Best Friend/Worst Friend

What is a best friend? What is a close friend? What constitutes friendship? What are the causes of friendship? What are the similarities? What are the differences of friends? Versus best friends? Versus acquaintances? Does a church member, a Christian, need a friend? Do they need a best friend, a close friend?

Do they need someone outside of a spouse or a family member? In June of 2006, USA Today reported this. This was the headline. Study. 25% of Americans have no one to confide in. The article said Americans have a third fewer close friends and confidence than just 20 years ago.

It's decreased by one third in the last 20 years, a sign that people may be living lonelier, more isolated lives than in the past. According to the American Sociological Review, in 1985 the average American had three people in whom that individual could confide matters in that were important to him or her. By the year 2004, that number had dropped by a third to just two.

And one in four had no close confidence whatsoever. 25% had no close confidence whatsoever. What is the culprit? Analysts have tried to figure out what these numbers and the downturn in friendships mean, and they pin it on secular things. But I'll tell you what the culprit is. It's self-centeredness. It's self-centeredness. And this is reflected in the studies. The studies said people spend more time at work, personally working themselves and feeling fulfillment in that. And there is more one-person entertainment mediums today. A television, where you just solely sit there. You can be a group, but everybody is just quietly getting this one-on-one.

Or headset medium, iPods, various other little... you've seen the little TVs that now are video players, personal players, personal entertainment. Games have exploded as far as video games, interpersonal... just basically personal things. Internet, computers, people getting their information and interacting online and doing something here. And gradually, those around them have been cut out. They have been tuned out. The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, says this. Friendship is considered one of the central human experiences. And yet, it's erasing, it's falling.

In fact, 25% of the population doesn't even have one person they can confide in. There's a book written by C.S. Lewis some time ago, entitled The Four Loves. I'd like to read a comment from him about this decline in friendships. To the ancients... this is going back to the time previous, even to Christ, to the ancients, going back to the Greek world, etc. To the ancients, friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves. You will find this reflected in the scriptures.

Friendship seemed to be the happiest and most fully human of all loves. The crown of life and the school of virtue. See that mentioned in the Proverbs many times. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. Even in the secular world, anciently, friendship was great. The Bible talked about friendship great as being a great thing. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it, he wrote. We admit, of course, that besides a wife and family, a man needs a few friends. But the very tone of that admission and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as friendships, show clearly that what we are talking about has very little to do with that brotherly love, which Aristotle classified among the virtues, or that friendship on which Cicero wrote an entire book.

My point here is not to deviate from the scripture, but to show that there is a social trend away from, as Aristotle called it, brotherly love, and the friendship that has a concern for a fellow human. Today I'd like to talk about friendship. Friendship is a need to humans. It's something inherent within us. But what is a real friend? What is a real friend? Who is your best friend? Is it your dog? You know, dog is a man's best friend. To some people today, sadly, it is a dog.

Who is your worst friend? There is a statement that man is his own worst enemy. A man is his own worst enemy. And if you have no friends, perhaps that's the only person you have. Let's take this discussion to a whole new level and discover our new best friend on this particular Sabbath day that we are meeting on. You'll turn with me to Ecclesiastes 4 and 8. I'd like to begin here with what may be the Bible's most comprehensive view of friendship. Ecclesiastes 4, beginning in verse 8.

There is one alone without companion. That's an individual who is by themselves alone without a companion. He has neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all of his labor, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. There is something lacking in a person's life who doesn't have a friend. Even though they may have acquired a lot of physical things, we were built to need friends.

But he never asked, for whom do I toil and deprive myself of good? Well, he does it for himself, but for whom? For what greater purpose? For what love or expression or sharing? Do I do this? He doesn't ask. This is also useless and a grave misfortune. Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. It's not just mathematically, and it's not just a good business principle, but two are better than one because there is a reward for what they are doing.

There is a motive, there is a service, there is a helping, there is a contribution, there is a purpose, in other words, to what one is doing. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion in the physical sense, in the emotional sense, in the spiritual sense. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.

Again, falling in every sense of the Word. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one be warm alone? You know, the iron that sharpens iron can't sharpen itself. Two lying together and being warm is the principle of logs burning in a fireplace. You can't... I defy you to burn a log by itself in the fireplace. Just put a log in the fireplace and light it up.

Use some gasoline if you need to get it started. And I've never seen it happen where a log can burn by itself. It takes two logs. You have to radiate heat across to the other one. And the only way a log can be burnt is for the other log actually to radiate heat against it.

And it's the fire that takes place in between them. Same principle of two lying together. You can be as warm as toast, but for some reason the body can't heat itself in a cold situation. But you put someone else next to it. They can both heat each other. It's not that one's warm and one's cold. It's something about the body being able to send heat over. Though one may be overpowered by another spiritually, physically, emotionally, two can withstand him. And a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. So these are relationships that are God-defined. And our need for friendship actually is something that God put within us.

