Okay, we're looking at hospitality and friendship for a few weeks. I, Lord willing, will be teaching this week, Mr. Mooney next week, and then I will be picking up again after that. He's gonna teach a second lesson on friendship, and then I will teach two lessons on hospitality. This is a very short session, it's only five weeks, and then we will be back to church history, so just so you know that. And then I think I mentioned in the spring we'll have another one on stewardship, another class on stewardship, and I believe Mr. Loring and Mr. Schofer are on deck for that one. That'll be practical Christian teaching. Yes, I couldn't remember it. I think one of your names is on there. One of the two will do it. There we go. And in between our church history and our biblical studies, let's pray together. Lord God, we thank you for this day, which is your day, and a day where you gather us for worship and for rest. And we thank you for rest in a busy, and broken and sinful world. We thank you for the rest that comes by peace of conscience through the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for the rest that comes by communion with you as you assure us in worship of your love and nearness. Lord, we thank you for the rest that you give us even as we fellowship together, as we spur each other on to love and good works, as you remind us But in your great and mighty work of redemption, we are not alone. We have you in communion with you. We have you, Lord Jesus, as our older brother. But we also have each other as brothers and sisters and friends. Savior, we remember your words to your disciples, you are my friends. And your teaching, greater love has no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends. And we pray that you would school us in the art of friendship again this morning, for we ask in Jesus' name, amen. So we have looked last week a little bit at, well, we studied the chapter of the confession on the communion of the saints. We went through a brief overview of the same, and I would commend that to you for your reading. And now we're gonna talk a little bit for the next two weeks about friendship, and then two weeks about the exercise of hospitality. One of the reasons I return to this theme every so many years in a church is in order that we might not forget to be friendly as a congregation. Over the years, as a church grows, at the very beginning we were only maybe about, well, Mr. Van Voorhis would remember? 45, I read an early roll the other day and it was 30 people, 25, 30 people. At the very beginning, less than that. And it's really hard to hide in a crowd of 25, not really a crowd, It's also really hard to get lost in a crowd of 25. In other words, it's hard to hide, and it's hard not to find somebody, right? Both of those things don't generally happen in a small crowd. Church grows over time, two things happen. Inevitably, some closer friendships and bonds form, often along natural lines. Let's say two young couples who have kids the same age, and they're going through the same life experiences, and they gravitate to each other. Maybe they have a few other common interests, and all of a sudden, there's a family friendship. And those can grow over time, and those affinities can deepen. And that's good, but perhaps also very soon we can fall into patterns where we are simply thinking about and talking to exactly the same people all the time. We could either get pushed to the edge, we could either, or we could get focused on just a few people at the expense of perhaps remembering that the body of Christ is larger. Now, I'm gonna get to this in a moment. You can't be friends with everybody to the same degree, so part of this is not only natural but good. At the same time, as those things happen, we as a church could forget to, when somebody new walks into the door, that we have a joint and corporate responsibility that we should have a disposition of friendliness. And that friendliness fundamentally is, as I just prayed a moment ago, an intentional self-sacrificing and self-denying disposition. Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends. Christians are to be those who are profoundly interested in other people. And not for selfish gain, but out of the love that has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Few things about maybe our culture's view of friendships, and your handout, I think, has a typo on there. It's supposed to be a possessive, not a plural. But many people view friendships as perhaps some of the following. Something satisfying, it meets a felt need. Friends make me feel good about myself. Other people don't want to have friends. Why might some people shy away from having friends and being close to people? Yeah, been burned or been hurt profoundly. And so the costliness of investing again, the hurdle seems too high. And why would I do it again? This is, I've done this before, and it won't work. Maybe it's not just hurt and fear, maybe it's just a profoundly selfish disposition. I have things that I like to do, and I don't need any friends. I've got my own interests, and other people waste my time. There's perhaps this, that there's a hopelessness, impossible to find, I want a friend, on my terms. I want my kind of friend. And if you've ever had friends, if you ever had a very, very good friend, you know that the best kind of friend is the kind of friend who not only enjoy time together, but will tell you the most profoundly painful truths about yourself in order that you might grow in Christ. And if you want a friend who only gives advice when you ask for it, who doesn't want or need anything you want, and can solve their own problems, and only appears when you feel lonely, that's not going to go very far. There's other people who want friends to serve their own needs. The little phrase networking. What is networking? It's a four. People love to use this in career, in developing your career. Networking, which is not bad. It's not bad to find people who can help you advance your business interests. But if you get around some networkers, I mean, what are they looking for friends for? One reason, money. And they are just chasing to find somebody with capital or connections so that they can make more money. And it reminds me of the proverb, about the leech that says give and give. And the idea of sucking the life out of somebody to grow yourself. None of these views of friendships are good. We have a new layer in our culture of friendship and that is the online friendship. The mirage as I like to call it. And I found a text here in Proverbs that I believe All of you know my long campaign against Facebook. It's gonna get more intense in this class as I found a text that I believe applies to Facebook, but there we go. