focused. Anyone else? Okay, let's go ahead and set those to the side and we're going to be continuing our series on biblical friendships tonight. We need to pray. Heavenly Father, God help us tonight as we Learn more from your word about this thing that's really important to all of us, friendships, relationships. We seem to need them, want them, and you have a way, a path for those as well. And help us to see that as we go through your word each week. We thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. There was just one question that I sent home through the email this morning, and that was, what, in your opinion, would be some threats to biblical friendships, some threats to biblical friendships? You thought about it. What do you think? Yes, peer pressure. Oh, yes. Right, right. That sounds kind of funny, but we've actually experienced that and it wasn't from Muslims, it was just a mother in the community that thought her daughter was getting too close to this cult and wanted to pull her back a little bit. So, yeah, that's okay. But yeah, that's a good one there. I hadn't thought of that. Any others? A threat to biblical friendship. Okay, yes. Ooh, gossiping, right? Blabbermouth. I'd share something with you and you tell someone, someone's. All right, that's good, yeah. Any others? Now, you don't have to tell on yourself, okay? You can just tell on other people that you've seen them do that has hurt your friendship, maybe. Linda. Oh, yeah. Yep. That's good. Mm hmm. Don't be hesitant. Just throw it out there. Betrayal. Okay, that's good. Yeah, if you're not sure about your answer, okay. Just raise your hand, and like Pat, she could say, well, Deb was just telling me this. And you could just blame it on, oh, but that would be lying in church. No, we can't do that. Let's go ahead and consider that concept here tonight. The last two times that we were together for this study, we considered some characteristics. of a biblical friendship. Do you remember what they were? They all started with C. They were all alliterated for us, and you know why people alliterate things, so that you can remember them. So come on, what were they? Constancy, yep, that was one. Candor, very good. Council, yep. Carefulness, very good. You was looking at your notes. She's got her notes though, that's good. And then we asked, do I have a friendship like this? And then if none of my friendships are like this, we ask the question, am I this? When we were at the end of that lesson there. So tonight we're going to move forward with the threats to biblical friendships. Let's consider free from God's Word, okay? You all had some great, great concepts there, some great ideas, but let's take this first one here, and it's personal sin. Personal sin as a threat to biblical friendships. Now, I mean, that sounds pretty basic, doesn't it? But let's understand the doctrinal basis for this. Why should our relationships be biblical? Anybody? Oh yeah, that's a good benefit, absolutely. If it's a biblical friendship. Right, right. So why should our friendships, our relationships be biblical? That's a good benefit. It can help us stay faithful. But there's a broader underlying foundational thought there and it is this, so that we can reflect image of God. I'm taking you back probably, I think, to our very first lesson on this. And how is...now, so if we're going to reflect the image of God through a biblical relationship, how is having a biblical relationship reflecting the image of God? Anybody have their notes, Taylor? Yes, loving how God loves us, right? Is that what you were saying? Yeah, okay. Any other ideas? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Virginia? Giving, yes. Forgiving, yes, absolutely. Those are all right answers. Now, I'm going to summarize them all in one concept for us because we're just kind of laying the foundation here. Our relationships should be biblical so that we can reflect the image of God, okay? We're reflecting the relationship that we find in the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And if we are reflecting that, we are reflecting the image of God. Here's where relationships come into the Trinity, even, and reflecting the image of God. Normally, we would think of, okay, I need to reflect the image of God. I was made in the image of God, so I need to reflect that. Well, how do I do that? Well, I follow the Ten Commandments, and I go to church on Sunday, and I pray every day, I read my Bible, and I'm reflecting the image of God. Oh no, our relationships help us reflect the image of God too. You look at the Trinity, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, total unity. Total, complete unity right there. And so when our earthly relationships are biblical, then they are reflecting the image of God. Now, folks, Satan really doesn't care. I want you to take those foundational blocks that I just gave you, okay? Satan really doesn't care if we have friendships or not. Not at all. He doesn't care if you have 100 friends or if you have no friends. He's not going to take all