Making Friends | Part 1

Proverbs 27:17 | Part 1 | Do you struggle with friendships? Maybe you feel like you're stuck in a cycle of shallow connections or constant rejection. What would it look like to follow God's design for friendships?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Are you a friend who mutually sharpens instead of dulls to mediocrity? You think about the friends that you have. You think about the people in your life that God put in your life, coworkers, friends, family. Are they sharper because you're in their life?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

You're listening to The Bridge with Junior Ziggler. Junior's the lead teaching pastor at the bridge in Chicagoland. And Junior, today we're talking about Proverbs and all it has to say about friendship, which is a great topic to start with because I'm probably the best friend you got. Probably the only friend you have.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Well, that would be that's very true. Actually, Jordan's a very good friend of mine. You know what this reminds me of though, Jordan? A little while back, you and I were we bought swords and we were sword fighting in our offices.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

We should probably clarify. We did we you bought them for a sermon illustration. And it was for the sermon, actually.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

It was for iron sharpening iron, and that's what we're gonna hit here in Proverbs. But we're gonna take those swords up to camp and talk with a bunch of high schoolers.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

But it's really cool because you're about to explain this in a way that I've never thought about iron sharpening iron. You're gonna kind of even take it a little bit further. Really interesting. It is cool how Solomon how Solomon paints this picture and we're gonna dive into it. And applies it to friendship. We're gonna explore what Proverbs has to say about becoming the kind of friend who actually strengthens the people around you. Wherever you are. Thanks for joining us. Now here's Junior.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

All right. Who's who's familiar with that song? Nobody. That's fantastic. Nobody knows Chris Stapleton. I think we need to have a sermon on like music selection in this room right now. I love that song. That topped the charts in 2017. Um, and it was, it hung out on the top of the charts for a while. I think because there's just this innate desire in all of us for what those lyrics sang about. We we all want that friendship. I mean, introvert or extrovert, it doesn't matter. Proverbs, look at this. Proverbs says that a sweet friendship refreshes the soul. Like even the most wannabe hermits, people who prayed the phrase, I hate people. Truth is, we all want friendship. We were designed for community. We want to be known and we want to know others. That's why when friends go out, we make sure to take pictures together and post it. Because there's just, there's, there's part of us that wants to be seen with our friends. I'm not making fun of that. It's just reality. Like you remember the the friendship bracelets in middle school? Like those never really end. They just kind of, that mentality just kind of changes over time, but we all still have that. Because God put a deep longing in us for friendship. But with all of that comes some real tension because some of our greatest pains come from friendship or lack of friendship. Some of us grew up knowing the pain of being left out or being uninvited, watching other people find good friends and leaving you to embrace this loner mentality. Or maybe there's that friendship that fell apart. You know, friendship that you enjoyed, and for whatever reason, like life, difference of values, you just kind of grew apart and it left a sore spot on you. Or maybe there's that person or those that group of friends that you just you'd love to be friends with them, but that feeling isn't reciprocated. And so it just kind of stirs in you that painful feeling of rejection, especially as you watch them posting their adventures or boom and their glasses clinking together, and it's just kind of hits you like, man, how come I wasn't invited to that? And that pain, which we've all felt at some level, that pain sends us in one of two different ways. Either we embrace that like lone wolf of like, I'm a loner, I'm a hermit, I don't need anybody, I hate people. It's just a defense mechanism. Or we just we try too hard, we force friendships, and we look to appease and we elbow our way in, hoping that someone loves us back. And so a sweet friendship, while yes, it refreshes the soul, it's not always the easiest to pull off. In fact, recently I just had a self-realization that I always saw myself as a victim of struggling to find friendships. Um, middle school was rough. I think it's rough for most people, though, or if not everybody. My junior in high school, I was a loner. I chose