Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] About 10 years ago, I started to think differently about friendship.
[00:00:07] I used to think that friendship was a good thing, like most of us do.
[00:00:11] It's a good thing to have in one's life, something like having a good phone or a nice car or a decent job. Friends are useful.
[00:00:19] But slowly, over the years, I've come to see that friendship is much more than that.
[00:00:26] I now believe that friendship can make or break your life.
[00:00:32] I've often said to my wife, I think friendship is probably the best gift that we get this side of heaven.
[00:00:41] The friendships that we make mold us into the people that we become in life.
[00:00:48] Let me give you an example of this from Proverbs. Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise.
[00:00:54] But a companion or a friend, a companion of fools will suffer harm.
[00:00:59] You become like the people you hang out with.
[00:01:03] The ancient philosopher and orator Cicero famously said, without friendship, life is not worth living.
[00:01:13] And I think much of our problem in the area of friendship is that we have misunderstood. What friendship comes consists of the essence of what we're talking about.
[00:01:26] So today I want to look at friendship through the lens of wisdom.
[00:01:31] I want to look at a chapter in Proverbs that has much to teach us on friendship, defining its essence so that we can evaluate whether we have good friends in our life, and more importantly, whether we can evaluate whether we are good friends to others or not. Just before we get into our text, something about Proverbs that you need to understand, I For years, I thought Proverbs was like a great big jar full of wisdom pennies. Some of them had to do with riches, some of them had to do with friendship, some of them had to do with morality.
[00:02:04] They're just little nuggets that are all stuck together.
[00:02:08] That's not the way Proverbs is written.
[00:02:11] Recent scholarship on Proverbs, particularly Bruce Walke, who's considered probably one of the foremost proverbs and wisdom scholars in the world, says that Proverbs was put together just like all the other books of the Bible.
[00:02:24] All those little things are gathered together with particular themes, and they're moving you towards particular conclusions.
[00:02:33] And so it requires the way that wisdom is written.
[00:02:37] It's written in such a way that you have to ponder how the connections come together. And by pondering the connections, you start to see the picture that wisdom is trying to teach us. So if you have a Bible, if you have it on your phone, if you have a physical Bible, please open with me to Proverbs 27.
[00:02:57] Proverbs 27.
[00:02:59] The first 22 verses of this chapter are all about friendship.
[00:03:06] Today we're just going to look at eight of those verses.
[00:03:10] There's so much to learn about this area, but want to hit it on some of the kind of the high points.
[00:03:16] Proverbs 27.
[00:03:19] Look with me at verses 1 and 2.
[00:03:23] Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
[00:03:31] Let another praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger, and not your own lips.
[00:03:39] Now, when we read these two verses, we usually get half the message and often miss the main point.
[00:03:46] It is answering the question, how are people's strengths and accomplishments best recognized?
[00:03:55] A really bad way is by trying to promote ourselves.
[00:04:00] And people do this in two ways.
[00:04:03] One way is by talking about our grand plans for the future. That's in verse one.
[00:04:09] The other way is by drawing attention to all of our accomplishments in the present. That is verse two.
[00:04:16] To talk too much about our grand plans for the future is to betray a heart of pride that believes that our life is somehow under our own control.
[00:04:27] We can control the future. We're the master of our destiny.
[00:04:31] To talk too much about our present accomplishments is to also betray a heart of pride that we think that we, the things that we have achieved, we've done in our own strength.
[00:04:44] Now that's obvious from reading the text. But if that's all you get from the text, you miss something vital.
[00:04:52] We don't want to miss this point that praise is actually being commended. Here.
[00:05:00] Verse two is commending praise.
[00:05:05] It's saying, let another praise you, even if that other is a stranger.
[00:05:11] This is the first truth that we learn about friendship in this chapter. And it's a bit surprising because the one that's doing the praising isn't somebody that the person even knows a stranger.
[00:05:22] Therefore, the first truth about the essence. We're talking about the essence of friendship.
[00:05:28] The essence of friendship is that true friends intentionally encourage others.
[00:05:35] True friends intentionally encourage others.
[00:05:40] In other words, there is a proper way to talk about accomplishments.
[00:05:45] When others, rather than ourselves, highlight accomplishments, solid reputations can be built in the right way.
[00:05:54] This is the first mark of a friend that is given in the passage.
