[Brent Hudson gave this message to River of Life Church to start the new series]
Becoming the friend you want to have
Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. (John 15:15b, NLT)
Today we begin a new series called Connect. Over the next five weeks we are going to be looking into building deep relationships in keeping with God’s intentions for us to experience an abundant life in Christ.
As we begin, our first message is on Friendship. Friendship is a good place to start because most other relationships in our lives have trajectories toward friendship. Whether in marriage, or church, or family or where ever, one sign that a relationship is moving forward well is that you consider yourselves friends.
John 15:13-17 is as good a place as any to anchor our thoughts.
In that passage, Jesus calls his disciples friends and he differentiates that from those who are just servants. The word “Lord” has a synonym in our word “Master” and so definition if we call Jesus “Lord” we are calling ourselves servants. But Jesus defines the relationship he had with the 12 as more than that — they were his friends. They were in many ways elevated from disciples and followers to friends but Jesus defined that friendship by doing what he commanded and love one another.
The fact that this narrative exists in the Bible just gives voice to the importance of friendship to Jesus. By extension, friendship is important to us as well. Not just friendship with Jesus which has eternal significance but regular, ordinary friendship is something that we need to look at as a social necessity — God made us to experience friendship.
That is why the starting point of this message is that
Friendship is Important
“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18a, NLT)
Someone may read the Genesis 2.18 passage and say “wait a minute, that’s about marriage” but I would disagree. The solution for the problem was the creation of Eve and the first couple of the biblical narrative, but the problem is simply this: “it is not good for the man to be alone” and the word for “the man” is Adam which in Hebrew means human being or as various Hebrew scholars like to translate: earthling because he was formed ‘hadamah’ from the earth. My point here is that this is not just a male situation or a particular man – Adam – situation — it is an earthling situation. We need companionship. We need friendship.
There have been a great many studies done on the matter of happiness and at this point there is some commonality among the data. One author has state quite clearly that the core factors of happiness have been identified and they do not correlate to having lots of money or it being complicated. They as follows:
1. Number of friends
2. Closeness of friends
3. Closeness of family
4. Good relationships with co-workers & neighbours.
Researchers have gone so far as to say these 4 elements explain over 70% of personal happiness. (Murray & Peacock, 1996). Of course we know now that our very DNA become unravelled by stress and how supportive social networks and compassionate friendships actually reverse the damage (Stress Damage / Sapolsky ).
Whether through psychological surveys, analyzing the telomeres of our DNA, or reading the creation narrative — the evidence is very clear — Friendship is important – even perhaps essential for a happy life.
Of course, this is not complicated and we probably already knew that but that just begs the question — how are we doing in the area of friendship? Most of us get a bit introspective at this point because we may not have that many deep friendships. The reason for this is obvious as well.
Friendship is hard
There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13, NLT)
There is a reason that I chose John 15:13 for this particular point. Look at what underpins Jesus’ friendship with us — sacrifice. In order to have deep friendships — friendships marked by love — it is going to take effort. We will need to work on it.
Dutch sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst has done a study showing that we lose 50% of the people in our social network every 7 years and that our close friends are drawn from these social networks. In other words, half of the people you could develop friendships with will be gone in 7 years because the networks shift. People move, jobs change, a multitude of things that change the intersection of our lives with others. Friendships survive beyond the immediate social network — but his research shows quite conclusively that it is from that social network that friendships develop.
It was in 1970 that futurist Alvin Toffler wrote his famous “Future Shock”. In that book he warned that future generations would need to learn to accept “ad hoc” friendships. Lewis Smedes commented about these friendships that were built on the transient projects and tasks that we share for a while with others: they are not built on human relations, but on job relations.
Smedes writes:
In the mobile life of the future, no job or project will last long for anyone, and friendships based on them will last no longer. As we consume disposable products, we will increasingly have to settle for disposable friendships. (Lewis Smedes)
I think Smedes saw the problem with Toffler’s vision — not that it would be incorrect of the future but that it was troublesome from a human point of view.
Friendships require effort to create and maintain when life is neutral — but Genesis 3 is pretty clear that life is not neutral. Weeds grow and sin abounds in our world. The effort of friendship is not finding people you like it is accepting that the people you like are imperfect humans just like you.
