Our friendship with Jesus lasts

Quote:“Our friendship will never die. You’ve got a friend in me.” Toy Story

Big idea:The gift of friendship is awesome! Jesus promises that our friendship with Him will never die.

Do you like to have friends? Are you a good friend?

Today we are thinking about friendship and what the Bible has a bit to say about it.

Have you seen any of the Toy Story movies? I think I have only seen the first two, but they are all about friendship. The movies theme song, played in every introduction is all about having a friend.

<watch toy stoy 4 into>

In the Bible there are a large collection of short sayings, which we call “proverbs”. Our world is full of these type of sayings, some ancient and some new. I found this one about friends.

Friends are like potatoes If you eat them, they die

That is true. Maybe not that helpful, but true all the same.

Having friendships is one of the things God has made us to have. In fact, if you don’t have any desire to want friends it is considered a personality disorder[1]. We are made to have a relationship with God and with the people around us. The first thing that God said that wasn’t good with all of His creation was when Adam didn’t have a company (Gen 2:18). Friends are a blessing and a gift from God. If you don’t have friends your life isn’t as good and you will feel lonely. And loneliness is a big problem in our country. There are many people who feel disconnected and have no one to turn to - this is not how it should be.

Friends are important, which is why Proverbs in the Bible says:

Proverbs 12:26 NIV

The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.

It is because the powerful influence friends have that we should be careful in picking who we most let into our life. It is because of this influence that your parents always asked where you were going and who is going to be there. And we saw this idea last term in 1 Corinthians 15 where it said:

1 Corinthians 15:33 NIV

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

Friends influence you, for good or bad. The guy who wrote Nania, said in another book that friendship makes good men better and bad men worst[4].

This guy, Vaugh Roberts wrote a book about friendship and he said  “The way to have good friends is to be a good friend[6]” or as Barbie, the wellspring of everything about friendship said on Twitter[7]:

Sometimes when you need a friend, you just need to be a friend

So friends a good, be careful who you pick as a friend, but I want to tell you something else. Something that even adults stuggle with. I heard from an adult about two or three weeks ago, that they find it hard to think of God as their friend.

The see God is big and powerful, maybe even like a big Father figure, but as a friend? That can be difficult.

Jesus said to His friends he has been travelling with for three years:

John 15:13–15 NIV

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Jesus here calls His disciples friends. Anyone who does what God asks is considered a friend, for they know what God wants. Jesus also says, the greatest love someone can have for a friend is to die for them. In times of war there are many stories of mates jumping into harms way for a fellow solider. They are willing to get hurt for their friend.

And we know that Jesus was also willing to die for the world. On the cross, Jesus jumped in harms way for us. We have all done wrong and so deserve punishment, but Jesus took that punishment for us, so that we can be brought back to God. Jesus is the great friend, who died for us, so that we can be friends with God. Now, there is no anger or broken relationship with God, because Jesus has removed our sin.

And so some friendships may last, I am still friends with maybe one or two people from my primary school now, the good news is that our friendship with God will last forever. In Hebrews we read:

Hebrews 13:5 NIV

God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

So is it good to have friends?

Can you be friends with God?

Can friendship last forever?

Jesus is the good friend, and a relationship with Him will never die, but last forever.