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Thanks, Roy. If you want to keep that open in front of you, we'll be looking at that passage a bit later. Welcome, let me add my welcome to. My name is Phil Cooper. I'm 1 of the elders here.

And we're continuing in our topic series, this evening. And the last topic we looked at was taking risks, sometime. I can't remember when before Christmas, November time, I think it was. And it's a whole series of topics we're we're sort of infrequently turning to, to do with living the Christian life. And this evening, we're looking at the subject of friendship.

So that's this evening's topic. I'll pray and then, we'll turn to the word. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it's a living word. We thank you that it speaks to us today.

Lord as we, turn and look at different verses dotted around. The Bible, and this passage in Ecclesiastes help us to help us to concentrate, help us to take in some of these proverbs, particularly, that we're looking at, and, wisdom of Solomon help us to understand them. And, May as a result, we be people who are moved to be better friends. In Jesus' name, amen. Now having friends is 1 of the most important aspects of our lives.

Psychologists say that after the 2 basic human needs of food and shelter, the next most important is to engage in relationship. But our culture is going in the opposite direction, isn't it? Even though it knows that, even though it reads that. In our culture, the disease of loneliness is turning into an epidemic. There is a faster and greater trend towards isolation than ever before.

Now why? Well, you know, there are there are some practical reasons, I think, you know, the increase in the mobility in the jobs market. You guys know that? You know, it's not just a question of looking for a local job anymore or even a London job. People look globally.

People look in Europe, people look all over the place for for jobs, and employers expect it, and they might actually say to you. Thanks very much for all the work you're doing in London. We're now want you in Geneva or somewhere. The current attitude, particularly from employers, I think, to careers to employment of of us is, more than ever completely ignoring any other aspects of your life. They expect a devotion to the company.

I've heard Pete say it's the modern day slavery. Some of these employees, and that's right. They expect everything from you. Not just them. We have a continuing fragmentation, don't we?

Are families and communities? You know, families very rarely stay in the same place. I remember, when we bought, we moved from a flat in Raines Park tour, a little terrace house in Raines Park, which we should have held on to because it's worth a fortune now, but they and there was a guy opposite who I found very hard to deal with because he'd wander over, and I didn't think he was much older. And whatever I was doing, he'd say I wouldn't do it that way. And I didn't quite know how to handle that really, but his brother lived on the street.

He was in his parents' house, and some other relative was further up the street. You know, that doesn't happen now, does it? Families have broken down. So communities are fragmented. And then, of course, the 1 you know I'm gonna get onto is the rapid changes in technology, which have although we feel more connected, actually they further remove us from personal comp contact.

So despite knowing, you know, all this stuff, despite knowing that loneliness is on the increase and friendships are very important, We're swimming against the tide with that knowledge. And yet we fall into it as well. We know better, yet we still continue to send an email or a text or a Facebook message, and then think to ourselves Okay. Job done. But that is not job done when it comes to friendship, as we'll see later.

Making, keeping, sometimes losing friends is a key part of life. We painfully discover that, I think, as teenagers. But then we seem to have to rediscover it as we go through life. And frankly, I have to tell you, as somebody a bit older than most of you here, it doesn't get any easier. It is not difficult to observe that as we get older, our circle of friends tends to get smaller.

Now you see, I'm sure we'd like to think in this room, sitting at Cornerstone, that church is somewhere where we handle this sort of thing much better than the world. You know, we're better at friendships than the world. But I can tell you there's a lot of people who would sadly testify that that has not been their experience of church. So friendship is such a big subject to us. It has such an impact on our lives that actually we're gonna spend 2 evenings on it.

This evening and next Sunday evening. And even then, even with 2 talks on it, we are only gonna focus on friendship What I mean by that is I'm not gonna talk about a sort of bigger topic of relationship. We're not looking at marriages. We're not gonna look at the relationship you have with your kids or your parents or your brothers and sisters, just friendship. Okay?

