True Friendship

Good morning, everyone. We want to greet everyone in the name of Jesus. We're glad for the presence of everyone that's here, especially the visitors. We're glad you can be here with us this morning.

You can turn for a text this morning to John 15:9-17.

John 15:9, "As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain. That whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. These things I command you, that you love one another."

I've chosen to speak this morning on maybe a little bit of a at least for me, maybe for all of you, a little bit of an unusual topic.

Some weeks ago I was at an older gentleman's house to work on his refrigerator, and part of the discussion was, you know, how long is this repair going to last? And it needed a compressor, and so I said, "Well, a new compressor, if we put it in, a good chance it'll go another 20 years." "Oh," he said, "I don't need it to go near that long." Turns out he's in his early 80s. He said, "I don't even want to live that long."

And as I was talking to him, he started sharing with me that he has five of the five children, but almost no relationship whatsoever with any of them. He said, "I have a daughter who lives a few houses down the street, which I see maybe twice a year.

I have grandchildren that I rarely see." And basically shared with me that he's very lonely.

And we know of folks that come to the end of their life, and there's really no one at their funeral. Society at large, there's an epidemic of loneliness. So I've chosen to think this morning or talk this morning about true friendship, and I would like I think it's especially relevant for the youth among us, maybe specifically the on the girls' side here, but it's for all of us as we navigate through life. 2024 statistics would say that 52% of the people in the United States would say they experience loneliness. And I would ask the question, if you were to guess, what age group would you think are the most lonely?

I mentioned the elderly, but what group, what demographic would you think is the most lonely? Someone want to guess?

Age 18 to 24. So it's young people. And I think sociologists would blame a lot of that on social media usage with increased feelings of loneliness, and that's kind of counterintuitive to think about, that in this age of connectivity, where there's multiple platforms in which one can stay in touch with each other, that people, young people especially, feel lonely. There's also a link between poor physical health and loneliness. 77% of people who are in poor physical health are also lonely.

And so we have people turning to things like AI apps, where they make a virtual friend with someone who is not even real. Well, why is friendship important? And in order to think about that, we need to go way back, clear back to the Garden of Eden. The first not good in creation was when God said it was not good that man should be alone.

And the very fact that God created man in His image to have a relationship with Him shows the importance of this fact. And so we're created for relationship, not isolation. And the sad thing is in our society today that in spite of all the ways and means in which people have available to them to communicate with each other, become more isolated. And for Adam, you know, the animals didn't cut it.

It wasn't he didn't find a good pet to be his companion.

Someone recently pointed out that at the end of your life, there's no when you need care, no matter how close you were with your pet, there's no pet that's going to reverse roles and take care of you as a when you need help.

And so God created Eve, and He said it's very good. So and it wasn't necessarily a matter of survival, but it's because God wanted to bless Adam with a friend. He wanted him to thrive and flourish. You know, I think there's just something about a personal, the personal touch.

We go to the mailbox. We love to get a handwritten lettered envelope, which is becoming very rare these days. I remember during the pandemic, I went to our mailbox one day, and I opened this, got this letter, and it for all intents and purposes, it looked like it was handwritten. It was from someone I didn't know. And I got excited, like, "Who's writing me? Who's sending me a personal letter?"

Only to open it up to find out it was a very cleverly computer-generated letter from the Jehovah's Witnesses who could not do house-to-house calls.

Young children, especially little girls, they start when they can start to write, what do they do? They write little notes, and they say, "Will you be my friend?" And then they if you look at their autograph books, it's a BFF, you know, best friends forever, best friends for life.

So there's this innate sense that I need a friend. Proverbs 18:1 says, "A man who isolates himself, seeks his own desires, he rages against all wise judgment." So friendship is very important. That's the first point I would like to make, is that friendship is very important. God is the author of it. He sees it as important in order for us to thrive and to be truly happy.

The second point I'd like to emphasize is that true friends are chosen. You know, we don't have a choice in the family we're born in. We don't have a choice necessarily who our neighbor is, although we can treat many people as our neighbor. But a friend is one thing that we truly do choose. We choose our friends. And most of us have been taught from little up to choose our friends wisely, that it's important the kind of friends we choose.