A reflection of this is just one of the writers on the Internet. And this was more of a therapist who was writing this. He said, most of us depend on the support and help of family and friends to get safely through life. That's sort of the human summing up of life and the need for others. We depend on the support and help of family and friends to get safely through life.

We all need someone with whom we can share secrets, weaknesses, hopes, and dreams. There's a definition of friendship that the Wikipedia Encyclopedia gives. And I'd like to read it for this reason. It gives us a secular benchmark. Sort of the human mentality as far as a human can go in trying to define friendship. And this gives us a benchmark for the biblical fulfillment of what a friend will be. I think only when we have something, some set of attributes, that we then can compare things in the Bible against, do we really understand what a true friend can be?

Here's the definition. Friendship is a term used to denote cooperative and supportive behavior between two. It connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, mutual esteem, mutual affection. Friends will welcome each other's company, exhibit loyalty, will have tastes that are usually similar, they will share enjoyable activities, they will engage in mutually helping behavior. They may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Trust that someone will not harm them, demonstrating on a consistent basis a desire for what is best for each other.

They will demonstrate sympathy, empathy, honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, they will do so with mutual understanding. Now that's a lot to sum up as a friendship, but you can see where it's going. It is one that's good for another, that's looking out and contributing to the welfare of the other, both contributing back. That's what makes a friendship. Sometimes people don't understand the principle that, yes, you may need a friend, but if you're not going to be a friend, there can be no relationship, because it's not just what we need, it's what to contribute.

So using this human devised definition of friendship, let me ask you a question. Do you have a friend? Do you have a best friend? Well, actually somebody says he wants to be your best friend. What's your reaction to that? Are you interested? Or, I don't know, we're all pretty busy. I don't know if I can really fit another friend in my life. Not really interested in a friendship. Maybe not my type.

This person who said they want to be my friend, not quite like I am. We don't have a lot in common. And yet this friend meets all the secular definitions that we just read from the Wikipedia Encyclopedia.

In fact, more. More. Let's go to John chapter 15 and verse 15. John chapter 15 and verse 15, I want to introduce you today to Jesus Christ as your best friend. Not in a syrupy way or a way that is sort of invented or made up.

When we see all these attributes of a friend, it has really impacted me how Jesus Christ fits everyone for you personally, for me personally. And then ups the ante, as it were, and does things that no other friend really is able to do or really interested in doing. And so we might meet his overtures, his warm overtures for friendship, as well. I'm a little busy. I don't really have time to talk. I don't really have time to share.

You know, we're not really on the same wavelength. I've kind of got some of my own ideas and habits that aren't quite like yours.

But let's notice here. John 15, 15, No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. So he immediately jumps higher than the normal friend and tells us what God, the family of God, the plan of man, salvation, our future, he shares all of that with us.

That's more than any human friend could ever think of doing. But I have called you friends. Notice he has called you a friend. He wants to be our friends. For all things that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you, not just the things that are happening, but the way of living, the way of life, the way to be successful, the way to be happy, the way to be joyful, the way to receive blessings and future inheritances that include everything, everything. One thing I may not cover today is this particular friend is going to cut you in on his full inheritance, equal shares. What friend do you have that has left you in his or her will?

It might be really great friends, but are you in the will as an equal share with his or her kids?

With the relatives, with dad and mom, or uncle and aunts, or nephews, or whatever? Yet Jesus Christ has made us equal inheritance, inheritors with him. In Psalm 40, verse 2, David begins to awaken and is just stunned by the contribution that this friend makes in his life. Psalm 40, verse 2, he also brought me up out of a horrible pit. Now, imagine the most horrible pit you can imagine, and people have probably been there. And, you know, there's just some things that are just beyond imagination. I think one of the most horrible imaginations I can think of my human life would be where I was when I got baptized. Now, you're probably thinking, what could be more horrible? I'll tell you, I was so despairing over the condition, the mindset, the wrong motives and thoughts that I had that I didn't care if I lived anymore. If I couldn't get out of that, I didn't really care if I lived anymore. Now, that was a horrible pit of which I could not extract myself. And the more I tried, the more kind of stuck you get in your human nature, in your ways, in your carnality. And you recognize, oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? And that's what it is. It's a body of death.

So whatever literal physical pit you might find yourself in, or emotional or spiritual pit, look at what David is saying here. You can compare this with Psalm 51, and his character put him in a horrible pit out of the miry clay, you know, quicksand. And he set my feet upon a rock. It was established. It was set. He established my steps. You know, there's no way I could compare my life now. And that of the blessings that God has given to what John Elliott would be today if I had not come into the Church of God, if I had not been baptized, if I did not have the nature of God.

And I bump into some people that I've known earlier in life, those who are still living, people I grew up with, spent time with, including one yesterday, my wife and I bumped into an old friend from college. First time we'd seen that person probably in close to 35 years.

