The Problem of Friends, Part 2

We need discernment and we need to know how to live properly. To do that, you must be a master of the book of Proverbs. And as parents and as grandparents, we must know this book inside and out in order for us to be effective teachers of our children, because Proverbs is a book about discernment, and our children need to know wisdom. Proverbs is designed to give prudence to the naive.

Tonight, it's about friends and what the Bible says concerning the problems of friends. And the book of Proverbs has a lot to say about that. Let me give you what we will call some basic instructions, and these are so practical. Let me give you eight of them. There are probably many more, but let me give you eight of them tonight that will help you understand about being friends with somebody else.

Okay, number one is this. Love them affectionately. Love them affectionately. If you're going to have a friend, love them. Remember over and over again the Bible talks about the law. And it talks about when the man came to Christ and said, "What is the greatest commandment?" And he said, "Well, the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself," right? And your friend as yourself. We need to be able to love others as we love ourselves.

Now, you can't do that with everybody, but you can do it with somebody. And that's why we tell you that within that friendship of your family, within your husband-wife relationship, you need to love your wife as you love yourself. You need to love your friend as you love yourself. It's a sum of the law. It's all wrapped up in love. It begins with my relationship with my God and my relationship with my spouse. I can love others because I love God. If I don't love God, then my relationships with others is about manipulation. It's about self-service. It's about what's in it for me. But if I love God, now I can free myself up to love others, and I can be the true friend with a pure heart and sensitive speech to do what I need to do to serve my fellow man. And so the first basic instruction is to love affectionately.

Listen to what the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 27, verse number 10: "Do not forsake your own friend or your father's friend, and do not go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away." Better a friend who is near than a brother who is far away. When we love somebody and we show affection toward them, we don't forsake them in their time of need. We just don't do that because they have a need. We want to meet the need. And the Bible is very clear that when calamity arises, don't go to your brother, go to your friend. That's kind of interesting, isn't it? Don't go to your brother who's far away. Instead, go to a friend. Do you have a friend like that? Do you have somebody who won't forsake you?

That's why in the ministry of Christ in Mark chapter 3, when they came to Jesus and said, "Hey Jesus, your mom's outside. Your mother and your brothers are outside. Your sisters are outside. They want to see you, Jesus. They want to talk to you." And Jesus said, "Well, who are my brothers and my sisters? Those who do the will of my Father." What was he doing? He was separating himself from his earthly family. He was emphasizing the need for that spiritual relationship that comes like when Peter said, "Lord, we have forsaken all to follow you. What's in it for us? What do we get? Lord, we've given up everything. We've given up family, we've given up friends, we've given up finances, we've given up our future to follow you. What's in it for us?"

And Jesus says over in Mark 10 that when anybody follows him in this life, they have a hundred times more mothers and brothers and sisters. Emphasizing the fact that when you leave family to serve God, the family of God becomes those intimate relationships that can be for you what you need during your time of great turmoil and hardship, and we need to be able to recognize that, and so we need to be able to love them affectionately, and that's one of the basic instructions of friendship. And we do that by loving others, our friends, just exactly as we love ourselves.

You got any like that? Is there anybody you love like you love yourself? Probably not, right? Because we really like to cherish our own bodies. The Bible says in Ephesians 5:29 no man ever hated his own body, but nurtures his body and cherishes his body. We take care of ourselves, we pamper ourselves. When was the last time you pampered somebody else? And took care of their needs.

Another instruction that we need to understand is: not only do we love them affectionately, but we need to choose them carefully. Choose them carefully. Parents, if you want to help your children, help them choose their friends carefully. Listen to what the Bible says. Proverbs chapter 12, we'll begin there, verse number 26. Says this, "The righteous is a guide to his friend, but the way of the wicked leads them astray." The righteous one will be a great guide for you. But the wicked man will lead you astray.

Verse 20 of chapter 13: "He who walks with wise men will be wise. But the companion of fools will suffer harm." Now, that's something that we ought to teach our children so that when they go off to school each day, remember, son, remember, daughter, if you walk with wise men, you'll be wise. But if you walk with fools, you'll be led astray. So, choose your friends carefully. Walk with the wise man. Don't walk with the foolish man.

Listen to what the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 16, verse number 28: "A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends. A man of violence entices his friend, and leads him in a way that is not good." So, if your children are hanging around a man of violence, if they're hanging around the bully at school, guess what? They're going to lead him in a way that's not good. Simple as that. Worse, if your kid is the bully at school, he's going to be leading other people into an area that's not good. That's important too, right?