[00:05:59] A friend is somebody who notices and points out praiseworthy characteristics in others.
[00:06:09] Amazingly, it turns out that the practice of commending people publicly is biblical and a mark of true friends.
[00:06:20] Listen to the apostle Paul on this.
[00:06:24] I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence, for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours.
[00:06:38] Give Recognition to such people.
[00:06:44] This, my friends, is a biblical practice.
[00:06:48] Paul repeatedly tells others why he gives thanks for them.
[00:06:52] Paul not only thanks God for people throughout the New Testament, but he keeps telling those same people what he thanks God for about them.
[00:07:04] There are so many examples of this in Scripture. Let me give you just one.
[00:07:09] It says, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
[00:07:20] So think over your life for a moment.
[00:07:24] Think about the people in your life, whether they're younger or they're older or the same age, whether they're the same sex or different.
[00:07:34] Think about the people who actively build you up and strengthen you and encourage you with their words.
[00:07:43] Has anyone come to mind?
[00:07:48] What was the last conversation that you can remember, where you left feeling really encouraged?
[00:07:55] Whether you have ever thought of that person as a friend or not, that person is displaying a primary mark of friendship.
[00:08:05] That is, friends intentionally encourage others.
[00:08:10] But friends don't just encourage. Okay, number two, True friends also intentionally correct others.
[00:08:21] Although correction is painful, it is also immensely helpful.
[00:08:27] So before this text shows us the value of good correction, the gain that comes from pain, discernment is needed to know what kinds of pain we are to welcome and what kinds of pain we are to reject.
[00:08:44] One of the primary words in Proverbs for wisdom is, it's often translated, understanding, but it's the Hebrew word bin, and it means to separate, to discern. A key part of wisdom is coming at things and discerning, separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were.
[00:09:02] So the first thing he teaches us here is to avoid depleters.
[00:09:07] Avoid depleters, the pain that we can do without.
[00:09:12] Notice this in verse 3 and 4.
[00:09:17] A stone is heavy, and a sand is weighty, and sand is weighty, but a fool's provocation is heavier than both.
[00:09:27] Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming. But who can stand before jealousy?
[00:09:33] Here we have a description of a common vice that marks fools, and that is the sin of anger.
[00:09:41] Earlier in the book of Proverbs, it warns us not to make friends with an angry person.
[00:09:49] Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.
[00:09:59] One of the things I've been studying proverbs for about 10 years now. One of the things that I repeatedly find as I study is so often the things that the Bible tells you not to do and are foolish to do are the very things that Christ does.
[00:10:14] He becomes the fool in order to make us wise. So it tells us, don't make no friendship with a man given to anger. But that's exactly what Jesus did with with the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. He was an angry man, and Jesus made friends with him.
[00:10:27] So there is always hope.
[00:10:29] If you're a man that is given to anger, there is always hope when Christ is in the picture.
[00:10:36] Verses 3 to 4 open up this warning by giving us more detail so that we know exactly how to identify an angry person.
[00:10:47] Because angry people are not always obvious when we first get to know them.
[00:10:53] How do we know someone has an anger problem before we get entangled with them? What are the characteristics of people that we should avoid friendships with?
[00:11:05] Well, look at verse three.
[00:11:09] A stone is heavy, sand is weighty, but a fool's provocation is heavier than both.
[00:11:20] The first characteristic of angry people is that they provoke and needle others.
[00:11:27] They know how to hurt and injure with a cutting, sarcastic remark or a look of disdain or disrespect.
[00:11:37] There are some people I've come to the Conclusion in my 61 years of life, I've come to the conclusion there are some people who spend most of their time poking their fingers in other people's eyes.
[00:11:49] Verse 3 says something very interesting about these kind of people.
[00:11:54] It says that they are exhausting to be around. Notice the word heavy, weighty, heavier. See that they're more tiring to be around than carrying large heavy weights on your back.
[00:12:10] If encouraging people replenish you, this kind of person depletes you.
[00:12:16] Okay, people who taunt others are angry people.
[00:12:21] And then verse four introduces us to some more words that describe the angry wrath, anger and jealousy. Jealousy being the desire to possess and control.
[00:12:35] What kind of friends should we avoid?
[00:12:38] People who are always needling others, Argumentative, intensely jealous, over controlling people.
[00:12:47] These kind of people do not make good friends.
