My older brother Dave is the pastor of a church plant in a suburb south of Hobart. They do the ‘gospel community’ model in their small groups while running a larger Sunday gathering, together with ministries that run across the whole church.
In this recent sermon in their series on Proverbs, he speaks about friendship. There is lots of good stuff in here, including a challenge to men to invest in friendship.
He also talks about how Christians think that somehow we are meant to be equally friends with everybody and the difficulties that causes. EITHER we try to be equally friends with everybody and feel guilt and exhausted. OR we decide ‘If I can’t be friends with everybody I won’t be friends with anybody’ and retreat into a loving and kind acquaintanceship with everyone.
He also draws out a great definition of true friendship of Proverbs:
A real Proverbs friend tells you the truth in love, counsels you to do good and sharpens you. In other words, a real friend helps you grow. Real friends make you better.
How different is that to what many people might call ‘friends’ or ‘mates’!
via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/stuff-i-learned-from-podcasts-3-dave-lynch-on-friendship (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)
