The Secret to Lasting Friendships

Building Authentic Friendships– Jesus style!
Part 5 Sunday October 23, 2005
(with thanks to Don Cousins)

Peter replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Luke 22:33 NIV

Peter followed [Jesus] at a distance. But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them… About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this man was with him, for he is a Galilean.” Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word  the Lord had spoken to him…and he went outside and wept bitterly… Luke 22:54b-55, 59-62 NIV

Intro

This morning I want to wrap up our series on Building Authentic Friendships with the story of a great friendship—the kind of friendship, the Bible says, was born for adversity (Proverbs 17:17). The story of these two friends is one of the greatest stories of friendship ever told.

They were first introduced to each other by a mutual friend—in fact, a relative of one of them made the first introduction. They hit it off from the very beginning. You could even say that their friendship was a match made in heaven.

Eventually their shared interests and compatibility led them into business together. They moved into a partnership, and as a result they ended up traveling together, sharing meals together, playing and laughing together, working side by side and, of course, enjoying hours of endless conversation. With each passing day they grew closer and closer. They became inseparable.

Now, of course, like any friendship, they had their differences. There were the usual bumps along the way, but nothing serious. Well, nothing serious, that is, until one of them turned his back on the other in an hour of great need. In one fell swoop of betrayal, their friendship of years came tumbling down, and as a result the story of their friendship is a story of friendship built, friendship broken and friendship rebuilt stronger than ever.

I want to tell you this morning what happened, why and how it happened, with the hope that all of us can learn something about true and, most importantly, lasting friendship.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I'm talking about Jesus and Peter. The Bible records their friendship in living color. It was Peter's brother, Andrew, who made the first introduction. Andrew had informed Peter that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Peter, intrigued by that notion, began to follow Jesus whenever and wherever possible, and, as a result, their friendship began to grow -- I think slowly at first, as Peter cautiously investigated Jesus and his claim to be the Messiah.

Well, then one day it happened. Act 1 of their friendship…After a catch less night of fishing, Peter sat on the shore one morning cleaning his nets, listeni9ng along with many others to this new teacher named Jesus.

Well, as Jesus taught, the crowd grew larger, pressing him against the shoreline. Jesus, realizing that he was running out of room, requested that he enter Peter's boat and that Peter row a few feet off shore so that Jesus could continue teaching. Well, Peter, of course, obliged, soaking in everything that this teacher and his new friend Jesus had to say.

Upon finishing, Jesus turned to Peter personally and asked him if they could go fishing. Peter really liked and respected Jesus, his new friend and teacher. So he agreed, even though he knew as a professional fisherman that this would be a colossal waste of time and energy. After all, Peter had been out fishing all night and had not caught anything.

To make a long story short, Peter's dropped net that morning, with Jesus in the boat, filled with so many fish that he needed to call for the help of other fishermen in the area to help him bring it aboard. In fact, the Bible tells us that the weight of the catch began to sink his boat, at which point Peter looked into the eyes of Jesus and fell at Jesus' feet and cried out, 'Go away from me, for I am a sinful man!'

In other words, what Peter was saying is, 'I am now fully aware of my humanity, and I am also fully aware now of your divinity. You are the Messiah. I now realize that. You have a power that reaches down even to the depths of the sea. Only God can do that.' So Peter, with his humanity fully in his own mind before him and fully gripped with the fact that he was in the presence of Almighty God, fell at Jesus' feet a broken man.

The Bible tells us that Jesus responded in gentleness. 'Don't be afraid, Peter. From now on, you will catch men. Come and follow me. Leave the fish behind, Peter. Come and follow me, and go after what is truly important -- people.' And with that invitation, and the promise, Peter’s fishing career was over. His business was closed. He was going into business with his new-found friend Jesus. As a result, the friendship soared.

For Peter, this was the kind of friendship he’d always been looking for. A friendship he could hang on to for life. The Bible can only capture a portion of all the hours they must have spent in conversation, enjoying each other along the way. But it does capture the depth of feeling Peter had for his friend Jesus.