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Okay, the Bible does talk about friendship. Let's go to the scriptures, because the culture's view and wrong view is to pursue friendship. Friendship is highly commended in the Bible. First, there's a design of God that we are creatures made for communion. And we are to have communion first with God. And it's a remarkable thing. There's three instances in the scriptures when the language of friendship is used between God and man. And I gave you one. Jesus said, you are my friends. Remarkably kind language. Friends of God. Anyone know two other people? Friend of God. Moses spoke to God face to face as a man speaks with his friend. And then Abraham is called numerous times in the Old Testament the friend of God. And we know that this kind of communion and friendship was purchased by the blood of Christ. And this is the highest kind of communion, but it's not a small thing. that the scriptures can describe relationship between God and his people as a friendship. And that should give some profound weight to the term as we think about it between people. God is triune, and he has fellowship within himself. We learn that from John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we also know from that prayer that our fellowship is also with the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that in the one in three and three in one nature of the Godhead, exists an eternal communion into which through the gospel we are brought by faith in Jesus Christ again to be friends of God and this cannot be separated. The idea of communion, the communion of the three persons in the Godhead and the idea of communion generally that is built into creation, it is an echo of an ultimate reality. Secondly in creation, it's not good for man to be alone. We were not made to be alone and this is important because Adam had God, okay? So he had communion with God. And the phrase, it is not good that man should be alone, I'll make him a helper compared to him, it's about marriage especially, but it says something about the unfinished work of creation. It is not good, and it also says that the hermit tendency is against the grain of the created order. So if you find yourself withdrawing from all other people into yourself, this is against the order of creation and the purpose of God for humanity. And it may be because of reasons of fear, I can understand that, been burned. but you're gonna have to learn to resist that, and you can by the power of the gospel, maybe because of selfishness. It could be a lot of reasons that we tend inwards, but it is not according to design. Now, this does not mean that it's not good to spend time alone. We know that our Savior did. He did significant periods of time alone and in prayer, and this is a good use of time, and that is communion with God. So we're not going to elevate human friendship above communion with the living God, but we're gonna say that we are made for both. Some more in the scriptures that tell us this, friendship is a grace. Psalm 68, verse five, God makes a home for the lonely. And most importantly, Psalm 68, that has the idea of Within God's covenant people, within Israel, there's a home. The highest expression of friendship is friendship worked within the body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we have the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. And these friendships in the body, the scriptures tell us, are higher than even natural familial bonds. There can be bonds in Christ where you have a brother or sister in Christ, and Jesus says that we may have a division between ourselves and our parents. The gospel can run a division through a family, which shows that the natural relationships are not higher than the spiritual fellowship in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friendship also helps us as we live in a fallen world. Two are better than one, Ecclesiastes 4, because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his commandment. Woe to the one who falls where there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together and keep warm, how can one be warm alone? If one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. And what all of these have in common is the biblical and inspired commendation, particularly in a fallen world, that two are better than one. When two line down together, what would be lost in heat is given to the other, like coals in a fire. It's interesting that our Savior, just as a little aside, when He sends out His apostles, He sent them out two by two, And when Paul went out on his missionary journeys, they went out two by two. And there was a togetherness in ministry. And the idea here in a fallen world, in a world of trouble, that companionship is divine help and blessing is inspired scripture. Hebrews 3, take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God, but encourage one another day after day, as long as it is called a day, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Hebrews 