And firstly this evening, we're going to look at the biblical characteristics of friendship. We're going to spend most of our time in, if you like the wisdom of Solomon, the ecclesiastes, and and proverbs. Next week, we're going to look at a model friendship in the form of Jonathan and David from 1 Samuel. And I'm hoping that putting those 2 evenings together, it will help us be better friends at the end of it. So tonight, Biblical characteristics of friendship.

We have 6. So we're gonna go quite fast as fast as I can go. 6 biblical characteristics of friendship. And the first 1 is this, we are made for relationship. In other words, why we need friends at all.

You see, biblical is absolutely clear. We are made for relationship from before the beginning of time, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, were working, talking, resting together in the most intimate and harmonious of relationships. Fine. But you see, the Bible says we were made in the image of god. Therefore, we're designed to funk properly in the context of relationship.

So living unfriendly or friend less lives is a rejection of his image, and it's a rejection of his purpose for us. Genesis 2 verse 18, the lord god said it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable helper for him. And although there, of course, he creates Eve, he creates Adam's wife, the point is it was not good for the man to be alone. He wasn't supposed to be alone.

He was designed to share his life. See, that verse isn't speaking mainly about Adam's experience of of being lonely and needing a woman, as it is revealing to us, his nature as somebody that god created to be in relationship. We're connected, sorry, we're created for connection. Tom said last week, if you were here, that we when we experience something that gives us joy, whatever that is, if you remember this, that joy is only really complete when? When we tell someone.

That's what he was saying, wasn't it? When we tell somebody, when we share that experience with someone else, That completes our joy because we're made to connect. Why do we why do you think we wear clothes with brand names all over them? It's interesting, isn't it? It's quite an odd thing to do when you think about it.

You know, we're walking around covered in effectively advertising. With Cymbals and slogans and, brands. Now why do we do that and not charge them for it? I was thinking about that. You know, with this walk walking advertising hoarding for Nike or Apple or Super dry or fat face or whatever it is, shouldn't we charge them for the advertising rather than pay more to have this big name?

So I think the underlying reason is or 1 of them, some of its status, but 1 of them is because we wanna connect and wearing a brand makes us feel good. Not only because we're connecting with the brand, which we are, and and people like Nike are brilliant at exploiting that really. But we're also connecting with other people wearing the same brand. And retailers are tapped into that They know we have a need to connect. And so by wearing, you know, whichever brand it is, we're sharing an experience with other people.

Exactly the same in social media. Facebook and Instagram and all these things are built on the need for us to connect. We're made to be in relationship. That's the first characteristic. The second 1 is this.

Friendships are based on a shared goal or shared experience. Aristotle actually argues that friendship is based on is based on a relationship in which something is shared between the 2 people. So in other words, the essence of friendship is 2 or more people sharing the same sense of purpose perhaps or the same leisure activity or the same problem. You often find that, don't you? Obviously, if you're football fan or something you end up talking about football, you can share something in that But it may be if you've got a problem, you have a problem at work.

Often, the the other person's got the same problem, you end up chatting to them and you become friends. Now the interesting thing about this is that what that means for us is that friendships are likely to be discovered not created. Friendshiphips are likely to be discovered and not created. You can build on a friendship, but you can't just create them. So we can't seek to be someone's friend just for the sake of it when we have nothing in common.

When there's no joint goal, when there's no common foundation. You see, it's interesting. Friends don't talk about their relationship very much. Do they? You think about it with your friends.

How are you feeling about our friendship today? You know, we're not like that. Lovers do. But friends, not so much. Instead, they look outwards.

They tend to talk about the thing that interests them, the focus of the friendship, if you like. When I was when I said to the, at dinner the other day that I was I was talking on friendship, I got a sort of simultaneous response from my kids appeared to be something along the lines of Willis entirely inappropriate for you to be doing that. And I was a bit offended at first what they were clearly saying when I asked them for a bit more detail was because I tend to unfriend people on Facebook and stuff fairly regularly. Now, Pam is somebody who is definitely on my list of people I may own friend shortly. He's not here, so I'll tag carry on.