your friends away just to make your life miserable. Satan doesn't care. how many friends you have. So why would he try to prevent us from having biblical friendships? Apply what we just learned. Say that, Linda? Yes, it all comes down to that. He doesn't want us reflecting the image of God in this world. In a friendship, He only wants to stop the displaying of God in this world. If he could get God erased from everything in this world, he would. Gets him out of the public schools, gets him out of politics, gets him out of here, gets him out of there, and then he's got these Christians having biblical friendships, and they're displaying God through their relationships, okay? In a friendship, In a friendship or in a relationship, how does Satan get us to stop displaying God in our relationships? He tries to get us to sin against each other. Now, how is that not displaying the image of God? Because God the Father never sinned against God the Son, did he? God the Son never sinned against the Holy Spirit. They never sinned against each other. And so by tempting us to sin in our relationships, whether it's, well, all the relationships in the Bible, all the different kinds of relationships that we have. One pastor put it this way because his desire is to present a different image than the image of God. One pastor put it this way. destroy the image and you destroy the message. And that's what Satan's trying to do when he tries to prevent us from having a biblical relationship. This is a crucial battlefront, battleground for Satan that we perhaps don't even realize exists. So when we're having a disagreement with our spouse, that's what's going on. It's not that they're wrong and you're right because I'm sure you are right. I know I am in my house every single time, okay? You see the problem though? I'm not reflecting the image of a unified trinity. I'm not reflecting God. And that's all Satan wants. He's destroying the message, whether it's in a marital relationship or between parents and children, or friends here at church members, or employers, employees. He's destroying the message when he gets us to do that. Now, I want you to turn your Bibles to the book of Ephesians, please. The book of Ephesians. Here's a question as you're turning there. What comes to mind when you think of Ephesians chapter five? What truths come to your mind right away? Go ahead, say it. Marriage. I heard marriage. Anyone else? Guys, what specifically comes to mind when you think of Ephesians 5 and marriage? Husbands, love your wives. Anything else come to mind? Well, now we're chuckling here, yes. Wives submit to your husbands. Oh, yeah. Okay. But there's more than that in chapter five, isn't there? Okay. Yes, there is that marital relationship. And by the way, you know, you've heard me bringing this idea out the last week or two, this idea that God has a way And if we stay on his way, he promises all through the Old Testament and New Testament, you stay on my way, and here's the benefits that you're going to get if you stay on my way. But there is a way that seemeth right unto man. The end thereof are the ways of death, death, destruction, all the other things that I've been mentioning from the pulpit here in the last week or so. Okay, God's way is husbands love your wives, wives submit to your husbands. That's God's plan. If we do that, there's benefit. If we choose our own way, that seems right unto us. We miss out on the benefit that God has for us. The ends thereof are the ways of all kinds of problems. So at the end of chapter 4 of Ephesians, God is telling us to put on the new man. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. That's followed by, as we're renewing the spirit of our mind, he then adds to that, stop lying and speak truth. This is all part of renewing our mind and putting on the new man. Stop lying, speak truth. Stop stealing, get a job. I added that part. That's my paraphrase on it, okay? What comes next is the words that come out of our mouth about other people should be edifying. building them up, not tearing them down when we speak of other people. He then says to stop grieving the Holy Spirit. At the end of chapter 4, he says, let go of the bitterness, wrath, the harsh words, the slander, and replace it with kindness, tenderness, forgiveness, just as God has forgiven you there at the end of chapter 4. So that's chapter 4. Now, that's setting the context as we go into chapter 5. In fact, a few verses later, just into chapter 5, he says this, don't...well, let me back up. At the end of chapter 4, He says, let go of the bitterness, the wrath, the harsh words, the slander, and the descriptive things that I mentioned before that. And then I think it's about 6, 7, 8 verses down into chapter 5, he says, don't fellowship with those that do those things. But instead, he says, reprove them. You know what that is? That's a quality of a biblical relationship that we looked at several weeks ago. Reprove them. And why is that a quality of a biblical relationship? Anyone remember? Usually, we say, well, that's