Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 16, 2021 | Uncommon Sense - Uncommon Sense About Friendship

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May 16, 2021 | Uncommon Sense - Uncommon Sense About Friendship · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, good morning.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: To uh those of you who are watching from home, um, we don't blame you at all, but we there's special rewards for those stormwalkers who somehow decided to make it in this morning.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm just so impressed that I made it in myself.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: So um anyway, if you are just uh sort of new to TBC and you're watching online or you're visiting today, we're in a month-long series here in the month of May called Uncommon Sense, and uh and it's all from the book of Proverbs, and today uh we're doing Uncommon Sense About Friends.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: You could say that last week was Uncommon Sense About Marriage, and uh if if you'd like, if you're interested in marriage at all, uh you ought to go back and perhaps look at that.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So um this is the third in a five-week series, and this morning, like I said, is about friendship.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, usually at a church, a Bible church like ours, a pastor gets up and he opens a text of scripture and he talks about morality, or he talks about ethics, talks about obedience.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: And and we have this thought when we come to the book of Proverbs that uh there's nothing higher than that.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: But I need to tell you that uh in the book of Proverbs, wisdom, which is about uh is about is about manners where there's really more than one option, and both of which are oftentimes equally moral.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're not gonna be sinning to go or not to go, to drink or not to drink, to do this or do that.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is in a sense higher or more difficult or an advanced step for morality because a wise person, this book says, will be able to sift between the options and choose the wisest option or the right option.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Whether it has to do, you know, with what college you go to, where you live, or today, uh, friendships, you know, the friendships you choose, the friendships you make, the friendships you work at.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
2:08
SPEAKER_00: So that's just the introduction, and I'm gonna jump into it that there are two key friendship texts in Proverbs.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: There are many friendship texts in Proverbs, uh, but the two key ones are 1717, a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: And the other is 1824.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Famously, one who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh usually we immediately think of Jesus here, and that's true, but uh that he sticks closer than the brother.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: But it's speaking, you know, about real life.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's speaking about the rarity that friends are precious and few, and and in some ways, anyway, we'll get to that.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
2:54
SPEAKER_00: So I want to uh divide, I want to just warn you that I'm gonna divide my comments this morning, our discussion into four categories.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: And the first is the importance of friendship, which we underrate.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling you, we do.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the discovery of friendship.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: That is, how is a friendship born?
3:10
SPEAKER_00: How do you get a true friend?
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Third, the deepening of friendship, and fourth, you've got a friend.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
3:18
SPEAKER_00: So um let's get started.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: The importance of friendship, uh, the first thing this book tells us is that friendship and the choice of friends starts to matter very early in life.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting to scholars, to myself, to anybody, if you step back and look at the book of Proverbs, that this book, which talks about money and sex and friends and everything else in life, starts, that is right after the first seven verses of introduction.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: It starts by talking to a young person, to a son, my son, about what friends he should not choose and what friends he should choose.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: So we find Proverbs 1, 10 through 19, my son, don't go along with them.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: It's a warning to a middle schooler, uh, maybe a high young high schooler, that you're gonna have friends that come to you and they're not gonna be good friends, and here's how you can tell, and here's gonna be the attraction, here's gonna be how they try to draw you in, but bad friends can take you down.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: So watch out what friends you have.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna teach on that passage.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna say that friendship's so important that this book makes it the very first thing it talks about.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And it talks about it in terms of young people.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Friendship and the choice of friends starts to matter early in life.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Second point, friendship, we're still under the importance of friendship.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Friendship is the most quiet of loves, is life's fundamental bond.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: I know you don't believe that, but I'm gonna try to prove it to you.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
4:46
SPEAKER_00: First of all, uh, why do I call it the most quiet of loves?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, just compare it to the other loves that are out there.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: There's erotic love, there's romantic love, there's family love, there's affection love that parents have for their children, uh, you know, that I felt as I'm watching Abe and Megan back there with their two darling cuties.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is this is the so these all these loves are, shall we say, flashy loves, demanding loves, exciting loves, and noisy loves.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Friendship is in the back.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: It's in the back.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: It's very quiet, okay?