that, um, chose that route, just embracing the lone wolf mentality. Into college, I carried that same mentality. And deep down I really wanted good friends, but I really struggled. And just recently I realized, looking at my experience, I'm not saying this is true of you, but just looking at my own life and my own experience, I was not a victim of lack of friends. I think I was just a bad friend. Not a bad influence. I wasn't mean. I just wasn't as good of a friend as I could have been. And a lot of my friendship struggles were on me. Maybe the same is true with you. Maybe not. I guess we'll see. Proverbs 27 is where we're gonna be today. We're gonna hit a lot of different Proverbs today, but Proverbs 27 is gonna be our main text. It's page 548 in the Bibles and the chairs. If you're grabbing one of those Bibles, but Proverbs chapter 27. Listen, I know it's a bummer we don't have AC in this building, but let me put it this way. Today I'm going up to camp. There's hundreds of middle schoolers that are gonna be checking in this afternoon. I'm I'm I'm this um one of the speakers for this week. And so I'm going to be in a room, a lot of times unair conditioned room, with hundreds of middle schoolers who do not have their moms to tell them to take a shower. And so, this right here, this is nothing. This is nothing. Bring bring this on. But I'm looking forward to getting up there to camp and um hoping to see, hoping to see God work in amazing ways this week. Well, as the lens of scripture zooms into Proverbs chapter 27, King Solomon can't help but think of his dad. His dad's King David. He used to tell him stories, stories of battle, stories of taking down a giant, stories of hiding out from the enemy, but also stories of sweet friendship. See, no doubt, little Solomon, we'll call him Solly. Little Solly heard about Jonathan, his dad's best friend. Sully, I wish you could have met him. He was the best friend a guy could have asked for. You would have called him Uncle Johnny. He he helped give daddy the crown that I wear right now. This crown that I'm wearing was supposed to be his, but he gave it to our family. And he saved your daddy's life and he had your daddy's back. I wish you could have met Uncle Johnny. Solomon, now much taller, graying beard, with pen in hand, writes these words that I think no doubt had to have made him think of his dad's sweet friendship with Uncle Johnny. Verse 17, it says, iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. Now, this is like the theme verse for 90% of men's events in church world. I'm not knocking it. It's totally fine. But especially like 30 years ago. This is like a core memory of me growing up. I grew up in Wisconsin, and um, I remember the guys in church would gather up around coffee cake. I don't know what was about coffee cake in the 90s. It was a thing. I don't think it should have ever been a thing, but they would always gather up around coffee cake, the smell of Folger coffee and aftershave, just kind of filling the air. And they would call like that, that men's gathering call like iron something. And it would come from this verse. It's a cool verse, like very descriptive image, you know, iron striking iron and the sparks and the sound of the strike and the wisp of the smoke and the glowing of the metal and the sootted face of the blacksmith, or just like this cool image. But there's also some often missed beauty in this verse. You just kind of have to dig a little bit deeper. This right here was written in the ninth century, which is considered the Iron Age. There's this massive shift from uh using bronze weapons and tools to using iron. Iron was cheaper, iron was easier to mass produce. And so Solomon using iron as an illustration here makes a lot of sense. However, there could be, and some say is, a potential problem with this verse. So if you and I were to go to a blacksmith today, you'd probably find that they don't sharpen iron with iron. Like to sharpen something, you always use a harder substance because the harder object would grind away the little bits of iron to sharpen the blade. So if you were to go online, I wouldn't recommend this, but if you were to go on like Reddit or something like that, you would find, I've seen this, a few, a few forms of people saying this verse is inaccurate. You don't sharpen iron with iron. So did Solomon just like get this wrong then? Did he not know what he's talking about? It's like Solomon, maybe you should have gone to a blacksmith and kind of learned this before you wrote about it, did your homework. Or is there something else going on here? Well, first thing you have to remember here is Solomon, who wrote this, he wrote this, yes, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. So we can't just like look at this and dismiss it and be like, well, Solomon, you know, he was an ancient king, he was flawed, he didn't really know. Yeah, okay, he was flawed, but God's word isn't. In fact, here, God's word is actively proving that it's far beyond some online form of