Becoming a True Friend
As his UCLA football team suffered through a dismal season in the early 70s, head coach Pepper Rodgers came under intense criticism and pressure. Things got to be so bad that his friends even bailed on him. As he reflected on that tough year, Pepper said this, “My dog was my only true friend. I told my wife one day that every man needs at least two good friends…and she went out and bought me another dog!”
Sometimes a dog is a man’s best, and only friend. Actually, there are many things we can learn about friendship from a dog’s perspective. Let me share some canine coachings:
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
Be loyal.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
Dr. Wilfred Funk, the dictionary publisher, was asked to list the 10 most expressive words in the English language. Here are four that jumped out at me:
The most revered word -- mother
The most beautiful word -- love
The most bitter word -- alone
The warmest word -- FRIENDSHIP
I think he’s exactly right -- especially with the last two: “alone” and “friendship.” Each of us has been created for companionship with God and with others. We were never designed to function in complete isolation.
Sometimes we think that God is only concerned with spiritual matters. The truth of the matter is this: Jesus Christ died in our place, not only to restore our relationship with God, but also to firm up our friendships with other people. In fact, the Bible has just as much to say about interpersonal relationships as it does about theology and doctrine. During our series from Proverbs the past three weeks, we’ve been reminded to seek after wisdom with everything we’ve got, to watch our words, and to implement God’s wisdom in our families. This morning we’re going to focus on how to become a true friend.
A young man sat down to write a letter to his dad, hoping to shake some shekels out of him: “Dear Dad, I’m 100 miles from home, I’m flat broke and I have no friends, what should I do?” The dad wrote back: “Dear son, make some new friends.”
That’s not easy to do, is it? How do you make new friends? I’m convinced that worthwhile friendships are not simply found, they’re made. While we can’t pick our families, we can select our friends.
Proverbs 12:26 tells us to be careful and deliberate about the kinds of friends we choose: “A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.” The reason we need to be careful is because we often become just like the people we hang around with according to Proverbs 13:20: “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.” This last phrase literally means, “Those who hang out with fools will be broken.” The apostle Paul picked up on this when he wrote: “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character’” (1 Corinthians 15:33).
Casual friends are the result of circumstances. Close friends are the result of choice. Proverbs 27:19 in the Living Bible states what you and I have learned from experience: “A mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.” The closer I am to a person, the greater the impact her or she will have on my life. I must therefore choose my friends carefully. Recognizing the power of a friendship to either build us up, or break us down, Proverbs describes at least three types of friends.
Fatal Friends
Faithful Friends
A Forever Friend
Fatal Friends
1. Some people are selfish. While we all struggle with self-centeredness, it’s really tough to build a relationship with people who incessantly think only of themselves. Proverbs 18:1: “An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment.”
2. Some will use you. Proverbs 19:4: “Wealth brings many friends, but a poor man’s friend deserts him.” The word “deserts” refers to being “out of joint” with someone. Those who use you will eventually break things off when they’ve taken what they’ve wanted. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who was only interested in what he or she could get from you? It doesn’t feel very good, does it? If you’re in a relationship like this, put your foot down and refuse to be taken advantage of any longer.
3. Some will gossip about you. Proverbs 20:19 provides some very practical wisdom when you’re in a friendship with someone who loves to spill the beans about you to others: “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much.” The image here is very vivid in Hebrew. The phrase “betraying a confidence” was used to describe the stripping off of armor and the clothing of captives. If you’ve ever experienced the agony of gossip, you can attest to feeling vulnerable and defenseless. You don’t have to put up with people stripping you of your dignity with their venomous verbiage.
4. Some will lead you astray. I had a friend in high school who loved to throw snowballs at police cars when they would drive by. While I never launched a snow missile, I was with my buddy when he did. That wasn’t very bright. I had another friend in high school who loved to throw rocks at houses (do you see a recurring theme here?). I wish I could say I didn’t pitch any pebbles. I joined in because I thought it was cool. When we hang with people who do bad things, we learn the same thing ourselves.
Listen to the strong words of Proverbs 22:24-25: “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.” When you spend time with someone like Mike Tyson, you’ll end up taking swings during a press conference yourself.
Some of you are involved in some stuff right now because you’re simply following a fatal friend. Peer pressure is not a new phenomenon according to Proverbs 23:19-21: “Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path. Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons [this can also refer to those with loose morals] become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.” Proverbs 24:21-22 continues in the same vein: “Fear the Lord and the king, my son, and do not join with the rebellious, for those two will send sudden destruction upon them, and who knows what calamities can bring?”
While this applies to everyone, can I say a word to those of you who are in junior high and high school? Be careful about choosing your friends. Some of you are being led down a wrong path as you’re pressured by peers who are selfish, who are using you, and who skewer you with their words behind your back. Just as you can choose to make a friendship, you can also choose to break it off.
