Personal Friendship; Loyalty; 3 John 1
3 John 1:1 NASB
“The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.”
Review:
- Genuine love must be based on integrity. A
declaration of love from any individual is only as strong as their
personal integrity. If they lack integrity their declaration of love is
worthless. If they are a person of tremendous integrity then it has value.
If they are a believer and their integrity is based on a relationship with
God, they are filled with the Spirit and have Bible doctrine as the foundation
for their live, then their love has incredible
value.
- The model for all love is that of God who gave
His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross as a substitute for mankind.
John 3:16 NASB “For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not
perish, but have eternal life.” John 15:13 NASB “Greater love has no one than this,
that one lay down his life for his friends.” This can only come
from an understanding of pure selflessness, that someone recognises a value
system that is outside of the person. It can only take place where there
is an external system of absolutes based on objectivity. 1 John 3:16 NASB “We know love by this, that He
laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the
brethren.” This can only come because we have in our soul Bible doctrine
through the filling of the Holy Spirit to understand ultimate reality. A
person who is not in right relationship with God, who is operating in
carnality or an unbeliever, cannot have an ultimate frame of reference
that enables them to live outside themselves.
- The unbeliever and the carnal believer can only
produce a relative integrity that comes from the human good production of
the sin nature. Everything that an unbeliever does proceeds from the one and
only nature that he has which is the sin nature. It has no spiritual value,
it does not impress God, and it does not produce any benefit to him
spiritually. The sin nature can produce a counterfeit virtue, a
counterfeit love, a counterfeit integrity. This is not demeaning it but it
is not the same as the integrity, the virtue, the love that is produced by
God the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
- Genuine love can only come from Bible doctrine
plus the filling of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:14 NASB “For the whole Law is fulfilled
in one word, in the {statement,} “YOU
SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
Then Paul makes a detour in his argument in Galatians 5:16 NASB
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of
the flesh.” The point that he is making is that there is a certain production
of the sin nature that mimics or imitates this kind of love. He then says
that the first fruit of the Spirit is love, so the love that we are
talking about that characterises the friendships of a believer, the romance
of a believer, and marriage, is a love that is based on the integrity of
God and is produced by God the Holy Spirit. This makes is a radically
different kind of love and his relationship should be markedly different
from the relationships of those around him who are living in carnality or
are not believers.
- This means that genuine love is based on personal
love for God the Father. That is the starting point, the motivation, the
foundation. 1 John 4:20 NASB “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his
brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he
has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” The implication is that
love for God which is developed from learning doctrine has as its
by-product a genuine love for another believer.
- Impersonal love for all mankind must be the basis
for all love relationships between humans, romantic or friendship.
The doctrine of friendship
- There are different categories of friendship. For
example, we have those who are acquaintances. There are those with whom we
work or function on a team with. Then there is the category of intimate
friendship. There are very few intimate friendships that we have in our
life.
- Friendship is based on impersonal love and integrity.
It is not based on what you get out of the relationship, on emotion or
attractiveness. True friendship is based on the integrity of the one who is loving and includes a desire for the best for the
object of one’s love.
- Intimate friendship must be based on eternal
values which provide objectivity. We can’t know what is truly best for
someone unless we have an objective frame of reference. That objective
frame of reference can only come from Bible doctrine resident in the soul.
- Friendship can promote or destroy one’s spiritual
life. One’s spiritual life is not dependent upon one’s friendship.
Friendship isn’t a factor in our own spiritual life or spiritual growth
but friendships may promote or destroy our spiritual life. One the one
hand, if we have a friend who is positive and a spiritually maturing
believer and can be a source of mutual encouragement and divine viewpoint
wisdom and advice, then that is someone who will give good counsel and who
will help motivate us as we grow and mature in the spiritual life. On the
other hand, if we have a friend or friends who are negative to doctrine, who are not growing, whose value system is
not biblical, then these people will be a hindrance and a negative
influence to us spiritually, and if we don’t cut them out of our life then
eventually we will find our spiritual life being destroyed. 1 Corinthians 15:33 NASB “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad
company corrupts good morals’.”
- To have virtuous friendships one must first be a
virtuous friend. It is not dependent on the other person; it is dependent
on ourselves, our growth, our integrity, and our
spiritual maturity.
- True friends are those that we can count on in
times of adversity. This is because that friend has real objectivity. Proverbs
17:17 NASB “A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity.” This is not a
contrast. The emphasis is positive with both the friend and the brother
and that both of these are true. There is a parallelism here. A friend is
there at all times. “A brother is born for adversity,” that is, it
recognises the principle that at times it is important when we go through
tough times that we have someone close to us who can encourage us from the
Word of God from the position of objectivity which only Bible doctrine
provides.
- We must be careful of those whom we call friends.