5:25
SPEAKER_00: So um, in fact, C.S.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, uh, in the wonderful chapter he has in his book, The Four Loves, he wrote it 60 years ago, 1960, The Four Loves, his book, his chapter on friendship, you've got to read this book, puts it this way.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when he's comparing friendship with romance and eros, erotic love, sexual love, friendship is the least natural of loves, the least biological, the least physical, the least necessary.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing throaty about it, he says.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: This uh by that time he had moved from Oxford to Cambridge, and that's apparently a word they liked on that college camp.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Nothing throaty about it, nothing that quickens the pulse or turns you red and pale.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Without Eros, none of us would have been begotten or born.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: But we can live, and then he says, without affection, we would not have been reared.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the love that parents have for their foster kids, for their adopted kids, for the natural kids, okay?
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh we wouldn't have been raised without that.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: But we can live and breed without friendship.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: In other words, friendship is a quiet love, not insistent.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, he says this, though, on the importance of friendship.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: He says, to the ancients, to the people 2,000 years ago or even 500 years ago, friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves, the crown of life and the school of virtue.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: The modern world, uh Vin comparison?
6:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I was thinking of wine or something.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: But the modern world, in comparison, ignores it, ignores friendship.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, and this is not just, see, this isn't just not Proverbs, this is just not church talk.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: This is a very recent article in Mind and Body magazine entitled, Why Your Friends Are More Important Than You Think.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: And the primary, and the person that they're interviewing in this is Lydia Dinworth, who's just recently written a book entitled Friendship.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Notice the subtitle, The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: She's calling friendship life's fundamental bond.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: So I read that and I thought, I'm going to use that uh as a title, since this is extremely recent.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: So, and she's getting interviewed on talk shows and so forth.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Friendship is life's fundamental bond.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: And Proverbs says this.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: It implies there is a friend, it's uh, in fact, it says who sticks closer than a brother.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: And what it's saying here is rather startling, as Tim Keller says, a friend can be better than a sibling.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: The point here is that the noisier and flashier loves are important and they they insist, they they affect our blood, they force us, they they compel us, we you know, we have to do this, we have to do that.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: But the fact is that in the end, friendship is often what we rely on rather than relatives.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Are you am I right about that?
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Especially in the last year or two, right?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: When when the whole country seems divided.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And I have been, so many of you say to me, and then I say back to you, yeah, you know, our family is now divided.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I have siblings, am I right?
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Don't you have siblings who feel the opposite or believe the opposite that you do either politically or about COVID or about any any variety of things?
8:54
SPEAKER_00: And so your friends become actually more important to you and closer to you than a sibling.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: All right?
9:02
SPEAKER_00: So the book of Proverbs actually says that.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: I know it's startling in a church to say something like that, but but friendship is often closer than family.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And and Proverbs says it elsewhere.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh 2710 says, Don't forsake your friend or friend of your family, and don't go to your relative's house when disaster strikes you better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And in the context, what it's speaking about is a friend, uh neighbor, companion, and friend are interlocking words in this book.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about a friend who lives a few blocks away or maybe a few miles away here in Topeka, but your relatives live in California, let's say, or they live in Ohio.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And when you have a when you have something happen to you and you're in trouble, this book will say, you know what?
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and call your relatives if you want to, but the best thing to do is probably to get a hold of your friend.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, right after you call 911 or or whatever, give a call to your friend because uh it's oftentimes better.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Your friend is oftentimes more helpful, closer to you, knows what you need and want, rather than a relative far away.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So all I'm doing here is I'm supporting this comparison that the psychologist made and that C.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: S.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Lewis has made with the book of Proverbs, which seems to say that though friendship is the quietest of loves, it really is the most fundamental love of all.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Even in comparison with family love.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: As Euripides said, back, this is back about Jesus' day, one loyal friend is worth 10,000 relatives.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And and uh it's interesting, isn't it?
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Maybe an exaggeration.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Third, the importance of friendship.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: For you to succeed in life, you must have friends.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: It's not an option, it's a necessity, says this book, that if you're gonna flourish in life, you're gonna be successful, if you're truly going to be happy, if you're gonna accomplish what you need to accomplish, if you're going to be wise, if you're gonna be spiritual, this book says it's not an option, it's a necessity.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: You simply must have friends.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh 1824, thank you, Lord, for for agreeing to that.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: One who has unreliable friends soon soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: So the point is you've got to have friends, and and the unreliable friends are not real friends, are they?
