The Facts About Friendships - John 15:13-15
We all need friends, but few understand the basics about forming quality friendships. A true friend is someone whom we enjoy mutual affection, interests and respect for. The best friends are those who are helpers in times of trouble. Those who are our advocates when we find ourselves in need are the kind of friends that are worth their weight in gold. Solomon once wrote, "A brother is born for times of adversity, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother - that is God our closest companion."
Illustration:
By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the noblest sufferings, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds of which brave men and women are capable.
Jeremy Taylor.
Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.. I have called you friend for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you." Christ’s friendship gives us everlasting love, direction and revelation of His will for our life. Let us explore some of the essential facts about our vertical and horizontal friendships so we can appropriate these relationships.
1. Friendships are enhanced when we shared mutual goals, values and power. Jesus knew that the best kinds of friendships would come from an intimate relationship with Him. Nothing comes close to the satisfaction we get when we are in close communication with the Lord Jesus.
Illustration: Our favorite hymn in our seminary chapel in Nigeria, where I taught for nearly twenty years was, "There’s not a friend like the humble Jesus. No not one. No not one. None else can heal all our souls diseases. No not one. No not one. Jesus knows all about our struggles. He will guide till the day is done. There’s not a friend like the humble Jesus. No not one. No not one." Let Jesus be your closest friend by spending the first part and the most valuable parts of your day with him in praise, communion and submission to His directives.
2. Friendship is enhanced when we share mutual activities that contribute to the qualitative and quantitative expansion of the kingdom of God and His righteousness. This might be best illustrated by a triangle. When two people want to get closer to one another they must first draw closer to the Jesus at the apex of the triangle. As they draw closer to the Lord in obedience, love and trust, they will find themselves drawing closer to one another. Too many people falsely assume that they can form friendships without making Christ the center of all relationships. Without Jesus at the center of every friendship it will eventually fail or cause us to put people above our devotion to God.
Illustration:A British publication once offered a prize for the best definition of a friend. Among the thousands of answers received were the following:
"One who multiplies joys, divides grief, and whose honesty is inviolable."
"One who understands our silence."
"A volume of sympathy bound in cloth."
"A watch that beats true for all time and never runs down."
The winning definition read: "A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out."
Bits & Pieces, July, 1991.
3. Friendship is a way that we can show our love for one another as we are commanded to do. True friendship evidences the qualities of patience, kindness, gentleness and faithfulness without seeking its own interests. Love makes friendships grow by adding enrichment to every relationship. Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. It knows no limit to endurance because it bears all things, believes the best in every person, hopes for the best in every difficult situation and endures all kinds of disappointments. Without an agape love, friendships are mercurial, fleeting and fair weathered in nature.
Illustration:Another source gives this version and source:
A friend is the first person who comes in when the whole world goes out.
Henry Durbanville.
4. Friendship provides the relationships that bring about 90% of the people into the family of God. Consistently, statistics tell us that about 90% of the people who become Christians do so through a friend or a family member. Friendship evangelism provides a warm relationship where people are able to feel the affection of a loving Christian before they are presented with the hard truths of the gospel.
Few people seem to be willing to extend friendships to people before they lay the truths of the gospel on the people around them. May the Lord help us to be kind to all, friendly, and willing to serve those around us by extending a helping hand. The Lord befriended many as a way of demonstrating the love that gives even when others misunderstand, ignore or criticize the giver.
Illustration:During his days as president, Thomas Jefferson and a group of companions were traveling across the country on horseback. They came to a river which had left its banks because of a recent downpour. The swollen river had washed the bridge away. Each rider was forced to ford the river on horseback, fighting for his life against the rapid currents. The very real possibility of death threatened each rider, which caused a traveler who was not part of their group to step aside and watch. After several had plunged in and made it to the other side, the stranger asked President Jefferson if he would ferry him across the river. The president agreed without hesitation. The man climbed on, and shortly thereafter the two of them made it safely to the other side. As the stranger slid off the back of the saddle onto dry ground, one in the group asked him, "Tell me, why did you select the president to ask this favor of?" The man was shocked, admitting he had no idea it was the president who had helped him. "All I know," he said, "Is that on some of your faces was written the answer ’No,’ and on some of them was the answer ’yes.’ His was a ’Yes’ face."
