“You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
*Commentary based largely on a Sermon Published On Thursday, December 17th, 1914. Delivered By C. H. Spurgeon.
It is very easy to understand how Jesus Christ is our friend. Did ever anyone deserve the name so well? Who can prove his friendship as Jesus proved it by laying down his life for those, he calls his friends? But for Jesus to call us his friends, giving us to us the highest conceivable honour that such a Lord as he is, so infinitely superior to us, should stoop to enter a friendship with us.
Hence, there is a mutual friendship between Christ and the believer. There cannot be friendship if it is all on one side – friendship is a reciprocal thing and in its fullest sense, where it is between two, the one heart must be as the other heart.
It is not rare that you hear about the struggle of maintaining a friendship where they only see each other now and then. If there be no communion in any other way, I should think friendship could scarcely be maintained, at least to the same standard. But we must recognise that Jesus reveals himself to his people, and his people tell out their hearts to Jesus. Let us not suppose that because He is not here, for He is risen, that therefore we have no dealings with him. Our prayers speak into His ears, our tears fall into his heart: when we are wounded, his wounds bleed afresh. He is the Head, and we the members, and, however great the body, if you wound the body, the head feels it at once; so close is the communion.
However, of course, our friendship is not based solely on regular interactions. “To make friendship there will be not only mutual love, delight, and converse, but friends must have harmony of thought.”
With the key word being harmony. Our thoughts are very much unlikely to be identical, but as different as they may be, we should aim for perfect harmony, so is it with the heart of Christ, and the heart of his renewed child.
This is true friendship – when there is but one heart in two bodies, producing with undivided strength one object. Now Christ’s object is his Father’s glory. If we are Christ’s friends, that object is ours also. His object is to seek and save the lost: if we love him, we seek to aid in the saving of the lost also in your way. He loves truth, holiness, righteousness. He delights in that which puts an end to misery, to evil, to cruelty, to wrongdoing. And I have to sit and ask myself, do I delight in the same?
So, if we had to summarise what the text tells us about being a friend of Christ?
- True Friends Of Christ Himself Distinctly Acknowledge His True Position Towards Themselves. – That position is contained in these words, “I command you.” We are friends of Jesus, but Jesus must still be first: “I command you.” The genuine friend of Christ does not command himself: he has taken Christ’s yoke upon him and is now Christ’s liege man and servant. In becoming Christ’s friend, he agrees to subordinate his mind and will to the supremacy of Christ Jesus the Lord.
- We Are To Recognizes Our Own Personal Obligations – It does seem to be very hard to get believers to individualise themselves in the things of God. We do not count ourselves rich because England is rich; we do not consider ourselves to be getting rich because the bank-rate is lower; we want to get the solid coins in our own grasp, and to their own banking account. But when it comes to religion, we may fall into the trap of talking of this denomination and that church, and that other — anything but about ourselves. “But ye, O friend of Christ, ye must live before the Lord as though there were no other.”
- The True Friend Of Christ Observes Carefully All That Christ Says – It is not “Ye are my friends if ye do some things that I command you.” But “Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you” – whatsoever he commands — not more, not less — this is to be our religion and our law, and to it let every Christian stand.
- Obedience – The laws of our country seldom excuse a person for breaking the law because they say they did not know the law. It is presumed that everybody ought to know it. As believers, we can find out Christ’s will if we like. But suppose we know it is Christ’s will, and do not choose to do it — if we put your foot down there and say, “I shall not do it,” then there is an end to the friendship, as we actively rebel against the condition. Obedience, then, is an essential of true friendship to Christ.
My Sunday Skl 