[00:12:51] Do not let yourself come under their power.
[00:12:53] They will deplete you and exhaust you.
[00:12:58] So then, if people who inflict pain are the people we should avoid, what kind of people should we make friends with?
[00:13:07] Well, you might expect the text to tell us that we should pick friends that always give us a pat on the back and make us feel good, feel good about ourselves.
[00:13:18] But that is not what is recommended to us at all.
[00:13:22] Look with me at verses 5 and 6.
[00:13:28] Better is open rebuke than hidden love.
[00:13:33] Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
[00:13:41] Yes, we are to avoid pain giving depleters. That is the pain we can do without. But we are to actually welcome pain giving Replenishers. That's an oxymoron. Friends, pain giving replenishers. It's like talking about dry water.
[00:13:57] But there are such a thing as pain giving replenishers. This is the pain we can't do without.
[00:14:04] Surprisingly, the words used to describe a true friend are words we might at first glance associate with an angry person.
[00:14:13] Verse 5 talks about open rebuke.
[00:14:16] Verse 6 speaks of the wounds.
[00:14:22] That's a strong word, wounds. In other words, good friends bring pain.
[00:14:30] If your friends never say things to you that are painful, they are not the good friends that you think they are.
[00:14:39] Now, you might say at this point, hey, hey, wait a minute. You just finished telling us that friends encourage and to avoid angry people who cause pain and deplete us. What's all this about friends causing pain? But unlike the pain that angry people cause, which only leads to depletion and lasting hurt, the pain that true friends bring edifies, strengthens and allows for long term healing and health.
[00:15:09] Some of you in this room probably work out regularly and you know how it goes.
[00:15:13] No pain, no gain.
[00:15:16] You have to actually tear the muscle a little and then the body rebuilds the muscle and it grows.
[00:15:24] So in Proverbs 27:1,2, we see the necessity of encouraging words that build others.
[00:15:32] Now in Proverbs 27:5 and 6, we see the necessity of correcting words that build others.
[00:15:41] We all need friends and we need to be friends that intentionally encourage.
[00:15:48] Just as we need friends and be friends who practice intentional correction.
[00:15:56] So husbands, are you that kind of friend to your wife, praising her regularly but also faithfully correcting her when it will help her grow?
[00:16:11] As I've often said to people, correction and conflict is useless, so that doesn't count.
[00:16:17] It's correction when you're getting along okay.
[00:16:21] Or do you just fling around angry words out of frustration that result in hurt and destructive injury?
[00:16:30] And by the way, when our best friend is our wife and we don't have time to get into it. But Proverbs 27 teaches this.
[00:16:38] When your best friend is your wife, you are truly living the good life.
[00:16:43] You are living the good life.
[00:16:46] Another way to read verse six in the NIV says it this way. The wounds of a friend can be trusted.
[00:16:54] The wounds of a friend can be trusted.
[00:16:57] When a surgeon cuts open the chest of someone with cancer, he does so to remove the cancerous lump. The wound and ensuing scar are not given to hurt, but given to heal.
[00:17:13] One of the great lessons I've learned as I've gone through the book of Proverbs is that the teachable and correctable person is consistently presented as the wise person.
[00:17:27] The mark of the fool is they are not correct. Correctable, they are not teachable.
[00:17:31] The mark of the wise is they are correctable and they are teachable.
[00:17:37] You see, the gospel itself helps me receive correction because the gospel corrects me before it encourages me.
[00:17:47] It corrects me by telling me that I am a lost sinner without hope and without God.
[00:17:53] Then it encourages me by telling me that Christ has come to take my place and die for my sins.
[00:18:01] The gospel wounds, and then the gospel heals, and good friends do the same.
[00:18:08] Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
[00:18:14] So I want to just kind of take a little side bit right here and give you some practical help on how to give and receive correction.
[00:18:23] Some of us are not very good at giving and receiving encouragement, okay? But I would say between the two, we're worse @ correction overall.
[00:18:33] Most of us are very defensive when we're corrected, and we're very clumsy when we try to correct others.
[00:18:40] So how to receive correction?
[00:18:43] How to receive correction?
[00:18:46] Well, first of all, listen to the correction without defending yourself.
[00:18:52] Let them finish and bite your tongue.
[00:18:57] Hear everything they're saying, even if much of it turns out to be false.
[00:19:03] Let them say their spiel.
