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Friendship

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

John 15:14-15 ESV

“The Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ – and he was called a friend of God.”

James 2:23 ESV

Friendship is a beautiful thing, and the Bible has much to say about it. Friendship is a state of human relationship – perhaps the most desired and meaningful form of human relationship. Friendship is first an unforced and life-giving relationship. Throughout life we have many relationships that are necessary for business or daily life in community. We have family relationships, both near and extended, but having many people in and around our lives does not mean that we have many friends. In fact, we live in an age of supposed connection with countless digital means of ‘social media,’ yet we live in a highly disconnected, friendless, and lonely age.

We learn about friendship as it is explained and defined in Scripture. Friendship is first based on common ground, or commonly enjoyed and shared experiences. We become friends of God as we believe in Jesus and follow Him as a disciple. We enter into a personal relationship with God. Friendship is one way to describe the relationship between God and human beings. When we believe and obey God, our relationship with Him changes from adversarial and separated to near and joyful.

The basis of acceptance by God, communication through prayer, forgiveness and reconciliation of relationship are all worked out into our healthy human friendships. Yet, friendship with God is the master friendship that teaches us how to build lasting friendships with other people. If we have a broken relationship with God, it will flow down into broken relationships with those around us. If we have a strong and joyful relationship with God, it will result in multiplied daily friendships and interpersonal harmony.

Let’s examine some other basic aspects of friendship. Friendship is based on the common ground of shared experience. The shared experiences of the nearest friends are not experiences of ease and pleasure. The nearest and dearest friendships are forged through the common ground of shared struggle and adversity. This seems counter-intuitive, but it’s true. As the other aspects of friendship outlined below are applied in hard circumstances, we treasure people that would show such kindness and goodness to us in the most difficult times.

Friendship relates to the appreciation of differences. This is a form of humility. Friends recognize that they need people that are different from themselves. Friends appreciate that others are good (or great!) at things they can’t do. Friends then encourage and cheer each other on in these varied areas of strength.

Friendship relates to disclosure, discretion, and trust. All people have a need to talk through and express matters that are important to them or heavy on their heart. However, often these matters are personal or sensitive in some way. Friends take joy in sharing with each other matters of the heart, but such personal disclosure requires trust in the other person that such personal matters will be kept personal and confidential. That’s trust. You will never develop meaningful personal relationships without the self-control of keeping personal matters personal. This earned trust flows into believing another person. Friends believe each other. There can be no friendship without trust.

Friendship relates to mutual and sacrificial care. Friends look out for each other and are actively looking for ways to bless each other. The old maxim is true! You have to be a friend to have a friend. Friends don’t sit back and wait for the other to call or act. Friends actively seek each other for good. The care of friends for each other is sacrificial. True friends open their homes to each other, really help in times of need, and never leave a friend with an unmet need if it can possibly be met. True friends will “give you the shirt off their back” and this is remarkable because it is a rare virtue. This sacrificial posture must be mutual and ongoing to form friendship. The desire to meet needs and show care, goes back and forth over time and is not one-sided. The meeting of needs shows love, concern, and genuine care.

Friendship relates to access. As we build friendship with others over time, we give them greater access to our lives and we gain greater access to their lives. This development takes years and requires face-to-face experience. It is impossible to develop deep friendship quickly or without significant personal time spent together. The most rewarding friendships are cultivated over the years and grow like a great tree – slowly but with deep rooted strength.

Friendship relates to forgiveness. We are all sinners and will wrong each other in various ways. Friends do not hold and nurse grudges and bitterness. Friends are willing to forgive and offer another chance to make things right. Friends are willing to reconcile and move forward again because of mutual care.

Friendship cuts across the other central relationships of our lives to make those relationships more life-giving and joyful. Friendship is the ground of the happiest marriages. Friendship is the ground of the best relationships between adult children and older parents. Friendship is the ground for our relationship to each other in the church (3 John 1:15). Cold marriages, forced family gatherings, and plastic impersonal churches are a tragedy. All such dysfunctional relationships go back to where I started this discussion – your relationship with God. If you have personally experienced the love and friendship of God, it will work its way out into your home and the church. The love and friendship of God will teach us to befriend our spouse and will cause the community of the church – those we have the most in common with – to be our nearest and dearest friends.

As followers of Jesus, let us demonstrate to the world how to form friendships. In a lonely and isolated time, may part of the light of our lives be the joyful friendships we form in Jesus’ name and to His glory.

Open your heart to Jesus and open your heart to others,

Pastor Vic