Proverbs: Gospel Friendship

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A reading from the Book of Proverbs.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor's house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.

Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda.

Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, I am only joking.

Better is open rebuke than hidden love.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Oil and perfume make the heart glad.

And the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.

Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice rising early in the morning will be counted as a cursing.

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

Whoever rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with his tongue.

A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net before his feet.

The word of the Lord.

Heavenly Father, we come before you now to uh hear you speak directly to our hearts and our minds.

Lord, we just ask that you would reveal Jesus more and more to us, that we would know him more deeply, that we would know him as a friend.

Lord, uh just if there's any distractions on people's minds here, I just pray that they would just be taken away and that they would be just focused on you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Now I don't know if anyone's noticed, but there's new artwork on the walls.

I don't know if you anyone's noticed that.

Um I have a hunch that as soon as you walked into the sanctuary, you noticed it because it's so drastic and we've had the same art up for quite a while now.

So we have new art.

Look at it, look at the descriptions afterwards.

We'll give um, I believe we're gonna give a like an explanation of what the artwork uh resembles, an artist statement afterwards, but just I bet you have art in your mind.

If you didn't, now you do.

And the thing with artwork is that also the people online, sorry, I forgot, I gotta acknowledge you.

There's art on the walls, you can't see it.

That's another good reason to come to church and be in the building.

Anyways, the thing about art is that it is um, it's been said that it is a window into the artist's soul.

That you get to know more about the artist, about the painter, the sculptor, um, the other various artworks that are around here.

You get to know about the artist's soul, their being, because it is said that the artist pours everything out into the artwork.

And I guess also for musicians, they pour when they write music, they pour out their lyrical mind onto the song and they sing it.

But it's also been said, your closest friends are a window into your soul.

We are continuing our service in the book of Pro series in the Book of Proverbs, and we're looking at what it means and looks like to be living wisely by God's design.

And Proverbs is a really good book for this because as you read it, as you digest it and meditate on it, you realize how many topics, how many things in life, the ranges of life that it covers, and it covers it by looking at it at different ways.

It repeats itself over and over again, but just in different ways, as you read through the book.

It is a great book for this, and it's a great book for meditation.

And with art on our minds, we're going to paint a biblical picture of what gospel friendship is found in the book of Proverbs.

And you might be thinking, why do this?

Why think about friendship?

We all have friends, or we hope to have friends.

But the thing of this, gospel friendship is a picture of the true friendship of Jesus through the gospel.

So we need to look at this.

We need to come to terms of what it means to have a gospel friend.

What does that mean?

What is gospel friendship?

What is the biblical picture of what it means to be a friend?

And we're going to view this picture in three ways.

One, what does it look like?

Two, why do we need it?

And three, how do we get it?

I'll say it again.

One, what does it look like?

Two, why do we need it?

And three, how do we get it?

So let's look.

So point one, what does it look like?

And we're gonna look at the first verses found in your bulletin in the Proverbs reading on page three.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Now, the way our culture is today, we have to approach, we have to talk about what it means by love.

The love of a friendship.

When it says here that a friend loves at all times, what does that mean?

See, we're it we instantly think about sexual love.

That's what we think about when we hear love now, or we hear the love of family, but we never consider love as friendship.

It's a very interesting thing to think about if you go into a bookstore, if you look at magazines, most of the time when it talks about love, it's talking about a sexual love.

And that the idea that you can have such a deep, deep love for a friend is so foreign nowadays.

It doesn't exist in a sense.

But the thing with a friendship of love, that it can't, it cannot be a spouse.

You can have friendship with your spouse, a deep friendship, but then there's also the aspect of that you're married together and she's your spouse or he's your spouse.

But at the same time, you can't have a deep, deep friendship love with a family member because they're your family member, and we're gonna look at that in a second, because it talks about in the verse.

See, what's going on here is that friendship love is this kind of love that there's no obligation, there's no other motive towards it.

It is just this love of two people coming together and being joined in a common interest and moving forward through life.

See, the thing with erotic love or sexual love, marriage love, is that the people are facing each other.

They're looking into each other's eyes, talking about their love, thinking about their love.

The thing with family love is that it's obligatory.

You're not, you don't get to choose the family member.

