Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] This morning, 88 kids got on two buses and headed for North Carolina.
[00:00:10] And they're going to do disaster recovery work this week.
[00:00:18] And they're all kids from our church.
[00:00:21] And if you could remember them in your prayers this week and the next time you feel like being grouchy about kids, remember this picture.
[00:00:40] They're giving a week of their life away to go serve people they don't know to help them recover from the disaster.
[00:00:48] I think that's worthy of a lot of respect.
[00:00:58] Our Adventure of Faith campaign ended last week, and this church committed $1,108,638.
[00:01:18] And if you'd like to help us, we'll still. We'll still give you another card. If you do get a card, we'll get you one.
[00:01:27] Our dear Heavenly Father, I thank you that you are at work in the world in a powerful way.
[00:01:36] And I pray for our kids who are going to North Carolina today.
[00:01:42] I pray that you would do good work through them and you would do good work in them.
[00:01:48] I pray that they could have the kind of experience that they would want to be lifelong servants of Jesus Christ.
[00:02:02] I also thank you for the generosity that you stirred up in our church. And I pray that you'd bless everyone who's trusted in you and made a commitment.
[00:02:12] I pray this morning that you would help me to speak in a way that we can see the value that you place on friendship.
[00:02:21] In Jesus name, amen.
[00:02:26] Jesus spoke 38 parables.
[00:02:33] And each one of these parables was a short story that had a.
[00:02:44] That had a enriched meaning to it.
[00:02:48] So we don't read parables like narrative history parables.
[00:02:55] In parables, things represent stuff.
[00:02:58] And I'm going to tell you this morning the parable that Jesus taught on friendship.
[00:03:06] Jesus said there was a man who owned a company and that that company thrived and did really well.
[00:03:14] And so the owner hired a business manager.
[00:03:20] And at first, the business manager did a good job. He was reliable.
[00:03:27] But over time, he started doing shady stuff.
[00:03:36] Over time, he became dishonest, cooked the books, didn't treat customers right.
[00:03:44] And so somebody complained to the owner of the business.
[00:03:50] And the owner of the business did what any smart businessman would do. He called the dude in and said, I want you to get stuff ready because we're going to. We're going to sit down and have a come to Jesus meeting.
[00:04:05] And if these books aren't right, you don't have a job.
[00:04:09] So the dishonest manager, he left the boss's office and went to his own office. And he said, man, I'm too weak to dig and I'm too ashamed to beg.
[00:04:26] I got to come up with a plan.
[00:04:30] And so this business manager, he started calling in everybody who owed the business money.
[00:04:41] And one by one, he would say, what do you owe the company? And they would say. And he'd say, okay, I want you to reduce your bill to this.
[00:04:51] And he reduced the bill of everybody who owed the company money.
[00:04:57] Well, the owner found out about that, and if I were writing the story, the owner would have been a lot grouchier than he was.
[00:05:10] But in fact, the owner said to the business manager, I commend you.
[00:05:23] I applaud you for your prudence and wisdom in what you did.
[00:05:33] And I'm gonna explain this in a minute.
[00:05:37] And then Jesus said, isn't it ironic that sometimes the children of this age are wiser than the children of light?
[00:05:55] And then Jesus said, one of the most unusual things you'll read in the Gospels.
[00:06:02] Make friends with money so that when it runs out, you will be received into an eternal dwelling.
[00:06:16] Ah. Now remember, this is a parable.
[00:06:20] And so we. We have to understand the elements of the parable if we're going to get the big meaning.
[00:06:29] So I believe this parable says that good friendships are based on honesty.
[00:06:38] As long as the business manager was honest and everything went well at the company, things didn't fall apart until he became dishonest.
[00:06:49] And in every friendship, honesty is a glue that holds the relationship together.
[00:06:57] Good friends speak honestly, openly, and kindly to one another.
[00:07:05] If there's anybody in the world you should be able to count on to be honest with you, it should be your friends.
