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Life-Giving Friendships

Pastor Eugene emphasises the importance of building life-giving relationships that strengthen one another and help build the body.

No one is an island—our well-being depends on the strength of our relationships with other people. This is one of the key reasons why God saves us into the community of His people. He intends for us to know and be known by other believers, so that we love and strengthen one another.

Friendships are vital to the Christian life. We are unable to follow Jesus on our own. Not only do we need encouragement from others, but our relationships also give us opportunity to practise the spiritual fruit of love, patience, gentleness and goodness. We need one another in order to grow in Christ. Through our friendships, we experience and enjoy God’s grace together.

Last Saturday, a number of women came together to encourage one another to build life-giving friendships in the body of Christ. They focused on Titus 2:3-5: “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

These verses are specifically addressed to women. But they also apply more broadly to the rest of the church by helping us grasp the nature of the life-giving friendships we are to build. What are the characteristics of such relationships?

1. Life-giving friendships help us live out God’s truth.

In Paul’s letter to Titus, he emphasises the vital connection between truth and life. Knowing the truth “accords with godliness” (1:1)—it results in a transformed life of obedience to God. And we do not live this new life alone. We are to encourage one another towards godliness, just as how older women are to come alongside younger women to train them in love, self-control, purity and kindness.

 2. Life-giving friendships involve speaking God’s truth to one another.

God purposed the church to be the community where His truth reverberates. Truth-speaking occurs through ‘formal’ means like sermons and Bible studies, as well as through ‘informal’ means such as our relationships with one another in the body of Christ. Older women are to teach younger women what is good. In the same way, we are to speak life-giving words to others as we walk with one another through the ups and downs of life. God is able to use each of us as instruments of His grace to strengthen His people.

 3. Life-giving friendships are rooted in the gospel.

It is only by God’s grace that we are able to build such friendships with one another. The reason why we can live transformed lives is because “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age” (Tit. 2:11-12). Empowered by God’s grace, we can build one another up.

Life-giving friendships also commend the gospel to the world. When we love and serve one another, we “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour” (v. 10). By practising the truth, we help ensure that God’s word is not reviled (v. 5). Life-giving friendships demonstrate the transforming power of the gospel and display the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. They show the world that genuine community is possible, by the grace of God. This is especially attractive in an age when more and more struggle with loneliness, anonymity and isolation.

God has been gracious to us. The church is growing as He brings more people into our midst. This Sunday, we have the joy of welcoming several new members: Angeline Leong and Rebecca Soh will be getting baptised, while Samuel Chan, Joshua Lowe, Soh Ling Ling, and Ivan and Isis Ramirez will be joining us through transfers.

God is entrusting each of these new members to our care. He calls us to help one another know and follow Jesus. Through our life-giving friendships, we give substance to what it means for us to be fellow members of the body of Christ.

Let’s also ask God to prepare us to hear from Romans 3:1-20 this Sunday. Pastor Ian will be preaching on how we can trust in God completely, because He is utterly true and faithful.