Building Wise Friendships - Part 2

Dr. Charles Stanley: The person whose attitude is such that they can't be transparent, you cannot build friendship if you're not transparent. Well, let me tell you something, every single one of us is weak. You think you're strong and you think you're Superman, Superwoman, you're in trouble. We're all weak. We all need each other. We need the person, the prayers, the fellowship, the friendship, the loyalty, the devotion, and all of that from other people. We don't have to be needy, but there are needs in our lives.
Guest (Male): Does the instability in the world ever make you want to just close the door and hide? While withdrawing sounds harmless, locking yourself away also bars you in with another powerful enemy: loneliness. Today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, you'll hear part two of Building Wise Friendships. Hear ten steps that can help us win the struggle with loneliness.
Dr. Charles Stanley: When you think about your friendships, let me just simply say that your friends, that is, if you have any true, genuine, loving, caring, devoted, loyal friends, they're one of the greatest assets you have in your life. And because they're assets in your life, you have to handle them. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes energy. And often times people say, well, I just don't have any friends and I wish I did. Well, you have to ask is, are you trying to build friendships? Are you trying to build relationships? Or do you just expect them to happen? You see, casual friendships sort of happen. Real, true, genuine, loving, loyal, devoted friends don't happen. They're not found, they're built. And the quality of the material we place in that friendship will determine how long it lasts and how satisfying it is. And oftentimes, we are in too big a hurry, we don't want to spend the time, we don't want to spend the effort, and yet we still want those kind of friendships. They don't come that way. So, I want us to think about this whole idea because, when you think about friendships, think about this. One of the first things that our Lord said was this. He said, having created Adam, he looked around at all this absolutely perfect garden and here's Adam all by himself. And he said, it's not good that man be alone. Now, when the Bible speaks of man, usually it's talking about mankind, at least in some verses. And so, it's certainly not good for a man to be alone or a woman to be alone. That's what God said. So, in fact, he was so persuaded and convinced of that, he gave Adam Eve. That is, he desired that he have a relationship, that he have a friendship. And so, he created her. And God made us for relationships, for companions and for friendship. And it is not good for us to live alone. I think anyone who lives alone can say, while the Lord maybe has brought us to a sense of satisfaction and contentment, it's still not good in lots of ways to be alone. And so, God knew that and therefore he made preparation for it. When you think, for example, in the scriptures of how many of God's servants down through the years had friends surrounding them. For example, in fact, the Bible says that God said that Abraham was his friend, that he was a friend to Abraham. And you'll recall that Moses had Aaron and Joshua as his very intimate close friends that helped him. You'll recall that David had Jonathan, but he also had many other very loyal, devoted friends who would have given their life for him. And of course, all of us remember Daniel, the prophet Daniel, he had three very devoted friends of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were all such good friends to Daniel, they were willing to risk their lives on the basis of a conviction that he had and that they shared. Then the Lord Jesus Christ certainly had his friends and twelve disciples. And he knew them, he loved them and they loved him. And then among those twelve, he had three very intimate friends. That is Peter, James, and John. Not favorites, but intimates. Then the Apostle Paul, when you read the epistles, you'll discover that the Apostle Paul had numbers of friends. And he would say, would you please tell Luke to come to see me or Timothy or whoever it might have been. He had numbers of friends. He had lots to say about them because they were very important to him. In fact, one of the greatest assets you and I have is a loyal, devoted, faithful friend. And when we don't have those, there's something missing in our life. And so, I would simply ask you, can you look around in your life today and say, well, yes, I do have one, two, three of those friends. If you have three of those kind of friends, you are so very, very blessed. Now, the big question is this, how do I develop that kind of relationship? How do I build that kind of friendship with anyone? Well, I want to go back to say, remember, that oftentimes our background has an effect upon the way we were treated. It doesn't have to be just necessary in your childhood, but where you've been treated in your adulthood. The way we've been treated in the past oftentimes highly influences our capacity to be able to build wise, wise relationships, wise friendships. So, what I want to do is I want to give you a list of things that I know will prove helpful. And I'll simply want to put it this way that that is we build wise friendships when. And I'm going to give you a list of things. We build wise friendships when we share, listen, a deep mutual concern. Now, that's not the only reason. So, I'm going to say that's just one of many. It's not the most important one, but it is a basic one. We build wise friendships when we can share a deep mutual interest. Now, all of us who are believers have a wonderful mutual interest. Now, if you want to build a wise friendship, wise relationship, that mutual interest as a believer should always be, and certainly a part of that should be the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have a relationship and a friendship that you