Hi joaniemarie, Here's the context of where Jesus calls us His friends.
John 15:15-20
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.
No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another.
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
We are friends if we obey. We must be born again and therefore once we are, we will be obedient children.
So we obey, bear fruit, love one another - and then he says in the same breath, that a slave is not greater than his master. So although he calls us friends, it doesn't negate the fact that God is God and we are not.
As the Lord's slave, we are not greater than He is (The Master) and so because the world persecuted Him, they will also persecute us.
Paul, James, Peter, John and Jude all called themselves bondservants. As friends of Jesus, we also become His bondservant.
We are not slaves in the worldly sense of the word. We are willing servants, like in the OT where the slave loved his master and had his ear pierced with an awl.
We lovingly and willingly serve our Lord and Savior. The word Lord should be enough to show that we serve Him as a bondservant.