SERIES: Galatians — The Gospel For Everyday Life
TEXT: Galatians 5:26-6:5
MESSAGE: Gospel Friendships
“We have fewer close friends than ever, are talking to fewer friends than ever, and we rely less on our friends than ever for support. As a result, we’re on the verge of another very real public health crisis: loneliness.” — Trey Williams
What are some of the challenges to friendship in our culture today?
* Mobility
* Illusion
“People are so eager to maximize efficiency of relationships that they have lost touch with what it is to be a friend.” – Ronald Sharp
* Time
TEXT: Galatians 5:26-6:5
Q: How do we forge and sustain healthy gospel friendships? Through understanding…(1. The Emptiness 2. The Power 3. The Responsibility)
1. The Emptiness (v. 5:26)
“Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
From friends to frenemies, it happens oh-so often in Hollywood (and in real-life). But, for A-listers, perhaps the pressures of high-profile careers are just enough to strain a relationship to the breaking point. Outside pressures aside, when friends become enemies, experts say, it could be their own egos at fault. According to New York-based marriage and family therapist Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, “Celebrities need attention and external validation to feed their insatiable narcissism. Their narcissism in turn consumes them with self-obsession—qualities that destroy relationships and provoke hostility from others,”…”When two narcissistic celebrities enter into a relationship with one another the results are toxic and explosive.” – Jené Luciani
Helpful questions from Timothy Keller’s Commentary on Galatians:
* Do I have a tendency to “blow up” or do I tend to “clam up?”
* Do I tend to pick arguments with people or do I completely avoid confrontation?
* Do I tend to get very down on individuals and groups of people or am I more often embarrassed and intimidated around certain classes or kinds of people
* When criticized, do I get very angry and very judgmental—and simply attack right back? Or do I get very discouraged and very defensive—make lots of excuses, or give right in?
* Do I often think: I would never, ever do what this person has done? or do I often look at people and say: I could never, ever accomplish what this person does?
“…your fundamental problem isn’t with other people. Your sense of self-worth is flagging and fragile because you’re not related to God like you should be. No amount of acclamation, no amount of applause or accolades from everyone in the world, will fill that hole. Nothing will heal your heart except God himself looking at you and saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” — Timothy Keller
2. The Power (v. 6:1-2)
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
“One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin…” — Proverbs 18:24
“The ‘law of Christ’ is to love one another as He loves us; that was the new commandment which He gave (Jn. 13:34; 15:12). So, as Paul has already stated in Galatians 5:14, to love our neighbour is to fulfil the law. It is very impressive that to ‘love our neighbour’, ‘bear one another’s burdens’ and ‘fulfil the law’ are three equivalent expressions. It shows that to love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic, spectacular deed of self-sacrifice, but to the much more mundane and unspectacular ministry of burden-bearing…” — John Stott
“After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.” — Job 42:10
3. The Responsibility (v. 6:3-5)
“For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.”
“Paul basically says not to compare yourself to your neighbor. Instead, examine your own life in view of God’s evaluation, and when you do, you will not be so prideful.” — David Platt and Tony Merida
“I’m almost sure that’s what C. S. Lewis had in mind when Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia constantly says to people, “I only tell you your own story.” Don’t ask me about that person’s story. That person has their own load. So what Paul’s saying here is, “Get your eyes on God. Stop looking at everybody else. Stop using everybody else.” — Timothy Keller
TAKEAWAYS: What are some next steps to pursue gospel friendships?
* Ask God for gospel friendships
“In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends, “Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.” — C.S. Lewis
* Ask & allow friends to carry the burden
“Independence is not a Christian value, interdependence is.” — Chris Hornbrook
“…when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest. Instead, we were troubled in every way: conflicts on the outside, fears inside. But God, who comforts the humble, comforted us by the arrival of Titus.” — 2 Cor 7:5–6
“For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” — Galatians 6:13-14