Prov 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

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In every human being there is a universal need for friendship. You were created to need a friend in order to survive. There is only one who would be able to exist without friends and that is God and yet even the God who is all powerful and all knowing and that has existed from all eternity desired to have a friend. The universe was created with it’s awesome galaxies and this world was carefully placed upon it’s orbit around the sun. The magnificent rivers, animals, and plants were all created for one purpose: to provide a place for God’s friend, man, to live. The world and humanity exists because God desired a friend. Even though He could have existed without us, He chose to create a friend. And He created you and I in His very image placing within each of us a desire and a need for friendship.

God created everything that we know as this universe and pronounced it good. He created the seas and oceans and beautiful beaches and mountaintops with snow and proclaimed it good. But as God overlooked His creation, there was one thing that He realized was not good, and that was that Adam was alone. God then said “it is not good for man to be alone.” There were many animals in garden. Remember that God Himself was in the garden. But God considered man “alone.” You cannot make it by yourself. You cannot exist in your own little world and make it living for God with just God. You need friends, somebody who will help shoulder the load of life. Somebody who will share your defeats and victories. Someone who will influence you and pick you up when you are down, and someone whom you can uplift when they are struggling. God needed someone who needed Him and you and I who were created in the image of God need someone who needs us!

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There are three classes of people in this world who will have the greatest impact upon your life: Family, Enemies, and Friends. You cannot pick your family as they are chosen for you. You really can’t pick your enemies because they seem to choose themselves. But you are free to choose your friends.

We as Christians are often taught on how to deal with our families and how to get along with our enemies. Of all the advice that I give to people as a pastor, the vast majority is responses to questions such as “what can I do about my children?” or “what can I do about my husband/wife.” “How can I reconcile my differences with my brother?” or “Somebody at work hates me and is trying to get me fired, what can I do about it scriptural?” or “Can I call fire down from heaven to toast my enemies?” :) Most of here have heard sermons about relationships within our homes and how to properly respond to those who despitefully use us. But when was the last time that you sought the Bible for guidance in selecting your friends? When is the last time that you heard a sermon on friendship? I learned a long time ago not to fret over what I could not change but to pray and seek the face of God over what I did have the power to change. You can’t change your family and enemies, but you certainly choose your friends. I believe therefore that no other decision has a greater impact on your walk with God than choosing the correct friends.

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The scripture has much to say about friendship. The Book of Proverbs has particularly good advice for friends. Let me share with you some random notes from scripture:

In other words, for a person to be a true friend, they must love you in good times and bad times. A person who is dependent upon favorable circumstances in order to be your friend is not really a friend at all! Fair weather friends are really enemies for the person that is attracted by wealth, fame, opportunity, or whatever the reason will not really be a friend.

A good friend to talk decisions over with produces the same relaxation as a good foot rub and a new bottle of perfume! It doesn’t comment on how it feels when a friend betrays you or gives you advice selfishly, but it feels smelling a foul odor in a trash can! Verse 10 says to forsake not your friend or a family friends and then states that when things go wrong, it is better to run to the good friend than it is to your own brother! I tell all the people to which I give premarital counseling that the worst thing that they can do during times of marital strife is run and tell their family. Because after you’ve forgiven the other person, then the family still holds a grudge! I’ve also known people who were born into families of people that were not very nice and were very selfish. I’ve known some of those people who would spend their entire life trying to make the relationship what it should be and fail because their relatives do not desire the relationship. Remember that you cannot choose your family! Your brother may be so in name but not so in practice. If so, then don’t get a victim mentality and spend your lifetime beating yourself up. Show yourself friendly, make a close friend, and then rely upon that friendship to be your strength! This scripture states that a friend that is near is better than a brother that is afar off! If you family is standoffish, then rejoice in your friends!

In other words, do not go every day to your friend’s house or you will quickly wear out your welcome! Growing up, my brother had a friend in high school who got to where he would show up every day after school. The friend would then precede to stay throughout the evening and eat supper with the family and then crash on the couch. It was fun for a few days but after a couple of weeks, the friendship became strained! The guy should have read his Bible!

Here’s some more practical advice for your friendships. In modern day English, this is saying that a friend who calls too early in the morning and “blesses” his friend with a loud greeting will be cursed! The Bible is teaching us that we should be respectful of the times of the day that we choose to call upon our friends, whether it be through the telephone or stopping by. Too early or too late calls will ruin a friendship. And some people say that the scriptures are not practical for today!