Faithful Friends
It’s not enough to just avoid fatal friendships. We also need to know how to be involved in redemptive relationships. When Howard Hughes was worth approximately 4 billion dollars, he reportedly said, “I’d give it all for one good friend.” Proverbs provides us with a composite picture of what a faithful friend looks like.
1. Loving. Proverbs 17:17 sums up the first quality of a faithful friend: “A friend loves at all times…” A loving friend is someone who knows all about you and likes you just the same. This past Thursday night at the PCS volleyball match I saw something beautiful happen. After a hard-fought volley, one of the girls on our team hit the ball the wrong direction and we lost a point. You could tell on her face that she felt terrible. The coach called a timeout and smiled at her, telling her everything was going to be OK. Then, one of her teammates reached over and put her arm around this girl and kept it there during the entire timeout. When they went back out onto the court, this faithful friend “high-fived” her teammate and smiled at her. That was love in action.
A faithful friend loves at all times, even when we make mistakes. A faithful friend lets you know that you’re a valuable member of God’s team. A friend who loves hangs in there with you even when you feel like crawling into a hole. When Terry Bradshaw was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame, he mentioned other players who had played with him and said, “This honor would mean nothing to me at all if I didn’t have people who loved me.” Friend, do you unconditionally love those God has placed on your team?
2. Consistent. A faithful friend loves you and is also someone you can count on: “Do not forsake your friend and the friend of your father…” (27:10). To “not forsake” means that a consistent friend doesn’t let you go or turn his back on you. He or she is dependable. Erma Bombeck has said, “A friend is someone who thinks you’re a good egg, even though you’re a little cracked.” Beth and I have been blessed with some fantastic friendships over the years. To this day, we count as our best friends those who are steady and dependable. We know that whether we see them often or every couple years, we can count on them, and hopefully they can count on us.
A British publication once offered a prize for the best definition of a friend. Among the thousands of answers received, the winning one read: “A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.”
3. Forgiving. The true test of a friendship is what I call the forgiveness factor. When we spend time with people we will inevitably hurt them, either intentionally, or unintentionally. A faithful friend is someone who will cut you some slack and forgive you for what you’ve done, without bringing it back up into your face. Proverbs 17:9: “He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.”
When we lived in Rockford I deeply wronged a very close friend. When I realized what I had done, and how I had hurt him, I called him up and met with him over breakfast. I’ll never forget what happened. We were sitting in Perkins and had ordered our food. I couldn’t eat anything because I felt terrible for what I had done. I put my fork down and said, “Mike, I am so sorry. I was wrong for what I did and I’m sick about it.” With tears splashing into my scrambled eggs, I blubbered, “Would you please forgive me?” Mike looked at me with pain in his eyes and said, “Brother, I already have. I already have.”
From that point on, Mike never brought it up again. It was like he took a blanket and covered it all up for me, never even lifting up a corner again. He never repeated the matter and our relationship was restored. Someone has said that if you really want to know who you friends are…just make a mistake and you’ll know.
4. Confidential. A faithful friend is one who doesn’t share your secrets with others. Proverbs 11:13: “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.” In a Psychology Today survey of more than 40,000 Americans, the quality most valued in a friend is the ability to keep confidences (Psychology Today, June 1982).
Do you have a friend you can be completely real with? Do you put things “in the vault” when someone shares something with you?
George Eliot writes: “Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness blow the rest away” (“Today in the Word,” July 1989).
Huckleberry Finn was enjoying his adventure with his friend Jim as they sailed down the Mississippi River on a homemade raft. But one day Huck realized that Jim was a runaway slave and that, according to the law, he should write to Jim’s owner and inform her of Jim’s whereabouts. Huck wrote a letter, and was prepared to mail it but then he stopped and said this:
“I got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me ... But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch instead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping ... And he would always do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was ... And then I happened to look around, and see that letter I’d wrote…I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘All right then’ and tore [the letter] up.”
Huck Finn chose to be a confidant because of his friendship with Jim. Do your friends feel safe with you? Are you willing to tear up the list of secret things that you know in order to protect your friend, or are you quick to publish them for everyone to see?
5. Sharpening. A true friend is one who helps you become who God has made you to be. Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Someone once said, “A friend is one who knows you as you are, understands where you’ve been, accepts who you’ve become and still gently invites you to grow.” We all need friends who will sharpen us by giving us advice and counsel: “Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel” (27:9).