can't ever mention his name without the other person being slightly objecting to it, or feel like you want to not push me, there's something wrong with that relationship. Unless it is a relationship that you're willing to lead this person to Jesus Christ. Then I can understand that. But we're talking about building friendships, loyal, devoted, loving friendships. First of all, certainly, that's going to begin with a mutual sense of deep interest and things that you have together. Then, this is a very important one. We can build these kind of friendships, wise friendships, when, this is very important because I want to comment about this in a moment. When that friendship is based on my meeting their needs, not me, their meeting my needs. That is, if my friendship is built on the fact that I'm needy and I need the other person, that friendship probably will not go very far. Now, I believe that God wants to bring all of us to the place where he is absolutely sufficient in our life. And I know that God does know how and that he can bring us to the place in our life. Now, listen carefully, where we do not feel needy. We don't need anyone. Now, I didn't say we do not need people, but that we don't have this neediness so that our relationships and friendships are based on, I need this, I need you, I need that, I need him, I need her. Because those kind of relationships don't really last very long often times. But the Lord Jesus Christ in our heart can bring us to a point of such absolute, complete, listen, adequacy, sufficiency, completeness, contentment in him, that we then can build very godly, wise, wonderful, contenting, energizing, motivating friendships because it isn't based on need. It is based now on how can I help this person? How can I meet their needs? How can I be the person they need me to be to them? And so, there is a difference between developing a friendship based on this very needy, I need you kind of feeling and I must have you kind of feeling, and a freedom from all of that that makes it possible for us to build very wise, godly, contenting, fruitful, delightful, pure relationships and friendships. Likewise, if we're going to build these kind of relationships and and we're going to build these kind of friendships, we must be willing to risk rejection and pain. We're all going to have it. Because all of us are human, here's what happens. Two people can love each other, or two people can have a good relationship, and then one of them is going to do something that the other one feels rejected, or feels like, well, you weren't thinking about me, you didn't care. And they're going to feel pain. Listen, if you're waiting till you can find someone who will cause you no pain, who will cause you no sense of rejection, and whose life is such that you'll never have any hurt, you'll never have a relationship. Because Jesus, for example, he caused the Apostle Peter some pretty straight pain. He said to him, "You act like the devil." That had to be painful in front of the rest of them. And so, therefore, when we come to building these wise relationships and friendship, you've got to be willing to suffer a little hurt, a little pain, a little misunderstanding and some rejection. You want to build strong relationships and friendships? Listen. When we do, and we really choose to do so, we can do that when we love sacrificially. If I love sacrificially, it means that I can give and expect nothing in return. It means that I can also give when I have needs, but I don't have to mention them. It means that I can put myself second. It means if I love sacrificially, I'm willing to lay down my life and lay down my wants and my wishes in order to please and to make the other person happy and to bring them to contentment and joy in their life. If you're going to have those kind of relationships, you must be willing to be open and transparent. Now, what do I mean by that? Simply this. If you're going to build a friendship with someone, you you got to open your heart. You've got to be willing to say, you know, let me tell you how I'm feeling. And not worry about whether the other person's going to respond the wrong way or not. To be transparent says, I'm going to be open, honest about my feelings, about what I'm thinking, how I'm thinking, why I thought that way, why I did this. And the other person may question that, but you know what? If you wait till you get somebody who always agrees with you, that's not friendship. Friends are willing to confront. But genuine, true friends confront in love. They confront with the idea of edifying the other person, building them up, strengthening them, helping them to see their relationship to God, helping them to understand what is best in their life. You see, if you're going to build those kind of friendships, it takes effort. It takes energy. And I must be willing to open my heart. Now, the tragedy of people like that is this. What they don't realize is when they shut you out, they shut themselves up to their own loneliness. My heart goes out to people who are lonely, who shut themselves into a very small world for fear of rejection, further rejection, fear of further hurt, further pain. You know what? You're not going to get out from behind that wall until you're willing to risk it. Are you going to get hurt? Yes. Pain? Yes. Rejection? