Biblical Friendship - Proverbs

We are going through our sermon series in the book of Proverbs.

It's an interesting book. It is not a narrative or

historical book. It really is a book that is a

collection of wisdom that can be categorized as you read through

the entire thing. So we're really going through

the book in a series of themes within the theme Instructions

for Your Life, which really is what the Proverbs offer us here

is wisdom and guidance and instruction for the way that you

can live your life according to God's perfect design.

And we've been looking at all of the different ways that wisdom

calls us to live by God's design.

Last week we looked at the call to live in the truth of God's

design, and this week we're going to look in a very specific

way of something that is a theme of the Bible, and yet it is

sometimes a forgotten theme or a lower priority than many of the

other ways that we look for the Bible to instruct us.

In fact, as we think about instructions for life, things to

live your life by, that will bless you, that will make your

world and the world that God calls you to a better place.

There are so many proverb themes that you can think of that we

hope to cover. I just went through some of

them. As you, as you think about the

problem of the world, what could proverbs help you with?

And proverbs speak to some of the problems that are just right

here in our face. So it's like the breakdown of

the family structure. And there's all sorts of wisdom

for that, that we can look at. We're going to talk about that

as we go. How about the political tension

that we live in? There are proverbs for that on

how to honor the king and live in his Kingdom.

Unhealthy appetites. That's one of the problems of

the world. I, as you know I just got back

from vacation and I'm looking to the Proverbs for instructions on

how to correct unhealthy appetites And and that's

certainly something that we could look to and say thank you

God for your wisdom on how to live with all of our unhealthy

appetites curbed to a better life.

Greed and exploitation imbalance scales and the way that we can

be dishonoring with money. That's a problem of the world

that all of us have to live with.

The results of that going awry sexual perversion we just came

out of the month of June. That's a problem in our world.

And yet in all of those, as we survey the world and we look for

God's word to give us truth to live by for answers to bless us,

there is one that is a major problem in the world that we

live in that affects your everyday life.

And yet it is sometimes the last thing we think about, and that

is what we just sang. And that is the topic of

friendship. How to be, how to receive, and

how to live in what the Bible calls a friendship with God and

others. An incredible topic that will

bless your life. That the book of Proverbs as you

read it, with this lens in mind, is full of wisdom about so many

things about the Proverbs are teaching you how to be a God

honoring friend. And yet, when you think about

what's wrong with our world, friendship is sometimes the last

thing we think about. Maybe one of the reasons is so

many feel like we have friends. You look at your friend count on

the Internet. You've got thousands of friends

and yet you don't know any of them.

And what we do today is an exercise in knowing God as a

friend and knowing one another as friends.

And so today we are going to talk about what the Bible gives

us Wisdom and instruction for life in the category of

friendship. Welcome to one of the lesser

preached upon topics in the Bible.

It will not show up in a major holiday.

There's not a lot of movies or pop songs about how awesome

friends are. And yet if you receive this and

it really is something that you grasp and live by, the Bible

says this is a key to how to have a blessed life is how to be

a friend. So we start in Proverbs chapter

Proverbs 27 · chapter mention

27. There will be a lot of Proverbs

that we survey in the category of friendship, but chapter 27 is

full of wise sayings about how to be a friend or or the

benefits of friendship. And so we start in Proverbs

Proverbs 27:17

chapter 27, verse 17, just to set the table.

It says as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the

countenance of his friends. So the picture is a blacksmith

picture, probably over the head of many of us today, unless

you've spent time on YouTube watching the art of sharpening a

piece of iron or molding a piece of metal.

But often times it's metal on metal that will shape it.

And so it is in the design of humans.

God wants to shape your life, design your life, bring a

blessing into your life. Not simply by knowing him

personally, which is one of the major ways he does that, but

also by bringing people into your life that can sharpen you

and bless you, and you would have the same effect in their

life. And that's why this Proverbs

puts all of this into the category of friendship.

This is what friendship is supposed to offer you.

