Wed Jun 4

Listen up, little ones

Listen for the word friend.

Reading

John 15:9–17—The Greatest Friend

Optional Reading

Job 19:13-22

Keys for kids

• A true friend will do good things for his friend.
• The greatest friend will lay down his life for his friend.
• Jesus is the greatest friend anyone could ever have.

Questions

1. What were we when Jesus laid down his life for us?
2. How can we know that we are Jesus’s friends?
3. What should we do since Jesus made us his friends?

Notes

Job’s friends, though they started out well, turned out not to be such great friends. We are told that even friends not named in the book turned against him. But we desperately want true friends—friends that stick closer than a brother (see Prov 18:24).

What might a true friend do? And not do? They might not do many of the things that Job reported that his friends and companions and even family did in Job 19. Instead, a true friend might lay down his life for his friend.

Jesus, in our reading today, tells us that the greatest love is for one to lay down his life for his friends. Then he calls his disciples—including us if we are his disciples—his friends. Jesus laid down his life for us—his friends.

Sometimes someone will literally die for a friend. Such sacrifice deeply moves us. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners [not his friends, not worthy of his love], Christ died for us (Romans 5:8 CSB).

Jesus chose us to be his friends. Died for us, his friends. Made us, by his death and resurrection, into his friends when we were by nature his enemies.

Since he laid down his life for us, he calls us to lay down our lives in love for one another.

Swedish Method questions

Praise

Psalm 25b, 119s

Prayer

1. Rejoice that Jesus made you his friend.
2. Pray for change in you from last Lord’s Day’s sermons.
3. Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.