Finding And Forming Friendships Series

Finding and Forming Friendships

Series: Building Better RELATIONSHIPS

September 28, 2021

Intro

Do you remember when your parents sat you down and taught you how to make friends?

Remember the 3 step process every child is given?

Neither do I.

The truth is... in the earliest years of our lives... we generally relate to whoever we have around us. It’s not something many of us think about much.

In our earliest years... we just seemed to become friends with someone our parents had us play with... a neighbor... kids at school.

And... what we find...is that as we get older...it can actually get harder to find and form friendships.

There are fewer groups we simply belong to...like in grade school.

We can become more hesitant and guarded.

We often don’t know where to begin...an everybody is so busy... we don’t even know how to try.

Marla Paul in her book The Friendship Crisis [1] wrote...

“The problem is not just that friends ineluctably disappear from our lives, but that making new ones is so arduous. We search in a climate that often seems icy and inhospitable. Our skills are as rusty as the old can opener in the back of the drawer. Making friends as children and teens was as effortless as breathing. As midlife women, though, it's suddenly a complicated dance whose steps we try to retrace but can't quite remember.” - Marla Paul

It can be more challenging for both women and men.

So today, we are continuing our Fall focus and series on BUILDING BETTER REALTIONSHIPS...and particularly what we can learn from Jesus about finding and forming friendships.

And perhaps the most basic truth to help us get started...is to realize that friendships are not so much found as they are formed.

The FINDING is not as essential as the FORMING.

In our romantic culture we are suckers for the part of the story of how two people “find” each other... sense of fate... whether a best friend or romantic love.

Important to realize... our relationships are found within the small sphere of our lives.

7 billion people... so any sense that what is being found is the “one”... is a little misguided.

Any one’s spouse is their soulmate because they found a good compliment and FORMED a relationship.

Anyone’s best friend is not the best because they went through 7 billion...but because found a good connection...and then allowed it to grow.

We never just find a spouse... or a friend... we find a good initial opportunity ...but then the relationships forms over time.

And that process will be different for each of us... because we have different circumstances…. and personalities.

So I want to encourage you... don’t waste time comparing your relational life to others.

This series in about helping each of us grow in connecting with others...both in forming more connections and better connections.

The idea of looking at Jesus might seem a little strange... because we think of Jesus as a spiritual teacher ...which he was. But ..

Jesus bears the nature of God’s love...embodied in human vulnerability... in this wounded world.

We know that Jesus was raised in a very different time and place.

Cities were smaller and the small towns were smaller.

There were no app for meeting people...but there was the local well that women drew water from.... the local learning ... the exchange of trades... at the mini-market.

But don’t miss that he shared in our humanity...

We look at Jesus… What we see is a life of relationships...and when we look we must not look in such a way that we can’t imagine and see the humanity.

The Gospels focus almost exclusively on his years of ministry... emerging as the Messiah...starting at the age of 30.

But here we see the significant formation of relationships.

So lets consider what we can learn about finding and forming relationships... from his model and teaching...and some of the wisdom of the Scriptures that he affirmed.

The Spheres of Relationship Which Jesus Developed

If we look to Jesus... what we discover is a picture of a relational life that can help us identify the different spheres that reflect something of a healthy way in which our lives experience connection.

We all know that there are different levels of connection.

... We have different circles around us that we share life with in different ways.

And the life of Jesus can help us see these. More importantly...it can give us some perspective on how to better understand our own relationship to these spheres.

I want to note that many choose different terms to associate with them... these are those I felt fit best.

And I chose not to use the word “friendship” for any one sphere...because while we often do use the word friendship to speak of those uniquely close... we also can speak of many people as being our friends. Jesus himself was referred to as a “friend of sinners”... because he attended meals with some lives... and he spoke of being friends to many. I suspect the words used to refer to friendships... have long been used with different levels of closeness. And that is really the point of what we discover. We discover a world of broader connections that forms closer and deeper connections.