– by Michael Boyd

When I need some time out and a chance to be alone I head out to Cram’s farm at the top end of Clarrie Hall Dam.
If you get there early enough there is no one else around. The air is clear and quiet. The water reflects Wollumbin and the nearby hills.
I take out the camp chair and sit under the shade of some pines right near the water’s edge. I stop and breathe and let nature wrap around me. The whirring of ducks landing, the breeze in the pines, and nothing else.
A beautiful place to recharge the emotional battery and think clearly.
Alone time is great if you can get it when you need it.

When alone is lonely

But being alone, especially if you don’t have a choice in it, is hard on the soul.
Being housebound due to illness. Being housebound due to kids, with limited adult interactions. Isolation brought on by relationship breakdowns, or death, or homelessness, or covid lockdowns. Our society is still trying to heal after enforced isolation.

There are times when being alone is a comfort, but loneliness is a constant agony. Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 4:10,

Pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

God says of Adam in Genesis 2:18,

It is not good for the man to be alone.

After all God’s pronouncements of everything good this comes as a jarring discord: something not good?
And the thing not good is loneliness.

From eternity past, God in Trinity has enjoyed perfect, unbroken, joyful relationship.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share all things, delight in one another, and have perfect unity. Each member of the Godhead rejoices in being able to bring glory to the others.

Adam is created in God’s image, yet could not express the relational aspect of that image. He had a relationship with God, but not with someone like him.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have enjoyed that kind of relationship, and it is unthinkable for God that Adam be denied that joy.
And so the crowning act of creation is Eve, and God could finally pronounce everything very good. Adam realises she is intimately connected to him, created from his flesh. Just like him, yet different, and they stand face to face ready to bless and delight in each other.
A living embodiment of what the Trinity enjoy.
This is a crucial aspect of being made in God’s image. So much so creation would be incomplete without it. And now being relational is a core attribute of being human.

And when that goes wrong, it rips us apart. When the Lord Jesus utters that terrible cry from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” it is a cry of abandonment, of deep and utter loneliness. He knows what it means to be abandoned, rejected, without a friend. And he knows how awful it is.
We are made for relationships, for friendship. To have a close friend is to enjoy something we were created for. We reflect something of the character of God, and it brings great joy.
And loneliness tears at our very heart. We experience just how not good it is.

With something as essential to who we are as human beings, and something so crucial to our everyday life, it’s not surprising Proverbs has a lot so say about friendships.
Fundamentally, Proverbs says something so precious as a good friendship needs to be guarded.

Words that harm friendship

We were thinking last week about the power of words; their power for good and evil. Nearly all of us can admit that we have been hurt by words. Words can make or break friendships, and they can even prevent us from wanting to make friends.

A group of singer/songwriters got together and called themselves The Three Bens – because they’re all called Ben! A song they put out together has this line in it: “It’s sticks and stones and broken bones that taught us how to smile. After all, in the end, just pretend.”
The names we have been called, the way words have been used to hurt us, make us stay away from meaningful relationships. We just smile and keep a safe distance. We pretend to be friendly, not truly happy, but we avoid true friendship for fear of any further pain. Many people go through life without having a true friend.

And we can let words harm an already good friendship. Proverbs 16:28 says,

A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.

Shakespeare’s play Othello is the story how evil Iago, through his words, poisons the relationship between Othello and his wife Desdemona and the tragedy that results.
But we don’t need a work of fiction to tell us that so many friendships have been ruined because people believe the lies of gossips.

Guard friendship

Friendships – true, lasting friendships – are hard to find. They’re hard to maintain in this very busy world, and they’re so easy to lose.

By the end of year twelve I had made a good number of friends at school and we got on so well, had so much fun, we knew we would be friends for life.
Now I see only one of them. Rarely.
Not because I suddenly dislike them, but because our lives went in so many directions. You don’t mean to lose them, but without hard work, friendships don’t survive. Significant life events like marriage and children mean friendships need to be almost renegotiated, worked on to still be meaningful in changed circumstances. And if a good friend moves away, the friendship is more likely to end than overcome the difficulty of distance.
If friendships are worth having, if they’re going to last, we need to guard them.

How can we do this in unwise times, that seems to be designed to pull friendships apart? Proverbs points us to two ways we can guard them.
The first one is:

A friend is loyal

Proverbs 18:24 says,

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

The previous edition of the NIV translated “unreliable friends” as “many companions”. It is possible to have many casual acquaintances, of being superficially friendly, but they prove unreliable when the going gets tough.

One of the ways we are taught to be safe is when we are threatened, to yell and scream and get people’s attention. Better still to call out to specific individuals for help. Because researchers have discovered a sad trait of human nature is that in situations like this, the more people around, the less likely an individual is to help another.
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, because all their acquaintances think someone else is looking after them.

But the “friend that sticks closer than a brother” will make it their mission to make sure she’s looked after. A true friend is loyal.
Someone who takes a real interest in the welfare of their friends. Someone, who in the words of Proverbs 17:17, “loves at all times”. Not just when it is convenient.
When your friend falls you help her up. When your friend lets you down you forgive him.
A few verses earlier, in 17:9 we read,

Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

A friend is willing to guard a friendship even when the offence comes from that friend. They are more willing to let an insult go than retaliate.

