Selfless Friendship

Introduction

Within Proverbs, there’s all sorts of wisdom that relates to friendship. It’s sort of scattered. Proverbs 19 puts it together in a little chunk, one of these. But a lot of the other ones are not necessarily together. But in Cyric, there are some sections like where I’m going to read where it has a lengthy read that has to do with the idea of friendship. And so I want us to work through this idea this morning. It seems simple. It seems like something that would be easy. Right? We meet people, we become friends. But I would suggest to you that wisdom literature actually tells us it’s a little bit more complicated than that, and should probably involve more thought than just letting things happen as they may. If you have access to a digital Bible of some sort, and you can find this in Cyric chapter six, five through seventeen is a section about friendship.

It says this way pleasant speech multiplies friends, and a gracious tongue multiplies courtesies. Let those who are friendly with you be many, but let your advisors be one in a thousand. When you gain friends, gain them through testing, and do not trust them hastily. For there are friends who are such when it suits them, but they will not stand by you in time of trouble. And there are friends who change into enemies and tell of the quarrel to your disgrace. And there are friends who sit at your table, but they will not stand by you in time of trouble. When you are prosperous, they become your second self and lord it over your servants. But if you are brought low, they turn against you and hide themselves from you.

Keep away from your enemies and be on guard with your friends. Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter. Whoever finds one has found a treasure. Faithful friends are beyond price. No amount can balance their worth. Faithful friends are life-saving medicine, and those who fear the Lord will find them. Those who fear the Lord direct their friendship aright. For as they are, so are their neighbors also. If I hadn’t told you and asked you to find this in your Bible, you’d be hurriedly looking through Proverbs to try to figure out where I was reading from. And as you can tell, it sounds very much like the book of Proverbs, written in much the same way as actually originally written in Hebrew in the same sort of format.

And there’s all sorts of wisdom literature out there, even when it’s not inspired, that can be beneficial, and this is one of those places. And so ancient wisdom literature has a lot to say about friendship. There’s even more within Cyric. There’s numerous sections that talk about friendship beyond chapter six. So, what is a friend? Well, here in this reading, you can tell sometimes the word friend is sort of not really a friend, someone who turns on you or doesn’t stand with you. But correctly stated, a friend is someone that you know with whom you have a bond of mutual affection. You have built this. And one of the things I want us to understand as we’re talking about friendship this morning, and I think this has multiple elements that factor into what I want to talk about, is that deep friendships and true friendships develop over time, they don’t just happen quickly.

And the idea of being gained through testing that this wise person is talking about, that the wisdom of Proverbs talks about is extremely important and understanding the nature of friendship, the people we allow into our lives. I remember when I was in college, a person who’s still a good friend of mine actually brought this up and talked about how she doesn’t let just anyone be her friend. It’s a choice, and she’s evaluating and observing and thinking through this process about someone she can have this mutual relationship with that is going to be beneficial. And so if we understand that friends are choices, what kind of a person should I be choosing as a friend? Should I avoid friendships with certain kinds of people? And the goal of what I want to do this morning is really show how scripture actually talks about this.

There’s more than we can even get into, particularly on the side of warning, for instance, in Proverbs 1, 10 through 19, in Proverbs 4, 14 through 17. These are texts that we often read with our young people. Some of them are not even here this morning, but really this is for everybody. We read these texts to warn about the certain kinds of people that you may associate with. Be very careful not to associate with people who are selfish or looking to do things that are evil. Right? That’s what Proverbs 1 and Proverbs 4 both talk about. Proverbs 22 talks about this as well. And what I want us to understand is that our best friends ought to be those who are following Jesus. That is their goal.

Many of you have workplaces that you’re in or school, and we’re going to develop friendships there. And that is completely appropriate, although even there we need to be careful as well, just like anywhere else. But we need to be committed to the idea that our very best friends need to be those who have a mutual love for Jesus Christ, who want to follow him in their life to the best of our their ability. People who are selfless, people who are humble. And sometimes this involves not just avoiding certain kinds of friends. Have you ever had this experience? You meet somebody and you begin to learn that is the kind of person I want to be friends with. And maybe in a very purposeful way, you set out to develop that relationship.