11:23
SPEAKER_00: They're fair weather friends, we call them.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: So um, and yet, um, and yet we have to say this true friends are precious and few.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, you probably noticed uh the comparison here between the plural of companions and the singularity of a friend.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's true, isn't it, that you could, you it would take you a half an hour at least if you sat down with a piece of paper and tried to list all of your companions, your acquaintances, the people you know at work and here in the church and so forth.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: These are all your companions.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: If you list your friends, you'll be you'll be Xing out.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Almost all of those.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: For every 99 companions, you will have one friend, something like that.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I know some of you have a Bible that actually translates this verse.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: A friend of many companions soon comes to ruin.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: That's not my interpretation of the Hebrew, but but anyway, if that's true, that even underlines the point more.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: There's a contrast between loads of companions, which are fine, and acquaintances gotta have those.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: We need to be social.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's Facebook, right?
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And and interesting how some people, don't you also get those those Facebook invites from people in Africa who are trying to accumulate triple figures and friends, and and they cut your name and they desperately anyway.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: So, but the the important thing is is the friend who sticks closer than the brother.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: True friends are precious and few.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Um but the problem the problem here is that is, of course, that we don't have, I mean, they are they are too few.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: They're too few.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And uh psychologists, you know, have lamented for years.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh it used to be said by psychologists that every person ought to have three close friends, two of the same sex, one of the opposite sex, your spouse, if you're married.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: But but that but they point out that especially men uh are terrible at making and keeping friends.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: But but this uh this woman is I had a conversation some years back with a woman, this woman was in her 30s.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: You would have thought she had no trouble with that.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: I said, Who do you talk to about this?
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Who's your best friend after she'd shared her issue?
13:37
SPEAKER_00: She said, I don't have anyone like that.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: I said, let me put it another way.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: If something had terrific or something tragic happened to you, who would you run to call?
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And to my shock, her answer was no one.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm used to hearing that from guys, you know, but but but not from women.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: But that's tragic, isn't it?
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh here's but here's something that you and I, you've probably heard as as I have.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: This actually comes, uh, these are words on the lips of a surgeon in the book, uh, The Friendship Factor, famous book by Lloyd McGuinness.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: All these years, the surgeon said, I've fought to get to the top of my profession, thinking that when I got there, people would want to be around me, you know.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: But it just hasn't happened.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I suppose I do command some respect, but I'm not close to anybody really.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: I have no one to lean on.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs says you can't be a success in life.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: You can't truly flourish in life unless you have friends.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: So that's the importance, the importance of friends.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, let's talk about how do you uh what's the birth of friendship?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And I I've entitled it the discovery of friendship because people mistakenly, common sense says, we'll just go make a friend.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: But you can't do that.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: That's it, you can't go create a friend out of thin air.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: You don't just go make friends.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: You discover them, you don't create them.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And a verse that sort of hints at that is a person's advice is sweet to his friend.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there's a conversation that starts a friendship in which there is a sweetness that passes from one to the other.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me let me um yeah, here we go.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, how friendship is born.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Again, uh C.S.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Lewis and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Friendship arises in this way.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: When two or more companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest that the others in that room, the others around there, don't share.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
15:34
SPEAKER_00: The typical expression of opening friendship is what?
15:38
SPEAKER_00: You two?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was the only one.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Ralph Waldo Emerson, so so uh C.S.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Lewis wrote this in 1960.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Ralph Waldo Emerson said much the same thing 120 years before that.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh he said, friendship does not ask, do you love me?
15:56
SPEAKER_00: But do you see the same truth?
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Are you passionate about the same thing?
16:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it could be gardening, it could be teaching children, it could be medicine, it could be sports or a certain sports team or something.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: It's it's something that you're passionate about or something that you think about.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's it's discussing as you're having a discussion about a certain book, like The Lord of the Rings, and you find out that they think it's the greatest book outside the Bible, too.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, so there's this common, or maybe it's you're working at something, maybe you're down at the rescue mission, you're passionate about helping once a uh one day a week at the rescue mission, and the person next to you, you find out they have the exact same passion.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And you go, wow, you two, I thought I was the only one.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's a discovery, it's not a creation.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: It's do you see the same truth?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Are you passionate about the same thing?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lewis, and notice the difference here between friendship.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: This, you know, uh sixty years ago, even C.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: S.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Lewis said, what I hate to have to include in this book is to defend friendship against the charge that every true friendship is really homosexual.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, between uh every true friendship between people of the same sex is homosexual.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: That's even more true today.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: But what he does is he clarifies the difference between erotic love and friendship loves and resolves this problem.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: He says, though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person, blessed are you if you're married to your best friend, as I am.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Yet in some ways, nothing is less like a friendship than a love affair.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Lovers are always talking to one another about their love.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Friends hardly ever about their friendship.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Friends are side by side, right?
