Walking in Wisdom in Friendships
We are talking about friendship today.
What comes to mind when you think about friendship?
Arguably one of the best friendships in the world of film belongs to the likes of two Hobbits, Sam Wise and Frodo Baggins.
They travel across Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings. Sam and Frodo have a deep and abiding friendship. Frodo is the main character, but Sam might be the real hero of the story, rescuing Frodo from Shelob, Gollum, the ringwraiths, or the wizard Saurman. Sam is always looking out for his buddy and keeping him out of harm's way. When they finally reach the foot of Mount Doom, exhausted and ready to give up, Sam lifts his best friend on his back and carries him to the goal, putting aside his own exhaustion in a profound demonstration of loyalty and commitment.
Friendship is something everyone desires, but not everyone finds. May at times seem mythical.
We live in a time of a loneliness epidemic. US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, in his advisory on this topic, said,
People began to tell me they felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant. Even when they couldn’t put their finger on the word ‘lonely,’ time and time again, people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, from every corner of the country, would tell me, ‘I have to shoulder all of life’s burdens by myself,” or ‘If I disappear tomorrow, no one will even notice.’ It was a lightbulb moment for me: social disconnection was far more common than I had realized.
We all have a desire for friendship but we all feel the challenges of it, so we are looking at Proverbs to see how we can build real friendships.
Be Present with Others
In building relationships, there is no substitute for time. One of the great challenges today is that people are more concerned with finances and acquiring stuff than building relationships. We spend our lives on that and not people.
Social networks are getting smaller, and levels of social participation are declining. The average time spent alone, increased from 2003 (142.5-hours/month) to 2019 (154.5-hours/month) and continued to increase in 2020 (166.5-hours/month). This represents an increase of 24 hours per month spent alone.
At the same time, the amount of time respondents engaged with friends socially in-person decreased from 2003 (30 hours/month) to 2020 (20 minutes/day, 10 hours/month). This decline is starkest for young people ages 15 to 24. For this age group, time spent in-person with friends has reduced by nearly 70% over almost two decades, from roughly 150 minutes per day in 2003 to 40 minutes per day in 2020.
People also report having fewer and fewer close confidants.
God made us for community. He made us to depend on others. To find support and help and to find purpose in supporting and helping others. Scripture speaks to this and to the wisdom of having friends.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. (Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10)
Pity the one who falls and has no one to pick them up. So how do we avoid that and build solid relationships? The secret is to love others. If you want to have good friends you need to be a good friend. You are to love others and be there for them.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.
(Prov. 17:17)
To be a friend to someone is essential to loving them. It is to be there for them. To care. To help. To enjoy. But here is the thing. It is easy to love those who love us. It is easy to love those who are in lovely places. But a real friend is one who loves at all times.
This is also what the New Testament calls us to do. Deny yourself, your comfort, your ease and help others.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
(John 15: 12, 13)
This proverb shows the importance of being there for another person, not just in the good times but in adversity too. Adversity is distress, calamity, anguish, i.e., a state of very unfavorable circumstance, with a focus on the emotional pain and distress of the situation
What does it say about our love if we turn away from people as soon as it gets hard. What does it say about our love for God when we turn from him as soon as it gets hard. What does it say of our love for the church if we give up on it when it’s hard. Much of the reason we see people leaving the church is a lack of love. A failure to show to others the love that Christ has shown to us.
One who clings. Who doesn’t leave your side. Is faithful. You can’t do this for everyone. But you can do it for some.
Best thing to do to make good friends is to be a good friend.
This church is a terrible place to find community. It is a great place to build community. We treat friendship like a pot of gold. I want to find it. I want to come and find it ready-made, sitting there for me to plop down and bask in it. Friendship is not like that. You have to work at it. You have to invest time into it.
So many people leave church after church because the community just is not right. They are looking for a pot of gold. At some point you have to stop and say am I building it? Am I being the kind of friend, brother, Christian that Jesus calls me to? . If you spend all your time sitting at home, scrolling on facebook, streaming that latest whatever, and you are not checking in with people, not trying to spend time with them, if you have no idea how to pray for someone else then there is a reason you don't have friends.
Being there for other people is the exact opposite of being isolated. The Proverbs shed light on the cause of this.
Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.
(Prov 18:1)
We want our own desires. We don't want the trouble of others. We don't want the inconvenience. We don't want to be inconvenienced. Then what happens is we get trained on being in silence, we are less tolerant of others, we are less resilient to differences. We can't handle the noise and inconvenience. We cease to love.
Seek to Sharpen People
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
(Prov. 27:17)
This might be one of the most well known proverbs. Many will quote it. Even non-Christians. It's a great way to think about many aspects of life. If you want to be great at something, get around others who are doing what you are doing. You are sharpened by those. Sharpened by ideas.
Let me also say this. Iron sharpens iron through friction. It is the rubbing and grading that makes the point sharp. So also in life and in aspects of your career it may very well be that you are sharpened by differing with people.
What is true of trades and skills is also true of character. If we are all growing in character and godliness, then it is also through friction that you are sharpened and changed.
Maybe you are on vacation and you have a safety concern for your child, and your friend has zero concern for that issue. You start to think he is a bad parent and he thinks you are uptight. What do you do? Just don't ever talk to him again!? No, you can sharpen each other. Seek to understand each other’s position. Embrace the friction of life. Marriage. Of Friendship.