If you want to have friends, then you must first be friendly! If you have trouble getting friends, then ask yourself whether or not you are willing to contribute anything to the relationship! A selfish man or cruel person will soon find themselves friendless! One of the reasons that you need friends, is that only through friendship will you learn to be unselfish. When you are nice to enemies, you are probably doing so because you know that God will reward you. When you are nice to relatives, then you are rewarding your own. But when you bless your friends, you are committing an unselfish act!

And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. In other words, there is one friend that stands above the rest of the friends in the world! His name is Jesus Christ! Even if fair-weather friends forsake you, Jesus will never forsake you. He was the perfect model of a friend.

Jesus Christ came upon this earth and made friends. He then proved that He loved them with the greatest love by laying down His life for them! God did not prove His friendship in the garden with the creation of this beautiful earth. He displayed his friendship by becoming flesh, and being born a little baby, and dying on a cross for your sins and mine!

John 3:16 says it like this:

I John 3:16 says it like this:

God did not send another person to die for us, for if he had, then that person would have loved us more than God did! But God Himself became flesh, called the son of God because He was born of woman. And why did God become flesh? To die for us! To willingly lay down His life! There is no other greater measure of friendship than Calvary! “God . . . laid down his life!”

And God said the we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He said as I have loved you so you ought to love one another! Some people shy away from friendships because it causes some self sacrifice! Some people shy away from friendships because they feel vulnerable or have been hurt by relationships in the past. That is the very nature of friendship! Jesus Christ was deserted by the very ones whom He called friend. In fact when Judas Iscariot came to kiss Him upon the cheek to betray Him, the first words out of Jesus’ mouth was “Friend.....” . As He hung upon the cross in the greatest physical pain that anyone can ever endure, Jesus looked down upon those who had crucified Him and forgave them! Mankind deserted God’s friendship in the Garden of Eden and then did it again in the Garden of Gethsemane, but Jesus still went willingly to the cross! He willingly laid down His life.

In order to be a true friend, you will have to forgive a hurt. In order to be a true friend, you will have to give unselfishly of your life for someone else’s betterment even when they have turned their back upon you! We are to be living sacrifices! Paul said “I am crucified with Christ and yet I live!” In other words the crucifixion was not to be one of flesh, but one of self will! “Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down His life for His friends” Laying down ones life is not measured today by a physical death but by living your life to bless your friends! When you stand before judgment your love will not be measured by how much you laid down your life and sacrificed and gave for your family. It will not be how much you sacrificed for your kids. It will not even be measured by the amount that you gave of your life to reconcile with your enemies! But your love will be measured according to whether or not you were willing to lay down your self will and sacrifice for the betterment of people who were not kin but were simply your friends! “Greater love hath no man than this than a man lay down his life for his friends!” At the time that Jesus went to the cross, his family with the exception of His mother had forsaken Him. Yet He still went to the cross. Why? For His friends!

Jesus taught that in Matthew 25:40 that whatsoever “ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” We will be judged according to how we have treated our friends! Choosing your friends is a serious matter for we will be judged for eternity according to how we treat them and whether or not we are willing to lay down our life for them. Only truly through self-less friendship can we truly embrace the cross.

Jesus showed us what Godly friendship is really like! Godly friendship is selflessness giving of our lives. It is rearranging our lives for the good of others. It is forgiving them of even the greatest travesties. It is being willing be crucified with Christ. The Cross was all about friendship. Without friends, the Cross is meaningless in our world for we cannot put the love into practice by laying down our own lives.

And if you want to have one friend, you need to have Jesus Christ! There is no greater love than you can show Him than to lay down your life for Him! Jesus said “ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” You have to be willing to lay down your life for Him! There will be some sacrifice to obey the commandments of Jesus. There will be the death of self will. It takes a death of flesh to swallow our pride and turn the other cheek or go the extra mile for our enemies. It takes dying out to our will to repent and admit that we are a sinner and that we need Him. It takes laying down our own will and lives to be buried with Him in baptism and take on His name in water baptism. But the scriptures teach that we are “buried with Him in baptism.” When you are baptized in Jesus’ name, you are laying down your life for Him! You are showing yourself friendly to the greatest friend that you will ever have! For you to have friends, you must show yourself friendly! Ask yourself: “how am I laying down my life for my friend, Jesus Christ?” In order to receive the Holy Spirit you have to be willing to surrender control of your life completely to Jesus Christ. That’s laying down your life for your friend! And oh you definitely want Him to be your friend. You definitely want to give of your life to Him, for He’s the friend that sticketh closer than a brother!