3. And then Hebrews 10, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as is the manner of some. Exhort one another daily, much more as you see the day approaching, the day of Christ approaching. Hebrews 10, 24 and 25. These are biblical principles that, again, you start to see a pattern building. The idea of aloneness is contrary to God's design, especially designed for the church, especially is designed for a believer in a fallen world. Friendship is also something that's given in the grace of God and reflects that grace. And even fellowship with the saints is a means of grace, a way in which God works in us as he works in others. He equips the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith. And God's interest is that the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, According to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building of itself in love. Now here, God dispenses his grace corporately, and in a mysterious way, he uses all the parts of a particular body to work together, fitted together, to increase the growth of that body. And Christ died for you as an individual. Christ died for his church. And he's building his church, he's building a body. And there are no Lone Ranger Christians. It's not a category. The category is to be swept up into the glorious body, the bride of Christ, from every nation, tribe, and tongue. And very often, and still today, sometimes even this past week, I've had discussions with people undervalue the idea of belonging to the body, and they want to be Lone Ranger, unaccountable, disconnected, independent, no one tells me what to do Christian. And that's not God's design. God's design is that this friendship would be used to build up the church, and there's a mutual responsibility here. David, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. And greater love, I've used this three times now, has no man than this than to lay down his life for his friends. And the idea of being in an assembly, where we lay down each other's lives, where we spur each other on to love and good works, where we warn each other against bitterness, where we, to use the language of Colossians and Ephesians, we, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs make melody in our hearts to the Lord, but the word also says we encourage one another. In your communal singing, for example, you're not alone. So this whole idea of friendship and its connection to body life and the grand scheme of salvation to be incorporated into a fellowship, a living fellowship, the power of the Holy Spirit in that fellowship, means profoundly Christianity is relational. And being part of Christ's church puts you in close contact with other people, which ultimately, despite sometimes your bad experiences, is the gift of God. And we ought to thank him for it. Some limits on friendships. Here's the verse I was talking about that applies to Facebook. Close friendships should be few. A man of too many friends comes to ruin. There we go. obscure application. But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Let's talk about some limits on the reality of friendship. Obviously, there's a couple things. You are limited in your ability to form close relationships, and you're gonna have spheres of close relationships. Most naturally, if you're married, closest friend better be your spouse. That's not true. There's something wrong. And then if you're married, however, husband and wife, you should think about being friendly together and inviting people into the sphere of your home. And I think it is important, and it's part of the Christian life, is to be careful to balance the needs of your own family, natural family, and to remember that you've been called by Christ and incorporated by the power of His Holy Spirit into the family of God, and that this is your real family, and that your interest is broader than the people who share your last name. It is very easy to get stuck in a rut and devote all of your energies just to the people especially if your family grows and then maybe you have grandchildren and You can become focused on in the in your time and your attention and your treasure only on those who you are related to by blood but the reality is that you've been related to one another by the power of the Holy Spirit and the scriptures tell you that that the higher bond is that bond that will last forever. Now, Lord willing, in our families, by God's covenant mercies, that bond is both. However, the idea is this, that there is to be a sharing, as we saw from Acts chapter two, of the life of the body with one another beyond the natural relationships. All that back to this proverb, a man of too many friends comes to ruin. There's a limit to this. You can't be close friends with everybody. And the mirage, again, of your friend count online, lots of these people are not what you would call close friends. Lots of acquaintances, and there's a sense in which we're all friends in Christ, I understand that. But you know that you only have so much time in a week, and there's only, in God's providence, there's only so many people that you can be a friend to. And you also know that everybody won't like you, And if everybody likes you, you either have received a remarkable divine favor, which is probably unlikely that that's the category you should think about. Perhaps you're not telling people hard things, and you're good at telling everybody exactly what they wanna hear. You're limited in your ability to have friends. Not everybody's gonna be comfortable with everything you say. Certainly we're not to be friends with the world, And friendships take energy to maintain and you are finite. So there's a reality you're gonna have closer friends, a smaller sphere, and people that you know more broadly. However, that should not limit you, to finish this section, to not