self-proclaimed experts with a keyboard. Yes, it's true. If you were to go to a blacksmith today, you would find that you'd not find them sharpening iron with iron. You'd find them sharpening iron with like a harder substance on a grinder or something like that. But that's if you are sharpening one piece of iron. Psalm's not talking about that. He's illustrating the mutual relationship of a blade against another blade, both blades benefit, both become sharper together. And what's so funny, well, maybe that's more funny, it's more sad, is these online forums of people claiming, well, Proverbs 27, 17 is wrong. You have to use something harder. Ironically, that's the very mentality that is leading to unhealthy relationships and friendships and marriages today. It's like this whole idea of like, I just gotta be harder, I gotta change them, I need to figure out ways to get her to submit to me. I need to change him into my prince charming. If I can just kind of beat it into them, how I want them to be. My friend needs this politic. I'm just gonna be harder and more opinionated and beat it into them. That's why we live in a lonely, divided culture. Like nobody wants to be friends with someone like that. And so it takes Solomon here to say, no, no, no, I'm not talking about sharpening one blade. I'm talking about two people coming together, becoming stronger and better for that. And in this, he's giving us something. Three questions today. I know we all think we're good friends, but three questions today just kind of gauge what kind of a friend you are. Number one, first question is Are you a friend who mutually sharpens instead of dulls to mediocrity? You think about the friends that you have, you think about the people in your life that God's put in your life, coworkers, friends, family. Are they sharper because you're in their life? See, what's so fascinating about verse 17 here is yes, iron can sharpen iron, but if you do it wrong, you dull the blades. If you strike iron with iron wrong, it becomes useless. This is many, if not most, friendships, even small groups and churches. Many friendships. Yeah, they're fun, same interest, great hangs, vent to each other about their woes. But as you zoom out, all those hangs and and venting sessions, even like small group sessions, you'd see people that are over time dulling each other. And more often than not, the reason being is they validate each other's weaknesses. So instead of challenging each other, they validate each other's shortcomings. My goodness, this is this is so big. And this is what Solomon is getting at. And I hope you're not missing this. We'll put it this way. Let's say you and I, let's say you and I um we're hanging out, we're friends. I'm sorry, but you're my friend. And we're sitting by a fire, we're just kind of catching up, and you're telling me about some struggles that you're facing. You got like a marriage problem going on, or maybe you got something going on at work or something with like extended family, and you're you're telling me this. You know what my first instinct would be as I sit with you? I would validate you. Because I want you to like me. I want to be your friend. I'm gonna give you a shoulder. I want you to like me. And so just getting one side of the story, I'm gonna take your side and I'm gonna validate you. And I'm gonna say, yeah, dang, sounds like your wife's a drag, bro. Yeah, your boss, obviously, they're an idiot. Yeah, your in-law. They sound miserable. And in that moment, I didn't make you any better. I made you feel better. But what does that do to you now? Now you go back to your marriage, now you go back to work, now you go back to your in-laws, you're in no better position, you're no sharper to go love better and do what's right. You're not sharper. I dulled you. But then here's what really happens that then this cycle kicks in, this deadly cycle. Because that validation that I gave you felt good, when your situation gets worse, which it will because I dulled you, and then you went back and you're even worse off now, you're gonna come back to me for more dulling. This is many, many friendships today. This can even be small groups. And if we're honest with ourselves, we can be the culprit, can't we? I've been the culprit. Are your friends sharper because you're in their life? Even ask this about my own marriage. Is Nicole better and sharper because I'm her husband? Or do I dull her to mediocrity because I want her to like me? And just never challenge her. Like, where are you at? Do you sharpen those around you or do you dull those around you? Elsewhere, Solomon wrote, wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses of an enemy. Well, why would that be true? Because that kind of wounding is a sharpening, it's precious. It's like a while back, I was hanging out with some of the some of the guys on my on our staff. We break our staff up into uh accountability groups so we can sharpen each other, high accountability. We want that around here. And so this is more of like