none of my business, okay? Our friends, if we're going to, God says, don't fellowship with them, But instead, instead of hanging out, eating food, doing whatever with them while they're doing these things, and as they do these things, he says we should reprove them. Why? Why is that biblical? Because we're reflecting the image of God. Let's back up. Isn't that what the Holy Spirit does with us? The Holy Spirit came into this world to reprove, rebuke, the world of their sin. So that's what we're going to do in a biblical relationship if we're going to reflect the image of God. And then Paul goes into the husband and wife relationships with all of this as the background. The husband and wife relationships, parents and children, all of this in that same context. And here's another relationship in chapter 6, employers and employees. And then he says, Put on the whole armor of God. Verse 12, can you look at that with me? For we wrestle not. All of this stuff, chapter 4, chapter 5, these relationships, and he says, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Paul moves from these relationships in chapter 5 going into chapter 6, not changing the subject, but right into this thought of spiritual warfare. So that brings us where we're at tonight. Here is how Jonathan Holmes, an author, sums it up. When it comes to interpersonal conflicts, we all experience it, don't we? When it comes to interpersonal conflict, you are never my enemy. And I am never yours, regardless of how either of us may feel in the midst of the disagreement. The wrestling that we experience is not against flesh and blood. Our real enemy... Big is a big, he says, is a big mixed up tumbleweed of spiritual forces that tempt us to act sinfully or adopt sinful attitudes toward one another. And it's not because Satan's trying to mess up our friendships. He's trying to destroy the message by destroying the image. And that is the real sadness. when we choose to not follow God's pre-designed, pre-ordained structure for all of these different relationships in our life. That's the real sad thing right there. We can look at ruined relationships, relationships that will never come back or whatever we think, and we think, oh, those are so sad. But what is the most sad is the message of God was turned off. And that's what Satan was trying to accomplish. So Proverbs contains warnings about those things that destroy the message by hurting relationships. Let's consider some of those. One of them is hurtful speech. Proverbs 16.28, it says, a froward man soweth strife, a whisperer separateth chief friends. Dan, I think you brought up some concepts like that. Proverbs 11.13, a talebearer revealeth secrets, but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. I loved it. I don't know if it was last Sunday, I think it maybe was, or the Sunday before that. We have a group of teenage girls. I think I mentioned that not too long ago, that after they sit through Sunday school and my preaching, and then they go back and they have a Bible study every Sunday. I love it. And they came out one time and one of the girls was talking about these verses here. This is why gossip is bad, they said, because it separated the chief friends. I love it. Faithful. In Proverbs 11, 13, it says, but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. Faithful? That's a godly attribute, isn't it? So we would be reflecting the image of God when we're faithful by not tailbearing or sharing these things. I think this is the way Satan would approach this. Let's destroy the message of, the godly message of love and trust and faithfulness by getting these Christians to be unfaithful in the way they speak about each other. And he kills the message. Here's another one. We had hurtful speech. How about slanted speech? slanted speech. So, here's the verse, Proverbs 16, 28, a froward man soweth strife. That's the verse we read earlier. But think about that, a froward man, a perverse man, a troublemaker, or all different ways of using that word froward, soweth strife. Now, here's what I like to do when you have a compound word, a troublemaker, A maker of trouble, this is what they do, they sow strife. So how many of you this week used that phrase, sower of strife? Okay, so how would we say it? Here's how I say it, pot stirrer. A frower man, a troublemaker, a maker of trouble likes to stir the pot. Likes to just get things going, just poke and get something going, maybe even get you going, or just get something going between other people. And some people are very accomplished at it, aren't they? You maybe are thinking of someone, maybe yourself, I hope not, but they just... And sometimes they're proud of it, that they can do this and get someone riled up. And they try to. God says that is not part of a biblical relationship, okay? That's what a perverse man does. Here's another one, dishonest speech. Proverbs 24, 28, be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause, deceive not with thy lips. I'm going to go out on a limb here, okay? Let me read that verse again. See if you see yourself in this verse. Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause and deceive not with thy lips. Does anyone do this? You don't have to raise your hand. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say we all do this. You're going to get a little uncomfortable, okay? How do I mean? Remember Satan's goal is to kill the image, kill the message, give him, we just give him just a little bit and he'll take more. And I'm going to say, I think we all do this. I'm going to throw a couple of ideas out to you, okay, which we think, Well, that's, I never would have thought of that. It is what it is, and it's really tiny. But if we give him just a little bit of ground, then he's going to take more. I mean, it's kind of like, I've heard it illustrated this way before. Are you okay to have one cancer cell in your body? Those of you that are going through it right now would say, absolutely not, right, Nora? Absolutely not. She doesn't want any in there. So we can't allow Satan to have any ground. So how do we do this? What do you think? How do we all violate this? Go ahead, tell on the person next to you. How about this one? I'll be praying for you. And then we don't. Did we not just deceive them into thinking we were going to pray for them and we had no intention of doing it? Or saying you will do something and then not do it after you told someone you would do it? Or how about this? Declining someone offers you something or invites you and you decline and the reason you give is not quite the right reason why you're declining, but you didn't want to hurt their feelings, so you just kind of made something up. How about flattery? Maybe that's another way that we, how did that verse end? Deceive with our lips. Proverbs 28, 23, it says, He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flattereth with his tongue." So we have a choice in our relationships if we want it to be biblical, okay? Flattery has to go because this verse is saying we can flatter but If we rebuke, there's more favor for us afterwards. Maybe not when we rebuke, because people don't like getting rebuked using that word. He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flat earth with his tongue. I love this. Here's how it looks. Here's how it might look, okay? put our arm around somebody or just verbally say, oh, it's okay. Oh, poor baby. I can't believe they hurt you like that. That's awful. As they're telling you how someone hurt them. And you're saying, oh, it'll be okay. I can't believe that they would do that to you. And instead of Speaking the truth to them what truth should you be speaking to them at that moment? How about this Stop I don't need to be hearing this you should be saying that to the person who hurt you This is what God calls gossip and slander. And if I listen to it, I'm complicit in it by hearing it. And you are planting those seeds into my mind now. Don't do that to me. Now, if you have someone that likes to do that and you rebuke them a couple of times, they'll stop. They won't be telling you stuff anymore because they're going to get rebuked. Problem solved for you anyway. Rebuking, the Bible says, we find more favor afterwards than if we just flattered them. Here's another one. Anger. Now, I'm not just talking about raging and yelling and a big fight. There are other forms of anger. Generally, that's what we think of, though, is the really loud, visible forms of anger. There are other forms such as coldness towards someone else, isolation, pouting. You can see it on a little kid. Parents, you punish them, they have a punishment, consequence, and they're pouting, right? Arms are folded, brows are furrowed, their heads down, and they're looking at you. They are not thinking, oh, bless my godly mother. I'm so, I just so love her so much. They are thinking how many ways a five-year-old can hurt that authority person, okay? Thankfully, they don't have an expanded imagination at that point. They're angry. We pout too, don't we? That's a way of showing anger through pouting. How about this one, withdrawal? I'm just going to avoid you. I'm not going to talk to you. If it's in the home, that's really sad because you have one person in one room and the other one in the other room. If it's at church, it's really sad because here we should be provoking one another unto love and good works. And it's sad no matter where because it's not reflecting the image of God and thereby the message is being cut off. How about this? Cynicism, they'll never change. The form of anger. How does it start? How does all of that...those things start, coldness, isolation, pounding, withdrawal, cynicism. Well, it starts when you see something, you hear something, and then what do we do? We imagine an offense. We're pretty sure what they meant. We're pretty sure what they're thinking, okay? We imagine this offense, and then we let it stew in our mind, and it begins to affect our attitude toward that other person. Think about it. We don't even know if it's true. We just imagined the offense. And we've been