Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 17, 2016 | Chip Pollard - Friendship

Transcript

April 17, 2016 | Chip Pollard - Friendship · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Mulvane Building, College Avenue Building.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to have you here.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I stopped over at College Avenue Building last night late and got myself a little bit of chocolate and strawberry, you know, from the dad-daughter date night.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: What a great weekend having 300 dads and 300 daughters and daughters dragging their dads and grandpas out onto the dance floor and uh making them, you know, do the light fantastic.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, but um you've got a treat this morning because um I've gotten Dr.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pollard up here.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Chip, would you come on up for a second?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is wife, Carrie.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Would you wave right next to him here?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Chip Pollard is president um of uh Jamon Brown University, and I've asked him, he's gonna share with you a little bit about the school, because I know some of you aren't familiar with it, and I wasn't that familiar with it when our youngest son, Kriig, chose to go to this school as college.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: But wow, over those four years, I came to really admire, really love this school uh from the president who, uh, as you can see on the front of the bulletin, I'm I am I think in the pantheon of Christian college presidents, he's like what Bill Self is to the university.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry for UK staters for that, but the I'm not gonna mention your coach, but uh the coach of KU and um just appreciated the academics, the spirit on campus.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was wonderful for Craig.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when I heard um Chip's message on when I'm alone and I heard and I heard his message on friendship that he gave about a month ago on JBU College Campus, and I thought, I want my people to hear that so much.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're gonna get to hear it today.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Chip.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Give him a hand up.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is a joy to be with you this morning.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of connections between JBU and Topeka Bible Church.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Three of our board members are members of your uh church, Jim and Marvin Spees and Mike King.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we typically have one or two students, always at JBU, that are from Topeka Bible.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a real gift uh for me to be able to be here with you this morning.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So some of you know maybe a little bit about JBU, but Jim asked me to give a few details.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're a Christian university, interdenominational our character.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have about 1,350 traditional undergraduates, about a thousand uh graduate students.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're located in the thriving metropolis of Silent Springs, Arkansas, uh, which is four and a half hours away from here, unless Marvin's driving, and that's about four hours away from here.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the fastest growing parts of the country.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, that they're suggesting in the next seven years the job growth rate in Northwest Arkansas will be third in the country behind Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Three of the largest corporations in the world are there: Walmart and Tyson Foods and JB Hunt.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: We um we do pretty well academically.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've been rated first or second in our category for the last seven years.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we lose out when we're second, we lose out to this school called High Point University in North Carolina.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they actually have an ice cream truck that drives around campus and gives away ice cream.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I say we will not stoop to that level in order to win academic uh achievements.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: We um combine academic programs, liberal art programs like Bible and theology and history and English with uh professional programs like graphic design, construction management.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're just starting a new nursing program, education, engineering.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so those things come together at JB, which is a little bit different than other places.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Our students do really well academically, they also do really well spiritually.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have students that do a lot of volunteering at, for instance, at New Life Ranch, which I know some of you are familiar with down in eastern Oklahoma.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they also do missions trips in Guatemala City and in Belfast and Northern Ireland and Atlanta and in Jackson, Mississippi.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: We also have a really vibrant chapel service.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: So on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the students lead the chapel in music and we have adults speak, like myself.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: But on Sunday night, we have the students actually do everything.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: They do the speaking, they do the worship.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So occasionally on Monday morning, I get a call and say, well, it wasn't quite right last night.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's okay.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Part of what we do on Sunday nights is we believe the young people are going to take over the church, and so they should practice taking over the church, which means sometimes it's not quite right, but that's all right.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what I'm gonna give speak with you today is something I spoke with the students about a couple of uh about a month ago.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we every semester we'll choose a specific book of the Bible.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're going through the whole Bible in 66 weeks.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: We we take a whole book of the Bible for a whole semester, so we're a little slower.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: But first and second Samuel we did this semester, and in particular, um, I spoke to students about friendship and the friendship of David and Jonathan.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where I'd like to be with you today.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read of various sections out of between 1 Samuel 18 and 1 Samuel 23.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit hard to follow, so if you just maybe want to listen, it might be easier.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: The first passage comes just after David has killed Goliath.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So hear the word of God.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Saul took David that day and would not let him return to his father's house.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Jonathan stripped himself of his robe and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword, and his bow and his belt.