Relationships God’s Way: Friendship

Last month, just in time for Easter, we opened up the conversation and began sharing about our most important relationship of all; our relationships with God. That was an extremely important series and a kind of watershed moment as far as our content goes, so if you haven’t watched them yet, go back and watch our full April series and then come back and read!

Now that we who God is, what He has done and how we can have relationship with Him, how does this vertical relationship change affect the relationships we have with everyone else?

The Bible has a lot to say about how we are meant to treat our friends. Today, we’re going to focus on 3 main things: Choosing our friends wisely, valuing depth over quantity and one trait that will make or break your friendships.

When it comes to choosing our friends wisely, we’re looking for more than proximity. There are often a lot of people around to choose from, but not all of them are people who are going to build you up. Proverbs 16:28 says, “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends,” so some of the first things we need to look for are honesty and integrity. Gossip is something that we often use, whether consciously or subconsciously, in order to build social clout. We talk about the problems and the failings of others as a way of putting them down while also making ourselves look better than them. Even, and sometimes especially, Christians will do this and add on an insincere, “I’m only telling you so that you can pray for them,” adding to the self-righteous aspect of it. It’s sad that one of the common pop-culture references we see of the “old church ladies” are often the most mean-spirited and gossipy people around. If their character is more reminiscent of some of the popular reality shows and teen dramas rather than the fruit of the spirit found in Galatians 5:22, they are not going to be the kind of people you’ll want to get very close to. 1 Cor. 15:33 reminds us, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’”

So, integrity is important; without it, how can we build trust? Honesty is equally important. In order to build a strong friendship, we need to be able to be open and talk about the areas in our lives that are most important. This is where depth comes into play. Have you ever met someone for the first time and just felt an instant comradery with them? It’s like you already know them, even though you’ve just met and it is a great feeling. This happens when we find people who value the same things that we do. Whatever we value, we can’t help but talk about it. There’s an old metaphor about being a cup, whatever you’re full of is going to spill out when people bump into you. When you become a follower of Christ, you become a part of this worldwide family of believers! I have been to multiple different countries and met people from all around the world and, it’s crazy, but even with all of our cultural differences, when I meet someone else who truly loves Jesus, it’s like reacquainting with a long-lost relative! Having this central point of your life in common with others actually allows you to have so much more in common as well because what we believe impacts every other area of our lives as well. Throughout the conversations, we begin to realize how many shared experiences we have because of how our beliefs have cross-culturally impacted us in such similar ways. Psalm 133:1 says, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is, when brothers dwell in unity!” and it really is! Now, I’m not saying that we cannot or even should not be friends with people who don’t share our faith. In Romans 12, we are urged to do everything we can on our part to live at peace with everyone around us, not returning evil for evil but overcoming evil with good. We can, and should, seek to love and serve everyone around us the way that Christ loved and served us, but those really deep, I mean REALLY deep, meaningful relationships can only be cultivated through intimacy. As you continue to follow Christ, you’re going to find that you just don’t have enough in common to be able to sustain that type of intimacy with people moving in such different directions from you.

The third area that we want to highlight as we discuss our friendships today has to do with how we handle conflict and that super tricky word: forgiveness. Colossians 3:12-13 say, “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 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.” We are all human beings; we are all going to blow it and end up hurting the people around us just as the people around us are going to hurt us. You’ll also notice that it’s usually the people that we are closest to that have the ability to hurt us in the deepest ways. So, how can we overcome these conflicts and respond with forgiveness? Well, first, forgiveness might not mean what you think it means.

When someone apologizes and says, “I’m sorry,” what do we typically say in response?

Usually we would say, “That’s fine.” “It’s no big deal.” or “Don’t worry about it.”

Many of us believe that forgiveness means minimizing the issue and pretending as if it didn’t hurt us. This isn’t being honest, and the more that we do that, the more dishonesty we’ll be putting in between us and the other person, which erodes our intimacy. Forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending like it didn’t happen. When a financial institution decides to forgive a student loan, does that mean that they didn’t pay for the person’s college education? Of course not. They are out that money, but they are saying that the person is no longer responsible for paying it back. When Jesus forgave us of our sins, does that mean that we had never really sinned against Him? No. Our forgiveness required Christ, to take on the payment for our sins and allowed us to be freed from our debt. When we forgive, we are taking the responsibility for restitution off of the other person and bearing it ourselves. The good news is that, as believers, we are not bearing that responsibility alone. God is the one who makes us whole, not other people, so we know that when other people harm or offend us, He is able to justify on our behalf and provide everything we need. Now, there is a whole lot more the Bible has to say about forgiveness, but this will give us a good start to build from in our friendships.

We all need friends; people we can rely on, who love us and push us towards Christ. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “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!” We can’t go through life without these types of friendships that can lift us when we fall, and the greatest friend we could ever have is Jesus. Proverbs 18:24 tells us that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. If you do not yet know the love and friendship found in Christ, we pray that you will. If you want to know more about that and have no one around you to talk about it, send us a message. We would love to talk with you about Him!