In John 15:15, Jesus calls us friends. What wonderful news! In fact, this could be a summary of the gospel itself. The gospel is the good news that God saves sinners. I being a sinner in need of saving that can only come from God. Because of Jesus, we are now friends of God.
My friend Matt, preached a sermon on friendship yesterday where he shared what it looks like to be a friend from the book of Proverbs. If we are friends of God, then we can approach friendship with others from a place of giving rather than getting. Rather than church participation being about consuming others relationally, we can approach our belonging to a local body of believers with generosity. Because we have been restored to the garden so to speak where we walk with our Father, we can encounter our friendships with others without seeking redemption from them. Will friendship be a place of healing relationally? Yes. God designed it that way. But, our ultimate craving for connection and friendship comes from the Trinity. By being brought into the eternal community of friends, the Trinity, our identity has been secured and bought. We are now free to be friends with others.
One of the most important aspects of friendship is vulnerability. Brené Brown has written extensively on the importance of vulnerability for connection with others. Jesus shows us this in John 15:15. He says that his friendship with us is based in his vulnerability with us. His self-disclosure in sharing with us “all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you” is the example of what it means to be our friend. In a similar way, we model friendship through our vulnerability with others. This vulnerability can take time depending on our personality and attachment patterns, but it is essential to any friendship.
A key feature of fostering this kind of vulnerability and self-disclosure is a relationally safe environment. Too many Christians with good intentions cause great harm in friendships because they are so eager to help and correct. They read Proverbs regarding “iron sharpening iron” and believe they have been placed in friendships to cause friction and pain. Might I suggest that the sharpening comes more through receiving one another as fellow sojourners rather than confronting and controlling each other. The point of the illustration is not to try to be like iron sharpening iron by inflicting relational pain and confrontation. Those things will invariably happen. No need to chase them. The point is that close friendships will produce sharpening as a byproduct.