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: First Samuel 19.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and all the servants that they should kill David.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And Jonathan told David, Saul, my father, seeks to kill you.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore be on your guard in the morning, stay in a secret place and hide yourself, and I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if I learn anything I will tell you.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul, his father, and said to him, Let not the king sin against his servant David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have brought good to you.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan, and Saul swore, As the Lord liveth he shall not be put to death.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: And Jonathan called David, and Jonathan reported to him all these things.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now we move on to 1 Samuel 20.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Then David fled from Naoth and Rama, and came to Jul and came and said before Jonathan, What have I done?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: What is my guilt?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: What is a sin before your father that he seeks my life?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And Jonathan said to him, Far from it, you shall not die.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Behold, my father does not do anything, great or small, without disclosing it to me.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And why should my father hide this from me?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: It is not so.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then Jonathan divided, and David devised that warning system where he would shoot the arrows, and if it shot beyond the messenger boy, that would be sign that David wants, uh that Saul wanted to kill David.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he shoots it beyond the messenger.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it back to Scripture.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as the boy had gone, David rose from behind the stone heap and fell on his face on the ground and bowed three times.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: They kissed one another and wept with one another, David weeping the most.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Then Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, because we have both sworn.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Both of us have sworn in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord shall be between you and me and my offspring and your offspring.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So David now knows that Saul is intent on killing him.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Last passage.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is in Psalm, uh, I mean, 1 Samuel 23.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is the last time they they speak of the scripture speaks of the relationship between Jonathan and David.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: David saw that Saul had come to seek out his life.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: David was in the wilderness of Zeph at Haresh, and Jonathan Saul's son rose and went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to him, Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Saul my father also knows this.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is the word of God.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Will you take a moment and pray with me?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: May the words of my mouth and the dead and the meditations of my heart be honoring in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Friendship is an interesting concept in our contemporary culture.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Facebook just celebrated its 10th anniversary at the beginning of February.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And some of you may think Facebook's a little bit out of date, but the statistics would say otherwise.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: 57% of adults are on Facebook, and 73% of teenagers, college students are on Facebook.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Teenagers use it differently than adults.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: The average adult Facebook user has 338 friends.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the average young person, oh I'm sorry, uh adults, 15% of adults have more than 500 friends on Facebook.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And young people, about 28% have more than 500 friends.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: To give you a little bit of sense of that, Pastor Jim told me this auditorium here holds 500 people.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be your closest friends, all that are assembled here today, uh, if it was full.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I really have to always admit to students that I'm old.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not on Facebook at all.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think it would be really inappropriate for the president of JBU to defriend somebody, right?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Or not to accept a friend request.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I've just avoided the whole thing.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: But my wife, uh, who is on Facebook, I've kind of watched over her shoulder and I've come to appreciate how there's some benefits to this, particularly if you have, and we do have a new grandbaby, so you can see pictures and all that sort of thing.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I do wonder how this concept of having 500 friends has changed our understanding of friendship.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: What is a friend?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: What should we expect from a friend and what should we give to a friend?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, how does God use friends in our lives?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think the story of David and Jonathan helps us this way to think about God's gift of friendship.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, someone's helped me in a variety of ways thinking about this passage, and he has three headings that I'm going to use today that are helpful.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: A good friend is there's a transparency, there's constancy, and there's sympathy.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Good friends are transparent, constant, and sympathetic.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the outline we'll use.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, transparent.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Transparent.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Friends share their fears with one another.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: David comes to Jonathan many a time, literally in fear for his life.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: What have I done?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: What is my guilt?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And what is the sin before your father that he seeks my life?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: A true friend is willing to admit to his friend that he's at his wit's end.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: She's willing to tell her friends that she is weak and anxious and alone.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: David is on his run, was on the run because the king was after his life, and he goes to Jonathan, he wants comfort and encouragement.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: How often are we willing to tell somebody else that we're at our wit's end?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: How many people can you really share your fears or your dreams or your mistakes or your longing?