Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Erik Thoennes - Why are Biblical friendships so important?

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the BibleIn this episode Pastor and Professor Erik Thoennes answers the question: “Why are Biblical friendships so important?”Watch on YouTubeFollow on InstagramVisit Our Website

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this episode, I sit down with pastor and professor Eric Tonnes and ask him, why are biblical friendships so important? What's Dial In? Eric, I've heard you reference a number of times just the different friendships that you have in your life. You're a guy who's in your 50s and you constantly, I feel like, allude to your mentors. Can you talk to me about just the necessity of strong biblical friendships in the life of a Christ follower? Yeah. It's absolutely essential. We were created for God, but in that essential we were created for god but in that we were created for

each other and we need one another we were never intended to grow in our relationships with god independently individually in any isolated way we desperately need the fellowship of the saints to spur us on to love and good deeds, to be examples for us, to correct rebuke, to exhort, encourage, to be an ongoing regular presence in our lives, doing life together. And I would say starting with the local church family, That's got to be our priority. I think we tend to put a lot of emphasis on the sort of one-on-one friendship mentoring sort of thing, which I think is vital. But I think what is even more important is to be mentored and to have family and friendship among the people of God in a local church context. I think that's actually the New Testament priority. I was actually, one of my main mentors

is a man named Robert Coleman who wrote a book called The Master Plan of Evangelism and then The Master Plan of Discipleship, which have been hugely influential on me and many, many others. And I think what he writes in those books is absolutely true and essential, that there's a Jesus model where he invests in a few that then spread his influence

beyond them. I think it's important to realize that once we get through Jesus' ministry and into the church that gets established after Jesus' ministry in a way that we hadn't seen it before, that what happens now is there's a body life going on where that kind of Jesus model still goes on, but now the church family context becomes the primary reality that those more focused relationships are a subset of. And so I want to be mentored in my local church by that family wherever it's coming from. We've got a

young man in our church who grew up in our church who has some really significant disabilities and his joy and gratitude and faithfulness to the Lord undergoing more physical trial than I can imagine throughout his his life, even as a kid, and to this day as he's a young man, has been such an example to me. And even at times a rebuke to me. There's a woman in our church who was a missionary in Congo. She and her husband are wonderful, godly people.

And I will, after I preach our first service, go down and I'll say, Ruth, how was my sermon? Anything you wanna say? And she said, Eric, I our first service, go down and I'll say, Ruth, how was my sermon? Anything you want to say? And she said, Eric, I think you missed an opportunity right here. And she's one of my mentors in her godliness. And she's heard more sermons than I can imagine. But she's still being fed. But she's also someone I look to for wisdom and guidance.

And my wife is a mentor to me in my church. And so wherever I'm going to get discipleship influence, I want to find it in that local church context. But then within that, I do think it's important to have people who are really walking alongside you in your life or ahead of you in your life. I think you need both, as well as people looking to you. I think we should all have people looking to us, people we're looking to, and people who are shoulder to shoulder going along as peers, and have a good group of people that within that church context are bearing down

on things in our lives, that we need to hear truth from them, and we need to share our sins with them and rejoice together. You know, who are the people when something good happens are the first ones you want to make sure know about it. And the ones who, when something bad happens, are the ones you want to come alongside you and pray and weep with you. So to have concentric circles of discipleship and influence and mentoring in your life with sort of a close group of people who speak into your life and encourage you but then then a broader context and ultimately your local church context but then people outside of it as well i have friends who are all over the country

in the world for that matter who still encourage and and we cheer each other on from a distance and and if and if we're wrestling through something we'll give that person a call and so i think inviting people into your life in a humble teachable way is really important and then to keep that going to say johnny if you ever see anything in my life that i need to be aware of let me know and and continue to invite that kind of input where where it's not just back slapping, hey, you're cool, but to be able to hear truth that may be hard at times, believing the wounds of a friend have a healing effect ultimately,

is something we need to do and continually to invite that. Because it's not easy for people to give honest input into our lives. Even encouragement can be hard. We're not good at encouraging or rebuking or correcting. And we need both from people who love us enough to tell us the truth. When you're talking about friendship within the church, Eric, then your relationships also are day-to-day as well. So talk about, I think especially even for guys, sometimes

there's a lack of intentionality on asking hard questions. So sometimes there's general questions to disengage. So you can say, how's it going? Or how's your purity? And it's good. There's a lot of generalities and not like, hey, tell me what's going on. How can someone grow in their depth of real friendships?

