Love In Friendship

Welcome! Today, as we continue our series on relationships, we will focus on friendship. As I was preparing this message, my thoughts turned to the old comic strips by Charles Schultz, Peanuts. Schultz was a Christian, and he had a wonderful way of poking into topics that nobody else would ever touch. Today, as you can see, we have about 35 college students joining us on their spring break to reach out on campus, and if you are one of these students, we just want you to know that we so appreciate you and that we will be praying for you this week. We know that you will be doing a lot of different evangelism techniques, including so-called “cold turkey” evangelism, and so we thought the following comic strip from Peanuts would help by giving you some pointers, some tips on things to say when you are knocking on doors.

Here is a summary of the comic. It features Sally; Charlie Brown’s little sister, and a red-haired boy that is not a regular to the Peanuts universe. The boy has just knocked on the front door of the Browns’ house, and Sally has answered the door.


Boy: Hi! I’m from that new storefront church a few blocks up the street. Would you like to come to our church?
Sally: I already have a church.
Boy: We have good singing.
Sally: So do we… do you sing “Blessed Assurance”? Do you sing “Sweet Hour of Prayer”?
Boy: We give our money in envelopes…
Sally: Who cares?
Boy: My dad is the preacher.
Sally: Good for him.
Boy: He says the world is coming to an end…
Sally: I feel that way every time I get on the school bus.
Boy: (leaving) Anyway, you know where we are.
Sally: I’m always here.
Sally: (talking to Charlie) Those deep theological discussions wear me out.

Well, maybe I should have said these are some tips on what not to say. Anyway, I love Peanuts because nothing is simple; everyone, just like in real life, is a bundle of contradictions and inconsistencies. The wisest person in Peanuts is Linus (remember he was the one who read Scripture and explained the true meaning of Christmas) and yet he believes in the Great Pumpkin and carries around a security blanket. Charlie Brown is the one who thinks of himself as a blockhead, who thinks he has no friends, and yet is the one who is actually better adjusted than nearly every other character, and he is the one who seems to have a genuine friendship (with Linus). Charlie I think makes a mistake many of us make, which is to think that having good friends prevents loneliness. I don’t think this is true, and I want to explore the topic of loneliness for a bit before we go into some of the things the Bible shows us about what makes a good friendship.

Loneliness is part of what it means to be human in a fallen world. Isn’t it telling how God said, before the Fall, it is not good for man to be alone. – Gen. 2:18

I think God purposely gave Adam a taste of loneliness so that he would understand that he has always been made for relationship. One of the many consequences of the Fall was a resumption of loneliness, a loneliness even worse than what Adam had tasted before God made Eve. Prior to the Fall there was no sense of shame, no sense of not belonging, because sin had not separated Adam from God. Recall that when Adam and Eve, after eating the fruit, heard God as He was in the garden, and what did they do? They hid. They sought out aloneness; they sought out separation, because they knew they were now broken, separated from God. And although Adam and Eve were still physically together, their bond was also broken. They covered themselves up with leaves even before God came to them. And when God questioned them they blamed each other, choosing selfishness and self-protection over openness, vulnerability, and agape love, dying to self for one another. And so it has been for man ever since.

There is another classic Peanuts comic strip in which a baseball game is rained out. Charlie Brown says, “Rats! Every time you want to do something, it rains!” And Linus, in frustration, shouts, “Rain, rain go away! Come again another day!” And then, instantly, the rain stops and there is not a cloud in the sky. Linus looks up, stunned, and then, with a panicked look in his eyes, runs home, slams the door, and runs to his big sister, Lucy, and says, “Hide me!”

It is tragically ironic that man is desperately lonely and yet does not really want intimacy. That is, a part of man wants intimacy but a part of man does not, is afraid of it. So often man would rather find something to deaden the pain of loneliness rather than embrace true intimacy. And our modern society has found more ways to deaden the pain than ever before. TV, the Internet, computer games, none of these things are all that great, if we are honest; it is just that they are better than feeling lonely. Add to that all the vices that man has used to deaden the pain, from drugs and alcohol to even physical intimacy apart from marriage. All of these things are just painkillers, aspirin for the soul.

