Proverbs 17:17
Let’s hear God’s word together.
Proverbs 17, verse 17 says, a friend loves at all times and a brother
is born for adversity. And then if you would like to
flip back to chapter 13, verse 20. Chapter 13, verse 20 says this,
whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools
will suffer harm. Amen. These verses we’ve read
are the word of the living God. It’s a little difficult to do
a topical series because you can’t read all the verses and
you can’t. Do it justice. It’s better, I think, to read
a passage, look at the passage, and move on to the next one the
next week. So this little shotgun approach at doing some topics
I think is gonna be useful, but I want you to know it’s a little
out of element, and so it’s gonna be a little disjointed, but I
think it’ll be good for us anyway. So we wanna think tonight about
the subject of friendship, and we want to think of what the
whole Bible says about friendship, so that we don’t just zoom in
on an Old Testament level of friendship study that was probably
related from a parent to a child on what kind of friends you should
have. But we want to think in light of the whole scope of Scripture
as well. So think about friendship in
a huge 90,000 foot perspective. That’s probably actually higher
than that, because I think heaven is higher than airplanes can
fly. But think about where friendship began. In the beginning, we see
that God created the world and everything in it. He made man
and put him on the earth. He said, it’s not good for man
to be alone. And so he created a help me for
Adam and Eve. And so we might say companionship
began way back in the garden, but it really began in eternity
past. the fellowship that we see among the Trinity. God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We’ve just completed
a study of maybe six sermons through the Christmas season
on John chapter 1 verse 1 through 18 and we saw that Jesus as the
pre-incarnate A second person of the Trinity enjoyed fellowship
with the Father and with the Holy Spirit in eternity past. And so we can’t help but think
that our study of friendship needs to include something about
the nature of friendship as it’s seen in the relationship of the
Trinity. I wanna think next about this
study of friendship from a very practical standpoint. Healthy
people who also fear Yahweh make good friends. Healthy people
who also fear the Lord make really good friends. Sometimes we’ll
have friends that don’t love the Lord. Sometimes we’ll have
companions or acquaintances that don’t love the Lord. But every
Christian needs to be in relationship with healthy people who, above
all else, fear the Lord. Otherwise, those non-Christian
friends, if they are the primary companions, they’ll drag us down. But we will say it’s good to
have non-Christian friends too, because how else are you going
to witness, right? Another thing to think about in understanding
biblical friendship is maybe a wonderful example. Think about
David. David was chosen by God out of
the whole lineup of his brothers. He wasn’t the good-looking one.
He wasn’t the strong one. He wasn’t the most kingly-looking
one. But remember, God looks at the
heart, and so he chose the runt of the litter, so to speak. And
so David became king, he entered into the household of Saul for
service, and he became close good buds with Jonathan. And later we see David remembering
that friendship when he honored those of the household of Saul. And remember he brought Mephibosheth,
one of the offspring of Saul, one of his friend Jonathan’s
cousins or so, he brought Mephibosheth to the king’s table. And so we
see examples in the Bible of great friendships. Now, we’re
not going to go into each of these things in depth, but I just want
to point them out to you and jog your memory. Maybe another
practical thing to think about friends are the levels of friends. I remember heading off to college
and getting pulled aside by my dad. And he said, you know, you’re
probably going to make friends at college who are going to They’re
going to be lasting friends. He says you need to remember
that some people will be your good friend, close friend. You’ll
have strong relationships with them. Some of the things we’ll
talk about in a few moments. You’ll also have neighbors. You’ll
have people that live next door to you in the hallway. People
that maybe sit at your dinner table in the dining hall. You’ll
have acquaintances, people that you kind of nod to, say hi to,
or maybe sit next to in class. And then there will be strangers.
And so we have to remember these sorts of categories. There are
people in our lives and in closeness or in proximity or intimacy with
us. We need to distinguish between
friends and neighbors and acquaintances and even strangers. Our subject
tonight is not really neighbors and acquaintances or strangers,
but really friends. And so what is a friend? A friend
is someone with whom we have a close relationship, an intimate
relationship. It’s a relationship that both
parties invest in. These are not the people that
we bump into. These are not the people that we see on occasion.
