Tag: Friendship

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5 Ways to Develop a Friendship with Jesus

Recently, I was traveling through rural Indiana and stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast. There was a group of older men talking and laughing. They were clearly from the community, knew each other well, and met there all the time. It’s meetings like those day after day, week after week, and month after month that develop those deep, deep friendships. Unfortunately, we cannot meet Jesus at McDonald’s tomorrow morning, so, how do we form a deep, deep friendship with Him?

Fortunately, Jesus’ disciples faced the same problem, and Jesus gave them a solution. They had been with Him more than those men were together at McDonald’s. They generally ate breakfast, lunch, and supper together and travelled together all over Israel. Jesus told them that He was going to go away, into the very presence of His heavenly Father, but that wasn’t going to be the end of their friendship. Understanding what Jesus told His disciples about continuing their friendship can help us understand what it means to have and develop a deep, deep friendship with Jesus in our day.

Let me highlight five ways they would continue developing their friendship with Jesus. For more context, see my previous post, “Five Lessons on Friendship from the Life of Jesus.”

First, they would continue to fellowship with Him through His presence, even if it was not the physical presence of His human nature. The Holy Spirit, the third person of Trinity, would connect them to the eternal Son. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16–17). In this way, He said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18). So, we can still enjoy the presence of Jesus. We can enjoy it whenever we want to. We just have to be aware of it and live in it.

Second, they would continue to fellowship with Him by listening to what He said. He describes abiding in Him as “abiding in His word” (15:7). He told them that He had already told them what He was doing, “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (15:15). We can fellowship with Jesus by continuing to listen to what He wants us to do.

Third, they would continue to fellowship with Him by doing what He told them to do. Part of friendship is doing things together. We learn what Jesus is doing by listening to His Word, and we engage in it when we obey that word. That’s why He said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (15:14). I don’t think Jesus is saying, “Do what I tell you, and then you will be my friend.” Rather, He is saying, “If you are interested in the things I am and are engaged in them, then we will have a friendship.”

What does this mean concretely? Jesus is interested in culture, family, politics, honest labor, etc. When we engage in these things, we are engaged in activities He cares about. Similarly, when we care about the people around us, espeically those who are most vulnerable, we are working on Jesus’ agenda and engaged with Him as friends. It is especially when we are enagaged in the work of connecting people to God that we live out a friendship with Jesus because that’s what He is most interested in. That’s what His coming into this world, death, and resurrection are all about. A friendship arises when we share and work at Jesus’ interest in connecting people to God.

Fourth, they would continue to fellowship with Him by talking to Jesus. We often call this prayer, but prayer is really just interacting with Jesus by listening to Him and then telling Him what is on our hearts. Jesus said He had chosen them so that they would ask things of Him and the Father, “so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16). We can continue to interact with Jesus through prayer. We can and should share with Him what is on our hearts.

Fifth, they would continue to fellowship with Him by connnecting with His friends. Jesus concludes His talk on friendship with them by saying, “These things I command you, so that you will love one another” (John 15:17). Just as the Father loved the Son so that the Son might love us, so the Son loves us so that we might love one another. Whatever we do for the least of Jesus’ disciples, we do for Him. We interact with Jesus by interacting with His people.

Let me try to put all this together. We can live as friends of Jesus. We do that when we are aware of His presence with us. But we need to do more than just be aware. We need to listen to Him and talk to Him in conversation. Friendship is not primarily about talk, though. It is about doing. When we take an interest in what Jesus is interested in and engage in it, we will develop a friendship with Jesus. This is not just about “me and Jesus.” This is something we do together with Jesus’ other friends.

Sure. This is different than living with someone physically, but we actually can have a friendship with Jesus that is much closer and more intimate and life-giving than what we have with any of our friends. That’s the blessing Jesus offers us. If we are interested in that relationship, Jesus is more than happy to “call us friends.”

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Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash

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5 Lessons on Friendship from the Life of Jesus

Jesus never married, but he had a ton of friends. He saw relationships as important, and He nourished His need for companionship through friendship. That should make us take a second look at the importance of friendship, and there is no better place to do that than considering the friendships Jesus Himself had and what He said about them. Here are five lessons on friendship from the life of Jesus.

First, friendship has to be about something. Jesus took an interest in bigger things. He cared about the kingdom of God. So, He built friendships around this interest in God and His work in the world. C.S. Lewis captured this idea well:

The very condition of having friends is that we should want something else besides friends. Where the truthful answer to the question, Do you see the same truth? would be “I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a friend,” no friendship can arise—though affection of course may. There would be nothing for the friendship to be about; and friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers (emphasis mine).

You don’t get friends by going around saying, “Will you be my friend?” You get friends by working on things together with other people. You have to have interests.

Second, friendship takes time. Jesus spent a ton of time with His disciples. Jesus chose twelve men in particular “to be with him and [that] he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14). This friendship grew over time.

This growth often involes overcoming challenges and experiencing suffering. Going through some difficult together can even accelerate the process of friendship building. You can hear the affection in Jesus’ voice at the Last Supper, “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials . . .” (Luke 22:28). Going through these trials and staying together is what builds the strongest friendships.