You remember Act 2 of this friendship in the upper room on the night that Jesus was betrayed and handed over to death? Jesus was kneeling down to wash the feet of his disciples and Peter said “No way Lord! I would NEVER let you wash my feet”—to which Jesus said “Then you will have nothing to do with me”—to which Peter replied “Well if that’s the case, then wash all of me, because I want to be a part of you, and you to be a part of me, for the rest of my life.”

You’ll also remember Act 3 that same night, when Peter was listening to Jesus describe how he, Jesus, was going to be betrayed. And Peter said “Jesus, I will NEVER leave you. I will go to prison—I’ll even die by your side if necessary!” Even though Peter wasn’t able to keep that vow, you and I have to admit it was quite a vow—quite an expression of commitment to his friend. It gives us some idea of how strongly Peter felt about his friend. And remember it was Peter who jumped out with his sword when the soldiers came to take Jesus away. You can poke fun at Peter, you can think of him as the guy who always put his foot in his mouth—but who wouldn’t want a friend like Peter? Who among us wouldn’t want someone as loyal and unashamedly enthusiastic about being our friend as Peter was for Jesus?

Well, you know the rest of the story…Act 4, there was Peter following at a safe distance. He huddled around a fire of coals in the courtyard while he watched the soldiers and the Sanhedrin shout and shove and make all kinds of accusations. Then Peter felt the heat—and it wasn’t the fire. People around the fire began to accuse him of being a follower of Jesus. And each time they accused him, he denied it more vigorously than the time before—Three times he was identified as the friend of Jesus and on all three occasions he said “I DON’T KNOW THE MAN—I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM!”

And at that moment, at that third denial, the rooster crowed—it happened exactly as Jesus had predicted. Peter, we're told, looked up and, perhaps by divine coincidence, his eyes in that moment in time met up with the eyes of his friend Jesus. The Bible doesn't really say anything about that glance between two friends. It doesn't have to. In that case, the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, is true. You don't have to say anything.

The Bible does go on to say that Peter ran out of that courtyard area and wept bitterly. He wept because their great friendship of several years now was broken, ripped apart at the seams. This was more than a hurt feeling brought on by an insensitive remark or a thoughtless deed. This was the betrayal of trust. The deepest kind of wound that can be inflicted upon any relationship is the betrayal of trust. That's what happened between Jesus and Peter when Peter denied even knowing him.

Well, you know that Jesus went on to spend the last hours before his crucifixion alone, as his friend -- you could say his best earthly friend -- watched from a safe distance.

Now let me pause for a moment and step back into 2005… and point out the obvious—that friendships don’t seem to last as long as they used to. Long-standing friendships are pretty rare…and for most if us, relationships seem to be like most everything else in our culture. They are disposable.

I think there are some good, or at least understandable, reasons for that. We’re busy. So busy in fact that we just don’t have time to cultivate long-lasting relationships. In fact, we’re so busy, and our jobs take us so many places, that we often don’t have time to settle down long enough to establish lasting friendships. It’s understandable.

May I also say that we are a bit too selfish: We are willing to invest in a friendship as long as it brings some return to us; but when it doesn’t, wee move on to some more profitable investment.

There are other reasons good friends grow apart. Sometimes it is the result of life changes that remove the common ground we once shared. Your friend gets married and as a single you feel out of place. Or you’re young and married, and your friends begin to have children, and the common ground of life without children is gone, so you drift apart. Or maybe you’re trying to have children, and the pain of relating to others with children is just too great.

Let me also add that some relationships are not healthy and SHOULD end—a relational virus has entered in, like we talked about two weeks ago, and the friendship has become unhealthy and destructive. And if that’s the case, may I invite you please not to just cut off the other person…Go seek a wise a godly counselor who can bring an objective perspective to what you are going through, so that you respond not just with emotion, but with wisdom and truth in love—with the kind of boundaries you can find in Jesus Christ.

Not all relationship[s can, should or will last for a lifetime… But I want to say that more relationships should last than they do! So why don’t they last? Why don’t our friendships last with the people with whom we’ve grown close—the people with whom we’ve grown close despite our busyness and mobility?

