In the sermon 'Friends of the King,' Jason Dohm discusses John 15:15-17, emphasizing the transition from being servants to friends of Jesus. This shift signifies a deeper, more intimate relationship, highlighted by the sharing of Jesus' teachings and purposes with his disciples. Jesus' friendship with believers is foundational, surpassing even the master-servant dynamic, and is fundamentally rooted in love and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The sermon also highlights the privilege of living under the new covenant, where believers enjoy a closer relationship with God. Lastly, the sermon stresses the importance of love, as obedience and fruitfulness are intrinsically linked to loving one another as Jesus loved us.

Good morning. Today's sermon texts come from John chapter 15 verses 15 through 17. For context I will start at verse 9. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all things that I hear from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you. These things I command you that you love one another." Father, thank you for the immense wonderfulness of this truth.

Lord, may it truly impact our souls so deep. Lord, help overcome any disbelief in our hearts. Lord, help us to be absolutely changed by this. Lord, would you use Jason to preach mightily today in Jesus' name, Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is Friends of the King.

It goes without saying, Jesus is the King and we are his friends, all those who are in Christ. This is an astonishing truth. Maybe I should just stop and make us think on that for a second. If you are in Christ, you are not just a slave of the King, but a friend of the King. Keep saying this week by week, we are in a single continuous discourse.

It began in chapter 13, it will extend through chapter 17. It's remarkable in that sense. There's really outside maybe the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7. There's nothing like it in the New Testament. So we should relish being here because it's Jesus talking at length with His disciples.

It is a parting shot. He is 24 hours from the cross or less. And He is teaching and encouraging His disciples one last time. Here is how it began. If you want to turn to 13 verse 1, here's how these five chapters of Jesus' discourse began.

Now, before the feast of Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. So John the Gospel writer in chapter 13 verse 1 sets the stage. This is about Jesus' love for his disciples. He loved them all the way to the very end.

During the course of these five chapters, again and again and again and again, we are going to hear Jesus speak words of love and friendship. Again, He is about to die. And He keeps saying, a little while longer. In other words, I am getting ready to not be with you. With these words of love and friendship, he's establishing his disciples.

And he's comforting his disciples. He's making them ready for his death. Chapter 15, which we're now in, starts with an agricultural word picture. Here's a vine dresser and a vine and branches. This agricultural word picture is great for describing fruitfulness, growth, and increase, but it's not so great for communicating love and joy.

So a vine and the branches can only get you so far with what Jesus wants to communicate. He does want to communicate about life and flourishing and increase, fruit bearing. And so The agricultural word picture serves that purpose, but it doesn't serve very well the purpose of communicating Jesus' deep love for His disciples, and His desire that they would be filled to the fullest with his joy. So in last week's text he backed away from the agricultural word picture and spoke directly to them of his love for them and of his desire that they would be filled up with his joy. So that's where we are in the text.

As we come to this week's text, let's ask for the Lord's help. Jesus, I thank you for your Word. Where would we be without it? We'd be left to our thoughts and our ways. What a terrifying thought that we would be left alone to our own thoughts, our own sensibilities, our own ways.

We would never dare to think that we are your friends without your Word. Who are we that we should be your friends? Yet your Word is truth. Jesus so clearly declares in our text that his disciples are called his friends. He calls us his friends.

Praise you for that. And I pray that you would help this truth to penetrate our hearts. This thing that is so difficult to believe, you would help us to believe it. And to marinate it, to marinate in it as it were, to have it sink down deep into our hearts so that it affects how we view our walk with you. I pray this in Jesus name.

Amen. We have three verses. We'll just look at them individually. I think that's the simplest way. John 15 Verse 15, follow along as I re-read it.

Jesus says, No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you Friends, for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you." In this verse we have friends who are taking into the confidence of the King. So if you're taking notes on the handout and you're filling in blanks, confidence fills in the blanks. Friends who are taken into the confidence of the King. We have a King who shares his mind with us.

Not as if we were just simply palace servants, but that we are also his friends. Your friends you take into your confidence. Jesus has taken his disciples into his confidence. In John 13 verse 13, we should be thinking the same discourse, because we are in the same teaching session of Jesus. John 13 verse 13, Jesus said, You call me teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.