The the way that your life will be molded into the design of

God, like a blacksmith molds a piece of iron into the design he

seeks. Is your design by God through

friendship? And so we're going to look at

the survey of Proverbs in four different ways that it covers

how important it is for us to receive these wise sayings about

friendship. First, we'll look at the Beauty

of Friendship. What makes friendship so

beautiful? And it is a different kind of

relationship than husband and wife or father and son, mother,

daughter. Friendship is a unique beauty to

it, as we'll see as we look at a few of these proverbs.

Then we'll look at the beginning of the friendship $1,000,000

question in our time. How do you actually make

friends? What is something that you can

do in pursuit of friendship that will take someone from maybe you

know them, or they're an acquaintance, or you shook their

hand at a meet and greet recently and now you actually

have become friends? So look at the beginning of

friendship, and then we'll really focus on the benefit of

friendship. Why is it that we would spend an

entire Sunday talking about a relationship that is so specific

as a friend? Because the Bible talks about

all the ways that it is actually part of God's design for you to

be blessed. And then finally, we'll talk

about your very best friend. And so I actually did a meet and

greet right over here. We're like besties.

And so you have maybe someone in mind that is your picture of

friendship. So we have the we have the

beauty of friendship, the beginning of friendship, the

benefits, and then the best friend that you can possibly

have. So let's look at the beauty of

friendship. What makes friendship so

beautiful? This one stood out to me because

it speaks both to friendship and brotherhood, which I'm a part

of. It says in Proverbs chapter 8,

Proverbs 8:24

verse 24, and we'll put it on the screen so you don't have to

scan, but you're welcome to. It says a man who has friends

must himself be friendly, but there is a friend that sticks

closer than a brother. What is this getting at?

It means that you can have a relationship in your life

between you and a friend that is more intimate and more long

lasting than family, which is the base of all guaranteed

relationships by God. He gives everyone of us a

family, for better or worse. And the Bible says there's

actually a possibility that we, a relationship, could go beyond

family. Now that's worth listening to

now, because we all have reference points of very

faithful people in our life that were because of our DNA.

But it's especially important to listen to in this time when

family and patriarchy and your tribe was the most elevated

relationship that you could think of.

The the the proverb writer comes in and says, but there's someone

even more committed to your life than a brother.

Why is that? It says in Proverbs chapter 17,

Proverbs 17:17

verse 17, maybe the beginning of this answer.

It says a friend loves it all time, but a brother is born for

adversity. This is getting to something.

A friend, a true friend in your life is with you always.

Family is with you when stuff gets hard.

And you know that if you go through the funeral, what comes

around you is the family. May not have seen that family

member for 10 years, but when things get really hard in your

life, God gives you DNA family to say we are in this together

for better or worse. Or if you're my sister reading

this, you could say a brother's born for adversity.

They're meant to just annoy you all the time and bring adversity

into your life. I actually was swimming with my

sister yesterday and she says I think this is the first time

we've hung out in the pool where you have not tried to

specifically get me wet. And so I took that as a

challenge. Your family has to be there for

you. Your friend gets to choose to be

there for you. Your friend is someone that is

there regardless of good times or bad.

In other words, your family loves you.

Your friends actually like you here.

Here's how one commentator puts it.

He says friendship is not a biological necessity, It is the

only love. Because love does exist between

friends. That is absolutely deliberate.

It will not push itself upon you.

Friendship is beautiful because friendship is this choice to

love you or or to be in a loving relationship that has nothing to

do with any other biological necessity.

Your family is biologically. There is a necessity to keep the

kin strong that God designs in the tribe and the romantic love.

There's an necessity. There's an urge to be

romantically in love the the mother to child love.

There is a necessity of biology to it that requires you to lay

down your life for your children and yet for the people in your

life that have become friends that are there for you at all

times. There is a beauty in it because

they have chosen you amongst everyone else.

And God wants that picture to be rich in our mind, not just

through imagery but through our relationship so that we can

understand His love better for us.

It is a deliberate, non biological love that we find in

friendship. So there is beauty in the choice

in the matter. And now we talk about the

beginning of friendship. How do you answer that

$1,000,000 question? I think it's an important

question even for the city that we live in.

As you go through the list of things you're looking for in a

new city, a new place, a new church, if you're with us, it's

like I got to find a neighborhood and a job.