And it took us a while to recognize each other, but we finally pulled it off.

I'd hate, I would hate to have gone where I was headed or where human nature would naturally lead a person. I was a good kid, but I knew because of God's Spirit that I was rotten on the inside. I may have looked like a whitewashed sepulcher, but the sepulcher was rotten on the inside. That was the point. I told my grandmother at the time, I said, I'm just so upset with myself and who I am. She wrote back and said, what have you done? I thought you were a pretty good guy.

She couldn't understand it. She wasn't a baptized herself. So anyway, some of those things can just be a pit that David understands, that you understand, and yet we get set on stable ground.

People will say, well, you've done such a good job in your life and so respectable. People will tell me this on the outside. And I say, no, I just live God's way and God's way works. It's not up here. I don't have the smarts to do that.

God's way works. But notice, he's established my steps. He established my steps. What a great friend!

He's put a new song in my mouth. This isn't just, you know, just being righteous and responsible. He's put a new song in my mouth. Life is good. Praise to our God. Many will see it and respect and fear and admire God, and will trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust. You see some keys here of friendship that we read. Trust going two ways. Many, O Lord my God, are your wonderful works, as we heard in the special music, which you have done.

What a friend that does these things. And your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order. This friend just pours it on, pours it on, pours it on. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Do we have time for this friend? This friend is also always there for us.

Always there for you and for me. In Habakkuk chapter 3 verse 17, if we are on the right wavelength, God is always there for us. And if we are not, he will always let us down. Does God let you down? Do you pray and ask for things that don't come through and he just never comes through? Well, I've done that.

Found out I was asking for all the wrong things. All the wrong things. I was not on the wavelength of God. It was all about my finances, or all about this problem, or all about my health, or all about this, or all about that.

And God, why are you letting this happen? All about persecution that would come and come and come. See? Well, I've learned to clean that out of my prayers and clean it out of my thoughts. I've got a friend that will bury me in blessings if I'm on his wavelength. So we'll see in a minute. And Habakkuk chapter, or Habakkuk, however you want to spell that funny word. 3 verse 17, Though the fig tree may not blossom, though things aren't going to work out, though we're not going to receive our needs, though things are really going to get worse in the future, and just you wait and see, we can just see it in the news, the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines.

Do you ever get a little worried about what's going on in the world? Just feel like buying a big old huge tank and filling it full of gasoline at $2 a gallon before the prices go up? Just wonder if you'll be able to make that house payment. Just worry and wonder about, you know, whether what's going to happen with the economy.

Will your dollars be worth anything? Should you put them under the mattress? You know, if China switches from buying dollars and starts buying euros, maybe we'll just be throwing them away anyway. Should we worry about that? Notice what's being said here.

Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines. Though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food. Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there may be no herb in the stalls. All these things are prophesied, by the way. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in my friend, in the God of my salvation.

The Lord is my strength. He will make my feet like deer's feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills. It's going to happen. Because I'm not all about the price of gasoline, or whether I can make my house payment. I'm all about the mentality and the mindset of God and being in His family. And guess what? He's going to bless that. He's going to make sure that your feet and my feet are secure, if we're of that mindset. We'll never fail. Friendship goes two ways. Givers build. Fire. You can put two logs together, and you can have one that is soaked in water. You know how these new green trees you cut down.

You throw in one next to an old dried out piece of oak. It's all splintered up. It's been sitting out in the pasture on a rock for three years. It dries a bone. You put it in there with the wet one, and you light them up. You give it some gas. And you know, boom! One takes off and it's roaring, and the other one just smokes a lot. And it just almost puts it out. Well, it takes two, you see? It takes two. Givers build. Two fiery logs are going to make a hot, hot, hot fire. It can even melt metal.

But if one is a taker, it's going to drain from the other. It's going to just receive heat, receive heat, and it'll put the fire out of both of them. Friendships are fragile. No one is perfect, so forgiveness and honest apology are important. How does that factor in with our friend, Jesus Christ? Friendships are fragile. Forgiveness. I didn't write that, by the way. That's what the person who was the therapist wrote.

Friendships are fragile. No one is perfect, so forgiveness and honest apology are important. You can't just trash a friendship. You can't just be a taker. You have to repent of that. You have to apologize for that. And honest apology and forgiveness is very, very important. And how does Jesus Christ factor in it? Is he willing to forgive you and me?

He died so that you and I could be forgiven by him and the Father. He wants to forgive us, and he does no harm to us. You know, some of the values of a strong friendship, human or divine, support. We always think of the things that we want and need in life, and that's fine. It's good to a point.

We are to give as we receive, though. We are to love as we are loved. But the support is good. It's also important that we support others. Encouragement to succeed. Just joy in life. Pleasure. These are some things that are good, but when we turn carnally and selfish, we can be takers of those. I want joy. I need your loyalty. I need your support. I need your friendship. I need you to come over and help me. I need this. Help, help, help, help, help, help, help, you see? And that can be one-sided.