So in this very same discourse, Jesus isn't backing away at all from being the teacher, the disciples being the students, from Jesus being the Lord, and from the disciples being the servants. So we know that the disciples call Jesus teacher and Lord and rightly so. Now we see what Jesus calls His disciples and that it is changing. What Jesus calls His disciples is changing. He says, no longer do I call you servants.

Now does that mean that they are no longer His servants? No way! Decades later, Decades later, 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 1, Peter will introduce himself this way. Simon Peter, a bond servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. Bond servant is a rendering of the exact same word that is here in our text, no longer do I call you servants.

Well, two decades plus later Peter will say, I am a bond servant. I am a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. It's the same Greek word, doulos, and it can either be rendered faithfully as servant or as slave. Here's what the Greek lexicon says, One who gives himself to another's will. My will is not what matters any longer.

The master's will matters. And the Greek word rendered master, kurios, is normally translated in our Bibles as Lord. It's what the disciples are always calling him. So it's rendered master in this particular case. But it's the exact same Greek word that is almost always rendered Lord.

And it means, he to whom a person belongs, you own me. About which he has the power of deciding. I decide what happens with you. So you have servant and Lord. One who gives up his will sets aside his own will for another and then the one to whom this person belongs who has the power of deciding, their companion terms.

That is still true of Jesus and his disciples. They still fit the bill for servant or doulas, slave. And he still fits the bill as master, Lord, the one to whom they belong, who has the power of deciding for them. And yet, Jesus is now viewing something else as more fundamental to their relationship. So that's still true of their relationship.

He's still Lord and Master. They're still servants and slaves. That's still true. It's in place. We can tell that from Peter two decades later.

Simon Peter, a bond servant of Jesus Christ. But now, at this point in time and forward, Jesus is viewing something else as more fundamental to their relationship than the master-slave relationship. What's more fundamental? Friendship. Their relationship is defined more by friendship than even the authority submission relationship that still exists.

Friendship. His death and the subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit to permanently indwell believers that is different from the coming and going of the Holy Spirit that we see all throughout the Old Testament. This permanent indwelling that begins on the day of Pentecost changes everything. It's a game changer. It means that friendship, ongoing unbroken fellowship is more fundamental to the relationship between Jesus and his disciples than even the authority and submission relationship which is still intact.

Now, who is Jesus? If we went to the nursing home to hear Gary preach, we would hear him say, Jesus is God, again and again, week after week. So I'll say it. Jesus is God. In Revelation 19, Jesus appears with a name written on His thigh.

King of kings and Lord of lords. But even the most exalted kings are allowed to have friends. Right? Think in human terms. The most exalted kings, The ones who claim the most absolute authority are still allowed to have friends.

They still have friends while not giving up their status as supreme. The king's friends are his friends while simultaneously being his subjects. Test that. Is that true? The king's friends are his friends while simultaneously being his subjects.

So when you see friends in our texts, don't in your mind, because of our modern view of friendship, think peers. Jesus is saying, you are my friends. He is not saying you are my peers. He is still supreme. He is still Lord and we are still servants.

But he says, I don't call you servants, I call you friends. Just because I'm supreme doesn't mean I can't have friends. Don't have friends. So how are these friends of the King different? They enjoy privileges and insights into the King's doings that his Normal servants never do.

Friends of the King enjoy a couple of things that the normal servants or the normal subjects of the kingdom don't enjoy. They enjoy privileges. They enjoy insights into the King's doing simply by the fact that they have access and relationship with the King. It makes them different. Their access to the King and their relationship that is fundamentally different based on friendship gives them privileges and insights that the others don't have.

The King's normal servants are on a need to know basis. The king only explains to them what they need to know to perform their duties as servants. If you don't need to know it to do your job, the king doesn't tell it to you. You're on a need to know basis if you're a normal servant of the king. But the king's friends, while still his subjects, understand why he is doing what he is doing.

In fact, the king wants it that way. The king wants his friends not just to hear orders and do his bidding, but to understand his purposes for the things that he's up to. They understand what he's up to. They understand why he's requiring what he's requiring because he's let them into the inside. He's taken them into His confidence.

The friends of the King have insight into His purposes. Consider this. Just listen to this. This is Matthew 11, verse 11. Here is what Jesus says of John the Baptist.

