Friendship

Iron sharpens Iron

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Hebrews 3:12-13, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you and evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you many be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Your walk with God is a community project. The isolated, separated, loner, Jesus-and-me religion that often marks modern church culture is not the religion that is described in the New Testament. Many of us live virtually unknown, and many of the people whom we think we know we don’t actually know. Many of us live in endless networks of terminally casual relationships, in which conversations seldom go deeper than the weather, food, politics, the coolest movie that’s out, or the latest cute thing your child did. Most of what we call fellowship never really rises to the level of the humble self-disclosure and mutual ministry that makes fellowship actually redemptively worthwhile. Most of what we call fellowship is little different from what happens at the pub down the street.
Why do I need the daily intervention of the body of Christ? Because sin blinds me to me. How about you? Have your embraced your daily need for the help of the body of Christ? Who knows you? Whom have you invited to intrude into your private space to function for you as an instrument of seeing? Do you have a name in mind right now? When someone who knows you points out a sin, a weakness, or a failure, are you thankful? Or do you feel your chest tighten and your ears get red as you silently prepare yourself to rise to your own defense? Are you skilled at giving nonanswers to personal questions, or do you run toward the daily help that God has provided? That help is not something to afraid of or shy away from, because it is a tool of God’s forgiving, rescuing, transforming, and delivering grace.
Paul Tripp

Spiritual Friendship and Growing in Grace

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I hated the dating scene.  I once knew the unutterable anguish of considering the terrifying possibility of asking someone on a date.  Will she reject me? Perhaps she will laugh? Will she break my heart? After the first few dates, while some of the initial painful questions are answered, other queries arise and the stakes are increased.  Can this joy continue? What if she really knew me, the real me? Would she still like me, accept me? Is she the one?  We tend to put our best foot forward and strive to be on our best behavior in a courting relationship.  Establishing an intimate relationship with a potential spouse is a process of peeling away the lies, false pretenses, and half-truths, all the while trying to manage our expectations, calm our desires, and modify our dreams.  Many prefer not to face their fears and so never enter the dating arena. Others can keep up a relational farce well into marriage and true intimacy is never really achieved.

We face some of the same obstacles when seeking to establish a deepening spiritual relationship with a brother or sister in Christ. We tend to have many spiritual acquaintances and few if any, real spiritual friends.  Establishing spiritual intimacy confronts similar questions to building relational intimacy. Can I trust my brother with my weaknesses? If they knew the real me and my dark struggles, would they receive me with the sharp edge of the law or with the healing balm of the gospel? Can I trust this one with my heart? Can I step out from my false fronts and posturing? Can I take the mask off and reveal the real me, warts and all?  It can be a terrifying thing to be completely honest with another Christian.

Many years into my Christian walk I sought a spiritual friend but was horrified that I might find one.  I preferred to do my spiritual wrestling with old, dead theologians and not a real, live friend.  Most prefer spiritual melee in the dark to fighting in the light.  We are ashamed of our sins and prefer to deal with them quietly, in the dark, alone, rather than come into the light, remove the mask in public, and expose ourselves to possible rejection, condemnation, and ridicule.

But sin thrives and strengthens in the dark. We cannot overcome sin on our own.  True, God’s help is required and it is enough.  But God has given us our brothers and sisters in Christ as part of his help.  

“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). 

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16).

Deepening fellowship in Christ requires that we are open and honest about our ongoing struggle with sin.  One spur to sanctification is to bring the darkness of sin into the light of fellowship with a grace-wielding believer.

How should we receive a brother or sister who approaches us in honest brokenness and with deep wounds?  We must meet them in their openness and honesty with the warm embrace of grace and truth, forgiveness and acceptance.

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:1-2

“Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” Luke 17:3-4

“so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.” 2 Corinthians 2:7-8

We must receive our struggling but still confessing and repenting brothers and sisters as Christ has received us, in gospel love. 

“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! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

I hated the dating scene but I love the marriage. Building true, spiritual friendships are worth the risk. 

“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” Proverbs 18:24. 

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” Proverbs 27:17

So, find a friend. Develop a deepening spiritual friendship. Be honest, be gracious.  Let us fight sin, and overcome it, together.

 

Got Friends?