Let me suggest one reason why we don’t experience lasting friendships: and it’s just this—many of us are not willing to work through the pain and disappointment of relational breakdown. Some of us feel unable to do it. We’ve experienced a time, a moment, a season of relational breakdown with a good friend. It hurt. We may even have suffered a betrayal of trust at the deepest level. So what do we do? One thing we do is to build a myth—the myth that great relationships don’t experience breakdown—at least significant breakdown.. We say things to ourselves like “My great friends are great because we see things the same way. We like the same things. We see things through the same lens. Great friendship in my life is just a natural thing—it just happens. Why should there be any breakdown?”

It’s a myth we’ve bought into because we want it to be true. Why? Because breakdown brings pain, and who wants to deal with pain??!! But relational breakdown is a fact of life. Each of us this morning is a unique individual—and our “uniqueness” often rubs others the wrong way, like sandpaper, until the relationship breaks down. Hopefully, the breakdown is minor: a feeling is bruised, an ego is wounded, and we get hurt. We go to the person, share our hurt, and the the person apologizes and that brings healing and reconciliation. It’s a minor league breakdown.

But we are not only unique—we are also human. And that means, b bluntly, that we are sinners. We do things that we know are wrong and hurtful, at some level, and we cause major league relational breakdown in our friendships. What we do doesn’t just lead to a wounded feeling. It leads to the undoing of trust.. A business partner cooks the books for his or her own advantage. A child intentionally deceives his or her parent. A spouse engages in an extra-marital affair—adultery. It’s more than just a hurt feeling. Trust, the very foundation of any relationship, is undermined, ripped apart at the seams.

So when it happens, we abandon the relationship. We stop calling that friend. We don’t hang out with those neighbors any more. We change our church. We go to a different health club. Sometimes we just let things drift until there’s no contact at all. Because the undoing of trust is so painful. I’m willing to bet that most of you have experienced this at some point in your life—just as I have. In fact, the greater the breakdown, the greater the pain. And everything inside of you rises up to say “I’m outta here! I don’t need this! I don’t need you!”

Sometimes it’s not so easy. We see that persona every day at work—we can’t avoid them unless we quit our job. It’s a family member we can’t avoid for the rest of our lives. Or a spouse we will continue to relate to, even though we have divorced, because of the shared responsibility of parenting our children

And we move into denial and say that it never was a great friendship—couldn’t have been—because it broke down and that just doesn’t happen with great friendships, right?

WRONG. Even great friendships sometimes suffer major league breakdown—the undoing of trust, betrayal, and the deepest wounding of each other. That’s what happened to Peter and Jesus. It was more than just a bruised feeling. When Peter denied even knowing Jesus, It was the undoing of three years of almost non-stop companionship, conversation, sharing, partnership in ministry, and TRUST. And when their eyes met, you’ve got to believer that there was HURT—deep hurt.

Peter did in that moment what we're all tempted to do with our pain, and that is he ran away. Where did he go? Well, the Bible tells us that a few days later he had gone back to his fishing business. You see, life would be painless with the fish. There's no pain with the fish; they don't talk back.

You know, most of us do the very same thing when we are facing the pain of relational breakdown. Like Peter, we run to that which brings us some semblance of security, the place where we can truly escape the pain. We bury ourselves in work or some other familiar and safe relationships. So that’s where we find Peter in John 21—fishing with his old buddies. The relationship for which he had left fishing was now broken—and even though he had already seen Jesus again in the upper room, risen from the dead, he didn’t have any assurance that his friendship could be repaired. So he went back to fishing.

So there he was on this quiet sunny morning, with John and a few other disciples in the boat. It’s quiet, the waves are lapping against the boat, and it’s about 100 yards from the shore. Suddenly a voice breaks through the silence and their fatigue and asks them “Friends, have you caught any fish?” Almost without looking up, they answer “NO”, to which the voice comes back, “Try throwing your net on the other side of the boat. I think you’ll find some there.”

And as soon as they do, their net is so full of fish that they could hardly haul it in. At which point John turns to Peter and says, “It’s the Lord, Peter! It’s the Lord!” Peter looks up, and his eyes meet with is friend Jesus once again. Only this time he doesn’t run away. This time he puts his coat on, jumps in the water, and swims to the shore to be with his friend.