In his book, “Restoring Your Spiritual Passion,” Gordon MacDonald describes five types of people that we come in contact with (pages 73-91):
VRPs Very Resourceful People Ignite Our Passion
VIPs Very Important People Share Our Passion
VTPs Very Trainable People Catch Our Passion
VNPs Very Nice People Enjoy Our Passion
VDPs Very Draining People Sap Our Passion
In order to have balance in our lives, we need to make sure we’re not overloaded with one or two of these types of people. I would add that we need friends who are resourceful and important because they sharpen us. The trainable, and to a lesser extent, the nice and the draining, are people whom we can sharpen. In other words, we should have friends who rub off on us in a good way and we should be rubbing off on others, without letting them rub us the wrong way!
6. Sensitive. A faithful friend is also one who is aware of the needs of others. They know when to give space and when to offer grace. Proverbs 25:17: “Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house—too much of you, and he will hate you.” That means that we shouldn’t spend every waking moment with our friends or they will get tired of us. Familiarity can breed contempt.
I was convicted this week by Proverbs 27:14. I’ve been waking up our two oldest daughters for school by singing loudly to them before I head to the office. This past Friday I sang an old Karen Carpenter song followed by “Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog.” The girls immediately dove under their pillows as I serenaded them at the top of my lungs. My feelings were hurt and then I came across this verse and realized I better tone down my early morning concerts: “If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.” Maybe this doesn’t apply to me though because my singing has never been considered a blessing!
7. Honest. A faithful friend is not afraid to tell the truth when we need to hear it. This truth telling can be a good thing, if it’s delivered in the right spirit and received with the right attitude. Proverbs 27:5-6: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” In other words, as Oscar Wilde has said, “A true friend always stabs you in the front.” False friends butter us up in order to slice away. Faithful friends speak the truth for our benefit and also for theirs according to Proverbs 28:23: “He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue.”
I’ll always be thankful for the wounds that my college roommate sent my way when he boldly told me that he didn’t think I was a Christian. I was very angry with him, and even swore at him for the nerve he had to question my faith. But because of Bruce’s courageous truth telling, I began a spiritual journey that led me to the cross of Christ in 1979. I am so glad that he told me the truth about myself!
Have you given your friend permission to be honest with you? Do you tell the truth to your friends?
Interview
I’d like to introduce a young man to you. His name is Blake Carley. Blake is a graduate of Pontiac Christian School and is now a freshman at Pontiac Township High School. He and his family attend PBC and Blake is an active member of 24/7, our Senior High ministry.
Blake, let me ask you a few questions this morning.
1. Tell us about the friendships you made when you were a student at Pontiac Christian School.
2. How have these friendships helped you now that you’re in high school?
3. In what specific ways has your friendship with Jesus grown recently?
A Forever Friend
A faithful friend is much better to have than a fatal one. And friendships must be cultivated and maintained in order for them to last. If I want to have a good friend, I must work at being a good friend. Having said that, all of our friends, every single one, will ultimately disappoint us, and let us down. Your friends have unintentionally, and maybe intentionally, hurt you, failed you, and made you mad. If they haven’t yet, they will. That should come as no surprise because that’s how God set it up.
God doesn’t want us to find complete satisfaction and happiness in our relationships. That means you can’t completely find what you’re looking for in a husband or a wife, or in a best friend. Even the most faithful friend will bail on you or cave under the pressures of life.
Turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 18:24: “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” The phrase, “come to ruin” literally means “to break in pieces by a blow.” It’s the same word used in Daniel 2:40, where we read of the legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s image being destroyed and ground to powder. The teaching of the first part of this verse is that there is a limitation to all human relationships. A person with many companions or a few close friends can still be broken into pieces by the blows of life.
Do some of you here this morning feel like you must have a boyfriend or a girlfriend in order to find happiness? Do you feel like you will be truly content only when you get married, or when you have kids? Remember this. Some of the most miserable people in the world are those who have pinned their hopes for fulfillment on other people only to have those people fail them. Friend, God created you with a void in your life that cannot be filled by relationships. He longs for you to find what you’re looking for in a friendship with His Son. He is the missing piece. He is what you’ve been looking for.
The key word in this verse is the word “but.” Even though our friends can wipe us out, there is “a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” There is a friend whose friendship has no limitations. There is a friendship that cannot be broken. No matter how intimate your friends are, that friendship is severed at death. You pass over to eternity without your friend, without your spouse, without your brothers and sisters.
We need a forever friend, one who will never leave us or forsake us. This passage is declaring that Jesus Christ sticks closer than any other friend or family member. The word “sticks” literally means, “cleave, or adhere” and refers to the soldering, or joining of two metals together. When we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we are welded to Him forever and nothing can separate us from Him.
Charles Spurgeon once said, “He who would be happy here must have friends; and he who would be happy hereafter, must above all things, find a friend in the world to come…”