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, and again, this is another, I think, phenomenon with social media, people share way too much with way too many people.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: They and it's almost as if there's a cry for someone to be their friend, and they share it on social media.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no way to respond because you don't have the closest of relationship or it's just too many people.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: They don't receive the real wisdom and support and encouragement they need.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: However, if you can't tell anybody about the sin or sorrow in your life, then probably you don't have a good friend.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Appropriate transparency is essential in friendship, but it probably can only be done with a handful of people.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the first point about transparency.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Second, transparent friends speak hard truths to one another.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs tells us faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: On several occasions, Jonathan tries to find out his father's plans in order to warn David.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: When Jonathan finally determines that Saul is set on killing David, he does not hide the truth from him.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's important in friendship that we have both love and honesty.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you have love but no honesty, then you're just flattering one another with a lot of words.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's the profuse kisses of an enemy.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: So love without honesty is the profuse kisses of the enemy.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you have honesty without love, your friend's comments just seem harsh and you can't hear them.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, we need both love and honesty in order to build trust.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: The wounds of a friend are faithful because you know they are said out of love.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we desperately need people to speak truth into our lives.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's really very, very, very hard to know yourself because we're so selfish, we're so curved in ourselves that our perspective of ourselves is often very distorted.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it either goes in one of two directions.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Either we think way too much of ourselves, or in a lot of times, and this can happen more often in the church, we say way too little of ourselves.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And a good friend can speak hard truth, both to encourage you to see your talents and gifts, but also to see some of your weaknesses and your foibles.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: We need friends to gently wound us with their love so that we might see ourselves the way God sees us.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Second point about transparency.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Third, transparent friends are open to share their deepest emotions.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: When Jonathan finally tells David that Saul is intent on killing him, they both weep openly.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Scripture says David rose from behind the stone heap and fell on his face and ground face on the ground, and he bowed three times.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they kissed one another and they wept with one another.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: David weeping the most.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: These are tears that of the realizing that the relationship between Jonathan and David were going to be affected because Saul was trying to kill David.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: That the political calamity of what Saul was doing was actually going to affect the friendship of Jonathan and David.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: These are tears of lament, sorrow and grief.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Tears about the brokenness of this world.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now I have to admit, and if you're know anything about JBU, that I'm not a I'm not one that occasionally will show emotion while I preach.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes even cheers.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm known sort of as the crying president occasionally at JBU.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And those when I get choked up at in sermons, it's usually for one of two reasons.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: One, it's sometimes because I'm just overwhelmed with joy at the grace of Jesus Christ.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the other times it's when I'm overwhelmed by sorrow, by the brokenness of this world.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: But again, in our contemporary culture, men don't share their emotions too much.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sign of weakness, vulnerability, quite literally being out of control.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: However, scripture suggests that friends share their deepest emotions with one another, that they bear one another's emotional burdens, that sometimes crying is the only appropriate response for what you can say to your friend.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: That words are actually insufficient, that expressing emotion with them is better.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that transparency of emotion actually builds health, it builds perseverance, it actually helps more than anything else you could do.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Transparent friends reveal their fears, they speak hard truth, and they're willing to share their emotions.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the point on transparency.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Second, constancy.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Proverbs again defines this for us.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Another verse from chapter 18.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: A man of many companions, I think 500 Facebook friends, may come to ruin.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Keller describes this attitude as a friend is somebody who always lets you in and never let you down.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Always let you in and never let you down.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Jonathan and David exhibit that constancy to one another.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: We need to understand a little bit about the political dynamics to understand what that means.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because Jonathan and David always think about the best for one another.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Jonathan was King Saul's oldest son.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was next in line for succession.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So quite literally, Jonathan's career and David's career were diametrically opposed.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Saul had disobeyed God, Samuel had anointed David to become the next king.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: So the more that Saul that David went up, the lower Jonathan was going to become, and vice versa.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: But they always looked out for each other, even though that their careers were diametrically opposed.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: David and John recognize this truth and they sacrificed for themselves for the benefit of others.