[00:07:13] But guess what? If there's anybody in the world that they should hope to be honest with them, it's you.
[00:07:23] I've known many friendships that crashed and burned because dishonesty created distrust and it killed the friendship.
[00:07:39] Are your friends safe with how you speak about them?
[00:07:48] See, honesty isn't just what I say to people's face. It's also what I say behind their back.
[00:07:56] Do your friends have every expectation that you're not going to say anything behind their back that you wouldn't say to their face?
[00:08:06] Church quality friendships require honesty, and sometimes we struggle with that.
[00:08:22] Here's what happened.
[00:08:25] Sometime, probably in junior high, you learned that people talk behind each other's back.
[00:08:35] You learned that even your friends who you thought would never do it, talk behind your back, right?
[00:08:43] Probably junior high.
[00:08:46] And guess what?
[00:08:47] And then we learn to do it to others.
[00:08:52] And so it isn't Common in American culture for people who say, you're my friend behind your back to say something that you would find hurtful.
[00:09:04] Church Is this the truth?
[00:09:07] All right.
[00:09:08] That's why we can't do it.
[00:09:11] That's why there have to be some grownups in the world who simply say, friendship is a valuable thing to me, and my friends can count on me to be honest. And even when they're not looking me in the face, I am living by a higher standard of life, and I am honest. And I don't trash my friends behind their back. Can you hear this? Church but honesty is more than just what we say.
[00:09:41] Honesty is a way of behaving.
[00:09:45] And when we behave in an honest way, people's confidence in us go up.
[00:09:51] When we can't be trusted, their confidence us goes down.
[00:09:55] So in every good friendship, we behave in the kind of ways that it makes it easier and easier for people to have confidence in us.
[00:10:08] Ah, it's really as basic as in a good friendship. We have to do what we say we'll do.
[00:10:17] Ah.
[00:10:19] Have you ever committed yourself to do something, it was time to do it, and you're going, oh, I don't wanna do this. Why did I commit myself to do this?
[00:10:27] And then you look for some sorry excuse.
[00:10:31] A bad excuse is better than none at all.
[00:10:36] Okay? Church Healthy friendships require honesty that we're honest in what we say and we're honest in what we do.
[00:10:53] The second quality of friendship is trust.
[00:10:57] Things went bad when the owner couldn't trust the business manager.
[00:11:02] When that trust was broken, things went bad and things couldn't go on the way they were going because. Because the owner no longer trusted the business manager.
[00:11:14] See, trust is another word for faith.
[00:11:18] The owner lost faith that this business manager could be counted on to continue to lead the business.
[00:11:27] And as faith and trust go together, faithfulness and trustworthiness goes together.
[00:11:36] We undermine friendship when we break trust. We strengthen friendship when we are trustworthy.
[00:11:46] And so we all have to say to ourselves, am I trustworthy?
[00:11:52] And let's not make any excuses for ourself, because trustworthiness is a scale. It's not yes or no. We're all somewhere on the trustworthy scale. And we're on a different scale with different people. With some people were absolutely trustworthy.
[00:12:09] Other people were kind of sliding down the scale a little bit.
[00:12:17] We want to be able to trust our friends. Well, your friends want to be able to trust you also. Do you see that this is a moment to bring up the idea we've all made Mistakes in our friendship.
[00:12:43] Everybody in this room has not been a perfect friend. We've all made mistakes.
[00:12:49] Ah. And so sometimes we make mistakes, and we have to rebuild trust.
[00:12:55] The fastest way to rebuilding trust is to acknowledge what you did wrong and say you're sorry and say, what can I do to make this right?
[00:13:04] Church? That is the fastest way to rebuild trust.
[00:13:08] If I fail as a friend and I don't want to lose that friendship, then the very best thing I can do is I can be honest and say, you know what?