True friendship is worth protecting. Peter instructs us in his first letter (4:8),

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Jesus says in John 15:12, “Love each other as I have loved you” – and shows that kind of love by laying down his life.
It’s love that lasts to the end, that will not be put off. Love that gives. That’s the love of a true friend, a friend that loves at all times.
It doesn’t make you a doormat, forgiving and putting up with all kinds of abuse – we’ll see that later. It instead makes you a friend that is in for the long run, not someone ready to drop a friend at a first offence.

The test of Proverbs 17:17 can be a harsh test: if a friend loves at all times, that gets rid of a lot of fair weather friends.
Proverbs 14:20 says,

The poor are shunned even by their neighbours, but the rich have many friends.

A lot of people have said to me as they’ve gone through difficult times, “Now I really know who my friends are.” A true friend loves at all times.
Is that a good test of the way you are a friend to others? We know people who are fair weather friends, how about you?

Proverbs 27:10 says,

Do not forsake your friend.

When they are going through tough times, or when they have hurt you, are the very times we are tempted to forsake them. And perhaps they are the times when we have felt forsaken. Solomon’s wisdom to us is guard your friendships by being loyal.

The other way Proverbs shows us we can guard our friendships is:

A friend is honest

We need our friends to be honest with us, even when we don’t want them to! We read in Proverbs 27:5-6,

Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.

Judas was willing to show pretend friendship but he betrayed Jesus with a kiss.
Wounds from a true friend are still wounds, but they are – hopefully – inflicted with the intention to heal rather than harm.

Your friends need you to be honest with them. As James concludes his letter:

My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Church history, and the history of churches, is full of people who carry the regret of, “If only I had spoken to so-and-so – now they’ve gone and aren’t interested in following Jesus anymore.”

We are so reticent to speak to each other about sin. Satan has us fooled into thinking “I’ll only upset them,” or “It’s really none of my business.” And one day we realise that we don’t see someone at church any more, because they have wandered away.
If you and I are to be friends worthy of the name, we cannot allow ourselves to be put off.

When I was younger my friends and I often went to the beach. I wasn’t a big fan, so I’d sit and take things easy up on the beach after being dumped a few times while my friends swam on.
Now if I was sitting there and saw a friend get taken along the beach by a rip and then out to sea and I sat there and did nothing I would not only be the worst of friends, I’d deserve to be put in gaol!
I would not be worthy of the name friend if I watched my friend drift into spiritual danger and did nothing to warn them.

The Proverb says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted.” Speaking the truth to one another hurts sometimes. But a true friend doesn’t hurt for the sake of it. An uncomfortable conversation comes from love and a deep commitment to one another.

Sadly I’ve seen friendships end because the person doesn’t want to be told, even when they know it’s the truth. The friendship ends rather than the self-destructive behaviour.

But I also know a fella who always speaks his mind and sometimes it’s like watching – or experiencing – hand grenades being tossed willy-nilly. A lot of damage done. When we confronted him about it he just said, “I was only being honest! They needed to hear it.”
That’s not the kind of wounding that friends do. It is gentle, compassionate. It should hurt to even say it, and when the other person recognises that, that’s when healing can come.
That’s why a true friend can love at all times and not be a doormat. A true friend is forgiving, but also honest.

Friendships are precious things that can last a lifetime and bring great joy. They are worth protecting and guarding.
Be loyal to your friends: trustworthy, reliable, and caring. A friend who loves at all times, a friend who’s closer than a brother.
And be honest. A true friend is able to say the hard things because they have your best interests at heart. And we need people to be honest with us.
Be a treasure to your friends. Be a good friend.

Jesus, our greatest friend

In that way we are living out Jesus’ style of friendship. Jesus demonstrates the two ways Proverbs describes as true friendship: Loyalty and honesty.

Jesus told his disciples in John 15:15,

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

He spoke the truth and only the truth. And he shows what loyalty is all about: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
He is loyal to us, even to death.
And we are loyal to him but following and obeying.

When we come to the Lord’s Supper we are reminded of our greatest friend, who is closer than any brother. One who died for his friends.
As we have the joy of knowing Jesus as our friend, we can be true friends to others. We live out what it means to be created in God’s image and recreated in Jesus to live a life that expresses his character.

That’s why Paul can write to the church in Philippi (2:2-4),

Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

It’s a great way of describing how the Trinity relate to one another: Likeminded, same love, valuing the other.
And that is how we live as his people.

We are brought into the family of God’s people so that we are not alone.
Single or married, temporarily able or housebound, we are together able to express this deep aspect of our humanity, and the character of the kingdom. We share our lives together where we can stand face to face, ready to bless and be delighted in one another.

When Jesus is our friend we don’t need to find our self-worth through our other friends. Instead we are freed to be a friend to others.
My worth as a human being is not determined by the number of my friends on Facebook, or who follows me on Twitter, or who reads my blog.
Because Jesus is our friend we don’t need to wait for other friends to make the first move. We don’t need to wait for our friend to ring us before we ring them; we forget all about whose turn it is. Or who hosted the last play date for the kids.

Because Jesus is our great friend we are free to be a good friend to others.

Michael Boyd is the pastor at Tweed Presbyterian Church. This address, from Proverbs 26:28-27:17, was part of a series he preached from Proverbs.