Third, friendships become one of the deepest relationships. Friendships begin with common interests, but they often develop some of the greatest affections and closest connections. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). This is often seen in the context of war, where soldiers develop an intense and deep commitment to their camarades in arms, but it is true whenever deep friendships develop. There is no “greater love” than the sacrificial love of a friend for another. This deep affection is so profound that Jesus used it to explain His own death on the cross for His people.

Fourth, friendships are an amazing resource. Friendships take time. The payoff is not always immediate. But for those who have built such friendships, they become a remarkable resource. Jesus said, “the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). Jesus shared what He was up to and what was going on in His life with His friends. That’s what friendship is and can be for us. We don’t have to just keep things in. We have people with whom we can share them! When we share our burdens, they feel lighter. This is the resource of friendship.

Fifth, Jesus wants more friends. He could have had servants. Everyone is below Jesus. But He wanted friends. “I call you friends,” He told His disciples. And Jesus wants more friends. He wants you to be His friend. How? He wants to get you involved in what He’s doing in turning this world into the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of darkness. He wants you to fish for people. He wants you to be with Him, be like Him, and do what He did, as John Mark Comer puts it in his recent book about being a follower of Jesus.

That’s really amazing news. The God of the universe became a human being to connect with us and make us His friends. Why would we refuse such an amazing offer? Why would He not engage in the actitivies He says are the best things we can do? Why would we not want such a friend?

But if we do, how do we do it? How do we develop a friendship with Jesus? The disciples lived with Him and walked around with Him physically. We cannot do that. So, how can we become friends with Jesus? That’s what I will explain in my next post.

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An Unlikely Friendship

I first met Greg in September 2004 in the small town of Pollock, South Dakota. He was the Pastor of a church in Mankato, MN, in the Presbytery of the Siouxlands, a regional group of churches in Minnesota and North and South Dakota. I was seeking to join this group and become a Pastor in Spearfish, SD.

In the years that followed, I got to know Greg and the other Pastors and Elders in the Presbytery better. We met three times a year, and I always enjoyed those meetings. Greg’s church was a church plant, and, when they needed some extra funds, our church gave to support him.

Then, our denomination got embroiled in controversy over some theological issues known as “the Federal Vision” (If you know what that is, fine. If you don’t, it won’t take away from this story).

I was quite adamantly on the side opposed to “the Federal Vision.” I thought Greg was on the other side, and I called him one day to ask about it. At our next Presbytery meeting in January of 2008, I asked the Presbytery to look more carefully into his views.

When the Presbytery refused, I took it to the higher court of our denomination, and they ruled in my favor.

What followed that was a long series of charges and counter-charges, attacks and counter-attacks. It deeply divided our Presbytery. Sometimes, I felt like Presbytery was more like two armed camps ready to take each other out.

In 2012, while all that stuff was still going on, God did a new work in my heart. God was teaching me something different about local ministry. To make a long story short, I felt like I needed a greater emphasis on the simplicity of the Gospel and a ministry that was more geared toward reaching the lost and working together with other Christians. In my mind, I did not connect this to the ongoing conflict in the broader denomination or Presbytery.

In September of 2012, I shared with the Presbytery how the Lord had been working in my heart and how that had begun to change our church for the better. Many were encouraged, and Greg approached me to say how much he appreciated what I had to say.

I then said to him, “Why don’t we go for a walk and talk about it? At this point, what do we have to lose?” He agreed, and we spent the next hour talking together in a way that we had not done since before all the controversy.

That conversation continued with fits and starts over the next year. As I thought about it, I began to see how some of the issues we had been arguing about could be resolved. He was somewhat skeptical, but he agreed to talk.

Eventually, I concluded that it was important enough for me to take the 10 hour trip from Spearfish, SD to Mankato, MN so we could talk in person. We met at Panera Bread there in Mankato and began to hash out the issues. We made progress, but we still needed to talk further.

Then, something happened that made our conversations much easier. Greg resigned from his church and took a call as a Chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. And to what base did they assign him? Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, SD, an hour away!

This was especially ironic because the churches in our area had been quite opposed to Greg and his “side.” It was probably the last place that he would have wanted to be stationed. But the Lord had his plans.

This move enabled Greg and I to continue to meet and have conversations. Eventually, we came to an agreement on the theological issues. We proposed a consensus statement between us as an alternative to any further charges or counter-charges in our Presbytery.

The Presbytery did not ultimately agree with our idea, but it was still a good and helpful exercise for us. Our relationship also began to change from just reconciliation to friendship.

In another irony, I moved away from South Dakota to Tennessee at the end of Greg’s first year in SD. This might have been the end of our friendship, but it wasn’t. We kept in touch.

I remember one day when I was really struggling with some issues and needed to talk. I went down my list of friends, and I came to Greg. I called him. He answered and was somewhat surprised that I would confide in him with a deep struggle. This really began a new level of friendship. We had moved beyond the theological issues, and we now began to help each other as friends and colleagues.

We now talk to each other at least monthly to help each other think through how we can grow as Pastors, Fathers, Christians, and human beings. I count him as a close friend.

I’ve also walked with Greg on his own journey as he has sought the next step in his life which has taken him all over the country from Colorado to Texas and back to South Dakota.

I’m pleased to report that he has now been approved for a call to a church in Louisville, KY. Louisville is a short four hours away. I get up there from time to time, so I’m looking forward to being able to visit face to face with Greg, my unlikely friend.

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