That person may not even know you’re doing that. But because you are witnessing the quality of person they are, you desire that. So it’s not always just avoiding certain kinds of people, but it’s also identifying someone that loves the Lord, is humble, is selfless. That’s the kind of person I want to be around. And so I want to work to develop that kind of friendship. And often these things happen, as I mentioned earlier, over the course of time. There’s people here this morning that I’ve known, it’s kind of crazy to think this, but I’ve known for 20 years or 25 years at this point. Starts to make me feel old. I feel inside, I was telling somebody I was talking to Caleb actually the other day.

I feel inside like I’m still 25 until I go do something really active, and then the next day I don’t. But in my brain, I still feel that old. And then I was thinking, as I was working through this, I mean, there’s people here, like Rad and Lydia and Laura, the Metcalfs, I mean, people I’ve known for 25 years. I mean, that’s pretty wild to think about. And over the course of time, we learn people, we begin to understand who they are, and we develop close bonds of friendship that are mutually beneficial for everyone, and that’s the goal, and that’s part of what I want us to see this morning, the importance of that, and at the same time realizing sometimes that takes 10, 15, 20 years to really develop those deep bonds that can become extremely helpful in great times of need.

I’ve debated over and over again of when to talk about various things from the pulpit as we’ve gone through difficulties with Xander and his health. You’re always kind of looking for a stopping point, you know, and it’s that this doesn’t come very quickly. But let me just say I’m so grateful for all the people I’ve known just a few years, people I’ve known for 20 years, who have been so willing and generous and helpful as we’ve worked through all sorts of things with Xander’s. He stopped treatment last year back in November, and that went well, and now as we’re working through rehab from surgery, and some of that has been very difficult. And many of you have been right there by our sides to help with that.

And I’ve many times thought, man, I need to say something. And it’s just hard. When things are not completed, it seems difficult sometimes to say something, but over and over again, I’ve felt that need. And so again, I feel the need this morning just to say thank you to so many of you who have helped us in so many ways. And it’s these kinds of things that are part of that process where over time, as we go through something, I mean, this is something my family is going through, and but you’re you’re there along with us, over time we develop a closeness sometimes because of trial and difficulty. That’s one of the factors that happens through time. It’s not always good things, it’s not always fun things.

Sometimes it’s the difficult things or the hard things that then lead to the depth of friendship. But I want us to listen carefully to the words of Proverbs and to the words of Cyric and understand that also this is something that comes through testing. It comes through time and through evaluation and through observation, and we should be very careful not to too quickly give ourselves over to someone. Cyric, or Jesus Ben Zirik, the one who wrote this, talks about this gaining of friends through testing. Testing is the idea of being careful when we test things, right? You’re warming water up on the stove and you’re wondering how hot it is, you don’t just stick your hand right in. That wouldn’t be very smart. We very carefully, maybe we even get a utensil to just very lightly test to see where it is.

We use discernment, good judgment, wisdom, observation, evaluation. We work through this process to make the best decision we can. And when it comes to friends, we’re looking for people who are compassionate and caring, sacrificial, selfless, and as we will get to in the end, who embody characteristics of Jesus himself. So I want to talk a few elements, talk about a few elements of friendship that come from books like Proverbs that I think can help us along the way in understanding this process as particularly within a church. It’s very dynamic. People are coming and going, and we’re we’re with people in various circumstances and occasions and events. And particularly some of our young adults, y’all are in a difficult time. I remember being a young adult, and you’re there’s lots of transitions and changes and people coming and going, and you desire those relationships, and you’re working through those, and you’re trying to figure out who it is you want to be close to and who you want to spend time with.

1. True Friends Love With Pure Motives, Consistently

And that can be very difficult, but let me encourage you to continue that process and to work hard in that process. Figuring out who your truly close friends are as we work through some of these ideas, because some of them you’ll know 25 years from now. And they will be close companions that are helping you through maybe difficult times, or rejoicing with you through times of blessing. And that’s so important as God’s people that we recognize the value of this. True friends, selfless friends, are those who love with pure motives, who love consistently. They’re not centered on their own self-interest. They’re someone who values you and they want what is best for you, not someone who wants to use you. Have you ever had that acquaintance who, when you see them coming, you’re wondering what they want to sell to you.

You know, probably all felt that at some point. And why do we not like that? Because we understand there’s a part of this, and it’s not always that we don’t like that person or whatever, but there’s an element of that sometimes if it’s comes if we come on too strongly, where we sort of feel like we’re just being used for what they want or what they’re trying to accomplish. And it can be in all sorts of realms. But my point is someone who is a true friend, and as we work through time and we develop these relationships and they become deeper, we learn this. This is someone who you understand their motives are pure for you. They want what’s best for you. And you want what’s best for them.