And then very quickly that you will learn if you're really

going to belong somewhere, if you're going to belong in a city

or a neighborhood or in a church.

The difference between you visiting and being a transit

passer buyer and you having some roots is the relationships that

you have made while you're there.

In fact, for those of you who call this church family home, I

would venture to offer you the the idea that you are here

specifically by God's design and you stay here primarily not

because the the teaching and the power of the word of God.

We hope that's true, but you can find good teaching anywhere and

in the internet's full of better teachers than I am.

The music, I hope, is rich and full of an invitation, the

presence of God requirement for you to call a church family

home. But what is absolutely necessary

for you to belong somewhere is for you to know that week by

week and moment by moment and season by season, you are

growing with someone in your life that is also part of that

community. That is the difference.

That's why people choose to be anywhere is where God has

planted them, where they can be in relationship with people.

It's $1,000,000 question. How do you make a friend?

So for those of you who have friends, you can practice these

things and making better friends.

And for those of you who are in that season of hey, how do I

find my footing? Here are some practical wisdoms

and instructions for your life. Proverbs 18, verse 24.

Proverbs 18:24

Again, we'll put it up for you. We already read it.

A man who has friends must himself be friendly.

A beautiful concept. It is in some sense the concept

of reaping what you sow and the proverb says, which is is just

patently true of the way that you have made friends.

To be a friend or to make a friend, you have to be a friend.

Friendship is a mutual venture and you have to be willing to to

believe in friendship. You have to be willing to

believe in a relationship that is a benefit for you to have

with someone else. You have to be friendly and

maybe we speak a little vision. And I never want, I never want

the the tiny little meet and greet to to have too much

theology packed into it. Because I want all of you to

come to church. And if you need to just sit

through that and and be alone during that time, by all means.

You don't have to come to church and learn how to be an

extrovert. But the tiny theology in that is

we want to model, practice, and exercise friendliness with one

another. We want every person in this

sanctuary to come with an exercise in the theology that

friendship is a is a key to your life, and friendship begins with

an effort of friendliness. And so the beginning of

friendship is you yourself, learning and accepting the call

of God to be kind. And I almost wanted to go

through, as we often do with other relationships coming

together, specifically in marriage, and read the manifesto

on great relationship habits in First Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

And it it inserts all of the ways that love is a verb and

acts. Love is patient.

Love is kind, Love is long-suffering.

You could also insert friendliness is all of those

things. It is just good to act out love.

And if you do that, you know what people think about you.

They'll think you're friendly. They'll think you are an

outgoing and kind person. And I am.

I'm grateful that because of the grace of God in our city, we are

still a city that is known in a lot of ways as a friendly city.

May that be a reputation of the church.

May the church and the people of God in our city have a

reputation of friendliness. And you know what will happen?

We will make friends and when when the pastor says or the

flyer says or the the Holy Spirit hopefully says, you know

you should really send this message to a friend or you

should invite a friend to church, you will actually have

people in your life that you have exercise friendliness with

that that would apply to. So proverb says one of the ways

to make friends is to be a friendly person.

It goes on to say this, and I think this is a really important

aspect of also some of the ways that the Church does what it

does. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse

Proverbs 27 · chapter mention

nine. Here's some more essence of the

beginning of friendship. It says ointment and perfume,

delight the heart and the sweetness of a man's friend

gives delight by hearty counsel. There's a relationship that is

forming that is then likened to something.

This is Hebrew poetry. It's paralleling friendship to

something else. And what is it parallel to it?

It says ointment and perfume, the light, the heart.

Now here's the interesting thing and and like all proverbs, it

takes time to think about what it's getting at.

They are enigmas or riddles that you have to kind of unpack in

your mind. So feel free to do that with all

of the proverbs as we go through them.

I've had a little more time to do that and here's something

that stands out to me, the word delight and sweetness, which is

the parallel of the two. There is a delight that is found

in a sweet smelling aroma that is a joy to the heart that can

be likened to friendship and the sweetness that it offers.

And what is delight other than a common interest there is.

