Jesus, My Friend

John 15:12-15, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

When we abide in Christ, and Christ in us, as his branches, we become friends with him. There are so many points to cover within these few versus, but let’s explore this profound concept of friendship with Jesus. When John writes the word “friend” in Greek to convey what Jesus is telling the disciples, it’s a deeper meaning than what we would consider a normal friend. In the English text, the word friend is defined as someone you know and who you have a bond of mutual trust in. When Jesus describes us as his friends, his meaning goes beyond what the English text is. In the Greek language, the term “friend” carries a deeper meaning than what we typically understand in English. While we define a friend as someone with whom we share mutual trust, the original Greek word “philos” indicates a kind of friendship marked by intimate, selfless love—agape love. Agape is the highest form of love, characterized by its sacrificial nature.

This concept of friendship reminds me of a story we all know well: the account of Abraham, Sarah, and her servant, Hagar. In Genesis 16, Sarah decides to give her servant Hagar, who was likely between 12 and 20, to her husband Abraham, who was in his 80s, so they could fulfill God’s promise of a son. Hagar was used, abused, and defiled through Sarah’s action. Hagar endured mistreatment and abuse due to Sarah’s actions. After conceiving, Hagar faced jealousy and harsh treatment from Sarah, which drove her to flee into the desert to die, feeling utterly alone and desperate.

The beauty of this story comes to life in Genesis 16:7-13.

The Angel of the Lord—who is often seen as a manifestation of Jesus—meets Hagar. Hagar calls him the “God of Seeing,” reflecting the profound friendship that Jesus embodies. This is the kind of friendship that Jesus has, one that would make him selflessly leave his throne to comfort someone like Hagar, a slave, a gentile, a nobody. Jesus…God, is the friend who Hagar recognizes as the one who “looks after me”.  

How many times in your life have you felt like Hagar in distress, only to find Jesus coming to you as a friend–to bless you, comfort you, encourage you? This friendship is vital because it culminates in his ultimate act of love for his friends—laying down his life for us. Thousands of years after Jesus met Hagar in the desert, we see him come down in the flesh again to deliver us in a similar way just as he delivered Hagar from her distress. His greatest act of his friendship for us is laying down his life so we might be delivered from our sin.

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”

Not only did he lay down his life on the cross, but I believe Jesus meant more than just laying down his physical life on the cross–his love transcends even that. In Philippians 2:6-8 it reads, “Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Have you ever loved someone so deeply that you willingly set aside your own status for them?

If you were the King of Kings, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, would you take the place of a friend who deserved punishment? Knowing the humiliation and agony that awaited you, would you lay down your life for a friend? Jesus understood the suffering he would endure, yet he chose our lives over His without hesitation. This sacrificial act allows us to be called and made his friends.

What a tragically beautiful story the Gospel is. What kind of friend do we have in Jesus?

o   One who will meet us in our distress (Genesis 16).

o   One who will lay down his life to save ours (John 10:11; John 15:12).

o   One who will carry you through every valley and fire (Isaiah 43:2).

o   One who will always keep his promises (Proverbs 30:5-6; Hebrews 10:23).

o   One who will remain faithful in love even when the mountains move, and hills disappear (Isaiah 54:10).

We have a friend who we can go to, and a friend we know will meet us where we are. What a friend we have in Jesus.

CY