Committed to Christian Friendship
3 John
Everybody wants it.
But few know how to find it.
Some would give their life for a taste.
Most are left desperate.
Searching in loneliness for a friend.
In the July 21, 1980 issue of Time Magazine there was an essay entitled “Friends, And Countrymen”. The essayist was speaking about the loss of friendship in our country as a nation, and toward the American citizens as individuals. The essayist wrote these words: “There are friendships based on passion, on pity, on pleasure, on comradeship, on professional advantage, on intellectual agreement, on mutual admiration, on spiritual convictions, on personal advancement, on hero worship, on protection, on need, on loyalty, on fear. None of these elements preclude any other. And most friendships incorporate several of them at once.”
And yet the essayist goes on to remark, “All friendships are precarious. Passion cools. Pleasure fades. Pity and hero worship breed resentment. Companionship grows boring. And need degenerates into dependence. Comradeship looses its occasion. Suddenly it is clear how fragile friendships is, how quickly it can be replaced by enmity, or by nothing.”
And then it concludes in the final two sentences: “The reason that Shakespeare had Mark Antony address his audience as friends before Romans and countrymen is that he knew how the heart leaps up at the smallest signs of brotherhood. Feeling more alone in the world than ever, we Americans also leap for those signs.”
In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putman says the following statistics are indicators of the decline in community life in America over the past 25 years:
Attending club meetings: down 58%
Family dinners: down 33%
Having friends over: down 45%
In 1984, Michael W. Smith came out with the song Friends. It speaks of the national desire for friendship that for over a decade that some was used repeatedly on Christian campuses and non-Christian campuses alike as the #1 graduation song.
Could it be more be more than a mere coincidence that one of the top rated shows in the 1980’s and 90’s season after season was situated in a New England pub; “A place where everyone knows your name” … a place where friendships were developed.
And that over the last nine television season, people were drawn to the story of 6 Friends.
So this morning, I want to offer some observations on friendship, both from God’s Word and from experience.
When I was ministering in Athens, IL for 3 plus years, day after day, I could see the same scene. Sometimes I would see this old man drive up in his car along side of the cemetery. Other times we would see him just getting out of the car as best he could, and in his hands he clutched some flowers. And other times, we could see him walking across the grounds, sitting beside a tombstone and putting his head in his hands and cry. I found out from some friends of ours that he had lost his closest friend, his wife, and for years he had been making this painful visited because he was so terribly lonely.
April 2, 1987, I remember getting a phone call from my mother to inform us that my grandmother had passed away. Just like several of you, my grandmother possessed a special place because she acted much like a second mother. I called the elders to okay a leave for a couple of days to go and be with the family. Before I hung up we prayed. Laira and I loaded things into the car, and we headed on our 200-hundred mile trek toward home. Two days later one of the families from the church, quite by surprise, arrived at the memorial service. It did our hearts good to
In September of 1999, Barb Bussian, Jill’s mom, was making daily visits to our home to check on Laira and see the baby after Jonathon’s birth. Just five days after Jonathon was born I found myself in the hospital with a serious Gall bladder attack. Barb made her way into the hospital – made phone calls – and stayed several hours, while the diagnosis was being made, keeping Laira updated. It did our hearts good to have one we ministered too, minister to us.
What is friendship exactly? That is a difficult question to answer.
John Paul Sarte said hell in defining hell was other people.
T. S. Eliot in a play, entitled The Cocktail Party, has a charcter Celia Copplestone, and when she is in the midst of all of these people who are supposedly her friends from society, and yet she makes the observations that she has never been lonelier.
Poets, playwrights, philosophers, novelists, preachers all have attempted to offer a definition of what friendship is.
Yet as Christians, what we have to do is say, “What does God’s Word say about friendship?”
Interestingly, when taking the concordance, it has very little to say. Very few times do the words, friends, friendship, or friendly occur in either the Old or New Testament. But the few times the word friendship occurs are significant I believe. I have selected a few scriptures from the Old Testament and several verses from a New Testament passage for us to consider.
Proverb 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
Proverb 18:24 “ A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
But in turning to the New Testament, perhaps the most significant statement on the subject of friendship occurs in the smallest book of the New Testament, 3 John. And what is significant is how he weaves the theme of friendship in his writing to communicate a relationship that exists between him and a man names Gaius.
I would not pretend to give an exhaustive definition of friends and friendship. Yet there are some attitudes that are found in those friendships that count. There are certain attitudes that are foundational for friendships that are enduring, that are everlasting.
What I want to explore on the basis of 3 John are at least three of those attitudes that are necessary for the development and maintenance of any good friendship.