[00:13:20] I didn't live up to my own code of being a friend, and I'm sorry, and I'd like to make this right. I'm rebuilding trust. I'm saying I acknowledge that the thing went off the rails because something I did or said.
[00:13:40] But you still matter to me. And if I could apologize to you and make it right, I would appreciate it. Now I'm building trust again. Do you see?
[00:13:52] The next quality of friendship is forgiveness.
[00:13:56] This dishonest manager built a relationship with all these customers, and it was a relationship. They didn't trust him anymore.
[00:14:07] They knew he was dishonest.
[00:14:09] They knew that he cheated on their bills. They knew that he wasn't doing right. All right? So he calls them in, and he begins to rebuild his relationship with them by saying, I'm cutting your bill.
[00:14:26] So in the past. Listen, in the past, he only thought about himself and he cheated other people.
[00:14:34] Now he's thinking about other people and putting himself second. Do you see what's happening?
[00:14:42] So no friendship is perfect. And every friendship needs forgiveness.
[00:14:51] Every friendship, there needs to be moments where we seek and we give forgiveness.
[00:14:58] You can have acquaintances and not be forgiving. You can't have friends and not be forgiving. Do you see? You can have people that hang out in your life and not be forgiving you. But you can't have a genuine friend and not have a forgiving spirit. Because we all make mistakes.
[00:15:16] We make honest mistakes, and we make dishonest mistakes. And they. They affect our friendships.
[00:15:24] But I'm learning in this parable from Jesus that forgiveness is a rebuilding tool for friendship.
[00:15:38] The proverbs in the Old Testament have a lot to say about friendship. I'm gonna read you a proverb.
[00:15:44] Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.
[00:15:53] All right, let's think about this parable.
[00:15:58] You have a friend, and you know something bad about them.
[00:16:04] You have a friend, and you know a mistake they made.
[00:16:08] You have a friend, and you know some juicy gossip about them.
[00:16:12] Listen to what Proverbs says, whoever covers an offense seeks love.
[00:16:21] If someone is your friend and you know something bad about them, it's your job out of friendship, not. Not to blab that to everybody in the world.
[00:16:34] I know people who find great delight in all these ugly little tidbits about people.
[00:16:43] They know a bunch of ugly stuff about people and they just can't wait to tell somebody.
[00:16:49] Church, that's ugly. That's not friendship.
[00:16:53] If you know something bad about your friend, you don't have to blab it.
[00:17:00] If you feel like you have to say it, go in the bathroom, turn on the fan, and say it to nobody.
[00:17:08] If you just have to say it, because listen at this.
[00:17:15] When you say it and you repeat it, you can end up separating close friends.
[00:17:26] This has happened to most of us in this realm. Somebody you thought was your friend said something about you bad, and it went around the grapevine and it came back that you heard, they said that, okay, it's unpleasant.
[00:17:46] It's so unnecessary.
[00:17:48] Why would you wound your friend like that?
[00:17:51] Do you see what it's saying? It's saying that if you're really a friend, it is your desire to make your friend look good, not bad.
[00:18:04] It's your desire to make them look in the best light, not the worst light.
[00:18:09] And so friendship, love covers these things.
[00:18:16] And if it doesn't, you end up separating good friends.
[00:18:23] Ah.
[00:18:24] And it turns out that unforgiveness spreads quickly.
[00:18:29] You let yourself be unforgiving about one person, and pretty soon you'll have a very good reason to be unforgiving to another person. And pretty soon you'll be unforgiving to another person. And pretty soon that will be the norm of your life.
[00:18:45] On the other hand, if you can come up with a forgiving spirit that spreads, if you can forgive this person, then you've got some forgiveness skills, and it's easier to forgive this person.
[00:18:58] You become more forgiving or more unforgiving.
[00:19:03] Friendship thrives on encouragement.
[00:19:07] This is the part of the.
[00:19:09] One of the parts of the parable that I find counterintuitive.