Jesus had already prepared breakfast for them on the shore, and they sat around. We don't know what the conversation really was over breakfast. It may have been a bit awkward. I’ll bet there was a little bit of tension in the air as they tried to figure out how to patch things up -- kind of the way, perhaps, that you and I feel when we sit down with a friend with whom we've experienced a breakdown. You know what I'm talking about, the kind of tension you can cut with a knife? Maybe that was the air of that particular morning.

Well, following breakfast, Jesus taps Peter on the shoulder and says, 'Peter, come on over here. I want to talk to you for a second.' Pulls him aside and he says to him, 'Some friend you turned out to be. I'm really disappointed in you, Peter. You let me down. In the upper room, you made me a vow. You're all talk. Boy, was I wrong about you.' Right? Isn't that exactly what Jesus said to Peter that morning?

No, not even close. Jesus turned to Peter and he said, 'Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?' Three times Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to affirm their relationship -- I think corresponding to the three times in which Peter had denied even knowing him. To which Peter in each case looked back at Jesus and said, 'Lord, you know that I do. I do.' Jesus then responded each time by saying, 'Then, Peter, feed my sheep.'

You say, what does that mean, 'feed my sheep'? It was Jesus' way of saying, 'You're my man, Peter. I still believe in you. I think you're the right man for the job. Come and follow me. Leave the fishing business behind and join me.' And with those words, the restoration was complete. The offense had been forgiven.

You see, Jesus in the courtyard saw the tears well up in Peter's eyes. He knew that Peter was a broken man, repentant, and so even though he had been the offended one and Peter had been the offender, Jesus didn't wait for Peter to come to him. Jesus went after Peter. And he said, 'Peter, I just want you know that not only do I forgive you, but I believe in you. You are my man. Come and follow me.'

Three-and-a-half years earlier, following a very similar fishing incident, Jesus has first said to Peter, 'Follow me.' Now here he was saying it again, and, in effect, what he was saying was, 'Peter, the offer is still good in spite of your failure.' That's friendship. The offer's still good in spite of your failure.

The friendship that they had shared up to that point in time, you could say, was like an acquaintanceship in comparison to what they would enjoy in the years to come as a result of weathering their way through the breakdown -- which would cause me to say to all of you and to myself this morning, great relationships don't really, in many cases, become great until they experience breakdown.

You see, it's when your uniqueness or your humanness rubs someone the wrong way in a relationship and all of a sudden you experience breakdown that you find out what that friendship's really made of. Up until that point, you think it's made of something strong. You hope it is, but you don't know. But all of a sudden, when there's a wound inflicted or maybe even trust violated, you find out what that friendship is really made of.

When you go to that person and you weather that storm, that's the makings of a truly great and lasting relationship. But, friends, in many cases, we never get there because when the hurt comes associated with breakdown, we run away. We give up. We abandon the relationship.

Now, for those of you who don't know the rest of the story, let me tell you what happened to Peter and Jesus. The Bible tells us that in a matter of weeks, Jesus ascended into heaven. Peter went back to Jerusalem, the heartland of hatred against Jesus, where he gave one of the boldest sermons of his life. A large crowed gathered; Peter gave this incredible, impassioned sermon, and we're told in the Book of Acts that 3,000 people responded to Peter's invitation to build their own personal friendship with Jesus that day. Out of that group, the church at Jerusalem was established.

Later Peter would stand before those who had condemned Jesus to die, but this time, instead of turning and running, he stood in bold confession of his friendship with Jesus. This continued on for years until Peter himself was crucified, church history tells us, as a follower of Jesus. There's only one difference between Peter's crucifixion and Jesus', and that is that Peter, according to history, asked to be crucified upside down. You see, he didn't consider himself worthy of being crucified like his Lord and friend, Jesus.

As I speak to you today, Peter and Jesus are still enjoying a friendship, a friendship not just lifelong but for all eternity, in part because they weathered the storm of breakdown.