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Serving food there at Topeka Rescue Mission or something like that, or gardening, absorbed in some common interest or discussing a book or whatever.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Does this make sense to you?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So the difference between friendship, the way to start a friendship, the birth of a friendship, comes about through discovery, not creation.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And this may be too small to read, but I had to include it.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Lewis concludes this is why those pathetic people who simply want friends can never make any.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: The condition of having friends is that we should want something else besides friends.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Where the truthful answer to the question, do you see the same truth, is I see nothing and I don't care about the truth.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: I only want a friend.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: No friendship can arise.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: There'd be nothing for the friendship to be about.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And you've met people who lament, who feel like a victim.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: I want friends, but I can't have any.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: It's the world's fault.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that was not nice of me.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't very friendly.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh on common sense about friends, the importance of friendship, the discovery of friendship, and uh, and we could sit around and I think we could become even better friends if we chatted about your best friend and how you discovered them.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Because as you think back, you remember this is exactly how it occurred.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, third thing is the deepening of friendship.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Whereas gaining a friend just happens as you're chatting with someone or as you're working side by side with someone, and you discover you have this common bond that other people don't have, and that begins your time together.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: The situation is your friendship will never stay.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's just the beginning.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And you'll never have a real friendship or true friendship unless then you have to work at it.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: The deepening of friendship, right?
19:46
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like salvation that you discover Jesus Christ, thank you for dying for my sin.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: You're saved, you're in, right?
19:54
SPEAKER_00: But then after that, Paul says to Timothy, you need to work your butt off.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say it that way.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: But you know, Christianity requires obedience, it requires suffering, it requires all.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And same with friendship.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Friendship requires, and I think in this book, I've worked at it.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh I started this whole subject all over again after having studied it and taught it for years before this.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: But I've concluded there are three ways of deepening a friendship.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: You could also call them three marks of a friendship in the book of Proverbs, and they are loyalty, which involves time and effort, empathy, which is all about emotional connection rather than emotional disconnection, and honesty, which is more of a mental connection, uh, conversational transparency, you could call.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: So let me go through those really quickly.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: First of all, loyalty, this book.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the whole Bible, the stories of David and Jonathan and Jesus and his disciples, all full of loyalty and faithfulness, okay?
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Wealth that's because here's the problem is that wealth attracts many friends, right?
21:03
SPEAKER_00: More rich and famous you are, it's gonna attract a lot of people, most of them fair weather friends, most of them false friends, but it attracts many friends.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: But even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And it says it three times in verses four through seven in chapter 19.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Problem is that friends become, show themselves, reveal themselves, be false friends uh at certain times in your life.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And you're disappointed, you thought they were, you know, that they were close friends.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Turns out they really weren't.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, loyalty is how over time is both what reveals a true friend and how you deepen a friendship.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh a friend loves at all, 1717, loves at all times.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't, I hope you heard Alex's message from two years ago, just a couple verses before this, you know, it says um it says, don't go in your neighbor's house too often.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, though it's sweet to them, or else they'll grow sick of you and hate you.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: So so it doesn't mean you love all the time.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you start sending this person fifty texts a day, like some kids do.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't mean all the time.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: It just means at all kinds of times, at good times and bad times.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: And a brother is born for adversity.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you take this as a family member brother, it's it's it's you know, while it's not true that blood is thicker than water in Proverbs, it is true that family is really supposed to be there in times they are born for a time of adversity.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you find, says this book, that they're not the best people to go to.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: It's much better to go to the topek of friends you have when you're in adversity.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: But loyal, it's all about loyalty.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: It's all about, it's all about constancy.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: It's all about faithfulness.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Verse after verse in this book.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one who has unreliable friends or false friends, soon comes to ruin.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: There's a friend who sticks, sticks closer than her brother.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: So this is a this is a cleaving, right?
23:05
SPEAKER_00: A faithfulness, so loyalty.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: What people desire, here's a great verse, 1922.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: What people desire in a person, it's oftentimes translated by kindness, the word, loyal love.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: What people really desire in a man or a woman.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: What people really want is someone who'll be loyal to them, right?
