Being A True Friend

Date: 27 June 2008
Speaker: Sister Evangeline
Venue: My Home

Real friendships are never accidental.

2 types of friendship. Casual (which are the result of circumstances) and Close Friends (which are the result of choices). You got to choose carefully who to be your close friends.

Proverbs 12:26
The righteous should choose his friends carefully,
For the way of the wicked leads them astray.

People not to be close to: Lazy people, angry people, immoral people, greedy people, unbelievers.

Proverbs 15:19
The way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns,
But the way of the upright is a highway.

Ecclesiastes 7:9
Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry,
For anger rests in the bosom of fools.

1 Corinthians 5:9
I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.

Proverbs 1:10-19
My son, if sinners entice you,
Do not consent.
If they say, “Come with us,
Let us lie in wait to shed blood;
Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;
Let us swallow them alive like Sheol,
And whole, like those who go down to the Pit;
We shall find all kinds of precious possessions,
We shall fill our houses with spoil;
Cast in your lot among us,
Let us all have one purse”—
My son, do not walk in the way with them,
Keep your foot from their path;
For their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed blood.
Surely, in vain the net is spread
In the sight of any bird;
But they lie in wait for their own blood,
They lurk secretly for their own lives.
So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain;
It takes away the life of its owners.

2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?

However, we are to love everyone.

3 things to look out for in a close friend:

Look for those who will help me to be wiser.

Proverbs 13:20
He who walks with wise men will be wise,
But the companion of fools will be destroyed.

Look for those who will help me share my burdens.

Galatians 6:2
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Look for those who will help me grow spiritually.

Hebrews 10:24-25
And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

We musy be a true friend and attractive as a person.

Proverbs 18:24
A man who has friends must himself be friendly,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Soul-winning is relational. Serve one another, esteem others above yourself, love your neighbour as yourself.

1 Corinthians 15:23
But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.

Forgive each other.
Refresh each other.
Invest in each other.
Encourage each other.
Nurture each other.
Depend on each other.
Share with each other.
Help each other.
Inspire each other.
Pray for each other.