[00:19:05] Very important. Listen.
[00:19:08] And then, number two, ask questions to clarify the problem and the solution.
[00:19:17] Could you give me an example of what you're saying when you said this? What did you mean by that?
[00:19:25] If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying this. Is that right?
[00:19:31] Asking questions to clarify what they're saying, sifting it out.
[00:19:35] And then the final category, super important category, is to sift what you've heard with others and with God in prayer.
[00:19:45] I will sometimes say to people when they're correcting me and I'm not sure I agree with them. I don't trust my own heart. I'll just say, let me think about what you're saying and I'll get back to you.
[00:19:55] But if you're going to respond right at the moment, well, it's easy just to go into defense mode.
[00:20:01] So don't do that. Step back from the situation. Say, thank you for sharing this with me.
[00:20:06] Let me.
[00:20:07] Let me think about this. Talk maybe to my wife or someone else, my elders in my case, and let me pray about this, and I'll get back to you.
[00:20:20] Now, when you're receiving correction, try to avoid two common errors that often happen. Number one is there's the desire to be, I would say, falsely humble. Where you Accept blame for things you shouldn't.
[00:20:34] Some people lean towards peace at any price. And so when they're corrected, they just say, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And they accept the blame for things they really shouldn't blame accept the blame for. But on the other side, the other extreme would be to have a false confidence that gives way too much weight to your own opinion and too little weight to the other.
[00:21:00] I love Proverbs 28 on this.
[00:21:03] Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool.
[00:21:07] But he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.
[00:21:11] We just always have to be a little self suspicious about ourselves.
[00:21:17] Alfred Poirier, I think that's how you say his last name says it this way, if you can take criticism, however just or unjust, you'll learn to give it with gracious intent and constructive results.
[00:21:35] Okay, so that's how to receive correction.
[00:21:40] Now how to give correction.
[00:21:45] And these ones really, really speak to me every time I go over them.
[00:21:52] Number one, always speak remembering that you are a sinner too.
[00:21:57] You know, have you ever thought about your own face? You can only see other faces. You can't see your own face. You know, you might be speaking to the person with spinach in your teeth.
[00:22:07] You know, we tend to not notice the plank in our own eye.
[00:22:15] Probably the person that I have met in my life that is the best at correcting others I've ever met is my wife.
[00:22:22] She's astonishingly good and people have often talked to her about that. She's very gentle and kind and direct.
[00:22:32] And people have asked her over the years, man, you're just so good at this, you know, even in a small group, how do you do this?
[00:22:41] And her answer always is, because I'm aware that I'm the biggest sinner in the room.
[00:22:46] I'm always aware I'm the biggest sinner in the room.
[00:22:50] So remember, always be aware of your own sin when you're about to correct somebody else's sin.
[00:22:57] Number two, talk clearly but gently.
[00:23:05] You know this verse and it's a very interesting verse. Listen carefully to what it says.
[00:23:11] A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
[00:23:18] It says nothing about the content.
[00:23:21] The emphasis there is all on the manner, not the matter, but the manner.
[00:23:27] The way we speak is as important as what we say.
[00:23:34] Okay? Remember what we just said about angry words depleting others.
[00:23:38] If we say the right thing in an angry sort of harsh way, it doesn't come across. I remember many years ago, me correcting when my family's all growing up now. I've got lots of grandkids, but when they're all around the table, my kids, I remember one time correcting my daughter at the dinner table.
[00:24:00] And my eldest son is a gentle soul.
[00:24:05] And he, after I had corrected my daughter at the table, I could tell he was bothered.
[00:24:15] And he didn't typically do this.
[00:24:19] My kids are very, very respectful toward me. But he said, dad, he looked at me and he said, dad, that really lacked grace.
[00:24:28] That really lacked grace.
[00:24:31] And so I checked with Joanne later about that, and she said, well, you didn't see your face.
[00:24:38] You know, I thought I was doing the right thing, but the manners completely undid everything I was trying to accomplish.
[00:24:49] So remember, you're a sinner.
[00:24:52] Speak gently.
[00:24:54] By the way, that means we have to practice speaking gently in regular life, too, because that's not just going to happen at that moment if we haven't practiced it in regular life.
[00:25:05] And then this is a huge one.
[00:25:07] And I would say this is the one that's the most common one that's omitted, okay?