[00:19:16] When the owner finds out what this guy did, he commended him, he approved him, he applauded him.
[00:19:27] And he said, verse 8.
[00:19:33] The Lord, the Owner of the business, applauded him, approved him, the unjust manager, because he did prudently the owner. If I was the owner, I'd have called him in and said, dude, you're not only dishonest, you're giving my stuff away, you're fired.
[00:20:03] But the owner, he saw a bigger picture and he said, we're building a new relationship with our customers.
[00:20:13] This is a wise thing to do at this moment because it builds a new relationship with our customers.
[00:20:20] And the owner praised him, commended him.
[00:20:29] The word means approve, applaud, commend.
[00:20:32] So are you looking for opportunities to express your approval to your friends or your disapproval?
[00:20:40] If you look at your friends and you're only looking for the bad, that's what you'll see.
[00:20:47] And you'll find it's easy to disapprove of them. If you look at your friends and you're looking for the good, you'll see more of the good and you'll find yourself approving of them more. Do you see? We end up seeing what we're looking for.
[00:21:04] What a beautiful quality it is in friendship to have somebody in the world who says, I'm proud of you, I'm glad to be your friend.
[00:21:19] I enjoy your company, Church.
[00:21:23] Approval is a necessary aspect.
[00:21:27] And so in good friendships, we let go of the disapproval and we increase the approval.
[00:21:35] This word can also be translated applaud.
[00:21:39] Can you applaud your friends? Successes?
[00:21:43] I've had friends in my life and we were peers. And then I did a little bit better and they didn't do as well and ruined our friendship.
[00:21:57] It was like if you had a little more success than they had, then it ruined the friendship. That's ugly.
[00:22:06] We ought to be able to enjoy the successes of our friends.
[00:22:11] If your friend achieves something, clap for them, applaud them, express your appreciation, tell them you're proud of them.
[00:22:21] This makes an awesome friendship.
[00:22:25] If your friend has a great success, celebrate with them.
[00:22:30] It's necessary to friendship that we can applaud the successes of our friends. And we don't get jealous and feel jealousy because they succeeded in some way.
[00:22:45] Are you listening to me, Church?
[00:22:49] This one is good too. Commend. Do you commend your friends?
[00:22:53] Has this ever happened to you? You have a friend and your friend meets somebody and they tell them something nice about you, and then you end up meeting that person and they say, you know, so and so said that you're your friend and that you're a great person and. And I'm happy to meet you. When your friend says nice things to you, about you, to other people, and that gets back to you, isn't that encouraging? Doesn't that make life good?
[00:23:22] It goes around either way.
[00:23:25] You trash your friends behind her back. That's going to come around and none of that's going to be pretty. You commend your friends behind the back and that comes around and, and they're gonna feel blessed. They're gonna feel happy to have you in their life.
[00:23:39] Besides, how hard is it to say something nice about your friends?
[00:23:43] I'm not asking you to say something nice about the Antichrist. I'm asking you to say something nice about your friends.
[00:23:50] I mean, how hard is that?
[00:23:54] Friendship requires prudence.
[00:23:58] In this parable, it gets translated, shrewdness. But I don't think that's fair. And that's normally how it's. That's not normally the way it's translated in the New Testament.
[00:24:11] Okay. I've talked to you about the word prudence before, but it's fallen out of the English vocabulary. So let's remind ourselves what it means.
[00:24:18] Prudence means the self control to do the right thing in the moment.
[00:24:27] It's in the moment that's hard. Right?
[00:24:30] If I have some prep time, I can usually do the right thing. It's when I get taken off guard and it's in the moment.
[00:24:37] Prudence is the self control to do the right thing in the moment.
[00:24:45] And that's exactly what the owner of the business said. He said you've acted prudently. You did the exact thing that needed to be done in this moment.
[00:24:58] Ah, Proverbs 27:9.
[00:25:03] Oil and perfume make the heart glad.
