Northern CF -02/27/24

God Honouring Friendships

Hey guys, if you don’t know me my name is Austin. I am the youth pastor intern at Bluewater Church.

Emma asked me to speak today on the topic of biblical and God-honouring friendships. And this is a really interesting topic because I don’t honestly know if its talked about a whole lot within the church. We talk about a lot of things related to friendships, but not a whole lot directly addressing friendship in itself.

And I think this is silly, wanna know why? Because the bible has a LOT to say about friendship.

Here are just a couple examples real fast.

Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Proverbs 27:9 “Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.”

Proverbs 18:24 “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

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!”

John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Its all over the Bible, so therefore we need to talk about it.

I don’t know what you guys think, but it seems to me we talk quite a bit about marriage, as we should, and even dating… but when it comes to friendships we kind of just glass over it. But heres the thing… The bible addresses marriage, but not everyone is called to marriage…Dating didn't even exist when the bible was written…

However, we are ALL called to have friendships. Of course God desires us all to be apart of a community, even like this one… And He also desires for us to have close, tight knit, walking through life together sort of friendships.

So who are some example of Biblical friendships… Can you guys give me some examples?

David and Jonathan - Biggest example. These two were closer than brothers. Its cool to see how the man after God’s own heart had a friend who was closer than a brother.

Ruth and Naomi - These two were there for each other in the toughest of times of their lives.

Paul and Timothy - This one is cool because it was a mentor / mentee relationship, but it was still a super solid friendship that consisted of mutual encouragement and this idea of walking beside each other and doing life with them.

So what I want to talk about with you guys today is how do we make and keep friendships that glorify and honour God. Because this is important, the best, closest, and longest lasting friendships are the ones that glorify God.

So how do we do this… I was given a passage to go along with this, and I think that in this short passage, we will see the top 4 ways to have a God honouring friendship. If you have your bibles with you, pull them out and turn to Colossians 3:12. Read along in your head with me when you get there. Col. 3:12

English Standard Version Chapter 3

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony

Beautiful passage. Here are the truths that stand out to me on how to have theses important biblical friendships.

#1 - Compassion and Kindness - We are supposed to genuinely care about our friends and what each other are going through. Big or small. Okay girls…You can correct me if I’m wrong, and my wife has vouched for this… but I think you guys do well to care for your friends… the encouragement to you guys is probably the *genuine* part. There should be genuine compassion and kindness toward each other.

For the guys, we struggle less with the genuine part I think, and more with just showing care at all. We have a common culture with the guys where we insult each other and put each other down to be funny. And that can be fine, unless it then becomes taboo or difficult to actually be compassionate and kind to each other because all you do is insult your best friends for fun. This one I can vouch for personally.

#2 - Never get into arguments with your friends because if you ever don’t get along with them, they can’t be your best friend…

That was totally a joke. No! Verse 13 says that if we have complaints to give, we need to forgive each other! Forgiveness is a key trait for a God-honouring friendship. Mistakes will always be made because we are all sinners and are sometimes in need of forgiveness from each other.

#3 - Humility - Maybe even more important than being able to forgive, is the ability to recognize when you have sinned against or wronged our friends, and to approach them in that way. Another super important trait of friendship that I have listed under humility is the art of calling each other out in our sin. One of the most genuine ways to show a friend that you care for them is to gently, and kindly address a visible sin in their life.

Humility plays into both sides of this scenario… As the one who is lovingly calling out a brother or sister in sin, you need to recognize that you are yourself a sinner, and you need to deal with the sin in yourself… the log in your eye…. before pointing out the sin in your friends life.

And for the other side… We need to be humble when we get called out in our sin… Because we need to be! If you have a friend that you can trust to call you out…to tell you… if you are living in sin, keep that friend! That friend truly truly cares for you. It’s not easy to get your pride shot like that…. but we need be humble and understand its for our good.

I would make a strong argument that if you are sinning… if you're living in sin and your friends don’t call you out, they don’t really care about you… (vis versa) Because they're showing you that they care more about hurting your feelings than they actually care about you. and your spiritual health.

#4 - Bearing with one another - Verse 13 says we need to bear with one another. The direct translation is to endure with one another. This is where doing life together is emphasized. We need to walk through the things that our friends are walking through with them. If a friend is going through something hard. We need to be with them, to pray with them, to cry with them. I firmly believe that when we do those things in our friendships, we glorify the Lord, the creator of friendship, for what He created these relationships to be.

First and foremost, we need to be this kind of friend to others. But we also should seek out friendships that desire to Glorify God in this way as well. And the friendships that you have currently will only take a step in that direction when you decide to start that culture in your friend group.

Lets pray.