They will stay close to you through good times and bad. Read with me in Proverbs 19. There’s an interesting, I don’t know, sometimes literary things pop out at me, and I don’t always understand why they’re there. Proverbs is like a scattering of thoughts of wisdom. And I wanted to use Proverbs 19 because it’s got some things here in the middle, but it’s got this sort of bookmark that I’m not sure how it factors into the rest of it, but it’s going to be a part of what we read. I want to start in verse 4, but sometimes when you see things are noticed twice, they’re pretty important. And he mentions twice this idea of a false witness. I don’t know, I’d have to dig in more to see why this is here, but I just notice it’s there twice in the text.

It’s kind of interesting. But I want to begin in verse 4. It says, Wealth brings many new friends. This is very similar to some of what we read in the Syric a minute ago. Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friends. A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape. Many seek the favor of a generous man, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts. All a poor man’s brothers hate him. How much more do his friends go far from him? He pursues them with words, but does not have them. Whoever gets sense loves his own soul. But he who keeps understanding will discover good. A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.

Now, there’s more there that we could go into it as you keep reading through the text, but that seemed like a natural book in there, but I really wanted to get those things in the middle. And unfortunately, this is just stuff that’s kind of negative in nature. There’s things we’ll look at that are positive in nature in Proverbs as well. But as you can see in that reading in Proverbs 19, that kind of friend doesn’t really have pure motives. They’re there with you when you have something to offer. You know, when you’re wealthy or you’re blessed and you can give them gifts. When things are going really well, they want to be right by your side. But when things are not going so great, you can’t find them.

You’re searching, you’re looking for them, but they’re nowhere to be found. So the wise man’s warning his sons here, be very careful about this. Know the people that you are closely associating with. Know the kind of people that they are. This is not the only place he mentions this, Proverbs 14, as you see on the screen, is another one. It’s very similar. Like, and sometimes it is these sorts of associations, unfortunately, poverty or wealth are these kind of dominant sort of features that sometimes, with unpure motives, draw us to somebody or cause us to run away from someone. And you can sort of see the natural element of that. I mean, if someone’s giving you things, you like that. When I was a young kid, I don’t even know if my mom knows the story, but I was in third or fourth grade.

I had the same teacher both years. She was my favorite teacher growing up, so that worked out well. but we had a new kid that came to class. His name was John. I don’t really know anything about him other than when he first came, every day he was pulling out $5 bills, and him and a bunch of the boys would run down to the Coke machines. We had those when we were kids in the school. That was pretty awesome. and he would get Cokes for all of us. And this was happening a lot. Mom, do you remember this at all? No? I probably didn’t tell you. so he was getting us cokes. I mean, he was essentially, you can understand the bottom line of this for a third or fourth grade.

He was just trying to buy friends, right? He’s trying to do things. And I’m sure there was an element of generosity here, but we, as young boys who weren’t thinking very clearly, were very willing to take advantage of this poor kid who wanted to pay for stuff for us. And so my teacher pulled some of us aside and sort of filled us in on what this all looked like. and you know, we just didn’t think much about it. We knew we were sort of taking advantage, right? And then an adult pointed out, and we’re like, oh, sorry, we won’t do this anymore. But hey, John was great. You know? He was buying us cokes at the Coke machine every day. And that was a lot of fun.

But then we had to ask ourselves will we be friends with John if he wasn’t buying us Cokes? If he wasn’t giving us gifts and doing things that were for us, and again, generosity is great. And I think the Proverbs talk about this the importance of being generous and loving your neighbor is a main part of the Old Testament in Leviticus 19. And so it’s not that generosity is bad. It’s not that we shouldn’t be giving gifts to people or be willing to help them. That’s not, it’s really on the other end of that. You know, what if this person wasn’t giving me gifts? What if they weren’t there to help me all the time in financial need or whatever it is? Would I still be their friend?

Many of you with children have probably had these conversations. Talking about, I mean, we have we have friends that we’ve had again for a long time. We knew them when they didn’t have much, and then we’ve known them when they’ve had a lot. And I loved them in both times. It didn’t matter. And those are the sort of conversations we have with our kids to talk about what real friendship looks like. And it doesn’t look like people who aren’t there for you just because you have nothing to offer them. And so the wisdom of Cyric is to be careful, to not trust people hastily. This is one of the key elements of this text in chapter 6 and verse 7. When you gain friends, gain them through testing.

