Making Friends

Everything is awesome
Everything is cool when you’re part of a team
Everything is awesome when we’re living our dream Everything is better when we stick together

Yes, I’ve watched The Lego Movie.

It’s not a bad way to begin a song, but it becomes really monotonous when the kids are singing it over and over and over… Then everything is not awesome!

The song nonetheless touches on something that we know intuitively to be true: working together, being part of a team, having someone to rely on and trust, is a good thing.

A lot has been said about the effects of social media and modern living on community, but you might be surprised to learn that God also has much to say about friendship. The word itself appears 170 odd times in the Bible, evenly spread. Jesus himself spoke about friendship often, and even called people his friends. Indeed, one of the main accusations levelled against Jesus by his enemies was that Jesus made friends with the unpopular and outcasts of his society (Matt 11:19).

1.The God who appreciates us

I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better. -Plutarch

True friendship involves appreciating another person for who they are and not for what they give me. When we establish friendships on the basis of gain, we are in fact using the other person. We are not accepting them for who they are, rather we are communicating that we want to invest in them because they have something to offer.

God made us. He made us in his image, which at the very least signifies that we have dignity and value. No human being is an accident or a mistake. Instead each person has intrinsic value.

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.(Ps 139:13-14)

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matt 10:29-31)

God’s interest and care does not mean that God approves of everything we do, think and say; appreciation is not blind affirmation. A parent who always and only says yes to their children is hardly loving. Neither does God simply affirm everything about us. There are things about us that are not only unhelpful but damaging. The most unloving thing God can do is to let us be.

Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy”. We all know people who like to sweet talk, telling us how great we are, but that is not a friend. A genuine friend is someone who is committed to your good enough that they are prepared to risk the relationship in order to lovingly and graciously pull you aside and say, “I think you’ve done the wrong thing here…”

2. The God we can trust

Proverb 18:24 says, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother”. The word stickmeans to cleave, and it is used in Genesis 2 to describe the relationship between a husband and wife. Just as in marriage, so friends stay together. In fact, the word originally denoted an incurable disease. A good friendship is like a permanent infection that sticks to you and becomes part of you. Sound good?

A friend who is reliable and trustworthy even in the difficult times is a true friend. I realize that not everyone has close friends, and it is sadly true that friendships don’t always last. Sometimes they disappoint; sometimes there is betrayal. In Jesus, however, we discover a God whom we can trust intimately, and who promises that he works for our good (Rom 8:28) and will never leave us (Matt 28:20). And he gives us proof of his trustworthiness in the cross.

3. The God who sacrificed for us

A friendship that never costs is not much of a friendship.

Friendship is not only about appreciation and trust, but also about serving for good. Friendship involves taking an interest and giving your time, skills, money, and love for them in order to see someone flourish. That’s not always easy.

Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Soon after, Jesus would go one better: he would lay down his life, but not only for his friends. On the cross, Jesus saw the men who had tortured him and cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Forgive my enemies, he said.

As part of his monumental exposition of the Christian message in Romans, Paul exclaims:

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Rom 5:8, 10)

Christ died so that we might be reconciled to God, no longer enemies but friends.

Everything is not awesome. Last year was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. A century on humanity continues to rip one another apart: between nations, within nations, inside families, among friends.

And yet there is a counter-narrative at work in the world, one at the heart of Christianity: God loving his enemies to make them his friends:

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15)

In the person of Jesus we learn what God is like. He is unlike any other view of God, both ancient and modern. The gods of the ancient world were capricious, back stabbing, using and abusing. The gods of the modern world are remote, indifferent, without personality or compassion. The God of the Bible is utterly different.

Yes, we are individuals, but individualism stinks. Who wants to be alone?

In life we need friends, to be a friend even when it costs us, and above all we need God. He does not need us, but he nonetheless loves and appreciates us, to the point of dying to save us. That is a God worth considering.

This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared at Mentone Baptist Church.

Photo credit: Sonny Abesamis