A Bigger Christmas

How big is your Christmas?  I don’t mean in terms of the size of the Turkey, or the table crushing weight of pigs in blankets currently cooking at home.  Or how many days you can stretch Christmas family celebrations out for.  Or how many presents you’ve had, or how much you’ve spent.  How big is your Christmas in terms of the scale of how you think of what Jesus was born to do?

Psalm 98 may have seemed like an odd Christmas reading.  There’s no Mary, no Joseph, no manger, no shepherds, no magi.  But this is a Christmas Psalm.  Does anyone know which carol is based on this Psalm?

Joy to the world.  It’s a carol and a Psalm that show us the gigantic cosmos spanning impact of Jesus being Immanuel – God with us.

(1-2)The Psalmist invites the people of God to join him in singing a new song of praise to God for the marvellous things he has done.  Specifically, that he has worked salvation, revealing his righteousness and how we can be made righteous to the world.  The Psalmist draws the people’s minds back to God’s saving acts in history, the Exodus, the return from exile and so on, but  every rescue from the smallest to the greatest was a pointer, shadows of the ultimate rescue that was still to come.  The rescue that we celebrate at Christmas.  

And the psalmist calls on the people to sing and celebrate because God saves because of his love and his faithfulness to his promises.  And that salvation is available to everyone. From every nation to the ends of the earth.

That’s how we often think of Christmas isn’t it?  Jesus born to save us from our sins.  And that’s true, and it’s good news.  But it doesn’t go far enough.  It’s not big enough.  It doesn’t do justice to what he has done.  It’s looking at Christmas like one of those zoomed in pictures of an orange or a grater where you have to try to guess what it is but can’t see the whole thing.  You just see a bit and the danger is you reach the wrong conclusion about what it is.  Jesus comes to save us, yes, but actually if that’s where we stop we’re missing something even bigger and more joy filling!  Even more worth celebrating!

(4-9)The Psalmist invites all the earth to shout for joy, to join in a joyful cacophony of praise to God with instruments before the Lord, the King(6).  And when he says all the earth, he doesn’t just mean all the people on the earth, though he does include the people – all nations blessed just as God promised, but he literally means all the earth.

(7)”Let the sea resound, and everything in it” – from the krill to the killer whale, the limpet to the lamprey, the anemone to the angler fish, the grunion to the giant squid.  He calls on everything in the sea to make a loud joyful noise.  To celebrate the salvation God brings.

And he doesn’t stop there, he calls on the whole world, everything in it to praise God for his salvation.  He calls on the rivers to clap their hands in joyful exultation, and the mountains to join the chorus of joy, the celebration song.

Why? Because God’s just judge has come.  The one who rules with justice and righteousness has come.  Sin will be defeated, the curse undone, Satan crushed, and a new kingdom of justice and truth and righteous will begin.

That’s good news for us, yes!  But it’s also good news for all of the world, and all creation!

The celebration that first Christmas isn’t limited to angels, and shepherds, and magi.  All of creation rejoices, because Jesus comes to liberate creation that has been held prisoner by the curse.  And that gives us even more reason to celebrate today.  To sing joy to the world the Lord has come.

Unexpected Christmas (pt 2)

What makes a good leader?  What makes a good king?  I wonder what you’d say?  Charisma, honesty, integrity, the ability to get things done?  What makes a bad leader?  What makes an abusive leader?

Matthew 2 doesn’t just show us that Jesus comes to draw unexpected worshippers but that he is an unexpected king.  He shows us a kind of rule you don’t want to live under and the kind of king it’s a joy to serve.

Herod is a despotic king, a tyrant.  When he hears about a new king he’s disturbed, he perceives him as a threat.  And look at the ripple effect Matthew describes “he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.”  Herod is agitated, and the people he rules over are terrified and troubled with him, not because they love him and his good rule is under threat.  But because of how he reacts to threats, Herod will do anything to hold on to power, anything.  We see that in the verses that follow: (7-8)he plots and schemes and lies, finding out when the star appeared so he knows roughly how old the pretender to his throne is, and then lying about his desire to worship the baby king, using the magi to achieve his goals.  Then (16)when he realises he’s been outwitted and the magi aren’t going to deliver the babies coordinates to him for a surgical strike, Herod goes shock and awe, weapons of mass destruction; killing all the children in Bethlehem and the region two and under.

