Connected | Week 2 | Friendships Matter

Matthew 22:36-40; Proverbs 13:20

Our main text for this series is Matthew 22:36-40

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

We are to love God with our everything and love others as ourselves.

Last week we saw that the most foundational relationship was our relationship with God, but we saw something else as well. We saw that we cannot separate our relationship with God from our relationship with others. Our relationship with God is played out through every single one of our relationships on earth, both good and bad. The way we act towards others (friends, family, enemies, strangers) in these relationships is how the world sees God. So, last week we asked one simple question: Is the way I act towards others, in each one of my relationships, accurately reflecting who God is?

Now, tonight, I want us to look at it in a little different way. Notice the most crucial word in our text…what is it? LOVE. Love was recognized in both passages as the main key to living as God wants us to. LOVE God with our everything. LOVE neighbors as ourselves. This is agape love – unconditional love – love regardless of what happens.

Check out the characteristics of this love – 1 Corinthians 13 shows us, and every time love is mentioned, it is the same word as in our main text – agape – unconditional love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 – 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.  

Now, you’re probably thinking that I am going to talk about romantic relationships…ooh, I loooove him…I looooove her….No. Eww. I’m talking about something that you probably have never thought about when reading 1 Corinthians 13. We’re going to talk about friends.

The Proverbs have a lot to say about a lot of stuff. And, the Proverbs have a lot to say about friendship. We’ll look at a few throughout this message. Here’s one to start with…

Proverbs 17:17a – “A friend loves at all times…”

1 John 3:16 – “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

The literal words in this passage mean a laying down of your soul – a giving up of the very essence of life on behalf of another, because that is what Christ did for us. So, if a friend loves at all times, shouldn’t we love in this way? Laying down our souls and caring for their souls?

The purpose of Christian friendship is a mutual sharpening. Proverbs 27:17 ESV says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” Some translations throw in the word friend: NKJV – “A man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” NLT – “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” If you truly want to share the love of God, you will share the God of love. A true friend – one that agape loves – one that loves with the love of God – will want God’s best for you and will strive to build you up in Him…to sharpen you in Christ. So, this is the type of friend that we need and that we should be to others

(Non-Christian Friends)

Now, I know that we are to have acquaintances that are not Christians, but I want to warn you – do not fully confide in and seek counsel from a friend who is not a Christian. The purpose of non-Christian friendships is to show them the love of God by showing them the God of love. It’s caring for their souls – and if you truly love them, you will care about their soul – and if you tr