But I care for you is constructive friendship. It's interesting that the writer, who is not religious—well, I don't know if they're religious or not— obviously had some religion—says, Selfish love creates fear and builds barriers. I think we can appreciate that. Selfish love creates fear and builds barriers. But selfless love dissolves fear, creating space for security and fun.

Sounds like a therapist, doesn't it? All over the place. One's good and one's bad. A giving friendship is good for all, bad for none, releasing people's potential, encouraging greatness, and building confidence. And then the writer says, I wonder if this selfless love friendship came from God into humans. And that's where that concept was left in the whole paper. But it's interesting that that came. I wonder if that might have come from God into humans. Well, you and I can see what others cannot. Aristotle was an individual who distinguished what he believed to be true friendships from two types of false friendships. And you might say, well, what does Aristotle have to do with anything?

Sometimes it's good to see the human view of this thing God created and people who have gone through life and experienced it, and they can even see. There's a true friendship and there's two false kind of friendships. How many of us have not experienced this? It says one is based on mutual usefulness and the other on mutual pleasure. Mutual usefulness. Okay? Hey, we're doing this. We're going there. Let's share a ride.

Let's share a ballgame. Let's share a beer. You know, mutual usefulness. You can help me with what I'm doing. You can help me carry this load. Hey, we're buddies. We're on the same painting crew. We're building the same wall. But he says, these two forms only last as long as there is utility and pleasure involved.

Once the wall's built, the game's over. That's it. The friendship's done. You see, it was using, essentially, each other. And the other on pleasure. As long as we're having fun and we'll have friends for... this friend will help with the fun. But when the party ends, there's no relationship.

You see, when the fun ends. He says, these two forms only last as long as there is utility and pleasure involved. Whereas genuine friendship does not dissolve. It takes place between good people, each alike wish good for the other, and they are good in themselves.

Now, what Aristotle said was actually profound. And he probably got it from the Bible. Because each alike wish good for the other. That's what we're called to do, by the way.

Love our neighbor as ourself, doing good for the other. And they are good in themselves. Well, we're not actually good in ourselves because there's no good in us. But with God's Spirit in us, and aspiring to be godly people, we are good for each other.

See? Jesus Christ is perfect, and he wants to be our friend. And so he is good, and we recognize his good. And he wants us to be good, and he recognizes the good that we are accomplishing with his help.

And we both want good for each other.

Aristotle says in the Nicodemian or Nicomemesean ethics, friendship of this kind is permanent, sorry.

It is between good men that both love and friendship are chiefly found in the highest form.

But note this, that such friendships are rare is natural, because men of this kind are few. That's what Aristotle surmised at the end of it all.

There aren't friendships on the earth. They're rare because there aren't very many good people on the earth.

The wish for friendship develops rapidly, he said, but friendship does not. So there's humanity kind of struggling around, seeing and wanting and needing, but we are so self-centered we cannot reach it. But now let's go to the Bible and say this does not set a limit on the Christian.

In Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 24, we find that there is a friend who not only is worthy, but one who is long-term.

Proverbs chapter 18 verse 24, the second half of the verse, there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. I have two brothers, Stephen and Mark. I'll use their names. Don't mean to embarrass them. I'm not close to either. Now I love them both, and we talk on occasion.

One lives in Omaha and the other lives in Fort Worth. They are both older than I am.

I love them to death.

But are we close?

No. Distance separates us. In some ways, some philosophy separates us.

My brother Mark is in the United Church of God in the Fort Worth congregation.

He and his family do very well there, but I don't live there. And I rarely get to see him.

I don't think he's called me one time in 20 years.

I call him at least once a year.

We get to see each other occasionally. There are friends that stick closer to brothers who are decent brothers whom you love.

They're just R.

I care about my brothers, but there are friends who stick closer to brothers.

Now, sticking closer to a brother shows that we can, in this lifetime, have relationships that are good, stable, strong.

Examples in the Bible?

Anybody think of any?

Even, I believe it was Cicero quoted the Bible, David and Jonathan's relationship. I mean, that's just a landmark case. If you go to Wikipedia and you look at the various religions that support friends, they can't help but mention David and Jonathan as being an outstanding example in Judeo-Christian literature.

That's a strong one.

Now, what about other examples in the Bible?

Husband and wife?

Jesus Christ in the church?

That is very, very, very strong. Both of those, very strong.

So, friendships and relationships can be stronger than a brother. My wife and I are much closer than my brothers and I are.

God and I are much closer than my wife and I are, and should be at all times.

Should be.

In fact, my wife and I don't look at each other for the supreme example. We look to God, and along that ladder that we climb and trying to become more like God, we can appreciate the steps along the rungs that each of us make.

But it's really Jesus Christ and God the Father that are our friends. They're the ones that are really helpful. We tend to let each other down at times in certain ways.