Because he's talking about Brexit endlessly, and I'm getting irritated. So I may unfriend him. I'll I'll think if he listens that he might stop, you never know. The point is this, if PIMs comes up to you or asks somebody and says, what do you think of Brexit you wouldn't reply or if you did reply a little bit strange, I don't care about Brexit. I'm not interested.

I just wanna be your friend. We don't think like that. True friendship develops when people discover they have a common interest when they have a common goal which they want to pursue. 1 other writer says this, those going nowhere can have no fellow travelers. Now this may have sprung into your mind already as we think about this, but as a Christian, of course, there's the added dimension to this idea of friendship and it's the word fellowship, which we use.

In fact, those of you who are in we've just had, home group leaders training. And Pete talks about fellowship, That is also talking about sharing. It's also talking about participation. It's also talking about joining in, you know, together doing something. And for us as Christians, that's sharing Jesus Christ.

John 17 verses 22 to 26 just read it out to you. Jesus is praying to the father. He says I have given them the glory that you gave me. That they may be 1 as we are 1. I in them and you and me, so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. That's clearly evangelistic in nature. He's talking about how the world can look and see the unity. But what's he talking about? He's talking about that we'll be 1.

He's asking that we'll have complete unity. It's a beautiful prayer, but it also means that our friendships should be deepened by our partnership in the gospel. You see, we should discover friends in the church, not because we managed to find the 1 other Christian in the whole world who supports stam. That isn't it, is it? This is very, very important The idea of church is not that it's a platform using technology language.

It's not that it's a platform so you can seek out those people within it who are like you, or have who have the same age kids, or, you know, who you can have dinner with and go to the cinema with because they're all the same. But because we should discover in church a common sense of purpose, a common direction, a common belief system. So think about this for a minute. Who is your closest friend? See if your closest friends are not Christians If you have lots of, perhaps superficial relationships in the church, but your closest friends are outside of it Then I think perhaps we need to ask ourselves if the gospel isn't as big in your life as it should be.

Our partnership in the gospel in this church of which you are part should be a major thing in your life. The major goal for your life, which means you'll inevitably discover close friends here. But it will also inevitably act as a natural barrier to making lots of close friends outside. Because what it would mean is that there's a whole area of your life a whole area that's very important to you, which your friend isn't gonna get. He's not gonna understand.

Thirdly, third characteristic of friendship, 2 are better than 1. This is where the passage from Ecclesiastes come in. Chapter 4 is really versus 9 to 12. So just have that in front of you. 2 are better than 1, and then let's reread it.

2 are better than 1 because they have a good return for their labor. If if either of them falls down, 1 can help the other up, but pity anyone who falls and has no 1 to help them up. Also, if 2 lie down together, they will keep warm, but how can 1 keep warm alone? Though 1 may be overpowered, 2 can defend themselves. A cord of 3 strands is not quickly broken.

Now look, the first point this makes is that 2 people trying to do something are likely to be more successful, more effective, than a person on their own. That's all it's saying. And if you've ever put together any sort of flat pack furniture or Ikea, sort of stuff, then you'll know that's true. In fact, personally, I would jump straight to the last verse since a quarter of 3 strands is not quickly broken because in my experience of flat pack furniture, you need 3 people, 2 to do it and me to sort of supervise and make cups of tea. See, who knew that would be so biblical at attitude?

The point is It the point it's making is that we're more able to tackle difficult things when we have a friend there to help us. Seems obvious. I would have thought that's obvious to everybody. So why don't we always think of it? Why don't we always do it?

Is it perhaps because you don't wanna burden someone else? So I won't ask anyone for help. You see, it might also be that you just prefer doing stuff yourself on your own. You see, it's worth us understanding that if we are finding in our own lives that 2 are not better than 1, then we should ask some serious questions about friendships, and perhaps even our marriages. We may find that the reason we like to do things on our own is possibly because they have to be done our way.

That's 1 reason, isn't it? If it's not done my way, I know it's too much aggravation to have somebody else involved. I've I've bringing to mine. I don't know why I bring this to mine, but, there was I can't even I'm trying not to tell you the So there's something going on at church, and somebody was speaking, and I was mumbling away to myself, because I, you know, it it wasn't suiting me or whatever. And Anne, Woodcock just said to me, not everything's about efficiency.