Matthew 11 verse 11. Jesus says, assuredly I say to you, among those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist." So humanity, everyone born of women, no one greater than John the Baptist. Now listen to what he says, But He who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than He. He who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven, the least privileged in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John the Baptist. As Jesus is teaching, John the Baptist is not going to be in Heaven.

No, not at all. He is making it a distinction between new covenant believers and their privileges being part of the new covenant sealed in his blood and the status of old covenant believers. There's a sense in which John the Baptist is the very last of the Old Guard. The highest, the most highly privileged of the Old Guard. John the Baptist is a representative of all that you could attain to under the old covenant.

Jesus is saying that the privileges enjoyed by the least privileged under the new covenant exceed that. Matthew Henry says something like this. This is not a direct quote, this is from memory. A pygmy on the mountaintop sees farther than a giant in the valley. A pygmy is a midget.

Isn't that true? You have a mountain in the valley, you put a midget on top of the mountain, he's got no height at all. You have a giant, but he is down in the valley. Who sees further? The pygmy.

The midget on the mountaintop. So it is with the privileges and insights of the Old covenant versus the new covenant sealed in the blood of Jesus Christ. The least privileged New Covenant believer has more insights and access and unbroken fellowship than the greatest of the old covenant saints. What a privilege to live under the new covenant. There are two things in view here.

First, Jesus is the ultimate revelation from God and of God. Jesus is the ultimate revelation from God. God sent Him to say certain things. There's nothing that Jesus was sent to teach that He didn't teach. He taught everything that he was sent to teach.

So he is the ultimate revelation from God. He is the amen on revelation. And of God, meaning he is the express image of God. If you want to look at God, you look at Jesus and in Him you see God. When he taught all that he was sent to teach by the Father, and when he came as the express image of God, there was a huge leap forward in Revelation.

I think we have such a small appreciation of what an enormous leap forward of Revelation Jesus and all that he came and taught and displayed in his identity as God. The Old Testament is clear to us because we are seeing through the revelation of Jesus. It's pretty murky without this New Covenant revelation. It's pretty cloudy. It's not surprising that you see all the confusion in the New Testament that you see because they're not looking back through that lens.

That lens was just being formed and developed in the New Testament. No wonder they were confused. So first, Jesus is the ultimate revelation from God and of God. Second, The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a game changer. In terms of the fundamentals of our relationship and it now being based on friendship.

No longer do I call you servants. Now I call you friends. That is directly related to Pentecost and the sending of the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit. Here is a staggering implication. Here is a staggering implication.

God is not interested in mindless servants who simply do their duty. He doesn't need that. He can do it all without us. You understand that. Psalm 50, he says, if I were hungry I wouldn't tell you.

I don't need mindless servants who just do their duty. I can do it all for myself. I am, I mean he is the self-existent God. He needs nothing outside of himself, including fellowship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is plenty from eternity past through eternity future.

He is not lonely. He does want to be known and display himself because he is so glorious. But he is self-existing. He is not interested in mindless servants who simply do their duty. God in Christ befriends those He chooses to woo to Himself.

God in Christ dies to make enemies friends. Not to make enemies servants just so he'll have someone who can do his work. He doesn't need that at all, in any way. He's not fetching servants. He would never die just to fetch servants.

Just to have a few more people to do his dirty work. He died for friendship. God doesn't simply demand honor and service, though He is immanently worthy of honor and service. God doesn't simply demand that we love Him, though no one in all the universe is worthy of love, even approaching God. He is lovely in every way.

He loves and befriends us. He loves us first before we ever love Him. He befriends us first before we ever act in friendship towards Him. And if I am really a Christian and my mentality, my thought patterns, and my walk with the Lord doesn't reflect this great fact, that is a huge deficit. I'm going to say that again.

If I am really a Christian, and my mentality, my patterns of thought, and my walk with the Lord don't reflect that Jesus died to make me his friend. That is a huge deficit. Because it means the alternative to that is a slave mentality where I'm just here to do his dirty work, and he was never after that. It's a slavish mentality. Here's what J.C.

