John 15

John 15:14

THE FORTUNE OF CHRIST’S FRIENDS John 15:14. relates that Cyrus gave one of his favorites a golden cup and another a kiss. Whereupon Artabazus, the cup receiver, complained that his was a poor gift as compared with the kiss that Chryanthus had received.It is related that Lord Brookes ordered put upon his tombstone, “Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sydney.” In such high esteem had he held Sir Philip Sydney’s friendship. But I think we must all admit that Mr. Spurgeon was right when he said that Brookes’ honor was small compared with his honor, of whom people say, “Here lives a friend of Jesus Christ.” That is the greatest of all earthly fortunes, and those who have yielded themselves to Christ come into that fortune according to the teachings of our text.Two things are suggested by this text and the related teachings of the Word.CHRIST’S FRIENDS ARE CHRIST’S The whole verse reads, “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” (John 15:14).Those who would be friends, then, must acknowledge Him as leader. “Whatsoever I command you”.In that wonderful 55th chapter of Isaiah, one of the great Gospel chapters of the Old Testament, the Prophet speaking of the Saviour to come, said, voicing God’s covenant, “Behold, I have given Him for a Witness to the people, a Leader and a Commander to the people” (Isaiah 55:4). And again, you will remember, it was written of Jesus, “Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be”.The best leaders of God’s people have been those whom God has anointed for leadership, such as Moses, Joshua, Joseph, Eli, Samuel, and David. But no one of them was ever anointed a leader as was Jesus Christ, whose very name is “the Anointed One”. And no man has ever yet admitted His leadership, and has implicitly obeyed His commands without coming into blessing in consequence. And, no man can refuse that leadership without coming under the curse thereof. In the parable of the pounds, you will recall that there were certain citizens who hated the nobleman and sent a message after him, saying, “We will not have this Man to reign over us”.

When he had received his kingdom and returned, the nobleman called his servants and reproved or commended them according as they had employed or neglected the pounds, and concluded the parable by saying, “But those Mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before Me” (Luke 19:27). And, with all deference to the opinions of people who refused Jesus Christ, the Word of God seems to teach that such opposition to Christ’s leadership will bring destruction.

If that judgment seems harsh, just remember the truth to which we have consented, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). In other words, we are either the friends of Christ or Christ’s enemies, for the Master Himself hath said, “He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad” (Matthew 12:30).It is also true that the friends of Jesus Christ must be familiar with His will. “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I have commanded you”. R. F. Horton, who is regarded as among the friendly critics of the Word of God, in his volume, “Verbum Dei”, described a minister with whom he was familiar, as a man thoroughly earnest and devout, and consequently exercising a wide influence over certain minds, but who, in his advocacy of truth, was violent, unjust, and ill-mannered. He says that, upon inquiry, he discovered this man had for years conscientiously refrained from reading any book besides the Bible, and Horton thinks that in consequence, he had fallen out of touch with the times in which he lived, and while earnest and devout, had become a false prophet through an over study of the Word of God, and an understudy of the world in which he lived.But if Dr.

Horton knew such a man, few other folks ever knew him. In all the years of my life, I have not met a sane man who has gone wrong in consequence of an over study of God’s Word, but every day I meet a dozen men who are doing God’s will poorly because they are poorly familiar with what God’s will is.

They have time for the morning and evening newspaper. They find time to review the leading magazines, and they burn the midnight oil to finish the latest book of fiction. But God’s Book, which is filled with the Divine commands, has its pages poorly perused, and so they stumble in consequence. The hardest questions that are put to me by people that have turned skeptical and are stumbling along, are questions that often indicate an almost unthinkable ignorance of what God has written into His Word.What would be the result for a private soldier if he gave no attention to what his captain said? And what would be the result to the commissioned officer, fighting on a strange shore, if he neglected the maps and directions which had come to him from the headquarters; or the results to the vessels, freighted with human life, if they sailed the high seas without chart or compass? Paul never wrote a saner thing than when to Timothy he said, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).Christ’s friends also will execute His commands. “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I have commanded you”.

The test of faithfulness to Jesus Christ is at the point of fulfilling His Word. Dr.