Herod is a ruthless leader, doing anything and everything to maintain power; lying, deceiving, conniving, killing.  The people are only fuel to maintain his power.  It’s no wonder all Jerusalem is disturbed.  Tragically Herod isn’t alone in that is he – we see it in despots throughout our world and throughout history.  We see that form of leadership in governments, workplaces, and even families and the damage it causes.

And I wonder if sometimes we think God is the same sort of king.  A demanding dictator.  Someone who tells people what to do and not do in ways that sometimes seem arbitrary not logical.  Someone who demands worship to feed a fragile ego.  Who lashes out in angry explosions of judgment when people won’t do what he wants or threaten his rule.  Is that how you think of God?  Herod on steroids?  We can all slip into thinking like that can’t we?

Matthew shows us in contrast to Herod, and in contrast to the way we sometimes think of God, the unexpected nature of Jesus rule.  And because Jesus is God with us what Jesus is like is what God is like.

As the magi ask where the one born king of the Jews is it’s a term loaded with expectations.  Jeremiah promised the long-awaited King of the Jews would “deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jer 23v5)   Zechariah promised God’s he’d come humbly “righteous and having salvation.”(Zechariah 9v9)  That’s different isn’t it?  He’d be wise – knowing how to live and lead with skill in God’s world – there wouldn’t need to be any enquiries into his conduct or decisions he’d make.  He’d be righteous – he will live and lead with integrity in a way that’s beyond question, loving God and loving his neighbour – all humanity – as himself.  And he would execute justice – no favouritism, no tax breaks for his buddies, no political wheeling and dealing just justice.  And he’d bring salvation – he doesn’t consume people he saves them.

And there’s more in the verses the religious leaders turn to.  He’s not in a palace surrounded by wealth and privilege, pampered and protected.  No, he’s born one of us, into an ordinary family, on the poor end of the economic scale, in a backwater town.  He is the King of the Jews, but he’s not a king like Herod, distant from his people, but he’s with his people, he walks where we walk.  He stoops to a humble human beginning(6).  And what type of ruler is he?  “who will shepherd my people Israel.”

Jesus doesn’t rule like a boss, or a CEO , or a tyrant.  He rules like a shepherd.  I’m not sure we’d put that on our CV when applying for a job.  So what does that mean?

Bible terms have Bible meanings.  David was a shepherd who became a shepherd king, in shepherding he protected his sheep, fought for them, fed them, led them, rescued them when they wandered off, and suffered so they thrived.

God promised his coming shepherd king would do likewise.  He’d feed the people(Ezekiel 34v23), bind up the injured, bring back the straying, strengthen the weak, rescue the lost, and provide security and peace where before there was fear and uncertainty.

This is the kind of king whose rule is a joy to live under because he’s for you, he lays down his life for you.  It’s an unexpected rule.

And that’s why Christmas is such good news.  We discover that God isn’t like any other king.  But he ‘s more loving, more good, more compassionate, more tender.  So loving that when we’ve rejected him and wandered off he determines to rescue us at cost to himself.  We see in Jesus the goodness of his rule, his compassion and kindness in the shepherd king who will lay down his life for his sheep.  And whose rule we thrive under as we trust in his love.Will you trust him?  Maybe for the first time, or may be afresh.  Perhaps the unexpectedness for you is that you can’t make yourself good enough, the good news is you don’t have to just trust Jesus.  Perhaps the challenge is to see again the gentle and lowly nature of Jesus kingship so we trust him in every area of life not just some of them, and so we follow him.  Christmas shows us what God is like in Jesus.  He is an unexpected king.  His rule is for our good.  He is tender and compassionate, he provides and cares, and even lays down his life for us.

Unexpected Christmas

Christmas is a bit like your favourite jumper isn’t it?  It’s comfy, cosy, safe.  You know how it’ll go.  The same Christmas songs will be playing in every shop from the middle of November.  The same Christmas shows and movies will be on the telly.  The same food and drink will be on the table, with the same decorations round the house, and the same family traditions will be enacted.  For some of us we may even know what presents we’re getting.  Christmas is about the expected.