23:23
SPEAKER_00: So that's how you deepen friendship.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't help thinking of this, because as you know, uh this last week, thousand, uh about 1,500, I think, rockets have been shot by Hamas toward Jerusalem and Ashkelon and all over Israel.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And uh one headline uh from this morning is weary Israelis endure more Hamas rocket barrages.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: And and here's the and friendship is this touches on friendship because this how people respond to Israel defending itself right now reveals whether they're true friends of Israel.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: There's there's a well-known politician in America who is who's who has been fond in the last five years saying that he's the best friend Israel has.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: But he's saying nothing to defend Israel, never does.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: He always comes out, actually supports Hamash, you know, and so forth.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: And so you're going, well, you can't be the best friend of Israel just because you say you're the best friend of Israel.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: So so you have to be loyal to Israel when they're down.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Um and I was thinking driving in this morning, I bet a lot of you were bullied, like I was bullied partly because uh when I was in middle school, high school, because I was two years younger than all my classmates, and I was a little shrimp.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: So I was easy to bully.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I agree with Chris Rock, the comedian, that bullying is a lot worse for the person who bullies than it is for us who got bullied because it taught us character, it taught us lessons.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: So, so I mean, I know that may not be politically correct, but I love the way Chris Rock says that in his comedy sketch.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, that most of us were bullied, and most of us, as we think back, realize it made us better people, stronger people.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: It taught us things.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so I got bullied but uh many times, but the one time I remember, I'm thinking, here it's been how many decades since I was in seventh grade?
25:07
SPEAKER_00: And yet I can I can tell you, I can vividly paint for you the picture of where I, you know, where I was uh uh at recess, you know, on the ball diamond and so forth, when when I when I was humiliated and bullied, but you know the reason I remember that time?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Is because my one best friend, John, participated in the bullying and laughed at my shame as I went off crying.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: And and so this is how you find out loyalty, is how you discern who's really a friend.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: After that, I didn't trust John anymore.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: And you saw this is this is how you know who's your real friend.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I'm if you I mean I I find that I find that funny and sad, you know, that before I you know, before I walked out, went to school that morning, if you'd have told me that one of my very few memories from all of my years in in elementary school was about to happen that day.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And and it was all about the fact that my best friend stunned me by by not being loyal that day, I would have been shocked and horrified.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: I'd have thought, wow, that's not showing the kind of character.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: But that's just the way we are.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: We remember certain things, and those things oftentimes are tied in with our friends, our friends who, let's say, let us down and weren't loyal.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, by the way, I think Paul has maybe the best uh clarification of this: rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with those who weep.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: This is Romans 12, 15.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And and um and so we're talking about Israel, or talking about people who are hurt, you know, it's really important that, as the old line goes, that we come in.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: If we're friends, friends come in when every walk in when everyone else walks out.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Friends are not fair weather friends, they're loyal, and friends weep with you when you weep.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they can't, they're so emotionally connected with you that you don't have to command them to weep.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: They automatically hurt when you hurt.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And if there's a person that you that you are emotionally connected to and you weep when they weep, then perhaps they consider you a true friend.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: That's certainly a part of it.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: It's an emotional connection that you weep with those who weep.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh what's what I find uh so anyway, basically, um, you know, when there's storms and someone stays true to you, you know, that's that's just that's just you know what what we all need.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: But um I want to share with you the importance through the years that I've discovered about the other side.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is uncommon sense, and that is that oftentimes I find that it's harder for friends, so-called friends, to rejoice when you rejoice, when you've when you win the Oscar and they don't, when you win first place and they win second or third.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
28:20
SPEAKER_00: They're they're right there with you.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: They find it easy to call you or come over to your house when you're weeping, when you're crushed, when your spouse has left you, or you've lost your job, but when you got promoted over them, or when you were given an award in the limelight, or maybe put on TV or whatever, isn't it, isn't it interesting?
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll bet most of you found this.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: You looked out at your friend who you thought would be jumping up and down with everyone else and clapping, and you see this funny look crossing their face, and you suddenly go, wow, there was a sort of a comparison, maybe, in our friendship, that so long as we were entirely on the same level, or I was slightly below them, they were very comfortable.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: But now all of a sudden, you know, I've gotten a jump up to a higher salary or higher position or something else, and instead of them jumping up and down and cheering me on, they're finding it really hard to rejoice with those who rejoice.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Does this make any sense to you that this is just something that has come to me over the decades that sometimes it's easier for some people to weep with those who weep than to rejoice with those who rejoice?
