Qualities of a True Friend
There is a heavy emphasis in our society on friendships. Television, movies, radio & our peers tell us that we need to be loyal friends and that nothing should come between our friendships with others.
Just the other day I saw a commercial about a man who had just been married and at the reception he was hanging out with his closest guy friends. The commercial was done like much of the nature shows are done in which the camera crew and crazy host follow animals around and a narrator does most of the talking. Anyway here was this guy on his wedding day and all of his friends are talking about the things he will miss because he got married and they are making him feel and look bad and then the guy uses his wedding ring to open a bottle of beer and then all of a sudden his friends accept him again.
What is my point? It simply is this: Friendship is extremely important and crucial to those in our society today. Many people feel that friendship is the single most important thing in one’s life; that nothing should come between friends, especially a member of the opposite sex. Did this happen to you when you met your spouse? Did some of your friends feel that you sold out on your friendship with them for a girl or a guy? This happens quite often and goes to further prove that friendship is held in high regard in our society as something that is special and needs to be cherished.
Do you want to know something; they are right. Friendship is an important thing and it is special and it is something that needs to be cherished. Some of the greatest relationships we will have in life are those that we have with close friends and I am sure that there are those of us in here that would affirm that and could share stories of people who are close to them and who have been life long friends.
What makes someone a friend? Is it their willingness to not let anything come between you and them? Is it their ability to keep your secrets? Is it their ability to make you laugh and have fun?
As we continue our study in Proverbs on making life work, we are going to look at this key element of life known as friendship and see what God has to say about it as well as what God says what makes someone a true friend.
Throughout the book of proverbs we see an underlying message about friendship and that is this:
We need to be wise in selecting friends.
As we read through Proverbs and through the Bible we find characteristics that God says we are to look for in a friend. These characteristics make someone a real and genuine friend; one who fits the profile that God lays out for choosing friends.
First God says that we need to choose friends who will love us for who we are and who are committed to our friendship for the long haul.
Proverbs 17:17 says: “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.”
True friends are committed for life.
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen and talked to people who have been the victim of a fair-weather friend. They establish what they think is a friendship with someone and as soon as things get a little rough or someone gets their feathers ruffled they bail and their time in that “friendship” is through.
A few years ago there was a country song out in which one woman counsels another woman not to get involved with a certain guy because he is a “walk away Joe”. Just a little turmoil, trouble or discomfort and he’ll be gone. Friends, for what its worth, when it comes to friendships I don’t want to be a walk away Joe. I want to be a steadfast, committed, faithful Joe.
Many of us have fallen victim to friendships with walk away Joe’s or walk away Jane’s and have been hurt in the process. A true friend, one who God wants us to be friends with are ones who are committed to our friendship for the long haul and as the verse says, will love us no matter what happens.
This verse also says that a true friend will remain your friend no matter what happens.
I once heard the story of a person who was very popular in their town. They seemed to be friends with everyone. No matter where they went people knew them. They had this knack for making people laugh and have fun and everyone loved them.
Then one day this person suffered a horrifying injury as a result of a car accident and was paralyzed, they became a paraplegic. Needless to say they could not get around much and live the life they used to live. People came to see them and help them out in the beginning, but after a while the visits stopped and the help slowly faded away. In the end, only a few friends remained.
Someone who is a true friend will be your friend no matter what you go through and no matter what happens to you. A true friend will be your friend if you put on 50 pounds or if you get married or if you loose the use of your arms or your legs. A true friend will love you at all times, no matter what. Physical or mental condition plays no factor in determining true friendship. As the passage says, “A friend loves at all times.”
So God says that the first quality that we need to look for in a friend is someone who will be committed for the long haul & who will love us for the simple fact that we are who we are.
The next quality that the writer of Proverbs says that we need to look for in choosing a friend is this:
We need to choose friends who are going to be honest with us no matter what
Proverbs 24:26 – “An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.”
Do you remember your first kiss? I’m not sure about you, but I can remember the first time that I kissed a girl on the lips and she wasn’t my mother or grandmother. Do you remember yours? I hope that you women have not kissed another woman so in your case; do you remember the first time you kissed a boy? What was it like? How did you feel?