If there is a sweet smelling aroma when we walk into the room

we both get to enjoy it. It is something other than us

that in that that lightens the heart with the light and this is

a key to friendship that makes it again different than other

relationships. There is a common delight

amongst friends. There is something more than

just friendship itself. There is something that your

friendship actually stands on. And this concept comes maybe

best through the CS Lewis essay on friendship that expounds the

four loves. And this is a beautiful concept

for when you think about your beginning of friendship with

someone or how you make friendship, he says.

Friendship is born at the moment, one person says to

another. Wait, you too.

I thought I was the only one. You were the only one who loved

this specific show or book or hobby or interest.

And then you find someone who sees the same delight that you

see. And you say, I love it too and

you love it and we can love it together.

And Lewis says this is different than the romantic love, romantic

love. How does romantic love start?

Just look at, you know the, you know, I hate to say it, but the

junior hires as they're learning how to be goggly eyed.

Romantic love start by saying I like you and the other person

says I like you too. And then the the poetry is all

about liking each other and then they just stare at each other

and still like me. Yep, I still like you too.

We like each other. Let's tell everyone we like each

other. We like each other.

That's romantic. The beginning of romantic love

is when you like someone else and they like you back.

And Lewis says romantic love stares face to face.

Friends stand shoulder to shoulder.

They're going somewhere together.

And so this is, this is where the Proverbs have to expound

upon your life. In other words, you have to be

friendly, and you also have to be someone who has interest in

your life. If you're interested to make

friends, you'll never make them. You'll be the most annoying

person ever. Are we friends yet?

Are we still friends? I see you're friends with other

people. Does that mean we're not

friends? Friendship has to go somewhere

together. So Lewis goes on to say this

this the very condition of having friends is that we should

want something else besides friends.

Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same

truth would be I see nothing. And I don't care about truth.

I just want to be friends. No friendship can arise.

There would be nothing for the friendship to be about, and

friendship must be about something, even if it's a

enthusiasm for Domino's or mice. Those who have nothing can share

nothing. Those who are going nowhere can

have no fellow travelers. You must be friendly and your

life must have a direction. Your life must be pointed in a

certain way, and once again, we view the entire category of

friendship as a better way for us to understand who God

designed us to be. In friendship, you expose

yourself to the reality of where your life is going, and your

friends follow and you follow them.

And so if you think about the beginning of friendship, you

also better think about what it is your life is pointed to,

because that will point you to your friends.

And I think the benefit of friendship, and we'll look at

four. Of course the the the Bible is a

survey in so many ways about the relationship that God calls us

to in friendship. So this is not an exhaustive

list, but there are great blessings to receive the

invitation of biblical friendship today and say this is

the fruit that you will bear. This is what a friend will bring

into your life. That will be different than the

romantic relationships or the parental relationships or the

acquaintances of your life. And so we look again at Proverbs

Proverbs 17 · chapter mention

chapter 17. A friend loves at all times.

In friendship you are given the reflection of God's love that is

absolutely constant. In other words, the idea of a

fair weather friend or a friend that is only around when they

need something from you or only around when things are great is

no friend at all. This does not mean when it says

a friend loves at all times. This does not mean we are going

back in time to when friendship meant that you talked on the

phone all the time, every single day, and you took every class

together in school and you rode the bus together and you join

the same sports team. And the initial wave of

friendship really did measure itself by doing every single

thing together. Always.

That is not biblical friendship, and I and I preface that or I

qualify that with a warning from the Proverbs lest we think that

a friend loves it all times and now we just need to saturate

ourselves with one or two people.

Listen to this in Proverbs Chapter 25.

Proverbs 25 · chapter mention

Seldom set, seldom set foot in your neighbor's house lest they

become weary of you and hate you.

So let's keep that in mind as we blow up the few people in our

life that we could see constant love from and say, you know, I'm

going to need to hear from you every day.

The Proverbs also give us beautiful wisdom about not

wearing each other out. Growing up in the 90s, I thought

of that neighbor, Steve Urkel, who would just come in in every

episode and annoy the entire family.

And I'm like, okay, thank you Proverbs.

May none of us be the kind of friends that actually chase

friends away. You can only take so much of

people at all times, means through thickened thing, through

good times and through bad. That the same vows that we can

go through in First Corinthians 13 between a man and woman.