reaching out to others you don't know well on a regular basis with kindness, and we'll get to this later in the class, hospitality, so that you do not become stagnant in your love for the whole body of Christ, or for the stranger. It's easy to destroy friendships. We need to be careful about them. We'll talk more about it in the next week. Friendships have to be rooted, ultimately, the best friendships are rooted in our oneness in Christ, and other kinds or reasons or motivations for friendship are not lasting. I think in Proverbs 19.4, wealth adds many friends, but a poor man is separated from his friend. Friends you gain by your wealth are the friends who will leave you with your wealth. Jesus taught that in the parable of the prodigal son. The core reasons for friendship have to be ultimately gospel reasons. We can understand that friendships are limited by roles. King's favor is toward a servant who acts wisely, Proverbs 14.35, but his anger is toward him who acts shamefully. There's natural kinds of friendships. It's not wrong to have friendships that are similar in age or station in life. It's probably ordinary that those are the closer ones. It's not wrong. I'm not friends with any presidents or kings. Probably won't be my whole life. I don't live in that world. I'm not worried about it. I'm not feeling limited by it in any way. I'm not longing for it. There's realities of roles and providential station and place that usually come into friendship, and the scriptures speak about those things. Finally, some characteristics of a true friend. I know I'm kind of jumping around, but I'm trying to get a picture of friendship. The Bible talks about the constancy of true friends. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. If you have a true friend, that person will be there on a hard day, and on a good day. And they'll weep with those who weep, and they'll rejoice with those who rejoice. And you'll notice their interest then is in you, and not them. driven around like the waves of the sea. They are actually pouring into you. They are always loving. A friend loves at all times. A brother is born for adversity. Friends are full of grace, and they want to give. We'll get more into this in a moment. He who loves purity of heart and whose speech is gracious, even the king is his friend. Friends give hard counsel. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. Friends are those who tell you what you need to hear. Perhaps the toughest part of being a true friend is being honest enough to convict someone of sin and foolishness. And another measure of true friendship would be the ability or the willingness to receive that counsel. Not only to give it, but to receive it. And the best kind of friends are the friends who are willing to say the most encouraging and sometimes the most difficult things to each other, and the friendship lasts. I was texting with an old friend last night. It just happened to be he texted me. late in the evening, making big plans for a change of place to live and a major change of life. And I have known him since the first grade. He's an elder in the United Reformed Church. He and his wife are very close friends of Laura Lee and I, and our children are friends together. It's a long and happy friendship. It's one of those kinds of friendships that's such a gift from the Lord. We could not speak to each other for a year and pick up and rejoice together in the Lord's goodness, share family news, talk about our joint labors in Christ's church as if we never missed a beat. These are great gifts and encouragements to us. They're things that should be prized and sought after. And if you have a friend who has in view at all times God's glory and your good, that kind of friend will also tell you if you're going astray or give you the best kind of counsel aiming for greater fellowship with Christ and his glory. A true friend knows that there's no better thing for a friend than to obey God and to heed his counsel. The best kind of friend is the friend who will point you in that direction. do it without shame and with great love for you, so. I understand that because we went through Proverbs, we got through a lot of different themes there, but any questions at this point about friendship? Okay, we're gonna get into, we'll keep going here. I know I'm running through a lot. I wanna see where we are on the handout. There we go, we've talked about actually limits, characteristics, friends for all times, full of grace, they give hard counsel, those are various proverbs again. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Couple more things about cultivating friendship. Let's see our time here, we're doing okay for time. Everybody is needy. So here's a question, okay, if these are characteristics of friends, friendship is good, how could I make friends? Here's the question here in section six on your handout. How could I make friends? If some of you have tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed, maybe you've been burned or you're worn and weary and it just feels like too much. Let's think about a big category. Everybody in the world has needs and is needy. There's two kinds of needy people when it comes to friendship. And there is the needy person who thinks that you will satisfy all their needs. Have you ever met someone who is desperate for friends but has no friends? Have you ever seen it? Desperate for friends but does not have any. And there's this, it's almost like a death spiral starts happening. And the stronger that sense of loneliness is, the more intense the desire is to break out of the spiral, the harder this person grasps for earthly friends. And the desperation seems to feed itself, and the more desperate, the less friends. And what might be wrong here? Well, if you run into a person like this, and I have run into people like this, and as a pastor I still