belonged unto Israel and yet this gospel is for such sinners as those all the greater things and the God you see should should have friends amongst Gentiles that this great salvation that Christ himself is making known to his first disciples should come to Gentile sinners I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my father I have made known unto you

but here in the course of all these discourses he's so much speaking of that other teacher who will come when he has accomplished all his great work and that blessed ministry of the spirit and what a work it is because we know that real religion is spiritual in its very nature every saved sinner must be born again there's no changing of our fallen nature. That that is born of the flesh is flesh. That that is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Says Christ, Therefore say I unto you, ye must be born again. And how are they born? They are born from above. They are born by the Spirit of God.

And how the Apostle in his epistles spells these things out time and again when he writes there to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 10 God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. What man knoweth the things of man, sayeth the Spirit of man which is in him. Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual bites. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for their foolishness unto him neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Lord, that blessed ministry of the Spirit, we need Him. And isn't this the great promise of the New Covenant? that God's going to work in the souls of men, that God's going to do something inward, in the very depths of a man's being. He's going to write his law upon the hearts of men. That's the promise, isn't it? The promise that we find back in the ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah there in Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 33 this shall be the covenants that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. And those very words are taken up, they're taken up by Paul in Hebrews chapter 8. where he speaks so clearly of Christ as the mediator of the new covenant. The old has gone! The old has gone! It's a new covenant. It's a spiritual work that must be done in the soul of every saved sinner.

It is written in the prophets, they shall be all taught of God, says Christ. Every man therefore that hath heard and have learned of the Father cometh unto me. Oh the Father teaches and how does the Father teach? Does he not teach in and by the blessed work of God the Holy Spirit? John says you have an unction from the Holy One and you know all things and again he says the anointing which you have received of him abides in you and you need not that any man teach you but that the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie and even as it hath taught you you shall abide in him and isn't the Lord speaking of abiding in him here these who are his friends you see they're not simply eternal friends in terms of their position, their place in God's goodness and mercy in the eternal covenant, the children that were given to Him.

But they have to experience these things, they have to know that blessed ministry of the Spirit, they have to become in reality His friends. Once alienated and enemies in their minds, and yet now, made nice, made nigh by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and Christ has accomplished it by giving himself as that great sacrifice greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends he has done the deed he has accomplished their redemption, their salvation but all other spirits, of whom he is speaking so much in these chapters, is the one, of course, who in that other aspect of the outworking of the covenant in the lives of his friends, the friends of Christ, how it is the spirit prerogative to teach them and to make application of these blessed truths of the Gospel.

Christ says, Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Oh, the Lord be pleased to grant that we might know these truths. And surely if we know these truths in our soul's experience, what will be the outcome? We must be those who would practice these very truths, who would live to the honor and glory of this God, who would be those who desire only to abide in Christ, because we know there's no other way of fruitfulness except we're found in Him.

Abide in me, he says, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine. No more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, he says, ye can do nothing. O ye have not chosen me, I have chosen you and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.

O the Lord, then bless his truth to us, for his glory for our good. Amen.