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“BFF! (Best Friends Forever…the Model of True Friendship);” 4th in the series, “Shortcuts for a Faith-Filled Future!”; John 15:12-15; Proverbs 18:24; 1/24/10
Scripture Introduction (9:30): Maybe you saw the cartoon “For Better or For Worse” in Friday’s Enquirer. If not, here it is…show the cartoon on friendship (1/22/10)… Don’t we all wish we had a friend like Ellie; someone who at a moments notice will if not drop everything for us, at least pick up our slack and add it to what he/she is already carrying? Now, we should be friendly to everybody, but true friends are a rare commodity and if we can name a handful of people like that in our lives we are blessed. Maybe you are counting them on your digits even as we speak.
Scripture Introduction (8:45-11:00): Rev. Stephen M. Crotts shares that “A few years ago a lovely woman from Kenya worshiped with us for some time. Her name was Adihambo Otineo, which means “Beautiful Dawn.” I asked her once if she liked it better here in the United States or back home in Africa. She grew quiet for some time. Her face worked with emotion, and finally she spoke with deep feeling. “I think I like it better in Kenya,” she confided. “Here in the United States people are very busy and wealthy. And, instead of giving you themselves they give you things. But in Kenya we are very poor. And we have nothing to give to one another but ourselves, but that we do give. I miss the gift of people.”
(All Three) This morning we are going to spend some time finding out what our faith tells us about giving ourselves to one another, about what it means for you and I to be friends. To help us in that we will concentrate on words Jesus shared with the disciples from the Gospel of John and a word of Wisdom from Proverbs. So, as you are able please stand for the reading of the scriptures:
John 15:12-15: I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. 13 And here is how to measure it. The greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. 14 You are my friends if you obey me. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a master doesn’t confide in his servants. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. (NLT)
Proverbs 18:24: Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin. (NRSV)
Let us pray: What a friend we have in you, Jesus. Help us to listen and learn how to be better friends as we concentrate on your word to us this morning. Amen.
Introduction: As we begin this morning I have two questions for you to ponder for a moment. First: “What would you consider the highest honor that you could receive? Would it be a promotion in your work or an unexpected invitation to a really important event? The second question is: “What is the finest gift that you could give to someone? Would it be money or possessions?”
Now, the reality is that answers to these questions can vary widely. But, I think we can answer these questions very simply, and the answer applies to all of us. I believe the highest honor we can receive is the friendship of another person. I believe the finest gift that we can give to another person is our friendship. Why, well let me point out that many leading authorities on American life tell us the biggest social problem we have today is loneliness. We live among many people, but we live as strangers. How often have we read or heard about people being in trouble and needing help, only to see another person pass by on the other side of the street (Bad Samaritan story)? We do not want to be involved, and so we close the doors of our hearts to people.
We forget that friends are our richest possessions. Socrates, the classical Greek philosopher, said thousands of years ago: “All people have their different objects of ambition—horses, dogs, money, honor, as the case may be—but for my part I would rather have a good friend than all these put together.” It was true then…it is true now.
The Boomers in the crowd and those of you who are our parents will remember Janis Joplin, the famous pop singer of the late 1960’s. This young woman in her mid-twenties stood night after night before screaming, applauding crowds in the great auditoriums and arenas across this country. She was on top of the heap as far as popularity was concerned. One night standing before twenty five thousand applauding, cheering fans, she asked herself aloud, “Janis, have you ever been loved?”
She answered her own question: “No, I’ve never been loved except by twenty five thousand people at a concert. Someday I’m going to write a song about making love to twenty five thousand people and then going home to my room alone.” Janis died at twenty seven alone in her hotel room from an overdose of heroin. Her most famous song, “Piece of My Heart,” has the recurring phrase, “Break another little bit of my heart now…” To be loved in general will never meet the deepest needs of our lives. We need to be loved in particular. Friends provide us that—true friends who stick closer than our nearest kin.
I. What a Friend We Have in Jesus: Our scripture passage from John 15 is a small part of Jesus’ encounter with his disciples in the upper room on the night he was betrayed, the night before he gave up his life on the cross for us all. He is trying to help his disciples understand how they will be able to deal with the horrific things that are about to happen to him. He wants them to know that he will not be leaving them or abandoning them but will be with them, as close as a friend.
You see, the disciples had grown to call Jesus, who they were discovering was the Son of God, Master, and rightly so. But the reality in the world in which they lived was that to the master you were a tool and expendable. When the Master was finished with you, when the master had used up your usefulness, gotten out of you what he wanted, you were cast aside. To build them up, Jesus knew he had to help them re-image their relationship to him. And so he said to them and to us, “I no longer call you servants…Now you are my friends…”
Knowing Jesus is our friend impacts how we look at ourselves and how we respond to the relationship God offers to us through Jesus Christ. Let’s compare the roles and how servants and friends react and respond:
· A servant is told his worth by his pay. A friend is invited into a priceless relationship.
· Servants are told only what they need to know. A friend is invited to share in plans, ideas, and privileged information.
· A servant is told only what to do. A friend is invited to discuss what needs to be done.
· A servant is told not to speak unless spoken to. A friend is invited to share in the conversation.
· A servant is told to wait on the table. A friend is invited to sit at the table and share in the meal.