do, sometimes people just run, they sense something. And what are they sensing when they run away from this person who desperately wants friends? Sometimes it's this, an instinctive, an immediate instinctive or very soon an instinctive understanding that what this person is looking for from me, I cannot supply. Like a bottomless pit, it might be money, shoulder to cry on, talk on the phone all day, companion for some hobby. And until they feel some sense that you are meeting their needs, they just keep asking for more. It could be a Christian who's got a wrong view of friendship. Very often I think this person in this category, if it lasts, what is missing is a sense of the friendship that only God can give through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. And let me just say a little bit about that. That friendship is a friendship that needs to be cultivated in scripture reading, and in prayer, and in seeking God in worship. And until you have that primary friendship that comes only through conversion, and until you know grace lavishly and freely given Maybe the thing that you might be looking for is the thing that only God could give. Again, like the leech of Proverbs 30, would two daughters give and give. There's the second kind of needy person, and this is the needy Christian. And by the way, the needy Christian is every Christian. We're all like needy children. But we know, if we're in Christ, that God himself has satisfied our deepest needs for fellowship and friendship. And the reason we pursue friendships is very different than self-satisfaction or validation. Matter of fact, for the Christian, those don't cross our minds. Having been accepted in the gospel, in Jesus Christ, by the Father, We're not desperate for that self-validation. We're all desperately needy, and some are looking for love in all the wrong places. And the joy of the Christian is fellowship with God, a hope for the future. And this is the foundation for true, lasting relationships and friendship. You understand your own sin. And if you understand your own sin and you get to the category of friendship, what should you first believe about friendship? You don't deserve friends. You don't deserve them. They're a gift. They're a remarkable gift of a good and gracious God that brings you into fellowship with Him and with other people. A lavish gift, a good gift, to be prayed for, sought after, enjoyed, all those other things. But the moment you think you deserve some, you're gonna go back to the first category, right? And you're gonna try and extract something out of that person that they can't give you until others run away. You understand that others will sin against you. So when you make a friend, when you begin that friendship, new friend, This person will disappoint me. Full stop. They're gonna hurt me. It may not be willful, but it's gonna happen. If you've been married for any length of time, your very closest friend in the world, Laura Lee is my closest friend, she knows that I've sinned against her. I've had to ask for her forgiveness. She's my closest friend in the world. We took marriage vows, a promise to love and to cherish, all those things that you promise to do in a wedding vow. You need to know that when you're in fellowship with other people, even other believers in Jesus Christ, they're imperfect people. And part of the dynamic of that friendship is going to require a readiness before you begin to forgive them of the sins that they inevitably will commit because they're on this side of glory. You are a sinner. They are sinners. So, all biblical friendship is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ and always has a gospel dynamic in which giving, it is better to give than to receive, is the primary activity and goal. And the enjoyment of the relationship, listen to this carefully, is not going to be based on the reaching of a future ideal state of perfection, which is not coming in this world. but on a humble dependence on the blessing of the Spirit of God on that fellowship that he might make it a good gift for his glory. See the difference? It's a profoundly God-centered view of human relationships with the humility and hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ woven into them, which is actually the only foundation and basis for true human fellowship. I'm a sinner, the other person's a sinner, so what's gonna hold us together? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when they sin, I'm gonna say, I actually first see me there. I did that before. God forgave me. And when you sin, the other person, by God's grace, will be forgiven. And it's not an ideal state. It is a gift of God to have companions and friends. Think of marriage. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and what? Obtains favor from the Lord. Be ready to give and keep on giving, not take and keep on taking. At the heart of true friendship is a generosity that flows from, if you think of the parable of the unforgiving servant, the opposite is what? Forgiving grace. Lavish grace. And when another person has hurt you and wronged you, even though it is painful, you remember you hurt and wronged your Savior and you give to them. You are interested in that sort of lavish kindness that you have been shown by the Lord Jesus Christ to you. You are always ready and interested in doing good to others. That's the gospel orientation. We could probably spend the rest of the class on that gospel orientation. We could probably just stop there and if you could, if you could, live more out of your union with Christ, you'd have the happiest friendships you could ever imagine. I want to encourage you to do that. I want you to think about the conscious gospel orientation that ultimately means that when you enter a friendship, it is better to give than receive, and you will see something flourish. And if you grow in your