Proverbs 13:20 says, "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed." So it's important the kind of friends that we choose, especially the ones that are close and intimate.

Proverbs 12:26, "The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray." Proverbs 22:24-25, "Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a fuming man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul."

The 18th-century preacher Charles Bridges said it this way, "It is not up to us to determine if there will be any influence, only what that influence will be." And so friendship is kind of on a spectrum.

Proverbs 18:24 says, "A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." So we should be friendly to all. I think we should be known as Christians as friendly people. It's bad testimony to be unfriendly and cold. But the reality is that we will probably have just a handful of really close, intimate friends.

Jesus, the disciple, remember he said there was one disciple that leaned on his breast, that seemed to have a special place in Jesus' heart.

That verse I just read in Proverbs, Proverbs 18, there's other translations put a little different slant on it. The New American Standard says, "A person of too many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." And that seems almost like a totally different idea there.

I say this to say that it's okay to have just a few friends, close, intimate friends, even though we should be friendly to all. And I think and I said this maybe towards the girls, I think we all need to guard against it, but can become jealous of friendships to the point where, you know, "You can't be my friend if you're not going to be my only friend." And we get into this thing where we become jealous of our friendships.

Drew Hunter gave an illustration that you may find helpful. I found it to be interesting. He says it this way, "Relationships have been described as lanes on a highway. Impersonal relationships drive along in the far right lane. The middle two lanes contain acquaintances and casual friends, and our closest friends travel with us in the left lane.

A best friend or two may also ride in the car with us. The right lanes are full, and the left lanes have fewer people. Of course, blinkers flash, and cars change lanes over time. A longtime acquaintance might later become a close friend, or once close friends may become little more than acquaintances. Perhaps a left lane friend may swerve right to take the exit later to reenter and merge left again further down the road." And so it just describes a little bit the way we can visualize that there is a spectrum in our friendship. But I hope that all of us have someone in the car with us.

But let's guard against the jealousy that can happen where, you know, if you can't we may not say it in these words, but if you can't be my best friend, then you're no friend at all. So let's cultivate a friendship that's free of jealousy.

Again, I missed this. That amplified about the verse says this, Proverbs 18, "The man of too many friends, chosen indiscriminately, will be broken in pieces and come to ruin. But there is a true, loyal, loving friend who is reliable and sticks closer than a brother."

So there's actually a sense in which if we choose our friends unwisely and have too many of them, that it can bring us to ruin.

Friendship is important. We true friends are chosen. And then I'd like to think a little bit about the characteristics of a true friend, of which there are many, and I'm only just going to give a few of them here. But probably the number one characteristic of a true friend is loyalty or constancy.

Proverbs 17:17 says, "A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." So what does it mean a friend loves at all times? You might take it to mean that you're together all the time. I don't think that's what it means. Proverbs 25:17 says, "Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house, lest he become weary of you and hate you." So there is a sense in which we talk about we wear out our friendship.

But to be loyal, to be constant means that you're not a fair-weather friend. The problem with a lot of so-called friendships is it's that it's based on what I can get out of it for myself. And that's the reason why jealousies and all those things tend to creep in. But Jesus told a story about a young man that took his father's inheritance, and he went into a far country, and he spent a lot of money on living it up. But it says that when his money ran out, his friends ran out as well.

And so that's a friend that if your friendship is based on what you're going to get out of it, then it's not a true friend. To be loyal takes effort because part of all relationships and friendships is there's friction there.

And so part of loyal constancy, to be there, just be there, is forgiveness, to seek forgiveness, to grant forgiveness, all signs of a strong, healthy relationship, a strong, healthy friendship. Proverbs 17:9, "He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends."

We recently in 1 Corinthians, when we thought about the qualities of love, one of the facets of love is that love keeps no records of wrong.

So a person that is loyal doesn't overlook the truth, but he's willing to share that. The second characteristic I'd like to think about is honesty.

Proverbs 27:5-6, "Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of the enemy are deceitful."