Many of the Bible heroes (people we call heroes but who, like the Peanuts characters, and like all of us, were a bundle of good and bad points, complete with contradictions and inconsistencies in character) – many of them were intimately familiar with loneliness. We cannot imagine the life of Job, bereaved of family, possessions, and health, and left with “friends” who at times were more harm than good. Or imagine Joseph, separated from his family and friends and even his country, and hauled to be a slave in a foreign land, at times stuck in jail. Was Moses lonely? I think so. The burdens he faced leading a “stiff-necked” people through the wilderness were often nearly overwhelming. Even Aaron failed him at critical times.

David often wrote of his loneliness in the Psalms. Here are four examples:

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. – Ps. 25:16

I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none. – Ps. 69:20b

I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof. – Ps. 102:6-7

Look to my right and see; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. – Ps. 142:4

I think all of the Old Testament prophets were lonely at times, not to mention the people who were forced into exile when Israel and Judah fell, people like the (at the time) child Daniel. And even in the New Testament we see examples of loneliness. The Apostle Paul and many other early believers spent time in prison. Paul wrote,

You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. – 2 Tim. 1:15

Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. […]At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. – 2 Tim. 4:9-10, 16a

You may not be struggling at all with loneliness. But at some point in the future you probably will be. Almost everyone has their times and seasons when loneliness becomes their companion. If you want to grow in compassion for the lonely, and you have not done so already, I encourage you to sometime visit a nursing home. For those of you who are a regular part of this church, you know that we do this once a month, simply singing hymns and other songs to the residents of a local nursing home and then spending time in simple conversation with them, holding their hands, giving them hugs. There is a lot of loneliness in a nursing home, even in one of the best-managed homes. A good number of the people there have a physical ailment that makes it difficult to communicate, and others therefore can find it to communicate with them. It is one thing to be trapped in a cell, or be alone with no one to talk to in your dorm room, but it is something else to be a prisoner to your own body. One good thing that comes from seasons of loneliness is a greater compassion for the lonely.

There are aspects of loneliness that I can observe but fail to really understand; what causes one situation to induce feelings of loneliness and another not do so can be very mysterious to me. I can be in a room in my house, alone, working on next week’s message for hours, but if other members of my family are somewhere in the house puttering about, even if I don’t see them, I don’t feel lonely at all. And yet, I can be at a conference for work and in a allroom for a social function among a thousand people and feel terribly lonely. Some of that may be my introvert personality, but I think there is more to it. Yes, I can talk to strangers, have polite small talk, but until we really connect, it does no more to fix my loneliness than watching TV.

Observing my family this week I have noticed that we all do little things to regularly connect with each other in little ways. We use a bathroom on the other side of the house. We get a drink of water and take a long path to get there. When someone walks by we look up, at the other’s face. I think we constantly reassure each other of our presence, even unconsciously. With my family, no talk is needed. I can just go out of my room and look at them, and they don’t even need to see me, and I am reconnected, because I know them and love them. They are not “just” family; they are my friends, and we are connected in a way that, because I cannot really explain it, I would call mystical.

God made us in such a way that it is not good for man to be alone. That is, God made us to be constantly hungry for companionship, for connection. He didn’t have to do that. He could have made us without this hunger. From this I conclude two things. One is that this was good, that this hunger for togetherness we have is not something broken or bad about us, but something good, even something glorious, that is, something that reminds us of God’s far greater glory. And I think that, as we are made in God’s image, that desire for companionship, for connection, is an essential part of God’s nature. Not that God is needy; He is complete in Himself, but in Himself there is relationship. God is one, but He is also three in one, Father, Son, and Spirit, in intimate, loving relationship.

