Friends For The Good Life
TRANSCRIPT:
Awesome. Well, good morning. Good to see all your faces. It's I am it's my privilege to open up God's word with you this morning. My name's Mark.
If you're new here, I'm one of the pastors. we are in the book of Proverbs. I think it's on your bulletin if you have it, but our verse this morning is Proverbs 1717. had the opportunity to spend a couple days with the men up there to preach up there, and now I get to come back down here and wear all the hats. I was running sound this morning and now I'm preaching. So pray for me. Pray for me. I'll read our verse and then I'll pray for us. Proverbs
1717. Listen carefully. This is God's word. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let me pray.
Yeah, Lord, we now come before you and we sit under your word. We pray that your word would wash over us what we know not you teach us, what we have not, you give us, what we are not, you would make us by your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I want you to think about as we launch out, I want you to think about a friend of yours. It could be any friend, it could be a friend from your past or present, maybe from your school days or high school or college. I want you to think about this friend.
And why were they a friend or are a friend to you? Like what what what are some memories that come to mind when you think about that particular friend? Just think about that for a second.
Ma maybe it's some stories, some adventures you were on, maybe it was a shared heart and desire for something. There was this a season in your life where they walked through it with you. I I just want you to think about that friend. Whatever friend comes to mind.
C.S. Lewis, in his book The The Four Loves, he he says this friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, What? You two? I thought I was the only one.
There's this camaraderie together. So I was doing the experiment that I just had you do. And what came to mind was friends friends of mine from high school. This is us. Rick showed his picture from a little kid last week. This is me at about age twenty-five. and these are good friends of mine. But I thought about the one in the middle with the big smile. This is Chris. we went on some adventures together.
met Chris in high school. We had a shared love. Again, C.S.O. says you have this shared passion. We found we had a shared passion for several things. One, basketball. We played every day, and we had a shared love for Magic Johnson and the Lakers, and we would talk about that. And then we realized we actually had many passions in common. and so we we went on lots of adventures, and I was not a great student in high school. I I I played basketball with these guys.
guys and did not do my homework. And so and and Rick wasn't a great student either, so your pastors are awesome. Let me just say that. Most of you probably if if we added our GPAs together, it would be your GPA. So so one year, I think it might I don't even know. Well at one point in high school, maybe between my junior and senior year or the year before, Chris and I were in summer school. Now for those of you that don't know, that wasn't because we were extra smart. It was because
We hadn't done well in class and we needed to take some classes. and so but it was an adventure. So we'd get out about noon and we would say, Okay, wh where is this day gonna lead us? And we would we would do things like drive up to Wyoming and buy illegal fireworks and we would get just grosses upon grosses of grosses of bottle rockets and we would go on these bottle rocket sprees just firing fireworks out of the car and and at each other and
Me and many of these friends went to the golf course and at night and we'd have these wars on the golf course. It was amazing. Well, this one particular day after summer school, I'm in Chris's car and his Bronco II and we're going home and he he just rolls through this stop sign and he he rolls through it to take a ride so fast he doesn't see a cop sitting right there. And so we're immediately pulled over. And he looks, this cop comes up to us and he looks in and he sees these bottle rocks.
Like some of them, and he gets very angry. He reaches in the window and grabs the bottle rockets, he's like, You know these are illegal? We're like, Yes, sir, sorry, sir. And then he he he he breaks them because they're little sticks, right? And then he breaks the bottle rocket, and then he does this crazy thing. He throws them on Chris's lap. He's like, get out of here, I better not catch you again. We're like, sweet, okay.
And so I was thinking about that a few weeks ago and I so I texted texted Chris. He lives in New York. We've haven't had a lot of time together after college, but I texted him I said this. I said, I was just telling my family about the time when we got pulled over and the cop broke the bottle rockets and threw them back on your lap. Funny face. He says, I California rolled that stop sign. I had no shoes on, I had no license, and my registration was expired. Ridiculous. I'm shocked that we made it.
I said, it was amazing. Also the bottle rocket wars on South Suburban Golf Course at night were so amazing. He said, Yes. And then he wrote, I'm thankful that we became friends when we did. I am lucky to have had such incredible, albeit crazy, memories. And I said same. Grateful for you, brother. I I hope that you do have and have had some friendships like that in your life.
