to Proverbs 17. And when you do, put something in there to mark
your place. I thought that's the first one
we were going to go to, but it's not. But we will get there, so mark
your place. Now go back to John chapter 15. In our adult Bible class, we
are going through the book Song of Solomon. I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I'll leave it to the ones attending
to let you know how they feel about it, but I'm enjoying the
study of it, learning things I didn't know, seeing Christ
in ways I had not thought of before. But in the section we were looking
at today, I thought I was going to go over several verses, but
in one place, Solomon, who represents the Lord Jesus Christ in the
story, refers to his beloved, who represents the church in
the story, as his friend. His friend. And as I was preparing for it,
I thought, these details I'm going to mention about a friendship
will make a good message, so I'll just lightly touch on them.
in the Sunday school class and then expand on them somewhat
further. But they ended up using the whole
Sunday school class. So those who were here for Sunday school
are going to get a, well, the extended version of what they
already heard. But I hope that all of us gain
a blessing out of this. Kings. And I'm talking about
kings in all the kingliness you can think of that word. Don't have many, if any, friends. Sometimes they don't have any
friends because they don't think anybody's worthy to be their
friend. Sometimes they don't have any
friends because by the very nature of man, if you're the king, that
means there's plenty of people out there gunning for you. And
so you're always suspicious of everybody, and you've got to
keep them at arm's length, lest, if you trust them as you normally
would friends, they betray you. Do you remember Judas? When Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus, as he
approached, he said to the Lord, hail, master. And he says, and he kissed him
on the cheek. And the Lord says, friend, why have you come? And then Judas kissed him. And
he says, will you betray the son of man with a kiss? Oh, friendship is the disguise
of a betrayer. So kings can't afford to have
friends. They have advisors. They have
those to whom they will reveal some things. But if they're wise,
there won't be anyone who knows everything. Kings don't have friends. But our Lord Jesus says this
to his disciples, In John chapter 15, verse 15, I no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know what his master's business, or
does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends. Now, they did not know the powerful
significance of that statement. And I'll admit, I have not given
it due consideration. A friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have rubbed shoulders with
people who are moderately famous. A fellow that I went to school
with. He was a year younger than me
and he played trumpet like I did. Well, he didn't play it like
I did. Like me, he played trumpet a whole lot better than I do
or ever did. In fact, he was so good by the
end of the ninth grade, he quit band because he was playing professionally. Went after high school, he went
to Berklee School of Music, ended up, changed the saxophone, ended
up playing with Diana Ross and other famous people. Went out
to LA, became a composer for movies and video games, you know.
His name, you can look him up on IMDB, you'll find his name. I've told people Well, he's my
friend because that's the closest thing, but really that's not
what it was. We don't know each other that
well. I mostly knew that as long as
he was in the band, I could never be first chair. It just wasn't
going to happen. Friends. What a remarkable relationship. When kids are teenagers. You
know, they think that if anyone doesn't like them, just one person
said, I don't like, you know, expresses dislike. Oh, I don't
have any friends. You know, well, if you, in your
lifetime, if you have four or five real friends, you are rich
in friends. I realize in this assembly, I
know we're very rich in friends because we're one another's friends. But teenagers, you know, haven't
lived enough life to realize friendship, real friendship,
is a rare thing. You can have plenty of buddies
that you can share some time with and enjoy being with. A
friend. That's something else. That's
something more. You can have acquaintances that
you would enjoy a cup of coffee with. But you wouldn't call them
friends. But our Lord Jesus says, I don't
call you servants. Now, what a blessing it would
be to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, wouldn't it? Paul
called himself a servant of Jesus Christ, and he thought that was
a high calling. And we are, in some sense, servants
of our Lord Jesus Christ, because in our deepest hearts, we are
ready to do whatever he says. Sometimes we don't know exactly
what it is he's saying. At other times, the world is
talking so loud, we don't hear what he's saying. But if we stop and consider and are convinced that there's
something He desires from us, we gladly do it, we gladly give
it. We would say, yes, Lord, yes,
Master, I'll do that. And I tell you, for us to be a servant of the Creator,
That's a remarkably high calling. But our Lord says, I no longer
call you servants, I call you friends. Now, servants in a household,
they might have the affection of the master. He might love
them in a father-child sort of way. But servants and masters do not
become friends. When it comes time of the evening
to sit down for the meal, you'll know right away who is the master
and who are the servants. When it comes to the end of the
day, folks are going to go to bed, you'll be able to tell right
away who's the master, and who are the servants, and who are
the master's friends. Because the master and his friends
are going to stay in the nice house, the servants are either
going to go to other quarters outside or to lesser places within
the house. There's always a division, a
wall, a distinction between master and servant. Not so with friends. And our Lord says, I call you
friends. Any good friend or any friend,
really, because there's no such thing as a bad friend. Somebody
has a bad friend. They aren't a friend. Friend
is by its very nature a good thing. So if you have a friend,
you have a good thing. But if God calls you friend.
