by Paul Daniels
28 years ago, at the age of 22, I'm in the French Alps in a ski resort called a Voryaz and I'm on a chairlift going up the mountain, my happy place, and beside two of my mates their names are Martin and Ian. Martin was my best man and Ian was my groom's man at our wedding and we're there, we're having this conversation as we're going up and one of the guys, I can't remember which one it was, just began to really open up. It started just sharing really deep and personal things.
I couldn't believe it and and and as one of them shared, the other one shared, I stayed quiet and and he began to kind of say ‘yeah I find that difficult too’ and and then it gave me permission to do the same and by the top of the chairlift, at the top of the mountain, I thought to myself these are guys that I can journey my life with and they're still friends today. I can build my life with these kinds of guys because they're open and honest and vulnerable as well as fun and good banter and all that stuff as well.
And so we pick up the conversation what we began last week on the whole area of friendship and if you weren't here last week you can listen to a second attempt recording of it because apparently it didn't record last week so the comfort of my own bedroom I had an attempt at recording it again so we do check that out. I just felt like just for a two-week series so next week will be something completely different. I just thought it was important that we would just hit pause and look at the importance of friendship in our lives and after last week several of you actually came to me and said various things and as I was walking the dog pondering what we'd been talking about and what I wanted to share with you this morning I came to the conclusion of this; that as we as individuals, individually responsible for our own lives, ponder and take the importance of cultivating, establishing deep, honest, and Godly friendships.
When we do that, it could be the difference between life and death, literally. It could be the difference between staying faithful or having an affair. It could be the difference between freedom or addiction. It could be the difference between fullness of life or completely losing ourselves. You see the point I'm sort of making? It's so important that we have these people in our lives, and so that's what we want to pick up on this week. As we, just a little bit of a conclusion of last week, we talked about David and Jonathan, and we sort of said how they cultivated this deep friendship with one another. It was ordained, meaning it had come from God. God had set it up, and as we had reflected on some of our friendships, we realised that God had somehow orchestrated these people to kind of come into our lives, and we're so grateful that God does that. But we do need to be intentional, and that's really, really important.
The most important thing I wanted to say, and I say again this week, is we need to pay attention individually, each of us, to cultivating and building and prioritising the importance of meaningful, deep, honest, vulnerable, and sacrificial friendship. And also, for those of us who are believers, that we would find other believers that would be our friends, that would encourage us and just encourage us towards a relationship with God. And so, our homework last week was to make contact with our friends, to send them a text, or send them a message, just to say, ‘hey, just wanted a big shout out. You mean so much to me,’ whatever it might be. The girls, you can do that so much better with nice, flowery, lovely language, us guys still sort of struggle with that. Although I have noticed, that my generation, I think we're getting better at it. I think the younger fellas just model it way better.
I think even physical hugs and all that and heart emojis and stuff like that. I'm seeing a few kind of things here and love may be written in a text, I don't know. I am noticing a sea change in there, but have we done that? Have we taken some time this week to ponder the depth and the numbers of friends that we have in our lives and perhaps like many of us left feeling just the slight sense of lack of that in our lives and going before the Lord and saying, "God, I need a friend like Jonathan. I need a Jonathan in my life. I need someone." And being open and praying, "God, you've ordained it. Who's that to be?"
So anyway, that's just a little bit of a recap. We're into the second week. Instead of Jonathan and David, let's look at Moses. This is a really well-known story. Our children learn this and there's a good reason why. It's just an incredible story. Let's read it together.
The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”
So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.
Exodus 17:8-13 NIV
I just love this incredible story that happened, this incredible story that we read about an ageing man, Moses, as he sends his assistant Joshua into battle. He's the one on the ground fighting with the sword, but it's Moses' hands that are held up and as he holds his hands up, the Israelites are winning. Let's just take a moment just to consider Moses his life, what do we know about him?
Well first of all, he's of Hebrew descent, he is found in the the papyrus basket, going down the River Nile, he's rescued as a baby, he's taken into the household of Pharaoh and he's raised as an Egyptian, he's raised actually outside of his own people, outside into a completely different culture. He's actually not born into slavery as were his people at the time, but he's actually born into a place of great favour being in the palace.