Christian maturity, you're not actually that worried when someone doesn't reciprocate. What I mean by that is there's a sense in which, by forgiveness and compassion, you could just keep giving and giving and refuse to give into bitterness, retaliate. And that person might drift away from you, they might not like you. There's a few people I could give you probably a list of names of people that I have sought to pour into their lives and be gracious to, and have said to me, I don't have any interest in talking to you again. It happens. I pray that God would always keep my heart open and ready, that if they changed their mind, that would be restored. And I can't control what another person does, and I'm gonna try to. but the disposition of our hearts, God in Christ forgave you. Okay, a couple more things here. I wanna move on, because I think I am, yeah, I've got a few minutes and I've got a few pages left. I wanna see what we're going to cover here yet. Let's look at another few things that flow from this idea of giving. Aim for the other's spiritual and physical good. Aim for the good of others. consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Christian fellowship exists and is exercised with purpose. We are in the context of one another and the goal of our friendship is not to be lonely or find pleasure, but to increase love and good works and affection for God and others and obedience. And you ask yourself, how can I be a better friend? Am I helping this person love Christ more? love their neighbor more, and am I helping remove obstacles in their discipleship and their following Christ? Am I helping clear the road for them to be a better follower of Christ in good works? This takes work. And you might ask, how can I love my friend? How can I stir him or her up to love in good works? And to worship, public worship is part of it too. That's Psalm 122, we read that also. Stirring up one another, I would say this, this is a little aside I have here in pen in my notes. You have to talk to other people. You have to be willing to speak to them. Here's a little aside. It would be very good for us as a church not to forget as the years go on, that when someone new walks into that door, they may be a lonely person. And not all of us at once, but don't always go back to the same people. Reach out your hand and greet the newcomer, and if you don't know them, don't ask somebody else who they are. Just stick out your hand, introduce yourself, and in kindness and Christ-like love, reach out. You have to speak to other people in order to make friendships. And be interested, again, in more in giving than receiving. I don't see a lot of our young people here, but a few of them, if I was in the other class, I would tell them this. Youth, you've grown up together. After every worship service, look around and see if there's anyone you don't know. Before you talk to your friends, reach out to someone you haven't said hello to. Make it part of your church life. Okay, a couple things, ways to stir each other up to loving works. Do not forsake the assembling of yourself together. Go to church for worship and fellowship. Pursue hospitality. We'll talk about this in the coming weeks. To be persecuted, attacked, it doesn't happen passively. Provide edifying conversation. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. The whole earth is the Lord's and you have things to talk about. All that He's made and all that He's done and encourage one another in it. Talk about the mercies of God, God's wise dealings, His works of nature, the truth of God, how to apply truth, godly conversations, exhortation to love and good deeds, sharing of joy and sorrows and prayer requests, and building each other up and carrying each other along. Aim for the other spiritual and physical good. Be just and merciful. Justice doesn't mean being stingy, insisting on fairness all the time, like we went out, we were at your house last week, so you should be at our house this week. Actually, people say it the other way around. Rather, it is to deal lawfully with one another. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love is the fulfillment of the law. It gives what it owes. It repays its debts. It doesn't presume on generosity which wears down a friendship. The righteous is gracious and gives. The wicked borrows and does not pay back. A good friend is just, makes restitution, takes care of wrongs. If you're at someone's house and your son throws a rock through the window, you don't say sorry, you pay for the window. You make things right. You deal lawfully. You are not a leech, but you are fair and honest with your words. You keep your promises. You also have mercy, holy sympathy and compassion. I said this earlier, you rejoice with those who rejoice, you weep with those who weep. Susie broke her ankle this week and she's had God's mercy friends come by and say hello and share in her pain. It's a great joy. If you know a friend is in pain, if you're a friend, you're gonna be there. If you're a friend's sorrow, you're gonna be there. And you're gonna give and you're gonna serve and you're gonna have holy sympathy and compassion. You're gonna be merciful. Someone rejoices, you're gonna rejoice with them. You're gonna know what to say when. Proverbs 25, 20, like him who takes off a garment on a cold day or like vinegar on soda is he who sings songs to a troubled heart. You're not gonna bring your joy to their sorrow You're going to be sensitive to the needs of others. And having a heart of compassion includes listening with tenderness. You're going to be considerate and sensitive and have basic courtesy. You're not going to wear out your welcome. Proverbs 25, 17, let your foot seldom be in your neighbor's house, lest he have his fill and hate you. There's a little friendship limiter, isn't it? Thought you were such good friends you could move