This is my sermon fro Sunday February 6, 2011 called "We All Need a Friend" in case you misses it (There are typos and incomplete thoughts :-)
We all Need a Friend
The Bible is a really cool book. It is just the best thing ever written I think. The creator of the universe has shared Himself with us in this book. His thoughts, His wishes, His will, His love...everything we could possibly want to know about God and how He sees the world is contained in these pages and for the next 5 weeks we are going to dive headlong into this book and discover what God has to say about friends.
Who likes friends?? I like friends. Friends are fun, in fact one of the cool things I hear quite often in this room (In Epic Jv) is people saying “hello friend.” It was Heather who started this. (DESCRIBE) I know Kelsey Hougen says it all the time. But there is no doubt that we all like friends. Friends are important to us. It’s why Facebook is so popular I think. You can have so many friends :-) I remember when I first got on Facebook, everyday I would get a little message that said “you have a new friend request.” and I would be like “Yeah...more friends.” It made me feel good. It made me feel important. It made me feel loved and like my existence meant something. That people were glad I was alive. It is because We all need friends.
I have 390 friends on Facebook....but what does that really mean?? Am I really that popular? Don’t answer that question because I know I’m not. How many of my “friends” on facebook am I really that close to? Now, I don’t mean to say I don’t like them, that certainly is not true. I love them all. In fact, when I look at my friends on facebook it is like looking at a timeline...I am 41 years old and when I look at my friends list it’s a little history of my friends. Kind of like a friend museum or a friend hall of fame. Friends from my neighborhood growing up, friends from high school, college...every one of my friends on facebook is someone who at one time or another played a big role in my life.
Friends do play a huge role in our lives...Proverbs 13:20 says “Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble.”
That is quite a contrast. There is no middle ground is there. Walk with wise, Good...walk with fools...bad
We all need friends but more than that we all need friendships built upon love and acceptance. We all need friends that encourage our walk with God not ones that hinder it. Our relationship with God should never be compromised because of a relationship we have with another person. We do all need friends, that much should be clear and your friends, the people you “choose” to hang out with and spend time with, the people you invite into your world will play a big role in your life the same way all of my friends on “facebook” have played a big role in my life.
Big Idea, and don’t ever forget this one...Your friends will determine the direction and quality of your life.
Friends are important. We all need them and there is a great verse in the book of Ecclesiastes that talks about the importance of friends. It is Ecclesiastes 4:12. Actually I will read you verses 9-12....
"Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken." Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
We all need friends is the short summary of these verses. We are happier when we have friends than when we are alone in the world. We are more successful in life when we have friends. God designed us this way. In Genesis 2:18 after God made Adam, the first man he said “It is not good for the man to be alone.” When we selfishly live for ourselves than we are doomed to fail but if we serve one another in friendship we find meaning. If we face trouble alone (and don’t forget, God has promised we will all face trouble) we will be defeated but if we have good friends, friends that have our back we can get through the trouble. If you think you can do life alone...you are wrong.
But our lives will also be determined not only by whether we have friends or not but by the quality of our friends.
Two applications I see here. First is this. You need friends. Good friends, and please make every effort you can to come to church these next 5 weeks because we are going to learn how to choose our friends, what to look for in a friend and how to be a friend. We all need a friend or 2...or 390 :-)
...and there are kids at your schools, in your neighborhoods, in this room that need a friend like you. A friend that will draw them closer to God. A friend they can stand with when the bad times come, when Life gets rocky. A friend that loves them. There are kids who haven chosen friends for themselves that will abandon them or lead them in the wrong direction. They need a friend like this rope.
Our friends do play a big role in our lives. We all want friends...we all need friends, even if we don’t want to admit it. We all want someone to hang out with, someone to talk to and someone who knows us. It is why I love Epic Jv. I think this is a place where friends can be found and made. It is place where we can grow closer, in fact there are some exciting new things that are going to be happening in Epic Jv in the future that will allow us to develop deep meaningful friendships.
Because there is a smart way, a right way to do friendship, a way that will draw us closer to God, if we surround ourselves with the right people. See, friendship requires something from you. It is not just what we can get or who makes us feel comfortable. We need friends that will help us move in the right direction.
When I look at my friends on facebook, for the most part they are all people who at one time or another helped me to move in the right direction. They have all impacted my life in one way or another. They have been a part of that cord of rope. We all need friends and for the next 5 weeks we are going to look at Friendship and how God views friendship so that at the end of your life you might be able to look back on your “friend hall of fame” and think “I sure am glad that person was in my life. They helped move closer to God.”
Of course, in my life, there is one friend who stands above all the rest and that is Jesus and if you don’t call Jesus friend everything I say will be pretty meaningless. He is the one friend who will never fail us...
We all need friends
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