We make mistakes, but God never makes a mistake, and He is always there.

What about Jesus and John? We only have the statement that he made. John talked about himself in the terms of that disciple whom Jesus loved.

Could there have been, could that have been, part of the reason why John was not a martyr, so far as we know, how he lived into his old age? Sure, he was secluded on the island of Patmos, essentially a prisoner, but at least legend has it that all the other apostles were killed.

Why was John not killed?

Is there a reason for that? Did Jesus Christ know that, you know, his emotions and his emotional state, he was not going to be tempted beyond what he could bear? Or just the fact that this man was so loving and giving and serving that, like the Philadelphia era of the Church, I'm going to protect you from the hour of trial that comes upon the whole world to test and try them, because they had passed that test. They were a loving Church.

We go to verse 22 of Proverbs 18.

It says, He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtaves favor from the Lord.

We were not made to live alone.

It says in Genesis that man should not be alone, but God created a helper for him. We need that special friendship.

And the marriage between husband and wife provides a depth that really shouldn't be reached on any other level, just like it's a parallel of Christ and the Church, as we read in Ephesians 5. Chapter Some friendships are helpful.

During the feast this year, I saw a ticker come across the news sometime around feast time.

And it said that there are approximately 760,000 policemen in the United States. Now, that's a comforting figure. 760,000 people are out there to protect and serve you. The next thing on the ticker was there are about 765,000 gang members in the United States that are out doing their evil deeds. And that's just the children, just the gang members, not talking about the other aspects of society.

So in one sense, you have the policemen of America, and they have that fraternal order of police or various associations. And they're sort of friends, and they're trying to be better or helpful or whatever.

But then you have this other group of friends, don't you? The gang members. And they're also in gangs.

And sort of friends, as it were. And so some friendships are detrimental. You've heard of friendships called drinking buddies, or partners in crime, or co-conspirators. Terms like that, where people get together, but it's not for good, is it? It's not for good.

I'd like to give you an example. It's found in Luke 23 in verse 12.

That day, that very day, Pilate and Herod became friends with each other, for previously there had been enmity between them.

So they had been enemies before, but on that very day they became friends. And what very day was that?

The day they conspired together and had Jesus killed.

That's not a good friendship. So friendships can be detrimental.

In Proverbs 18 and verse 24, where we were previously, you know the old statement, He who has friends must show himself friendly.

Okay? That's a nice thought. I'm sure it works well, but it's not in the Bible.

Those... That first half of that verse is only three words in the Hebrew. Three words.

Man, friends, ruin.

Now, I don't know what to make of those three words. Neither does any translator or any Hebrew scholar. There's only three words.

Man, friends, ruin. But if you analyze those three words, I think in any order, it sounds like a warning, kind of a caution, doesn't it? Man, friends, ruin.

Ruin man, friends, friend, ruin man. I mean, however you want to mix them up, it doesn't sound real good, does it?

So let's think about that for a minute. Man, friends, ruin. These three curious words indicate that friends may not always be in one's best interest.

So just because we might have a friend, or find a friend, or want a friend, or somebody wants to be our friend, there's some caution right there with that.

I'd like to read you five scriptures. I won't turn to them, and I won't quote them, but I'll tell you what they say.

I'll give you a word or two from each one. 1 Corinthians 5, 11 says, Do not keep company with...

and then it goes on.

1 Timothy 6, verse 3, Withdraw yourself from...

Titus 3, verse 10, Reject a divisive man.

2 Thessalonians 3, and verse 6, Withdraw yourself from every brother.

2 John, verse 10, says, Not to greet, not to receive, or even greet some people.

Do not even give them a greeting.

And what is the reason for this? Well, if you're still in Proverbs, just go to Proverbs 22 and verse 24, and let's read here, and we'll find out.

Proverbs 22, verse 24, it says, Make no friendship with... Now he's going to list some things here.

That we're not to make friends with. Friendships are not always in our best interest.

Make no friendship with an angry man.

And with a furious man, do not even go.

Lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.

Now we can just check off angry and... What's the other guy? Furious. Angry and furious. Stay away from anger and furious. Whatever you do, stay away from anger and furious. And you'd be missing probably another 100 categories to stay away from.

It's not just the angry and furious, but what is an angry and furious person? He's one who does not love others, doesn't keep the commandments of God, is not fulfilling what God teaches us.

What Jesus Christ boiled down to, love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. That's an angry and furious man. He's all about me, and he's real mad about it. Don't go there, because you're going to set a snare for your soul.

James 4, verse 4, gives us an example of this.

It says, Adulters and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world, with the society, is enmity with God?

Don't be a friend of society.

It's against God.

Therefore, whoever wants to be a friend of the world, of society, Greek word cosmos, makes himself an enemy of God.

So we want to be careful about what kind of friends we have.

And even the mindset of friendship, via societal mentality versus godly mentality.