How does that work? How do you do that with your real friends? Because we live in a culture of shallowness and hanging out or just time together doesn't really foster the type of biblical depth that we need. Yeah. We live in a shallow culture and it's easy to just fall into what I've heard described as water skiing through life instead of scuba diving through life and personally going deeper, but also relationally going deeper. And I believe as Christians, we should be people who take initiative in increasing the depth we have in our relationships with people.

So we're not satisfied with getting together with people and just talking about the Lakers and the weather and the things that may be fun and good sort of conversational stuff or small talk things. But even if you're talking about the Lakers, at some point to get to character issues that we're seeing on display in the sporting world that that you take conversations below just the shallow level and and seek to be a minister and take conversations and relationships and social situations deeper it's a skill without

you know so being heavy-handed in that and not being fun and being able to have a playfulness. And at the same time, not being satisfied with just being goofy. I can remember, I try not to let this happen anymore, but I can remember so many times I would leave social situations and say, well, that was kind of fun. But I really think it added up to anything of substantive, lasting value. We didn't seem to talk about anything important. We didn't really find out how anybody was doing. And it's easier to skim along the surface, but I want a life and I want relationships that matter, that make a difference, that mean something. So I think we need to get really good at, yes, having fun and being able to talk about small talk, but not for very long. But before long, we need to be people who are getting deeper

in talking about things that really matter and being good at asking those questions and sort of going, hey, how you doing? Everything's going good. And if you're getting to know somebody, just say, hey, how's your family doing? That must have been hard. Tell me what that was like.

How are you dealing with that? You got somebody speaking into that? Can I pray for you now about that? It's not complicated to be a minister and to take things in a substantive way. But I think we need to develop that skill with an intentionality that leads to making a difference in our relationships and our conversations. In regards to friendship, Eric, I've heard a number of people say leadership is lonely at the top. I've had a pastor tell me recently, I asked him who his close friends were, and he just said, pastors don't have any friends, Johnny. How is that idea in your mind disassociated from what we see biblically from the Apostle Paul or others? And

why are biblical friendships so crucial, especially if you're serving in leadership in ministry? Yeah, I think starting with Jesus, it's important to realize that even though clearly he is their Lord, he really expresses even a reciprocity in his relationship with his closest friends, especially. And even among them, there were the three. So when John's reclining on Jesus at the Last Supper, I don't think that's just for John. I think there's something very important going on. And when the few gather at the foot of the cross, like Simon of Cyrene who helps Jesus carry his cross, there's his mother, there's John, there's Mary.

There are these who are not just there for themselves. And then Jesus, at his greatest point of need in the garden, what does he say? Pray with me. He's struggling, he says pray. He's thinking and taking on the sins of the world and the wrath of God. And he says, pray with me.

Now they fail him miserably. But the point here is he needed them, and he expressed that need to them. And so even Jesus. But then Paul, you read these lists of people he wants to greet at the end of some of his letters. And he's saying, oh, he talks about Phoebe being there for him when he needed her. And all these people who are a blessing to him, send John Mark, I need him. And so the apostles, these leaders of the church, they recognize their interdependent relationships and their need for others, not just God, but for God caring for them through

others. And so this loneliness sadly can be a reality sometimes, but I don't think it should be. I remember reading an article years ago. I think it might've been Tozer, but the title of the article was, The Saint Must Walk Alone. And it was about times when say the prophets were alone

and the people of God were not with them and how sad and tragic that was and I thought I want to write an article I never did it but I want to write an article that says sadly sometimes the saint must walk alone but he never should right we should always be there collectively serving the Lord together and so so I think sometimes we create this loneliness, sometimes with a professional or authoritarian or this idea that I'm the pastor and I've got this lonely job. No, the role of the pastor is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry and basically work yourself out of a job. So if you die tomorrow, they'll be fine and they'll continue on without you because you didn't separate yourself in that way.

Now, that might be controversial, but I really believe we sometimes create that loneliness with the way we relate to people and with church structures that exalt a leader or a pastor in ways where they're on a pedestal, in ways Jesus who washed the feet of his disciples, would never be. That's so good. And Eric, even as you mentioned, you have mentors in your church. And in ministry, it's crucial that you have those friendships to come alongside us to encourage and challenge. Can you give just a final word to the young man or the young woman

who is growing up in a culture where they have been divorced from older godly people in their life because everything is Google-able? And so wisdom and experience is no longer a need. It's just an option. Can you talk to the young man or the young woman about their need for older, godly friendship in their life and how their life will be a product of that? I think that's a vital question. Now, I've watched throughout my life the church growth movement have tremendous influence. And one of the principles in the church growth movement was called the homogeneous unit principle.