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The Bible’s first pages show our inescapable need for relationships. Several times the creation story in Genesis 1 repeats the phrase “and God saw that it was good” (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). It climaxes with the seventh occurrence: “It was very good” (v. 31). Then in chapter 2, we read of one thing that is not good: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (2:18). Adam, the first human, lives, but he lives in isolation. And that’s a problem. As Martin Luther put it, “God created man for society and not for solitude.”[1]Thus we can each make this statement our own: it is not good that [your name] should be alone.
God announces Adam’s problem and then parades the animals before him. Why this, and why now? So that Adam might feel his need for community. The animal parade made a point: apparently, pets alone won’t do. Even “man’s best friend” passed by without special notice. This was because Adam didn’t need a pet; he needed another person. Animals are special, but human friendship is of a higher order.
This takes place before sin enters the world. That’s significant. Satan has not yet slithered in, the forbidden fruit has no fingerprints, and Adam’s conscience remains clear. The first problem in human history, the first problem on the pages of Scripture, the first problem in any human life, was not sin—it was solitude.
This means that the not-goodness of Adam’s aloneness was not a result of his fallenness. Adam stood there in Eden without fault, yet he also stood alone and therefore incomplete. He was missing something essential enough to warrant the divine declaration of “not good.” Adam, untouched by sin, needed a friend. Every soul reverberates with the echoes of this Edenic ache for friendship. It’s an ancient and primal longing. We are inescapably communal.
The opening chapters of Genesis cast a vision of the good life, full of shalom—a Hebrew concept referring in its fullest sense to flourishing, joy, and harmony. And this shalom exists between God, humanity, and creation. Each sphere of the physical world—land, sea, and sky—teems with life. Yet Adam stands in the middle of this exuberant wonder world—alone. Adam has life, and that’s a start. But he also needs community.
Drew Hunter

Knowing God Encourages Better Friendships

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If God can make friends of us, we can make friends of anyone! We are better friends and we seek deeper friendships because we have a friendship with God. Exodus 33:11, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” 2 Chronicles 20:7, “Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?” The Covenant of Grace has been called the Covenant of Friendship by some.  God, through the Gospel, has made us his friends.

God has also made us friendly. He has given us the tools to make friends with anyone – even the worst.  Jesus has even lead by example by befriending us. God has befriended us in this fallen world and has called us to make friends with others.

How does the gospel of grace make us better friends?

We know ourselves. We freely acknowledge our weaknesses and needs. We are finally honest with ourselves. The problem isn’t out there somewhere, but in here somewhere. And the gospel solves the problem. Through God’s grace, we begin accurately to understand our broken nature. We don’t hide the truth about ourselves from ourselves or others anymore. Knowing truth allows us to be honest, to be correctable, to drop our selfish emotional walls and phony self-protection. We can be open and brutally forthright about who we really are because we are forgiven and accepted in Christ – and he knew the worst about us. That honest self-scrutiny helps us to form better friendships in a fallen world.

We know the truth of the human condition. Fallen human nature does not surprise us because we acknowledge our own fallenness and sin.  We know that everyone struggles to live uprightly, to do the right thing, and to fight against temptation. Children of Adam know God but they selfishly suppress that knowledge and then live in fear that their sins will find them out. Their conscience speaks, somewhat accurately, and they can’t live up to its dictates let alone fulfill the law of God. Therefore, as redeemed sinners ourselves, we expect to find dirt, struggle, pain, and remorse in everyone that we meet. We can meet friends in their brokenness and need and “paraclete” them. (Paraclete is a Greek word that means to be called alongside to help, as the Holy Spirit has done for us).

We know where the medicine is found.  We are very much like hungry beggars showing other hungry beggars where to find bread.  We don’t have it all together either but we know where help resides. We are starting to heal from our brokenness and sin and we can lead others to the hospital of grace.

We don’t need a friend, so we can be a friend. Because we have found a perfect friend in Jesus, we don’t ‘need’ or crave another one.  We can be friends with anyone but we don’t need to be friends with anyone else. We don’t require co-dependents because we depend on Christ, and he is enough. To be a friend means to give yourself away in self-sacrificing love. And Christians have experienced that love in Christ and have an ever-increasing capacity to show that love to others.  We are no longer needy, so we can meet the needs of others around us.

When two growing, maturing Christians begin a friendship they can go really deep.  Mutual, self-giving love is the best soil to grow a deep and satisfying friendship.  “Iron sharpens iron.” “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” “…There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 27:17; 17:17; 18:24).

So, dear Christian friend, you have experienced a perfect friendship, and you have the tools to form deep, abiding, eternal friendships, and, because your needs are all met in Christ, you can make friends of the friendless and needy. Through the Covenant of Friendship, we can make friends.