I don’t think we appreciate how truly horrible two events in history really are. The first is the separation of man from God that began at the Fall. The second is the separation of Jesus from God as He took the punishment we deserved so as to reconcile us back to God. Jesus understood how horrible our separation from God was, and that is why He did what He did. Before the Fall, to look on God was to be reconnected in a way that dwarfs the reconnection I have with my family, to be as opposite from lonely as would ever be possible. And when we turn to Christ, when we remember that He stands at the door and knocks, when we then open the door and let Him in, and He comes in at eats with us, and we with Him (Rev. 3:20), we can experience the Friendship that is infinitely above every other friendship. We reconnect with the one and only true BFF. Jesus Himself told His disciples (and us),

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. – John 15:15

And yet an undeniable part of our brokenness, a consequence of the Fall, is that like Adam and Eve we hide from God and we put up barriers to relationship with each other. We try to satisfy our loneliness, as I have said, with everything but what we really yearn for. It seems like this is especially true in our modern age. It seems like we would rather read about how people are doing than talk to them personally. And we would rather write about how we are doing than telling people face to face. We may do it in the name of efficiency – after all, we are all very busy doing very important things, and making a Facebook page allows us to tell everyone how things are going all at once. Plus, we can edit the entry, choosing just the best words, hiding the bad stuff, in short, putting up barriers. And Twitter also, for many who use it, allows them to put themselves in a good light. Nobody tweets that they are going to the liquor store to buy more alcohol so they can later drink alone. Nobody tweets that they are going on the Internet to satisfy their lusts.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not opposed to Facebook, Twitter, texting, or other forms of social media. And, more importantly (my opinion shouldn’t matter), I don’t think God is opposed to these things. We have tremendous freedom in Christ, and beyond that, I do believe there are many uses of social media that are profitable. They allow people to maintain connections that might not be possible otherwise, or which would be weaker. But they are not the same thing as real togetherness. To put it another way, these things are imperfect tools; they get in the way of a direct connection. They are better than no connection, but so often in our culture they are used instead of a direct connection.

Hiding from relationships, even though we hunger for them, is nothing new. Solomon in his God-given wisdom learned this.

There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. “For whom am I toiling,” he asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” This too is meaningless—a miserable business! – Eccl. 4:8

Nobody will come to the end of their life and say, “I wish I had spent more time at work.” Many will wish they had spent more time with their families, more time developing and enjoying friendships. The next verses in Ecclesiastes have, in my opinion, tremendous wisdom about friendship:

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. – Eccl. 4:9-12

Let’s take this one part at a time. Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. This means that when two work together, serving each other, good things happen. This goes back to some of our earlier teachings. Being a friend is showing agape love. It means seeking to help your friend, seeking to serve your friend, seeking to die to self for your friend. Are you sure you still want friends so much?

Our culture views friends as just people to hang out with, share life with. Friendship should be much more than that. That’s just finding a companion to dull the pain of loneliness with, that’s not friendship. And I cannot think of a higher work than serving the Lord together. Although there is a place for “missionary friendships” between believers and unbelievers, and although it is possible to have a deep connection with someone who is not yet a believer, our deepest friendships should develop among those who are like minded, who seek to follow God, and with whom you can “go on mission” together. This is what a local ecclesia, a local church body or home fellowship or small group should be. Multiple places in the New Testament God explains that the Body is made up of different parts, that Christ is the head, and we are His arms and legs and elbows and pinky toes and everything else, and that He is in the business of putting people together to do Kingdom work.

Sometimes we cannot really see how God is doing this building, this assembling, but sometimes we are privileged to get a glimpse. I can see how God has orchestrated putting John, Fred, and I together as pastors in this church because we have very different strengths and very different weaknesses. Together, God uses us to have a good return for our work, for His work, and it is encouraging and reassuring to see how God does this.

