⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 

¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.   John 15:9-17

 

Keller “You Are My Friends”

1. Why do we need friendship?
2. How do we get friendship?

A friend: “always lets you in, never lets you down.”
Candor and constancy. Need both.
Just candor: support group.
Just constancy: paid therapist / social worker.

 

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. Eph 1:17-19

It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Deut 7:7-8

 

Friendship v. Loneliness

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’  Gen 2:18

 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.   Ex 33:11

 A friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are born to share adversity. Proverbs 7:17

 Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy. Proverbs 27:6

 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’, and he was called the friend [philos] of God. James 2:23

 Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. James 4:4

 

Hebrew sod: council, counsel, secret, friendship

The friendship [sod] of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them. Ps 25:14 NRSV

The secret [sod] of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.  Ps 25:14 KJV

My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me…. All my inward [sod] friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. Job 19:14,19

For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel [sod] together, and walked unto the house of God in company. Ps 55:12-14

Do not envy the violent and do not choose any of their ways; for the perverse are an abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence [sod]. Prov 3:31-32