As time goes on, he matures, he becomes an adult, he murders an Egyptian and he's found out about that and for fear, he runs for his life and he runs away and he runs to this land called Midian, out into the desert and there knowing no one, he begins to establish and build a completely different life for himself and it's in that place that he meets his wife and he has starts a family and as time goes on, God speaks to him through a burning bush and he says, "Go back, I'm sending you back to that place which you came from to liberate, to rescue and to redeem, to set free my people Israel." And so reluctantly with the staff in hand that God reminds him, he says, "What is that that's in your hand? He says, “it's a staff.” And God says to him, “with that staff, I will do my wonders.” And so Moses returns, he goes back to the place of Egypt and he is reconciled with his own family members and over time, using the staff that God's given him begins to liberate and set free.
Why have I taken time to reflect on that? It's simply to say that during the course of his lifetime, he went from place to place and people to people. And we in our lifetimes do that, especially those of us who have moved, unless you're born and bred in a certain place and you spend your entire life in one place, many of us don't do that. And we do go from place to place and time and time. And over that time, we build friendships and sometimes we lose friendships. And I took some time to research, just a little bit, a few facts about friendship and this is taken from research. So just three brief things, that most people have between three to five close friends. We make just 29 real friendships in our lifetime and only six of them apparently last the distance. And then on average, a good strong friendship lasts for up to 17 years.
As we look back then at the context of this passage that we find ourselves, Moses has returned with the staff and he has liberated and he's brought his people out of slavery and for 40 years, they wander about the desert, waiting longing to enter into the Promised Land. And we find, we come to this part in the story at the end of Moses' life, as he's an old man, we find this passage here. They go into battle and he sends in Joshua.
This painting was painted in 1871. What do we learn? What do we gain from this image and from this story and how can we apply things to our life?
Firstly, Moses is not alone. He's not on his own. He hasn't gone into battle on his own. The devil, the enemy, loves isolation. We look at prison. We look at punishment. One of the worst things that could ever happen to us is to be refined to solitary confinement, being on our own. And it's just the enemy's greatest tactic to put us in a situation where we're lonely and it is an incredibly prevalent thing in our culture and society, is the whole area of loneliness. As Moses goes into battle, he doesn't go alone. He has on one side of him his brother, Aaron, and on the other side, another leader called Hur. And just a reminder of last week that as we grow weary, as we go, as life is difficult for us, it is important that we have others in our lives.
Ecclesiastes 4 says “two are better than one because they have a good return for their labour. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up, but pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
Moses has cultivated friendship. He has others in his life so that when he goes into battle, we're not on our own, that we have others side by side, alongside us.
What does that look like for us? What does a side to side friendship look like? Some of us were at the pub watching the rugby final last night, it was great fun. And one of the most incredible pictures that I see of a side to side friendship is the scrum.
Most of you, if you've no interest in rugby, you're probably gonna have some idea of the eight man scrum, eight interlocked, three then two, then two, then one at the back, then this incredible, powerful thing. I can't imagine going up against some of those men. The force that's generated between both teams is they lock heads and they go against each other. But it's this picture of this shared thing of moving in the same direction side by side.
So a side to side friendship could be a best friend or a good friend. Could be someone that you have things in common with. There could be a peer, a work colleague, a teammate, a running or a walking partner, someone that you just enjoy spending time with, you're moving in the same direction, encouraging each other on when the others may be failing or is weary or is tired. It's that person that picks us up and keeps us going. I want to just give examples of three types or three friends in my life.
One is, I mentioned him last week, my running pal. He's been a friend for the last five years. So in some ways, a relatively new friend, someone that I spend lots of time with because we have a common interest which is running. But it actually goes way deeper than that. Over miles, we share our lives, we talk about the day, we've shared lots of stuff about our families, about our work, about our aspirations. And very often, it's just really good, if either of us have had a difficult day, we kind of offload and we share what's going on. And that, for me, has been a really healthy, life-giving friendship.
I have another work colleague from teaching, from my teaching work, who, again, I've shared some really deep things in my past and they likewise with me. And we would go out probably about once a term. And they're the kind of friends we go out, we just have a good laugh. We go for food, go for some drinks, go for, well, just what? And it's guaranteed laughter. And that, for me, has been such a life-giving, enriching experience and time and friendship.
