JESUS CHRIST OUR MATCHLESS FRIEND WHO IS A FRIEND? • A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are. Unknown • A good friend is like a four leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have Irish Proverb • A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in the garden Unknown • There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate Linda Grayson JOHN 15 V 15 ATTRIBUTES THAT MAKES JESUS CHRIST OUR MATCHLESS FRIEND BURDEN BEARER EMPATHY MEDIATOR (HIGH PRIEST) LOVE & HOPE GUARANTOR FAITHFULNESS BURDEN BEARER Burden: Something that is exacting, oppressive, or difficult to bear e.g. sin, anxiety, fear, debt etc • Matt 11 v 28-30 EMPATHY -The ability to understand and share the feelings of others • Heb 2v14-18 MEDIATOR(HIGH PRIEST) A person who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement; a go between • Heb 5v1 5 (NLT) (Brief definition of a High Priest • Heb 8v1 6 (NLT) (Jesus Christ our High Priest LOVE & HOPE You can give without loving but you can’ t love without giving • John 15v9-14 • Heb 6v13-20 GUARANTOR –a person, organization, or thing that guarantees something. • A guarantor is a financial term describing an individual who promises to pay a borrower's debt in the event that the borrower defaults on their loan obligation. Guarantors pledge their own assets as collateral against the loans. • Heb 7 v 16-25 FAITHFULNESS - Firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty • Heb 10v19-23 • John 14v1-6 CONCLUSION: It’s a common saying that – “friendship is by choice”. In life, we couldn’t choose our parents, place of birth, given names, skin color, height, etc. One of the areas where we have a choice in life is friendship. We have the ability to choose who we call friends. Jesus had a choice as well, but he chose YOU - John 15 v 16 (16You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.) John 3v16 (16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave[g] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. ). Also, in John10 v 17-18 (17 “The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. 18 No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”). Choice is the greatest gift GOD gave humanity – Josh 24 v15 (15 But if you refuse to serve the LORD, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD.”). Deut 30v15 (15 “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster.) Brethren, just like how our Lord Jesus Christ had a choice of friendship, you also have one. Fortunately for us, God couldn’t have made this decision easier for us when he persuaded us to choose life in Deut 30v 19 (19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;) I will like to close with this quote from Charles Spurgeon – “Every Christian man has a choice between being humble and being humbled”.