You have a few intimate people with you in your life that God

wants to journey with in the good and the bad in a covenant

type relationship called friendship.

So you have constant love. The second benefit of friendship

is that you also have someone in your life that can give you

timely comfort. Meaning they know you and they

get you. They they, they have spent

enough time with you and you guys have exchanged enough life

together that you have someone in your life that is able to

understand what you need when you need it, which is also very

important according to the Proverbs.

Look what the Proverbs say. About the opposite of this, he

who blesses his friend with a loud voice rising early in the

morning, it will be counted to him a curse.

In other words, a friend knows how and when to bless you.

It is not friendly to burst open the door and just start singing.

This is the day that the Lord has made some parents.

Some of you need to repent of that from this proverb.

Certainly we can go back to a brother being born for

adversity, just rising early and doing everything with a joyful

spirit. And the sister that I grew up

with was not a morning person, so I didn't care about that.

It's like, hey, I'm happy, you got to be happy.

A friend will know when you're sad, and a friend will actually,

by the power of the Holy Spirit through this thing called

compassion, will join you in your sadness.

A friend will know when you are tired and will know how to

support you in your tiredness, and they will know the timing of

the comfort that they bring. I've heard it once said that a

parent and I, and I feel this, a parent can only be as happy as

their most lonely or sad child. So if you're a parent and your

child is sad, good luck enjoying your day.

If you're a parent and your child is sick, good luck just

moving on with your day. You have to go right down to

their level and that is a biological and godgiven duty of

a parent. And what can be said of the

timely comfort of a friend is a friend knows how to do this, and

they do it deliberately, and they do it because they long for

you to be comforted. The friend is the person in your

life that can only be as happy as you are sad.

And they do it because God has called them to stick with you

through thick and thin. A friend loves it all times and

a friend knows how to comfort you in the perfect way.

And Biblical friendship, just like all things Biblical, bring

the perfect balance to the way any pendulum could swing one too

far in One Direction. Friendship is not all about

comforting someone either. Friendship also as a benefit of

the friendship, is also the person in your life that can

speak into your life in uncomfortable ways.

So not the only does it bring timely comfort, but it also

brings those truthful conversations.

Look what it says in Proverbs chapter 27 verses 5 and six.

Proverbs 27:5

Open rebuke is better than love. Carefully concealed faithful are

the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are

deceitful. Now here we have again a Riddle

in the form of a proverb. We have two things that seem

paradoxical, wounds from friends and kisses from enemies.

But what is the proverb saying? The friend is someone who can

actually, in a way, bring that hard and sometimes painful

truth. And it's a faithful wound.

It's something that may open up your heart to to a correction or

even some healing that has to sometimes hurt.

And God brings friends into your life because sometimes, have you

ever noticed you don't necessarily want to listen to

your parents, and sometimes your brother or your sister or even

your own spouse? You're so close intimately with

them that it is hard to listen to their counsel.

And so God brings the relationships of friends to say,

I am going to be in the person in your life who will walk

through the truth even when it hurts.

And This is why we have a desperate need for friends,

because the truth will at times hurt us there.

When we are being called into repentance and into areas of

correction, sometimes God's truth comes into our hearts like

a medicine or a surgery, and we need someone to not only deliver

it, but to be there with with us while we go through the healing

process of truth. And then it says that the kisses

of an enemy are deceitful when when love you can say it's

hidden, love is concealed. I'm I I would rather I love this

person so much that I can't even say.

I don't want to tell them what's what their actions are really

doing in in regards to their marriage or in guards, their

parenting. I don't want to really tell them

what it's like and the effects that are going to be longterm

from the decisions are made because I love them.

So I'm just going to hide all of the rebuke that is actually not

loving the friend you know who you're loving in that situation.

You're loving yourself. You're you're saying, I don't

want to walk through the wounds. I don't want to go down the road

of truth in love. That is going to open up a can

of tears. So in the name of love, I am

going to hide all of those things and conceal those things.

And you're actually saying I'm not the kind of person who wants

to walk through difficult things with people.

And if you want someone to flatter you, enemies can do

that. Judas can give the kiss of an

enemy, and friends can flatter other people.

