Friendship is more than just hanging out and having fun experiences together. These are the easy expressions of friendship. The greater vision of friendship is spiritual, leading to mutual growth in wisdom and righteousness before God.
Proverbs 27:5–6 ESV “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
These verse from Proverbs teach us about faithfulness and commitment in our friendships.
Faithfulness among Friends
Friends who are open and honest with you when you need to hear the truth are valuable friends. Friends who say they love and care for you but don’t express it by truth-telling when it really needs to be done are morally useless as friends.
A true friend cares enough to confront and will risk confrontation for the sake of his friend’s well being. He is faithful to friendship. He is faithful to his friend. He is faithful before God. Bottom line, he can be relied upon to seek the best, truly God’s best, for his friends.
Some who say they are friends, are not, but rather enemies. Such a person might disguise himself with flattery or gracious words. Such so-called friends are all show and no substance, profuse in their words, kind acts, and frivolities.
These so-called friends will oppose your true friends when they “wound” you. This Proverb is instructing us to be wise and resist pride, and listen to the faithful friend, not the false one.
Commitment among Friends
Have you ever been through this whole experience, from either side of the truth-telling friendship, and experienced the dynamics, the tensions, the conversations, the inner struggles; and hopefully the joy, peace, and righteousness of it all?
True friends can count on one another to tell the truth, and do so with wisdom and maturity. They trust one another in their dealings to truly assist one another in life and character.
You might be surprised at what people do after learning, but not truly understanding, certain biblical principles. The goal is not to go out and wound a friend every day. Nor is it to go ask people what they think of you and try to make them tell you bad things only to get mad at them for telling you and assert your own view of yourself.
God provides true friendships for our happiness, our support, and our growth. Pray for such friendships and that He would turn you into such a great friend.
There is a lot of pressure to be highly creative in preaching. Creativity is wonderful, but sometimes sermon-crafting obscures the very text we are attempting to open up and apply.
Misplaced Confidences
We all want to listen to preaching that engages our mind and hearts, and preachers want to bring the transforming power of the Word into the lives of those in their congregations.
There are so many distractions, however. Putting together colorful powerpoint presentations. Searching the internet for illustrations or media clips. Writing the message with a view to its future use and publication. Working with artistic teams on crafting stage props.
Then there are the demands we place upon ourselves to provide effective tools for people to navigate their lives according to God’s wisdom. We obsess over making the main points memorable. We have to write insightful questions for community group discussions that address the complexities of our lives.
This is only a partial list. Some of these burdens are real and some are phantoms. Nevertheless they make it hard to preach good sermons because they direct our focus to helping people live more successful and happier lives.
We end up putting our confidence in these preaching accessories rather than in the substance of the Word of God itself.
Confidence in the Scripture Itself
Recently, I spent time training preachers in southeast Asia. They faced temptations from the other end of the spectrum. Lacking skills in studying the Bible and applying the Bible, they would find numerous shortcuts.
There are many ways to stray. Preaching other people’s sermons. Finding commands to obey and forcefully repeat. Finding doctrines to talk about for an hour. Memorizing a handful of sermons and repeating them regardless of the passage in front of them.
Wherever in the world we preach the Word, the first and foremost value must be knowing the text of Scripture to be preached. The preacher needs to spend a lot of time in the text to truly know the text. This includes reading and re-reading, meditating and praying, and at times even memorizing. This process cannot be hurried.
In conjunction with this, serious and careful study will be required to really know what God is saying. Focused attention needs to be given to observation of context, structure and analysis. The most accurate, engaging and life transforming applications will come from thoroughness in preparation. Here is the place to gain confidence for preaching.
Applications will Abound by the Holy Spirit
The first application for any congregation is the same. It is to know the Biblical text. Our main objective is to know God by means of His self-revelation in Scripture.
This will lead to the most profound applications by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps a better question is this: Will people in the congregation be able to open their Bibles at home and re-preach the passage to themselves? Will the message statement and how we took them through the passage be obvious, accessible and reproducible for them?
Hebrews 4:12 ESV “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
While keeping such truths about Scripture itself in mind, then we can and should be creative. Because no one wants to listen to a boring preacher.
Sometimes we give up on sharing the Gospel before we even start.
We can discourage ourselves when we mull over how much people need to know in order to come to Christ. We overwhelm ourselves when we contemplate all their beliefs that have to change and how they need to completely reorient their lives.
Why would they even listen?! Why would they ever want to believe?!
Give People the Opportunity to Hear
This type of reasoning is one of our problems in sharing the Gospel. We think through it too much. We come up with a whole bunch of scenarios that includes their religious backgrounds, lifestyle and objections. In fact, we might find ourselves coming up with more reasons not to believe than others have probably ever thought of themselves!
I remember some of my early experiences with evangelism walking onto a beach full of fun or entering a crowded cafeteria and thinking to myself “I don’t think anyone is going to be interested.” But every time the Lord led me to people who were interested, often very interested. They didn’t all come to Christ, but many wanted to talk, argue or share their opinions, and were thankful for the opportunity.
Even last year I was sitting in an airport in south Asia next to a Muslim man. We both had about six hours before our next flight and we were both exhausted. I didn’t want to talk about the Gospel, thinking I am too tired for this and he doesn’t look like the type who would be interested anyway. Then, only two minutes into our polite greetings he asked me directly about Jesus Christ. So we joined our tables and discussed Bible passages he was troubled about for the next four hours.
I still need to remind myself to just share the message. Stop overthinking it and be prayerful. Follow where the Holy Spirit takes the conversation. This is basic faithfulness in evangelism.
Give People the Opportunity to Believe
Whether it seems people are ready or not, ask them to put their trust in Christ. And then wait for their response. If we don’t think they are ready we don’t ask. But, just ask. The worst they can say is “no” and this only means, “not now.” So, that means that the day might be coming when they will say “yes.”
Asking outright impresses upon people the urgency of Gospel consideration. Let’s them know it is not a nebulous concept to trust in Christ. Explain it. Always issue a general call, for you never know when God will issue His irresistible internal special call for salvation.
Sharing the Gospel does not have to be time consuming either, which is often another concern of ours. It is okay to only cover what you have time for. You can talk more later, or connect them with others, with resources or nearby churches.
Romans 10:13–14 ESV “For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”
There is More than One Goal
It helps to remember that the ultimate goal is not the only goal. Perhaps it would be better to think about what might be the next reasonable step for the people with whom you are sharing.
Evangelism becomes relaxing when you can simply enjoy people for who they are as people created in God’s image and share in their lives. Maybe they want help overcoming a certain objection that has been bothering them. Maybe they need to meet and enjoy conversation with a genuine Christian. Maybe they have to unburden themselves with hurt or pain. Maybe it is time for them to open up about sin struggles in their lives.
There are likely many smaller goals along the way to salvation that must be met. And what we often consider the goal—“being saved”—is really not the ultimate goal anyway. Instead, it is entrance into an eternal life with the ultimate goal of knowing and enjoying God. As Jesus said in John 17:3 ESV “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Encouragement in evangelism comes when we enjoy the process and our assigned roles in it.
1 Corinthians 3:5–9 ESV “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.”
