Redemptive Friendships

Introduction

Research shows most new Christians lose all their non-Christian friends w/in 5 years of coming to faith. This isn’t intentional ‘unfriending,’ but the combination of a new direction in life. So, how do we work to build and maintain evangelistic friendships?

Cultivating Christlike love for the lost is the key to building and maintaining redemptive friendships.

3 Pieces to Redemptive Friendships

#1:

John 4:1-4:

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria.

I. Redemptive Relationships are Intentional

-- “had” to go through Samaria. What do we mean by ‘had?’ Geographically? Not really. We mean ‘intentional. He ‘had’ to, because there was something he needed to accomplish.

-- Grocery shopping

-- How will I build and maintain relationships with the unsaved around me?

#2

John 4:5-9, 27:

5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?

Redemptive friendships are incarnational (Living and Loving like Jesus)

-- Women, “Why are you, a Jewish man . . .” and the disciples (who wondered)

-- Christ crosses two barriers—ethnic (half-breeds) and theological (heretics)

-- Jesus is incarnating God’s love for the Samaritans

-- Like Jesus, we need to incarnate God’s love for others. We need to live and love like Jesus. Showing God’s love to people: Not perfection, but change

If Christ doesn’t make a difference in my life, why would others want him in theirs?

-- Identify 1 person and ask, “How will I live Christ’s love toward them?”

#3

John 4: 10, 14, 23-26:

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Redemptive friendships are informational

-- Living Water, real Worship, ‘messiah.’ “I am he.” Jesus leads her to Himself

-- Some aren’t intentional, some aren’t incarnational, but many more are simply not informational.

-- Preach the gospel at all times, and, in necessary, use words? It is always necessary.

-- Romans 10:13-17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.”

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? . . . 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

-- But I don’t know what to say! Sure you do. John 9:25, “He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” Share what you know, and don’t worry about questions or objections. Just share what you know. You can always find the answers later.

-- How will I explain Christ’s love to them?

1 Force drives these relationships—God’s love

John 4:32-38:

32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me.” Food is: necessity, desire, and joy. Jesus is incarnating God’s love. He is shaped by God’s love, of course, and so it is natural for him to share it. So, the first step toward redemptive friendships is this: cultivate a Christlike love for people. How? Three cultivators: 1) Ponder (the gospels)—how does Jesus treat others, and how I can emulate him? 2) Pray—for myself to love others as Christ loves them & pray for them, too, 3) Listen—invest in getting to know people’s stories—their goals, challenges, needs, etc.