in. Proverbs tells you, no, he's going to kick you out. There's an old adage, fish and company both stink after three days. The idea of a limitation, knowing not only to have the idea of justice and the idea of mercy, but then consideration and sensitivity, etiquette and kindness. Don't stay forever, help instead of just asking for things. Consideration and sensitivity and mercy also involve listening. Don't talk about yourself. Ask questions. Get to know another person, how you might pray with and for them. And then finally, be loyal and faithful. A friend loves at all times. A brother is born for adversity. The idea in the Proverbs of the constancy of friendship, that it is something to be dependent on. I'll go back to my friend who I texted with last night. In God's mercy, he is the kind of friend that I can text at, I think it was probably 11.30 or something. I can text late in the evening. By the way, Canadians don't go to bed. When I moved to South Carolina, people went to bed, I knew all kinds of people went to bed at 9 p.m. Canada, everyone goes to bed at midnight. I think the whole country goes to bed at midnight. I didn't know anybody who didn't go to bed at midnight. It would be nothing to pick up the phone and call someone at 10.30. The whole church, 10.30, pick it up, call. No one would be in bed. When I moved to South Carolina, I called someone at 10 and they'd be like, I've been sleeping for an hour, Peter. I was like, I'm sorry. And there's still a little bit of Canadian in me. I don't know what it is, it's the long nights and we lose track of time, long dark winters or something. I don't know what it was. But anyway, so if you hear me, that I'm texting late at night, it's because I still act like my Canadian upbringing. How did I get to that? Get off track here. Friend loves at all times, that means answer the phone at midnight. It might mean that, actually. This idea of, no, this is what I was getting at. I can depend on this particular friend, his name is Kevin. I know after 40 years of friendship, actually 38, he's always gonna be there. He'll pick up the phone, he'll be there to pray with and for me. He's a friend who loves at all times, a brother who's born for adversity. And that loyal steadfastness is a sweet thing, a very, very sweet thing. And to think about how to communicate that to others, I think if we go back to the beginning gospel orientation, does Jesus Christ ever abandon his friends? His loyalty, constancy, and love is that which you can depend on every day. And he says, for eternity. And if there's a reflection in Christian friendship, it should be this, that you want to be a friend more than you want friends, you don't love yourself, and you are willing with loyal and faithful love to go to the end for another. And that is the kind of friends We ought to be as we follow Christ. Martin Luther, his commentary on Galatians 5 says, Christ is two things to us. He's a gift. He's a gift in the mercy and grace that we have through the cross and the forgiveness of sins. He's also an example. We ought to confuse those two things, gift first and then example. But here there is something, there's to be etched in us something of the pattern of Christ in our friendships. Questions on friendship? I see one, Krista. I was recently reading C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves, and he makes a lot of comments very similar to what you make. But he has a few insightful comments that I thought were really striking. And one of which is that a friendship is not based on, like you said, waking up and saying, I want friends. Because then that's just somebody who plugs into someone else, and they're just draining everything they have. But he said a friendship is made by somebody who's already on a journey, and they invite other people to join with them in the journey. So it's two faithful people walking alongside of each other, encouraging one another along the way. And it struck me, even just like yesterday, my son was saying how it was hard to get to know a classmate because he's like, the classmate never reads any books, he doesn't have any hobbies, he doesn't do anything, he doesn't go anywhere. And so it was just very hard to build a relationship with him. And it just struck me that in the church, that we could be a more faithful friend by reading broadly and spiritually, and by cultivating a love for one another, by serving, by studying, all of that. Just like you said, having that focus of how can I benefit somebody, not just how can I satisfy my loneliness. It actually is interesting. Greeting broadly does help you serve others. It really does. Having interests maybe broader than your own interests that you might share in the joys of others. The one thing is we are all on the same great journey, the pilgrimage to glory, and that should make our friendships natural. Rhonda? And yesterday, the thing I was talking about was yesterday, finding the balance between friendship and Christian service and taking care of your family. And even five years ago, a regular habit in my household would be scrambling to drop my kids off to a friend at my sister's house, run up to the grocery store, throw a meal together, and deliver a bacon jar or a bottle of vinegar to somebody that was discouraged or sick or whatever the situation was. And then running back by the grocery store to get frozen pizza that I probably would have burned for my own family at home, leaving everything in chaos. And so I think that it is important to realize that Christian friendship doesn't end. But we do have different seasons of life. So my ability to show friendship in that particular way was a disservice to my family. Whereas sending a text message or writing a note or just basically praying for somebody and letting them know that they are basically being prayed for is an equal encouragement. It just looks