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes. But you've got to be willing to get out. Say, you know what, I'm imperfect. Here's what happened in my life. And I need help, I need your understanding, I need your prayers, whatever it might be. Then, if we're going to build those kind of of intimate, happy, joyful kind of friendships, we must be willing to serve the other person gladly. And you know what, if you have a true friend and you want to be a true friend, you want to develop real true friendships, serving one another is just part of it. If you're one of those persons and you're always on the receiving end and that's the way you like it, you'll never have genuine, true, intimate, loving, loyal, devoted, lasting friendship. It just doesn't work. It goes both ways. And when you find two people who love to serve each other, when I see people like that, and I see people happily married, they just love each other to death. They're serving each other. They don't have to be coaxed into doing it. It's just part of, it flows because of what? Because of their genuine love and their genuine respect and their love for each other. Then, I'm going to be able to build those kind of wise friendships when I can say, please forgive me and to be forgiving toward the other person. If you cannot say, I was wrong, I really blew it. I was very insensitive. I wasn't looking out for you. I didn't think about you. I was only thinking about myself. I need to ask you, would you please forgive me? If you can't say that, you cannot build friendship. You've got to be willing to say, please forgive me, and then. You're going to build lasting friendship. You've got to be willing to be forgiving, no matter what. When somebody says, I can forgive you, but, it's over. It just got canceled. The word forgiven doesn't mean, it's meaningless at that point. Listen, how can I withhold forgiveness from anyone when he has forgiven me all of my life? I was saved at 12 and every single thing I've ever done that was not right in the eyes of God is forgiven, washed away by the blood of Jesus. How can I hold vengeance and retaliation? I know that like what some people do. But you know what, I have no right to refuse forgiveness. You're going to build good friendships, lasting friendships, you got to be forgiving. We build wise friendships when we can accept criticism and praise gladly. Now, I know that runs against your grain and you say, what's this gladly business? Well, how can you accept criticism and praise gladly? Let me ask you a question. Do you have a right to accept praise if you can't accept criticism? I don't think so. In other words, if I love your praise, I must be willing to gladly accept your criticism. If, watch this now, if I'm persuaded you really love me, I'm going to be able to accept your criticism because I know, you know what, you're looking out for my best interest. You see something about me I don't see. You love me enough to confront me. You love me enough to tell me, I was wrong. You love me enough to tell me, you need to look at that and re-examine that. If you can't have that kind of relationship with somebody, you can't have a real marriage. You can't have a real relationship. You can't have a genuine, fulfilling, contenting, joyful, exciting, listen, happy relationship with anybody. Because praise and criticism is part of life. How do you handle that? That is, how do we wisely handle those things? I'm simply saying, if you're going to build a relationship, if you're going to build a friendship with somebody, you must be willing to accept praise and criticism. Listen, gladly. I will only accept it gladly when I believe it's being done in love and when I believe the other person really has my best interest at heart. If that's not there, you it won't be very gladly. Then, I will build wise relationships when I'm committed to the spiritual growth of the other person. When I'm committed to the spiritual growth of the other person, I can build a wonderful relationship. When I want to encourage them in the word of God. When I want to encourage them to pray, and I'm willing to pray with them. And I'm willing to help them understand the word of God, the ways of God. When I can carry on a conversation with somebody about the Lord Jesus Christ and feel absolutely free to express what I believe God is saying at this point. When I can say to a person, let me tell you what I believe the Lord has said to me about thus and so. And what I'd like for us to do is to pray together about this and see if you get the same confirmation about this that I do. When I think about helping someone else grow up in their spiritual life, you just think about what a wonderful opportunity we have that to establish those kind of friendships, that we're helping the other person grow up and mature in their spiritual life. Listen, two genuine friends, that's what they do. When they're genuine friends, godly friends, what do they do? They want to see each other grow up because as one person grows, what do they do? They pull the other person up. When they get there, they pull the other person. So what happens is this. As each one matures in their life, in different areas, it motivates and strengthens and encourages and inspires us to grow equally in that area. Because in every, every two people, one is going to be strong in one way than the other. And what happens is, God just does something absolutely fantastic in their lives. What a beautiful way to establish a lasting friendship. When you're challenged and motivated to help grow the other person up in their spiritual life. Likewise, when we really and truly want to develop lasting, true, genuine friendships, we will do that when the principles of scripture govern our relationship. When the principles of scripture govern our relationship. Now that would eliminate a lot of things in people's lives. If they said, you know what? We I certainly want to be your friend and and I I would be interested in building a friendship relationship with you. And let's just decide in the very beginning that the principles of the word of God will govern our relationship. It'll govern what we say to each other. It'll govern how we react to each other. It will govern our conduct and our behavior in public and in private. It will govern every aspect of our life because we want a godly relationship. And when you choose to build a relationship governed by the principles of the word of God, you're going to build a fantastic relationship. A loving, loyal, devoted, immeasurable, incomparable, indescribable relationship that will bring you the greatest sense of contentment and joy and peace and happiness in your life, no matter what.
Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Close friends can bring us immeasurable contentment and joy. While deep relationships with those around us are an essential part of life, the Bible reminds us that Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Once he's your savior, you know that you have an eternal friend. You can listen again by clicking today on radio at intouch.org. And jump over to our store page to order a copy of today's complete message, Building Wise Friendships. It's also included in Dr. Stanley's teaching set, Building Wise Relationships. Again, log on to intouch.org. To call or text, the number is 1800-INTOUCH. To write to us, address your letter to In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357.
Guest (Male): Do you have a friend who unconditionally loves and accepts you? Hear about the best friend you can ever have in today's Moment with Charles Stanley. It's just ahead.
Guest (Female): Tired of faith feeling like a performance? Worn down by constant striving? Jesus never meant it to feel that way. His call was always to something more. To a life that's generous, vibrant, joyful, and sustainable. A real life with him. That's the heart of Follow Me, our book created to help you answer that call. Get your copy at intouch.org/store.
Guest (Female): In our spiritual journey, we often have questions. How do I know God's will for my life? Does God hear my prayers? Why do bad things happen? The answers are found in the word of God, but how do we know where to start? The free In Touch Devotional can help point you in the right direction with biblically based content from Dr. Charles Stanley. You'll gain insight and wisdom through daily devotions, Bible studies, and more. The In Touch Devotional, delivered monthly to your mailbox. Subscribe for free at intouch.org/daily.
Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch. Do you have a best friend? The most important friendship you could ever have could begin today. Here's A Moment With Charles Stanley.
Dr. Charles Stanley: Now, I want to talk about one particular friendship. I want to talk about the most important friendship that you and I have. And that is our friendship with Jesus Christ. He said to his disciples in John chapter 15, the 15th verse, he says, "You're my friends." Not only were they his friends, you know what? Every single one of us, the Lord Jesus Christ desires to develop a friendship with us. It is possible to have an intimate, loving, satisfying, contenting, eternal relationship with the son of God. And remember this, this relationship is built on his unconditional love for us, on his continuing forgiveness of us, on his eternal plan for us. So that when you develop a friendship with Jesus, it's eternal. It is forever and no matter what happens, that friendship will never be broken. And I want to ask you if you've never trusted him as your savior. No matter how many other friends you have, there will always be a gap in your heart. Always be an empty space there because there's a space created there in your life for Jesus, the best friend you'll ever have. And he's yours for the asking. If you ask him, "Lord Jesus, forgive me of my sins. I do believe that your death on the cross paid my sin debt in full. And I'm asking you to forgive me and trusting you to become my savior. And surely, I want you to be my friend." You know how long it'll take him to do that? Just about like that. He's ready to build a relationship with you that'll satisfy you forever and ever and ever.
Guest (Male): Learn more about this satisfying relationship with God at intouch.org. How are you encouraged by today's message? Please let us know. When In Touch returns next time, do you have a relationship with some tension in it? If so, I hope you'll join us again and learn how to restore troubled friendships. Be back for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley.
Guest (Male): This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.