Biblical Friendship, Part 4: God's Tool
Introduction
I propose that the primary purpose for all human relationships is sanctification. Why? Because we are God’s images that exist in relationship because our eternal God has always existed in relationship. Therefore, every human relationship teaches us something about who God is. But why so many different kinds of relationships? Just as each person displays different aspects of God’s nature to varying degrees and in diverse ways (e.g., creativity, ingenuity, relationality, etc.), so too each relationship highlights different aspects of who God is. Parents show us the Father’s authority, children the Son’s submission; husbands show us the Son’s love, wives our attitude of submission to the Son; pastors show Christ’s tender care for his people, congregants our need to follow his lead.
Friendship shows us God’s committed attitude of love and fellowship toward his own
I could go on, but the point is clear: if relationships are
intended to teach us about God, then friendships have an important message for
us. I believe friendship shows us God’s committed attitude of love and fellowship
toward his own. And yet, zooming out again, the point of knowing God is to
become like God in his communicable attributes (Phil. 1:9-11; Col. 1:9-10), so
all of these relationships show us who God is so that we can become like him;
this is sanctification. And yet, there is a major roadblock to this purpose.
The Problem with Friendship: Sin
Though God originally created humans as perfect in their relationships with both him and each other, that perfect fellowship was broken by sin. Note in Genesis 3 that before Adam and Eve hide from God (Gen. 3:8), they hide from each other (Gen. 3:7). Sin destroys relationships. In his book The Company We Keep, Jonathan Holmes explains this corruption in our relationships as consisting of three components:[1]
- Vertical – Because of our alienation from God (Col. 1:21), we are incapable of moving toward others in biblical friendship. “[O]ur sin nature continues to press us toward relational isolation, separation, and alienation from God, as well as from one another.”
- Motivational – Sin makes us self-focused instead of others-focused, and so our motivations in friendships are often corrupted by our sin nature. “[D]ue to the inward-curving effects of sin, we often pursue friendship not out of a biblical understanding of bearing God’s image and glorifying his all-encompassing gospel, but out of a desire for personal benefit.”
- Missional – Since God has designed friendship to point to his glory through revealing truth about himself, our sinful self-focus is a hijacking of his creation for our own purposes, which slanders his character by communicating untruth about him. “When our friendships exist for our own pleasure, comfort, and relational happiness, rather than a communication of God’s love and mercy in the gospel, we’re telling the story badly, and we may be telling the wrong story altogether.”
True, Biblical friendship is not our natural tendency; at
least, not anymore. Not since the Fall. Instead, our hearts are deceitful (Jer.
17:9; Heb. 3:13), corrupt (Eph. 4:22), and desire to dethrone God (Rom. 1:18-25),
which makes us incapable of loving others (1 John 4:7-8). James rebukes such
sinful hearts, saying:
“What causes quarrels and what
causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within
you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so
you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do
not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You
adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity
with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an
enemy of God.” (James 4:1-4)
Note again how Scripture mentions the brokenness of our relationships with people in the same breath as the brokenness of our relationship with God. James moves immediately from speaking of our sins against others to our enmity with God himself as the source of these interpersonal sins.
The solution for the problem of sin is Jesus Christ
The solution for the problem of sin is Jesus Christ,
who died to atone for our sin, reconciling all things to himself (Col.
1:19-20). All who believe in him as the suffering Son, repent of their sins,
and call him Lord are in a right standing with God which cannot be taken away. And
yet, for now we must endure the Curse. We live our daily lives in the
broken-down house of this current, fallen world, waiting for the restoration of
all things when King Jesus returns and establishes his eternal Kingdom on
earth. But until then, we have friends.
The Point of Friendship: Sanctification
We have said much of the blessings of friendship and of how
it teaches us about God, and yet there is a higher calling than just the
enhancement of our experiences and a sense of belonging; God has a higher
purpose for friendship. This purpose, however, is not fulfilled in just any
friendship – we must practice friendship according to God’s pattern and in
his power for it to accomplish its greatest effect: sanctification.
We must practice friendship according to God’s pattern and in his power for it to accomplish its greatest effect
Both C. S. Lewis and Timothy Keller acknowledge that there
are differing levels of friendship, even beyond the baseline of
acquaintanceship. At bottom, there is natural friendship, which Keller
describes as “Two people standing side-by-side looking at the same object and
being stirred and entranced by it together”[2] and Lewis summarized as “You too?”[3] Any two people with something in common may share this kind of friendship,
enjoying the six benefits Drew Hunter compiled and even a measure of Keller’s
four keys of friendship (see previous post). And yet, there is a ceiling on
these benefits, for unregenerate people cannot push one another toward God in a
positive way (one may drive another to God negatively by providing trials, but
this is not the same). For friendship to take its true course, it must reach
the next level.
Supernatural friendship, as Keller calls it, is “The deep
oneness that develops as two people journey together toward the same
destination.” This destination is none other than “‘the day of Jesus Christ’
and what we will be like when we finally see him face-to-face.”[4] Supernatural friendship runs laps beyond natural friendship, for while natural
friends must have simply some interest in common, no matter how momentous or
trivial it may be, supernatural friendship is based upon an indelible, eternal
bond as both individuals are united in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit (Eph.
4:1-7). Though they may be different in every other respect, their connection
in Christ is far greater than any other could ever be. This is the type of
friendship in which the deepest hopes, fears, sorrows, joys, and failures are
shared in the context of mutually pushing each other toward God. This is the
kind of friendship that leads to spiritual growth. But friendship itself is not
the power, merely the context of this growth.