If our Lord Jesus calls you friend, what an amazing thing to consider.
What is it to be friends with God? Well, friends are those who have
mutual love and regard for one another. You cannot say a friendship exists
until it's two way. Our Lord loved us before we ever
loved him back and he did friendly things for us before we ever
were friendly toward him. But in truth there was not a
friendship until by the grace of God we were made to love him
and we became his friend. because we saw that he had been
acting the part of our friend. Mutual love and regard. It was said of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and they said it with contempt, this man is the friend
of sinners and tax collectors. And he was. He certainly behaved
as a friend towards them. He associated with them. He did
not say, well, all right, I'll talk to you, but you stand over
there, don't come near me. He was right among them. In fact,
they went further and said, this man receives sinners, meaning
welcomes them, and even sits down and eats with them. He's the friend of sinners. that's one reason a lot of people
are not willing to have him as a friend. They don't want that
title. He is not a friend of the righteous
in the sense that the Pharisees were called the righteous. He's
not their friend. And they're not his. They're
not upset that he's not their friend. But mutual love and regard. Now,
taking this understanding of friendship and applying it to the fact that
our Lord said, I don't call you servants, I call you friends. Well, we understand our love
and regard of Him. I mean, why wouldn't we? He's
lovely. He's deserving of our regard.
our attention, our desires for. That makes sense to us. Think
on this. With even greater love and regard,
He looks on us. Oh, how I love Jesus. And I tell
you that, you know, and it's true. Every believer loves the
Lord Jesus Christ. Would you like to put your love
for Him up against His for you? Would you like to compare? Oh, how I love Jesus. And on
the one hand, I don't find fault with that song because we do
love him. And there's nothing wrong with
expressing the fact that we love him. But I'm reminded of a story
I heard about when that song first came out sometime in the
late 1800s. And there'd been this, it was
a revival meeting or something, but you know, it had been introduced
and they'd been singing at every meeting. And finally one old
man said, I am getting tired of singing about my love for
Christ. Can we sing about his love for
me? That's what amazes me. I have
every reason to love him. He has no reason to love me. Mutual love and regard. So friends, if we're the friend
of God, the friends of our Lord Jesus Christ, you love Him, you
regard Him with affection, with, how would you put it? You'd do
anything for Him. Do you realize He regards you
the same way? So what do you mean He'd do anything
for you? He already has. He died, and
I mean he died a real and complete death for you. He's our friend, and he counts
us to be his friends. Here's another thing. A friend
is a chosen person. You choose your friends. You've
probably heard the phrase, You choose your friends, but you're
stuck with your family. That's handed to you, and they're
your family no matter what you think of them. You can't change
it. And we do feel an obligation to put up with nearly anything
and everything they do. We've got to tolerate. That's
family, and you don't separate from family. But your friends.
You're friends with people that you want to be friends with.
And if you don't want to be friends with them, you may be polite
to them. You may treat them decently,
but you don't call them friends. A friend is chosen. The Lord
Jesus said in verse 16, he said, you did not choose me. Now we're
still in John 15, but verse 16, you did not choose me, but I
choose, chose you. I chose you. Now that doesn't
mean he's not saying that we never choose him. He's talking
about how the friendship got started. Because after all, there
were people, you have natural friends that chose you before
you chose to be their friend. They saw you, they wanted to
be your friend, they wanted to establish a friendship, and they
approached you and did what they could to establish a friendship.