And then, there's another fellow, I'll name this one. Some of you will know him. He's a fellow Englishman who fell in love with an Irish girl. Dave Pavey, he's the children's pastor at Causeway Coast Vineyard Church. Dave is a real hero of mine. And I say that really sincerely. He's your kind of, he would say this about himself, so I'm not being derogatory, but he's kind of your Mr. Average. He's just steady Eddy. What you see is what you get, he is one of the most incredible people, so incredibly faithful. And he really, really loves Jesus.
If you spend any time around Dave. It just rubs off on you. And it's what I said last week. His infectious love for Jesus. I spend just a bit of time with Dave.
He picks me back up again, and we run side to side and he encourages me. He spurs me on towards faith and towards love for Him and love for Him Church and love for His people.
These are just three examples, friends that I have been so fortunate and so blessed to have in my life. These are friends that I carve out time and are specific to be intentional about friendship and we have ran together, journeyed together, laughed together, sought the face of God together and we've battled together.
I want to shift gears slightly, that's a side to side friendship, I want to talk in a moment about face to face friendship and what that looks like as well. But before we do that, I want to share, these are just observations from my life so far and it's not based on research and they're just opinions. It might ruffle some of your feathers as I share these things. So it's just what I've noticed, so pay attention to children, and that's where friendship begins, doesn't it? We learn friendship, you know, they're there in rockets, they're there in gems, they're in the school playground, whatever it is and that's where we begin to learn friendships. We learn how to share the toys and we learn that actually pushing and shoving someone probably isn't great and there's probably going to be a consequence to that and we learn how to say sorry even though sometimes we're forced to say it and we don't really want to say it and all that but we kind of learn those things as children.
Then we get to bigger children and young people and we begin to cultivate what friendships really are and we begin to entrust our lives with each other and then as time goes on we learn who we can trust with our honest things and those that we can't when they tell the whole class or post it on social media or whatever it might be. We begin to learn the kind of people that we want to spend our time with and then we become young adults and it's really, this was my experience and I'm noticing it and this is why I'm just saying it, I'm noticing it with our two bigger boys with Sam and Owen. That as you, as they become young adults, they begin to cultivate this deeper, way more intentional friendship and it moves beyond the facade a bit like what I shared in the chairlift story. We begin to not only just have a bit of a laugh with and but we actually begin to let our guard down and let our friends in on our private inner world and I’m noticing that with my boys and they're beginning to find that with really Godly other fellas in their lives that they're surrounding their time and energy with and then what I notice is if this is how life takes us if a person then enters into a romantic relationship.
That's when friendships begin to change and they begin to change because of time. We begin to spend more time with that person that we've fallen in love with because we have to prioritise that, and that's important, but then we have less time to actually spend with actual friends that we have and that becomes a source of tension and a bit of a balancing act really and then again,
if the life cycle continues in this trajectory, and I know it's not like this for everybody, but if you get married and then little ones come on the scene, that's when it becomes really trying from a friendship point of view. Enter the world little one, screaming, crying, pooing, weeing, feeding up at the crack of dawn.
You're up at the crack of dorn and you're fit for nothing. You're not fit for friendship, you just want your bed and it's that time of life, and I have noticed so this is an observation, I have noticed that from that time on in our years that's when friendships in our lives begin to take a hit and I have noticed that especially when we're going to get into sort of middle -age and then beyond if we have not prioritised friendship that's when we become most isolated and my encouragement if that if any of what I've said if there's any reality or truth in that is that we would pay attention to that and that we would do at the very best that we can to prioritise friendship.
I've said this time and time again, there are times when with Chantel and I, when I know that she needs out, I know that she needs to have her fun friendship-tank just filled a bit, and I'm like I will prioritise everything so you can go and do that and she likewise for me and that's so so important that between us that we that we do the very best that we can to free each other up. Now, I realise that that's not a one-size-fits-all approach and so I want to just briefly just mention those of you who are single because I also think as well just hit pause slightly I think sometimes in church life we can elevate marriage to to a place where actually it's to the detriment of singles we want to say that's absolutely not true that actually whatever we find ourselves in that is God’s best and to to be okay in that and we don't want to elevate one above the other but we do want to be mindful we want to love and create space and honour those who are single and, saying that, actually you have possibly more time for friendship.