If you are looking for good friends, the first place you should look is among your local body, your church, your home fellowship, your small group. Don’t worry about personalities. God can take people quite different from you, even people you don’t think you would ever hang out with, and turn them into friends in the Lord. And do things beyond the scheduled meetings for your group. Invite people to share a meal. Get to know them more, what they like to do, what they are good at, and then find opportunities to serve together, each of you using your God-given strengths and abilities.

Spiritual gifts were never meant to be something you figure out on your own, that you use on your own. They are in the context of community, in the context of friendship. As you discover a friend has gifts in administration, for example, find and suggest ways this person can use them in the context of you serving together. If you see your friend has gifts in encouragement, tell them and help them find ways to use this gift. The same goes for giving, serving, teaching, showing mercy, and prophecy. In this church, as I have seen glimpses into various people’s gifts, I love to find ways for them to use them, whether it is helping to organize these spring break trips, or writing dramas, or leading a Bible study, and so on. Again, this is something we all can be doing and all should be doing for each other.

If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Falling is part of the Christian walk. A day will come when this is no longer the case, when our transformation in Christ is complete, but not while we still walk on the earth. Our friends can help us here in two ways: by pointing out when we have fallen (we often manage to blind ourselves to this fact) and by helping us up.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. – Prov. 17:17

Often we try to hide our failings from our friends. Understand that when we do so, not only are we missing out on one of the purposes God has for our friends, we are also adding to our failings by creating distance in our friendship. This will need to be repaired; that is, we will need to deal with this, eventually coming clean about our failings, or those friendships will never be the same.

As for those of us who have the job of helping our friend up, the New Testament has important advice on this.

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. – Gal. 6:1-2

Being a real friend means that you deal with your friends problems. You don’t get to look the other way. You don’t get to say, well, that’s his personal business, not mine. Once you have “caught” your friend, once you are aware of the sin, you are called to action. What are you supposed to do? Restore him gently. The Greek word for “restore him” means to repair, to make things right. It is used to describe the process of mending torn nets. You don’t repair torn nets with a sledgehammer. It is a considerably more delicate operation.

What does this practically look like? First and foremost a friend needs to help them see that it is indeed sin, if they don’t think so. Of course, be sure yourself! Paul says you should be “spiritual.” This means that you yourself are walking with the Lord and not, for example, guilty of the same sin. It also means you are Spirit-led, that you are in increasing amounts manifesting the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness). Being sure yourself that this is sin means that you can point out clear verses to your friend, and if your friend is defensive or unconvinced, pointing out these verses is exactly what you should do.

If you and your friend understand it is sin, the next step is to encourage your friend to pray to God for forgiveness. You can pray with him. And then you should talk to your friend about repentance, of which forgiveness is only the first step. Repentance means turning, and your friend should have the mindset of a new beginning, one where he is now really depending on God’s power in this area, one where, as appropriate, he is now keeping accountable with you in this area, one where, as appropriate, he is making changes in certain areas of his life so that the temptation to further sin in this area is reduced.

Is this stuff fun? No, not really. Not only that, but there is a degree of danger in this kind of thing. Paul, writing words inspired by the Spirit, warns friends who do this to watch themselves so that they too do not fall. This is not fun, but this is what a true friend does. This is what it means to carry one another’s burdens.

For a Christian, a friend is someone who when they ask you how you are doing, means it. It is someone who asks how your quiet times are going, who asks if you are praying, seeking the Lord, walking with Him. There is another wonderful Peanuts comic strip related to this. The setup is that Charlie Brown is talking with Lucy.

Charlie: May I ask you a personal question, Lucy?
Lucy: Why, of course…
Charlie: I don’t want to upset you…
Lucy: Don’t be silly, Charlie Brown… Nothing you ask could possibly upset me…
Charlie: Do you pray before you go to bed, or after you get up in the morning?
Lucy: (sending Charlie flying head over heels) AUGH!