You know, some of the most effective criticism that you'll ever experience in your life will come from a close friend, someone who really that you really think highly of and you really value the relationship. And a person that's loyal and is constant will bring correction. A sign of a profound, deep friendship is the ability to be candid and honest with each other.

There's an interesting story I ran across. We all know the mouthwash Listerine, named after Joseph Lister. But it was the mouthwash didn't start out as a mouthwash. It was more like some kind of a disinfectant. And a person in advertising came along and actually coined the word "halitosis."

It comes from the Latin word "halitus," which means breath, and "osis," which is a medical condition. So bad breath. But in the twenties, there was this campaign that featured poor Edna, and no dispersion there. But Edna was often a bridesmaid but never a bride because she suffered from halitosis, a disorder that you yourself rarely know when you have it, and even your closest friends won't tell you.

And it was extremely successful. Their income went from $115,000 in seven years to $8 million. But even your closest friends won't tell you. The point I'm trying to make is that close friends do reach out into their and in difficult ways have input into their friend's life.

Rebuke hurts, especially when it comes from a friend, but it's very effective. And the opposite of that, I think, it would be flattery. Proverbs 29:5 says, "A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet. It causes him to trip up."

Proverbs 17:10, "Rebuke is more effective for a wise man than a hundred blows on a fool."

So we need to be honest with ourself. Is it flattery or a faithful wound of rebuke? Well, then you might say, "Well, I'm honest. I'll just be really, really honest and candid, and I'm just going to say it how it is."

That brings me to the third part of true friendship, and that is sensitivity. Proverbs 26:18-19 say, "Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbors and says, 'I was only joking.'" And I can never I can never read that verse without thinking of an incident that happened in my when I was a young boy. I had some sadistic cousins, I guess you would say, and they had little Red Ryder BB guns in their bedroom. And one of the things they would do would be cut the points off of the little light brights, the little plastic pegs that you would put in those light brights, if you're familiar with those, and they were the right caliber to fit right in the BB gun.

And they used them indoors, and they would shoot you with those things. And they didn't really they didn't really hurt you as far as serious hurt, but they did not feel well. And to be at the receiving end of those, and they'd say, "Oh, it was just a joke." Oh, no. And, you know, our words we can do the similar things with our words where we we we say it's not really dangerous, it's not really harmful, and we let those words fly.

And to be on the receiving end is very destructive. The song says, "Angry words, oh, let them never from the tongue unbridled slip." And then one of the verses says that, "Love is much too pure and holy. Friendship is too sacred far for a moment's reckless folly, thus the desolate and more." So we can destroy friendships in this in the space of an instant with some unsensitive words.

So we need to balance that, Bob, the truth versus being sensitive.

"If all that we say in a single day, with never a word left out, were printed each night in clear black and white, it would make strange reading, no doubt. And just suppose ere our eyes could close, we must read the whole record through, then wouldn't we sigh and wouldn't we try a great deal less talking to do? The more I think, and I more than half think that many a kink would be smoother in life's tangled thread if half that I say in a single day were to be left forever unsaid."

And that's just the way our words are.

And I think gossip is probably one of the biggest enemies to true friendship. Proverbs 16:24, "A perverse man sows strife, and a whisper separates the best of friends." And you can take it to the bank this morning that if you're going to break confidence with someone that puts trust in you, if you're going to be like a sieve, it destroys relationships. 1 Corinthians 13 says, "Love rejoices in iniquity, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth."

So a true friend is loyal, he's constant, a true friend is honest, and a true friend is sensitive. So where can we find a friend like that? How can I be that kind of friend? And that brings me to the passage that I read at the beginning.

Jesus exemplifies all of this. He wants to be our friend, and the blessing is that we can be His friend. He says there in John that, "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. I do not call you servants.

For a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends." And so I just wondered this morning if we recognize how great a privilege we have that we can be friends of God, and He can be our friend.

Think a little bit about the scope of Jesus' friendship. I mentioned John, the disciple who He leaned in His breast. It seemed like there was a really close relationship there. But think about the woman that Jesus met at the well.