And if you did establish a friendship with them, that's because you
chose to be their friend, to answer their friendliness in
a positive way. But our Lord's saying, you all
didn't start this friendship. I did. And isn't that true? were born flesh. And the Scriptures
say the flesh is enmity with God. And I like the way that
that's put. It doesn't just say the flesh is at enmity, it says
the flesh is enmity with God. We came into this world with
a hostile notion about God. We were not aware of it. I mean,
well, you know, we were babies. We weren't consciously aware
of anything except when we got hungry, you know, or uncomfortable. But once we were able to begin
to think and have self-thought, we considered ourselves to be
God. I've mentioned before that one
of the most important lessons that parents teach their children
is this, there is a God and it's not you. Why? And I've read that, you know,
psychologists have shown this. When babies come into the world,
they think they are the only person that exists. They are
unable to distinguish between themselves and their environment.
You know, they say, oh, they instantly love their mother.
No, they think their mother is just another extension of them.
It takes a while before they understand that, well, mom is
a different person than me, or that thing over there is not
me. They call that separation an
individuation. And it keeps on going throughout
the growing up process. But one thing that we never get
over naturally is the idea that the whole universe ought to act
the way we want it to, which is to say, we think we're God. We don't get over that until
this one who chose us makes himself known to us. Even religious people who claim
there is another God, it's a God of their own invention. And when
it comes right down to it, all they have done is taken what
they think they are and made a God out of it. No, we come into this world terribly
unfriendly towards God. But He loved us, and He did what
was necessary to change our opinion of ourselves and our opinion
of Him, and we who were enemies were reconciled and became friends. Oh, how blessed it is to be chosen
of God. And from that sovereign choice
of His, He sends His Spirit, who doesn't knock on the door
of our heart. He knocks it down, because we
never open. He knocks it down and shines
the light of God's glory in the face of Christ right into that
dark, nasty place of our inner being. And He brings us the light
of the knowledge of God and the glory of God in the face of Christ.
And we're blown away by it. And we say, you know, as Charles
Wesley, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's
blood? We're in wonder that God would
care, but he reveals more. He said, it's not just that.
It's not just this distant God creature relationship that I'm
making here. It's not that I'm simply going
to save you all so that I can parade you around for my glory,
though indeed we will be to the praise of the glory of his grace.
He saved us and he is intent on having a relationship with
us relationship called friendship. Now, he describes other relationships.
He's a father to us, he's a husband to us, but he's a friend to us. Friend is chosen. Now, save your spot there at
John 15 because we will be back. Now, let's go to Proverbs 17.
This is the first Bible verse I ever had to memorize. And you know, there's a lot of
firsts in my life. I've got an image of the event
because I remember we lived in Springfield, Virginia, and I
went through the first grade there. But this, you know, I
could have been in kindergarten or even I wouldn't have been
in preschool because I didn't have it back then, but I would
have been that age. But, you know, I was blessed by God to
be involved in churches that thought it was important that
we children learn the Bible stories and Bible verses. Memorize them.
The first one was this, Proverbs 17, 17. It was only the first
half of it. A friend loves at all times. Now friends fall out with one
another. Friends get angry at each other.
But friends love each other. And if you have a friend and
y'all fall out, something happens because we're that way. We're
offensive and easily offended. And it, and it makes a breach
in that relationship. Here's how, you know, if there's
a real friend, it'll eventually get patched. There's because
the love remains. It just takes us time sometimes
to lick our wounds. If we've been the offended one,
it takes us a while before we're willing to overcome our pride
or whatever. Now, there's circumstances that
come up in life that friends end up on opposite parts of the
country or whatever. Their lives take such turns.
They don't see each other much. But I've noticed this about friends.