Deuteronomy 13, verse 6, says, if your brother, this is your good old buddy brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter. Now, I love my daughters. We just got to see one of our daughters this week. We don't get to see very often. And her two-year-old daughter, our granddaughter, and she's just developing into the cutest little thing. Very, very pleasant to be with. Just loved her.

And fortunately, new little relationship there. Unfortunately, I don't know if she'll know who I am the next time, or my wife. But we had quite a pleasant time with them. And this daughter, or these daughters, or sons that we so love, or the wife of your bosom.

You know, sometimes the husband or the wife who lives with you, that you're just really at one with, or your friend who is as your own soul.

You know, the David Jonathan, the Ruth Naomi, the mentality that is so close.

So we've got to establish that now.

Secretly entices you saying, let us go and serve other gods.

Don't go.

God says that all of these are potential negatives.

All of these are potential negatives that could pull you down. How many times does a person leave God's way of life in a marriage, and the other person goes with them? And you say, what's that about?

What's that about?

It's such a pull. How many times does a family member, a relative, or a friend leave and go off somewhere else and take others with them?

It has happened since time began.

You can go all the way back to Adam and Eve.

Eve makes a move, and hubby Adam goes along.

That's just a potential downfall of someone who is very close to you.

In Esther 5, verse 14, here's an individual named Haman.

Esther 5, verse 14.

Haman's wife, Zera, wife he loved. Of course, Haman is the man, but he's got a wife and he has friends.

Notice what they can do to him.

Then Haman's wife, Zeraesh, and all his friends said to him, let a gallows be made. Obviously, this was not Haman's idea, or they wouldn't have come and said this to him. But he said, let a gallows be made, fifty cubits high, and in the morning suggest to the king that Mordecai be hanged on it, then go merrily with the king to the banquet, and the thing pleased Haman.

So the gallows, he had the gallows made.

You can see here how that statement in Deuteronomy about the wives, the wife, the friends, you know, whoever, they can compel you to do something that's not good.

And so, that's a strong reminder right there from many places in the Bible that some friendships are detrimental, and we have to cut off those friendships.

If I ask you for a show of hands, how many of you have had to cut off a close friendship because of ethical or over ethical reasons? I hope every hand would go up. I really do.

And it's a hard thing to do. And you look back in life and you think, oh, that was hard. I wonder if I did the right thing.

The person was nice. Maybe they didn't know any better, whatever. But at some point you have to say, look, this needs to be severed because of what God says.

You know, it's been said to be successful, surround yourself with successful people.

That's a good principle. Who is the most successful person you know?

Anybody got a name?

No, not Bill Gates.

How about Jesus Christ?

You want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people. Jesus Christ is pretty successful, isn't he? And we can surround ourselves with Him, can't we?

I mean, He's here. He's the God of the Old Testament. He's the God of the New Testament. He reveals the Father to us.

He's everywhere. In fact, He's inside. If you have God's Holy Spirit, He's inside. He and the Father have made their abode in us.

So surround yourself with successful people.

An example of this is the Father of the Faithful.

You know, Abraham was very, very successful.

He's going to be above David and above Israel. He's really going to be up there in the Kingdom.

And it says in James 2 and verse 23, he was called the Friend of God.

Now, what does that say? About the most successful person, perhaps, in the Old Testament, or in the Bible, other than Jesus Christ, the most successful person. You've got to put Abraham here. Then you put David here.

Right? Where do the apostles go?

David is over the 12 tribes of Israel. The apostles each get one tribe.

I'd say Abraham is the most successful person in the Bible.

And it says he was a Friend of God.

See how friends can rub off on you?

How friends can work?

At least Jesus Christ, the one who became Jesus Christ, the Word, can impact our lives.

Well, Jesus says in John chapter 15 and verse 14, that he wants to be your friend and mine.

Under the same terms that he was Abraham's friend, or David's friend, or John's friend, or anybody else's friend.

John 15 and verse 14, he says, You are my friends if you do whatever I command you, if you're on my wavelength, if we are participating in a mutual relationship of respect and trust and love. That's what friendships are, as we've seen defined.

But it's love on his terms, respect on his terms.

Friendship and honor on Jesus Christ's terms. And if we will do this on his terms, then we are of the same mind. Are we perfectly of the same mind? No. Do we make mistakes all over the place?

Yes, we do.

But he's willing to forgive us of those things.

And friends are for helping, as I said. Iron-sharpening art. I'm not 100% sure how iron sharpens iron. Usually, it's iron swords dulling each other as they smack it out in war.

But you think of iron on stone.

But in order for iron to sharpen iron, you don't just go whacking two pieces of iron together. I can tell you that right now. I've sharpened a lot of things. I've yet to sharpen iron against iron. But you would have to sharpen something by getting the angles at just the right pitch.

You would have to go after sharpening iron. You would have to work hard to sharpen iron against iron.

It just wouldn't happen. You don't throw two pieces of iron in a bag and shake it, and they both come out sharp.