They are
I hope those are the kind of memories. Well, maybe not those kind, but you had some memories when I said think of a friend. We're in this series through the book of Proverbs, and we call it the good life, because Proverbs is about wisdom, meaning understanding how God's world is created and living in light of that so that you can live wisely, so that you can have what you really want. The good life.
The good life. And in Proverbs, there's there's all these themes that come up on repeat. And starting with chapter 10, they they kind of get shotgunned at you. So there's not like a chapter on this and a chapter on that, but throughout they're scattered. And one of the things that's scattered throughout the book of Proverbs is this idea of friendship. Friendship. So in order to really have the good life, it's necessary to travel.
with some friends along the way. This is the good life. we we might wonder and and and think is friendship really necessary? I mean after all everything else that's going on in our lives is is friendship the thing that we need for the good life?
C. S. Lewis writing in the Four Loves, he he says this, and in a sense he says, Well, it isn't technically necessary, or at least biologically, he'll say. Here's what he says. He says, Friendship is, in a sense, not at all derogatory to it, the least natural of loves, the least instinctive, organic, biological, gregarious, and necessary. He says, without Eros, the romantic love, none of us would have b been begotten. And without affection, kind of
of familial love, none of us would have been reared. But we can live and breed without friendship. The species, biologically considered, has no need of it. He goes on and he says, Where where does he say that? There he goes. He says, Friendship is unnecessary, but listen to what he says. Like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself. For God did not need to create.
It has no survival value. Rather, it is one of those things that things which give value to survival. I like that. Philosophy, art, friendship. Has no survival value. Rather, it's one of those things which give value to survival. So Lewis, writing in 1960, said, Well, it's not necessary, but it it's necessary for essentially the good life, is what he's saying. But we are in a friendship crisis.
In America, and really probably around the world. Let me just give you some statistics real quick. Don't let this numb your mind too quickly, but I'll go quickly. Since 1990, there has been a 600% increase in Americans that report having no close friends. Nearly one in five Americans will say, I have no close friends.
Since 2010. Think about what was happening at 2010, the widespread adoption of the smartphone. Since 2010, time devoted to friends has collapsed. Among young people aged 15 to 29, nearly 50% of their time is spent alone in isolation now. Twenty-one percent of US adults feel report feeling lonely regularly. Of those, 81% experience anxiety and depression. Seventy-five percent report little to no sense of meaning.
Or purpose in life. All of the negative trends are disproportionately affecting men. Is Siri Siri going off over there? seventy-three percent said technology is driving loneliness. This is in spite of the fact that the average American now has over five hundred Facebook friends. Yeah.
In twenty twenty three, the Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic, with social disconnection carrying the mortality equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It raises heart disease by twenty-nine percent and stroke by thirty-two percent. And no doubt in a room this size, many of you resonate with much of that.
You feel that. And maybe that's why you're here, and we're glad you're here. In fact, I will say later that this is a a great opportunity for us as a church to meet a felt need in the world and connect it with the gospel. Lewis said it's not necessary, but we're finding even scientific scientifically and sociologically, actually, it is necessary for our survival, friendship. It is part of the Imago Day.
triune nature who is triune in friendship. Did you ever think about that? Now we tend to push it aside. Friendship tends to get the last of our energy and effort. Why is that?
Even though every parent in this room knows the the modern parable that that it goes like this show me your friends and I'll show you your future. But we know how it important it is for our kids. We don't necessarily make time for it. It gets pushed aside. There's a lot else going on in our life. Why is friendship a low priority, even when what we're gonna see, the Bible says actually it's necessary for the good life? Why do we push it aside? Namely because truth.
True friendship is costly. It's time consuming. It requires you to have margin in your life. It requires energy and effort and time and and there's so much else in our world vying for all those things, and so we think, I don't have time for friendship. But
My hope this morning is to show you you need to make time. You need to make some margin in your life. So I want to a ask and answer three questions as we look throughout the book of Proverbs this morning. What is true friendship? How is true friendship cultivated and grown? And then where do we find the power to actually be true friends? So those three questions. Number one, what is true friendship? Proverbs 17:17 again says, A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for
adversity. The first thing that is true of friendship is that friendship is a love relationship. Now we live in a culture that cannot conceive of love other than sexual or romantic love, and that's a shame because as Lewis will say in his book, th this is a necessary love that we need in our lives. We will live in a weird culture where it's like if you have any affection for someone that is who's same sex, they're like, that must be sexual. That's not true. In fact
Lewis goes on and and pushes back against that for like ten pages in his book. He said, No, a a friend loves at all times. It's a love relationship. I I wonder if much of what Solomon gets and writes about friendship, he gets that from talking to his dad, David. David and his best friend Jonathan had a love relationship of friends, two dudes on mission together. And so he learned from him. A true friend is committed to
To you in the best and worst of times. There's a commitment. Again, this is where it starts to get costly, right? Proverbs 27:10. Do not forsake your friend and your father's friend, and do not go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away. There's a commitment. A companion will say, hey.