These are not the people that we associate with in various
social or other settings. We remember, as we begin our
little study of friendship, that the first negative statement
God said in the scripture was, it is not good for man to be
alone. Now that’s in the context of
him creating Eve as a helpmate for Adam. But we also remember
that one of the primary relationships in life is marriage, and one
of the primary components of the marriage relationship is
to have companionship, because it is not good for a man or a
woman to be alone. So, how are we to think about
these relationships that we have with others, these intimate,
close relationships in which we invest our time, our emotions,
and we build trust with these folks? Well, I want us to think
about it in light of the word covenant. A covenant is a relationship
that we establish with another person. It’s a deep relationship.
It’s a relationship that has expectations. And it’s a relationship
that is quite volatile. That relationship, when it goes
well, can bring great blessing. But that relationship, when it
does not go well, can be quite volatile. We understand that
in marriage, we understand that in friendship, we understand
that even down the line with acquaintances, strangers, and
neighbors. But we ought to think of our
relationship with others as a covenant. In fact, that’s how we think
of it in the church, isn’t it? We covenant with one another.
We covenant to fear the Lord. We covenant to walk in his ways.
We covenant to live in community together according to the standards
of the church. And so we ought to think highly
of our relationships with others as we build intimate, close,
and highly invested in relationships. Proverbs chapter 18, verse 24. I’m gonna flip there. I’ll try
not to do too much flipping tonight. It says, a man of many companions
may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than
a brother. And so we think of these covenant
friendships, these covenant relationships, we think of them as deeper, more
intimate, more highly invested relationships. Now stop there
for just a moment and let’s think outside of just human-to-human
friendship, and think big picture about God, his work in the world,
his work in the church. When God puts Christians together,
we use a word called fellowship. And that word fellowship is often
misconstrued as a meal in the fellowship hall centered around
fried chicken, right? That’s just lunch. Right? I don’t
know if some of you remember, but several years ago, we looked
at the word fellowship, because we consider fellowship to be
a means of grace. And fellowship is a stronger
word. It literally means partnership.
And so our fellowship is not really in the fried chicken.
I’ve just committed blasphemy in the Southern church, right?
Our fellowship is really not around fried chicken. Our fellowship
is around holding public worship of the triune God. That’s our
partnership together. Our fellowship is really around
the word of God being read, preached, prayed, sung, and all the rest. Our fellowship is really our
partnership in making sure that Burlington and Alamance County,
the Piedmont, the Triad, the Triangle, the State, Our nation
and the whole world know the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we think of fellowship
or partnership, we can’t help but also add to that thought
the word for Christian love in the New Testament, agape. Y’all
know there’s a handful of loves in the Greek language. We say
things like I love ice cream, I love the Tar Heels, I love
you, my wife, or I love you, my friend, or I love the game
of golf. We use that word love, and we
just have one word, love. And so when we say to our children
or our spouse or a close friend, I love you, but also love ice
cream, we just differentiate it in our minds, don’t we? At
least we should. You would hope that your spouse doesn’t love
you the same way they love ice cream. Although, You know, ice
cream can be pretty beneficial, but we get it, right? There’s
different words. So in the Greek language, there’s a love of ice
cream. There’s a love of your spouse. There’s a love of acquaintances,
that kind of thing. But there’s also agape, which
is really the love Christ displays for us. Greater love has no friend
than the one who would lay down his life for others, it’s the
love that says, I will give you everything, even if there’s nothing
in return. I will give you everything. We
live in a world that in our Christian fellowship, but even in our relationships,
we don’t say, what can I give to serve you? We say, what can
I get out of this relationship? Maybe some of you’ve seen the
little parody video of a young couple, a young millennial couple
visiting churches. And the parody goes something
like this. A young couple, they’re visiting
all these churches, and they’re really concerned not with whether
the word is preached or the songs are biblical. It’s, well, how
does the preacher dress? What kind of coffee do they serve?
Are the seats cushy? Is there good internet service
so I can check the score? the preacher goes on a little
too long. And sadly, that’s where a lot of people are, both in
their relationship to God and his church and in their relationship
with one another. What’s in it for me? So I want
us to think big picture there about the way a Christian ought
to love one another. Now let’s think a little bit
negatively about friendship. Bad company corrupts good character.
