Sermon passage: Genesis 2:18
Below is a sermon manuscript from September 8, 2024. Watch the sermon here.
Introduction
We have a lot of young families in our church, I love that. Some are just starting school activities. There is a nervousness mixed with joy and new experiences. I remember when the twins first went to school. We didn’t have them in preschool. Ashley led a type of co-op of kids from our church for preschool, so the school experience was completely new. I was on drop-off and pickup duty and asked them about their first day. I was expecting to hear about what they learned or maybe what they had for lunch, but instead, they told me about new people they met. Their new friends at school. The names of kids they played with at recess. It was all about relationships. I was eager to hear if they were introduced to a new educational concept and they were busy talking about friends.
This shouldn’t come as a shock to you or me. This is hardwired into who we are as humans. Relationships with others can lead to a great day, or it can be the cause of a painful and difficult week, month, or year. I remember teaching about friendship with teenagers, and my mother-in-law posted something that week on social media. It was about including others, and Ashley’s childhood friend posted this in response, “I’ll never forget Ashley taught me this in second grade on a field trip! I threw a fit because I didn’t want to sit next to someone who was not “cool.” She happily volunteered to sit with them, and I will always remember it! You raised an amazing daughter.”[1]
Moments like these linger with us for years. Relationships and friendships are a part of who we are. Friendships matter. They help shape our character and direct our values and interests. Drew Hunter writes, “Friendship is essential for the good life because God wove it into the fabric of the world.”[2]
Friendship is Good
First, “it is not good” should get our attention. The wording is intentional to draw our minds, lift our eyebrows, and make us pause and consider. The force of the text to this point has heard a raining phrase “it is good… it is good…it is good.” And here we hear, “It is not good.” Like kids playing duck, duck goose might be lulled hearing duck…duck…duck… duck… when the change comes, it signifies something, and everyone is alert. Here, too, something is signified, namely a problem. There is something wrong. Something that needs to be addressed. Man needs a suitable helper. The animals will not do; Adam needs someone else. A companion, someone by his side.
Loneliness is a pre-fall problem
When I said wrong before, I did not mean wrong in the sense of evil or sinful. This is before sin entered the world through Adam and Eve’s sin. There is nothing wrong in that sense, but something was lacking. Creation was incomplete before the creation of Eve. To this, we might say that loneliness is a pre-fall problem. Adam lacked something. He needed companionship.
Tim Keller says it this way,
This is one ache [the ache for friendship] that is part of [Adam’s] perfection…God made us in such a way that we cannot enjoy paradise without friends. God made us in such a way that we cannot enjoy our joy without friends. Human friends. Adam had a perfect quiet time every day, twenty-four hours, never had a dry one, and yet he needed [friends].[3]
Human Friendships Matter, Even in Eden
Do you get that? Human friends matter. Today, we might hear that all someone needs is God. Their faith is contained to their relationship with God and not anyone else. Others can infect the pure beauty of this relationship, so the thought goes. Even some spiritual discipline material can lend itself to this way of thinking. It becomes a hyper-individualized pursuit that is more about our comfort level and crafting things just how we like it than letting others partake. We have to be careful here. This is not God’s original intent.
Saying “God is all I need” sounds spiritual but actually neglects God’s good design for us. A more realistic framing of this mentality might be “I don’t want to be sharpened by other people.” Remember Proverbs 27:17: as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. It is by rubbing against one another, doing life together, that we are sharpened and strengthened. No, to truly experience the good life we shouldn’t isolate ourselves. Proverbs 18:1 says, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.[4]”
Friendship Shares The Good
C.S. Lewis distinguishes between the relationship of lovers and that of friends. Lovers, he says, are directed face-to-face, but friends are side-by-side. They are united in a shared truth or objective. He writes, “The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’” He says, “That is why…people who simply ‘want friends’ can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something besides Friends.” [5]
Because of this, friendship doesn’t need to be jealous. It can be shared. Others join as they, too, delight in things shared in common. This can help us understand how we have multiple friendships; we have work and church friends, sometimes our friendships are for a season, and sometimes they are enduring. As we unite in our shared loves, Lewis notes how it sheds us of other attributes. We don’t need to trumpet our occupation or family associations; these things will come out in the course of conversation, but they are not the primary object that unites the friends.