Having been married for a couple of years now, I have grown accustomed to kisses on the cheek. Whenever my wife or I leave the house we mostly give each other a little peck kiss on the cheek or head or whatever. But there is nothing like a kiss on the lips from the one you love the most in this world. It is exhilarating and just a plain old great thing! There are times that I have to go away to conferences and meetings for days at a time. Like most every other husband and father, when I am away I really miss my wife and daughter and it never fails, on the plane ride home the only thing I tend to think about is meeting my wife and daughter at the airport and giving them a big kiss. It just refreshes me and makes me feel that I am officially home.
The writer of proverbs is saying in this verse that when a friend or loved one is honest with you it is like kissing the one you love the most on the lips. Think about it. When a friend is honest with you and tells you the honest to God truth it means that they care about you and they have a genuine interest in your life and they want to see you succeed and have the best life has to offer. Hey, in all honesty, genuine friends want nothing more than to see your life work out the way God intended it to and a real friend is committed to honesty and to doing all they can to ensure that your life will be lived to God’s fullest and best.
Last week we learned that God wants us to be committed, life-long truth tellers. This is extremely valuable in friendships. We should want our friends to let us know when they see things that are hurting us and that need to be addressed and changed in our lives. We should want them to be honest and tell us the truth, in love, about things that are hurting our lives and that are potentially damaging.
Recently, a very close friend of mine sat me down and they let me have it – in a good way. They were straight with me, flat out cut to the core honest with some things that they had noticed in my life. They, in a loving way, told me the observations they had made of the things which were holding me back from being all that God has for me to be and the behavior patterns they have observed which are holding me back from experiencing life to God’s fullest and His best.
I have to tell you that when they were laying the truth on me, it kind of hurt & I was a little insulted. But as it sunk in I realized that they were right and that they were only telling me this because they loved me and wanted the best for me. This person is a genuinely, real friend. When the conversation had ended my friend asked me if I hated them for telling me what they had told me. I simply answered, “no”, then proceeded to thank them for being honest.
Do you know how refreshing and encouraging it was for me to hear that. At the time my friend was pouring out the observations they had made of some potentially damaging traits in my life I was shocked and my ego was damaged a little, but when it was all said and done, God used those words of honesty to motivate me to take action and rid my life of those behavior patterns. Do you want to know something? Ever since that conversation I have been successful, with God’s help, in getting rid of those damaging traits in my life and it all started with heart felt honesty from a very dear friend who said, “I want you to experience life to God’s fullest and best.”
Being told the honest to God truth from your friends can seem like a kick in the teeth at first but when it sinks in it is as refreshing as a kiss on the lips. We should want friends who love us and want to see us be the best that we can be and who aren’t afraid to spur us on toward doing so.
Who wants a friend who is going to lie to you all the time and always tell you what you want to hear? I know I don’t want friends like that. Friends like that aren’t really your friends. People who tell you what you want to hear must not really care about you because they are content to see you suffer with mediocrity and settling for second best in your life. They are afraid to speak the truth because they are afraid they might cause some ripples in the pond of your life or cause a little discomfort in your relationship. Again, a true friend is one who can’t stand to see you be anything but what God wants you to be. A true friend is one who wants you to experience God’s best in life and who will do what it takes to see that you get there.
The third quality that the writer of Proverbs says we are to look for when choosing a friend is this:
We need to choose friends who we know will help us spiritually
Proverbs 27:17 – “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
True friends help us spiritually
1 Samuel 23:16 tells the story of such action in a friendship. Next to the friendship of Christ to so many, the friendship between David and Jonathan is probably the tightest, most committed friendship in the entire Bible. David was a young man who had risen in popularity among his fellow countrymen because he had killed a giant who was terrorizing his country. Many of us have heard the story of David and Goliath a hundred times. Because of David’s slaying of Goliath, David became more popular than the king of Israel; king Saul.
King Saul grew to hate David and so he set out to kill him. David fled from the country but the king wanted to dispose of David so bad that he pursued David with the intention of killing him. This is where 1 Samuel 23:16 picks up the story.
