What Does It Mean to Be Jesus' Friend?
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I haven’t always had the best history when it comes to forming and maintaining friendships. Considering loneliness in the U.S. has reached epidemic proportions, I suspect you might say the same. Most, if not all, of us know from experience that relationships can be challenging and, on occasion, lead to intense anxiety and deep pain. This often tempts us to withdraw and isolate.
But God hard-wired the need for connection and belonging in our souls. Therefore, He takes full responsibility for meeting those needs. He’ll help us find and build healthy relationships with others and heal from the unhealthy interactions from our pasts. Most importantly, He invites us to experience unhindered and ever-deepening intimacy with Himself.
Jesus, fully God and fully man, made this clear in His statement on the night before His death. In John 15:15, He said:
“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.”
Soon after, through His death and resurrection, He removed the barriers that previously stood between us and the Trinity. In our culture, where people frequently emphasize the relational aspect of our faith, we can easily miss the significance of this profound blessing. Our appreciation grows when we recognize that this depth of intimacy with God rarely occurred prior to Christ.
Old Testament Examples
Up until the time of Jesus, the Bible only named two individuals as God’s friend. The first was Abraham, often referred to as the father of the Jewish nation. He spent the first 75 years of his life in the pagan city-state of Ur, located in ancient Mesopotamia. Jewish tradition suggests that his father made( and therefore, probably worshiped) idols. We can reasonably assume, then, that Abraham grew up with little to no knowledge of Creator God.
While the Bible doesn’t tell us when this changed, it does record the day he abandoned his former way of life to follow the Lord. Genesis 12:1-4 states:
“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.”
The proceeding chapters reveal his imperfect yet steady progression of faith, during which he courageously followed God to the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:5), traveled to Egypt in fear (Genesis 12:10), betrayed his wife (Genesis 12:14-15), recommitted to the Lord (Genesis 13:3-4), trusted in God’s provision (Genesis 13:8-9), betrayed his wife again (Genesis 20:1-2), and ended his life with a radical faith memorialized in Hebrews 11.
Centuries later, Jesus’ half-brother James wrote:
“And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend.”
The Lord makes a similar statement in Isaiah 41:8, which reads:
“But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend” (emphasis added).
I find the contrast between how God refers to Israel and Abraham intriguing. Throughout Scripture, He reiterates His unconditional love for His chosen people, frequently referring to Himself as their husband and they, His wife. Ideally, this indicates the most intimate of all relationships. However, with ancient Israel, the faithful affection was one-sided. While the Lord consistently treated His children with the tenderness of a devoted Father, they responded to His grace with hard-hearted rebellion.
Perhaps this is why Scripture frequently refers to them as servants, as true friendship requires some level of reciprocity. That’s not to necessarily imply equality. Jesus will always remain far superior to us, all humanity, and any earthly system. True friendship, however, facilitates a mutual giving of oneself to the other.
Moses, the man who liberated God’s people from 400 years of slavery in Egypt, is the second person in the Old Testament described as the Lord’s friend.
In Exodus 33:11, we read:
“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent” (emphasis added).
The bold texted phrase is a Hebrew idiom denoting relational intimacy. Here’s the context surrounding that passage. About three months after liberating the ancient Hebrews, God brought them to Mount Sinai and called Moses to Himself. There, He gave Moses instructions for how He wanted the people to relate to Him and one another. Sadly, while Moses was communing with God, for the people’s benefit, they returned to their idolatrous roots.
Angered, the Lord told Moses that He’d still fulfill the promises made, initially to Abraham and reiterated to the newly freed Israelites, but He’d do so through an angel. He Himself would no longer accompany them.
In other words, Moses, their leader, would receive success, respect, and prestige — without God’s presence. That was a cost Moses was unwilling to pay.
This was his reply:
“If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Ex. 33:15).
He chose intimacy with God above all else, even if that meant forfeiting everything else. Because of this, he went from a fearful fugitive who initially begged God not to use him to one of the most powerful and influential men in Scripture.
Notice how the Bible described him after his death:
“Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt — to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel (Deut. 34:10-12, emphasis added).
The Gift of Grace
I find it interesting that we don’t read similar descriptions for King David, whom God refers to as “a man after his own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). Nor do we see this with any of the Lord’s faithful prophets. That indicates that this level of relationship is special, unique, and unavailable to us apart from Christ.