Proverbs chapter 21, verse number 10: "The soul of the wicked desires evil. His friend finds no favor in his eyes." The soul of the wicked only desires one thing, and that's evil. And if your son or daughter is a friend of the evil man, that evil man does not have your son or daughter's good at stake. All they have is their own good at stake and will do whatever they can to make sure they are okay. Not your son or your daughter.

Let's know what it says in Proverbs 22, verse number 24: "Do not associate with a man given to anger. Or go with a hot-tempered man, lest you learn his ways and find a snare for your soul." Don't go with the hot-tempered guy. Don't go with the hot head. Why? Because they're going to lead you astray. You're going to find yourself ensnared in a trap. You got to be careful. Bad company always corrupts good morals. 1 Corinthians 15:33. Always does. Choose your friends carefully.

And we need to be able as parents to help our children understand: look, this person is this way, and that person's that way. You've got to be careful. You know, I think that you need to be able to tell your children who they can and cannot date. If you can't do that as a parent, you're not a very good parent. Because you're intimidated by your son or your daughter.

I can recall a time not too long ago where Drew had asked us specifically about a young lady that he wanted to be with. His mom said to him, she says, "You know, son, we've seen that young lady. And we've seen some of the things that she's done from a distance. And therefore, we believe, your father and I, that this young lady is not someone you should ever be with." And Drew said, "Mom, Dad, if that's your counsel to me, then that's what I will accept. I will not pursue her." Now, folks. That's important. Because you see, the worst decision you could ever make is marry the wrong one. Don't marry the wrong one.

And I can recall my parents telling me who I could and could not date growing up as a kid. And I was the odd man out in my youth group. I was the odd guy because all my friends had dates and I had zero. Zero, none. Nada. Zilch. I'm bilingual here. Trilingual. I can say, oh, I got all kinds of language going on. The bottom line is, my parents said, "You know, you can't do that. Can't do that."

I had a girl call me on the phone one day. She called me on the phone. And she wanted me to come down and go roller skating. They used to go roller skating back in the 70s. That's what we used to do. Nothing else to do. We went roller skating. And she invited me to come down and go roller skating. And my mom got on the phone. We didn't have cell phones back then, you know. All we had was phones hooked up with wires to the wall, you know. But we did have two phones. And my mom got on the other phone and listened to the conversation. When it was all said and done, she hollered upstairs: "Lance, you're not going roller skating today. You're not going to go be with that girl." I said, "Well, why not?" She goes, "I don't like the way she was talking to you on the phone. You're not going with her." I thought, geez, whiz, man, mom, you got to be so critical, so hard-nosed.

But let me tell you something. God was so good to me. He spared me. He spared me big time. For if I was to unveil to you the story of that young lady that took place over the next several weeks, you would be absolutely abhorred. God was so good to me. And that's why you need to choose your friends carefully. And as parents, we need to help our children understand how to choose them. If you walk with wise men, you will be wise. If you walk with fools, you will become a fool. Bad company corrupts good morals no matter how you cut it. Because that's what the Bible says.

Choose them carefully. Love them affectionately. Another basic instruction is this: treat them respectfully. Treat them respectfully. Proverbs chapter 14, verse number 21: "He who despises his friend sins." I mean, that is so clear. To despise someone means to look down upon them. To treat them as if they are beneath you. To treat them with disrespect. Has there ever been a time in your life where you've looked at someone and thought yourself better than they are? And you tend to look down upon them. We like to look down upon people because, you see, that puts us higher than them. And we can't afford to do that because when you do, the Bible says you sin.

And so we need to be able to treat them respectfully. We need to respect other people. And we need to stop disrespecting them. Because they don't look like we do, they don't act like we do, they don't live where we do, they don't smell like we do. We need to treat them with dignity and respect. Why? Because every person is made in the image of Almighty God. And that's why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:16, "We regard no man according to the flesh anymore. We don't look at any man on the outside anymore. We don't look at the outward appearance anymore." Why? Because what's on the inside really counts. And if we spend all of our time looking on the outside and focusing on those kinds of things, we will be disrespecting people all the time and we will be respecting other people for the wrong things. You need to be careful about that. We need to be able to understand what the Bible says about showing dignity and kindness and respect to all people.

One of the greatest heartaches in my life was when I was in high school, there was a young boy. It's so painful for me because I can't even remember the boy's name. All I can remember is his nickname, the one that I gave him, and the one that stuck with him through four years of high school. And that was the name "Noodle" because he was so skinny. And everybody made fun of the boy. We disrespected him. We looked down upon him because he was skinny and we used to poke fun of him because he wasn't like the other athletes. He wasn't as high up as we were. And that poor kid went all through his high school years with no friends. No friends.