1 Samuel 23:16 says:
“And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.”
Here we see a man, Jonathan, who was so committed to his friend, David, that in the deepest, darkest time of his life to that point that he went to find him and when things were tough and looking grim with the sole intention of helping David find his strength in God.
Friends, we need to seek out people to establish friendships with whom we know are going to help us find strength in God.
I once heard the story of a pastor who went to the hospital to visit a man in the church who had just had a heart attack. This man, the one who had the heart attack, had made a commitment to establish life-long, meaningful friendships with others so he joined a small group Bible study at the church. Through this Bible study this man had made some pretty good friends; friends who were honest and who loved and accepted him for who he was. The pastor goes on to say that when he arrived at the hospital he could not even get into the man’s room because this man’s entire small group was there visiting him and praying with him.
Just like Jonathan, these true friends were there in that man’s hospital room during one of the most dark and grim periods of his life helping him find strength in God. The pastor telling this story closes it by saying that one of the man’s friends came out to him and said, “You can go home if you’d like. We’ve got this covered.” He said that at first he was taken back that someone would say that to him, after all, visiting church members in the hospital was part of his job. But then he realized how great it was that this man had so many genuine friends in the church that were committed to their friendship.
I want to sidetrack a little here to say that amazing things happen when we develop little communities with our churches known as small groups. Small groups are a place where small groups of people from a church make a commitment to meet together once a week or once every other week for a time of fun, fellowship and Bible study. But friends, the most incredible thing happens as a result of these groups.
When people become committed to the group and begin to attend on a regular basis, friendships are established. As time goes on these friendships grow deeper and prayer needs are talked about openly and those needs are prayed for. The Bible is studied and applied on a personal level and people’s questions about God and spiritual matters are answered. People begin to spur each other on to become spiritually strong and before you know it, friendships like the ones God says should be begin to develop and community is formed among those in the local church and real life change, spiritual growth and genuine, life-long friendships are developed. There is nothing like seeing a local church in which this is the norm. It is a beautiful thing. This isn’t just my opinion. Many top pastors in the country claim that genuine life change and genuine friendships within a local church can only happen by way of a small group and I agree with them.
I want you to know that we have started a small group here at South Shore and I would love to have friends from this church like that man in the hospital, which will be there in my hour of need helping me find strength in God. Since our church is in its beginning stages and small we have only 1 small group but in the future, as we grow, we will add more. Our small group is known as our BBQ & Bible study. We meet on Wednesday evenings at my house and I would love for you all to come out as we begin this small group.
Friendship is important to God and as I have stated, He wants us to be wise in choosing friends, and to be quite candid and open, I can’t think of many more people whom I would want to be my genuine friend than those of you sitting in this room today. Okay, enough of my plugs and pleas for friendship; let’s get back to the sermon.
A friend who is committed to helping us grow spiritually is one who will help us find God and know God
The greatest gift you could ever give to someone is the gift of an invitation; an invitation to a relationship with God. Some of you in here may have come to church with a friend today because they asked you to come. You may even think that your friend is a little bit on the fanatical side when it comes to “religion” & God because they keep talking to you about it. Well I want to tell you that they are a true friend because they are letting you know of the greatest gift anyone could ever get and that is a relationship with God, forgiveness of your sin and a place in heaven forever with God. They love you and their talking to you about spiritual things is an act of genuine friendship.
True friends also help us grow in God
They are always challenging us and pushing us on to being all that God wants for us to be. These friends want for us to reach our full spiritual potential. These are friends who keep us accountable for living spiritual lives that are God honoring and God obedient.
The writer of proverbs says that these friends help to sharpen us to become sharp spiritually a little bit at a time, yet constantly. He compares this type of friendship to iron that when banged by iron, slowly, after a period of time makes the iron that was beaten sharp. Think of a blacksmith who makes swords. He takes a hammer that is made out of iron and beats another piece of iron slowly, and continuously until it takes the shape and sharpness of a sword.
