John 15:12-17 – Love in Friendship
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."
John 15:12 (ESV)
God's love for us in friendship is the only perfect model of what true love in friendship looks like.
One thing that I kinda resent modern English for is that it's condensed a ton of different Greek words into the one word for love. When you read Greek philosophy, it's a lot easier to take away what kind of love the author was really talking about. Love of friends and camaraderie, romantic love, "self-love," love of God (for person, and of person for God). How much easier would it be to explain to people the love we have for people, without watering down a single word and making it one of the most commonly used words of our language?
In fairness, though, it's not just the linguistic part of it that's made the word love so overused. We've just gotten so incredibly confused with the depth of the word in the first place, and way too comfortable using it. We exaggerate, yeah. Saying that we love a certain smell, taste, or sound. That we love an activity, movie, or game. But take it a step further. As we're growing up, we often tell other people that we share bonds with that we love them, without understanding how deep that really goes – regardless of what version of love we're talking about. Let's say we're talking about "philia," the love of friendship and camaraderie. We have a dear friend, and we start to spend a lot of time around them. Things go from them being someone we see in one specific place, to scheduling time to do things outside of that. At a certain point, and after a long period of time, that bond usually reaches a level where we feel comfortable telling that person that we love them. Platonically, but deeply.
How does God tell us that that kind of love should look like? Love takes many forms, but regardless of what form it takes, I'm talking about true love. I'm going to be comparing that kind of love to the love found in other types of relationships, only because at their core, all types of love share a lot of similarities. Yes, this is how we should love our friends. But it is also the base for other kinds of love. Friendship is just the kind that comes the least naturally to us.
Still, regardless of what kind of love we have for someone, Christ instructs us to love as He loved. This is a very tall order, and one that is talked up and down in most Christian sermons. But even though we constantly talk about how we should love like Christ, I think a lot of us still don't know what that love looks like. I heard it broken down in one of Jason Dees' sermons at Christ Covenant in Atlanta, and he did a great job of breaking down different aspects of Jesus' command to imitate "God's friendship" in John 15.
For starters, our friendship with the Lord specifically is built on following Him. It's decided that a real relationship with Him is evident through us making a genuine effort to practice His commandments. We understand that our relationship with God is not dependent on that, but at the same time, anyone that experiences the love of Christ will inherently have a desire to follow His commandments. Any one who follows Him genuinely is decidedly a friend of His, among other things. This is specific to our friendship with the Lord, as He's the only true authority over us.
In the spirit of imitating God's friendship in our relationships with others, His friendship is sacrificial. This is probably the "simplest" way to identify whether what you feel for someone is a true, Christlike love – it will stretch farther than your "love" for yourself. Wanting to make sacrifices for another person puts their needs and desires above your own. Do I love this person enough to always put their needs above my own? Does my "love" come from receiving, or does my giving come from my love? Healthy friendships and relationships demonstrate this both ways, so that when love is true, no one is the sole benefactor of that exchange. To make it much more simple – the greatest demonstration of love that's ever been performed, was also the ultimate sacrifice that's ever been performed.
God's friendship is also honest. Not only is it honest, but it requires honesty, and openness. Now, there's such thing as sharing too much, but also understand that sin thrives in silence. When we knowingly hurt or betray another person, silence is food for that sin. It grows and transforms, into a much deeper betrayal, and even though there's treatment for pain, there's no reversal for iniquity. Is there any part of my love that's still hidden in silence or dishonesty? In the same way, sins that we don't bring before God only grow in the meantime. When we sin against Him, the only next step is to bring it before Him and repent for it. That also means we really make an effort to fix it. That's it. Maybe shame or guilt brought us to that point, but that shame comes from the sin itself. The only thing that comes from God in that case is forgiveness.
God's friendship is intentional. Intentionality, I think, is any effort or thought put forth that we have to go out of our way to invest into a relationship. Christ's love (and therefore His friendship), is the most genuine example of that. I believe that God is the only true intentional "god." He has complete authority and justification in anything He would choose to do, yet He chose to sacrifice for us – His grace and mercy are completely one of a kind. Do I show my love in ways that don't come naturally to me? How often do I actively think of ways to show my love?
Finally, God's friendship is fruitful. Might be a hot take, but I don't think love that always agrees is true love. True love challenges and grows. It's not overly critical, or in constant opposition, but it's also not static. Gentleness is incredibly important, but gentleness as it's described as a fruit of the spirit is not exclusive from firmness or assertiveness. Challenging someone lovingly is one of the most common struggles that people experience in any kind of relationship, but it's essential to imitating the true love of Christ. Putting a spotlight on sin was kind of His job. But unlike Christ's relationship with us, this goes both ways. We should be growing from others as well, and willing to accept our own shortcomings. Do I bring out the best in those I love? Does God make grow them through me, and me through them?
This was admittedly way longer than I thought it was going to be, but I still think that this was a super brief overview of love. I think there's a lot I missed here about friendship that I won't include for the sake of it already being a whole novel. Considering love is the common theme of Scripture as a whole, I think there's always more to it when talking about God's love for us. Still, I'd definitely like to go over a lot of this in more detail – maybe I'll start some kind of series or something for some aspect of it.
"Show me what it means to love the way that You do. Let me feel convicted to imitate that in my relationships."
*Wanted to add in a little disclaimer here, but these posts have been spaced out a bit more lately, since I'm trying to put together a series of posts right now and it's taking me a bit longer than I expected. There's a lot of different content that I'm trying to build them around, and I want to make sure I'm content with them before I start putting them out!