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And if that doesn't click with you, that's your problem.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's that's fine.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, but let me say the critical issue here is time and effort.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: It takes work because friendship never never pushes itself forward, never moves, never pushes anything else out of the limelight.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, what's in the limelight today, you know, modern Western civilization, you know, in the old days, by the way, uh you see as Lewis pointed out, the ancients admire friendship.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: You can find the old books are all about their stories.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: David and Jonathan's a great story.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Damon and Pythias is the most famous friendship story, perhaps of all time, Roman days.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Or uh Roland and Oliver.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh I was uh that was my name, Roland still is.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Um my middle name, and my dad called me that until the day we died, and that was the name I used up until college.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And but it was because of Roland's friendship with Oliver, and he gave me that book, and it's a wonderful friendship story.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: There used to be loads of friendship stories.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: But how many friendship stories are there today?
30:37
SPEAKER_00: How many friendship movies are there?
30:40
SPEAKER_00: No, the movies are all about erotic love or romantic love.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And same with the books.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you go, if if the line stops today, if you're at Dylan's or whatever, and the line slows down and you are stuck, and you don't have your cell phone, and you look to the left at the glossy magazine rack, so are you even with me on this?
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever do this?
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And and so, how many of those pictures or headlines are about friendship love?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Aren't they about erotic love, or who's sleeping with whom, or who's who's just fallen out of love with whom, or what's the romance happening now?
31:17
SPEAKER_00: And nobody else is interested in this.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't I go, Tom Tom Cruise is is is in love with who?
31:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know her name.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: I thought he was married to Nicole Kidman.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And then Melody says, no, no, Katie Holmes.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: And you go, so I mean, uh, but you never say, oh, here's who's best friends with whom, and they've been so loyal over the years, because friendship is a quiet love, especially in our modern society.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: It's all about erotic love, sexual love, and romantic love.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, friendship doesn't push itself forward.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And in this busy society, you know, cell phones and traveling and everything, you know what's hard?
31:58
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to think out loud deliberately.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen that person, my best friend.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: I haven't drunk coffee with him, I haven't talked with him for three weeks or two weeks.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: And friendship is so important that I'm blowing it.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: And so you pick up the phone and you make an appointment.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: I did this recently.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And my friend said, I honestly I thought you'd forgotten about me.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and and I just but that this is true.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: If you don't put in time, if you don't put in effort, if you don't pick up the phone, if you don't call, then friendship will just sort of fade away.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: It takes loyalty, but loyalty because because people don't weep and rejoice and all in the same weekend, oftentimes not in the same year.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: So it takes you months, maybe even years to cultivate a deep friendship.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: I've talked a lot about this, so I'm gonna move on, okay?
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, empathy.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Now we're talking about what I've hinted at before, talking about emotional connection, and three of the most interesting and funny verses in the book of Proverbs are all about this, okay?
33:06
SPEAKER_00: First, like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, like vinegar poured on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: And this means sings, you know, happy by Farrell Williams, you know, singing happy songs to a heavy heart.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, going to the hospital and someone, uh, and you start, and you start singing, don't worry, be happy.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, but that's that's like someone who takes away.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why why would someone do that?
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Or 26, 18, and 19, like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, I was only joking.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
33:46
SPEAKER_00: They deceive you, or they humiliate you in public, or they embarrass you, or they do, they make a comment about you at the party, you know, that where they've revealed something that's that's really you thought was private to you, and you're and you just and you you turn red and you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and recover, or something like that, and they go, and they and you talk to them later, why'd you do that?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: So I was just I was just joking.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Why would someone do that?
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Or here's the third one.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: If one blesses his neighbor with a loud voice early in the morning, it'll be counted as a curse to him.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Why would someone do that?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: But it's done.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh uh um at seminary, there was a guy on my floor named Phil.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: We lived on different floors, and there was only one bathroom for the whole floor, okay?
34:31
SPEAKER_00: So dozens, you know, of guys would crowd, sleep in their eyes.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: We stayed up late studying Hebrew, and I would walk down to this communal bathroom with showers and the sinks and the liturge and so forth.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And always this tall guy, good-looking guy, had money, dressed well.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: He was not only getting his seminary degree in theology, he was going to SMU law school at the same time.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: He had it all together and he was always there, and he's always going, Jim, what a great morning! How you doing?