When this thing known as the church first began people were committed to the core of their being to God and also to friendship. The book of Acts shows us this quite vividly.
Acts 2:42-45 says: “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need.”
Talk about commitment to God & each other, those people in the early church had both in a radical way. Friends, I truly believe, with all my heart, that this is the way that God intended for His church and the relationships of those within His church to be. To be God-honoring and committed to helping one another both physically & spiritually.
These people in the first church helped each other to grow in their relationship with God. They really loved each other and were radically devoted to God and to each other.
So a true friend challenges us and motivates us, slowly yet continuously, until we become sharp committed followers of Christ who take the shape and image of God.
Let me wrap this up by sharing with you 2 more points about friendship and they are:
1. We all need friends in life.
We cannot make it thorough life and live it to God’s fullest and best without the help of some key friendships. The key is to be wise in choosing our friends; those friends with whom we will be the closest and with whom we will have genuine friendships.
Proverbs 18:24 says:
“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer that a brother”.
Do you ever feel that you just can’t find a real friend? Do you ever feel that you just can’t be friends with someone on such a close level? Well, the writer of Proverbs not only says that you can, he also says that there is someone out there who will be closer to you than a brother.
Be wise in choosing your friends, choose a friend who will love you for who you are and not try to change you into someone they want you to be. Choose friends that will be honest with you and tell you the truth in love that will make you be the best God wants you to be. Choose friends who will help you spiritually. I believe the writer of Proverbs is saying that when you find someone who fits these qualifications, establish a friendship with them and when you do your friend will stick with you closer than a brother.
2. Let me help you get a head start on this genuine friendship thing – We already have access to one who will be the greatest friend we could ever have; Jesus Christ.
There is not a person on earth who will love you, accept you, be honest with you, be there for you or help you spiritually more that Jesus will. The ultimate friend is Jesus and He wants to be friends with everyone sitting here today. All you have to do is accept His offer of friendship.
Some of you have already done that but your friendship has become anything but intimate and close. To you I want to say, “Start today to build that friendship with Christ into all that it can be; and it can be a lot.” Remember that friendships work both ways. They are not one sided. If you already have a friendship with God then you need to purposely cut time out of your busy schedule to spend time with God and converse. Speak to Him through prayer and let Him speak to you through His word, the Bible. If you don’t work at your friendship then it will never grow.
For those of you who can honestly say today that you have never experienced a relationship with God I want to, as a friend, extend to you an invitation today. I want to introduce you to someone who will be the greatest friend you will ever have. He is a friend who will love and accept you for who you are, He will be honest with you about your life and tell you how to reach your full potential and live life to it best and more than anyone else will help you grow spiritually. He wants to be your friend and you can have a relationship with Him and receive forgiveness for your sins and a place in heaven with him for eternity. Let me lead you in a prayer that will allow you to establish a friendship with God.
God, I want to be your friend and I am thankful that you want to be mine. I realize that because I have sinned I have been separated from you and that friendship could not be possible because of my sin. I understand now that you did something about that sin and sent Jesus to pay the price for my sin so that it could be forgiven. I also realize and believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to make this friendship with you possible. Please come into my life, forgive me of my sin and be the leader of my life. Today I commit my life to you. I am glad that you are my friend now. Amen.
I would like to close today with this. There are benefits to committed, genuine, God -centered friendships. The book of Ecclesiastes shares with us some of them.
Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 says this: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down his friend can pick him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
The writer of Ecclesiastes is also one of the main writers of the book of Proverbs, King Solomon, the wisest person to ever live.
God says, through him, that friendships are necessary and beneficial. We need to have friends who are committed to genuine, life-long friendships. But notice he says a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. What he is saying here is that the only friendship that will be all that it can be and that will help us make life work is a friendship between two people with God in the center.
I want to challenge you today, that if you do not have friendships like what we talked about in your life to search for those who would fit the description and begin to talk with them. To everyone, I want to challenge you to establish genuine friendships with others at South Shore. As I said earlier, I believe that the early church in Acts 2 is how God intended for His church to be and I believe that will come at South Shore by having genuine friendships begin and grow among those who call South Shore home.