Flattery is a dime of dozen. You do not need friends to give

you the flattering kiss. It is deceitful.

You actually need friends in your life.

You need people in your life that are willing to tell you the

truth and say I will love you at all times.

And finally, as this grows into the truth in love, it also turns

into what all of us need in every way that we can get it.

The wisdom from above that comes through the reading of the Word

and the preaching of the Word and the wise counsel of friends.

We have trustworthy counsel. Proverbs, chapter 27 verses 9,

Proverbs 27:9

verse nine, which we already read.

Ointment and perfume. Delight, the heart and the

sweetness of a man's friends gives what delight by counsel.

If you are someone who does not need counsel in your life, then

you are someone who is not fully understood.

The complexity of the life that you live in.

Life is full of mystery and questions and decisions, and the

word is full of through the book of Proverbs and the Proverbs

right into the New Testament. James, you're going to need

wisdom. Make sure that you ask, And when

you ask for wisdom, make sure that you're aware of all the

ways that God will deliver it to you.

And one of the ways it says is that you will have delight by

the counsel of the friends that God gives you.

It goes on to say Proverbs 13, he who walks with wise men will

be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.

You know, we, we, we are such an individual culture.

We can tend to be individual Christians, and if we're not

careful, we can come to church and leave.

And we don't exchange one heartfelt relationship moment

with people because as long as you've sung the songs and as

long as you're growing in theology, you're going to,

you're going to grow and know God.

And that's all we need. And that's the beginning.

But that's not the end, because it's very clear you are who you

hang with when you leave here. None of you are going to go

right into isolation. And if you if you are, that's an

entire other sermon about your need for relationships.

But the idea that we are whoever we want to be and we make

ourselves however we set out to be, is not true.

I've heard it said that in your early stages of development, you

are who your family makes you. Your family is where you live,

and the school you go to is directly correlated to where

your family lives and your friends are typically people who

live around your family. But then the rest of your life

is who your friends are. You walk with wise people, You

will walk in wisdom, you walk with fools and you will be

destroyed. So the benefit of friendship is

that you can actually surround yourself with wise people that

are going the same direction, and you can have people that

care about you enough through thick and thin to offer you

truth and counsel and point you towards the path of wisdom.

In other words, this entire study on instructions for life

is not meant to be lived out alone.

And so this is the part of the sermon where we think about

practical application. And of course there's all sorts

of ways that I that I hope this church and all churches that are

interested in what what the word is saying about this, try to

offer some sort of vessel for your friendship to grow in.

And so I can share some of them with you.

Now of course we have what I think is a great friendship

tool, a way to gather with believers that will come from

all walks of life to study the word common interest, to go a

certain direction towards the glory in the mission of God, and

to counsel one another in love. And that is through what we do

in our Calvary communities. So I as I thought about one of

the applications, I thought Kirku is in Europe right now,

This would have been ready made for him to preach and invite all

of you to the upcoming August kickoff of Calvary communities.

If you're not in the community, think about it.

If this message is stirring in you a desire for friendship,

think about a community. If you are in one, share the

beautiful joy of not only knowing the Bible together, but

join in friendship together other practical ways.

I just If you came to the beginning of the service,

there's a game night coming up small.

Go find a game to play with a fellow believer and break out of

this mold of the individual culture and see what happens if

you add 1 friend to your life and then the most immediate

thing and your bulletins. I think it says 6630, But

tomorrow at 6:00, if you're a a man of our church, we have a

group of men who are always desiring to cultivate new

friendship and grow in friendship with one another

every other Monday. So tomorrow at 6:00 PM in our

old thrift store building 500, there is a men's meet up where

you can meet other men and have this foundation of God's word as

a common direction. Meet someone you've never met.

And you know it's weird. You'll meet someone.

You'll be like, I had no idea that you were my neighbor.

And we've been going to church for 10 years together.

I had no idea that we work together in the same, you know,

the same complex, the same area. You meet someone through one

introduction, and God can turn that into a beautiful

friendship. So tomorrow at 6:00 PM, right

over there. And our friend of all, Tom

Velasco, will be sharing. So, man, if you've never gone,

this is a great chance to go. And then of course, I I think

what a church can do is 1 aspect of finding and cultivating

friendship. But be an intentional person in

your life. To step out of your routine and

be a friend, That's just a something that's stirring from

the word this morning is are God's people in this city known

as friends? We can be known as so many

things to the city that God has places in.