It's not going to happen.

So it is with people who will sharpen the countenance of his brother, or if iron sharpens iron, this is going to have to be done with precision, with intellect, with thought.

Think of some things that are said. Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is the helper of our joy. What's the purpose of friendship? One aspect is joy. Jesus Christ is the helper of our joy.

He said, I'm going to send you the helper. And who did he send? He sent himself.

The Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ and God the Father, their mentality living in us. He sent himself and God the Father. He is our helper.

He is the helper of our joy. The Holy Spirit is not the third icon in the Trinity.

It is not an individual. It is God the Father and Jesus Christ in the form that they send out, in the form that they connect with us.

The helper of our joy. Wow. Helper. Joy. Those are good things about friendship.

Remember, one person said to Jesus, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Help my unbelief. He's there to do that. And Jesus Christ helped with his unbelief.

The faith of Christ is given to us. Not faith in Christ. That comes along as well. But the faith of Christ is then given to us. He helps our unbelief by, through that Spirit, through his mindset, by giving us some of his faith and his confidence.

Have you ever been in dire need of something? I mean, really, really, really desperate, maybe starving for food and water, right on your last legs. You're going to die if you don't get some.

How many of you have been that way? See your hands?

Well, all of our hands should go up.

Because right now we are actually in that situation.

We are in dire need of the bread of life and the water of the Spirit, the Word. Otherwise, we will die.

And that is the source of life. And Jesus Christ knows it.

And our best friend is Jesus Christ, who knows and is able to fill us with those things.

He sees, he helps. He says, if anyone is starving, I'll give him food.

If anyone is thirsty, I'll give him drink.

And the food and the drink that I give are eternal. And they won't thirst anymore. And they won't hunger anymore. I'm there for you.

Too many times I think we want to flip it over. Yeah, but what about the rent?

What about the rent? He says, look, after those things the Gentiles seek, you seek the kingdom and my righteousness, and I'll take care of that stuff.

You know, I made the birds and the trees and the animals and the flowers. I know how to take care of needs on a physical level.

But you need to be doing something I can't. He says, you need to be developing a nature by personal choice.

And I want to help in that.

John 6, 35.

I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. And in verse 40 of John 6, notice, this is the will of him who sent me, the Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. Jesus Christ has the power to resurrect human carcasses into spirit God beings.

And this is the goal He and God the Father have.

This is the will of our best friend to give us eternal life. He's working for us.

Now, one of the things that we read is the loyalty, the commitment of friends. This is expected in a human friendship. Well, what about between God?

Hebrews 13.

Let's start in the second half of verse 5.

Hebrews 13, the second half of verse 5.

For He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

I will never leave you or forsake you.

Absolute confident on that.

So here is one who is loyal, one who is committed.

I love it in love songs.

Bebeel, never leave ya.

I'll always be there for you.

And you just kind of look up the singer's name, you know.

Sixteenth wife, now, living alone.

On the road in the bus.

You know, what happens to some of those things, you know?

I'll always be there for you, baby.

Well, Jesus Christ actually will never leave or forsake us. But let's move on. Verse 6. So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper.

Helper.

Big, huge aspect of what humans need.

God created a helper for men and a helper for the ladies, too. Actually, guys, the reverse is also true. We were created as a helper for them.

And we need to be busy about that.

But we are created, the bride of Christ is created as a helper for Jesus Christ. And he is also, incidentally, a helper for us.

The Lord is my helper.

It just shows that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Yes, Adam needed a helper.

Jesus Christ needs a helper in the bride.

But it says right here, the Lord, Jesus Christ, is our helper. It goes both ways.

I will not fear what can man do to me?

God's not going to forsake us, but would we ever forsake him?

That's the only question that remains.

Will we get too busy, the cares of this life? Will we not really respect the friendship? Will we not have the same mentality, and therefore he can't be our friend?

Because Jesus Christ is not going to be a friend with mammon, a friend with evil, a friend with lawlessness.

We have to meet him and be like him.

Because, even as the secular people say, friendship has a lot to do with things in common. Now, not totally in common. I think some of the best friendships and the best marriages are forged by people who are a little bit different because they bring in that other component.

When your friend likes to do something different than you, and you can't do that, they can introduce you to it and teach it to you, and you kind of learn something new. I think that's the wonderful thing about marriage, is men are so different than women, and women different than men, that there's this uniqueness, and yet at the same time there's a similarity. I've heard it say that people marry people who look like themselves. You know, when you saw that person across the room, it's like, love at first sight. It's because you saw yourself.

Look, over there, it's me with long hair.

Some attribute, they say, there's some attribute about the other person that you see all those years you spent looking in the mirror, you know? So I'm like, oh, I don't know what it is, same nose, same ears, same eyes, something.

But oftentimes there's a similarity. And what it is, is kind of a form of self-love, is what kind of wakens people up to this crush phase. Well, I'm not sure how far that goes.