And I was part of the degradation of that young man. I was part of making fun of that young man. And to this day, I don't even remember the kid's name. He had a name. But I never called him by his name. You know what the worst part was? He was in my church. He was in my church. And I disrespected him at church, and I disrespected him at school, and even worse than that. I would play a game so that when I was around my folks, it would look like I was treating him with respect. But I didn't.

And to this very day, that is the one thing I regret the most in my life through the four years of my high school, because I was part and parcel to the destruction of that young man in our high school. He had no friends. And just because I was an athlete and I was on a state championship team and I was well liked. And he wasn't. I did nothing to esteem him. I did nothing to dignify him. I did nothing to help him in his pursuit of Christ. But instead, what I did was use my words to degrade him, to disrespect him, to despise him, to look down upon him, because he wasn't like me. He wasn't like anybody else.

Folks, we can't do that. That is so, so wrong. And the Bible says when you look down upon a brother, a friend, when you despise him, it's sin. Sin.

Number four, don't be untrustworthy. Don't be untrustworthy. The Bible says that "he who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates the best of friends." You know, we need to be to be counted on. We need to be somebody our friends can trust. You can't afford to be untrustworthy. You can't afford to be able to live a life that's going to separate your friends because you're going to speak about them, or you're going to say things that aren't true about them, or you're not going to be able to conceal a transgression.

When you seek love, you cover a transgression. That is, you don't spread it around. How many times when someone sins, that there's that urge inside you? We talked about this last week with gossip, that there's that urge to say something to somebody else. To let it out because it gives us some kind of admiration. People think we have information people don't have, and they want it from us. And the Bible says you got to be trustworthy. You got to be the kind of person that others can depend on. That when they share something with you, you don't go blab it all over the church or go blab it all over the nursery or go blab it all over your Sunday school class or at your workplace. When someone shares with you something in confidence, can you keep it inside? Can you be quiet about it? Don't be untrustworthy.

Another element is don't accuse your friends falsely. Proverbs 25:18: "A man who bears false witness against his friend is like a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow." Don't ever accuse your friends falsely. Ever been in a situation where you've heard something and all of a sudden you accuse that individual of doing something that they never did? And the Bible says when you accuse your friends falsely, you're like a club. You're like a sword. You're like an arrow. You're like a club because it beats them up. You're like an arrow because it shoots right to the heart. You're like a sword because you cut them in half. And we need to be careful about that kind of stuff. Never accuse a friend falsely. Always make sure you know all the facts before you say anything.

Another instruction we need to follow, and that is don't abuse his hospitality. Proverbs 25:17: "Let your foot rarely be in your friend's house, lest he become weary of you and you hate him." Don't abuse his hospitality. You know, we say, "Well, he's a friend." You know, we go to his house, we take off our shoes, you know, we take off our socks. We eat his chips, we drink his soda pop, we watch his TV, but the chips are all over the ground. We don't clean up before we leave.

You know, you know what's really irritating, you know, when we have someone over to our house. None of you folks of course, but you know we have somebody over to our house. You know when their kids play with our kids and then they just go home, but they don't help clean up all the toys they got out and that irritates me. I hate to say it that way. You know, if you go to somebody's house, you get out the toys, you help clean up the toys, right? You put them back. You don't leave them out there and just run out the door.

Adults are the same way. We come to somebody's house and we just kind of eat their food and leave the dishes on the table and just run and go home and leave them there to clean up. Now, they might say to you, "You know, I'll clean it up. Don't worry about it. I'll do the dishes later." And they might want to do that because they want to visit with you. And that's okay, but at least you should offer, right? Sometimes we abuse our friends' hospitality. We need to be careful about that. That's why the Bible says, you know, don't go off into your friend's house and stay there, lest he hate you.

Wouldn't it be good to be able to leave and then to have a microphone in the house? To hear what they're really saying about you when you're gone? Oh my, we'd have no friends. I mean, can you imagine? What people say about us when we leave? I don't know if it's right. I'm just saying, man, I tell you, to be a fly on the wall in someone's home after your friends or so-called friends have left. Oh, my. Oh, my. I'm sure there's much sin that happens there.

But you know, when you go to your friend's house, you know, you see, we go there often because we think that we are the best thing going, and they want to see us. "Well, they're my friend. Of course they want to see me. Of course they want to be with me." I never ever ever want to think that somebody wants to see me. I don't want to be the kind of person that goes around and think, "Boy, you know, I know they want to be with the pastor. I'll go to their house. They don't mind if the pastor comes over." They really might mind if the pastor comes over. See? But is it not true that sometimes we think that everybody just wants to see us? That there's something special about us, that everybody wants to be around us. That's not necessarily true. Now it might be true, but it's not necessarily always true. So don't abuse his hospitality.

