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By Pastor Glenn Pease
After making his historic stand before the Diet Of Worms where he defied the church and refused to recant, Martin Luther started for home.
He had stirred up a hornet's nest of opposition, and plots were made against his life.
As Luther's carriage entered a narrow pass, ideal for an ambush, it was suddenly surrounded by 5 horsemen, who were masked and armed.
They forced Luther to get down, and they threw a cloak over him.
They put him on an extra horse and disappeared into the forest.
Silently they took Luther to the Castle of Wortburg, which was hidden high in the mountains.
There he discovered that he was in the hands of friends.
Frederic the Elector had Luther kidnapped in order to protect him from his enemies who would certainly have killed him.
This single act of friendship changed the course of history and played a major role in the success of the reformation.
It was while hiding in that castle that Luther translated the Bible into the German language.
He did much other writing also that influenced the thinking of the masses.
Time and time again friendship has been the force determining the course of history.
We see it in the great friendship of David and Jonathan in the Old Testament.
Jonathan loved David even more than his own father Saul.
He defended and protected David when Saul was out to kill him.
When Jonathan died in battle David wrote in great sorrow in II Sam.
1:26, "I am distressed for you my brother Jonathan, very pleasant have you been to me, your love to me was wonderful passing the love of women."
David is saying that friendship love can be a greater pleasure than erotic love, and we will see the importance of this later even in marriage.
This also has tremendous implications for singles, for it is saying that the sexual relationship is not the highest relationship of two people.
Jesus never had a mate, but He did have friends, and this is potentially a higher level of love.
Friendship can be a higher level than any other relationship.
Abraham is called the friend of God, and there is no way to top that.
The Bible puts friendship on a very high level, and sometimes even above family ties.
Even pagan authors recognize this as true to life.
Euripides wrote, "A friend welded into our life is more to us than twice 5000 kinsman, one in blood."
Engel the German said, "Blood relationship is sweet, but how much sweeter are alliances of the soul?"
Similar statements can be found from every land and people from ancient times to the present.
Emerson said, "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature."
We are designed by God to be social beings, and so there is a hunger in all people for friends.
And ancient Jewish proverb said, "Friends, though they be as Job's friends, or else death."
The Russian poet Dimitriev wrote, "I've been seeking a friend!
There's none below.
The world must soon to ruin go."
I do not exaggerate when I say I could go on for hours just quoting the praises of friendship from philosophers and poets from around the world.
We would expect that Jesus would have something to say about such an important subject, and we find this to be the case.
In fact, Jesus is unsurpassed in His exaltation of friendship.
He raised it to the highest possible level by making it a relationship that can be had between God and man.
In Christ God becomes our friend.
We have the testimony of Christ's enemies to support this, for they called Him a friend of sinners.
They meant it as slam, but it is, in fact, a compliment, for had He not been a friend of sinners He would have been a friend of no one, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Jesus was a friend to the friendless, and you see Him befriending those sinners and victims of sin that the Pharisees shunned.
They would toss coins to them and give them advice, and even pray for this scum of the earth around them, but to befriend them was a definite no no.
And to eat with them was unheard of.
That is how they thought they knew Jesus was not divine, for had He really been deity He would have known to have better taste than to eat with an befriends with such sinners.
Listen to this testimony from the great Jewish scholar Montefiore.
He is looking at Jesus from a non-Christian point of view:
"The rabbis attached no less value to repentance than Jesus.
They sang its praises and its efficacy in a thousand tones...
They too welcomed the sinner in his repentance.
But to seek
out the sinner, and instead of avoiding the bad companion,
to choose him as your friend in order to work his moral
redemption, this was, I fancy, something new in the religious
history of Israel."
The Jews set up shop and said come and get it, but Jesus, like a Shepherd, went out to seek and save the lost.
He went after them because He was their friend.
Friendship evangelism started with Jesus.
The idea of winning people to God by first of all winning their friendship was His strategy from the start.
Most Christians do not win others to Christ because they think they need the gift of evangelism, or some special training.
The fact is, all you really need is to be a friend.
Walter F. Isenhour wrote,
You may not stand in the halls of fame
With many honors to your name;
You may not own a lot of wealth,
Nor even have the best of health;
You may not reach some earthly throne,
Nor claim a mansion of your own;
You may not master some great art,
Nor rank with those the world calls smart,
But you can be friendly.
You may not be a scholar great,
Nor with the learned highly rate;
You may not wear a pretty face,
Nor fill a great, important place;
You may not write a book or song,
Nor have the praises of a throng;
You may not ride in Pullman cars,
Nor reach through eloquence the stars,
But you can be friendly.
Studies show that the vast majority of people who attend church do so because of friends.
Eliminate friendship from the picture and you eliminate most church growth.
Every church wants to be known as the friendly church because it is a known fact that friendship is the source of growth.
If a church is not friendly it will not grow.
Dr. Wilbur Chapman did a study of the people who were healed by Jesus and he found this same truth.
Of the 40 specific people Jesus healed of a disease, 34 of them were brought to Jesus by friends, or he was brought to them by friends.
In only 6 cases did people come on their own.
The point is, people do come on their own to Christ and the church, but the vast majority come because of friends.
The most likely way any Christian is going to touch another life for Christ is by means of friendship.
As vital as this aspect of friendship is, it is not the theme of our text.
Jesus is not speaking in public here but in private with His chosen disciples.
He is not talking about their friendship evangelism and relationship to the world, but of their relationship to one another.
Jesus is teaching that friendship is to be on the very highest level among Christians.
In fact, it is to be on the level of divine love, which is unselfish and self-sacrificing love.
Jesus starts with the love of God for the Son.
Then He says that the Son loves the disciples with this same love, and then the disciples are to love one another with this God-like and Christ-like love.
Agape love and Philia love are one here.
Friendship if lifted to the very heights of divine love.
To get to a level higher than this is impossible, and so friendship has the capacity of being the highest degree of love possible.
Jesus says that greater love has no one than that of laying down his life for a friend.
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