And I was thinking, I'm not sure I agree with that. And, so I've I've thought about that for several, almost 2 months, I think. And, it comes up regularly in my life. I think about things and then I thought that's hopeless. And then I think, no, not everything's about efficiency.

But that's but that's right, isn't it? Sometimes it's worth having a friend help you, not because it's more efficient. If it's not that, it could be pride. It could be pride stopping us for help. We're happy to be asked for support or for help.

And in fact, we'd probably be very upset if our friends didn't come to us or and ask us or they were too embarrassed to ask us or whatever it is. But we don't seem to apply it the other way around. You know, we like the pleasure we gain by helping someone But have we really experienced the support ourselves from them? And when we don't when we don't ask, we rob them of the joy that they might get in helping us. Look at Cleveland's 4 verse 10.

If either of them falls down, 1 can help the other up. See that? Quite straightforward. But do you notice there's either? If either of them fall down, either 1 might fall down.

Either might be required to help the other up. It's not just 1 way. So let's just apply this to church. So you often find in church that you have certain people who are constantly giving and supporting and helping other people And then you've got another group who are constantly receiving those gifts of support and help and so on. That is not the way it's supposed to be, but it's often common.

Both actually need to be challenged. Why are you constantly needing all this help? Why are you constantly only giving? But let's look at the people who are always giving for a moment. Let's challenge them amongst us.

You see, it could be for a very good reason. It could be that you're more mature. It could be that, you've experienced stuff in life that people need help in. It could be just age It could be your approachability. You're very easily approachable so people do approach you.

There's lots of good reasons why you might be constantly asked to to give things. That's fine, but make sure it's not pride in you acting as a barrier in your life, meaning you don't want to be seen as weak or failing or vulnerable. You see, if your instinct when you come to church is to protect your reputation at the detriment of building your character Or when you come to church, your your pride and your ego constantly means you want to elevate yourself above other people, we have to repent of that. We have to repent of that and change. Now it might be there's none of those things.

It might be for you You've just been around churches long enough that you've been let down by people. Most of us have, I guess. You've been let down by people. And so in order to protect yourself, from further pain, you keep people at a distance. You see, it's very easy, isn't it?

In a highly mobile culture like we're talking about, where people come and go, where people move and so on, it's very easy to have an attitude in church, and I've I've felt it in myself. Let's see if they're going to stay and commit before we put any energy into them. But that isn't right. Can you imagine if we only spoke to new people after they'd been around 6 months? You know, that what about all those Americans that came today?

And we're at the church lunch? If we sort of said, can you sit over there because we don't know you? And you know, until you've committed, we don't want to waste any time. Amy and my daughter, when she first went to university in Nottingham, went to a church, And, they said to her as a student, they they spent no time inquiring whether she was from, you know, well, I don't know what you want to call it, a decent church background, They just said students, aren't welcome in home groups till year 2. But there was no alternative.

There was no other sort of meeting. It's extraordinary. Are we like that? It may also be that your expectations of Christian brothers and sisters are just too high. We might have 2 expectations.

Look at it back to Ecclesiastes 4. 9 and 10, 2 are better than 1 because they have a good return for the labor. If either of them falls down, 1 can help the other up. And sometimes we act as if, well, we were expecting to be helped up and we haven't been, so I'm stropping off now. What about, you know, the person that comes, or any of us, and the person we hoped would pick us up, like it says in Ecclesiastes, falls down at the same time.

You know, that happens yet we let it disappoint us. People leave churches because of that. In other words, we're saying my high unrealistic expectations have not been rest have not been met by the rest of you. Let's all keep in mind 2 are better than 1. However, imperfect, And so we need to persevere with each other.

Ecclesiastes 4 verse 11 says if 2 lie down together, they will keep warm, but how can 1 keep warm alone? Though 1 may be overpowered, 2 can defend themselves. A cord of 3 strands is not quickly broken. This is simply pointing out here how powerful 2 or more friends can be. They can help each other.