That’s why doing Christmas at someone else’s house is a bit discombobulating isn’t it?  It just doesn’t quite feel right, it all feels slightly off. You’re not sure what’s coming next or when.

As you read Matthew 2 you get the same sense.  It’s the bit the nativity plays leave out or heavily redact, isn’t it?  Despotic leadership, death squads and despair have no part in Christmas, do they?

But there’s more unexpectedness in Matthew 2 than just Herod’s homicidal barbarity.   Sometimes we’re so familiar with what to expect that we miss its unexpectedness.  And there’s good news in the unexpectedness of Christmas.

Do you spot the unexpected nature of v1?  “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, magi from the east came to Jerusalem…”

These are unexpected worshippers.  Nativity plays and the ‘We three kings of orient are…’ carol haven’t helped us here.  Firstly, these visitors aren’t part of the people of God, they’re Gentiles, outside the covenant.  Secondly ,they aren’t kings.  Look carefully at the word used; they’re magi.  That means they were advisors, sages, guides for the kings of the ancient near east.  That job involved a mix of stargazing that was part astrology and part astronomy, studying wisdom literature from all sorts of cultures, interpreting dreams and dabbling in magic.  Things that God’s people weren’t to do, that were unclean, that separated them from God. These aren’t noble God-fearing kings, they’re outsiders God’s people would have rejected.

But notice God draws them to worship Jesus and look at how he does so.  They haven’t found an old dusty copy of Isaiah in the library.  Instead God speaks to them in a language they can understand “We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  God interrupts their ordinary everyday attempts to work out the world via the stars and supernaturally draws them to worship Jesus. And God doesn’t get them to renounce their lifestyle first.

And the contrast is made in (4)with the chief priests and teachers of the law in Jerusalem.  These are the leaders of God’s people, who have the privilege of being set apart to study God’s word, supposedly loving him, seeking his kingdom, and leading the people to do the same.  But how do they react when Herod asks where the Messiah is to be born?  They know their Bible, because they tell Herod the prophecy, and point him towards Bethlehem.  But then what do they do?

They do nothing, presumably they go back to their theological naval gazing and debates.  What don’t they do?  They don’t come rushing in to meet the magi and ask if they can go with them.  They don’t saddle up their donkey’s and rush to Bethlehem to meet the Messiah they’d supposedly been waiting for.  They do nothing!

They’re a stark warning for us: it’s possible to have God’s word, study it, and yet not seek after God and his kingdom.  It’s possible to be very religious but be outside the kingdom.  To have no interest in living for God, seeking Jesus, even as you read about him.

Do you see the unexpectedness of Christmas?  These are unexpected worshippers drawn in an unexpected way.  But they’re also worshippers who show us the nature of Jesus kingdom.  It’s a kingdom many religious people will miss because they misunderstand it.  Worshipping Jesus isn’t about being good enough, it’s not about earning it, or knowing enough – in fact the chief priests and teachers of the law show us the reality that that can get in the way.  It’s about hearing God’s invitation to us even while we’re far from God, while we’re still living life our own way, and responding by seeking Jesus, and finding the unexpected welcome of God into his kingdom by faith in Jesus.

We can only come to Jesus like the Magi not like the religious leaders.  And we are only ever undeserving worshippers invited to come by God’s grace.

Gospel Friendship is generous with our stuff and our service

The gospel transforms the way we think of what we have.  Our society lives by the mine principle – get as much as you can have and keep tight hold of it because that’s where you’ll find joy.  The gospel turns that on it’s head, Peter writes “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.”  Don’t shrink this down to having people round for a cup of tea or a meal.  Biblical hospitality was much bigger than that, it is not entertaining!

Hospitality was about stewarding what you had for the glory of God by generously sharing it with others in need.  Literally it means being kind to strangers.  But it could be anything from having strangers stay overnight in your home, to hosting the church in your house as Lydia did in Philippi, to sharing any of your resources with someone such as lending someone your car or some tools, or simply having an open door that means people can just come and hang out with you.  And it is both an expression of love and a way of deepening friendship.

