.
.
.
.
..
.
.

.

Friending – One Friend Away *
Sycamore Creek Church
September 14/15, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

We are in to week two of a series called Friending.  Our key thought for the series is this:

Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

Our key verse for the series comes from Proverbs:

Walk with the wise and become wise,
For a companion of fools suffer harm.
~Proverbs 13:20 NIV

You will rise to the level of wisdom of your friends or you will sink to the level of foolishness of your friends.  Which way do you want to go?

I think that many of us are longing for something more when it comes to our friends.  We think that there must be something more relationally than we are actually experiencing.  There’s a hole there that isn’t being filled.

Sociologists talk about three different kinds of poverty.

1. Material Poverty
2. Spiritual Poverty
3. Relational Poverty

If you’ve ever been on one of our medical mission trips to Nicaragua, you’ll have experienced a progression that goes something like this.  On day one, you’re overwhelmed by what you see that the Nicaraguans don’t have.  By day 3 or 4, you’ll begin to wonder, “Why am I kind of jealous of these people?”  You’ll notice that they have very little material wealth, but they have spiritual and relational depth.  When you get back home you realize that you’ve got so much, but you’re missing something that Nicaraguans have.  And it is likely not someTHING but someONE that you’re missing.

Here’s our key thought for today:

You might be one friend away from changing the course of your destiny.

Now let me be really clear.  When I say one friend away from a changed life, I don’t necessarily mean that this friend will be like you or like all your other friends.  This friend may be very different than you.  Don’t just look for friends like you: your age, education, race, etc.

I’d like to introduce you to two friends in our church.  They are Mark and Justin.  Mark and Justin have a unique friendship.  I’ll  let them introduce themselves.

Mark & Justin Friendship – Intro

We’re going to walk with Mark and Justin throughout this sermon so don’t forget them.  But for now, did you notice how there were some similarities between them, but there was also one big difference: Justin might be young enough to be Mark’s son.  That hasn’t kept them from developing a friendship.  Don’t think that the friends who will change your life will necessarily be your age.

What I want to do today is share with you three types of friends that every person needs.  I’d like to do that by looking at three kinds of friends that King David had.  King David was one of the ancient kings of the nation of Israel, and much is written about him in the Bible.  So let’s dive in and see what we find.

1. Samuel: A Friend Who Makes You Better
Israel went through a period of development in their government.  They began with Moses and then eventually ended up with “judges” who were kind of like local tribal leaders.  This system didn’t work very well and the people wanted a king.  God eventually relented and gave them a king.  Samuel, a judge and prophet was tasked with anointing the first kind of Israel: Saul.  But Saul had problems.  He was insanely jealous, literally.  He probably had some mental breaks with reality and didn’t always follow the path that God wanted him to follow (although I have a side theory that Samuel wasn’t always willing to give up the power he possessed as a judge to let Saul lead).  So God asked Samuel to anoint a new king: David.

The story of how Samuel found David is worth studying in some depth.  God tells Samuel to go the house of Jesse to find the new king.  Jesse brings his oldest son to Samuel and he looks the part.  He’s a natural born leader.  But God is looking for something different than Samuel is looking for and rejects the first born son of Jesse.  So Samuel asks about other sons and here’s what happens.

1 Samuel 16:10-13 NLT
In the same way all seven of Jesse’s sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.”

“Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”

So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes.

And the Lord said, “This is the one; anoint him.”

So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah.

No one saw David as a potential king.  No one thought he was the kind of person who could be king.  But Samuel eventually saw him the way God saw him.  Samuel looked with the imagination of God on the heart of David and saw that David would be a king who would be pursuing God’s own heart and imagination for Israel.  Samuel saw that he could be more than just a youngest runt of a son watching sheep in the back forty.  He saw that he could be the king who would become known as the best king of all of ancient Israel.

Most of us have our friends by accident.  They’re the friends who happened to have a locker next to ours.  Or they shared a birthing class with us.  Or they have kids in your kid’s classroom.  But do they make you better?  What if you intentionally built a friendship with someone who saw you the way God sees you?  What if you built a friendship with someone who imagined your life the way God imagined your life?  Mark and Justin have been that kind of friend to one another.

Mark & Justin – Make You Better Video

Do you have someone in your life who helps make your life better in the things that matter most?  Who makes your marriage better?  Your kids better?  Your learning better?  Your health better?  (Brad Kalajainen, the pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in Michigan, asked me one of the first times we met whether I was exercising.  It was an important question for the future of my well being as a pastor, dad, husband, and friend.).  Do you have friends who are making you a better leader in your field?  What about your finances?  Do you have friends who are helping you make wiser decisions in your stewardship of your money?  What about like Justin and Mark talked about, your character?

Of course, God not only wants you to have friends who make you better in this way, but God wants to use you to make others better as well.

As Iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Proverbs 27:17 NLT

So do you and your friends make one another better?

2. Jonathan: A Friend Who Helps You Find Spiritual Strength
So David was anointed to be king, but Saul wasn’t so quick to give up his kingship.  David became a war hero and the people sang a song saying, “Saul has killed his thousands, David his tens of thousands.”  Saul becomes jealous and plans to kill David.  But Saul has a son named Jonathan who sacrifices his own route to the throne to support his friend, David.