Here's another one: Don't become his surety. Proverbs 6. Listen to this, verse number 1: "My son, if you have become surety for your neighbor, have given a pledge for a stranger." In other words, if you have become surety for your neighbor, you have become a guarantee of his indebtedness. That is, you are going to, be careful now, co-sign because if he can't pay, you will pay. Okay? The Bible says don't do that. Don't become surety for your friend. Don't do that.

In fact, listen to what the Bible says. "If you have been snared with the words of your mouth, have been caught with the words of your mouth. If you said, 'You know what? I guarantee this is what I'll do for you. If you can't pay it, I will pay it.'" And the proverb says, "You know what? If your words have spoken and you have guaranteed something. Do this then, my son, and deliver yourself. Get out of there. Since you have come into the hand of your neighbor, go humble yourself and importune your neighbor. Do not give sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hunter's hand and like a bird from the hand of the fowler."

We need to be careful, friends, about helping other people in their indebtedness. And guaranteeing that we will take care of whatever problem they face financially. Now, if you want to help somebody, here's how you do it: you just give them the money and don't ever charge interest. Psalm 15:5 says you can never charge interest to a brother. Don't ever do that. If you want to give them money, and the guy says, "You know what? If you just loan me the money, I'll pay you back." If you do that, expect never to get it back. Don't loan it to him unless you can expect never to get it back, even though he promises it to you, because you might not ever see it again. And then, how will you respond?

That's why the Bible says, don't become surety for your brother. Don't become a guarantee for your brother to take care of his indebtedness. So if he can't pay off his car, now you got to, you've co-signed, now you got to pay the car off. Because he might not ever pay you back. Don't put yourself in that situation. If you want to help your brother, give him the money, no strings attached. Just give it to him. That's helping your brother. That's helping him during his time of need. If you don't have the money, give him what you can. But be careful. Don't become surety for your brother.

Also, make sure that you beware of flattery. Listen to Proverbs chapter 27, verse number 14: "He who blesses his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it will be counted a curse to him." What does that mean? Does that mean you can't go into somebody who's sleeping and yell and scream and wake them up, that you'll be cursed? No. It just means that you need to be wary of the person who's always flattering you. With great loudness, early in the morning, waking early. "Oh, this man is so great. This is such a wonderful person. We just love this guy. He is fabulous. He is stupendous. He is so great." Be careful of that, man. Beware of flattery because it's probably shallow and superficial. And probably will not last.

So, what is it about me that is supposed to help me with my friendship? Let me give you some foundational ingredients that will help you understand the nature of what your friendships are to be like. What are those key components?

Number one, friendship includes counsel. It includes counsel. Proverbs 27:9 says, "Ointment and perfume delight the heart, and the sweetness of a man's friend does so by hearty counsel." Proverbs 27:17: "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." Friendship includes counsel. It's one thing to hang out together. But a true friend counsels another. It's not that you're full of information, that you can't wait to say something to somebody else, but there's that interest in biblical counsel. That does the other person's soul good because you speak well of him and you lead him into a deeper understanding of God. Friendship includes counsel. Strong biblical counsel around the things of God.

Number two, friendship includes not only counsel but confrontation. If there's a problem, you're willing to deal with it. "The first one to plead his cause seems right," Proverbs 18:17, "until his friend comes and examines him." Comes and examines what's going on. Proverbs 27:5-6: "Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." A true friend confronts sin. A true friend doesn't allow you to continue in sin. A true friend will not allow you not to understand the truth about the sin you're engaged in. A true friend confronts because a true friend counsels.

A true friend, number three, is close to you. True friendship includes closeness, intimacy. We said earlier, Proverbs 18:24, that "too many friends come to ruin, but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother." Now, some people think that's Jesus. I don't think so. There is a friend that's closer than a brother, a friend that's willing to be there for you during times of need. It speaks of the intimacy of a friendship that one can have outside of his own family because of the commitment of sacrifice and service and the ability to stand with you during times of adversity.

Friendship includes compassion. That's number four. Galatians 6:1-2 that we are to restore our brothers who have fallen into sin. We are to bear one another's burdens. And thus fulfill the law of Christ. The Bible speaks of the fact that we are to be compassionate toward other people.

And lastly, true friendship includes consistency. Proverbs 17:17: "A friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for adversity." You love at all times. You know, true friends are consistent, aren't they? True friends don't quit on you. True friends don't backstab you. True friends don't leave you in the lurch. True friends don't leave you alone. True friends are consistently with you through thick or thin. When adversity happens, they don't run. When adversity happens, they're there. They're consistent. You can count on them.

Who counts on you? And are you consistent? Let's pray.