But the gospel doesn’t just open our hands and our front doors it transforms the way we serve.  (10-11)It’s about using the gifts we’ve been given to love one another as we serve God, not in a look at me way but in a look at God way.

Again it’s as we serve actively loving others that those deeper bonds are formed. Friendship grows as we serve alongside others, are served by others and serve others.  As we experience, and are reminded of, God’s love for us in the love and care someone has put into making tea and coffee, or setting chairs out, or cleaning the loos before we meet, or preaching a sermon, or preparing activities for the children.  All of those are expressions of agape love, all are expressions of friendship – laying down our lives to bring others closer to God in Jesus.

What is the gospel?  How are we applying the gospel to our friendships, to our church family?

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  Knowing we are loved like that, grasping the dimensions and scale of that love, feasting on that love, must lead us to love others like Jesus has loved us.  Otherwise there is a gospel gap, a short circuit.

You and I need one another to love like this because we believe the gospel about when we live, about who we are and the gospel’s power to transform us, and so we are freshly aware of God’s love as we experience tangible reminders of that love in others hospitality and service of us.

Gospel Friendship is full of gospel love

“Above all” – Peter says – “love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” It’s the same agape word that’s the greatest love that Jesus called the disciples to in John 15.  Peter now calls the church to love one another as the disciples were taught by the one who loved them enough to lay down his life.  The church should be marked by this type of love.

An active love like Jesus love.  It should be deep, constant, reliable, stretching all the time to love more and more, a love without limits, that isn’t easily defeated.  That lays down its life for others.

And it’s of first importance because agape love “covers over a multitude of sins.”  Did that phrase cause you a sharp intake of breath.  We live in the era of cover ups exposed don’t we?  #MeToo and #ChurchToo.  Abuse in society, business and the church that has been covered up for years has been brought into the light and exposed for all to see.  That’s a good thing.

Peter isn’t taking about covering up sin, because he’s already said the church must be holy, they must fight sin because it wars against the soul(2v11), but he is calling them to love enough to cover over sin.

Bible words have bible meanings.  Turn to Proverbs 10v12 “Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.”  Hatred maximises the destructive power of sin by recirculating it; gossiping about it, telling others, keeping on bringing it live again and again and again, never letting it drop, never reconciling.  But gospel love is like a fire blanket – it takes all the oxygen out of the sin, dousing the flames and stopping any further damage – it doesn’t mean there are no consequences for sin, but it does mean there are no extra casualties.

Love stretches to forgive sin.  And living alongside others we’re exposed to their sins; a harsh word, someone forgetting to turn up to something, an angry outburst, and so on.  A gospel culture in church will cause us to love one another, to have a deep friendship, but it will also expose us to sin and the danger is that sin is combustible.

Gospel friendship, active love, doesn’t let sin go unchallenged, it doesn’t sweep it under the carpet.  It challenges sin whilst also covering it so it doesn’t cause more damage, how?  There are lots of ways, but Matthew 18 gives us some examples – we go see the person who has wronged us and speak to them always aiming for repentance but we don’t gossip about it or let it go unchecked and multiply.  If they don’t repent we take someone else with us as a witness aiming for repentance, if they don’t repent we go to the elders, then the church and so on.  And when the person repents they are restored and forgiven.  Covering over sin by challenging it and calling for repentance but limiting it’s spread and damage as we apply the gospel of grace to it when there is repentance.

Gospel friendship loves enough to stretch to challenge sin, but also enough to stretch to cover over the pain and damage caused by sin – it holds out the gospel of the good news of forgiveness if we repent.  It doesn’t deny sin, but it does lay down our life to challenge it because we love.

Peter’s experienced this.  Jesus warned Peter that Satan wanted to have him, that he would deny Jesus.  But Peter refused to believe it, to heed the warning about his sin.  Post denials as he leaves the courtyard he’s cut to the heart, convicted of his sin and filled with shame.  But what are the first words Jesus says to Peter and the other disciples post crucifixion and resurrection – Peace.  But a general peace isn’t enough.  After their beachside breakfast Jesus takes Peter aside and asks him 3 times if he loves him, and then restores him as he gives him a task “feed my sheep”.  Peter knows the joy of sin forgiven, covered over, and the reconciliation and restoration there is in Jesus.