One day near Horesh, David received the news that Saul was on the way to Ziph to search for him and kill him. 16 Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God.
~1 Samuel 23:15-16 NLT

What friends do you have who encourage you to stay strong in your faith in God?  Most of you will probably remember how close we came to remodeling a rental on Cedar Street in Holt and moving our Sunday morning worship to that space.  I invested a lot in that project: time, energy, leadership, prayers.  We voted on it and it passed with about a 90% approval.  But then the whole thing unraveled in the next several days and the landlord pulled out.  I had planned a trip to Chicago that next weekend because I had imagined that I would be pretty tied down with all that it would take to get into that building and wouldn’t have the time to get away for a while.  When it all fell through, we decided to still go out of town for the weekend, but I left Lansing about as discouraged as I have been as your pastor.  I felt like I was getting ready to sit in a chair, and at the last moment someone yanked the chair out from behind me, and I crashed to the floor.

Sarah and I had planned to spend the weekend with her college roommate, Chloe and Chloe’s husband Mark.  They had just bought a house and were sharing it with us as a kind of retreat away from home.  Over dinner the first night I shared about our frustrating situation with this building.  After listening Mark and Chloe asked if I was familiar with their own similar experience.  Their church, Church of the Resurrection, had put close to $750,000 into a potential land purchase for a new building when the township vote did not pass.  They too were devastated as a church, but about three years later they were able to move into another building that is working just fine for their mission.  They encouraged me to hang in there and rely on God and God’s provision.  I left the time with them and came back to Lansing refreshed and ready to do what needed to be done to move us into God’s future.  They were exactly the friends I needed in that moment to encourage me spiritually.  And now we sit on the edge of a possible purchase of another building that looks like it will work in some amazing ways to accomplish our mission.

Let me make a suggestion for you about how to be a spiritual support to your friends:  Think like a pastor!  Pray for them (I keep a list of my favorite prayers to share when the need arises).  Send them scripture.  Bless them.  Lay hands on them when you pray for them.  Hand-write notes of encouragement.  Think like a pastor and give your friends spiritual support.  God wants to use you to help others find spiritual strength.

3.     Nathan: A Friend Who Tells You the Truth
The third kind of friend David had was a friend who could tell him the truth even when it hurt.  David was a “man after God’s own heart,” but he took his eyes off God and put them on Bathsheba.  She was out washing on the roof of her house one day and David spied her from his palace window.  He sent for her and slept with her.  When she became pregnant, he had her husband sent to the front lines of the battle so that he would be killed.

David thinks he has gotten away with this, but one day Nathan shows up and tells him a story.  A poor man has one ewe lamb that he adores.  A rich man comes by and sees it.  The rich man takes the ewe lamb for himself.  In righteous anger, David says that this man should be brought to justice.  Nathan responds, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:17 NRSV).

David could have done several things in that moment, but he chose to humble himself and repent.  Out of that time of humility came one of the most beautiful psalms in the Bible: Psalm 51.  Psalm 51 is traditionally considered David’s prayer of confession.

How often do you have someone in your life who tells you the truth about yourself?  How often are you open to hearing the truth about yourself?  Let’s get back to Mark and Justin who have a unique friendship where Justin has to regularly hear the truth about himself from Mark.

Video Mark & Justin – Telling the Truth

When was the last time you had a friend who loved you enough to tell you, “Don’t go there.”  When was the last time you had a friend who loved you enough to tell you that they saw some unhelpful patterns in your life?  A couple of months ago I had a friend ask if they could meet with me.  We found a time that worked.  A day or so before we met this friend sent me some thoughts written down about some unhelpful patterns they were seeing in my life.  It took great courage to share this with me.  What they were noticing was that I was displaying a pattern of not listening to people.  It wasn’t easy to hear (no pun intended), but after the sting to my pride wore off I was thankful for this brave friend risking to tell me the truth.  I’ve since been putting a plan into action of practicing more active listening skills.  (Speaking of active listening skills, you might consider signing up for the Caring and Listening Skills small group this summer!).  I’ve been practicing both with the staff and with the Lead Team.  During each meeting I hold a little 3×5 card that has one word written on it: paraphrase.  I’m trying to listen better.  After each staff meeting and after each lead team meeting one person in that meeting takes five or ten minutes to review the meeting with me and reflect on how I did paraphrasing and active listening.  It has been a very helpful exercise, and I believe those around me are seeing me take a proactive role in listening.  I haven’t arrived yet, but I’m on the path because a friend took the risk to tell me the truth.

For the majority of you, your friends are not going to lead you to jail, but they will lead you to more of the same.  What’s more of the same?  Lukewarm half-hearted commitment to God.  A self-centered life all about you.  Accumulating things that will never satisfy.  When the highlight of your life is going to a football game or a three-day weekend, you know something’s wrong, but you don’t know what it is because that’s all you see around you.

You may be one friend away from, being a better parent, being more generous, overcoming an addiction, taking better care of your body so that you live ten more years to invest in your grandchildren, investing in the church to change people’s lives, waking up with divine purpose and living into a higher calling, meeting the risen savior, Jesus Christ.

So what do you need to have these kinds of friends?  One simple thing: be that kind of friend.

1. Make others better
2. Encourage others spiritually
3. Tell others the truth

Prayer
Jesus, friend of sinners, our hearts burn to have real true friends.  Give us the intentionality we need to seek out friends who will make us better, friends who will encourage us spiritually, and friends who will tell us the truth.  Give us the courage to be a friend who makes others better, to be a friend who supports those around us spiritually, and to be a friend who tells the truth.  May we be the kind of friend to others that you are to us.  In the power of your Spirit, Amen.

* This sermon is based on a sermon originally preached by Craig Groeschel.