They can go years without seeing one another. And when they do,
they pick up where they left off. A friend loves at all times. A friend loves you when everything's
going well for you, and a friend loves you when you're down. You
know what it's like to be, you know, the wealthy. They probably
never know if they have real friends because they're going
to have people surrounding them because they're wealthy. And
people trying to act like friends and establish friendships, but
really what they're interested in is the money. But a friend
loves you when you're poor, loves you when you're rich, loves you
when you're healthy, loves you when you're sick, loves you when
you're having a nice day and you're all cheerful, loves you
when you're having a crabby day and you're really not that easy
to be around. A friend loves all the time. Now our friendship or our love
towards Christ, it's constant but not always
as evident, quite obviously. But is it not a wonderful thing
to know that the love that our friend Jesus Christ has for us
has never changed? He loved us, the scriptures say,
with an everlasting love. A love, and this is the only
way we can say it, it began before time. And when time is no more,
it'll still be there. And nothing that happens in time
makes any change in that love. Friendship is constant. Our legalistic flesh always thinks
that God's love toward us, Christ's affections for us, are dependent
upon the level of obedience that we are rendering to Him. But I remember reading in this
book, I think it was called What's So Amazing About Grace, and I
didn't read the book, I was just in one of these so-called Christian
bookstores, and I was just leafing through it, because I thought,
well, that's an interesting title, What's So Amazing About Grace?
Because everybody sings Amazing Grace, well, what's so amazing
about it? And at the beginning of each chapter, the author would
just have a one or two line statement, that would summarize what the
whole chapter is going to be. And I don't remember any of them
but one. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less. There's nothing you can do to
make God love you more. Because his love for us is not
based on what we do. A friend is constant, loves at
all times. And while we love him, if we
love him at all, we love him all the time, but the biggest
problem with our love for God is probably this, there's a lot
of other things we love too and they get in the way. But he loves us always, constantly. A friend is someone with shared
interests. It's difficult to be a friend
with someone who you really don't have anything in common. You know, I've got a lot of people
that I think are fine people, but, and I'm talking here in
terms of natural things. They may be great sports enthusiasts,
but there are no common ground there. Sports just ain't my thing. And if they don't like music
and to talk about it or to listen to it, probably not going to
be a whole lot of a friendship there. Now, you and I, we have
something in common, don't we? We have a shared interest in
Christ. I can be friends with any believer
over that, even if he's all about football and I'm all about, well,
was that in the key of C or D? But we all frankly got something
in common. And our Lord Jesus and us, we
have shared interests. The Lord is consumed with the
safety and glory of his church. And we are consumed with the
glory and vindication of Christ. Now he's already been glorified,
but people of this world don't see that. And if there's anything
that'll get us upset, it's when someone besmirches
the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, you're watching TV.
And I don't know about everybody's got different levels of vulgarity
and all that that they can put up with. And I mean, you know,
and we're having to put up with more and more of it. If you're
watching TV, you know, and you think, man, that was a good story.
I wish they quit running it with that kind of talk. But then they just, somebody
will holler out our Lord's name and they aren't saying it like,
well, what a wonderful person he is. They're using it to express
their. dissatisfaction with something.
They're cursing, using his name in vain. And I tolerate it because
it's just there. What else are you going to do?
I can't, you know, I don't, I don't know of any way that I can get
the audio on the television to catch that before it comes out.
But it takes a whole lot out of the enjoyment of the show.
Aren't you the same way? Now they can say a lot of, you
know, what's called dirty words and you just let them go on by.
going to hear them out in the real world, you know, they start
profaning the name of your Lord and then it's a different matter. And I can, we can tolerate religious
differences until they present a Jesus that's dishonoring to
the real one. Then we get upset. He's interested
in our glory. Imagine that. He's interested
in our glory. He's interested in us being made
glorious like him. And he is interested, believe
it or not, because he's going to see to it this happens. He
is interested that the world recognizes us for the glorious
elect of God that we are. And you might think, well, I
don't feel very glorious. Yeah, but that's how he sees you. I love my wife. I thought she was beautiful from
the day I met her. Don't tell me she's not. I'm going to argue
with you. I am interested in everybody
thinking she's one of the best women to walk the earth. I am. And the Lord is interested. that
the rest of the world knows his bride, his church, none like
him. Remember the book of Revelation,
it says, and they shall know I have loved you. They kept saying
God didn't. They said that to our Lord. Oh,
you say, you know, that you're of God. Where's God now? What a thing to think that the
Lord Jesus Christ thinks it's important that the whole world
recognizes that He loves us and has made us to be like Him. Now, it's no surprise at all
to us that we really look for that day when every knee shall
bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. Isn't that going to be wonderful?