They can encourage each other in times of trouble, they can strengthen each other. And that is a key element of being a friend. When someone's under pressure, it's often a friend who will help It's a friend who will pick us up. It's a friend who will come for us. It's a friend who will bring healing when there is pain.

Because a true friend is more concerned with seeing us back on our feet than pointing out the stupidity of the fall. Aren't they? Our true friend is more concerned with seeing us back on our feet rather than pointing out the stupidity of the fall. 1 Corinthians 13 famous chapter on love, verses 6 and 7 says this, love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Now are those the sort of friends you have? Is that the sort of friend you are? Someone who builds up protects trusts, perseveres. So we've seen in the first 3 biblical characteristics of friendship. Firstly, we're made for relationship Secondly, they're based on a shared goal or experience.

Thirdly, in real friendships, we're stronger than when we're on our own. And fourthly, we'll see these friendships have a high level of candor speaking the truth, that's what it means. A high level of candor or honesty. You see, friendship is not something that means you hang out with people who believe the same things as you to the extent that they never disagree with you. They never say anything to upset you.

Friends are, in fact, people who are willing to go to the trouble to ask you hard questions and say uncomfortable things in order to help you. In order to perhaps protect you from sin, from falling. See, the reality is we all like to be liked, don't we? That's what the likes on Facebook is all about. We all like to be liked.

We would prefer to continue to be nice. Saying pleasant things. Even when we know it's not really loving to do so, that's where our heart is. We wanna be light. We don't wanna cause upset.

We need to value people in our life who have sharp spiritual insight. People who have sharp, spiritual eyesight, and insight, people who don't mind getting involved in your life. Proverbs 27 verse 17 says, as iron sharpens iron, you'll have heard before, as iron sharpens iron so 1 person sharpens another. But listen to 28 verse 23, proverbs Whoever rebukes a person, will in the end gain favor rather than the 1 who has a flattering tongue. You see in the long run, friendships only really deepen if both people are open with each other.

If both speak up when there's a problem. If when they observe something in your life, taking you away from god away from god's family, they're willing to intervene. Encourage your friends to pick you up on this stuff when you do it. Give them permission to do that. Very important.

Yesterday, we had a men's breakfast, And, there's a good number there. We have them every so often, so keep your eye out if you're a man for the next 1. We were talking Peter was talking, then we went into little groups afterwards. And and 1 of the groups I gather was talking about the fact that, actually mentoring they needed you need for longer. You know, what's what seems to happen, typically, I think in most walks of life, certainly churches, you're mentored as a young man.

When you get to university and you come back from university, you're sort of grown up, and there's no mentoring going on. Well, your friends are for that, but of course it's embarrassing. It's hard, isn't it? It's difficult to expect your friend to suddenly intervene in your life. You get prickly about it.

So give them permission. Make it easy for them. So if you if you can't, I don't know, control your mouth or your tongue, you know, you're blaspheming or swearing or temper, well, a real friend won't put up with that. They'll tell you when you're doing it. You know, what about those of you who have a tendency to disappear?

You know, you kinda don't mean there's some sort of magic trick. So disappear from church. You know, you constantly prioritize other things in your life over meeting with god's family. I hope your home group leader picks it up. But so should a friend?

We used to have an apprentice here many years ago, a lot of you in the room won't know who I'm talking about, but somewhere. Rista, I'm an apprentice here called Helen. She was absolutely brilliant at this. There are several girls I think here this evening at Cornerstone. Who are here really in many ways because Helen was on them.

Helen made sure they didn't drift. Now are you a good enough friend of someone to do the same? And by the way, a chasing text Text does there's nothing wrong with text. Text can be encouraging, but a chasing text saying where were you yesterday is not what I'm talking about. I mean a friend who won't assume you're fine, but will take the trouble to try and see you.

To have a coffee to find out if there's something going on in your life that they can help with or possibly challenge who cares enough to give you time, even if it's inconvenient. Are you that sort of friend? A friend who have put themselves out. See, 1 author, when I was looking for, you know, information on this and background and stuff, 1 author wrote this, are you the person who says, let me know if I can do anything to help, brackets, that will rarely happen, close brackets, or are you the friend that turns up on the doorstep? So these proverbs though, they're talking about even more than that.