stewing on it, and now it affects our attitude towards this other person. And the next time you see that person, you're going to be a little standoffish. Because you think they did this to you. You're going to be a little less warm, maybe not even intentionally. But your mind has ingrained you to think this way. And as we think, that's how it comes out. And our interactions with them will be tinged with doubt and suspicion. The friendship, the relationship is now officially suffering. All because we made assumptions. And that is why we are told in James to be slow to anger. Let's move on from there. These that we just covered, those are some personal sins that affect the message. Now, number two, false expectations. If we look at the life of Christ as we have recorded for us in scripture, he knew a lot of people, didn't he? He always...I mean, I have never had a crowd of 5,000 people following me around at lunchtime expecting food, okay? Wow, he talked to a lot of people. And a lot of people liked him, especially when he's doing all these miracles and he's interacting with people all day long, one after another after another. But there were 12 out of those thousands that he spent the most time with, just 12. And only three of those, we would say, were close friends. So what is that an example of? I think it's an example of how humanly we are limited. Now think, Jesus, as God, he knew everyone intimately, completely. But as a human, in his human body, he was limited as to how many close friendships he could manage. You ever, your mind ever gets so full of stuff you just can't take any more information in? I've had seasons like that, where it's like, all this stuff and I'm like, stop, I can't, I can't, no, no more, no more, no more, stop! I got to get rid of some of what's in my mind first. There's no more room, okay? And humanly, we are limited. And we talked about that, I think, our first night with this topic, and some people suggested three or four or five close friends is about all we can manage. with our limitations. And so, we have what one author has called a limited psychological bandwidth. Maybe a better way of saying that or describing that is you have your cell phone service, okay, or even here at the church, we have our internet service here at church and we have fiber optic, high speed. We can handle a lot of stuff, thankfully, with all the videos and that that we're live streaming and sending out, we need that bandwidth, okay? But what happens on your cell phone, let's say, when you start using up your allotment for each month? Everything slows down, doesn't it? Okay? That could happen here at church if we had a lower grade of internet connection with everything going on with live streaming during the services and everyone on their cell phones playing video games or whatever they're doing. Not that. But all of that begins to choke. And it's an overload. It can't handle all of that draw. Our minds have a limited psychological bandwidth. We can only handle so many friends. Understanding this is going to help us with two false expectations that are there in your notes. We have these expectations, they're false, and what I just explained will help us to understand why I shouldn't expect to have a significant number of close biblical friendships. I can't have a lot. You can't have a lot. So that means if we're going to apply it equally to everyone across the board, you can only have three or four, maybe five, let's say. So who are you going to pick? Don't ask me who I'm picking because I'm not going to answer that one. God gives them to us though. Let me go to the second false expectation. I should expect to develop a biblical friendship with a particular person just because I want to. I shouldn't expect to. But sometimes we do have that expectation that, well, I pick you. Joe, you are going to be my close personal friend. I choose you. Yep. Don't shake your head no. I chose you. Why are you fighting me? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with me? Why doesn't Joe want to be my close personal friend? You see the problems that develop with that? We can't expect to choose someone just because we want them. Biblical friendships, relationships, they don't develop from striving for or trying to make it happen. Why is that a non-healthy thing to do? Striving for it, trying to make it happen. Because, let's go back to our building blocks, okay? I am trying to get to make happen something that is good for me. I'm focused on me now. Biblical relationships should not be something that I'm trying to get for me. I should try to be a biblical friend. according to what we have looked at in God's Word. Otherwise, it's just focused on self. Instead of gospel motivation to serve and love others, that should be our focus. Let's pray. Father in heaven, God, help us with this, some of these hindrances that we've looked at tonight. Help us to see which ones in our life need to go. And if we're clothed with humility, may we then repent and receive forgiveness and restoration. In Jesus' name, amen.