He asked her for a drink. This lady had all kinds of problems, and He was able to reach into her life. There was this little short man who was a little cheaton, and he climbed up in a tree.

And Jesus said, "Today I'm going to come to your house, and I'm going to be your friend." And that was the accusation that they put out to Jesus, that He's a friend of sinners.

Matthew 11:19, "The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a wine bibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is justified by her children.'" Luke 15:1-2, "Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him, and the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.'" Why did they draw near to Jesus? It's because He was their friend. And that scope of His friendship includes you and I this morning.

He says, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you."

What is the standard for this friendship that we have with Jesus? What does He say in John? He says, "You're my friends if you do what I command you to do." So there's a the friendship with God and obedience to what He says are connected.

You can turn to James chapter 4.

James chapter 4:1-10, "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desire for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have; you murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is empty with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, 'The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously'?

But He gives more grace; therefore He says, 'God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.'" So here He says that if we want to ruin our friendship with with with Jesus, it's to become a friend of the world.

Friendship with the world is enmity with God.

"Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." And that's pretty serious this morning.

If we back up in James, in chapter 2:23, Abraham was called a friend of God. James 2:23, "And the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.'" You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. So we see that connection between obedience, faith, and the friendship that Abraham had with God.

The third thing that friendship with God brings about is security. And I think that's one of the reasons that we crave friendship, is we feel secure in those friendships. John 14:21, "He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

And I see in that a very great and strong security. If we can feel that love. And that's when we have a friend that's really a true friend, we feel secure in that the love that we feel, that we know they're going to be there for us.

And Jesus says that if we keep His commandments, that's a sign of our love, and He will be loved by our Father, and I will love Him and manifest myself to Him. The hymn writer says it really well: "What a friend we have in Jesus! All our sins and griefs to bear, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. I found a friend in Jesus! He's everything to me. He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul. The lily of the valley in Him alone I see; all I need to cleanse and make me fully whole. In sorrow, He's my comfort; in trouble, He's my stay. He tells me every care on Him to roll.

He's the lily of the valley, the bright and morning star. He's the greatest of ten thousand to my soul. I found a friend, oh, such a friend! He loved me ere I knew Him. He drew me with the cords of love, and thus He bound me to Him. And round my heart still closely twine those ties which not conceiver. For I am His, and He is mine forever and forever."

One there is above all others well deserves the name of friend. His is love beyond a brother's, costly, free, and knows no end. They who once His kindness prove find it everlasting love. Which of all our friends to save us could or would have shed their blood? But our Jesus died to save us, reconciled in Him to God. This was boundless love indeed: Jesus is a friend in need.

Men, when raised to lofty stations, often know their friends no more, slight and scorn their poor relations, though they value them before. But our Savior always owns those whom He redeemed with groans. When He lived on earth abased, friend of sinners was His name. Now, above all glory raised, He rejoices in the same. Still, He calls them brethren, friends, and to all there once attends. Could we bear from one another what He daily bears from us? Yet this glorious friend and brother loves us, though we treat him thus.

Though for good we render ill, He accounts us brethren still. Oh, for grace, our hearts to soften! Teach us, Lord, at length to love. We, alas, forget too often what a friend we have above. But when home our souls are brought, we will love Thee as we ought."

When we think about life, and we think about purpose, and we think about meaning, it really all comes down to relationships. Relationships with our personal friends, relationships with our brothers and sisters in the church, relationships with our children, relationships with our wife, our wives.

And many people, I believe, try to fill their void, fill that void with other things. They try to fill it with diversion, entertainment, amusement, stuff. But I think about that man that I spoke about in the beginning, who really, in the end, if you don't have a friend, you have nothing.

And so I would just like to challenge us this morning: May our testimony be that we're a friend of God. May the world around us be drawn by the love we have for each other. Jesus said that's how they're going to know that you're My disciples if you love one another.

And may our friendships with each other be true. And I would just like to encourage us all to work—let's work on our relationships. Let's be a true friend. And most importantly, let's be a friend of God, and He will be our friend and true companion. Does anyone have any comments or anything before we close?