When it's talking about iron sharpening iron, it's saying a real friend will challenge your thinking. A real friend will challenge your behavior, your life, And the beauty of it is you can do it to each other. Yes. It'll be painful. Yes.

It will sometimes hurt. Yes. There may be things you have to apologize for. But if your version of friendship is to get together infrequently and talk about football or the latest Star Wars film or, you know, some relative that you've never met, That is not biblical friendship. In a real friendship between 2 sinful people, it will get messy.

And it's in those messes that our hearts are revealed. Our weaknesses are exposed. We're impatient. We're defensive. We're aggressive and we sharpen each other.

You can rebuke and edify and correct and build each other up, and then it's a friendship worth putting time into. See, to just remember though with all of that, being candid, which means being honest, isn't just about pointing out faults. Being candid means truth in all its forms. Just pointing out false, there's lots of stuff we should just let go. Please don't take that as as a biblical priority to criticize constantly.

See, being candid might include helping someone see their gifting. Or helping them see how much they're appreciated. Proverbs 27 verse 9, perfume and incense bring joy to the heart and the and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. So, yes, be candid, but be careful. Be kind.

See, it's interesting that don't you notice this in yourself? We always judge others on their past performance. So he's not reliable. She's not reliable, whatever it is. But we judge ourselves on our future intentions.

Others on past performance, ourselves, and our future intentions. You can't have many friendships where you're this open where you're this candid. No 1 has the time. No 1 has the energy. Just be aware of that.

These are going to be relatively few in your life. That's okay. But in developing close relationships, please be aware of the dangers of being clunky. Coffee after church. Church lunch like we had today is not the ideal time for you to get together with your close friends.

Otherwise, you're back to the Americans sitting on their own. Fifthly, friends are chosen. Proverbs 17 verse 17, a friend loves it all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. Now, How on earth is that about being chosen or choosing a friend? This bit might be a challenge to some of us.

It might be a bit controversial actually to some See, I think that proverb, a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for a time of adversity, is saying that real friends are more important than your relatives. Your blood family. The message translation says this, friends love through all kinds of weather and families stick together in all kinds of trouble. See, it's saying if you're in trouble, your family's gonna help. Of course they will.

They're your family. So your parents or your brother or your sister or your kids will come to your aid when things go bad. When you're in trouble. As the verse says, inadvertently, your family will help because they love you. But it doesn't say they actually like you.

Doesn't say that they approve of you or agree with you They'll rescue you, but they might not like you as a person. That is not the case with a friend. A friend has chosen you and vice versa. You see, it's a choice not just for when you're in trouble, not just for when the chips are down, if you like, but at all times in all types of weather, including when it's sunny. So a friend is there for good, as well as bad, for when you just wanna hang out.

See, in the same way as I suggested earlier that if you're best friends and non Christians, Then you need to think about the place of the gospel in your life. I'd want to say to you if your main group of friends is your family, particularly if they aren't followers of Jesus Christ, then you need to think about that. It's great that you get on. It's great that you're close, and I am not for 1 minute negating the biblical requirement to look after and care for and prioritize family and honoring your parents, but are you taking the easy route by having family as your best friends rather than choosing friends from god's family and building relationship with them. Are we constantly disappearing and using family as the reason, but the reality is god's family comes a distant second in our lives.

Now I understand that's quite you've got to think about that. It's quite complicated. I think there's a difference if your family are Christian to non Christian. They're Christian they're part of god's family, aren't they? But it's worth bearing in mind that the only aspect of your life that will carry on into heaven is the church, the bride of Christ, god's family, everything and everyone else will be gone.

The only lasting relationship apart from the 1 you have with god himself is actually between you and god's people. The second element on this last, fifth 1 about choosing friends, there's a whole load of proverbs What it's really saying is be wise in your choice of friends. That's what they're saying. It's about being mentored. It's about learning from others.