Ryle says, The high privilege of a believer is strikingly taught here. He is a friend of Christ as well as a child of God. No one need ever say, I have no friend to turn to so long as Christ is in heaven. Imagine that. Imagine the striking privileges of the new covenant believer taught here, he is saying, if you are a Christian, don't ever let, I have no friend to turn to, ever come upon your lips as long as Christ is in heaven, which is for eternity.

You always have a friend to turn to, and a better friend than any human friend. What a glorious truth is being set forth in our text. Verse 16. Verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you.

In this verse we have who chooses and why. So if you're taking notes by filling in blanks on the handout, chooses fills in the blank. Who chooses and why? There are two possible choosings. One, Jesus choosing unbelieving sinners out of the world to be saved.

Election. Two, Jesus choosing these specific eleven men to be disciples and then apostles. In this case, I don't believe it's helpful to make a big distinction, because both are a part of his eternal plan to save sinners and then make those saved sinners useful. Meaning the framework for all believers of all time, these eleven men included, is saving from, saving out of, but it doesn't stop there. It's always saving to a fruit bearing life that brings glory to God.

So there's a very specific way in which these men were saved to discipleship and then apostleship. I need not aspire to that. I will never achieve that. I am never going to be an apostle. And yet, the framework is the same for me.

I am saved out of the world. I am saved from sin and darkness into a kingdom of light, a kingdom of fruitfulness, a kingdom of honoring God through the patterns of my life. So that's not different. The framework is the same. The specifics are different.

The point is, Jesus did the choosing with these eleven men. Jesus did the choosing with me. If you are in Christ, Jesus did the choosing with you. He was the first mover. You never would have inched toward Him in any way if he didn't move first and do first, if he didn't choose first.

And the choices that the disciples then made, that I then made, that you, if you were in Christ, then made, were in response. He was the first mover we responded. Turn to Ephesians 2. We haven't been there for a while, so I feel justified. Ephesians 2.

It's so foundational. We should go there a lot. If you need more than one hand to count fundamental chapters of the Bible to get to Ephesians 2, I don't know what chapters. They must be wonderful chapters I've been missing. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1-10.

I'm just going to read them. Ephesians 2, 1-10. And then I'll go back and make a couple of comments. Paul writes, And you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as the others.

God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." In verses one through three, I hope that you can feel the utter inability bound up in the unbelieving condition.

Paul labors in verses 1-3. Just look at the phrases in 1-3. Here's what Paul is doing. He's laboring to strip you bare of any other hope than God being merciful to you. He's begging you to believe that you are utterly unable in your condition as a sinner except that God would have mercy and reach in to turn you.

Here is the question that Paul is essentially asking. How could a dead person ever choose Jesus? How could a person who is a slave to their lusts and their nature, by nature children of wrath and a son of disobedience under the powers of the principalities of the air. How could such a one ever move towards Christ, choose Christ? He wants you to answer that question.

They never could. I never could in that condition. In verse 4, Paul teaches that love is at the root of this. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, just like Jesus, He is teaching that the great fountainhead, the great foundation of all of this is God's love. In our text last week, verse 9, as the Father loved me, I also have loved you, abide in my love.

So Paul is just following Jesus. Jesus roots it all in love, Paul roots it all in love. Finally, verse 10 is very important. Look at verse 10 again. Here's how he concludes speaking of salvation by grace alone through faith alone.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We are created for good works. God reaches into the hopeless sinful condition and gives the gift of faith so that we would do good works to glorify God in the world, to bear fruit. Paul calls it good works, Jesus calls it fruit bearing. They are talking about exactly the same thing.

This saves us from a man-centered Gospel. This actually puts the focus not on needy man, we know we are needy, that is true, but the focus is not on needy man, The focus is on a God who is worthy of praise. That's the end of good works and fruit. It is the glorifying of God. God being known for who He is as a great Savior who can reach into all sorts of Muck and Meyer and make that sinner saved and useful in his kingdom.

Or to put it more simply and elegantly, 1 John 4 19 John says, We love him because he first loved us. Here it is. I love Jesus. Oh yeah? Guess what came before that then?

He loved you first. Jesus taught it in our text in John 15. John recorded it, but John understood it. So when he wrote a letter, he taught what Jesus teaches. We loved him because he loved us first.

Back to our text, Jesus says that your fruit should remain. Fruit that remains. Turn to 1 Corinthians 3. I guess not back to our text. Turn to 1 Corinthians 3.

