Redeeming Friendship

Although it often doesn't seem like it, sometimes the internet actually does bring us good news stories. I particularly love this story, (link) and other ones like it, where people shave their heads in solidarity of a friend who has been losing their hair due to fighting cancer with chemotherapy treatments.

It's such a small gesture of friendship and support, but such an act of solidarity can be staggeringly moving. The images are especially powerful when women shave off long, flowing locks to show that they stand with their cancer-fighting friend. This kind of act of true, self-forgetful, others-focused friendship resonates.

Jesus told us of true friendship when he said to his disciples:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 
(John 15:13 ESV)

Jesus spoke these words shortly after the famed Last Supper. At the Last Supper, Jesus knew that he would soon be betrayed and put to death. Knowing his fate, amazingly, Jesus knelt down and washed his disciples feet.

[3] Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, [4] rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. [5] Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 
(John 13:3-5 ESV)

Imagine the thoughts the disciples were having! They watched Jesus, this incredible man whom they had left everything behind to follow and whom they had seen perform stunningly powerful miracles, drop to his knees and take the form of a servant to gently and lovingly wash their feet. Peter was so beside himself he initially protested! Jesus lives out the type of friendship he teaches to his followers.

It was in the afterglow of this amazing scene of friendship that Jesus told his disciples, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." The washing of his disciples feet is Jesus' way of demonstrating to his disciples the kind of love they are to have for one another.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12 ESV)

Jesus demonstrated true friendship. Jesus taught the way to true friendship. Even more so, Jesus gave up his life to redeem true friendship.

In giving up his life for his friends, Jesus made the way for friendship to be redeemed. Jesus redeems friendship by going to the cross. By dying on the cross, Jesus made his enemies his friends. Consider what Paul writes in Colossians:

[21] And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, [22] he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before [God] (Colossians 1:21-22 ESV)

We were alienated from God, hostile to God and to each other, doing evil deeds. But Jesus dying on the cross reconciles us to God and reconciles us to one another.

[14] For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14 ESV) Jesus died so that we would have unity with one another instead of hostility. His blood purchases our ability to have true friendship.

We were enemies of God, hostile in all our actions toward our Creator. Essentially we were in flat out war with God as we lived to worship ourselves and creation, instead of God himself. Despite the fact that we were at war with God, Jesus became a man, joining our ranks. As a man, Jesus taught us the way of God, and then he died for our sins. The king of the opposing army joined the ranks of his enemies and died for their sake, so that they might become his friends. This is no small thing that Jesus calls us his friends! Jesus died for us so that through him we would no longer be hostile to God, but love God. Jesus died for us so that through him we would no longer be hostile to one another, but love one another just as he loved us. Jesus' death and resurrection redeems friendship for us.

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

The highest form of love in friendship is benevolent, self-giving love. The greatest act of sincere love is for someone to lay down his life for his dearly prized friends. This is exactly what Jesus did when he died on the cross to make us his friends.

Charles Spurgeon says,

"A man is no liar when he is willing to die to prove his love. All suspicion of insincerity must then be banished. We are sure he loves who dies for love. Yet it is not bar sincerity that we see in such a case; we see the intensity of his affection. A man may make us feel that he is intensely in earnest when he speaks with burning words, and he may perform many actions which may all appear to show how intense he is, and yet for all that he may but be a skillful player, understanding well the art of simulating that which he does not feel. But when a man dies for the cause he has espoused, you know that his is no superficial passion. You are sure that the core of his nature must be on fire when his love consumes his life. If he will shed his blood for the object loved, there must be blood in the veins of his love, it is a living love." (Sermon on John 15:13, "Love's Crowning Deed," 8/24/1873)

Jesus showed his consuming love for us by dying on the cross. Jesus makes us his friends, we are reconciled by the blood of his cross. This kind of love empowers us to love like Christ.

Have you experienced this love in your friendships? In your relationship with God?

Jesus takes diverse and even hostile people and brings them into his body. Because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross, we are able to put our faith in him and receive the Holy Spirit and thereby enter into God's family! 

[18] For through [Christ] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. [19] So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, (Ephesians 2:18-19 ESV)

What great reconciliation we have with our brothers and sisters when nothing divides us! No race, no gender, no station in life, no amount of money, no geographic boundaries, no skills or abilities, nothing separates us from one another in the household of God. We are all one in the church of Christ!

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28 ESV)

Do you want to redeem your friendships? Go to the cross of Christ!
Do you lack unity with brothers and sisters in the church? Stand in awe at the foot of the cross and forgive! Go and be reconciled!
Do you make distinctions between believers based on race, gifts, or financial status? Go to the cross and see that God shows no partiality!

Can my friendships be "okay" without Christ? 

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ [22] But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21-22 ESV)

Jesus taught that anger is the root of murder and that the issue of sin against your brother is an issue of the heart. If even anger leaves us liable to judgment surely it violates God's plan for friendship. Yet we do much worse to our friends than simply harbor anger against them!

Further,

[19] Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, [21] envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21 ESV)

Paul is saying that enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy and things like these is caused by being out of relationship with God! Does rivalry or envy or anger or jealousy or strife occur in your friendships? You have to get right with God in order to be right with mankind. Your friendships cannot be "okay" without Christ, because unless you have been born again of the Holy Spirit, you will not be able love your neighbor as yourself. Without the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for us to love our brothers and sisters as Christ loved us.

The only way to have reconciliation with God is to put your faith in Jesus by believing in his death and resurrection.

God's purpose in redeeming friendship is that under the authority of Christ, in relationship with God's word and imitation of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we grow to become divorced from the sin and selfishness and disunity and malice and rivalry that we once harbored, which so succinctly stated by the murderous Cain's question to God, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Through faith in Christ and reverence of him, we submit ourselves to our brothers and sisters in love (Ephesians 5:21). Our hearts are transformed to look to one another and say, "Brother!" God the Great Vinedresser turns us into men and women marked by a deep affection and concern for one other. Instead of being self-serving we become people who do anything we can to help the person in need. The love of Christ in our hearts compels us to become softened men and women who proudly declare, "Surely I am, and I must be my brother's keeper!"

One great story of this brotherly affection and care that we have in Christ comes from my small group. Last year as Allison and I were planning a wedding while I was making a very low wage and working three jobs, the men in my small group showcased this kind of love. The group put together an offering of support for me to help me out in a time of need. I was overwhelmed with love and care, because this money was completely unexpected yet definitely needed. They each gave me money out of the spirit of this sacrificial love, and it greatly blessed Allison and me.

The love of Christ changes us from hard-hearted and hostile people to gentle and generous brothers and sisters willing to lay down our lives for one another. 

Do you want to be a better friend? Know Christ and the power of his self-sacrificial love!

Greater love has no one than this.