Where can you and I find the help to restore a broken friendship? By going to Jesus for help, to do what Jesus would do if he were in your shoes. To be like Jesus, who restored a great friendship with Peter:

• By going after Peter: Not waiting for him to apologize first, not waiting for him to come out of denial and deal with the breakdown

• Taking the time to move towards Peter and reach out to him: This was the second time Peter and Jesus met, according to the Bible. Sometimes, many times, restoring a great relationship doesn’t happen the first time around. It takes patience and perseverance—the kind Jesus showed to Peter.

• Jesus revisited the point of pain, where Peter had betrayed him: It was around a fire of burning coals that Peter betrayed Jesus. And now it was around a fire of burning coals that Jesus invited Peter to breakfast. That point was not lost on Peter—I think that fire would have reminded him of his betrayal. But Jesus brought Peter through that fire and that pain with a gracious invitation to breakfast that redeemed the pain, and moved beyond it!

• Jesus met Peter where he was, not where he wanted or wished Peter would be! The first two times he asked Peter if he loved him, Jesus used the word for love that means “Do you love me unconditionally”. Peter didn’t get it! Peter replied “Lord, yes I love you as a friend”. So Jesus asked Peter the third time, “Peter do you love me as a friend”… he accepted Peter’s limitations at that point, and extended the invitation to be friends again anyway.

Maybe you’re saying to yourself at this point—“But Phil, you don’t understand. It’s not that easy. I’m not relating to Jesus, I’m not even relating to Peter—in fact, the person I had a breakdown with isn’t even close!” I want to say to you as I stand here with you this morning; I know it’s not easy. In fact, I don’t know of anything more difficult in life than forgiving someone who has really hurt you and betrayed your trust. If there’s anything more difficult, then I don’t know what it could be!

But I can tell you that there is a strength to forgive: to initiate reconciliation, to keep moving gracefully towards the person who has hurt you, and to reestablish trust. You and I will find it only in Jesus Christ. Does that sound trite to you? It did to me as a young man growing up in a religious family, until one day I came face to face with the fact that I had hurt others, that my friendships weren’t going so well on my own, and that Jesus was willing to be my friend no matter how badly I messed up—and that he would restore the friendship I had broken with God through his own blood on the cross, spilled for me.

I was 12 years old at the time, and it took a while for that message to sink in. But the very first time it really sunk in was when I came face to face with the anger and hatred I was feeling towards others whom I felt had betrayed me. I was paralyzed by the bitterness I was feeling, and unable to get beyond it on my own. It was making me soul sick, and I was beginning to run away from relationships altogether. But it was my youth pastor who listened to me, and counseled me about how Christ could help me forgive and let go, and who took me to the altar rail one afternoon after school and helped me pray through my anger and tears to a place of peace and surrender.

And ever since that day, whenever I have faced relational breakdown, I’ve been able to go to my relationship with Jesus Christ and say “Oh Lord, I’m experiencing break down with so-and-so right now, and it really hurts. I want to just bail: everything in me wants to run away. But I know Lord that that’s not glorifying to you. I know that’s not what you would do; I know it’s not good for me, and it’s not good for the other person either. I know in my head I need to work it through, just like you did with Peter. Please Lord give me the strength in my heart to bring a resolve that will not only resolve the tension, but will maybe even give us the foundation for a truly great relationship that will last, for years to come”.

And you know what? I can’t explain how it happens, but I can tell you that God brings the strength over time. I’ve experienced some reconciliations, some restorations of broken down friendships that I never thought were even remotely possible.

How about you? Do you have any broken relationships right now? Any friendships about which Christ is whispering to you this morning—“It is possible to forgive.. it is possible to restore...it is possible to be reconciled. Let me help you!” And what about the vertical relationship with Him? Are you in a relationship, and friendship with God through Jesus Christ this morning? Or are you estranged from God? Is there a breakdown in your relationship with him that’s never been made right? You never came to a point of accepting his forgiveness.

In a sense, God is standing on the shore of your life this morning, saying “Don’t row away! Come on in and follow me. I’ve done everything that needed to be done to tear the walls down, to heal the breakdown between us, and to begin a friendship that will not only be lifelong—it will last for eternity!” All you have to do is receive his offer of love and forgiveness, and begin to build that friendship with and through Jesus Christ. And out of that friendship will come the strength and the initiative and the ability to build great and lasting friendships…