Do not trust them hastily. Be very careful about how quickly, right? Because this happens through time. It happens through a testing, an evaluation, and observation. Where we grow in depth. Choose friends wisely, these wise people say. And maybe a part of this that we have to understand, because we’re guilted into so much in our culture, but we do not owe friendship to people. We can act in loving ways, and we can be gracious and we can be merciful and we can be caring without giving ourselves over to some bond of close friendship. We can act with the Spirit of Christ and yet still choose to be careful of an association.

In fact, Jesus himself does this, and the gospels say he did. He knew what was in the heart of man, and he was careful about how he did some things with them. And so I want us to understand though we can feel that way, or we can feel bad about those sorts of decisions sometimes. It actually is wise to be careful and to take our time and to be slow in how we form relationships. I want to pull together a thought from the previous section of Proverbs 18. It’s not like precisely about friendship, but it is about the idea of rashness. Okay? And really, I’ve I preached a long time ago now on Proverbs 17, 18, and 19, and pulled together a lot of different thoughts.

This is a great section. And I can’t read it all, but I just want to point out a few things to you because it talks about being rash, not being careful, you know, making quick decisions, right? And then it goes into this thing about friendship in chapter 19. Very similar. Alright, so chapter 18 and verse 2. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinions, just being quick. Then there’s this whole thing about getting into trouble with your lips, right? A fool’s lips walk into a fight. His mouth invites a beating, just quick to say things. Not thinking carefully before words come out of this person’s mouth. That is the way a fool acts, and there’s a whole chunk of text all about that.

Before destruction, a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor. This is the sort of thing we’re looking for. We just sang about it. Right? To love justice and mercy and to walk humbly before our God. And when I said earlier, we’re looking for people who are like Jesus, who live like Jesus, it’s that sort of thing we’re looking for. People who exhibit compassion and mercy and grace and love and humility. Those are the ones we want to look for to surround ourselves with. And I understand. I understand there’s going to be times when we befriend someone who may struggle in some of those areas, and we want to be of aid. So I’m not saying we can’t do that. But it’s also important for us to think carefully, particularly about deep relationships.

Cyric says you can have a lot of friends, but one in one thousand are your advisors. They are your close counselors. The one you go to confide in, right? That’s the idea. Do you have people you confide in? Probably not all of your friends. You have certain ones that you are very close and very deep with that you could go to and you could tell them things you’re struggling with or thoughts you have. They are your close advisors. And the wisdom that’s being told here is be very careful about that. One in a thousand. So have a lot of friends, but be careful who you are going to go to with trust. Do not trust them hastily. Continue reading. Verse 13, chapter 18. And if one gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame.

An intelligent heart, verse 15, inquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks wisdom. Verse 17: the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him. Right? Examination, care, observation, evaluation, all very important. When we were younger, we lived in Alabama. We had really good friends there that we had met, still really good people, love them a lot. And as tends to happen, there were some problems. And they were in our ear telling us things, and we really only listened to them. Years later, one of the elders came to me and said, I want to fill you in on some other things that were happening that you didn’t know about. And you know what? We’d only listen to one person.

We weren’t very careful. Still great people. But it was their perspective, and that’s all we took. I was pretty young at the time, maybe 25. And then you learn pretty quickly there are various sides to a story. Three at least. You have one side, the other, the truth, sometimes even more than two perspectives that have to be weighed through. And so examination is important. And the whole warning here, before he even gets to this thing about friends, is about rashness, not being careful, and all the problems that leads to. Verse 19, or chapter 19, verse 1 better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool. Man, that is a great line for where he’s going here, right?

About wealth, how we sometimes are attracted to the person who’s wealthy or can give us something. He’s like, hey, that poor person who walks in honesty and humility and integrity, that’s the friend you really want. In our world, it’s just so tempting because it’s ever before us the material things that we’re looking for, the desires that we have, that someone can give us those things, and so then we value that relationship in a really big way. And the wise man wants us to slow down and be very careful. Observe, appreciate the generosity of another, but don’t let that be why you become their friend. It should be deeper than that. It should be more careful. And of course, wealth and all of that’s only one aspect of this that the wise man’s getting in here to.