if you ever need anything, let me know. You're like, thanks. But a friend? A friend doesn't have to be ass. A friend shows up at your house w when there's a crisis. A friend has a a meal in tow. A friend says, Hey, I I know you and your your spouse need some time. Let me just take the kids for a day for you. They show up, they're committed.
In the best of times and the worst of times, which means a true friend is rare. Well, we don't and can't have many friends because of they are costly. It takes time, it takes investment, it takes energy. A true friend is rare. Proverbs 18:24: a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Again, we we all have many companions, and that's not a bad thing. They're useful to us, and you're useful to them. Like they meet a need in your life. And often out of companionship, friendship is born. But but a true friend sticks closer than a brother in thick or thin.
A true friend is a fellow traveler, as Lewis says, with a shared vision or purpose. If you have no shared vision or purpose, that that person will not become a friend of yours. Here's what Lewis says about that. He says, he says, that is why those pathetic people, that's kind of rude, those pathetic people who simply want friends can never make any.
The very condition of having friends is that we would 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 the truth. I only want a friend. No friendship can arise. Though affection, of course, may, there would be nothing for the friendship to be about.
And friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. I love that.
Those who have nothing can share nothing. Those who are going nowhere have no fellow travelers.
So, what is true friendship? It's a love relationship, it's committed, it's rare, and it's a shared vision or purpose. So, then how is it cultivated? How does it grow? I'll say four things. In fact, these are not from me. I got these from Pastor Tim Keller as he talked about this, and so I couldn't come up with better than this, so I just said, let's go with that. so the first thing is that there is constancy. There's constancy to friendship. So again, Proverbs 17:17.
A friend loves at all times. And a brother is born for adversity. For a friend to become a true friend, at some point in that relationship, there was a lot of time spent together. Again, my friend Chris is a dear friend, but we spent a lot of time. We haven't for decades, and we could call each other up and we can hang out and it would be great. But if we had never put in the time before, that friendship would never exist.
Today. So there's a constancy. A friend loves at all times. A brother is born for adversity. What what the what the Proverbs is saying is: hey, there's family, there's brothers and sisters. They're going, especially in the culture in which this was written, they're going to be there for you no matter what. You might not like them.
But your brother will be there for you. But a friend, a friend is a brother or a sister that you choose, and they choose you. And so sometimes our friends are actually dearer to us than our family because of the constancy in our lives. Number two, there's carefulness in friendships.
Proverbs twenty five twenty. Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day and like vinegar on soda. What is he saying? That there's an emotional intelligence within each friendship. Like you you you know
A true friend weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoices and knows when each one should happen. Knows the emo has enough emotional intelligence for a a particular relationship to know how to speak, how to joke, how to laugh with that person. Like I have a lot of friends that w when I when I belittle them, they see they receive that as love.
But if I do that to some other people in my life, they're like, why is Mark such a jerk? I'm like, I'm just being funny. No, you're not. I'm like, because I'm not emotionally intelligent in those relationships. But with your friends, they could be like, Man, you you burned me. You destroyed me. Yeah, I did, and it was awesome. Or you you you you know what I'm saying. I'm I don't need to keep going. But there is there is a carefulness. There is a there's an awareness of how
To kind of treat this particular relationship. I love what JC Ryle said about friendship. He says this: the world is full of sorrow because it is full of sin. It is a dark place. It is a lonely place. It is a disappointing place. We all feel that. The brightest sunbeam in it is a friend. I love this. Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joys.
It halves our troubles. Do you feel that ever? I I I I I'm grateful that I am also good friends with the other elders of this church. And I don't take that for granted. I I remember the Davidsons when they first came to the church.