Few will stand with us in adversity and those who wouldn’t are those that
would probably slander us, ridicule us and laugh about us down the road. Proverbs
18:24 NASB “A man of {too many} friends
{comes} to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” We
shouldn’t put our trust in a lot of different people.
- People who are celebrities, people who are
wealthy or powerful, in positions of prominence or popularity, must be
extremely cautious about whom they select as friends. People will use
others to get whatever they want out of them. Proverbs 19:4 NASB
“Wealth adds many friends, But a poor man is separated from his friend.”
- A true friend is objective enough to tell the
truth even when it is unpleasant or difficult. This is only because they
have an external standard of objectivity. Proverbs 27:6 NASB “Faithful
are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.” Proverbs 27:9 NASB “Oil and
perfume make the heart glad, So a man’s counsel
is sweet to his friend.” If a friend gives counsel or advice, if it is
coming from doctrine or objectivity it is more valuable to you than
anything else that you may value in life. But it takes maturity and
spiritual growth to be able to recognise that and to have the humility to
listen to someone who tells us things that we may not particularly desire
to hear.
- A person who is not able to maintain and sustain
long-term intimate friendships is not a good candidate for marriage. Proverbs
27:14 NASB “He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early
in the morning, It will be reckoned a curse to him.”
- Friendship
also entails loyalty. Loyalty is a concept that is often misunderstood.
Many people have a distorted view of loyalty, they think that if you are loyal
you are always going to agree with someone; if you are loyal you are
always going to do what someone wants you to do, you are always going to
validate someone else’s agenda. That is a distorted and a perverted view
of loyalty, a loyalty that is not based ultimately on the truth. True
loyalty has as its first objective loyalty to the Word of God and loyalty to
the plan of God. When that is the foundation of loyalty then we can have
true objective loyalty in every other area of life.
Friendship and loyalty
1.
Loyalty is not
blind. Genuine loyalty is based on love, objectivity and truth.
2.
Loyalty needs to
be faithful, steadfast or consistent in one’s allegiance to a person or group
of persons, which would include a church or school or any organization, or even
a creed or set of beliefs.
3.
The biblical term
that is usually translated “loyalty” in the Old Testament is the Hebrew verb chesed. This is
one of the most important words related to grace and love in the Old Testament.
It is usually translated faithful love, enduring love, never-failing love, or
loyal love. This is the love that God demonstrates to man, that God is loyal to
His covenant even when man fails.
4.
Genuine loyalty,
then, is a faithfulness that is erected on integrity and objectivity. That can
only come from Bible doctrine and it endures through impersonal love.
5.
Loyalty may be
engendered by gratitude. Gratitude cannot be converted into loyalty. When
gratitude becomes the motivator instead of integrity then what happens is that
emotions enter in and blur objectivity.
6.
Though both
believer and unbeliever is capable of loyalty only believers
under the filling ministry of the Holy Spirit can have a loyalty based on the
truth.
7.
Loyalty, like
genuine love, must ultimately be based on the truth and the plan of God. This
enables the believer to have objectivity in his loyalty and divorce it from
emotion. He keeps the priorities straight.
There are several biblical
examples of failures in loyalty. First of all, Adam flunked the loyalty test
when he followed Isha
into sin. He was to be loyal to God as the image-bearer of God and obey God’s
mandate. When Isha
ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and offered that
to him, instead of obeying God and staying with the truth, he went with the
pressures of the moment. So he failed in his loyalty test to God. Second,
Abraham flunked the loyalty to God’s test when he disobeyed God and left the
land during a time of famine. Eventually Abraham grew spiritually so that at
the end of his life he was called the friend of God, James 2:23. Third, Joab who was David’s right-hand man and the commander of
his army failed the loyalty test when he obeyed David’s order to assassinate Uriah. Loyalty must always be to the truth first and to
people secondarily. Fourth, Peter failed the loyalty test when he denied the
Lord because he never understood that the plan was for Jesus to go to the
cross. He was building all of his loyalty on emotion, and because he was all
emotion and didn’t understand the truth he failed under pressure. Fifth,
believers fail the loyalty test when they place loyalty to a person or a cause
or a creed over Bble doctrine. Bible doctrine must
always be first.
Finally, there is a positive
example of loyalty in the Scriptures found in Philippians 2:19 NASB “But
I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be
encouraged when I learn of your condition. [20] For I have no one {else} of
kindred spirit ….” He can trust Timothy. Timothy has grown to spiritual
maturity and has integrity so that he can be entrusted with a crucial mission
of taking a letter of Paul’s to the Philippians. The others have fallen by the
wayside and distracted by different details of life and Timothy is the only one
who has maintained his loyalty, the only one who has been steadfast to the
truth. “…who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.
[21] For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.” A
person cannot be a friend if their primary agenda is their own interests. Timothy
was loyal to Paul because his first loyalty was to Bible doctrine and to the
Scriptures. That gave him integrity in his soul so that he could be loyal in
his friendships.