[00:25:12] Massively important.
[00:25:14] This is often in discipline of kids. This is the part that's often missing in the discipline of kids.
[00:25:21] Leave them with hope, not condemnation, okay?
[00:25:27] Like the gospel, if you wound, be sure to heal them too.
[00:25:32] Don't just highlight sin. Highlight the redemptive solution in Jesus.
[00:25:39] So true friends encourage and praise.
[00:25:43] True friends wound and correct.
[00:25:48] False friends do neither.
[00:25:51] So what about you?
[00:25:54] Do your friends, the people that you consider your friends, do your friends regularly encourage you?
[00:26:05] Do your friends regularly correct you? And I would say we're going to talk about this in a moment, but I would say you want a lot more encouragement than correction. They're not equals. Okay?
[00:26:16] You want 10 encouragements for every cross correction. Okay.
[00:26:22] But you want both.
[00:26:24] Okay?
[00:26:28] Let's lastly look at a third characteristic of friendship that's found in this text, and that is true friends consistently give good advice.
[00:26:39] True friends consistently give good advice.
[00:26:42] Proverbs 27, 9 and 10.
[00:26:47] Oil and perfume make the heart glad.
[00:26:50] And the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.
[00:26:56] Do not forsake your friend or your father's friend.
[00:26:59] And do not go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away. In the book of Proverbs, neighbor is often used as a synonym for friendship.
[00:27:12] These two verses help us to find another reason for highly valuing friendship.
[00:27:20] Because we will all face crises and trials in our life.
[00:27:26] All you have to do Is live long enough and you will suffer.
[00:27:31] And I'm telling you, at times like that you need friends around you.
[00:27:36] The value of friends will prove themselves in the. In that alone.
[00:27:40] Trials faced alone are 10 times harder.
[00:27:44] I can't remember this. I've heard so many different people say this. But you know that joy shared is twice the joy. Sorrow shared is half the sorrow you know, Chesterton. But who knows? Who knows who quoted that? But it's a great saying.
[00:27:59] There is nothing darker, my friends, than going through a deep trial all alone.
[00:28:07] The aloneness of it is almost worse than the trial itself.
[00:28:15] And when we face deep trials, what verse 10 calls the day of your calamity? Lots of calamities out there. We read about them every day in the news.
[00:28:25] But when calamity comes knocking to your door and the calamity is right in your lap, wow, you gonna need friends.
[00:28:38] And you will find when the times get tough, the people that were using you for their own ends suddenly disappear because they were not true friends.
[00:28:51] Bad times make bad friends scatter.
[00:28:55] Okay, and another thing.
[00:28:58] All the achievements and status and wealth that we so feverishly gave our lives to will suddenly be seen to be the hollow counterfeits that they really are because they're powerless.
[00:29:11] You know, all these things do a lot for us in life, but then when you get into a really bad time, they do nothing for you.
[00:29:20] They're powerless to provide real help when the days of darkness descend on us.
[00:29:27] And I think the point of the end of verse 10 better as a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away, is that we need friends who are available to us.
[00:29:38] Personal presence matters.
[00:29:43] The point being made here is really simple.
[00:29:46] Friends are not optional, they are essential.
[00:29:52] Friends are not just for our enjoyment and fun. As valuable as that is doing stuff together, playing sports together, hanging out together, that's valuable.
[00:30:05] But friends are so much more than that. They're biblically defined. Friendship is so much more than that.
[00:30:13] Friends are an essential part of making it through the hard parts of life.
[00:30:22] The truth is that when we need real help, it is trustworthy friends that show their immense worth to us.
[00:30:33] A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for the good times. That's not what it says. Right?
[00:30:40] A brother which is in parallelism with a friend.
[00:30:48] Okay, that's what it means there. A friend, a friend loves at all times. And a brother is born for adversity.
[00:30:54] A brother is born for adversity.
[00:30:59] Did you know that it was the presence and the advice of a trusted Friend that made all the difference to the apostle Paul when he was discouraged. This is Paul who got up into the third heaven. This is Paul who saw Jesus, the risen Jesus.
[00:31:16] This is Paul who could do miracles and crazy stuff like his napkins, you know, from him could heal people and, you know, stuff that you can't believe were true of Paul in the New Testament. Okay? This is Paul who experienced things that most of us will never experience.
[00:31:34] Okay, who wrote half of the New Testament.