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, when Jonathan first sees David after he kills Goliath, he literally gives him his robe that was on him, his armor, his sword, his bow, and his belt.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's sort of symbolically saying, You will be the next king.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you all of the outside adornments of what it means, king.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: You will be the next king.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, he does this so much that Saul actually gets mad at him.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: He says to his son, For as long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You are sacrificing the family business with your friendship with David.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Similarly, David honors Jonathan after he becomes the king of Israel.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Jonathan dies with King Saul, but after he after Jonathan dies and King David becomes the king of Israel, he asks, Is there anybody still alive from Jonathan's family?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they discover Mephizaphift.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can never say that word very well.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And invites him to his home.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: At that time, in that culture, that would have been crazy.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you have vanquished the king, you kill all of his descendants because they would be the source of rebellion.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: But what is Jonathan, what does David do?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Jonathan finds Jonathan's David finds Jonathan's son and brings him into his palace and takes care of him because of his friendship for Jonathan.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: So in both cases, a constant friend is not somebody that's competitive but looks out for the benefit of the other.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Second point.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: A constant friend points you to God.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: The last time, and I think this really poignant, the last time we hear about the friendship between Jonathan and David, David is completely on the run.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Saul is pursuing him.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: He's in the wilderness of Horesh and Maan and Gedi.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Saul says to his commanders, If David is in the land, I will search him out among the thousands of Judah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: David was clearly in fear for his life.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: There was no resting place for himself or his men.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: He was likely deeply tired and discouraged without food.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was literally and metaphorically lost in the wilderness.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And what does Jonathan do?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Jonathan comes out to meet him, to find David in the wilderness.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the scripture says he comes out to help David find strength in God.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Jonathan can't do anything to actually stop what his dad is doing.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's already tried to argue with him, he already tried to hide David.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: He can't stop the evil that's going on to his friend.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: But he can help him to find strength in the midst of that evil by pointing David to God.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: So often I think that's the way we are in our friendships.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Our friend is struggling, they don't have a job.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: We can't find them a job.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Our friend is struggling, their spouse has left them.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: We can't bring the spouse back.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our friend is struggling, they have cancer.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: We can't heal them.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Our friend's struggling, their child has broken their heart, and we can't change what their child has done.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: We can't always solve the problems of our friend.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: But we can go out to them in their wilderness and stand next to them and point them to God to find strength in God.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: A friend doesn't have to solve your problems, a friend has to stand with you in your problems.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: To help you preserve amidst life's difficulties.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the two points on constancy.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Third point, sympathy.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: A true friend is a sympathetic friend.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And by sympathy, here I'm I'm drawing on C.S.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis's famous essay about the four loves.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: One of the loves is friendship.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: He writes that true friends have a certain type of sympathy that distinguishes friendship from companionship.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: The typical expression of the opening of a real friendship is something like, What?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: You two?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I was the only one.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see the same truth?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or at least do you care about the same things that I care about?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Deep friends see the world from a similar perspective.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: They enjoy the same activities or hobbies or interests.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: They find this that they share life together.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know what that is.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: You find someone almost amazingly who cares about the same thing you do.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Someone who loves the Kansas City Royals when they're not winning, not just when they are winning.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Cubs fan, so I have lots of sympathy with uh your your past, not your current presence.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody who loves to paint watercolors, someone that loves to hike, somebody who loves to write computer code.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I often tell families, I don't like video games greatly, but for young men it's one of the best things for relationship building, because they don't have to look at each other.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: They look at the game and they talk.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: As long as they don't play too much, it's really good for them.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit because they can't look at each other and talk.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: For me, when I think about what a friend might be, the things I'm interested in, it would be somebody who loves the English Premier League soccer, who loves modernist poetry, who loves theology, who loves higher education, who loves playing golf.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have many friends.