You're born.

They're born into your family, or you're born into the family with them.

But a friendship love is a love that is wholeheartedly outside of itself.

And it's two people walking side by side, shoulder to shoulder, through life in a common interest.

And that's what it means when it talks about here.

A brother is born into adversity.

The thing with the brother, a family member, what it's talking about, is that when you have a family member, they're always gonna be there because there's almost, in a sense, this obligation because they're your family member, they're your brother, your father, your son, is that there is an obligation of the person, but the friend is someone who chooses freely to be there for you, to love you at all times.

And then it continues in the next verse when it says, A man of many companions may come to ruin.

But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

See, it's interesting.

This is talking about in a time when family was the whole thing.

Family mattered so much when this was written.

The whole culture, the whole framework of family was the big thing, was the big thing that led the culture.

If you didn't, if you didn't respect your family, you were consider you considered you brought shame upon your family.

It's interesting that it writes that it elevates friendship in a sense higher than the family.

And the thing is, this kind of friendship it's talking about here is you can't have a lot of it.

You can't have lots of companions of this deep, deep friendship.

This friendship is a kind of friendship that is so rare, so, so rare, most people don't have it.

And that's what we're looking at here.

That's what we're looking at, gospel friendship.

So, friendships, our culture doesn't like them, doesn't even, doesn't consider them because it's almost a secondary thought.

The thought most of the time is thinking about work and it's thinking about family obligations and how to do that.

And friendship almost becomes on the side.

Lewis, C.

S.

Lewis, in his famous book, The Four Loves, has an amazing essay on friendship.

I almost thought about just reading that essay for the sermon today because he does such a great job.

But he has this illustration when he's talking about this deep friendship that people can have, is that he's talking about his own group of friends.

Um they were called the Inklings, other people called them other names, but they're famous for being called the Inklings.

And the thing that he reflects on with this group of friends is that when they were together, you would only get, if someone laughed in the group, the other person would react a certain way, only the way they would react was from that friend.

If that friend wasn't there, the way they reacted would be completely different.

So when you have this close, close group of friends, you get to experience different ways that people react.

You get to see the true self by the friends bringing out the other people, the other people's personalities by the friends.

And if you don't have that close, close friendship, it's not gonna happen.

That's what he goes on to talk about.

Friends like this are so rare.

If you have lots of companions, you won't have it.

Now, why is that?

It's because a friend will critique you and a friend will be very honest with you.

And but if you can't have a lot of it, and you'll come to ruin.

But just one friend will stick closer to you than a brother, this kind of friendship.

Now, when you read the word sticks here in the verse 1824, sticks closer than a brother.

That word in the Hebrew means cleave.

It's the same word you found in Genesis, where the man leaves his family and cleaves to his wife.

That's what it's talking about here.

The friend will cleave to you.

It is such a deep friendship that is so rare to find.

Now you might be thinking, or the next part we're gonna look at, what does it not look like?

Well, let's look at the verses.

So we're gonna look at uh verse 25, 17, 20, 26, 18 to 19, and 27 to 14.

And I'll just read it to you if you just want to listen.

Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor's house, lest he has his fill of you and hate you.

Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda, like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows and death, is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, I am only joking.

Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as a counted as cursing.

Now, what it's talking about here is that the first part, when it says, Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor's house, it's talking about basically the classic saying, Don't wear out your welcome.

That this kind of friendship isn't a friendship that meets all the time, is because they'll get sick of each other.

So that's what it's talking about here, and then it continues on, and it talks about, gives three examples about how to how to read the room in a sense, to read your friends' emotions.

And it gives the examples of whoever sings songs to a heavy heart.

So let's say someone who's grieving and you start singing a song about joy to them, and the next whoever takes off a garment on a cold day is is like freezing.

And then the clo at the end there it says vinegar on soda.

We can all think about when we were kids and we did the science experiments where you put the vinegar on bacon soda and you make a volcano.

That's what it's kind of like.

It bubbles up this idea.

And then the next part it talks about giving blessings early in the morning.

That's just knowing your friends so well, you know their personality, if they're a morning person or not a morning person.

I instantly thought about when people mow their lawns before 8 a.m.