2. A Selfless Friend Will Correct Lovingly

I realize there’s there’s more than that. But I think he does that because it’s pretty obvious. I mean, if someone, just like John, at school, he’s buying me drinks and giving me money and all that, yeah, I’m gonna want to sort of run with him, right? That’s that’s fun. And it sort of makes sense to attach ourselves to people who we feel like just continue to benefit us and bless us. And maybe we just don’t have to even give a whole lot back. But that is not the nature of how friendship should work. We really want to find people who love us with pure motives and love us consistently. Another element that goes into friendship, both in biblical wisdom and extra biblical wisdom that we have from antiquity, is this reality that a true friend or a selfless friend will correct lovingly.

They will tell us the things that we need to hear. But you know, this takes time. Again, there you may have a relationship, and this does happen sometimes, where we quickly form a bond, and within a short period of time, we feel comfortable going to that person and saying, I don’t think you’re doing the right thing. That can happen. Not gonna, I’m speaking in generalities here. I understand that’s possible. But often, it takes time to build those relationships to a point where we feel comfortable to point out things that may not be the greatest, right? To someone that we truly love and truly care about. And this is an aspect of selflessness that really takes time for us to develop. Friends don’t let friends live in sin.

In fact, Paul talks about this in terms of building the church in Ephesians chapter 4, and a phrase you’re very familiar with, especially those who’ve been in the Ephesians class that Brett has been teaching. You speak the truth in love. I think that’s almost the foundational level of what friendship is. That we are the kind of people that if we love someone, we will speak truth to them. We will tell them the things that they need to hear. There’s more than Proverbs 27 to verse 6 that speaks to this, but it does it pretty well. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. We don’t like to hurt. Especially in our culture, we want to resist that, stay away from it. Things that are uncomfortable, we don’t like that.

And we will go the other way. We have so many, so many comforts in our culture. Things are so easy, and we don’t have to have pain, hardly ever. And so things that are painful, we kind of immediately think those are bad, and we want to go the other way. But sometimes our friends can tell us things that we desperately need to hear. Sometimes they’re the best ones to do it. It may not be someone who comes up and gives a talk or preaches a sermon or teaches a Bible class or something like that. Those are beneficial, and I think there’s a good reason we do these regularly to give us ideas, but sometimes the most beneficial thing is for a close friend to come to us and say, Have you thought about what you’re doing?

Have you thought about this action that’s taking place? And we know because we’ve developed this relationship over time. There’s someone we’ve chosen to be our friend, and we trust that even though it hurts, doesn’t it always hurt? I don’t think I’ve ever had a time where someone pointed out something that they didn’t like about what I was doing, where I was like, Thanks, I’m so happy. I mean, it’s gonna hurt a little bit. But what usually happens in that situation is I go home and I think about it. And over time, I can take the things that I think are accurate. There may be some inaccuracies in some of what they said or things they don’t know, that’s fine. You do your best to work through what you’re told and say, here are the issues, and here’s what I they’re pointing out the deficiencies or the inadequacies or whatever it might be, and sometimes it’s not sin, particularly with what I do, it might be the way I deliver a sermon or something like that.

You take those things and you learn from them, and you grow, particularly realizing that someone who is a good friend has your best interest at heart. Fake friends don’t flatter us, they don’t hide from us our true condition. They give us good evaluation. They’re willing to correct when it’s needed. And here’s the benefit from that. When we have a true friend, Ecclesiastes talks about this, someone who we can walk side by side with, or in Proverbs, iron Shop’s iron, right? That concept as well. What happens in this process is we become stronger and wiser. This close friend helps us see the deficiencies or the mistakes or the things that we could do better, whatever it is. And along the way we learn together and we grow together.

And sometimes those friends, when it does involve sin, save us from ruin and even condemnation. It’s not even just Proverbs that talks about this. James has quite a bit to say about this idea as well. James chapter 5, verse 19, my brothers, if anyone among you wonders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. It’s not really loving to hide. It’s not loving to not let someone know, particularly when they’re going on a destructive path. Our culture has a really hard time with that. And we are influenced so strongly by the culture we live in, it seems mean to speak truth.

3. Selfless Friends Share With Us

But what Proverbs and what James, other parts of Scripture, what they’re telling us is speaking the truth in love is real friendship. That is what we desperately need. If our goal is to grow, to become wiser and to become stronger, if we really want to please God and please Jesus and the things that we’re doing, we’re going to surround ourselves with people who are willing to speak truth into our life. Who are willing to correct lovingly? Who are willing to think about the relationship we have and deepen it and say, I care about you, and here are some things I want to bring to you. That is the nature of selfless friendship. And then selfless friends, they share with us. They share in our good times.