an informal hangout with some of those guys. And at the time, I had a longer week. I don't remember what had happened. I didn't even remember the details of it, but like something was said, and it got back to me about me, and it wasn't true at all, and it really wasn't a big deal. It was just kind of dumb. But after a longer week, I'm tired, I get more emotional when I'm tired, and so I feel slighted and I'm ticked, and I voice my frustration to these guys, I voiced my hurt to the guys. And embarrassingly, I was looking for a validation. Like I knew these guys, they have my back. I wanted to feel good, I wanted that validation moment. Instead, you know what my friend said? He said, That sucks, bro. I am sorry. But if you're gonna do what God has called you to do, you've got to be bigger than what you're acting like right now. Like, come on, man, just let it roll off. I was like, that's not what I wanted here. So I fired him. No, of course not. Of course not. At first, I was like, dude, come on, I feel so kicked right now. Why are you kicking me? He wasn't kicking me. He was sharpening me because he cared about how sharp I was the next time around. So he was wounding me. That's a good friend. That's what Solomon is talking about. Is that you?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

You're listening to The Bridge with Junior Ziegler. We'll get back to Junior in a moment. We want to tell you about one of his books, The Manual. If you're a man or raising a man, married to a man, maybe dating a man, there's a lot of confusion around what real manhood actually is. In the manual, Junior cuts through the noise. Both the over-the-top macho stuff and the politically correct definitions, and he gets to the raw core of manhood. He exposes the toxic masculinity for what it really is, not manhood at all. This book is simple, honest, powerful, and it might just change how you view men, strength, and leadership. We'd love to send you a copy of the manual. Just visit juniorziglar.com and give a gift of any amount towards this show, and we'll send it to you. That's juniorzir.com. Now let's get back to junior's message.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Now let me give a massive, massive caveat to that. This is not licensed to be a jerk. So those of us who have strong opinions, we can look at this and we can be like, yeah, that's why I tell people like it is. Well, that's also why you don't have friends. We empathize with people, we still come alongside of people. Yeah, we get their side of the story. We know it's just one side. But as Jesus said, we weep with those who weep, we come alongside of people, we try to get in their shoes, but at the end of the day, looking at the relationship, even looking at that specific hangout, our goal is not validate into mediocrity in order to feel good. Our goal is to sharpen to make better. And some of us are more concerned about being liked than we are about our friend being sharper. Iron sharpens iron, but if you're not intentional, iron will dull iron, which is you. But Psalm is not done. If you're flipping around with me, head to Proverbs chapter 3. Otherwise, I'll pull it up here on the screen. I love this. I just learned something new from this. I want to show you this. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 27. Psalm writes, do not withhold good from those whom it is due when it is in your power to do it. Well, that doesn't seem like a friendship verse, does it? At least that first read. I don't know if you listen to Between the Lines. We have a podcast at the bridge where we read scripture every morning, kind of make comments on it. My dad and I do it together. And um, and at the end we always give, like, here's a proverb for today. And a couple months back, I think now this was the proverb for the day. And after we had gotten done recording, I said to my dad, I was like, What does this actually mean though? Because I've always thought do not withhold good means like if you can do good for somebody, don't like not do it. You should do good for them. And yeah, that's that's true. My dad's like, no, I think it more means encouragement. So I'm like looking at that, I was like, I don't know, I think you're getting old. I don't think that that's what that means. And it's always fun to like prove your dad wrong. I've never done it, but I've heard it's a lot of fun. So I've like, I'm gonna dive in and like and and prove him wrong. So I I dove in and like, nope, turns out he was right because the Hebrew word, and I think this is so cool, the Hebrew word for good here is Tov. Now maybe that means nothing to you, but have you ever heard of Mazaltov? Cheers, black-eyed peas, anyone? Mazletov? Tov is the word for good. It says joyous approval. In fact, when God created the world, Genesis tells us that that God said it was Tov, that God said it was good, just like this joyous celebration. And so Solomon here is using it to say, Don't you dare withhold joyous celebration, Mazletov, from someone who