taken from Pastor Ryan’s sermon The Story of Friendship
Let’s consider some practical items on how to start friendships and deepen them.
1. The best thing you can do to start and deepen friendships with others is to make God your greatest friend. He truly knows you and deeply loves you. To put a human into that role will crush them and discourage you. Jesus is the supreme friend. Martin Luther stated, “God’s friendship is more precious than that of the whole world.” You’re bestie if I may. As well as if you are enjoying your friendship with Jesus it will flow into your horizontal friendships.
2. Commune with God. Deepen your friendship with God by conversing with him. Listen to him through reading his Word, talk to him through prayer. Ask specific questions. Be silent, listen to the Spirit. Some of us talk at God. Our friendship is one sided. We don’t listen. Others of us read and listen but never reveal our plans and secrets to him, or confess our sins to him or ask for help. It’s one sided. We enjoy friendship through conversation.
3. Talk to your friends about Jesus. If he is your greatest friend and your exalted Lord then don’t settle for primarily talking about food, sports, or even your kids. Christians, our greatest and deepest commonality is Jesus. He has bound us together. Lean into that. If a conversation is on the surface then ask a question to get below that. Don’t settle for shallow conversations when Jesus is your deep, abiding joy! On your way to meet them pray about your time. Ask them how they are encouraged or discouraged. Ask them what they are reading. Ask them what Jesus is showing them.
4. Reveal your secrets and tell them your plans. This is what Jesus describes as the difference between servants and friends. Friends let each other know what’s going on inside of them and what they are planning on doing or dreaming about. I’m not great at self-disclosure. It’s taken years and intentionality to grow in revealing what’s going on inside of me to others. It’s taken asking others to help me by asking good questions to draw out my heart. Friends ask about your secrets and plans and friends share secrets and plans. One question Kaylan and I ask each other regularly is what are your fears, hopes, and dreams? Consider what you want to find out about them and how you can encourage them.
5. Name your friends. Jesus chose the disciples and walked with them for years in friendship. Naming them to yourself helps define who you are pursuing and committed to. We are to be friendly with and honor everyone, but we cannot be close intimate friends with everyone. Who are your people? Who do you enjoy spending time with? Who encourages you? Who is God nudging you towards? Who do you want to learn from? Who is God asking you to disciple and invest in? Who is God seeking to save and wants to use you to evangelize them? Write their names down. Also you might should have a conversation clarifying your desires. I told a man in our church recently that I thought the Lord was guiding me to pursue him and asked if he wanted to commit to walking with one another. And I knew he could say no because of time and possible other relationships but I wanted to define the relationship.
6. Actively pursue being a godly friend to others by being patient and forgiving and loving and being thankful for them. As Christ has loved us and befriended us. Which means being uncomfortable. Christ’s love to us is sacrificial so we must step into the awkwardness and be willing to resist and push through to the discomfort of new conversations and interactions. Christine Hoover describes it as walking into a room not as “here I am” but “there you are.” Pursuing others as Jesus has and is pursuing us.
7. Invite people into your home. Have people over. Eat together. Play together. Instead of Netflix and chill how about backyard and grill? I have 3 sons. I’m allowed a dad joke every few weeks. What I’m trying to say is that hospitality is a simple way of blessing others and starting friendships and deepening. Christine Hoover states it leads to back door friends which means we let other people see our disrepair and smudged without apology. “We don’t present ourselves as polished—we don’t present ourselves at all, really. By being a back door friend, we simply invite people to be themselves because we are ourselves.”
Invite people to read a book with you or watch a show or game with you. Invite people to the park with your kids. Ask a friend to help you with a home-improvement project or help them with theirs. Pick one breakfast or lunch slot a week and invite a different friend to join you each time. Don’t eat Sunday lunch without someone else. Invite them to your home or out to eat for lunch. Talk about the text and what was challenging or encouraging from the sermon.
8. Encourage and honor others. I know Lucas spoke of this last week but it bears repeating because “As oxygen is to our lungs, encouragement is to our souls. Oxygen gives life. Remove it, and we die. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21). When the atmosphere is thick with affirmation, friendships thrive. But when it’s thin (or when it’s thick with criticism), they wither” (Drew Hunter).
In the end, the best advice for cultivating friendship is not to find a better friend but to become one.
And that begins with embracing and enjoying your friendship with God. He walked with us in friendship, we walked away in rebellion as enemies, and Jesus died to befriend us.