The Apostle Paul says, he quotes it from another place, it’s kind
of a worldwide axiom, isn’t it? Non-Christians believe that to
be true. You run with bad company, you’re sure to get in trouble.
And so the Proverbs give warning. Don’t be friends with those who
are violent. Don’t be friends with those who
have addictions, addictions to food, their gluttonous, addictions
to alcohol, their drunkards. And in today’s world, addictions
to drugs and other substances. Don’t be friends with those who
have a hot temper. Don’t be friends with those who
are gossips or those who are untrustworthy. I mentioned a
few moments ago, a relationship can be very volatile. It’s a
deep covenant. And so if you’re in a deep relationship,
a deep friendship with another person, it can be for blessing
or for curse. And if someone misuses your trust
or they betray you, that’s when a friendship can become quite
volatile. And so we don’t want to associate
with those who are violent or contentious, those with addictions
or hot tempered or gossips or untrustworthy. We don’t want
to be friends with those who will be a drain to us, those
who will argue, those who will betray or meddle, or those who
will joke when this life calls for being sober-minded. Those are some of the things,
not all, but some of the many things that the Proverbs warns
against. Now, why is it that we run with
bad company? You think about gangs, and I’m
talking about gangs in the modern sense. Why do young people join
a gang? Well, they do it often for a
sense of belonging. If we don’t develop and nurture
friendships along the way for our family, for our children,
we’re gonna seek companionship elsewhere. So why is it that
young people will join a gang? Or why is it that a young person
will run into the arms of someone you wish they never would have
associated with? Well, we’re made for companionship.
We’re gonna pursue companionship. And so we have to put ourselves
in the path, I do believe, of those. who will be godly friends. So a couple benefits of good
friendship from the Proverbs. We begin with Proverbs 17, 17.
It was a wonderful little simple statement. It says, a friend
loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity. One of the blessings I think
of having a good friend is loyalty. Loyalty is important in our day
and age, because we see so little of it. We see people flip from
one thing to the next. Some of you have witnessed as
I have, and I’ve been here at this church nearly six years.
We’ve had people that came excited, and within a year or two, they
left. Because why? Were we doctrinally impure? Were
we hiding the true Jesus of Scripture? No, something better elsewhere.
And so we’re seeing disloyalty in the sense of church, like
brand loyalty. Oh, I’m a Ford man. Nope, today
I’m a Chevy man or a Dodge man. We flit from brand to brand,
from church to church, to person to person. And so loyalty is
an important feature of friendship. Proverbs 27.10 says, do not forsake
your friend and your father’s friend. Do not go to your brother’s
house in the day. of calamity. Better is a neighbor
who is near than a brother who is far away.” So these passages
speak of the need for friendship, but also the need for loyalty.
Proverbs 20, verse 6, says, many a man proclaims his own steadfast
love, but a faithful man who can find. Where else does it
speak of a faithful thus and such who can find? It’s also
in the section on finding a faithful wife. There are two very hard
things to find in this life, a faithful friend and in the
Proverbs, excuse me, a good wife. And so finding these qualities
or finding these people and finding loyalty is a great blessing in
this life for people will abandon us, people will run to a better
offer, Proverbs 19.6 says, many seek the favor of a generous
man. Everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts. All a
poor man’s brothers hate him, but how much more do his friends
go far from him? He pursues them with words, but
he does not have them. Whoever gets sense, loves his
own soul. He who keeps understanding will
discover good. And it goes on to just remind
us. There are people who we would
call fair weather friends, right? They tell you on Monday, I’ll
do something with you this weekend, and before the weekend comes,
they’ve had three better offers, and they pick the best one, and
guess what? You’re not it. And so loyalty is a wonderful
feature. Agape, the love of Christian