My grandmother told me a wonderful truth when I was a teenager “to have a friend, be a friend” — I thought she was so wise. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that her learned wisdom was actually a well-worn aphorism that had become almost cliche. Yet, it was and continues to be — for me — sage advice. Sometimes the cliches are correct.
The primary way to have good friendships is to be a good friend.
Since…
Friendship is biblical
…let’s look at two stories from the Old Testament about Friendship. One that is rarely remembered and other that has become a heroic refrain.
Job’s friends were unwise — they gave bad advice. Yes, that perhaps is a good lesson to learn from the bible — good friends can give bad advice. Job’s friends were just that. Let read a passage from Job:
11 When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. 12 When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words. (Job 2:11–13, NLT)
That is one of those passages that we almost need to just sit and think about for a minute. When I first read this, I just trudged on ahead in the story. I was a young man with lots of friends and a busy life. Now as an older man, I couldn’t help but think how rare such friends are in life. Walking miles to meet their friend and then sitting with him 7 days and 7 nights not saying a word — just offering their support and presence. The depth of that kind of friendship strikes me now. For all their faults, it is not surprising that Job interceded for his friends later in the story. They clearly loved him. They just were not that wise in their advice. I think we all yearn to have friends like that. Some here are blessed to have friends like this. . .friends who may say unhelpful things — but they love enough to show up to be with you — they are actually there.
The second story is from the book of Ruth where we see the devotion of Ruth to Naomi.
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. 17 Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” (Ruth 1:16–17, NLT)
This story is often cast in religious tones — I have done this myself — but first and foremost it is a story of friendship between two women. Young and older. Both experiencing hardship and heartbreak and bound together through commitment to one another. They both put the other first. Naomi wanted Ruth to go and find a life not get dragged down by Naomi’s loss and disadvantage. Ruth pleads to stay — she declares her commitment to God and an enduring devotion and friendship to Naomi.
Friendships are important. Friendships are hard. The Bible teaches us that friendship are also profound and life-changing. I want to give three things to do to deepen the friendships in your life. But first let me just say that if you feel you don’t have friends, you need to seek someone out who you would like to be friends with and just ask them to be your friend. If that sounds awkward, that’s because it is. But it worked as kindergarten kids and it works today.
If you want to have a friend, you need to seek one out. You can be a bit more refined in your words — you can start a book club and invite some people you would like to know better. You can ask someone to go for a coffee or to come to your place for tea and conversation. This was all natural when I was a little kid. My mom would have tea or coffee with neighbours on our street all the time. My mom’s best friend to this day is a woman who lived down the street from us when I was five years old. My mom is now in Ontario and her friend lives in the same house in Fredericton. A simple tea-time can lead to a life-time friendship. But even that requires some effort. Here are three things to remember about being a good friend:
Listen. From time to time just stop talking and listen. It’s amazing how interesting your friends can be. The stories they share and the thoughts they are having are the stuff on which friendships are built. Put your phone away. Don’t be busy with other thoughts. Be present. For all their faults, Job’s friends made an effort to show up and they just sat there because there were no words for them to say. The Bible tells us we should be quick to listen (Js 1:19) and that is still primary advice for us today. And remember, it doesn’t matter if your listening if the other person doesn’t think you are. You may think you can multi-task with your phone and listen — but if you’re building friendships, put the phone away and just listen.
Be gracious. Job teaches us that when friends mess up, the best response is to be gracious and merciful. No friendship will ever last if you are not willing to forgive an offense and accept people for who they are. Good friends can give bad advice, behave poorly, and cause us hurt. We can be that person too. Friendships that allow for grace can grow and last. Friendships that don’t have grace will inevitably fail.
Be authentic
Ronald Sharp, an English professor at Vassar College who co-edited the Norton Anthology of Friendship writes:
“Treating friends like investments or commodities is anathema to the whole idea of friendship. It’s not about what someone can do for you, it’s who and what the two of you become in each other’s presence.”
He goes on:
“People are so eager to maximize efficiency of relationships that they have lost touch with what it is to be a friend.”
For Sharp, friends are people you take the time to understand and allow to understand you.
All of this takes time. All of this takes effort.
The question that remains for us:
Are you willing to exert the effort
that true friendship demands?