deserves it. And he's giving us a second question. Are you a friend who celebrates instead of compares? Because it's one or the other. You do you do one of the other with every single friend you have. You either celebrate them or you compare. And sometimes it's both. And in a social media-driven world, we tend to compare. And someone says, nah, stay out of all that, you go celebrate people. You want to be a good friend? Celebrate your friends. Be really good at throwing in parties. Now, our tendency is to compare. That's why people, you ever notice this people struggle to have friendships outside of their social economic status? Why? Because there's just less to compare. If we're pretty similar, we're just less to compare. But sometimes you'll see, like in a group of friends, one person will kind of pull out ahead, they'll get a better job, or earning power will go up. And you'll see not always, but a lot of times that friend group will then withdraw. Because being their friend, that's just kind of a reminder of what of what we don't have. Now they're up, now they're up ahead. We we don't want to be close to that because it doesn't make us feel good. She's skinnier, he makes more, his wife seems more capable, bigger ring, better, better car, nicer house. That doesn't feel good, so we just kind of naturally back away. Are you a friend who celebrates others, Mazultov? Or you compare. Solomon here is saying it's one or the other. Celebrate them. Don't withhold a tov, even if it makes you feel like they pulled out ahead. Now it's then that we can think, oh man, I don't know. Junior, if you're telling me I need to go celebrate this person at work, it's not gonna be sincere. What do you mean it's not gonna be sincere? Well, I won't feel it. Oh, so you have to feel it to be sincere? Did she get the job you wanted? Yeah. It's why you're struggling with her. Don't withhold a tough. Did he do a good job? Yeah. Doesn't she look good in that dress? Of course. Telling them isn't being insincere. It's true. Celebrating them is telling your heart, hey, we celebrate, we don't compare. It's got like a so there's a guy on staff, um, Mark Shoemaker. I don't know if you know who uh Mark is. He's such a good dude. I don't even know if he sins. I mean, he's just like, he's like uh just a really good guy. He came into my office a few months ago and he told me that he um he gotten a deal with a publisher. And the publisher that he made a deal with was the publisher that turned me down. You know how that feels? That's like asking a girl to homecoming, she says no to you, and then she goes off with Mark. So, like in the moment, I'm like, you know, I'm like putting on the face, like, dude, that's that's awesome, like so excited for you. And then when he left the the up my office, there's like this, this I'm just it's in my own sin. I'm just being completely candid, like in my own sin. And for just like a split second, I was like, how come Mark? Why'd I get rejected? Why are you going out with Mark and not with me? And I'm kind of feeling, and then, and then right then I'm so glad. It's like the Holy Spirit said, Come on, like celebrate him. Like, honestly, in reality, like Mark's a better dude than me. Like, this is good. This is good for him, this is good for his family, this is good for the publisher, this is good for the kingdom of God. Like, this is something to Mozlotov. I should be like, celebrate him. And I have been, and in reality, honestly, I'm saying this legitimately, I think I'm more excited about Mark's book coming out than than Mark is excited about his own book coming out. It's just telling your heart, like, we don't, we don't compare, we don't do that, we celebrate others. Because if you don't, this is when envy kicks in. And Solomon later wrote, envy rots the bones. A lot of friendships, a lot of churches. Fail. The culprit is envy. And for some of us, this is your biggest problem. And the scariest part is we never see it in the mirror. You never see anybody in a testimony video up on the screen or in a small group come up and say, you know, I think my biggest problem in life is I'm just really envious. I just compare myself to everybody else, and I'm very envious of them. We don't say that, but honestly, that's that's most people's biggest problem. You don't like that they pulled out a head, you don't like that they're doing well, you don't like that they got what you wanted, you don't like that that they're at where you're not, they get that attention, they get more opportunity, they have that friend, and you fight that feeling because initially you know it's wrong, but then it just kind of comes back, so you begin to excuse it over and over. And this is why Solomon says, stop all that, just go muzzle toff them, go celebrate them. Oh, but Junior, that would kill me. They got the job I wanted. Yeah, part of you will die when you celebrate them, but it's the envy that's dying in you, giving way for something more healthy to take hold. And if I'm getting a little too personal