Proverbs 18 verse 24, 1 who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 12 verse 20, the righteous choose their friends carefully. The way of the wicked leads them astray. Pretty straightforward. Choose your friends carefully.

Proverbs 13 verse 20. I love this 1. Walk with the wise and become wise. For a companion of fools suffers harm. If you know anything about the Bible, the proverbs, the the wise are the people who know god in proverbs.

So 13 verse 20 is absolutely clear. You should choose friends who know god because they'll help you know god. Of course, we can have non Christian friends. Don't mishear me. That is a good thing.

It's an evangelistic opportunity. But please be aware if you go to the world for advice, you will get worldly advice. Parents know this. You can, those of you that are young, remember when your parents were more in control of your life, those of you that parents will realize you were never really in control of their lives, but they go. But you all know this.

What is the first thing Your mom and dad used to say to you or second or third thing, but it was all together. If you were going out for an evening or you announced as a teenager, you were going out for an evening, what is the question you often got? Who are you going with? Cause parents know who you're with has a massive influence on you. So choose your friends wisely.

Sixly, finally, there is only 1 true friend. There is only 1 true friend we can have. It's Jesus Christ. You see, we're made to be in relationship, and a relationship with Jesus as your lord and savior is a relationship you will have for all eternity. He is there to listen whenever you want him.

He loves you so much he died for you, and you know if you're a Christian here this evening that 1 day he will return to take you to be with him in heaven. Secondly, we saw that friendships are based on something shared, a goal, an experience. With Jesus, we have a shared inheritance. A shared destination and a shared purpose while we're here on this earth. Thirdly, we saw that 2 is better than 1.

That trying to manage your life on your own is not the wise path. If we belong to Jesus, we never have to be alone again. We have the Holy Spirit in us, giving us his power enabling us to do works of services. Fourthly, We saw that friends are candid with each other. Well, do you talk to Jesus?

Because he's ready to listen. See, he wants you to bring everything to him, but he's candid with us. Have you read his word? Do you meditate on the Bible? The Bible is as candid as you can get.

It is absolutely honest about the state of your heart. It is absolutely honest about the problems that you have, about what you need to change, and it gives you the solution. Fifthly, friends are chosen, and Jesus chose you. Jesus has chosen you to be his friend to help you to seek you out, to spend time with you, and he made the greatest sacrifice of all by giving his life for you. And the point is this, you cannot have an internalized enclosed self centered communion or relationship or friendship with god.

So this is why it's nonsense. If you're talking to or this is why it's nonsense. If they say they're Christians, but they don't come to church, they don't need to. Because god is not a private god. A friendship with god, a relationship with god is immediately.

You have that relationship. The me the minute it starts It is immediately and definitively also a friendship with other people who have faith themselves in the same god you have facing. So in that knowledge, Are you the best friend you can be? See, we won't be perfect friends this side of heaven, but that doesn't mean we don't try There are a lot of encouragement in the Bible, including the verses we've looked at in proverbs and ecclesiastes. There are a lot of encouragement in the Bible for us to try and be the best friend possible.

Let's pray. Father we do thank you for your word. We thank you how it speaks today as it's so counter cultural in this sense that people are getting more isolated, and that friendships are so superficial that we all have hundreds of friends on Facebook and yet We're lonely and we have no friends really. Help us to be better friends to people. Help us to discover friends with common goals with a with a common love for you, in this church in, your wider church family.

Help us to prioritize friendships to give them the time they need. Help us not just to text and assume that's it. Help us to be those people that won't just say, let me know if there's anything I can do when you don't really mean it. Help us be people who turn up on doorsteps and, where we know people well enough. Help us be people that, speak candidly that we might both encourage help us to give permission to our friends to pull us up when we're going the wrong way because that's what we need.

Help us not to drift and help us to use relationships and friendships, to help us not drift. Nor we thank you that we have a friend in Jesus, that he is a friend that's chosen us, that loves us, that he's always there, help us to, talk to him. To respond to him in our life, to trust him, to understand that 2 are better than 1. Lord, we thank you for, all you've shown us this evening, help us to be better friends to each other, and to you. In Jesus' name,