[00:25:07] And the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.
[00:25:14] Prudence doesn't just make my life better, it makes the life of people around me better. Do you get this when you act in a wise and self controlled way in, in a moment of pressure, it doesn't just make your life better, it makes the lives of people around you better.
[00:25:32] It is a beautiful thing when you have prudent people in your life and they can give you good advice and you can take it because you've seen them do well themselves.
[00:25:42] Church, There are some people, if you take their advice, your life is going to get worse.
[00:25:51] Do you know those people?
[00:25:52] You take their advice, you're going in a ditch. Because when the blind guides the blind, they both fall in a ditch.
[00:26:00] All right? But there are other people in the world.
[00:26:04] They have a track record of prudence and they make your life better.
[00:26:11] Now listen, Jesus is teaching a parable and he says friendship is more about more than just having fun.
[00:26:21] Friendship is a quality where your wisdom and your prudence becomes an example to the people around you and their lives get better because they're your friend.
[00:26:35] Can you hear this? Church?
[00:26:37] Isn't that a beautiful thing?
[00:26:40] God works in us and, and Makes us better people.
[00:26:44] And then he works through us and makes our friends better people.
[00:26:53] I want you to ask yourself a self examination question.
[00:26:59] Can you think of the last time that you did or said something that made the life of the people around you better?
[00:27:10] Ah, it's easy for us to remember the times we messed up. I said something I shouldn't have said.
[00:27:17] I didn't say something I should have said. It's easy for me to remember those. Okay, but what about the last time you got it right, you were prudent, you were wise, you made the moment better.
[00:27:32] If you can remember those moments and have the joy of them, you're inspired to work at it more.
[00:27:41] You're inspired to pre plan.
[00:27:45] I know if you put me in certain situations, I'm not gonna do very good, but if I have some time to think about it and pre plan, I'm gonna plan to be ready for that difficult situation.
[00:27:58] I'm not gonna wing it and just see how do I do in the moment. I'm going to try to plan because I know in situations like this I don't do well. So I can pre plan. All right?
[00:28:09] I believe part of friendship is not just hanging around and having fun. Part of friendship is thinking the right thoughts so that even in difficult moments with your friend, you can do the right thing.
[00:28:24] You hear it, you can pre plan and you can pre think and you can say, when my friend says this, it always gets on my nerves. And so you can pre plan and you don't have to be a victim of that moment. You can be prudent in that moment and you can speak to your friend in a different way because you're ready, you've prepared.
[00:28:48] All right?
[00:28:56] Are people around you getting better because you rub off on them?
[00:29:01] Are your friends better people than when you first met them because something good about you is rubbing off on them?
[00:29:11] Friendship requires an investment.
[00:29:15] And this is the odd line that I'm going to have to explain to you. Verse 9.
[00:29:21] Jesus said, I say to you, make friends.
[00:29:26] So I wanna do just the first part of it. This is a command from Jesus Christ for you to make friends.
[00:29:34] That surprises some of you, doesn't it? You know the ten commandments, don't do this, don't do that. Well, this is a commandment. It didn't make the big ten, but it's still a commandment, make friends.
[00:29:48] All right, now here's what a lot of people do. They say, if somebody's friendly to me, I'll be friendly to them.
[00:29:57] This Jesus didn't say, wait around for somebody to become your friend.
[00:30:02] He said just the opposite. You take the initiative.
[00:30:06] You take the initiative and make friends.
[00:30:09] Ah. Some of you say, well, you know, Doc, I made a friend once, and they hurt me and hurt my feelings real bad. Yeah, but that's just life.
[00:30:18] I've eaten bad food, and I don't quit eating because I had a bad meal.
[00:30:26] I have to take the initiative.
[00:30:29] I have to say, there's something in the heart of God that works through friendships. And Christ wants me to make friendships because somehow or another, he's gonna work through these friendships to. To do good things in the world.
