Friend loveth at all times and
a brother Is born for adversity This this verse speaks of a Precious
precious blessing that the Lord gives I Believe all of his people I Think there may well be I suspect there may well be in
this world folks that don't have a single friend in this world,
and they may not know it. They may very well not know it.
They might think they do, but then when the storms come, those words at all times mean
a lot, don't they? They mean a lot. But I can tell
you from experience, this is true. I don't believe the Lord
will leave his people friendless in this world because it doesn't
necessarily mean that every believer is a friend to one another in
the same way. But I don't believe that the
Lord will leave his people in this world without a friend because This is a precious gift from
the Lord, and when he gives you a friend, he's giving you a means
of blessing you himself. The Lord has many ways of blessing
his people, but when he gives you a friend, that's him blessing
you. It's a means by which he gives
you something priceless. And it's, they say, the gift
that keeps on giving. It's the gift that's always a
gift. I can tell you from experience
this is true. I think I have a few friends
now. And I know every one of us have
experienced. I'm sure every one of us have
thought we had a friend in somebody and it turned out not to be true.
That's just something that all of us experience in life. I suspect. I'm pretty sure I've got a few
friends right now. I know I had one. He died a few
years ago. Friend it's a word we throw around
pretty pretty easily pretty fast and loose with that word these
days It's just somebody on your list on Facebook, right? It's
my friends list. No Not like this it's it's not
that way a Real friend is a gift from the
Lord It's not only a means by which he blesses us, but it's
a reminder of who he is to us you see in them what the Lord
is to you, only in a much greater way. You remember when Jacob met Esau, and Esau, God
hated Esau, but the Lord made Esau favorable to Jacob, and
Jacob said, I saw in you the face of God. It was as though
when you walked up, I was looking into the face of God. Have you
ever felt that way when you sat talking with a friend or your
wife or husband? It reminds you who God is to
you. That's a friend, a real friend. Proverbs 18, 24, it says,
a man that hath friends must show himself friendly. You got
to be a friend to have a friend, don't you? That's so important. But then the second part of that
verse is, there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
And anyone who knows the Lord Jesus Christ knows who that is. In John 15, 15, the Lord said
to his disciples, henceforth, I call you not servants. And he didn't say that right
away when he had first called them. But after he had taught
them, and after they had been together for a while and they
got to know one another, the Lord knows us perfectly before
we were ever born, but in this human instrumentality of friendship,
some time has to go by. That doesn't just happen overnight.
So some time went by and he said, from now on, from now on, I don't
call you servants anymore. Though he did call them to serve
him, didn't he? He called them to preach and
to teach for him. But here's the reason he gave.
He said, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. Servants
are just, they're there just to do a job. You know, religion talks about
that. You know, the Lord has got a job for you. You've got
to do this and do that and do the other thing. The Lord said,
it's not like that. Jesus needs a few good men, you
know. He needs you to serve him. He
doesn't need you to do anything for him. If he allows you to
do something for him, that's him doing something for you. for the servant doesn't know
what his Lord's doing, but I've called you friends for all things
that I've heard of my father, I've made known unto you." It
took some time for that to happen, right? He had to teach them some
things. And he said, here's what you are to me and me to you. The Lord is a perfect friend.
I don't need to say that, but I'm going to say that. The Lord
is a perfect, Friend, and I just thought of
things, you know, from the scripture. But these things you could think
of without even looking into the scripture. A friend, we know
what a friend is. The Lord uses these things, like
I said, a friendship. That's a gift that he gives,
a marriage. What did he say about marriage? This is me showing
you the kind of love I have for you. And you for me, if he puts
the love of God in your heart. He said, I speak of Christ and
his church when I talk about marriage. Friendship is like
that. The Lord is a perfect friend.
And what does a friend do? The first thing that come to
mind from the scriptures and also just in my experience in
earthly things, a friend always tells you the truth. If you can't
trust a friend, he's not a friend. He always tells you the truth,
no matter what, whether it hurts or whether it makes you happy.
He tells you the truth. And I thought about where the
Lord Jesus said to his disciples, in my father's house are many
mansions. If it weren't so, I would have
told you. Whatever's true, that's what
he'll tell us. And then he said this, I go to
prepare a place for you. If that wasn't true, he would
tell us that. But I believe him, don't you?
I believe he has a place for us with him. And he's gonna come
back and take us there to be with him. I believe that, I believe
him. A friend comforts you when you
need it. You're found comfort. And just
having a friend when you're down, when you're suffering, when you
don't know what to do, you need to talk to somebody, a friend
will comfort you. John 14, one, the verse right
before the one we just read, let not your heart be troubled. And think about this now. He
could have said, let not your heart be troubled. It won't be
long now and you'll be in heaven and everything. You won't have
any problems or anything like that. No. He said, let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God, believe in
me. That's how you'll not be troubled.