[00:31:40] How does that kind of a guy get encouraged?
[00:31:45] Listen to what it says.
[00:31:48] For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn, fighting without fear within.
[00:31:58] But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, isn't it? That's an amazing verse to me that here, the great apostle Paul. How did God. God didn't send some kind of angelic visitation or something straight down from heaven. The way he encouraged the downcast Paul was by the coming of a friend.
[00:32:25] That's what we're talking about when we call the church a company of friends.
[00:32:32] We meet together one to one. We meet together in small groups. We meet together in organized ways, in casual ways.
[00:32:40] And we speak into each other's lives.
[00:32:43] And we do this because this is the way that God ordinarily helps us. This is the way that God ordinarily speaks to us.
[00:32:54] It is hard to feel the love of God when you're away from the people of God.
[00:33:01] Our close connection to God is tied so closely to our spiritual friendships with others.
[00:33:09] Just being a Sunday attender isn't enough.
[00:33:12] You get lots of good from just being a Sunday attender. But you miss so much of what church is.
[00:33:19] Church is participative.
[00:33:21] It's not just observation.
[00:33:25] I would say in a very real sense, God comes to us through friends.
[00:33:31] God comes to us through friends who carry his love and speak his word into our lives.
[00:33:40] Now notice verse 10 again.
[00:33:44] Do not forsake your friend and your father's friend.
[00:33:51] It's interesting. There's two categories of friends that I want you to make sure that you see this.
[00:33:59] The first is much more obvious.
[00:34:01] Don't forsake your friend.
[00:34:03] Because their earnest counsel in verse nine is so helpful to you in the day of calamity.
[00:34:09] But get the second part.
[00:34:13] The surprise here is part two of that verse. Don't forsake your father's friend.
[00:34:22] What is clearly implied here is that your parents friends will be part of the earnest counsel that will keep you in times of calamity.
[00:34:33] This is such a countercultural thought.
[00:34:39] I remember teaching this years ago in our church when our church plant was just in its infancy and challenging our congregation to start making friendships across generations.
[00:34:51] And they've done that wonderfully. So now 15, 16 years on, I see so many different friendships. I mean, Josh Niniver, you know, half my age. We became very tight friends.
[00:35:08] Do you have any friends that are your parents age?
[00:35:15] You should.
[00:35:17] We all need intergenerational friendships because the different generations all have perspectives that our generation is blind to. And the older guys, hey, it's not just the younger generation that's got blind blindness. We got blindness, okay? We need them to get over our blindnesses.
[00:35:40] Who are your parents most trusted friends?
[00:35:44] This, this thought has never even entered most of your minds.
[00:35:49] Are, are they your friends as well?
[00:35:52] This, this isn't a, a massively neglected truth in this generation.
[00:35:58] I commend this practice to you. I have had close friends that are 20 to 30 years younger than me and close friends that are 20 to 30 years older than me. One of my very best friends is a man who's 89.
[00:36:14] I spend as much time as I can with him. I have learned so much from him, but I've also learned so much from my younger friends.
[00:36:23] My life is so much richer because all my friends are not my age.
[00:36:29] Friends. My friends. My friends are invaluable not only because they speak encouragement, build us through encouragement and build us through correction.
[00:36:44] But they are a unique means of God's wisdom when we go through dark days.
[00:36:52] So let me just give you four concluding reflections and then we'll be done.
[00:37:00] Concluding reflection number one.
[00:37:03] Notice that all of these characteristics involve words, not just actions.
[00:37:12] Listen, you don't have to be an extrovert.
[00:37:16] Some of the best friends I've ever made in my life are introverts.
[00:37:20] In fact, my wife is an off the chart introvert.
[00:37:25] You don't have to be a person of many words, nor do you have to be a person of loud words to be encouraging, wise and provide correcting insights.
[00:37:37] But you do have to speak without speech. Biblical friendship is largely non existence.
[00:37:46] You have to talk in order for this kind of friendship to exist in your life.
[00:37:53] Number two, we need courage to initiate.
[00:38:00] I love the fact that this was a bit of a theme last night. We need courage to initiate these kind of conversations and not just wait around for people to come to us again. If you are more introverted prayerfully, look for two or one or two men that you can encourage.
[00:38:20] If you are extroverted you need to hone in and think about what you're doing rather than just spreading cheer among thousands.