a little different in the day-to-day of your own household. Yeah, it's good. God gives us spheres of responsibility. Certainly our own house is the narrowest sphere. I just think of when Naomi was born, we loved her as God gives us the ability to practice hospitality. At first she wouldn't nurse well and then she wouldn't eat well. She was growing up and we had probably 12 months of the kind of work that we never had before. It's a pretty clear illustration of what duty number one was, feed the baby. And you go through a season where everything else has got to fall by the wayside. Don't forget that. One thing I don't want to present before you is some sort of ideal where everybody knows everybody all the same, where all of our homes are open, our houses are open every day, and we're making meals for everybody. It's not possible. We're not unrealistic here. We have primary responsibilities, but the idea of an open-hearted interest in others beyond our narrow sphere, for the interest, for the purpose of blessing others and knowing them, I think especially a focus on a heart for those who are lonely and needy, a watchful eye in the body of Christ, people who live alone. There's a lot of categories that we can focus on, but that thoughtfulness is important. Jim? All it's saying is include those who have a heart of humility and trust. I'm sure you're a person who just is. Begging for friends because they take too much. Correct. People don't want to be friends with them. That's wrong. Correct. The church has faint-hearted and weak people that need friends and we should reach out and get friends. Yeah, that's on what I was just saying here. The eye for, especially, the eye for the lonely and the needy. I think it's actually, to Jim's point, it's one of the tests of our heart. Are we willing to give and give and give? But the other side is if you're going to be afraid, Garrett will not be that kind of friend. But it doesn't matter. Sometimes we're just weak and worn down. We feel that way. Other Christians should be sensitive, right? I'm going to make one positive comment and one somewhat risky one. Positive comment is, I can't commend Bruce's book enough on the four loves. Because one thing it reminds us of is friendship is a species of love. And love, in this case, means doing well to another, giving good things to another, but also delighting the other person. And the question is, like Christ does in us, and so this is reflected in our friendship with others, the negative comment that's a little risky, is those who are leeching off of others almost never realize it and almost never think it's what they're doing. But the issue is, you know, I think maybe some areas where this comes out is, you know, sometimes maybe people are trying to talk to new people at the church but never get to because certain people always corner them and say, you're going to be my friend and I'm going to put you aside. Or perhaps always saying, can I get this from you? Can you do this for me? Can I come over? Can I do this? And it's never, can I give? Can I help? What can I do? Asking other people questions or somebody's, I guess, a question. And by the way, I should say, we all do this at some point. And we all have different struggles. But especially if you have young people and young men in particular that want to get married, there can often be a utilitarian approach of, I struggle with sexuality. I struggle with loneliness. I struggle with this. I struggle with that. I'm going to go find a person to meet all of my needs and do everything I want. We do that with churches. We show up and we say, no one's reaching out to me. I'm not making friends. No one's inviting me over. And I think in every single area, the issue is not, can we come to be served, but to serve like Christ? What if everyone took the opposite attitude? How can I serve? How can I act like Christ? Then none of these problems would exist. It would. It's a careful balance, because you take these last two columns from Jim and yourself, There's going to be people less mature, weak, or weary that become the test for the mature of our love. And maybe it will take somebody's compassionate, giving love for the first time for them to see what could be different. So we're never going to get to the point where all of us do not have some difficulty in this area. But the disposition, it is better to give than to receive, is the fundamental disposition that brings the happiest kind of friendship. Very happiest. So pray for that. Pray for grace to be good friends. Let's pray. Lord our God, we are amazed and humbled Or may it be that you would say to a man like Moses or a man like Abraham, you are my friend. To call them to us, the friends of God. For Jesus, we meditate again on your words, you are my friends. We think of the cost of that statement, a bloody cross and a broken body and shed blood and a forsakenness, the wrath bearing. to bring us into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For such we are. We pray that as we think more on the cross, and the way of the cross, that you would help us in all of our friendships indeed to give. And Lord, as you bring before us the neediest and the weariest, we pray that you would give us open hearts to give. As we mature in the faith, we pray that you would also mature us in the grace of forgiveness, justice, and mercy. Or that we, with a steady, long-term view and an open-hearted generosity, would open our hearts and our homes and share our lives with those around us. We think of all the responsibilities we have. We do pray for that wisdom that knows what to do when. We pray that we would not find excuses in our busyness, but Lord, instead, we would be marked by that quiet thoughtfulness that shows that we indeed know you, Lord Jesus, not only as our gift, but as our example. And we pray, oh Father, hear us in Jesus' name, amen.