Friends- John 15:9-15

I’m reading this last discourse that Jesus gives to His disciples as he’s walking toward destiny, and I can’t help but think of what I would want my last words to be if I knew I was walking to my death. One time I was the nursery leader and I had about 5 kids in there, and then I had to suddenly move and on my last Sunday there I gave my “last words” to the kids, even though I’m sure they had no idea what I was talking about. I said basically to always stay in the Church, always keep the commandments, always read the scriptures and to love Jesus. I feel like this is kind of a similar thing that Jesus is doing here, giving his last bits of wisdom to people he loved and to whom he knew horror and hardship was coming.

Keeping with the concept of “abiding” that we talked about yesterday, Jesus says, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” This statement seems to imply that God’s love is contingent on obedience to the commandments, which we know isn’t the case. But if we look at the word “abide,” we can see that the state of God’s love doesn’t change with our obedience or disobedience, but our ability to feel that love does. Usually, when we have chosen to live a life contrary to the commandments, we are not prepared to feel the love and comfort and teaching of the Holy Ghost because we’ve indicated that we don’t want it. I think it’s interesting to consider that if we were able to feel the full effects of God’s love, we wouldn’t want to ever do anything wrong again, but really, that would be coercion. Our process in life is to choose to be obedient because we love and have faith in God, but if we don’t want to be obedient, we are telling Jesus to keep his distance. He honors our agency, even if that includes keeping the knowledge and understanding of His love away from us.
The IM references D&C 6:20 which says, “Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love.” This is an excellent definition of “abide” to “encircle in the arms of my love.” I also think it’s important to point out that Jesus tells his disciples that he himself is held to the same standards of obedience to the commandments. When we think that the commandments are rules that keep us from having fun, we have to remember the fact that we are given the commandments so that we can return to Heavenly Father some day, and that he also lives the same commandments. If God was really just trying to control us and keep us from having fun, then that implies that fun and happiness are attainable outside of the boundaries set by the commandments. So if fun is on the outside, but God lives on the inside, then really, wouldn’t he just be depriving himself of fun and happiness too?
We are given the commandments not because God wants to rule over us and make us his slaves, but because he keeps them and is happy and wants us to be happy too. I used to think that I didn’t have to keep the commandments because I was so special, and now I know that I am so special that I DO have to keep the commandments. That was a light bulb moment. The IM quotes Elder Dallin H. Oaks as teaching, “God’s love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is… God’s choicest blessings are clearly contingent upon obedience to God’s laws and commandments. The key teaching is from modern revelation: ‘There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this worls, upon which all blessings are predicated- and when we obtain any blessing from god, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.’… If a person understands the teachings of Jesus, he or she cannot reasonably conclude that our loving Heavenly father or His divine Son believes that their loves supersedes Their commandments.” And I might add that if a person understands the teachings of Jesus, they can’t reasonably conclude that the commandments are given for any other reason than to keep us safe and happy.
Interestingly, Jesus continues, “these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Why is he talking about joy? What is it about what he just said that has anything to do with joy? He says that if they obey his commandments, they will have the love of God with them in their hearts, is that a reason for joy? There have been several times in the last few years where I have felt the pure love of God, and it’s amazing. With Jesus telling them that he’s leaving, the assurance that God’s love can still be with them would be a reason for happiness. Another point might be made for the fact that Jesus knew exactly what was coming for the disciples after his death. I’m sure they didn’t think it at the time, but this homeless, wandering time spent with Jesus was about to become the “good old days,” it was all going to go downhill from here. Maybe Jesus wanted them to mentally make the connection between keeping the commandments and God’s love and happiness so that when they were tempted to leave the faith or to disobey the commandments, they could remember what they would be giving up to do that.
I imagine Jesus getting choked up a little bit here, because he knows that this is it, even though I don’t think that the disciples quite understand what’s going on. He continues, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” They have been through a lot together, clearly Jesus has been the leader, and there has been a student/teacher dynamic the whole time, but He’s really squaring up with them, everything that He knows, they know, there’s no secret plan or anything like that anymore, they are equals, and he enjoys their company, they are friends.
The IM quotes President Gordon B. Hinckley as teaching, “Jesus is my friend. None other has given me so much… He gave His life for me. He opened the way to eternal life. Only a God could do this. I hope that I am deemed worthy of being a friend to Him.” He really makes a point here because friendship has to be reciprocal otherwise it is just toxic. Am I a friend to Jesus or am I just a toxic black hole to Him? And because this concept of friendship is so important to Jesus, we need to consider why. The IM quotes Elde Marlin K. Jensen as commenting, “Having been so richly blessed by Christ’s friendship, I pray that we will now be to others what He is to us: a true friend. I testify of this inestimable value of friends… I know that when we offer ourselves in friendship, we make a most significant contribution to God’s work and to the happiness and progress of His children.”
Let’s think about this in the context of, say, home and visiting teaching. The Church just changed the program so that it wasn’t such a “check the box” program as it would be of people being friends with each other. I have to be honest, I don’t like being a visiting teacher, I really really don’t, but I have a testimony of it’s importance because I have made and strengthened so many friendships over the years because of it. I’ve been able to be a visiting teacher to someone who was super uninterested in the Church because we were friends first. I met my best friend as her visiting teacher, and even though people might think that there should be a “I help you” aspect to this, asking the girl I visit teach to do something for me was a very big step in us becoming friends. I once had 6 girls that I alone was assigned to visit teach, and you know how many of them felt like a chore? None, because I was already friends with all of them.
In fact, yesterday I was thinking about this very concept in relation to visiting teaching messages and the new program and I thought, well how are we going to have gospel centered discussions with the people we visit teach if we don’t have the messages? Then I thought, well probably the same way that we have gospel discussions with everyone else around us. I’m a firm believer that no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care, and no one cares if you need to get your numbers turned in for the end of the month if they feel like a project. Then I think about a discussion I had with my daughter yesterday where we talked about kids being told that they can’t play with other kids because the other kids aren’t Mormon. First off, Jesus would never have done that. Second, if we isolate those who aren’t members, why would they ever have anything but harsh negative feelings about the Church? Their train of thought it probably, “If I join their church, then I will have to be just as mean and hateful as they are.”
But when a hand of friendship is extended beyond differences, that is the true hand of God. There’s a joke that I absolutely love and it goes something like, “An atheist, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim all sit down together at a table… And have a great conversation because not everyone is a hateful dirt bag.”  Everyone deserves to be loved and included and made to feel important, and it is our duty as Christians to be a friend to everyone. And that doesn’t mean to just tolerate them until you can talk to them about converting, that means actually caring about them and their families as people, helping them when they need it and allowing them to help you when you need it. It’s a really beautiful thing, friendship.