now, just know I'm preaching to myself. This is one of the reasons I struggled in friendships for so long, because I'm a competitive guy. I'm pretty competitive, and that can be a strength, but your greatest strength when pushed out of balance also becomes your greatest weakness. And so I can just compete with all my friends. I just want to compare to them. And so if something good would happen to a friend and they pulled out ahead of me and a 12 was due, I either withdrew from them or I had to flex to show my accomplishments to let them know I'm still worth being your friend? No. That's my own insecurities. And I don't think I'm the only one. Am I? How about you? When a friend, coworker, family member has that accomplishment, that promotion, their earning power goes up, new house, new car. Are your is your first instinct, hey, that's awesome. Joyous celebration. Or are you one to just be kind of like, eh, and then you go home, it's like poking holes and excusing it just to make yourself feel better.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

You're listening to The Bridge with Junior Ziggler. That was part one of Junior's message making friends. Part of our proverb series. Junior, like I said, it's so interesting with the iron. Not just sharpening each other, but also there's iron that could dole you. Yeah, if you do it wrong, iron can dole iron. Absolutely. It's funny you doing a sermon on this. And you even talked about introverts and extroverts and how even introverts need friends. And that's you. You're more of an introvert. Yeah. And so where have you seen your own need to have good friendships and what that means for you? Well, even Jordan, like it was kind of fun talking about this with you because I would say that we sharpen each other in many ways.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So without this friendship that you and I have, I would be a lot more dull because there's been times where you've had to call me out on some stuff that you've held held me accountable for some stuff and vice versa. And so we've made each other better in that sense. This is why Proverbs also says when somebody isolates themselves, it's not a good thing. That when we isolate, and sometimes we want to just, yeah, especially introverts, we want to isolate ourselves. I just want to kind of, you know, crawl into myself over here and I'm a little shy and just kind of give into that part of us. Problem with that is, is then we miss out on the sharpening that God wants to do on us through good, solid friendship and relationships. And that's why God created the church. He created the church to be a place where it's not just where we find friends, but it's where we dive into community and we sharpen each other and we can find and build those lasting relationships and friendships.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

And you and I have been in ministry for a long time now. And we we've just seen the impact it makes when someone finally gets plugged into community. They find some good friends who are going the same direction in life that they're going. It changes everything. Yeah. I mean, there's been really good people who are like, oh yeah, I believed in God for a long time. I've had a relationship even with Jesus, sort of, but like their faith didn't really take off until they found other people's faith that fueled it. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

And so maybe you're listening to this right now and you have been doing what I just talked about. You've been more crawling into yourself and isolating yourself. And this right here is a call to get back out there, find God's community, get involved in a church, invest in relationships, build those relationships because God sanctifies us and sharpens us through those friendships. And so get into those.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Well, thanks, Junior. Really life-giving stuff. Always good to be with you. Can't wait for the next time. You've been listening to The Bridge with Junior Ziggler, a listener-supported broadcast. Junior's the lead teaching pastor at the bridge in Chicagoland. We're so glad that you joined us today. As we told you earlier, we'd love to send you a copy of Junior's book, The Manual. Whether you're a man, you're raising a man, you're married to a man, dating a man, this book cuts through all of the noise and gets to the raw core of manhood. All you have to do is jump on Junior's website, juniorziglar.com, and give a gift of any amount towards this show, and we'll send it right to you. While you're there, you'll find great resources like today's message, all of Junior's books and podcasts, plus a link to our church, The Bridge. If you're in the Chicagoland area, we'd love to see you at one of our services. Again, that's juniorziglar.com, junior z-i e-g l-r dot com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. The bridge with junior ziggler is a production of the Bridge Community Church, a multicampus church in Chicago.