1 Corinthians 3, Paul writes to the Corinthians speaking not of fruit, at least that's not the language he uses, but of works. Same thing though, the outworkings of God at work in your life. 1 Corinthians 3, I'll read 11 through 15. Listen to what Paul writes. 1 Corinthians 3 starting in 11.

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. There is only one legitimate foundation upon which to build, that is Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear. For the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test each one's work, or if you will, each one's fruit, of what sort It is.

If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved. Yet so as through fire. What's Paul teaching here? He's teaching that real Christians have different kinds of work, or different kinds of fruit.

Some will last the test, others will not. Jesus is going to come and judge all of our work. Some of it will prove to be legitimate, eternal, remaining. Some of it will burn up in the fire. You'll be saved, but you'll suffer loss because all of that work will have been in vain.

Jesus here is talking about fruit that remains. The word that is underlying remains is The same word that has been rendered throughout the passage, abide, abide in me, and I in you, my words abide in you, abide in my love. That's the same word that is translated here in our text, remains, your fruit remains, or your fruit abides. If you were to just translate the same Greek word uniformly throughout our text, you would say, your fruit abides. Our text remains, your fruit abides.

Genuine fruit is fruit that comes from abiding in Jesus and from Jesus abiding in us. That's why the use of the word. You trace the usage throughout the passage and what you get is this. Those who abide in Christ and Christ abides in them, produce fruit that abides. Without Him, we can do nothing.

All that other doing is wood, hay, and straw, and it doesn't pass the test, it does not remain. There is a parent fruit that is not genuine fruit. It will not pass the test. It will not remain. It all starts with abiding in Jesus and Jesus abiding in you and his words abiding in you.

That produces fruit that remains that passes the test of judgment. It comes out of Jesus' work in your life. Sap flowing from vine to branch. Finally, Jesus says that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you. Jesus has already provided his own commentary and explanation in this chapter, so look back at verses 4 through 8.

I'm saying, he's saying the same thing in our text, he's coming back to this theme, but he has already introduced this theme earlier in the chapter in verses 4-8. Whatever you ask in my Father's name, He may give you. Alright, chapter 15 starting in verse 4. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me and My words in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you." This is almost exactly the same words of our text. Then finally in verse 8, By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples.

In order that his Father would be glorified, prayers asked in Jesus' name by His disciples who are abiding in Him and His words are abiding in them are granted so that His Father would be glorified. Fruitfulness is in God's mind to exalt Himself. He grants our prayers when we ask in His name, abiding in Him. That is both a high bar and a wonderful promise. It takes us away from silliness where in whatever condition your heart is in, you can ask anything and get everything.

As if God is Santa Claus and He is just there to do your bidding. It just sweeps us away from that silliness. It is those abiding in Christ, and Christ is abiding in them, and His words are abiding in them. He answers their prayers to make them fruitful. So that is a high bar.

But it is also a wonderful promise. You can think of things in your life which are well within the grasp of that. It is a wonderful promise. It does not make that promise die the death of a thousand qualifications. It really doesn't.

There are things within your reach that you can pray boldly for well within the parameters of this and claim God's answer to that. It whisks away selfish prayers though. You can't pray selfishly and say, I'm praying this abiding in you, you abiding in me, your words abiding in me. James 4, 2 and 3. You do not have because you do not ask.

You ask but do not receive because you ask amiss. That you may spend it on your pleasures. When you ask for things so you can spend them on your pleasures, those are not prayers asked abiding in Jesus, and Jesus abiding in you, and His words abiding in you. It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit the description.

Finally, verse 17. Jesus says, these things I command you that you love one another. These things, the things that I've been saying to you, I command you that you love one another." In this verse we have the repeated command to love. So if you're taking notes on the handout, filling in blanks, repeated fills in the blank. The repeated command to love.

Go back to 13 where the discourse started. 13, 34, and 35. We have the new commandment. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." Loving others is not a new commandment.

Loving others as Christ loved is a new commandment, it is at the beginning of the discourse, then in our chapter, chapter 15 verse 12, Jesus says again, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Now in our text, verse 17, these things I command you that you love one another. Why the repetition? Jesus insists that we understand that obedience to his commands is defined by love. And that fruit that remains, which is the same thing as obedience to his commands, is defined by love.