I'll never look as good as my wife, so...

But anyway, now I forgot what it was saying.

Let me go to this point. Loyalty goes two ways.

It's loyalty.

We've established the fact that God will be loyal to us and never leave or forsake us. But it goes two ways.

I'd like to read from 1 Peter 2, verse 19.

1 Peter 2, verse 19. Jesus, let's just drop down here to verse 21. For to this you recall, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps.

He was one who set us an example.

We have to be loyal to being like him.

We can't be something different.

And all that's said here left us an example. He committed no sin. No deceit was found in his mouth. He was reviled. He didn't threaten. He bore our sins.

In verse 25, we were like sheep going astray. We have a commitment to being the exact same thing he was. We have to be loyal to those same principles.

It says that we have to bear our cross as he did. Bear our cross doesn't mean be killed. It means to go through the challenges, the difficulties, fight the fight against Satan and against human nature that he did, and win like him. We have to be loyal to that mentality that he had. We go to Matthew 10, verse 32. Matthew 10, verse 32.

Therefore, whoever confesses me before men, him I also will confess before my Father who is in heaven.

But notice, verse 33, he who denies me before men, him I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

There's loyalty in principle and ethic.

There's loyalty when it comes time to supporting in times of persecution.

He went up all the way to the cross and was killed. We appreciate that.

Well, what happens when it's our turn to come forward and say, Yes, I also stand for God and God's way of life. If you deny me before men in the way that you live or by your own mouth, I'll also deny you before my Father who is in heaven.

This loyalty, this friendship, all the aspects go two ways. Romans 8, verse 35.

Romans 8, verse 35.

This is going to show us that there's a lot of responsibility we have on this particular point.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Now, we always read this backwards.

This is my total belief. I don't believe I'm inaccurate at all. It doesn't mean, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? It means, Who shall separate out of us the love of Christ?

Who shall take the love of Christ out of us going on?

Shall tribulation? When we really go into tribulation, is that going to take the love of Christ? Are we going to cease to be loyal to God and to His way of life? So, we're not going to do anything to Jesus Christ if we go into tribulation. That's not going to separate His love from us.

No, it's talking about the one going through tribulation. Or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or soul. What can take the love of God out of you and me?

That's the question.

Jesus Christ said, I'll never leave or forsake you, but what will cause you to leave or forsake me? Will tribulation or distress, persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or so? I don't know about you, but I don't look too good naked.

And I don't want to do that in public.

And I really don't like going without food a lot.

I don't like persecution. I don't like my fingernails just where they are, thank you.

And I sure don't want swords or bullets.

You know, and if somebody is putting you to the ultimate test, which is Paul saying here to Rome, and they used to go through this, you know, they could run up there and get tossed into the amphitheaters, colosseums, or whatever they had, and these things would come down upon you. But would that cause you to have the love of God or give up the love of God?

As it is written, these things happen to people.

For your sake, we are killed all the day long, and we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Did those things take it out of people?

Hebrews 11 says it didn't for a lot.

He concludes here in verse 37. Yes, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels or principalities or powers or things present or even our worst fears to come, will take this character out of us.

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing that could impact a human, shall be able to separate from us the love of God.

To take that out of us, and notice that love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. He has the love, and we have the love through the Holy Spirit. What will sever that length?

Paul says nothing.

That's the kind of loyal friends that you and I need to be. In conclusion, it's important for us to have friends. We should have friends. We need friends.

We need to start by being a friend.

Being a friend to a fellow human being. That's not, yes, I need a friend. I don't have any friends. So all you people come be my friend. No, that means start here and say, I need to be there for others in all of those defined ways that Christ is for me. Yes, we need to be friends.

We need to have a best friend.

A best friend, you can't have too many best friends. It's just not enough time.

The time you have a spouse and your family, there's not much more time. You know, David had a lot of wives.

And probably one of the reasons is because he had a really good best friend that he was closer to than anybody else.

And that's why he probably had a lot of those wives.

Because he didn't do so well in the marriage department.

None of his relationships were happy. And so he probably clung to Jonathan more than anybody. I don't know.

It's nice to have a good friend, but you also have other responsibilities. So having a best friend or a close friend or being a close friend is kind of a luxury.

But we do need actually a best friend in all caps, don't we?

We need to take the time to have Jesus Christ be our best friend and be able to be a friend of his by doing what he says.

And then we need to build that friendship, spending the time and taking the time that no husband or wife or other person on earth should ever complain against the amount of time that we spend with God.

Have a best friend, be a best friend to God.

Who do we want as a friend?

You know, Proverbs told us, friends can be good or friends can be bad. So choose your friends wisely.

And I say, make sure your best friend is the one who is called faithful.

He's called true.

The helper, the advocate, and above all, the Savior.

What better friend could we have?

What better friend could raise us up to the highest places?

He said in John 15 verse 13, greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends.

He truly is our best friend.