They share in our difficult times. They stand by us at all times. One of the best proverbs. Particularly about friendship, but it’s one of my favorites in general is Proverbs 17. A friend loves at all times. And a brother is born for adversity. I’ve I’ve lived that over the last year, especially. There’s been a number of you who have been by our side through extremely difficult times. Some very closely, some maybe from a distance. It’s hard to have 200 people by your side at all times. But many of you have helped in financial ways, through sending kind notes, through giving gifts to Xander or to us, through words of encouragement, through going to the hospital with us, all sorts of things. Some of you, it’s just you stop me in the aisle here and you talk to me for a minute, and words of encouragement and tell me there’s people behind me and they’re behind us and they want to help us.

All those kinds of things mean something.

Struggles are not easy to do. Have you ever been in this situation? I’ve been in it a lot just because of the nature of what I do. But you know, you’re at a funeral. There’s sometimes those situations are very difficult. Have you ever had this thought? What do you say? What do you say to somebody? There’s been so many times I’ve I have no clue what to say. And I’ve just had to learn over time, it’s not really about what I say, it’s just the fact that I’m there. Give the person a hug, say I love you. It’s not up to me to give great words of encouragement or try to solve all the hurt and pain. That’s not going to happen anyway. But it is my presence and the compassion and the love that I have for that person that they are really going to value.

The fact that I will sit there with them in their pain, in their grief, and not run the other way afraid. Some of you are amazing at that. Maybe almost natural. You are you gravitate toward that because you’re so good at it. Some of us are not as good at that, and we have to work on it a little bit more. But that is the kind of friend that we want. Willing to push our own limits and be uncomfortable, sometimes in these moments of sadness where we’ll sit with somebody in their grief. And then of course, we would think, oh, it should be easy to rejoice with those who rejoice. But what about if you’re going through difficulty? And so many great things are happening to your friend.

Maybe that’s even harder sometimes. Particularly if we don’t have the right attitude, if we’re very self-centered and self-focused, if our mind isn’t focused on the things of Jesus Christ and the things above. These are warnings. These are warnings the Proverbs and Scripture in general are giving us. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. And sometimes that rejoicing, when you’re going through a period of difficulty and struggle, and you see your friend posting all the great things happening to them on social media.

Conclusion

I want us to realize that’s not being a good friend. We can go through difficulty, we can go through trial, and we can still rejoice. As someone who’s going through something wonderful and good and amazing in their life. So this lesson is not something complex or really anything you’ve never heard before. It’s pretty simplistic, really, but it’s the execution of this that sometimes is a little bit difficult. The care it takes to work through this process. And understanding that real friends or true friends are consistent, they have good motives, they want what’s best for you. And it might take time and observation to evaluate all that and realize this is really a good friend for me, and I want to be a good friend to them.

Sometimes that’ll actually come when they do the second thing. I’ve learned in my life, sometimes a person is such a good friend because they were willing to come and correct. And it doesn’t always have to be some huge sin or something like that. It can just be even small things. But they’re willing to put themselves out there and offer words from a true friend to correct lovingly. And people who are willing to share in our joy and even our sadness. And so the bottom line of all of this is when I’m doing this, I’m working through this process, and I’m working to gain a friend carefully. I want to do it through testing. And I want to not trust too hastily. What am I seeing? Am I seeing Jesus in this person and the things they’re doing?

Not talking about being perfect, never making mistakes. I’m not talking about that. But am I seeing the characteristics of Jesus in this person? And maybe even more importantly, particularly if I’m desperately wanting good friends, what kind of friend am I? What are people seeing in me? I’ll tell you, sometimes when we go through difficulty and we struggle, I’ve just experienced this in my own life. It’s not other people. It’s me. It’s what I’m doing. And so I can spend all the time in the world trying to be careful and see the things of Jesus and other people, but if I’m not exhibiting that myself, do they want to become my friend? That’s a tough question I have to ask myself and be willing to evaluate very carefully.

All of this is working to be like Jesus and working to be around people who are like Jesus. And that is the invitation for you this morning. Do you want to be like Jesus? Do you want people around you like Jesus? Hopefully that’s what we’re offering here in a place like this. Not people who are perfect and never mess up and do everything right and are never rash, never make bad choices, not promoting that at all. But people who are striving, they are desiring and endeavoring to be like Jesus Christ, and you see that in those people. And you want to be around those kind of people, and you want to be that kind of person yourself. Can we help you with that this morning? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?