The only way a sinner can be trouble-free, and we won't be
perfectly trouble-free because we can't do this perfectly, but
it's by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about what he's
saying there. What can calm our troubled hearts? Believing in him. Believing in
the Lord Jesus. There's a reason, he gives a
reason not to be troubled. See what I'm saying? A lot of
times, people in this world, and it's fine, because I know
what they mean. They're trying to be a help, and they just say
things like everything's gonna be okay, when they have no basis
in fact for that. Everything may forever be not
okay, but they're gonna say everything's gonna be okay, and that's fine.
But the Lord gives us a reason not to be troubled. It really
is gonna be okay if we believe in him, if we have him. if he knows us and we know him. Friends don't just comfort you
with empty words. They back it up with all they
are and all they have. That's what my friend in this
world was like. And the only reason I say, you
know, I think I have friends now, I'm pretty sure about that.
I'm pretty sure I got some good friends right now. But how can
you say that? There may be a limit, huh? I
may be a friend to you, there may be a limit. Of course, we're
not the perfect friend that the Lord is. But my friend, he backed it up
with everything he had and everything he was. I'm so thankful for that. But they don't comfort you with
empty words. Everything that they have, everything
that they are, and what is Christ, and what does he have? Everything.
Christ is all. A friend stands with you. You
remember when the disciples, they were walking with the Lord
and they stopped and picked corn from that field and started to
eat it? and the Pharisees attacked them with the law. It's in Luke
6, one through five. We won't have time to turn to
these, but I want to mention them to you. You know how the
scriptures define, the word of God defines things? Not like
Webster's Dictionary. The scripture defines these principles,
these truths, with experiences, with things that actually happened.
That's how you're gonna know That's why somebody with a degree
in engineering may not be able to build a birdhouse until they
actually build a birdhouse. If you have a degree in engineering,
it's probably gonna be a pretty good birdhouse. But you see what
I'm saying? You've got to actually do something
with the knowledge that you have or you don't know it. That's these experiences that
the Lord gives us in the scripture. And the Lord said to those Pharisees,
they attacked, they said, you shouldn't be doing that on the
Sabbath day. They attacked the disciples with the law, the Pharisees
did, and the Lord said, they're with me, and I'm the Lord of
the Sabbath. That's a friend. Remember when
the woman with the alabaster box of ointment was rebuked by
some of the disciples, and Judas, we know Judas stirred that up.
from several different places in scripture, and the Lord said,
leave her alone. She hath wrought a good work
on me. Isn't that beautiful? What a friend. What a friend. Remember when the soldiers came
to arrest the Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane? And his disciples,
they were gonna take them all. And he said, who are you looking
for? They said, Jesus of Nazareth.
They would have taken everybody that was with him too. And he
said, if you seek me, take me and let these go their way. Remember when Simon betrayed
the Lord? Simon Peter denied the Lord three times, what'd
the Lord do? He gave him some time to think
about that because Simon had said, I'll never do that. I'll
never do that. And he had a lesson to learn,
didn't he? The Lord will give us time to learn. But then what
did the Lord do? The Lord gave Simon the great
blessing of professing his love for the Lord Jesus Christ the
exact same number of times that he had denied him. And then he
said, I got a job for you. The most precious, the most privileged
job in this world. Take care of my sheep. Man, what a friend. What a friend. If I trust Clark with you, you
know that you're a good friend of mine. What a gracious friend our Lord
is. And remember this, we can't end a study on this subject without
this verse, John 15, 11. These things have I spoken unto
you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might
be full. I've said, what a beautiful thing. Do you say what you say to your
friends so that they might be happy? You ever think about that? To give them joy, to see them laugh, to see them
encouraged. That's why the Lord said what
he said. He said this, this is my commandment. I've got a commandment for you.
And you might be thinking, oh man, you know, that's kind of
scary. Love one another. What a privilege. What a gracious command. Love
one another. And that's not just getting mushy.
That's standing by one another. That's being able to trust one
another. That's just a ferocious, tenacious
commitment to one another. That you love one another as
I have loved you. How far you want us to take that,
Lord? All the way. Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friend. We think
of that as meaning I'll die for you, I'll take a bullet for you,
whatever like that. But you can lay down your life
without ever dying too. But our Lord, he laid down his
life for us. He died in our place that we might live. Amen, let's pray.