In Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi he talks a lot about joy. One of the things you can’t imagine a joyful person being without is friends. Joyful people make friends. Joyful people are friends to others. If you really want to enjoy your life you will need friends.
God created us to enjoy one another. He never intended for any of us to live isolated lonely lives.
Paul was a very joyful man, and one of the reasons for that was, he made friends everywhere he went. Even as he writes from a Roman prison cell and closes his letter to the Philippians he mentions his friendships both at Rome and at Philippi.
4:21-23 (Msg) Give our regards to every Christian you meet. Our friends here say hello. 22 All the Christians here, especially the believers who work in the palace of Caesar, want to be remembered to you. 23 Receive and experience the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, deep, deep within yourselves.
That is so remarkable. Paul is under sentence of death and his last words in his letter are not, "pray for me to get out of jail", or "woe is me," but he’s sharing greetings from one set of friends to another. That’s a sign of a joyful life. One of the reasons Paul enjoyed life so much is because he made so many friends. That’s a great key to your enjoyment of life as well.
So how did Paul do it? How did he make friends? How can you make friends?
Here are some Fundamentals of Friendship from Paul’s last words in his letter to the Philippians.
1. Take the initiative.
If you want to enjoy friendship with others – you’re going to have to learn to take some initiative.
Do you know why a lot of people don’t have the friends they so deeply long to have? Because they’re afraid to be the one to initiate.
Notice again what Paul says in verse 21: Give our regards to every Christian you meet. Our friends here say hello.
Paul and the friends he made in Rome were initiating the greeting. "Tell all the believers in Philippi I said hello. Tell them my friends here in Rome say hello." And he’s also telling the recipients of the letter to take the initiative in greeting others.
Go ahead, take the initiative. You say, "but I’ve taken the initiative before and I got shot down. The person or people I was trying to befriend weren’t interested, or they were too busy, or whatever…"
It’s okay if you try to be someone’s friend and they’re not ready. Paul experienced that all the time. In every city he went to telling the Good News about Jesus, there were people who didn’t want to be his friends. …In fact, there were a lot of people who became his enemies.
The reason we’re afraid to initiate is we’re afraid of being turned down or let down. Sometimes it’s because we have too much pride. But somehow we need to overcome this fear of rejection.
We’ve got to learn how to overcome the fear of rejection. And that’s difficult for some of us because another big reason we’re afraid to initiate is that we’ve experienced some very painful rejections in our lives. Some of you have had parents to reject you. Some of you have had spouses to reject you, siblings to reject you, people at school to reject you, people you thought were your friends have rejected you. You’re still nursing your wounds. It still hurts.
In his book, "A Child Called It", David Pelzer tells about suffering rejection from his parents growing up. His story is horrendous. He was treated more like an animal than a child. In fact, there were times when the only food he ate came from the family dog’s bowl. There were times when he went hungry for days on end, times when his mother poured ammonia down his throat, and even worse things.
But now he labels himself a survivor. In the end of the book he says that estimates are that one in five children in America are either physically, emotionally or sexually abused. He says, "On any given day, some adult who is the victim of a dark past of child abuse may vent his or her pent-up frustrations on society or on those he or she may love."
He continues, "Many child abuse victims hide their past deep inside…some child abuse victims stay quietly locked in their shells."
Some of you have been hurt by someone in your past.
One of the best things you could do right now is to conquer that hurt with the healing power of Christ. But I will tell you that it’s going to require treatment. Physical injury requires physical treatment and emotional injuries require emotional treatment.
A lot of people deal with emotional pain by hiding it. They often do something self-gratifying like drink alcohol, abuse drugs, or participate in illicit sex – they engage in behavior that numbs the pain. The problem is, these things never heal the pain. The pain never goes away. Deep down inside it always nags at them. That’s why some people have a lot of bitterness and anger and resentful feelings inside. That’s our first option: experiencing the pain of bitterness, anger and resentment.
We choose the option of pain when all the while there’s another option.
The other option is: We can give our pain to God.
And just exactly how is that done? Jesus told us how it’s done.
Luke 6:28 (NLT) Pray for the happiness of those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.
In psychology there’s an axiom that anxiety and relaxation cannot both exist in a person at the same time. We all know that. Nobody rests when they’re anxious. A similar axiom exists in the spiritual realm. You can’t hate a person and pray for him at the same time. Not sincerely. So Jesus says we need to pray for those who have hurt us – so the hurts they left won’t make us miserable.
I’ll make you a guarantee. If you try to make friends in this life you will be hurt. People will hurt you. Some of your deepest hurts will come from your friends!
Psalm 41:9 (CEV) My most trusted friend has turned against me, though he ate at my table.
David wrote that because he had some pretty bad experiences in life with friends. You’ll have some too. This verse is even a Messianic prophecy applied to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.
Does this mean that David or even Jesus Himself gave up on having friends? No, not at all. I’m sure glad Jesus didn’t give up on letting us become His friends because of people like Judas!
Just because some friends will become disloyal doesn’t mean you have to give up on friendship all together. Sure, true friendship is built on trust. But you don’t always have to give up, even on disloyal friends. They’re human. You need to learn to forgive your friends. You don’t have to become cynical and isolate yourself. Self-protection doesn’t work. It isolates you into missing one of life’s greatest blessings – the blessing of having friends. What Jesus taught us about praying for those who curse us and hurt us – that’s what works!
We can live free from the control of emotional hurt. We can enjoy life even if everybody doesn’t want to be our friend. We can find some folks out there who do want to be our friends.