C. Swindol, The Grace Awakening, Word, 1990, p. 6.
5. Friendships are so valuable because through them we receive encouragement, consolation of love, fellowship and affirmation. Consider the great contribution that the friendship of Jonathan and David provided for men in their times of need. Without friends it is often difficult to overcome the hardships of life. We all need support, affirmation and interaction with people who care for us. If you want a friend, you must show yourself to be a friend, wrote Solomon.
Illustration:Same story different version: One example of friendship remains with me as vividly as the moment I first heard of it as a boy. In his first seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play Major League baseball, faced venom nearly everywhere he traveled--fastballs at his head, spikings on the bases, brutal epithets from the opposing dugouts and from the crowds. During one game in Boston, the taunts and racial slurs seemed to reach a peak. In the midst of this, another Dodger, a Southern white named Pee Wee Reese, called timeout. He walked from his position at shortstop toward Robinson at second base, put his arm around Robinson’s shoulder, and stood there with him for what seemed like a long time. The gesture spoke more eloquently than the words: This man is my friend.
Willie Morris in Parade.
6. Friendships provide correction, reproof and training from someone we know and trust. We all have blind spots in our lives that friends are able to help us see. There are many areas where we all need to improve. Without friends we become narrow in our thinking and unable to see a bigger picture of what God wants us to become in Christ.
Allow the Lord to use friends to help you grow in all aspects in Christ as they speak the truth in love. (Eph. 4:15)
Illustration:Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You, too? I thought I was the only one."
C.S. Lewis.
7. Friendships also have dangers, for friends can give bad advice, double-cross us, hurt us when they pull away from us and evne lead us away from the Lord. Moses wrote, "If your very own brother or your son or daughter or the wife you love or yoru closest friend secretly entices you saying, "Let us go and worship other gods, do not yield to him or listen to him. Show no pity. Do not spare him or shield him." (Deut 13;6-9) Be careful of allowing friends to lead you astray or to follow after their complacent ways. Ask the Lord to help you to remember that we become like the people we associate with.
Choose your friends carefully or you will become like those who have settled for mediocrity, faulty assumptions or standards that are less than Biblical ideas.
Illustration;In a survey of more than 40,000 Americans said these qualities were most valued in a friend: 1. The ability to keep confidences 2. Loyalty 3. Warmth and affection.
Psychology Today, quoted in Homemade, June, 1982.
8. Friendships bring the benefit of allowing us to disciple people who need to learn more of Christ’s will for their life. Paul discipled Timothy in the context of a friendly relationship. He wrote, "The things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2) Utilize your friendship in a disciple-making and teaching ministry. Do not just assume that friendships are for your own gratification.
Ask the Lord to help you find friendships in several mentoring relationships that will help you bring people to a higher level of spiritual and ministry maturity.
Illustration:Leonard Syme, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley, indicates the importance of social ties and social support systems in relationship to mortality and disease rates. He points to Japan as being number one in the world with respect to health and then discusses the close social, cultural, and traditional ties in that country as the reason. He believes that the more social ties, the better the health and the lower the death rate. Conversely, he indicates that the more isolated the person, the poorer the health and the higher the death rate. Social ties are good preventative medicine for physical problems and for mental-emotional-behavior problems.
Martin & Diedre Bobgan, How To Counsel From Scripture, Moody Press, 1985, p. 18.
9. Friendships should be on different levels. There are some friendships that will be on a mere acquaintance level, some will involve the sharing of facts, others will allow us to share more of our emotions and inner most feelings, other will be more engaging as we involve ourselves in sharing responsibilities and then finally there will be some rare friendships where we are able to be completely transparent, open and honest with a few close friends. Ask the Lord to help you be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so you can know what level of friendship to have with each person you meet.
Illustration:Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than upon what they make us see in ourselves.
Sarah Grand.