Are we actively loving one another by challenging sin in such a way that we aim at restoration and reconciliation like this?  Loving like fire blankets, not covering up but covering over sin by confronting it and applying the gospel to it, meeting repentance with reconciliation?

Gospel friendship has a gospel understanding of when we live

Peter writes his letter to churches under pressure.  They are elect exiles living in a culture that’s anti-gospel.  And Peter unpacks their new identity in Jesus and the implications and applications of that to life together.  In chapter 4 he’s calling them to live distinctly for God, to stand out from their culture not as individuals but together, because you can’t stand out alone.  You can’t embody the gospel in isolation.  In v7-11 he shows them 3 gospel truths about when they live, how they love and how they serve one another – 3 ways of actively loving one another as friends.

(7)Peter calls this church to believe the gospel about when they live.  We live in a permanent season of advent.  We live counting down to Jesus return, it’s just as certain as Christmas day at the end of your advent calendar.  Do we believe that?  Do we live like that?

“The end of all things is near.”  The fact Peter wrote that 2000 years ago mustn’t make that any less real. Jesus will come and his coming is near.  There’s not another stage to go.  And that must lead them and us to “be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.”  Don’t be intoxicated with the world, don’t be lulled into living how and for what it lives for, remember Jesus is coming back!  That’s reality, that’s what we live for.  And that fuels prayer.

It transforms what we pray – we’re not praying trying to manage circumstances here and now – trying to persuade God to give us our best life now – because whilst the kingdom has come it isn’t fully and finally realised.  The most pressing thing is each other making progress in our faith and following Jesus in the face of hostility.  That leads us to pray prayers for practical needs with spiritual and eternal considerations.  Prayers with and eternal edge.

For example when someone in church is suffering we may well pray for God to heal if that’s his will, but we don’t know it is for certain, because not everyone will be healed until the new creation. But we do definitely know it’s his will that they’re shaped and moulded to become more like Jesus through each and every experience so we ought definitely to be praying for that.

When someone is facing pressure at work over their faith we may well pray for that pressure to be taken away God willing, but we don’t know that’s God’s will. Whereas we do know it’s God’s will that they stand for the gospel without compromise and proclaim Jesus until he comes so we will definitely pray for that.  And praying with an eternal edge leads us to pray for the lost to be saved before Jesus returns.

But there’s also another reason that’s so important.  Knowing when we live means also knowing when we are in history.  We’re all works in progress.  We all need to grow in our grasp of and application of the gospel to our lives.  We all have gospel blind spots.  We all fail to love each other perfectly.  We are all saints – saved by Jesus and made righteous yes.  But we’re also all sinners – we still sin in ourselves and against one another.  And we’re all sufferers – we live experiencing the realities of a broken world and all the pressure, pain, and opposition that brings.  And being alert to that reality gives another eternal edge to our prayers for one another – we pray for graciousness, for forgiveness, for sin to be limited and stopped, for godliness to grow and so on.

We need a gospel understanding of when we live.  How do we know we have, it will show in our gathering together to pray and in what we pray for one another. Gospel friendship with pray for one another with that eternal edge.

Gospel Friendship

What is the gospel?  What’s your instinctive response to that question?  I think how we summarise the gospel gives us a window into how we naturally apply the gospel to day to day life.

If we see the gospel as primarily something done for us then we’ll tend to see our response to it as doing things in return.  If we see the gospel as being about a relationship won for us then we’ll tend towards living out the gospel that way.  If we see it as primarily personal then we’ll limit our response and application of the gospel to us individually.  And so on.

How did you answer the question what is the gospel?  And how does that influence how you apply the gospel?

As we’ve worked through this series we’ve seen that the gospel transforms friendship.  Friendship is laying down our lives in love to bring others closer to God in Jesus.  We’ve seen that wise friendship is unwaveringly committed, speaks the truth, is full of care and provides wise counsel.

But we’ve also seen that the story of the Bible, the arc of history, bends towards deep friendship.  It’s what Adam and Eve enjoy in the garden both with God and with others, it’s what’s lost at the fall, and what God purposes and plans to restore through Jesus.  Jesus shows us the greatest love as he lays his life down for his friends.  We see the gospel’s restoring, reconciling, and redeeming power in the early church as it explodes into life after the ascension.