Pastors often phrase it this way: Unrepentant sin separates us from God and the life He planned for us. This doesn’t mean He stops loving us – that would be inconsistent with His nature. Rather, we turn from Him when we don’t like what He has to say regarding our behavior and foolish desires for control.
The moment we understand our need for Christ, turn to Him, and receive the forgiveness He offered through His death and resurrection, we become inextricably united with Him, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. From then on, nothing can separate us from His love or snatch us from His loving hand.
That is when, like the disciples, we become more than servants; we become friends with the One who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24).
A Perfect Friend
No one, other than Jesus, will love us as we need, nor will we them. Sadly, we all respond to one another with a mixture of kindness and pride, selfishness and loyal devotion. We lie, manipulate, withdraw, say and do hurtful things, and react from our brokenness and faulty perceptions. We also tend to withhold parts of ourselves from everyone but those within our close circle. Some of us don’t feel safe enough with anyone to let our vulnerability show.
Not Jesus. He never misleads or deceives us. In everything He does and allows, He always has our best in mind (John 10:10). What’s more, His words in John 15:15 reveal full self-disclosure.
God Unveiled
“’I no longer call you servants,’ He said, ‘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’” (John 15:15).
This verse indicates that He equates friendship with transparency and vulnerability. This is a vulnerability through which He invited the disciples – and through Scripture, us as well – to see Him in His weakest state.
These men had seen His strength when He stopped two violent storms (Mark 4:35-41; Matthew 14:22-33). They witnessed His power over evil when He silenced demons (Luke 4:35) and set the spiritually enslaved free (Mark 5:1-20). Three of them beheld His glory in the transfiguration when He allowed some of His divinity to shine through (Matthew 17:1-13). But He also let them see closer in the Garden of Gethsemane as He poured His anguish out to the Father.
In Matthew 26:37-39, we read:
“He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’”
I once heard intimacy defined as the progressive unveiling of oneself with diminished fear. Studies demonstrate that this both leads to and reveals the healthiest relationships as such transparency typically only occurs when people feel emotionally safe. This also explains why so many of us hide behind a more “socially acceptable” persona where we attempt to conceal our weakness behind outward displays of strength. This is particularly true for those raised by abusive, critical, or emotionally unavailable parents and whose experiences created pervasive, toxic shame.
According to Dr. Curt Thompson, a recurring guest on the Faith Over Fear podcast:
“When we experience shame, we tend to turn away from others because the prospect of being seen or known by another carries the anticipation of shame being intensified or reactivated. However, the very act of turning away, while temporarily protecting and relieving us from our feeling (and the gaze of the ‘other’), ironically simultaneously reinforces the very shame we are attempting to avoid.”
Adding later in his book, The Soul of Shame, “Shame’s healing encompasses the counterintuitive act of turning toward what we are most terrified of. We fear the shame that we will feel when we speak of that very shame. In some circumstances we anticipate this vulnerable exposure to be so great that it will be almost life threatening. But it is in the movement toward another, toward connection with someone who is safe, that we come to know life and freedom from this prison.”
Jesus, our all-powerful, victorious Savior, shatters our false notions of strength by demonstrating a strength revealed not through posturing and teeth-gritting stoicism but a vulnerability that says, “This is hard, and I am overwhelmed beyond what I can bear. Stay with Me in my pain.”
And He encourages us to respond to Him with the same brave transparency, and through that, to feel seen, safe, understood, and soothed.
That is the depth of friendship He offers. That is the depth of friendship He is, at this moment, teaching us to experience as He progressively heals our wounds, replaces our deception with truth, and quiets our fear with His faithful love.
He held nothing back from us, His beloved, inviting us in turn to hold nothing back from Him. It is in Him and our ever-deepening friendship with Him that we find our safe space and the acceptance our souls need. It is His friendship, and all the love it contains, that enables us to thrive.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Zorica Nastasic
Jennifer Slattery is a writer and speaker who co-hosts the Faith Over Fear podcast and, along with a team of 6, the Your Daily Bible Verse podcast. She’s addressed women’s groups, Bible studies, and taught at writers conferences across the nation. She’s the author of Building a Family and numerous other titles and maintains a devotional blog at JenniferSlatteryLivesOutLou
She’s passionate about helping people experience Christ’s freedom in all areas of their lives. Visit her online to learn more about her speaking or to book her for your next women’s event, and sign up for her free quarterly newsletter HERE and make sure to connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and GodTube.