[00:38:32] And I would say the sequence is typically this. Okay, sequencing matters and progress. Proportionality matters a great deal.
[00:38:41] I would say you start with lots of encouragement.
[00:38:45] You want to start to build these kind of friendships. Lots of encouragement. You can never give too much encouragement.
[00:38:53] And then if the relationship grows, offer some advice.
[00:38:58] Some advice.
[00:39:00] And then if mutual trust is built, give correction sparingly. Okay, lots of encouragement, some advice, a little correction. I think that's the right proportion.
[00:39:17] One pastor I know says this well. He says, is the bridge of trust strong enough to bear the weight of the correction that I'm delivering?
[00:39:27] Is the bridge of trust strong enough to bear the weight of the correction that I'm delivering? In other words, if my correction is minor, it's like carrying a small backpack and all I need is a rope bridge of trust to get to the person. But if I'm providing a major correction, well, it's like riding a tank and I'll need a strong steel bridge.
[00:39:51] You need more trust for bigger things. Okay.
[00:39:55] We have to earn the right to be heard, especially when it comes to correction number three.
[00:40:04] The more we have experienced friendship with God, the more we will experience biblical friendship with others. I mean, just read the book of 1 John. It makes that connection over and over again. Though it doesn't use the word friendship. It says you can't love God and not love your brothers.
[00:40:22] Your love of brothers and love of God, they're all tied together.
[00:40:26] The more you are close to, the closer you are to God, the closer you are going to be to others in the church. Your relationship with God matters in a very real sense.
[00:40:40] I believe the church is intended to be a company of friends as biblically defined.
[00:40:46] This is what the one anothers really mean. We're supposed to be encouraging each other, correcting each other, there for each other when we're going through the hard times.
[00:40:55] We are to be a people of friends, a group of friends living under Christ, who rules us by his word and spirit.
[00:41:06] As St. Augustine said it. This way, no one can be truly a friend unless he is first a friend of the truth and then finally.
[00:41:17] If I were to sum up everything I've said to you, this is would be the takeaway I want you to have.
[00:41:24] The litmus test of friendship is simply this.
[00:41:28] Is this relationship depleting or replenishing?
[00:41:33] Is this relationship depleting or replenishing? Listen, if it's depleting, it's not a Friendship, it's a ministry, okay? And by the way, I've got lots of relationships in my life that are depleting relationships, okay? I don't. You don't. We can't back away from depleting relationships. Some of you might be married to a depleting relationship or that person might be married to you and you're the depleter, okay?
[00:42:05] You can't just run away from that, okay?
[00:42:09] But if you, your relationship is depleting, every time you spend time with someone, the battery's just going into the red zone. It's a ministry.
[00:42:19] It's not a friendship.
[00:42:21] But if you are experiencing a spiritually replenishing relationship right now, my friends, I guarantee you this, you are experiencing one of the best gifts that life has to offer, one of the very best things that life has to offer. Biblical friendship.
[00:42:41] Let's pray.
[00:42:55] Father, I imagine that some who are here today, hearing this, are feeling condemned.
[00:43:02] They're feeling like they're the one that's making it hard for others to relate to them. And I pray that you would come to them with special grace.
[00:43:12] Lord, we're about grace. We all, everyone in this room are sinners.
[00:43:17] We've all failed you. We've all failed each other.
[00:43:20] And we need your grace.
[00:43:24] I know for sure that there are men in this room that are very lonely right now.
[00:43:30] They feel fundamentally unknown.
[00:43:34] Nobody really knows them.
[00:43:36] Maybe they're a type A personality with lots of juice and they look like they're supremely confident.
[00:43:44] Maybe they're not.
[00:43:45] But regardless of how they present themselves, Lord, I pray that you come to them and give them hope and encouragement and this one thing, Lord, that you give us the capacity to feel responsible for this. The word responsibility, ability to respond, that we would respond, we would take initiative to start this process that we need to be friends if we're to have friends.
[00:44:17] And just bring the right people into our pathway, Lord, the people that will encourage us, the people that we can encourage, we can start this process.
[00:44:30] And particularly, Father, I pray that we will experience the friendship with you, Bill talked about today so wonderfully that we would experience friendship with you. And our friendships with one another will be the overflow of that.
[00:44:45] We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:44:51] Thank you, everyone.