Within hours of the coming of the Spirit the church grows from 120 to over 3000 and they’re a church marked by gospel friendship – active love.  Acts 2v44 “all the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”  The gospel created deep ties and a well of love that overflowed in generosity.  In Acts 4 when Peter and John are released they go to their own people – a word that means friends or family.  The church was their people, where they belonged, their primary tie.  This new community is deeply bound together in ways that transcend family ties.

A few verses later we read that “All the believers were one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”  Radical active love was the norm because that’s what they had experience in the gospel and what welled up and overflowed from their hearts in response to the gospel.  The gospel compels us, fuelled by the Spirit, to love actively at cost to self for the glory of God.

But that gospel culture is always under threat.  We see it in Acts with Ananias and Sapphira, with the potential for a split over the Gentiles and faith.  We see it in the Epistles as the writers apply the gospel to places where there’s a gospel gap in their loving – be it across races, or in disputes over favourite bible teachers, or what you eat, or anywhere else the world seeps in and short circuits the gospel call to love on another.

We’re not immune from that.  We’re all prone to limiting our love.  Either in terms of who we love, or in terms of how we love, or in terms of when we love.  We tend to put conditions and terms on our love.  And many of us are afraid to love because we’ve been hurt when we have, or we carry the shame and guilt of having hurt others through an ill-timed word, unreliability, or cancelling a friendship.  We’re going to think about how the gospel enables us to love one another even though we’re all simultaneously saints and sinners and sufferers in the church.

I’m praying that this will fix our eyes on Jesus and how much he has loved us so that we bring our hurts to him honestly, and hear his healing words, and are refreshed in how loved we are in the gospel and empowered to love by the Spirit at work in us.

Wise friendship is worth listening to

“Perfume and incense bring joy to my heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice.” Proverbs 27v9

True friendship is marked by heartfelt advice, not heart felt as in based on how that friend feels, but advice that is earnest – that’s for our good.  In fact you could literally translate those last two words as “soul counsel”.

Don’t be scared by that word, counsel.  We have professionalised counselling and so we feel it’s beyond us.  Maybe you’re thinking but what advice have I got to give anyone?  How on earth can I help someone live their life, make big decisions, when I can barely decide what socks to put on in the morning?

Or maybe you’re the opposite and you’re thinking brilliant, I’ve got so much knowledge to share.  So many tips and life hacks to give.  And they could really do with being more like me!

But that isn’t what this is about.  Proverbs is built on that fact that wisdom comes from God, wisdom is skill in living as God’s people, in his world for his glory.  And God doesn’t leave us in the dark about that, he gives us his word and his Spirit – not so that we do what we feel and just claim I felt God tell me to do this, but so the Spirit makes God’s word live for us, in us and through us.  God’s word and the Spirit are like a hand in a glove.

This isn’t saying good friends give wise advice because they have some deep internal well of wisdom.  No.  It’s saying true friends are worth listening to because their counsel comes not from within but is built of the fear of the Lord (proverbs 1v7) that is the bedrock of wisdom, and so their counsel is shaped by God’s word absorbed, thought on and lived out.  If we want to be a wise friend, if we want to be able to give soul counsel it begins by listening to God and depending on his word for understanding how the world works and what he says about our hearts and his plans and purposes for us.

I wonder if this is the mark we miss most in our friendships. Friends whose goal for us is greater than just our happiness but aim instead at our happiness in Christ as we live life for his glory.

Wise friendship, true friendship, redeemed friendship is unwaveringly committed, speaks the truth, is full of care, and is worth listening to as we lay down our lives to bring someone closer to God in Christ.

How are our friendships?  Jesus love for us is marked by those foundations, are we being transformed by the spirit so we are like him.  So that we are renewed and transformed in our thinking and in our relationships.

There is much here for us to examine ourselves over, pray through, repent of, as for the spirit to transform us to be.  And we can do so not manipulated to doing so by guilt, but freed to do so because we know Jesus loves us like this, at cost to himself, and secure in his love we trust he is worth listening to and living for. 