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm not sure what that applause is for there, but again, Lewis makes a distinction between lovers who are always talking to one another about their love, and friends who ever hardly ever talk about their friendship.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Lovers are normally face-to-face, absorbed in each other.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Friends side by side, absorbed in a common interest.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know all the details of David and Jonathan's relationship, but you can imagine that they shared similar interests.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: That whole warning system was shooting the arrow suggests that they probably enjoyed athletic events or training and martial endeavors together.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Scripture also suggests that they enjoyed being around the king's table, that they enjoyed music, they enjoyed the good food, they enjoyed the camaraderie of being at the king's table.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Most importantly, they both had a common vision about what God was going to do with the kingdom of Israel.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: David was going to take over and be the king.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: They shared a deep commitment to God and following his direction in life.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: In my experience, I've only found maybe this true kind of friend sympathy in five or six people, I think.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Finding such friends is more a gift of God's grace than it is something that we arrange.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Again, because like the first thing of finding that person is like, oh my gosh, you too?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: You thought about the world this way?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis recognizes this friendship as a rare gift when he says, in reality, a few years' difference in the dates of birth, or a few more miles between certain houses, or the choice of one university compared to another, posting to a different regimen, any of these chances might have kept us apart.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: But for a Christian, they are strictly speaking no chances.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: A secret master of ceremonies has been at work.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Christ, who said to his disciples, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, can truly say to every group of Christian friends, You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: God chose David and Jonathan for each other, and it was a gift of his grace.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the depth of the relationship between David and Jonathan has led some, I would say, unorthodox biblical commentators to wonder whether this relationship had moved beyond them just being friends to them being lovers.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: These commentators see the intimacy of their relationship in the language, and they assumed it must have included sexual love.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think such an interpretation is very speculative, and I raise it only because I think it actually identifies something that's wrong with our current culture.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: A mistake that collapses two kinds of loves that should be kept separate.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's the love of eros, sexual love, and the love of philosoph.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Eros is the union of two bodies, one flesh.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Philos is the uniting of two souls in one perspective.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that you can't have both.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think sexual desire, uh, eros and philosop can be together in one relationship.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think any biblical marriage would have both of those things.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: But they're not the same, they're different.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: The intimacy of friendship does not necessarily lead to sexual desire.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And sexual desire certainly doesn't necessarily lead to friendship.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: They are two distinct and equally important ways to interact with another person.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Moreover, scripture teaches that sexual love should be reserved for a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the love of friendship should be and can be shared with multiple people.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Scripture places boundary lines around sexual love.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be a really hard teaching for some to hear, because all of us are sexual beings and we all have sexual desires.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: We will not, however, all be married.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So God caused some people to refrain from experiencing the full expression of sexual desire.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be hard and frustrating and lonely.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yet we should also recognize that God calls all of us, whether we're single or married, whether we're young or old, whether we're straight or gay, or whether that there is the love of friendship.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not the friendship with 500 acquaintances in Facebook, but the deep, intimate, life-sustaining friendship of David and Jonathan.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: A friendship that is transparent, constant, and sympathetic, a friendship that sustains us through the difficult times in life, that infuses joy into our ordinary times, and that strengthens us in God in all times.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: We need to recognize the gift of friendship, and we should be ready to be friends with all sorts of different people that God brings into our lives.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And nurture deep friendship as an essential part of the Christian life.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'd like to tell you about one of my friends, a person that I hope I've been a good friend to, and I know has been a good friend to me.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Michael.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Michael and I met first when we were graduate students at Oxford.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: He had studied English as an undergrad and then did a law degree and then was doing a PhD in law.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I had studied English as an undergrad.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: We did a law degree and was now studying English again.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: He was from Australia, I was from the U.S.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: He had grown up in an evangelical Anglican church, and I had grown up in an evangelical Plymouth Brethren church.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was there with my wife Carrie and our son, and he babysat for some times.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: He met his wife there in Oxford, Beth, she was an American, and I was honored to be in their wedding and the godparent for their daughter.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And our first couple of conversations was exactly like what C.S.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis said.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my gosh, how could somebody think like me and be born in Australia?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: About, and we thought about the same things about God, about literature, about the church, about philosophy, about calling, about some of our deepest fears and failures, and some of our greatest hopes and dreams.