1. Two or more people are really friends when they have a common attitude toward the Savior.
“Truth” is a word that is equally significant in 3 John. Truth is found in Jesus Christ. Human relationships are subsumed in Christ. Individual friendships have their basis in Christ the Savior.
To realize that from the article in Time Magazine that the friendships of today are so frail because they are built on sand and not on the rock.
· They are built on the sand of mutual gratification.
· They are built on the sand of vocational pursuit.
· They are built on the sand of life situational concerns.
· They are built on the sand of areas of personal interest and passion.
No friendship is possible without it being based in the love of God. “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”
“It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 3,4)
Our horizontal relationship presupposes a mutual vertical relationship between God and the individual.
Broken relationships may not cause us so much to contemplate the broken horizontal relationship, but the disintegrating relationship between God and the believer.
Friendship and fellowship are grounded in the truth.
In the Time magazine article there is not the note of truth that comes through. There is just one short statement saying, “The New Testament has very little to say about friendship.”
But if the essayist would have opened his eyes to what John is saying here, he would have heard that friendship is not based on treaties either international or individual. It is on the basis of Christ that we can really be friends with each other.
So therefore, what the Bible teaches is that two people are really friends if they have a common Savior. But there is a second attitude that we must possess. The first is not adequate.
2. Two or more people are really friends when they have a common attitude toward serving.
As we look again at the pages of scripture, John gives us two pictures of attitudes toward serving. The first destroys friendships. The second develops.
In vs. 9-10, John explains the destructive influence that Diotrophes has had on the church. He has come in like a storm, wrecking havoc, making sure he was seen as the force with which to be wreckoned.
After his assessment he instructs the believers. “Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.” (vs. 11). It boils down to this, “Don’t serve with the same selfish , as you have witnessed from Diotrophes.
The second picture presented of serving occurs in vs. 5. It is a word of encouragement. “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you.” (vs. 5)
Paul would coin it as partners in the gospel, that in living out the implications of that gospel we as friends are able to serve. We are able to minister together as brothers and sisters. We are able to minister together as friends.
When two people have an opportunity that brings them together, they are able to share and to serve on a more intimate level, and something happens.
A key part of successful men’s ministry understands the necessity of shared ministry for the development of strong relationships within the ministry.
Shared service example
The Savior is the foundation, but the building of the friendship begins to take shape as two people begin to serve together.
Two people may believe in a common Savior. They may have a common attitude toward serving, but there is a final attitude I would like to share this morning.
3. Two or more people are really friends when they have a common sharing.
We can lean in to hear John’s intimate heart for Gaius in the closing verses of this letter.
“I have much to write to you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.” (vs. 13-14)
John is speaking of the intimacy of a relationship where the things to be shared together are so deeply personal that only a face-to-face conversation would suffice. This is the place where you move beyond the shake-and-howdy conversation to exploring what is really going on in each other’s lives. This is the place where we cry together … we laugh together … we console one another … we encourage one another … we correct one another. This is the place where we step into the discomforting area of vulnerability, and with honesty and authenticity embrace it.
Our friends are those who have ministered to our every need both spiritual and physical because together we have worshiped the same God who supplies all of our needs.
Our friends are those who have been compassionate and caring, those who have wiped away the tears in moments of depression, who have celebrated together in times of joy because together we have worshiped the one who is merciful, the one who is able to wipe all tears, the one who brings celebration to life.
Our friends are those who are able to confront us when we are caught up in some sin because together we have worshiped the one who is victorious over all sin.
Solomon wrote these words: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” What Solomon is saying is that at times friends are called to wound, enemies only offer kisses.
Martin Luther in reference to this text says, “When an enemy speaks kindly of you it is not affection. It is only the devil who is out to destroy you in your sins. ‘Ah!’ he says, ‘you’re doing find. Go ahead.’ But a friend will be willing to hurt you. This is a rod, but it comes from the heart of a friend.
Our friends are those who bring out the best in us because God desires the best to be brought out.
Our friends are those who have gone the second mile for us because we worship Jesus, the one who has gone the ultimate second mile for us.
C. S. Lewis wrote: “We picture lovers face to face. But when we picture friends, we see them side by side their eyes always looking ahead.”
In a world in which nations and individuals cry out for friendship that we must realize the folly of political vision. Friends are not secured through weapons, and money, and treaties. But those friendships that are enduring, that are everlasting, are secured only in Jesus Christ.
T. S. Eliot in reference to the lose of friendship in the churches:
You neglect and belittle the desert.
The desert is not remote and southern tropics.
The desert is not only around the corner.
The desert is squeezed into the pew next to you.
The desert is in the heart of your brother.