fellowship, also fits in well here with loyalty. Well, another
great feature of good Christian friendship is Excuse me, I’ve
got a tickle in my throat or something for some reason. But
what comes with a good Christian friend is also for them to say
the hard things. You might use the word candor
or honesty or frankness. Proverbs 28, 23 says something
of a flatterer. I’ll do a little more flipping
and get there. Proverbs 28, 23. Whoever rebukes
a man will afterwards find more favor than he who flatters. with
his tongue. We can easily surround ourselves
with flatterers, those who think we’re the greatest thing since
sliced bread or since airplanes or whatever modern feature. But Proverbs 27.6, even 28.23,
remind us that it’s good to be around those who will speak to us truthfully.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the kisses of
an enemy. We remember in the area of frankness
or honesty or candor, Paul’s command to the Roman church in
Galatians chapter six, if anyone is caught in a sin, we want to
restore them. Or Jesus, when he says in Matthew
18, if you have a brother who does something, go and tell them
their sin, And if they repent, then you have gained a brother,
you’ve gained a friend. So loyalty, honesty, but also
good counsel. It’s great to have golf buddies,
if you play golf. It’s great to have buddies who
do things with you, you know, on a, just a common hobby sort
of level. But it’s very good, I think it’s
especially good. It’s dangerous if we don’t have
people who will give us good counsel. And I’ve got several
verses on this, Proverbs 24, verse six. For by wise guidance
you can wage your war, and in an abundance of counselors there
is victory. We wanted to have at least a
good friend who gives us good counsel. And then back in chapter
15, 15 verse 22 says, without counsel
plans fail, but with many advisors, they succeed. I’ve got a few
more verses to look at, but let me give you a contrast. We get it in our head sometimes
that we’re gonna do something, right? We’re gonna do something
and it’s gonna be a blessing to us. And we got it all worked
out. What happens if it’s a foolish plan and you have a good friend
who’s a good counselor? They’re going to smack you on
the back of the head and say, what are you thinking? And what
do we tend to do in our sin nature? We know which friend to ask because
we sure have a friend that says, oh, that’s a great idea. I’m
coming with you. Right? And so we have to be careful
to surround ourselves with people who will consistently give us
good counsel and not tell us what we want to hear. Proverbs,
flip over to chapter 27. In 27 verse nine, it says, oil
and perfume make the heart glad and sweetness of a friend comes
from his earnest counsel. And then just a few verses later,
verse 17, iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. And I think the point I’m making
to you so far is, oh, we want to have loyal friends. We want
to have honest, frank friends. Not one’s named Frank necessarily,
but they work too, don’t they? But friends who give counsel,
and not the counsel that we want to hear, but remember the title
of our subject. We want to have friends who fear
I am. And they’re gonna be willing
to say to you, friend, absolutely no. Friend, have you lost your
mind? Friend, that is a way of death
and not a way of life. And so in their good counsel,
we will find success. Well, there’s another feature
of friendship that I think we ought to look for. It’s blessing
and benefit, not just loyalty, not just honesty, not just good
counsel, but we ought to have friends who, I couldn’t think
of a good word here, but they know how to lather a man before
he shaves him. That’s something I learned early
on. I’m usually kind of black and
white, you know, what are you thinking? We had a little joke in the car
yesterday we were getting on the highway. And, um, I think
the question was, um, uh, where do you, where, where do I get
off? And I joked and said, I’ll tell you where to get off, you
know, cause we, we like to tell people, you know, I’ll tell you
where to go. I’ll tell you, you know, where you can take that
advice or whatever, but that’s sort of the joke, but we need
people who will not only encourage us, But they also tell us the hard
things. What’s the rule nowadays? We do a sandwich, right? You’re
a really nice person. What the heck were you thinking?
You’re a really nice person, right? That’s sort of the sandwich.