These are not separate categories. There is obedience and there is love. No! To truly obey is to love. Love is the fulfillment of the law.

There is fruit bearing, and there is Love. No. Bearing fruit that remains is loving. Loving is bearing fruit that remains. Jesus says it in 13, Jesus says it in 15 verse 12, Jesus says it in 15 verse 17, depress om.

These are not separate categories. Obedience is love. There is no such thing as loveless obedience. Let that sink in for just a second. Loveless obedience is disobedience.

It's not obedience at all. It's not true. It's fake obedience. Loveless obedience is fake obedience. There's one to teach to your kids.

Heartless obedience is disobedience. Finally, this verse is transitional. It connects back in the ways that I've been saying, but it also connects forward. Next week, the love of the brethren, this community of love that Jesus is building on the repeated commands that we love each other as He loved us, will be contrasted with the hatred of the world. We better have a community of love, because we are going to be hated by the world.

If there's going to be love anywhere, it's going to have to be in here. Because the world hates us, because it hated him first. That's next week. Applications. Three.

Number one, if you're a believer, does your mentality and walk with the Lord Jesus reflect that He has befriended you? This is for people who are in Christ. Does your mentality, does your thinking, your thought patterns reflect that He died to befriend you? Or do you have a slavish thought pattern? You think he just bought you because he needs somebody to do his dirty work.

Does your walk with the Lord reflect that he has befriended you? Is your daily experience of relationship with Christ, does it reflect friendship that He died for? It should. Here's one manifestation of such a mentality and walk. A thought pattern and a walk with Jesus that reflects, I get it, he died actually to befriend me.

More and more we understand what we should say and what we should do, not because the Bible is a step by step manual, but because we know the heart of our friend. This is one way it would show through that our thought patterns and our walk with the Lord have been infected by this great truth that Jesus died to befriend us, not just to make us his slave to do his work. He doesn't need that. So what would it look like if our thought patterns and our daily experience of the Lord reflected that we get it. He died to befriend us.

Well, more and more It would be obvious to us what we should say in this situation or that situation. More and more it would be obvious what we should do in this situation or that situation. Not because the Bible gives us the endless permutations of all the things that should happen in our reaction in those. It doesn't, but because we know the heart of our friend. We've made something of the access and privileges and insights given to us by God and about His purposes that it becomes obvious how we should live this life.

Because we are in tune with the heart of our friend. Two, If you are a believer, do you have an affection for Jesus and a humility in Jesus that reflects that he did the choosing? If we really buy the idea, he did the choosing, and then my choices that came after that were really just in response to his great choice, his grand choice, His overriding choice. All of my choices then were just a response to that. If we really buy that, How much love would we have for Jesus then?

If you thought, I'm nothing unless He chooses me, and He did choose me, and I know that because I believe in Him, and I know there's no way for me to believe in Him unless it had been given to me as a gift. So I appear to have the gift, I have the grace to believe in Him and keep believing in Him. I think He's just made me an object of His grace. If you really thought that, how much affection would you have for Jesus then? If that had really seeped into the inner recesses of your mind and your heart, how much love would you have for Him then?

How humble would you be in Him then? Knowing that no good thing is traced back to you. It's all traced back to Him. His gracious work in your life. I think we would be a very loving people to the Lord Jesus and a very humble people to the Lord Jesus if that had really seeped all the way down to the inner parts.

Number three, does love for others have the right place in your life given Jesus' repetitions? We always say this, The antenna should go up anytime we see things repeated. Now we are seeing multiple repetitions almost to the point of absurdity. We would call it absurdity, but only Jesus did it. We would rightly be nervous about calling Him absurd, so let's not do that.

He's been saying it over and over again, so we should really be in tune to this. Jesus, it matters a lot to him if we love each other. Does that have the right priority? When Jesus keeps repeating things, we should say, that's a priority for me. I won't be able to recall the verse when we sang, and let it be said of us, we were Marked by forgiveness, we were known by our love and delighted in meekness.

Amen. God, thank you for the goodness of your Word. I pray that you would Help us not to receive these things as an academic lecture, but let us be moved. Let us be moved by your Word. Let us be moved by preaching.

Give us progress in the faith. Let us be changed. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.