Friends are important, but they are not all-important. Try convincing a child that friends are not all-important, and you may discover serious resistance.

God has a friend named Abraham. James 2.23 reads

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.”

The Lord Jesus Christ seems to have had many friends, with so many people always around Him. However, Zechariah 13.6 relates to us about Him,

“And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”

You may know some people who think friends are too important. They will prostitute themselves, even to the extent of denying their Lord, to gain friends. Yet how many of our friends will likely be out of our lives before long?

Others, of course, minimize their friends’ importance. To avoid the pain that sometimes comes from friends, they will avoid just about all their friendships altogether.

However, friends are in the middle ground. Friends are neither all-important nor unimportant. They can play an important but neither unimportant nor all-important role in our lives.

Let us turn to the Word of God to find that middle ground and perhaps gain insight into how to choose and be chosen as friends.

First, WHAT SAY WE EXAMINE WHAT FRIENDS ARE

What is a friend? Who would like to offer a personal definition of a friend? Anyone? Let us turn to Scripture for a working definition of a friend.

We begin by considering the actual word “friend.” In the New Testament, the most common word for friend is phίlos. The city Philadelphia comes from this Greek word and another. Do you know what Philadelphia means? A clue: What is the city’s motto? Philadelphia is called “the city of brotherly love” because that is what the word means in Greek. If delphίa comes from the word brother, ἀdέphfos, what does phίlos mean? Love. Friend, then, is someone that you love. Not the highest or most noble kind of love, possibly, but love, nevertheless.

How about according to the way the word “friend” is used?

Exodus 33.11:

“And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.”

In addition to loving you, a real friend will speak face-to-face with you.

Proverbs 17.17:

“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

We already know this. Right? Now,

Proverbs 19.6:

“Many will intreat the favour of the prince: and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.”

You can buy friends. Amen? Friends are bought with the investment of such gifts as time, interest, kindness, hospitality, etc. This is not bad, but it does show you how to make someone your friend. Proverbs 27.6 will surprise you:

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

Friends will sometimes hurt you. This causes pain, even while benefiting you. It is why some people avoid friendships. Now, Micah 7.5–7 and Zechariah 13.6:

5 Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.

6 For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

7 Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

“And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”

These two passages show us that friendship can be a one-sided proposition. You can be a friend without being considered a friend. Such was the case with Christ and His enemies.

Now, LET US EXAMINE WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

First, for companionship. This truth is so obvious I really do not need to expand on it. Eve was obviously Adam’s friend. She was his companion. Proverbs 18.24 points out a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, an allusion to the Lord Jesus Christ. So, friends are for companionship. By the way, it is an incredibly insecure and narcissistic person who denies his or her spouse their same-sex friends. Guys need guy friends, and females need female friends.

Friends, next, are also for consolation. Job lost everything: his wealth, his sons, and his daughters. Only his wife was left, and she was thought by many not to be much. In Job 2.11, we read of Job’s three friends who came to console him. As you read Job, you soon discover that his friends do a less than commendable job of consoling him, but they were friends because they tried to console him. Had their consolation been biblical, they would have been better friends.

Finally, friends are for counsel. It is a friend who will risk the friendship you share by rebuking sin in your life, Proverbs 27.5–6:

5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.

6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

What kind of friend you are is, of course, determined by your response. It was the realization that strong, honest counsel could end a friendship that prompted the Apostle Paul to write Galatians 4.16:

“Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”

You are my friend who will rebuke my sin. I am your friend who will heed your words. If you are unwilling to put friendship at risk for the benefit of your friend, or you are unwilling for your friend to put the friendship at risk for your benefit, you are not much of a friend.

Finally, LET US EXAMINE WHAT FRIENDS ARE NOT FOR

First, friends are not for cosigning. “Hey, Bill. Can you do me a favor? I need a cosigner for my car loan.” If this has happened to you, then Proverbs 6.1–5 sounds sweet to you:

1 My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,

2 Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

3 Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.

4 Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

5 Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

If you are a cosigner, get out of it quickly. If you have a cosigner, let him out of it quickly. Your friendship is at stake.

Second, friends are not for trusting. If you trust your friend, you will be disappointed, Micah 7.5 warns us:

“Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.”

Trust in the Lord instead, Proverbs 3.5–6:

5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Do not be so stupid as to loan money to a friend; you are foolish to borrow a friend’s money. If a friend needs your money, give it to him rather than loan it to him. Only God is to be trusted. Amen? To trust a friend is to idolize him. Then he must surely fail because your trust is a temptation to him, and he cannot guarantee faithfulness to resist. Trust not friends with your money, your wife, or your secrets. Not that your friends are wicked; it is just too significant a burden to place on the shoulders of a friend. Understand?

Friends are wonderful people that you love, generally get along well with, and most of the time see things eye to eye with. I want to think Amos had friends in mind when he wrote, in Amos 3.3, “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” Friends walk together, agree, and love each other.

Friends sometimes inflict pain. Ideally, it is a healing pain from a proper and prayerful rebuke of some sin in your life. However, if your companion neither rebukes your sin nor tolerates your rebuke of sin, you are not friends in the truest sense. Friends are also companions, consolers, and sometimes counselors.

But never trust or depend on a friend. They are not for that. Also, do not let them lean on your for long. You are not for that. Jeremiah 17.5 reads,

“Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.”

As we journey through life together, a friend is someone who sometimes walks beside me, at times helps me, and at times encourages me to trust in the Lord.

Are you a friend like that? Do you have a friend like that? I hope so.