Wise friendship is full of care

That feels risky doesn’t it?  Letting someone see us, asking them to commit to helping us walk with Jesus and be more like him. Inviting them to speak truth into our lives to help us be more like Jesus.

Throughout Proverbs the word used for friend conveys undertones of love and care.  Friends as Proverbs defines it are committed to one another’s good.  Friendship is full of care.  And we see that in a couple of ways in particular.

Friends will be careful – full of care – in when they say things.  Proverbs 27v14 says: “If anyone blesses their neighbour early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.”

Are you a lark or a nightgale?  One is a morning bird one is associated with the night.  Which are you?  This proverbs warns us to be full of care about when we speak.  There is a right and a wrong way to bless someone – loudly early in the morning when they’re asleep isn’t it.  We know that don’t we – just trying walking into a sleeping persons room at 7am, throwing back and the curtains and exclaiming about the beauty of the blue sky and the twinkling diamonds scattered across the landscape by the frost, isn’t God good!  And see how your blessing is received.

In the same way friends are full of care in what they say and when they say it.  That isn’t an excuse to duck saying anything, but it is calling for us to love carefully.  To be full of care not just in what we say but in when we say something; not saying things when they are too raw or in public but to be wise so they can hear what we say and how we mean it without the heat of the moment.

Secondly proverbs particularly emphasis that we are full of care in stewarding what we know about a friend.  Proverbs 11v13 “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret.”

True friends steward what they know of each other.  They aren’t secretive in a way that creates barriers with other.  But they’re full of care with what they know of one another.  They can be trusted. You can open up to them, listen to them, share your struggles with them safe in the knowledge that they will be full of care with what they know of you.

Wise friendship speaks the truth

“Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”  Proverbs 27v6

We’d all rather be praised than challenged.  But wise friendship, true friendship, nourishes and supports us by bruising or wounding us because they love us.  Unlike the abundant flattery of someone who doesn’t really care about us.

A true friend won’t abandon you when you do something wrong, but neither will they flatter you when you need challenging.  True friends don’t turn a blind eye to your faults and sins, they don’t cut you off because of them, they challenge you on them.  They won’t agree with you when you are wrong, or let your sinful words or treatment of others go unchallenged.

True friends don’t ignore our faults they love us enough to give a bruise or a wound for our good.  They love us enough to confront us in the truth with grace and we can receive it because we know they’re for us because they’ve proven it by being constant, unwavering in their love for and commitment to us.

This isn’t a justification for having no filter, going round and tell everyone what you really think about them.  To nit-pick and name and shame.  This isn’t encouraging us to be lose canons but loving friends.  Because we aren’t challenging what we see as wrong but calling others to be holy not as we define it but as God does.

How many friends do you have who love you enough to challenge you about your life, your loves, your habits, your anger, your use of the tongue, your triggers?  How many people have you invited to do that?  Sometimes that can be wounding and bruising as they challenge us on something, but we will accept it and not get defensive if we know they love us and are for our drawing nearer to God.

Proverbs 27v17 says “As iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another.”  Just think about that image for a minute, can you picture it, can you feel the rasp of the two pieces pushing against one another?  What does iron sharpening iron create?  As the two rub and grate against each other it creates friction, but a friction that is purposeful because it produces a sharper edge.  A true friend loves us enough to create friction in order to help us live as God’s people, in God’s world for God’s glory.  

It’s really important that we distinguish between what is a loving word of discipline and what is abuse.  Some of us have lived with or had friends who delight in using cutting words.  Every comment comes with a wound, diminishing us, making us less, hurting.  That is not what this proverb is saying we welcome.

The word of a true friend may hurt but they will not harm.  They may bruise but they will not break.  When a friend challenges us like this we will need to differentiate between being loved and feeling loved.  Being challenged may not feel loving but it is if it is by someone we can trust and it is for our godliness or the good of others and not just designed to cut us down to size.  It is good if it is bringing us nearer God in Jesus.

This is hard.  It’s especially hard in our culture, where how we feel is king.  I wonder if that’s why there are relatively few people we invite to be a friend to us like this.  But we need friendship like this.  It feels risky, it can be awkward, but it bears fruit when these are the words of someone you know will be there with you and who loves you and wants to bring you nearer God in Christ.