We can be known as political people.

We can be known as passionate for the homeschool community.

We can be known as people who love to get together and learn

about the Bible. We can also be known as people

who value and cherish friendship.

So let all of those things point you towards friendship.

And now we end with what ultimately the source of

anything good and the source of whatever God is teaching us

always points back to the heart that he has for us to know where

anything good comes from. And that is this message of

friendship that is found as we sang the song through our Savior

last week we we shared a message on truth.

And and we quoted Jesus when he said I'm the way, the truth and

the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.

And it was interesting because after that I had conversation

with people who just had questions.

What about all of these other world views and religions and

saviors and good teachers, good questions?

I think something to add to the invitation that Jesus has to

know him as the way to live and the truth of all of created

reality and the access to the Father in heaven is who he wants

to be in your life. When we sing praises to Jesus,

when we cry upon his name for salvation or we we use his name

in our prayers, this is not a religious act.

This is not simply something that we do because our

particular version of version of religion is Jesus.

This is something that we do because on the very last moment

that Jesus had with his disciples, he framed the entire

gospel message in a relationship so intimate that he called it

friendship. Look what he says in John

John 15 · chapter mention

chapter 15. He says this is my commandment.

This is everything that Jesus commands us to do, that you

would love one another. You want to live for Jesus.

You want to know Jesus, know his commandment, love one another?

And how does he give a description of what his love

looks like? He says 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.

So we think about the message of salvation, knowing that God so

loved the world that he sent his Son to die on the cross for the

sin of sinners, which means the whole world, that whoever admits

their sin, confesses their sin could be cleansed and forgiven.

And he puts that whole motivation into the category of

a desire for his disciples to now know him as the ultimate

friend. But which is why we have to

understand friendship. He is the ultimate beautiful

relationship in your life, the one that is not biological, that

is not required, but is compelled completely by a love

and a choice for you. He is the ultimate reason to

know that the foundation of friendship.

When we think about all the benefits of friendship, we find

them ultimately in Christ. And if you hear this message

like me, just thinking about these proverbs, I read this and

I think I have a longing for friendship and I have a

conviction of my own friendship, Every single one of us as we

went through this. Do I?

Do I always speak the truth in love?

Do ioffer heartfelt counsel? Am I always there in in good

times and bad? Am I the person that my friends

can count on for whatever they possibly need and I will be

there? And the answer is not always.

And the answer is You also hear this message both as a longing

for a friend and as a conviction of your own friendship model.

Which means this message is ultimately not about you and I.

This message is about the perfect friend, the one who does

love you while you were still a Sinner, while you fail, while

you mess up, while you mess around with sin and you wrestle

with the need for forgiveness and you come to church imperfect

in all of your ways. You have the friend who loves

you at all times. You have a friend that sticks

closer to the to you than your own brother or sister or mother

or father. They can all forsake you.

But there is a friend in Jesus that is the ultimate friend.

And so when we think about this message, it's a twofold

application. 1/2 Refresh and renew our vision of who God is

in our lives. We believe in a God who wants to

be the ultimate friend to every single one of you.

He came and he revealed himself as the friend of sinners.

And he says in my friendship, I lay down my life for you.

Now, if you love me, be a friend.

Be someone who would do that for one another, and that is the

simplicity of all the commandments of Jesus.

To love God and love one another is to know this so intimately in

our lives. So we consider this as we are

going to take communion as we always do.

This is a great call to remembrance because Jesus says

you want to know what friends really look like.

Someone who would lay down his life.

So start the beginning of this message received is when you

hold the body. In the form of bread.

And you hold the blood in the form of a cup in your hand

today. And we, we, we meditate, we

think of God's great love for us.

We are holding the ultimate sacrifice of love that has ever

been known, the perfect friend who laid down his life to call

you a friend. And so we take it in

remembrance. And then we take it to say, go

and do likewise. May someone remember your impact

on their life to the glory of God, yeah.