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: I still remember the time where he came to my house at six in the morning.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: I said earlier at the earlier service, it like it felt this morning when I tried to get up for speaking at eight o'clock.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was very early.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he came because he thought he had messed up his relationship with Beth, and he thought it was over.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so we sat and talked and prayed and cried together from six to eight in the morning before we went off to work.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: On many occasions, we experienced that transparency, that constancy, and that sympathy of friendship.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we lived together, we were in the same town together for two years.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then I went off to Chicago to practice law, my wife and my family.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he stayed on at Oxford, he got a job teaching in the faculty.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: We would see each other every couple years, and it's the kind of friendship, and I hope some of you have this in your life, where if you haven't seen each other for two years, you get back together, it's like you have never been apart.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: You start up right away just where you were.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's a gift from God.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: We'd either see him when he came to the U.S.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: to visit best family, or we'd see them when we were in England.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we got together whenever we could, but it was every couple of years.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was also probably the smartest person I've ever met.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, he was so smart I really couldn't be competitive with him.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: When he was working full-time at Oxford as a teacher and an administrator, he also learned Chinese.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: He did a theology degree and was ordained in the Anglican Church, and he learned the oboe.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's just no competting.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: When you can't compete, you don't try.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Michael and Beth had five children, and about eight, nine years ago, they moved back to Australia, where he was invited to be the vice-chancellor at the University of Sydney.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the University of Sydney is basically like the Harvard of Australia.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's the highest-ranking university.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had just become the president of JBU, which is the highest-ranked university in Salem Springs, Arkansas.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Good friends are not competitive, remember.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: We had lost touch for a while because of the business, busyness of work, because of family, and because Australia is a long way away.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we no longer ran into each other as much.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so then about five years ago, uh, as some of you know, our son, uh Ben, passed away accidentally from a combination of an illness and some prescription drugs when he was a junior in college.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And Carrie and I were lost in the wilderness of grief.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: But God was gracious and he preserved us with the help of people in our church and people at JBU.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the really hard things about losing a child is sometimes you have to tell people that don't know.
• 31:36
  unknown: Right?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: That they haven't heard through the normal communications, right?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to be the first one to tell them about this terribly, terribly sad news.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the way I read that reconnected with Michael and Beth was the email I sent to them to tell them that Ben had passed away.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: About 15 months after Ben had passed away, uh, I was granted a sabbatical for three months from JBU.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And Carrie and I thought it would be good to go away just to be together and be away with our youngest son, James.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we thought about going back to England, and I checked for places, and everything I checked for didn't work.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked for housing and everything else, and I kept trying.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was really frustrated because I couldn't find a place.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: So as I was trying to line up those details, Michael sent me an email.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Why don't you come to Australia?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, I hadn't thought of it.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Within a week, I found an apartment in Sydney.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Within the next week, I had purchased tickets for the 14-hour flight from LA to Sydney.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is a really long airplane.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Carrie James, our youngest son and I were on our way to Sydney.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And one of our first conversations that Michael and I had when I was in Sydney, he said to me, When I heard that you were really coming to Australia, he said, a shadow passed over my heart.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because he said, I wondered what was going to happen in my life that God had to bring you all the way to Australia.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked at him, I said, You're an idiot.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I said, you know, I'm here because God needed to bring me here because I need you.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because what's happened with our son?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I needed to talk to him.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: I needed him to strengthen me in God.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And both Michael and Beth did wonderful for us in those first couple of months we were in Sydney.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: I could speak to him about my grief and my anger and my guilt and my loss, and Michael listened and gently pointed me to God.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Beth had similar conversations with Carrie.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: However, in our third month that we were there, Bill be Beth became ill.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: It started just with a stomachache, but increasingly got worse and more dire in the last few weeks we were there.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, in our final dinner with Michael on a Friday night before we were getting on the airplane the next day, Beth was in the hospital.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're a doctor, you should never do this, right?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: So on Friday morning they told Michael and Beth to say, get ready, we have some hard news, we'll tell you Monday.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that night, we had dinner together before we got on the airplane the next day.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we left Australia at the beginning of December, December 1st, and Beth died on December 22nd, leaving Michael and her five children.