Understanding this is helpful for us as we look more closely at the idea of Biblical friendship in the coming weeks. Biblical friendship enjoys the shared truth of the Christian understanding of the world. It enjoys the shared goal of glorifying God. That is why Jonathan Holmes can define Biblical Friendship as follows,
Biblical friendship exists when two or more people, bound together by a common faith in Jesus Christ, pursue him and his kingdom with intentionality and vulnerability. Rather than serving as an end in itself, biblical friendship serves primarily to bring glory to Christ, who brought us into friendship with the Father. It is indispensable to the work of the gospel in the earth, and an essential element of what God created us for.[6]
Objection: But this is just talking about husband/wife type relationships
Maybe you are thinking: Wait, this is just talking about husband/wife relationships, not friendship. First, we can respond by saying that a marriage relationship ideally is also a healthy friendship. We see a picture of this in Song of Solomon, where we hear the bride say, “His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.[7]”
Second, in the expression “it is not good for man to be alone,” we can see the narrow and broad understanding at play. The narrow focus is on Adam and Eve in their complementary relationship. The husband needs the wife, and the wife needs the husband. They are different and yet alike. They perfectly complement one another. However, one of the ways they complement one another is through the procreative act. The command for humanity was to be fruitful and multiply – filling the earth. Adam could not do this alone. The introduction of Eve was both for Adam’s personal benefit as a companion and all of humanity’s benefit in populating the earth with other image-bearers.
Kent Hughes writes,
“While [Genesis 2:18] relates directly to the creation of Eve, it is also a primary ontological statement about the nature of man, who is, whether he admits it or not, a relational being. His growth and significance are worked out in relationships.”[8]
Friendship Reflects the Goodness of God
We are image-bearers reflecting God personally as individuals and humanity also images God collectively.
Friendship reflects the God who gives
God, describing man’s condition, does not stop there. He does not merely describe the condition, helping us understand the need for another. But God himself provides the other. He gives proper understanding to the condition of loneliness and gives the proper remedy. He is the God who gives in abundance for our good. I don’t want to jump ahead, but God not only gives out of his creative power but gives of his very self in sacrifice.
A key aspect of friendship, as we will see, is that it sacrifices for the good of others. This is the great expression of love. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.[9]” This love does so not expecting anything in return but the pure delight of being there for the friend.
This is an appreciative love, according to Lewis. He warns not to take the contrast of side-by-side and face-to-face too far, since when friends walk side-by-side they develop a deep appreciation and respect for the qualities of the other and delight in their very presence.[10]
Think about this in terms of even ordinary tasks that you might perform. Have you ever thought about how it can be easier to do things for a friend than you would do around your own house? Maybe it’s helping them do the dishes. As you are washing their baby bottles there is a delight just in being in their company, having the opportunity to serve them. There is no end goal of gaining something in return, but their presence is sufficient. It’s a lot different than if you are at home with the same task alone. In high school, my brother would fix all of his friends’ cars. He didn’t expect anything in return. He was just happy to be able to help them. It was fun joking around and teaching them, whether recognizing it or not, that this delight in self-giving is a reflection of our God, who delights in giving to others.
All good things are from him, including our friendships. God did not need to create but delighted to create as an overflow of the shared love within the Trinity.
The best of friendships are a dim reflection of the perfect love shared in the Godhead
During our series on the Trinity, we said that all loving relationships are a dim reflection of the perfect love shared by the Godhead. This is certainly true of the deep bonds of friendships as well. I want to be careful not to draw the analogy too far. God is three and one in different ways than we are one and many as people. God is one in being and three in persons, whereas we are people and beings. Yet, there is a love among the persons of the Trinity that is proper due to God being Trinity and not merely one in being and one in person. This loving unity is perfect. Human relationships do have a faint glimpse of this. Because of this, it is proper that Adam did not exist alone, but in his being made in the image of God, he does so individually, and humanity does this collectively. God desires for us to experience loving unity both with him in a vertical relationship and with each other in a horizontal relationship. We were made for this. A puzzle piece saying, “I don’t need others to show something to the world,” is correct, yet it is incomplete without other pieces around it. It both displays something individually and is part of something bigger than itself.