And they were like, hey, we just want to know, we we have one question for you. Are you friends with the other elders? I like, Yeah, what are you talking about? They're like, No, that's important to us because we are we are leaving a church where they're not friends and it's terrible. I was like, well I hope I'm always friends with them.
But I I r I remember s I say to them regularly, I I'm so grateful for them because their friendship has my troubles. I feel like they're carrying the weight that I don't have to carry on my own and it doubles my joys.
I hope that's true for your friends as well. So there's a care constancy, a carefulness, and then this is important. It's intention with carefulness, but there's a candor, a candor to friendship. Proverbs 27, 5 and 6. Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy. A true friend has enough credit with you that they can say the hard thing because it's for your good.
Do you have any friends like that? Where they can say, and you've given permission to them in their lives to speak into your life. And even though it might be hard to hear, you know that they have your best in mind. They're for you and not against you. So there's a candor to it. Wounds from a friend can be trusted. Perfect.
So let me yesterday I was I was having lunch with the guys up at the retreat and I was sharing, hey, I have to come back, I have to preach, and they were asking about it. And then so they had some questions. In fact, Kinton Mattoon asked this question. He said, So can do you think a person's best friend can be or should be a spouse? And I said, Well, yes and no. I hope that in your marriage you have an
incredible friendship absolutely but no because a true friend can and should say things in your life that puts the relationship at risk if they need to and you should not say that to your spouse.
Wives make terrible holy spirits. Husbands make terrible holy spirits. You need others, friends, to process, to speak truth into your lives. You have to give them permission. That takes time, it takes all these things. There's a candor. There's a carefulness to it. That doesn't mean you just rip your friend all the time, right? So those things are intention, but there's a candor in it. Have you ever said to anyone, if you ever see in my life something out of whack?
With my character, something that's stunting my growth in Christ, will you gently point that out to me? If you have that kind of friend, that is a gift on the path to the good life. And then finally, to grow and cultivate friendship, there's a counsel involved. Proverbs 27:9: oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.
Like you're going through something or you're jammed up or you don't know, you're like, man, I really want to talk to him. I really want to talk to them. Because I think they'll be able to see things that I'm not seeing there. If you have those kind of friends, it's a gift.
You know, recently at our house we had our our friends, their their names are the Ratnels. They we we were at the mission field together without babies and we had babies together, we grew up on the mission field, and we just spent time and and and so many times throughout the the decades now there's been moments where we've spoken gentleness and encouragement and candor and rebuke into each other's life that there's just this love for one another.
Th there have been times in our marriage where we we were locked up, jammed up, and we're like, you know, we need to bring over the Rath Mells just to sit in this room and hear us argue. And they even sided with me once. It's true, right? One time.
That was necessary for our relationship in that moment. I hope you have friends like that. Yeah, yeah. So there there's constancy, carefulness, candor, counsel. Now these are the things that help friendship grow out of the soil.
But of course, Proverbs has plenty to say about things that destroy friendship, right? I won't go through all of them, but lying, gossip, Proverbs 16, 28, a perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends. Unforgiveness, Proverbs 17:9. Whoever would foster love covers over an offense that's forgives an offense. But whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. There's betrayal.
And when our friends lie to us, when our friends betray us, when they gossip about us, they don't remain friends very long. And when we do that, we don't remain friends very long. If we don't give forgiveness, we don't remain friends very long. And so how do we or where can we find the power to be a true friend? Well, we look to Jesus. Jesus, when he put on flesh and lived among us, his enemies had a derogatory
nickname for him or they thought it was derogatory. They called Jesus the friend of sinners. And they were right. Jesus is the friend of sinners. Praise God for that.
Jesus on the night that he was betrayed, he gathered his disciples in the upper room. And in John chapter thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, he has a message for him. And every word he speaks in those hours before his crucifixion has this weight of urgency to it.
And in John chapter 15, he says this, after washing his disciples' feet and teaching them about the Holy Spirit, and and here's what he says, starting in verse 12: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends.
If you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know the master, what the master is doing, but I have called you friends. Again, when we betray, when we lie, when we gossip about our friends, they're not our friends very long. But Jesus, knowing he's about to be betrayed, he's about to people are gonna lie about him. His these close people.