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And their five children.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So he called me on the phone to tell me the news.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: And amidst his tears, he had only one question for me.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Chip, do you really believe in the resurrection?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Important question to ask.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Yes.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: With every fiber of my being, I believe that Beth and Ben will live again because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Transparency, constancy, sympathy.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: God gives us friends so that we can help each other find strength in God even in the darkest times in our life.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's difficult in our mobile society to maintain friendship.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Friends take time, they take energy, they take commitment.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we're often so scattered in our attention and in our location, it's hard to maintain a friendship.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, I often tell students one of the great things about attending JBU is they get to live and develop friends.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they can be lifelong friends.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because they live together and they talk with one another.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a gift that they're given if they were able to be there in a residential context.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: However, we also know that sometimes we're bereft of friends.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even when we're in crime, sometimes circumstances make it difficult to have friends.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say sometimes living in a small town being the president of the university is not the easiest thing to be friends.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we all experience the deep ache of loneliness when we feel like we need a friend.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And about two years ago, I was sitting in church feeling sorry for myself because uh most of my closest friends, like Michael, live far away.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of lonely.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't listening much to the sermon, I admit.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, I was quietly praying, and actually I was complaining to God about my lack of friends.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: So this may have happened, you know, you think about other things, and all of a sudden they have the final hymn, right?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I get my I come back into the my attention comes back to the service, and the um pastor says, Okay, we'll now sing the chosen hymn for today, which is What a Friend We Have in Jesus.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, really, Lord?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I hear you.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Got it, loud and clear.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but it's an important message for us to hear today.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because even if you have the best friends in the world, friends who are transparent and constant and sympathetic, they will still let you down because they're human.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: They will move away because God's called them to a new job.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: They will have children who'll need more and more of their attention, they can spend less time with you.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: They'll get involved in ministries that distract them.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: They will have hardships that make it difficult to respond to your needs or your needs to them.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you have the best of friends, and even if you live in the same place for your whole life, and even if you're friends for your whole life, eventually they will get sick and they will die.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: All humans are limited and fallen.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So all human friendship is limited and fallen.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's the reality of our existence.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus Christ is the only one who can be your true friend, because he's the only one who's both fully human and fully God.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: He's fully human, so he understands.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful thing.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: He understands our weakness, he understands our sorrows, he understands our foibles.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: But he's also fully God, so he actually can be constant.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: He can be there all the time with hope and encouragement.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Moreover, he literally came down to heaven from heaven and became human so that he would have our perspective, so that he would have sympathy for the way we see the world, to see the world from our eyes and be willing to take our place on the cross.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: He is truly the only friend that will never let you down and always let you in.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's why it's so amazing that in what Jesus says in John 15, 12, This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: You are my friends if you do what I command you.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: For all I have heard from the Father, I made known to you.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Transparency.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: You did not choose me, but I chose you.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, people of Tobeka Bible today know this.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then this remarkable passage tells you that Jesus is your friend.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the God of the universe, has chosen you to be his friend.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: A choice that Jesus has made because of his love for you, a love that he has shown to the death on the cross, and a love that he calls you to share with your friends, friends who he has given to you to sustain you in this life and to make you follow him.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: A gift for which we should be eternally grateful.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, know that Jesus stands and invites you to become his friend, just as you are with nothing to prove, because he loves you and he has chosen you.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: May be always very grateful for what a friend we have in Jesus.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: Will you pray with me?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: Lord and Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gifts of friends that you give us.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Gifts that point us to you and help us strengthen you in our hardest and darkest times.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Lord, we ask that we would know that you truly are our friend, that you came down to understand our perspective and to stand in our place.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: And for that we are eternally grateful.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: We ask you to help us be good friends for others, and we ask that we would worship you as our true friend.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: We ask all these things in your name and for your sake.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.