Christian Friendship

Introduction

Definition: Someone you intentionally link arms with (for a season?) as you pursue the Kingdom

The Trinity

The Trinity is relational and we are created in the image of God.

Since God is relational and we are created in his image then we are relational. One of the first things God points out is that “It is not good for man to be alone.”

Family

If you are married, then your spouse is to be the person you primarily pursue in friendship. The aloneness of Adam was resolved with the creation of woman within a context of a covenant. So even if you are not married, have the category that your spouse will be the person you primarily pursue as a friend.

Jesus

Mark 3 14 “And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach”

It is worth noting here that Jesus picks the 12 so that (among other things) they might be with him. So begins a friendship so that John is described as the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). Jesus had friendships.

Definition

Definition: Christian friendship is intentionally linking arms with (for a season?) a brother/sister in Christ as you pursue the Kingdom.

1. Intentionally linking arms

There is a difference between being friendly and being a friend. As Christians we are called to be friendly towards everyone—to be kind, compassionate, cordial, Christlike, etc. But a friend is someone you are linking with in a more intentional way. It’s someone you intentionally pursue, keep in contact with, do things with, and so on.

2. Brother/sister

For Christians, friendship is primarily oriented towards other Christians—people headed in the same direction as you. Your friends should be Christians. They should love Christ, be repentant of their sin, love righteousness, love living out their faith—they need to be primarily believers, and solid believers.

When it comes to this aspect it is important to note that you can be picky when it comes to choosing your friends. It is implied in the texts below that you want to choose friends who are wise and understanding and not a fool, wrathful, glutton, or a prostitute.

Prov 13:20 “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Prov 22:24 “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man,”

Prov 28:7 “The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father.”

Prov 29:3 “He who loves wisdom makes his father glad, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.”

Do not get this point mixed up with picking people just like you, or by having some weird standard that’s impossible to meet. It does not mean that if you like fishing, cooking, and running, that you are only friends with those fishing, cooking, and running. What is more fundamental than things you enjoy, is your common mission of living for the Kingdom of God. That primary centrality will mean that you will have friends who are different than you in a lot of ways, and yet the centrality of Kingdom-mindedness will bind you together.

3. Pursue the Kingdom

The reason you need Christian friends is because you need friends who are headed in the same direction as you. As a Christian you are unashamedly pursuing Jesus. You are on your way to heaven. And it won’t work for you to have a legitimate friendship with someone who is not pursuing Jesus.

James 4:4 “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

As a Christian you are pursuing Jesus and friendship should be getting you there. Friendship is not the goal or the end. The end is Jesus and the glory of God.

Prov. 27:17 “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”

What about friendship evangelism? What about Jesus eating with sinners?

Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners

Luke 7:34 “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”

“Jesus was a friend of sinners not because he winked at sin, ignored sin, or enjoyed light-hearted revelry with those engaged in immorality. Jesus was a friend of sinners in that he came to save sinners and was very pleased to welcome sinners who were open to the gospel, sorry for their sins, and on their way to putting their faith in Him.” | Kevin Deyoung, Jesus, Friend of Sinners: But How?

I still have a context for friendship evangelism. But it must be noted that friendship evangelism will always hit a wall. As Doug Wilson says,

“If you had the best relationship in the world with your mother, how could you be complete friends with someone who despised her?”

As you befriend unbelievers there is no hiding who you are or where you are headed. You are a Christian who loves righteousness and you are on your way to heaven. So befriend unbelievers, genuinely, invite them over, inquire about their lives, help them with a project they are working on, and let them know the direction you are heading and why you are heading there. Just as Jesus engaged them for the sake of bringing them into the kingdom, so should you befriend unbelievers.