The Power for Friendship: The Holy Spirit
It is the Holy Spirit who enables believers to go beyond the limitations of natural friendship, in which at least one of the parties involved is still completely corrupted vertically, motivationally, and missionally without any hope of improvement. But the Spirit produces fruit in the life of a believer to counteract the works of the flesh, starting with the very love of God himself for his people (Gal. 5:19-23). Godly friendship requires Spirit-enabled love, because godly friendship looks like self-sacrificing friendship that mirrors te love of God for us in salvation (1 John 4:7-12). This does not mean that every friendship among believers is supernatural, merely that it can be supernatural if both parties are committed to walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5:24-26). Neither does it mean that a believer cannot practice one-sided supernatural friendship toward an unbeliever – indeed, we are commanded to do so! (Matt. 5:44) – but it cannot be fully reciprocated.
Rather than use people for our own benefit, the Spirit enables us to sacrifice for their benefit.
In his book The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis speaks of two extremes toward which the various natural loves – affection, friendship, and eros – can move [I illustrate Lewis’ spectrum in the diagram below]. The first and default extreme is hatred, which is attained through the path of idolatry. As I stated in an earlier post, we are either serving people because we love God or using people because we don’t love God. When we use people as our god, we are actually hating them, as we are using them for our own ends rather than doing what is good for them; since idolatry is not good for either person, such “love” is destructive to everything it touches. Paul summarizes such relationships as “foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3). This is true toxic friendship: sinners using each other for their own selfish ends. The opposite – and more desirable – extreme is supernatural love, which is empowered by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit. Rather than use people for our own benefit, the Spirit enables us to sacrifice for their benefit.
But what does this supernatural love-empowered friendship look like practically? Christ himself summarized it in what has come to be called the Golden Rule: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Mt. 7:12). If that’s unclear, the rest of the New Testament teases this love out in specific commands toward “one another.”
- “Love one another” (John 13:34-35; 15:12, 17; Rom. 12:10; 13:8; 1 Thess. 3:22; 4:9; 1 Pet. 1:22; 4:8; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11, 12; 2 John 5)
- “Live in harmony with one another” (Rom. 12:16; 15:5, 7)
- “Encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11; Eph. 4:29)
- “Greet one another” (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 1 Pet. 4:14)
- “Care for one another” (1 Cor. 12:25)
- “Serve one another” (Gal. 5:13; cf. John 13:14)
- “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:1-5)
- “Bear with one another” (Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:13)
- “Be kind to one another” (Eph. 4:32)
- “Count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil 2:3)
- “Do good to one another” (1 Thess. 5:15)
- “Stir one another up to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24)
- “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another” (James 5:16)
- “Show hospitality to one another” (1 Pet. 4:9)
This kind of love can only happen when a person is walking in the Spirit
This is the kind of friendship that unites individuals who
are supernaturally bonded in the Holy Spirit, enabled by him to love
sacrificially for the other’s growth. But this kind of love can only happen
when a person is walking in the Spirit, which means that the most important
thing to work on to improve our friendships is our friendship with God. As
Kelly Needham puts it in Friendish,
“The greatest and most urgent thing is always to love God. But this isn’t how most of us think. When we have problems in our friendships, our first thought usually isn’t to work on our relationship with God.”[5]
This is why friendship always comes second to God, not only
because placing friendship above God is idolatry that will blaspheme him and
destroy us in the process, but also because a right friendship with God is
foundational to all other friendships. We cannot love one another
supernaturally without his help.
Diagnostic Questions
As we consider the fact that God has created friendship for the purpose of sanctification, we should stop to consider whether or not our purpose for friendship is the same as God’s. Now, remember, friendship is a good gift from God for our benefit, so to seek those benefits through friendship is to seek enjoyment of God’s good gift; we need not feel guilty for desiring companionship, camaraderie, and the general enhancement of our life. However, if these benefits become the ultimate goal rather that God’s glory through our sanctification, our focus is off and we may be running headlong into idolatry. To that end, we must adopt several attitudes about friendship:
- Submit your friendships to God – Do you see friendship as a tool to your own ends of belonging, validation, happiness, or satisfaction over and above God’s goal of sanctification?
- Seek supernatural friendship – Do your friendships center around superficial similarities, or do they highlight the unity of the Gospel?
- Be intentional in friendship – Do your friendships have a focus, and is that focus God?
- Be sacrificial in friendship – Does your service to others go beyond the ways that are convenient for you, or do you only serve in ways that make you look good?
- Be walking in the Spirit – Are you seeking friendships with people apart from friendship with God?
These questions expose the sinful tendencies of our flesh to
make friendship about ourselves rather than about God. Remember, the fact that
friendship exists among believers in Jesus Christ does not guarantee that it is
supernatural, merely that it can be supernatural if both parties are
committed to friendship with God by walking in the Spirit. “But seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to
you” (Matt. 6:33).
Conclusion
Friendship is God’s creation, given to humanity for our benefit, that we might know him and point one another toward knowing him. However, that ultimate purpose of friendship (sanctification) is impossible without our first being in a right relationship with God (justification) and focusing on helping the other grow toward their destined eternal holiness (glorification). This last element of biblical friendship hints at the topic of the next post: friendship is God’s goal for us.
[1] Jonathan
Holmes, The Company We Keep.
[2] Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage.
[3] C. S.
Lewis, The Four Loves.
[4] Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage.
[5] Kelly
Needham, Friendish.
All Scripture verses come from the ESV.
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