You say something nice. You say something hard. You say
something nice again. I like the lather a person before
you shave. Everybody in here has probably
shaved, guys and girls, faces, legs, whatever. What happens
if you just take a razor and psh, psh, psh? I wouldn’t know,
but it hurts, right? That’s why you grow a beard,
because it irritates to shave every day. But we need to be
around those who are tactful, who know how to say truthful
things without being offensive, or without revealing our secrets,
without revealing what ought to be kept private. And that’s
why chapter 17 of Proverbs in verse nine, I think is so very
helpful. It’s a verse we read just a moment
ago. Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats
a matter separates close friends. You know, sometimes we build
a coalition, sometimes we know how to manipulate and work things,
but tact or social graces, I think, an important thing for us as
Christians. So these are a couple of the benefits that we ought
to consider in making covenant with other people for friendship. Now, what if you got bad friends,
but you want to be a witness? You say, how can I be a witness?
if I’m not in relationship with them. Well, here’s a really good
question. Who dominates the relationship? Who controls the terms of the
relationship? When you’re with this person,
who sets up the topic of conversation? Whose values always win out? I have a relationship with someone
and I can always tell when they’ve been around a certain person
because they get negative, they get wishy-washy on what’s good,
right, and true, and they become really have a rotten attitude
toward things that a week ago were good and precious to them.
And so it’s a good thing to think about. If I’m in a relationship
with another person who’s not a Christian, who doesn’t fear
Yahweh, is this relationship benefiting me or is it dragging
me down? And am I really being a witness to them? I think friendships
are important that way. Another question that might come
to mind, what about friendships for children, for young people? And that’s a hard thing because
what does every parent want? Oh, they want their children
to have friends. They want them to have people who are their
age they’re close to. They want them to socialize. Well, go outside
your doors and you’ll very quickly find out there are values galore
for different households. You can’t just move into the
neighborhood any longer and say, OK, kids, go out and play. I
can remember going to my friend’s house next door I don’t really
recall if they were devout Christians. I think they went to the Methodist
church. But our family and theirs, you know, weren’t all that different
because of the Judeo-Christian values. You really can’t send
your children out the door any longer and just say, go have
fun. Be sure to come in when I holler that it’s supper time. But this also, maybe brings up
the question of fellowship in the church, you know, among Christians.
It’s hard to be in fellowship when you don’t see eye to eye
with people theologically. And so that’s why we have denominations,
isn’t it? That’s why birds of a feather
flock together. And so we have to ask the question,
when we choose friends and companions, do they build us up? Do they
protect us? Do they bless us? Or am I in a position where if
they’re not a Christian or maybe not as strong in their faith,
am I the one who does the influencing and those sorts of things? Well,
one last thing to consider, and that is this. We have the great
example of the Lord Jesus Christ. He left the riches of heaven
He was born of a woman in this life made under the law. He endured
the curses of this life, the pains, the hardships. He went
to the cross and he took on the sin of his people who hated him,
who despised him, who rejected him, who rebelled against him.
And he went to the cross anyway, in order that he might secure
the eternal friendship between God and man. We remember the
great blessing, the great hope of heaven is that the dwelling
place of God is now with man. The hostility that was created
in the Garden of Eden has been wiped away and the presence of
God is now with his people. There is no longer alienation. And so we’ve got to remember,
it takes hard work to be a friend. It takes hard work to be a companion.
It takes hard work to be honest. It takes hard work to be loyalty.
It takes hard work to give counsel that maybe the person doesn’t
want to hear, but they need to hear. But that’s how Christ treats
his people. That’s how Christ treats his
children. One of the things I like to say
when someone speaks a hard thing to us is to see it as a grace
of God. See it as God intervening in
your life through a true friend. And that’s what God does by his
word week by week as we gather in his presence. There are a
lot of things in the Bible that I have to say and preach. And
one of the great blessings is just going through the Bible.
And guess what I can say? It just came up. I didn’t plan
it. I remember growing up as a kid,
my dad preached through things topically. And I remember somebody
asking me, your dad preached that sermon just to me. And it
was about the time of OJ Simpson. And I said, well, if the glove
fits, you know, you’re guilty. If it doesn’t fit, then quit,
right? But these are good things for
us to consider. Let’s look to God in prayer. Lord, we pray
that you would put around each of us, not just companions and
neighbors, but put around each of us friends who will stick
closer than a brother, friends who will be faithful, thick and
thin and speak the truth and love and stand by us through
our ups and downs and hardships of life. We pray for those kinds
of friends for ourselves and for our children, but we pray
that we would be those kinds of friends also that people seek
out and desire. And we pray that as we interact
with others, the fragrance of Christ would emanate from our
words and our living. And we ask this in the name of
Christ, amen.