"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." - Proverbs 27:17 (NIV)
Today, I want us to think together about yet another aspect of true friendship. As our passage tells us, a true friend is one who builds you up. They will try to help you become a better person! how?
1. A true friend encourages you.
A true friend will help you do what you have to do!
They will seek to bring support to you.
Each of us has times in life when things come upon us that we wouldn’t choose to go through, but we, nevertheless, find we have to go through. It is at times like that we need true friends. True friends who will encourage us and help us do what we have to do by supporting us in the midst of it all.
Often times, this doesn’t even require us to say anything. It’s is simply enough that we are there.
A young boy was sent to the corner store by his mother to buy a loaf of bread. He was gone much longer than it should have taken him. When he finally returned, his mother asked, "Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you."
"Well," he answered, "there was a little boy by the side of the road with a broken bicycle who was crying. So I stopped to help him."
"I didn’t know you knew anything about fixing bikes," his mother said. "I don’t," he replied. "I just stayed there and cried with him."
Encouragement means coming alongside to impart courage to another. This is what a true friend does for us when we find ourselves facing things that we have to go through, whether we like it or not. They come alongside us to lend support to us.
A newspaper in England gave a reward for the best definition of a friend. Thousands answered, and the winning entry was this: "A FRIEND IS ONE THAT COMES WHEN EVERYONE ELSE GOES."
A true friend encourages you.
2. A true friend exhorts you.
A true friend will help you do what you ought to do.
They will seek to bring strength to you.
Other times in life, we find ourselves facing things we would really rather not have to deal with, but which we know we ought to deal with. Things that we may not fell we have the strength to face, but we nevertheless need to face.
It is at such times that a true friend shows his or her true colors. A true friend will seek to strengthen you so that you might tackle those difficult things in life that you know you ought to do, but cannot somehow find the strength to do.
General Ulysses S. Grant had a man who was a true friend to him like this. His name was John A. Rawlins. He was the General’s chief of staff. It was to Rawlins that Grant gave his pledge that he would abstain from alcohol. When he broke his pledge, Rawlins went to Grant and with great earnestness pleaded with him and successfully persuaded him to reaffirm his commitment to turning away from liquor.
Today, in front of the capital building in Washington, D.C., there stands a monument to General Grant, sitting on his horse in dramatic pose. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and a little to the south, is Rawlins park, where there is another statue. A very ordinary, commonplace looking statue of John A Rawlins, the man responsible for keeping General Grant from falling off his horse!
Dealing with the crippling effects of alcohol abuse in his life was something that Ulysses S. Grant knew he ought to do, but couldn’t find the strength to do on his own. But a true friend named John A. Rawlins came alongside to exhort him and help him find the strength he needed to do what he ought to do, and not only was Grant better for it, but so was the nation.
"A friend is someone who tells me the truth about me.
I want to know when my work stinks or I’m being hurtful or stupid.
I expect my friends to save me from myself."
"Faithful are the wounds of a friend." - Proverbs 27:6 (KJV)
A true friend tells you what you ought to know and then helps you do what you ought to do to correct it. A true friend exhorts you.
3. A true friend empowers you.
A true friend will help you do what you need to do.
They will seek to bring success to you.
We all have things in our lives that need to be addressed in order that we might be the success that God has in mind for us to be. Often, it will involve life change or character development. A true friend will help us.
Back in the fifteenth century, in a tiny village near Nuremberg, lived a family with eighteen children. To keep food on the table the father, a goldsmith by profession, worked almost eighteen hours a day at his trade and any other paying chore he could find in the neighborhood.
Despite their seemingly hopeless condition, two of the children had a dream. They both wanted to pursue their talent for art, but they knew full well that their father would never be financially able to send either of them to Nuremberg to study at the Academy.
After many discussions, the two boys finally worked out a pact. They would toss a coin. The loser would go down into the nearby mines and, with his earnings, support his brother while he attended the academy. Then, when that brother who won the toss completed his studies, he would support the other brother while he attended school.
They tossed a coin and Albrecht won the toss and went off to Nuremberg. Albert went down into the mines and, for the next four years, financed his brother, whose work at the academy was almost an immediate sensation. By the time he graduated, he was beginning to earn considerable fees for his commissioned works.
When he to his village, the family held a festive dinner to celebrate his triumphant homecoming. After the meal, Albrecht rose to drink a toast to his beloved brother for the years of sacrifice that had enabled Albrecht to fulfill his ambition. His closing words were, "And now, Albert, blessed brother of mine, it is your turn. Now you can go to Nuremberg to pursue your dream, and I will take care of you."
Albert rose and said softly, "No, brother. I cannot go to Nuremberg. It is too late for me. Look what four years in the mines have done to my hands! The bones in every finger have been smashed at least once, and lately I have been suffering from arthritis so badly in my right hand that I cannot even hold a glass to return your toast, much less make delicate lines with a pen or a brush. No, brother, for me it is too late."
More than 450 years have passed. By now, Albrecht Durer’s hundreds of masterful portraits hang in every great museum in the world, but the odds are great that you, like most people, are familiar with only one of them. You very well may have a reproduction hanging in your home or office.
To pay homage to Albert for all that he had sacrificed, Albrecht Durer drew his brother’s hands with palms together and fingers stretched skyward. He called his powerful drawing simply "Hands," but the world has renamed his tribute of love "The Praying Hands." It is a tribute to true friendship, a love that is willing to do whatever is required to see another succeed.
"This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends." - John 15:13 (The Message)
Conclusion: Is it your desire to have a friend like that? Then be that kind of friend! Seek to relate to others in your life in such a way that you bring support, strength, and success to them!
Charlie brown asked Linus, "What would you do if you felt that nobody liked you?"
Linus responded, "Well Charlie Brown I guess I would take a real hard look at myself, ask if I am doing anything that turns people off, How can I improve myself? Do I need to change in some way? Yep that’s my answer Charlie Brown."
Charlie Brown says, "I hate that answer."
You may hate Linus’ answer, too. But it is also God’s answer. If I am to have friends, I must be a friend.
I went out to find a friend but could not find one there.
I went out to be a friend and friends were everywhere!
Who do you know who needs you to be a true friend to them today?
Someone who needs your support to help them do what they have to do.
Someone who needs your strength to help them do what they ought to do.
Someone who needs to be helped to succeed by doing what they need to do.