I did a bit of research in this by the way. They were assumptions that I had but I did speak to some singles, so it's not just my observations and assumptions, you've more time for friendship and more capacity for that. Sometimes it can be difficult to build deep and meaningful Christian peer friendships, and sometimes actually you can end up either losing a friendship or losing the depth of that friendship if one of your friends enters into a relationship because they begin to pull back as well. And so there's tension in that. I am merely just trying to acknowledge some of the things that we notice.
Second posture, face -to -face friendships. After the Israelites have defeated the Amalekites, Moses is reunited with his wife and two sons, and father-in-law, Jethro, in the place of Midian. And into that place, in Exodus 18, Moses has his hands full. He has a lot of disgruntled people, the Israelites, coming to him with all their problems, and it all rests on Moses' shoulders. So we read from Exodus 18.
The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?”
Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.”
Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you.
Exodus 18:13-19 NIV
As we look here at Moses' interaction with his father-in-law,Jethro, Jethro wants to just pull out a couple of things. What can we learn about a face-to-face friendship? Jethro was a priest of Midian. He was one of Abraham's children and he was Moses' father-in-law. Moses obviously marrying his daughter and in this passage we read that Moses is being burdened by the people he's spending from morning till evening trying to reconcile people's disputes among them and Jethro goes to him face -to -face and he says,
"Moses, what you are doing is not good. You will wear yourself out. The work is too heavy. You can't do this alone," and he gives him some advice. So what do we learn about a face -to -face friend? There's someone who looks you in the eye and lovingly tells you the truth.
Proverbs 27, "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses." From the passion translation it says, "You can trust a friend who wounds you with his honesty."
So what does it look like? What does it mean? It's someone who's prepared to have the face-to-face with you, that can honestly say in the right way, and there's some real skill in having that conversation, by going to the person and telling them the truth.
There's someone who not only points out your faults or your failings or your whatever's, but it's also someone who validates you and loves you and spurs you on and calls out the gold in you and champions you to be all that God has for you. And I would just say in that one, in that face-to face friendship, it's being prepared to listen, it's being prepared to, with humility, receive what these kinds of friends might say.
I mentioned to you last week a good friend of mine, Jasper, he is that face-to-face friendship that I have. We have a deep friendship, a lot of fun together, a lot of history together, but he's someone that I care deeply about and I know he cares deeply about me. We have had some very, very honest conversations over the years and he's someone I would confide in. He is someone I have confessed my sin to, he is someone who I share when I'm struggling with anxiety and all kinds of different different things going on my life and he's someone who reassures me who who listens and and and holds the mirror to me and says “this is what's really going on mate, pick yourself up go again and I am with you.”
He has my best interest at heart and I trust myself to him, and to others as well, in this way. I guess not to go on loads about it but we've mentioned, haven't we the last couple of weeks or so, just about other leaders, leaders that have been really significant in my life and and and in response to that it's really made me think a lot and I've said to Jasper and to one or two others “listen, when you see me acting a complete … (you can fill in the gap) you need to tell me and I'm telling you you need to tell me.” I think that's a really healthy place to be in but we need to do that ourselves when you say with our friends hey you see when I'm being hard on myself or you see when I'm acting whatever I am to please tell me please show me, because very often folks we don't see it ourselves. Do we? We have our own blind spots, we have a shadow side. We could use all kinds of language but I'm so grateful to people in my life who have lovingly come to me as a friend, face-to-face, and share those things with me.
Folks, friendships in this church are to be made and I really think actually there's some of you you're going to make friends with each other and they're going to be great! God set it up for you. He's ordained it. There's some credible people in this church and He has friendship for you. Who's going to make the first move?
Who's going to say hey, let's go for coffee or let's some of you lads who I meet up with we go for a walk sometimes we have coffee together and that's great, but sometimes we go for a walk for a couple of reasons; it's good exercise, and we all need exercise, and secondly we don't have to look at each other! I just think it goes back to the side-by-side, going up that mountain. There’s something awkward in it. You don't want to look especially when we're talking about that stuff!
I know we've talked about face-to-face. We're gonna have that face -to -face conversation side by side.
There are some friendships here in this church to be made. Who's going to make the first move? For some of us, and I'm going to end with this, it begins by being vulnerable. Vulnerability is the pathway to connection. It lets people in and as we're vulnerable ourselves, it gives people permission to be vulnerable as well.
I want to end with a Brené Brown quote. Brené says this,
"Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives,
vulnerability is the path."
It's up to us. Will we choose that? Will we entrust ourselves to another?