Won't it be great that day when our Lord returns and the world's
going on about its business. It's still persecuting believers.
It's mocking them. Some of them maybe persecuting
violently and saying, there is no God. That's a bunch of nonsense.
You all are just a bunch of You're just like backward pagans. You
don't know what's going on, and suddenly the sky opens. We hear
the shout of God, the voice of the archangel, the trump of God,
and the dead in Christ shall rise, and the Lord is going to
make us like unto himself, and he's going to tell the world,
I told you so. I told you so. You see these
people? They're mine. See how glorious
they are? See how beautiful my bride is?
bow to me with her at my right hand. No small thing to be the friend
of the Lord Jesus Christ. A friend is someone that you
spend time with. The church delights in its time
spent with Christ and is promised to forever and always be with
the Lord. Christ prayed, Father, I would
that those you have given me would be with me where I am,
that they may behold my glory. Now think that. Our Lord's praying, and that
comes from John 17. You are getting as deep into
the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ as you will at any time when
you read that prayer. Here's what I want. I want the
ones you've given me to be with me. That's actually the scripture
that Brother Bruce preached out of in his wife's funeral. And he mentioned, you know, he says,
I pray not for the world, but for those that you've given me.
And Bruce went on and he said, you know, we'd known each other
since we were little children and we became sweethearts in
the eighth grade. And we got married right out
of high school. And we'd been married for 51
years. That was my wife. She was mine. But before she
was mine, she was his. He kind of entitled the message,
Why Did My Wife Die? And he says, here's why. In answer
to the prayer of Jesus Christ, Father, I would that those you've
given me would be with me. And even as he sorrowed over
the loss of his wife, he wasn't upset at Christ. He says, am
I going to be upset with my wife for leaving? Because she beholds
his face. That's what she's wanted all along. Will I be upset with
Christ? He wasn't using these words,
but communicating these thoughts. Would I be upset with Christ
that he called her? Well, am I going to be upset
that my Lord and master got what he prayed for? Oh, to think that He wants us
even more than we want Him. A friend is a confidant. Here's
the most remarkable truth, at least as I look at this, and
we're back in John 15. He says, I don't call you servants
anymore because a servant doesn't know what his master's doing.
You know, masters don't tell servants what their agenda is,
they just say, go over and do such and such. It's kind of like
in the military, you know, they say, see a pile of dirt. Yeah.
We'll pile it over there. Okay. And so you, you don't know
why you don't know if it's going to serve a purpose. You don't
even know if it has a purpose other than giving you something
to do. Friends are confidants. They tell you what's going on.
You know what? We know what's happening. Now,
I don't mean that we know the details of the future. We know
what God is doing right now. Whatever's going on and whatever
he sends us to do, we know what he's doing. He is glorifying
his son through the preaching of the gospel. by which he is
finding and calling and bringing all of his sheep to himself.
And they shall all be one fold. And in the end, they shall all
be glorified to be like him. He shall call them his beloved.
He shall call them his bride. He will call them his friends."
That's what's going on. No matter, you know, you read
the newspaper and they say, you know, they'll tell you this is
what's going on. No, this is what's happening. What's going
on is God is fulfilling his eternal purpose of salvation in Jesus
Christ and gathering together his elect for eternal blessedness.