So you might be thinking, are you saying this isn't possible with non-Christian friends?

You might be thinking, well, I have many good non-Christian friends.

Well, let's see what the text says next.

Point two, why do we need it?

Better is open rebuke than hidden love.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Oil and perfume makes the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

Whoever rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with his tongue.

A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.

Now to understand these verses, we have to remember chapter one of Proverbs, verse 7.

And this is always important to remember this verse as you read through Proverbs.

And that's why I, every time I preach, I remind you of this verse.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

So you still might be thinking, well, Matt, you haven't answered yet.

Can I have this kind of friendship with a very close friendship with the non-Christian?

And just to give an example, you can have extremely close friendships with non-Christians.

The best man my wedding was not a Christian.

And I'm still very, very close to him.

We, I've known him since I believe I was 12, and we are very close, and every time we see each other, it's just like nothing has changed, no time has passed.

We are very close.

So you can have very close friendships with people who don't know the Lord.

But the thing with this kind of friendship, the gospel friendship, is that just you have to remember that friends, when you meet them, this kind of friendship, it's almost you give this, Lewis gives this explanation of that.

When you meet them, you almost like you think, what you two?

I thought I was the only one.

You think that in your mind.

And you have to not forget that what I said at the beginning, your closest friends are a window into your soul.

Now, what do I mean by this?

A non-Christian can never sharpen you to fear the Lord.

And what I mean by this is that you can have close, close friends, just like I have a very close friend that's not a believer, but he'll never sharpen me to fear the Lord.

He'll never point me to the gospel, to Jesus.

We have a common interest in rock climbing, and we'll always rock climb together.

We'll always talk about the past and things we've done together, but he's never gonna point me to the Lord, to the gospel.

But here's the thing: you can have close Christian friends, but here's the thing, they won't do the thing a gospel friendship will do with to you.

Because they'll be exactly like you and they'll never critique you.

I don't know if you caught the verses that I read here that it talks about iron sharp sharpening iron, that a rebuke of a friend is the aroma, it's sweet.

Now, why is that?

The reason it's like that is because with the gospel, the thing that's so unique about the gospel is that we are unified in Jesus.

We're not unified in anything else.

You can we can be from different cultures, from different sides of the world.

We can be rich or poor.

You can be you can have a PhD and you can be gospel friendship with a like a person who has a high school education.

You can be a CEO and a farmer.

The thing that you're unified in is Jesus.

That's what brings you together.

That's what creates this gospel friendship.

The thing about it is that we can have friends, this kind of this kind of friendship, that is so the person is so different from us, but we're unified in Christ.

But that person will get on your nerves, that person will critique you, and that person will sharpen you in a way that's better, that will make you more and more like Christ.

Now, if we look at the text that we read, better is open rebuke than hidden love.

That's talking about that it is better to be honest with your friend and not hide what you're actually thinking in your heart and not tell them.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Again, it's talking about critiquing the friend, being open and honest with your friend.

Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

The thing with iron, especially back then, is that they have to use iron to sharpen it.

So the thing that the way that we can take this out and apply it to our own lives is that we need somebody in our life who believes the Bible because we believe the Bible.

And that is how they'll sharpen it, because it's the same material that will be sharpening us.

They'll hold you to account with the Bible and not just some other way of thinking.

See, no other religion teaches this.

The secular culture doesn't teach this.

Everything else teaches that you must look more and more like this to be accepted into this idea.

But the Christian teaching is that you can be so different, so so different from each from the other person, but you're unified in Christ.

That Christ is in you, the Spirit is in you.

Christianity is the only faith tradition that teaches this.

Everything else finds truth in its own reasoning.

There's great, great wisdom in this when we reflect on it.

That gospel friendship is this deep, deep friendship of being unified in Jesus and in nothing else.

Those are all secondary things.

It's in a sense when you build a house, you have to make a strong foundation.

It has to be so level, strong, to be able to bear all the other weight on top of it.

And that's the idea here is that you are your foundation is built on Jesus and things are built off of it.

That is gospel friendship.

It is honest and it is transparent.

See, we live in a culture where friends are dispensable because work is more important.

Things are elevated above the friendship.