And I don't want to diminish the value at times of getting with people who are at your station of life and represent sort of your demographic. But that's not the emphasis in the New Testament church. The emphasis is in the people of God getting together where eight-year-olds and 80-year-olds actually know each other and the older mentor the younger. For so long now, the church has segregated people as if we're not segregated by all kinds

of things already. We walk through the doors and when we said the kids over here, the singles over here, the young marrieds over here, the young marrieds with children over here, the middle of life people here, the old people here. And so what ends up happening is the young people pool all their ignorance. The old people get more and more cranky all the time, and they don't even know each other in local church. And they need to be discipleship related in a way where we don't have all these separating ways of doing ministry.

Now, it's more challenging to get to know somebody who's really different than you are generationally and in different ways. But I think that's what we're called to as God's people because Jesus unifies us, not our hobbies or the particular station of life we're in right now. And sometimes what a young married couple with children needs most is to get together with a couple in their eighties and say, oh yeah, we remember that too. God got me through it. And when I got cancer for the third time, God got me through it. And then all of a sudden you get perspective on your immediate situation instead of just being with people who are in that same situation, getting stressed together.

And so the perspective that different people at different stations of life can bring to us is vital. And it's actually the core discipleship. You know, Titus 2, the older mentoring the younger and discipling the younger. That's what we're called to. Otherwise, we'll just be separate from the people we need most helping us to grow.

Yeah, and that's gonna infiltrate even the way that we approach accountability. Accountability isn't just camaraderie of failing amongst people your age. It should be, hopefully with someone older or godlier than you, that actually reinforces the desire for Christlikeness. That's right. One of my dear friends, Ed Yusinski, at his desk where he works, he's got a list. I think there are about 30 people on this list. And it's the list of the people that he would have a tremendously difficult time looking in the eye if he failed morally. And he wants to look at that list as an accountability to him. They're not even aware maybe they're on the list,

but he's got these people in his life that he looks up to, that he respects to the point where they would be the faces and the names that come to mind if he really failed morally that he would have to go to and tell us about. So obviously we should fear God so much that that's ultimately what gives us a heart of obedience. But God gives us people to mediate his realities in our lives. And so it's ultimately God, but it's God through people that we should have a sense of accountability that's really meaningful. And I hear a lot about accountability. And so often that just becomes, hey, did you mess up again this week? Me too.

Yeah, I did. Me too. That's good. Aren't you glad there's grace? Let's pray about it and hopefully do better next week. Instead of trying to cultivate together a fear of the Lord and a deeper understanding of his glory together so that whether I figure out a way around my filter on my computer or not doesn't become what it's all about, right? And you know what?

People lie in accountability groups. And so they have a limited effectiveness if it's not the fear of the Lord that we're actually cultivating in these groups together, where we're not just trying to sort of be buds struggling together, but we're disciples of Jesus trying to know Him together. And have Him, yes, and encouraging each other in that way. And I will say this, I think too many of these kinds of groups are disconnected from the authority of the church. So someone can be in continual sin that's really unrepentant, and there's no church discipline ever associated with that.

You know, the thought in your accountability group of you saying, you know, Eric, you've been coming back for six months now, saying, yeah, I messed up again, yeah, I messed up again. Yeah, I messed up again. Yeah, I was really mean to my wife this week again. And I think it's time to go to the elders. How often does that happen in a accountability group? And I think actually this has become something beyond us right now that we need to bring to a greater level of authority. It's like, what are you talking about? You're going to rat me out? That's how we would respond, you know, instead of saying, yeah,

maybe that is the necessary next step here. Do we have, again, getting back to the local churches, the context of all our relationships, at some point is there church discipline and the authority of Christ mediated through the church authority that comes into play at some time with our ongoing sin battles. That's so good. And just even the more I read the scripture, the more I see just the value of biblical

friendship, that level of friendship within the church and how the believer can't operate, you said, independently or individually or in isolation. So Eric, thankful just for the clarity that you've provided about friendship. Thankful for your friendship with me and just the example you are to me as well. So thanks for your time.