Don’t be like Lucy. Welcome spiritual questions from your friend. And learn to ask similar questions in return. This is true friendship in action. Returning to the Ecclesiastes passage:

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? The illustration is of physical coldness, but I believe it also speaks to spiritual coldness. Sometimes coldness happens simply because you are not choosing to keep God first in your life; you get out of the habits and practices that help you connect to God, to seek Him. There can be many other causes of coldness: feeling disappointed by God, struggling with doubt, or even dealing with stressful problems in your life – problems in your job, or with your other relationships, or even with your health. Whatever it is, you should open up about these things to your friend, and your friend should likewise open up to you.

This also goes for the “warm” one – you should share what the Lord is teaching you, what you are learning from your quiet times, what spiritual things you are thinking about. If you aren’t thinking about any of these things, then maybe you aren’t as “warm” as you think you are. Every believer should grow to become able to talk to a person, a friend, about spiritual truths applied to their lives. If you can’t do this yet, listen – I understand. As a new believer, and for several years, I was not able to do this naturally. But you know what? I began to work at it. I had a friend who would ask me these questions, and make me uncomfortable, and I don’t know about whether this is the best motive, but it did in fact motivate me to have more meaningful quiet times! I was tired of being unable to say anything and then being gently but persistently asked about what I was doing for my quiet times. So I began to really pray before I read Scripture. And I began to really think about the Scripture I read.

And I began to ask myself questions about the passages and try to answer them, and when I failed to have an answer I would ask God to teach me, and I would also remember these questions and ask my friend, and slowly but surely, my quiet times began to become transformed into real encounters with God. Listen, you can do this too! Anyone can grow in this area. Don’t you understand that this is what God wants more than anything for you? He wants you to let Him in so He can really start to transform you.

There will be times you are both warm, and these will be great times of encouraging one another in the Lord. There will be times when one is warm and one is relatively cold, and still you will both be encouraged; the cold one will become warmer, and the warm one will be greatly encouraged to see how God is using him. And in addition, your friendship will deepen dramatically. In fact, I think having conversations like this day after day after day with your friend is the single most effective thing you can do to deepen your friendship.

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel. – Prov. 27:9

I will let you in on something – we have music practice on Thursday nights, and as soon as practice is over, John Farmer and I have a little routine. John goes to the pastor’s office and turns on the computer to pay bills or do something else that needs to be done. Usually some of his kids are here, and my son Isaac is also here. The first thing I do is tell Isaac that I will only be a minute, that I have to tell John something before we go. Then I go to the pastor’s office and John and I talk for at least an hour about many things, but always with a spiritual aspect to them. We have done this for years. And this one thing has dramatically deepened my relationship with John. I count him as one of my very best friends. And our friendship, as it is now, is set for life. What I mean is that even if one of us moved away and we hardly talked with each other for 10 years, when we did meet back up, we would talk for 8 hours instead of 1 and catch up, and then we would continue our Thursday night routine (or make a new routine, but the same purpose) and it would go on as if nothing had happened. For the rest of our lives, and in the eternity to come, we will always be able to talk about spiritual things as naturally as some people talk about the weather. Would you like such a friendship? It is available to you!

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. We are in a war, whether you want to think about it or not. Satan wants to discourage you, to make you believe lies, to doubt in God’s goodness or His power or both. He wants you to become isolated. He loves lonely people. A shallow friend, someone to hang out with, is not going to help you against Satan and his schemes. A real friend, one you actually spend time with in person, one you talk about deep stuff with, is someone who will defend you, who will see your blind spots, who will help you to wage war against the world, your flesh, and the devil. Sometimes he may hurt you, but it is a good hurt, a hurt that brings true healing.

Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. – Prov. 27:6

Finally, a cord of three strands is not easily broken. Three strands? Yes – you, your friend, and Christ. Together in Christ, together in the Spirit, though the world may fall, you and your friend will stand.