Basil Manly, in an address which he delivered before the students in one of our Eastern theological seminaries, told how, after one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, a remnant of a regiment was seen standing upon a little knoll, around which the conflict had waged most fiercely. A Southern officer rode up to them and said, “Where is your Colonel?” “There he lies,” they said, pointing to his prostrate form. “And where is your Captain?” “There he lies,” they said, as they pointed to young Poindexter, the son of our Baptist minister. “And what are you doing here?” he inquired. “Lifting the hand again to the dead form of this brave officer,” they said. “He told us to just hold this point, and we are doing just what he said.” Beautiful loyalty! And when we remember that our Captain and Leader fell upon the field of battle and died in His endeavor to save a lost world, we must also remember that there is nothing that His friends can do which proves their loyalty to Him more clearly than just to obey His commands.We sing,“Upon the Western plain, There conies the signal strain, Of loyalty, loyalty, Loyalty to Christ. “Its music rolls along, The hills take up the song Of loyalty, loyalty, Yes, loyalty to Christ. “Oh, hear, ye brave, the sound, That moves the earth around, ’Tis loyalty, loyalty, Yes, loyalty to Christ. “Arise to dare and do, Ring out the watchword true, Of loyalty, loyalty, Yes, loyalty to Christ.” And we do well to sing it for it is a fact of revelation, “Blessed are they that do His commandments”. Jesus, as if to show what positive stress He would lay upon this truth, once said to a company of people about Him, “Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother”.The second truth is this: TO HIS FRIENDS, CHRIST IS Long ago Solomon wrote, prophesying our Christ to come, and he said of Him, “There is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother”. Now, there are two or three traits of friendship that every true brother discovers that are at once beautiful and blessed. And Christ who sticketh closer than a brother exhibits all of these traits in the most marked degree.In affection, He is unchangeable. Mr. Spurgeon on one occasion, speaking of the Star of Jacob, said, “Our Lord is comparable to a star in that He is a pattern of constancy.” Ten thousand changes have been wrought since the world began, but the stars have not changed; there they remain, and there they will remain ‘til, like a vesture, God shall roll up creation. It is very delightful to recollect that the same star which you looked at last night was viewed by Abraham perhaps with some of the self-same thoughts.

And when we have gone and another generation will have followed us, those who come after will look to the selfsame star. It makes but little difference how long one lives or generations last, the stars of heaven change not.

And, wherever on this wide world you may go, they are still visible, and no matter what clouds or sunshine come into your life, the stars shine on. You might lose a hundred friends, but when you walk abroad at night, the star that decks the brow of evening when you were but an infant is still looking down upon you with a kindly eye. And Jesus Christ, who is the Star of Jacob, is the same yesterday, today, and forever in His affection for us. Other friends may come and go; He remains our friend. Satan may come in to estrange some friends and compel us to lose the loved ones, but the more Satan rages against us, the more steadfastly Christ will stand by us. Mr.

Spurgeon quotes Lavater as saying, “The qualities of your friends will be the qualities of your enemies— cold friends, cold enemies; half friends, half enemies ; fervid enemies, warm friends.” “Knowing this to be a truth,” says Spurgeon, “I have often congratulated myself when my enemies have spoken fiercely against me. Well, I have thought, my friends love me hard and fast.” And it is true, also, that the louder Satan roars, the more proof one has of Christ’s love.

And I would just as soon expect this night to go and see the stars smitten from the heavens as to discover that my friend Jesus Christ has lost His love for me. There is a beautiful thing written into John 13:1. It relates to Christ’s approaching crucifixion: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end”. And, as He, in His earth life, loved His own unto the end, so in His resurrected life, Eternity alone will be able to measure His love.Christ’s faithfulness to His friends is shown in His active assistance. It is a feature of a brother’s love that He helps those who share in his blood in their hour of need.Savage, after a somewhat bitter experience, wrote, “You’ll find the friendship of the world a show! Mere outward show! ’Tis like the harlot’s tears, The statesman’s promise, or false patriot’s zeal, Full of fair seeming, but delusion all.” But Solomon wrote, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). It was because Jesus Christ was a Friend who loveth at all times and a Brother for adversity’s hour that Paul wrote to the Hebrews,“We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. “Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). And yet another respect in which Christ shows His faithfulness as a friend is His salutary influence. After all, that is the truest test of friendship. Does the man with whom you have been associated— does the woman whom you have taken into your heart’s confidence, do you good? The answer to that question determines the faithfulness of friendship. I don’t care what beauty one may have; I don’t care what brilliance he may exhibit; I don’t care how exhilarating his presence; unless you are better for having spent an hour with him, he is not the best friend.Henry Drummond says, “Men are all mosaics of other men. There was a savor of David about Jonathan, and a savor of Jonathan about David.

Jean Valjean in the masterpiece of Victor Hugo, is Bishop Bienvenu risen from the dead. Metempsychosis is a fact! George Elliot’s message to the world was that men and women make men and women * *. There are some men and some women in whose company we are always at our best. While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous words. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity.

All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse and we find a music in our souls that was never there before * *. If to live with men diluted to the millionth degree with the virtue of the highest, can exalt and purify the nature, what bounds can be set to the influence of Christ? * * Francis of Assissi must have made one gentle Savonarola strong. But to have lived with Christ must have made one like Christ—that is to say, a Christian.” The people who watched the early disciples said of them this significant thing, “They have been with Jesus and have learned of Him”. How blessed then that Jesus is able to be with us and befriend us, and by His very association, sanctify us, until the people of the present, studying our methods and sounding our motives, looking upon our service and hearing our speech, shall be compelled to say of us, “They have been with Christ!”