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Can you say praise the Lord with me?
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Or Tony, Tony Evans, Tony, how you doing?
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this the most beautiful day you've seen?
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it great to be studying the Bible today?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, and you mumble something because you really didn't want to start your day at seminary having to confess, uh, having cursed him, you know.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Or, but you, you know, then you talk later, you go, oh, could someone just put a muzzle in that guy?
35:26
SPEAKER_00: But why do people, why do and and and I don't know where he is now, and he's probably a super success, and and and anyway, but anyway, I why would someone do these things?
35:37
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is what psychologists call emotional disconnection, right?
35:43
SPEAKER_00: We all have an IQ, but their EQ, their emotional quotient is low.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: They just, they're they're they're not smart that way, they're not connected to you.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: But here's what Proverbs is saying it's impossible for them to be your friend.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: Because a friend would never, a friend is emotionally connected with you, and therefore they couldn't ever do one of these things.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't ever come in and greet you with a loud voice early in the morning because they already sense, they know that you're not a mourning person.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Didn't mean to spit on you, that was insensitive.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: So they know you're not a mourning person, right?
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Or or or they would never say that deceive you and embarrass you in public because they know how you'd feel about that.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Or, for instance, they'd never sing songs to you when you're when you're crying, they would never rejoice when you're weeping.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: They just don't, they they would be fundamentally unable to do that because they're emotionally connected with you.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: That's empathy.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And the third is more verbal, the third I'm calling honesty because it ends in why.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: But but it this is more of the mental connection.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: This is all about conversation.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Book of Proverbs is full of this.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: The one that says oil and perfume make the heart glad, a person's advice is sweet.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: This is a person who gives advice.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Your friend talks to you.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: They're so transparent, they will open up and share with you.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's so sweet.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: And this word sweet is um is associated with honey.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have sugar in those days, no cane sugar, not until well, actually, they're just inventing it uh in India about this time, but it didn't come, not even in Jesus' day.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have cane sugar, so what did they use?
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Every ancient culture used what's the favorite thing for hone for in your tea and coffee?
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Come on, honey, of course.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: In fact, yesterday, just to be really biblical and prepare for this message, I went in the kitchen, cut a grapefruit in half, and I and I and I and I drizzled honey on the top of one half and and pure cane sugar on the other, just to compare, just to compare, just just a scientific and Christian experiment.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: So I did it and I ate them both, and I don't know, they were both really good, really good.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: I may have to do that again, or may have to continue this experiment with a variety of other cereals and breads and fruits.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: But but this is all about how the advice of your friend positively is so sweet to you, you go to them and you ask their advice.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, the flip side is even more important because it's even more rare, and that's the negative, the painful side.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: Better is open rebuke.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: It's not praising open rebuke, but that's even better than hiding your love.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by hiding your love?
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: So all of a sudden we're saying that a friend is so transparent that they'll tell you when your zipper is down, or they'll tell you when you're blowing it, they'll confront you, and and it it'll wound you.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I I remember coming home in college to the dorm, uh, been at a party with a date, and uh, and um and the student body president just came and grabbed hold of me.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Not physically.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: He was a friend, and he just blasted me at the way I had mistreated my date.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, you don't know, but she she cried.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: And he just let into me, and he he didn't he didn't spare anything, and I've I was proud, you know, and and he wounded me where at her worst in my pride.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: What right do you does he have?
39:27
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say this, what right did he have to say this to me?
39:30
SPEAKER_00: So and I was angry and I was crushed and went back to my room, sat on my bunk, you know, and I steamed down, and then I thought, wow, he was right, I do need to apologize to her.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: I have seen him after that year, he was South African, and I've only seen him a couple of times in the intervening decades, but I have always told him when I see him how off how much I appreciate the fact that he was took the risk and he was courageous enough to tell me what I needed to hear.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: It wounded me.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Really wounded me, but I realized that wound could be trusted.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: Better is open rebuke.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: If he had hidden that, wow.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: And notice the connection here.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Hidden love is like an enemy's kisses.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Both of them, both of them involve the mouth.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: This is keeping your mouth shut when you know your friend really needs to hear something.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: They need to be corrected.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: And this is using your mouth to lie.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Both of these are lies, really.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: They're both flattery.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: This is implying something that's not true.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: When it's a Judas kiss, it's what Judas did to Jesus is is compared to what you and I do when in the name of love.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love them too much to tell them this.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: But you know that's not true, is it?