[00:30:46] All right? That's not the hard part. The hard part is he tells you how to make friends.
[00:30:52] Make friends with money.
[00:30:55] All right, remember, this is a parable, and it has to be interpreted as a parable.
[00:31:00] So he's not saying you can buy your friends.
[00:31:04] That's not what he's teaching.
[00:31:07] In fact, I want for you to understand here. Money represents. To make a friendship requires an investment.
[00:31:16] Okay? For example, if you're going to have a good friendship, you have to invest time in the friendship. Do you get it?
[00:31:23] The more time you spend together, the better friends you are. Hopefully.
[00:31:29] Hopefully we lose friendships because we change jobs or we move neighborhoods or whatever. Somebody moves everybody, and we just can't spend the same time. Amount of time we used to. And it hurts the friendship, doesn't it? So Jesus is saying, make friends. And one of the ways you make friends is you invest time in other people.
[00:31:55] Another way you invest ability in other people.
[00:32:00] I can't fix anything.
[00:32:02] I put the license plates on my motorcycle and. And I felt like I was one of these guys on the shows that build a whole motorcycle.
[00:32:18] Now if you see my bike with no plate on it, you know, I didn't do a good job, okay? But I have friends that have looked at my bike, and I didn't have any idea what was wrong with it. And. And in 10 minutes, they had it.
[00:32:34] They invested their ability in my life.
[00:32:38] They had an ability I didn't have. They invested it, and it made my life better and made me appreciate them more.
[00:32:46] Now there are some wonderful ladies in this church who make Christmas cookies, and they make an investment in my life every Christmas. So God bless you for that special ability, friend.
[00:32:59] All right? You have abilities, you have skills, you have understanding. And part of being a good friend is you're willing to share that and you're willing to invest that into your friends.
[00:33:12] Here's an important one.
[00:33:14] We invest good listening you want to know one of the best gifts you can give a friend? Be a good listener.
[00:33:22] Church now let me try to explain how this works.
[00:33:26] Ah, there's something about human nature that often we don't know what we're thinking until we hear ourselves say it.
[00:33:36] I mean, it's going around in our brain, but we're really not focusing. And somehow or another when you hear yourself say it out loud, it sounds differently than it sounds in your head. Church Anybody?
[00:33:52] So when you have a friend and they're going through something difficult and they can talk to you, and you give them the gift of being a good listener, you actually help them process the problem, process the pain, process the difficulty, or on the other side, to process the joy and the hope and the new opportunity.
[00:34:17] If you're going to be a friend, you have to invest in your a friend, the quality of being a good listener.
[00:34:26] Ah. Now, one of the best things I ever learned was my wife didn't want me to solve her problems. She just wanted to talk about them.
[00:34:37] So it's not your job to solve your friends problems.
[00:34:42] In fact, when you try to do that, you short circuit the whole thing because now they don't get to talk it out.
[00:34:50] Investing being a good listener into your friends is one of the best investments you can give them.
[00:34:59] And of course, there are times for prudent advice.
[00:35:04] And then the last thing I say we have to invest in each other is loyalty.
[00:35:10] Would you let me bring this up again?
[00:35:12] You ought to never lose a friend over political ideas.
[00:35:18] Church these politicians come and go, but your friend is your friend.
[00:35:28] There isn't a politician who has the capacity to affect your life the way a good friend does.
[00:35:36] So why lose a friend over somebody that you don't even know?
[00:35:42] All you know is what you see on tv, right?
[00:35:48] Look, never, never throw away loyalty for a friend, for loyalty to a political idea.
[00:35:59] Church Loyalty is one of the beautiful qualities of friendship.
[00:36:07] And you should always, always think twice before you before you throw a friend away.
[00:36:17] Loyalty is a quality that God loves and respects.
[00:36:23] Proverbs 19.
[00:36:26] Many seek the favor of a generous man.
[00:36:29] Everyone is a friend to the one who gives gifts.