That's what's going on. The other stuff's just happening. A friend is one who will tell
you the truth. Our Lord Jesus Christ, not everything
he says is pleasant to hear. So if you've got a good friend,
they'll tell you the truth. We ever get all upset about something. Well, we all do. When I ask these
questions, they are rhetorical questions. I know what the answer
is. Somebody does something that
bothers you, and it's just one of those days, things can get
under your skin, and I know what it's like, it gets under your
skin, and even though, way back in your mind, you're thinking,
this is no big deal, get over it, but you can't. And so you
begin to justify your attitudes, and you go, well, I'm gonna fix
this, I'm gonna do that, you know, and all that, and a real
friend will come up to you and say, listen, and they may have
to say it kinda stern, acting kind of childish here. I'm your friend, but let me tell
you the truth. Let this thing go. It ain't worth it." I told one of my preacher friends
one time, about some interactions I had. And boy, I thought I'd done so
good, you know, and stood up and all that. He goes, well,
that wasn't very nice. And that made me mad at him for
a little while. Then I got to thinking, well,
he's right. That wasn't very nice. I thought I'd been such,
so right. Instead, I'd been so very wrong.
tell you the truth. Our Lord tells us the truth.
He tells us we're sinners. But He also tells us He died
for us. And He tells us everything's going to be okay. And you know
something? Once He has won our hearts, we tell Him the truth. We quit playing games with Him,
don't we? We quit playing those religious games where we try
to tell Him we're righteous, and we admit we're sinners. A friend will do his friend's
will. John 15, 14, you are my friends
if you do what I command. Now people try to make something
legal out of this. I mean, and they'll even think,
oh yeah, that means you got to keep the 10 commandments. He
says down here, let me find it quick. Verse 17. He said, now
you're my friends if you do what I command. This is my command.
Not commands. This is my command. Love each other. Can we go back to the Sabbath
keeping and tithe giving? That's a whole lot easier than
loving one another. I've heard people say, you know,
well, you don't want to be under the law because that's too hard.
You just want to do that love thing. You try loving, really
loving someone. It's work. And the ones that
love you, they're working at it. But here's this command, and
you know, if you don't love the people of God, I'm not saying that you like
them. Some of them are rather unlikable.
Love's a different thing. If you don't love them, you probably
don't love the one who does. You talk about, well, imagine this. Somebody
comes up to you and says, you know, I just don't care for your
children. Well, that's the end of your relationship with that
person, aren't you? And they may tell you some good
reasons not to like your children. It doesn't matter. That's your
children. Somebody doesn't like your children, you don't like
them. Well, are you saying you don't
love God's people? You probably don't love him either.
It doesn't mean he doesn't love you. He may, but if he loves
you, he's eventually going to change your heart on that matter.
And then lastly, a friend sacrifices for a friend. If you have a real friend, there's
nothing that you wouldn't give up for them. They needed a kidney
and one of yours at work, you'd give it. I realized we have more
than one friend. And sometimes, I mean, we've
got responsibilities, you know, you, you got your children to
care for and all that. I understand that. What I'm saying
is within the realm of what's possible to us, there's nothing
we wouldn't do for a friend. Well, nothing's outside the realm
of possibility with God. And he's going to do anything
and everything necessary to bring all of his friends to eternal
happiness. And we reciprocate in whatever
way we can. We love doing what he wants and
the biggest regret of a believer is that he's so poor at getting
done what the Lord calls on us to do. Is that true of you? I'm not
saying that we have to go around all the time, you know, again
with our chin on the ground, oh, I'm so awful. I'm just saying
that of all the things we regret, and we have many things to regret,
don't we? I mean, I regret how I've treated
people, I've done stupid things, done selfish things, I imagine
everybody just about has some regrets about how they treated
their parents, you know, and we did some pretty regrettable
things, didn't we? But, oh, I regret how I've treated the Lord because He's done nothing but
good for me. I regret so much that I can love what He hates
so much. And that's why I really do look
forward to laying this body down and being done with everything
that has to do with this flesh and this world, to be made like
him, to behold the face of my friend and love him perfectly and do
for him perfectly. and glorify Him perfectly. Until then, what do we do? We
do the best we can. We praise His name and then,
sorry, Lord, for that praise. I know it's not what it should
have been, best I can do. I no longer call you servants.
Oh, we're not under that system anymore. Servants only get the
blessings of the master when they do well. He says, I call
you friends and I've let you in on what's going on. And I
love you. I'm one that loves at all times.
You and I share a common interest. We like being around each other.
So much so that eventually that's going to be our eternal condition. And thus he was called the friend
of God. May God grant it to be so.