Even if you look at in one of the texts, in the 2 Timothy text, I know it says 1 Timothy in the bulletin, but it's actually 2 Timothy.

Paul is at the end of his life.

He's ran his race, he's done all his missionary travels, he's reflecting on his life, and he's writing to Timothy.

And he's talking about get Mark and bring him with you, for he's very useful to me for ministry.

Now, the thing that's really interesting about this is that in Acts, Luke records a time when Paul didn't want Mark to be with him because Mark backed out of doing a missionary journey with him.

And now you see here at the end of Paul's life, he refers to Mark as being very useful for his ministry.

See, there's forgiveness in this.

We live in a time when you can just dispense friends and then get new friends.

But the thing with gospel friendship is that there's deep, deep forgiveness that comes.

When you read the epistles, I would encourage you to read Acts at the same time.

Because so many of the things that Paul writes about in his epistles happen in Acts, and you can link the New Testament together, and it makes it come more alive.

So, how do we get it?

Point three, how do we get this gospel friendship?

And you might be thinking right now that I've had Christian friends, but they've failed me.

They've hurt me and I don't trust them anymore.

And you might be also thinking, I don't trust church that much either.

And I know people who don't want to go to church anymore because they've been hurt.

When I was 20, because I came to faith when I was 18, when I was 20, there was a time when I was involved in this ministry group, and they asked me to take a lead role in the ministry.

And I didn't feel up to the task at the time, so I turned it down.

And these people I consider them very deep friends of mine.

And they actually just stopped talking to me because I turned it down, and it hurt me deeply.

And I ended up leaving the church for many years.

There's we have people who hurt us in our lives, and sometimes they're Christian, and sometimes they're not, and sometimes it's the church that hurts us.

And there's no excuse for it.

But at times there's also, if we're honest with ourselves, we also have a part to play in it.

But the best thing we can do is to stay in church.

If that means leaving the church for the people who hurt you and go into a different church, stay in a gospel church.

Stay in the church because it's the best thing you can always do.

Because the thing is, it teaches this in Genesis: man always fails, but God will never fail you.

If we look at the gospel text that we just read, that we just looked at, Jesus is talking to his disciples.

He's at the end of his ministry, it's the night of his betrayal, and he's talking to his disciples.

It's the night he knows he's going to be betrayed in a couple hours, and he's talking to his friends, his closest friends here.

Then he says, Greater love has no one, greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing.

But I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you.

You did not choose me, but I chose you.

See, this is hours before he's betrayed with a kiss.

And I don't know if you notice in the text it says, it said, profuse are the kisses from an enemy.

And then he's abandoned by his closest friends.

Why does that happen?

It happens for you.

It happens for me.

They abandoned him until they saw him himself resurrected, and then they followed him to death.

See, the thing about the gospel, that it is a giving up of yourself to become your truest self, and that is a child of God.

And the other thing about the gospel is this Jesus is the truest friend you can have.

Because he loves you so much that he gave up his life for you.

Jesus loves you so much that he corrects you by his word.

Jesus loves you so much that you could he knows your deepest pain and sorrow.

And he says, Come to me all who are wary and find rest.

Gospel friendship is a picture of the true friendship of Jesus through the gospel.

I'll say it again.

Gospel friendship is a picture of the true friendship of Jesus through the gospel.

See, we are called to be friends that show Jesus to one another.

That we correct each other, that we are transparent with each other.

And that is a very rare thing, and it's a very rare thing to find in a person.

That there is no other motive.

There's just a motive of bringing the gospel to bear on each other's lives, on each other's hearts.

See, we're called to show Jesus.

We're called to be friends in that way where we lay down our lives for one another.

But like any good piece of art, it's built upon many strokes and many hours and many mistakes.

But it always starts with the gospel.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, give you thanks and praise that you have created these unique friendships that we can have, these gospel friendships.

Lord, um I just pray now that you would give us each someone in our lives that is so close to us, so dear to us, that they will correct us, that they will be transparent with us, and we can be transparent with them.

But above all, Lord, I pray that Jesus more and more would become our closest friend, our closest companion, one that we know is always with us and will walk through us with us through great joy and great trials and suffering.

And I thank you for the cross.

And I pray it's in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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God bless you and keep you today and every day.