This is where we need to think about sharpening each other with the word of God. Real friends speak into our lives, speak into it with substance. I don’t just want another person’s opinions. I want to know how to follow the Lord.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
(Prov. 27:6)
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
(Prov. 9:8–9)
To reprove someone you have to know what is right and wrong. You have to have instruction. Believers have this in the word of God. New Testament believers are called to do this. It is possible because at the heart of our friendship is what God has done for us and his revelation of himself to us. When we know wisdom we can encourage and guide others. When that is not present we have nothing to give. We also have nothing in which we can gain their insights.
The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
(Prov. 20:5)
Another way to be a friend and sharpen them is to draw them out. Seek to know them. When you look at water.
I am convinced this is lost on most of our culture. People don’t know how to ask questions and get to know people. Draw them out. This is one of the reasons that, as we think about small groups, we want to have a focus on the Bible and mission, but also on community and really knowing each other. Scripture exhorts us to this. We don't just want to live superficially.
The self-centeredness and general relational ineptness may be put most soberingly by a character in the 2009 movie World’s Greatest Dad. In it a man played by comedian Robin Williams is dealing with his son's death and says, “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It is not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.” The relational ineptness of today’s society is devastating.
People come to church to know God and yet we can’t minister to them if we don’t know them. Get to know them and what is going on in life. Nothing is more alienating than being around a bunch of people who are comfortable not knowing you. Learn to ask questions. Learn to go below the surface. That is where ministry starts to happen. Scripture guides us to do this. One of my goals for groups is that we would learn to get to know others, to love them enough to ask questions, to love enough to stand beside them in hard times, and to love them enough to share and receive guidance.
Do that with your friends. Consider what you can do to have more meaningful time together. Sharpen each other on how to do that project on the house, but also talk about life and the things going on with you. Share about the struggles of parenting and what God is showing you in it. Pray for one another. This is where small groups are so strategic. I want to pray with friends more but we often leave times wishing we had. In small groups at church we always pray. It’s just different being in church together and having a focus on the Lord in relationships. Cultivate that.
Living the Christian life with other believers will strengthen the kind of friend you are.
Love Through Offenses
Embrace the Inadequacies. Love even when offended. Seek to Forgive.
Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.
(Prov. 17:9)
Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
(Prov. 19:11)
Can you believe this? There are times you cover over an offense! This is heresy in our modern day. Someone offended you??? Go post it on social media and make sure the whole world knows about it.
There are certainly times a friend does something wrong and you go and address the issue. We just saw this in iron sharpening iron. Hey man you did this, it is wrong and lets get to the bottom of it. But there are also times you let it go.
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
(1 Peter 4:8)
Time with my kids. We are working on so many different things, if I try to get to all of them I will overwhelm them. And God looks at me and all my inadequacies. Let me focus on a couple of areas of my life and grow. Let me focus on a couple things with my kids, direct them, speak to them, share scriptures, and for the other things let me extend grace.
A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy. (Elizabeth Elliot)
Your pride will recoil against forgiving others. You want them to own it, fix it, be sorry for it, and so you want to press them, interrogate them, expose them! And oftentimes your offense reveals your own pettiness. Sometimes we overlook things. We cover over their sins. This is exactly what God has done for us.
Don’t speak hurtful words.
There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
(Pr 12:18)
Friends may speak rashly at times. You may have to cover those and speak healing. The tongue of real friends can bring healing to us. Don’t let offenses offend and create deeper wounds. Speak words of healing.
Online dialogues are simply an opportunity to bring out the swords. Don't do that. Remember the person's face, consider their emotional impact of what you say. Do that online and do it in person. A few years ago my dad made a statement about the lie that sticks and stones may break bones but words will never hurt. He said I still think about things kids said to me on the playground and how it bothers me. Those words are like sword thrusts. Be a friend and speak healing. Speak words that cover and bind wounds.
People who "keep it real," I often feel like that is a cover for someone who has no emotional intelligence.
Life is hard.
People get squeezed and do things they should not do. You are going to see this the most in your closest relationships, because in those relationships you actually see where people are at. You see them when it is inconvenient. Post when you are ready and everything is carefully manicured. When you know your own sin and how much people have to overlook to be around you, then you find a well supplying you with patience and grace for other people.
Our greatest example of this is Jesus. Jesus knows us.
He knows everything about us: all our successes and failures. He knows all the wrong thoughts you have and he still loves you. He hears every rash word. He stands beside you. Speaking truthfully and rightly. Guiding you, even when you turn away. He was faithful to you even when you were unfaithful to him. He is the best friend we could ever have.
In order to help you and draw you back to God, he went and died on the cross for your sins. He laid down his life for you. He loved you, in all your inadequacies. And even now he is patient with you. He deals gently with you.
The thing about friendship is it is an opportunity to experience love and companionship, but only if you are willing to show love and companionship. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself, your good, for someone else. And your friend will never be able to do enough to earn your love and companionship. It is something that is freely given and not based on the worthiness of the other. It is a love that reflects the love Christ has shown to us.
You will only be a good friend, if your model for life, if your highest standard in life, is a loving, self giving, nurturing, and forgiving person. The reason it happens so seldom is because the god of this age is the self. People worship themselves, and they are selfish and self-consumed, which is unloving. The only way you can be freed of this is by changing what you worship. Leaving behind the endless desire for more money and finding a relationship with Christ that overflows in love to other people.
There is only one person in the history of the world who will lead you to live a life of loving self sacrifice for others and also find joy in doing so.
Discussion Questions.
- What are your challenges in developing friendships? What do you do to overcome this?
- Which proverb on friendship is most encouraging and helpful for you to hear? Why?
- How can you better love the people in your life? How does looking to Christ help you be the kind of friend you should be?