He doesn't abandon the friendship. In fact, he doubles down. There are 10,000 blessings that come to us in the gospel, and we should celebrate them all. But do you ever celebrate this one? That God calls you friend? Friend. This is amazing. And this is where we get the power to be friends.
While we were sinners, Christ died for us. And so, to the degree that you understand the costliness of the friendship that was purchased for us by Jesus on the cross, then we can understand I if that's how I am loved, if God is my friend, then I now have the power, both by example and by spirit, to be a friend. To be the kind of friend that forgives.
Even when betrayed. To be the kind of friend that loves even when it's difficult. So to have a true friend, you've got to be a true friend. Proverbs 13 20 says, He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm. This is the principle of the path again. Who you walk with will shape your life. This is why friendship is necessary for the good life.
Well, if we want to grow wise to be the kind of friends that we need to be, to have the kind of friends that we want to have, then we should walk with wisdom incarnate. Jesus Christ, He will show us how to be wise, how to be a friend. And so I think we should all do a friendship audit in our life. Just over the next couple minutes, I'm going to ask some questions and just kind of answer them in your mind as I ask these questions. Number one.
Is there margin in your life for your friends? Do you have any time?
Is there any margin in your life for friends? And I get it, we we want to be good, we want we spend time with our family, we got work, and we got all these things, but is there any space in your life for friends? And if not, make space because you want to live the good life. Number two, do you see friendship as a must-have or a merely nice to have? Is it a must-have?
Or is it just nice to have
Number three, are you a true friend to anyone? Is there constancy, carefulness, candor, and counsel in that relationship?
A true friend to anyone. Number four, is anyone a true friend to you?
Is there a friend that you should reach out to this week to show your gratitude to in your life? You just say, hey, my church, my pastor preached on friendship, it was weird, I know, but it just made me think about you. And I just want to thank you for your friendship.
Is there a friend you need to apologize to and ask forgiveness? Maybe someone who was a friend at one time, but because of sin, it's no longer a friend, but in Jesus, he can heal that. So is there a friend you need to apologize to? And then finally, do you feel your need for a friend?
So pray and ask God to provide for you in this area. For a friend. Now at Redemption Parker, we we can't make you friends. But we do try to provide the soil for friendship to grow out of. So for example, right now there's 70 men that are spending time together.
Th they're they're listening to some preaching, but they're also spending time hiking and biking and golfing and frisbee golf and fishing. They're all doing those things. Those are important moments for friendship to grow out of. We have gospel communities, intentional places where you can s begin to do life with people. Again, it won't make you friends, but it could provide the soil. We have a women's retreat coming up in the fall.
If you feel disconnected and want to just get to know some women, that'd be great. Again, we have all sorts of events because we believe that the good life is done with friends. I think of the greatest friend in all the literature. Sam Wise Gamge. Right? There's an example of constancy and candor and sacrifice and time and margin. Yes, this is who we want to be. Well.
We we talk about here at Redemption Parker that we want to be committed to community. That's one of our values. And then another one is on mission. And to be on mission is just hey, we carry the gospel to our world. Well, there is a real felt need among our neighbors. Our neighbors and our coworkers, the world out there is lonely.
Y you ha you have to find a place to be on mission in the world. It could be your next door neighbors. It could be I I in my own life a few years ago I was like, man, all I do is hang out with Christians. No offense to you guys, but I need some time with people that
Just drop F bombs in my presence all the time, like when I was in military ministry, yeah. And I need I need to just grow some friends. And so I joined a tennis team. The only team that would take me all the way out in Kin Carl and I just hang out with them. And I just got invited to a surprise birthday party. I hope th they don't listen to my sermons. I know they don't. so but I just have some time now where we are spending time together. I hope that you have that because the mission matters.
The data is out there. Sociologists and public health agencies are recognizing what we know. People are not meant to live in isolation. It's detrimental to their mental, physical, emotional well-being. And new breakthroughs in technology are not gonna solve the problem but only make the problem worse. Advances in medicine are not gonna solve the problem. There's a felt need among our neighbors that we are uniquely positioned to meet because Jesus has shown his friendship to us. We can offer
His friendship and our friendship to them. We can offer the friend of sinners to sinners like our neighbors and ourselves. We get to introduce people to him and to bef befriend the world. Let us do it, church, for the glory of God and the joy of all people. Amen? Amen. Let me pray for us.