Friend Day

Introduction

We live in a “fill out the form” type of world. If you want a loan, you have to fill out a form. If you want your child to go to school, you have to fill out a form. If you want to buy a house, you have to fill out a form. There is a question on many forms which sometimes puzzles and sometimes leaves us scrambling. Here’s the question: “Who do we call in case of an emergency?” When you fill out school forms, that question appears. When you seek medical treatment, that question appears. When you fill out employment forms, that question appears. Who do you put in the slot? Many of us will put family if they are local, but what if you don’t have family locally. My family doesn’t have anyone who is blood related. So we have to put the names of friends. We have to put the names and phone numbers of those that we believe we can count on in case of an emergency.

And in many ways isn’t that what we really want when we think about friendship—someone that we can count on? Research shows that “surprisingly few adults” report having close, personal friends, with whom they could feel safe in discussing almost anything and whom they felt they could count on for help in times of need. Only 20% of the men and 53% of the ladies in a national survey reported having such a friend. What do you do if you don’t have someone you can count on? Someone who will be there when you need them even though they are not related by blood.

Even the Bible recognizes the value of friendship. In Ecclesiastes 4:10, there is a wise saying, “If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” Even God recognized the importance of having someone who can lift you up when you stumble and fall. How sad it is that so many today seem to have only superficial friendships rather than a relationship with someone who will be a strength and help to them. Someone who wants to share our life with us because they love us not because of a blood kinship. In Proverbs 18:24, the Bible says, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” That’s the kind of friendship we want. We want someone who will be closer to us than our own flesh and blood.

What we really want is a person who will lock arms with us; who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us; someone who will allow us to share joys, sorrows, laughter, and tears because they love us for who we are. That’s what we are going to talk about today. We are going to talk about what it means to be a real friend and what a real friend looks like.

What Is a Friend?

Most of us know what a friend is although we may find it difficult to define. We usually end up describing friendship rather than giving clear definition to it. God created within us the desire to be in relationships. In Genesis 2, God is creating this world. He is pleased with everything that he creates. God creates a man. The man is placed in an ideal world. He is in harmony with nature including the animals. He has a special relationship with God—one that is open and honest and direct. But something is missing. God looks at what he has made and states that it is not good for man to be alone.

God recognized man’s aloneness and that being alone was not where God wanted to stop. He could have stopped then. He could have allowed this man to find comfort from the animals, but in his wisdom, God recognized that aloneness is not what he had made man for. So God created a woman. Another human being was the answer to the aloneness problem. From the man’s side he made the woman. She was made out of the same stuff as the man. And when the man saw the woman, his aloneness was gone.

We are all created with a desire to be in relationship with others. God created this desire within each heart. On a TV program which had to do with the most annoying noises, a commentator asked a number of people what noise bothered them more than any other. One man, apparently weary of traffic jams, said, “Freeway noise, that’s undoubtedly the worst. At 5:00 it’s the most unbearable.” A woman who lives close to the airport answered, “Those jets taking off and landing. I don’t think I can stand them any longer.” It was a young man, though, who gave the answer that was most intriguing. Notice his words. “Loneliness is the most terrible noise in my life. Yeah,” he said, “being alone. Quietness. I can’t take it.” While there are times for solitude and quiet, God did not make us to have a lifetime of it. It was His desire that we have friendships.

So what is a friend? Here are some basic definitions given by those who have thought about this subject more than I. “Somebody that knows all about you and loves you anyway.” “The one who steps in when the world steps out.” “A friend is one who never gets in the way, except when we are on the way down.” A friend is someone who feels affection and love for you. Samuel Coleridge wrote a poem titled “Youth and Age” with the line, “Friendship is a sheltering tree.” That is a wonderful word picture. Friends are those whose lives are like branches. They provide shade, they provide refuge from the demanding, irritating, and searing rays of the hot sun. You can find comfort by them. They are tree-like in that they bear fruit that provides nourishment and encouragement. You can find strength near them.

Three Characteristics of Friends

Let’s look then briefly at three characteristics of a real friend. You could probably think of others, but I want to focus on these three just briefly. First, a real friend lets you be yourself. There are some things about ourselves that we can’t change. We don’t click with everyone. That’s okay. But our personalities do mesh with someone and those with whom we develop friendships allow us to be ourselves. The Bible says in Proverbs 17:17, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” The Bible equates a real friend with one who is like a blood relative. That friends loves you for who you are and allows you to be yourself.

In his first seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play Major League baseball, faced venom nearly everywhere he traveled—fastballs at his head, spikings on the bases, brutal epithets from the opposing dugouts and from the crowds. During one game in Boston, Robinson made an error and the taunts and racial slurs seemed to reach a peak. In the midst of this, another Dodger, a Southern white man named Pee Wee Reese, called timeout. He walked from his position at shortstop toward Robinson at second base, put his arm around Robinson’s shoulder, and stood there with him for what seemed like a long time. The gesture spoke more eloquently than the words: This man is my friend.

A real friend loves us all the time and allows us to be ourselves. A real friend accepts us for who we are and stands with us in times of trial as well as times of joy.

Second, a real friend is loyal. The Bible says in Proverbs 27:6, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” In his loyalty, a real friend will be honest with you. A real friend will tell you when you have a piece of green spinach between your front teeth. A real friend will tell you when you have done a good job. And a real friend will let you know when you have messed up and need to change. Why? Because your friend loves you and wants the best for you. Because your friend is loyal to you. Those kind of friends are hard to find. Too often we want someone who will pat us on the back but are unwilling to accept honest loving criticism when it is needed. A real friend honestly tells you truth both good and bad even if it means that you succeed and your friend does not. A real friend is loyal.

Finally, a real friend will sacrifice for you. We have heard of fair weather friends—those who are by our side when things are going well but who desert us when trouble comes. A real friend stays by your side through the good and the bad times. A real friend gives energy, time, and resources for you. Not many people would put their life on the line to save someone else. Only a true friend, a genuine friend, would risk his own life in order to rescue someone from death. Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Some will risk their lives, but Jesus, having even a greater love, laid down his life for his friends.

Jesus is our friend. By laying down his life, he made it possible for all to be in relationship with God. Jesus came to this earth to do God’s will. His death was part of God’s plan and in his death he made it possible for our sins to be forgiven. When we by faith accept what Jesus has done for us and express that faith in repentance and baptism, God’s promise is to forgive all the wrong that we have ever done and to promise that even our future sins will be forgiven as we confess them.

This is how we know what friendship really looks like; here is how we can know what love really is—Jesus died for you and for me.

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