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Earlier I made a statement to which I would like to return. I stated that no other decision in life has a greater impact upon your walk with God than the choosing of your friends. If someone is a friend, then they will have an impact upon your life. Simply stated, your friends will either draw you closer to God or draw you further away. There is no middle ground.

In our text, the Bible stated:

Prov 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

The word for countenance here in the Hebrew means “one’s face” and particularly which direction one’s face is pointing. Nothing shapes and forms a man’s direction in life more than the friends that he chooses! Because of this, the Bible has many warnings against picking the wrong friend. For one example, Proverbs warns against being friends with someone who is always angry or who struggles with their temper:

Why? Lest you learn his ways! Lest you begin to act like him. A friend should then be carefully chosen because in the course of time, you will begin to copy some of their mannerisms. No friend is perfect, but their are particular kind of people of which you need to be careful. Someone who is always “ticked” about something is not the greatest person to hang around.

The reason that the scripture compares the influence of a friend to iron sharpening iron, is that God intended for friendship to be the process that causes us to better Christians. A man’s character is revealed at how he responds to disunity and relationship problems. If gossips do any good at all, it is that they reveal to all who has a spirit of disunity by their reactions. Our friends influence our life more than we tend to give them credit.

Turn with me to II Samuel chapter 13 and let’s read together the tale of a man who had everything going for him but lost it all because of a bad decision made from a friend.

2 Sam 13:1-5, And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. 2 And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her. 3 But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David's brother: and Jonadab was a very subtil man. 4 And he said unto him, Why art thou, being the king's son, lean from day to day? wilt thou not tell me? And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. 5 And Jonadab said unto him, Lay thee down on thy bed, and make thyself sick: and when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come, and give me meat, and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it at her hand.

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I could take you to other stories throughout the Bible that shows how that choosing the wrong friends brought damnation into people’s lives. How that Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, chose the wrong friends and despite having the richest kingdom that had ever been lawfully handed to him, he lost it all when he chose to listen to the wrong group of friends.

I could tell you about how that King Joash had a friend named Jehoiada and as long as Jehoiada lived, King Joash served God. Yet when Jehoiada died, the scripture says that King Joash changed friends:

Because he chose the wrong friends, Joash lost out with God and began to serve idols and ended up dying lost and kingdomless! Who you choose as your friends really does affect whether or not you will be able to serve God or not! You cannot serve God with friends who are not!

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Even Jesus couldn’t bear the cross alone. He who was perfect was also human and so needed a friend. He found it in a man named Simon whom they compelled to help carry the cross. Simon was black and Jesus was Jewish, but that day a friendship was formed that crossed cultural and racial lines. Jesus would have never made it to Calvary without a friend.

When you get to the cross, I find that all of Jesus’ disciples had fled and left except for one. The only disciple that is recorded as being at the cross was John. John the beloved. John whom Jesus loved and was a close friend. John didn’t desert Jesus at the cross but was there and was willing to take Jesus’ mother and care for her! John was a friend that was willing to stick with Jesus through persecution and even in the face of his own death.

Peter on the other hand was selected by Jesus to be the leader of the Early Church, but Peter had denied Jesus three times. Peter had fled after cursing Jesus to his face only to find out that Jesus then had been crucified. Yet we don’t find Peter mentioned alone in scripture. But you find John with Peter. After the crucifixion, you find them together. When Mary Magdalene ran from the tomb to go tell the disciples that Jesus was not in the tomb, she found Peter and John together. How did Peter overcome the guilt and the realization that he had denied the Lord to His face? How did he find the strength to make it through the dark days of uncertainty and survive to preach the first Apostolic sermon on the Day of Pentecost? Peter had a friend.

I Corinthians 15 tells us that Jesus appeared after the resurrection to Peter later on by themselves. We don’t have the details of what was said, but only that it happened. The friend that Peter had cursed to His face, came back and showed Himself friendly to Peter! Peter became something great for God despite many imperfections because He had a friend!