[00:36:34] It's easier for somebody to be your friend if you give them the gift of time, if you give them the gift of ability, if you give them the gift of good listening, if you give them the gift, the gift of prudence, if you give them the gift of loyalty.
[00:36:49] Stop judging your friendships by how people treat you and start judging your friendships by how you treat people.
[00:37:00] And then the Last phrase of this parable.
[00:37:09] So that when it. When money, when wealth runs out, you may be received into an eternal dwelling.
[00:37:20] This parable really is about friendship with Christ.
[00:37:27] Only Christ can receive you into an eternal dwelling.
[00:37:32] So listen what Christ is saying. The very same qualities that make you a good friend to a person, they make you a good friend to God.
[00:37:41] What does your friendship with God look like today?
[00:37:45] Is it honest?
[00:37:46] Are you being honest with God?
[00:37:49] Do you have an honest and open heart toward God? Or do you have that part of your heart that you've got locked away and you say to God, this is none of your business.
[00:38:00] I want to be your friend, but don't bother me in this church.
[00:38:04] Are you trustworthy?
[00:38:07] Can God trust you?
[00:38:09] If God wants to do something important and meaningful, is he going to call you or is he going to say, no sense calling that person. I know I can't count on him anyway, if you're going to have a good friendship with God, you have to be trustworthy to God.
[00:38:28] Do you see Christ as your best hope for forgiveness?
[00:38:34] Or when you do something wrong, do you want to hide from Christ Church? I want to tell you the best thing you can do is when you know you've done something wrong. Go to Christ as quickly as you can. If we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Never hide from your best friend.
[00:38:56] Never hide from your best friend.
[00:39:01] Remember a couple of months ago I taught you that we can bless God.
[00:39:08] And the way we bless God is to say nice things about Him.
[00:39:13] It is a blessing to God when He hears us say nice things about him. Just the same way it's a blessing to your friend when they hear you say nice things about them. All right? Ah. When was the last time you said something to somebody about how good God is?
[00:39:32] When was the last time you said, you know what? I feel different about Christ than I used to. I feel like he's a friend.
[00:39:42] I read this, I read this account in the Gospels and, and he was so helpful.
[00:39:50] He was so kind and so gentle.
[00:39:53] When was the last time you praised your friend Christ to somebody else?
[00:40:00] You just said to somebody else something nice about Jesus Christ. Out of the quality and the richness of your friendship, you don't have to do alone. You have a friend, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is perfectly prudent. He gets it right in every single moment. He's never missed it one time.
[00:40:21] I don't have to do this alone, Church. I Have a friend who is prudent, and if I will seek him, he'll share his prudence with me.
[00:40:34] Do you invest time ability?
[00:40:39] Do you? Do you? Are you a good listener? When the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart, are you making an investment in your relationship to Christ by spending time with him, by serving him, by being loyal to him?
[00:40:56] It matters how we treat God and other people.
[00:41:00] Friendship is a divine idea. God is the one who came up with the idea of friendship.
[00:41:08] And just so we can close on the right note, remember they once said to Jesus, what's the most important command? And he said, love God and love your neighbor.
[00:41:18] Can I paraphrase that? Be a good friend to God and be a good friend to your friends. That's what God wants.
[00:41:28] Our dear Heavenly Father, I call upon your name. I turn to you in hope.
[00:41:35] I pray for myself. I pray for everyone who's here this morning and everyone who's watching online.
[00:41:42] I pray that you would revive in us a new value for friendship.
[00:41:48] I pray that our friends would start recognizing something different in us because we have taken a new and better approach to friendship.
[00:41:57] I pray for those who need to be forgiven that you would lead them to forgiveness. I pray for those who need to forgive that you would lead them to forgiveness.
[00:42:07] And then I pray that the beauty and the wonder and the majesty of Jesus Christ might be seen in the quality of our friendships. In Christ's name, amen.