40:45
SPEAKER_00: You love yourself too much to tell them this.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to risk how they'll feel about you.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: And it's more and more true, the more rich and famous your friend is, the more you're scared you are, you know, to tell them that.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: And this this fits it.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: We love this verse as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: I have a friend who sharpened my axe for me a week ago or whatever.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was thinking about that.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's a painful, that's a sharp experience.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: That's not a simple, that's not a fun.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, let's sharpen each other like friends.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, wow.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: This is this is this is incredible.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh the pain that this can cause, but that's what real friends do.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: He who rebukes a man, and and I put in here really in this book, it's either it has to be either a wise man or a friend.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: He who rebukes a man will find more favor afterward than he who flatters with the tongue.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Flattery is criminal behavior, it's just terrible.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, now a fool will hate you for it, it says elsewhere.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: But a wise man or a friend will later sit down like I did and say thank you.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: But it takes honesty, it takes a mental connection, it takes conversation that's transparent.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Right?
42:03
SPEAKER_00: A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Because, because if you hide this rebuke, if you refuse to confront someone in the name of love, then what you're actually doing is you're setting them up for failure in the future.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: It's like you yourself spread the truth put the trap out there for them because eventually it's gonna, it's gonna, what they, that behavior trait is gonna kill them.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that's the uncommon sense about friends.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: It's more important than you and I think.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Way to get friends is you discover them.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Don't go around saying, I wish I had more friends.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm the real type of people say, well, it's the problem is social media.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: Or the problem is we live in a busy culture.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: It's too busy, or there's too much social media, that's why I can't have any friends.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: And if they're a friend, then I'm honest with them.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: And I say, that's not the case.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: The reason you have no great friends is you're not a great friend.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: The reason people don't have friends is they're not willing to be true friends themselves.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: And what that starts with is you discovering who has common passions with you.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: Not looking people in the face and saying, Will you be my friend?
43:16
SPEAKER_00: But getting involved in life, getting passionate about something, sharing that with people, and finding someone who shares that.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: That's how you discover it, but then not stopping there for heaven's sake, but starting, starting there to work and to grow and to build that friendship with loyalty over time and with sensitivity, a kind of emotional connection, and then a kind of mental conversation where you open up and tell them everything, even things that they don't want to hear.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the sweet things too.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: And then I say, you've got a friend just because I love James Taylor and Carly Simon or whatever.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, but but not just for that reason.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: It means it's because Jesus says, you know, he said the night before he died, he's trying to explain his death on the cross and what it means to them.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: And he he put it in terms of friendship.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: He said, Up till now, I've always called you my servants.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
44:08
SPEAKER_00: Servants don't know what the master's doing, and I've told you what I'm all about.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh from now on, I call you friends.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: And he talked about it in terms of obedience, in terms of love, in terms of sharing and openness and transparency.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Basically, what he what he was saying to them is that when I hang there on the cross, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna let you and I'm gonna show you everything.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you who I am, I'm gonna show you my love, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the best friend because a man lays down his life for his friends, and that's what I'm going to do for you, and I'm gonna take the wounds, faithful to the wounds of a friend, but I'm gonna take all those wounds and I'm gonna take them for you.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I love you that much.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: But he says, I'm calling you my friend, and I invite you into that friendship.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: Look at me on the cross.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, and you find that at that moment he becomes your friend, and then he gives you the power to become a great friend, a true friend for other people.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: You've got a friend in Jesus.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: But hopefully then you can turn to other people in and out of the movie Toy Story and say, You've got a friend in me.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: So that we become friends with Jesus and become friends with each other.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thank you for being our friend.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being for, and we realize that the friendship of you of you, the Trinity, predated, romantic, erotic, uh, even family love, that that that you guys, you know, have you the three persons, a father, son, and holy spirit, have have have communicated openly and emotionally and and so forth uh since since you know before eternity began.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: And so we we thank you that you invite us into that kind of a friendship with you.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: And having made us your imagers here on earth, your representatives, your your your little uh divine beings almost here on earth, we pray that we could be like you, that we could then turn around and share that kind of friendship that you model with other people.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Would you make us better friends, Heavenly Father?
46:17
SPEAKER_00: We are so thankful that being who we are, we've had the friends that we have had.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, folks.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.