Gospel-Fueled Friendship
If you ever moved as a kid or started at new school, you likely remember the sense of dread you had over whether or not you would make new friends. More and more studies are indicating that this is not just a concern of children, but many of us today find it challenging to develop meaningful relationships. We live in a highly mobile society that allows us to move from place to place, but this often comes at the cost of short-circuiting the time we need to grow deep friendships.
The gospel of Jesus Christ frees us to pursue genuine relationships with all kinds of people. Often, we want to relegate the gospel to how we enter into a relationship with God, but it is God’s grace through the gospel that fuels our life in this world.
Through the life and work of Jesus, he has made all who trust in him his friends and reconciled us to God.
Through the gospel, Jesus turns God’s enemies—people like you and me—into his friends. This was his pattern in his earthly ministry; he was known as “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34). He would go on to tell his disciples, “No longer do I call you servants, for 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). Ultimately, it was through his death and resurrection that Jesus reconciled us to God (Rom 5:10). Through the life and work of Jesus, he has made all who trust in him his friends and reconciled us to God.
There are ways that gospel-won friendship with Christ Jesus frees us to pursue genuine friendships with others.
1. The gospel equalizes. It reminds us that we are all on equal footing before God. In creation, we are equal because we are all made in the image of God. In redemption, we are equal because we are all redeemed and reconciled by God’s grace. When we remember that we have nothing that we did not receive, we can more easily view others as equals and pursue friendship with them.
2. The gospel guards against transactional relationships. One of the great dangers of relationships is that we only want to spend time with those who we perceive as bringing some value to us. Since we’ve already been given everything in Christ, we don’t have to seek others to meet our needs. When we are confident that God will supply all our needs—including relational ones—according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus, we can enjoy people without using them.
3. The gospel frees friendships from unattainable expectations. We all long to be loved and affirmed. One of God’s great gifts to us in this life is that he places people in our lives who love, accept, and affirm us. Human relationships, however, cannot sustain the weight of fulfilling all of our need to be loved. Even the greatest human relationships will be crushed by the weight of our trying to find all the affirmation we need in them. The gospel reminds us that through Jesus, we are loved by God our Father with an eternal and unshakeable love. We have been accepted and approved—not because of anything that we have done but because of the finished work of Jesus. This truth frees us to love and to be loved by others, knowing that our ultimate acceptance and approval have already been won by Christ.