Servants and friends have different roles. And while I’d be glad to be nothing more than a servant in the house of God, Jesus says, “I no longer call you servant....now I call you friend.”
II. How to be a friend: Now you’ve heard these truths so often that they may seem like clichés, but they are no less true.
· The only way to have a friend is to be one.
· The ornament of a house is the friends that frequent it.
· A friend in need is a friend indeed.
· Friendship is not a one-way street.
· Aren’t these thoughts lovely? Why, even Mark Twain had something to say on the subject. “The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature,” wrote Twain, “that it will last through a whole lifetime if not asked to lend money!”
If friends are so dear to us, so important to our well-being and theirs, how do we cultivate deep and abiding friendships? I’d urge us to take, to heart the wisdom of that first phrase, “The only way to have a friend is to be one,” and to look to the one who is our truest friend, Jesus, and his words to his friends, the disciples, for guidance.
A. First Friends are transparent (vs. 15), for Jesus said, “I have told you everything…” A real friend is willing to tell you the truth. A real friend will tell you the truth no matter what you ask him. She may not always tell you what you want to hear, but she will always tell you what you need to hear. She will tell you a hard truth not to hurt you, but to help you. It’s like when I go to the doctor and he examines me. If there’s something wrong with me, I want to know the truth. If he’s my friend, he will tell me the truth, not to hurt me but to help me.
Furthermore, a real friend is willing to confront you when you’re wrong; not criticize you behind your back, but confront you to your face. She will never condemn you when you are wrong, but she will confront you so that she might correct you and help make you right. In the book of Proverbs you’ll find this bit of wisdom, “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” (Proverbs 27:17) A real friend will have a sharpening correcting influence on your life.
Back to the Doctor/patient analogy I used earlier. An older gentleman paid regular visits to his physician, but between visits was not always good at following his physician’s directives. At times the physician would become exasperated and say to the man: “Larry, I love ya’! But, you gotta stop doing that!”
Christian friendship is just like that. It’s what Paul calls “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Like that doctor, we will say:
· “John, I love you, but you have to give up alcohol because you are addicted to it.”
· “Martin, I love you, but you’ve got to stop riding roughshod over people’s feelings; think before you speak.”
· “Carol, I love you, but you’ve got to stop your carping, because it’s driving a big wedge between you and your children.”
· “Mary, I love you, but you’ve got to stop behaving like a doormat; there are more important things than being liked by everybody on the face of the planet.”
We compassionately share the truth with one another…we are transparent…but in ways that build our friends up.
B. Secondly, Friends Sacrifice for Each Other (vs.13 Msg) for Jesus said, “This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.” In the Jewish faith of Jesus’ day, that last meal Jesus ate with his friends was called a chaburah—a friendship dinner. Do you get that…? As Christ followers we have been steeped in this friendship business, from the very beginning. It was at the chaburah that Jesus said to his followers, “This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.”
Jesus is the model friend for those who believe in him as their Savior and Lord. It is his example of sacrificial love that motivates us to try harder, to be more unselfish, to care about the people around us. That whole matter of the cross, of Gethsemane and the beating in Pilate’s hall and the crucifixion and the death, had to do with love and caring, with constancy and friendship.
A real friend is someone who wants to be a friend to you, not because of what you can do for them, but for what they can do for you. We all know that there are some people who are your friends only as long as it is convenient. I heard about a little boy who walked into the dentist’s office with a friend of his, and he said, “Doc, I’ve got a tooth that’s got to come out right now and I don’t want any gas, I don’t want any Novocain, I don’t want any shots to deaden the pain. My friend and I have got a lot of things we want to do today, and I just want to get down to business and get this tooth out right now.”
The doctor said, “Son, I have never seen a young man with courage like yours. Which tooth is it?
The little boy turned to his friend and said, “Show him your tooth, Tommy.” Well, in a real friendship, your friend will always want what is best for you, not what is best for him or herself.
C. Friends Stick with you, no matter what (Prov. 18:24):
· The best definition I ever read of a friend is this, “A friend is someone who will walk into your house when the whole world just walked out.”
· Diane Craik explains that a friend is “one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take it and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
Think back to our scripture from Proverbs 18:24: “Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin.” A true friendship will be a loyal relationship. That word “stick” refers to how the skin sticks to the bone, and this is a picture of how a real friend will stick closer to you through thick and thin, than your skin will stick to your own bone. One thing you will never have to question about a friend is her loyalty. A true friend will always be your defense attorney before she will become your judge.
You see, one of the marks of a friend is that though he may point out your faults from time to time, he will overlook them and never let them come between you. The story is told of a young man who had disgraced himself in a serious crime and then tried to conceal it from everyone, especially the person whom he admired most of all. He was afraid if that person knew about his crime, their friendship, which he valued so highly, would be ruined. Finally one evening he told his sordid story to his friend. To his astonishment, his friend replied, “I have known about it all along, but I have liked you in spite of it.” True friendship is strong. It can stand the strain, and it can endure the pain.
You see, that is the kind of friendship Christ offers us. He is not easily shocked. He knows everything about us—our strengths as well as our weaknesses. When we take him at his word and come to him honestly and truthfully, we find he loves us not for what we have done, but for what we are, and for who we can become. And that brings us to the last point about friendship for this morning.