What Does the Bible Say About Friendship?
Presented by Lucas Griffin

December 5, 2018

CLICK FOR PDF NOTES: What The Bible Says About Friendship

READINGS: Proverbs 27:6, 9,10,17,18  and John 15:9-17

God has created us to be relational beings…we NEED friendship

• God wants us to have a relationship with him
• The first problem in the Bible was not sin, but solitude.
• Deep friendships are important and being a good friend to others is important
• The Scriptures are full of great friendships: David and Jonathan, Naomi and Ruth, Jesus and disciples, Paul and fellow-believers
• Friendships are an important aspect of a fulfilling life, and we learn about love, forgiveness, and grace when we become close with others. When we choose our friends with wisdom and discernment, we are adding joyful and healthy relationships to our lives. (https://www.compellingtruth.org)

God wants to be our friend.  This was His design and this can be our joy!

• In the beginning, God was close with Adam and Eve. He would walk with them and talk with them in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day.
• Sin has come between us and God, but God wants to restores friendship with himself, as he did with Enoch and Noah, who “walked with God”
• Abraham called “a friend of God” (2 Chron. 20:7, Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23).
• Moses spoke with God “face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Ex.33:11)
• Job considered himself to be a friend of God. “When the friendly counsel of God was over my tent.” Job 29:4
• Then Jesus came as the Friend of Sinners, befriending all who trust & follow him. He came to lay his life down for his friends. Jn. 15:13-15
• Many early church examples of friendship and reference to friends

Our choice of friends is very important

• SIMPLE TEST: Do your friends bring out the best in you or the worst in you?
• “The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.” (Proverbs 12:26)
• Even if our friends do not lead us astray, they can provide false comfort and bad advice (Job, Haman, Ammon)
• “Do not be deceived: bad company ruins good morals.” (1 Cor 15:33)
• Our marriages should be based on friendship, love, and fellowship
• “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” (2 Cor 6:14-15)
• In conclusion: “We should choose friends who do not entice us to sin or worship anything aside from God. We should choose friends who follow the path of righteousness and are quick to run to God. Like all relationships, we must be wise in whom we choose to spend our time with and who will help us become closer to God.”

What does a good friend do?

• It is important to be a loyal and loving “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.” (Ecc. 4:9-12)
• Friends provide good advice when needed. “Ointment and perfume delight the heart, And the sweetness of a man’s friend gives delight by hearty counsel.” (Prov. 27:9)
• Friends can console and help us when we are in trouble. Job’s friends, Jepthah’s daughter, Barzillai consoled David, David & Jonathan
• Friend encourage one another, and challenge one another to live for God “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing (1 Thess. 5:11)
• Friends are important to keep us accountable, humble, and reasonable. Proverbs 27:17,19 – “As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. ¹⁹ As in water face answers to face, so the heart of man to man.”

Jesus enjoyed many friendships when on earth

• “Our friendLazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” (John 11:11)
• “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” (John 15:14)
• The cross is history’s most heroic act of friendship. Jesus said, “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13)
• Friendship is the goal of the gospel. Jesus Christ rescued us to forge an intimate relationship with the triune God (John14:20–23).
• Jesus is our truest friend. He invites us to understand our relationship on terms of friendship. (John 15:12-17). Friendship – with God and with one another – is one of our greatest joys.
• “Friendship didn’t come from us; it came from God. And he gives us everything we need—through his word and his Spirit—to cultivate it well, for the glory of God.”

Share Jesus with your friends. This is important! 

• Studies show our culture’s increasing social isolation. We are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic.
• “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (Matthew 9:9-12)
• The demonic “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.”
• We need to be a good friend and faithful witness to those around us. This is CHALLENGING! (Cornelius, Dave, Sandra). Pray for your friends & opps!
• “Friendship shows the world that we belong to Jesus. When this lonely world of broken relationships sees churches filled with friendships—imperfect friendships, to be sure, but relationships filled with true repentance and forgiveness—then they will know that something has come from above. They will see that our talk of Jesus as the friend of sinners is real.”

WARNING! Don’t be friends with the world.

• “Do you not know that friendship with the worldis enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4)
  • Friendship with the world is to think, act, and prioritize the same as the people we are trying to reach.
• “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)
  • Christian fellowship means communion with other Christians who are living the same life that you are. It includes mutual edification and a unity in purpose and spirit that goes far deeper than friendship or human relationships.