Serving/Loving Your Friends

Have friends

Some of you are oriented to having friends, to texting your friends, to inviting them into your life, to accepting their invites into their life. Others of you are not oriented this way. You don’t feel any need to keep in touch with others, you enjoy your alone time, and it just feels like so much work. On both ends you want a balance of not trying to be friends with everyone from every church and also not being so exclusive to where you aren’t connecting with anyone. You need friends, it’s not good for you to be alone.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”

2. Gratitude

Peter Leithart exposed me to the works of Thomas Elyot who writes on the topic of ingratitude. In regards to friendship he points out that

“the most vicious form of unkindness is forgetfulness. . . Forgetful ingratitude makes men worse than beasts. Even beasts can remember a benefit after they’ve received it. A horse will allow the one who feeds him and keeps him to ride; but anyone else who tries to ride, though he be a king,’ the horse will throw him. . . Gratitude is the bond of friendship.” Leithart summary of Elyot

Thankfulness acknowledges the influence and benefit that you receive from other. Where thankfulness is lacked, you will be prone to benefit from a brother without acknowledging it and you will be prone to end a friendship and move on to other friendships that will further benefit you. Instead of always accumulating in the back of your head the ways people wrong you or ways they fall short, accumulate in your head ways that you have been blessed by your friends. Communicate verbally and face to face:

Thank you for buying my coffee.

Thank you for answering my 1 am phone call when there was spiritual warfare.

Thank you for meeting and talking to my sister when she visited from WV.

Thank you that when I was gossiping you did not feed it, or indulge in it with me.

3. Give and Take

The nature of friendship has been debated for centuries. Aristotle saw friendship as consisting in some likeness between 2 people so that by looking at your friend you actually get to know yourself better. The pushback by Keirkegaard is that this means that you “see in my friend some reflection of myself, such that love for my friend is a kind of disguised self-love so that it is essentially narcissistic.” This is the mirror view.

This is balanced by Sandra Lynch who puts forward that being friends on the basis of differences is a better route because it implies that a person is willing to be interpreted and directed by another person. Thus, two people are drawn to each other based on their differences and are thus able to help one another and are changed by one another rather than being friends with people who are just like them—which C.S. Lewis pushes back against by saying it leads to cliques.

When your centered on Christ, both of these realities come to the forefront.

Philippians 2:4 “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Philippians 4:15 “And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only.”

When friendships are centered on Christ, there is a mutual giving and receiving, a giving and a taking.

Application

Ask your friends for help: Are you in need? Ask for help. Ask for help moving into your new house. Ask for input on a conflict you are having. You are needy. Ask for help.

Receive well (whether you ask or not): If they say don’t venmo them money, don’t. Say, thank you. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel like you need to repay. Be grateful. And thank God for his grace in the life of your friend to reach out to you as Jesus has.

Give: Always be looking for ways to give, serve, and love. When you serve, don’t expect or require anything in return. Don’t expect for your deed to go public, don’t expect your friend to give you extra attention, instead, seek to please God in serving your friend. In fact, aim to do things so that you get as little attention from it as possible.

4. Willingness to be changed and to be straight with one another

“Defining things should not be searching our hearts, unburdening our souls to one another, writing in our journals, struggling with all of these things, it ought to be defined by doing, by baking bread, not gazing inwards, making our homes beautiful, showing hospitality, changing diapers, looking out for the needy, holiday prepping, but in all of these things these things should be being carried on in an atmosphere of a zero tolerance for sin.” Merkle

Gratitude

Thankfulness acknowledges the influence and benefit that you receive from other. Where thankfulness is lacked, you will be prone to benefit from a brother without acknowledging it and you will be prone to end a friendship and move on to other friendships that will further benefit you.

Scriptures on Friendship

Isa. 41:8, Jas. 2:23, Ex. 33:11, John 3:29, 15:12-15

2. Don’t endulge their sin

Be Picky

Prov 13 20 “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Prov 22 24 “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man,”

Prov 28 7 “The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father.”

Prov 29 3 “He who loves wisdom makes his father glad, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.”

Thoughts from LT

- How do we keep each other from sinning and not just be people pleasers.

- Difference between exhortation and encouragement