Cultivate Authentic Friendships

Opening Prayer

Let’s open with prayer. If you have a prayer concern, just offer it up out loud in this space. It can be a situation, a need, a family member or friend. When I sense we are finished I will close out our prayer.

Womack family - COVID

Haiti

Afghanistan

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Introduction

Finishing up our series called Relationship Goals: How to Win at What Matters Most. Today I want to talk about friendship. I think friendship is in crisis today. Some time ago I noticed that my parent’s generation struggled to have healthy friendships. They didn’t put time in cultivating friendship. Instead, their focus was almost exclusively on their children, and their children (and grandchildren) became the only social interaction they had.

I’ve since noticed it’s not confined to that generation. My generation, the X’ers, were the latchkey kids. We’re used to being on our own and getting by without help from others. We don’t often perceive the need for friends. The millennial’s struggle as well, attempting to create the perfect world for their children filled with one activity after another, they have no time for authentic friendships with peers. The iGens and the Z’s are not exempt either. With their generally pessimistic outlook and disappointment with life, they’ve been hurt by too many people to really entrust themselves with others, a necessary ingredient for lasting friendships.

I know I have painted with a broad brush, but the fact remains that many are experiencing a crisis of friendship. We’ve been hurt by friends. We’ve been abandoned by friends. We’ve been betrayed by friends. Yet, we need friends. We were created for friendship with God, but even that friendship - as good and as important as it is - is not sufficient. God also made us for friendship with others. Deep, authentic, intimate friendship. Certainly, and hopefully, if you are married, your spouse is just such a friend. But this kind of friendship isn’t limited to marital status. We all need friends regardless. So our final relationship goal for our series is Relationship Goal #4: We must learn to cultivate authentic friendships.

How to have a meaningless life.

The book of Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon, is a book that contrasts what is meaningless - vanity of vanities - and what is meaningful. After scrutinizing his own life and self-indulgence, he has published a report card.

We could say that Solomon helps answer an important question. The question is “Question: How can I have a meaningless life?” And Solomon’s answer is, “Answer: Do life alone.” This is another vanity he has observed. Vanity - some translations use meaningless - is the Hebrew word hebel. It is often used for breath, as opposed to spirit. It refers to something that is transitory and temporary. Job, in his lamentation, considers his life but a breath (hebel).

What prompts this evaluation by Solomon is from observing the life of the person who was a loner. They worked hard. They accumulated stuff. But in the end, their wealth didn’t satisfy. They had no one to share in their success, no one to pass it on to.

This is relevant for us today. Our American culture centered on rugged individualism, along with our own past experiences with those who have broken our trust, has taught us that it is safer to go it alone. To not place ourselves in the vulnerable position of needing others. This might help you in the short-term to avoid disappointment. It might keep you from having your heart broken. But a life without authentic, life-giving friendship is a life devoid of much of what makes life truly meaningful. For we were not created for ourselves, and we weren’t designed to be alone. Therefore, we must learn to cultivate authentic friendships. From his evaluation of the loner he notices a way forward that is better.

How to spot and be an authentic friend.

What is better than doing life alone? Doing it with friends! Solomon identifies four benefits of authentic friendship.

Achievement - “they have a good reward for their toil”

You can go farther and achieve more when surrounded by authentic friends. Authentic friends help you carry the weight and shoulder the load. I was reminded of an example of this from high school. Every summer my best friend, Darren, and I worked for a local farmer. Mostly, we helped with harvest and then drove tractors the rest of the summer preparing the land for the next crop. But the first few weeks of summer, before harvest began, was filled with building fences - often ones we had damaged with the tractors the previous year!

Together we could knock out a lot of fence. We shared the load of digging holes for corner posts, of driving t-posts into the hard Oklahoma clay, of using the come-along to stretch the barbed wire and securing it in place. It was hard work, but it was infinitely easier than trying to do it alone.

I think this is a good analogy for authentic friendship. Authentic friends come alongside us to help pull. To help dig. To take a turn when we’re too tired to go any further. They push us to strive to be the best we can be, not merely in our work, but in our relational and spiritual life. They help us go further than we could go alone.

Support - “if they fall, one will lift up the other”

Authentic friends show up at the first signs of distress. They don’t wait for an invitation, they intervene. Authentic friends are the ones who come for an intervention when it appears necessary.

I’m thinking of Job’s friends who show up after he lost literally everything. They often get a bad wrap because they are convinced Job did something wrong. But to the ANE person, this kind of calamity only had one reason - you made God angry. In their somewhat twisted way, they were trying to help Job figure out what he did wrong so that he could repent and turn God’s anger aside.

But we don’t give credit to when we are first introduced to his friends. After calamity strikes, his friends show up - and they just sit and grieve with him for seven days! Before they say anything, they are simply there for Job.

Authentic friends may sometimes miss it with the advice they give, but they show up. They grieve with you. They encourage you. In the end, authentic friends help us get back on our feet and keep going.