Friendship Will Remain
Friendship is not only found in the Garden of Eden; it’s not only reflected in the Old and New Testaments; it’s not only for the history of the church; it’s not only for you and me today; it’s forever. Drew Hunter writes, “Friendship is not a temporary luxury for this age alone; it is also a permanent fixture of our eternal home. In other words, it never was, nor will it ever be, good for us to be alone.[11]”
There’s no marriage in heaven, but we will have each other.
During his earthly ministry, Jesus is asked a question about marriage in heaven. He responds by saying, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.[12]”
One benefit of studying creation realities is that it helps us understand our future hope. We see how God intended for us to be in community. But there are some differences between creation and new creation. One of those is that marriage will be no more.
In Revelation, we see a picture of a great multitude worshipping the Lamb of God, Jesus. This means that it’s not just going to be you. There will be others on the new heavens and new earth. Maybe you are a little introverted, and you don’t like that, though.
But even there, think about it. Sometimes, we don’t like meeting new people because of our own insecurities. Sometimes, we like meeting people because of our pride. But in the new heavens and new earth, we will be completely secure; we will be rid of our pride. People will not use our weaknesses against us. People will not use others for their own benefit. Instead, we will know and be known.
In fact, as well as we know someone now, we don’t know them as truly as we will know and be known in the future. As open as we are with our deepest friendships today, our character is still compromised by sin in our lives, obscuring the true and unreserved us.
During family worship this week, our youngest asked, “Will I know you in heaven, Dad?” How would you answer that question? I think it’s incomplete to say “yes.” I said, “You will know me better there than you ever could here.” There, you will be able to see me as God sees me now. Now, your dad is often weighed down by his sin, like a painting with multiple layers of mud and grime. By God’s grace, I try to show you what the picture is like the best I can. But one day, all of the mud and grime will cleared away. In heaven, you will see me perfectly.”[13]
…Not only do we have each other, we have Jesus
Think about this for a moment. Human friendships are important. We are designed for them. But maybe you are thinking, that’s nice. I wish that were me. I don’t have any deep friendships. I have been betrayed. I have lost those close to me. The reason could have been due to conflict; it could have been due to becoming a Christian. You are thinking, where does that leave me? We are meant for human friendships. But our human friendships often fail us. But we have good news. There is a friend who never disappoints. The second person of the Trinity took on flesh, becoming human, to lay down his life for his friends. In him, we have perfect human friendship. You see, God not only solved the loneliness problem by creation, he solved it by the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. In him, we have perfect friendship and hope for a future where loneliness does not exist.
Are you a part of that future? It’s available to all who belong to Jesus. Left on our own, we are his enemies, willingly rebelling against him and his good design for us. But Jesus made a way for us to be reconciled; Romans 5:10-11 says, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”[14] Run to the one who turns enemies into friends.
[1] This come was from Deborah Dum on an October 11 post: “Love This!!! – Jodi Miller Harro,” accessed October 16, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/jodi.harro/posts/10156693786151302.
[2] Drew Hunter, Made for Friendship: The Relationship That Halves Our Sorrows and Doubles Our Joys (Wheaton: Crossway, 2018), 41.
[3] Tim Keller as quoted in Jonathan Holmes, The Company We Keep: In Search of Biblical Friendship (Minneapolis, Minnesota: CruciformPress, 2014), 20.
[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Pr 18:1.
[5] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, First edition (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2017), 85.
[6] Jonathan Holmes, The Company We Keep: In Search of Biblical Friendship (Minneapolis, Minnesota: CruciformPress, 2014), 27.
[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), So 5:16.
[8] Kent Hughes in Disciplines of a Godly Man, as quoted in Jonathan Holmes, The Company We Keep: In Search of Biblical Friendship(Minneapolis, Minnesota: CruciformPress, 2014), 19-20.
[9] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 15:13.
[10] Lewis, Four Loves, 84-85.
[11] Hunter, Friendship, 136-137.
[12] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 22:30.
[13] I am indebted to W.A Criswell’s pastoral reflection here, as seen in R. Kent Hughes, The Pastor’s Book, 209
[14] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 5:10–11.
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