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.