Intimacy - “if two lie together, they keep warm”

The image here is of the cold Palestinian nights. Having a companion to lie beside helps both keep warm. It is an image of intimacy, vulnerability, and complete trust. Here we see what is perhaps most important to authentic friendship. Authentic friends are those you can be fully exposed to. They know - and are trustworthy to keep - your secrets, fears, doubts, and worries. They are those who see you for who you truly are and unconditionally accept you.

If there is one thing that keeps us from having or being an authentic friend it is this. We are frightened of intimacy. We are afraid to let another person see what is on the inside. We fear what we might see in their eyes if they saw as as we truly are. But intimacy is a requirement of authentic friendship. I’m reminded of the friendship that existed between King David and Jonathan, the son of King Saul. Numerous times throughout the book of Samuel we hear that “Jonathan loved David as his own soul”. And at Jonathan’s untimely death David mourns, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” This is not an implication that Jonathan and David were lovers, as some in the progressive elements of church have suggested. They don’t have the creativity to imagine an intimate relationship that isn’t sexual. But this is the intimacy of the foxhole. Rather, it is the honest demonstration of intimate friendship.

Trust is often the hardest thing we can give, and yet it is most essential to true friendship. You must trust that the person you open your heart to is worthy of that trust, that they are with you and for you. It involves taking a risk - the risk of being wounded or rejected. But without taking the risk of trust and intimacy, authentic friendship can never thrive. This is what separates authentic friends from mere acquaintances.

Defense - “two can withstand one”

In the end, authentic friends have your back. They come to your defense when others attack you. In fact, with authentic friends, they have you back - even if you’re in the wrong! As good friends they may confront you, but they will not let others attack you. They see you for who you truly are, the person you are becoming, and just because you haven’t gotten there yet does not keep them from defending you to others.

This kind of friend is comparable to a rope woven of three strands. While a single, or even a double, cord might fail, one that is woven from three can withstand. To say it another way, three cords are stronger than the sum of their parts. And this is true of those who are surrounded by authentic friends - you are stronger together.

Blood is thicker than water

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Blood is thicker than water”? We hear this today as the bond of family is more sure than that of friends. Did you know that is not the original meaning? The original phrase was, “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”. That changes the meaning doesn’t it? In its original wording, the saying was intended to demonstrate just the opposite of what we mean today - that the covenantal bond of Christian friendship is even stronger than family ties.

This makes sense when we realize what a polarizing figure Jesus Christ is. He warned us that, by following him, even our own family will forsake us. Being raised in a nation where Christianity is prevalent, most of us probably haven’t experienced this. But is is a reality that occurs daily around the world. Before we moved to Fort Smith, I had a friend in our old town who’s father had completely cut him off because he left his father’s denomination - the true church - to worship elsewhere. He would not talk to his son on the phone, he would not welcome his son into his home. And this was because his son only switched denominations! And so my friend learned the reality of this original saying, that the covenantal blood believers share together in Christ is often more enduring than the bond of family. And it will be more enduring, because only those bound together in the blood of Jesus will enter into the life to come.

Communion

How can we cultivate these kinds of authentic friendships? I think it is by learning to be this kind of authentic friend. Be a friend who helps others go further, who comes to their aid when they are down, who is willing to go first to risk intimacy, and who rises to the defense of others. Being this kind of friend is the surest way to cultivate these kinds of friends.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs, “Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin.” (Proverbs 18:24, NRSV) There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Hopefully on your journey you will be this kind of friend and make these kinds of friends. Yet, I have to think that Solomon meant something more by this proverb. That perhaps for a moment he was speaking prophetically of another Friend, and of a friendship of significantly greater magnitude. One thing the OT does is that it infallibly brings us to Jesus. He is the one who will stick with you no matter what. You can’t sin enough to make him turn away. You can’t betray him enough to make him leave. You can’t run far enough away to put yourself outside his reach.

On the night he was betrayed to death, he said to his disciples. “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends...” (John 15:15, NRSV) He still says this to his disciples today. He invites you into the most authentic of friendships. One that has the potential to be of the most help, the greatest intimacy, and the surest defense. He is the one who said, “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.”

When Jesus called his disciples “friends”, it was at a table. They shared a meal that included bread and wine which would come to symbolize his body and blood - a personal sacrifice showing just how far Jesus would go for the sake of his friends. As we gather at this table today, remembering that moment, I ask you - Is Jesus your friend?

If you have not met this Friend, I invite you to make his acquaintance. Surrender yourself to his loving embrace, and he will cleanse you of sin and welcome you into his forever family.

If you are already a Christian, do you imagine Jesus as your friend? I’m not suggesting that we trivialize our relationship. Jesus isn’t your homeboy. His is the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity. AND he is your friend, who invites you to come to rely upon him above all others.

As Jesus’ friends let’s pray as he taught us...

The Lords Prayer

Words of Institution