You’ll never enjoy the great blessings of friendship if you keep your guard up all the time.
So take the initiative. Say hello to others, don’t wait for them to come up and say hello to you. Ask others out to eat – don’t wait to be asked. Ask others over to your home. Ask somebody to go to a concert with you.
That’s the first fundamental of friendship: Take the initiative. And here’s the 2nd from Paul’s closing sentences in his letter to the Philippians.
2. Befriend those in tight places.
23 – All the Christians here especially the believers who work in the palace of Caesar, want to be remembered by you.
Why did Paul single out the believers who worked in Caesar’s palace? (No, not Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas) There were people in Caesar’s palace: cooks, clothiers, soldiers, people who made the beds, and even family members of Caesar who became followers of Christ! Why is this so notable?
Because the particular Caesar at this time was Nero! Nero was one of the most notoriously cruel and anti-Christian Caesars to ever rule the Roman Empire!
Nero was responsible for persecuting Christians. Several historians credit him with being the one who actually set the fire in Rome in 64 AD, and then blaming it on Christians. His treatment of Christians was vicious. Just for amusement he would have believers sewn up inside the hides of animals and then thrown to wild dogs. He had hundreds of believers crucified at night and set their bodies on fire to be used as human torches to line the Apian Way. Early church historians credit him for not only beheading Paul but also crucifying Peter. It is said he had members of his own family killed because they followed Christ!
Yet there were people in the very palace of Nero who became believers anyway! So Paul says, I especially want you to remember them. In fact, they want you to remember them.
If anyone deserves our friendship, if anyone needs our friendship, it’s someone who is in a tight place. There are a lot of people in this world who aren’t as physically and financially blessed as most of us. In fact, The Bible says that many times people are looked down upon because of their adverse circumstances. Take poor people, for instance. The Bible says,
Prov. 14:20 (NLT) The poor are despised even by their neighbors, while the rich have many “friends”.
That’s a sad commentary on human nature. Everybody wants to be friends with the rich. Not many want to befriend the poor. But the Bible teaches us to be friends with everybody.
Jesus taught this by His life and by His words. A Pharisee invited him to dinner one day and he said this:
Luke 14:12 –13 (CEV) …When you give a dinner or a banquet, don’t invite your friends and family and relatives and rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return, and you will be paid back. 13 When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 They cannot pay you back. But God will bless you and reward you when his people rise from death.
God always looks out for the needy and He wants us to do the same! He doesn’t just want us to have friends that bless us – He wants us to also initiate friendships with people to whom we can be a blessing!
If you really want to enjoy life - be like God. Befriend the people who really need a friend. Don’t worry about becoming the friend of the rich and famous – concern yourself with becoming the friend of the poor and destitute, the sad and lonely, the homeless and the hurting, the man or woman or child with AIDS, the persecuted believers around the world.
When you read the book by David Pelzer mentioned earlier, you keep waiting for someone to come to his aid, and someone did! A fifth grade teacher, Mr. Ziegler, treated David with respect. All the kids at school laughed at David because he wore dirty clothes and smelled bad, but that was because his mom treated him like a dog. But Mr. Ziegler showed David love – and from that love he began to have hope.
It takes love. It took God’s love for us when we were poor and dirty to redeem us. It takes God’s love through us to help others in need.
Don’t just pick friends who can polish your image or give you business contacts or make you laugh.
It’s great to have friends that make you laugh and it’s okay to have them. But the Bible also says…
Romans 12:16 (CEV) Be friendly with everyone. Don’t be proud and feel that you are smarter than others. Make friends with ordinary people.
A lot of people miss out on the joy of friendship because they’re looking for the wrong kind of people to be friends with. Be friendly with everyone. Make friends with ordinary people. Circle those two statements.
That’s where the joy in life comes from! A lot of people think that if they can just have a bunch of beautiful, financially well off, talented, well educated friends, then they will have joy in life. A lot of us would be out of luck. I know I would. I don’t personally know anyone rich and famous. Most of us will never have that opportunity. But that’s just fine. We don’t need it. God’s Word teaches us to befriend those in tight places. That’s a biblical fundamental of friendship.
3. Enjoy God’s grace.
Verse 23 Receive and experience the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, deep, deep within yourselves.
Do you know what happens when I walk closely with God? A lot of good things, but one in particular: I’m better able to be a good friend. When I experience His amazing grace deep within my spirit, I have a sense of peace and joy and love that can’t come from any place else. And then I’m better equipped to love others.
The best thing you can do to love others is to love God and enjoy His love. Just know that He favors you, not that you deserve His favor – that’s the very essence of grace – God’s grace – it’s undeserved, we didn’t earn it. I don’t have to struggle to get to the place that God loves me and wants to bless me – I’m already there. The only thing I have to do is accept it.
It was a sense of God’s grace that gave Paul the joy we’ve talked about in this series – the joy he talked about over and over again in his letter to the Philippians.
He didn’t have to worry about whether or not other people accepted him when he offered his friendship. He already had an overwhelming sense of God’s grace – God’s acceptance of him - in his life. That made him confident. That gave him the ability to love others – to be a friend to others.
When you get to the place in your life that you can live with the abandonment grace gives – then you can really enjoy friendship.
How can you get to the place of friendship with Christ? Jesus said,
John 15:14-15 (NLT) You are my friends if you obey me. I no longer call you servants, because a master doesn’t confide in his servants. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
If you have a friendship with Jesus then you have God’s grace! When you experience God’s grace you will be a better friend and experience better friendships!
